Chantilly, Musée Condé, Ms. 617: Mystères as Convent Drama

Abstract

In this article, I will be concentrating on two particular mysteres preserved in one manuscript, Chantilly, Ms. 617. Unlike many of the plays discussed in this collection, the audience (and probable actors) of the Chantilly manuscript's two mystery plays may be very precisely identified due to the manuscript's provenance: it originated within a Carmelite convent in the now-Belgian town of Huy, near Liege.2 The Chantilly manuscript thus reminds us that production contexts for mysteres did not have to be primarily urban or civic, nor were they necessarily conceived of as integral parts of larger Passion narratives. In the case of the Chantilly mysteres, it appears that the two plays featured were copied and performed within an enclosed, devotional, and probably exclusively milieu.The most recent edition of the plays and description of the manuscript was published by Gustave Cohen in 1920. His edition has, of course, been an invaluable resource in the preparation of this essay. However, Cohen focuses principally on the linguistic questions raised by Chantilly' s texts. The time is, therefore, ripe for a reassessment which takes into account the implications of the manuscript's convent provenance, and the particular dramatic features of the plays it contained.3 In what follows, then, I shall divide my examination of Chantilly' s mysteres into two parts. The first part will focus on particular dramatic features or choices which may be inferred from the manuscript's presentation. I will examine the evidence provided by the different hands which contribute to the copying of the first mystere in particular, and will argue that the copying of certain folios suggests that some scenes may have been modified by the nuns of Huy for performance purposes. The second section will return to the question of the plays' convent production context. In it, I will suggest that this context must encourage us to assess them as specifically or primarily female productions, offering a dramatic reading of part of the Biblical story from a devotional point of view.4Provenance, Hands and ModificationsChantilly, Musee Conde, Ms. 617, is a very small and very worn paper manuscript, dating to the second half of the fifteenth century. It measures just 29 ? 10 cm, and contains the scripts for five plays, in Walloon French. The two opening plays in the manuscript, upon which I shall concentrate here, are Nativity plays.5 The first (hereafter 'Nativity V) deals with the birth of Jesus, the adoration of the shepherds, and the arrival and adoration of the Magi, and is found on fols. lr-7v of the manuscript. The second (hereafter 'Nativity 2', found on fols. 8r-10v of the manuscript) is apparently unfinished. Had it been concluded, it would most probably have contained the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt and the Massacre of the Innocents. As it stands, however, Nativity 2 contains only the Purification of the Virgin, the Rage of Herod, and an extended scene in which Saint Anne, accompanied by her two other daughters Marie-Salome and Marie-Jacob, pays a visit to the Virgin Mary and Joseph to see and worship the baby Jesus. These events follow on from those of Nativity 1, and the two Nativities therefore form a pair.6 They were probably performed on consecutive days or nights: Nativity 2 contains a relatively long and detailed recap, spoken by the Virgin Mary, of the principal events of Nativity 1, which would suggest that they were not performed back to back on the same occasion.7Katherine Bourlet and the Dames Blanches de Huy: Evidence of Convent ProductionCohen preceded his edition of Chantilly 617 with an exhaustive exploration of the spelling and the grammatical forms that he found.8 The results of his linguistic investigation placed the manuscript in what is now French-speaking Belgium.9 Identifying one of its hands, however, allowed him to be much more specific about the manuscript's provenance: it is signed twice, once at the end of Nativity 1, and once at the close of the manuscript. …