La chair dans les recueils d'exempla méridionaux (XIIIe-XIVe siècles)

Abstract

Flesh in the collections of southern French exempla (XIIIth-XIVth centuries). In order to determine the place of flesh in examples of medieval accounts in the south of France, three collections have been selected. These are the Latin manuscript 3555 in the Bibliothèque nationale of France, the collection called that of Brother Sachet, and the Scala coeli of Jean Gobi the Younger. Firstly, by increasing its size, this body of work has been analysed thanks to the methods of statistical analysis, to determine the meaning of caro in pastoral literature. Besides the food aspect, caro for the preachers is caught between the strongly contrasting concupiscentia and mortificatio. This binary morality is hardly surprising. Caro simply refers back to the great fundamental contrast within the system of medieval representation between caro and spiritus. It is subsequently studied where the accounts we have retained as exempla intended to control sexuality, and how the notion of “flesh” (caro and its derivatives), in the sense of sexual control, is offered. The matter is, as a general rule, present throughout the work. A thematic perception of this type of extract found throughout ms BnF lat. 3555 is proposed : punishment of lustful people, damnation of the soul, condemnation of adultery, opposition to lust. In Jean Gobi, mulier, the woman of quality is opposed to femina, the bad and sinful woman. There remain three concluding remarks. The extracts concerning the “flesh” and sexu ality constitute a significant proportion of the accounts, i.e. 10% for the first, 16% for Sachet, and 6% for the Scala coeli. Although they draw on common foundations of anecdotes condemning lust (or promoting chastity), the southern French authors like to propose models rooted in southern France, even if sexual control is not the only matter to benefit from this particular treatment. Finally, the clergy are not often directly condemned. The audience envisaged seems to be clearly that of lay people through the exempla, sometimes focussing on the clergy. The Gregorian Reform does not appear, at the end of the XIIIth century and the beginning of the XIVth century, to have had much impact.