Nostre Dame Research Articles

Staging Sin in Medieval Paris

The major source of knowledge of French miracle plays is the Cangé manuscript, which features forty Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages. All the plays in the manuscript are arranged in chronological order from 1339 to 1382. They were written and produced for the St. Eloy chapter of the gold and silversmiths guild of Paris and performed at the guild’s annual assembly on or around St. Eloy’s Day (December 1). This address analyses a cluster of seven plays composed for performance between 1368 and 1379. All seven plays place the conflict between saints and sinners on the medieval stage by juxtaposing a falsely accused heroine with an antagonist whose deeds reveal the Seven Deadly Sins. Central to each of the plays is the miraculous intervention of the Virgin Mary, to whom the innocent woman prays for deliverance from her tormentors. Mary’s descent and presence on stage dramatically demonstrate her role as intercessor in the struggle between good and evil.

Living Images and Marian Devotion: Words, Gestures, and Gazes

This article examines the living images of the Virgin through the illustration of one of the most important collections of miracles of the 13th century, Les Miracles de Nostre Dame by Gautier de Coinci. In this case, I will focus my attention on manuscript 551 of Besançon (Besançon, BM, MS 551), which, although it has many flaws in its manufacture, offers an interesting presentation of living images. The study of these miniatures reflects the importance of devotion, the set of gestures, words, and gazes, in the medieval spectator’s experience of Marian images. At a time when these images’ legitimacy as sacred objects was still being debated, the artists in this manuscript show their power without censorship, presenting them as if they were the Virgin herself.

Themes of gospel and nativity in Icelandic biblical paraphrase

The article examines stanzas 27–33 from “Lilja”, an Icelandic biblical paraphrase written in the form of skaldic drapa and dating from the first half of the XIV c. The subject of the article is the sources of these stanzas and the nature of the skald’s work with the sources. Comparative textual analysis, which is the main method of work, has shown that the skald borrowed the general idea of the text from the Bible of Herman de Valenciennes, and stanzas 27–33, where the theme of the Gospel sounds, are an adaptation of a fragment from “Conception Nostre Dame” (“The Conception of the Virgin”) by Wace (lines 783–864). Analysis of the forms of speech and narrative strategies in stanzas 27–33 has shown their convergence with the forms of speech characteristic of “The Elder Edda” and the use of eddic narrative strategies by the skald. The noted interaction of the eddic and the skaldic traditions in «Lilja» suggests reconsideration of the traditional classification of the text as a skaldic work, despite the form of skaldic drapa and its semantic aureole. “Lilja” is regarded in the paper as a poetic biblical paraphrase born as a result of adaptation of the continental tradition of vernacular theology to the verbal culture of Iceland, i. e. as a manifestation of a new function of the art of poetry.

La Vierge dans les arts et les littératures du Moyen Âge: actes du colloque de Perpignan, du 17 au 19 octobre 2013. Sous la direction de Paul Bretel, Michel Adroher et Aymat Catafau

While the volume’s editors state their desire to take a pluridisciplinary approach, in this they only partially succeed: the essays presented investigate Marian devotion in history, art history, and literature, but only one of the volume’s four parts includes non-literary approaches. Moreover, while the volume covers several disciplines, the individual contributions remain locked in their disciplinary silos. Part One contains four studies of English and Anglo-Norman literary traditions. Jean-Paul Débax studies Mary’s place in English theatre, but because he devotes so much of his chapter to background his textual analyses remain somewhat cursory. Claire Vial’s excellent chapter on Middle English lyrics demonstrates how these songs to the Virgin indulge in the contemplation of mysteries akin to lectio divina, rather than scriptural exegesis. Olivier Simonin examines Mary in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Françoise Laurent’s richly documented study of the miracle of Helsin in Wace’s Conception Nostre Dame and two Marian miracle collections finish out the first part. In the opening essay of Part Two, Lola Badia surveys images of the Virgin in the works of Ramon Llull. Miriam Cabré’s article on Mary in the poetry of Ceverí de Girona then posits that this troubadour’s religious production, while seemingly apart from his secular production, relies on the same aesthetic principles of registral variation and thematic adaptation. Michel Adroher examines texts in the Passion Dido to illustrate how much the author surprisingly glorifies Mary Magdalene while putatively praising the Virgin. Finally Sadurní Martí argues convincingly, in his study of the fourteenth-century Franciscan Francesc Eiximenis, how this writer deserves more scholarly attention. The third and longest part on French literature gathers ten essays on: Gautier de Coinci (Jean-René Valette and Gérard Gros); collections such as the Miracles de Notre Dame par personnages (Élisabeth Gauchier-Rémond); and institutions such as Marian poetic puys (Denis Hüe). Articles on less-studied texts — L’Advocacie Notre Dame (Jean-Marie Carbasse), the sermons of Arnoul de Lisieux (Audry Bettant), and Cistercian legends (Céline Pérol) — flesh out the literary and socio-cultural landscape. Karin Ueltschi studies the Mesnagier de Paris to show how virtues traditionally associated with Mary are closely aligned to the ideal bourgeoise prudefemme. Finally, Paul Bretel’s ambitious study of images of Virgin in twelve (!) miracle collections marks the culmination of Part Three. The final part is composed of four studies: Alessia Trivellone’s study of a manuscript miniature of a scribe offering his codex to the Virgin in a copy of Jerome’s Commentary on Jeremiah (Dijon, BM 130, folio 104r); Jordi Camps i Sòria’s richly illustrated contribution on the Virgin and Child in Romanesque statues in Catalonia; Jean-René Gaborit’s study of Marian reliquaries; and Jean-Louis Olive’s study of a statuette called Nostra Senyora de la Salvetat in the church of Nostre-Dame de la Salvetat in Roussillon. Several indexes round out the volume; however, a final bibliography would have been equally helpful. The volume will find an appreciative audience among specialists in medieval literature and art.

Le miracle marial par personnages dans le ms. BnF, fr. 819-820: Rehistoriciser le jeu par l’étude du codex

The purpose of this paper is to show the ties between the drama in fourteenth century and the feast of the Virgin in the Parisian urban society. This article analyzes the most important collection of vernacular drama, the Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages, preserved in a unique manuscript, Paris, BnF, ms. fr. 819-820 (written c. 1382), and compares it with the only liturgical drama of a Marian feast : Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple written by Philippe de Mézières, preserved in the codex held at the BnF, ms. lat. 17330 (written c. 1380). After making a codicological analysis of both manuscripts and discussing the ties between textual poetry and their makers, this article describes the resemblances of textual poetry in the codices. It argues that the writing of devout drama in an urban society is linked to the Marian feast and the royal court.

Clovis beyond Clovis: Individuality, Filiation, and Miraculous Intervention in the Miracle de Clovis

This article focuses on the Miracle de Clovis, which belongs to the group of texts known as Les Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages. This collection contains forty plays, each featuring a miraculous intervention by the Virgin in favour of a character and is attributed to the Saint Eloi Guild of Goldsmiths of Paris. The analysis attempts to articulate the treatment of the characters in the Miracle within the context of the text's production-fourteenth century France-and to bring the text into dialogue with the issues of the Merovingian heritage of that period. The observation of the internal dynamics of the text coupled with a consideration of its context allows the hypothesis to emerge that the Miracle is a political and symbolic testimony of a period of crisis for the royal figure.

The Byzantine Legacy in the Manuscripts Les Miracles de Nostre Dame by Gautier De Coinci

This article is an attempt to analyze the Byzantine legacy in the text and miniatures in one of the most important collections of miracles in the 13th century, Les Miracles de Nostre Dame by Gautier de Coinci. It isn’t intended to be in agreement with medieval images, but the ideas that are deduced from his argument are visually interpreted, soon after, in a context highlighting scholastic theories, which systematized the inherited ideology of the Second Council of Nicaea. Thus, in the manuscripts written before 1300, we found the use of various iconographic resources, which aim to express the link between the prototype and its image. Of all the copies, the manuscript kept in Besancon (MS 551) shows more forcefully these changes that occurred throughout the 13th century; its illustrators most likely used double representations and excessive realism, such as the size and the attitudes that appear as an animated object, and become a surrogate of the Virgin herself.

The Ferrell-Vogüé Machaut Manuscript by Guillaume de Machaut

Reviewed by: The Ferrell-Vogüé Machaut Manuscript by Guillaume de Machaut Kathleen Sewright Guillaume de Machaut. The Ferrell-Vogüé Machaut Manuscript. 2 volumes in slipcase. Volume I: Introductory Study by Lawrence Earp with Domenic Leo and Carla Shapreau. Preface by Christopher de Hamel. (DIAMM Facsimiles, 5.) Oxford: DIAMM Publications, 2014. [Foreword, p. i–ii; acknowledgements, p. iii–iv; contents, p. v; abbrevs., p. vi; figures, p. vii–viii; tables, p. ix; introd., p. x–xi; introductory study, p. 1–126; appendices, p.127–59; bibliog., p. 160–80; inventory, p. 181–89; indexes, p. 190–207. ISBN-13 978-1-907647-01-7. £560 (inclusive of both volumes).] Guillaume de Machaut. The Ferrell-Vogüé Machaut Manuscript. Volume II: Color Facsimile. [ISBN-13 978-1-907647-01-7. £560 (inclusive of both volumes).] As a result of the widespread acceptance and use of digitization, coupled with the ever-increasing and prohibitive costs of publishing, the production of hard-copy music facsimiles has become increasingly rare. There still exist manuscripts of music, however, that are either so inaccessible or so important, that a justifiable case can be made for a publisher to go to the trouble and expense of producing a facsimile edition of them. The Ferrell-Vogüé manuscript of Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300–1377), hereinafter referred to by its scholarly siglum, Vg, is such a manuscript. Inaccessible to scholars for nearly its entire modern history, it is now available from the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music Publications (DIAMM) in a superb color facsimile accompanied by an excellent introductory study written by the Machaut specialist Lawrence Earp, with additional chapters contributed by the cultural property law scholar Carla Shapreau and the medieval art historian Dominic Leo. Toward the end of his life, Machaut seems to have supervised the creation of several manuscripts of his works, each one generally containing all of the poetry and music that he had written up to that time. Vg takes its place as the second of these six principal “complete works” manuscripts executed between 1350 and 1390, with its corpus of works having been written during the 1360s. It is therefore a very useful document for determining which of Machaut’s works were written later in the composer’s life. It is notable as the first Machaut manuscript to transmit the David double hocket (and to name it “Double hoquet”), as well as the first of the composer’s manuscripts to transmit the Messe de Nostre Dame (it is also the only manuscript to supply the Mass with that title). As if further justification for publishing Vg in facsimile were necessary, it should also be noted that its musical readings are extremely accurate—in fact, better than all of the other Machaut manuscripts, and perhaps better than any other musical manuscript produced during the fourteenth century. The introductory study brings together everything that has been known about Vg, as well as much that is new. Chapter 1 is an extremely thorough description of the manuscript’s contents, its physical layout, and subsequent corrections and additions, with an abundance of helpful tables, all of which should be read with the facsimile at hand, which allows the many important observations Earp makes to become crystal clear. Earp has provisionally identified five text hands, with Earp’s hand “B” responsible [End Page 584] for over 80 percent of the manuscript. A single hand entered the musical readings of Vg. By comparing these hands to others found in royal court manuscripts of the time, Earp concludes that Vg was produced in the same orbit of scribes and illuminators working expressly for the king of France, Charles V. In chapters 2 through 4, Earp traces the history of Vg, from its creation up until 1916 insofar as the extant documentation allows. Earp’s most exciting discovery is that Vg was in the library of Jean, Duke of Berry, by 1388 (pp. 35–44). Earp furthermore argues persuasively that Vg was originally intended for the duke, and that he was, in fact, its original owner. The evidence for the duke’s ownership of Vg is an addendum to a letter written by Violant (Yolande) of Bar, Queen of Aragon, to her...

Wace. The hagiographical works. The ‘Conception Nostre Dame’ and the Lives of St Margaret and St Nicholas. Translated with an introduction and notes by Jean Blacker, Glyn S. Burgess and Amy V. Ogden. (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, 169. Texts and Sources, 3.) Pp. v+400. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2013. €131 ($182). 978 90 04 24705 5; 1573 4188

Wace. The hagiographical works. The ‘Conception Nostre Dame’ and the Lives of St Margaret and St Nicholas. Translated with an introduction and notes by Jean Blacker, Glyn S. Burgess and Amy V. Ogden. (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, 169. Texts and Sources, 3.) Pp. v+400. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2013. €131 ($182). 978 90 04 24705 5; 1573 4188

The Hagiographical Works: The ‘Conception Nostre Dame and the Lives of St Margaret and St Nicholas

The Hagiographical Works: The ‘Conception Nostre Dame and the Lives of St Margaret and St Nicholas

De abele spelen, de ‘profane’ Miracles de Notre Dame par personnages en de veertiendeeeuwse Franstalige epiek - Aanzet tot een vergelijking van de ethische posities

The Middle Dutch plays Esmoreit, Gloriant and Lanseloet, three of the four abele spelen contained in the Hulthem Manuscript, not only belong to the earliest secular theatre literature that has survived from the Middle Ages, they are also the only texts of their time in which a dramatization of chivalric themes and ethics has been preserved. It is true that some of the Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages, a collection of miracle plays staged by a confraternity of Parisian goldsmiths between 1339 and 1382, also have been inspired by chivalric romances and show a tendency towards secularization, but in essence they remain religious dramas and do not call into question the generic uniqueness of the abele spelen. But, as many scholars have observed, this does not preclude a possible relation, even of ‘influence’, on the level of the narrative contents, the subject matters or the dramatic structures as such. In this article, I examine the possible affinities between the abele spelen and those of the Miracles which have been deemed to be ‘more secular’ by literary historians, especially the relation put forward by Jacques Tersteeg between Esmoreit and Du roy Thierry, the 32nd of the Miracles. In contrast to Tersteeg I argue that Du roy Thierry was not the (or a) source of Esmoreit, but that both have been inspired by the epic romance Theseus de Cologne (probably about 1364). As Gloriant on the other hand appears to have drawn a number of its central features from Baudouin de Sebourc, another chivalric romance so to speak contemporaneous of Theseus, it becomes apparent that the abele spelen are first of all related to these two French romances - and perhaps a few others - from the (beginning of the) second half of the fourteenth century. To conclude, I conduct a tentative exploration of what these observations imply on the level of comparative ethics and ideology.

Les doubles hoqués et les motés: Guillaume de Machaut's Hoquetus David

ABSTRACTGuillaume de Machaut's Hoquetus David represents the only extant hocket of the Ars Nova. Although the Hoquetus is among Machaut's most commercially recorded compositions, it has received relatively little scholarly attention: while Daniel Leech-Wilkinson has focused on its rhythmic characteristics and Anne Walters Robertson on its possible raison d'être, many of the Hoquetus's unusual musical features remain unexplored. In Part I of this article, I compare the Hoquetus with Machaut's motets, as well as with thirteenth-century double hockets, in order to shed light on several of the work's anomalies. In Part II, I turn to matters of syntax, concentrating on Machaut's use of the dissonant seventh. I discuss and illustrate Machaut's surprisingly frequent use of the seventh to fifth progression in several passages from the Hoquetus, his motets and the Messe de nostre dame, and in turn demonstrate that the progression indeed constitutes a salient element of his compositional praxis. In Part III, I briefly address the question of method of performance. By inspecting the vocal ranges and melodic activity of the Hoquetus itself, I demonstrate that the Hoquetus David is indeed conducive for vocal performance, and in turn speculate how it might be performed despite its lack of text.

The Minstrel Dances in Good Company: Del Tumbeor Nostre Dame

The medieval Old French exemplum Del Tumbeor Nostre Dame (Our Lady's Tumbler) tells the story of a minstrel who performed acrobatic dance in a monastery, dedicating his dances to God and the Virgin Mary. This article situates Del Tumbeor Nostre Dame in the context of other medieval accounts of sacred performances, particularly those of female mystics, in order to consider the roles that gender, power, mediation, and audience played in both the creation of these performances and their recording and dissemination.

Vindictive virgins: animate images and theories of art in some thirteenth-century miracle stories

Vindictive virgins: animate images and theories of art in some thirteenth-century miracle stories

La Vierge Marie et ses images chez Gautier de Coinci et Césaire de Heisterbach

Based on the complete reading of the Miracles de Nostre Dame (between 1214–1233), the first part of the article highlights the importance of images of the Virgin in personal piety and pastoral guidance of the Benedictine Gautier of Coinci. They appear inherent to Christianity and it is necessary to venerate them for saving the intercession of Mary. The study shows also how the author, but never formally, declines in various ways the relationship between image and prototype by the miracles that adapts and the messages he wants to convey. The second part explores the miraculous Marian stories of two collections strictly contemporary that of Gautier, the Dialogus Miraculorum and the Libri Miraculorum (I and II) of Cesaire of Heisterbach. It includes much attention to images of the Virgin, but with inflections due mainly to the different nature of the collections, to the choice to focus on contemporary miracles and to the membership of Cesaire to the Cistercian order. On the other hand, assertions of Gautier and Cesaire prove that, nor the clergy, the laity did not form a homogeneous group in their attitudes and beliefs relating to images and their miracles.

Gautier de Coinci and the Translation of Exegesis

This paper examines the way in which Gautier de Coinci (d. 1236) asserts the vernacular as an appropriate vehicle for a clerical reading of his Miracles de Nostre Dame. Like Eructavit, the Old French paraphrase of Psalm 44 which frequently appears in manuscripts with the Miracles, Gautier’s Miracles is an example of what has been termed by Morgan Powell as “vernacular exegesis.” Gautier characterizes translation as the means by which even a lay reader may understand this vernacular work in an exegetical fashion. Indeed, for Gautier, translation manifests the three levels of Scriptural exegesis—historical, allegorical, and tropological—as described by Hugh of Saint-Victor (d. 1141). Gautier clearly translates the methods and aims of Scriptural exegesis for mixed audience of clerical and lay readers, encouraging Marian devotion and the singing of (Gautier’s own) Marian lyrics. More importantly, Gautier’s translatio of exegesis suggests that even the very act of translation is exegetical in nature.

Gautier de Coinci: Miracles, Music, and Manuscripts (review)

Reviewed by: Gautier de Coinci: Miracles, Music, and Manuscripts Christopher Callahan Gautier de Coinci: Miracles, Music, and Manuscripts. Edited by Kathy M.Krause and Alison Stones.[Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe, Vol. 13.] (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. 2006. Pp. xx, 487. €80,00; $108.00.) The fifteen selections of this timely volume, which grew out of an international conference on Gautier de Coinci held at the University of Pittsburgh in 2005, bring together perspectives from Old French literature and drama, art history, and musicology. In their examination of the music, images, and texts of the vast manuscript tradition of the Miracles de Nostre Dame (MND), the authors raise vital questions regarding authorial program and manuscript compilation, which, though precocious for the mid-thirteenth century, are currently being asked of the trouvère chansonniers as well. In the spirit of the current scholarly focus on manuscript context, moreover, this volume constitutes an integrated whole reflective of its object of study: its authors cite each [End Page 570] other, allude to each other's arguments, and even offer competing analyses of the same topic, thus making the collection an intertextual tour de force. The papers, in English or in French, with abstracts in the other language, are organized into four sections: (1) Manuscripts, (2) Words and Music, (3) Figures and Types, and (4) Contexts. Six appendices totaling 100 pages place at the reader's fingertips indispensable reference tools that include an annotated list of all MND manuscripts; sublists featuring illustrated manuscripts and those containing lyric pieces; and a list of owners of MND manuscripts, both monastic and lay, early and post-1500. The volume is framed by an excellent introduction placing Gautier and the MND in the context of thirteenth-century literary experimentation and outlining the issues raised by the featured scholarly articles (Ardis Butterfield) and by a selected bibliography and index. The section titled "Manuscripts" looks at the companion texts compiled with the MND, as they reveal Gautier's œuvre to be more polished and complete than hitherto acknowledged (Olivier Collet), and examines the miniatures both for vital clues to manuscript dating and attribution (Alison Stones) and for what they can reveal, in light of contemporary intergeneric works, about Gautier's dual identity as monk and minstrel (Kathryn Duys). Under the rubric "Words and Music," attention is drawn to Gautier's predilection for annominatio, a form of wordplay that assures that those passages constructed paronomastically are as untranslatable as they are delightful (Pierre Kunstman, Robert L. A. Clark), while on the musical side, its contributors scrutinize the medieval practice of contrafacture in a culture of mixed orality and offer Gautier a place along the continuum of musical improvisation/ composition (Frédéric Billiet); analyze the music of the St. Leocadia cycle and what it reveals about the same questions of continuity/ innovation (Claire Chamiyé Couderc); and trace the literary and musical history of the response Gaude, Maria Virgo, which Gautier wields as an apology for Christianity (Barbara Haagh). "Figures and Types"focuses on the miracles themselves, examining (1) childbirth miracles, particularly The Pregnant Abbess, as an expression of destabilized masculine authority (Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski), (2) the panoply of sins that Marian intervention redeems and their contribution to Gautier's poetic project (Yasmina Foehr-Janssens), (3) the role of the gaze in victimizing the heroines of the miracle stories focusing on women (Kathy M. Krause), and (4) images of Mary in the Soissons manuscript of the MND and their role in the growth of lay devotional practices of the fourteenth century (Nancy Black). "Contexts," finally, highlights Gautier's incarnational miracles against the backdrop of an evolving piety focusing on the Incarnation (Laurel Broughton); offers a systematic comparison between MND and the Old French Vie des Pères, concluding that their subtle differences reflect fundamental [End Page 571] distinctions in intended audience (Adrian P. Tudor); and proposes a rapprochement, in the provocatory spirit of Jacques Ribard, between MND and the fabliau (†Brian J. Levy). This volume makes significant advances in Gautier studies and promises, with its multifaceted approach, to shape current work in the intersection between the sacred and the secular. It is a groundbreaking work of interest to medievalists from all...

A Companion to Wace

This Companion is an in-depth survey of all the writings attributed to the poet Wace today. Part i treats Wace the hagiographer in his three religious poems, La Vie de sainte Marguerite, La Conception Nostre Dame, and La Vie de saint Nicolas. Parts ii and iii turn, in succession, to his more historical works, Le Roman de Brut and Le Roman de Rou. The Introduction examines what we know about Wace's life and times. A brief Conclusion summarizes the major characteristics of Wace's œuvre. Each part adheres to a similar plan to survey each of the five works, with some adaptations required by the distinctiveness of the individual text. As Le Saux states in the introduction to the religious poems, treating the poems in succession, she provides ‘an outline of the manuscript tradition of each text, analyzing the way their sources have been approached and adapted, and exploring the agenda underlying the poet's interpretation of his material’. This three-part arrangement is followed in treating the Brut and Rou, although Le Saux emphasizes the lengthier parts of each work, thus according less attention to narrative segments that Wace treats more briefly. For example, Arthur, not Brutus, and William the Conqueror, not the Northmen, loom large in her interpretations. This is not necessarily a fault in a ‘companion’; however, the reader should be aware of where emphasis lies and what receives less attention. The comparison with the sources and analogues offers useful support to Le Saux's interpretations. It is unfortunate that Benoît de Sainte-Maure receives relatively short shrift. Both vernacular ‘historians’ treat, in two separate works, analogous ‘histories’. Without undue lengthening, it would have been interesting to hear more about how Benoît used Dares and Dictys compared to how Wace used Geoffrey of Monmouth or his Variant Version, as well as how Wace dealt with sources in the Rou that Benoît used again in the Chronique. None the less, the Companion to Wace is an important contribution to Wace studies, both for students approaching the author for the first time and for specialist scholars interested in new interpretations and a new overview of his writings. There is a select, albeit lengthy, bibliography and a very helpful index.

Libro de los huéspedes (Escorial MS h.I.13): A Unified Work of Narrative and Image for Female Pilgrims

LIBRO DE LOS HUESPEDES (ESCORIAL MS h.1.13): A UNIFIED WORK OF NARRATIVE AND IMAGE FOR FEMALE PILGRIMS John K. Moore,Jr. University ofAlabama at Birmingham Thomas Spaccarelli University of the South In convents, churches, and elsewhere along the Camino de Santiago, women on pilgrimage in the Middle Ages would have encountered an instructive feast for the ears and eyes - music and sermons, sculptures and paintings. Part of this edification may have included listening to the narratives andviewing dieir corresponding decorations in the largeformat , late fourteenth- to early fifteenth-century Escoriai MS h.1.13,1 We extend our gratitude to the Dean ofthe School ofArts & Humanities at the University ofAlabama at Birmingham, Bert Brouwer, and to the Dean ofthe College of Arts & Sciences at the University ofthe South, Rita Smith Kipp, for providing generous financial support toward publication. In addition, we wish to thank Frank Domínguez, Emily Francomano, Sheri Spaine Long, andjennifer I. Crook Moore for their suggestions on earlier drafts ofthis essay and, at La corónica, to George Greenia and the two anonymous readers for their feedback on the final stages ofthis article. Their comments have played an important role in the development ofour ideas. JohnJeremiah Sullivan helped clarify wording in a final draft. Finally, we are grateful to Manuel Terrón Bermúdez, Director of the Servicio de Gestión Fotográfica at Patrimonio Nacional, for permission to reproduce the images included in this article. 1 Two scholars who have addressed this manuscript's decorated initials are Sister Eleanore Michel and Roger M. Walker. Due to her edition's limited scope, Michel's unpublished doctoral dissertation, "Vidas de SardaMaríaMadalenay SantaMarta":An Edition ofthe Old Spanish Text (1930), discusses only those decorations in the first folios ofthe manuscript, the first two legends in the codex (xciv-xcvi). Walker, in£/ cavallero Plácidas (MS Esc. h-I-13) (1982), observes that decorated initials mark the beginning ofeach legend in the codex (vii). La corónica 35.1 (Fall, 2006): 249-70 250 John K. Moore, Jr. and Thomas SpaccarelliLa corónica 35.1, 2006 conventionally known as one of several Flores Sanctorum and more recendy christened the Libro de los huéspedes (LH).2 The LH contains nine Castilian translations of French legends: miracles on Santa Maria Madalena, Santa Marta, and Santa María Egipciaca; martyrdoms on Santa Catalina de Alexandria and San Eustacio; and romances on Guillelme, Florencia de Roma, an unnamed empress of Rome,3 and Sevilla, the wife of Carlos Maynes.4 The manuscript was considered a miscellany ofunrelated stories until 1982, whenJohn Maier andThomas Spaccarelli demonstrated die interrelatedness ofdie codex's narratives. Scholars, most recendy Emily Francomano ('"Lady"' and "Manuscript Matrix"), now agree that the legends in the LH were carefully chosen and purposefully sequenced.5 In terms of structure, the codex's narratives are ordered from the time and place of Christ to the reign of Charlemagne (Carlos Maynes) in medieval France, a trajectory that continually arcs toward the present moment and location of die LH's audience (Spaccarelli 23, 41); furthermore, narrative patterns, plots, and character types reappear throughout the codex to create a coherent body of texts (Francomano, '"Lady"' 138). An examination of the decorations and illustrations in the LH and their relationship to its - InA MedievalPilgrim's Companion, Reassessing El libro de los huéspedes (EscorialMS h.1.13), Thomas Spaccarelli bestows this title upon the codex due to the importance of hospitality and the guest/host relationship. We use his designationbecause it also conveys that the manuscriptwas organized as awhole and indicates its associationwithpilgrimage and pilgrims, male and female alike. 3 This figure is the same as the protagonist ofGautier de Coincy's "The Empress of Rome" in his Miracles de Nostre Dame. For an analysis ofthis narrative in relation to the decorative elements that accompany it, see Nancy B. Black. 4 In the same orderjust listed, the rubrics ofthe manuscript title the legends: "De sareta Mana Madalena" (MariaMadalena: fols. lra-2vb); "Commo santa. Marta partió lo que auja [en] seruiçio de Dios" (Santa Maria: fols. 3ra-7rb); "Aqwi comjença la estoria de santa Maria egiçiaca" (Maria Egiçiaca: fols. 7rll-14va); "Del...

Reading Children In Gautier De Coinci’s Miracles De Nostre Dame

As cultural historians publish findings on the image and role of children in medieval society, scholars of medieval literature have begun to consider the same question. However, the children in Gautier de Coinci’s Miracles de Nostre Dame, published in the first third of the 13th century, have escaped serious scholarly attention. Work to date on the question of children in the Miracles is comprised of only a few pages of a monograph and has only included three children, portraying them as rather flat symbols ofinnocence. The present study includes eight children and submits that their image and role vary in tandem with the particular didactic aim of each miracle. Careful study of these figures in their literary and socio-cultural context demonstrates an attitude towards children that is far more complex and rich than at first glance. Furthermore, by isolating and casting these characters into relief, we gain better understanding of the miracle as a genre. Children exemplify how elements, including characters are manipulated in the universe of the miracle in various ways but towards a single, didactic aim.