As well as traditional material, new fictions appeared in prose, taking a very different view of love, and often in the form of short comic tales. Early in the 15th century, the ironically titled Les Quinze Joies de mariage (The Batchelars Banquet, or The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony) continued the tradition of misogynist satire. In his Histoire du petit Jehan de Saintré (1456; Little John of Saintre), Antoine de la Sale drew an ill-starred relationship in which hero and heroine both sought to exploit the social game of courtly love for their own ends; the work’s realism and psychological interest have made it for some the first French novel. The bawdy tales of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles (c. 1465; The One Hundred New Tales), loosely modeled on the work of Giovanni Boccaccio, are more in the spirit of the fabliaux, though written for the Burgundian court.
Pious and instructional works abound. More interesting are the chronicles, which avoid the romantic extravagances of their verse predecessors. Geoffroy of Villehardouin’s Conquête de Constantinople (“Conquest of Constantinople”) is a sober, if biased, eyewitness account of the Fourth Crusade (1199–1204). Jean, sire de Joinville, was 84 when, in 1309, he completed his Histoire de Saint Louis, a flattering biographical portrait of his intimate friend Louis IX, whom he had accompanied on the Seventh Crusade. (Both Villehardouin’s account and Joinville’s biography are to be found in a 20th-century English translation as Joinville and Villehardouin: Chronicles of the Crusades. Jean Froissart, who traveled extensively in England and Scotland and on the Continent, projected his admiration of chivalry into his four books of chronicles. Covering the years 1325 to 1400, they contain much picturesque detail, largely from personal observation. A far more cynical view of people, politics, and feudal values is found in the Mémoires of Philippe de Commynes, composed over the period 1489 to 1498 and published posthumously in 1524–28; these are the texts with which modern French historiography may be said to begin.
Hundred Years' WarBattle of Sluys during the Hundred Years' War, illustration from Jean Froissart's Chronicles, 14th century.PD-art
Religious drama
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama. Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus), which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized; and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles, and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40 miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until 1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450, reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Setting for the Valenciennes mystery play, miniature by Hubert Cailleau, 1547; in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.Courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée (“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.