Life in a Medieval City (38 page)

Authors: Frances Gies,Joseph Gies

Tags: #General, #Juvenile literature, #Castles, #Troyes (France), #Europe, #History, #France, #Troyes, #Courts and Courtiers, #Civilization, #Medieval, #Cities and Towns, #Travel

5.
five in northwest Europe:
No German universities came into existence until the fourteenth century. By the end of the Middle Ages there were some eighty European universities, two-thirds of which were in France and Italy.

6.
no university buildings:
The movement toward permanent buildings did not get seriously under way until the fifteenth century. At Paris, the only remaining monuments of the thirteenth-century university are the old church of St.-Julien-le-Pauvre, where university meetings were often held, and the cathedral from which the university sprang. Bologna has no university buildings from earlier than the fourteenth century. At Bologna, where classes were sometimes very large, popular professors lectured in public buildings or in the open air. At Cambridge, the oldest college, Peterhouse (thirteenth century) has only parts of its earliest buildings; Merton, at Oxford, also preserves some original fragments.

7.
theology:
Theology did not become prescribed training for the priesthood until the Counter Reformation.

1.
booksellers:
The Paris
taille
of 1292 lists 8 bookstores, 17 bookbinders, 13 illuminators, and 24 clerk-copyists. At least in Paris, most booksellers were also tavernkeepers:
Nicholas l’Anglois, librairie et tavernier
. By 1323 there were 28 bookstores.

2.
libraries:
By 1290 the Sorbonne had 1,017 volumes; by 1338 it had 1,722. Other libraries were expanding at a similar rate, suggesting the economic context for the fifteenth-century development of movable type.

3.
fabliaux:
Because of their well-advertised ribaldry, the fabliaux were once attributed exclusively to the non-noble class, a notion modern scholars have discarded.

4.
bathing establishment:
Bourbon-l’Archimbault, where the story takes place, remains a spa today.

5.
This romance survives in a single mutilated thirteenth-century manuscript at Carcassonne, which terminates abruptly shortly after this point. It is hard to see how the author could have improved on the ending as it stands.

1.
the theater has outgrown its confining cradle:
Secular and comic elements multiplied in both mysteries (Biblical—like the Adam play) and miracles (saints’ lives—like the play of St. Nicholas). Herod developed into a melodramatic villain, the Magdalen’s early life was explored, obscure Biblical personages were expanded into comic characters. Finally plays exploited purely secular themes. Adam de la Halle’s
Jeu de Robin et de Marion
, based on the story of Robin Hood and presented at the Court of Naples in 1283, interspersed dialogue with songs and dances. It has been called the first comic opera.

In the fourteenth century guilds and corporations took over the religious drama, usually assigning Biblical scenes to appropriate trades—the story of Jonah to the fishmongers, the Marriage at Cana to the wine merchants, the building of the ark to the plasterers, the Last Supper to the bakers. In the second half of the fourteenth century, the great cycles of mystery plays were founded at Chester, Beverly, London, York, and Coventry, unfolding the principal stories of the Bible in sequence. Though amateurs, the actors were paid: account books for the York cycle list such items as “20 d. [pence] to God, 21 d. to the demon, 3d. to Fauston for cock crowing, 17 d. to two worms of conscience.” The morality play, whose characters were virtues and vices and other abstractions, as in
Everyman
, became popular in the fifteenth century.

1.
typical recorded cases:
Two are patterned after a court report published by Maurice Prou and Jules d’Auriac in
Actes et comptes de la commune de Provins de l’an 1271 à l’an 1330;
one is cited by Paul Vinogradoff in Crump and Jacob’s
Legacy of the Middle Ages
(see Bibliography, Chapter 2); the fourth, that involving the lady with the gutter pipe, is from a
Speculum
article by Ernest L. Sabine (see Bibliography, Chapter 2).

1.
the cycle:
Our knowledge of the divisions of the six Fairs of Champagne comes partly from the
Extenta
of 1276–1278 (see Prologue), partly from an earlier document surviving in six variant texts. The generally agreed-on dates are:

Lagny: January 2 to February 22.

Bar-sur-Aube: Opened between February 24 and March 30, closed between April 15 and May 20.

Mai de Provins: Opened between April 28 and May 30, closed between June 13 and July 16.

St.-Jean de Troyes (Hot Fair): July 9–15 to August 29-September 4.

St.-Ayoul de Provins: September 14 to November 1 (All Saints’ Day).

St.-Rémi de Troyes (Cold Fair): November 2 to December 23.

In addition to the great international fairs, there were a number of small trade fairs in Champagne, at Bar-sur-Seine, Châlons-sur-Marne, Château-Thierry, Nogent, Reims and other places. Troyes itself had three small fairs, the Fair of Clos, that of Deux Eaux, and that of the Assumption.

2.
notaries:
“It is certain,” says O. Verlinden in the
Cambridge Economic History
, “that there existed at the Champagne Fairs a real records department.” Hardly a fragment survives. A single leaf, from a register of the Hot Fair at Troyes of 1296, drawn up by an Italian notary, contains fifteen deeds mentioning merchants from Piacenza, Genoa, Milan, Asti, Como, Savona, Florence, Montpellier, Narbonne, Avignon, Carpentras, and St.-Flour.

3.
two hundred and eighty-eight spices:
Pegolotti of Florence (1310–1340), whose list may include a few variants or duplications.

4.
an extensive system of credit:
The Riccardi of Lucca declared that they could borrow up to 200,000 pounds at a single fair.

5.
the problem of variant calendars:
The calendar was in a state of confusion, principally because of a widespread disagreement over when the new year began. January 1 was the first day of the Roman civil year, and the revival of the study of Roman law led to the use of this reckoning in some places, but it was the rarest of all the modes of dating the beginning of the year. In some places, the month in which the Passion and Resurrection were believed to have occurred, was considered the first month, but not everywhere, which led to some curious situations for a traveler. March 1 was officially celebrated as the beginning of the year in Venice. At Pisa, on the other hand, the year was reckoned from the presumed date of the Annunciation, that is from March 25 preceding
A.D.I.
In Florence the years of the Incarnation were dated from March 25 a year later. In other places the year began on Christmas or Easter.

In a treatise on medieval timekeeping Reginald L. Poole (see Bibliography, Chapter 2) imagines a traveler setting out from Venice on March 1, 1245, the first day of the Venetian year; finding himself in 1244 when he reached Florence; and after a short stay going on to Pisa, where he would enter the year 1246. Continuing westward, he would return to 1245 when he entered Provence, and upon arriving in France before Easter (April 16) he would be once more in 1244. However, this confusion would not much discommode him, for he would think not in terms of the year but of the month and day, or the nearest saint’s day.

Table of Contents

Illustrations

Maps

Prologue