The Enigmatic Style in Twelfth-Century French Literature

The E nigmatic Style i n T wel fth-Century
French L iterature
Jeff Rider
At one point in his commentary on Boethius’s Gonsalation of Philosophy,
after interpreting the myth of Orpheus, the twelfth-century grammarian,
Wi lliam of Conches (1 1 20-1 1 54), breaks off to comment:
No one should criticize our interpretation of this fablejust because he fmds another
interpretation of it while reading Fulgentius, for one can come up with
various interpretations of the same thing depending on how one Iooks at it. This
variety of interpretations is a cause for rejoicing rather than concern, as lang as
each explanation is free from contradictions.1
ln the third quarter of the twelfth century, Marie de France wrote something
similar in a much-discussed passage i n the prologue to her Lais:
lt was the custom of the old authors, as Priscian testifies, to speak somewhat ob·
scurely in their books so that those who were to come after them and had to
study their books might gloss the letters they found written there and use their
own judgment to fill out the meaning. These philosophers knew, they under·
stood from their own experience, that as time went on people’sjudgment would
become more subtle and they would be better able to keep for themselves part
ofthat in their works which might be lost.2
T owards the end of the century, moreover, Chretien de T royes began his
Story of the Grail by writing that
„[S]i aliquis legens Fulgentium aliter hanc fabulam exponi videat, idcirco hanc
nostram non vituperet, quia de eadem re secundum diversam considerationem
diverse 1nveniuntur expositiones. Sed non est curandum de diversitate exposi·
tionum, immo gaudendum, sed de contrarietate si in expositione esset“ (cited in
Edouard Jeauneau, „L’usage de Ia notion d’integumentum a travers les gloses de
Guillaume de Conches.“ Archives d’Histoire Doctrina/e et Litteraire du Moyen Age
24 [195 7]: 4 7). All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.
„Custume fu as anciens, I Ceo testimoine Preciens, I Es livres kejadis feseient, I
Assez oscurement dise1ent I Pur ceus ki a venir esteient I E ki aprendre I es de·
veient, I K’i peussent gloser Ia lettre I E de I ur sen le surplus mettre. I Li philoso·
phe le saveient. I Par eus me1smes l’entenoeient, I Cum plus trespassere1t Ii tens,
I Plus serreient sutil de sens I E plus se savreient garder I Oe ceo k’i ert a tres·
passer“ (Marie de F rance, Lais, Prologue 9-22, ed. Jean Rychner [Paris: Cham·
pion, 1 971], 1-2).
50 JEFF RIO ER
Whoever sows sparingly, reaps sparingly. but he who wishes to reap plentifully
casts his seed on ground that will bear him fruit a hundredfold; for good seed
withers and dies in worthless soil. Chretien sows and casts the seed of a romance
that he is beginning and sows it in such a good place that he cannot fail to profit
greatly from it for he does it for the worthiest man in the Empire of Rome. that is,
Count Philip of Flanders.3
As I have shown elsewhere, this passage is more complicated than it
might at first seem, but the core metaphor is clear. Writing a romance is
like sowing a seed and that seed grows more or less weil depending an
the soil-which is to say the listener or reader-in which it is sown. ln a
poor l istener or reader, the seed w i l l wither and die; in a good one, it w i l l
bear fruit-which i s t o say meaning-a hundredfold. 4
Common to a l l three authors is the notion that a text’s meanings are
produced by hearers or readers whose capacities, interests and concerns
determine what the text means to them. A text’s meanings are not fixed,
are not something transmitted from the author to the hearer or reader,
and, in the case of a secular, poetic text, are not even subject to the blinders
of orthodoxy; they are, rather, something the hearers or readers
imagine while hearing or reading the text. „The ward comes to the ears
like whistling wind,“ Chretien writes at the beginning of The Knight with
the Lion,
„Qui petit seime petit quiaut I Et qui auques recoillir viaut I En tel Ieu sa semence
espande I Que fruit a cent doble Ii rande, I Car en terre qui rien ne vaut I Bone
semence seiche et faut. I Crestrens seime et fait semence I D’un romanz que i l
encommence I Et s i lo seime e n s i n bon Ieu I Qu’il n e puet ester sanz grant preu.
I II le fait por lo plus prodome I Qui soit e1 1’empire de Rome, I C’est Ii cuens Felipes
de Flandres“ (Chretien de Troyes, Le Conte du graa/ 1-13, ed. Charles Mela
[Paris: Livre de Poche, 1 990], 26; The Story of the Grail [Perceval}, in Chrl!tien de
Troyes, Arthurian Romances. trans. William Kibler [Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1991]. 381 [trans. modified]).
See Jeff Rider, „Wild Oats: The Parable of the Sower in the Prologue to Chretien
de Troyes‘ Conte du graal,“ in Philologies 0/d and New: Essays in Honor of Peter
Florian Oembowski, ed. Carol Chase and Joan Tasker Grimbert (Princeton, NJ:
Edward C. Armstrong Monographs, 2001), 251-66. For another reflection on
these authors‘ use of obscurity, see Carlo Donä, „Oscuritä ed enigma in Marie de
France e Chretien de Troyes,“ in Obscuritas: Retorica e poetica dell’oscuro. Atti del
XXVII Convegno lnteruniversitario di Bressanone (12-15 luglio 2001 ), ed. F rancesco
Zambon and Giosue Lachin (Trento: Editrice Universita degli Studi d i
T rento, 2004), 1 03-1 5.
ENIGMATIC STYLE IN TWELFTH-CEN11JRY FRENCH LiTERATURE 51
but doesn’t stop or linger there; instead it qUickly leaves if the heart is not alert
and ready to grasp it. for the heart can grasp and enclose and retain it when it
comes .S
A second notion, which is common to both Marie and Chretien at
least-who were writers rather than interpreters-and is, indeed, i l l ustrated
in the passages cited above in which they set it forth, is that given
that meaning is not communicated from the author to hearers or readers,
but is instead produced by them, the best way for a writer to ensure
that his or her work w i l l continue to be read and will bear meaning a
hundredfold is to write „somewhat obscurely.“ The „somewhat“ is i m portant.
lf one writes too obscurely, one w i l l not b e read. lf o n e writes
too clearly, one I i m its both the meaningfulness and the potential audience
of one’s work by binding it too closely to a single context. By writing
somewhat obscurely, one gives one’s work the best chance of being
endlessly meaningful, of provoking meaning for many people at many
times in many places.s
What we find reflected in these three passages is what I will call a
taste for, an aesthetic of, enigma, which was a central part of the twelfthcentury
French l i terary tradition. Although the concept of enigma is pre-
„As oreilles v1ent Je parole. I Aussi comme Ii vens qui vole, I Ma1s n’i arreste ne
demore, I Ains s’en part en mout petit d’ore, I Se Ii cuers n’est SI estilli􀇖s I C’a
prendre soit appareil li􀎀s; I Que c h i l le puet en son venir I Prendre et enclorre et
retenir“ (Chretien de Troyes, Le Chevalier au lion 1 58-64, ed. and French trans.
David Hult [Paris: Livre de Poche, 1994], 60; The Knighr wirh rhe Lion [Yvain], in
Chr􀇖tien de T royes, Arrhurian Romances, 297 [trans. modified]).
This anticipates, from a productive or rhetorical pomt of view, Paul Riceour’s
hermeneulies of appropriation, which is founded on the fact thal a text’s reference
changes as it is handed on over time. „in my view,“ writes Ricoeur, „the text
is much more than a particular case of intersubjective communication: it is the
paradigm of distanciation in communication. As such, it displays a fundamental
characteristic of the very historicity of human experience, namely that it is communication
in and through distance . . . . An essential characterisllc of a literary
work, and of a work of art in general, is that it transcends its own psycho-sociological
conditions of production and thereby opens itself to an unlimited series of
readings, themselves situated in different socio-cultural conditions. in short, the
text must be able, from the sociological as weil as the psychological point of view.
to ‚decontextualize‘ itself i n such a way that it can be ‚recontextualised‘ in a new
Situation – as accompl ished, precisely, by the act of reading“ {„The Hermeneutical
Function of Oistanciation.“ in Paul R iceour, Hermeneuries and rhe Human Sciences,
ed. and trans. John B. Thompson [Cambridge: Cambndge University Press; Paris:
Editions de Ia Maisan de Seiences de I’Homme, 1981], 1 31 , 1 39; cf. Ricoeur, „Appropriation,“
in Hermeneuries and rhe Human Sciences, 1 82-93}.
52 JEFF RIO ER
sent at the very beginning of the classical rhetorical tradition and is d iscussed,
notably, by Aristotle and Cicero, Quintilian gives it the place it
holds in a l l subsequent treatises on rhetoric and grammar: among the
tropes, as a species of allegory. ln his lnstitutio oratoria, Quintilian defines
a trope as „the artistic alteration of a ward or a phrase from its
proper meaning to another“ and writes that metaphor is the most common
and best of tropes. Allegory is a continuous series of metaphors
which „either presents one thing in words and another in meaning, or
eise something absolutely opposed to the meaning of the words.“ He
subsequently identifies this second type of a l legory, where what is meant
is absolutely opposed to what is said, as irony. „When, however. an a l legory
i s too obscure.“ he writes. „we call it an enigma.“ Enigma, in other
words, is a species of a llegory, a continuous series of metaphors whose
meaning is ambiguous and obscure.7
The particular value of enigma, according to Classical rhetorical treatises,
is the pleasure it proeures the audience by means of its metaphoric
nature. The treatises agree that metaphor is an important device, perhaps
an orator’s most useful tool, and is a source of great pleasure for an
audience. As C icero’s orator Crassus observes,
everybody derives more pleasure from words used metaphorically and not i n
their proper sense than from the proper names belonging to the objects . . . .
even in cases where there are plenty of proper words available, words not
used in their proper sense give people much more pleasure, if the metaphor is
a good one.
The seductiveness of metaphor is so great, in fact, that Crassus feels
ob I iged to admonish his i nterlocutors that „only such metaphors should
be used as either make the meaning clearer . . . or such as better convey
the whole meaning of the matter.“ The danger is that the pleasure procured
by metaphor w i l l become the goal of the discourse. rather than the
transmission of meaning: the desire to please the audience through the
use of metaphor may overcome the obligation to instruct them and this
w i l l Iead to obscurity. Cicero thus recognizes both a value and a danger
in the use of metaphor. „There is,“ he writes, „no mode of speech more
effective in the case of single words, and none that adds more bri l l iance
„(V]erbi vel sermonis a propria significatione in aliam cum virtute mutatio . . . . aut
aliud verbis aliud sensu ostendit aut etiam interim contrarium . . . . Sed allegoria,
quae est obscurior, aenigma dicitur“ (Ouint i l i an, lnstitutio oratoria 8.6.1, 44, 52;
trans. H. E. Butler, 4 vols., Loeb Classical _ibrary [Lenden: Heineman; New York:
Putnam’s Sons, 1 920-22]. 3: 300-01. 326-27, 330-31 ).
ENIGMATIC STYLE IN TWELFTH-CENTURY FRENCH LITERATURE 5 3
t o the style,“ but h e also realizes that the pleasure afforded b y metaphor
may become the only reason for its use.a
Cicero writes that allegory, like the metaphors of which it is made up,
is „a valuable sty l istic ornament.“ But here too there is a danger: when
one uses al legory, C icero warns, „care must be taken to avoid obscurity-
and in fact it is usually the way in which what are cal led enigmas
are made.“9 Al legory, in other words, ·s a continuous use of metaphor
which still serves to convey the intended meaning; in the case of enigma,
the meaning is obscure and the d iscourse serves principally to amuse. An
enigmatic d iscourse pleases immensely, that is, but it does not instruct
i nsofar as its meaning is obscure. lt is a sort of metaphoric inebriation,
where metaphor is used principally for the pleasure it procures.
Noteworthy evidence of the enterta ining pleasure provided by
enigma is to be found in Aulus Gel l i us’s Attic Nights, where he relates
that he and some fellow Roman students in Äthens used to meet for dinner
during the Saturnalia and spend the evening
very merrity yet temperately, not „relaxing our minds.“ as the saying is-for, as
Musonius asserts, to retax the mind is like tosing it-but diverting our minds a
little and relieving them by the delights of pleasant and improving conversation:
the hast would pose a series of enigmas and obscure questions (of which
Gellius gives seven examples) and a guest who solved an enigma or answered
a question received a prize and a laurel crown. Quintil ian also
testifies to the pleasure to be derived from enigma by first mentioning it,
not in the part of the lnstitutio devoted to tropes. but in a discussion of
„the sources from which laughter may be legitimately derived or the
topics where it may be naturally employed.“ Pompeius s i m i larly defines
enigma as „that game which children play amongst themselves when
they ask each other little questions which none can understand,“ while
“ [E]a transferri oportet quae aut clariorem faciunt rem . . . aut quo significatur
magis res tota . . . omnes translates et alienis magis delectantur verbis quam propriis
et suis . . . sed in suorum verborum maxima copia tarnen homines aliena
multo magis, si sunt ratione translate, delectant . . . . Modus autem nullus est florentior
in singutis verbis nec qui plus luminis afferat orationi“ (Cicero. Oe Oratore
3.39. 1 5 7-3.40.159, 3.41.1 66; trans. E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham, 2 vols., Loeb
Classical library [London: Heineman; Cambridge: Harvard, 1942], 2: 1 22-25.
1 30-31 [trans. modified]).
„[M]agnum ernamenturn orationis. ln quo obscuritas fugienda est: etenim ex hoc
genere fiunt ea quae dicuntur aenigmata“ (Oe Oratore 3.42.167. 2: 1 3 1 ).
54 JEFF RIO ER
Gervase of Melkley, in the thi rteenth century, writes that „enigma is any
obscure proposition testing one’s talent for guessing.“10
The identification of enigma as obscure al legory passed from the
classical textbook to the medieva l textbook without i nterruption or sign
ificant modification, and by the middle of the fourth century the expos i tion
o f the concept had achieved t h e form it would reta i n throughout the
Middle Ages. „An enigma,“ writes Donatus in his Ars maior (c. 340-360),
„is an obscure proposition which is composed by means of a hidden resemblance
between things.“11
Even Augustine’s concept of enigma, which he perceives to be one of
God’s principal means of revelation and examples of which he finds in
Scri pture and the soul, is nonetheless the simple, traditional grammatical
concept. ln his treatise On the Trinity, he launches his commentary on
Paul’s use ofthe words “ i n enigma“ by writing:
these words are altogether unintelligible to those who have never had those basie
lessons in which i s taught a certain doctrine concerning modes of speaking
which the Greeks call tropes, which Greek word we also use in Latin . . . . There
are, however, several species of this trope, that is of allegory, among which
there is indeed one called enigma . . . so that every enigma is an allegory, but not
every allegory i s an enigma. What, therefore, is al legory if not that trope where
one thing is to be understood by means of another thing . . . . Enigma, I can
briefly explain, is an obscure allegory.12
10 „(H]ilare prorsum ac modeste, non, ut dicitur, ‚remittentes animum‘- nam ‚remittere,‘
inquit Musonius, ‚animum quasi amittere est‘ -, sed demulcentes eum paulum
atque laxantes iucundis honestisque sermonum inlectationibus“ (Aulus Gellius,
Attic Nights 1 8.2, trans. John C. Rolfe, 3 vols., Loeb Classical Library [London:
11
Heinemann; New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1 927-28]. 3: 297-303:); „unde autem
concilietur risus et quibus locis peti soleat“ (Quintilian, lnstitutio oratoria 6.3.35,
5 1 ; 2: 456-57, 464-65); „aenigma est, quo ludunt etiam parvuli inter se, quando
sibi proponent quaestiunculas, quas nullus i ntelleget“ (Pompeius, Commentum
artis Donati, in Grammatici latini, vol. 5: Artium Scriptores minores, ed. Heinrich
Keil [Leipzig: Teubner, 1 868]. 3 1 1 ); „Enigma est quelibet obscura sententia probans
ingenium divinandi“ (Gervase of Melkley, Ars poetica, ed. Hans-Jürgen
Gräbener. Forschungen zur Romanischen Phi lologie 1 7 [Münster: Aschendorffsche
Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1965], 1 49).
„Aenigma est obscura sententia per occultam similitudinem rerum“ (Aelius
Donatus, Ars maior, ed. Loui s Holtz, in Louis Holz, Donat et Ia tradition de
f’enseignement grammatical [Paris: CNRS, 1 98 1 ] . 672).
12 „[M]ultis hoc incognitum est qui eas litteras nesciunt, in quibus est doctrina
quaedam de locutionem modus. quos Graeci tropos vocant, eoque graeco vocabulo
etiam nos utimur pro latino . . . . Hujus autem tropi, id est al legoriae, plures
sunt species, in quibus est etiam quod dicitur aenigma . . . . ita omne aenigma allegoria
est, non omnis allegoria aenigma est. Quid ergo est allegoria, nisi tropus ubi
EN IGMATIC STYLE IN TWELFTH-CENTURY FRENCH LITERATURE 55
The examples of enigma with which Augustine i l lustrates the just-cited
passage are a l l drawn from the Bible, but he also recognizes the existence
of enigmas in secular texts. ln his Seven Questions Concerning the
Heptateuch, i n the course of a commentary on a passage from Numbers,
he explains the unusual word „enigmatisters“ by noting that they seem
to be composing a song. He therefore concludes that
it is not incredible to think that those whom we call poets were then called
enigmatisters, for 1t IS the hab1t and the l1cense of poets to mix the enigmas of
fables with their songs, by which they are understood to signify something. lndeed,
enigmas were probably then nothing other than that tropical locution
which must be broken if that which lies hidden in the enigma is to be understood.
13
The passage shows that Augustine considered the enigmas of secular poets
to be comparable to the enigmas of the divinely inspired biblical
ones.
ex alio aliud intellegitur . . . . Aenigma est autem, ut breviter explicem, obscura
al legoria“ (Augustine, La Trinit􀉱 1 5.9.15, in Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, vols. 1 5-
16, ed. and French trans. M. Mellet and Th. Camelot [Paris: Descll!e De Brouwer,
1955], 2:458-60). On th1s passage in particular and enigma in the classical and
medieval rhetoncal tradition m general, see Eleanor Cook, „The Figure of
Enigma: Rhetoric, History, Poetry,“ Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric
1 9 (2001 ) : 349-78: on the sources and treatment of obseurity in this tradition
more generally, see Jan Ziolkowskl, „Theories of Obseunty in the Latin Tradition,“
Mediaevalia: A Journal of Medieval Studies 19 (1996 for 1993): 1 01-70: and lr!!ne
Rosier-Cataeh, ed., L ‚Ambiguit􀉱; cinq 􀌵tudes historiques (Lilie: Presses Universitairesde
Lilie, 1988).
13 „[N]on ineredibiliter putantur isti aenigmatistae sie tune appellati, quos poetas
nos appellamus, eo quo poetarum sit eonsuetudo atque lieentia miseere earminibus
suis aenigmata fabularum, quibus aliqJid significare i ntellegantur. Non enim
aliter essent aenigmata, nisi esset i llie tropica loeutio, qua diseussa perueniretur
ad i ntelleeturn qui in aenigmate latitaret“ (Augustine, Quaestionum in Heptateuchum
libri VIII Quaest. 45, ed. J. Fraipont, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 33
[Turnhout: Brepols, 1958], 263-64). I would like to thank Tamas Visi for pointing
out to me that Augustine’s word „enigmatisters“ („aenigmatistae“) is based on
the Septuagi nt version of the Old Testament, which translates a Hebrew word
meaning „those who speak parables/proverbs“ as „al’llvtwano’l:a!ll“ („enigmatisters“).
The Hebrew word is from the same root as the Hebrew title of the book
Proverbs. The phrase i n which the word is used (Num. 21 :27) introduces a citation
from an ancient poem and many modern translators render the Hebrew
phrase as „poets“: modern scholars, in sum, have reached the same conclusion as
Augustine. Compare Origen, Homily XIIIon Numbers, 2.1.
56 JEFF RIDER
The definition of enigma as an obscure a llegory is repeated by essentially
every grammarian i n the Middle Ages. „An enigma,“ writes lsidore of
Seville,
is an obscure question which is difficult to understand, unless it i s explained . . .
The d ifference between allegory and enigma is that the power of allegory is
double and indicates one thing figuratively beneath another; enigma, however,
has a meaning which is most obscure and adumbrated through certain semblances.
14
„An enigma,“ writes Hugh of Saint Victor, copying Donatus word for
word, „is an obscure proposition which is composed by means of a hidden
resemblance between things.“15 „An enigma,“ echoes Mathew of
Vendöme, „is an obscurity i n propositions which is hidden by a certain
covering of words.“1 6 Enigma thus had a well -defined place in the remarkably
stable medieval rhetorical and grammatical tradition and was
taught in the schools along with the rest ofthat tradition.
Within this tradition, the composition of an enigmatic text was altogether
comparable to the composition of an al legorical or ironic one. As
Karl F. Morrison puts it, enigma was considered „an expository strategy“
or „a deliberate strategy of thought“ which
locates closure, not in the text, but, if at all, in the mind of the reader or spectator
. . . according to principles entirely unanticipated by the author.17
Medieval scholars, moreover, discovered enigmas in every form of discourse.
Does one not read, asked Aldhelm of Malmesbury (c. 650-709),
that „the poet S i mphosius . . . sang the hidden propositions of eni gmas,
raising slight matter to the heights of playfulness?“ Did not „Aristotle, the
most penetrating of the philosophers, l i kewise produce difficult enigmas
in eloquent prose as proofs?“ Does one not find enigmas „inserted
14 „Aenigma est quaestio obscura quae difficile intellegitur, nisi aperiatur . . . . Inter
al legoriam autem et aenigma hoc interest. quod allegoriae vis gemina est et sub
res aliud figuraliter indicat; aenigma vero sensus tantum obscurus est, et per
quasdam imagines adumbrates“ (lsidore of Seville, Etymologiae, ed. W. M. Lindsay,
2 vols. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1 9 1 1 ] . 1 .37.26).
15 „Enigma est obscura sententia per occultam similitudinem rerum“ (Hugh of Saint
Victor, Oe grammatica. ed. Jean Leclercq, in Jean Leclercq, „Le ‚Oe grammatica‘ de
Hugues de Saint Victor,“ Archives d’Histo1re Ooctrinale et Litteraire du Moyen Age
14 [1 943/45]. 3 2 1 ).
16 „Aenigma est sententiarum obscuritas quodam verbarum involucro occultata“
(Mathew of Vendöme. Ars Versificatoria 3.44, ed. Edmond Faral, in Edmond Faral,
Les Arts poetiques du Xlle et du Xllle siecle [Paris: Champion, 1 924]. 1 77).
17 Karl F. Morrison, “ Hermeneutics and Enigma: Bernard of Clairvaux’s Oe consideratione,“
Viator 1 9 (1988): 1 29-51.
ENIGMATIC STYLE IN TWELFTH·CENTURY FRENCH LITERATURE 57
throughout the sacred heights of l iterature?“1S Poetry, philosophy, Scrip·
ture: all three could be enigmatic, and enigma was used as an expository
strategy by such twelfth-century writers as Abelard, Bernardus Si lvestris,
Gratian, Anselm of Havelberg. Gerhoch of Reichersberg and Bernard
of Clairvaux.19
U n l i ke the classical rhetoricians, however, medieval scholars did not
view discursive obscurity as a fault to be avoided. The warnings against
the dangers of obscurity which accompany the d iscussion of enigma in
the classical textbooks tend to disappear from the medieval textbooks.
An enigmatic discourse’s fruitful abil ity to provoke multiple i nterpreta·
tions was, on the contrary. recognized and lauded throughout the Middle
Ages.zo Encountering an obscure passage in the Bible, for example,
Augustine writes:
Perhaps it has been set down the more darkly, in order that it might generate
many meanings. and that men might come away from it the more ennched,
finding something enclosed that could be opened in many ways, more than if
they had found it. already open, in one way only.21
Abelard writes similarly that
the holy prophets, too, when the Spirit speaks through them, do not understand
a l l the meanings towards which their words are d1 rected, but orten are
aware of only one meaning, even though the Spirit speaking through them
18 „Simfosius poeta . . . . occultas enigmaturn propositiones exili materia sumpta
ludibundis apicibus . . . cecinisse . . . Aristoteles, philosophorum acerrimus, perplexa
nihilominus enigmata e prosae locutionis facundia fretus argumentatur . . . .
in sacns litterarum apicibus insertum“ (Aidhelm of Malmesbury. Oe metris et
enigmatibus ac pedum regulis 6-7, in Opera, ed. Rudolf Ehwald, MGH AA 1 5 [Ber·
I in: Weidmann. 1 9 1 9). 75-76). Abelard likewise thought that phi losophers, poets
and prophets „use language in essentially the same, ‚veiled‘ way“ (Peter Dronke,
Fabula: Explorations into the Uses ofMyth in Medieval Platonism, Mittellateinische
Studien und Texte 9 [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1 974], 6 1 -64). 19 See Morrison and, for Bernardus Silvestris, Dronke, Fabu/a, 1 34-35.
20 Winthrop Wetherbee, Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century: The Literary
lnfluence of the School of Chartres (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1972).
255-57; Dona, „Oscurita ed enigma.“ 1 04-05; and Ziolkowski, „Theories of
Obscurity.“ 1 30-33, 1 38-53, all likewise draw attention to this shift in attitude
towards the enigmatic between the classical period and the Middle Ages.
21 „ldeo enim forte obscurius positum est, ut multus i ntellectus generet, et ditiores
discedant homines, quia clausum inuenerunt quod multis modis aperiretur,
quam si uno modo aperturn inuenirent“ (Augustine, Enarrationes in Psa/mos
CXXV1 . 1 1 , ed. Eligius Dekkers and J. Fraipont, 3 vols. Corpus Christianorum, Se·
ries Latina 38-40 [Turnhout: Brepols, 1990]. 3:1865; trans. Dronke, Fabula. 57 n.
2 [cont. from 56]).
58 JEFF RIDER
foresees many meanings there, so that later he may inspire some interpretations
in some interpreters and other in others.22
Writing a deliberately enigmatic text was thus very much a possibility
within the l i terary tradition in which Marie de France, Chretien de
T royes and other twelfth-century F rench authors were formed and thus
part of the nascent French Iiterature that emerged in the twelfth century.
Preoccupied by legal and political concerns, Classical forensie rhetoricians
were, as we have seen, wary of the inebriating pleasure that comes
from such texts. One can understand, however, why twelfth-century
court poets I ike Marie and Chretien, who sought first and Foremost to
entertain their audiences, embraced the enigmatic style. I think they also
did so because another of their goals was to endow the aristocratic life
portrayed in their works with its own spiritual di mension, a secular aristocratic
spiritual ity i ndependent of contemporary mai nstream Catholic
spiritual ity. And one way to do so was to endow their works with a mysterious,
quasi-al legorical aura, suggesting they had a hidden higher
meaning for those who have ears to hear.23
While enigmatic texts d i d not suddenly cease to be written i n French
in the thirteenth century, they do seem to have become less frequent and
less popular from that time on. The great anti-enigmatic romance, the
Quest of the Holy Grail, was written about 1 225 and we find in it a striking
exposition of a new aesthetic and hermeneutic model that would become
increasingly influential in Western culture and is probably still the
most influential model today. When Eve picked the fruit from the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden, the author of the
Quest writes, she broke „off as she d i d so a twig of the tree itself, as it often
happens that the twig adheres to the gathered fruit.“ Eve broke off
the twig when she gave the fruit to Adam, but kept it absentmindedly i n
her hand and indeed still had i t i n her hand when they were expelled
from the garden. „When . . . ,“ writes the author,
22 Theologia Christiana 1 . 1 1 7, in Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica, ed. Eligius M.
Buytaert, 3 vols., Corpus Christianorum 1 1 -13 (T urnhout: Brepols, 1 969-87),
2 : 1 2 1 , trans. Oronke, Fabu/a, 63-64: „et sancti prophetae, cum aliqua Spiritus
Sanctus per eos loquitur, non omnes sententias ad quas se habent uerba sua
intelligent; sed saepe unam tantum in eis habent, cum Spiritus ipse qui per eos
loquitur multas ibi prouideat, quarum postmodum alias aliis expositoribus et
alias aliis i nspirat.“
23 See Jeff Rider, „Marvels and the Marvelous,“ in The Arthurian Encyclopedia, ed.
Norris J. Lacy, 2 ed. (New York: Garland, 1991 ), 3 1 1 – 1 3.
ENIGMATIC STYLE IN TWELFTH-CENTURY FRENCH LITERATURE 59
she saw the twig, it caught her eye because it was still as fresh and green as if it
had just been picked. She knew that the tree from which it had been broken was
the cause of her exile and her misery. So she said then that, in remembrance of the
cruel loss she had suffered through that tree, she would keep the branch for as
long as she could, where it would often be before her eyes to remind her of her
great misfortune.
Then Eve bethought herself that she had neither casket nor any other box 1n
which to house it, for no such things as yet existed. So she thrust it into the ground,
so that it stood erect, saying that in this way it would often catch her eye . . . .
This branch whrch the first sinner brought wtth her out of Paradise was
charged with meaning. ln that she held it in her hand it betokened a great happiness,
as though she were speaking to her heirs that were to follow her . . ., and
saying to them through the medium of this twig:
„Be not dismayed if we are banished from our inheritance: it is not lost to us
eternally; see here a sign of our return hereafter.“24
This twig, eternally fresh and green, charged with meaning, transmits
Eve’s voice and unchanging message down the centuries to her heirs. lt is
a promise, a legal or contractual message, and Eve’s first impulse is to
place it in a box or casket for safe-keeping, although she cannot do so because
such things have not yet been i nvented. This tale evokes what I
w i l l call the box-model of hermeneutics, according to which an author
puts meaning in a text,just as Eve would have l i ked to put the twig in a
box. The author’s voice survives down the centuries, eternally fresh and
green, closed in a box-like text which readers must open in order to hear
that voice and its message. A l l authority in this model belongs to the au-
24 „[E)Ie cueilli . . . de l’arbre meismes .i. rainsei auvec le fruit, si com l’avrent sovent
que Ii rains s’en vient auvec le fruit com l’en le quelt. . . . Lors s’aper􀚉ut et voit le
rainsei bei et verdoiant come celui qui mainte[nant) avoit este cueilli, si sot que Ii
arbres dont Ii fruiz avoit este estoit acheson de son deseritement et de sa mesaise.
Lors dist Eve que en remenbrance de sa grant perte qui par cel arbre Ii estoir
avenue, gardereit eile le rainsei tant ccm ele le porroit plus et si le metreit en
tel Ieu que ele le verreit sovent. Et lors s’apensa qu’ele n’avait ne huche ne autre
[estui) en quoi ele le peust estoier, car encores au tens de lors n’estoit nuls tel
chose. Si le frcha dedenz terre, si qu’il se tint tout droiz, et dist que einsi le verreit
ele assez sovent. . . . I eil rains que Ia premiere pecherresse aporta [de) paradis si
fu pieins de [molt] grant senefiance. Car einsi com ele le portoit en sa main senefioit
il une grant leece, tot aussi come seele parlast a ses oirs qui encore estoient
a venir . . . et Ii rains senefia tot aussi com s’ele lor deist: ‚Ne vos esmaiez mie se
nos somesjete hors de nostre heritaje: car nos ne l’avons mie perdu a tozjorz;
vez ici les enseignes que encore i serons'“ (La Quete du Saint Graa/ 1 1 .253-54, ed.
Fanni Bogdanow, French trans. Anne Berrie [Paris: Livre de Poche, 2006], 516-
20; The Quest of the Holy Gra il, trans. P. M. Matarasso [Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1969), 222-23).
60 JEFF RIDER
thor. The meaning is entirely his or hers. The reader’s job, indeed the
reader’s Obligation, is to open the textbox and hear the author’s message.
This is the model of promissory texts and contracts, the kind of text that
was dear to the growing medieval patrician class. lt is a binding, authoritarian
model that banishes all obscurity-and a l l hints of a secular spirituality-
and grounds meaning in a clear set of references.25
This model is diametrically opposite to the seed-model of hermeneutics
shared by G u i l laume de Conches, Abelard, Marie de France and Chretien.
For them, the text is a seed that grows differently, produces different
meanings, in each reader, in which each reader produces meanings
appropriate to his or her capacities, i nterests and Situation, and in which
„this variety of interpretations is a cause for rejoicing rather than concern.“
This model-which emerged from a clerical synthesis of Classical
rhetoric and biblical hermeneutics-does not bind readers, locates the
authority for determining meaning in them, and welcomes some obscurity
as a provocation to interpretation.<s
2s The avowed purpose of the author of the Quest 1s „to bring to a close the adventures
of the Holy Grail (a achever I es aventures del [Saint) Graal)“ (La Qu􀉲te 1 . 1 1 .
96; The Quest. 3 7 ) and he declares that just a s folly and error fled a t His
[Christ’s) advent and truth stood revealed, even so has Our Lord chosen you [the
Quest’s hero, Galahad) from among all other knights to ride abroad through many
Iands to put an end to the hazards that afflict them and make their meaning and
their causes plain (tot einsi com l’error et Ia folie s’en for par Ia venue de lui et Ia
verit􀎀 fu adonc [aparanz et) manifeste, ausi vos a Nostre Sires esleu sor toz
cheval iers por envoier par I es estranges terres por abatre I es greveuses aventures
et a fere conoistre coment eles sont avenues)“ (La Quete 2.43, 1 58; The
Quest, 64 ). ln more modern terms, one might say that the author of the Quest
wanted to put an end to the obscurity surrounding the grail and the Arthurian
world (and to Arthurian narratives in general) and teach his readers how to Interpret
what they read correctly, which is to say. in an edifying and doctrinally
acceptable manner, but he falls in some very interesting ways and his story gets
away from him even as he teils it. ln the midst of the above-cited passage in
which he sets forth the box-model of hermeneutics. for example, he teils us that
when Eve stuck the twig i nto the ground, „it quickened and took root in the soil
and grew (crut et reprist en Ia terre [et enracina])“ (La Qu􀉲te 1 1 .254, 5 1 8 ; The
Quest, 223). This twig eventually grew into a large white tree, then turned green
and produced numerous green saplings, and then later turned red and produced
numerous red saplings. Despite the author’s intent1ons and efforts, Eve’s message
grows and changes with time and circumstance, recalling ChrE!tien’s seed metaphor.
26 „Augustine and other allegorizing exegetes,“ writes Ziolkowski, „had opened the
door . . . to allegorical and obscure writing – to writing that demanded an allegorical
mode of thought, to writing that encouraged readers and listeners to
ENIGMATIC STYLE IN TWELFTH·CENTURY FRENCH LITERATURE 61
When French I i terature emerged in the twelfth century it did so from
and against a clerical, that is, ecclesiastical, learned and Latinate, back·
ground.27 lts authors had been trained in clerical schools or at least i n
the clerical tradition and the I i terature they created was i n some sense
Latinate I iterature for people who did not know Latin, had not been to
school, and were used to oral entertainments. lt was a Iiterature that had
to please an unschooled audience but whose authors nonetheless
wanted to write sophisticated I i terature and thus had to teach their a u dience
t o enjoy such I iterature as weil a s entertaining it.
The world had changed considerably by the time the Quest ofthe Holy
Grail was composed around 1 225. The clerical tradition, on the one hand,
was becoming more scholastic and encyclopedic, which led it to prefer
an allegorical style to an enigmatic one.28 Buoyed by growing wealth, the
speculate upon its opacity. Their werk led to an acceptance among a variety of
authors that obscunty had a valid place even outside the Bible and that it could
enable all manners of writmgs to attain t,e most sublime heoghts. The multiple
interpretations that an obscure style could enable held the potentoal of elevati ng
poetry alongside theology. and this was a potential that poets o n the Order of
Al an of Lilie and Dante [and, I would add, Marie de F rance and Chretien de
Troyes] could ill afford to leave untried“ ( 1 5 2-53). See also Jacqueline Cerquili·
gni, „Polysemoe, ambogulte et equivoque dans Ia tMorie et Ia pratique poetiques
du Moyen Age fran􀚉ais,“ in Rosier, ed., L’Ambigwce. 1 67-80. 21 lt is still useful, in this connection, to read Edmond Faral, Recherehes sur /es sour·
ces latines des contes et remans courtois du moyen llge (Paris: Champion, 1 9 1 3) .
See also Wetherbee, Platonism and Poetry, 220-41 . 28 This new attitude is apparent in Aquinas’s explanation of Aristotle’s critique of
Plato: „Having introduced Plato’s view, Aristotle here rejects it. ln this connection
it is important to realize that very often, lllklen Aristotle rejects Plato’s views, he
os rE1iecting them not with respect to Plato’s intention but with respect to how his
words sound. Aristotle acts in this way because Plato had a faulty manner of
teaching: he says everything figuratively and teaches through symbols, intending
through his words something different from how they themselves sound. (Thus
he said that soul is a circle.) So, to prevent someone from falling into error on account
of these words. Aristotle argues against Plato with respect to how his
words sound“ („Posita opinione Platonis, hic Aristoteles reprobat eam. Ubi notandum
est quod plerumque quando repro;lat opiniones Platonis, non reprobat
eas quantum ad intentionem Platonis, sed quantum ad sonum uerborum eius;
quod ideo facit quia Plato habuit malum modum docendi: omnia enim figurate
dicit, et per simbola docet, intendens aliud per uerba quam sonent ipsa verba,
sicut quod dixit animam esse circulum; et ideo ne aliquis propter ipsa uerba inci·
dat in errorem, Aristotiles disputat contra eum quantum ad id quod uerba eius
sonant“) (Themas Aquinas, Sentencia libri Deanima 1.8, in Opera Omnia, vol. 45.1
[Rome: Commissie Leonina; Paris: Vrin, 1 98 4]. 38.407a2; A Commentary onAris·
62 JEFF RIDER
secular audience for l iterary entertainments, on the other hand, had become
significantly larger and more varied and secular I iterature had begun
to develop its own tradition, distinct from the clerical one. Anchored
more clearly in secular concerns and reflecting more clearly worldly attitudes,
it favored a „realistic“ and often ironic style to an enigmatic one.
For French I iterature at least, the twelfth century thus seems to me to be
the heyday of the seed-model of hermeneutics and of what one might call
the enigmatic style.
totfe’s Oe anima. trans. Robert Pasnau [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999].
62-63). This passage was brought to my attention by reading Alessandro Zironi,
„II Libro di labulon fra astronomia e occultismo,“ in Obswritas, ed. Zambon and
Lach in, 202. On Aquinas’s preference for allegory over enigma and the effect of
such a preference on literary creation, see also Cook, „The Figure of Enigma,“
370.
Obscurity in Medieval Texts
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
SONDERBAND XXX
Obscurity in Medieval Texts
edited by
Lucie Dolezalova, Jeff Rider,
and Alessandro Zironi
Krems 2013
Reviewed by
Tamas Visi
and Myriam White-Le Goff
Cover designed by Petr Dolezal with the use of a photo of the interior of
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (photo Lucie Dolezalova)
GEDRUCKT MIT UNTERSTÜTZUNG
DER
CHARLES UNIVERSITY RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
„UNIVERSITY CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF ÄNCIENT AND MEDIEVAL
INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS“
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80TH AT THE FACULTY O F HUMANITIES, CHARLES UNIVERSITY IN PRAGUE
UNDDER
CZECH SCIENCE FOUNDATION
WITHIN THE RESEARCH PROJECT
„INTERPRETING AND APPROPRIATING ÜBSCURITY
IN MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT CULTURE“
(GACR P405/1 0/Pl 1 2)
A l l e Rechte vorbehalten
-ISBN 978-3-901094-32-13‘.3
Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der materiellen
Kultur des Mittelalters. Körnermarkt 1 3. 3500 Krems, Österreich. Fur den
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Acknowledgements
List of Figures
T able of Contents
Textual Obscurity in the Middle Ages (lntroduction)
Lucie Dole2alov􀭟. Jeff Rider. and Alessandro Zironi
„Ciarifications“ of Obscurity:
Conditions for Proclus’s Allegorical Reading of Plato’s Parmenides 1 5
Florin George Cäl ian
Lucifica nigris tune nuntio regna figuris. Po!!tique textuelle de I‘ obscuritas
dans I es recueils d‘!!nigmes latines du Haut moyen Age (V He-V I I I • s.) 3 2
Christiane Veyrard-Cosme
The Enigmatic Style in Twelfth-Century French Literature 49
Jeff Rider
Mise en abyme in Marie de France’s „Laüstic“ 63
Susan Small
Perturbations of the Soul: Alexander of Ashby and Aegidius of Paris an
Understanding Biblical Obscuritas 75
Greti Dinkova-Bruun
Versus obscuri nella poesia didascalica grammatocale del X I I I sec. 87
Carla Piccone
Disclosing Secrets: Vorgil on Middle High German Poems 1 1 0
Alessandro Zironi
Obscuritas tegum: Traditional Law. Learned Jurisprudence, and Territorial
Legislation (The Example of Sachsenspiegel and fus Municipale Maideburgense) 124
Hiram Kümper
Ta Be Born (Aga in) from God:
Scriptural Obscurity as a Theological Way Out for Cornelius Agrippa 1 45
Noel Putnik
Obscuritas in Medoeval and Humanist Translation Theories 157
R!!ka Forrai
The Darkness Within:
First-person Speakers and the Unrepresentable 1 72
Päivi M. Mehtonen
Contributors 1 90
Index nominum 1 94
Index rerum 197
Acknowledgements
This volume grew out of a conference held in Prague in October 6-8. 201 1 .
The conference and the book were supported by a post-doctoral research
grant from the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, “ l nterpreting and
Appropriating Obscurity i n Medieval Manuscript Culture“ no. P405/1 0/
P1 1 2 undertaken at the Faculty of Arts at the Charles University in Prague,
by The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports through l nstitutional
Support for Longterm Development of Research Organizations to the
Faculty of Humanities of the same university (PRVOUK 1 8 and UNCE
204002), and by the European Research Council under the European
Community’s Seventh Framewerk Programme ( FPJ/2007-2013) I ERC
grant agreement No. 263672. We are much grateful to these i nstitutions.
Further thanks goes to the individual contributors to this volume who have
been very quick and patient during the process, as weil as to Petr Dolezal
for the cover design and Adela Novakova for the index.
List of Figures
Figure 1 : Scene from one of the Saxon Mirror’s codices picturati (Wolfenbuttel, HerzogAugust-
Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 3.1 . Aug. 2°, fol. 34r).
Figure 2: Index for a manuscript of the Richtsteig Landrecht (Göttweig, Sti ftsbibliothek,
Cod. 364rot, fol. 526r).
Figure 3: Printed text of a Saxon Mirror with Gloss (Christi an Zobel, Leipzig, 1 569).
Figure 4: A remissorium from a Saxon Mirror edited tn 1536 by Chistoph Zobel (Leipzig).
Figure 5: Editorial report for a Saxon Mirror pri nted in 1545 by Nikolaus Wolrab
(Leipzig).
Figure 6: Sebastian Stelbagius, Epitome sive summa universae doctrinae iusticiae legalis
(Bautzen, 1 564 ).
Figures 7 and 8: Melchior Kling, Das Gantze Sechsisch Landrecht mit Text und Gloß in eine
richtige Ordnung gebracht (Leipzig 1 572).