6 - Conclusion

Summary

There are a number of works which provide an appropriate context in which to measure Gautier's originality and evaluate his project in the Miracles. The thirteenth-century compilation of pious tales (miracles and exempla) known as La Vie des Pères, not to be identified with the Vitas patrum of which an Anglo-Norman version was dedicated to the Templar Henri d'Arci and which was also translated by Wauchier de Denain, has until recently been almost entirely neglected. The author to whom the first forty-one tales are usually attributed is unknown, but he seems to have been a contemporary of Gautier, most probably from the Paris region, writing in the 1220s, or even earlier. In the epilogue to this first collection of forty-one tales he appears to present himself as a clerk on the point of entering one of the monastic orders and in a substantial number of references seems to show particular appreciation of the ‘white monks’, the Cistercians. It is usually considered that the second Vie (tales 43–74), which exhibits a higher incidence of miracles and legends, more conspicuous signs of Marian devotion, and tales set in more recent times, can be dated to shortly after 1241.

It is impossible, in reading both collections, not to be reminded of Gautier and his enterprise. Indeed, of the thirty-nine complete MSS some also contain the Miracles or excerpts from them (see esp. Paris, Bibl. Sainte-Geneviève 586 and Brussels, Bibl. Roy. 9229–30). The stories in the first collection of the Vie des Pères have been described as ‘counter-fabliaux’ targeted at an urbanised audience of the thirteenth century, specifically with the aim of inspiring them to confession, whereas Gautier appeals to a more aristocratic audience, his purpose being to bring about unqualified devotion to Our Lady as the ‘dame cortoise’ par excellence. Whilst the order of the tales in the Miracles is firmly established, despite structural modifications which are thought to have been made before Gautier's death, the order of narratives in the Vie des Pères is anything but secure, including the notion of an intended order itself.