Apes are so
called because they ape the behaviour of rational human beings
- MS. Bodley 764,
translated by Richard Barber
Mighty things from small beginnings grow, wrote John Dryden in his poem Annus Mirabilis in the mid-17th century, and although I do not claim this blogpost to be in any way mighty, its origin is nonetheless quite humble in terms of size - namely a tweet - compared to the prolix outcome. The tweet in question featured a picture of an illumination from f.76v of the book of hours MS. Stowe 17. The book is also known as the Maastricht Hours because it follows the liturgical standard known as the Maastricht Rule. The MS dates to the first quarter of the 14th century, was produced in Lièges, possibly used by an aristocratic woman and, as seen below, it depicts a rather endearing scene.
Mighty things from small beginnings grow, wrote John Dryden in his poem Annus Mirabilis in the mid-17th century, and although I do not claim this blogpost to be in any way mighty, its origin is nonetheless quite humble in terms of size - namely a tweet - compared to the prolix outcome. The tweet in question featured a picture of an illumination from f.76v of the book of hours MS. Stowe 17. The book is also known as the Maastricht Hours because it follows the liturgical standard known as the Maastricht Rule. The MS dates to the first quarter of the 14th century, was produced in Lièges, possibly used by an aristocratic woman and, as seen below, it depicts a rather endearing scene.
Apes or monkeys in a boat, courtesy of British Library
The picture was
tweeted by Sarah J. Biggs,
digitiser of manuscripts at the British Library, and the two of us
engaged in a discussion on what the scene was meant to convey,
whether it was a St. Brendan's voyage or a ship of fools. We were
joined by Johan Oosterman,
professor of medieval and early modern literature at Radboud
University who added some valuable insights on the latter subject,
and although lack of research and evidence prohibited any
conclusions, we had a great time discussing the subject. In a way,
the whole affair serves as a showcase of how useful twitter can be
for academic exchanges of this kind, and what a great tool of
communication it is for a small group of people spread across the
northwestern part of Europe. Without twitter, this blogpost would not
have come about, and although I lay no claims to brilliance, I do
hope this can one day be the foundation for a more thorough research
on the subject.
As stated above, one of my first thoughts was that the scene above depicts an early rendition of the ship of fools, a literary topos best known for its enactment in Sebastian Brant's satire Narrenschiff or Ship of Fools (1494). This satire engendered a long list of adaptations and emulations, and was also deeply embedded in the satirical beast-fable tradition of the Middle Ages. In this blogpost I will examine the illumination from the Maastricht Hours against these two traditions - the beast-fable of the Middle Ages and the Narrenschiff topos - but the point is to make sense of the image in view of these traditions, not to latch the illumination on to any of them. This first instalment will treat the beast-fable tradition, while in the next I will examine the ship of fools topos.
The beast-fable tradition
As stated above, one of my first thoughts was that the scene above depicts an early rendition of the ship of fools, a literary topos best known for its enactment in Sebastian Brant's satire Narrenschiff or Ship of Fools (1494). This satire engendered a long list of adaptations and emulations, and was also deeply embedded in the satirical beast-fable tradition of the Middle Ages. In this blogpost I will examine the illumination from the Maastricht Hours against these two traditions - the beast-fable of the Middle Ages and the Narrenschiff topos - but the point is to make sense of the image in view of these traditions, not to latch the illumination on to any of them. This first instalment will treat the beast-fable tradition, while in the next I will examine the ship of fools topos.
The beast-fable tradition
The medieval beast-fable, drawing on Aesop's educational fables, belongs to what is known as the burlesque tradition - one of two overarching categories of medieval satire (1) - and its earliest manifestation is the anonymous Ecbasis Captivi from c.1050 (2), by an anonymous monk from Lorraine (3). This poem, featuring a calf who runs away from the stall and is abducted by a wolf, inspired Nivard of Ghent's 1148 beast-epic Ysengrimus.
The ass, as depicted in MS. Bodley 764
The latter half of
the twelfth century saw the genesis of two other major beast-fables
whose popularity endured throughout the Middle Ages, and may
therefore have informed and inspired the illuminator of the
Maastricht Hours. The oldest of these is the direct descendant of
Ysengrimus, a story of Reynard the Fox which later grew into a
set of 26 loosely connected branches, approximatly 15 of which were
composed between 1174 and 1205 (4), while the rest were written prior
to 1250 (5). These stories were collectively referred to as the Roman
de Renart, a title applied by the end of the 12th century (6),
and their popularity is attested by numerous references in epic
poems, romances, chronicles, sermons, and countless edifying and
unedifying stories (7), not to mention that the word renard
had replaced goupil as the French word for fox by the mid-13th
century (8). The Romance of Reynard the Fox resulted in a number of
adaptations and inspired later writers, such as Gervais du Bus and
Geoffrey Chaucer. Gervais wrote the lyrics for the Roman de
Fauvel, a story of an ass who becomes the king of France and has
tapestries depicting Reynard's adventures, which was designed as a
speculum, a king's mirror, for Philippe V of France. Geoffrey
of Chaucer, however, was most likely inspired by Reynard when writing
about Chanticleer in The Nun's Priest Tale. It is also interesting to
note - since MS. Stowe 17 is from Liège - that "a fourteenth
century Flemish version is the source of what medieval material
remains in Goethe's Reineke Fuchs" (9).
Reynard in robes, from MS. Stowe 17
Chaucer's The Nun's
Priest Tale also drew on the other beast-fable I referred to above,
namely Nigel Wireker's (c.1135-98) Speculum Stultorum, the
Mirror of Fools. The work was written in the timeframe November 1179
and March 1180, and dedicated the work to William, possibly the
chancellor of Christ Church, Canterbury. Like Ecbasis Captivi,
the protagonist of the satire is an ass, an animal described as "a
sluggish and senseless beast and can be captured by a man as soon as
he wishes to take it" (10) in the 13th-century MS. Bodley 764
bestiary, while Ælfric of Eynsham called it foolish, unclean and
stupid
in a Palm Sunday Homily. The popularity of Wireker's satire "reached
its height during the late fourteenth and fifteenth centures"
(11), may well have been known to the illuminator.
As the above image
shows, the lluminator of MS. Stowe 17 was familiar with Reynard, the
beast-fable genre and some of the genre's currents of mockery, animal
imagery and satire. It is of course noteworthy that the animals in
question here are monkeys, neither foxes nor asses, but this may of
course be ascribed to the medieval idea - as expressed in the
bestiary of MS. Bodley 764 - that apes "are so called because
they ape the behaviour of rational human beings" (12).
Accordingly, apes or monkeys (distinguished form apes by their tail)
lend themselves very well to marginalia, depicting a mirror image of
humanity, aping after human conduct. This is a fact well known to
many medievalists, as apes and monkeys are inhabiting the margins of
many a medieval manuscript.
Ape fleeing hunters, from MS. Bodley 764
The
exact link between the beast-fable tradition and apes of marginalia
remains uncertain, and since we are talking about two very different
media - art and the written word - such links can be hard to pinpoint
with certitude. These media, however, were complimentary in the
Middle Ages, as marginalia and illuminations were meant to underscore
or mirror the text on a page. It is therefore necessary to view the
humanoid animals of medieval manuscripts in view of the widespread
and enduring popularity of the beast-fable. This necessity becomes
even more poignant in the case of MS. Stowe 17, when we consider that
the folio in question, f.76v, contains the following text from Psalm
118: 22-24: Remove from
reproach and contempt: because I have sought after thy testimonies.
For princes sat, and spoke against me: but thy servant was employed
in thy justifications. For thy testimonies are my meditation: and thy
justifications my counsel.
- From the Douay-Rheims translation
- From the Douay-Rheims translation
There
are no obvious reasons why this text should be framed by apes in a
boat and another ape doing something with his bottom. It may be that
the keywords here are reproach and contempt, but due to the tenuous
relationship between text and image, it is interesting to keep in
mind the widespread popularity of the beast-fable as a possible
source of inspiration.
Next
blogpost will examine the illumination in view of the topos of the
ship of fools.
One of the many marginal apes of MS. Stowe 17
Notes
1)The other being the invective. Mozley and Raymo 1960: 5
2) Ibid
3) Owen 1994: x
4) Terry 1992: 4
5) Terry 1992: 5
6) Terry 1992: 4
7) Terry 1992: 4-5
8) Owen 1994: x; Terry 1992: 3
9) Terry 1992: 5
10) Barber 2006: 97
11) Mozley and Raymo 1960: 8
12) Barber 2006: 48
References
Books
MS. Stowe 17 f.76v
Barber, Richard (ed. and transl.), Bestiary- MS Bodley 764, The Boydell Press, 2006
Mozley, John and Raymo, Robert (eds.), Nigel de Longchamps Speculum Stultorum, University of California Press, 1960
Owen, D. D. R. (ed. and transl.), The Romance of Reynard the Fox, Oxford World's Classics, 1994
Terry, Patricia (ed. and transl.), Renard the Fox, Northeastern University Press, 1992
Websites
http://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.no
http://bestiary.ca/index.html
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Stowe_MS_17
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