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RS 640

Anonymous

I Bien mostre Diex apertement que n’ovron mie a son plaisir, quant si vilment nos lait honir 4 en Albigois, ou a tel gent qui de nului ne se defent qui en chanp les puisse tenir. Or i sunt mort nostre parent, 8 et nos font la terre gerpir.

II Trop vit clergiez desloiaument: par tot lo mont voi Deu traïr; sa grant besogne fist perir 12outremer, n’a pas longement, que nostre haut conquierement fist tot en perte revertir. Encor m’en met ou jugement 16au boen roi qui nen doit mentir.

III D’umilité n’i a noient, lor orguel ne puet nus sofrir; tot vuelent lo monde saisir 20par lor escomenïement. Tant ont avoir et tienement, qe par rober, que par tolir, que chascuns vuet ce qu’il enprent, 24soit torz, soit droiç, faire fornir.

IV E, Diex! tant metent malement ce c’unt des morz ensevelir en lor garces paistre et vestir, 28en boivre et maingier trop sovent; il deüssent tant seulement lor lase vie sostenir, et le sorplus par boen talant 32au besogneus Deu departir.

V Rome, don nostre loi descent, nos par fait del tot esbaïr, c’a son hués veaut tot retenir 36ce que por pechié nos deffent; por loier asot et sospent, et vant ce que Dex rove ofrir, et marie si pres parent 40que la loi no doit consentir.

VI Dex les tut toz ou les ament, si qu’il nos puisse garantir; ou se ce non, procheinement 44nos convendra sanz loi morir.

I God clearly shows that we are not acting according to his wishes, when He allows us to be so shamefully humiliated in the Albigeois, where there are such people who encounter no adversary who can withstand them on the battlefield. Now our kinsmen have died there, and they make us leave the land.

II The clergy lives most dissolutely; all over the world I see God betrayed; not long ago they made His great business perish overseas, for they turned our high conquest into failure. Nevertheless I submit to the judgment of the good king who cannot lie.

III There is no more humility in them; no-one can endure their arrogance. They want to take over the whole world through their use of excommunication. They own so much wealth and property, either by robbery or by extortion, that each wants carried out whatever he decides on, whether it be right or wrong.

IV Ah God, how wickedly they spend what they receive from burying the dead on dining and clothing their strumpets, in constantly eating and drinking! They ought to restrict themselves to sustaining their wretched lives, and gladly distributing the surplus to God’s poor.

V Rome, the origin of our religion, makes us utterly and completely perplexed, for it wants to reserve for its own use everything it forbids us as sinful; it absolves and excommunicates for money, and sells what God asks us to offer freely, and marries close kin such as the law should not allow.

VI God kill them all or reform them, so that He may protect us; if not, we shall soon have to die faithless.

Text

Luca Barbieri, 2016.

Mss.

(1): H 219b (Moniez d’Arraz); the attribution is found at the beginning of the French section of the manuscript (f. 217a: Iste sunt canciones francigene et sunt .l. ǀ Moniez d’Arraz) and has been incorrectly applied to all the texts contained in that section, whereas it probably refers only to the first.

Versification and music

8abbaabab (MW 1303,3 = Frank 473); 5 coblas unissonans with one 4-line envoi (abab); rhyme a: -ent, rhyme b: -ir; the same scheme is found in three later texts, two jeux-partis and a chanson pieuse, two of which are attributed to Adam de la Halle; many rich and some leonine rhymes; equivocal rhymes in vv. 5-36 (defent) and 7-39 (parent); paronymous and derivative rhymes in vv. 6, 30 and 35 (tenir-sostenir-retenir).

Previous editions

Camus 1891, 240; Bertoni 1917, 324; Jeanroy-Långfors 1921, 10; Petersen Dyggve 1938, 136.

Analysis of the manuscript tradition

Ms. H is the French section of the Provençal Estense ms. D , whose initial rubric indicates the date 1254. This date has been variously attributed to the ms. itself, to the first section alone, or to its model (Zinelli 2010 is the most recent scholar to incline to this hypothesis, listing and discussing the various positions on pp. 83-86; on pp. 88-89 he cautiously suggests a later date, at least for the French section, around the last quarter of the 13th c.). RS 640 is the eleventh text, coming shortly before two other texts in our corpus, the fifteenth Ja de chanter en ma vie (RS 1229), and the sixteenth Un serventés, plait de deduit, de joie (RS 1729). H’s text is fairly correct and shows no obvious linguistic peculiarities, apart from a few northern or Picard graphies, especially in the spelling of g + vowel (v. 4 Albigois, v. 8 gerpir, v. 12 longement; cf. Spetia 1997, p. 58), the retention of the tonic form with the graphy boen (vv. 16 and 31), and the early closure of o + nasal (sunt v. 7, unt v. 26). As Petersen Dyggve, at the rhyme in vv. 20 and 21 I have eliminated the final z which modifies the rhyme and is unnecessary from the morphological point of view. I have accepted Jeanroy’s suggested emendations, following Petersen Dyggve, in order to correct the scansion in v. 28 (en boivre et en maingier) and to regularise v. 37, although the latter emendation is not entirely convincing.

Historical context and dating

The song’s opening lines refer to a difficult moment for the French during the Albigensian Crusade, most probably Amaury de Montfort’s defeats, particularly between 1219 and 1222 (Serper 1983, pp. 4-5; Cassignol 2006, pp. 146-151). The reference in vv. 1-8 is general enough to fit the whole decade spanning the reconquest of Beaucaire in 1216 and Raimon VII’s final successes in 1224; but if we take account of the fact that vv. 11-14 probably refer to the loss of Damietta on 8 September 1221, the date of the song’s composition can be restricted to 1222-1224, most probably close to the surrender of Damietta (1222-1223). This is the view of Serper 1983, pp. 4-5 and Vatteroni 1999, pp. 60-62, inter alia. A later date cannot be ruled out, as for Thibaut de Champagne’s song RS 273, and Guillaume le Clerc in his Besant de Dieu shows that the memory of the Egyptian victory still weighed heavily on people’s minds in 1226-1227. But it seems difficult to go as far as 1226, the year in which Louis VIII takes the Cross and reinvigorates the anti-Albigensian campaign, and in any case it is impossible to go later than the treaties of Meaux-Paris in 1229 which sanction the major redrawing of the boundaries of the county of Toulouse. Clearly the attribution to Moniot d’Arras is to be rejected and the text should revert to anonymity.