The Pregnant Abbesses of Paris and Lille

Abstract

Parisian Confraternity Drama of the Fourteenth Century is the first volume of studies devoted solely to the Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages. These anonymous plays, found in a single luxury manuscript, comprise the only major corpus of dramatic works in French that have survived from the fourteenth century. They derive from a rich diversity of sources: narrative miracle accounts, saints’ lives, epic chansons de geste, vernacular romances, and history. Each play is preceded by a richly detailed miniature, some two dozen include a sermon in prose, and each includes at least one rondel to be sung by the cortege accompanying the Virgin. They constitute both a collective demonstration of the fervent late-medieval devotion to the Virgin, and a substantial archive of contemporary insights into the issues of power, authority, and influence that struggled for dominance in fourteenth-century Paris. As this extraordinary collection has, in its entirety, attracted little critical attention to date, this volume will be of significant interest to scholars wishing to explore the plays in their literary context, as well as those interested in medieval drama, the Marian tradition, and the role of confraternities in fourteenth-century French culture.