LE CHASTIEMENT DES CLERS: A DIT CONCERNING THE NATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS, EDITED FROM PARIS, BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE, MS. F. FR. 837.

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS f. fr. 837 is in many ways a remarkable manuscript. Consisting of 362 folios written by a single scribe in the late thirteenth century,(1) its reputation as the most important extant collection of fabliaux, contes, and dits is as well known as it is justified. Juxtaposing a vast selection of texts which vary, sometimes considerably, in length, subject matter, register, and form, its contents have been enthusiastically plundered and published, occasionally repeatedly, in a vast array of editions from the late eighteenth century onwards. Yet despite the admirable industry of our forefathers, recent editions of texts from this manuscript serve as a timely reminder of the possibility that even after 200 years of study, there may still be items of interest which have been neglected.(2)

It is precisely this possibility which is illustrated on fols [252.sup.v]-[253.sup.r] of the manuscript by a fascinating text, bearing the heading Le Chastiement des clers, which has remained unedited despite having been listed in a number of catalogues.(3) Indeed, one even finds that Godefroy transcribed the first stanza of the text as the sole evidence for his definition of the feminine noun desorderie `desordre':

 
   Mon cuer triste, pensis, me semont que je die Du clergie que je voi qui 
   laidement folie: Plus que la laie gent sont plain de druerie, Et mal 
   desorderie, et usent d'orde vie.(4) (lines 1-4) 

As always, one is impressed by Godefroy's use of unpublished sources, but in this instance the admiration is tempered by certain reservations concerning the transcription. The reading of `penssis' as `pensis' in line 1 is excusable. However, `druerie' in line 3, while perhaps understandable in the context of the standard portrayal in anticlerical satire of the clergy as concupiscent and sexually incontinent, is a more serious misreading of `derverie', which, in a style typical of the text, simply echoes the `folie' of line 2 with which it rhymes. More seriously, the same error in transcription is repeated in line 4, so that Godefroy's sole attested example of desorderie is, in fact, a misreading of `desordene'. Even if the script was not so easily legible, even if the poem had other examples of internal rhyme at the caesura, and even if `mal desorderie' made more sense, the fact remains that line 5 asserts that, in contrast to the clergy, `Li lai sont gent a pais, com gent bien ordenee': it is clear that the stanzas are linked precisely through this contrast between `mal desordene' and `bien ordenee'. Godefroy's entry for desorderie, if this is the only attestation upon which his definition is based, should therefore be viewed with considerable distrust.

To introduce Le Chastiement des clers by highlighting its lexicological interest might seem to support the comment by Paulin Paris that the texts in Paris, BN fr. 837 which remained unedited were only of value `comme monuments de la belle langue du XIIIe siecle', and that they `offrent peu d'interet sous le double aspect de l'histoire et de la litterature'.(5) With some investigation, however, it soon becomes clear that Le Chastiement des clers, as well as being of real literary interest, is in fact the most important thirteenth-century vernacular poem to deal with internal conflict in the University of Paris.(6)