Roman de Fauvel
The Roman de Fauvel is a 14th-century
The romance features Fauvel, a
Chaillou's manuscript (Paris,
Plot
The poem revolves around the central figure, an ambitious and foolish horse, called Fauvel. The horse's name itself is rife with symbolism. "Fauvel" comes from the color of its coat, which is "muddy beige"[1] (or fallow-colored)[2][a] and symbolic of Vanity.[1] The name breaks down to fau-vel, or "false veil",[5] and is furthermore an acronym F-A-V-V-E-L taken from the head letters of these vices: Flattery, Avarice, Vileness, Variability (Fickleness), Envy, and Laxity (Flaterie, Avarice, Vilanie, Varieté, Envie, Lascheté).[4][6][7]
The first book is a rebuke against the clergy and society, tainted by Sin and corruption. Fauvel though he is a horse no longer resides in a stable, but is set up in a grand house (the royal palace in fact)
Fauvel travels to Macrocosmos and asks Dame Fortune for her hand in marriage. She denies him, but in her stead she proposes he wed Lady Vainglory. Fauvel agrees, and the wedding takes place, with such guests present as Flirtation, Adultery, Carnal Lust, and Venus, in a technique similar to that of the Morality plays of the 15th and 16th centuries.
Finally, Dame Fortune reveals that Fauvel's role in the world is to give birth to more iniquitous rulers like himself, and to be a harbinger of the Antichrist.
The manuscript was written to criticise King Philip IV, but direct attacks on his character were too dangerous. Instead, the king's second in command, Enguerrand de Marigny was the model for Fauvel.[12]
Text
The Roman de Fauvel is a poem of 3280
Surviving copies
The earliest manuscript to survive contains Chaillou's expanded version in his own hand (Paris, BN fr. 146). The dozen or so other extant manuscripts are of the non-interpolated form, and these continued to be copied into the fifteenth century.[4][14][16][b] Chaillou's deluxe manuscript is illustrated with 78 miniatures, and inserts 169 musical pieces, woven into a complex mise-en-page.
Music
Of all the surviving manuscript versions of Le Roman de Fauvel, the copy compiled by Chaillou de Pesstain (BN fr. 146), has attracted the most musicological attention due to the interpolated musical pieces in musical notation, which span the gamut of thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century genres and textures. The 169 pieces all have lyrics, 124 in Latin, 45 in French.[18][c] The genres cover the liturgical and devotional, sacred and profane, monophonic and polyphonic, chant, old and new music. Some of these pieces are thought to have been composed by
Although the text of the Roman de Fauvel is not particularly well known, the music has been frequently performed and recorded. The question of how the entire work would have been read or staged in the 14th century is the subject of academic debate. Some have suggested that BN fr. 146 could have been intended as a theatrical performance.[23] This hypothesis contradicts the concurrent opinion that the Roman de Fauvel is mainly an anthology.[21] Modern performance projects, live and recorded, based on the BN 146 manuscript of the "Roman de Fauvel", involving text, music, and at times staging or semi-staging, have been created by the Studio der Fruehen Musik, the Clemencic Consort, and The Boston Camerata, among others. Camerata's version has toured extensively in the U.S. and Europe, and was last seen at the 2011 Boston Early Music Festival.
Discography
The first recording of the work was made in 1972 by the
The recording of the Roman de Fauvel by The Boston Camerata, directed by Joel Cohen, was made in 1991 for Erato Disques. As of mid-2015, it was still available from Warner Classics. Erato also produced, the same year, a "video book" of the Roman de Fauvel. The video project was shown to audiences at the Louvre Museum, Paris, and at several conferences/colloquia; it was, however, never released commercially.
See also
- Ars nova
- Medieval music#France: Ars nova
- Guillaume de Machaut
- Philippe de Vitry
- Allegory in the Middle Ages
Explanatory notes
- dun".[4]
- ^ "dozen or so" — Långfors's edition counted 11 mss. of the shorter version, which other commentators have followed (Rosenberg & Tischler 1991, Regalado 1995a). But there is one fragment Långfors did not include in his tally, and in 1994 Mühlethaler published the existence of two previously unnoticed manuscript sources (1 complete copy and 1 fragment).[16][17]
- ^ Or 106 in Latin, 60 in French, and 3 bilingual.[15]
References
Citations
- ^ a b c Dillon (2002), p. 15.
- ^ "favel". Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. 4 (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. 1933. p. 107.
- ^ a b Rosenberg & Tischler (1991), p. 1.
- ^ a b c d e Regalado (1995a).
- ^ Dillon (2002), pp. 14, 117.
- ^
Morrison, Elizabeth; Hedeman, Anne D. (2010). Imagining the Past in France: History in Manuscript Painting, 1250–1500. Los Angeles: Getty Publications. pp. 135–7. ISBN 9781606060285.
- ^ Dillon (2002), p. 14.
- ^ Rosenberg & Tischler (1991), p. 5.
- ^
Roden, Timothy; Wright, Craig; Simms, Bryan (2009). "26. Gervès de Bus, Roman de Fauvel (c. 1314)". Anthology for Music in Western Civilization. Vol. 1. New York: Simms. pp. 78–80. ISBN 978-0-4955-7274-9.
- ^ Långfors (1914), p. 8, v. 122:teste le rooignent, tonsured head.
- ^ "curry favel, curry-favor". Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. 2 (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. 1933. p. 1272.
- ^ https://www.severallfriends.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Notes2.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ Dillon (2002), pp. 13, 87.
- ^ a b c Rosenberg & Tischler (1991), p. 2.
- ^ a b Regalado (1995b), p. 153.
- ^ a b Dillon (2002), p. 13.
- ^ Mühlethaler (1994).
- ^ Regalado (2007), p. 236.
- ^ Paris (1898), p. 137.
- ^ Långfors (1914).
- ^ a b Gagnepain (1996).
- ^ Dillon (2002).
- ^ a b Herbelot (1998).
Bibliography
- OCLC 621768159. Retrieved 2014-10-11.
- Dillon, Emma (2002). Medieval Music-Making and the "Roman de Fauvel". New perspectives in music history and criticism. Cambridge, UK: OCLC 638807104.
- Gagnepain, Bernard (1996). Histoire de la musique : XIIIe-XIVe siècle [History of Music: thirteenth-fourteenth century]. Solfèges (in French). Paris, France: .
- Herbelot, Aurélie (1998). Le Roman de Fauvel de Chaillou de Pesstain [The Romance of Fauvel by Chaillou of Pesstain] (Master Thesis) (in French). Universite de Savoie. Retrieved 2014-10-11. Google translation of Le Roman de Fauvel de Chaillou de Pesstain
- Mühlethaler, Jean-Claude (1994). Fauvel au pouvoir. Lire la satire médiévale [Fauvel in power: Read the medieval satire]. Nouvelle bibliothèque du Moyen Âge (in French). Paris, France: H. Champion. OCLC 781099516.
- Paris, Gaston (1898). "Le Roman de Fauvel". Histoire littéraire de la France. Vol. 32. Paris: Imprimere Nationale. pp. 108–153, 597.
- Regalado, Nancy F. (1995a). "Fauvel, livre de". In Kibler, William W. (ed.). Medieval France: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland. pp. 649–650. ISBN 0-8240-4444-4.
- Regalado, Nancy Freeman (1995b). "The Songs of Jehannot de Lescurel in Paris, BnF, MS fr. 146. Love Lyrics, Moral Wisdom and the Material Book". In Dixon, Rebecca; Sinclair, Finn E. (eds.). Poetry, Knowledge and Community in Late Medieval France. New York: Garland. pp. 151–172. ISBN 0-8240-4444-4.
- Regalado, Nancy Freeman (2007). "Swinherds at Court: Kalila et Dimna, Le Roman de Fauvel". In Fresco, Karen Louise; Pfeffer, Wendy (eds.). Chancon Legiere a Chanter. Summa Publications, Inc. pp. 235–254. ISBN 978-1-8834-7954-1.
- Rosenberg, Samuel; Tischler, Hans (1991). The Monophonic songs in the Roman de Fauvel. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. p. 2. OCLC 21677576.
External links
- "Gervès du Bus – Bibliographie". arlima.net (in French). Les Archives de littérature du Moyen Âge (ARLIMA). Retrieved 2014-10-12.
- "Français 146". gallica.bnf.fr. Paris, France: PDFof the facsimile.
- "Source Description for Français 146". diamm.ac.uk. Oxford, UK: Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music. Retrieved 2014-10-12. Includes a detailed description, large bibliography, and table of contents for the Français 146 manuscript of Roman de Fauvel.