A Diplomatic Edition of Guillaume de Palerne

667 Pages·1974·13.938 MB·English

by  Ruth Jean Glindmeyer Moorman

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Xerox University Microfilms
300 North Zaob Road
Ann Arbor, Michigan 481 OS
MOORMAN, Ruth Jean Gllndmeyer, 1925-
A DIPLOMATIC EDITION OF GUILLAUME DE PALERNE.
(VOLUMES I AND II). [Portion of Text in Old
French]
The Louisiana State University and Agricultural
and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1974
Language and Literature, linguistics
University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan
© 1974
RUTH JEAN GLINDMEYER MOORMAN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
A Diplomatic Edition of Guillaume de Palerne
Volume I
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the
Louisiana State University and
Agricultural and Mechanical College
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
The Department of Foreign Languages
by
Ruth Jean Glindmeyer Moorman
B.A., Agnes Scott College, 1947
M.A., University of Cincinnati, 1949
May, 1974
PREFACE
This dissertation is a diplomatic edition of the
9663 line text of Guillaume de Palerne, a late twelfth-
century romance. Since this poem is available only in an
inaccurate and inadequate edition, the present work fills
a need in Old French studies.
The work falls naturally into the following
divisions: an introduction, including sections on the
manuscript, the previous edition of the poem, the sub­
sequent versions of the poem, the plot, the date and
circumstances of composition, the sources and analogues,
the literary history and art of the poem, and the language
of the poet; a selective bibliography of works relating to
the poem; the text; textual apparatus; critical notes;
glossary.
I should like to express my appreciation to my
director, Dr. Robert Schurfronz, and to Dr. Elizabeth
Thompson for their aid and encouragement.
TABLE OP CONTENTS
Preface i
Introduction
The Manuscript iii
The Previous Edition v
Subsequent Versions of the Poem vii
Plot Analysis xi
Date and Circumstances of Composition xii
Sources and Analogues xvi
Literary History and Art xxiii
Linguistic Analysis xxix
Bibliography xlii
The Text 1
Notes 395
Glossary 421
ABSTRACT
This dissertation is a diplomatic edition of the
9663 line text of Guillaume de Palerne, a late twelfth-
century romance. Since this poem is available only in an
inaccurate and inadequate edition, the present work fills
a need in Old French studies.
The work falls naturally into the following divisions
an introduction, including sections on the manuscript, the
previous edition of the poem, the subsequent versions of
the poem, the plot, the date and circumstances of compo­
sition, the sources and analogues, the literary history and
art of the poem, and the language of the poet; a selective
bibliography of works relating to the poem; the text;
textual apparatus; critical notes; glossary.
INTRODUCTION
I. The Manuscript
The Old French romance Guillaume de Palerne consists
of 9,663 verses in octosyllabic couplets and occupies 81
folios of a unique late thirteenth-century vellum MS of
small quarto size now housed in the Bibliotheque de 1'Arsenal
in Paris where it bears the designation MS 6565. Before the
recataloguing of the Arsenal library the MS was catalogued
as number 178 in the Belles-Lettres franpaises series. The
MS contains 157 leaves, and the text is arranged throughout
in double columns of 31 lines each. The hand is a precise
Carolingian minuscule.
The Roman de Guillaume de Palerne is contained on
folios 77-157 of the MS, the first 76 folios being devoted
to the Roman D'Escoufle. Both poems are the work of a
single scribe, and there is no evidence of correction by a
second scribe. Paul Meyer, the SATF editor of L'Escoufle,
notes that the scribe's language indicates that he was from
central France,1 but that "on observe pa et Id des formes
plus septentrionales qui viennent d'un manuscrit anterieur
1L'Escoufle; Roman d1aventure, ed. Henri Michelant
and Paul Meyer (Paris, 18947"! liii.
[a conclusion in which Charles Dunn concurs^] peut-etre meme
du manuscrit original. Nous avon vu, en effet, que 1'auteur
devait etre de la partie de la Normandie qui confine a la
region picarde."3 Harry Williams also thinks that the poet
wrote "pres de la frontiere de la Picardie et de l'Isle de
F r a n c e . T h e poem was probably composed ca. 1194-97 (see
section V below).
The provenance and history of the Arsenal MS are ob­
scure.5 This manuscript is seemingly that first mentioned
in the catalogue of the library of the Duke of Burgundy,
preserved at Dijon in 1421, where it is described as: "Item,
ung autre livre nomine le livre Guillaume de Palerne couvert
de cuir bien use, commencant au second fueillet L'oeil par
son sens, et ou derrenier Nulz ne 1*en fist noise.” The two
subsequent inventories of the dukes of Burgundy record the
presence of what is perhaps an additional MS containing both
L'Escoufle and Guillaume: the inventory made at Bruges in
1467 lists a MS of similar description as "couvert de cuir
noir." Although on the evidence of the two descriptions of
the MSS contained in the two inventories, Henri Michelant
felt that there existed in the fifteenth century two MSS
^Charles W. Dunn, The Foundling and the Werwolf: A
Literary-Historical Study of Guillaume de Palerne (Toronto,
1960) , p. 7.
3Meyer, L'Escoufle, liii.
^Harry F. Williams, "Les Versions de Guillaume de
Palerne," Romania, LXXIII (1952), 64.
5Meyer’s introduction to L'Escoufle quotes in full
the bibliographical descriptions of the early catalogues.
V
"completement identiques entre eux et avec celui de
1'Arsenal."® Meyer and Henry Martin, the Arsenal cataloguer,
more reasonably argued that the descriptions were of a single
MS which had been rebound between 1467 and 1487.
Meyer's conclusion is reinforced by the fact that
there is subsequent mention in the inventories of only one
MS containing both L'Escoufle and Guillaume. This MS re­
mained in the library of the dukes of Burgundy through the
eighteenth century, having been mentioned in the catalogues
of 1536, 1568, 1577, 1643, and 1731. It is strangely miss­
ing from the inventory of those MSS removed from the Duke of
Burgundy's library in 1746 by the Marshal of Saxe, nor is it
mentioned in the list of MSS reclaimed in 1770. It reap-
pears, "nous ne savons comment," in the library of the
Marquis de Paulmy, whose "hasty and in other respects
inaccurate summary"® involving wholly mythical "lost" thir­
teenth and fourteenth century versions further confused the
line of descent, and finally in the Arsenal.
II. The Previous Edition
The only edition of Guillaume de Palerne is that pre­
pared by Henri Michelant for the Societe des Anciens Textes
Franpais in 1876.
®Guillaume de Palerne, ed. Henri Michelant (Paris,
1876), xv.
7 * . .
Meyer, L'Escoufle, l v m .
®Dunn, The Foundling, p. 9.
Paul Meyer discusses in some detail Michelant's work
in his own and Michelant's edition of L'Escoufle published
by the SATF in 1894. Believing Guillaume and L'Escoufle to
be of common authorship, Michelant had in 1875 proposed to
the Society publishing Guillaume without a glossary# a joint
glossary for the two poems to accompany a subsequent edition
of L'Escoufle# and this proposal was accepted# somewhat
reluctantly, by the Society's Council. However, Michelant
published his edition of Guillaume somewhat prematurely#
though certainly in good faith that the subsequent edition
of L'Escoufle would correct its deficiencies. However, as
Meyer says, the edition of L'Escoufle which Michelant pre­
sented to the Council in 1877 was, like the Guillaume, most
unsatisfactory: "le texte n'avait pas paru suffisamment
etabli; la preface manquait, et le glossaire (qui devait
comprendre aussi le relev^ des mots de Guillaume de Palerne)
Q
n'etait pas commence." Ten years later Michelant again
proposed his edition of L'Escoufle, but, although he
received the Council's hesitant approval, was prevented by
age and illness from finishing that task, which was shortly
thereafter taken up by Paul Meyer.
Michelant's edition of Guillaume thus remains,in
spite of its textual inaccuracies and its lack of a glossary,
the only edition in modem times. Its defects, however,
have not gone unnoted. In 1879, A. Mussafia corrected a
®Meyer, L'Escoufle, ii.