Probably composed in the early 1260's, by a man known only as the Minstrel of Rheims, the Récits d'un menéstrel

"Deadly Diatribe in the Récits d'un ménestrel de Reims," Res Publica Litterarum XIV (1991), pp. 115-126.

Probably composed in the early 1260's, by a man known only as the Minstrel of Rheims, the Récits d'un menéstrel de Reims offers, in its only modern edition, 247 pages of vernacular prose devoted to various historical events and characters. Unreliable, entertaining, and difficult to classify, it does not even have a title to which it can incontrovertibly lay claim. To call it a chronicle of Flanders or of Rheims, as some early readers did, leads to problems, since most of the material he presents concerns France and England. Its opening indicates an interest in European adventures in the Near East, but it comes back to events on the continent, in various parts of what today amounts to France, England, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Germany. A certain amount of specific detail is devoted to activities at Rheims. In addition, to call the Réçits a chronicle is misleading, not merely because the Minstrel shows no interest in dates, or in a strictly chronological structure, but because many of its incidents and all of its direct discourse are fictional. On the other hand, to suggest that the text offers pseudo‑history is also misleading, since history in the middle ages was a branch of grammar and rhetoric -- that is, it was literature(1).

Exactly what kind of literature the Minstrel intended to produce is not entirely clear, since any title or . introduction he may have given his work has not survived(2). His editor was troubled by the Minstrel's willingness to do anything to get a laugh, and by the fact that his subject matter clearly resembles what jongleurs tend to offer: marvelous events and catastrophic disasters(3). The cavalier confusion of dates, characters, and places gives his text qualities to be found generally in historical fiction, and in chansons de gestes and romans particularly(4). Details combine, recombine, are invented or suppressed, in order to conform not to the needs of historians with scientific aspirations, but, in typically medieval fashion, to the needs and abilities of a specific author and a specific audience.

Some of the Minstrel's deviations from fact (that is, names, dates, chronologies about which no controversy exists) may be attributed to carelessness or incompetence, and some to purposes that remain resolutely mysterious after more than 700 years. In some cases, however, the Minstrel deviates not necessarily from fact, but from other texts. Since we do not know exactly what texts, if any, he had before him as he composed, studying sources and analogues in this instance can only reveal something about the different intentions, sensibilities, and perspectives of the writers who treated the same characters and events. In addition, however, what the Minstrel does with his materials may reveal something about the way writers of popular historical literature in the thirteenth century, and perhaps in the Middle Ages generally, composed their texts.

The Minstrel's perspective is compounded out of two major problems: he had to protect himself against royal displeasure, and he had to please a heterogeneous, urban, if not necessarily urbane, audience. In the process, he pursues a not very well‑hidden agenda, consisting of three items: to praise the Capetians, with the bulk of the panegyric bestowed upon Philip‑Augustus; to castigate enemies of the Capetians, both internal and external; and to castigate almost all ecclesiastical figures(5). In pursuing the first item on his agenda, the Minstrel devotes more than half of the Récits to a categorical, uncritical laus Philipi Augusti. In the process, he fabricates victories where there were no battles(6), elides Philip's problems with women and the consequent difficulties in legitimatizing Agnes' children(7), and makes no mention of the negative actions attributed to the king by Rigord, who complained, for example, that in 1198 Philip treated the church badly, and permitted the Jews to return(8). Not only does he supress Rigord's charges, but he fabricates the pious fiction of Philip Augustus making his will on his death‑bed, leaving equal thirds to the poor and to the Holy Land. In addition, the Minstrel lengthens Philip's reign from 43 to 47 years, apparently to magnify the king's glory, and he assigns his coronation to the age of 14 instead of 16, making him even more of a Wunderkind.

Fabricating accomplishments, exaggerating numbers, and supressing unfavorable material, however, are not the Minstrel's primary strategies for producing panegyric. He also composes dramatic scenes for the purpose of encomium (as he does in other instances to fuel his diatribe), drawing upon material with some basis in historical reality. One of the clearest illustrations of this technique is the incident in which Philip's momentary halt on the way to the battle of Bouvines, represented by only three words modici guieti vacaret in William the Breton's text(9), becomes a major scene in the Récits. Since the battle of Bouvines was Philip's only major military accomplishment, the Minstrel understandably devotes significant attention to the event.

A passage in Rigord's text, apparently inserted into the coronation scene by an interpolator, and a major scene from the Gospel provide most of the material for amplifying William the Breton's three words. The interpolator describes the dream Louis VII had when Philip was born, in which Philip holds in his hand a golden cup, filled with human blood, from which the nobility drink:

rex Ludovicus, antequam natus esset, talem in somnis vidit visionem: videbatur ei quod Philippus filius suus tenebat calicem aureum in manu sua plenum humano sanguine, de quo propinabat omnibus principibus suis, et omnes in eo bibebant(10).

This passage may have provoked the Minstrel to recall the Gospels' representation of Christ at the last supper, permitting him to construct a dialogue in which Philip-Augustus and his vassals become divine ikons in the service of the myth of Capetian legitimacy(11).

According to the Récits, early on the morning of the battle, Philip appears (pp. 146 -148) in church, fully armed, to celebrate mass. When the mass is over, he invites his men to share soupes with him, in honor of the twelve apostles, advising those with evil in their hearts not to participate:

Et tant errerent qu'il vinrent à un poncel qu'on apele le pont à Bovines; et avoit une chapele enqui où li rois se traist pour oïr messe, car il estoit encore matins. Si fist li rois chanteir messe l'evesque de Tournai; et li rois oï messe touz armeiz. Et quant la messe fu dite, si fist li rois aporteir pain et vin; et fist taillier des soupes, et en prist une et la manja; et puis dist à touz ceus qui entour lui estoient: "Je proi à touz mes loiaus amis qui ci sont qu'il manjucent avec moi, en remembrance des douz apostres qui avec Nostre Seigneur Jhesu Christ burent et mangierent; et s'il en i a nul qui pent mauvestié ne tricherie, ne s'i aproche ja."

In response to the challenge, his faithful retainers. eagerly and in great numbers, proclaim their loyalty, and eat:

Atant s'avanca mes sires Enjorrans de Couci, et prist la premiere soupe. Et li cuens Gauchiers de Saint Pol grist la seconde, et dist au roi: "Sire, hui ce jour verra on qui vostre traitres sera." Et dist celle parole pour ce qu'il savoit bien que li rois l'avoit en soupeçon par mauvaises laingues. Et li cuens de Sansuere prist la tierce, et tuit li autre baron après; et i of si grant presse que on ne povoit avenir au hanap.

Such a demonstration of loyalty overwhelms Philip, who selflessly and humbly (in no way conforming to the script of the Gospel) offers to give up his crown:

Et quant li rois vit ce, si en fu mout liez, et leur dist: "Seigneur, vous iestes tuit mi homme, et je sui vostre sires, queis que je soie; et vous ai mout ameiz, et portei grant honeur, et donnei dou mien largement; ne ne vous fis onques tort ne desraison, ains vous ai touz jourz menei par droit. Pour Dieu, si vous proi a touz que vous gardez hui mon cors et m'oneur et la vostre. Et se vous veez que la couronne soit mieuz emploïe en un de vous que en moi, je m'i otroi voulentiers, et le vuel de bon cuer et do bonne voulentei.

Weeping, the barons assure him that they want no other ruler, and they ride off to battle with a man in whom all three functions --- warrior, priest, and king – successfully combine(12):

Quant li baron l'oïrent ainsi parleir, si commencierent è ploureir de pitié et dirent "Sire, pour Dieu merci, nous ne voulons roi se vous non; et chevauchiez hardiement contre voz enemis, et nous sounes apareillié de mourir avec vous." Atant monta li rois sour un destrier fort et seur, et tuit li baron ausi, banniere desploïe, chascuns en son conroi.

In his prose account of the battle, William the Breton had provided no dramatic scene at this point, waiting until the battle itself to add dramatic qualities, where, significantly, the task of providing sacred resonances for the event are bestowed upon another priest and himself, who stand just a bit behind the king, singing Psalms 142, 67, and 20(13). A cleric himself, William wanted to maintain a distinction among the functions; the minstrel's interests were invested elsewhere(14).

Not satisfied merely with having provided a dramatic sacralization of the preparations for the battle of Bouvines, eager to compound the magnitude of the day's royal accomplishments, the Minstrel arranges for King John of England to be defeated by Louis at Roche‑aux‑Moines, on the same day as the battle of Bouvines(15).

Philip's other military activities were negligible, and some of his behavior in the field was questionable. To account for Philip's early departure from the Crusade, for example, the Minstrel chooses a conspiratorial scenario, involving an attempt by Richard I, first to poison Philip, then, by suborning count Thibaut V of Blois, count Philip of Flanders, and Henry II of Champagne, to betray the French king. Thus the panegyric of Philip becomes a function of a dramatic diatribe against three aristocrats. To compose his narrative, the Minstrel combines material he might have found in some chronicles, which report Richard's attempt to poison Philip‑Augustus, with some historically verifiable events, to produce the message that crime against the Capetians does not pay.

To accomplish this purpose, the Minstrel fabricates death‑scenes for each of the three conspirators. For Count Philip of Flanders, Dieus, qui n'oublie mie les siens, envoia une maladie au cont Phelipe, dont il mourut (p. 32). The dying man's conscience moves him to confess the plot to king Philip, and to ask that he be dragged by the neck through the streets of Acre as punishment(16). The king does nothing of the sort, but packs up and leaves the Holy Land.

When Count Henry II chases the king in a small boat, to ask why he is being abandoned, the king denounces him as a

traitor, and swears: "ne iamais en Champaiqne n'entrerez, ne vous ne vostre oir." The traitors are thoroughly discouraged by this turn of events, and Thibaut decides to return to France, to ask for the king's merci. On the return journey, during a violent storm at sea, the count, and one quarter of his men try to get to shore in a dinghy lowered from the ship (p. 35). After the dinghy is smashed against the rocks, killing Thibaut and those with him, the storm subsides, and those who remained with the ship sail successfully into the port of Marseilles. Thibaut V, however, died at the siege of Acre, and never had the opportunity to board a vessel to return to France. His shipwreck, however, provides a fiction to suggest that God designed a punishment for those who plotted against Philip‑Augustus.

Another conspirator, Henry II of Champagne, was the victim of an accident in 1197; the Minstrel did not contrive the accident, even though the symmetry it helps to concoct seems more appropriate for art than for historical reality. On the other hand, the version of the scene in the Récits, compared to the other surviving representations of the scene, trivializes the figure of the dying Henry. Richard of Hoveden, for example, describes Henry as engaged in a significant military task ‑‑ relieving the siege of Joppa ‑at the moment of his death. A weak pillar in an upper bedroom is the cause of his mortal fall(17):

Comes autem Henricus Campania, qui per electionem regum Franciae et Angliae, et Templariorum et Hospitalorum, praeerat terrae Jerosolimitanae, exercitum Christianorum paravit ad obsidionem illam solvendam: et dum ipse nixus columnae cujusdam fenestrae in thalamo superiori, loqueretur ad turbas, fracta est columna illa, et ille corruens in terram, fractis cervicibus exspiravit.

In the Chronique d'Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier, the count is also in the process of relieving the siege of Jaffa; however, he is not engaged in speaking to a crowd at his death. Instead, after ordering his troops to move on to Caiphas, four leagues from Acre, he is in the process of washing his hands before supper(18):

Dont fist metre les tables pour souper, et demanda de l'eve à laver, et on li aporta. Et il vint en droit une grant fenestre qui estoit en le tour haut où il manoit; si commença à laver ses mains. Si com il lavoit, si se lança par mescheance avant, et ca de le fenestre de dle tour aval, si fu mors.

The servant who was holding his towel falls after him, but only breaks his leg, perhaps also causing the count's death:

Le vallés, qui li tenoit le touelle, se laissa ca/r apriès, pour çou qu'il ne vaut mei c'on

desist qu'il l'eust bouté. I1 ne fu mie mors, mais il of le quisse brisie. Aucunes gens disent que se cil ne se fust laissiés ca r apriès le conte, il ne fust mie mors (p. 306).

The scene continues in Ernoul, with a hue and cry in the street, confusing the residents, who finally bring help to carry the count first to church, and then to the cemetery(19).

In L'Estoire de Eracles Empereur, Henry is encamped, again on the way to relieve the siege of Jaffa; after discussing provisions with the citizens of Caiphas, he prepares to retire for the evening(20), but is forced to interrupt his preparations by the arrival of the Pisans:

Li cuens estoit remes por parler as borgeis et as comunes por avoir aye par mer de genz et de vaisseaus. Quant il of parlè a touz les autres, li Pisan vindrent al anuitier; il estoit apuez a une fenestre ferré; si s'en parti por aler encontre les Pisans.

The interruption accounts for the confusion that leads to his death, since, when he returns, he sets himself up at the wrong window:

Au retorner s'en repaira en reculant, et cuida retorner a la fenestre dont il estoit partiz; si se oblia et retorna a une autre fenestre, ou il n'avoit point de ferreure; si recula tant que il

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cuida trover les barres de fer por soi apuier, si que les talons li faillirent, si chei envers arriere contre val, si se brisa le col.

The Eracles also provides a servant, who differs from Ernoul's servant in two ways: he is a dwarf, and he does not survive the fall:

Un suen nain que il avoit norri, qui moult estoit privez de lui, estoit pres de lui. Quant il s'apercut que li cuenz reversoit, si se lanca por lui tenir, si que il le prist as dras; mais il se fu si lancé avant que il ne se pot tenir, ains chai sur lui et furent andui mort.

The Minstrel deprives the falling Henry of an accompanying faithful servant, and of the title of king of Jerusalem(21). Instead, he substitutes a title Henry never held: king of Cyprus. The scene also loses any sense of military and broad historical significance, since the crowds being addressed by Roger's Henry disappear, and Henry, at the moment of his death is engaged not in oratory, but in a commercial transaction whose relevance to relieving the siege of Jaffa has been entirely suppressed:

or avint que li rois de Chipre vint en Acre, et vout enprunteir deniers à un bourjois; et le traist d'une part à une fenestre à conseil, qui faisoit huis et fenestre, et ourvroit par dehors et estoit close sans fermeir. Et quant il s'i

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apuia li huis ouvri, et li rois chéi et brisa son col (p. 36).

Fabricating death-scenes for Philip's enemies seems to have been one of the Minstrel's chief strengths. In some cases, however, distinguishing friends from enemies was a significant problem. Henry of Champagne started out as a supporter of Philip, but, according to Richard of Devizes, transferred his allegiance because Richard-the-Lion-Hearted lent him money on more favorable terms than Philip. Both England and France were filled with trimmers, whose allegiances to friends, relatives, and allies changed rapidly and often. The most prominent examples of this phenomenon were two of Henry II's sons, Richard the Lion‑Hearted, and Henry Courtmantel ("the Young King"), who allied themselves regularly with Philip against their father until the latter died. The Minstrel provides death scenes for Henry Courtmantel and his father which, in a sense, depend upon each other; they also function as part of the diatribe against Henry II, and show the Minstrel's abilities to preserve a certain emotional "truth" while reinventing history.

Probably relying upon material supplied by English clerical chroniclers, whose feelings for Becket provoked them to preserve, or to invent negative material about the English king, the Minstrel reduces the antagonism between

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father and son to a sexual rivalry, entirely eliding the Young King's alliances with Philip. His first rearrangement of facts involves representing Henry Courtmantel as the fiance of Alix of France. According to the minstrel, the Young King was away on business in Scotland when his bride‑to‑be arrived in England, and his father welcomed Alix far too enthusiastically:

...et vinrent à Londres, et trouverent le roi Henri qui merveilles fist grant feste de la venue à la pucele. Mais Henriiz ses fiuz au Court Mantel n'estoit mie adonc en Engleterre; ains estoit en Escoe oú il avoit grant besoingne à faire. En ces entrevaus li desloiaus rois Henriz ala tant entour la damoisele que il jut charneument à li (p. 10).

When his son hears about the king's activities, he goes directly to bed, and dies immediately of rage:

Et quant cil Nenriz au Court Mantel fu revenuz et il sot la veritei de cele avenue, si en fu si durement courrouciez que il en alita au lit de la mort, dont il mourut.

Since Alix had been betrothed to Richard, not Henry Courtmantel, the Young King dying of shame when he discovers that his father has exercised droit du seigneur is a blatant fiction. Instead, after marrying another sister of Philip Augustus, Henry Courtmantel died of an illness(22).

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For the death of Henry II, the Minstrel arranges a scene in which the old king also dies in a paroxysm of rage, like the son whose fiance he had deflowered; in addition, the responsibility for generating the rage is bestowed on Philip, rather than on the old king's sons. Part of the Minstrel's strategy is to send Henry II on an expedition he never made, to Gerberoi, in the course of which the English king receives a surprise visit by Philip Augustus. In this scene, which has no counterpart in any chronicle, Henry is

lying down when Philip enters:

Quant li rois Phelipes le vit, si trait l'espée et li court sus apertement, et le cuide ferir parmi la teste. Et uns chevaliers saut entre deus, et li destourne son coup à faire. Et li rois Henriz saut sus tout esperduz et s'enfuit en une chambre; et fu bien li huis fermeiz (p. 12)

Disappointed, Philip leaves, returning to Beauvais, because, il n'avoit pas là bon demoureir.

Henry, however, in his fury at Philip, kills himself:

Quant li rois Henriz sot que ce fu li rois Phelipes qui ocirre le vouloit, si dist: "Fi! or ai he trop vescu quant li garçcons de France, fiuz au mauvais roi, West venuz ocirre." Adonc sali li rois Henriz, et prist un frain; et s'en ala aus chambres courtoises touz desespereiz, et pleins de l'anemi; et si s'estraingla des resnes dou frain (p. 13).

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The Minstrel gives the wrong reason for the rage, although he gets the emotion right, if we are to believe Roger of Hoveden, who portrays Henry at the hour of his death, in spite of the ecclesiastics attempting to mitigate the royal wrath, cursing the day of his birth and cursing his sons:

et tactus dolore intrinsecus maledixit diei in qua natus fuit, et maledictionem Dei, et suam, dedit filiis suis, quam nunquam relaxare voluit, licet episcopi et caeteri viri religiosi eum ad relaxationem maledicitonis suae saepius commonuissent. RS 51.2.366.

Although he died angry, then, the cause of his death was illness, not the highly unlikely apoplectic rage at Philip's attempt to murder him.

Two elements in the Minstrel's version of the deaths of Henry II and his son ‑‑ the charge that Henry II was sexually involved with Alix, and the rage and anger that accompanied the deaths of both the Young King and his father correspond to what can be found in the chronicles.

Roger of Hoveden reports the accusation that Henry II had deflowered Alice, as part of his account of the falling out that took place between Richard and Philip over letters plotting treachery by Philip shown by Tancred to Richard. Philip disowns the letters and demands that Richard marry Alice:

"sed credo quod ipse cogitavit haec mala adversum me, ut Alesiam sororem meam dimittat, quam ipse sibi desponsandam juravit; sed pro certo sciat, quod si ille dimiserat eam, et aliam duxerit in uxorem, ero illi et suis inimicus quamdiu vixero."

Richard replies that he can not marry her, because his own father not only slept with her, but fathered a son upon her:

His auditis rex Angliciae respondit, quod sororem illius sibi in uxorem ducere nulla ratione posset, quia rex Angliae pater suus earn cognoverat, et filium ex ea genuerat, et ad hoc probandum multos produxit testes, qui parati erant modis omnibus hoc probare(23).

Richard would have had no compunction about inventing such a story to get out of a marriage he no longer perceived as advantageous; the Minstrel, however, clearly adapted what may have been a rhetorical trick by Richard to his own purposes.

The second element with some basis in historical texts is the rage of the dying father, and, to a lesser extent, the rage of the dying son. "Benedict" of Peterborough (1.300‑302) gives a death scene involving a penitent Henry Courtmantel and an intransigeant father, who, mistrusting the report that his son is dying, sends a bishop to find out the truth; when he hears that the report is true, he puts up an excellent show, passing out three times in succession, and uttering horrible groans:

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...semel et secundo et tertio in extasim cecidit; et cum ululatu magno et horribili fletu planctus funiferos emisit, et plus quam credi potuit modum plangendi excessit.

During the subsequent funeral oration, Henry speaks of his son's death as God's vengeance, representing his own position as ambiguous (1.302):

Et ideo potius est de morte illius gaudere, quam dolere. Tamen paternae dilectionis pietas me ab effusione lacrymarum coerci non sinit.

Roger of Hoveden, however, provides direct discourse for the penitent son, and speaks in his own voice about the father's grief, making Henry II a more sympathetic character, since the chronicler, not the father, gets to attack the son(24).

Gaudent omnes, cuncti laetantur, solus pater langit filium. Quid plangis, gloriose pater? ille tuus non erat filius, qui sic violavit paternos affectus .

Robert of Torigni, the most reticent of the chroniclers of the reign of Henry II, reports the death of Henry Courtmantel with no dramatic details; he retains the motif of the king's anger at the death of his son, but offers as