Branches of knowledge: the purposes of citation in the Breviari d’amor of Matfre Ermengaud

Abstract

Together with its companion piece, Sarah Kay’s ‹Branches of Knowledge: Grafting the Knowledge Community: The Purposes of Verse in the Breviari d’amor of Matfre Ermengaud’, this article deploys the image of the grafted tree to address the most famous and interesting section of the Breviari, the discussion of troubadour poetry with which it ends. Matfre’s practice of citation is seen as functioning like a graft, not only in that extracts from the troubadours are both integral to and distinct from his own supporting octosyllabic couplets, but also because the way the citations are chosen displays a tree-like structure. The more ideological pronouncements of some famous troubadours feature in single citations whereas those from the troubadour Matfre cites most frequently, Aimeric de Peguilhan, ramify seemingly endlessly. Aimeric’s pronouncements are mainly concerned with the exercise of judgement and appropriate discourse. These themes intermingle and merge with Matfre’s own thoughts, exemplifying the didactic poet’s purpose and demonstrating the fruits in behaviour of ‹the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ which the whole of this section of the Breviari is designed to map. In this way Matfre does not just speak to the troubadours, he also speaks for them: the community evoked at the beginning of the Breviari is confirmed at its end.