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The Concilium Romarici Montis is an account in
Latin verse
of a
mock church council said to have been held at Remiremont (Romarici Mons), not far from
Nancy and Strasbourg in eastern France. The Council was convened by the nuns
of the royal abbey of Remiremont, a religious community whose members were
recruited from the nobility. The abbey had already been in existence for about
five hundred years when the poem was composed in the twelfth century.
The subject of the Council is Love; accordingly the opening
ceremonies
include a reading from Ovid's Ars Amatoria. A Lady Cardinal
(Cardinalis Domina), decked in spring flowers, presides over the
deliberations, which quickly turn into a formal debate on the relative merits of
the knight (miles) and the clerk (clericus) as lovers.
Representatives of the two factions of ladies extol their candidates and disparage
the opposition (at quite unequal length; the women who favor the clerici
are given much more than their fair share of time). Finally a vote is taken, and
the Cardinalis Domina declares the unsurprising result: henceforth only
clerks are to be eligible as lovers for the ladies of Remiremont. Whoever fails to
honor this decision is solemnly excommunicated.
Several of the women who participate in the Council are named in the
poem, resulting in a heightened appearance of reality. The keeper of the gate is
Sibilia (line 19), whose name suggests pagan associations with Apollo.
Eva de Danubrio (line 29; Deneuvre in modern French) is the
reader of the "Gospel" of Ovid. Two girls named Elizabet (line 33) sing
hymns of love to inaugurate the Council. Several more are named only in
subheads that are provided in the manuscripts of the poem: before line 61,
Elizabet de Granges and before line 67, Elizabet de Falcon (these
two being perhaps identical with the singers); before lines 94, 100, 115, and
121, Agnes, Berta, Elizabet Popona, and
Adeleyt. Most of these names can be at least tentatively
identified with those of real women who were members of the religious
community of Remiremont, according to surviving documents of the period.[1]
The poem is, of course, anonymous. Most likely it is by a local clerk,
perhaps one from Toul (see lines 10-15);
but
the possibility should not be excluded that it was written by one (or more?) of
the women of Remiremont. It would be useful to know the precise date of the
poem in order to place it accurately in the history of the theme of courtly love.
Paleographical and stylistic evidence, and such evidence as that of the proper
names, all suggest a date in approximately the middle of the twelfth century.
The motif of a formal debate is a common one in literature,
occurring as
early as Greek tragedy and in the agon of Aristophanic comedy. In the
medieval period we find poetic debates, both serious and satirical, between
spring and summer, the violet and the rose, wool and linen, wine and water,
body and soul, and many others. The particular theme of the debate in the
Concilium Romarici Montis, the merits of various types of men as
lovers, has roots that can plausibly be traced as far back as the legends of the
Trojan War. In classical Latin literature, a close analogy to the relative merits of
"knight" and "clerk" as lover can be found in Ovid, Amores III.8. The
Altercatio Phyllidis et Florae, an elegant long Latin poem in the
Goliardic meter nearly contemporary with the Concilium Romarici
Montis, deals with the same theme.[2]
Until the Cardinalis Domina begins her final impassioned
speech of
excommunication (line 205), the Concilium Romarici Montis is
organized into three-line stanzas. The lines in each stanza are linked not by
rhyme, but as clear sense-units; so clear that where the pattern seems to fail,
emendation is almost certainly called for. The
rhythm is trochaic and is based on word accent. There are many displacements
of the trochaic beat. The lines contain fourteen syllables and break in the middle
so that every half-line contains three and a half trochees. Each line almost
without exception constitutes a grammatical unit in itself, with no interlocking or carryover between lines.[3] In fact, there is not often any grammatical carryover even
between half-lines. A two-syllable internal rhyme marks the middle and end of
each line.[4]
The Concilium Romarici Montis is preserved for us in two
manuscripts, both currently in libraries located near where the events of the
poem are supposed to have taken place. The earlier manuscript is in Trier
(Stadtbibliothek 1081, hereafter T). It appears to have been written about the
middle of the twelfth century, although the precise dating is still a matter of
discussion. The other manuscript was originally from Rommersdorf, and is now
preserved in Koblenz (Landeshauptarchiv 162, 1401, hereafter R). The
consensus of paleographers is that it was written in the thirteenth century. There
is no indication of stanza division in T, while R is laid out not as verse, but as
prose paragraphs. The manuscripts appear to be independent of each
other, as
each has corruptions and omissions peculiar to itself. R omits lines 131-62
altogether; also lines 27-28, 67-69, and 124-26, as well as parts of several
others. Where the two manuscripts differ, sometimes one and sometimes the
other appears to preserve the correct text. When all other means of choosing
between variant readings fail, as a last resort the reading of T, the
earlier and more complete manuscript, is adopted into the present text.
In punctuation and spelling, the principal criteria for this
edition have been
clarity and the convenience of the student. The punctuation of the manuscripts
has been ignored; all punctuation has been provided by the editor. Such
spellings in the manuscripts as moncium and senciunt for
montium and sentiunt, and -e for -ae or
-oe, have been consistently standardized to the classical form. Variant
readings and emendations are not discussed in the Commentary except in a few
particularly interesting cases. Accordingly, students should remain aware that for
spelling and for most textual matters they must turn to critical editions. (For
this purpose, Lee will be found the most useful.)
A few textual matters call for brief discussion here. The title,
IDUS
APRILIS HABITUM EST CONCILIUM HOC IN MONTE ROMARICI,
appears only in T; R gives no title. The poem in T ends with a
single line, Ad confirmationem omnes dicimus Amen, spoken by the
women in unison to ratify the anathemas of the Cardinalis Domina. The
line is more or less in the trochaic meter of the rest of the poem; rather
exceptionally it displays imperfect rhyme (see footnote 4
above). It is not included in R, which ends with a single quantitative
dactylic hexameter, at variance with the accentual trochaic meter of the body of
the poem: MILITIBUS VICTIS, CESSIT VICTORIA CLERO. It may
be that either, both, or neither of these two concluding lines belong to the
original poem.
The subheads that appear sporadically in the body of the text in the
manuscripts indicate a change of speaker, or in a few cases serve to set off
sections of one speech.[5] Before line 215, where T has
Excommunicatio Rebellarum, R has simply Excommunicatio.
(See Commentary on line 215.)
I
have inserted subheads or indications of subheads which are in neither
manuscript, but where changes of speaker must occur, before lines 49, 133, 154,
and 157; also before the single concluding line in T.
The most interesting textual question in the
Concilium
Romarici Montis has to do with the division of the poem into three-line
stanzas. From its beginning to the concluding speech of the Cardinalis
Domina (lines 1-204), this division can be detected clearly, despite the
absenceof stanza division in T and the prose layout of R. Every three-line group
constitutes an independent sense unit, ending in a full stop. Individual speeches
are in multiples of three lines. The very few apparent exceptions stand out in
such a manner as to invite critical intervention. The pattern can be made
perfectly regular by moving one line, and by assuming four lacunas totaling five lines. Previous editors have suggested
various specific remedies to implement this. The line that is moved in the
present edition (convocavit singulas, magnas atque parvulas) follows line
30 in the manuscripts, where it makes no sense. There is
obviously something missing after line 43; moving the line in question to
that position fills the gap appropriately and restores the three-line pattern at both
points. The lacunas assumed here are marked as lines 16, 58, 97-98, and 189.
The Concilium Romarici Montis was forgotten for centuries
until
1849 when it was first edited by Georg Waitz, who knew only the Trier
manuscript. Wilhelm Meyer reedited the text in 1914 using both T and R. The
most recent (1981) and most thorough study of the work, complete with an
English translation and detailed critical apparatus, is by Reuben R. Lee.[6]
No one is likely to claim a place for the Concilium Romarici
Montis as a masterpiece of Medieval Latin verse. It would be easy to
compile from it a long list of grammatical and stylistic infelicities. Still it
deserves to be read as an early example in Latin of a poem dealing with
elements of the theme of courtly love, which becomes an important one in the
vernacular literatures. It also has the special interest of giving prominence to the
role of several outspoken medieval women. Finally, most readers will find it
delightful and amusing, and at the same time tantalizing, as it presents a vivid
satirical picture of some novel aspects of medieval life and thought.