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On the Sources of Guillaume De Deguileville's Pèlerinage de L'Ame
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The sources of the allegorical religious trilogy of the Cistercian monk and prior, Guillaume de Deguileville, have not been thoroughly investigated until comparatively recent years. In 1896, Tobler, reporting on Stürzinger's edition of the Pèlerinage de Vie Humaine, stated that Deguileville's characteristics as a poet must be compared to those of Jean de Meun and Daute, and that Deguileville's powers of description did not approach those of Dante. Gröber gives it as his opinion that Deguileville's trilogy was composed without any knowledge of the Divina Commedia, though there are analogies between the two. He cites St. Bernard, Aristotle, the Book of Daniel, the Apocalypse, Dionysius Areopagita, and ms. illustrations, as sources of certain features of Ame. J. E. Hultman, in an excellent study of the poet's life and works, brings to light the sources of a large part of the three poems. His is the first serious attempt to discover the literary antecedents of Deguileville, and is a thorough, though inevitably not an exhaustive, treatment of the subject. Farinelli points out additional analogies between Dante and Deguileville, at the same time denying the possibility of any direct influence.
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References
page 275 note 1 Pèlerinage de Vie Humaine, in two versions, 1330–1332 and 1355 respectively; Pèlerinage de l'Ame, 1355–1358; Pèlerinage Jhesucrist, 1358.
page 275 note 2 Cf. Archiv f. d. Studium der neueren Sprachen, vol. 96, pp. 347–348.
page 275 note 3 Grundriss (1902) ii, 749 f.
page 275 note 4 Guillaume de Deguileville, En Studie i Fransk Litteraturhistoria, Upsala, 1902.
page 275 note 5 Dante e la Francia dall' età media al secolo di Voltaire, 2 vols., Milano, 1908. Vol. i, pp. 146–7.
page 276 note 1 Op. cit., p. 66.
page 276 note 2 Op. cit., p. 65.
page 276 note 3 Raoul de Houdene's Songe d'Enfer, Raoul's Songe de Paradis, Rustebuef's Voie de Paradis, and Baudouin de Condé's Voie de Paradis.
page 276 note 4 Op., cit., p. 67.
page 277 note 1 Edited by Stürzinger for the Roxburghe Club, London, 1895.
page 277 note 2 The poem contains 11,161 lines.
page 277 note 3 E. g., the debate between the Soul and Body, vv. 4063–4330; that between the green tree and the dry tree, vv. 5931–6164; the complaint of the green tree, vv. 6353–6626; the discussion of the nature of the soul, vv. 6914–7200; the allegorical treatise on the state, vv. 7205–8314; the discussion of the various meanings of the word siècles, vv. 9216–9364; the discussion of the nature of the trinity, vv. 10751–10981.
page 278 note 1 The prosent study has been much simplified by the appearance of many studies of vision literature, chiefly in relation to Dante, e. g., Cancellieri, Ozzervazioni intorno alla Questione … sopra la Originalità del Poema di Dante, Rome, 1814; Labitte, La Divine Comédie avant Dante, in Revue des Deux Mondes, ivth series, xxxi (1842), 704–742; Thomas Wright, St. Patrick's Purgatory, London. 1844; D'Ancona, I Precursori di Dante, Firenze, 1874; Ozanam, Dante et la philosophie catholique au xiiie, siècle, Paris, 1845; Fritsche, Die Lateinischen Visionen des Mittelalters bis zur Mitte des 12ten Jahrhunderts, in Romanische Forschungen, ii, 2, p. 247 f., and iii, 2, p. 337 f., with additions by Peters in vol. viii of the same periodical; Nutt, The Happy Otherworld, in vol. i of Meyer's edition of The Voyage of Bran, 2 vols., London, 1895 and 1897; Becker, A Contribution to the Comparative Study of the Mediæval Visions, etc., Baltimore, 1899; Dods, Forerunners of Dante, Edinburgh, 1903; Boswell, An Irish Precursor of Dante, London, 1908.
page 278 note 2 In addition to Hultman's numerous parallels.
page 278 note 3 Of the Apocalypse of Peter and the Acts of the Apostle Thomas, to which we shall have occasion to refer, no Latin versions are known. The evidence adduced by comparison with them must, therefore, be discounted, as it is not necessary to postulate a knowledge of Greek on the part of Deguileville. It is possible that they influenced the poet through the medium of Latin visions to which the writer has not had access.
page 278 note 4 For the visions previous to the middle of the twelfth century we have used the editions cited by Fritsche and Peters, with the following exceptions: Gregory of Tours, Gregorii Turonici Historiœ Francorum Libri Decem (liber vii, cap. i), Basileæ (per Petrum Pernarn), 1568; Gregory the Great (Dialogues, liber 14, cap. 36), Sancti Gregorii Magni Papa. Primi Opera, 6 vols., Paris, 1640 (vol. iii); Furseus, Drithelm, and an anonymous vision related by Bede, Venerabilis Bedœ Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (liber iii, cap. 19, and liber v, cap. 12 and 13), rec. J. Stevenson, London, 1838; Boniface, Epistola Bonifacii ad Eadburgam, in Maxima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum, xiii, 78 f.; English Presbyter, in Dods, op. cit., pp. 199–201; Charles III, Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi De Gestis Regum Anglorum Libri Quinque, Rolls Series, 2 vols., London, 1887, liber ii, § 111; Anschar, Langebek, Scriptores Rerum Daniearum Medii Ævi, vol. i (Hafniæ, 1772), pp. 430–434; Paul, usually the edition by Brandes, Halle, 1885, sometimes (when noted) the version in the Cambridge Texts and Studies, vol. ii, No. 3; Walkelin, Migne, Patrologiœ, vol. 188, cols. 607–612; Child William, Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum Historiale, Venetius, 1494 (liber xxvii, cap. lxxxiv f.); St. Patrick's Purgatory, Matthei Parisiensis Chronica Majora, Rolls Series, London, 1874, vol. ii, pp. 192–203. For the visions after 1150 we have used the editions mentioned by Dods, with the following exceptions: Monk of Evesham, Rogeri de Wendover Flores Historiarum, Rolls Series, 3 vols., London, vol. i (1886), pp. 246–266; Thurcill, R. de Wendover, vol. ii (1887), pp. 16–35. Citations from the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus a Voragine are from the second edition by Graesse, Lipsiae, 1850.
page 281 note 1 Dods. op. cit., p. 217 f., analyzes several of the most important of them.
page 281 note 2 The results are arranged in the order of the passages cited in Ame. Where several passages are considered together, they are placed according to the order of the first of them.
page 282 note 1 Cf. Boswell, op. cit., p. 182, note.
page 283 note 1 Cf. also Gregory of Tours, Furseus, Rotcharius, Wettin, Anschar, Alberic, and Tundal.
page 283 note 2 See also Drithelm, Barontus, English Presbyter, and Paul.
page 283 note 3 Cf. vv. 8728–8734.
page 283 note 4 Vv. 2277–2279.
page 283 note 5 The Cistercian order, of which Deguileville was a member, is an offshoot of the Benedictine order.
page 284 note 1 V. 2352.
page 284 note 2 Cambridge Texts and Studies, vol. ii, No. 3.
page 285 note 1 Cf. Revelation xxi, 10, 11, 23; xxii, 5.
page 286 note 1 Cf. also Bernold, Child William, Cistercian Novice, Jacobus a Voragine (Graesse, p. 822).
page 286 note 2 Exodus xxvi, 33.
page 286 note 3 Matthew xxvii, 51; Mark xv, 38; Luke xxiii, 45.
page 288 note 1 See also vv. 9115, 9129–9136, 9823–4, 9945–9960, 9991 f., 10057, 10350 f., 10413–10420, 10641, 10713 f.
page 289 note 1 Cf. vv. 10261–4 and 10652–3.
page 290 note 1 Op. cit., p. 83.
page 290 note 2 Evangelium Nicodemi Pars altera sive Descensus Christi ad Inferos, Latine B, cap. is (xxv), in Evangelia Apocrypha, rec. Tischendorf, Lipsiæ, 1876, p. 430.
page 290 note 3 Cambridge Texts and Studies, vol. ii, No. 3.
page 290 note 4 Becker, op. cit., p. 22.
page 291 note 1 Cf. Dods, op. cit., pp. 220, 226, 232, 254 and 260.
page 291 note 2 In the Vision of Er (Plato, Republic, x) and that of Thespesius (Plutarch, The Delays of Divine Justice), to cite but two of many examples.
page 292 note 1 E. g., in Acts of the Apostle Thomas, Ante-Nicene Christian Library, xvi, 420.
page 292 note 2 Alberic, Tundal, St. Patrick's Purgatory, Monk of Evesham.
page 292 note 3 Op. cit., p. 83.
page 293 note 1 Cf. Gospel of Nico lemus, Ante-Nicene Library, xvi, 220.
page 294 note 1 Ante-Nicene Fathers, ix, 145–6.
page 294 note 2 Ante-Nicene Library, xvi, 419–420.
page 294 note 3 Cf. Becker, op. cit., p. 36, in regard to the Vision of Paul, and p. 88, in regard to the comparative brevity of Matthew of Paris's version of St. Patrick's Purgatory.
page 295 note 1 Acts of Thomas, Ante-Nicene Library, xvi, 419.
page 296 note 1 Some mss. read: “serpens et crapaus.”
page 298 note 1 Ed. Graesse, p. 310.
page 298 note 2 Ed. Graesse, p. 345.
page 299 note 1 I have been unable to identify this reference.
page 300 note 1 Cf. also Monk of Evesham, pp. 257–259; the passage is too long to quote.
page 301 note 1 Cf. the derivation of estatue, Ame 7265 ff.
page 301 note 2 Cambridge Texts and Studies, vol. ii, No. 3.
page 301 note 3 Cf. Boswell, op. cit., p. 50 and Note 2.
page 302 note 1 Ante-Nicene Fathers, ix, 145.
page 302 note 2 Cf. vv. 9397–9408.
page 303 note 1 Hultman, op. cit., p. 148, refers v. 9127 f. to the influence of the liturgy.
page 303 note 2 Edition cited above, pp. 51–2.
page 303 note 3 Cf. Vie Humaine, vv. 238 and 3456.
page 304 note 1 Cf. Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités, iii, 1050–1.
page 304 note 2 Ed. Graesse, p. 629. We know that Deguileville was acquainted with the Legenda Aurea; cf. Hultman, op. cit., p. 112.
page 304 note 3 Ed. Graesse, p. 112.
page 304 note 4 “Refert Gregorius in primo libro dialogorum.”
page 305 note 1 Cf. Boswell, op. cit., pp. 162–3 and 189.
page 306 note 1 Roman de la Rose, ed. Francisque-Michel, v. 647 ff.
page 306 note 2 Jean de Condé's La Messe des Oisiaus seems hardly to be reckoned with here, as in it the birds merely go through the form of the mass, and there is no verbal emphasis on the praise of the Creator which forms an important part of Deguileville's recollection and of the Life of St. Brandan. Moreover, the amorous intent of La Messe des Oisiaus is shown by the elevation of the rose instead of the host (vv. 326–8).