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Old French Goz and Crestiiens Li Gois

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Raphael Levy
Raphael Levy*
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University
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Extract

The purpose of this study is to trace the history of the word goz and to attempt to solve the mooted problem concerning the authorship of Philomena. It will be recalled that Gaston Paris discovered the poem buried in the Ovide moralisé, which is dedicated to Jeanne de Bourgogne, who died in 1329. G. Paris considered Philomena one of the works enumerated by Chrétien de Troyes in the introductory lines of Cligès, all of which, with the exception of Erec, had been thought lost. The author's name is given in verse 734 of Philomena, riming with bois:

La meisons estoit an un bois,

—Ce conte Crestiiens li Gois—.

Through an annotator's error, this name was long interpreted as Chrétien Legouais de Sainte-More vers Troyes. This identification was accepted in the 14th century by Eustache Deschamps and as recently as 1893 by L. Sudre. But in the same year, Professor A. Thomas revealed the paleographical error involved. By doing so, he precipitated a battle royal, the smoke of which has not yet cleared away. Many theories have been advanced to determine whether Crestiiens li Gois and Chrétien de Troyes were one and the same person. C. de Boer boldly entitled his edition: Philomena, Conte raconté d'après Ovide, par Chrétien de Troyes (P., 1909). However, as K. Voretzsch has pointed out, while there are similarities in the literary conception and style of Chrétien de Troyes and Crestiiens li Gois, nevertheless the linguistic differences in their works point to two distinct authors.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , June 1931 , pp. 312 - 320
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1931

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References

page 312 note 1 Hist. lit. Fr., xxix (1885), p. 489 et seq.

page 312 note 2 C. de Boer, ed. Ovide moralisé, Veri. d. Kon. Akad. v. Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afd. Lett., n. r., xv (1915), pp. 10–11.

page 312 note 3 The variants in the different manuscripts are goys, goiz, gais, liegois, trois (?), rois. Liegois will be discussed in the next paragraph. On trois (?), see E. Freymond, Abhandlungen … A. Tobler (Halle, 1895), pp. 314–320. On rois, see G. Paris, ibid., p. 490 n. For the influence of the rime, cf. conseillier 634, 1174, but mervoille—consoille 490, 1298. See also M. Lot-Borodine, Le Moyen Age, xv (1911), p. 146.

page 312 note 4 Œuvres complètes, ed. G. Raynaud, SATF, viii (1893), p. 178, x (1901), p. 229, xi (1903), p. 366.

page 312 note 5 “Publii Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphoseon libros qumodo nostrates medii aevi poetae imitati interpretatique sint” (P., 1893), chap. iv.

page 312 note 6 Romania, xxii (1893), pp. 271–4.

page 312 note 7 He defended this attribution in Romania, xli (1912), pp. 94–100.

page 312 note 8 Einführung in d. Studium d. altfrz. Lit. (Halle, 1925), pp. 257–8.

page 313 note 9 Ztschr. rom. Phil., xxxvii (1913), pp. 232–236; cf. Belz, Die Münzbezeichnungen altfrz. Lit., p. 32.

page 313 note 10 Ztschr. frz. Spr. Lit., xlvi (1923), pp. 183–184.

page 313 note 11 G. Paris, Mél. lit. fr. m. âge (P., 1912), p. 256.

page 313 note 12 Cf. L. Foulet, Bibl. Éc. hautes ét., ccxi (1914), pp. 38–40.

page 314 note 13 F. E. Guyer, Rom. Rev., xii (1921), pp. 100, n. 8, 240–5; see id., Mod. Phil., xxvi (1928), p. 264.

page 314 note 14 L'Attribution de Philomena à Chrétien de Troyes; cf. M. Roques, Romania, liv (1928), pp. 551–3, and C. Bruneau, Rev. ling. rom., v (1929), p. 117.

page 314 note 15 De Boer, ed. Philomena, pp. vi-xiv, 138, 141, 146 = L'Ovide Moralisé, Book vi, lines 2211, 3685, 3842.

page 315 note 16 Les Œuvres de Philippe de Vitry (Reims, 1850).

page 315 note 17 Fœrster, Kristian von Troyes Wtb., Einleitung (Halle, 1914), p 27, stated that Philomena betrays traits of an Eastern dialect. [I seize this opportunity to retract an erroneous reference I made to Fœrster's Wtb. in Mod. Phil., xxvii (1929), p. 156, n. 4. There have since appeared the study on dunc in Von Wartburg's Frz. etym Wtb. and a complete edition of Le Poème moral by A. Bayot (P., 1930).]

page 315 note 18 Les Sources indigènes de l'étym. fr., i (P., 1925), p. 64.

page 315 note 19 The A. L. P. also has goi, carte goitre, and goi, carte boudin. De Boer himself, Philomena, pp. cx–cxx, has recorded goi, “serpe, gouet,” and gouais, “variété de raisin peu estimée.” On gois, “estomac (d'un oiseau),” found by A. Neubauer, Hist. lit. Fr., xxvii (1877), p. 499, in Berechiah ben Natronai Krespia's abridged translation of Adelard of Bath's Questiones Naturales, cf. L. Zéliqzon, Dict. patois rom. Moselle (Strassburg, 1923), s. v. gasse. The form gois, found in “Ly Myreur des histors, Chronique de Jean des Preis dit Outremeuse,” iv (Brussels, 1877), v. 37262, was defined “goût” by A. Scheler, La Geste de Liége … Glossaire philologique, p. 168. On gonart in Godefroy, see Scheler, ibid. Perhaps it is to be grouped with goiart which, as Godefroy notes, is used as a name. J. Jud, Arch. Rom., vi (1922), p. 197, has noted the use of gouyart in Champsaur. Finally gons, which Godefroy treats as a hapax legomenon, is shown to correspond to modern gants by K. Warnke, Die Fabeln der Marie de France (Halle, 1898), p. 222.

page 315 note 20 Ed. A. de Montaiglon—J. de Rothschild, Recueil de poésies fr., x (P., 1875), p. 211.

page 315 note 21 Mél. lit. fr. m. âge, p. 249, n. 1; cf. L. Larchey, Dict. des noms (P., 1880), p. 285.

page 316 note 22 A. Assier, Bibl. de l'amateur champenois (P., 1858), p. 29, also reads grous, “animal qui grouine,” but A. de Montaiglon—G. Raynaud, Recueil gén. et complet des fabliaux, iii (P., 1878), p. 102, read gous.

page 316 note 23 Ed. E. Stengel (Tübingen, 1873). Incidentally, K. Michaëlsson, Études sur les noms de personne fr. (Upsala, 1927), p. 95, has found the name Robert Gocet in a tax-roll dated 1313, published by J. A. Buchon (P., 1827).

page 316 note 24 Ztschr. f. d. Öster. Gymnasien, xxv (1874), p. 145.

page 316 note 25 Erec v. 794, Lancelot v. 5168: goz; Perceval v. 9068, 9070: gocet.

page 316 note 28 Ztschr. rom. Phil.— Beiheft x (1907), p. 10.

page 316 note 27 Gosson is also used as a name in the Chanson d'Antioche, E. Langlois, Table des noms propres de toute nature compris dans les Chansons de geste imprimées (P., 1904), and in Bueve de Hantone, ed. A. Stimming, Ges. f. rom. Lit., xxxiv (1914), v. 14642, xlii (1920), pp. 469, 697; cf. xxv (1911), p. 226. Elsewhere Stimming always inserts an -n- in this name. Nor did J. Kremers, Beiträge zur Erforschung d. frz. Familiennamen (Bonn, 1910), p. 73, recognize it, since he derives this accusative form Gosson from the German pet-name Gozo. This word was not considered by Tobler in his attempt to identify the dwarf Segoçon; cf. Le Roman de Tristan par Béroul, v. 279, ed. E. Muret, SATF (P., 1903), p. 164.

page 317 note 28 Cf. Fœrster, Wtb.

page 317 note 29 Ibid., p. 169; also in his Anhang to Diez, “Etym. Wtb. rom. Spr.” (Bonn, 1887), p. 722.

page 317 note 30 I presume that gaufus is equivalent to gophus, recorded in Diefenbach's “Glossarium lat.-ger.”

page 317 note 31 Of the Ovide moralisé, De Boer has published so far only Books i–iii (1915), iv–vi (1920) including reprints of Pyrame et Tisbé and of Philomena, and a fragment from Book xii containing a paraphrase of part of the Iliade latine in Neophilologus, iii (1918), pp. 81–89.

page 318 note 32 M. W. Montgomery, Jew. Enc., vi, p. 20; W. F. Albright, Journ. of Biblical Lit., xliii (1924), pp. 378–385; A. Graf, Roma nella memoria e nelle immaginazioni del medio evo, ii (Turin, 1883). pp. 507–563.

page 318 note 33 Published as “Li Escomeniemenz au lecheor” by T. Wright, Anecdota lit. (London, 1844), p. 61.

page 318 note 34 Montaiglon-Raynaud, ibid., iv, p. 321.

page 318 note 35 Lat.-rom. Wtb. (Paderborn, 1907), §4302, 5336.

page 318 note 36 R. E. W., §4789.

page 319 note 37 Les Sources indigènes de l'étym. fr., ii, p. 29.

page 319 note 38 On gosse, cf. Sainéan, Le Langage parisien au xixe s. (P., 1920), pp. 60–61, 512. On goussaut, cf. the articles in E. Pilastre, Lexique sommaire de la langue du Duc de St.-Simon (P., 1905) and in Littré.

page 319 note 39 “Die Beinamen der pariser Steurrolle von 1292” (Königsberg, 1909). This tax-roll was published by H. Géraud (P., 1837).

page 319 note 40 This point was overlooked by Schultz-Gora, ibid.