16 Lais of Marie de France

Anglo-Norman French

12^th Century Britain

The twelfth century featured a considerable shift in French literary traditions. Following a long tradition of tales of heroic deeds (chansons de geste) like the Song of Roland, material in the later 1100s focused less on the violence of the battlefield and more on the mannerisms of court. Authors like Marie de France were the forerunners of a new genre of narrative, being the romance we popularly associate with Middle Age storytelling. Marie asserts that she is from France but writes in Anglo-Norman French, which was a sort of hybrid form of French spoken by the aristocracy in England following the reign of William the Conqueror.

While Marie de France’s exact identity is unknown, historians agree that she was a member of the higher nobility who performed in Henry II of England’s court following his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine. In fact, Eleanor may have been the inspiration for several of Marie’s heroines, many of whom suffer from a mal mariée, or a bad marriage. Eleanor of Aquitaine was born a duchess in her own right and tied her duchy to Louis VII of France upon their marriage in 1137. The union produced the influential Marie de Champagne who, like her mother, was patroness of a literary court—for Marie de Champagne, Chretien de Troyes provided her and her court with Arthurian romances such as Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and Yvain, the Knight of the Lion. However, since Eleanor and Louis VII had no sons, their marriage was annulled on the basis of consanguinity. Immediately after this, Eleanor proposed marriage to Louis VII’s rival, Henry II of England, who was over ten years her junior. The two went on to have eight children, including her famous sons Richard I and John I of England.

Marie de France would have performed her works in court for Eleanor and Henry II. Knowing that her queen had a former marriage, Marie focused on tales of love outside of marriage, aligning with the restrictions on courtly love posed by Andreas Capellanus. Marie’s songs, Breton lais that she claims to have translated from sources from Brittany, likely would have been sung aloud, accompanied by music. The themes of romance, Otherworldly influence, and royal court behavior all signal a shift in focus from the male sphere—the battlefield—to the female sphere—the court, making Marie an early feminist writer (though of course that term would not have existed in her time).

Lais of Marie de France

David R. Slavitt’s 2013 book with modern English translations can be found here: https://www.aupress.ca/app/uploads/120228_99Z_Slavitt_2013-The_Lays_of_Marie_de_France.pdf

We recommend reading Slavitt’s “Foreword” (ix-xi) and:

• “Prologue” (pages 3-5)
• “Guigemar” (pages 5-26)
• “Bisclarvet” (pages 47-54)
• “Lanval” (pages 55-70)
• “Yonec” (pages 77-88)
• “Eliduc” (pages 115-144)

FURTHER READINGS:

Judy Shoaf’s translation of Marie’s poetry can be found here: https://people.clas.ufl.edu/jshoaf/marie_lais/

Eugene Mason’s translation of Marie’s work can be found here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11417/11417-h/11417-h.htm

The Art of Courtly Love (De Amore) by Andreas Capellanus:

• For John Jay Parry’s 1960 translation of The Art of Courtly Love, see here: https://sirmykel.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/the-art-of-courtly-love-andreas-cappelanus.pdf and here: https://archive.org/details/artofcourtlyloverrich.

For brown University’s page on themes and motifs, see here: https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/themes_motifs/amore/courtly_love.php

For an excerpt from Chapter Ten of Backgrounds to Chaucer, Peter G. Beidler, Lehigh University, see here: https://the-orb.arlima.net/textbooks/anthology/beidler/courtly.html

For Christine de Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies, see here: https://archive.org/details/bookofcityofl00chri