Imagining Ovid and Chrétien in Fourteenth-Century French Libraries

Abstract

Popular in French royal and ducal libraries, the Ovide moralise is the first full-length French translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses ; it introduces pseudo-historical explanations and Christian moralizations. Fusing references to and tales from diverse medieval and classical sources, the Ovide moralise is a microcosm of the late medieval library, offering a digest of myth and doctrine, and manifesting a reading practice aware of its reliance on, and reassessment of, previous instances of authority. With reference to Foucault’s evocation of the bibliotheque fantastique , this article focuses on two auctores cited by the Ovide moralise : Ovid and an author referred to as ‘Crestien’. Evidence from Ovide moralise manuscripts belonging to the libraries of King Philippe VI, his wife, Jeanne de Bourgogne, and their three bibliophile grandsons — King Charles V; Jean, duc de Berry; and Philippe le Hardi, duc de Bourgogne — suggests that the name Crestien, today evocative of Chretien de Troyes, would likely connote the author of a twelfth-century translation and adaptation of the Metamorphoses ’ Philomela episode, which is interpolated into the Ovide moralise . Focusing on encounters between these authors reveals the medieval library as a space of fantasy in which texts gloss, summon, adapt, and re-imagine one another.