events which occupied public attention from time to time. The
enormous popularity of the subject is shown by the long vogue
which it had, and by the empire which it exercised over generations
of writers who differed from each other widely in style and
temper. Nothing can be farther from the allegorical erudition,
the political diatribes and the sermonizing moralities of the
authors of Renart le Contre-fait than the sly naïveté of the writers
of the earlier branches. Yet these and a long and unknown
series of intermediate bards the fox-king pressed into his service,
and it is scarcely too much to say that, during the two centuries
of his reign, there was hardly a thought in the popular mind
which, as it rose to the surface, did not find expression in an
addition to the huge cycle of Renart.
We shall not deal with the controversies which have been raised as to the origin of the poem and its central idea. The latter may have been a travestie of real persons and actual events, or it may (and much more probably) have been an expression of thoughts and experiences which recur in every generation. France, the Netherlands and Germany have contended for the honour of producing Renart; French, Flemish, German and Latin for the honour of first describing him. It is sufficient to say that the spirit of the work seems to be more that of the borderland between France and Flanders than of any other district, and that, wherever the idea may have originally arisen, it was incomparably more fruitful in France than in any other country. The French poems which we possess on the subject amount in all to nearly 100,000 lines, independently of mere variations, but including the different versions of Renart le Contre-fait. This vast total is divided into four different poems. The most ancient and remarkable is that edited by Méon under the title of Roman du Renart, and containing, with some additions made by M. Chabaille, 37 branches and about 32,000 lines. It must not, however, be supposed that this total forms a continuous poem like the Aeneid or Paradise Lost. Part was pretty certainly written by Pierre de Saint-Cloud, but he was not the author of the whole. On the contrary, the separate branches are the work of different authors, hardly any of whom are known, and, but for their community of subject and to some extent of treatment, might be regarded as separate poems. The history of Renart, his victories over Isengrim, the wolf, Bruin, the bear, and his other unfortunate rivals, his family affection, his outwittings of King Noble the Lion and all the rest, are too well known to need fresh description here. It is perhaps in the subsequent poems, though they are far less known and much less amusing, that the hold which the idea of Renart had obtained on the mind of northern France, and the ingenious uses to which it was put, are best shown. The first of these is Le Couronnement Renart, a poem of between 3000 and 4000 lines, attributed, on no grounds whatever, to the poetess Marie de France, and describing how the hero by his ingenuity got himself crowned king. This poem already shows signs of direct moral application and generalizing. These are still more apparent in Renart le Nouvel, a composition of some 8000 lines, finished in the year 1288 by the Fleming Jacquemart Giélée. Here the personification, of which, in noticing the Roman de la rose, we shall soon have to give extended mention, becomes evident. Instead of or at least beside the lively personal Renart who used to steal sausages, set Isengrim fishing with his tail, or make use of Chanticleer’s comb for a purpose for which it was certainly never intended, we have Renardie, an abstraction of guile and hypocrisy, triumphantly prevailing over other and better qualities. Lastly, as the Roman de la rose of William of Lorris is paralleled by Renart le Nouvel, so its continuation by Jean de Meung is paralleled by the great miscellany of Renart le Contre-fait, which, even in its existing versions, extends to fully 50,000 lines. Here we have, besides floods of miscellaneous erudition and discourse, political argument of the most direct and important kind. The wrongs of the lower orders are bitterly urged. They are almost openly incited to revolt; and it is scarcely too much to say, as M. Lenient has said, that the closely following Jacquerie is but a practical carrying out of the doctrines of the anonymous satirists of Renart le Contre-fait, one of whom (if indeed there was more than one) appears to have been a clerk of Troyes.
Early Lyric Poetry.—Side by side with these two forms of
literature, the epics and romances of the higher classes, and the
fabliau, which, at least in its original, represented rather the
feelings of the lower, there grew up a third kind, consisting of
purely lyrical poetry. The song literature of medieval France
is extremely abundant and beautiful. From the 12th to the
15th century it received constant accessions, some signed, some
anonymous, some purely popular in their character, some the
work of more learned writers, others again produced by members
of the aristocracy. Of the latter class it may fairly be said that
the catalogue of royal and noble authors boasts few if any names
superior to those of Thibaut de Champagne, king of Navarre
at the beginning of the 13th century, and Charles d’Orléans, the
father of Louis XII., at the beginning of the 15th. Although
much of this lyric poetry is anonymous, the more popular part
of it almost entirely so, yet M. Paulin Paris was able to enumerate
some hundreds of French chansonniers between the 11th and the
13th century. The earliest song literature, chiefly known in the
delightful collection of Bartsch (Altfranzösische Romanzen und
Pastourellen), is mainly sentimental in character. The collector
divides it under the two heads of romances and pastourelles,
the former being usually the celebration of the loves of a noble
knight and maiden, and recounting how Belle Doette or Eglantine
or Oriour sat at her windows or in the tourney gallery, or embroidering
silk and samite in her chamber, with her thoughts
on Gerard or Guy or Henry,—the latter somewhat monotonous
but naïve and often picturesque recitals, very often in the first
person, of the meeting of an errant knight or minstrel with a
shepherdess, and his cavalier but not always successful wooing.
With these, some of which date from the 12th century, may be
contrasted, at the other end of the medieval period, the more
varied and popular collection dating in their present form from
the 15th century, and published in 1875 by M. Gaston Paris.
In both alike, making allowance for the difference of their age
and the state of the language, may be noticed a charming lyrical
faculty and great skill in the elaboration of light and suitable
metres. Especially remarkable is the abundance of refrains of
an admirably melodious kind. It is said that more than 500 of
these exist. Among the lyric writers of these four centuries
whose names are known may be mentioned Audefroi le Bastard Audefroit
le Bastard.
Thibaut de Champagne.
(12th century), the author of the charming song of Belle
Idoine, and others no way inferior, Quesnes de Bethune,
the ancestor of Sully, whose song-writing inclines
to a satirical cast in many instances, the Vidame de Chartres,
Charles d’Anjou, King John of Brienne, the châtelain de Coucy,
Gace Bruslé, Colin Muset, while not a few writers mentioned
elsewhere—Guyot de Provins, Adam de la Halle, Jean Bodel
and others—were also lyrists. But none of them, except perhaps
Audefroi, can compare with Thibaut IV. (1201–1253),
who united by his possessions and ancestry a connexion
with the north and the south, and who employed the
methods of both districts but used the language of the
north only. Thibaut was supposed to be the lover of Blanche
of Castile, the mother of St Louis, and a great deal of his verse
is concerned with his love for her. But while knights and nobles
were thus employing lyric poetry in courtly and sentimental
verse, lyric forms were being freely employed by others, both of
high and low birth, for more general purposes. Blanche and
Thibaut themselves came in for contemporary lampoons, and both
at this time and in the times immediately following, a cloud of
writers composed light verse, sometimes of a lyric sometimes of a
narrative kind, and sometimes in a mixture of both. By far the Rutebœf.
most remarkable of these is Rutebœuf (a name which
is perhaps a nickname), the first of a long series of
French poets to whom in recent days the title Bohemian has
been applied, who passed their lives between gaiety and misery,
and celebrated their lot in both conditions with copious verse.
Rutebœuf is among the earliest French writers who tell us their
personal history and make personal appeals. But he does not
confine himself to these. He discusses the history of his times,
