THE LAI DE L'OISELET, THE PROVERBES AU VILAIN AND THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER

Abstract

The Lai de l’oiselet is an expanded version of a tale from the Disciplina clericalis, in which the protagonists are a peasant and a bird. The lai differs from the Disciplina in interpreting the narrative as a contest between courtoisie and vilenie. The peasant is no longer a simple rusticus, but an embodiment of the coarseness and stupidity associated with the vilain. A particular thrust of the narrative attack on the vilain is connected with the Proverbes au vilain. The Lai signals the thematic importance of proverbs by its remarkably high concentration of proverbial material. The text demonstrates to its courtly audience that a vilain has no entitlement to be considered a source of proverbial wisdom. The vilain is textually dispossessed of ‘his’ proverbs. A further intertext is the gospel commentary on the Parable of the Sower, which authorizes the dispossession of ‘him who has not’. Thus an intertextual reading of the Lai de l’oiselet reveals the full scope of the work’s attack on vilenie, and its attempt to reclaim for courtoisie the territory of proverbial wisdom, attributed to the vilain by such texts as the Proverbes au vilain.