UC-NRLF 
 
 $c iflE m? 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of California. 
 
 RECEIVED BY EXCHANGE 
 
 Class 
 
 
Z\yc TUniverslt^ of Cbtcago 
 
 FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 
 
 The ERUCTAVIT, an Old French 
 
 Poem: the Author's Environment, 
 
 his Argument and Materials 
 
 A DISSERTATION 
 
 SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS 
 
 AND LITERATURE, IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE 
 
 OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 (DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES) 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE FITCH McKIBBEN 
 
 BALTIMORE 
 
 5. 5H. ffurst Companfi 
 
 1907 
 
Ube xaniversiti? ot CbicaQo 
 
 FOUNDED BY JOHN D. BOCKEFELLEK 
 
 The ERUCIAVIT, an Old French 
 
 Poem: the Author's Environment, 
 
 his Argument and Materials 
 
 A DISSERTATION 
 
 submitted to the faculty of the graduate school of arts 
 
 and literature, in candidacy for the degree 
 
 of doctor of philosophy 
 
 (department of romance languages and literatures) 
 
 GEORGE FITCH McKIBBEN 
 
 13ALTIM0RE 
 
 3. M. jfurst Company 
 
 1907 
 
Digitized by the InterneJ Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/eructavitoldfrenOOmckirich 
 
THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM: 
 
 The Author's Environment, his Argument 
 AND Materials. 
 
 This paraphrase in verse of Psalm xliv of the Vulgate 
 (^Eructavit cor meum verbum bonuin) must have enjoyed no small 
 popularity during three centuries, and in widely separated parts of 
 the then French speaking world. This is attested by the fourteen 
 copies ^ that survive. Of these, two contain only about a quarter 
 of the poem ; two, about one-half; while no less than ten are quite 
 complete or nearly so. 
 
 In this study of the poem, after an outline of the investigations 
 of well known scholars, are presented my conclusions upon its 
 contents and plan, the author's environment and character, his 
 materials. 
 
 Conspicuous in the poem, and no doubt explaining much of its 
 popularity, ai-e the passages at the beginning and end in which the 
 poet addresses his patroness. A third address, containing only four 
 lines and serving merely as a transition passage without identifying 
 
 ^ One of the fragments, — Paris, B. N. 902 (ms. L), — and eight of the complete 
 copies of the Eructavit, — Paris, Ste. Genevieve, Lf. 13, (ms. C) ; B. N. 2094 (MS. A); 
 1747 (MS. N); 24429 (ms. G); Arsenal, 3518, (ms. H); Madrid, B. N. E. 150 
 (Mij. B) ; Vatican, 1682 (ms. F); British Museum, add. 15606 (ms. E), — were copied 
 by me between December and August, 1891 -'92. The other copies, excepting that 
 of Vienna, were at the same time rather hastily examined and compared. One of 
 my copies, that made in the British Museum, was published in 1893, appearing with 
 a brief introduction in the Scientific Bulletin of Denison University, Granville, Ohio. 
 I have recently secured copies of the other mss. : Paris, B. N. 1536 (ms. K); 20046 
 (MS. M); 25532 (ms. I); Arsenal, 3516 (ms. J) and Vienna, Bibl. Palat., 3430 
 (MS. D). 
 
 The restored text of the Ei-uctamt will be published by Professor T. A. Jenkins, 
 of the University of Chicago. As basis of the outline of the poem, or Part II of 
 this study, I have used my copy of tlie ms. in the British Museum, published 
 in 1893, as stated above, 
 
 ' 1 
 
 A nni^ar^i 
 
THE EBUGTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 phrases, occurs ia the latter part of the poem. These addresses ^ 
 are as follows : — 
 
 LI. 1-14. 
 
 Une chan9on que David fist, 
 Que nostre sire an cuer li mist, 
 Dirai ma dame de Champaigne, 
 Celi cui Damedes anseigne 
 Et espire de toz ses biens, 
 Si qu'en li ne faut nule riens ; 
 An9ois i a, qui dire Fose, 
 
 •I" po trop d'une sole chose : 
 Tant i mist cil qui la cria 
 Largesce que trop an i a ; 
 Largesce et li hauz despens 
 Metent cusan9on et espans 
 Mainte foiz an jantil corage. 
 Deus doint que n'i aiens damage ! 
 
 LI. 1749-1752. 
 
 Cist vers apres conte la joie, Cui Damedes mantaigne et gart 
 
 S'est bien droiz que ma dame I'oie, Si qu'ele an ait antiere part. 
 
 LI. 2079-2100. 
 
 La jantil suer le roi de France, 
 Recordez i vostre creance. 
 Pansez, dame, de bien amer, 
 De servir et de reclamer 
 Celui qui la foi nos espire, 
 Ou vostre jantis cuers se mire. 
 Mout I'avez fin et aguisie ; 
 Ne sai ou vos avez puisie ; 
 Mes d'une chose vos faz sage. 
 Que mout avez grant avantage : — 
 Qu'un mot a an sainte escriture 
 
 Qui de grant bien nos asseiire : 
 Qui Deu aime et de lui anquiert 
 Seiirs soit il que miez Fan iert. 
 Mout met son cuer a bone escole 
 Qui volantiers ot sa parole. 
 E vos, dame, estes toz jorz preste 
 De I'oir et d'estre an anqueste ; 
 Li bons maistre don vos avez 
 Retenu quant que vos savez. 
 Si com il est verais amis, 
 Croisse le bien qu'il i a mis ! 
 
 'These addresses, in which something of the poet's purpose appears, altho easily 
 omitted, belonged to the original poem ; their omission, when not the result of a 
 mutilation of the MS., may be attributed to the scribe's desire to adapt the poem to 
 some more general use. 
 
 The various copies treat them as follows : L and M, being fragments, have only the 
 first address ; K and H, only the second ; I, altho nearly complete, omits all three 
 addresses ; J, a fragment and mutilated, has only three lines of the first ; D, F, G, 
 A, N, and E contain all three ; B and C contain the first and second, but the latter, 
 evidently by an error, has lost the identifying phrase of line 3, ma dame de 
 Champaigne. 
 
THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FEENCH POEM. 3 
 
 The only expressions that serve here to identify the patroness are 
 ma dame de Champaigne, 1. 3, and la jantil suer le roi de France, 
 1. 2108. These, taken together, can refer only to Marie, daughter 
 of King Louis VII and Queen Eleanor. She became countess of 
 Champagne in 1164, upon her marriage with Henri I,- the Liberal, 
 after a betrothal beginning in early childhood. On the death of her 
 father and the accession of her half-brother, Philip Augustus, in 
 1181, she could be spoken of as "sister of the King of France." 
 In the same year she became a widow, and her bereavement, it is 
 thought, offered to the devout poet his opportunity. 
 
 After being forgotten for three centuries, the Erudavit began 
 about two generations ago to attract some attention from students 
 of the life, thought and speech of medieval France. Certain well 
 known investigators have made some expression in print concerning 
 it, as one of the many inedita worthy of study.^ 
 
 Prosper Tarb6 deserves the credit of pointing out Sens as the 
 author's city, and the Benedictine abbey, St. Pierre-le-Vif, as his 
 home. This appears from the following passage, 11. 769-786, 
 where the local saints of Sens are mentioned by name : — 
 
 Li bons archiers qui si Icing lance Qui s'aresturent droit a Sanz. 
 Retraist -ii* saietes an France, La estoit lors toz li bofois 
 
 Bien legieres et bien tranchauz, Et li chi^s de Sarazinois. 
 
 ^Paulin Paris, Les mantiscrits frangois de la hibllotk^que du roi, vii, 199, 208; 
 Prosper Tarbe, Poeles de Champagne anierieurs au siHcle de Francois I, 37, 38 ; Hol- 
 land, Chrestkn von Troyes, 247 ; D' Arbois de Jubainville, Histoire des dues et des 
 comtes de Champagne, iv, 642 ; P. Meyer, Romania, vi, 9, and Bulletin de la Societe 
 des anciens textts fran^ais, 1878, 50 ; G. Paris, Romania, xii, 523, and Histoire de la 
 litterature fran^aise au moyen dge, 232 ; J. Bonnard, Les traductions de la Bible en vers 
 frangais au moyen dge, 139 ; Grober, Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, II, 689 ; 
 Suchier and Bircli-Hirschfeld, Geschichte der franzosischen Litteratur, 150. Reference, 
 it may be added, is made to some particular copy of the Eructavit, for philological 
 rather than literary purposes, by W. Foerster in the large edition of Cliges ; by E. 
 Goerlich in Ber burgundische Dicdekt, and by A. Thomas, Romania, xxx, 339. 
 Opinions concerning the identity of the dame de Champaigne varied even after 1865, 
 when the fourth volume of D' Arbois de Jubainville's work, mentioned above, 
 appeared. The statement of P. Meyer, Romania, vi, 9, foot-note, sets the matter at 
 rest. To G. Paris is due the assignment of the year 1181 as the earliest probable 
 date of the poem. 
 
4 THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 Li uns fu sainz Saviniens, Par ces "ii- fu France conquise : 
 
 Li autre sainz Potanciens. A Sanz fu la premiere eglise 
 
 Selonc lor nons la vertu orent : Qui a non Sainz Peres li Vis ; 
 
 Qu'anbedui sorent mout et porent. Qu'ancor n'estoit il pas ocis 
 
 Des deciples Damede furent ; Quant eele eglise fu fondee 
 
 Avee lui mangierent et burent. Qui de son non est honor^e. 
 
 I. The Author's Environment and Character. 
 
 Such a passage as that quoted above is usually thought to 
 determine the writer's home. It may be so taken here. Our 
 poet's general environment then was urbs antiqua Senonum, the 
 Canterbury of France. The abbey of St. Pierre-le-Vif was his 
 more particular environment. He was a Benedictine monk. The 
 reference to the monastery seems all the more decisive for the reason 
 that the poet says nothing of the many other religious foundations 
 in Sens, a city which at the time was probably unsurpassed in 
 France as an ecclesiastical centre, being popularly called '' little 
 Rome." ^ For instance, he does not mention the depository of St. 
 Loup's relics, the abbey of St. Columba. But he chooses to give the 
 names of the less conspicuous St. Pierre-le-Vif and its traditional 
 founders, SS. Savinian and Potentian.^ One reason for this choice 
 may be the desire to exalt especially the earliest heralds of the 
 Gospel ; but the stronger reason must be the local pride of the poet, 
 as member of a community that held them in special honor. The 
 proverb holds good here : Chescuns prestres ses reliques loue. 
 
 Accepting this theory, everything becomes of interest and import- 
 ance that concerns Sens and the abbey St. Pierre-le-Vif, as they 
 were in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Among the documents 
 that afford us light on the subject are chronicles of the two 
 
 ^Its archbishop, until the fourteenth century, claimed the title "primate of 
 France," as an equal of the archbishop of Lyons. 
 
 * The bells cast at Auxerre by Mangin Vyard in 1560 and still hanging in the south 
 tower of the Sens cathedral, St. Etienne, are called Savinienne et Potentienne. But the 
 poet's monastery was demolished at the time of the Kevolution, tho its name survives 
 in that of the east part of the present city, it is said. See Quantin's Dictionnaire 
 topographique de V Yonne, article Sens. 
 
THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 5 
 
 monasteries above mentioned. Tiie chronicler of St. Columba is 
 anonymous ; but two monks, known to us by name, Odorannus and 
 Clarius, separated by a century, wrote of St. Pierre-le-Vif. The 
 former recites at length the recovery, thru a dream of Queen 
 Constance, King Robert's wife, in 1025, of the precious relics, 
 hidden and forgotten at the time of the Norman invasion, genera- 
 tions before. In both chronicles abundant proof is afforded of the 
 reverence in which SS. Savinian and Potentian were held by the 
 people of Sens and by the monks of St. Pierre-le-Vif. Indeed the 
 monastery is sometimes called by the names of St. Peter and St. 
 Savinian^ joined together. The chronicle of Clarius, who wrote 
 early in the. twelfth century, has considerable interest for us. He 
 describes with unusual intelligence and enthusiasm several of the 
 chief ecclesiastical events of his own time, which he witnessed or 
 participated in. Yet he keeps himself in the background, barely 
 mentioning his own name in narrating what was probably his 
 proudest achievement : namely, his service as substitute for the 
 Abbot Arnaldus and the Archbishop Daimbert on an occasion of 
 great moment for the community. After narrating the abbot's 
 efforts in defence of the monastery, endangered in its rights by 
 grasping neighbors, Clarius ends his chronicle by reciting his chief's 
 labors for the library. This had been almost destroyed by fire in 
 1095, shortly before his election as abbot. He made it his task 
 to preserve and multiply the books of the monastery, and to devise 
 means for their preservation thenceforward. In order to more fully 
 render this important service he finally resigned his high position. 
 The collection due so largely to his efforts consisted, in the year 
 1123, of twenty volumes, a catalog of which the chronicle gives. 
 This loyal tribute of Clarius to his abbot, and the book-list, form 
 the conclusion.^ 
 
 'See Duru's Bibliothhque historique de P Yonne, ii, 294-314, 564-566; Fassio SS. 
 Samniani et Potentiani, sociorumque eorum, etc. ; charters of Pope Honorius II, 
 Archbishop Eicher, Hugues and Constance of Champagne. Cf. also the chronicle 
 of Clarius, annis 1108, 1110, 1117. Savinian appears to enjoy a sort of primacy as 
 compared with his traditional companions. In the Grande Encyclopedic, under the 
 article Savinien, M. Prou treats the entire group. 
 
 ^See Histoire litteraire de la France, xiii, 38; Duru's Bibliothique historique de 
 V Yonne, ii, Chron. Clarii, anno 1123 ; D'Ach^ry, Spicilegium, ii, 484, 485. 
 
6 THE ERUGTAVIT, AN OLD FKENCH POEM. 
 
 It is reasonable to assume that library ecouomy so pious and 
 strenuous as that of Arnaldus ^ was effective in preserving and 
 enlarging the monastery's store of books. If so, those listed in 
 1123 by Clarius, and others beside were accessible to our writer 
 when, some fifty years later, lie sought material of which to weave 
 his poem. 
 
 In the collection listed in 1123, next to the various books of the 
 Bible (which are given in the order required for reading during 
 the year), the works of Gregory the Great are most prominent. In 
 fact there was a complete set of his expository writings, excepting 
 only the Homilies on Ezekiel and the latter half of the Moralia in 
 Job, The three works now regarded as spurious are not mentioned. 
 Probably the missing works are more than compensated for by the 
 work which Clarius numbers viii, to which the simple title Paterius 
 is given. This must have been the compilation by Paterius, disciple 
 of Gregory the Great, of the latter's Bible quotations and comments 
 thereon, iisually called the Liber Testimoniorum. Only one work of 
 Augustine is in the list, the Tractatus in Episiolam Johannis. It 
 is the third of the collection, and is mentioned among the volumes 
 of Scripture. In the fourth volume mention is begun of Gregory's 
 works. 
 
 There is no record of fire again destroying the abbey of St. Pierre- 
 le-Vif within the period that especially concerns us. In 1147, to 
 be sure, the abbot Herbertus (altho with Theobaldus, abbot of St. 
 Columba, he had enlisted for Louis VII's crusade) was killed by an 
 uprising of townspeople. His successor, Gerardus, introduced the 
 Cluny regulations, probably insuring better discipline during his 
 rule, which ended in 1167 by resignation. In his time and in the 
 next twenty years occur events which must have brought to the 
 knowledge, and even before the eyes, of our poet some of the 
 greatest personages of the time : the King of France, the Count of 
 
 'The words of Clarius make it plain that the rules of Arnaldus were really 
 enforced : Excommunicavit enim omnes indifferenter qui aliquem vel aliquos 
 suscriptorum librorum, vel venderent, vel accommodarent, vel aliqiio modo efficerent, 
 quo ecclesia perderet, et librum non rehaberet. Ipse enim Deo optulit, et qua 
 custodia potuit munivit. Duru's work, cited above, Chron. Clani, anno 1123. 
 
THE EBUCTAVIT, AN* OLD FRENCH POEM. 7 
 
 Champagne, the Archbishop of Sens, Pope Alexander III and 
 Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, The two great princes 
 of the church last named were exiles, being in controversy with 
 the two most powerful monarchs of their generation, Frederick 
 Barbarossa and Henry II of England. 
 
 The Archbishop of Sens, whose suffragans were among the most 
 powerful prelates of northern France (four of them within the 
 dominions of the house of Champagne), was at this time Hugues 
 de Toucy.^ He had presided over the Council of Beaugency in 
 1152 at which was pronounced the sentence of divorce releasing 
 Louis VII from his wife Eleanor. He anointed this King's second 
 and third queens, Constance in 1154, and Adela or Alix of Cham- 
 pagne in 1160. In the latter year were found the remains of 
 SS. Potentian and Altin,^ — of St. Savinian too, says Gulielmus 
 Godellus, — by the same energetic primate, to whom are attributed 
 five other inventions.^ 
 
 His successor in 1168 was Guillaume aux Blanches-Mains, a 
 shining example of the high-born boy-bishop of the time,^ a younger 
 son of the house of Champagne, — splendidi^simus juvenls domnus, as 
 Gulielmus Godellus calls him, in recording his election in 1164 as 
 bishop of Chartres. Two years before, he had been chosen arch- 
 
 ^ See Recueil des historiens des Gaules el de la France, xir, 127. 
 
 * Yet it seems that some at least of the relics thus recovered did not long remain 
 the property of St. Pierre-le-Vif. For in 1167 Henri I of Champagne bought from 
 the monastery the bones of SS. Potentian and Altin in return for certain real estate 
 at Provins and Xaud. This sale was probably not known to the public. I have not 
 found it mentioned in any chronicle. The charter recording the transaction, how- 
 ever, is listed as no. 150 of the acts of Henri I : see D'Arbois de Jubainville, 
 Histoire, iii, pp. 181, 182, 353. It should be noted that Troyes, for whose cathedral 
 the pious count was collecting relics, has a locjil saint of the name Sabinian or 
 Savinian, so familiar at Sens. 
 
 At a later time some of the precious remains were claimed in yet another place. 
 For in 1218 it required a formal inquest, conducted by Peter of Corbeil, Archbishop 
 of Sens, in the presence of illustrious men, to prove unfounded the claims of the 
 Jouarre nuns to be in possession of all St. Savinian's relics. 
 
 *See Gallia Christiana, xii, 49 A ; Recueil des historiens, etc., xi:i, 677. 
 
 *Altho urged by the parents of Guillaume, St. Bernard refused to get for him 
 ecclesiastical preferment. See Morrison's St. Bernard, 432; D'Arbois, Histoire, ii, 
 464. 
 
8 THE ERUGTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 bishop of Lyons by the chapter which thought thus to strengthen 
 the Emperor's cause in France.^ But he never entered the office. 
 As archbishop of Sens and, after 1178, archbishop of Reims, papal 
 legate and cardinal, he rendered conspicuous service to his time. 
 His official relations (records of which in the form of letters and 
 charters are extant) with Thomas Becket, Pope Alexander III, 
 Louis VII, his brother-in-law, and Pliilip Augustus, are well 
 known. He asserted ecclesiastical control in and about Sens, 
 vesting the oversight of the ludus literarius in his precentor.^ He 
 fostered trade and learning, promoted the growth of the communes 
 in a way that served other towns as a model.^ But the chroniclers 
 say he was ambitious, and that not content with anointing Philip 
 Augustus in 1179 at Reims, he begrudged his successor Guy," 
 archbishop of Sens, the honor of crowning him at Paris in 1180. 
 At his solicitation, it is said, the Pope confirmed to the archbishop 
 of Reims the right to thus enthrone the King of France. 
 
 Prelates even more ambitious had at an earlier day drawn much 
 attention to Sens. Here from October 30, 1163, until Easter, 
 1165, Pope Alexander III resided, regis expends sustentus, forced 
 by the Emperor to seek refuge in France. About a year later the 
 exiled and fugitive Primate of England, Thomas Becket, began his 
 long stay at the monastery of St. Columba, whose shelter he left 
 only a few months before returning to his post of danger and death. 
 While at Sens or in the vicinity, he must have received from John 
 of Salisbury, a fellow exile but a gentler spirit, the letter advising 
 a change in his reading matter : the Psalms and the Morals of 
 St. Gregory instead of canon law and scholastic philosophy.* 
 
 The king of France was often seen and his power was felt in 
 Sens. Louis VI in 1121, speaking as "the eldest son of the 
 
 ^ Henri I, count of Champagne, his older brother, was at the time wavering between 
 Pope Alexander III and the Emperor. The latter' s candidate for the papacy, or the 
 anti-pope Octavian, was besides a kinsman of Henri. See D'Arbois, Histoire, iii, 
 47-54; Fournier, Boyaume d' Aries, etc., 42. 
 
 ^See Gallia Christiana, xii, 52. 
 
 'D'Arbois, Histoire, iii, 185, 237, 272; iv, 393, 705, 716. 
 
 *See Epistola 138, anno 1165, Migne, cxcix, 117, 118. 
 
THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FKENCH POEM. 9 
 
 Church," made an effective protest against the Pope's purpose to , 
 render the ancient see of Sens dependent on Lyons.' In the 
 forty-three years of his reign Louis VII made the town a score 
 of visits,^ In 1146 he punished unsparingly the uprising that had 
 killed the Abbot Herbertus. Ten years later he renounced in favor 
 of the see of Sens the droit de dipouilks which at the archbishop's 
 death had been wont to cause annoyance and oppression. 
 
 But in its ordinary life Sens felt more directly and strongly the 
 influence of the counts of Champagne. The geographical position 
 of the town in part explains this fact. Situated in the extreme 
 southeast of the king's dominions, it was on a sort of narrow 
 peninsula (the lower Yonne valley) in the sea of territory belonging 
 to the count of Champagne or to those who owned him as suzerain. 
 These, at the time that concerns us, were chiefly the numerous and 
 energetic children of Thibaut II : three sous and four daughters. 
 Deduction is made for the prelate, Guillaume aux Blanches-Mains, 
 Queen Alix (both of whom, however, stood strongly for family 
 interests). Marguerite, nun of Fontevrault, and Marie, the oldest 
 sister, who retired thither and became abbess after the death of her 
 husband, Eudes II, and the minority of her son, Hugues III of 
 Burgundy. The fiefs of the family,^ now called after Champagne 
 rather than Blois, lay in nineteen of the present departments 
 of France, and were greater in extent and power than the royal 
 dominions. These they enclosed on all but the northwest side. 
 The main traveled roads of the region led to Sens. The six annual 
 fairs of Champagne (two each at Provins and Troyes, one each at 
 Bar-sur-Aube and Lagny) brought thousands of merchants and their 
 goods. The counts of Champagne guaranteed safe passage, and acted 
 vigorously to punish robbery on the way thither, even when it 
 occurred on the king's highway. Besides, the archbishop of Sens 
 was one of the few overlords to whom the counts owed fealty.* 
 
 At four of these fairs of Champagne the monks of St. Pierre-le- 
 
 1 Luchaire, Actes de Louis VI, anno 1121. 
 
 " Luchaire, Actes de Louis VII, table of charters. 
 
 'D'Arbois, Histoire, ii, 428. 
 
 * Ibidem, iv, 884, 887. 
 
10 THE ERUOTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 Vif had enjoyed, we know not how long, an important commercial 
 privilege {le poids). They were the official weighers. This privilege 
 was confirmed to the monastery in 1174 by Henri I in a charter still 
 extant.^ 
 
 In the war between Queen Constance and her son, Henri I, in 
 1031, one half of the town Sens was given to Eudes I of Champagne. 
 The abbey St. Pierre-le-Vif w^as included in the cession. When 
 peace was made, the count yielded possession. But the right of 
 lodgement, the droit de gite, enjoyed probably ever after by the counts 
 of Champagne,^ remained as a survival of the brief ownership. This 
 right entitled the count and his train to free entertainment once a 
 year. One can see what interest on both sides must have arisen 
 from the exercise of this right during four or five generations. It 
 goes far towards explaining why our poet should write for the 
 countess of Champagne. 
 
 Henri T and his wife were thoroughly representative of their 
 time. When only twenty years old. Count Henri went on the 
 Second Crusade. At the request of St. Bernard, whose letter of 
 recommendation he bore, he was knighted by Manuel, Emperor of 
 Constantinople.^ By his conduct in the crusade he won the praise of 
 Louis VII. He afterwards participated too vigorously in knightly 
 tournaments, incurring but disregarding the rebuke of St. Bernard.* 
 His many gifts to religious establishments' were in those years 
 earning him the title of "the Liberal." In 1179 he went a second 
 time on crusade. Immediately before his departure two of his 
 four children, named like their parents Marie and Henri, were 
 betrothed to the house of Hainaut. His return from Palestine 
 occurred in the spring of 1181. He stopped on the way at Sens, 
 where he met the young king Philip Augustus, and died at Troyes, 
 March 1 6, a few days later. During his stay at Sens he may have 
 
 ^ D'Arbois, Hisfoire, iii, 367, charter 230; also chap. 8 of the same volume; 
 Morrison's St. Bernard, 139. 
 'D'Arbois, Histoire, i, 146, 310-314; iv, 620, 621. 
 ^D'Arbois, Histoire, in, 14. 
 *D'Arbois, Histoire, in, 18, 22. 
 ^Ibidem, 172-176. 
 
THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FEENCH POEM. U 
 
 claimed his right of lodgement at St. Pierre-le-Vif ; but of this 
 there is no evidence. 
 
 Charter 326, however, is proof that Marie respected her deceased 
 husband's wishes.' She was seconded also in so doing by his brother, 
 the archbishop Guillaume of Reims. The charter in question 
 promised to the Laugres cathedral an annual gift of thirty livres, to 
 be taken from the fair of Bar-le-Duc. The gift was in fulfilment of 
 a vow made by Henri while a prisoner in the hands of the Turks, 
 who had captured him as he returned from Palestine. He was 
 released by the influence of the Emperor of Constantinople. 
 
 Altho Count Henri I was by no means indiifereut to literary 
 culture, he does not seem to have encouraged composition in the 
 vernacular.^ This honor, both by history and tradition, is awarded 
 to his wife, the Countess Marie. Chretien de Troyes acknowledges 
 her encouragement and suggestions. Poets less famous shared her 
 patronage or at least addressed their works to her.' 
 
 The year 1164 might at first thought seem to present the most 
 fitting occasion for oifering to the countess what claims to be the 
 translation of an epithalamium, a ehamjon de chambre, as it is called 
 in 1. 2075. For in that year Marie became the wife of Henri I 
 of Champagne. But there is no proof of this early date. The 
 absence of all allusion in the Eruetavit to this eminent crusader aud 
 benefactor of the Church argues that he was no longer alive when 
 the poem was made public. 
 
 There is perhaps some internal evidence for a much later date. 
 It is the passage, 11. 1910-1960, where David comforts the Church, 
 the Queen of the allegory, for her children who had died as 
 martyrs. There would appear some fitness in a reference to the 
 death of Marie's crusader son, Henri II, who was killed, probably 
 
 ' Ibidem, 109, 383. 
 
 ^ The direction of his literary interest is shown probably by the name, Scholastique, 
 given to one of his daughters. She became the wife of Guillaume, count of Macon. 
 Guiot of Proving addresses him in song. This poet also (after a worldly life and a 
 brief experience of the Cistercian order) was a Benedictine. See D'Arbois, Histoire, 
 III, 188-208 ; iv, 657, 677 ; Histoire litleraire de la France, xviii, 808. 
 
 'See G. Paris, Romania, xii, 523 ; D'Arbois, Histoire, iv, 634-660. 
 
12 THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 by accident, at Acre, September 10, 1197, six months before his 
 mother died at Meaux. His official position, as titular King of 
 Jerusalem, rendered his death a serious loss to the Christian cause 
 in the East. Pope Innocent III, altho regarding Henri as an 
 adulterer and his tragic end as a divine judgment, wrote to the 
 archbishops of Reims and Sens, and to the bishop of Meaux, 
 urging that comfort and protection be extended to Marie. She 
 died without receiving either,^ and without seeing the completion 
 of the devout poem, la Gen^e, which Evrat was preparing for her. 
 Probably she never saw the Eructavit, if it was begun after the 
 death of Henri II. But there is strong probability, I think, of 
 an earlier date. 
 
 For the passage containing an apparent reference to her bereave- 
 ment, 11. 1910-1960, finds sufficient motive in the death of Henri I, 
 her husband, in 1181. He too was really a victim of the crusade, — 
 his family connection furnished many,^ — and therefore, according 
 to current opinion, he was a martyr of the faith. The poet's 
 opportunity then was, most probably, this bereavement, which came 
 only about a year after the death of her father. King Louis VII. 
 Even at an earlier date Marie, perhaps, had shown inclination for 
 a more devout life.^ The cares of administration and repeated 
 negociations for the marriages of her children were among her 
 burdens even before the death of Henri I. The outlay caused by 
 his last crusade, involving probably his ransom from captivity, will 
 explain the poet's expression, in 11. 3-14, of solicitude lest he and 
 others suffer in consequence of her generous expenditure. 
 
 This passage, already quoted on p. 2, is probably more than a 
 
 ^ In her last days she was without the presence of the confessor for whom she had 
 sent. He arrived too late, and found that the servants had pillaged the palace, 
 neglecting and even treating with indignity the lady's corpse. See Histoire litteraire, 
 XVI, 439; D'Arbois, Histoire, iv, 157. 
 
 ^Between 1181 and 1197 the crusades by battle and disease took the lives of 
 Henri I; his brothers, Thibaut of Blois, "last seneschal of the King of France," 
 and Etienne of Sancerre ; his nephew, Hugues III of Burgundy ; his son, Henri II ; 
 Philip of Flanders, second patron of Chretien of Troyes and ally of the Champagne- 
 Blois family. 
 
 ' See W. Foerster, Cliges, x, in Bomanische Bibliothek, i. 
 
c ^'^ 
 
 THE ERUGTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 13 
 
 poet's conventional request for a reward. The generosity for which 
 the lady is complimented may well have increased her financial 
 straits. They were to become more severe during her second 
 regency.^ 
 
 All the conditions, however, required by the dedication of a 
 devout poem to Marie of Champagne and implied in the lines last 
 quoted seem to exist soon after the death of Count Henri I in 
 March, 1181. 
 
 The most fitting occasion for presenting the poem to the widowed 
 countess in person occurred, I think, in 1185. For at the end of 
 that year, — in the Advent season, a fitting time for the appearance 
 of a Christmas psalm, such as the poet claims (11. 1 5 ff.) to have 
 made, — she was at Sens, honorably received by King Philip 
 Augustus in a conference that included also her brothers-in-law, 
 Archbishop Guillaume of Reims, Count Etienne of Sancerre, Count 
 Thibaut the Good of Blois, and their nephew, Hugues III of 
 Burgundy.^ The conference was for the purpose of reconciling the 
 king with the powerful Champagne family which had long been in 
 opposition, having taken the side of Philip of Flanders in his 
 quarrel with his former ward. On Mariie's side especially there 
 was much to forget; for the young king had married Elizabeth 
 of Hainaut, altho she had long been betrothed to Marie's son 
 Henri II. But a reconciliation was effected. We may regard as one 
 of the incidents of this occasion the presentation of the Eructavit by 
 its writer to the Countess Marie. Yet the point is one that cannot 
 be proved absolutely. The probability of this earlier date, 1185, 
 seems to me the greater, altho it must be granted that no year 
 between 1181 and 1198, the year of Marie's death, can be fixed 
 upon with certainty. 
 
 The poet's character, his mental furnishing and his purpose appear 
 
 ^The financial demands made on Champagne for Henri IPs seven years (1190- 
 1197) in the Holy Land were doubtless very great. Some of his debts (and his 
 mother's, incurred in his behalf) were assumed by his brother, Thibaut III. Henri 
 II had raised a great sum before his departure by the aide, an extraordinary levy 
 intended for such a crisis. See D'Arbois, Histoire, iv, 70, 86, 97 ; v, charter 459. 
 
 *See D'Arbois, if isfotr-e, v, 6, 9. 
 
14 THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 quite plainly in his. prod action. His expression is labored and trite 
 at times, but he always utters devout thought and usually in bib- 
 lical terms. The selection of a psalm as a theme is not surprising 
 in a Benedictine. The Eructavit is in general such a poem as one 
 would expect from a monk possessing some literary skill and 
 ambition with a desire to edify and admonish. He is not servile in 
 his manner of address, but rather magnifies his office as interpreter 
 of divine things. He turns, as he alleges, a Latin original into the 
 vernacular that it may be completely understood, " unless folly 
 deceive." His work is to arrange it and turn it into rime : 
 
 LI. 15-20. LI. 139-144. 
 
 Le jor de Noel au matin De latin I'a an romanz traite 
 
 Nos dist sainte eglise an latin Au miauz qu'il puet oil qui I'afaite. 
 
 Le saume que je vos comanz ; Oiant toz bons clers, dist il bien 
 
 Metre le vos vuel an romanz, Qu'il n'i a antrepris de rien 
 
 Si porroiz prandre que que soit, Fors la androit ou rime faut, 
 
 Se folic ne vos deyoit. S'i met le mot qui autant vaut. 
 
 This would imply that the lady needs a translator, and the following 
 passages, that she is to hear rather than read for herself : 
 
 LI. 1749, 1750. LI. 1687, 1688. 
 
 Cist vers apres conte la joie, Qui bien orroit et antandroit 
 
 S'est bien droiz que ma dame I'oie. Que cist vers conte ci androit . . . 
 
 The writer conforms to the literary conventions of his time. The 
 beginning of the poem especially, 11. 7-14, is after the manner of a 
 minstrel addressing a patron, and hints, as already shown, that 
 remuneration is expected. He even attributes to David, joculator 
 Dei, at heaven's gate, a similar request in 11. 235-238 : 
 
 Juglerre sui, sages et duiz ; Ce sai je bien que les sodees 
 
 Se le roi plaisoit mes deduiz, Me seroient mout granz donees. 
 
 He employs a current literary fiction also in claiming to be merely 
 a translator, as I shall try to show. Another characteristic of 
 medieval clerical literature is the vision, such as David begins at I. 
 159. 
 
THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FEENCH POEM. 15 
 
 Nowhere does our poet speak of having renounced a worldly life 
 for the service of religion, a change so common in his day. He 
 seems one content with his circumscribed lot, who, however, looks out 
 from the seclusion of the monastery upon the great world with 
 intelligence and interest. Tho himself devout and single-hearted, he 
 knows that not all are worthy in the high places of state, or even in 
 church and cloister.' He possesses some simple wisdom and utters 
 it in quotable form : 
 
 LI. 591, 592. LI. 601, 602. 
 
 Mout sent la menue jant lie La ou droiz et justise dure 
 
 Quant lor princes a d'aus pitie. Est la terre sauve et seiire. 
 
 LI. 1273, 1274. LI. 1291, 1292. 
 
 Quant jantis euers a Deu s'adrece. Car se ce que Deu plaist ne fait 
 Lors est doble la jantilece. Qui plus i puet, plus i mesfait. 
 
 LI. 1305, 1306. LI. 1499, 1500. 
 
 Amez Deu et justise et pais, Qui le mal fait et le bien faint 
 
 Si regneroiz a toz jorz mais. Ne dessert mie que Deus Taint. 
 
 In 11. 733, 734 he makes a pun, by merely omitting a letter : 
 
 Mout devriens avoir Tare chier, 
 Et mout devons amer I'archier. 
 
 Observe the parallelism in the above quotation and in the 
 following one, 11. 1170—1172, where chiasm also appears: 
 
 Qui leaute aime et covoite, 
 Qui het pechie et felonie 
 Bien doit avoir haute baillie. 
 
 Our writer is alive to the etymological meaning of words : 
 
 LI. 1196, 1197. Jhesu Criz an estes nomez : 
 Ce est sauverres ancresmez. 
 
 ^ The passage, 11. 1509-1540, is too long for quotation, 
 
16 THE ERUCTAVJT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 The following lines, 777, 778, occur after a couplet containing 
 the names of SS. Savinian and Potentian : 
 
 Selon lor nons la vertu orent, 
 Qu'anbedui sorent mout et porent. 
 
 A proverb appears to receive a new turn in 11. 1511, 1512 : 
 
 N'est mais esposee le roi, 
 Qu'an son anel n'a que le doi. 
 
 In an earnest passage upon the duty of earthly rulers and the 
 shortness of life, an unusual word is used, aergie or cergUe, to 
 express the duration or time of a taper's burning. It is not found 
 in Godefroy, nor have I found it elsewhere : 
 
 LI. 1297, 1298. Vie d'ome est si abregiee 
 
 Que ce n'est mes qu'une cergiee. 
 
 We see in many other places also not a little skill and some 
 originality. Yet we cannot claim for him a high place among 
 poets. His limitations are plain. Nevertheless, tho his art and 
 esprit de suite are open to criticism, we cannot withold admiration 
 for something far more important. He shows courage and humanity 
 in standing for an unpopular cause : toleration for the Jew and the 
 Turk. The passage, 11. 839-848, deserves quotation : 
 
 Deus comanda, n'an dotez mie, A que nos alons au besoing. 
 
 Des Jueus que nus nes ocie ; Autretel peons des Turs dire : 
 
 Ainz les laissons autre nos vivre, Por ce les suefre uostre Sire, 
 
 Per ce qu'an lor loi sent li livre Qu'a aus peons nes apar9eivre 
 
 De nostre foi et li tesmoing De quel vilt€ nos. somes soivre. 
 
 Attentive reading of the Eructavit affords no means of identifying 
 the writer. We must continue to call him, as did Prosper Tarb6, 
 VAnonyme de St. Pierre-le-Vif. We must grant that he shares the 
 current thought of his age in speaking of /i Juif contralieus, 11. 127— 
 133, and of the caviling Jew in 11. 1158-1179. But it is a pleasure 
 to be able to credit him with sentiments of toleration so far in 
 advance of his time. 
 
THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FKENCH POEM. 17 
 
 II. The Poem's Contents and PlaSt. 
 
 In the outline here oifered, three things are sought : to state in 
 order the themes and substance of the various divisions ; to give in 
 their places the verses or phrases of the Latin Psalm which serve 
 as headings in most of the manuscripts ; to note the number of lines 
 in each division. 
 
 The address to the patroness and the announcement of the poet's 
 purpose : to turn from Latin into Romance the Psalm that the 
 Church says on Christmas day in the morning. LI. 1-20. 
 
 Introduction, first part : David as a minstrel at heaven's gate, 
 desiring to celebrate the Incarnation. 
 
 As a king, preparing for his son's marriage, sends word to his 
 lords and causes minstrels to sing and play, so God by the prophets 
 heralded the coming of his Son. 
 
 David, one of the prophets, composed this song. He offered 
 himself as jongleur long before the marriage of God and the Church, 
 announced by the angel Gabriel. David, sitting like a real penitent, 
 was given a vision. An angel led him to heaven's door, but it was 
 closed by Adam's fall. Abashed, yet eager to enter, David, instead 
 of calling, plays his viol and begins this song : " JEructavit cor meum 
 verbum bonum ; dioo ego opera mea regV LI. 21-204. 
 
 Introduction, second part : Dialog between David, asking entrance 
 and offering his song, and a Voice from within, refusing. 
 
 "If admitted, I should play the viol, with the words, and receive 
 great reward from the King : " 
 
 * Lingua mea calamus scribae, velociter scribentis.' 
 
 " Tell me not to write it. The tongue, impelled by the heart, will 
 express it better . . . Let me wait at the door till the King come 
 forth .... Open the door a little, that I may look in." 
 
 The angel lifts him up. He finds heaven's door open. With joy 
 
18 THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 beyond compare he gazes in at the marriage, prepares his viol, draws 
 the bow and begins the words, singing of the King and the Queen 
 nine verses each. LI. 205-366. 
 
 The King's beauty. 
 
 Speciosus forma pre filiis hominum. 
 
 Fairer than any creature are you, O King. In this beauty is 
 spiritual might. 
 
 Diffusa est gratia in labiis tuis. 
 
 Beautiful is your mouth ; your voice, comforting and persuasive. 
 
 Propterea benedixit te Deus in eternum. 
 
 Beautiful shall you be in the manger, at your baptism in the 
 Jordan, in your miracles, in blessing the bread, on Calvary, at the 
 resurrection and ascension. LI. 367—488. 
 
 The King's sword and its power. 
 
 Accingere gladio tuo super femur tuum, potentissime. 
 
 David longs to see accomplished what God has decreed, and begs 
 the King to take without delay his sword. This has power to separate 
 the sinner from his sin, even from hatred. LI. 489-544. 
 
 David's praise of the King's twofold beauty. 
 
 Specie tua et pulchritudine tua. 
 
 His sinless, human beauty draws to him all the world.* His 
 divine beauty sustains angels and feeds saints. His sweetness, — 
 for him to whom God gives to see it, — infinitely surpasses worldly 
 joy. LI. 545-564. 
 
 David's appeal to the King to begin his reign. 
 
 Intende, prospere, procede et regna. 
 
 David appeals coaxingly to the King : " All men great and small 
 desire your coming. We, your messengers, have summoned angels, 
 men, and all the world to praise you." LI. 565-586. 
 
 The King's three marks or attributes. 
 
 Propter veritatem et viansuetudinem et justitiam; et deducet te 
 mirahiliter dexter a tua. 
 
 David reminds the King of his truthfulness, his pity and justice. 
 "You have promised to keep your covenant with Israel. Your 
 
THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 19 
 
 second mark is pity, shown to the humble and penitent. Relying on 
 your third manner, we pray that justice be dgne us upon the devil, 
 who overpowers or cajoles us sinners. LI. 587-668. 
 
 The King's bow and arrows. 
 
 Sagittae tuae acutae, populi sub te cadent, in corda inimicorum regis. 
 
 David has delayed speaking of the King's arrows and of his 
 bended bow. In this verse he teaches their meaning. 
 
 The wood of the bow was the Old Law. The King itiade it mild. 
 He put on the string, the Gospel, which bends the Law to send forth 
 the arrows, the apostles. 
 
 From Jerusalem the King shoots all about to fulfil his truth. To 
 Lombardy and Rome he shoots St. Peter and St. Paul ; to France, 
 right to Sens, two arrows, St. Savinian and St. Potentian. He shot 
 everywhere. All the earth, from the sunrise to Ireland, was 
 conquered. But the Turks and Jews he left. " Many an evil he 
 suffered for our good." LI. 669-874. 
 
 The King's throne and scepter. 
 
 Sedes tua, Deus, in seculum seculi : virga direetionis virga regni tui. 
 
 The throne stood on four firm feet in the fairest spot of paradise. ( 
 A mighty baron holds each foot, supporting the king and bearing 
 him about : Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel. At their sides, four 
 beasts, each having form according to his senefiance. These are the 
 evangelists : Matthew by Isaiah, Luke by Jeremiah, Mark by Daniel, 
 John by Ezekiel. 
 
 Now let us hear how the King has himself carried about. He is 
 seated in the Holy Church, which wishes to endure and fight till 
 judgment day. These prophets and evangelists make the King 
 kuown to all ages. 
 
 The King's scepter is his justice. It is the guiding rod wherewith 
 the father chastises the son whom he loves. LI. 875-1163. 
 
 The righteous King anointed. David addresses him. 
 
 Dilexisti justitiam, et odisti iniquitatem : propterea unxit te Deus, 
 Deus tuns, oleo laetitiae prae consortibus tuis. 
 
 The honor of the crowning is the lofty theme. A caviling question 
 of the Jew is answered in scripture by David : lordship and honor 
 
20 THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 are his who loves fealty, hates sin and baseness. Therefore the Son 
 of God is exalted above angels and men. 
 
 Of this David speaks : " O Lord, who love righteousness and hate 
 iniquity, God who fills you with his grace anoints you with the Holy 
 Spirit as Savior and King." LI. 1164-1209. 
 
 The King's perfumed garments and the royal handmaids. 
 Mirra, el gutia, et cassia a vestimentis tuis, a domibus ehurneis: 
 ex quihus delectaverunt tejiliae regum in honore tuo. 
 
 The rich attire, shaped by the Holy Spirit and given to the King 
 by the Queen, was the human form that he took in Our Lady. The 
 sweetness that David smells, the wedding guests receive instead of 
 spiced wine (jjimant). 
 
 The myrrh signifies the death which Jesus Christ suffered in 
 human form, restoring us to life. 
 
 The balm shows the anointing of the resurrection day. 
 
 The cassia, which thrives in watery places, signifies the true cross 
 which has such power in baptism. 
 
 These odors, issuing from the King's garments, draw the soul 
 to adore this Lord so loving. Therefore, David says, noble ladies 
 and maidens hold his service an honor. Nobility is doubled when 
 devoted to God, and baseness is ennobled. 
 
 Those who have power, skill of mind, should do what pleases God. 
 For you who hold dominion Solomon the king, divinely inspired, 
 wrote a counsel: "man's life is a taper's duration;" power is a trust 
 which will be continued to the worthy forever. LI. 1210-1315. 
 
 The lovely Queen in her beauteous garments. 
 
 Ahstitit regina a dexteris tuis in vestitu de aurato : circumdata 
 varietate. 
 
 David has spoken of the King's weapons, apparel and beauty. 
 He now speaks of the Queen at his side. She is to him as dawn 
 to sun. Her ornaments excel all that heart can conceive. The 
 King looks fondly upon her. In him she sees her sole delight. 
 
 When David sees this divinely prepared marvel and this joy, he 
 determines to sing of the Queen, counseling her to hold fast the joy 
 that it be not lost. LI. 1316-1351. 
 
THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FKENCH POEM. 21 
 
 David's fatherly admonition to the Church. 
 
 Avdi, jilia, et vide, et indina aurem tuam: et obliviscere populum 
 tuum, et domum patns tui. 
 
 David speaks to the Church as to his daughter, in her instructing 
 every Christian soul. 
 
 " Hearken now, daughter. Believe what all the proplK:ts said, 
 promising thy Savior whose liege lady thou shouldst be." 
 
 " Daughter, before birth thou wast betrothed to him. See if God 
 has not done what he promised. Is there duke, king or count like 
 him who asks thy love? He maintains in their brightness sun, 
 moon and sky." 
 
 "Deceive not thy heart. Sincere love is all the King asks of 
 thee. Joyful must thou be, friend of the heavenly King. He has 
 dominion over all." LI. 1352-1472. 
 
 David's fatherly admonition to the Church, concluded. 
 
 Et concupiscet rex decorem tuum : quoniam ipse est Dominus, Dens 
 tuus, et adorabunt eum. 
 
 David, having instructed the Church how she must conduct 
 herself in tender love to the King, desires also to promise great 
 reward that she may cheerfully await his coming. 
 
 " Daughter, if thou love him, the King will love thee. The 
 Holy Spirit will be thy messenger. The Holy Spirit will bear thy 
 message to him. Be not false or feigned." 
 
 " Keep thyself from covetousness whereby the devil ensnares both 
 bishops and deacons. Simony will make thee a false wife whose 
 finger only is in the ring. If those who receive high places are 
 worthy men, then thy head will be fair and gentle to all the 
 humble." 
 
 "Tho the King delay, fear not; guard thine honor. If erring, 
 fear not to return. For by Jeremiah God assures thee that he is 
 not proud and cruel as men of the world are." LI. 1473-1620. 
 
 Honor to Mary the Virgin. 
 
 Et jiliae Tyri in muneribus vultum tuum deprecabuntur : omnes 
 divites plebis. 
 
 David foresaw that Saint Mary would be honored and adored. 
 
22 THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 " You, who shall be both daughter aud mother of God, lady high 
 and glorious," says he, " save virginity unimpaired. Nature obeys 
 God. An uncorrupted Man shall be born, the Holy Spirit over- 
 shadowing." LI. 1 621-1 6G8. 
 
 The Holy Lady's adornments. 
 
 Omnis gloria ejus Jiliae regis ah intus, in fimbriis aureis cir- 
 cumamicta varietatibus. 
 
 This verse shows that the Holy Maid was exceeding fair. In her 
 heart, prized by the King above all else, are her ornaments. Good 
 thoughts, prompting good deeds, are her jewels. LI. 1669—1694. 
 
 Adducentur regi virgines post earn : proximae ejus ufferentur tibi. 
 
 Digression : David's portrayal of judgment ; his warning against 
 pride (53 lines). — The King and Our Lady's glorious train (7 
 lines). — Digression : the poet's address to the patroness (4 lines). 
 
 LI. 1695-1760. 
 
 The King and Queen attended with joy by angels and the 
 saved. The manner of the resurrection. The cause of the angels' 
 joy. The happiness of the saved and their crowns. 
 
 Afferentur in laetitia et exultatione : adducentur in templum regis. 
 
 By a likeness that David narrates we can understand the great 
 joy that God gives to his own. In this world, when the crown is 
 to be assumed, the king and queen are escorted by lords and people 
 with rejoicing. Such joy as the queen then feels the saved shall 
 have in God's presence. 
 
 Say not that I imagine it. For each soul shall have nine angels 
 to embrace and carry him about. 
 
 On that high Saturday angels shall go forth seeking souls, 
 clothing them in bodies, bringing them with joy before God, whose 
 train shall thus be made full. 
 
 The angels will rejoice because of God's work and pity : He has 
 become of our race and has welcomed us as brothers. 
 
 The saved shall not delay serving and honoring him. They shall 
 have crowns of diflPerent flowers, each as he deserves. Crowns of 
 precious stones they shall have, causing tlie wearer, — unlike kings of 
 this world, — no care, no war, no fear of death. LI. 1761-1904. 
 
THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 23 
 
 The Queen's offspring; the martyrs of the Church. 
 
 Pro patribus tuis nati sunt tibi jilii: constitues eos priiicipes super 
 omnem terram. 
 
 You must set the table for the spiritual feast : David, joyful and 
 divinely inspired, sings three beautiful verses. He goes within, 
 delighted. He determines to sing of the Queen's sons, comfort- 
 ing her. 
 
 " With deadly anguish you saw them slain. Now they are lords 
 of paradise, noble martyrs, holy apostles. Like the pains of her 
 who bears a child are your sorrows at their sufferings, when they 
 despised this world." LI. 1905-1968. 
 
 Memory and gratitude in heaven. Blessed condition of the 
 saved. God their sustenance. Power and meaning of the sacra- 
 ment. Death overcome. 
 
 Memores erunt nominis tui in omni generatione et generationem. 
 
 All those in paradise will have in sense and in memory that 
 God has delivered them from destruction. Praise will be their 
 employment. Boundless knowledge, untrammeled power of motion, 
 no need of food, no bodily ill, shall be theirs. God will be their 
 food. The sacrament teaches this. "Death, now do whatsoever 
 thou canst, for thou thyself shalt die ! " LI. 1969-2050. 
 
 Universal praise to God. Joy surpassing thought. 
 
 Propterea populi conJUebuntur tibi in eternum ; et in seculum seculi. 
 
 David says that all will join in praising the Lord. Each one 
 utters " his good word in sweet melody," none saying too much or 
 too little. Of this joy and praise, which eye hath not seen nor ear 
 heard, the Apostle Paul tells us. LI. 2051-2079. 
 
 Closing words on the purpose of David's psalm, LI. 2080-2087. 
 
 Epilogue or final address to the patroness. LI. 2088-2109. 
 
 The added poem: the martyred Isaiah's thirst miraculously 
 quenched ; his efficacious prayer recommended ; the prayer, addressed 
 to the three Persons of the Trinity. LI. 2110-2177. 
 
24 THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 Nearly all the complete copies of the Eruetavit (mss. A, I, N, E, 
 C, D, F, G) end with this added poem, which follows the address 
 to the patroness without any apparent separation. It is lacking only 
 in MS. H and in the incomplete mss. K, J, L and M. The question 
 arises : Is it authentic ; that is, did the author include it in his 
 composition ? 
 
 Unfavorable to its authenticity are three circumstances, which, 
 however, admit of explanation : 
 
 First, line 2080, ci androit faut Eruetavit, may indicate, not the 
 end of the entire composition, but only the end of its main portion, 
 the poet's alleged translation of David's psalm. For his sense of 
 proportion leads him to end, as he had begun, with a brief statement, 
 11. 2071-2100, of the purpose of his composition and with an address 
 to his patroness. Last of all he puts wh^t is " in place of the 
 Gloria.'" 
 
 Second, the last and essential part of this addition, 11. 2131-2168, 
 the prayer or doxology without the narrative transition, is found 
 attached to another poem, a metrical version of Solomon's Song.^ 
 Of that composition, written probably between 1176 and 1181, only* 
 one copy exists, dating from the thirteenth century. The added poem 
 in question seems less likely to have originated there than here at the 
 close of the Eruetavit. For, altho this addition is in the same meter 
 as the body of the poem,. it is there preceded by another addition in 
 different meter, a version of the Stabat Mater. 
 
 Third, the first line, Une douce proiere i a, seems at first a 
 disclaimer of authorship. But the impersonal turn would appear 
 demanded by the riming word Gloria in the next line. 
 
 Favorable to its authenticity are the following circumstances, 
 which appear weightier, altho not perhaps decisive. 
 
 The triple division of the added poem (the divine names serving 
 as headings) would seem an attempt to conform this last part to the 
 main poem. 
 
 Further, this addition is found in all complete copies of the 
 Eruetavit except one, as stated above ; in other words, in two of the 
 
 'See Bonnard's Traductiona de la Bible en versfrangais au Moyen Age, 152-162. 
 
THE ERUGTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 25 
 
 three classes into which, as Professor T. A. Jenkins informs me, the 
 MSS. fall. Besides, the language shows general agreement with that 
 of the main poem. 
 
 Finally, the poet's words, 11. 2101-2102, 
 
 Une douce proiere i a 
 Qui est an leu de Gloria, 
 
 show that it is used with a purpose : it is to serve as the Gloria 
 after the psalm. The strength of his purpose appears in the 
 miraculous incident serving as transition,^ and renders him insensible 
 even to the anachronism of ascribing to the prophet Isaiah a prayer 
 that is in the Christian form. 
 
 I suggest therefore that not only the transition passage, 11. 2101- 
 2130 (the story of Isaiah's thirst miraculously quenched and the 
 recommendation of the prayer as efficacious), but also the prayer or 
 doxology that follows, 11. 2131-2168, should be considered at least 
 as included by compilation or adaptation in our poet's production, 
 perhaps even as original with him.^ 
 
 ^ The reader may judge of this by seeing the passage itself, 11. 2101-2120, which is 
 here quoted : 
 
 Une douce proiere i a 
 
 Qui est en leu de Gloria, 
 
 Si est estraite d'Ysaye, 
 
 Qui apela Deu en aie 
 
 Quant li crues rois Manasses 
 
 Qui par linage estoit ses nies 
 
 Le traist de Iherusalera fors 
 
 Si le sola parmi le cors. 
 
 Por le tormant qui graindre fust 
 
 La sie fist feire de fust. 
 
 En eel angoisse ou il estoit, 
 
 Quant li soierre s'arestoit 
 
 Prist le prophete une granz sois ; 
 
 Mes por ce que li cuiverz rois 
 
 Ne soffri qu'an li donast boivre, 
 
 Deu coman9a a remantoivre. 
 
 Par cez paroles le proia 
 
 Et Daraedes li anvoia 
 
 Un fil d'iaue devers le ciel, 
 
 Soef et douce come miel. 
 
 Si tot come il I'ot avalee 
 
 Si en fu I'ame a Deu alee. 
 
 This is immediately followed by a recommendation of the prayer, as still efficacious, 
 — " whoever on Friday mornings says it in Romance or in Latin, is never overtaken 
 by sin," — and then begins the prayer, Merci de moi, etc. 
 
 ' In his brief notice of the Madrid MS. , Bulletin de la Societe des anciens Textes 
 fran^ais, 1878, 50, P. Meyer quotes two passages of the Eructavit, the second of 
 which is from this added poem. 
 
26 THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FEENCH POEM. 
 
 In leaving this discussion of the poem's contents and plan we 
 must admit that the writer does not consistently adhere to his 
 purpose. This was, at the beginning, 11. 353—364, to represent 
 David as singing to the King and Queen in turn nine verses each. 
 
 He had the same Latin text of the Psalm, it seems, that the 
 printed copies of the Vulgate have coutaiaed since 1592. The 
 division into verses was practically the same. The first verse, altho 
 expounded at length by Augustiue and other commentators, our 
 writer leaves untouched, recognizing probably that it is merely a 
 title. From the two halves of the second verse he gets the headings 
 for his introduction, separating it into two parts. Then by dividing 
 verses 3 and 8 he is able to command the required number of verses 
 to serve as headings for the body of his poem. The verses are 
 sometimes distributed in phrases or clauses. In two cases more than 
 one verse is used as a heading We may grant that he has fulfilled 
 the purpose announced to use De chascun .ix. vers entiers, employing 
 rather freely, with a poet's license perhaps, his terms and his texts. 
 
 But the other part of his plan, direct address by David, he is far 
 from carrying out. He neglects it in about half of the poem, and 
 apparently contents himself with addressing the reader. In one 
 passage of transition, 11. 1749-1752, he addresses ma dame, the 
 patroness. Probably, however, it is the poet's skill that leads him 
 to avoid direct address in the long passages about the King's arrows, 
 11. 663-868, and throne, 11. 869-1154. Apostrophes of such length 
 would be difficult to manage. 
 
 At several points the poet indulges in a digression, as my outline 
 shows. In other places, toward the close, he introduces material 
 that seems irrelevant. But he thus rounds out a composition which 
 like many produced at that period, is not distinguished for organic 
 unity. On the other hand one omission on his part must be noted. 
 He fails to comment on one phrase of verse 9, a domibus ehurneis,^ 
 
 * The poet's failure to comment on this phrase indicates, I think, that he had not 
 within reach Jerome's exposition of Ps. xliv, ( wliich is also addressed to a lady). 
 Epistola LXV ad Principiam. For here the comment is so in the line of our poet's 
 quaint fancy that he would almost certainly have used it, if it had been known to him. 
 Jerome says : 
 
THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OI>D FRENCH POEM. 27 
 
 altho the heading contains it in all the complete copies and most 
 of the commentators explain it. In 1. 1578 an anachronism is 
 committed. Here David is made to quote Jeremiah, mentioning him 
 by name, contrary to the poet's custom. 
 
 III. The Materials of the Poem. 
 
 This part of my study was begun with the theory that the 
 Eructavit is a translation of some extended comment on Psalm xliv ; 
 that the poet's task was, as he says, 11. 15-20, 139-144, to turn 
 Latin into Romance verse. Search was therefore made for an 
 original among the earlier commentators. 
 
 The most important expositions of Psalm xliv, written before 
 our poet's time, are those of Augustine, Jerome, Cassiodorus, the 
 Venerable Bede, Haymo of Halberstadt, Radbertus Paschasius, 
 Bruno of Wiirzburg, Bruno of Koln or perhaps of Monte Cassino, 
 and Peter Lombard. These and many other authors of devout 
 works were consulted by me, but nothing like systematic translation 
 or paraphrase was found to have been made from them. Passages 
 here and there were identified, but to no great extent. 
 
 The first long passage of the Eructavit that I was able with 
 confidence to refer to an earlier writer was tliat on the King's arrows, 
 11. 663-868 ; and this not to any of the comments on Psalm xliv, 
 but to Gregory the Great's Moralia in Job, xix and xxxiv. For 
 nowhere does this writer offer a general exposition of the psalm in 
 question. It became plain on further search that Gregory, as usual 
 modifying and extending the ideas of Augustine, must be called our 
 poet's master rather than any other single writer. Yet there is no 
 continuity of imitation, no systematic borrowing even here. 
 
 I abandoned therefore the theory entertained at the start, becoming 
 convinced that the poet's claim, in 11. 15-20, 139-144, to be a mere 
 translator into verse is a matter of literary convention, intended 
 
 Laetificabis eum de domibus cburneis sive lit melius in Hebraico scribitur, de templo 
 dentium ; et laudes Domino canes, totaque saeculo mortua, angelorum imitaberis chores. 
 
28 THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 probably to render his composition more acceptable and authoritative.^ 
 He is certainly a translator in many passages, and from the Latin 
 too. But his expressions about putting into Romance the poem 
 written by David and used by the Church on Christmas morning 
 mean merely that his production is based on Psalm xliv of the 
 Vulgate. It furnishes him a general theme and a series of texts, 
 which he treats according to the fanciful, allegorical style of his 
 patristic masters and of his own time. 
 
 The author of the Eructavit draws from many sources, some of 
 which I cannot identify. Probably much of his material is the 
 commonplace of medieval clerical thought. Some of it is often 
 found in several writers, who may have been accessible. We may 
 safely assume that there was some growth in the library of St. 
 Pierre-le-Vif in the fifty years that followed 1123. We may assume 
 also that occasionally in the scriptorium or cloister, the memory of a 
 fellow-monk furnished a quotation or a thought which the poet was 
 able to use without consulting any book. 
 
 His manner of handling materials borrowed from others is by no 
 means servile. Whether he deals with generally current thought or 
 something that clerks only know, the poet puts into it something of 
 his own. He at least chooses, arranges or expands in his own way. 
 Perhaps his use, 11. 140, 146 and 359, of the words afaitier and 
 agencier, indicates sufficiently his method.^ 
 
 * Such a claim is very commonly made by Old French poets. For examples see 
 Volker ( Zeihehrijt f. rom. Philologie, x, 485 ff. ) on the word Romance. 
 
 Compare the words of Chretien de Troyes at the beginning of Guillaume d' Angleterre 
 and, more particularly, of Le chevalier de la charette. In the latter case, after crediting 
 Marie of Champagne with la matiere et le sans, he promises, it would seem, to carefully 
 refrain from putting into his task anything but labor and thought : 
 
 Et il s'antremet 
 De panser si que rien n'i met 
 Fors sa painne et s'antancion. 
 
 So too the rather wide liberty exercised as translator by Petrarch, and defended by 
 him upon the authority of Horace, appears in his Latin version of Boccaccio's 
 Griselda. See Robinson and Rolfe's Petrarch, pp. 191-193. 
 
 "On the meaning of afaitier as used of translation into verse, see the beginning of 
 Pierre's Bestiaire, which he prepares "sans rime tot selonc le latin que Fisiologes uns 
 
THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FEENCH POEM. 
 
 29 
 
 For instance, the idea of David as joculator Dei, one naturally 
 arising from that of the psalm as a marriage-hymn^ is expressed 
 more fully by Haymo of Halberstadt and by Peter Lombard than 
 by other expositors. I quote from both, putting in parallel column 
 some extracts from the introduction of the poem to show that the 
 poet expresses the same thought and also how he handles it : 
 
 Peter Lombard, Migne, cxci, 437. Eruetavit, extracts from 11. 80-306. 
 
 Propheta ergo, quasi ad has 
 nuptias intromitti desiderans, ut sibi 
 aperiatur, se velle sponso cantare, 
 ait : 
 Eruetavit cor meum, etc. 
 
 Haymo, Migne, cxvi, 347. 
 
 In duobus primis versiculis utitur 
 sirailitudine joculatoris, intrare vo- 
 lentis, ad nuptias, et captantis 
 benevolentiam janitoris, praevidens 
 Christi et ecclesiae nuptias, volens 
 cantare de eis, et quasi intromitti, 
 parat sibi auditores, dicens se fecisse 
 cautilenam de nuptiis, et velle can- 
 tare regri. 
 
 Uns des prophetes fu David . . 
 Si poroffri il son servise 
 As noces De et saiute eglise . . 
 Mes la porte trova il close . . . 
 Por ce que n'osa apeler, 
 Si coman9a a vieler : 
 A la corde tocbe I'aryon, 
 S'ancomance ceste chan9on : 
 Eruetavit cor meum .... 
 Ancore parole a son huissier, 
 Si le comance a losangier : 
 ' ' Biau sire, . i. po me conforte 
 Por De antrueve moi la porte . 
 Se je leanz antrez estoie, 
 Avec les moz vieleroie. 
 Juglerre sui, sages et duiz ; 
 Se le roi plaisoit mes deduiz, 
 Ce sai je bien que les sod^es 
 Me seroient mout granz donees . 
 Ma clian9on vuel dire le roi. ' ' 
 
 In either of these Latin quotations, especially in the longer one, 
 altho the shorter is the more dramatic, we see the figure that shapes 
 
 des bons clers d' Athenes traita," at his patron's wish, "porce que rime se velt afaitier 
 de mos concueillis hors de vdrit^." Mann's Der Bestiaire divin des Guillaume le 
 Clerc, Franzosische Studien, VI, 304. 
 
 ' The term epithalammm is applied to Psalm xliv by Augustine, Cassiodorus, Bede, 
 Haymo, Eadbertus Paschasius and Peter Lombard in their comments. The expres- 
 sion, changon de ehambre, used in 1. 2075 (see below) seems intended as a translation. 
 I have found it nowhere else. 
 
30. THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 even in minute details the animated introduction of the poem, 11. 21— 
 204, 205-366. The extracts, in the arrangement of which I have 
 taken some liberty with the order, show the spirit and form of this 
 introduction fairly well. Here as elsewhere, the poet uses borrowed 
 material with freedom : much of it he puts into a dialog ; he uses the 
 device of a vision ; he makes David the prophet and singer of the 
 marriage. In the latter point, which is insisted on from beginning 
 to end of the Eruetavit,^ he is like Radbertus Paschasius.^ 
 
 It may be said that the poet's method of collecting material is 
 eclectic,— 17 prend son bien oii il le trouve, — also that he is original 
 rather than servile in employing it. Further, he seldom notifies the 
 reader when the thought is borrowed and almost never gives credit by 
 name. The few exceptions to this rule have to do with the Bible, 
 and will be treated farther on. The poet's own personality is kept 
 out of sight : he is anonymous, almost impersonal. He makes his 
 authorities share in the same studied reserve. Let us grant, however, 
 that, altho his influence might be increased by the great names which 
 complete frankness would have led him to mention, his art has done 
 well to keep them back. They are indeed too numerous to mention. 
 His pages would bristle with names ; for his poem, like the Roman 
 de la Mose,^ draws from many different writers. 
 
 Let me now show where the poet appears indebted to the great 
 Fathers of the Church, Augustine and Gregory the Great. Both 
 
 ^ At the very close, 11. 2071-2076, just before the final address to the patroness, the 
 poet takes leave of his work : 
 
 Ci androit faiit Eructavit, Le fondemant de nostre foi. 
 
 Li biaus saumes le roi David, Chan9on de chambre I'apela, 
 
 Ou Damedes nos mostre au doi Einsi com Deus 11 revela. 
 
 As early in the poem as 1. 82, David is introduced as the divinely inspired author 
 of what our poet presents in translation : 
 
 Ceste chanfon que j'ai escrite 
 Trova il par saint esperite. 
 ^Migne, cxx, 993. 
 
 ^See Langlois, Les sources du Roman de la Rose. His conclusions appear to be 
 accepted {Romania, xxr, 435), altho on pp. 21, 23 he seems in error concerning the 
 husband of Marie of Champagne. 
 
THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 31 
 
 may be called his masters, tho the latter probably receives oftener 
 the tribute of imitatiou. 
 
 In the first passage to be indicated Augustine alone must have the 
 credit of having attracted the poet. It is the fine outburst about the 
 Lord Beautiful, from Augustine's Enarratio in Ps. xl.iv, parag. 3, 
 B. C. This eloquent passage is well handled in 11. 393-482. Some 
 lines and phrases of the poem set side by side with the Latin will 
 make plain the fact that Augustine's thought is used and with 
 skill : 
 
 Augustine, Enar. in Ps. xliv, 3. Extracts from 11. 39B-4S2, Erudavit. 
 
 Nobis ergo jam credentibus, ubique 
 sponsus pulcher occurrat. Pulclier 
 Deus, Verbum apud Deum : pulcher 
 in utero virginis, ubi non amisit 
 divinitatera, et sumpsit humauita- 
 teni : pulcher natus iufans Verbum ; 
 et cum esset infans, cum sugeret, 
 cum manibus portaretur, coeli 
 locuti sunt, Angeli laudes dixerunt, 
 Magos Stella direxit, adoratus est 
 in praesepi, cibaria mansuetorum. 
 Pulcher ergo in coelo, pulcher in 
 terra . . . pulcher in miraculis, 
 pulcher in flagellis ; pulcher invi- 
 tans ad vitam, pulcher non curans 
 mortem : pulcher deponens animam, 
 pulcher recipiens ; pulcher in ligno, 
 pulcher in sepulcro, pulcher in 
 coelo. 
 
 Et bele iert la senefiance . . . 
 Quant li ange se mosterront . . . 
 Biaus seroiz et sans nul teche 
 Lorsque vos gerroiz an la creche, 
 Quant la grant biaute ou vos estes 
 Aparcevront les mues bestes. 
 Vostre aparicions iert bele, 
 Que I'estoile vendra novele . . . 
 Que les .iii. rois aconduira . . . 
 Quant la virge relevera 
 Qui au tanple vos ofFerra, 
 Bele iert cele processions . . . 
 Sera vostre biautez mout granz 
 Quant vos feroiz les morz revivre . . 
 La voire croiz iert li autex 
 Ou recevra li pere Dex 
 De vostre bel cors I'ofTerande . . . 
 Apres la resurrection 
 Seroiz biaus a 1' ascension . . . 
 
 In the lines upon the eagle as the symbol of the Evangelist John, 
 a thought occurs that Augustine expresses completely in the 
 beginning of Tractatus xxxvi. In Evangelium Joannls, and partially 
 in the first sentence of Tractatus xx of the same work. The poet 
 reproduces the fuller form, but changes the figure : 
 
32 
 
 THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FKENCH POEM. 
 
 . Augustine, Tract, xxxvi, 
 In Ev. Joan. • 
 
 In quatuor evangeliis , . . Joannes 
 apostolus, non immerito secundum 
 intelligentiam spiritualem aquilae 
 comparatus, altius multoque subli- 
 mius aliis tribus erexit praedication- 
 em suam . . . et de Domini divini- 
 tate, quomodo nullus alius, est 
 locutus. Hoc ructabat quod biberat. 
 Non enim sine causa de illo in isto 
 Evangelio narratur, quia et in 
 convivio super pectus Domini 
 discumbebat. De illo ergo pectore 
 in secreto bibebat : sed quod in 
 secreto bibit, in manifesto eructa- 
 vit . . . 
 
 Eructavit, 11. 1047-1060. 
 
 Sainz Jehanz, qui ce nos conta, 
 Fu I'aigle qui si haut monta, 
 Si ot li rois haut consoilier. 
 Mout li presta riche oroilier 
 A la Ceine ou il recina 
 Quant sor son piz son chief clina. 
 Mout ot cele ore bon repos, 
 Que toz li monz estoit enclos 
 An eel oroilier qu'il avoit : 
 C'est el piz De qui tot savoit. 
 Bien dut le soir dormir soef 
 Quant a son chavet ot la clef 
 Qui la gloire Deu li ovri 
 Et son tresor li descovri. 
 
 We come now to portions of the poem that show indebtedness to 
 both Augustine and Gregory. 
 
 A long and striking passage of the Eructavit is a highly allegorical 
 explanation of the King's bow and arrows, 11. 663-868. Here is 
 set forth and dwelt upon a thought that was widely current among 
 medieval commentators.^ Augustine expresses a part of it in his 
 Enarratio in Ps. VII, parag. 14. His sentences appear to be in the 
 poet's mind in 11. 673, 703, 704, 717-719 and many more. We 
 may judge by putting the two side by side : 
 
 Arcum ergo istuni, Scripturas sanc- 
 tas libenter acceperim, ubi fortitu- 
 dine Novi Testamenti, quasi nervo 
 quodam, duritia Veteris flexa et 
 
 Li fuz de I'arc fu la viez lois 
 La sainte evangile qu'il dist, 
 Ce fu la corde qu'il i mist. . . 
 Justise vers pitie ploia, 
 
 edomita est. Hinc tanquam sagittae Quarriaus et darz nos anvoia 
 
 ^ The following writers employ the same figure for substantially the same thought : 
 Jerome, Ep. LXV ad Frineipiam ; (^assiodorus, Bruno oi Koln or Monte Cassino, 
 Haymo of Halberstadt, and Bruno of Wurzburg on Ps. vii ; Peter Lombard on Ps. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
THE EBUGTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 33 
 
 emittuntur Apostoli, vel divina Li apostre qui Deu oirent 
 praeconia jaculantur. Et si diciple qui le virent 
 
 Sont les saietes qu'il anvoie. 
 
 A supplement, as it were, to the above occurs in Augustine's 
 Sermo 298, parag. 2. It ends as quoted below, and may be compared 
 with 11. 726-733 of the poem : 
 
 Quibus sagittis factum est quod Mout est sees et douz cist fers 
 sequitur, Populi sub te cadent. Qui si perce le cuer del vantre 
 Bona sunt talia vulnera. Vulnus Que nus ne set quant il i antra, 
 amoris salubre est. Buer est nez cui cil fers ataint : 
 
 C'est li cos don nus ne se plaint. 
 
 Gregory the Great, as already stated, nowhere expounds Ps. XLiv 
 as a whole. In various passages, however, of his expository works 
 and his homilies he comments upon the King's bow and arrows as the 
 Scriptures applied in preaching. He differs from Augustine, whose 
 authority had no doubt made the figure well known, in dwelling upon 
 it at greater length and in not expressly saying, but only implying 
 that the arrows signify the Apostles and the preachers of the 
 Gospel as well as their messages. He agrees with Augustine in the 
 allegory of the bow and the cord : the severity of the Old Testament 
 bent and mitigated by the grace of the New. The passage is too 
 long to quote. ^ 
 
 As stated above, we may safely conclude that the book so briefly 
 mentioned by Clarius {Hinc sequitur Paterius in VIII volumine) was 
 the well known Liher Testimoniorum of Gregory's secretary, Paterius ; 
 and that it served our poet, according to the long prevalent custom, 
 as a ready manual of reference for Gregory's comments on the books 
 of the Bible in order. 
 
 With the aid of Paterius the poet probably found the alleged 
 passage ^ from Gregory's Homil. IX in Ezechielem. Or Paterius may 
 
 ' It is found in the Moralia in Job, xix. See Migne, Lxxvi, 133, 134. 
 
 * The term alleged is here used because, as the editor acknowledges in a foot-note 
 (Migne, lxxix, 866), the passage cannot be identified in Migne's text of the horailj 
 itself which Paterius claims to quote from. 
 
34 THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 have furnished him almost the same material in comments upon Ps. 
 VII, 13; Lxxvi, 19, found in the Moralia in Job, xix, and referred 
 to above. In the latter case Paterius has not quoted the passage in 
 full. In both cases the arrows are interpreted as representing, not 
 the preachers, but their messages. 
 
 Two other comments, enforced by this figure and not found in 
 Paterius, are those of Moralia in Job, vii and xxxiv.^ The former, 
 quoting Is. lxvi, 19 {cid gentes in mare, in Africam, et in Lydiam 
 . . . in Italiam, in Graeciam) implies the going forth of messengers 
 as well as their words. It may have prompted in the poet's mind 
 the idea of the apostolic " spheres of influence," which he carries out 
 with so much detail, 11. 750-826, following in general the tradition 
 recorded by Isidore, De ortu et obitu patrum, 133. 
 
 The poet shows some originality and a medieval thoroughness in 
 allegorizing, in explaining the feather on the arrow, which neither of 
 his masters had mentioned. The following are the lines, 720-722 : 
 
 Et la pane qui les convoie, 
 Sainz Espei'ites qui les maine, 
 Qui lor done force et alaine. 
 
 Upon verse 7 of the Psalm, that is upon the King's throne and 
 scepter, the poet gives us nearly three hundred lines. Most of this 
 long passage deals with the four great prophets, each attended by a 
 beast at one of the four feet of the throne. The beasts symbolize the 
 Evangelists. Here Gregory furnishes much material, a little of 
 which suftices the poet. The beasts or living forms are not assigned 
 according to Augustine, In Joannis Evangelium, Tractatus xxxvi, 
 5,^ the lion for Matthew and the man's likeness for Mark ; but 
 according to Gregory's Fourth Homily on Ezekiel : the man's 
 likeness for Matthew, the lion for Mark, the ox for Luke and for 
 John the eagle, — the symbols used by Jerome also, Expositio Quaiuor 
 Evangetiorum, Prologus. 
 
 * See Migne, lxxv, 769 and lxxvi, 728. 
 
 ^ Leonera pro rege positum . . . propter potentiam . . . Haec persona tributa est 
 Matthaeo. Lucas autem . . . vitulo deputatus est . . . Marco homo . . . assignatus 
 est. Restat aquila : ipse est Joannes. 
 
THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FKENCH POEM. 
 
 35 
 
 Here the poet must have looked beyond Paterius/ for the latter 
 repeats only a part of Gregory's comment on Ez. i. The whole is 
 found in Moralia in Job, xxxi,^ and shows that Paterius omits the 
 only name used by Gregory, that of John. At the beginning of 
 Gregory's Fourth Homily on Ezekiel^ occurs a more detailed 
 exposition of Ez. i, 10, with assignment by name of the four 
 Evangelists.^ The few lines which indicate the characteristic of each 
 Gospel and suggest the symbolic animal for each writer seem to serve 
 the poet as material for his outline of the long passage, 11. 875-1160. 
 From the following extracts it may be clearly seen that he mentions 
 the Evangelists in the order indicated by Gregory's descriptive 
 phrases and with the same thought in each case, both in regard to the 
 writers of the Gospels and in regard to the acts of the Savior's life 
 therein related : 
 
 Gregory, Motalia in Job, xxxi. 
 
 Et quamvis singula ad unumquem- 
 que evangelistam conveniaut, (dum 
 alius humanae nativitatis ordinem ; 
 alius per mundi sacrificii mactatio- 
 nem, quasi vituli mortem ; alius 
 potestatis fortitudinem, quasi leonis 
 clamorera iusinuat ; alius nativita- 
 tem verbi intuens, quasi ortum 
 solera aquila aspectat), possunt 
 tamen haec quatuor animalia ipsura 
 suum caput cujus sunt membra 
 signare. Ipse namque homo est, 
 quia naturam nostrara veraciter 
 
 Erudavit, extracts from 11. 
 902-1080. 
 
 Sainz Mathieus fu sor Isaie, 
 Si ot d'ome vis et figure : 
 Por ce que I'umaine nature 
 Que li rois prist an la pucele . . . 
 De 1' autre part . . . 
 Ot une samblance de tor : 
 Sainz Luques sor Saint Jeremie . . 
 Le verai sacrefiement, 
 Que Damedes li rois feroit. 
 Sainz Mars ot samblant de lioncel 
 Si estoit sor Saint Daniel. 
 An la vangile le me'ist . . . 
 N'i a celui qui miauz vos die 
 
 ^ Migne, lxxix, 983. '^ Migne, lxxvi, 625. 
 
 ^Migne, lxxvi, 814-816. 
 
 *Quod enim quatuor haec pennata animalia sanctos quatuor Evangelistas designent, 
 ipsa unius cujusque libri evangelici exordia testantur. Nam quia ab humana genera- 
 tione coepit, jure per hominem Matthaeus ; quia per clamorem in deserto, recte 
 designatur per leonem Marcus ; quia a sacrificio exorsus est, bene per vitulum Lucas j 
 quia vero a divinitate Verbi coepit, digne per aquilam significatur Joannes, etc. 
 
36 THE ERUOTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 suscepit ; et vitulus, quia pro nobis Commant vint Deus de mort a vie. 
 
 patienter occubuit ; et leo, quia Une grant aigle qui haut vole, 
 
 divinitatis fortitudinem susceptae Ce fu mes sire Sainz Jehanz . . . 
 
 mortis vinculum rupit ; et ad extre- Nos raostre que Ezechiel 
 
 mum aquila, quia ad eoelum de quo Et Sainz Jehanz ensamble sont , . . 
 
 venerat, rediit. Homo ergo nascen- Ce sont li dui qui plus haut volent, 
 
 do, vitulus moriendo, leo resurgendo, Qui plus parfondemant parolent. 
 aquila ad coelos ascendendo. 
 
 The parallel is less plain in the case of the fourth Evangelist. 
 But it should be remembered that the ascension of Christ has already 
 been celebrated by the poet, 11. 469-488, in a passage that is yet to 
 be treated here. 
 
 Before leaving this long and characteristic presentation of the 
 King's throne, moulded by Gregory's idea of the symbolic beasts, 
 let us note a change in the poet's conception. At first, 11. 880-888, 
 he emphasizes the firmness of the four supports : 
 
 Li trones sist sor ,iiii. piez, Se ciaus et terre et mers tramblast. 
 
 Si fu si fers et atachiez Ja li sieges ne se crollast, 
 
 Que riens ne le peiist movoir Si fermemant estoit assis 
 
 Por painne ne por estovoir. Au plus bel leu de paradis. 
 
 But with the mention, 11. 883-888, of the " four barons of great 
 merit," that is, the prophets, the King is represented as borne about 
 by them on his throne : 
 
 Si anbraga chascuns .i. pie. 
 Cil portent le roi et sostienent, 
 Avee lui vont partot et vieuent. 
 
 Near the close of the passage, 11. 1080-1116, the prophets and 
 evangelists bear about the King for his diversion and also to 
 announce him to mankind in all ages. Here a further change is to 
 be noted : the evangelists are no longer merely represented by the 
 symbolical beasts, but they are present and help the prophets in 
 bearing the King, 11. 1091-1094 : 
 
THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 37 
 
 Cil .iiii. et .iiii. ce sont .viii. ; Le roi desduient et deportent, 
 
 Mout bel servise li font tuit : De siegle en siegle le comportent.^ 
 
 The longer connected passages have been referred to their most 
 probable sources. The credit is divided between the two great 
 Fathers of the Church, Augustine and Gregory the Great. In most 
 instances we note that the ideas first uttered by the former were 
 afterwards given by the latter the form and scope in which they 
 became generally current. This is true of the two important 
 passages that I shall discuss next. 
 
 The digression on pride, 11. 1695-1748, is based on Eccli. x, 15, 
 Initium omnis peccati est superbia. Augustine {In Epistolam Joannis, 
 Tractatus vii, 2 ; viii, 6, 9 ; /w Joannis Evangelium, Tractatus xxv, 
 15, 16, and elsewhere) urges the lesson. Quemcumque enim diabolus 
 superbum fecerit, vincit, he says, and Caput omnium morborum 
 superbia est, — quia caput omnium peccatorum superbia. But Gregory 
 (HomiL XXXIV in Evang. and Moral, xxxiv) enlarges upon the 
 same text : he expounds' and expands it with the details which the 
 poet uses to a considerable extent. The latter's enumeration of sins 
 is not so complete as that of Gregory, yet he says : 
 
 D'orguel vienent maint mauvais Et raaint pechie que nuls ne cuide. 
 
 vice, S' autre pechiez d'orguel ne vient, 
 
 Larrecin, murtre et avarice, C'est li orguiauz qui le sostient. 
 Et trahisons et homecide 
 
 He seems to add a touch of his own, probably a lurid reminiscence 
 of some contemporary liturgical drama, in the concluding lines, 
 1738-1741, of the digression on pride : 
 
 Li orguilleus, tuit eslaissie, Et li deable apr^s bruiant, 
 
 S'an torneront aval fuiaut, Tuit livre an peinne vantoire. 
 
 The poet's teaching about the lost angels, 11. 1793-1830, who fell 
 by pride and whose loss is repaired by elect men, believing and 
 
 ^The poet's own experience may be serving him here : he is employing perhaps a 
 reminiscence of the Pope upon the sedia gestatoria, having seen Alexander III thus 
 borne in state while sojourning at Sens. 
 
88 THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 humble, — this also appears in Augustine {Enchiridion, xxix), but 
 receives in Gregory the form which the poem reflects. The spurious 
 comment of Gregory on I Kings vii : 13, 14^ speaks of the fallen 
 angels as an order. This expression, taken with his well known 
 teaching of the ninefold organization of the angels, aifords the poet 
 ground for his assertion, which he bases on scripture, that there were 
 ten orders in the beginning. His further assertion, that nine angels, 
 one from each order, shall minister to each soul in the resurrection 
 of the just, I cannot refer to its source. Note the following 
 comparison of parts of the passages mentioned : 
 
 Eructavit, extracts from II. 
 Gregory on I Kings, vii, 13, 14. 1797-1816. 
 
 Tunc vero angelorum damna repar- Nos savons par les escritures 
 
 antur, cum quidquid de ordine Dont les paroles sent seiires, 
 
 conditorum spirituum, eorum super- Que .x. ordres d'anges estoient . . . 
 
 bia sublatum beatitudini fuerat, de L'une. . . contre lui s' enorgoilli . . . 
 
 electis hominibus adimpletur .... Ses trabucha jusqu'an abisme . . . 
 
 Urbes sublatae sunt illae perditae Qu'il sent or deable anpenne. 
 
 multitudines angelorum. Sed tunc An leu de 9aus qui lors cha'irent . . . 
 
 redduntur, quando de electa natura Sera li horn qui s'humelie, 
 
 humana assumitur, unde quod de Qui bien croit Deu et merci crie ; 
 
 angelis periit, suppleatur. Qu'an leu d'orguel iert simpletez 
 
 Et dou9ors et humilitez. 
 
 Where Augustine and Gregory seem to furnish the same material, 
 I regard the latter as the poet's master for the reasons that have been 
 advanced and for the following : The general trend of devout 
 thought was along paths trod by Gregory ; he was a Benedictine ; he 
 was held in especial reverence at St. Pierre-le-Vif, where his head 
 was cherished among the relics until 1628,^ and his homilies appear 
 to have been classed in our poet's time with the holy books appointed 
 for reading in the monastery.^ 
 
 ^Migne, lxxix, 213, 214. 
 
 ''In that year it became the property of the papal see. 8ee Oallia Christiana, xu. 
 
 * The library catalog of Clarius thus describes the fourth volume. In iiii, omeliae 
 
 XL, beati Gregorii, papae, et Actus apostolorum, et vii Epistolae Canonicae, et 
 
THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 39 
 
 In two striking passages of some extent, and in some briefer ones, 
 the poet shows indebtedness to the Physiologus, which in that time 
 supplied so much material to devout moralizers. The first evidence 
 of such indebtedness is seen in the thought and form of the 
 conclusion to the poet's fine imitation of Augustine's outburst on the 
 Lord Beautiful. In the last part, 11. 471-482, he thus speaks of the 
 ascension of Christ : 
 
 La amont an cele contr^e 
 
 lert des angles granz I'assanbl^ ; 
 
 Mout i sera la joie granz, 
 
 Et par defers et par dedanz. 
 
 Quant cil dedanz avront cri6 : 
 
 Quis est iste rex glorie ? 
 
 Cil respondront (mm gaudio : 
 
 Deus 2}ote7i3 in prelio ! 
 
 Ce iert a dire, tot sanz faile, 
 
 Li rois revient de la bataile : 
 
 Ostez la bare, ovrez la porte, 
 
 Anfers est pris, la morz est morte ! 
 
 This can be best explained as a successful reproduction of the well 
 known passage of the Physiologus on the Lord's resurrection and 
 ascension as symbolized by " the first nature " of the lion.^ 
 
 Another passage, concerning the lion directly, concludes that part 
 of the poem which deals with the Evangelist Mark and the prophet 
 Daniel as representing the Lord's resurrection. It is found in 11. 
 997-1016: 
 
 Daniel par ceste avanture 
 Et par les moz de reseriture 
 Tesmoigne la surrection ; 
 Et Saiuz Mars au vis de lion 
 Li aiiie a porter le roi. 
 Si vos dirai raison porquoi : 
 
 Nos trovons, et voirs est provez, 
 Que quant li lionciaus est nez 
 Qu'il n'a an lui fun ne alaine, 
 Ne ne li bat ne pox ne veine ; 
 
 Ainz se gist morz jusqu'a tierz jor. 
 Lors li vient li peres antor, 
 Et quant il li a son tor feit, 
 Si s'areste, si giete .i. brait 
 Sor son faon qu'il trueve mort. 
 For ce qu'il brait et crie fort 
 Si an avient une mervoile : 
 Que li faons de mort s'esvoile 
 A la voiz qu'il ot haute et clere, 
 Si reconoist et seut son pere. 
 
 This application of "the third nature" of the lion has found 
 
 Apocalypsis. Haec omnia leguntur a Pascha usque ad Pentecosten. 
 volumine apostoli Pauli Epistolae. 
 
 ^Mann's article cited above, Franzomche Studien, vn, 231. 
 
 Et in eodem 
 
40 THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 expression iu many medieval writers. A list of parallels is given 
 by Goldstaub-Wendriner/ which list, however, does not contain this, 
 instance, nor that in the Physiologus of Hildebertus,^ nor a briefer 
 one in Bartsch's Chrestomathie Provengale, 335. At the time of our 
 poet the thought was already a commonplace, altho probably not yet 
 made popular in the translations or adaptations of the Physiologus 
 by Guillaume, Gervais and Pierre.^ The Latin version of Origen's 
 comment on Gen. xlix, 9, in which reference is made to the 
 Physiologus, is probably the earliest of allusions to this thought which 
 had so great a fortune. But some materials appear to be furnished 
 to the Christian imagination by one line of Vergil and by certain 
 credulous statements of Pliny.* The Physiologus was generally 
 current among clerks and, directly or indirectly, must have prompted 
 the passage. But it may have been modified by Isidore's Etym. xii, 
 II, 5, since it states that the whelp, born dead, receives life, not (as 
 ' the Physiologus says) at his father's breathing upon his face but, as 
 Isidore says, jpatris rugitu et fremitu tremef actus. The writer of the 
 Eructavit is nowhere a close imitator of his authorities, yet he 
 reminds the reader of Philippe de Thaiin's Bestiaire and Li Cumpuz^ 
 in using this modification (which is Origen's as well as Isidore's) and 
 also in his repeated use of the word senefiance in pointing the moral. ^ 
 There are traces in our poem of other devout compositions in the 
 vernacular.'^ In the introduction, 11. 62-78, we find an allusion to 
 the descent of Christ into hell, which development of I Peter iii, 19, 
 is probably due to the Gospel of Nicodemus. To the same work ^ 
 
 ^ Ein Tosco- Venezianisches Bestiarius, 24, 25. 
 
 'Migne, clxxi, 1217. 
 
 ^Mann's article cited above, Franzosische Studien, vi, 201, 302, 304. 
 
 * Georg. ill, 245 ; Nat. Hist. 8, 16, 17. 
 
 *Th. Wright's edition of the Bestiaire, pp. 80, 81 ; Computus, 11. 1673-1692. 
 
 ^Eructavit, 11. 397, 903, 941, 1142, 2017. 
 
 ^ Attention may be called to a contemporary production marked by similar thought 
 and style, entitled JDe David li Prophecie (ed. Fuhrken, ZeitschnJ't fur romanischc 
 Philoloyie, xix, 189). The only known copy is dated 1180. and stands side by side 
 with the Emctarit in MS. 1560G, British Museum. The fact that the two poems were 
 copied in succession by the same scribe may have rendered more striking their natural 
 resemblance. 
 
 *Cf. Philippe de Thaun, Cmipulus, 30, 1. SG6, Th. Wright's edition. 
 
THE EBUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 41 
 
 may be referred the allusion to Longinus and his spear-thurst, 11. 
 1258-1259. Philippe's Bestiaire, 11. 299-305, contains a statement, 
 upon Augustine's authority, concerning Saturday as the final day of 
 reward for the faithful. The Eructavit, 11. 1824, 1825, thus begins 
 to speak of the resurrection of the just : 
 
 A eel haut jor de samedi 
 
 Sera per voir si com je di . . . . 
 
 In two passages upon the incarnation, 11. 87-134, 1619-1660, — 
 both developed from Luke i, 35, — are reflected the arguments of 
 Jerome's Contra Helvidium, of Ambrose's hymn, Veni, redemptor 
 gentium ; of Isidore's De ortu et obitu patrum ; of Radbertus 
 Paschasius in his De Partu Virginis. The latter author, it must be 
 remembered, wrote also the longest exposition of Psalm xliv, as has 
 already been stated. He was a Benedictine, and wrote both 
 productions for devout women living as cenobites. The controversy 
 of our poet's generation upon the person of the Virgin Mary must 
 have brought again into notice his writings and others of like nature. 
 A popular explanation of an unspeakable mystery is perhaps to be 
 recognized in 11. 119-120 : 
 
 . . . Deus .... 
 
 An son precieus cors se mist 
 A la voiz que li anges dist.' 
 
 The poet shows familiarity with the current literary usages of his 
 time, as I haye shown ; his style shows, further, that he employs the 
 current phraseology of the poets. Even the compositions in which 
 love is the theme are not unknown to him, as the following passage 
 proves, 11. 1439-1450, where David exhorts the Queen concerning 
 her wifely duties : 
 
 * The same idea appears in the ancient hymn beginning : Ave, virgo, mater Christi, 
 Qui per aurem concepisti, Gabriele nuncio; and in a very much later and different 
 composition, Moliere's L' Ecole des Femnies, v, 4, — Arnolphe's words to Agnes. For 
 the Latin quotation in this reference I am indebted to Professor F. De Haan, Bryn 
 Mawr, Pa. 
 
42 THE ERUGTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 
 
 Aime le roi par fine amor, Fine amors t'aprandra a faire 
 
 S'anbeliras de jor an jor ; Comant tu li porras miez plaire ; 
 
 Et que plus sera 1' amors fine Fines amors vienent de lui 
 
 Plus iert la biautez anterine. Et fins joies com de celui 
 
 Fille, aime le roi finemant, Qui onques d'amer ne se faint, 
 
 Nule rien plus ne te deraant. Ne ne demande fors qu'an I'aint. 
 
 The reader of the Eructav'd is frequently reminded, as one would 
 expect, of Chretien of Troyes as well as of devout authors by the set 
 phrases that serve to round out the line. Many of these they have 
 in common, or at least very similar in form. Most of them are 
 corifirmatory in meaning, and stand so as to make the rime.^ 
 
 In 11. 461, 462 the poet turns a devout phrase with a word that 
 Chretien has employed of wholly worldly enjoyment. This is the 
 term melite ^ which the Eructav'd uses in this couplet of the 
 deliverance from spiritual evil effected by the Lord's resurrection : 
 
 Que vos deliverroiz d'Egipte,^ 
 Si les ammanroiz en melite. 
 
 The conviction that our poet was familiar with Chretien of Troyes 
 deepens when such a parallel as the following is noted : 
 
 Erudavit, 11. 568-569, 573-574. Cliges, 11. 6730-6733. 
 
 * ' Issiez fors, sire, si regniez. ' ' Biaus sire, or vos an revenez ! 
 
 Nos qui vostre message somes . . . Que tuit vostre baron vos mandent. 
 
 * Here are those that catch the eye in our poem, mentioned in the order of their 
 occurrence : Si com raconte li escriz ; De ce n'ot il nule dotance ; ce sachiez bien ; qui 
 onques ne manti ; ce li fu vis ; tot sanz faille ; sanz dotance ; por voir ; S'est bien 
 raison que le vos die ; n'an dotez mie ; merci Deu ; Si vos dirai la raison porquoi ; 
 Nos trovons, et est veritez ; Si com nos le trovons an livre ; suz tote rien ; Cont^ vos 
 ai, si com je dui ; Antandez moi, si aprenez ; Or escote si com je di ; De ce est il 
 seiire chose ; por verity. 
 
 For similar set phrases in Philippe and Guillaume, see Mann's article above cited, 
 Franzosische Studien, vi, 293, 294. 
 
 ^ Upon this obscure word, see Forster's Eree und Enide, note to 2358, and Romania, 
 XX, 149. 
 
 'A figure for the bondage of sin, used by Augustine {Sermo 24, parag. 3) and 
 Gregory, (Migne, lxxix, 187, etc. ), — probably a commonplace in our poet's time. 
 
THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FRENCH POEM. 43 
 
 Vos creature vos atandent ; Mout vos desirrent et demandent 
 
 Mout vos soaident et demandent." Qu'anpereor vos vuelent feire." 
 
 In spite of the much smaller scale of his work, and the difference in 
 subject and vocabulary, our poet shows a strong resemblance in style 
 and rhetoric to Chretien. In the simpler rhetorical devices they have 
 much in common. For instance, in the use of enumerations, of 
 alliteration, of synonyms, one siees attempted in the Eructavit what 
 Chretien's works employ in such abundance.^ 
 
 In conclusion I return to the Bible as, nevertheless, the poet's 
 chief source -of material. Those texts which the poet seems to have 
 taken in the form employed by the Fathers of the Church, especially 
 by Augustine and Gregory the Great, have been already pointed out. 
 But it may be said that the whole poem is biblical in tone, and even 
 in thought and words. Numerous instances of quotation or allusion 
 can be pointed out, some of them referring repeatedly to the same 
 text. • 
 
 Those directly referred to their authors by the poet are few, as will 
 be shown. But there are more than a hundred instances in which 
 biblical thought is used. Sometimes the very words are used in an 
 unmistakable way. Note the following : Fons hortorum, puteus 
 aquarum viventum. Cant, iv, 15, seems to be reproduced in 1. 2019 : 
 Sachiez que c'est fontainne et puiz ; and Ps. xxxiii, 11, Inquirentes 
 autem Dominum non minuentur omni bono, may be recognized in 11. 
 2033, 2034 : 
 
 Qui Deu aime et de lui anquiert, 
 Seiirs soit il que miez I'an iert. 
 
 Sometimes, altho the decisive words are repeated, the thought is 
 widely divergeut, or has become highly figurative. 
 
 Certain texts, one should perhaps say certain themes, are favorites 
 with the poet. Thus his expressions upon heavenly joy as superior 
 to that of earth or surpassing thought (11. 220-224, 1565-1570, 
 2065-2070) appear to be framed with the help of I Cor. ii, 9 and 
 Is. LXiv, 4. He warns against pride and the abuse of power (11. 
 
 ' See E. Grosse's treatise, Der Stil Chrestien^s, Framosisehe Studien, I, 218 et seq. 
 
44 THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FKENCH POEM. 
 
 1287 ff., 656-658, 1722 if.) in terms that suggest Eccli. x, 11 and 
 Sap. VI, 35 as the source. 
 
 The Gospels are drawn upon about forty times, that of Luke most 
 frequently. The annunciation and the virgin birth are dwelt on and 
 returned to with predilection. Of the Epistles, that to the Hebrews 
 appears to serve the poet ofteuest ; next is the First Epistle to 
 Peter ; while that to the Romans and that of James are used with 
 equal frequency, seven times each. The Apocalypse about as often 
 supplies the thought. 
 
 The Psalms, without counting the one that serves, verse by verse, 
 as the basis of the poem, are quoted oftener than any other Old 
 Testament book. This is not surprising in a poet who is at the same 
 time a Benedictine. The book of Proverbs may be put second ; then 
 Genesis ; next, with about equal frequency, Solomon's Song and the 
 apocryphal books, Ecclesiasticus and Sapiejitia. The apocryphal 
 chapter xiv of Daniel, Bel and the Dragon, plainly influences the 
 poet where the Evangelist Mark and Daniel the prophet appear, 
 typifying the resurrection, in 11. 969—972 : 
 
 Quant il virent Saint Daniel Antre aus fu tote une semaine, 
 
 Si furent simple comme aignel : Qu'onques n'i ot ne mal ne paine. 
 
 The poet shows the Bible an honor not given to the Fathers of 
 the Church, nor to the commentators from whom I have shown that 
 he draws. All these he leaves unmentioned. But four of the 
 biblical writers, besides David who is always before us, are named 
 when quoted : Moses, Solomon, Jeremiah, Paul. In 11. 333-336, 
 Moses commends sincerity and well-doing. The reference is 
 probably to Dent, xxxi, 6-8. The lines in question are : 
 
 Moyses nos dist et ansaingne A bien faire soient tuit preu, 
 
 Que nus el siegle ne se faingne: Qu'an i puet bien perdre'son leu. 
 
 In treating the duty of an earthly ruler, 11. 1293-1308, he quotes 
 Solomon's counsel, probably referring to Sap. vi ; 2-6, 10, 22, 23. 
 He makes David (see p. 27) quote Jeremiah's comfort to Israel, as 
 an erring wife. The reference is to Jer. in, 1 ; the lines are 1578— 
 1612, of which the first four are as follows : 
 
THE ERUCTAVIT, AN OLD FKENCH POEM. 46 
 
 Deus te mande par Jeremie De si cruel ne de si fiere, — 
 
 Qu'il n'est mie de tel maniere, — Comme ces janz del siegle sont.^ 
 
 The Apostle Paul is twice quoted by name: at 11. 517-518 and 
 2065—2066. The scripture alluded to is probably, in one case, Rom. 
 VIII, 1-12 ; in the other, I Cor. ii, 9. The first couplets of the two 
 passages are respectively as follows : 
 
 Si croie bien toz jorz les los, De cele joie et de ce los 
 
 Que dist li apostres Saiuz Pes . . . Nos dist li apostres Sainz Pes . . . 
 
 In this study I have aimed to restore the poet's environment, 
 showing especially the relation of his monastery at Sens to the counts 
 of Champagne. I have presented the plan and outline of the poem 
 with such fulness that it may serve as my interpretation also of the 
 production. I have endeavored besides to show the following as 
 probable : 
 
 1. That the poem was presented to the Countess of Champagne 
 at Sens in the Advent season of 1185. 
 
 2. That the poet drew from many sources, most of his material 
 coming from Gregory the Great or thru him from Augustine ; that 
 devout writings near his own time, and even contemporary secular 
 literature were familiar to him; that his chief indebtedness, however, 
 was to the Bible. 
 
 ^ Guillaume's Bestiaire divin uses a similar expression in contrasting the devout and 
 the worldly in their conjugal behavior. The following lines show a striking resem- 
 blance : 
 
 Ne sont mie de tele nature Plusors genz qui el siecle sont . . . 
 
 Thev occur iu his passage upon the turtle dove. See Mann's article cited above, 
 Franzosische Studien, vi, 281. 
 
VITA. 
 
 I was boru at Lima, Ohio, in 1851, son of John and Mary 
 (Kendall) McKibben ; graduated in 1870 from the Lima High 
 School ; taught in the public schools of Ohio at various times 
 during two years. 
 
 All my undergraduate work, except that of the junior year 
 (which was had in the University of Rochester, N. Y.), was done 
 in Denisou University, Granville, Ohio, where I received the degree 
 of A. B. in 1875, and in whose Preparatory Department I served 
 from April, 1876, to June, 1879, as teacher of Greek and Latin. 
 
 Graduate studies were then pursued during three years: in 1879- 
 1881 at the Baptist Union Theological Seminary, Morgan Park, 
 Illinois, where I had the privilege of Dr. William Rainey Harper's 
 instruction in Hebrew, and experienced the kindness and generous 
 interest that marked him to the end of his life; in Europe, 1881- 
 1882, chiefly at the University of Leipzig. 
 
 In September, 1882, I began serving as professor of modern 
 languages at Denisou University, and have been occupied since 1892 
 with the Romance languages only. The year 1891-1892 was spent 
 at Romance studies in Europe, mostly at Paris where I had the 
 privilege of hearing MM. L6on Gautier and Paul Meyer of the Ecole 
 des Charles. In several summer quarters of recent years I have 
 attended courses in the Romance Department of the University of 
 Chicago, enjoying the instruction, among others, of Professors Karl 
 Pietsch and T. A. Jenkins. Their seminars, especially the latter's 
 in 1905, I have attended with marked advantage. 
 
RETURN TO Dvt^^ ^SE 
 
 (J6057sl0)476-iA.32 
 
 
U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 CDD7QD223M