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The naming of Byzantium and the Old French Partonopeus de Blois

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2019

Zuzana Černáková
Zuzana Černáková*
Affiliation:
Slovak Academy of Sciencescernakova@up.upsav.sk
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Abstract

This paper draws attention to the twelfth-century French romance Partonopeus de Blois and its author's original use of the name ‘Byzantium’ instead of conventional ‘Greek’ or ‘Constantinopolitan Empire’. It investigates roots of the modern-day belief that the term has been applied as a designation of the medieval state only since the sixteenth century. A linguistic and literary analysis challenges the premise and explores possible scenarios of the name's introduction into the Old French text. A suggested interpretation de-emphasizes the popular east-west ideological context in favour of simpler story-telling concerns.

Keywords

Western representations of ByzantiumonomasticsFrench literatureByzantine studiesterminology
Type
Articles
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , April 2019 , pp. 42 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek, University of Birmingham, 2019 

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References

1 An abridged version of this paper was presented at the International Medieval Congress 2016 in Leeds. The present version was prepared under the auspices of the Ernst-Mach Grant project ‘The Truth Behind Fiction: Byzantium, the Balkans, and the West through the Prism of Medieval Romance’ funded by Austrian Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Wirtschaft. I want to thank Dr Carolina Cupane for reading and commenting on a draft.

2 As stated by Nicolaou-Konnari, A. in ‘Strategies of distinction: the construction of the ethnic name Griffon in the Western perception of the Greeks (12th-14th centuries)’, Byzantinistica 4 (2002) 182Google Scholar.

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13 Bréhier, ‘Byzance et empire byzantin’, 361–2. For examples from the twelfth century that is under scrutiny here, see: Annae Comnenae Alexias, ed. Reinsch, D. R. and Kambylis, A. (Berlin 2001) 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar et passim; Nicetae Choniatae Historia, ed. van Dieten, J.-L. (Berlin 1975) 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar et passim.

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15 Bréhier, ‘Byzance et empire byzantin’, 363.

16 Bréhier, ‘Byzance et empire byzantin’, 363.

17 Arguments for the earlier date were proposed on several occasions by Simons, P. and Eley, P., ‘The prologue to Partonopeus de Blois: text, context and subtext’, French Studies 49 (1995) 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Simons, P., ‘A romance revisited: reopening the question of the manuscript tradition of Partonopeus de Blois’, Romania 115 (1997) 368–405CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eley, P. and Simons, P., ‘Partonopeus de Blois and Chrétien de Troyes: a re-assessment’, Romania 117 (1999) 316–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and scattered throughout Eley, P., Partonopeus de Blois: Romance in the Making, (Woodbridge 2011)Google Scholar. In support of 1180s dating, see Reynders, A., ‘Le Roman de Partonopeu de Blois est-il l'oeuvre d'un précurseur de Chrétien de Troyes?’, Le Moyen Age 111 (2005), 479–502CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Simons, ‘A romance revisited’, 368.

19 Eley, Partonopeus de Blois, 196–205.

20 Such as Chrétien de Troyes's Cligès and Gautier d'Arras's Ille et Galeron and Eracle. Benton, J. F., ‘The court of Champagne as a literary center’, Speculum 36 (October 1961) 560–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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22 Le Roman de Partonopeu de Blois, ed. and trans. Collet, O. and Joris, P.-M. (Paris 2005)Google Scholar. All future citations, abbreviated to ‘PB’, refer to this edition. The electronic edition of all manuscripts and fragments prepared by P. Eley (et al.) has, unfortunately, been withdrawn from the University of Sheffield's server. Transcriptions are consultable only in .xml format via ‘Partonopeus de Blois: transcriptions of all manuscripts’, University of Oxford Text Archive at http://purl.ox.ac.uk/ota/2499, accessed 7 February 2018. An indication of corresponding metatext verses will be given in parentheses after the print edition's verse number.

23 An older hypothesis that saw the continuation as a part of the original version has been convincingly disproved. (Eley, Partonopeus de Blois, 150–78.)

24 PB, v. 1330–40 (Meta 1350–60).

25 PB, v. 11729–34 (Meta 12546–51): ‘Rices ert de ça et de la | Car .iii. bones contés avra | Une en l'empire de Bisance | Et .ii. el roiame de France, | Si pora manoir par anees | en ses terres bien estorees.’ (‘Since he will have three good fiefs, one in the Empire of Byzantium and two in the Kingdom of France, he will gain riches from here and there. He will be able to live in turns in his well provided lands.’)

26 PB, v. 10541–50 (Meta 11358–67).

27 Eley, Partonopeus de Blois, 216–17.

28 L. P. Smith, The Manuscript Tradition of the Old French Partonopeus de Blois, PhD. thesis (Chicago 1930) 66–95, cited in Reynders, ‘Le Roman de Partonopeu de Blois’, 481–5, 491–500. Ms G figures in two groups as a ‘contaminated’ text.

29 Eley, Partonopeus de Blois, 1–2. See also scattered arguments relating to the ‘making’ of the romance in Chapters 4–6, especially p. 179–91. Cf. Simons, ‘A romance revisited’, 369–70.

30 On the poet's sources, see Brown, T. H., ‘The relationship between Partonopeus de Blois and the Cupid and Psyche tradition’, Brigham Young University Studies 5 (1964) 193–202Google Scholar; Newstead, H., ‘The traditional background of Partonopeus de Blois’, Publications of the Modern Languages Association of America 61 (December 1946) 916–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eley, Partonopeus de Blois, 7–8, 23–8; Fourrier, A., Le Courant réaliste dans le roman courtois en France au Moyen Âge: Tome I: Les débuts (XIIe siècle) (Paris 1960) 385–94Google Scholar.

31 Fourrier, Le Courant réaliste, 403–4.

32 In favour of Orosius would speak the sequence of Crete, Getulia (Getule), Nathabres (Natabre) and Numidia (Nonmede) (PB, v. 7355, 7360, 7361, 7366 (Meta 7441, 7446, 7447, 7452)) since Nathabres figures only in Orosius’ text. Yet the particular verse has almost as many variants as there are manuscripts. It is rather the reading determined with the help of the Latin text than a source determined by the reading. Cf. note to v. 7360.

33 Orosio, Le storie contro i pagani, I, ed. A. Lippold, trans. A. Bartalucci (Milan 1976) 38; Isidorus Hispalensis, Etymologiarum libri XX., ed. Migne, J.-P., Patrologia Latina 82 (Paris 1878) 509–510Google Scholar. The last two variants from Honorius Augustodunensis, De imagine mundi libri tres, ed. Migne, J.-P., Patrologia Latina 172 (Paris 1854) 130Google Scholar, indicate respectively a city and the surrounding province. ‘Byzacium’, in Graesse, J. G. T., Benedict, F., Plechl, H. (eds.), Orbis latinus: Lexikon lateinischer geographischer Namen des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, I (Braunschweig 1972) 369Google Scholar.

34 PB, v. 4561 (Meta 4619).

35 Wingler, Un passeport pour le prince de Byzance, 317.

36 The term derived from Grifon (the Greek), which occurs also in Latin historiography, bears an unflattering association with a griffin, a symbol of avarice and duplicity. See Nicolaou-Konnari, ‘Strategies of distinction’, 182–4; Carrier, L'image des Byzantins, 354–5.

37 Le Roman de Rou de Wace, I, ed. A. J. Holden (Paris 1970) Troisième partie, v. 15–32.

38 Gautier de Coinci, Les miracles de Nostre Dame, IV, ed. V. F. Koenig (Geneva1970) 128 (v. 466–8).

39 Gui von Cambrai, Balaham und Josaphas: Nach den Handschriften von Paris und Monte Cassino, ed. C. Appel (Halle 1907) v. 9978–82. For the tale's transmission, see Cordoni, C., Barlaam und Josaphat in der europäischen Literatur des Mittelalters (Berlin, Boston 2014) 5–137CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Herbert le Duc de Danmartin, Folque de Candie, I, ed. O. Schultz-Gora (Dresden 1909) v. 5116.

41 For the first occurrence in each text, see: William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings, I, ed. Mynors, E. A. B., Thomson, R. M. and Winterbottom, M. (Oxford 1998) 622Google Scholar; Ex Richardi Pictaviensis Chronica, ed. Waitz, G. [Monumenta Germaniae Historica SS 26] (Hanover 1882) 78Google Scholar; ‘Liber de compositione castri Ambaziae et ipsius dominorum gesta’, in Halphen, L. and Poupardin, R. (eds.), Chroniques des comtes d'Anjou et des seigneurs d'Amboise (Paris 1913) 10Google Scholar; Die Reichschronik des Annalista Saxo, ed. Nass, K. [Monumenta Germaniae Historica SS 37] (Hanover 2006) 493Google Scholar; Ottonis episcopi Frisingensis Chronica sive Historia de duabus civitatibus, ed. Hofmeister, A. [Monumenta Germaniae Historica rer. Germ. 45] (Hanover and Leipzig 1912) 22Google Scholar. The Historia Vie Hierosolimitane of Gilo of Paris and a Second, Anonymous Author, ed. and trans. Grocock, C. W. and Siberry, J. E. (Oxford 1997) 174 (v. 230)Google Scholar. Gilo's verse history of the First Crusade contains an interesting accusative form Byzantinos (the Byzantines) describing a relief force for which the crusaders were looking out during the siege of Antioch in 1098. Given the military context — the emperor Alexios I, having led out his troops from Constantinople earlier that year, was carrying out operations in Asia Minor — it is likely that the term meant ‘those coming from Constantinople’.

42 PB, v. 8686, 9238 (Meta 8916 or 8917, and 9474) = verses present in mss ABPTV. Another isolated reference to Greeks among Saracen troops occurs in T. (Meta 15391).

43 For the exploitation of ancient models in the interpretation of contemporary Byzantine character, see Carrier, L'image des Byzantins, 97–112.

44 Wingler, Construire pour soumettre, 311.

45 Cf. Rome in Ille et Galeron, the Holy Land in Sone de Nansay, Cologne in Roman de la Violette, Ile d'Or in Bel Inconnu, Bile in Orson de Beauvais and Alsace in Floovant.

46 PB, v. 4557–67 (Meta 4615–25).

47 Harf-Lancner, L., Les fées au Moyen Âge: Morgane et Mélusine: La naissance des fées (Geneva 1984) 323Google Scholar; Devereaux, R., Constantinople and the West in Medieval French Literature: Renewal and Utopia (Cambridge 2012) 99Google Scholar.

48 PB, v. 3925–6 (Meta 3977–8).

49 Of the same opinion is Rima Devereaux (Constantinople and the West, 99–101).

50 The way in which the physical description of Chef d'Oire enabled readers to recognize its models — Constantinople, Jerusalem and Troie — has been analyzed in Bermejo, E., ‘Chief d'Oire dans Partonopeus de Blois: la ville comme espace de totalisation’, Mediaeval Studies 63 (2001) 232–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 PB, v. 7192–330 (Meta 7274–414).

52 Tobler, A. and Lommatzsch, E., Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, I (Berlin 1925) 937–8Google Scholar.

53 As briefly noted by Clément Wingler, Un passeport pour le prince de Byzance, 317.

54 de Beaujeu, Renaud, Le Bel Inconnu, ed. Perret, M. and Weil, I. (Paris 2003) v. 1870–943Google Scholar. Cf. PB, v. 787–960, 4557–613 (Meta 797–972, 4613–71).

55 Gui von Cambrai, Balaham und Josaphas, v. 9981–6.

56 Wingler, Un passeport pour le prince de Byzance, 333–334.

57 A ruler without a male heir resides for example in Sicily (in Hue de Rotelande's Ipomedon), Phrygia or Frisia (in Richars li Biaus), Aragon (in Roman de Laurin) or Jerusalem (in Sone de Nansay); and Arthur's court is the renowned school for knights from all over the Christian world, including Germany (Claris et Laris, Gliglois) and Britain itself (Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval). Cf. also note 45.

58 The former result comes from my unpublished thesis Obraz Byzancie v starofrancúzskych chansons de geste (1096–1204), PhD. thesis (Bratislava 2016) [The Representations of Byzantium in the Old French Chansons de Geste (1096–1204)]. For the latter, see ‘The Image of Byzantium in twelfth-century French fiction: a historical perspective,’ in Egedi-Kovács, E. (ed.), Byzance et l´Occident 2: tradition, transmission, traduction (Budapest 2015) 17–45Google Scholar.