Month: March 2020

In northern France in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, men and women poet-singers known as trouvères composed lyric debates. This type of song, called the jeu-parti, involved two voices defending in alternate stanzas alternate responses to a question set out for debate in the first stanza.[1] Jeux-partis involving women trouvères depict significant aspects of women’s privilege in medieval France.

Like most women today, women trouvères in medieval France rarely assumed the emotional risk of soliciting an amorous relationship. A jeu-parti between Dame Margot and Dame Marote debates a case involving a woman and man who love each other dearly. The man dares not declare his desire to the women. The debate question is whether the woman should assume a man’s typical burden and declare her love to him. Dame Margot argues against the woman taking the initiative to establish an amorous relationship. Dame Marote argues for the woman taking the initiative.

In their arguments, both Dame Margot and Dame Marote recognize women’s privilege in relation to men. Dame Marote declares that “she should not be proud {pas ne doit cele estre fiere},” as if a woman telling a man that she loves him in some way injures her pride and lowers her worth. Dame Margot counters Dame Marote’s position, but confirms women’s privilege:

You are not heading the right way,
Dame Marote, I believe.
A lady makes a grave mistake in courting
her beloved first. Why
should she thus demean herself?
If he lacks courage,
I do not think it proper
that she should then solicit his love.
She should rather conceal her feelings
and suffer love’s pains
without ever disclosing them,
because a woman should have such high merit
that no word would come from her
that could diminish her worth.

{ Vous n’ales pa droite voie,
Dame Marote, je croi.
Trop mesprent dame ki proie
Son ami avant. Pour koi
S’aveilleroit elle si?
Se cil a le cuer falli,
Ne di jou pas k’il afiere
Por ce k’ele le reqiere,
Ains s’en doit chovrir
Et les fais d’Amours soufrir
Sans ja fiare percevoir;
Kar feme doit tant valoir
Que n’en doit parole issir
Ki son pris puist amenrir. } [2]

Underscoring that women equally sharing men’s burdens is inconceivable to gynocentric reason, Dame Marote argues that true love should make a woman act insane. While a sane woman would retain women’s privilege, a woman insane with love would take the initiative to solicit an amorous relationship. Dame Marote concludes:

Better it is to live in joy
for having pleaded than now to languish
for having been silent and then die.

{ Miex vient en joie manoir
Par proier q’adés langir
Par trop taire et puis morir. }

Dame Marote’s point seems indisputable. Yet many women today would rather be coerced into a having an abortion or even die rather than relinquish their gynocentric privilege.

Another jeu-parti between two women trouvères debates women’s preference regarding how men bear the burden of soliciting an amorous relationship. In this case, two knights both love one woman. One knight seeks to communicate his love through the woman’s friends. The other declares his love to her directly. According to women’s preference, which knight behaves better? One woman trouvère argues that a man who directly declares his love to her would make her seem shameful and weak. The other woman trouvère disputes that claim:

Sister, you are in error,
of that I do not doubt in the least.
When this one tenderly
humbles himself before you
and requests your loyalty,
you feel contempt for him.

{ Suer, vous estes en errout,
Je ne m’an dout mie.
Cant celui par sa dousor
Ver vous s’umelie
Et vos requiert loialteit,
Vos lou teneis an vitei. } [3]

As if that would justify him soliciting her love, the man humbles himself before the woman. In actuality, if he approached her as an arrogant jerk, she would more likely feel her loins tingle. Men must be learned enough to reject women’s privilege in prescribing how men should behave.

Women’s privilege prompts women to look down on men as if men were inferior human beings afflicted with “toxic masculinity.” A jeu-parti between two women trouvères debates whether a woman should allow a man to declare his love to her. One woman trouvère proposes listening to the man. College administrators evaluating sexual assault charges today generally reject the practice of listening to an accused man. But this medieval woman argues:

By listening to him you will be able to decide
if it pleases you to accept him or refuse him,
and you will know if he speaks wisely or foolishly.

{ Qu’en lui oiant porrez vous bien eslire
Se il vous plaist l’otroi ou le desdire,
Et si savrez s’il dist sens our folour. } [4]

What could be wrong with listening to a man? At least with respect to men, everyone isn’t required to listen and believe. Yet the other woman trouvère vehemently argues against even just listening to a man:

a woman should really not
listen to a man; she should rather fear
being seduced by the words she hears.
For men are consummate flatterers
and their arguments they so beautifully describe
that simply by listening to them she could well agree
to something that would quickly dishonor her.

{ fame ne doit mie
Home escouter, ains doit avoit paour
Qu’ele ne soit a l’oir engignie,
Quar home sont trop grant losengeour
Et leur raisons sevent tant bel descrire
Qu’en eulz oiant puet a cele souffire
Chose dont tost cherroit en deshonour. }

For women’s safety men must not be allowed to speak. That such ridiculous claims about women’s safety are taken seriously exemplifies women’s privilege.

Medieval scholars have recognized that these women-exclusive jeux-partis closely engage relational reality. One eminent medieval scholar observed:

it is the practical, level-headed outlook of both {women} speakers, calculating the respective roles of the emotions and social niceties, which is notable. Even if these debates are about questions of love, they are not romantic, or erotic, lyrics. … The jeux-partis were among the games devised for that {mixed-sex castle} hall, diverstissements of a society that thought such topics up in order to amuse as well as wittily to provoke. Yet the range and subtlety of emotion and argument that we glimpse in some of the debates involving women suggest something more. Here were poets who, even if they lived lightly — at least in the imagination — could also reflect searchingly. [5]

One doesn’t need to reflect searchingly to recognize women’s privilege in the jeux-partis involving women. Two knights seek one woman’s love. One is rich and worthy, the other is wise and worthy. Which man should the woman choose? A woman again has the choice of two knights. One extensively offers his warrior skills in knightly combat. The other generously shares his money and goods. Which man should the woman choose? Between an arrogant knight and a quarrelsome knight, which man should a woman choose?[6] Men’s choices are much more narrow than women’s choices. Men are burdened with responsibilities while women are privileged with choices.

At least medieval women recognized women’s privilege and men’s hardships. Regarding men’s sexual labor for women, one woman trouvère frankly observes:

You know full well that back pain sets in
that keeps old men from laboring as long.
Beyond the age of forty, he does nothing but decline;
he is then hardly suited to partake in pleasure.

{ You saveis bien ke li maus tient en rains,
Dont li vielars an sont ovriers dou moins;
Puis .xl. ans ne fait hons fors c’aleir,
Pou vaut on puis por deduit demeneir. } [7]

Men’s sexual service to women is a matter of life and death, yet it’s often undervalued, disparaged, and criminalized. Men deserve more choices in how they sexually serve women. Men deserve reproductive freedom. Women’s special privilege must end. Women and men must share equally privileges and hardships.[8]

*  *  *  *  *

Read more:

• misdirected chivalry in Guillelma de Rosers & Lanfranc Cigala’s tenso
• medieval wife’s sexual entitlement banged against her husband’s love
• women competing with men prompts men’s self-abasement & weakness

Notes:

[1] Jeux-parti typically have six stanzas. The final stanza often appeals to an external judge for a decision regarding the winning position. For extensive discussion of the historical definition of jeu-parti, Mason (2018) Ch. 1. Debate poems in Old Occitan are known as tensos or partimens.

Trouvères composed and performed jeux-partis primarily in Arras in northern France in the thirteenth century. Arras was a center of commercial trade and artistic activity. The trouvères of Arras were associated with the literary academia Puy d’Arras. On Arras in relation to jeux-partis, Barker (2013) pp. 6-9, 52. About 175 jeux-partis have survived, 60% of which come from Arras. Doss-Quinby et al. (2001) p. 73  (total number 182), Barker (2013) p. 4 (total number 170), p. 52, n. 92 (Arras share 60%, citing Symes estimate).

Most surviving jeux-partis involve only men trouvères. Mason (2018) p. 298. Jeux-partis in which women trouvères participate as debaters have survived mainly in the Oxford Chansonnier (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 308), known by the siglum I.

Jeux-partis could be aggressive contests, but such symbolic violence has far different effects on human lives than does actual violence. In medieval Europe, elite men had a life expectancy nine years less than that of women. Medieval literature depicts horrific violence against men. The enormous masculine gender protrusion in suffering violent injury and death reflects in part women’s privilege.

Literary scholars have tended to ignore and trivialize the reality of violence against men. Mason’s thesis, for example, shows no awareness of the actual gendered facts about violent victimization. In accordance with prevailing academic fashion, Mason suggests violence against men is about misogyny and the exclusion of women:

In applying the metaphor of single combat to the jeu-parti, Jeanroy, Fiset and Nicod invoked the homosociality of combat prevalent in Europe before the First World War. The paradigm of the duel is demonstrably at work in the ‘footnote quarrels’ of German and French musicologists at the start of the twentieth century, whose blows and counterblows in their retaliatory publications and footnotes are reminiscent of verbal sparring. Jeanroy, Fiset and Nicod defined the jeu-parti as a combative, robustly masculine genre, in which poetic skill could be equated with bravura and violence. The misogyny of late romantic duellers could map neatly onto the subject of many dilemma questions in jeux-partis: how best to please one’s Lady. In defining the genre in this way, women were excluded as possible interlocutors and, as a result, the genre has since been treated as principally masculine.

Mason (2018) p. 54. Women, including during the First World War, have played a important role in promoting violence against men. Men and women scholars should show more love for men and less eagerness to please “the Lady.”

[2] Dame Margot & Dame Maroie, Jeu-parti, “I entreat you, Lady Maroie {Je vous pri, dame Maroie}” st. 3 (vv. 29-42), Old French text (Picard dialect) and English translation (with my modifications to follow the Old French more closely) from Doss-Quinby et al. (2001) p. 76. Within this jeu-parti, Dame Maroie is subsequently called Dame Marote. I use the latter name consistently above. The previous short quote above is similarly from v. 22; the subsequent quote above is vv. 82-4 (ending stanza 6 of 6). Here’s a performance of “Je vous pri, dame Maroie” by Musiktheater Dingo (2012).

Many women today have never contacted an man, expressed amorous interest in him, and invited him to dinner and evening entertainment, with the clear understanding that she would pay for the cost of the whole evening. Of course the man for a variety of reason might reject the woman’s proposal. Most men have many times had the experience of paying for dates and being romantically rejected. Today is long past the time for women to share that experience equally.

[3] Lorete & Suer, Jeu-parti, “Lorete, sister, in the name of love {Lorete, suer, par amor}” vv. 57-62 (from st. 5 of 5), Old French text (Lorraine dialect) and English translation (with my modifications) from Doss-Quinby et al. (2001) p. 80. This jeu-parti survives only in the Oxford Chansonnier. The 26 jeux-partis in that chansonnier have been dated to 1310. Barker (2013) p. 43.

[4] Sainte des Prez & Dame de la Chaucie, Jeu-parti, “What shall I do, Lady of Chaucie {Que ferai je, dame de la Chaucie},” vv. 12-4 (from st. 2 of 5), Old French text (Lorraine dialect) and English translation (with my modifications) from Doss-Quinby et al. (2001) p. 81. The subsequent quote above is similarly from id. vv. 15-21 (in st. 3).

The woman trouvère who opposes the man making known his love through the woman’s friends figures a man acting that way as being like Renart the Fox:

he is Renart the Fox,
who pursues his intrigue until he has seized his prey.

{ s’est Renars li Werpis,
Ke quiert ses tors tant ke il soit saixis. }

Id. vv. 64-5. The man trobairitz Pèire de Bossinhac in his song “Quan lo dous temps d’abril” uses Renart as a figure of being shrewdly vengeful. See note [7] in my post on medieval women’s strong, independent sexuality.

[5] Dronke (2007) pp. 330, 335. Dronke concludes with flattery for gynocentric authority:

And it certainly looks as if some of these poets — perhaps indeed, the most perceptive of them — were themselves women.

Id. p. 335. Similarly conforming to academic orthodoxy, Barker concludes her chapter on women’s desire with gynocentric panegyric: “these feminine voices are able to carve out space in which they resist the pressure to conform.” Barker (2013) p. 313.

[6] The four jeux-parti described in the above paragraph (in order of description above, with page citations in Quinby et al. (2001) are: Dame & Rolant de Reims, “Advise me, Rolant, I entreat you {Concilliés moi, Rolan, je vous an pri},” pp. 87-8; Dame & Rolant de Reims, “Dear lady, do respond {Douce dame, respondex},” pp. 89-1; Dame & Rolant de Reims, “Dear lady, I would gladly {Douce dame, volantiers},” pp. 92-4; and Dame & Perrot de Beaumarchais, “Dear lady, let this one be your call {Douce dame, ce soit en vos nomer},” pp. 97-8.

[7] Dame & Sire, Jeu-parti, “Tell me, lady, who has better discharged his debt {Dites, dame, li keilz s’aquitait muelz},” vv. 29-32 (from st. 4 of 5), Old French text (Lorraine dialect) and English translation (with my modifications) from Doss-Quinby et al. (2001) p. 104.

[8] The term “women’s privilege is preferable to “female privilege.” Infants in laughing, crying, pooping, sleeping, etc., typically do not act with gender privilege. Gender privilege emerges through human development. Brothers and sisters as children, however, can experience analogues of women’s privilege. Consider, for example, the childhood experience of U.S. politician Joe Biden:

According to Biden’s own words his sister regularly beat him in his childhood and adolescence. “And I have the bruises to prove it,” he said, at a senate hearing on violence against women, December 11, 1990. To make sure the audience knew this wasn’t a joke, he added, “I mean that sincerely. I am not exaggerating when I say that.”
…
In Biden’s brief tell-all, he acknowledged that the beatings he received were condoned and sanctioned by his parents, and that he was prevented from defending himself; That he was literally, in fact, powerless to make the abuse stop.

“In my house,” he stated, “being raised with a sister and three brothers, there was an absolute. It was a nuclear sanction, if under any circumstances, for any reason –even self defense– you ever touched your sister, not figuratively, literally.”

“My sister, who is my best friend, my campaign manager, my confidante,” he continued, “grew up with absolute impunity in our household.”

From Elam (2010). While such behavior should be a matter of serious social concern, “women’s privilege” seems to me nonetheless a more reasonable term than “female privilege.”

[image] Women occupying the castle of love from above assail men confined outside the castle and besieging it. Excerpt from design on a side panel of an elephant ivory coffret made in Paris between 1310 and 1330. Preserved as accession # 17.190.173a, b; 1988.16 in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City, USA). Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917; The Cloisters Collection, 1988. Image derived from an image that the Metropolitan Museum has made available under a public spirited public domain dedication (CCO license).

References:

Barker, Camilla. 2013. Dialogue and Dialectic in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Occitan and Old French Courtly Lyric and Narrative. Ph.D. Thesis, King’s College, London.

Doss-Quinby, Eglal, Joan Tasker Grimbert, Wendy Pfeffer, and Elizabeth Aubery. 2001. Songs of the Women Trouvères. New Haven: Yale University Press. (review by Carol Symes)

Dronke, Peter. 2007. “Women’s Debates in Medieval French Lyric.” Ch. 18 (pp. 323-336) in Dronke, Peter. Forms and Imaginings: from antiquity to the fifteenth century. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.

Elam, Paul. 2010. “VAWA — Corrupt Law and Joe Biden’s Abusive Sister.” A Voice For Men. Online.

Mason, Joseph W. 2018. Melodic Exchange and Musical Violence in the Thirteenth-Century jeu-parti. D. Phil. Thesis, Faculty of Music Lincoln College, Oxford.

After a battle in Ireland in 649, Créide, the daughter of the king of Aidne, lamented the killing of a man who had helped her father in the fight. She had fallen in love with this fallen warrior:

And they the arrows that murder sleep,
at every hour of the cold night,
are love-lamenting, for time spent with
him from beside the land of Roigne.
…
Tormented is my kindly heart,
holy Christ, by his grievous death —
and they the arrows that murder sleep,
at every hour of the cold night.

{ It é saigte gona súain,
cech trátha i n-aidchi adúair
serccoí, lia gnása, iar ndé
fir a tóeb thíre Roigne.
…
Cráidid mo chride cainech,
a Chríst cáid, a foraided;
It é saigte gona súain,
cech trátha i n-aidchi adúair. } [1]

This poem implicitly contrasts the warm joy of a woman sleeping with her beloved man to the horror of her sleeping with the cold nightmare of his grievous death. That nightmare envelops her imagination of loving him. Yet that nightmare had an underlying reality. His death was no violence-induced fantasy.

War historically has been almost exclusively structured as men killing other men. For most of history, most women have sincerely loved men and cared greatly about men’s deaths. Yet today, many men feel as if their lives don’t matter. Governments treat fathers as wallets and draft men as cannon fodder for senseless wars. Changing that oppressive, unequal gender structure begins with truthfully acknowledging a fundamental problem: the devaluation of men’s lives.

Men’s courage in battle shouldn’t be understood to devalue men’s lives. When the Christian Roman Emperor Louis the Pious died in 840, his sons contended with each other for succession to their father’s throne.[2] Efforts to settle their dispute peacefully failed. The brothers and their supporters then fought a brutal battle at Fontenoy on June 25, 841. That was a Saturday, “Saturn’s Day {Saturni dies}” in the Roman calendar. The poet Angelbert wrote:

I grieve, for it was not the Sabbath day, but Saturn’s day;
the wicked demon rejoices in the breaking of peace among brothers.

{ Sabbati non illud fuit, sed Saturni doleo,
de fraterna rupta pace gaudet demon impius. } [3]

Saturn was a traditional Greco-Roman god associated with castration culture and child sacrifices. Neither castration culture nor child sacrifices are consistent with the new creation of Christ.

Angelbert condemned the horrific violence against men in the battle at Fontenoy. He wasn’t a poet-moralist condemning from afar the ways of the world. He was a supporter of William the Pious’s eldest son Lothar. Angelbert fought on the front line at Fontenoy:

Fontenoy is what peasants call the water-spring and village
where Frankish blood was shed in slaughter and ruin.
Horror-stricken themselves are fields and woods and marshes.

May neither dew nor showers nor rain fall on that meadow
in which strong men, learned in battles, fell.
Father, brother, mother, sister, and friends wept for them.

And this finished crime, which I have described in verse,
I Angelbert myself witnessed, fighting with the others.
I alone remain of the many on the battle’s front line.

{ Fontaneto fontem dicunt, villam quoque rustice,
ubi strages et ruina Francorum de sanguine.
orrent campi, orrent silve, orrent ipsi paludes.

Gramen illud ros et ymber nec humectet pluvia,
in quo fortes ceciderunt, proelia doctissima,
pater, frater, mater, soror, quos amici fleverant.

Hoc autem scelus peractum, quod descripsi ritmice,
Angelbertus ego vidi pugnansque cum aliis
solus de multis remansi prima frontis acie. } [4]

In contrast to the civilized vitality of water-spring and village, even the basic elements of nature are horrified. Life-giving water should now refuse to infuse the earth.[5] Angelbert saw the field become white with the inner linen garments of men lying dead, their bodies sliced into pieces. Against the ancient epic tradition of battle poetry, Angelbert lamented the suffering and deaths of so many men:

The battle is not worthy of praise, nor of melodious song.
The rising, midday, setting, and darkening sun
should lament for those who died in that disaster.

Cursed be that day, may it not in the year’s circle
be counted, but eradicated from all memory,
not lit by the sun’s splendor, nor by dawn or dusk.

That night and subsequent day, a most terrible night,
that night mixed equally with lament and pain —
here they died, there they groaned in grave distress.

O grief and lamentation! Naked are the dead.
Vultures, crows, and wolves voraciously devour their flesh.
Horror-stricken, lacking burial, helplessly lies the corpse.

The weeping and the wailing I will not describe further.
Let each, as much as one can, restrain tears.
For their souls, let us pray to the Lord.

{ Laude pugna non est digna, nec cantu melodię,
oriens, meridianus, occidens et aquilo
plangant illos qui fuerunt illocasu mortui.

Maledicta dies illa, nec in annis circulo
numeretur, sed radatur ab omni memoria,
iubar solis nec illustret aurore crepusculum.

Nox et sequens diem illam, noxque dira nimium,
nox illa que planctu mixta et dolore pariter,
hic obit et ille gemit cum gravi penuria.

O luctum atque lamentum! Nudati sunt mortui.
Illorum carnes vultur, corvus, lupus vorant acriter;
orrent, carent sepulturis, vane iacet cadaver.

Ploratum et ululatum nec describo amplius,
unusquisque quantum potest restringatque lacrimas;
pro illorum animabus deprecemur Dominum. } [6]

For his lament, Angelbert adapted to rhythmic verse the marching meter that Venantius Fortunatus used in 570 for his triumphant hymn “Sing, tongue, the battle of glorious combat {Pange lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis}.” Moreover, in emphasizing that “most terrible night {noxque dira nimium},” Angelbert calls to mind in contrast the Exsultet of the Christian Easter Vigil:

This is the night
when our forefathers,
sons of Israel, you led out of Egypt,
with dry steeps you made them cross the Red Sea.
…
This is the night
when, having broken the chains of death,
Christ rose victorious from Hell.
…
O truly blessed night,
when earth and heaven,
human and divine, are joined.

{ Haec nox est,
in qua primum patres nostros,
filios Israel eductos de Aegypto,
Mare Rubrum sicco vestigio transire fecisti.
…
Haec nox est,
in qua, destructis vínculis mortis,
Christus ab ínferis victor ascendit.
…
O vere beata nox,
in qua terrenis caelestia,
humanis divina iunguntur. } [7]

From Angelbert’s perspective, the battle of Fontenoy was a disastrous failure of Christian society. He recognized the intrinsic value of men’s lives. Yet Angelbert didn’t directly challenge structures of gender oppression that devalue men’s lives. He concluded with a call for prayer to the Lord.

While some medieval women encouraged men to prove their prowess in deadly violence against men, other medieval women grieved that their beloved men went into battle, especially in far-away wars such as the crusades. Early in the thirteenth century, a woman trouvère probably sang:

I will sing for my heart
that I wish to comfort.
For despite my great distress
I do not wish to die or go mad
when from the savage land
I see no one return,
from where he is who calms
my heart, whenever I hear talk of him.

God, when they shout “Charge!”,
Lord, help the pilgrim
for whom I tremble,
because ruthless are the Saracens.

I will suffer in this state
until I see him come back.
He is on pilgrimage —
God grant that he may return!
And in spite of all my family
I do not seek reason to find
another to make a marriage.
Fools they are whom I hear talk of him.

God, when they shout “Charge!”,
Lord, help the pilgrim
for whom I tremble,
because ruthless are the Saracens.

For in my heart I grieve
that he is not in this land,
the one for whom I am so often tormented:
I have neither pleasure nor laughter.
He is handsome and I am nobly born.
Lord God, why have you done this?
When we desire one another,
why have you parted us?

God, when they shout “Charge!”,
Lord, help the pilgrim
for whom I tremble,
because ruthless are the Saracens.

{ Chanterai por mon corage
Que je vueill reconforter,
Car avec mon grant damage
Ne vueill morir n’afoler,
Quant de la terre sauvage
Ne voi nului retorner,
Ou cil est qui m’assoage
Le cuer, quant j’en oi parler.

Deus, quant crïeront “Outree,”
Sire, aidiez au pelerin
Por qui sui espöentee,
Car felon sunt Sarrazin.

Soufferai mon lonc estaige
Tant que.l voie rapasser.
Il est en pelerinage,
Dont Deus le lait retorner!
Et maugré tot mon lignage
Ne quier ochoison trover
D’autre face mariage;
Folz est qui j’en oi parler!

Deus, quant crïeront “Outree,”
Sire, aidiez au pelerin
Por qui sui espöentee,
Car felon sunt Sarrazin.

De ce sui au cuer dolente
Que cil n’est en cest païs
Qui si sovent me tormente:
Je n’en ai ne gieu ne ris.
Il est biaus et je sui gente.
Sire Deus, por que.l feïs?
Quant l’une a l’autre atalente,
Por coi nos as departis?

Deus, quant crïeront “Outree,”
Sire, aidiez au pelerin
Por qui sui espöentee,
Car felon sunt Sarrazin. } [8]

The woman trouvère’s song focuses on her own grief. It thus reflects the gynocentrism of medieval culture as a whole. Medieval mothers typically influenced strongly their children’s marriage decisions.[9] Despite such pressure to marry another, this woman remained loyal to her beloved man. She felt sensually connected to his body even while he was in battle far from her:

For this I faithfully wait,
that I have accepted his homage;
and when the sweet breeze blows
that comes from that sweet land
where he is whom I desire,
eagerly I turn my face to it.
Then it seems to me that I feel him
underneath my gray mantle.

God, when they shout “Charge!”,
Lord, help the pilgrim
for whom I tremble,
because ruthless are the Saracens.

For this I greatly regret,
that I was not in his departure parade.
The tunic he had worn
he sent to me to embrace.
At night, when his love spurs me,
I lay it down beside me,
all night against my naked skin,
to soothe my pain.

God, when they shout “Charge!”,
Lord, help the pilgrim
for whom I tremble,
because ruthless are the Saracens.

{ De ce sui en bone atente
Que je son homage pris;
Et quant la douce ore vente
Qui vient de cel douz païs
Ou cil est qui m’atalente,
Volentiers i tor mon vis;
Adont m’est vis que je.l sente
Par desoz mon mantel gris.

Deus, quant crïeront “Outree,”
Sire, aidiez au pelerin
por qui sui espöentee,
car felon sunt Sarrazin.

De ce sui mout decüe
Que ne fui au convoier;
Sa chemise qu’ot vestue
M’envoia por embracier:
La nuit, quant s’amor m’argue,
La met delez moi couchier
Mout estroit a ma char nue
Por mes malz assoagier.

Deus, quant crïeront “Outree,”
Sire, aidiez au pelerin
por qui sui espöentee,
car felon sunt Sarrazin. }

Men in their masculine bodily presence are wonderful gifts to women. What this woman felt from afar is a mere shadow of the pleasure she and her man would have felt together in person. Women must not merely lament the absence of beloved men. Women must act to make their men less exposed to violence.

Women haven’t done enough to protect men. With her beloved man suffering in the brutal crusade for Jerusalem, one woman trouvère early in the thirteenth century warned that she was close to getting angry with God:

Jerusalem, you do me great harm,
robbing me of the one I loved most of all!
Know in truth that I will no longer love you,
because he is what brings me the saddest joy.
And very often I sigh in anguish
so that I am very close to getting angry at God,
who has taken from me the great joy in which I lived.

{ Jherusalem, grant damage me fais
qui m’as tolu ce que je pluz amoie!
Sachiez de voir: ne vos amerai maiz
quar c’est la rienz dont j’ai pluz male joie!
Et bien sovent en souspir et pantais,
si qu’a bien pou que vers Deu ne m’irais,
qui m’a osté de grant joie ou j’estoie. } [10]

Threatened by men pursuing them, a woman in an early twelfth-century Irish poem urged her man to sleep. She promised to watch over him:

Sleep a little, just a little,
for there is little for you to fear,
O lad to whom I have given love,
son of Úa Duibne, Díarmait.

Sleep here soundly, soundly,
descendent of Duibne, noble Díarmait;
I shall watch over you the while
lovely son of Úa Duibne.

{ Cotail becán becán bec,
úair ní hecail duit a bec,
a gille día tardus seirc,
a meic uí Duibne, a Díarmait.

Cotailsi sunn go sáim sáim,
a uí Duibne, a Díarmait áin;
do-génsa t’foraire de,
a meic uí delbda Duibne. } [11]

As Walter made clear to Hildegund in the Waltherius, quality sleep is important to men. Yet women can’t be expected to be always with men, ready to keep watch so that their men can sleep peacefully. Moreover, if some mortal danger arises, the woman always keeping watch at night is likely to be too tired to fight effectively alongside of her man. Woman must take more radical action to save men’s lives.

Women today should unite in a mass uprising against sexist military draft registration. Despite having women generals, women fighter pilots, women Marines, and women fully integrated into the armed services, the U.S. still requires only men to register for being drafted under U.S. Selective Service. A U.S. District Court has declared that policy unconstitutional. The U.S. Selective Service System has ignored this court ruling. The U.S. Congress is too keen to pander to anti-men gender bigots and too busy with political theater simply to pass a law abolishing sexist Selective Service registration. Mass media directs its propaganda cannon at changing the gender composition of small, elite groups and ignores the gender composition of those at the bottom of society. Too many men have internalized the ideological gynocentric construction of their lives as being less valuable than women’s lives. Women must act to protect men’s interests and women’s own interests in men.

A country is more likely to engage in foolish wars if undervalued men vastly predominate among the soldiers dying in those wars. If women and men truly served equally in the military and died in roughly equal numbers in military service, a country would be much more reluctant to engage in wars. Women can best promote peace by insisting on gender equality in military service. Women must do more than merely lament their beloved men’s absences and deaths in war.

*  *  *  *  *

Read more:

• Waltharius to Aymeri: how to end epic violence against men
• medieval monk castrated for adultery; husband doesn’t punish wife
• Peire Cardenal: thirteenth-century troubadour MGTOW

Notes:

[1] “And they the arrows that murder sleep {It é saigte gona súain}” st. 1, 8 (of 8), Old Irish text and English translation (modified slightly) from Murphy (1956) p. 87. I’ve aligned the English translation lines with the Irish text. To follow the Irish, I’ve also made identical the first and last two lines in the English translation (using the translation of it é from Murphy’s glossary). Murphy dates this poem as c. 800. This lament is preserved in a single sixteenth-century manuscript, British Museum Harleian MS. 5280, f. 15b. Id. p. 212.

The preface to the poem explains that Créide, daughter of Gúaire of Aidne, fell in love with Dínertach, son of Gúaire of the Ui Fidgente only when she saw him mortally wounded in battle:

She had seen him in the battle of Aidne, in which he had been wounded with seventeen woundings on the breast of his tunic. She loved him after that.

{ Di-connuircsi isin treus Aidne ro geghin secht ngoine deac for seglach a léniod. Ro-carostoirsie ierum. }

Old Irish text and Engish translation (modified insubstantially) from id. p. 87.

[2] Louis the Pious was the son of Charlemagne. At Louis’s death, his three surviving sons were Lothar I of Italy (the eldest son), Charles the Bald, and Louis the German. At the battle of Fontenoy, Lothar was allied with Pepin II of Aquitaine. According to Angelbert, Lothar fought strongly, but some of his princes betrayed him in battle. Lothar’s side lost, and he fled. The warring brothers established peace among themselves through an agreement on the division the Charlemagne’s empire only in 843 through the Treaty of Verdun.

[3] Angelbert, “Aurora cum primo mane tetra noctis dividet {At the first light, dawn will separate the horrors of night},” 1.2-3, Latin text from Jasiński (2016) p. 78 (unified Latin text), my Latin translation benefiting mainly from the English translations of Godman (1985) pp. 262-5, Waddell (1948) pp. 102-5, translation via Eric Boulanger, and translation via Gérard Le Vot. Subsequent quotes from “Aurora cum primo mane tetra noctis dividet” are similarly sourced. The Paris manuscript alone has the reading “Saturni dolium {Saturn’s cauldron}.”

The first letter in each stanza of Angelbert’s poem form the alphabetical sequence A through P. Other examples of that poetic form (abecedarius) are chapters 1, 2, and 4 of the Book of Lamentations; Psalm 119; Augustine’s “Psalm against the Donatists {Psalmus contra partem Donati}” written in 393 (for scholarly discussion Hudnick (2011)); Sedulius’s “From the pivot of the sun’s rising {A solis ortus cardine},” probably written in the second quarter of the fifth century; and Chaucer’s “Prayer of Our Lady,” beginning “Almighty and All-Merciful Queen {Almighty and al merciable queene}.”

Authors have commonly claimed that the abecedarius was “employed as a mnemonic technique for public recitation.” See, e.g. Godman (1985) p. 49, which provides the quote. Medieval literary persons developed extraordinary memories. They could readily appreciate complex Homeric and Virgilian centos. The first letter of each stanza of a poem has trivial significance relative to medieval demands and capabilities for literary memory. The abecedarius is better interpreted as a constructed poetic sign for “natural” literary order.

Three medieval manuscripts of Angelbert’s poem have survived. The most important is in the Kórnik Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences. That manuscript dates to the second half of the ninth century. Jasiński (2016) pp. 29, 35. A codex of the tenth century, now held in Paris (BnF lat. 1154), includes musical notation (neumes). Id. p. 33. Another manuscript originates from a Benedictine monastery in St. Gallen. Angelbert’s poem apparently was copied into that manuscript in the tenth century. Id. Following Jasiński, these manuscripts are called the Kórnik, Paris, and St. Gallen manuscripts, respectively.

Latin texts printed for this poem have varied significantly. Both Godman’s and Waddell’s Latin texts differ from Jasiński’s. Motivating his thorough study of the surviving manuscripts, Jasiński stated:

Unfortunately, the Carolingian poetical masterpiece has survived to our own times in a form which is questionable in many respects. Since the 18th century until today, the most eminent Latinists have made the poem a subject of their studies. The text has been published many times, and scholars undertook numerous attempts at a reconstruction of the original text in their separate studies. Although these works deserve the highest respect, the same cannot be said about the subsequent editions of the poem. The later the edition, the more errors it contains. In our opinion, the sheer number of errors in these editions prevents any critical analysis of the text of this unique poem.

Jasiński (2016) p. 84 (abstract). Jasiński’s study allows one to analyze whether a given Latin text contains a medieval variant or simply a modern printing error. Jasiński unified Latin text is the best reconstruction of the original Latin text. I’ve thus favored that text, while noting interesting medieval variants.

Here’s a Latin text and loose English translation printed in 1857 in Dublin University Magazine (vol. 49).

[4] For the first hemistich of verse 7.1, the St. Gallen manuscript has “pater, frater, mater, soror”; the Paris manuscript, “pater, mater, soror, frater”; and the Kórnik manuscript, “pater matri, soror fratri.” Jasiński (2016) pp. 36-40. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, Jasiński judged the St. Gallen manuscript to best represent the original text. Id. pp. 62-3. In the poetic context of brutal violence against men, placing first the compassion of male relatives emphasizes the gender structure of the violence.

[5] Cf. Isaiah 55:10-11.

[6] The Latin text of Waddell (1948) follows the Paris manuscript. In that manuscript, stanza 13 {Nox…} repeats the third line of stanza 7 {Gramen…}. That brings in the dead men’s community and lessens the stark desolation conveyed by what was probably the original stanza 13.

About the year 820, Theodulf of Orléans wrote allegorically of an epic battle of birds:

They tore at one another everywhere with blows and bites,
and both sides waged war with spiritful determination.
Here you might think you were seeing Rutilians, there Trojans
roused to action, and a fierce battle raging on both sides.
As acorns tumble in autumn from the oak trees
and full-grown leaves fall when the frost comes,
so the army of birds was cut down and died on that spot,
the enormous mass of their corpses covering the earth.
Just as the smooth threshing-floor is filled with grain in summer,
so that field was filled with birds who had been slaughtered.
A small number coming from the north were turned back northwards;
an entire cohort lay destroyed on either side.

{ Inque vicem laniant se hinc morsibus, ictibus illinc,
Ingenti bellum surgit utrimque animo.
Hinc Rutilos, illinc videas consurgere Teucros,
Saevire et Martem parte ab utraque ferum.
Glans cadit autumno veluti de stipite querna,
Maturum et folium iam veniente gelu,
Non aliter avium moriens exercitus illic
Decidit et magna strage replevit humum.
Nam teres aestivis impletur ut area granis,
Campus ita extincta sic ave plenus erat.
A borea in boream veniens pars parva reversa est,
Tota in utraque cohors parte perempta iacet. }

Theodulf of Orléans, “We can understand certain things from exemplary events {Rebus et exemplis quaedam bene nosse valemus}” vv. 173-84, Latin text and English translation (modified slightly) from Godman (1985) pp. 174-5. This poem is “an understated allegory of the political dissension threatening the {Carolingian} empire and threatening his own fate.” Id. p. 15. The description of the field filled with the dead bodies of birds may have influenced Angelbert’s description of the dead after the battle of Fontenoy.

Theodulf ‘s poem, which is also known by the title “The Battle of the Birds {De pugna avium},” is part 3 of Theodulf’s “Letter to Moduin {Epistola ad Modoinum}.” Moduin is Moduin of Autun. He was a court poet, the Bishop of Autun, and Theodulf’s close friend. Moduin used the pen name Naso. Apprently he apparently admired the poetry of Ovid.

[7] Excerpt from the Exsultet {Rejoice} of the Christian Easter Vigil. The Exsultet is attested in the seventh-century Bobbio Missal, a Gallican sacramentary.

Angelbert’s “cursed be that day” moves the self-curses of Jeremiah 20:14-18 and Job 3:3-7 to the social level of a day of horrible violence against men. The Vulgate translation of Leviticus 25:30 refers to one year’s time as “the year’s circle {anni circulus}.” On persons nakedly departing from the world, Job 1:21, Ecclesiastes 5:15, 1 Timothy 6:7.

[8] Guiot de Dijon, Chanson de croisade, Retrouenge, “I will sing for my heart {Chanterai por mon corage}” st 1-3 (with the refrain broken out separately), Old French text and English translation (with my modifications) from Doss-Quinby et al. (2001) pp. 141-2. A significant scholarly view doubts the attribution to Guiot de Dijon and asserts that a woman trouvère probably wrote this song. The subsequent quote is stanzas 4-5 (of 5) from this song.

Significant textual variations exist for “Chanterai por mon corage.” For a slightly different Old French text, with English translation and thorough scholarly notes, see song RS 21 in Warwick’s Troubadours, Trouvères and the Crusades site. The “about the text” tab suggests that this song “may date from the first third or half of the 13th c.” For an interpretation of the textual differences in versions of this song, Atkinson (1979).

Several modern performances of this song are available on YouTube. In addition to the recording embedded above, The Early Music Consort of London (directed by David Munrow) recorded a version on its album Music of the Crusades (1991). Studio Der Frühen Musik recorded a version on its album Chanterai Por Mon Coraige (1994).

Despite some women’s laments for men, women play a central role in inciting men to violence against men. In an article published in an elite scholarly journal, Perfetti reported:

Reading medieval poems with a focus on the crusader figure and not just on references to specific efforts to recover the Holy Land, we can see at work an eroticized poetics of crusading in which love for a lady is not in conflict with crusading but rather an enhancement of it. … the eroticized portrait of the crusader they created undoubtedly helped to promote crusading.

Perfetti (2013) pp.  956-7. Perfetti discerns “a process of gendering the crusades as a masculine enterprise.” Id. p. 944. The gynocentric process of devaluing men’s lives and gendering men to be subject to brutal violence has been prevalent throughout history. That oppressive gender structure continues to our day. Perfetti offers no insight into how to change it.

[9] In the motet “I rightly should grieve {Je me doi bien doloseir},” Motetus, a woman trouvère sings:

Why have you given me,
mother, a husband?
For never willingly
would I have wished to be given
to anyone other than
the one I have taken as my own.

{ Por coi m’aveis vos doneit,
Mere, mari?
Cant ja par mun greit
Ne fuist ensi
K’a autrui fuisse doneie
K’a celi cui j’ai de moi saisit }

Old French text (Walloon / Lorraine) and English translation (modified slightly) from Doss-Quinby et al. (2001) p. 217. Id., pp. 218-9, provides music for this song. In Byzantium, mothers arranged bride shows for their sons.

[10] Chanson de croisade, “Jerusalem, you do me great harm {Jherusalem, grant damage me fais}” st. 1, Old French text and English translation (modified slightly) from Doss-Quinby et al. (2001) p. 146. For a good online text and translation of the whole song, see song RS 191 in Warwick’s Troubadours, Trouvères and the Crusades site. That site suggests that this song dates from the second quarter of the thirteenth century. A performance of this song by The Ensemble Perceval is readily available.

[11] “Sleep a little, just a little {Cotail becán becán bec},” also known as “Díarmait’s sleep” st. 1-2, Old Irish text and English translation (modified insubstantially) from Murphy (1956) pp. 161-2. Murphy dates this anonymous poem to c. 1150. Finn (Fionn) and his fianna (warrior band) were pursuing the two lovers Gráinne and Díarmait úa Duibne.

[images] (1) Video with recorded performance of Angelbert’s “Aurora cum primo mane tetra noctis dividet” by Gérard Le Vot on Ultima Lacrima, Sacred Chants of the Middle Ages 9th-13th centuries (Studio S.M., 1997). (2) Video with recorded performance of “Chanterai por mon corage” by Estampie / Schola Cantorum Gedanensis on the album Crusaders – In Nomine Domini (1996). (3) Selective Service video poster on display at Reagan National Airport, Washington, DC, on December 23, 2019. Photo by Douglas Galbi.

References:

Atkinson, J. Keith. 1979. “Deux interprétations de la chanson ‘Chanterai por mon corage.’” Pp. 33-45 in Mélanges de Langue et Littérature Françaises du Moyen-Âge Offerts à Pierre Jonin. Sénéfiance, 7. Aix-en-Provenc: Publications du Cuerma, Université de Provence.

Doss-Quinby, Eglal, Joan Tasker Grimbert, Wendy Pfeffer, and Elizabeth Aubery. 2001. Songs of the Women Trouvères. New Haven: Yale University Press. (review by Carol Symes)

Godman, Peter. 1985. Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance. London: Duckworth.

Hunink, Vincent. 2011. “Singing Together in Church: Augustine’s Psalm against the Donatists.” Pp. 389-403 in A.P.M.H. Lardinois, J.H. Blok, M.G.M. van der Poel, eds.. Sacred Words: Orality, Literacy and Religion. Orality and Literacy in the Ancient World, vol. 8. Leiden: Brill.

Jasiński, Tomasz. 2016. “Próba rekonstrukcji pierwotnego tekstu wiersza Angilberta o bitwie pod Fontenoy (841 rok).” Pamiętnik Biblioteki Kórnickiej. 33: 29-84. Online.

Murphy, Gerard. 1956. Early Irish Lyrics, Eighth to Twelfth century. Edited with translation, notes, and glossary. Clarendon Press: Oxford.

Perfetti, Lisa. 2013. “Crusader as Lover: The Eroticized Poetics of Crusading in Medieval France.” Speculum. 88 (4): 932-957.

Waddell, Helen. 1948. Mediaeval Latin Lyrics. New York: Henry Holt.