medieval mimesis of woman’s speech in Archpriest of Talavera

chicken egg

Andreas Capellanus’s Latin treatise About Love {De amore}, probably written in the 1180s, includes eight dialogues between a man and a woman of various class pairings. Whether man or woman, commoner, noble, or higher noble, all speak the same rhetorical-scholastic discourse. The Archpriest of Talavera, a Spanish text completed in 1438, drew heavily on the third book of De amore.[1] But the Archpriest of Talavera’s treatment of speech differs fundamentally from that of De amore. The Archpriest of Talavera includes scintillating medieval mimesis of woman’s speech — realistic, in-character utterances of a wildly comic woman.

The Archpriest of Talavera’s mimesis of woman’s speech expands upon De amore’s rhetorical-scholastic characterization of women. The third book of De amore declares:

All women are also free with their tongues, for not one of them can restrain her tongue from reviling people, or from crying out all day long like a barking dog over the loss of a single egg, disturbing the whole neighborhood for a minor matter. A woman gossiping with other women would never willingly give another the change to speak. She always tried to dominate the conversation with her own opinions and to go on talking the longest. Her tongue or breath could never be exhausted by talking. We see, too, numerous women on many occasions who are so keen to talk that when they are alone they break into speech, and speak aloud to themselves.

{ Est et omnis femina virlingosa, quia nulla est quae suam noverit a maledictis compescere linguam, et quae pro unius ovi amissione die tota velut canis latrando non clamaret et totam pro re modica viciniam non turbaret. Immo mulier cum aliis commorando nunquam alicui ad loquendum vellet cedere locum, sed suis semper dictis nititur dicenda committere et in suo diutius sermone durare, nec unquam posset sua lingua vel spiritus fatigari loquendo. Saepe etiam mulieres videmus plurimas, quae propter aviditatem loquendi solitariae commorantes intra se ipsas ad verba moventur et expressa voce loquuntur. }[2]

The Archpriest of Talavera dilates mimetically on the simile-exemplum “crying out all day long like a barking dog over the loss of a single egg.” It also represents mimetically a woman speaking aloud to herself. The resulting text is completely unlike the rhetorical-scholastic discourse of De amore:

What became of that egg? Who took it? Who carried it off? Where is that egg? Although it’s white, it’s a dark and ill-starred egg today. Bitch, bastard. Tell me, who took that egg? Who ate that egg? I hope she gets bit by a mad dog or gets hit by the bloody squirts or bad flow; amen! Oh, my double-yoked egg; I was keeping you to set. With one or two I’d make an omelet so golden that it would make up for all my misfortunes. And I couldn’t bear to eat you and now the devil ate you up. Oh, my egg. Oh, egg. Oh, what a rooster and a hen would be hatched from you! Of the rooster I’d make a capon who’d bring me twenty dollars and the hen fourteen. Or perhaps I’d set her and get so many chicks and pullets so that I could increase my flock and get a leg up on things. Now I won’t have any luck, I’ll be poor like I was. Oh, my egg, with the round yolk, with such a thick shell. Who ate you up? Oh, Marica, you whore, — Fatface — you’ve made me poor forever. I swear that I’ll punch you in the snout, Miss Low-Dirty-Greedy-Slut. Oh, my egg. And what will become of me? Oh, poor sad me. Lord Jesus, honey, why don’t I just go on and croak! By the Virgin Mary, wouldn’t you just pop with rage to see such a thing? Woe is me, I don’t even own an egg in my own house. Damn my luck and my life if I’m not on the point of scratching out my own eyes or pulling out all my hair, by God. How unhappy the woman who every morning gets the bran and lights a fire and works her fingers to the bone to light it and when the fire’s lit puts on the pot and heats the water and makes the chicken-feed to make layers, and as soon as the egg is laid it’s immediately snatched away. I hope the Lord gives them rabies and a heart attack. I put up with them, woe is me, and I get along as best I can, and the devil swipes them. Oh Lord, take me from this world, so that my body won’t have to taste more sorrows and my soul experience so much bitterness. Oh Lord, because you can, ease my heart of all the pain that I have to suffer every day. I’d rather die just once than be dying constantly.

{ ¿Qué se hizo este huevo? ¿quién lo tomó? ¿quién lo llevó? ¿A dó le este huevo? Aunque vieres que es blanco, quizá negro será hoy este huevo. Puta, hija de puta, dime: ¿quién tomó este huevo? ¡Quién comió este huevo comida sea de mala rabia: cámaras de sangre, correncia mala le venga, amén! ¡Ay huevo mío de dos yemas, que para echar vos guardaba yo! ¡Que de uno o de dos haría yo una tortilla tan dorada que cumplía mis vergüenzas. Y no vos enduraba yo comer, y comiovos ahora el diablo! ¡Ay huevo mío, qué gallo y qué gallina salieran de vos! Del gallo hiciera capón que me valiera veinte maravedises, y la gallina catorce; o quizá la echara y me sacara tantos pollos y pollas con que pudiera tanto multiplicar, que fuera causa de sacarme el pie del lodo. Ahora estarme he como desaventurada, pobre como solía. ¡Ay huevo mío, de la meajuela redonda, de la cáscara tan gruesa! ¿Quién me vos comió? ¡Ay, puta Marica, rostros de golosa, que tú me has lanzado por puertas! ¡Yo te juro que los rostros te queme, doña vil, sucia, golosa! ¡Ay huevo mío! Y ¿qué será de mí? ¡Ay, triste, desconsolada! ¡Jesús, amiga! ¿cómo no me fino ahora? ¡Ay, Virgen María! ¿cómo no revienta quien ve tal sobrevienta? ¡No ser en mi casa mezquina señora de un huevo! ¡Maldita sea mi ventura y mi vida sino estoy en punto de rascarme o de mesarme toda! ¡Ya, por Dios! ¡Guay de la que trae por la mañana el salvado, la lumbre, y sus rostros quema soplando por encenderla, y fuego hecho pone su caldera y calienta su agua, y hace sus salvados por hacer gallinas ponedoras, y que, puesto el huevo, luego sea arrebatado! ¡Rabia, Señor, y dolor de corazón! Endúrolos yo, cuitada, y paso como a Dios place y llévamelos al huerco. ¡Ya, Señor, y llévame de este mundo; que mi cuerpo no guste más pesares ni mi ánima sienta tantas amarguras! ¡Ya, Señor, por el que tú eres, da espacio a mi corazón con tantas angosturas como de cada día gusto! ¡Una muerte me valdría más que tantas, ya por Dios! }[3]

The mimesis of woman’s speech concerning loss of an egg is immediately followed by similar mimesis of woman’s speech concerning loss of a hen.[4] Psychological realism tends to be associated with the growth of novel writing beginning in mid-eighteenth-century Europe. Yet brilliant mimesis of woman’s speech can be found in the early fourteenth-century Archpriest of Talavera.[5]

In dilating upon De amore, the Archpriest of Talavera combined factual mistakes, fiction, and real experience. It attributed De amore to Jean Gearson. He lived from 1363 to 1429.[6] De amore was written more than a century before Jean Gearson was born. The Archpriest of Talavera describes the third book of De amore as “about God’s love and about the condemnation of the lascivious love for women {del amor de Dios y de reprobación del amor mundano de las mujeres}.” That’s an ideological, rather than realistic, assessment of Andreas Capellanus’s intention in De amore. The speeches of women in the Archpriest of Talavera almost surely are fabrications. Moreover, not all women speak like that. In the sentence before the mimesis of woman’s speech about the lost egg, the Archpriest of Talavera declares, “So by experience you’ll see {Donde por experiencia verás}….” The woman’s speech about her lost egg imaginatively, realistically evokes ordinary speech. That’s mimesis of woman’s speech. That’s a fundamentally important idea in fiction.

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Notes:

[1] Naylor & Rank (2013) notes about 80 implicit references to De amore. Those references occur only in Part 1, Section 1, and Part 2. The over-all structure of the Archpriest of Talavera:

  • Part 1, Section 1: condemning carnal love
  • Part 1, Section 2: how fornicators transgress the ten commandments
  • Part 1, Section 3: how fornicators transgress the seven deadly sins
  • Part 1, Section 4: how the person engaged in carnal love loses all the cardinal virtues
  • Part 2: vices and faults of wicked women
  • Part 3: dispositions of men and planets and signs
  • Part 4: destiny, fortunes, signs, and planets

Id. pp. v-ix.

[2] De amore 3.100-1, Latin text and English translation (modified slightly) from Walsh (1982) pp. 316-7.

A thirteenth-century romance tells of the noble lady Gente’s failing:

Her tongue ran like a horse
and nothing could restrain it
when she was in full breath.
For that she was regarded as base.

{ Le cheval de sa langue e courre,
Que nulz ne lui povoit rescourre
Quant elle estoit en haulte alaine:
S’en est tenue pour villaine. }

Jean Renaut, Galeran of Brittany {Galeran de Bretagne} vv. 37-40, Old French text from Foulet (1925), my English translation, benefiting from that Beston (2008). Then the narrator provides general wisdom about talkativeness:

Too much talking damages and degrade
those who wish to live in honor.
Too much talking makes one seem drunk
and often makes one hated.
Much harm and even ruin
comes to the slanderous before they die.

{ Trop parler destruit et aville
Ceulx qui veulent a hounour vivre;
Par trop parler semble l’en yvre
Et acquiert l’en souvent haÿne;
Maint ennuy et mainte ruÿne
Vient au mesdisant ains qu’il muyre. }

Galeron de Bretagne, vv. 42-7, sourced as previously. Similarly, id. vv. 192-5. Lady Gente’s malicious words set in motion the plot of Galeron de Bretagne.

[3] Archpriest of Talavera, Part 2, Ch. 1, Spanish text from the online presentation by Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes of the edition of Gerli (1979), English translation from Naylor & Rank (2013) pp. 102-3. Subsequent quotes from Archpriest of Talavera are similarly sourced, and cited to id.

The relevant Archpriest of Talavera was Alfonso Martínez de Toledo. His book, written about 1438, is also known as Corbacho, or Repudiation of Worldly Love {Corbacho o Reprobación del amor mundano}.

[4] That speech includes a reference to becoming a Muslim:

Oh Lord, how much suffering and how much wickedness You put up with still! Because of who You are, console my vexations, help me in my sorrow; if not, I’ll burst with anger, or I’ll kill myself, or I’ll become a Muslim!

{ ¡Oh, Señor, tanta paciencia y tantos males sufres, ya, por aquel que Tú eres, consuela mis enojos, da lugar a mis angustias: si no, rabiaré o me mataré o me tornaré mora! }

Id. pp. 103-4. In Part 3, Ch. 8, a woman threatens to “run off with a Moor from across the sea {me fuese con un moro de allén la mar}.” Id. p. 157. Islamic armies conquered nearly all of the Iberian peninsula by the early eighth century. By 1248, Christian forces had reconquered the peninsula.

In addressing violence against men, the Archpriest of Talavera includes considerable mimesis of woman’s speech.

[5] Somewhat less developed mimesis of woman’s speech exists in the Latin masterpiece of men’s sexed protest, Lamentationes Matheoluli, written about 1290.

[6] Archpriest of Talavera, Prologue, referring to “a scholar of Paris, John of Ausim {un doctor de París, por nombre Juan de Ausim}.” Naylor & Rank (2013) p. 26. The subsequent quote is from id.

[image] Chicken egg. Thanks to Sun Ladder and Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Beston, John, trans. 2008. An English Translation of Jean Renaut’s Galeran de Bretagne, a Thirteenth-Century French Romance. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.

Foulet, Lucien, ed. 1925. Jean Renaut. Galeran de Bretagne: Roman du XIIIe Siècle. Paris: É. Champion. Alternate source.

Gerli, Michael, ed. 1979. Alfonso Martínez de Toledo. Arcipreste de Talavera o Corbacho. Madrid: Cátedra.

Naylor, Eric W., and Jerry Rank. 2013. The Archpriest of Talavera by Alonso Martínez de Toledo: dealing with the vices of wicked women and the complexions of men. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Walsh, P.G., trans. 1982. Andreas Capellanus on love {De amore}. London: Duckworth.

dogs better pets than cats in medieval European literature

medieval dog attacking murderer of its master

In medieval European literature, a dog was celebrated as man’s best friend. The proverbial cat was commonly associated with the devil.[1] Both dogs and cats were kept within homes as pets. Both had some unfavorable aspects and associations.[2] Overall, dogs had a better medieval reputation as pets than did cats.

Disliked aspects of dogs were bad temper, barking, and attacking. The Distaff Gospels, a French text probably composed in the mid-fifteenth century, explained:

When you hear dogs howling, you must put your fingers in your ears and not listen to them, because they bring bad news … If you don’t want to be attacked or barked at by dogs, by day or night, you should have a piece of good roasted cheese and give it to them while saying: In camo et freno, et cetera {In camo et freno maxillas eorum constringe qui non approximant ad te (with bit and bridle bind fast their jaws who come not near to you)} and they will not disturb you. Lovers should be aware of this trick. [3]

Feeding a dog a piece of bread for the offertory at the following Sunday mass was thought to prevent the dog from becoming bad-tempered. The first brood of puppies from a house dog were to be drowned, for they were sure to grow up to be “vicious and dangerous.”[4] Ancient literature contains a variety of disparaging references to dogs. That in part reflects dogs being non-humans, yet closely associated with humans.[5]

Compared to dogs, medieval cats presented more imaginative dangers. A tenth-century Latin allegorical poem referred to “the cat, drunken and immersed in wickedness.”[6] A twelfth-century Latin literary text describes a man as:

like THE CAT, which at one moment has the sweetest face and softest, smoothest fur on the outside. But pull its tail, then it will show its claws on all four feet and tear your hands to shreds unless you quickly let it go.[7]

The Distaff Gospels declared:

If you don’t want to be on your guard against your male cat, you must cut a piece, the size of your palm, out of its tail because, once it is four years old, it thinks night and day about how to strangle its master.[8]

At the gates of the Greco-Roman underworld was the multi-headed dog Cerberus. Unlike dogs, cats tend to lurk and spring unsuspectingly. That may have encouraged the medieval association of cats, rather than dogs, with the devil.

Dogs were working animals and beloved pets in medieval Europe. Dogs were valued for hunting, herding, and guarding. Long before the Middle Ages, stories told of dogs loyalty and devotion to their owners. The eleventh-century Latin romance parody Ruodlieb included an account of a noble hunting dog that sensed and attacked a person who stole from his master.[9] Another story originating in ancient India told of a dog that saved a baby from a snake. The dog was wrongly killed through mistaken belief that he had killed the baby. In thirteenth-century Europe, such a dog was venerated as a martyr-saint.[10] Small dogs were the “medieval pet par excellence.”[11] They were given names, sometimes overfed with fine food, and loved as loyal companions.

Cats were also valued in medieval European households. Cats killed house mice and provided companionship. Late in the sixteenth century, Cesare Orsini praised his cat in an epitaph:

The cat is described as his light and dearest companion, who is always around day and night. Even when the owner {Orsini} is called to supper, the cat wanted to give “a thousand caresses” and coaxed tidbits from the dishes. The cat is described as constantly following him whenever he steps into the hall and is ready to lie down in front of the owner whenever it detects that he is melancholy. … The cat follows him into his study, prowling and pawing around his books and letters. It thus becomes the perfect scholar’s companion, rousing him from unhappy thoughts, and sitting on his desk and leaping over his books to provide amusement. … The cat jumps into his lap with gentle paws, climbs up on his shoulders, licks his face, purrs to the delight of his owner’s ears and playfully bites his hand.[12]

Orsini’s epitaph applies equally well to a scholar and cat in the medieval period. Suggesting a context of animosity toward intrusive and jealous cats, the Distaff Gospels advised:

Young men should not hate cats because they are the cause of great happiness and can assist in achieving success in matters of love with young and charming ladies. [13]

Cats were thought to protect their caretakers from bears, cows, and husbands who turn into goblins at night. The Distaff Gospels counseled:

If you have a good cat and you don’t want to lose it, you must rub its nose and four legs with butter for three days, and it will never leave the house.

A specific cat that purred, played, and pleased could easily overcome the abstract association of cats with the devil.

While the relative merits of dogs and cats today is a matter of bitter controversy, dogs were generally regarded as superior in medieval Europe. The great twelfth-century scholar, writer, and public figure Hildegard of Bingen praised the loyalty and perceptiveness of dogs. She also declared that the Devil hates dogs for their loyalty. Hildegard described cats as disloyal and remaining with persons only for food.[14] The fifteenth-century Distaff Gospels offered a more extreme evaluation of dogs versus cats:

another woman said: “Just as has been said before: if you love your dog, you love your own good. If you kill your cat, you kill your trouble.” [15]

Women’s superiority to men is now well-accepted in authoritative literature. When women today acknowledge the superiority of dogs, men will be better loved.

medieval woman holding dog

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Notes:

[1] Alcuin, Letter 181 (eighth century), from Latin trans. Ziolkowski (1993) p. 242. Walker-Meikle (2012) pp. 12-3.

[2] Images of dogs in medieval art are available here and here. Both posts use “dogs — man’s best friend” as a cliché. Medieval literature actually described a dog as a man’s best friend. Images of cats in medieval art are available here and here.

[3] Distaff Gospels (Paris manuscript), Day II, 45th gospel; Day III, 13th gospel, from French trans. Jeay & Garay (2006) pp. 219, 237.

[4] Distaff Gospels (Paris manuscript) Day III, 10th gospel, 31st gospel, from French trans. id. pp. 235, 243.

[5] Menache (1997) reviews disparaging references to dogs in ancient literature. Id., p. 1. claims, “there is clear opposition to dogs on the part of institutionalized religion.” Perhaps eventually recognizing that claim to be untenable, Menarche (1997) added the ad hoc claim:

When Western society freed itself of the protective bounds of ecclesiastical repression, the canine species was liberated from its religious image and the negative connotations inferred thereby.

Id. p. 39.  The “long journey toward humanism and a more harmonious perception of the universe” allegedly was sufficient completed in the thirteenth-century so that the Christian church no longer opposed dogs. Id. pp. 38-9. That’s ludicrous.

Human religions tend to privilege humans. Dogs, the earliest domesticated animals, serve as a salient figure for non-humans. Calling a person a dog thus serves as disparaging as non-human or sub-human. See, e.g., Revelations 22:15. Institutionalized religions don’t, however, particularly oppose dogs relative to other animals such as pigs and asses. The story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus / Companions of the Cave, celebrated in early Christian and Islamic literature, has a dog as the loyal companion to religious heroes. Abbot Thierry of St. Trond’s early twelfth-century Latin poem, “Weep, Dogs” laments the death of Pitulus, a “beloved dog.” Ziolkowski (1993) pp. 272-3. The influential, twelfth-century abbess Hildegard of Bingen praised dogs as pets. In medieval Europe, clerics commonly kept dogs as pets. Walker-Meikle (2012) pp. 3, 8.

Menache (1998) documents literary evidence of the long, mutually beneficial association of dogs and human beings. That association encompasses societies in which monotheistic religions have predominated.

[6] Eugenius Vulgarius, Carmen 11 (tenth century), from Latin trans. Ziolkowski (1993) p. 111.

[7] Response to Richard de Fournival’s Bestiaire d’amour, from French trans. Beer (1986) p. 50.

[8] Distaff Gospels (Paris manuscript), Day III, 17th gospel, from French trans. Jeay & Garay (2006) p. 239.

[9] Ruodlieb X, trans. Kratz (1984). Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, Book 8, Ch. 62, praises the loyalty of dogs and describes a dog detecting and attacking his master’s murderer.

[10] Schmitt (1983).

[11] Walker-Meikle (2012) p. 10.

[12] Cesare Orisini (lived about 1570 to 1640), Alla gatta uccisa, summarized in Walker-Meikle (2012) p. 99.

[13] Distaff Gospels (Paris manuscript), Day II, 40th gospel, from French trans. Jeay & Garay (2006) p. 217. The subsequent quote is from Day III, 16th gospel, trans. id. p. 237. On cats providing protection, Distaff Gospels (Chantilly manuscript), Day IV, para. 8-9, trans. id. pp. 251, 253.

[14] Hildegard of Bingen, Physica, cited in Walker-Meikle (2012) pp. 8, 11.

[15] Distaff Gospels (Paris manuscript), Day II, 48th gospel, from French trans. Jeay & Garay (2006) p. 219.

[image] (1) Dog identifying and attacking the murderer of its master. Bestiary and various theological texts. 1st quarter of 13th century, England. f. 21, British Library Royal 12 C XIX. (2) Bernger von Horheim and woman holding dog. Between 1305 and 1340, Germany. fol. 178r, Codex Manesse, UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 848. Thanks to the University of Heidelberg and Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Beer, Jeanette M. A., trans. 1986. Master Richard’s Love bestiary and response. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Jeay, Madeleine and Kathleen E. Garay, ed. and trans. 2006. The distaff gospels: a first modern English edition of Les évangiles des quenouilles. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Editions.

Kratz, Dennis M., trans. 1984. Waltharius, and Ruodlieb. New York: Garland Pub.

Menache, Sophia. 1997. “Dogs: God’s Worst Enemies?” Society & Animals. 5 (1): 23-44.

Menache, Sophia. 1998. “Dogs and Human Beings: A Story of Friendship.” Society & Animals. 6 (1): 67-86.

Schmitt, Jean-Claude. 1983. The holy greyhound: Guinefort, healer of children since the thirteenth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Walker-Meikle, Kathleen. 2012. Medieval pets. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.

Ziolkowski, Jan M. 1993. Talking animals: medieval Latin beast poetry, 750-1150. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.

De amore dialogically manipulated men’s protest of women

medieval man and woman playing chess

Discussing injuries that men suffer from women is commonly overtaken by claims that not all women are like that. Andreas Capellanus, writer of the medieval Latin treatise De amore, responded to “not all women are like that” claims with great sophistication. He insistently, categorically declared themes of men’s sexed protest while subtly invoking tedium, insincerity, and lack of reciprocity.

Men’s protest of women is commonly dismissed merely as men showing again and again that all men hate all women and always have. In De amore, Andreas initially demurred from criticizing women:

There is nothing in the world more distasteful or tedious than an over-detailed analysis of the nature or condition of women. Let us therefore pass over this topic at this time, so that we may avoid the reputation of somehow indicting nature because of women, and because the facts are known to any man of sense.

{ Mulieris enim qualitatem sive statum districtius agitare nil foedius vel magis taediosum reperitur in orbe. Sed haec omittamus ad praesens, ne qualitercunque credamur in eis accusare naturam, et quia cuilibet sunt manifesta prudenti. }[1]

After only a few more pages of text, Andreas then recited at length themes of men’s sexed protest in extreme form.[2] According to Andreas, all women are avaricious, envious, slanderers, fickle, disloyal, vainglorious, lustful, liars, drunkards, etc. Andreas repeatedly insisted that his criticisms apply to all women, without exception. For example, Andreas declared:

No woman is ever joined in such ardent love with a man that she does not devote all her brains to draining away her partner’s wealth. This rule of thumb is never found misleading; there are no exceptions to it.

{ nulla mulier in tanto cuiquam amoris zelo coniungitur quae toto mentis ingenio non laboret coamantis substantiam exhaurire. Et haec non reperitur regula fallax sed omni exceptione carere. }[3]

In a constructed dialogue between a man and woman of higher nobility, the woman protests:

If your ire is roused by my words, you ought to level abusive quotations against me alone. It is inappropriate to rage against all women in general because of the annoyance caused by one.

{ Si ex meis dictis vester sit animus concitatus, mihi soli debetis proverbia convitiosa rependere, et pro unius offensa contra omnes non decet vos mulieres generaliter desaevire. }[4]

Andreas warmly engaged as authorities the eminent and powerful near-contemporary women Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, Marie Countess of Champagne, the Countess of Flanders Isobel of Vermandois, Ermengarde Viscountess of Narbonne, Princess Marguérite, and other women. Surely Andreas’s extreme recital of themes of men’s sexed protest would have attracted the concern of friends, family and supporters of these eminent women, along with the women themselves if they were still living. Even if men hating women was so common as to be acceptable, Andreas would have had no interest in showing that he too hated women.

Medieval readers, who were more open and tolerant to diversity of expression than are many readers today, may have perceived in Andreas’s extreme criticism of women issues of sincerity and reciprocity. In disparaging women, Andreas declared:

No man could so rejoice in women’s intimacy or affection as to be able to know the secrets of her heart or the degree of sincerity with which she addresses him, for a woman trusts no man as friend, believing that all are utterly deceivers.

{ Nullus posset homo tanta mulieris familiaritate vel affectione gaudere, qui eius posset animi secreta cognoscere, vel qua sibi fide loquatur. Mulier enim neminem confidit amicum et quemlibet credit penitus deceptorem }[5]

The word “deceiver {deceptor}” echoes back to men Andreas’s categorical claims about women. In one of De amore’s exemplary dialogues, a woman of higher nobility said to a common man:

The mere fact of your ascribing to me the cunning of deceit and lying shows that you are pitted with the infection of the same vice, and that the thoughts enclosed in your heart are different from those you speak with a deceitful tongue.

{ dico enim quod ex eo solo, quod me fraudis dicis et mendacii habere calliditatem, ostendis te eiusdem erroris contagio maculari et aliud in corde retinere conceptum aliudque fallaci lingua proferre. }

This vicious circle of reciprocal deceit destroys trust and makes communication, friendship, and love impossible.

Classification of persons is one possible response to the deadlock of annihilating, reciprocal deceit. Andreas distinguished honorable, praiseworthy women from other women:

I do not state all this with the intention of detracting from honorable women as a class, but out of eagerness to rebuke the lives of those who do not blush basely to dishonor by their deeds the ranks of the venerable band of women and to debase them under the lying pretext of love. God forbid that we should ever wish or be able to make covert attacks on the deeds of praiseworthy women, or in this treatise detract from them in any sense.

{ Non autem haec asserimus quasi honorabilium volentes mulierum generi derogare, sed earum cupientes arguere vitam, quae reverendi mulierum coetus suis turpiter actibus non erubent dehonestare militiam et sub amoris commento profanare. Absit enim nos unquam velle vel posse laudabilium feminarum actibus insidiari vel eis in aliquo praesenti derogare libello. }[6]

Drouart la Vache, who adapted De amore into French verse in 1290, distinguished between good and bad women. He declared that what he said applied only to bad women. Johann Hartlieb, who translated De amore into German about 1440, similarly distinguished between good and bad women.[7] In promoting his French translation and refutation of the Latin Lamentationes Matheoluli about 1385, Jehan Le Fèvre did likewise.

Men’s distinctions between good and bad women in men’s protest are suspect. Sexed protest shouldn’t be necessary among good women and good men. As for bad women and bad men, few are likely to acknowledge themselves as bad. The distinction between good and bad persons in sexed protest tends to generate disjoint understandings of good men protesting bad women versus good women protesting bad men. In practice, distinguishing between good and bad women tends to be associated with men seeking to gain the good will and support of powerful women.

De amore hints at an alternative to classifying persons as good and bad in responding to men’s sexed protest. Andreas began his recital of women’s vices with lack of reciprocity in love:

You could never find the reciprocal love you look for in a woman. No women ever loved her husband, nor can she ever bind herself to a lover with a reciprocal bond of love.

{ Amorem namque mutuum, quem in femina quaeris, invenire non poteris. Non enim aliqua unquam dilexit femina virum nec amanti mutuo se novit amoris vinculo colligare. }[8]

Andreas ended his recital of themes from the literature of men’s sexed protest with a similar lament for love:

For a woman does not love with feelings from the heart. … no woman could be united in so close a bond of love to a partner that she does not begin to grow cold towards the usual consolations, and soon become a stranger to her partner once she gets no homage of presents to acknowledge. So it seems that no man of sense fittingly binds himself to a woman’s affection, because she never continues to reciprocate anyone’s love.

{ Mulier siquidem hominem cordis affectione non amat … nulla praeterea femina tanto posset coamanti dilectionis vinculo colligari, si munerum ipsa semper suffragia non agnoscat, quae circa solita non incipiat tepidare solatia et suo coamanti non fiat cito peregrina. Neminem ergo videtur decere prudentem feminae se affectui obligare, quia nemini mutuum servat amorem }

Andreas’s outrageous, extreme recital of themes of men’s protest of women could easily generate hate for hate. At the same time, De amore’s ideology of men’s servitude to women in love is far from reciprocal. Jesus in the Gospels urges Christians to love their enemies.[9] De amore matches men’s love servitude to women with a challenge to women to love men who treat them as enemies.

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Notes:

[1] De amore 3.52-3, Latin text and English trans. from Walsh (1982) pp. 302-3. All subsequent translations of De amore are similarly sourced and cited with page number in id.

[2] De amore 3.65-112, pp. 307-21. Book 3, from which this section comes, has received little serious critical analysis in the voluminous scholarship on De amore. For example, in more than 56 pages (pp. 84-5, 393-448) discussing De amore, Robertson (1962) devotes just over one page (p. 447) to Book 3.

[3] De amore 3.72, p. 309.

[4] De amore 1.6.500, p. 189. The man implicitly directed Genesis 3.6 at the woman:

it was the woman rather than the man who is first said to have served her belly against God’s command, and to have transgressed God’s orders through gluttony. And indeed the man himself would never have entered the service of the belly if he had not chanced first to be compelled to do so by the women’s excessive persuasion, deceived at her prompting.

{ ventri primo mulier quam masculus contra Dei mandatum legitur obsequia praestitisse et Dei praecepta propter gulam fuisse transgressa. Immo nec ipse masculus ventris unquam ministerio deservisset, nisi forte primitus ab ipsa muliere fuisset nimia suasione compulsus et ipsa instigante deceptus. }

1.6.499, p. 189. The woman responds that women are naturally “innocent and naive {innocentes et simplices}” and the male is “crafty and guileful in all things {callidus et dolosus in cunctis}.” Therefore the devil approached the woman first.  According to the woman, the devil’s recognition of woman’s innocent and man’s guile explains the fall:

If the temptation had begun with the man and had been completely unsuccessful there, the woman’s resolve would have been strengthened by his example.

{ si incepisset a viro tentatio et in eo omni prorsus caruisset effectu, suum viri exemplo mulier animum confirmasset. }

1.6.502, p. 191. This explanation partially shifts the blame for the fall to (not innocent) men.

[5] De amore 3.86, p. 313. The subsequent quote is 1.6.130, p. 77.

[6] De amore 1.9.19, p. 219.

[7] Wood (2015) pp. 121-3.

[8] De amore 3.65, p. 307. The subsequent quote is 3.110-2, p. 321.

[9] Matthew 5:43-4, Luke 6:27.

[image] King Otto IV of Brandenburg playing chess with a woman. Illustration from Codex Manesse, Zurich, between 1305 and 1340. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 848, fol. 13r. Thanks to University of Hiedelberg and Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Robertson, D. W. 1962. A Preface to Chaucer; studies in medieval perspectives. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Walsh, P.G., trans. 1982. Andreas Capellanus on love {De amore}. London: Duckworth.

Wood, Lucas. 2015. “The Art of Clerkly Love: Drouart la Vache Translates Andreas Capellanus.” Pp. 113-49 iu Glei, Reinhold and Wolfgang Polleichtner, eds. 2015. Medievalia et humanistica: studies in medieval and renaissance culture. New series, number 40.

varieties of dread game in Andreas Capellanus’s De amore

love scene: woman reading note from man

Dread game is a well-recognized technique in the modern empirical science of seduction. In the seduction literature, faking an extramarital affair is a standard prescription for a husband seeking to rekindle his wife’s sexual desire for him.[1] Dread game can be divided into two types: natural and supernatural. Natural dread game involves dread of losing a lover to another. Supernatural dread game involves dread of other-worldly punishment for not loving a person. Andreas Capellanus’s medieval treatise On love {De amore} indicates that in medieval Europe, natural dread game was more important than supernatural dread game.

Supernatural dread game is well-represented in the ancient, widely disseminated weeping-dog tale. To seduce a married woman reluctant to take on a lover, an old-woman go-between showed her a small dog weeping from being feed meat heavily peppered surreptitiously. The go-between explained that the weeping dog was a beautiful woman who had been transformed into a dog because she refused to accept a lover. The married woman, horrified with facing that fate, agreed to accept as lover the man who had hired the go-between.[2]

In De amore, a nobleman tried to run supernatural dread game on a noblewoman. After she rejected his proposition for sex, he declared, “Then hear the endless punishment awaiting you {Audias igitur poenas tibi sine fine paratas}.”[3] He told the story of a squire who saw a procession of riders. Leading the procession was the god of Love. The god of Love rewards and punishes persons “depending on whether their achievements in life have been good or evil {prout bene vel male gessit in vita}.” A beautiful woman riding an ugly, limping horse explained to the squire that the last group in the procession is women, like her, who refused all lovers. They are “the army of the dead {exercitus mortuorum}”:

those who follow last of all in so mean an assemblage, walking along in miserable garments, deprived of any kind of assistance, and wearied with pains of every sort (you can clearly witness them with your own eyes, and I too have been thrust into their company), are the most pitiable of all women who during life closed the palace of Love on all who wished to enter, and refused to give answer according to their deserts even to those performing good deeds or seeking a motive or support from them for doing good. Instead they repulsed all who asked to serve in the army of Love; they rejected them as though they found them loathsome. They gave no thought to him who is called the god of Love, in whose army those who sought their love were striving to serve.  … Besides this punishment, we have been sentenced to many other kinds of torments which none could know unless schooled by experience. It would be impossible for me to tell them, and quite hard for you to hear them. So women still living in the world should beware not to become our partners in these punishments, for after death no repentance will avail them.

{ Quae vero ultimo loco sequuntur tam vili compositione dispositae et habitu incedentes abiecto et quibuslibet carentes auxiliis omnique poenarum genere fatigatae, ut manifeste potes oculis conspicere propriis, in quarum et ego sum inserta collegio, sunt iliae omnium mulierum miserrimae, quae dum viverent cunctis amoris intrare palatium clausere volentibus nec aliquibus bona facientibus vel ab iis benefaciendi causam et favorem petentibus voluerunt pro meritis respondere, sed omnes amoris postulantes deservire militiae abiecerunt et tanquam sibi odiosos repulerunt, eum non recolentes omnino qui deus amoris dicitur, cui militare quaerebant qui postulabant amari. … Praeterea tot sumus aliis poenarum addictae generibus, quas nullus posset nisi per experientiam scire docentem, quod mihi narrare impossibile tibique satis esset audire difficile. Caveant ergo mulieres in saeculo viventes ne harum sint nobis consortes poenarum, quia post mortem nulla sibi poterit poenitudine subveniri. }

After this lesson in carpe diem, the woman guide showed the squire “greater and sterner punishment {maiores et duriores poenae}” for women who refused all lovers. These women rested in a place of “Dryness {Siccitas}”:

each of the women was prepared there a seat on a bundle of thorns, … which was always being rotated, so that the women were more painfully scratched by the points of the thorns, and their bare soles touched the red-hot earth. Such was the pain and suffering there that I can hardly believe it equaled amongst the very demons of Hell.

{ Ibi autem cuilibet illarum super spinarum fuit sedes parata fasciculo, … deputatos semper fasciculus movebatur, ut acrius spinarum dilacerarentur aculeis, et nudis plantis ignitum pertingebant solum. Tantus quidem dolor tantaque ibi erat afflictio quantam vix crederem inter ipsas Tartareas potestates adesse. }

This depiction of topical torment in a supernatural realm wasn’t enough to prompt the noblewoman to rush to have sex with the tale-teller. She declared that she would test potential lovers for worthiness and accept only a worthy one.

De amore ascribes more effectiveness to natural compared to supernatural dread game. Natural dread game is based on jealousy. According to De amore, sexual jealousy is intrinsic to sexual love: “jealousy is of the nature of love itself and without which true love cannot exist {ipsius amoris substantia, sine qua verus amor esse non potest, scilicet zelotypia}.”[4] Moreover, jealousy increases love:

Love again experiences increase when genuine jealousy preoccupies one of the lovers, for jealousy is called the nurturer of love. In fact even if the lover is oppressed not by genuine jealousy but by base suspicions, love always increases because of it, and becomes more powerful by its own strength.

{ Amor praeterea tunc quoque sumit augmentum, quum alterum amantium zelotypia vera detentat, quae quidem nutrix vocatur amoris. Immo et si amans non zelotypia vera sed turpi suspicione laboret, amor semper tamen inde cognoscit augmentum et sua fit virtute potentior. }

Jealousy is discussed throughout De amore. Three out of the thirty-one rules of love explicitly reference jealousy. De amore describes dread game in the context of testing love:

If a man wishes really to ascertain the good faith and affections of his lover, he should most circumspectly and skillfully pretend to his partner that he desires the embraces of another, and is beginning to visit her neighborhood more than usual. If he sees that his partner is upset because of this, he can assume that her love is secure, and that she is embedded in it with the utmost constancy. For when one of a pair of lovers suspects that the other is thriving on the embraces of a new love, or is contemplating some such, darts at once begin fiercely to assail her heart and mind, and to wound her inwardly with unbearable jealousy; and her face begins at once to show clearly her inner torment of mind.

{ Ad haec qui coamantis fidem atque affectum vera cupit indagatione cognoscere, cautissime et subtiliter simulare debet amanti quod alterius concupiscat amplexus, et eius ultra solitum incipiat frequentare viciniam. Ob quam rem si suam cognoverit coamantem animo turbari, eam vero credat in amore firmatam et in eo constantissime solidari. Nam, quum unus amantium [aspiciatur] novi amoris amplexibus enutriri vel de eo quomodolibet cogitare suspicatur amantem, statim in corde et animo vehementer incipit iaculari et intolerabili quodam zelo intrinsecus vulnerari. Cuius animi dolorem intrinsecum eius statim evidenter incipit facies indicare. }

The use of dread game for invigorating love isn’t explicitly described, but De amore clearly supports it. In De amore, supernatural dread game generates a skeptical, conditional response: “If your assertion is true … whether your account is true or false {Si vera sunt quae tua proponit assertio … Sive igitur vera sint sive falsa quae proponis.”[5] Natural dread game, in contrast, is closely linked to the jealousy necessary for love.

Through false stereotypes of the Dark Ages, the cultural circumstances of medieval Europe have been deeply misunderstood. Shaping human behavior with supernatural understanding is much more difficult than shaping behavior with interpersonal schemes. For economically reinvigorating sexual love, dread game is men’s rational choice.

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Notes:

[1] Dread game is much less effective for women to apply to men. Men are more likely to respond to dread game with anger and ejection from the relationship. The implications of gender asymmetry in parental knowledge for evolutionary psychology provides a plausible reason for sex asymmetry in effects of dread game.  In any case, women who engage in extra-pair sex should be concerned for secrecy. Secrecy is of considerable concern in De amore. See, e.g. 1.6.5-6, 1.6.269, 2.1.1, 2.8.46.

[2] The Lai du Trot, probably written only slightly before De amore, most likely was the source for the first part of the supernatural dread game in De amore. The Lai du Trot describes a procession of two groups on horseback. One group consists of one hundred and sixty happy alluring maidens with their elegantly dressed, beloved men. They all ride rapidly, smoothly, and happily on richly equipped horses. The other group consists of a hundred miserable maidens on poorly equipped, emaciated, weary horses moving in a slow, painful trot. A hundred men, as miserable as the maidens, follow unloved behind them. For the French text with English translation, Burgess & Brock (1999). Day 5, Story 8 (story of Nastagio degli Onesti) in Boccacio’s Decameron is an alternate version of supernatural dread game. Supernatural dread game is also known as the purgatory of cruel beauties. For discussion of other versions of supernatural dread game / purgatory of cruel beauties, Neilson (1900) and Battles (2003).

[3] De amore, 1.5.229, Latin text and English trans. from Walsh (1982) pp. 104-5.  The subsequent five quotes are from De amore 1.5.240-263, trans id. pp. 109-115.

[4] De amore 1.6.371, trans. id. p. 147. Similarly, De amore 1.6.377 and 1.6.399. The subsequent two quotes are from De amore 2.2.2, p. 229, and De amore 2.5.6-7, p. 237. On the latter, see the case ruling at De amore 2.7.6-8 (case 2), p. 253.

[5] De amore 1.6.276, id. p. 119.

[image] Woman and Alram von Gresten. Illustration from Codex Manesse, Zurich, between 1305 and 1315. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 848, fol. 311r. Thanks to the University of Heidelberg and Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Battles, Paul. 2003. “In folly ripe, in reason rotten: The Flower and the Leaf and the ‘Purgatory of Cruel Beauties.'” Medium Aevum 72: 238-258.

Burgess, Glyn S., and Leslie C. Brook, trans. 1999. Three old French narrative lays: Trot, Lecheor, Nabaret. Liverpool: University of Liverpool, Department of French.

Neilson, William Allan. 1900. “The purgatory of cruel beauties: a note on the sources of the 8th novel of the 5th day of the Decameron.” Romania 29: 85-93.

Walsh, P.G., trans. 1982. Andreas Capellanus on love {De amore}. London: Duckworth.