Two Leaves from the Roman de la Rose, 14th century, Which Defined Love and Literature in the Western World

This work takes its place on the lineage of great early works, along with the Arthurian tales

 

These are exceptionally early witnesses to this most important literary text, the most popular secular work of the entire Middle Ages

 

Appearances of this seminal text are uncommon, only a handful having reached the market in decades

 

Linguistic variations suggest a non-Parisian scribe; evidence of re-use in the 17th century from manuscript markings

The influence of the Old French allegorical poem, the Roman de la Rose, ripples through the Middle Ages into the Renaissance even into Modernity, attracting the attention, and inspiring the works, of Chaucer, Dante, and C. S. Lewis. Lewis even stated that in cultural importance it ranks second to none except the Bible and the Consolation of Philosophy (Allegory of Love, 1936, p. 157).

The Roman de la Rose, according to Lewis, was an important step in the development of Western literature and thought. He wrote, in the above work, “We have seen how… in the hands of a great poet, the Arthurian story, treated in terms of courtly love, produced the first notable examples of psychological or sentimental’ fiction… The radical defect in Chrétien’s poetry is that these two kinds of interest lie side by side in it without being really fused. The emotions of Lancelot and Guinevere are not really illustrated, save in a very shallow sense, by their adventures; their adventures are not really explained by their emotions.”

This defect of emotional appeal, of the primacy of love, is rectified, per Lewis, in Roman de la Rose. “But the whole truth about Guillaume (author of the Roman) is missed until we see that he is more of a realist than Chrétien (Chretien de Troyes, fl. c. 1160–1191, was the author of some of the fundamental texts of Arthurian lore). Of the two things that he found in Chrétien it was the fantastic that he rejected and the natural that he used.”

The great success, then, of the Roman de la Rose, was fairly novel use of allegory to highlight the emotional journey of love as it would have appeared to someone at that time and in a courtly setting.

Summary of the Romance of the Rose:

In 1230, Guillaume de Lorris began the dream-vision poem, a first-person narrative describing the efforts of a young man, stricken by the arrows of the God of Love, to obtain his beloved, the Rose. Guillaume’s Amant (Lover) wished to tell the reader all that he knew of love, and the poem describes a dream in which Amant is taken by Oiseuse (Leisure) into a pleasure garden where he meets the allegorical figures of Deduiz (Pleasure), Deliz (Delight), Cupid and others, finally catching sight of and falling in love with the Rose. He is held back by the figures of Dangier (Danger), Honte (Shame), Mal Bouche (Scandal), and Jalousie (Jealousy) who imprison the Rose in a castle after Amant attains a kiss from the Rose.

Death claimed Guillaume before he was able to conclude his work. He is only remembered to us through a mention by the poem’s successive author, Jean de Meun, a friend of Dante, who resumed the poem around 1275, adding around 17,700 more lines to the approximately 4,000 extant lines. There are therefore 2 authors for this same work, separately themselves by a relatively great span of time, each with his own milieu and sensibilities.

Both authors use the allegory to examine philosophical cruces emerging in the 13th century, through scholasticism, such as free will and determinism, optics, and the adjusting social orders which put mendicant friars in positions of increasing power. However, Jean’s vision for how the Lover relates to his beloved— what he is prepared to do— diverges from Guillaume’s.

Jean provides a mirror for the turn from chivalric romances and courtly love which guided Guillaume. Jean’s social and political commentary sees the Lover deceiving and achieving the Rose in a way that that shifts away from the idealized and innocent sensuality of the first part of the poem to a biting satire on contemporary society blended with an overt realization of sexuality. Jean’s Amant makes war on the castle, debates with Reson (Reason), Nature and Genius, and finally enters the inner chamber of the Rose. His advice to the lover includes sections on how a man should keep his mistress (study the arts, ignore any infidelities, offer flattery but never advice) and how a lady might keep her male lover (use false hair, make up and perfume, avoid getting so drunk you fall asleep at dinner, only have intercourse in the dark to hide imperfections of the body, and avoid poor men and foreigners – except very rich ones).

The Manuscript & the Manuscript Tradition:

Manuscript scholars have attempted to calculate the survival rate of medieval texts. Usually this calculation is done by comparing the catalogues of library books with known copies. Earlier in 2022, a team at the University of Antwerp has applied statistical principals usually used for tracking wildlife to estimate that approximately 9% of medieval manuscripts have survived to present day.

Johns Hopkins University and the Bibliotheque nationale de France have listed 324 known manuscript copies of the Roman de la Rose from the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, exceeding the number of manuscripts of the works of Dante and Chaucer. With the suggestion of an original 3,600 copies of the Roman de la Rose, based on the 9% survival rate, we are looking at what remains of a medieval best-seller. Yet few of these reach the market.

Medieval manuscript poem, 14th century France, consisting of 2 double-sided folia from the Roman de la Rose, from key sections of this great manuscript (see “further details” below for a detailed entry and the Johns Hopkins system of categorization).  There are manuscripts notations from use in the 17th century, likely as binding.

This fragment opens with Friend’s advice to the lover to guard that Scandal doesn’t see him approach the castle where the Rose is kept. If the lover is spotted by Scandal, he should not show hatred or rancor towards him (‘de hayne ne de racune’), because “a wise man covers his bad humour… those who deceive deceivers do a good deed and all lovers, at least the wise ones, should do so” (‘sages hommes son maul talent ceuvre… cil fet bone euvre qi les decheveeurs decoivent…faire le doivent tretuit amans, au mains li sage.” The scribe of this text has stricken through a line of his text, “si sachies que cil fet bone euvre,” which he was a repeat of two lines above. Jean de Meun’s jaded narrative has Friend giving the lover the advice to “serve and honor” Scandal and all his lineage (’tout son lignage’), because it is “no sin to trick those who are tainted by trickery,” (‘De ceus bouler nes pas pechies qi de bouler sont entechies’). And Scandal is, indeed, a boulierre, a trickster. Friend goes on to explain the shameful tricks that Scandal’s bad mouth plays on men to steal— money and reputation. Friend warns that Old Woman and Jealousy also guard Bel Acueil (Warm Welcome), the lover’s companion who has also been taken into the castle. Through false courtesy, bribes, and weeping— even false weeping— will be needed for Amans to make his way through the castle.

At this point the fragment breaks off and resumes nearly a thousand lines later. The break in lines from one folio to the next, from lines 7301-7379 to 8415-8575, occurs because of the way the book was put together. Large leaves of vellum were folded in half to create bifolia, which were in turn nested into one another to create gathering of folios (or pages in a modern sense). Since the folded bifolia were still attached a loose bifolia will contain text that jumps from one folio to the next. This is to say that the text on a bifolium will not follow sequentially unless it is the very center of the quire.

We reenter the narrative as Friend is telling of an idyllic time which slides slowly towards Jean de Meun’s cynicism, but also with a great statement of the primary of love over earthly, physical power and domination — “No king or prince had yet committed any crime by robbing and seizing from another. All were accustom to being equal, and no one wanted any possessions of his own. They knew well the saying, neither lying nor foolish, that love and lordship never kept each other company nor dwelth together. The one that dominates separates them” (“N’encor n’avoit fet roy ne price, Meifet qui lautrui tout et pinche, Testuit pareil estre souloient, Ne riens propre avoir ne vouloient. Bien savoient ceste parole, Qui nest mencongiere ne fole, Conques amour et seignourie, Ne sentrefirent compaignie, Ne ne demourerent [pas] ensemble: Cil qui mestrie les dessemble’). Immediately following this, the relationships between a jealous husband and frivolous wife is examined. Jealousy laments his own marriage and the bygone days of women, like the Grecian Penelope of Homer’s Odyssey,a who waited loyally on Odysseus’s return.

A Note on the Rarity:

The text is far from common on the market, with the vast Schoenberg database listing only ten codices appearing at auction since the 1970s, and only three of those of the fourteenth century: Christies’, 7 June 2006, lots 23 and 31 (once Phillipps MS. 2838 and 4185, now both Senshu University, Japan); and another in the same rooms, 9 July 2001, lot 12; Sotheby’s, 17 June 1997, lot 6 (once Phillipps MS. 129); Drouot, 16 December 1994, lot 1; another in the same rooms, 9 December 1992, lot 371; Ader Picard Tajan in Paris, 16 September 1988, lot 152 (this previously in Sotheby’s, New York, sale of Carleton Richmond’s library in 1981); the Astor copy sold in Sotheby’s, 21 June 1988 (then Beck collection and stolen); Christie’s, 25 June 1980, lot 232 (once Phillipps MS. 4357, now in the Ferrell collection); another sold in Ader Picard Tajan in Paris, 20 May 1980, lot 60; and that sold in Sotheby’s, 13 July 1977, lot 48, to Peter Ludwig and thence to the Getty Museum. Fragments seem to come to the market even less frequently, with the last examples in Christie’s, 30 May 1984, lot 200 (a small miniature trimmed to its edges, from a manuscript of the second half of the fourteenth century); Alde Libraire Giraud Badin, 8 June 2012 (a fourteenth-century leaf most probably the missing first leaf of Columbia University, Plimpton MS. 284); and two fifteenth-century bifolia recovered from bindings, sold through Dreweatt’s, 6 July 2017, lots 34 and 35.

The Scribe and His France:

While the parent manuscript of the present leaves was probably a Parisian product and made for an aristocratic audience in the early 14th century, the scribe of the manuscript probably came from farther afield than the Île-de-France.

Comparing the paleographic style, the manuscript is similar to a manuscript at Oxford, Bodleian MS Selden Supra 57, composed in 1348 in Paris, arriving in the Bodleian Library in 1659. However, a comparison of a sampling of 10 lines from both manuscripts reveals an interesting linguistic difference between the Parisian manuscript and the fragments here.

Lines 7307-7316, Selden Sura 57 on left, fragment on right, with differences in bold.

Nene fetes chiere neisune/ ne faites chiere neysune

De haine ne de rancune;/ de hayne ne de rancune ;

Et se vous ailleurs l’encontrez,/et se vous ailleurs lencontres,

Nul mautalent ne li montrez:/nul mautalent ne li monstres :

Sages hons son mautalent cueure,/ sages hommes son mautalent ceuvre,

Si sachiez que cil font bonne eure/ si sachies que cil fet bone euvre

Qui les deceveours decovient;/ qi les decheveeurs decoivent;

Sachiez ainsi fere le doivent/ sachies qu’ainssi faire le doivent

Trestuit amant, au mainz li sage./ tretuit amans, au mains li sage.

Male Bouche et tout son linage,/ Male Bouche et tout son lignage,

We can examine another stylistically manuscript from Central France, likely Paris, in the 4th quarter of the 14th century, London, British Library MS Add. 42133.

Lines 7307-7316: Add. 4233 (left), Selden Sura 57 (middle), fragment (right), with differences in bold.

Nene fetes chiere nisune/ Nene fetes chiere neisune/ ne faites chiere neysune

De hayne ne de racune/ De haine ne de rancune;/ de hayne ne de rancune ;

Et se vous ailleurs lencontrez/Et se vous ailleurs l’encontrez,/et se vous ailleurs lencontres,

Nul maltalent ne li monstrez/ Nul mautalent ne li montrez:/nul mautalent ne li monstres :

Sages hommes son maltalent cueure/ Sages hons son mautalent cueure,/ sages hommes son mautalent ceuvre,

Si sachiez que cil font bonne oeure/Si sachiez que cil font bonne eure/ si sachies que cil fet bone euvre

Qi les deceveurs decoivent/ Qui les deceveours decovient;/ qi les decheveeurs decoivent;

Sachiez quainsi fere le doivent/ Sachiez ainsi fere le doivent/ sachies qu’ainssi faire le doivent

Tretuit amant au mains lo sage/ Trestuit amant, au mainz li sage./ tretuit amans, au mains li sage.

Male Bouche et tout son linguage/ Male Bouche et tout son linage,/ Male Bouche et tout son lignage,

Comparing the fragment of the Rose with the other dated and located copies of the same text invites out the linguistic diversity of Old French (the pre-Modern French in use from the 8th to 14th centuries). “Old French” is somewhat of an umbrella term, housing the attested dialects that comprised the linguistic landscape of the Francophone region. The French spoken in the Paris region at this time is known as Francien, in Champagne it is Champeniose, Picard is Picardie, Normans spoke Normand, and the French of England is often called Anglo-Normand. These are only a sampling from the five linguistically distinct regions in the overarching region of langue d’oil France (roughly, the distinction between Northern France, where they say oui for yes, and Southern France where they say oc for yes). A simplified map of the langues de oil are represented below:

While some differences in the orthography of the Rose texts can be due to the lack of standardization in spelling in this period, the differences can help us better understand the most likely profile of the scribe, and can likely rule out a Parisian scribe who would have been native in the Francien-dialect. We begin to suspect that the scribe of these fragments was more likely to have come from a region outside of Paris. The data suggests Hainaut, Orleans, Indre-et-Loire, or Ardennes as likely regions with overlap of the linguistic features. Two of these areas, Hainaut and Ardennes, are geographically close, north and northeast of Paris, while Indre-et-Loire and Orleans are further southwest from Paris.

Though inconclusive, we can begin to paint a picture of our writer: a talented scribe arriving in Paris and adapting the Parisian style of writing but never losing his regional flare, or maybe he was commissioned by a family of one of these areas and was delighted for the opportunity to produce a manuscript in his own dialect rather than Francien.

Further details:

Jean de Meun section of Roman de la Rose, in Old French with regional features from outside of Paris, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France, mid-fourteenth century] Two large leaves, each with double column of 40 lines of an early gothic French vernacular hand (with lines 7301-7379 and 8415-8575 of the poem), with one-line initials offset in margins, 2-line initials in gold on blue and dark-pink grounds heightened with white penwork), but with an apparent quire signature “VII'” at foot of verso of second leaf, recovered from an account book binding (that dated “1622” and “1623”), and so with some stains, cockled areas, later scrawls, discoloration to outer surfaces of that binding and holes, but overall in good and presentable condition, each leaf approximately 330 by 225mm. (written space 226 by 167mm.) These are exceptionally early witnesses to this most important literary text, the most popular secular work of the entire Middle Ages.  Manuscript notations from use in the 17th century, likely as binding.

Provenance: Recently discovered in an American collection.

Johns Hopkins Standardized Section Headings:

Folio 1

1. Amans (Lover) and Amis (Friend) discuss the situation, Amis assuring Amans that the situation is not desperate; no prison can hold Bel Acueil (Warm Welcome) once he has awarded Amans a kiss (J3b, 1-99, Lines 7204-7302)

2. Amis counsels Amans to play nice with Male Bouche (Slander) (J3c, 1-66, 7303-7368

3. Amis counsels Amans to be sweet to Vielle (Old Woman) and Jalousie (J3d, 1-32, 7369-7400)

Folio 2:

1. Amis (Friend) observes that things have not always been so; during the golden age, love was sincere and loyal, not rapacious (J3o, 1-96, lines 8323-8418)

2. Amis interrupts himself to note that love is incompatible with domination, beginning an account of a jealous husband, Jalous (Jealousy) (J3p, 1-18, 8419-8436)

3. Amis, in the voice of the husband, berates his wife for carrying on when he goes off on business and for paying attention to young men (J3q, 1-94, 8437-8530)

4. Jalous laments that he should have followed the advice of Theofrastus and never married: whether a women is ugly or beautiful, she will betray her husband (J3r, 1-42 , 8531-8572)

5. All women can be seduced; women like Penelope or Lucrece no longer exist (J3s, 1-72, 8573-8656)
See Also:

Price, Michael, “‘Lost’ Medieval Literature Uncovered by Techniques Used to Track Wildlife,” Science, Feb. 17. 2022

Solly, Meilan, “How Much Medieval Literature Has Been Lost Over the Centuries,” The Smithsonian, March 8, 2022