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RS 1030

Huon d’Oisy

I Maugré tous sains et maugré Diu ausi revient Quenes, et mal soit il vegnans! Honis soit il et ses preechemans, 4et honis soit ki de lui ne dist: «fi»! Quant Diex verra que ses besoins ert grans, il li faura, quant il li a failli.

II Ne chantés mais, Quenes, je vos em pri, 8car vos chançons ne sont mais avenans; or menrés vos honteuse vie ci: ne volsistes pour Dieu morir joians, or vos conte on avoec les recreans, 12si remanrés avoec vo roi failli; ja Damedius, ki sor tous est poissans, del roi avant et de vos n’ait merci!

III Molt fu Quenes preus, quant il s’en ala, 16de sermoner et de gent preechier, et quant uns seus en remanoit decha, il li disoit et honte et reprovier; or est venus son liu recunchiier, 20et s’est plus ors que quant il s’en ala; bien poet sa crois garder et estoier, k’encor l’a il tele k’il l’emporta.


I Despite all the saints and despite God Himself Conon is returning, and a curse on his return! Shame on him and his preaching, and shame on anyone who does not say to him ‘fie upon you’! When God sees him in great need He will not help him, just as he has not helped Him.

II Sing no more, Conon, I pray you, for your songs are no more pleasing. Now you will live a shameful life here; you did not choose to die joyfully for God, and now you are counted among the cowards, so you will stay here with your failed king. May Our Lord, who has power over all people, have no pity, first on the king and [then] on you!

III When he set off, Conon was very brave in giving sermons and preaching to people, and if a single man stayed behind, he covered him in shame and reproach. Now he has returned to soil his home [his nest?], and he is filthier than when he left. For sure, he can keep his cross and stow it away, as it is in the same state as it was when he carried it away.

Text

Luca Barbieri, 2015.

Mss.

(2). M 50a (Me sire hues doysj), T 53r (Me sire hues doisy).

Versification and music

10ababbaba (MW 902,1 = Frank 302); 3 coblas doblas (2+1); the first stanza has only 6 lines, with the rhyme-scheme 10abbaba: there may have been a gap in a previous exemplar or the stanza may form a sort of refrain; rhyme a: -i, -a; rhyme b: -ans, -ier. Three of the four rhymes (-i, -ans, -ier) also appear in RS 1314 by Conon de Béthune. The versification is very common, but Huon d’Oisy is imiting Conon de Béthune’s song RS 1125 in particular, though the latter has a feminine a-rhyme. Identical rhyme vv. 15 and 20 (the whole expression quant il s’en ala), equivocal rhyme vv. 6 and 12 (failli, first a verb and then an adjective), paronymous rhyme vv. 9 and 14 (ci-merci, also for the ear in ausi v. 1), etymological figure vv. 3 and 16 (preechemans-preechier); lyric caesura vv. 2, 10 and 15 (but the latter is probably a case of a median caesura 5+5); feminine caesura with elision v. 11; melody in both mss., with melodic structure ABAB CDC’D’ (T 601).

Previous editions

de la Borde 1780, II, 211; Paris 1833, 103; Leroux de Lincy 1841-1842, I, 116; Dinaux 1837-1863, I, 140; Brakelmann 1870, 56; Meyer 1877, II, 367; Bédier 1906, 379; Bédier-Aubry 1909, 62; Gennrich 1951, 24; Wentzlaff-Eggebert 1960, 154; Cluzel 1969, 46; Schöber 1976, 162; Dufournet 1989, 100; Dijkstra 1995a, 192. de la Borde 1780, II, 211; Paris 1833, 103; Leroux de Lincy 1841-1842, I, 116; Dinaux 1837-1863, I, 140; Brakelmann 1870, 56; Meyer 1877, II, 367; Bédier 1906, 379; Bédier-Aubry 1909, 62; Gennrich 1951, 24; Wentzlaff-Eggebert 1960, 154; Cluzel 1969, 46; Schöber 1976, 162; Dufournet 1989, 100; Dijkstra 1995a, 192.

Analysis of the manuscript tradition

The two manuscript versions are virtually identical, with minimal variants. In both there are two lines rhyming ab apparently missing in the first stanza. The various editors indicate the lacuna as corresponding to two initial lines or vv. 3-4. However there are no noticeable skips or breaks in the stanza’s syntactic structure and the melody is marked out regularly in both cases; it may be a case of a type of refrain rather than a gap in the common source, and given this uncertainty it is better not to indicate missing lines in the printed text. T’s graphy is essentially followed, its northern features being preserved. For the alternation of the forms Diu/Dieu in particular see Gossen 1976, § 9, pp. 55-58 (compare also liu for lieu in v. 19). M is used only for v. 3 where there is an error in T (preemans which generates a hypometric line).

Historical context and dating

Huon III, lord of Oisy-le-Verger (Pas-de-Calais, arr. Arras), Montmirail and Crèvecœur, viscount of Meaux and castellan of Cambrai, is considered one of the earliest trouvères. A loyal vassal of the count of Flanders Philip of Alsace, whose sister Gertrude he took as his first wife, Huon supported him during the war of 1181-1185 against the king of France, Philip Augustus (Cartellieri 1899-1922, I, p. 107). Huon d’Oisy was distantly related to Conon de Béthune, and it is the same Conon who indicates him as his master in the art of poetry (RS 1314, vv. 51-52). They are also linked through their support of the count of Flanders against the political action of Philip Augustus (see Barbieri 2013, p. 289-290). The evident dependence of RS 1030 on Conon de Béthune’s two crusade songs has generated various doubts as to the date and attribution of the latter, since it has long been accepted that Conon returned from the Third Crusade with Philip Augustus in 1191, while historical documents attest the death of Huon d’Oisy between 1189 and 1190. In fact the various indications from the sources seem to converge on a single hypothesis. Firstly, the attribution of the text to Huon is indirectly confirmed by the fact that in the mss. this is followed by his Tornoiement des Dames (RS 1924a), whose attribution is proved by internal elements of the text. Secondly, there is no objective evidence that Conon took part in the Third Crusade, and his involvement in Philip Augustus’s expedition seems unlikely, given that his work and biography tesitfy to his hostility to the King. Conon’s father made the journey to the Holy Land joining up with one of the Flemish contingents that left their native land from the autumn of 1188 onwards; Robert V of Béthune died during the siege of Acre on 18 January 1191. The content and heavily sarcastic tone of Huon’s text would be hard to explain if it had been written after even a short stay in the Holy Land on Conon’s part and after his father’s death on crusade. Finally, there is no reason to question the date of Huon’s death recorded in the documents. The annals of the abbey of Anchin register it in the year 1189, while the necrology of the abbey of Cantimpré, founded by the same Huon, provides us with the precise date: 20 August. Other documents conferm that Huon was still alive in 1189, and that he was dead by 1190 (Schöber 1976, pp. 154-156). The Cantimpré necrology also informs us of a journey to the Holy Land undertaken by Huon d’Oisy; this could be a pilgrimage preceding Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem in 1187, and this seems confirmed by the the fact that Huon was able to bring back certain relics from the Holy Land (Dijkstra 1995a, pp. 93-94). Such a pilgrimage would give greater authority to the song RS 1030’s sarcastic remarks. It remains only to conclude that in all probability Conon de Béthune did not take part in the Third Crusade, and certaintly did not do so before Huon d’Oisy’s death. It may be supposed that if he did set out with his father in the early months of 1189 (Bédier 1906, p. 59), whether with the intention of leaving with him or with that of accompanying him part of the way, for some reason unknown to us he rapidly returned. If this was the occasion of RS 1030’s composition, it must have been written between January and August 1189. The fact that Conon de Béthune may have indeed set out on crusade after Huon’s death, perhaps in the entourage of Philip of Alsace, has no influence on the date and circumstances of composition and in any case has no documentary confirmation.