Courtly Pastimes

Narratives about medieval courtly culture generally focus on aspects of romance, love, or warfare, sometimes including pastimes like reading, hunting, tournaments, theater, and other forms of entertainment. And yet, leisure activities in medieval culture rarely feature centrally in academic studies. Gloria Allaire and Julie Human seek to address this lacuna in their edited casebook Courtly Pastimes with sixteen chapters from a wide variety of scholars on play and pleasure in the European Middle Ages. This volume engages in a discourse that many modern audiences (myself included) do not always consider—the need to justify or to legitimate leisure activities. The pastimes themselves are well-attested, but the conflict between the enjoyment and committing the sin of sloth is not, which makes this casebook a valuable resource for students and scholars of medieval European culture.Arranged chronologically, the chapters dispel nineteenth-century myths about the rigidity of concepts of courtly love and other rituals and activities. The contributors address how authors like Marie de France, Christine de Pizan, Chretien de Troyes, and Guillaume de Machaut reinterpret aspects of courtliness like the service to ladies as well as discussing the spaces for leisure and entertainment. The chapters are short and tend to ask more questions than they answer, but as a casebook this volume is an important starting point for several avenues of new research.The editors have gathered an impressive selection of well-known emeritus professors in addition to early career researchers and established scholars of medieval German, Anglo-Norman French, Provençal, English, and Italian literature and cultural history. A wider selection of disciplines, especially non-European ones, would have enhanced the collection, but in compiling a volume, it is virtually impossible to cover every aspect of the medieval world, and this is a delightful selection.The introduction begins by expanding the genesis of the collection as the proceedings of the 2016 Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society. However, the editors delve into the complexities of engaging with primary source material on medieval recreation, play, and pastimes. One problem confronting modern scholars is the medieval disdain for any activity that might be construed as idleness, and thus a sin, despite the fact that medieval people from all walks of life routinely participated in leisure of some kind. As the editors aptly explain, between “the medieval conception of recreatio as a necessary period of rest before returning to work and our modern notion of ‘fun’ lies a range of amusements that possess either laudable or despicable characteristics, depending on one's viewpoint” (p. 1). Therein lies the difficulty in analyzing whether an activity counts as a pastime, which might be condemned as sinful behavior, or as a practical, even if self-serving, endeavor. The chapters in this volume provide compelling examples of activities that could be both leisurely and productive, such as hunting, reading, tournaments, theater, musical performances, spending time in gardens, and various other forms of entertainment that function as private amusements for the elite as well as public displays of merriment for the general population. As part of this framework, the editors define “courtly,” providing a very clear and useful term for understanding the material in question based on Joachim Bumke's consideration of the German adjective höfisch as an entire courtly ideal of ritual.From there, the volume considers specific acts of courtly leisure and entertainment, situating them within the powerplays of medieval European politics, the ritualistic behavior of elites—a “warrior aristocracy”—tasked with creating peace, establishing rank, and engendering trust for all members of society. In the first chapter, Laurence Mathey-Maille examines the descriptions of aristocratic entertainment at court presented in chronicle sources, namely Wace's fictional Roman de Brut and Roman de Rou, which often reflected realistic practice. Mathey-Maille argues that sporting activities like fencing and hunting were also training exercises for elite noblemen and so had a high social value in addition to the entertainment factor.Jeanne Nightingale follows in chapter two with a discussion of Bernard of Clairvaux's sermons on the Song of Songs that fashion Christ as a divine bridegroom to the individual believer as bride, arguing that Bernard is a kind of “divine troubadour” in comparison with the courtly poet Chrétien de Troyes, author of the earliest Arthurian romances. As such, Nightingale draws connections between Bernard's Biblical poem and Chrétien's Erec and Enide as expositions on the qualities of married love.Arthurian romance also features in the next chapter as Janina P. Traxler considers the adulterous relationships of some of literature's most notorious couples: Tristan and Yseult, Lancelot and Guinevere, and Cligés and Fénice. Looking at the original versions of these love stories by Beroul and Chrétien juxtaposed with later adaptations, Traxler contends that the earlier authors exonerate the lovers by making them sympathetic—though, arguably, it is impossible to gauge audience response or reaction to these tales of adultery and treason. Traxler's insistence that adultery was nothing more than a courtly game in the twelfth century does not fully engage with the political reality that the views of royal adultery were remarkably different in the twelfth century than later periods because the perception—legal and social—of treason had changed. Part of the reason that thirteenth-century prose versions of these romances treat the affairs as second to the martial endeavors is because the political stakes of adultery were higher. Traxler's capable analysis would have been bolstered by more secondary research, as well as more recent sources.Chapter four focuses on Chrétien's contemporary Marie de France and her lai Equitan. Monica Wright argues that this tale of adultery that ends in the death of the king and his non-royal mistress subverts the dominant courtly tone of Marie's other lais in a carnivalesque parody. Wright employs the terms lai and fabliau “as shorthand to capture this tonal difference” (p. 51); however, tonal difference is subjective, and while Equitan shares certain characteristics with fabliaux, the fatal consequences separate Marie's lai from other examples of this humorous genre where the adulterous couples usually get away with it. Wright's analysis is compelling, but it assumes that Marie's other lais should be taken at face value rather than also engaging in subversive parody of courtly hypocrisy.Next, Christopher Clason examines “hybridity” in Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan and its setting in natural spaces rather than man-made social places, particularly regarding ritualistic hunting scenes. In the following chapter, Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand also participates in the discussion of space, ably turning a sociological lens to the visual representations of German courtly literature in manuscripts and murals which constructed an imaginary place that could be emulated by viewers and readers, creating a kind of cultural tourism associated with fictional narratives. Building on Sterling-Hellenbrand's analysis of imaginary places and discursive spaces, Lyle Dechant takes an art historical approach in his chapter on the Codex Manesse and the unusual portrait of the minor poet Herr Pfeffel fishing as a courtly lady observes. Dechant argues that the images turn the act of reading the text into an interactive experience that blends secular and religious interpretations.Using the lens of fin amors, Joseph Snow looks at the Marian poetry of Alfonso X, el Sabio, which refashions the Virgin Mary as a divine lover. Snow presents Alfonso X as a troubadour who celebrates his Liege Lady and invites all Christians to join him in his devotion to her. Sara Sturm-Maddox continues the discussion of love and its sacred spaces in her analysis of Guillaume de Machaut's poems, specifically Le Remede de Fortune which positions artistic performance as equal to physical feats of arms and entertainment. Importantly, Sturm-Maddox highlights the accessibility of the act of composition to noblewomen as well as men, suggesting that these pastimes were open to all, regardless of gender.In chapter ten, Kristen Figg turns to children's toys and games detailed in Jean Froissart's L'Espinette amoureuse as significant amusements with cultural and historical capital that allowed for interaction between the sexes, preparing boys and girls to engage with each other as they grew to adulthood. Similarly, Lori Walters examines the didactic aspects of Christine de Pizan's Queen's Manuscript (London, British Library, MS Harley 4431), an anthology that Walters argues challenges the trope of service to ladies required by fin amors and warns against the dangers of erotic love, recommending instead dedication to higher loves like family, country, and God as a means of empowering women. Joan McRae presents new information about her discovery at Hatfield House of a manuscript anthology of fifteenth-century French debate poems, including a version of Alain Chartier's La Belle dame sans mercy. McRae constructs a detailed history and provenance of this manuscript which advocates for women in its love quarrels.According to the editors, chapter thirteen takes a darker turn with Shawn Phillip Cooper's analysis of Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur “when ritual behaviors go awry” (p. 9). Copper reads Malory as a criticism of courtly culture at the end of the Wars of the Roses, arguing convincingly that the Morte centers good counsel as the stabilizing force of the realm while bad counsel leads to its destruction.Donald Maddox takes his discussion of courtly pastimes outside the castle and the court in chapter fourteen, which investigates the chevauchée—public processions of children, courtiers, religious and civic officials—from its hagiographical origins through its lifespan into the eighteenth century. This kind of public spectacle resonated in the court of Maximilian I who held lavish tournaments as theatrical displays of arms and innovation, the subject of Natalie Anderson's chapter. In chapter fifteen, Anderson traces the evolution of the sixteenth-century tournament books that were inspired by these extraordinary entertainments and the texts and illustrations that recorded them. Along similar lines, Maurizio Mazzoni closes out the volume in his chapter on the exemplary role of horses as actual characters in French epic tradition.Ultimately, this collection highlights the variety of ways medieval people engaged in leisure activities—some class specific, some gender specific, some more inclusive, some more exclusive, crossing all boundaries. Though brief and selective in its research, this volume is an excellent and accessible resource. “Play” is the universal: all classes and genders partake in acts of leisure, entertainment, and relaxation and Courtly Pastimes captures the significance of play in medieval society and culture.