A "Game of words": Why were "insult tensos" performed in Occitan Courts?

What was the purpose of insulting, aggressive exchanges between nobles and joglars/troubadours in the Occitan courts? Why should nobles have allowed themselves to be reviled by their social inferiors and then appear to demean themselves by answering their opponent? There are many early examples of personal public attacks in theatrical conditions, dating at least from Greek times. Several possible reasons are suggested in regard to these Occitan tensos and four works are examined in order to elucidate the problem. Some study has been made of the social and economic status of the nobles and how they may have been viewed by their contemporaries at the time these tensos were performed to determine whether there was a political or social purpose to these exchanges.

themselves to be insulted in the courts by their social inferiors and then appear to demean themselves by answering their opponent? There are several possible explanations.

First, as argued by Jeanroy the very genre of the tenso probably arose from the joglars' habit of exchanging dramatic, humorous verses of a satirical nature or which appear to ridicule the opponent in front of the public in order to draw a crowd to their performance. [START_REF] Jeanroy | La Poésie lyrique des troubadours[END_REF] Therefore the joglars themselves probably had a tradition of hostile, defamatory exchanges, which could in part explain their willingness to use the same tactics in front of a courtly audience. Jeanroy also considered that exchanges of sirventes influenced the development of the genre: the sirventes were generally personal attacks on someone named or a comment or satire on current events, personal sirventes usually taking the form of a list of insults. 2 Such sirventes would sometimes provoke a response, especially if the person addressed was himself a composer of verses. 3 This aspect of comedy is very ancient, since 'the characters of many extant Greek comedies indulge in liberal and often obscene abuse both of each other and of real contemporaries. Aristotle took it for granted that comic poets would use slanderous and indecent language'. 4 It is likely that insulting tensos represented an acceptable form of humour to their contemporaries. Adam de la Halle's Le Jeu de la Feuillée, first performed in 1276 in Arras,5 is a French example of medieval theatrical satire of members of a contemporary group, although, unlike the Occitan tensos, it is situated in local, urban, bourgeois society. It is assumed that the characters represented in Le Jeu were present at its performance and that they accepted seeing themselves lampooned in front of the townspeople it is even considered possible that they played their own parts. [START_REF] Cartier | Le Bossu désenchanté: Etude sur le Jeu de la Feuillée[END_REF] Therefore comic satirical performances directed at members of the audience or at those on stage were not unknown in Europe at the time of the tensos.

What did two troubadours/joglars talk about when they exchanged defamatory verses? They used insults regarding the person of their opponents, the women with whom they associated, and their personal habits. 7 They also made accusations of becoming drunk in taverns, playing dice, frequenting prostitutes and of having a degenerate appearance, as in the piece Magret, pojat m'es el cap (PC 231,3 = 223,5) [START_REF] Naudieth | Der Trobador Guillem Magret[END_REF] involving Guillem Rainol d'At, whose vida says he was a knight and a good troubadour of sirventes, [START_REF] Boutière | Biographies des troubadours[END_REF] and Guillem Magret, said in his vida to be a joglar, a good composer of sirventes and coblas, and to have frequented the taverns where he lost his money at gaming. 10 Another exchange of insults between troubadours/joglars is a tenso between Taurel and Falconet (neither of whom are really identifiable), Falconet, de Guillalmona (PC 438,1 = 148,2), possibly composed in northern Italy c. 1214. Taurel criticises the woman the other is supposed to love and is in turn disparaged for his cowardice in battle. The piece contains a number of allusions to historical events which cannot be identified. [START_REF] Bartholomaeis | Tenson de Taurel et de Falconet[END_REF] These are exchanges between equals, or so it appears, but the matter of insults and abuse is more intriguing when a noble and a troubadour/joglar are involved, since we might expect their exchanges to be of a different nature.

Léglu proposes two functions of 'manipulation of invective and direct attack in poetry', first the desire to provoke a response and secondly to control. She suggests that control may be done by inspiring shame in the addressee but not necessarily action, for example through lampooning. Alternatively, the insult creates a feeling of superiority in the audience, when aspects it perceives as negative are projected onto the addressee, for example in the process of scapegoating. [...] If these two functions are combined, the purpose of insult songs emerges as a competition with the aim of symbolically defeating the opponent through the manipulation and projection of traits agreed by the social group to be negative. 12 Léglu's comments support Riquer"s belief that the tensos reflect the customs of knightly jousts in which a winner must be declared 13a point which is driven home by the frequent requests for judges. Aurell likens the tenso insult works to 'Shouting Matches' practised by certain societies as a ceremonial form of avoiding actual military confrontation; he sees the context of the insult tensos as aggressive, but with the function of verbally channelling the inherent violence of the opponents who may detest one anotheror joglars who may speak on behalf of their patrons, thus representing such feelings for them. 14 Did the insults exchanged in tensos relate to real events or gossip concerning the personal situation or character of the participant(s) on the receiving end in order to bite and serve a purpose? As Bergson suggested, comedy is usually related to the customs and ideas, or rather the prejudices, of a given society and 'en règle générale ce sont bien les défauts de l'autrui qui nous font rire,quittes à ajouter, il est vrai, que ces défauts nous font rire en raison de leur insociabilité plutôt que de leur immoralité'. 15 Some insult tensos must have been 'looking for laughs' for effect, but it would seem that others were truly personal attacks on the opponent, for example the tenso (discussed below) between Gui de Cavaillon and Falco (PC 192.2a = 147.2). Nevertheless, if some impromptu composition was involved, tensos, unlike an exchange of sirventes or coblas, were not likely to have been prepared with time for too much reflection, so it must be assumed that the participants were ready to face their opponent and accept the insults thrown at them in front of their public, admitting at the outset the possibility that the humour involved might turn against them. In regard to this "game" of insulting humour, Aurell proposes that "le rire ridiculise l"interlocuteur, très souvent un adversaire politique", 16 which follows the same line of thinking as Léglu"s theory of control mentioned above.

12 Catherine Léglu, 'A Reading of Troubadour Insult Songs: the Comunals Cycle', Reading Medieval Studies, 22 (1996), pp. 63-83., pp. 63-4. 13 Martin de Riquer, Los Trovadores: historia, literaria y textos, Letras e ideas, second edn, 3 vols (Barcelona: Studia, 1992) Couiza,1995, 2 (2001), pp. 9-36. (p.11).

The genre of the sirventes is inherently that of satire and criticism, many works containing provocative accusations against nobles. The two sirventes of Bertran de Born directed at Alphonse II of Aragon, Pos lo gens terminis floritz (PC 80,32) and Quan vei pels vergiers desplegar (PC 80,85), are examples of vituperative insults directed at someone of high rank from a lesser noble. Bertran had personal grievances against the king and his dislike of Alphonse has been described as "blind and bitter hatred", 17 so these sirventes were serious in intent and politically motivated, used by Bertran as weapons against Alphonse 18 The king never replied to any of the calumnies of Bertran, whose account of events has been described as unreliable. 19 The attempt to slur the reputation and character of an opponent in this way can also apply to tensos. Nevertheless, although many sirventes and some tensos are strong verbal attacks on persons of high social rank and even if Jeanroy was correct in thinking that the genre of the tenso arose from the sirventes, too close a comparison cannot be made since only tensos are necessarily exchanges between participants probably performing in public.

Two works involving insults between a lord and a troubadour/joglar are those between Bonafe and Blacatz (PC 98,1 = 97,10 and PC 98,2 = 97,11). Blacatz (1195-1239), lord of Aups in Provence, was a patron of troubadours and debated on several occasions. His character is not easy to define from the corpus of works remaining or from historical evidence. The vida talks of his generosity, courtesy and bravery, but both Isarn d'Entrevennes and Bona-fe accuse him of avarice 20 and Sordel also makes the same accusation in a sirventes, Non pueis mudar qan luecs es (PC 437,21). The latter, however, wrote a planh on the death of Blacatz in which he says that he has lost a good lord and friend and that all noble qualities have perished with his death, Planher volh En Blacatz en aquest leugier so (PC 437,24). Bec comments that 'ce célébre planh est en réalité un pur sirventes. La déploration funèbre proprement dite ne dépasse pas la première cobla: tout le reste n'est qu'une satire, d'une rare violence, contre la lâcheté de certains princes européens.' 21 It is likely therefore that the planh was a pretext to put across the other message rather than an expression of sorrow on the loss of Blacatz.

Nothing is known of Bona-fe, who was probably a joglar, apart from the comments made about him by Blacatz in these two tensos. 22 17 L. E. Kastner, 'Bertran de Born's Sirventes Against King Alphonso of Aragon ', Modern Philology, 34 (1937), pp. 225-248, 225-48 (p. 228 Both pieces were probably composed about the same time and are likely to date from Blacatz's youth. 23 If they are previous to the death of Blacatz"s father, it is probable that Blacatz did not have a court of his own at the time and that they took place in the court of some other noble. Blacatz's comment that any nobleman tolerating Bona-fe in his court was committing a vile deed (ll. 33-4 of PC 98,2 = 97,11) implies that they are guests of someone else. This remark could have been meant as a criticism of the lord in whose court they were exchanging these lines and of whoever had incited Bona-fe to begin the two exchanges, as well as an indication that the joglar would not be welcomed in his own court, if he had one.

From the little we know of him, Blacatz appears to have been a sociable person, perhaps considered to be a 'good sport' ready to spar with joglars in debates and, as seen in these works, at times he was prepared to use earthy language. The jousting element which was probably important to many nobles who debated is well defined by Aurell and would have given Blacatz a good reason to take part in a competitive exchange: le dialogue en vers est un exercice de style qui se présente comme une joute oratoire. Le savoir-faire rhétorique, l"agilité mentale et l"ironie incisive font briller en société. Les plus experts des troubadours écrasent leurs adversaires par leurs mots d"esprit. 24 Opportunities to forge a reputation for himself and to shine in society (which could be politically useful) may have been attractive, and even irresistible, to Blacatz. As suggested by Gaunt, linguistic skills and the ability to compose would have been admired and "the poem is a symbol of virility which enables the poet to assert his masculinity". 25 The two pieces are similar in content, consisting mainly of accusations against Blacatz and insults made in return to the joglar. It must be supposed that Bona-fe, who opened both, was intending to provoke Blacatz and amuse the assembled company and clearly Blacatz, the noble, who uses the same vulgar tone as his opponent, was ready to enter the game. In fact, neither of these works is really a tenso (or partimen)they are purely exchanges of insults, since no question is asked, the participants do not answer the comments made by the other, nobody is said to have won and no judge is proposed.

In Seigne . N Blacaz, pos per tot vos faill barata (PC 98,1 = 97,10)26 , Bona-fe begins by saying that the 'genz hermitana' (l. 2) are calling on God to punish Blacatz. Presumably, he is referring to monks living in a monastery, so it would seem that Blacatz has done them some wrong, perhaps either by not making an expected donation or by attempting to take some land from them. Blacatz was a wild young man and had actually attacked and damaged ecclesiastical institutions, causing trouble on the roads of Provence before the death of his father, Blacatz d'Aups. On inheriting his father's large territory he came to the court of Alphonse I to ask for pardon in view of the many services his father had rendered and swore allegiance to the Count in war, subsequently paying homage to the young Alphonse II. 27 These details would partly explain the accusations made by Bona-fe in these two works and thus justify Aurell's conclusion that they were composed when Blacatz was young. Bona-fe suggests that Blacatz has many enemiesif the facts concerning his rowdy behaviour are accurate, this could well have been trueand that his own archers have fled home to Aups where the larder is empty, literally, that there is no meat left in the meat store (ll. 7-8). The inference is obviously that Blacatz is unable to pay his men to fight for him; a further accusation of poverty (or at least lack of largueza from Blacatz), is made in stanza III where Bona-fe accuses him of falling on such hard times that he has had to pawn his wife"s cloak in order to eat and thus she no longer has any fine clothes to wear. 28 He then mentions Aiol (l. 4), to demonstrate Blacatz"s situation. The naming of Aiol by Bona-fe is of interest (as obviously the joglar was aware of the story and expected those present to know what he was referring to. Aiol is the hero of a chanson de geste in Picard. His father"s lands in France had been unjustly taken from him and after many adventures Aiol recovers his father's territory.

Early in the story Aiol arrives in Poitiers looking poverty-stricken on an old horse and is mocked for his miserable appearance by the inhabitants of the town. Bona-fe certainly chose to mention Aiol assuming that the audience would understand the comparison with Blacatz, since he tells Blacatz at the outset that wealth is hidden from him, thus setting the tone of his attack by accusing the other of being penniless. As if the other had not even spoken, Blacatz tells Bona-fe that he has no scales on his eyes, his hair is white and wooly and he has been punished for theft. In stanza IV, Blacatz says that due to his blindness, people give Bona-fe a turd instead of a fruit, a hound in place of a hare, mislead him as to his whereabouts and give him disgusting things to drink instead of soup and wine. In stanza V the joglar mentions a truce and once again speaks of hermits as well as Templars. There are no records to show what truce is being referred to, but it probably relates to local fighting in the area. The repetition of the anger of the hermit folk certainly makes it seem that this is a direct reference to recent events involving a monastery or monasteries. By saying that many a sheep had pissed down his neck (l. 36), Bona-fe accuses Blacatz of stealing sheep, implying that he has not only taken lands from the monasteries but their sheep too (the suggestion being that he had carried them away on his shoulder) but we do not know whether it can be taken literally that Blacatz himself rustled sheep. There is a sirventes, S'ieu trobava mon compair' en Blacatz (PC 106,24) composed by Cadenet in which he says that if Blacatz does not mend his ways and make peace with Jesus Christ he will end up in Hell after his death. As Kemp-Pfister comments "les deux premières strophes portent un avertissement moral à l"adresse du seigneur Blacatz". 29 It can be supposed that the exchanges with Bona-fe took place during Blacatz"s wild young days and that his misdeeds were common knowledge and talked of.

Blacatz replies to these accusations with another series of insults on Bona-fe and his inability to see. In stanza VII, the joglar's states that Blacatz has no money to give and lives on scraps, to which Blacatz's final insult, addressed to 'N"Orbacha', 30 saying that it looks as if treecreepers have nested in his belfry (ll. 53-5) probably means either that his eye-sockets resemble rats' nests or that his mind is muddled. The only true response to Bona-fe is thrown in by Blacatz at the very end of the exchange when he says that he is able to give to anyone who asks (l. 56). It may literally be said that he has the last word here by attempting to defend himself against accusations of poverty and the inability to practice largueza.

Since there are no records of Bona-fe, whose only surviving works are these two tensos, and unless the name is a senhal for a known performer, we must rely on the content of these pieces to form an opinion of him. Blacatz insinuates in Seingne . N Blacatz, talant ai que vos queira (PC 98,2 = 97,11) that the joglar had been blinded by a noble as a punishment, perhaps as a result of theft at a fair as mentioned in the tenso. How could Blacatz appear to know so much about the personal life of an apparently miserable joglar? Maybe Bona-fe had some function in the court where the debates took place and was not just a passing performer, so Blacatz had heard speak of him. 31 It would seem unlikely that a noble would bother to listen to gossip about a joglar unless there was talk around him of the matter at the time.

Having no other information about Bona-fe's blindness, it must be assumed that the insults represent some truth, that the joglar had indeed lost his sight and was probably in a wretched condition. It was not unknown for a lord to have someone mutilated. Aurell talks of the 'cruauté des cours judiciaires des seigneurs laïques de Provence' and gives examples of severe 29 Josef Zemp-Pfister, Les poésies du troubadour Cadenet (Bern, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1977), p. 358. 30 Literally "Sir Blind Man" (E. Levy, Petit Dictionnaire Provençal-Français (1909), p. 269.) 31 Paden proposes that some joglars might have been given minor employment in the courts, such as gatekeeper, as compensation for performing: William D. punishments meted out. 32 Blacatz raises the same subjects as in the first piece, by talking of Bona-fe stealing at a fair for which he has been branded on the forehead and suggests that the joglar is led by a rope, although he does not say by whom. If these facts were not true, the remarks would be somewhat ridiculous, so it is probable that this was Bonafe"s real state.

By constantly insisting on the joglar's inability to see and on his abject state, Blacatz must be hoping to make him appear unreliable and stupid thus deflecting Bona-fe's comments on himself. Bona-fe, however, is not thrown by the lord's obvious dismissal of him as a reliable witness and continues along the same linespossibly, he was put up to this by other people present. Aristocrats generally obtained riches in the form of booty from battle and were subsequently able to be generous. Thus by criticising Blacatz's poverty Bona-fe is suggesting that he is unable to fight nobly and acquire the necessary wealth to practise largueza. 33 Maybe he had not been as generous as the joglars would have liked him to be in the court where they were debating and this tenso highlights that for everyone present. Blacatz is presented by Bona-fe as a poor warrior, a braggart and a poverty-stricken miser who hoards his money. Although we cannot judge all aspects of Blacatz"s personality, the characteristic of boasting, is mentioned on more than one occasion, so it may be an indication of his true natureor at least of the persona he dons in his compositions.

Bona-fe opens Seingne . N Blacatz, talant ai que vos queira (PC 98,2 = 97,11) by telling Blacatz that he wants him to give him some land, including the fief of Guillem de Barriera, which would then make Blacatz as worthy as Sir Raimon Oblacheira, but neither of these men has been identifiedor they may not have even existedso the implication is lost on us.

Perhaps he is referring to territory which Blacatz may have taken from someone of this name.

Blacatz makes personal insults in regard to his opponent without replying to Bona-fe's accusations. He ironically addresses the joglar as 'En Bona-fe', until the last stanza, when he merely uses his name. By telling him in stanza II that the man who blinded him was a true gentleman and making a similar remark about his attitude to crippled beggars as in the previous tenso, Blacatz shows his contempt for the miserable situation of his opponent.

Bona-fe's claims in stanza III that Blacatz is feared at night, comparing him to a thief or a den of wolves, resemble his accusation in the previous piece that Blacatz had stolen sheep. These repeated accusations suggest again that the works took place not long after the events being 32 La Vielle, pp. 87-8. 33 La Vielle, p. 86. referred to. Bona-fe talks of an attack at La Cadière (l. 15), which may have been an unrecorded skirmish, returning here too to the hermit people and the Hospitaliers (l. 17) claiming that they are aware of Blacatz's poverty, so he continues to stress the supposed poor financial situation of the noble. Bona-fe mentions Blacatz's 'latest lady' (l. 25) whom he likens to a soldadiera, saying that she is old and wealthy. The word soldadiera has been translated as 'trollop' 34 and whatever its context it is generally taken to mean a woman of loose morals, so its use would have been defamatory. He does not say that she was in fact a soldadierathe word may have been used as an insult in the same manner that 'pute' might be used in French today to insult a woman without actually meaning that she was a prostitute.

According to the same translation she is an "excellent raiser of cattle" (l. 28 'bona norrigueira") and she makes cheese. Maybe she is a landowner with cows or sheep. Aurell has assumed that Bona-fe is talking about Blacatz's wife and has understood l. 28 to mean that she feeds him well. However, Laure de Castellane came from a family hardly richer than Blacatz's own which does not justify claiming that he had married her for her money. It seems surprising that Bona-fe would go so far as to compare Blacatz's wife with a soldadiera. It is more probable that he is talking of Blacatz's mistress or of an older woman who is supposed to be having a relationship with Blacatz and perhaps giving him money. 35 These are all assumptions, however, and it is equally possible that there was no truth whatsoever in these lines and that they were merely an attempt to smear Blacatz's character. Blacatz does not comment on the woman but finishes again on a vulgar note.

The principal interest of these exchanges is that there are two and that they use similar themes.

Blacatz is accused of avarice and the joglar insulted on his physical appearance and way of life. The personal references are now obscure although the audience was probably well aware of their meaning; without contemporary records to give us valid clues it is no longer possible to understand all the implications. Soltau expresses surprise at 'such a noble lord' debating in this manner with a joglar who is not of the 'best kind'. He refers to Jeanroy's comment that tensos are not truly aggressive and that 'le fait seul de poser une question sous une forme poétique ou d'accepter cette forme pour y répondre prouve qu'il n'y a pas entre les interlocuteurs de véritable hostilité', 36 but Soltau disagrees with this assumption and proposes that the works were performed after too much wine. 37 This is not a satisfactory answer either, as it is unlikely that they took place the same evening, so this does not really solve the puzzle as to why the noble would have been ready to take part in a second exchange of the same kind.

It is likely that Blacatz was young and did not take life very seriously.

Interestingly, the next tenso also appears to involve a troubadour/joglar who has been maimed.

He seems to have lost his tongue and his opponent insinuates that it was a deliberate act. The manuscript for this piece only gives the names of the participants as Falco and Gui. Gui, identified as Gui de Cavaillon, 38 was a Provençal lord who was a knight at the court of Alphonse II of Provence; on the death of the Count he retired to his lands, but then joined the Count of Toulouse and fought loyally first with Raimond VI and then with Raimond VII, during the Albigensian Crusade. At the end of his life, he lost his money and most of his lands. The identity of Falco, who, according to the information gleaned from this work, was probably a troubadour/joglar, is unknown. He may have been the same person as the joglar

Falconet 39 who exchanged a tenso with another joglar named as Faure, En Falconet be•m platz car etz vengutz (PC 149,1 = 148,1) in which the participants appear to respect Gui de

Cavaillon, but attack various members of the Baux family who were Gui's enemies, having destroyed his castle and taken some of his land. 40 The accusation by Falco in the present work that Gui has no money would imply that the piece is posterior to his having lost his estates. Since there is mention of a Count Alphonse who has been Gui's protector and who has armed him, this is probably a reference to Alphonse II, Count of Provence. Jones suggests that the tenso is unlikely to have been written before 1209 (date of Alphonse's death), since in stanza VI. Falco says 'del comte don enquer vos sove', which could mean that the Count was dead. 41 Falco, en dire mal (PC 192,2a = 147,2) is an exchange of mutual insults, each participant trying to outdo the other in front of an audience. Gui opens by asking why Falco, whom he identifies as an ordained monk, has left the monastery, saying that he has heard ill of him, but Falco never answers this question. Therefore, in this piece, as in the case of the two works between Bona-fe and Blacatz, each has his say but the expected form of a tenso is not followed; there is no dilemma posed, in this case merely a personal question asked to open the exchange. The only occasion where any kind of answer is given is when Gui tells Falco in stanza III that it is right that a marquis has had his tongue cut out and Falco replies that he 37 'Otto Soltau, "Die Werke des Trobadors Blacatz', Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 23 (1899), 201-248 (pp. 214-5). 38 Andrea Brusoni, 'Problèmes d'attribution dans le chansonnier de Gui de Cavaillon', Bulletins de l'Association internationale d 'Etudes occitanes, numéro 14, 14 (1998), pp. 25-29., 25-9 (p. 25). 39 David J. Jones, La Tenson provençale (Paris: 1934), La Tenson provençale, p. 79. 40 'Le troubadour Gui de Cavaillon'. (pp. 24-7).

would rather be cut than touched by the other"s axe (ll. 38-40). Gui's remark shows the same attitude to the joglar's condition as that shown by Blacatz to Bona-fe. However, it is not surprising that nobles at the time took this approach to punishments given to others of lesser social status. Falco"s reply to Gui"s opening stanza is an accusation of poverty, a statement that the lord"s household live on ill-gotten gains and he says that Count Alfonsfo has given him expensive "accoutrements". In stanza V, Gui implies that the joglar is destitute and in a pitiful state. Gui adds that after being maimed, Falco had returned to the hospital, so perhaps Falco returned to the monastery to be cared for by his brother monks, but that the lure of the taverns and life outside the monastery had been too great, as implied by Gui. It seems that Falco has really had his tongue cut out, but the marquis who is supposed to have had Falco punished in this way is not identified, neither is the cause of the act. If this is not some metaphorical allusion, but a reality, Falco could no longer have been a joglar who recited texts. He could, of course, still have performed other acts sometimes associated with joglars such as dancing, mime or acrobatics. However, one might imagine that the loss of his 'working instrument', that is to say his tongue, would have made such a profession extremely difficult to maintain. Thus, if Falco were speechless, he would have had to at least scribble his responses for another person to recite them. Since Gui tells us that Falco had been an ordained monk, it is feasible that he could read and write. If the piece had been composed in advance, Gui could have read both parts, but it is difficult to imagine that he would personally have recited insults to himself. In fact, assuming that the participants had composed together before the work was presented to an audience, each would have been aware of the other's text and Gui would have presumably been in a position to withdrawthe fact that he does not do so suggests that a type of humour is involved which he is prepared to accept. This may conceivably be true of all the verbal dialogues, but it is impossible to verify whether there was any close collusion between participants of tensos. There is always the possibility that Falco, as a troubadour, had a joglar to perform his compositions or that one had been assigned to him on this occasion. In stanza IV, Falco says: Senher Guy, c"ad un pal degratz estre crematz per los mortals peccatz 44 c"avetz fatz far ancse: (Lord Gui, for you ought to be burnt at a stake for the deadly sins you have so often caused to be committed) 42 Falco's taunt is interesting. Although this work has not been definitely dated it was probably composed in the early days of the Albigensian Crusade. Pierre de Castelnau was assassinated 41 La Tenson provençale, p.86 42 A Critical Edition.

in January 1209 and Raimond VI, Count of Toulouse, was suspected of being involved; the Count joined the crusaders against the heretics in 1209 in an attempt to save his territory.

Béziers was taken by the crusaders in July of the same year and the population massacred;

Carcassonne followed the same fate in November. Having been excommunicated for a second time in 1211 and unable to come to terms with the Pope, Raimond VI rallied the Midi against the French from that time onwards. Many heretics were burned between 1210 and 1213 and Falco and Gui may have been debating during this period. Gui was a close and faithful ally of the Counts of Toulouse, definitely known to have been among the followers of the Count by 1215. 43 The suggestion by Falco that Gui should be burned at the stake could well be an oblique reference to those who might have gone to their death in this way partly as a result of Gui's earlier actions.

Falco terminates by stating that Gui had never cared for the interests of his brothers-in-law who were in need, although he had been knighted and received gifts from Count Alphonse; he adds that Gui"s sister had had many an unbridled palfrey thanks to the Count (ll 70-2). It is curious that he should say this after suggesting that Gui had not helped his brothers-in-law.

The Count may have given gifts, such as horses, direct to the sister or Gui may have done so as a result of the Count"s generosity. Perhaps this was an "off-the-cuff" comment by Falco with no reference to anything specific, but it could also be an accusation regarding the sister.

The metaphor of mounting a horse to denote the sexual act is well known from the time of Guilhem IX's Compahno, farai un vers…covinen (PC 183,3). 44 Possibly, the unbridled horse represents a lover to be tamed and that Falco is insinuating that the sister had lovers from the Count's court or even the Count himself. A slur on Gui's family would have been insulting. Since this work is in the same vein as the two tensos discussed above between Bona-fe and Blacatz, it raises some questions. Were insults regarding the physical disabilities of those socially inferior common from nobles? Was a lord who had fallen on hard times susceptible to insults rather than pity whatever his loyalties? Both cases seem likely. Aurell states that 'plusieurs troubadours ont raillé la déchéance de Gui de Cavaillon dans les poèmes qui reflètent l'attitude méprisante du milieu aristocratique à l'égard de ses membres connaissant des difficultés matérielles'. 45 Since this tenso was presumably performed in a court, the audience may have found it appropriate for Falco to take such a tone. As largueza was considered by troubadours to form an essential component of the courtly image of the noble, the lack of it, or the inability to be generous, was therefore despicable. Since Gui is regarded as being poor, he has lost the status of a courtly man, thus permitting the joglar to take advantage of this situation by insulting and criticising him, as may have also been the case between Bona-fe and Blacatz. This approach may explain the aggressiveness of the insults in works such as the present one. Brusoni has described Gui as 'un homme singulier, capable de descendre dans l'arène de la tenson avec les armes et avec la poésie', 46 which, as already suggested, was probably the case of Blacatz too.

The general impression created by Gui that Falco frequents the taverns, that he is poor and of lowly social status may have been true, but it is also a manner of comparing one way of life to another, of attempting to denigrate the social situation of a troubadour/joglar. It certainly seems from these tensos involving personal insults that, unless the entire content of tensos is fictional (which on the whole it does not seem to be), those debating generally knew something of the personal life of their opponent.

The fourth insult tenso to be examined is between Bertran de Gourdon, who is certainly a lord although his precise identity is uncertain, and Peire Raimon de Toulouse who is also difficult to identify as there were several troubadourjoglars of that name. Since he is said to be "de Toulouse" Harvey and Paterson suggest that he was the Bertran de Gourdon from Baziège, rather than the one from the Lot, Baziège being much closer to Toulouse. In addition this tenso borrows the versification of a Cadenet canso, Ai, dousa flors ben olenz (PC 106,5), making the Toulouse area likely because Cadenet was known to be at the court of Count Raimond VI c. 1200-20. 47 This exchange is therefore likely to have taken place some time during that period and it is probable that both the versification and the music were not only known to the participants but to the audience too.

Bertran, the noble, opens by insulting Peire Raimon's intelligence and dismissing his ability as being of no value in 'good society', presumably implying that he lacked skill as a troubadour and joglar; he says that he will no longer remunerate him. In reply, he is told that he is weak, cowardly and mean, and then Peire Raimon defends his profession. The lord now changes his 46 'Problèmes d'attribution (p. 29). 47 A Critical Edition. They also note that the structure and rhyme-endings of Cadenet"s canso are used in a partimen between Eble and Gui d"Ussel, Gui, e•us part mon esciens (PC 129.3 = 194,10) and "with the tune totally and tells the troubadour that he is skilful, composes good songs and knows how to debate. As a result, he is praised and told that he is generous, courageous and noble. They both terminate by reversing their attitudes and exchange insults once again. Such an exchange resembles an 'exercise de style' rather than propounding important ideas. 48 From Bertran's opening words it seems as if Peire Raimon had performed at his court (he is called joglar in l. 25) and received payment or gifts, has returned, perhaps to ask for more, and has been refused any further reward. Bertran refers to the Angevin denier (l. 3), which was minted in Angers and widely circulated in many regions during the time of Henry Plantagenet. It was one of several coins of various origins used at the time, including the 'esterlin' (sterling) which was minted in England. 49 Bertran's praise in stanza III suggests that Peire Raimon is a skilled troubadour and then it seems as if Bertran is suddenly at a loss, repeating earlier accusations without bringing in any new ideas. There is an indication that Peire Raimon sung in honour of Bertran in the court and now considers that he has not been sufficiently rewarded (l. 52-4). Presumably, this tenso has survived because the verse-form, and maybe the music, was popular. The subject would have been well understood by those presenthaggling over payment for services rendered is an everlasting topic. However, it is noteworthy that the habitual accusation of the lack of largueza by the noble is an element of the insults made by the joglar. The work indicates that some discussions were related to very basic, down-to-earth subjects which may have amused the spectators.

The word mestiers (ll. 8, 14, 21) can be given a number of rather different meanings. It can mean trade or profession, but used with certain verbs can mean to have needs. 50 Its use in this composition suggests in stanza I that the lord refuses payment whatever the troubadour may be able to perform; in stanza II that Peire Raimon is defending the profession of a troubadour; and in stanza III it is a reference to the troubadour's repertoire, as Bertran has just praised his manner and then goes on to say that his songs are gai. It is of note that the troubadour illustrates great generosity in stanza IV by the wealth of Paris, when they are in the south. Paris was a rich city, larger than Toulouse or any other southern town, so may have represented immensity, wealth and greatness. In the same stanza, the troubadour praises the lord as loving joi and joven, which, of course, were both virtues to the troubadours in the additional refinement of alternation of the "a" and "e" rhymes" in a sirventes of Peire Cardenal", Pos ma boca parla sens (PC 335,41

courts.

This tenso does not have any socio-political overtones, but was an entertainment which must have been tolerated both by the participants and their audience. The volte-face by both participants is a clear indication that the ludic aspect of the works, and perhaps the ability to compose and perform, were more important than the actual veracity of the subject matter. In such instances it seems evident that Erich Köhler"s sociological readings cannot be applied too closely to the corpus of tensos. Through his study of the arguments of the tensos he proposed that their content indicated the cares of those in the courts particularly regarding their position in society and their desires to improve themselves, but the totally ludic attitude taken in pieces such as this suggests that such theories cannot be universally applied.

Conclusion

From the four works examined, it can be seen that there is no rule regarding which participant should open. That is to say, the two works between Bona-fe and Blacatz are introduced by the joglar, whereas in the other two, the lord opens the debate. They all begin with an attack on the opponent, so it is likely that a riposte in the same vein was expected. This leads us to believe that all the participants were prepared to enter the arena and 'use fisticuffs'.

We began by asking first of all why lords allowed themselves to be insulted in the courts by their social inferiors. It probably would have been difficult for someone such as Blacatz or Gui de Cavaillon, known to be adept at composing, to refuse to take part in a tenso. As seen above, there are several kinds of insult works, which may not all have been composed for the same purpose. It is probable that the participants were generally encouraged to take part by someone else and one of them may have been asked to antagonise the other in an attempt to cause him to lose face. Who might have put them in this situation? On some occasions, the lord in whose court both the noble and the joglar were guests may have done so and as their host he was able to impose his wishes. Since it is not known precisely where most of the debates occurred we cannot ascertain whether or not the nobles in these works were guests of somebody who was of more importance than themselves, but this may have sometimes been the case and then perhaps not only the joglar but the noble too was obliged to do as he was asked. One might suppose that if a joglar insulted his host in his own court he would not receive payment from himalthough possibly some of the guests would have been delighted to pay for the performance. Some pieces, such as the one between Bertran de Gourdon and Peire Raimon de Toulouse were likely to have been nothing more than an entertainment for the participants and their audience, but others, such as the work between Gui de Cavaillon and Falco, may have been genuine attacks on individuals with attempts to show weaknesses on the part of a lord, sometimes in quite a vicious manner. Thiolier-Méjean has pointed out that "dans l"éthique médiévale, l"art de louer et de blâmer occupe une place dont l"importance n"est plus à démontrer". 51 Both the participants and the audience may therefore have been ready to accept such blame as an inherent part of the art of rhetoric. As Thiolier-Méjean has noted, from the twelfth century onwards the lord was often criticised in satirical and moral works, the principal complaint being that he was not only insufficiently generous, but he had often earned his fortune by dishonest means. If a lord was not sufficiently lavish with his court, then it was considered right to blame him. 52 Medieval performers were probably poor, their livelihood uncertain, and some troubadours and joglars were dependent on nobles as benefactors. It seems that Blacatz and Gui de Cavaillon were not wealthy enough to practise largueza and therefore received criticism which the audience found acceptable in the mouth of a joglar. These works, like many sirventes, probably played a similar role to our contemporary satirical press or television programmes showing up social or political weaknesses of the system or abuse of their position by those in power. Perhaps the nobles who were attacked in this way in the courts were fortunate, since they were in a position to answer back and refute the charges made against them, although they do not always seem to have done so. If Blacatz had actually taken lands which did not belong to him, he is being exposed in front of the court entourage for his lack of courtly behaviour and moral principles, but he does not answer the charges. Probably doing so would have been seen as a weakness.

An important aspect to bear in mind is that of performance. It may be that insult works were generally presented in a burlesque manner with comic gestures and facial grimaces. If this were so, the reception of the exchanges would be quite different from our contemporary one based on a textual point of view and the audience would have viewed the presentation as an amusing event rather than an exchange to be taken seriously. One component of literature has been proposed by Bec, who has identified a "contre-texte au Moyen Age", suggesting that any body of literary work at some point "prend du recul par rapport à elle-même, puis elle se nie en tombant volontairement dans le burlesque, le scatalogique ou l"obscène".53 Some insult tensos may be considered as a 'contre-texte' in regard to Occitan lyric poetry taken as a whole and it is possible that they may have been seen by their contemporary public in that light.

Nevertheless, it may have been important for the lord to win the discussion in order to prove his status and not lose his good name, which could affect his political position.

We asked secondly why the nobles appear to demean themselves by answering their opponent. The works of Blacatz give the impression that he enjoys the opportunity to "hit back" in the same manner. That the subject matter of the insults or accusations in all the above-examined exchanges does not provoke a direct response is interesting and suggests that from the outset the aim of both parties was merely to revile the other in some way, rather than initiate a debate. As a result, the lord does not really come down to answering the joglar, but merely gives "tit for tat". Thus, he does not demean himself but participates in a game of words.

It cannot be determined whether there were any serious consequences to these exchanges. It is plausible to suppose that a participant who was justifiably dishonoured by a joglar, or one who has put up a poor show, could lose his credibility and reputation among his peers which could do him harm, not only socially, but politically. Such was certainly the purpose of Bertran de Born"s sirventes against Alphonso II and therefore similar tactics may have been intended in certain insult tensos. This could be the incentive for enemies of the noble participant to encourage the joglar to initiate such a exchange.

Mavis

  43 'Le troubadour Gui de Cavaillon. (p. 21). 44 J-C. Payen, Le Prince d'Aquitaine. Essai sur Guillaume IX, son oeuvre et son érotique (Paris: Champion, 1980). 45 'Le troubadour Gui de Cavaillon (p. 30).

  Fèvre ________________ I should like to express my thanks to Professor Ruth E. Harvey and Professor Linda Paterson for allowing me access to texts from their unpublished material. ________________ BIBLIOGRAPHY Aurell, Martin, La Vielle et l'épée: Troubadours et politique en Provence au XIIIe siècle (Paris: Aubier, 1989)

  , I, p. 70.

14 Martin Aurell, La Vielle et l'épée: Troubadours et politique en Provence au XIIIe siècle (Paris: Aubier, 1989), pp. 88-91. 15 Henri Bergson, Le Rire : Essai sur la signification du comique, (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1947). p. 106. 16 Martin Aurell, 'Le troubadour Gui de Cavaillon (vers 1175-vers 1229): un acteur nobiliaire de la croisade albigeoise', Les voies de l'hérésie: le groupe aristocratique en Languedoc (XIe-XIIIe siècles), Actes de la 8e session d'histoire médiévale du Centre d'Études Cathares,

  Paden, 'The Role of the Joglar in Troubadour Lyric Poetry', in Chrétien de Troyes and the Troubadours: Essays in Memory of the Late Leslie Topsfield, ed. by Peter S. Noble

and Linda M. Paterson, (Cambridge: St. Catherine's College, 1984), pp. 90-111.

  ). 48 PC 84,1 = 355,19: A Critical Editon. 49 Jean Favier, Les Plantagenêts: Origines et destin d'un empire XIe-XIVe siècles (Paris: Fayard, 2004), pp. 445-51.

50

Levy, Petit Dictionnaire Provençal-Français., p. 247.

  51 Suzanne Thiolier-Méjean, Les Poésies satiriques et morales des troubadours du XIIe à la fin du XIIIe siècle(Paris: Nizet, 1978), p. 19.

52

Les Poésies satiriques et morales, p. 255.

Aristotle Poetics, ed. byMalcolm Heath, (London: Penguin Books, 1996), p. lxii.

Adam de La Halle, Le Jeu de la Feuillée, trans. by Jean Dufournet (Paris: Flammarion, 1989).

La Vielle, p. 80.

'Le troubadour Gui de Cavaillon. (p. 20).

Simon Gaunt, Gender and Genre in Medieval French Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 149.

PC 98,1 = 97,10: A Critical Edition.

La Vielle,

We know that he was married to Laure, the daughter of Bonifaci de Castellane. For the family tree of Blacatz: La Vielle, p. 80.

Pierre Bec, Burlesque et obscénité chez les troubadours (Paris: Stock, 1984), p. 8.


Leah Tether
email: l.r.tether@dur.ac.uk

Perceval's Puerile Perceptions: The First Scene of the Conte du Graal as an Index of Medieval Concepts of Human Development Theory

Keywords:

Utilising the first scene of Chrétien de Troyes's Conte du Graal, this paper explores the problematic nature of applying modern psychological theory to medieval literature, and proposes how medieval literature itself may actually provide a useful, and relatively untapped, source for understanding contemporaneous concepts of cognitive and perceptual development. Specifically, it demonstrates how the oddly childlike characteristics of Chrétien's Perceval, in this often-named Bildungsroman, can be interpreted as mirroring particular schemes of development imagined by Classical and Medieval thinkers such as Aristotle, Augustine and Boethius. The level of influence and popularity enjoyed by the Conte, and indeed by Chrétien's other works, implies that any scheme of development which can be demonstrated as central to Chrétien's narrative(s) may have been more widely authoritative. As such, medieval literature may offer the medieval scholar acres of unploughed territory from which to glean a more complete understanding of psychoanalysis in the Middle Ages.

Perceval's Puerile Perceptions: The First Scene of the Conte du Graal as an Index of Medieval Concepts of Human Development Theory

The study of literature has long been enriched and informed by psychoanalytical discourse and scientific theories of human development. The application of human development theory to literature has become commonplace due to the modern fascination with the working of the human mind. Contemporary theory on psychological and psychosomatic processes such as childhood development, the mechanisms of cognition and perceptual maturation has found its way, with relative ease, into the analysis and criticism of modern literature. 1 For medieval studies scholars, however, the application of such theory to medieval literature presents a number of impasses. The comparatively limited composition of psychological criticism and theory in the Middle Ages, coupled with the fact that what has survived may represent only a small fragment of the full picture, means that the medieval studies scholar has little choice but to apply modern theory to his medieval subject. And however persuasive this modern theory may be, the question always remains as to whether any real significance can be attached to such analyses, as they do not, and cannot, prove anything conclusively about the medieval psyche on these particular subjects, except how it appears from a modern perspective. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to demonstrate how, in the absence of contemporary theory and criticism, another medieval resource may be used to inform a modern audience about the prevalence and influence of particular schemes of childhood and perceptual maturation in the Middle Ages. Literature constitutes one of the most important corpuses of extant written material from the Middle Ages and, as a significant representation of taste, culture, opinion and the collective imagination, the information contained within literature has the potential to unlock the answers to many of the questions posed by scholars concerning the medieval concept of developmental theory. Further, a valuable by-product of the acquisition of a better understanding of such theoretical matters may be the facilitation of the psychological analysis of other works of medieval literature. This is an area which, naturally, has wide-reaching corollariesfar too wide to be fully examined in a short paper such as thisthus I intend to consider it here purely on the micro-level in order to provide a lens for further study. As such, I shall examine just one scene from one text with the aim of determining how effectively literature might be employed for this purpose.

The text I have chosen is Chrétien de Troyes's Conte du Graal, a romance of considerable significance and lasting impact. If any medieval author is to be trusted as having enjoyed the privilege of popular appeal, then Chrétien de Troyes must surely be it. His romances are extant in large numbers of manuscripts (the Conte appears in sixteen Old French manuscripts alone) which serve as testament to the popularity of their contemporary reception. And the Conte's central Grail theme, in particular, has influenced the development of literature and culture right up to the modern day. It is, however, the oddly childlike behaviour and subsequent development of its main protagonist, Perceval, which has long intrigued literary critics. A number postulate that Chrétien did not intend his text to centre on the general significance of the Grail, rather on the effect of the Grail upon the cognitive and perceptual maturation of Perceval. In other words, they propose that the Conte du Graal be read as a Bildungsroman.2 If this is so, its first scene -which introduces the reader to the various oddities of Perceval's character should provide clues as to the medieval concept of perceptual cognition in its earliest stages.

The setting for this scene is commonplace enougha beautiful spring morning -but the phrase with which Chrétien introduces his protagonist, 'li fix a la veve dame/ De la gaste forest' (vv. 74-753 ), is surprising. This is not so much because the reader does not learn his name, but because the text identifies both characters only tangentially: he as the son of his mother, she as '[d]e la gaste forest'. There are, in other words, no details: no indications as to age, appearance, class or ancestry. All we gather is how much he takes pleasure in sensual aspects such as the warmth of the spring morning and the song of the birds:

Ensi en la forest s'en entre. Et maintenant li cuers del ventre Por le dolç tans li resjoï, Et por le chant que il oï Des oisiax qui joie faisoient; Toutes ces choses li plaisoient. (vv. 85-90, my italics) It is as if he is entirely given over to his senses ('li cuers del ventre'), particularly those of touch and sound; indeed, it is as if he is receptive only to these 'surface' pleasures. As we meet him, he is engaged in a game of javelin-throwing, which again seems to have no purpose other than to give him a sensual satisfaction: (vv. 113-20) This initial notion that he is somewhat childlike is then strengthened by Perceval's rather odd dependence on his mother's advice to interpret the things he sees. Indeed, when the knights actually come into view, his belief that they are devils soon changes. Owing to their 'bel' (v. 136) appearance, he now believes them to be angels, as his mother has told him that angels are 'beles choses ' (v. 144) Chrétien's repetitive use of verbs of sensation is an ingenious way of expressing the fact that for the boy fully to comprehend something, he has to have already seen it. This is a sketch of a process of cognition which assumes that understanding ('connui') is a function of seeing ('vi') and also of hearing ('parler n'en oï'). That is, Perceval cannot distinguish between perceiving, identifying and understandingall, to him, mean the same. He is confined to the mere seeing/hearing, or perceptual, aspect, whereby he can do no more than register sense impressions, without being able to relate them to any process of identification or understanding. This childlike fascination with surface appearance is further emphasised when Perceval goes on to bombard the knights with questions about their armour (vv. 189-276, for example '«Que est iche que vos tenez?» ' (v. 191)). His only desire seems to be to find out the name and the function of the various knightly accessories; indeed he appears to attach a disproportionate significance to learning the names of things. For example, Perceval defines the knights as 'Vos qui avez non chevaliers', (v. 190, my italics), and the objects they carry, in turn, serve to define them as 'knights'. Perceval, as we know, is defined not in his essencethat is, in his identity -but only in relation to others (e.g. 'li fix a la veve dame' (v. 74)); it seems, here, as if the knights, for him, are defined not by their function, still less by their identities, rather by the objects that go with their physical selves. By thus defining the knights metonymically, Chrétien alerts us immediately to a distinct oddity of perception that seems inherent in the way Perceval views his surroundings. This reliance on metonymic interpretation is further confirmed when Perceval later asks about the whereabouts of Arthur who, the knights have told him, provided their armour. Perceval names him the 'roi qui les chevaliers fet' (v. 333), because metonymically, just as a knight is defined by his armour, to Perceval a king is defined by the fact he can create knights by providing that armour. This conception of naming and identification is again something which suggests, to the modern reader, a certain childlike quality to this protagonist, and this instinctive reaction is more than just a passing one. Such matters as naming are, of course, considered important to the scientific understanding of child development. 6 There are, then, three main aspects to the apparently childlike behaviour of Perceval. First, that he has a distinct fascination for sensual effects like sound and light, or surface appearanceappearing incapable of perceiving beyond them; second, that his perceptions are circumscribed by those of his mother; third, that he sees naming as a definition of function. As we have said, a modern reader, surely, cannot avoid finding Perceval's preoccupations and perceptions, with objects and the way he covets them, with names, with his own individual needs, distinctly childlike, not to say infantile. The question this paper poses and tries to answer, however, is whether this literary portrayal can elucidate the medieval understanding of the same matters.

The modern understanding of childhood in the Middle Ages, and of the ways in which it was viewed and theorised, was, for a long time, defined largely by Philippe Ariès's seminal L'Enfant et la vie familiale. [START_REF] Ariès | This work has often formed the starting point for many subsequent discussions, like, for example, the various essays in Goldberg and Riddy[END_REF] Briefly, Ariès argues that in the Middle Ages, childhood was not considered a separate or autonomous stage in human development, nor was it thought that childhood, as a transitionary phase between infancy and adulthood, was worth attention in its own right. Children in the Middle Ages, Ariès considers, were thought of as largely ignorant, lacking intellectual and perceptual identity; in medieval society, they were perceived as little more than small-scale adults and there existed none of the modern preoccupations with education and the physical, moral and sexual problems of childhood. This does not mean that children were forsaken, neglected or despised; simply, Ariès is suggesting that there was no awareness of that particular nature which distinguishes the child from the adult. 8 More recent scholarship, however, suggests that the understanding of childhood in the Middle Ages was more complex than Ariès seemed to suggestand indeed, that his theories may have been too sweeping and distinctly selective. [START_REF]For example[END_REF] Certainly the Perceval of this first scene, with his insistence on the sensual, his fascination with naming and his limited but intense perceptions, corresponds so closely to modern conceptions of childhood and perceptual development that it seems unlikely that at least some of the modern audience's assumptions would not have resonated with those of their medieval counterparts. As such, it becomes necessary to engage with the following line of enquiry: did the Middle Ages theorise childhood in any material way? And if so, what authorities are available on which we can draw for a more nuanced, more specific image of what childhood meant in the Middle Ages? Two of the auctoritates most influential in the Middle Ages were Aristotle and Augustine. Aristotle's works had only recently been translated into Latin and, as a result, his philosophies were enjoying considerable esteem in medieval philosophical scholarship. Augustine, in the confused, changing landscape of the crumbling the Roman Empire, provided an all-embracing view of the Christian faith and, as such, his theological and philosophical opinions became particularly cherished in the volatile Middle Ages. 10 Neither of these two great philosophers, it is true, addresses childhood directly, but both provide a vision of childhood and of perceptual development to be gleaned from incidentals within their works.

In Aristotle's Politics, in his discussion of the distinguishing features of reasonable creatures, he produces a rather revealing statement:

The deliberative faculty of children is imperfect, and so when we attribute virtues to them, we use a different standard from the one that is appropriate for free male adults. [...] Children will develop the capacity to deliberate, but during their immaturity they live emotionally and without reflection. 11 There are several phrases here which merit exploration in the present context. First, Aristotle's contention that it is proper to 'use a different standard' when discussing children. This implies, of course, that for Aristotle a specific, and definable, phase or stage of human development is identifiable, and that it should be separated from normal, adult-centred life. Second, and especially in the context of the Conte du Graal, the contention that children live 'emotionally and without reflection' seems to imply that children are unable to intellectualise: that they live 'in the moment', focused only on what is sensual. This recognition of a separate, distinct identity for the childand one which differs significantly from adulthood also bears a considerable resemblance to the state which Chrétien imagines for Perceval, who appears unable to deliberate autonomously, 12 and whose emotions, it seems, lack mature control and are reliant instead on his mother's advice. This is confirmed elsewhere in Aristotle's scattered comments on childhood; in another significant passage from the Ethics, the philosopher suggests that a child lacks the capacity for reason and displays a distinct attraction for sensual pleasures, without restraint or thought for the consequences: Children ... live as their desires impel them, and it is in them that the appetite for pleasant things is strongest; so unless this is rendered docile and submissive to authority it will pass all bounds. For in an irrational being the appetite for what gives it pleasure is insatiable and indiscriminate, and the exercise of the desire increases its innate tendency; and if these appetites are strong and violent, they actually drive out reason. 13 The phrases italicised here are important. What is noticeable is the vocabulary of the senses, and the emphasis on pleasure as opposed to rationalityand of course we cannot but be reminded of Perceval, and his absolute delight in those things which gratify his senses.

Finally, and again significantly for the portrait of Perceval, Aristotle stresses that there is not just one stage of life that encompasses the whole of childhood, rather that there are various discernible stages throughout the cognitive and perceptual development of a child:

The stage of life through which children pass down to the age of seven is bound to be one of home training; and young as they are they will be likely to contract vulgar habits from anything vulgar they hear or see. 14 This suggests that, if Perceval's behaviour in this first scene of the Conte is reminiscent of one of Aristotle's suggested 'stages of childhood', then perhaps Chrétien is indeed pointing to just such a developmental transition.

To summarise: Aristotle considers that children are able to perceive, to react to, and to be gratified by, sensory stimulation; that they absorb everything, but their lack of experience means that they do not have the capacity to interpret their perceptions correctly. I am not, of course, suggesting that Chrétien read Aristotle but of course, of all the philosophers of the ancient world, it was Aristotle who was the most influential and the most read and paraphrased in the Middle Ages. It would, therefore, be no surprise to find what Chrétien says having affinities with the philosopher's views. But as suggested, there is another, more contemporary, source who exerted considerable influence on the medieval concept of childhood and perceptual development, and he is Augustine of Hippo (354-430).

Augustine is usually considered the instigator of the medieval idea that a child was born in sin, being the fruit of his parents' sexual intercourse, 15 and that this thus affected the course of his ultimate development. Most crucially, Augustine sees childhood as a period in which reason and understanding (in other words, the tools of perception) are still dormant. This militates against the view that childhood should be judged on the same lines as is adulthood: a child, he suggests, should not be thought of as good or innocent, but rather as simply subject to basic drives which are not yet managed by reason. 16 In his Confessions, Augustine also considers how learning in childhood may affect a child's perception and process of cognition. Specifically, Augustine considers that the roots of cognition, and of learning to understand lie in the correct perception of worldly objects:

Learning begins with sense perception, that is, with 'the rational knowledge of temporal things'. But it must rise up to the higher intellectual level, that is, to 'the intellectual knowledge of eternal things'. It is on this level that absolute truth is to be found by the effort of pure thought. It is the function of the curriculum of the liberal arts to set the intelligence of the learner free by leading him gradually from concentration on sense experience to purely intellectual inquiry. 17 This citation explains that, in terms of mental or cognitive developmentand this is particularly valuable for this discussion of the Conte -Augustine, seems to postulate a two-stage model. 18 At the earliest stagewhat might be termed the infant stage -sensory perceptions and 'sense experience' are paramount: the child is merely absorbent, and not reflective. His or her first developmental stage will involve, as he calls it, 'rational knowledge'that is, an understanding of the factual, material world around them or a comprehension of the surface of things and their initial appearance. A second stage, he says, involves 'intellectual knowledge': that is, a wider comprehension of the world: going beyond mere appearance, knowing and understanding what lies behind the obvious and realising that simple objects may have higher meanings or significances. A full intellectual and moral developmentthat is, the understanding of absolute truthcan only be achieved by passing through these successive stages (ideally, of course, and as Augustine understands it, assisted by the full educational experience as adumbrated in the ancient and medieval curriculum). If this model is applied to Perceval, it would appear that his intelligence has not yet been released in the sense which Augustine suggests, as the boy is still confined to sensual experience, and appears unable to perceive and interpret correctly what it is that he experiences. As such, he might conditionally be placed in the earliest stage of Augustine's model of cognitive development.

The matter of sense perception 19 has been shown to be central to the schemes of cognitive development posited by both Aristotle and Augustine. This, coupled with the fact that Chrétien seems to be making Perceval's own sense perceptions the key to understanding his rather odd character, demonstrates that medieval concepts of perceptual development in general, and their specific influence on the wider study of childhood development, warrant further investigation. In terms of childhood development, Augustine, crucially, insists unequivocally that the key to perception is the sense of sight; given that the majority of Perceval's sensual gratifications come through the sense of sight, this seems particularly appropriate:

Vision is the understanding which belongs to the soul; it is achieved by the combination of the sense of sight and the sensible object. If either is taken away, nothing can be seen. 20 Augustine's point, of course, is in essence philosophical: sight is that one of the senses which most governs understanding. But since it was noted, above, how far Chrétien stresses Perceval's fascination with light and shining objects, it is reasonable to consider whether this too is not evidence of a particular vision of childhood mentalities, and the development of the child from sensual to intellectual/moral being. Indeed, Augustine, like Aristotle, envisages a number of stages as being present underneath the overarching heading of childhood. What he suggests is essentially a three-stage model, incorporating moral, spiritual and perceptual development. The first of these stages is infantia, which sometimes incorporates two sub-stages within it, thus creating what could loosely be termed a four-staged version, the characteristics of which may be tabled as follows:

1. Infantia (first sub-stage): This stage includes a need for constant maternal attention, a reliance on instinctual drives, an ignorance of language and thought and a demanding nature. 2. Infantia (second sub-stage): This stage develops characteristics such as covetousness (particularly of objects), a recognition of parental authority, an initial sense of identity and, most importantly for us, an ability to perceive but not to reason. 3. Pueritia: Here, one can expect to see characteristics such as being able to reason and discriminate in order, for example, to distinguish between good and evil, to perceive the significance of identity and, most importantly, to be able to perceive and accurately apply data gathered to new situations. 4. Adolescentia: At this stage, the child achieves a fully formed power of judgment and perception, whereby he can understand the full significance of identity, and of underlying symbols and objects, such that he may be both receptive to and reflective upon them. 21 The importance of Augustine's model around the time of the Conte's composition is confirmed by the appearance of a strikingly similar three-stage scheme in the encyclopedic work of Bartholomaeus Anglicus,to which I return below. 22 19 Sense perception, that is, as constituting the main route to learning and understanding. 20 Howie (1969, pp. 204-5). 21 See Shahar (1992, pp. 21-31) for a lengthier description of the characteristics of each stage. See also Heywood (2001, p. 14). 22 De Proprietatibus Rerum, c. 1225-1230, first published 1470 (suggesting the work's continued influence). For reference to the three-stage scheme of childhood, see Bartholomaeus Anglicus (1964, book XI, chapters 1 and 5). See also the fourteenth-century translation: Bartholomaeus Anglicus (1975, I, pp. 291-2 and pp. 300-1).

Significantly, Perceval's behaviour conforms almost precisely to the initial stage of this model: infantia. Our first experience of him in the forest does indeed give us the image of a boy who is fascinated by objects and their names, entirely reliant on his mother's education and instinctive urges (reflected by his playfulness and violent petulance) and, most vitally, who has a tendency towards the all too literal interpretation of the things he perceives. But of even more crucial importance are three characteristics considered typical of the second substage of infantia; first, his ability to perceive, but not to understand, conveyed in his focus on mere surface appearance; second, his apparent belief that naming is equal to defining. These are to him, it seems, his means of attaching significance to what he sees and perceives, but in reality, of course, neither of them can actually achieve that end. The third characteristicagain typical of the Aristotelian/Augustinian modelis his covetousness, which is particularly manifest in his adulation of and desire for the knights' armour. Thus, it is possible to confirm that Perceval is indeed conforming not only to a medieval idea of cognition, but also to one specifically of childhood, one which, it is likely, would have been recognisable to a medieval audience. It seems, in other words, that Perceval's perceptions, as imagined by Chrétien, resonate distinctly with a particular medieval conception of childhood whereby the key to understanding developmental processes, once again, lies with the attainment of a specific understanding of concepts of perceptual maturation. I will expand on this in a moment. It is, therefore, important to understand more about perception specifically, as medieval theories of the development of perception must be considerably more complex than can be derived from rather occasional comments in treatises designed for other purposes. It is therefore important to understand the medieval concepts of perception in their fullest context.

The theories of perception commonest in the Middle Ages are found in the so-called faculty psychologies, wherein each mental power is assigned to its proper cell or ventricle in the head according to its function, in an orderly progression of cognition from the first sensation to the idea. 23 It is known just how important the idea of faculty psychology was by the vast body of material written on it, and we also know that an educated medieval writer, and perhaps too a medieval audience, may have had some idea, if not a solid knowledge, of faculty psychology as such knowledge was not confined to the recondite and scholastic environment. It figures, for instance, in Bartholomaeus's already mentioned, influential and popular, encyclopedia: Sensus verso communis siue interior diuiditur in tre partes secundum tres cerebri regions. Nam in cerebro tres sunt cellule: scilicet anterior, in qua virtus ymaginatiua operatur, que quideri ea que sensus extrinsecus apprehendit interius ordinat et componit,...est et media cellula, scilicet logistica, in qua sensibilis ratio siue estimatiua virtus dominatur; est iterum et tertia postrema, que est memoratiua, que ea que apprehensa sunt per ymaginationem siue rationem in thesauro memorie retinet et custodit. 24 Theorists 25 tell us that much of medieval faculty psychology begins with Avicenna, who essentially holds that the heart takes a position of absolute primacy in matters of the body, but that the sensitive faculties are not actually located there. Rather he suggests in his Canon of Medicine 26 that whilst it is arguable that the heart may be the principal organ of sensation, it is not the seat of what is known as the common sense: that is, where sensations are initially collected before being passed on for further interpretation. 27 Avicenna holds that just as there are five outward senses, so there are five inward wits. Initially, perception and cognition begin in the outer senses (which are located in the front ventricle of the brain), and then this information is passed on to the inward wits (situated in the middle ventricle); each of the inward wits processes information in a different way, resulting in a number of different forms of understanding, ranging from the mere perception of an object to the using of information gathered from an object already perceived in order to imagine new forms of that object; for example, having seen a man and something flying, and fusing the two to create a 'flying man', which cannot exist in reality, but which can exist in the imagination. In this scheme, it seems that Perceval somehow only has access to the first 'wit' whereby he can perceive, but not actually derive understanding from, that perception.

Avicenna's model, of course, though widely influential, was subject to variation by a number of other thinkers. 28 Perhaps the clearest, most comprehensive and consistent of these is that of Boethius. Boethius addresses perception in the context of a discussion of free will versus divine foreknowledge and how they can coexist, since either term would seem to rule out the possibility of the other. Boethius suggests that the solution to this problem lies in making proper distinctions between ways of knowing, and that knowing is actualised by our 'wits': the five outer senses, which together form the first faculty in the 'hierarchy of faculties'. 29 These 'wits' tell us about phenomena in their material form: e.g. the touch, taste, smell, sight and sound of an object. Once an object has been perceived, one can progress to the second faculty in the hierarchy, which is 'imagination', in which one cannot only recall the object, but also invent an altered image of the object (as with the 'flying man' example above). Higher still, and representing the third stage in the processing of the information collected by the five wits, is the third faculty, the faculty of 'reason', which is capable of relating the object to all associated objects, conceiving its universal class; for example, one should able to accurately reason that a cat and a lion are actually from the same family, by recognising and analysing both their similarities and differences. Likewise, one should be able to understand relative differences within the same class, for example that one of two similar objects may be of better quality than the other, owing to the perceiver's previous experience with factors such as what material it is made from, or the apparent skill of the craftsman. 25 See Bundy (1976, p. 178 and pp. 182-83); but for an admirably lucid description of Avicenna's theories, see Harvey (1975, pp. 21-53). It is mainly Harvey's version that I shall be drawing upon in my own description of Avicenna's theories. 26 The Gruner edition of Avicenna (1930) provides an accessible version of the Canon. 27 Harvey (1975, p. 39). 28 For example, Albertus Magnus's ' De Apprehensione' (1890-99) which includes his theory of 'memory', or the artificiality of memory. In this analysis however, we are more interested in the development of natural memory; for an illuminating discussion of memory in the Middle Ages, see Yates (1966, pp. 50-104). 29 Boethius (1969, pp. 99-104).

The fourth way of knowingone beyond the humanis possessed only by divine Providence, whose unique faculty, called 'intelligence', knows a thing not only exists within the world of matter, and as an image, and as a universal class, but also that it exists in perpetuity within the divine thought, e.g. that an object may exist in advance of, and will endure beyond, the material creationin essence, it becomes an object which is constructed entirely by the bearerone not necessitating any previous experience. This is effectively a kind of spiritual maturity, whereby the bearer possesses the ability to understand higher significances beyond the earthly plain and without physical prompting. 30 Access to each of these faculties is dependent upon the bearer having mastered the respective preceding faculty (or faculties): 'In this hierarchy of faculties, each power comprehends all that is proper to the power(s) below it, but the lower has no access to anything higher.' 31 In this way, the constructed image was considered superior to the reproduced image as the constructive power was thought able to transcend not only sense experience, but also the particular mental images by which it enters the memory, that is, if you could imagine an entirely new image, this would be superior to remembering an image already seen, as this ability is only available to those with access to the highest faculty in the hierarchy. 32 This 'hierarchy of faculties', as imagined by Boethius and others, can be applied quite strikingly to the image of the infantile Perceval. In this initial scene, for example, Perceval is capable only of perceiving objects; he cannot yet internalise those perceptions, reflect on them and fully understand their significance, so that his behaviour is reminiscent of the first faculty, that which consists of the 'wits', whereby one simply perceives an object via the senses, but cannot interpret accurately. In sum:

1. Among many odd characteristics, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Perceval lies in his apparent perceptual inabilities: that is, in the fact that, perceptually, he seems confined simply to the reception of surface appearance, lacking the capacity then to reflect upon the perceived object and make an accurate judgment as to its significance. 2. This oddity of perception seems to correspond to the characteristics that medieval audiences would, it seems, have recognised as distinctly childlike, according to schemes of development set out by Aristotle and, later, Augustine -I speak specifically here of the stage of infantia which is most often associated with children of a young ageconsiderably younger, in fact, than we presume Perceval must be. This prompts us to explore theories of perception not just within models of childhood, but also more generally. 3. In those theories of perception, we discover, Perceval's perceptual capabilities come at the least sophisticated end of the medieval scheme of development -residing firmly in the 'wits' (that is, where he may receive information, but not interpret it further). So, just as Perceval's behaviour conformed to the very first stage of a medieval model of cognitive and childhood development, now it is clear that he also 30 This description of the faculties is a reworking of Boethius (1969, pp. 155-69); however I also found illuminating and make use of Kolve's (1984, pp. 20-22) version of Boethius's theories, as it provides excellent, more modern analogies. This final stage in development might perhaps be equated to 'knowledge' of the Graila matter which limitations of space make it impossible to discuss here, but which it may be interesting to discuss at a later date. 31 Kolve (1984, pp. 20-21). 32 Kolve (1984, p. 27).

operates at the very first stage of a particular medieval model of perceptual development. This has important implications in terms of this paper's thesis, that literary sources contain harnessable knowledge about medieval psychological theory, as this analysis confirms, first, that Chrétien may be developing, in the person of Perceval, a particular concept of childhood development in which perception plays a pre-eminent role. And, if Chrétien is able to make a particular scheme of development so crucial to the characterisation of Perceval, this surely implies that he expected to share this distinctive concept of perceptual and childhood development with his readers.

Secondly, and beyond this brief initial scene, if a similar understanding of cognitive development could be shown as affecting the rest of the Conte then this would provide further weight to the evidence of this first scene, that human development theory was, as suspected, prevalent in the Middle Ages. More importantly, though, it would shed more tangible light on which particular models may have been most influential. For instance, while this first scene apparently indicates that the development of the main character is in its earliest stages, it may well be that there is a developmental progression as the text continues. By way of a brief example, the famous Grail scene itself (vv. 3130-319) raises questions as to Perceval's developing range of perceptual capabilities, so that where, in this first scene, he is unable to perceive anything other than the surface and sensual, here he is able to detect that the objects before him hold a greater significance than their mere surface appearance would suggest, but he is unable, still, to interpret with complete accuracy: Et li vallés les vit passer, Ne n'osa mie demander Del graal cui l'en en servoit, Que toz jors en son cuer avoit La parole au prodome sage.

(vv. 3243-7, my italics)

In the context of the models of development discussed above, these new perceptual capabilities would almost certainly place Perceval at one of the later stages of development than he appears to be in the first scene. Taking Boethius's model as a case in point, this ability to perceive and thus judge the worthiness of an object, would suggest he may now be in possession of the faculty of reason.

The widely accepted reliability of Chrétien's authorship suggests that, in making reference (conscious or otherwise) to these specific theoretical schemes, it could be inferred that these were the ones which enjoyed particular influence at the time. This, as initially suggested, lends the modern reader a crucially reliable insight not only into some of the ways in which childhood, perceptual and cognitive development were viewed, but also into which specific schemes thereof may have commanded the highest levels of popularity. That one single literary scene can be demonstrated as supplying such a wealth of information strongly supports the original thesis of this paper, that literary sources harbour considerable knowledge about medieval psychological theory, and that the resulting understanding can subsequently be used to further medieval studies in an interdisciplinary sense. First, a full analysis of the rest of Chrétien's enigmatic Conte du Graal would be required to add significant weight to this conclusion, after which the analysis could justifiably be broadened to incorporate the scrutiny of other works of medieval literature under this light. 33 Just as 'Perceval's Puerile Perceptions' have led this author to better understand Chrétien's narrative objectives via his literary depiction of human development theory, so the modern scholar may become gradually more enlightened as to the narrative aspirations of previously opaque works of medieval literature by means of literary portrayals of other psychological theory.

  Perceval's reaction is surprising. He appears not to know what they are, and imagines at first that they might be devils. At this point, for the reader, it is hard to know whether to attribute this to simplicity, or childlike ignorance:

	«Par m'ame,
	Voir me dist ma mere, ma dame,
	Qui me dist que deable sont
	Plus esfreé que rien del mont,
	Et si dist por moi enseingnier
	Que por aus se doit an seingnier,
	Mes cest ensaig desdaignerai,
	Que ja voir ne m'en seignerai,...»
	Et cil qui bien lancier savoit
	Des gaveloz que il avoit,
	Aloit environ lui lançhant
	Une eure [arriere] et autre avant,
	Une eure en bas et autre en haut…	(vv. 95-99)
	It is at this point that five armed knights appear, making all sorts of noises
	unfamiliar to the youth. Chrétien's lexicon here insists once again,
	disconcertingly, on the sensual:
	Et molt grant noise demenoient
	Les armes de ciax qui venoient;
	Car sovent hurtoient as armes
	Li rain des chaines et des charmes.
	Les lances as escus hurtoient,
	Et tout li hauberc fremissoient;

Sone li fuz, sone li fers Et des escus et des haubers.

(vv. 103-10, my italics)

The naissance of the term Bildungsroman, for example, is a good example of the impact of modern psychoanalysis and human development theory on literary studies.

For example,Micha (1951, p.122) who describes it as a 'roman de l'initiation[START_REF] Simons | Pattern and Process of Education in Le Conte du Graal[END_REF] who looks at Chrétien's interest in education and development in the Conte.

All textual references are toBusby (1993).

Chrétien may be playing with a logical fallacy here given that, as an educated man, he very likely studied logic, thus he would have expected his audience to recognise this as a fundamental fallacy, which serves as additional evidence that Chrétien's contemporary audience would have perceived Perceval as naïve.

Just one example is 'fremianz' in v. 129, which comes from formillier in French (schimmern in German) and is used almost exclusively with hauberks, according to[START_REF] Tobler | Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch[END_REF]-, III, column 2120).

See, for example,[START_REF] Dale | Color Naming, Matching and Recognition by Preschoolers[END_REF], and more recently[START_REF] Rymes | Naming as Social Practice: The Case of Little Creeper from Diamond Street[END_REF] and[START_REF] Gopnik | Categorization and Naming: Basic-Level Sorting in Eighteen-Month-Olds and Its Relation to Language[END_REF].

cf. particularly my previous comments on false syllogisms, above.

Aristotle (1976, p.

141), my italics. See also M. F.Burnyeat's (1999, pp. 215-17) discussion of the child's love of sensual pleasures. 14Aristotle (1948, p. 387).

Shahar (1992, p. 15);Heywood (2001, pp. 14-15).

Shahar (1992, p. 15).

Howie (1969, p. 197).

And of course, the notion that there are a number of 'stages' within cognition means that Augustine shares a common notion with Aristotle on this point.

Bundy (1976, p. 179).[START_REF] Kolve | Introduction. In Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales[END_REF] also gives a pleasingly succinct and intelligible account.

[START_REF] Anglicus | On the Properties of Soul and Body (De Proprietatibus Rerum Libri III et IV)[END_REF], book III, chapter 10, my italics).

Possible subjects for future studies of this could, for example, be Marc in Ysaïe le Triste and Passelion in the Roman de Perceforest. On the former,[START_REF] Beardsmore | Les Enfances Auberon dans Ysaïe le Triste et leur importance dans la structure du roman[END_REF] has already demonstrated that childhood holds a particular significance in the structuring of the narrative, while the latter has been shown by[START_REF] Taylor | Perceval/Perceforest: Naming as Hermeneutic in the Roman de Perceforest[END_REF] to place particular importance on naming as a method of interpretation.