Fabliaux et Contes du Moyen Âge 1913/Preface
The rise of feudalism, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, called forth a vast literature of epic poetry, which wandering minstrels sang, or chanted, to the simple accompaniment of some stringed instrument, fiddle or harp, before the knightly audience of the mediæval castle. It may be taken for granted, however, that after listening intently to the high deeds of Charlemagne, or King Arthur, or Alexander the Great, and their respective train of heroes, the lord of the castle and his household would welcome as a diversion some narrative in a lighter vein — even to-day no miscellaneous concert is complete without a couple of items from a « comic » singer or « humorist, » who too often proves the real hit and success of the evening — and it is only natural to suppose that every minstrel had a good store of jokes and funny tales with which to wind up the evening’s entertainment, and also, no doubt, to amuse the men, over their mead and wine, after the ladies had retired from the hall.
Of the « good stories » that were told hi France, in the thirteenth century, there have been preserved over one hundred and fifty, nearly all of which are in verse, generally in lines of eight syllables. These fableaux, or fabliaux as they were called in the Picardy dialect, were collected and retold in prose, at the end of the eighteenth century, by a French scholar, Legrand d’Aussy, who died in 1800. And quite recently, M. L. Tarsot, Chef de Bureau au Ministère de l’Instruction publique, in Paris, who has devoted much of the spare time of a busy life to the preparation of story books, made a choice of some of the best of these fabliaux, and adapted them for juvenile readers. It is M. Tarsot’s text, together with his delightful Introduction, which are given here ; for permission to reprint these, thanks are due both to him and to his publisher, M. Henri Laurens, who has also granted the right of reproduction of a number of the illustrations by M. A. Robida, one of the best known French black-and-white artists.
What was the origin of those tales, so popular throughout mediæval Europe ? Many of them seem to have come from the East. A thousand years B.C., in a less humorous and more didactic form, some of these stories were well known in India. They passed into Europe at or before the time of the Crusades, through Syria, Persia and Byzantium, and the Arabs also imported them into Spain. In Europe they became transformed, Christianised, adapted to the temper and sympathies of the Western races, but without entirely losing their identity. Others originated in Europe, in France itself, and were directly due to the fertile imagination of the Celtic and Latin races, or were founded on some incident of real life, while a few appear as stray offshoots of the epic literature of the period (e.g. La Mule sans Frein).
What poets, what trouvères, did them into rhyme and gave them a permanent form, we can hardly tell ; the fabliaux reproduced here are anonymous, with the exception of Le Convoiteux et l’Envieux, Le Bourgeois d’Abbeville, and Le Lai du Palefroi vair, the authors of which were Jean Bedel, Bernier and Huon le Roi respectively, and of these authors all that we know is their names. They were probably either trouvères or jongleurs, two classes of men between which some distinction must however be made. The trouvères were for the most part men of gentle birth, but of small means, whose talent for poetry made them welcome guests at the court and in the castles of the more powerful and wealthy nobles. Some were in holy orders, and a few seem to have belonged to the bourgeoisie. Their poems were sung by itinerant musicians called jongleurs, or « jugglers » (Lat. ioculatores, « jesters » or « jokers » ), who travelled from castle to castle, receiving generous presents of money, jewellery, fine linen or cloth, and who seem, on the whole, to have formed a fairly prosperous corporation. They frequently boasted high-sounding and martial names, such as Break-head, Kill-ox, Cut-rib or Cut-iron, and it is worthy of remark that it may be one of these who first assumed the name, and founded the family of Shake-spear.
The jongleur usually sang or chanted in a species of monotone, to the accompaniment of a rude viol or fiddle which he held in an upright position, and occasionally, if he were a man of importance, he would have a harpist and a fiddler with him. After entertaining the audience in the hall to a mixed programme, he would condescend to repeat his more homely and more mirth-provoking tales « below stairs, » and on a Sunday afternoon, in the square between the church and the village oven, would amuse the people with stories of Reynard the Fox and Isengrim the Wolf, with mock sermons, and with those countless satirical skits and more or less moral tales called fabliaux.
Intended largely for the people, and dealing mainly with the people — though the nobility and clergy are not spared — these fabliaux are interesting chiefly because they depict the real life of their time ; as we read we behold the sturdy beggar on the road, the well-to-do student riding home from the university, the judge settling a lawsuit, the peasant driving his horse to the fair, or killing his pig — then as now an event of importance — the king’s tailors getting a treat of honey, in days when sugar was unknown, the aged and helpless father at the mercy of an undutiful son, the husband taming a shrewish wife, youthful lovers stealing an interview at the postern gate. We learn how our forefathers lived, and how little human nature has changed notwithstanding the marvels of modern civilisation ; lastly we stand at the fountain-head of that esprit gaulois, of that satirical spirit of free-spoken jocularity which has ever been one of the distinctive traits of the French genius.
Edinburgh, December 1913.