Category Archives: Middle Ages: 12th-13th Century

Perceval: Grail appears, Perceval silent

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About the scene and clip:
Perceval sees the mysterious Grail procession arrive in the hall, but he fails to ask important questions that he should have asked about the grail.

About the work:
Perceval is the last of the five surviving romances by Chrétien de Troyes who is often considered the father of Arthurian romance. This unfinished work, in octosyllabic rhymed couplets, was composed for Philippe of Alsace, Count of Flanders, around 1180. The romance recounts the adventures of Perceval, a noble youth who was raised in ignorance of knighthood in the woods of Wales by his widowed mother, but who gets himself knighted by King Arthur and progressively learns about knighthood; this romance also tells of adventures of Gawain, always given as a paragon of chivalry. In this work the Grail makes its first appearance in medieval literature; there will be many more.

About the genre:
Medieval romances are typically long narratives of love and adventure in which an aristocratic hero (or occasionally a heroine) proves himself in combat and courtship. Medieval romance arose in France and Anglo-Norman England in the 12th century and spread through Western and even Eastern Europe. Many early romances tell the stories of knights and ladies at King Arthur’s court. In the 12th and 13th centuries, romances are composed in verse (typically octosyllabic rhymed couplets), and are commonly performed aloud from memory by minstrels; romances are also sometimes read aloud. In the 13th century, some romances begin to be written in prose; public and private readings become more frequent.

About the edition/translation:
Perceval: The Story of the Grail, trans. Burton Raffel, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1999. Original text: Le conte du Graal, ed./trans. Charles Méla, in Romans, eds./trans. J.M. Fritz et al., Paris, Classiques Modernes/ Livre de Poche, 1994.

About the performer/ensemble:
Justin Fair is a Drama Student in the Atlantic Acting School at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2003).

About the production:
This performance was created as part of an Independent Study with Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz in fall 2003. This video was made in December 2003 at the Maison Française of New York University at a private performance.

Silence: Silence’s female identity revealed

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About the scene and clip:
In this scene near the end of the romance, Merlin has just revealed to the court that Silence is really a young woman, not a man. As the performer both tells the story and impersonates the different characters, we see Silence shift out of her assumed male role and become a woman. A shawl provides minimal recourse to costume.

About the work:
Silence tells the story of a girl whose parents raise her as a boy so that she can inherit their land. Silence, though inwardly conflicted over her true nature, becomes a successful knight and minstrel and unwittingly attracts the love of the queen. Silence is finally unmasked by the seer Merlin; now a woman, she wins the love of the king. This unusual romance contains major female characters whose names refer to speech (Silence and Euphemie) and the allegorical adversaries, Nature vs. Nurture. The website contains several clips from Silence that demonstrate some of the many different ways in which characters and scenes from this work can be performed.

About the genre:
Medieval romances are typically long narratives of love and adventure in which an aristocratic hero (or occasionally a heroine) proves himself in combat and courtship. Medieval romance arose in France and Anglo-Norman England in the 12th century and spread through Western and even Eastern Europe. Many early romances tell the stories of knights and ladies at King Arthur’s court. In the 12th and 13th centuries, romances are composed in verse (typically octosyllabic rhymed couplets), and are commonly performed aloud from memory by minstrels; romances are also sometimes read aloud. In the 13th century, some romances begin to be written in prose; public and private readings become more frequent.

About the edition/translation:
Slightly modified from A Thirteenth-Century French Romance, Silence, ed./trans. Sarah Roche-Mahdi, East Lansing, MI, Colleagues Press, 1992, pp. 309ff.

About the performer/ensemble:
Justin Fair is a Drama Student in the Atlantic Acting School at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2003).

About the production:
This scene was created as part of an Independent Study with Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz in fall 2003. This performance took place in November 2003 at the Maison Française of New York University at a Roundtable on “New Perspectives on Medieval Narrative,” sponsored by the Colloquium on Orality, Writing and Culture, co-convenors Prof. Nancy Freeman Regalado and Prof. Vitz. The performance was videoed by NYU-TV.

St. Peter and Jongleur: Puppets, 1

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About the scene and clip:
This clip is a free adaptation of the entire fabliau [see “about the work”], using puppets and contemporary American show-tunes.

About the work:
This fabliau tells how St. Peter rescued all the souls from hell by winning at dice against a bumbling minstrel who had been left in charge while Satan was busy elsewhere; it may well be a parody of the Harrowing of Hell in which Christ rescued the souls of the just from Hell.

About the genre:
Fabliaux are short comic tales. This narrative genre was extremely popular in the 13th and 14th centuries in France and elsewhere in Europe (Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale is a sophisticated fabliau). Fabliaux almost invariably deal with the passions of lust, gluttony, avarice–and with attempts to trick or deceive others. Characters are typically bourgeois, clerks and monks, or peasants–and often women. The treatment is comic or satirical. But fabliaux vary considerably. Some are extremely vulgar in language and treatment, inviting crude gestures in performance. Other fabliaux are based on puns or wordplay. Many have a moral at the end and some have ethical overtones throughout. A few fabliaux are refined and courtly in language and themes. Many fabliaux are anonymous, but a few are by known poets. Performance styles and strategies for the fabliaux probably varied considerably in the Middle Ages, according to the subject matter and characters, the poet, the performer(s), the occasion, and the kind of audience present.

About the edition/translation:
Abridged and adapted from Fabliaux, Fair and Foul, trans. John DuVal, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Binghamton, NY, 1992, pp. 130-139; French edition: “St. Pierre et le jongleur,” inNouveau Recueil des Fabliaux, eds. Willem Noomen and Nico van den Boogaard, Assen: Van Gorcum, Vol. I (1983).

About the performer/ensemble:
Kelly Houlihan graduated in May 2003 from New York University with a major in French.

About the production:
This performance was originally created for “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz in fall 2001. This clip comes from a performance that took place in September 2003 at the Maison Française of New York University at an informal gathering of medievalists held under the auspices of the Colloquium for Orality, Writing and Culture, co-convenors Prof. Nancy Freeman Regalado and Prof. Vitz. The performance was videoed by NYU-TV.

Nightingale

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About the scene and clip:
This clip tells the entire lai of Laostic. The performer acts as narrator and also impersonates the characters–the wife, the jealous husband and the lover.

About the work:
Marie de France, a major literary figure from the Middle Ages, is one of the few women writers of the period whose work has survived. Little is known of her, except that she was almost certainly of the nobility. She wrote in England apparently in the 1160s and ‘70s; her work is in French (or “Anglo-Norman”: the French language as spoken and written in medieval England). She wrote lais—a dozen short narrative poems with Breton roots, composed in octosyllabic rhymed couplets, and bearing on love in its many forms. The lais circulated separately, and also together in a volume that she dedicated to King Henry (probably English King Henry II). She also wrote Espurgatoire seint Patriz (St. Patrick’s Purgatory), about a pilgrimage down to the afterlife, based on Latin sources; and Fables, also based largely on Latin sources. She is now widely believed also to have been the author of the Anglo-Norman Vie seinte Audree (Life of Saint Audrey).

The Lai of the Nightingale (Laostic, also Laüstic or Aüstic) is one of Marie de France’s Lais. It tells of the love affair between a knight and a married woman. Her jealous husband catches and kills the nightingale which had been the pretext for her nightly visits to her window. The wife wraps the dead nightingale carefully in precious cloth and the lover enshrines it in a precious coffer, thus ensuring that their love will be remembered.

About the genre:
A narrative lai is a short poetic tale composed in verse, which claims to tell the story of how a musical lai from ancient Brittany came to be written. The 12th-century Anglo-Norman woman poet Marie de France is the best known author of narrative lais in French, and may be one of the creators of the genre.

About the edition/translation:
The Lais of Marie de France, trans. Robert Hanning and Joan Ferrante, Durham, NC, Labyrinth, 1982. Original: Les Lais de Marie de France, ed. Karl Warnke, (Mod. French) trans. Laurence Harf-Lancner, Paris, Lettres Gothiques, 1990.

About the performer/ensemble:
Andrew Kahrl is a Drama student in the Playwrights Horizons Theater School at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2003)

About the production:
This performance was created as part of an Independent Study for Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz in spring 2003. The video was made at a private performance at the Maison Française of New York University in December 2003.

Aucassin: Torelore

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About the scene and clip:
In this episode, the young lovers Aucassin and Nicolette, having fled from home, travel to the land of Torelore where the King lies in childbed and the Queen fights battles in which no one is slain. The performer draws on a blend of cardboard puppets, illustrations, a book, contemporary recorded music, and a cell phone.

About the work:
Aucassin and Nicolette: This charming work, composed by an anonymous poet around 1200, is the only surviving example of the “chantefable”: it is partly in prose, to be spoken; partly in verse, with assonanced rolex day date m128348rbr 0017 36mm uomini guadare lines of 7-syllables, to be sung. Aucassin and Nicolette reflects a thorough-going familiarity with the genres of the period, such as epic, romance, saint’s life, and lyric song–and a light-hearted parodic attitude toward them all.

About the genre:
See “About the work” (above).

About the edition/translation:
Abridged from Aucassin and Nicolette and Other Medieval Romances and Tales, trans. Eugene Mason, New York, Dutton, 1958, pp. 30-35. Original text: Aucassin et Nicolette, ed./[Modern French] trans. Jean Dufournet, Paris, Garnier-Flammarion, 1973.

About the performer/ensemble:
Jenn Jordan is an undergraduate student in the College of Arts and Science at New York University, majoring in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (2003).

About the production:
This performance was created as part of an Independent Study with Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz in fall 2003. The clip comes from a performance that took place in November 2003 at the Maison Francaise of New York University at a Roundtable on “New Perspectives on Medieval Narrative,” sponsored by the Colloquium on Orality, Writing and Culture, co-convenors Prof. Nancy Freeman Regalado and Prof. Vitz. The performance was videoed by NYU-TV.