The Epistles on the Romance of the Rose, and other documents in the debate

by Charles Frederick Ward

The little work owes much to several writings of M. Arthur Piaget, particularly to his adjustment of the difficult question of the chronology of the letters, and to the essay on Martin Le Franc.

I desire to thank also, for several timely hints and very valuable suggestions, Professors W. A. Nitze, Karl Pietsch, P. S. Allen, and J. W. Thompson of the University of Chicago. I am also indebted to the late Professor John E. Matzke of the Leland Stanford, Jr., University.

C. F. W.

I.—INTRODUCTION.

From its first appearance the Roman de la Rose enjoyed great vogue. We observe in this connection the glowing tributes of contemporary and succeeding writers, the numerous manuscripts, which compensate for the art of printing not then invented, the translations into English, Dutch, Italian, and other languages. Even the numerous paintings and tapestries of scenes from the romance point to its great popularity. Perhaps the remark of M. A. Coville crystallizes the general opinion:

“Parmi les livres du siècle précédent, un surtout fut lu de tous, admiré des uns, ardemment discuté par les autres, c’est le Roman de la Rose. La seconde partie avec sa science pédante, ses allégories, ses artifices, devint une nouvelle Bible, et Jean Clopinel de Meun, l’auteur, passa pour un véritable prophète. On retrouve son influence surtout chez les poètes et les moralistes.”[1]

Naturally (and this is also an indirect testimony to the influence of the Roman de la Rose) there were those who found matter for serious complaint in the work of Jean de Meung, who in the second part placed the work of Guillaume de Lorris on a basis of profound philosophical import. As we shall see, Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris, saw the danger to morals in the average man’s reception of a poem which tended to free him from all restraint. Christine de Pisan, too, with a much narrower range of thought, assails with singular energy and with the courage of her convictions a book which contains so many attacks on her sex.

If we analyse critically the influence of the second part of the Roman de la Rose we shall see that its fundamental purpose or idea (whether altogether so intended by Jean de Meung or not does not matter) was to disseminate in a popular form the philosophy of the Latin writers. To Jean de Meung must be given credit for the manner of the work, the handling of the material, but for the subject matter he is indebted to Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Horace, Juvenal, etc., and especially to the De Consolatione Philosophiæ of Boethius, the De Nuptiis of Theophrastus, the De Planctu Naturæ of Alain de Lille, and to the Ars Amatoria and Metamorphoses of Ovid.[2] As a popular exposition of the favorite doctrines of Latin philosophy, as an encyclopædia of knowledge on almost every subject, good and evil, the nature of government, the Church, society, morals, manners, women, etc., etc., the Roman de la Rose was admired by the bourgeois, the average man. At a time when learning was only for the favored few, it is not much wonder that those who had formerly been excluded from the magic pale treasured a work which opened wide for them the portals of mental advancement.

It is this freedom of expression, so novel because so bold in the age in which he lived, that makes him characteristically French; while the objects to which it was directed, the attempt to be encyclopædic, and the constant appeal to a clear and uncompromising reason, lead us to agree (as far as such comparisons will hold) with Gaston Paris that Jean de Meung is the Voltaire of the Middle Ages. In this sense, too, he may be regarded as representing the Aufklärung which was logically required to prepare the way for the new and larger enthusiasm of the Renaissance.

About twenty-five years after Jean de Meung finished his masterpiece, another work was written which vehemently supported his attacks on women and marriage. This was the Lamenta of Matheolus, translated into French about the middle of the fourteenth century by Jean le Fèvre under the title Les Lamentations de Matheolus.[3] Matheolus (or Mahieu as he was called in the dialect of his own district) looked at marriage from the standpoint of one who had suffered much from that institution. He was deprived of the privileges of the clerical order because he had married a widow, and failed to find in the latter’s society sufficient compensations for this sacrifice. The Lamenta, inaccessible to the multitude, as had been indeed the sayings of the great Latin writers before they were put into popular form by Jean de Meung, became very widely read in the French translation made by Jean le Fèvre. It is interesting for us to note as chief sources of Matheolus’ work: the De Nuptiis of Theophrastus, the De Planctu Naturæ of Alain de Lille, the collections of Exempla, and possibly the Roman de la Rose itself.