Guillaume de Dole
Encyclopedia
Guillaume de Dole is an Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

 narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...

 romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...

 by Jean Renart
Jean Renart
Jean Renart, also known as Jean Renaut, was a Norman trouvère or troubadour from the end of the 12th century and the first half of the 13th century to whom three works are ascribed. Nothing else is known of him or his life...

. Composed in the early thirteenth century, the poem is 5656 lines long and is especially notable for the large number of chanson
Chanson
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...

s it contains, and for its active female protagonist. The romance incorporates forty-six chansons (or parts thereof); it is the first extant example in French literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...

 of a text that combines narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...

 and lyric
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

. Its form was quickly imitated, by authors such as Gerbert de Montreuil
Gerbert de Montreuil
Gerbert de Montreuil was a 13th-century French poet from the north of France.He wrote Le Roman de la violette or Gérard de Nevers, one of the most outstanding medieval poems, famous for its vivid narrative and faithful depiction of contemporary customs. The poem underwent countless adaptations and...

, and by the end of the 13th century had become canonical.

The poem tells of the adventures of the titular character and his sister Liénor. Guillaume is accepted at the court of Emperor Conrad who has fallen in love with Liénor despite his earlier aversion to love and marriage. Guillaume becomes one of the emperor's favorites and marriage negotiations proceed in a positive manner. The emperor's seneschal, however, discovers an intimate detail about Liénor's body and uses it to insinuate to the emperor and his court that she is no longer a virgin; the clever Liénor, with a ruse, proves his accusation false and marries the emperor.

Manuscript

Guillaume de Dole is extant in a single manuscript in the Vatican library
Vatican Library
The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...

, MS Regina 1725. Todd dates it in the 14th century, others in the late 13th century. The manuscript contains:
  • Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart
    Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart
    Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart is an Old French poem by Chrétien de Troyes. Chrétien probably composed the work at the same time as or slightly before writing Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, which refers to the action in Lancelot a number of times...

    , by Chrétien de Troyes
    Chrétien de Troyes
    Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Perhaps he named himself Christian of Troyes in contrast to the illustrious Rashi, also of Troyes...

     (first part missing), 1-34b;
  • Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
    Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
    Yvain, the Knight with the Lion is a romance by Chrétien de Troyes. It was probably written in the 1170s simultaneously with Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and includes several references to the action in that poem...

    , also by Chrétien, 34c-68b;
  • Guillaume de Dole, 68c-98c;
  • Meraugis de Portlesguez, by Raoul de Houdenc
    Raoul de Houdenc
    Raoul de Houdenc , 12th-century French trouvère, takes his name from his native place, generally identified with Houdain , though there are twelve places bearing the name in one or other of its numerous variants....

    , 98d-130d.


The manuscript's first known owner was 16th-century French historian Claude Fauchet
Claude Fauchet (historian)
Claude Fauchet was a French historian and antiquary.He was born at Paris; of his early life few particulars are known. He applied himself to the study of the early French chroniclers, and proposed to publish extracts which would throw light on the first periods of the monarchy...

; it was part of his extensive collection, and it is due to "Fauchet's zeal as a collector" that the manuscript and therefore the poem are preserved. During the French Wars of Religion
French Wars of Religion
The French Wars of Religion is the name given to a period of civil infighting and military operations, primarily fought between French Catholics and Protestants . The conflict involved the factional disputes between the aristocratic houses of France, such as the House of Bourbon and House of Guise...

, Fauchet fled Paris and his collection was dispersed. The next mention of the manuscript is as part of the library of a Paul Pétau, and in 1650 it was acquired by Christina, Queen of Sweden. The Vatican library acquired the manuscript after 1689.

Date and title

The opening lines of the poem contain a dedication to Miles de Nanteuil, an early 13th-century churchman who was elected (but not confirmed) in 1201 as archbishop
Archbishop
An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...

 of Reims, and later became bishop of Beauvais
Beauvais
Beauvais is a city approximately by highway north of central Paris, in the northern French region of Picardie. It currently has a population of over 60,000 inhabitants.- History :...

, in northern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

; he died circa 1235. According to Todd, the nobleman de Nanteuil may have been too young and wild to be elevated to the archbishopric, but this would have made him a good candidate for Renart's dedication. This, plus evidence based on other names found in the poem, led Todd to conclude that the poem was composed around the year 1200. Later critics and researchers, however, date the poem between 1204 and 1228, and tend toward the earlier date.

In the manuscript, the poem is called Romans de la Rose (l. 11), and hence Le Roman de la Rose, but it is often referred to as Roman de la Rose, or Guillaume de Dole in order to avoid confusion with Guillaume de Lorris
Guillaume de Lorris
Guillaume de Lorris was a French scholar and poet from Lorris. He was the author of the first section of the Roman de la Rose. Little is known about him, other than that he wrote the earlier section of the poem around 1230, and that the work was completed forty years later by Jean de Meun.-...

 and Jean de Meun
Jean de Meun
Jean de Meun was a French author best known for his continuation of the Roman de la Rose.-Life:...

's Roman de la Rose
Roman de la Rose
The Roman de la rose, , is a medieval French poem styled as an allegorical dream vision. It is a notable instance of courtly literature. The work's stated purpose is to both entertain and to teach others about the Art of Love. At various times in the poem, the "Rose" of the title is seen as the...

; Guillaume de Dole is a subtitle added by Fauchet.

Authorship

It wasn't until the late 19th century that scholars (including Paul Meyer) began entertaining the notion that Jean Renart
Jean Renart
Jean Renart, also known as Jean Renaut, was a Norman trouvère or troubadour from the end of the 12th century and the first half of the 13th century to whom three works are ascribed. Nothing else is known of him or his life...

, until then only known as the presumable author of the Lai de l'Ombre, might also be responsible for either or both of the two contemporary romances L'Escoufle and Guillaume de Dole. F.M. Warren of Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, in a 1908 article, is one of the early proponents of identifying Renart as the author of all three, based on versification, phrasing, and vocabulary, and places the development of his poetic talent between 1195 and 1205. The next-to-last line of the poem contains an acrostic
Acrostic
An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message. As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval. A famous...

 on Renart's name: "...qu'il enTRA EN Religion."

Plot

The story begins at the court of Emperor Conrad
Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor
Conrad II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1027 until his death.The son of a mid-level nobleman in Franconia, Count Henry of Speyer and Adelaide of Alsace, he inherited the titles of count of Speyer and of Worms as an infant when Henry died at age twenty...

, who for all of his good qualities has one defect: he refuses to get married, especially since, as he says, people no longer are as valiant and as noble as they used to be. His minstrel
Minstrel
A minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty...

, Jouglet, tells him of Guillaume de Dole and his sister Liénor, and quickly the emperor falls in love with her, although he does not actually see her until the story's denouement. Guillaume is summoned to the court where he excels in chivalric exploits; the emperor tells him he wishes to marry his sister. Conrad's jealous seneschal
Seneschal
A seneschal was an officer in the houses of important nobles in the Middle Ages. In the French administrative system of the Middle Ages, the sénéchal was also a royal officer in charge of justice and control of the administration in southern provinces, equivalent to the northern French bailli...

 interferes and visits Guillaume's family, where he gives his mother a valuable ring and gains her confidence; from her he learns that Liénor has a particular birthmark in the shape of a rose on her thigh. This knowledge is presented as proof that Guillaume has taken her virginity.

As a result of the accusation, both Guillaume and Conrad are distraught, to the point of misogyny. The clever Liénor, however, her reputation slandered, unmasks the seneschal with a ruse. She has a belt and other gifts sent to the seneschal, supposedly from the Chatelaine of Dijon, whom he had courted, with promises that the Chatelaine is ready to grant him his wishes. The messenger convinces the seneschal to wear the belt under his clothes. Liénor then goes to Conrad's court, where everyone is struck by her beauty, and pretends to be a maiden who was raped by the seneschal; the belt is discovered under his clothes and a trial by ordeal
Trial by ordeal
Trial by ordeal is a judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused is determined by subjecting them to an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience...

 is proposed. The seneschal's innocence is proven in an ordeal by water: he has never had sex with the maiden. When Liénor reveals that she is in fact Guillaume's sister, the seneschal's earlier claim of having deflowered her is proven a lie. The seneschal is shackled and incarcerated, and the wedding is celebrated with great pomp. On the wedding night, Conrad's happiness is greater than that of Tristan
Tristan
Tristan is one of the main characters of the Tristan and Iseult story, a Cornish hero and one of the Knights of the Round Table featuring in the Matter of Britain...

 or Lanval
Lanval
"Lanval" is one of the Lais of Marie de France. Written in Anglo-Norman, it tells the story of a knight at King Arthur's court who is overlooked by the king, wooed by a fairy lady, given all manner of gifts by her, and subsequently refuses the advances of Queen Guinevere...

; the next morning, "no one who asked [Conrad] for a costly gift was refused." As for the seneschal, Liénor implores Conrad to be merciful, and he is sent away as a Templar to join a crusade.

Themes

The plot of Guillaume revolves around the common theme of the gageure, a young man who, because of a wager (in the case of Guillaume, because of jealousy) needs to find a young woman's favor. He fails in his enterprise but pretends publicly to have succeeded, causing the ruin of a husband (if the gageure had claimed to have succeeded with another man's wife) or, in this case, the despair of a brother. Usually the young man's story is believed at first because he reveals an intimate detail about a young woman, who then has to prove her innocence.

Beginning with Michel Zink, whose influential 1979 monograph Roman rose et rose rouge: Le Roman de la rose ou de Guillaume de Dole ushered in a new era of criticism, critics have recognized Guillaume de Dole as a work of literature about literature, a self-referential poem that comments on the improbability of some of its own plot elements and on its own fictional status, encouraging a trend in studies of Renart and his work.

Songs

The romance contains some 46 chansons, which can be separated into two groups, according to Holier and Bloch. The first group contains sixteen "aristocratic" chansons courtoises
Grand chant
The gran chan or, in modern French, chanson courtoise or chanson d'amour, often abbreviated chanson, was a genre of Old French lyric poetry devised by the trouvères. It was adopted from the Occitan canso of the troubadours, but scholars stress that it was a distinct genre...

on the topic of courtly love
Courtly love
Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....

, attributed to specific trouvère
Trouvère
Trouvère , sometimes spelled trouveur , is the Northern French form of the word trobador . It refers to poet-composers who were roughly contemporary with and influenced by the troubadours but who composed their works in the northern dialects of France...

s (including Gace Brulé
Gace Brulé
Gace Brulé , French trouvère, was a native of Champagne.His name is simply a description of his Blazonry. He owned land in Groslière and had dealings with the Knights Templar, and received a gift from the future Louis VIII. These facts are known from documents from the time...

, Le Chastelain de Couci, Vidame de Chartres
Vidame de Chartres
Guillaume de Ferrières was a French nobleman, probably the same person as the trouvère known only as the Vidame de Chartres...

, Jaufre Rudel
Jaufré Rudel
Jaufre Rudel was the Prince of Blaye and a troubadour of the early–mid 12th century, who probably died during the Second Crusade, in or after 1147...

, and Bernart de Ventadorn
Bernart de Ventadorn
Bernart de Ventadorn , also known as Bernard de Ventadour or Bernat del Ventadorn, was a prominent troubador of the classical age of troubadour poetry. Now thought of as "the Master Singer" he developed the cançons into a more formalized style which allowed for sudden turns...

). A second group consists of thirty mostly anonymous songs of a more popular nature, such as three chansons de toile
Chanson de toile
The Chanson de toile was a genre of narrative Old French lyric poetry devised by the trouvères which flourished in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century. Some fifteen of them remain; five were written by Audefroi le Bastart, the others are anonymous...

and three other ballads, two pastourelle
Pastourelle
The pastourelle is a typically Old French lyric form concerning the romance of a shepherdess. In most of the early pastourelles, the poet knight meets a shepherdess who bests him in a wit battle and who displays general coyness. The narrator usually has sexual relations, either consensual or...

s, and twenty chansons à danser (dance songs). Incorporated also is a laisse
Laisse
A laisse is a type of stanza, of varying length, found in medieval French literature, specifically medieval French epic poetry , such as The Song of Roland. In early works, each laisse was made up of assonanced verses, although the appearance of rhymed laisses was increasingly common in later...

 of the chanson de geste
Chanson de geste
The chansons de geste, Old French for "songs of heroic deeds", are the epic poems that appear at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known examples date from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, nearly a hundred years before the emergence of the lyric poetry of the trouvères and...

 Gerbert de Metz. Different scholars have slightly different counts; where Holier and Block count three ballads and three chanson de toiles, Maureen Barry McCann Boulton counts six chansons de toile; in her detailed investigation of the chansons she claims the poem contains forty-six chansons in eight different genres.

In its hybrid form, Guillaume de Dole is "the first extant example of the combined use of narrative and lyric in French." The mixed form proved to be popular and was soon found in other works, including Aucassin and Nicolette
Aucassin and Nicolette
Aucassin et Nicolette is an anonymous medieval French chantefable, or combination of prose and verse .-History:...

(early 13th. c.); Gautier de Coincy
Gautier de Coincy
Gautier de Coincy was a French abbot, poet and musical arranger, chiefly known for his devotion to the Virgin Mary.While he served as prior of Vic-sur-Aisne he compiled Les Miracles de Nostre-Dame in which he set poems in praise of the Virgin Mary to popular melodies and songs of his...

's Les Miracles de Nostre-Dame (ca. 1218–1233); Gerbert de Montreuil
Gerbert de Montreuil
Gerbert de Montreuil was a 13th-century French poet from the north of France.He wrote Le Roman de la violette or Gérard de Nevers, one of the most outstanding medieval poems, famous for its vivid narrative and faithful depiction of contemporary customs. The poem underwent countless adaptations and...

's Le Roman de la Violette (ca. 1230), which incorporates some forty songs; and Tibaut's Roman de la Poire (ca. 1250), which incorporates a series of refrains. By the end of the century the form had become canonical.

Female protagonist

The female protagonist, Liénor, is notable because of her active nature: she herself unmasks the seneschal. She found a quick successor in the active female protagonist of Tibaut's Roman de la Poire. At least one recent publication states that Liénor might make a justifiable claim to being the romance's true hero.

Editorial and critical history

The first mention of Guilllaume de Dole after the Middle Ages is found in the work of Claude Fauchet, who is generally considered to have studied the Vatican Regina manuscript (instead of another, now lost, manuscript). In 1844, Adelbert Keller published extracts of the poem including some of the chansons; the chansons acquired some fame, and in 1850 Darenberg and Renan traveled to Rome to study the manuscript, publishing a larger number of the chansons in 1855. It wasn't until 1870 that all of the chansons had been published. A lengthy analysis, partial edition, and summary in English was published by Henry Alfred Todd
Henry Alfred Todd
Henry Alfred Todd, Ph. D. was an American Romance philologist, born at Woodstock, Ill. He was educated at Princeton , and at Paris, Berlin, and Madrid, , and at Johns Hopkins University , where he taught for several years. He held the chair or Romance languages at Stanford, 1891-93, and became...

 of Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

, in 1886. The poem was finally published in its entirety in 1893 by Gustave Servois for the Société des anciens textes français
Société des anciens textes français
Société des anciens textes français is a learned society founded in Paris in 1875 with the purpose of publishing all kinds of medieval documents written either in langue d'oïl or langue d'oc . Its founding members are Henri Bordier, marquis J. de Laborde, A...

.

The first comprehensive study of the work of Jean Renart was published in 1935 by Rita Lejeune-Dehousse, who published an edition of the poem in 1935. Since then, it has been republished regularly. Translations have been published in modern French (1979), German (1982), and English (1993, 1995).

Between 2001 and 2007, Joshua Tyra adapted the text into a musical. An early version was read at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

.

External links

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