More than any other literary genre, edifying Christian tales have been subjected over the course of centuries to successive re-readings.
Many of them go back to the tradition of the Desert Fathers.
Ah, scholarship—or should I say, ah, pedantry! Brace yourself, dear reader, for alternation between the titles Lives of the Fathers and Life of the Fathers. The inconsistency is deliberate and owes nothing to typographical errors. Let me do my best to unravel the tangled skein, so that we may tease apart the individual strands and make sense of them. By referring in French to Lives of the Fathers, the poem invokes as an ostensible source what may appear to be, to switch metaphors, no more than a red herring.
Works in both French and Latin exist that could have been designated in this way in the thirteenth century, although nowadays the names in both languages are reserved for incomparably different texts.
The fact that the tale of Our Lady’s Tumbler has turned up in none of them could lead to three conclusions. One is that the wellspring of the poem bubbled up in a version of Lives of the Fathers that has failed to survive. Another is that poet’s reference was calculated to be a false scent. If the citation was meant to be taken under such false pretenses, one reason could be that the author sought to keep under wraps his actual inspiration in another source, which either no longer exists or remains unidentified.
The third interpretation could be that the writer of Our Lady’s Tumbler made up the story out of whole cloth, but succumbed to a characteristically medieval impulse by alleging that his fabrication had authoritative underpinning, as it was drawn from a respected work.
A total of at least five French poems of the thirteenth century claim as their origin a text that may be either Lives of the Fathers in Latin or the related but distinct Life of the Fathers in French. Only The Hermit and the Jongleur has been tracked conclusively to an item in any such narrative treasury. In the other four, the citation of Lives of the Fathers appears to be a literary device to misguide readers. Two of them share with The Hermit and the Jongleur the feature of being both miracles and pious tales. The same combination occurs in both the French Life of the Fathers and the Miracles of Gautier de Coinci. Furthermore, the manuscripts of the French Life of the Fathers overlap substantially with those that transmit the Marian miracles of Gautier de Coinci.
Lives of the Fathers designates in the first instance a Latin collection that emerged in the last quarter of the fourth century and later, presumably based on Greek originals.
The text amasses in ten books brief narratives that are comparable in a coarse way to the one about the jongleur. Such accounts are known as “spiritually beneficial” or
“useful tales.” They are narratives, but at the same time they could be called spiritual exercises. More than a thousand such stories were recorded at the latest in the late fourth century, but some of them may have circulated orally long before then. At the other extreme of the chronological spectrum, most of the major collections in the genre had been put together by the beginning of the seventh century. Additional tales cropped up, singly and in clumps, for centuries afterward.
The genre assembles traditions, running the gamut from completely developed biographies to much shorter dialogues, sayings, and anecdotes. Many of these materials relate to individual Christians who from the end of the third century withdrew from society to devote their lives to spiritual self-improvement and hyperascetic severity in the solitude of the wilderness. The so-called desert fathers at the heart of the collections were the earliest such figures from within Christianity. They inhabited the wilds of what we call the Mideast, especially the region around Thebes in Egypt, Judea, and Syria. All of them were hermits, in that they dwelled in wastelands. In Greek, the root of the word for “hermit” means “deserted,” “uninhabited,” or “solitary.” Initially they were solitaries, but eventually they lived mostly in ordered communities. Lives of the Fathers, which pertains to the early stages of development, admits stories of laypeople who do not reside in the sunbaked desert and whose concerns are not strictly religious but sometimes even inarguably secular.
Lives of the Fathers exercised appreciable influence in the Middle Ages. In the beginning the work would have been particularly esteemed among monks. The monastic appreciation began early, since the Rule of Saint Benedict prescribes the text for collective reading after a sit-down dinner. Among Cistercians, recitation took place during balanced meals in the refectory as well as at the close of the day when the brethren huddled in the collation gallery. Lives of the Fathers belonged among the favored texts for reading aloud, since it affirmed to the monks the achievements and vicissitudes experienced by some of their earliest and most important role models, the desert fathers. But the reach of the collection was destined to extend far beyond the cloister. In time, it was translated into many European vernaculars. In French, versions of different portions from it were created in both verse and prose between the late twelfth and fifteenth century.
In the literary history of medieval French, the title Life of the Fathers (differing by use of an initial singular rather than plural) refers most often to an agglomeration from the first half of the thirteenth century. This heavyweight piece of poetry from the Middle Ages enjoyed a lasting success. Its popularity is confirmed by the existence of more than fifty complete and partial manuscripts, from the thirteenth into the sixteenth century. The narratives contained in this verse compendium have
often been subsumed within the genre of pious tale, although some of them bear a stronger resemblance to fabliaux. Although Life of the Fathers has a similar title and overlaps very loosely at the beginning with some material found in the Latin Lives of the Fathers, no part of the whole poem as it has come through in the spoken language is directly connected with the latter, or with related Latin compositions that deal with the sanctity of the desert fathers. The three main thrusts of the French text are toward the ascetic existence of those early fathers, aspects of monasticism, and miracles of the Virgin Mary.
To get down to further nitty-gritty, the Life of the Fathers in the vernacular language comprises three collections. The first one has been attributed to a formerly anonymous author who has now been identified provisionally by majority opinion as one Ernoul Langny. Although well disposed toward the Cistercians, this individual is remarkably clear in suggesting that lay existence is in no wise inferior to monastic.
In fact, it establishes that laymen may overshadow monks in their way of life. The poet is likely to have written near Paris in the 1220s or thereabouts. The second and third collections were added later to the first one. The additional stories that make up the second are probably to be dated shortly after the first was completed. They show signs of having originated in western Picardy. The third is later again. It may have come from the hand of a Franciscan. Thus, we can see familiar fellow-travelers, with white monks preparing the way for friars minor, and with a Picard connection.
The forty-two tales in the first assemblage of tales take place mostly in Egypt in the days of the desert fathers. The prologue to each proffers a truth of Christian life or dogma, which is exemplified by the narrative. At the other end, an epilogue teases out the moral. The narratives in the other two collections are more often given a contemporary thirteenth-century setting, with their concluding commentary being shorter. Some of them tell miracles of the Virgin, unlike the stories in the first, set in olden times. For example, we have seen that The Tale of the Barrel, which is loosely related to Our Lady’s Tumbler, surfaces among these accounts. The lay brothers are heavily represented among the narratives included within the French Life of the Fathers.
Yet neither the Latin Lives of the Fathers nor the French in any guise manifests any reflex of the legend that corresponds to the exemplum recounted in Our Lady’s Tumbler. All the same, the reference in our poem does not necessarily constitute false advertising.
Instead, it may point to a tangential, rather than a straight-line, indebtedness.
In seeking tales comparable to Our Lady’s Tumbler, we could look for other narratives about professional entertainers. Adhering to this criterion, we find that the French Life of the Fathers incorporates a tale about a minstrel. The story of the tumbler might be construed as a narrative that counters it. The forty-two episodes making up the French text are conventionally known by short titles that were assigned to them in 1884 by Gaston Paris, a scholar of language and literature who will appear often in this book. This episode goes by the name “Goliard.” The epithet originally applied to members of the medieval clergy, particularly students, who composed Latin squibs
and drinking poems. In other words, goliards belonged to the same social stratum that included jongleurs. To speak in terms of present-day academic attire, they were tweedy, but their heavy-twill jackets sometimes had holes through which their elbows poked, rather than the leather patches that have become metonymous with
“professor.” In this case, the story centers upon a bibulous cleric with a compulsive gambling problem and the French appellation of Lechefrite or “Grease Pot.” This malfeasant converts to become a Cistercian monk. His hidden intent is to pocket gold and silverware from the monastery and make off with it. Yet for twenty years, his conscience renders him unable and unwilling to carry through on either his initial intention to commit theft or his later resolution to leave the order.
Although at the outset the goliard only feigns a resolve to be a monk, a miracle causes him to undergo a conversion that is both authentic and enduring. On one occasion, after holy orders have been conferred upon him, he decides to forsake the monastery once he has said Mass. His first objective is to officiate at the altar of the Virgin, so that Mary may protect him from temptation in the world outside; but the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Just when the goliard-turned-priest elevates the host, the right hand of the infant Jesus, who is pictured in the altarpiece with his mother, reaches out and grabs it from him. No sooner has the would-be escapee lamented and prayed to the Virgin than Jesus returns the wafer and wine to him. After the penitent goes back to bed all sackcloth and ashes, the monk who assisted him at the altar reveals to his superior what happened. In turn, the abbot visits the onetime worldly wordsmith. Eventually the reformed monk, no longer a wannabe runaway, is himself elected to the highest office within the abbey, whereupon he dies and is granted entry into heaven.
The tales of “Goliard” in the French Life of the Fathers and of the entertainer in Our Lady’s Tumbler are by no stretch of the imagination one and the same. Yet the overlap suffices to render it at least plausible that the author of the jongleur poem was not merely indulging himself in the supremely medieval whimsy of citing a spurious source with his mention (and perhaps significantly, in the plural form) of Lives of the Fathers. Both pieces of poetry gloss over inaccuracies about time and place by engaging in anachronism and, to resort to the corresponding term for a comparable spatial disjunction, anatopism. To be specific, both texts present tales that are identified as happening in medieval Cistercian monastic contexts, but as if the characters and events belonged to the Egyptian desert of the fathers from late antiquity.
To turn to the two poems’ protagonists, both the tumbler and the goliard issue from marginal groups with reputations that are antithetical to those of monks; both convert to the Cistercian order, which is treated favorably by the poets; both undergo crises when performing before altars dedicated to the Virgin; both elicit motions from within representations of the Virgin that become animated; both become the focus of communiqués made by a fellow monk to the abbot; and both are admitted to the celestial realm at the close of the tales. Despite the risk of growing unctuous, it is
worth mentioning in addition that both are connected pointedly with cooking fat.
In Our Lady’s Tumbler, a strikingly oleaginous simile describes in animal terms the perspiration of the performer after he completes his routine to honor the Virgin: “Just as grease comes out on the spit so the sweat comes out of him… from his feet up to his head.” The image of the meat sizzling on the skewer underlines the carnality of the gesture that the minstrel makes in devotion to the Virgin. The goliard and eponymous character “Grease Pot” is related to oily matter through his very name.
Then again, we may misjudge if we make the profession of the protagonist the benchmark for the degree of proximity between Our Lady’s Tumbler and any of the tales in the Latin Lives of the Fathers or French Life of the Fathers. The fact that an entertainer plays the foremost role in both stories may be a distraction. Instead, we should think about the progression of events in specific narratives that we compare. Evaluation in this spirit leads to the episode in Life of the Fathers that has been entitled “Miserere.”
The tale is so called because it has at its nucleus the prayer for mercy known by this name. The Latin imperative miserere or “have pity” is the first word of Psalm 51. For the major moving parts of this narrative, this story would seem to have a common source with a miracle in Gautier de Coinci.
In “Miserere,” a simple but goodhearted man makes up his mind to give up all his possessions and to join a holy hermit, which the solitary allows. The recent arrival prays repetitiously, using shaky phraseology in the learned language that does not follow the wording of the biblical verse as it should. Liking the text for its sincerity and humility, God causes a miraculous glow to gleam whenever the unflashy fellow worships. Unaware of God’s favor and the miracle, the recluse insists that the beginner use only the proper Latin. The miracle ceases, the man is distressed, and in his perturbation, he sickens. One half year later, the ascetic visits, discovers what has transpired, recognizes the piety of his former companion, and has him return to his earlier practice and phrasing. At this point the light resumes. The hermit witnesses the wonder. Duly awestruck, he remains with the man forever after.
Finally, the reference to Lives of the Fathers in Our Lady’s Tumbler could have one more explanation. The poet may have intended to acknowledge that he was beholden not so much in content as in spirit. The tale of the tumbler shows a person, saintlike even if not a saint, who wins divine favor. He achieves this grace not through martyrdom but through conversion and staunch belief. To be precise, he expresses piety through humility in the face of public humiliation. Even the profuse sweating could be construed as referring to a hagiographic motif and implying the tumbler’s saintliness, by calling to mind the deacon Lawrence. When tortured by being placed upon a red-hot iron grille, this famous martyr of the third century reportedly responded only by telling his tormentors, “This side is done, turn me over.” Similarly, the tumbler makes himself into a human roast, but through the blistering heat of his own exertions rather through the effects of a torture device. Both men have the last laugh in their ordeals.
At the end of his routines, the tumbler is prone. The position is reminiscent of the
obeisance that is known technically now by the Greek προσκύνησις, proskunesis. In this act of devotion, the worshiper bends down and kneels. In extreme cases, he lies face down. The Rule of Saint Benedict prescribed a humble posture of penance, with head and eyes glued to the ground, and body stretched out. Pride is the deadliest sin, and the self-debasement of humility affords an opportunity for avoiding the fall that the prideful are known to suffer. Portraits, even self-portraits, may be found in which monks are shown in such a position before the Virgin and Child (see Fig. 1.36). To take a remarkable instance, a manuscript of a chronicle contains by way of proem a self-depiction of its author in this stance. A large framed drawing portrays the historian (and artist) himself on his knees in deference before the Virgin and Child, shown enthroned. The picture is the medieval equivalent of a snapshot that catches Christ in motion as he presses his face against his mother’s, strokes her hair, and clambers up toward the apple she is holding.
Fig. 1.36 Kneeling monk (Matthew Paris). Miniature by Matthew Paris, 1250–1259.
London, British Library, MS Royal 14 C VII, fol. 6r. Image courtesy of British Library, London.
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The self-abasement here is true to the word, since etymologically abasement refers to a lowering. The comportment ascribed by the painter to the worshipful monk is more characteristic of the heroic asceticism and devotion of the early centuries in the church. The performer in Our Lady’s Tumbler takes down the humility, or even self-humiliation, by one additional gradation. To be clad in the attire of a monk is already humble enough, but he strips down to the even lowlier layer of his underclothing.
In attire as in all else, he becomes the opposite of vainglorious. While not wholly in the buff, he molts to a very exposed and defenseless state. In any event, the story of the tumbler’s redemption through humility conveys a message consistent with the biographies of the desert fathers. The gist is worth chewing over. People, especially
odious ones, have always been inclined to misconstrue humility for softheadedness.
Often they also commit an error by assuming that simplicity will be the kiss of death.
So much the worse for them, because simplicity can be powerful.