ALD-STK PN 57 -A2 S3 1927IRGINIA LI ii Y ill 143 | — i X030 3037University of Virginia Libraries reCHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENSCHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS By MARGARET SCHLAUCH, Pu.D. tant Professor of English in New York University THE NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS WASHINGTON SQUARE EAST, NEW YORK CITY 1927Copyright 1927 by New YORK UNIVERSITY THE NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS ARTHUR HUNTINGTON NASON, PH.D., DIRECTOR THE KENNEBEC JOURNAL PRESS AvuausTA, MAINEPREFACE LTHOUGH several studies have been made of the imme- diate sources and analogues of Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale, that part of his story which treats of an accused and innocent queen exiled and restored, has not yet been considered in relation to all other families of stories containing this general formula. It is the purpose of my study to make this broader com- parison, and to include also the marchen material about accused queens which contributes to the clearer understanding of Chaucer’s Constance. I have used as secondary point of departure the Old Flemish play of Esmoreit, which contains elements of both folk- tale and romance, because it conveniently supplements the motifs to be found in Chaucer’s story. ‘The play has recently been brought to the attention of English readers in the translation by Professor Harry Morgan Ayres. A great part of my investigation was made easier for me by the kindness and helpfulness of the staff of the Columbia Uni- versity Library. Had I not, however, been enabled by a fellow- ship of the American Association of University Women to con- tinue my study abroad, I could not have included a discussion of a number of unpublished versions inaccessible in America. It has been my privilege to work in the Staatsbibliothek of Munich, the University Library of Leiden, the Royal Library at The Hague, the British Museum, and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. To the officials of these institutions, I am indebted for unfailing courtesy and helpfulness; to Professor Josef Schick of Munich for stimulating suggestions and advice. Professor A. ie hle assist- Barnouw of Columbia University has given me invalua ance in the study of the medieval literature of the Netherlands, and particularly in the investigation of the Esmoreit-problem; and Professor Franz Boas very kindly clarified for me some of the vexed issues of modern anthropology. From Professor W. W. : Lawrence of Columbia University, I have received assistance for > ] “ } 1c which I am unable to express adequate thanks. His scholarly advice has shaped this work from the beginning, and his unw -ariedviii CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS kindness has helped me through the arduous task of revising and correcting the text of the discussion. Finally, I am indebted to Professor George Lyman Kittredge of Harvard University, as reader for the New York University Press, for his constructive criticism of my manuscript; and to Professor Arthur H. Nason, Director, and Miss Hannah E. Steen, of the Press, for their edi- torial and typographical oversight of its publication. The study now completed has been a delightful adventure to me; I trust that it may prove helpful to others who are interested in the literature of folk-tales and romance. M.S. New York City January 19, 1927CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Introductory pecatete CMU g Ce ae mere Chaucer’s Constance as an Accused Queen The Queen in Esmoreit compared to Constance I. Accused Queens in Folk-Tales A. The Accusation of Infanticide Infanticide in Marchen — Infanticide among Primitive People B. The Accusation of Animal Birth Primitive Belief in Animal Birth C. Motivation of the Persecution Rae The Father as Persecutor: evidence that he is a matri- archal ruler trying to prevent the succession of a son- in-law The Mother-in-law as Persecutor: evidence that she is a matriarchal character D. Other Marchen Types Ill. The Accused Queen in Romance: Folk-Tale Survivals The Constance-cycle The Swan Children cycle IV. The Accused Queen in Romance comt’?d: The Advent of the Villain The Octavian-cycle The Valentine-cycle V. The Accused Queen in Romance comt?d: The Villain as Sole Accuser A. The Ambitious Accuser B. The Seneschal as Accuser C. The Lover and Dwarf as Accusers D. Persecutors in Pious Tales E. The Brother-in-law as Accuser Summary Appendix I. Additional Analogues of Esmorest Appendix II. Summaries of Romances Appendix III. Chaucer, Gower, and Trivet Index .. ae ee ae a ae PAGE 21 40 86 95 98 104 106 108 113 117 120 132 135CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENSCHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY HE heroines of medieval fiction are not extremely varied in character. A few well-defined types recur again and again: the amusing, unadmirable matrons of the fabliaux ; the well-bred, introspective court ladies of Chrétien de Troyes; the strong-minded Saracen princesses who abjure fatherland and religion to marry Christian knights; the young maidens who are rescued from imminent danger abroad or awarded as prizes in tournaments at home. Among other equally popular types is the widely celebrated, attractive figure of an innocent, persecuted queen, whose character and story arouse pity rather than mirth or excitement merely. Heroines of this type appear in narratives which center about the steadfastness of sorely tried virtue. They are usually the wives or mothers of heroes, and the tale of their undeserved suffering at the hands of a persecutor or a credulous and suspicious husband, frequently evoked the best efforts and warmest sympathy of medieval poets. Moreover, the great num- ber of tales about queens who are falsely accused by a villain, condemned by a husband to death or exile, and rescued by a son or champion, indicates the literary popularity of these situations. Of all heroines in medieval literature who are falsely accused and triumphantly vindicated, none is more famous than Chaucer’s Constance, whose loneliness and dignity under persecution have aroused sympathy in generations of readers, and whose white face, as she confronted accusation in exile, inspired one of the finest passages in the Canterbury Tales: ’ Have ye nat seyn som-tyme a pale face, Among a press, of him that hath be lad Toward his death, wher-as him gat no grace, And swich a colour in his face hath had Men mighte knowe his face that was bistad Amonges alle the faces in that route? So stant Custance, and loketh hir aboute. 1 Man of Law’s Tale, ll. 547 ff.4 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS The story of her sufferings and exile, which the Man of Law told to his fellow pilgrims, is well known to all students of Eng- lish literature. We can imagine these men and women (even the most incorrigible of them, like the Miller and the Reeve) follow- ing the tale with respectful sympathy; yet, in spite of the warmth and feeling that pervade the story, some episodes must have ap- peared incredible, even to the most absorbed listener. Even less credible, of course, do they appear to us. Let us remind ourselves of the plot of the Man of Law’s tale as a story of an accused queen: Some Saracen merchants who have been trading in Rome tell their Sultan of the beauty and goodness of Constance, the Emperor’s daughter. The Sultan thereupon determines to marry her, even if he must adopt Christianity to win her. The marriage is arranged, and Constance leaves Rome for the Orient, since the good of Christendom requires this sac- rifice of her. But the Sultan’s mother, angry at her son’s plan, changes the wedding feast into a bloody ambush from which only Constance escapes alive. She is placed in a rudderless boat and cast adrift on the sea. After more than three years she lands on the shore of England. Here the Constable of Northumberland and his wife Hermengild shelter her. She converts them to Christianity; Hermengild works a miracle soon after her conversion by restoring sight to a blind man. Constance is courted by a member of the Constable’s household who, being rebuffed, takes revenge in a horrible fashion. He cuts Hermen- gild’s throat while she is asleep, and lays the bloody knife beside Con- stance. He accuses her of the deed; but a hand miraculously smites him dead after his false oath. This divine interposition causes King Alla to declare Constance innocent, and to be converted himself. King Alla marries Constance, but his mother Donegild resents the marriage bitterly. While the King is away at war, Constance bears a son. ‘The messenger who carries the tidings to Alla stays over night at the castle of Donegild, who changes his letters while he lies in a drunken sleep so that they report the birth of a monster. On the messenger’s return, she changes her son’s letters to an order for the exiling of Con- stance once more in her rudderless boat. She departs with her young son. During her voyage, she is molested by a renegade thief who boards her ship to demand her love; but, in his struggles with her, he falls into the sea and is drowned. Constance arrives in Rome, and is harbored in the house of a friendly senator. When her husband comes to Rome as penitent, having executed his mother for her treason, he finds his wife and son there, and the family is reunited. Of the many improbable episodes in this plot, perhaps none isINTRODUCTORY 5 more improbable than the accusation of Donegild, written in the messenger’s exchanged letter. ‘That Constance is supposed to have borne a monster, on the accusation of a jealous old mother-in-law, Is a trait suggesting the plot of a primitive folk-tale rather than a literary romance of such high artistic merit as Chaucer’s. The presence of this trait in the Man of Law’s Tale and in many of its analogues in the Middle Ages, suggests the presence of a prob- lem in folk-lore in the midst of literary problems. The Man of Law’s Tale and its analogues have been the subject of much scholarly research in the past seventy-five years. “Tyrwhitt did not know of Chaucer’s source; but in 1845 Backstrém pointed it out in his notes to the Swedish folk-book* Helena Antonia af Constantinopel.®* There he discussed the Life of Constance by Nicholas Trivet, and arrived at the conclusion that the story was of English, or rather of Anglo-Saxon, origin. The publication of Trivet’s work by the Chaucer Society in 1872 opened the way for a comparison of Chaucer with his Anglo-French source and with the similar story told in a Latin Life of Offa I.* A very sug- gestive inquiry was made by de Puymaigre,” who assembled a body of folk-tales resembling, in general outlines, the Constance-ro- mance, but more particularly the large group of versions outside of Chaucer and Trivet, in which the heroine runs away from her father in the beginning because he wants to marry her. It became apparent that the problem of Chaucer’s Constance is closely con- nected with that of many other heroines in romances with this startling beginning. The Constance-legend must therefore be understood to include all parallels to Chaucer’s tale, whether, as in most cases, the opening action uses the Incestuous Father or (as in Chaucer) the Wicked Mother-in-law as first persecutor. The first extended inquiry into the medieval cycle of romances which begin with an Incestuous Father and include exile and accu- sation of the heroine by an exchanged letter, was made by Suchier,°® 2The term folk-book is used through- ‘Published at the same time by the out to designate the popular prose redac- Chaucer Society. tions of romances which appeared in Sia Fille aux Mains Coupées, Revue print from the fifteenth century on. de VHistoire des Religions, X, 1884, 193- ® Svenska Folkbicker, Stockholm, 1845, 208. Tel ft. ® Preface to La Manekine of Beauma- noir, Soc. des An. Textes Fr.6 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS who analyzed the type-plot and compared it with similar folk-tales. This study was followed in 1902 by Gough’s On the Constance- Saga,’ which, largely dependent on Suchier’s matter and method, traced the romance back to an hypothetical Anglian folk-tale in England before the Conquest. In 1906, Edith Rickert approached the cycle from another point of view in her edition of the related Middle English romance Emare, for which she suggested addi- tional analogues and sources. In the meantime, other versions of the story had been published and republished; and students became acquainted with other heroines who fled from their fathers, mar- ried foreign princes, were falsely accused, and went into a second exile with their children. Scholars began to compare the general Constance-cycle with other families of romances about persecuted wives. Siefken,® for instance, studied the types of persecuted ladies to be found in Middle English fiction; but his work arrives at no definite conclusion, and it suffers from its limitation to English romance. More helpful is Stefanovié’s study® of the kindred Florence de Rome type of romance and his contribution of new and significant Slavic mirchen analogues, which are im- portant also for the Constance-cycle. Since this investigation, no further work, so far as I know, has been done on the sources and analogues of Chaucer’s version.” There has hitherto been no attempt to survey all the types of accused and innocent queens in medieval romance, or to investigate the significance of folk-lore traits (such as the accusation of mon- strous birth) as survivals. Sandras, an earlier commentator on Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale,” suggested, it is true, the general relation of Constance to the heroines of Parise la Duchesse, Roman He even hinted that the treason of Donegild in Chaucer is borrowed from Matabrune’s in de la Violette, and Chevalier au Cygne. the last cycle’? because each is a mother-in-law persecuting her son’s wife. 7 Palaestra, XXXIII, 1902. ® Der Konstanze-Griseldistypus in der engl. Lit. bis auf Shakspere, Rathenow, 1902; Das geduldige Weih im der engl. Lit., Rathenow, 1903. ® Anglia, XXXV, 483-525; Rom. For- tchungen, XXIX, 461-556. The similarity is indeed significant: not because one 2 Cf. J. Koch, Anglia, XXXVII, 1925, 193 ff.: Der gegenwartige Stand der Chaucer-forschung (a review of contri- butions to Chaucer-research since 1908). Mk. G. Sandras, Etude sur G. Chaucer considéré comme Imitateur des Trou- véeres, Paris, 1859, 203-214. Sandras, op. cit., 213.INTRODUCTORY 7 is the source of the other, but because both testify independently to the existence of this marchen formula in romance. ‘The hint of Sandras is valuable because it suggests the need for a systematic study of the accusations brought against all queens in romance, and of the motives of the accusers. The present work is an attempt to make such a study. It will depend in large part on the research of many who have investi- gated the material in each of the various subordinate groups of the story. But my aim is different from theirs. It is not my purpose merely to review a certain number of close and obviously similar analogues to Chaucer’s Man of Law”’s Tale, or to construct a series of genealogical tables for related literary versions. I shall try rather to point out the similar themes of story-telling about accused queens in many types of folk-tales; to find out what light is shed on such themes by the study of primitive custom and belief; and to trace the modifications of these themes in medieval romance. Much of the material used here in the section on ro- mance is of course familiar to students of medieval literature; but some of it is new. A section of the Netherlandish romance Seg- helijn van Jerusalem, which contains a heroine modeled on Flor- ence de Rome and Parise la Duchesse, is discussed for the first time in this connection; the Latin letter of Jacob Wimfeling about an accused heroine, which has been generally neglected since its pub- lication,'* is also included in this study; the long unpublished ro- mance of Theseus de Cologne contributes three new heroines to place beside Constance; and other accused ladies like Hirlanda of Brittany or Idda of Tockenburg, usually overlooked, or unknown to scholars on this side of the Atlantic, are reintroduced. The folk-lore of accused queens also requires a more adequate discussion than it has yet received. It is necessary to look for parallels outside of romance for episodes, such as accusations of cannibalism or animal birth, which have hitherto caused natural surprise among modern readers of the romances. Much in these medieval traditions can be found also in folk-tales, imbedded in apparently more primitive material; and these folk-tales must be 18 Ed. Verdam, Leiden, 1878. fanovié mentions the version (contained M4 Zeitschrift fiir vergleichende Litera- in a MS. in the British Museum) in his turgeschichte, IV, 1891, 342-355. Ste- study of Florence de Rome,a 8 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS studied as well, if one is searching for parallels to the weird cus- toms, fantastic notions, and primitive survivals persistent in courtly medieval fiction. If a high-born dame is accused in a romance or fairy tale of killing her child or eating it, there must be a reason for this astonishing charge; and if the lady thus accused fails to defend herself, there must be a reason for her irrational silence. Only an extended inquiry into all similar folk-tales, and into popular custom and folk-lore, will yield explanations of these things. I realize fully the dangers of this method. Most folk- tales recovered from popular tradition were not written down before the nineteenth century, and are consequently less primitive in time and in their present form than a French romance of the thirteeeth century. It is also true that unrelated popular tales from parts of the world so widely sundered as the Malay Islands and South America, cannot be considered as possible ancestors for a masterpiece of Middle English verse in the fourteenth century. But we are nevertheless justified, I believe, in summoning whatever help we can obtain from the study of marchen. A common de- nominator exists between Chaucer and an African folk-tale, per- haps: the heritage of a similar past of half-forgotten customs, superstitions, and beliefs, which display a remarkable similarity the world over. If one is careful to employ comparison only for the purpose of obtaining a concept of this wider psychological back- ground, shared in its general features by all primitive peoples, one may draw significant inferences from the illustrative use of mar- chen, And, in the survivals of primitive custom and psychology, European folk-tales are quite as rich as any others. For this reason, late though they are in print, these tales may fairly be considered old enough in substance to be placed before medieval romance, and below it, as a foundation for this discussion. The present study will therefore endeavor to answer the fol- lowing questions: “Of what were queens accused in marchen and romances? Who accused them, and why?” ‘The answers to these questions will, I think, throw some light on the genesis and devel- opment of a plot such as Chaucer has made familiar to us, and on the reasons for various absurdities of motivation in a story full of realistic characterization and genuine pathos. We shall see that in folk-tales many queens are accused and exiled, like Constance,INTRODUCTORY 9 because of the enmity of a jealous mother-in-law; others because of the vindictiveness of a witch or demon or stepmother, or the breaking of a tabu by the heroine herself. The accusations brought against these ladies are: witchcraft, the bearing of animals instead of children, cannibalism, or child-murder. In romances, we shall find some of these old accusers and accusations—elements more pertinent to the fiction of primitive peoples than of civilized courts and society—and some new ones besides. Accusations of treason and infidelity, which are naturally all but unknown in the more primitive society of folk-tales, often replace those mentioned above; and ambitious traitors and rejected lovers appear as accusers in later types of narrative. This change can be observed only if we consider all cycles of stories about persecuted queens, with the appropriate marchen back- ground. ‘The study of one cycle alone, such as the frequently analyzed Constance-group, is not sufficiently enlightening. And it happens that the Constance-group, famous though it 1s, does not present the most advantageous point of departure for a comparison between fairy tales and romance. Chaucer’s story is a complex of several motifs—some of them modified—which must be kept apart in this discussion. A simpler plot would serve better for the state- ment of the problem. Such a plot is to be found in a short piece of medieval dramatic literature, written during Chaucer’s lifetime in the Low Countries across the English Channel, which also com- bines themes from miarchen and romance. I refer to the old Flemish play of Esmoreit, which briefly celebrates the accusation of a queen and her vindication by her son. Little has been done to explain the source of the plot,*® although students of the medieval stage have discussed it from time to time for their own purposes.*® 15 Contained in the Hulthem MS. (early 16 T eendertz collected a number of ana- 15th century) of the Bibliothéque Royale, logues from French romance, which may Brussels. Printed in French translation, be found in the introduction to his edi- Messager des Sciences et des Arts de la_ tion. Priebsch (Neophilologus, Oct., 1921) Belgique, Ghent, 1835, 6-40. Editions in argues that the materials for the story the original language: Hoffmann von came from Jan uut den Vergiere, a ro- Fallersleben, Horae Belgicae, V1; H. E. mance preserved in the form of a Flem- Moltzer, De middelnederlandsche drama- ish folk-book. Both essays suffer from tische Poezie, 1868-1875; P. Leendertz, a neglect of the study of analogues from Middelnederlandsche dramatische Poexte, midrchen and romances, 1899-1900; separate printing by Kaake- been and Ligthard, 1906, 1918, and 1924.10 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS The text has recently been made available in an English trans- lation ** which preserves much of the charm and flavor of the original. It tells this story: Esmoreit is the young son of the old King of Sicily, whose nephew Robbrecht had hoped to become King himself if his uncle had died childless. Robbrecht determines, therefore, to destroy the infant heir who interferes with his plans. Meantime, a new danger threatens the child. Far away in the East, a heathen King has been horrified to learn from his court astrologer that this same child is doomed to kill him and marry his daughter. He sends the astrologer to get the child, who is at this moment being threatened with death by Robbrecht. The emissary stays the murderous villain’s hand, buys the child from him, and returns to the East. Esmoreit is confided to the care of the King’s daughter, Damiet. When Esmoreit is missed, Robbrecht commits a triple villainy against the Queen. He tells the King, first, that she killed the child herself; second, that she is plotting to kill her husband; third, that she is guilty of infidelity. The King believes his nephew’s words, summons the Queen, and sentences her to lasting imprisonment. So Robbrecht 1s left to dominate the situation as he chooses. But time brings a solution. When Esmoreit has grown up (for he is allowed to grow up, in spite of the heathen King’s fear of him), he falls in love with his foster sister, learns from her that he is, supposedly, a foundling, and departs with his baby clothes to seek his parents. He chances to find his mother’s prison. She speaks to him from it, and a recognition scene quickly follows. This, of course, leads to her vindi- cation; and, when Damiet and the astrologer join Esmoreit in Sicily, the full villainy of Robbrecht is revealed. He is properly punished with death; and Esmoreit marries Damiet after both have been converted to Christianity. Even a brief summary reveals several inconsistencies in the plot. What becomes of the prophecy that Esmoreit will kill his father- in-law? The author forgets it, evidently, or is unable to combine it with other elements of the action. Why, if the heathen King really fears the fulfilment of the prophecy, does he tempt fate by giving Esmoreit into his daughter’s hands to be reared? Clearly this is an instance of over-motivation, a duplication of excuses for removing Esmoreit from his heritage and sending him into exile. "An Ingenious Play of Esmoreit, the King’s Son of Sicily, translated by Harry Morgan Ayres, The Hague, 1924.INTRODUCTORY 11 But the chief difficulties of the plot concern the villain Robbrecht and the Queen. The heaped-up accusations against Esmoreit’s mother are dramatically unnecessary. A villain need not add the charge of a mythical lover, if the King already believes that his wife actually killed her own child. Either of these serious charges would be enough. All of the elements of the drama are to be found in fairy tales except Robbrecht, who seems to be an alien intruder. Scheming, blackhearted villains are not common at the courts of the fairy-tale kings (even when the kings are fantastically cruel); but they are quite at home in the society of a later form of literature—the chansons de geste. ‘The persecutor who writes the forged letter in Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale is the mother- in-law, a typical marchen character, and her accusation that the young Queen has borne a monster is a typical marchen accusation. The ambitious villain Robbrecht, on the other hand, is an accuser introduced from romance into a folk-tale plot; and one of his accusations, that the Queen has committed adultery, is typical of the romances to which he properly belongs. But Robbrecht utters a second accusation less consonant with the courtly society of medie- val romance: the charge of child-murder. ‘This incongruous accu- sation is, as we shall see, quite common and natural in its proper setting of marchen characters. Child-murder and giving birth to animals are two of the most important accusations occurring in the folk-tales to be examined in the next chapter. Our first task must be to find out what characters make these accusations in folk-tales, and why.*® 8 For a statement of the answer to this question, see summary of results, pp. 113-114.CHAPTER II ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES A. THE ACCUSATION OF INFANTICIDE HE answers to our first question, “Why are queens ac- cused and exiled in folk-tales?” are various; but they are all characteristic of primitive conditions. One of these we have already heard from Robbrecht’s lips: the accusation of child-murder. Here is another instance: * A stepmother witch curses three brothers so that they are under a spell to spend most of each day fighting. They wander away from home. Their little sister follows them, determined to help them. At last she finds them. They tell her to leave them, for fear that they may hurt her unintentionally when their pugilistic fury comes on them; but they tell her that she can unspell them if she keeps silence, under all trials and temptations, for nine years. A king’s son marries her. His stepmother, who, is hostile to the young Queen, cuts off her first child’s foot, smears her with the blood, and thrusts the foot into her mouth. Then she accuses her of killing and eating the child. The young Queen can say nothing. ‘The same thing happens a second time; but still the King is unwilling to have her killed. He finally yields to his stepmother’s urgency. As his consort is about: to be hanged, the nine years are at last complete. Her brothers come to her, freed from the witch’s power; angels appear to vindicate her, and carry all the good people to heaven; but the evil stepmother is cast into hell. Another story from the same part of the world: ? A girl has been pledged to a witch by her father before birth (in return for help). At the age of fifteen, she is claimed by the witch. In the house of her mistress, she opens a forbidden door and sees a corpse which lifts its head and says oracularly, “Don’t confess!”” When the witch asks her whether she has opened the door she accordingly replies “No!” She is driven out into the forest, naked and dumb. _ A king’s son finds her. He takes her home and marries her. Each time she bears a child the witch appears and says, ““Do you confess?” The * August von Léwis of Menar, Fin- 1922, 259. An Esthonian tale. nische und Estnische Volksmdrchen, Jena, *Ibid., 100. A Finnish tale.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 13 girl always replies “No!” Then the child is taken away and bones are left beside the mother, as if she had eaten her child. Her royal husband endures this until the third occurrence, in spite of court gossip. Then he orders his wife to be burnt. As the fire is being lit, the witch appears again with her laconic question. ‘The condemned Queen gives her still more laconic answer. Vanquished by so much fortitude, the witch re- stores both the children and the power of speech to the Queen, and puts out the fire. From Greece comes this tale: °® A Prince riding in the forest finds an apparently dead maiden lying in a cofin. (She has been bewitched by the jealous mythical “mother of Erotas,” who envied her beauty and gave her a golden ring to induce this profound trance.) By chance, the Prince removes her ring and she comes to life. He marries her, and is so devoted to her that he neglects his mother. In revenge, she goes into the young Queen’s room and cuts off the heads of her young children and throws them on their mother’s bed. ‘The next morning, the King sees this, hears his mother’s accusations, and believes all too easily. The hands of his wife are cut off and sewed into a sack, together with her children’s corpses. She is driven forth, still preserving her irrational silence (for there is no spell here to tie her tongue). A monk whom she meets restores her hands to her mutilated arms, and her children to life. With his magic staff, he creates a castle for her and disappears. Here her royal husband finds her one day as he chances to pass by. She breaks her silence at last and tells her tale. He has his mother put into a barrel of pitch and thrown into the sea. We shall meet this handless heroine again, both in fairy tales and in courtly romance related to Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale. She is the victim of many persecutions and many accusations. For the present, it is necessary to notice merely that she is definitely con- nected with the barbaric accusation of child-murder. A more typical heroine, who does not lose her hands, appears in this Arabian tale :* A Princess has put herself into the power of a persecuting dragon. On her bridal eve, the dragon appears and starts to carry her away. She flees into a neighboring room, and calls on a fairy for aid. The fairy instructs her how to kill the dragon, on condition that her firstborn child be sur- ® Bernhard Schmidt, Griechische Mar- * Arabische Mdarchen, M. Gladbach, chen, Sagen und Volkslieder, Leipzig, 1920, 49. (Collected and translated by 1877, 110. Hella Mors.)14 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS rendered. ‘The need is great and the young Queen yields. When the child disappears, the King’s hostile mother immediately accuses her of murdering it, and reduces her to the position of slave in the kitchen. The heroine’s patience under her great trial softens the heart of the fairy. The child is restored to its mother, who is thereupon reinstated beside the King. In this tale from Africa, the accusation seems more consonant with characters and background: ° A widow has taken to cowherding to support herself, and she hopes to marry the owner of the cows. So she tries to ruin the man’s wife. When the latter bears twins, the ambitious widow puts them in a box and sets them afloat on the river. She also smears blood over the face and hands of the wife and accuses her of eating them. The wife is exiled and reduced to ass-tending; the ambitious widow marries the cattle-owner. The drifting children are found by the riverside, and grow up to be mighty warriors. ‘They are sent ahead as spies into their father’s land. They find their exiled mother, hear her tale, get help from her in the attack, and take her away with them. The prominence of the exposed children in this last tale gives it particular interest. “The child who is exposed or otherwise shares in the misfortune of his mother often grows up to be her savior and vindicator. Feminine jealousy is often the cause of barbarous accusations in Mohammedan countries. A less favored wife steals the children from the favorite, and brings the charge of child-murder to ruin her rival. But this variant of the type is naturally not to be found in monogamous Europe. Even when such traditions in Europe are patently derived from the East, they are modified to fit European institutions. So it happens that the popular ramifi- cations of a single Oriental tale are often very enlightening for the study of European folk-lore, since the motives substituted to avoid the postulate of a polygamous society are in themselves strictly popular and European, quite varied, and often extremely primitive. °Carl Meinhof, Africanische Mar- is, however, a co-wife with her rival chen, Jena, 1921, no. 80. The same _ from the beginning of the story. story appears in A. C. Hollis’s The Masai, °Cf. J. Riviére, Recueil de Contes Oxford, 1905, 177. The jealous woman Populaires de la Kabylse du Djurdjura, Paris, 1882, 71.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 15 What now of the state of society in which stories such as these must have originated? One may fairly suppose that, in such a level of culture, both the accusation and the deed itself might occur as a harsh reality. It would not always be merely the fantastic invention of a witch or villain-accuser. Usually, when such a bit of plot-mechanism is found repeated often enough in not-too- similar, not-too-proximate tales, one begins to suspect that it is a survival: the trace of a custom senescent or abandoned, perhaps, but not forgotten. And it is remarkable how long such cruel customs, with their irrational logic of life and death and causation, survive in the traditions of more enlightened times. “They undergo softening or modification, it is true; but their original form is clearly visible. “The Queen is no longer actually guilty of killing or eating her children, but she is at least accused of the crime as if it were credible and probable and not too astonishing for the world in which she lives. A King no longer fears and persecutes his son as a matter of course, seeing in the boy a reincarnation of himself which threatens his own identity; but he listens to the witch or astrologer who prophesies his death at the boy’s hands, and he acts on the prophecy with all the vigor of one who hears in it the behest of an ancient, logical, accepted custom. Prophecies and false accu- sations and warnings are often the voice of a dying custom, once universal and still potent as the dynamic force to motivate a tale. With this in mind, we may discover a reason for the absurd sus- picion cast upon our suffering queens. That suspicion savors more of cannibalism than of courtly ro- mance. Infanticide is not a pleasant subject to discuss, but the testimony of folk-tales must not be overlooked, since evidence is to be found there as well as in scientific reports of investigators among savage tribes. Various reasons are given in story and fact for this repellent practice. In European tradition, traces of such customs still survive 1. Lit. Orale de la Picardie (Henry Carnoy, Paris, 1883) p. 229. A boy is killed and cooked by his mother in punishment for childish idleness and deception. Ibid.. p. 236. A variation of the same theme. A whistle made of the murdered child’s bones tells his sad fate when anyone blows it. 2. Russische Volksmarchen (A. von Léwis of Menar, Jena, 1921)16 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS no. 3. During a famine, a mother and father kill their son and eat him. ‘They spare their daughter, because they really care for her. She buries her brother’s bones and waters them. From the grave a dove flies out and sings an accusing song far and wide until the neighbors come and put the parents to death. 3. Lit. Orale de la Haute Bretagne (P. Sébillot, Paris, 1881) p. 223. A boy is killed and cooked by his mother for a bit of childish deception in the matter of faggot-gathering, and his sister piously collects his bones. 4. Griechische und albanische Marchen (J. G. von Hahn, Leipzig, 1864) no. 1. A father has a sudden desire for human flesh. He pur- sues his son and daughter, who escape with the help of their dog.’ 5. Kaukasische Marchen (A. Dirr, Jena, 1920) no. 16. A man and his wife have two children, a son and a daughter. One day the wife says, “I am sick. I want flesh.”—‘“What flesh? ””—“My son’s flesh.” The man kills his son and serves him to his wife as food. The little girl finds the finger of her brother, recognizes it, wraps it up, and takes it to the churchyard. There it turns into a bird that sings sweetly. It earns a bundle of needles by singing to the needle maker, and blinds its parents by blowing needles into their eyes. 6. Lit. Orale de la Picardie, p. 252. A man and his wife are too poor to support their children. They decide to lose them in the forest, so that they may be relieved of the need of filling so many hungry mouths. The first time, the abandoned youngsters find their way home again; the second time, they are more effectually shaken off by the parents, and wander into a world of adventures here irrelevant.—This opening situation is common in fairy tales; instances might be multiplied indefinitely. It becomes plain from these tales still current among the folk of civilized nations, that there must be some reason for the seem- ingly incredible accusation of child-murder. This accusation can be explained, I think, by primitive customs. The parallels between fairy tales and fact are too interesting and significant to be over- looked. Whatever the cause may be, infanticide is certainly a wide- spread practice among contemporary savage peoples. We read in a discussion of Nigerian native life ° that the parents of four small daughters are accused of eating them when the children disappear in succession; and more important still, the whole village believes that the crime was actually committed. In such cases, the sober 7Cf. von Hahn’s collection, nos. 32 Deutsche Marchen seit Grimm, Jena, and 36; Klara Stroebe, Nordische Mar- 1919, 250. chen, Jena, 1919, II, no. 48; P. Zaunert, SA. J. M. Tremearne, Hansa Super- stitions and Customs, London, 1913.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 17 assumption of the possibility of the crime is as important as its existence in fact. Otherwise the rdle of the credulous king in the folk-tales remains incomprehensible. Such anecdotes recall the teknophagous parents in Balkan marchen. Many other verified examples of the same sort may be found in that storehouse of primitive human material, Sir J. G. Frazer’s The Golden Bough? The following illustrations will indicate clearly enough the uni- versality of the practice of infanticide and some of the motives which lead to it. The customs indicate that child-murder was once a respectable act, not always a subject for accusation. In some tribes of New South Wales, the eating of the firstborn child of every woman was formerly a tribal religious ceremony. (R. Brough Smyth, Adorigines of Victoria, Il, 311.) Among the natives of the districts around the Paroo and Warrego Rivers, also in New South Wales, the firstborn child of a young wife was formerly strangled. (E. Curr, The Australian Race, Il, 182. Idid., ry 19°) In India, down to the nineteenth century, the custom of sacrificing a firstborn child to the Ganges was common. (Fo/d/ore, XIII, 63; also W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, Il, 169.) In a Chinese state called Khai-muh, east of Yush, it was once cus- tomary to devour firstborn sons. And west of Kiao-Chi “There was a realm of man-eaters, where the firstborn son was, as a rule, chopped to pieces and eaten, and his younger brothers were nevertheless regarded to have fulfilled their fraternal duties towards him.” (J. J. M. de Groot, Religious System of China, Il, 679; IV, 364 and 365.) The Borans, on the southern borders of Abyssinia, propitiate a sky- spirit called Wak by sacrificing their children and cattle to him. When a man of any standing marries, he is expected to expose the children who are born in the first few years, to die in the bush. (Geog. Journal, XXIII, 1904, 567 ff.) The Kerre, Bana, and Bashada, three tribes in southern Abyssinia, strangle their firstborn children. The Kerre cast the bodies into the river Omo, where they are eaten by crocodiles; but the intention does not seem to be a sacrifice to the crocodiles. "The other two tribes ex- pose their children in the forest. (C. H. Stigand, To Abyssinia through an Unknown Land, London, 1910, p. 243.) The natives of Rook, an island off the coast of New Guinea, buried their firstborn children whom they killed instead of eating them. They killed every alternate child thereafter. (Ammales de la Propagation de la Foi, XXVII, 1855, 368 ff.) ° Third edition, 1920, IV, 179-191.18 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS In Queensland, among the aboriginal tribes, a woman’s first child was nearly always exposed to die. (A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South East Australia, p. 750.) In Polynesia the custom of infanticide did, and still does, prevail widely. Frazer suggests that the custom of abdicating the rights of chieftainship in favor of a newborn son may have led to the practice. If that is the reason, we have here an instance of the fear-motive that becomes so strikingly evident in the stories of exposed children who grow up in spite of their parents: in the Oedipus-myth, for instance. Whatever the reason, the early missionaries estimated that two-thirds of the children born were killed by their parents. W. Ellis (in his Poly- nesian Researches, London, 1832) tells of three women who, together, had put to death twenty-one children. Some tribes killed children simply to avoid the trouble of rearing them, especially if the mother were burdened with more than one very small infant at a time. “It is infanticide which is resorted to for the purpose of keeping down the number of a family. And here we may say that the number is kept down, not with any idea at all of regulating the food supply, so far as the adults are concerned, but simply from the point of view that, if the mother is suckling one child, she cannot prop- erly provide food for another, quite apart from the question of carrying two children about.” (Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 264.) It is well to remember that savages are not gifted with economic forethought or understanding of the relation of popu- lation to food supply. Although Polynesians are said to have practised infanticide because of the restricted space for a growing population,’ most primitive people show a consciousness of this relation only when they are already hard-pressed by famine. Then, as in the familiar fairy tales, the children are simply eaten. “In the Wotjobaluk tribe, infants were killed in the old time, no difference being made between boys and girls. If a couple had a child, either boy or girl, say ten years old, and a baby was born to them, it might be killed and cooked for the elder brother or sister to eat.” (A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-east Australia, p. 749.) When girls and boys were not treated alike in the important matter of being killed or allowed to live, the reason is often to be found in the prejudice against girls as useless non-combatants. On the other hand, girls were often spared more readily because they would later bring a good marriage price. (R. H. Corington, The Melanesians, Oxford, 1891, p. 229.) But this reason for sparing them is admittedly an indication of com- parative advancement. “The long-headed, cold-hearted calculation, which > See also E. J. Eyre, Journals of er’s Totemism and Exogamy, London, Expeditions of Discovery into Central NOLO LWA 772 Australia, London, 1845, II, 324; Fra-ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 19 spares boys because in years to come they will grow up to fight and hunt, or girls because they will fetch a round price in the marriage market, belongs to a higher stage of intellectual, if not moral evolution than the rude savagery to which the origin of exogamy must be referred.” ** No Australian tribe was ever known to store up food for a time of dearth; so infanticide was hardly practised on the principles of Malthus. The most common causes of infanticide were: a desire to avoid the care of rearing the children; fear that they might be ancestors reincarnated or might anticipate succession to the chieftainship; prejudice against girls because they would not become warriors; a pressing famine; and, very commonly, a desire to sacrifice to gods or to spirits of water or forest. The exposure of children in rivers or jungles reminds one of children set afloat or wilfully lost by too-poor parents in folk-tales. Only, the motive discov- ered by a glance at tribal customs (sacrifice) seems more genuine and ancient than lack of food. Certainly a provident restriction of population was no motive ** among the tribes just discussed. Fear seems to be one reason for child-sacrifice: fear of the gods among even such civilized people as the Carthaginians; fear of one’s child as potential rival and successor, especially among people who believed strongly in transmigration of the soul. “At Why- dah, on the slave coast of West Africa, where the doctrine of reincarnation is firmly held, it has happened that a child has been put to death because the fetish doctors declared it to be the king’s father come to life again. ‘The king naturally could not submit to be pushed from the throne by his predecessor in this fashion; so he compelled his supposed parent to return to the realm of the dead.” ** No one would be so rash as to assume a direct connection be- tween the customs of the Slave Coast of Africa, and folk-tales current among the evolved races of Europe. Parents in European marchen do not eat or expose their children on land and water because African black men put ¢heir offspring to strange and seem- ingly inhuman uses. But European tradition shows the survival of similar customs, in tales told to frighten unruly children. Human sacrifice to rivers can be clearly perceived in the surviving legends palbrdes V5 82: 18 Missions Catholiques, XVI, 1884, “The Golden Bough, IV, 188. 259.20 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS of the Germans, ‘The Nickert or Nickelmann is supposed to have a great passion for pulling down unwary children into the green depths as his prey, a sacrifice which he seizes if it is not willingly 14 “Kinder diirfen nicht zu nah ans Wasser gehen, denn da given 99> 15 unten sitzt der schwartze Nickelmann, der schnappt nach ihnen, we are told; and it is not impossible to feel the thrill of terror and curiosity with which a youngster might receive this warning from parents who are unconsciously echoing an ancestral age of child- sacrifice. In ancient times, the story goes, people sacrificed a black chicken yearly: but once they forgot, and the Nickelmann claimed a human substitute in the shape of an unfortunate creature who was drowned in the waters.*® A grim reality existed once to make possible the exquisite opening lyric of Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell. To sum up: in a certain body of folk-tales, a queen is falsely accused of killing, or killing and eating, her own children. As the instances quoted would indicate, the king’s jealous mother is usually the malignant accuser. In other tales, the heroine is per- secuted by a witch or a dragon or a stepmother or a rival or a rival wife; but never, as far as I know, by a scheming courtier. Side by side with the stories in which the mother did not commit the crime of infanticide, there are tales in which the crime is actually committed, or at least contemplated. These tales serve to make more vivid and comprehensible the first group, in which the false and monstrous accusation is so readily believed. In them, the reasons are not always given; but among the motives suggested are famine, punishment for the child, and fear of the child (a father’s fear that the child will cause his ruin). “These motives can be traced still among primitive folk: famine, fear, a simple desire to be rid of the child, and an obligation to placate spirits of earth and water (forests and rivers) by human sacrifice. ‘This last motive is not distinctly expressed in folk-tales, to be sure; but we may be reasonably certain that the widespread superstitions about water spirits and child victims are descended from forgotten cus- toms of the sort. And the promising of children to the devil or to some other malevolent power before birth (as in the second ™Kithn und Schwartz, Norddeutsche W. Wolf, Niederlandische Sagen, Leip- Sagen, Leipzig, 1848, 92, 94, 174. zig, 1843, 14; R. Wilhelm, Chinesische a Tbid., 172. Volksmarchen, no. 52—a clear example Cf. The Golden Bough, IV, 38; J. of custom living on in tradition.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 21 Finnish story quoted) is another form assumed by child-sacrifice in popular tradition. In a certain sense, the investigation thus far has yielded only negative results. We have found many parallels to the accusa- tion of child-murder brought by Robbrecht: illuminating parallels; constant reminders that a very thin line separates primitive legends and beliefs from the more civilized literature of Western Europe in the Middle Ages. But we have found no companion-figure for Robbrecht himself, the traitor from whose mouth issues the astonishingly primitive and incongruous accusation of infanticide. The very absence of this figure in the fairy tales has a real sig- nificance. B. THE AccusaTIon oF ANIMAL BirTH A second accusation brought against unhappy, nameless queens in fairy tales is even more fantastic than the first, to our present way of thinking, although it is to be found in Chaucer. It is the accusation, namely, that the unfortunate lady has brought into the world monsters or animals instead of children. The charge occurs in many tales from all parts of the world, and is nearly always believed by the royal husband. Here, for instance, is a Turkish tale, in which the motive is feminine jealousy: *7 A man has no children. So he buys a second wife, who naturally evokes the envy of the first. When the new favorite bears twins, the envious one substitutes a dead snake, boxes up the children, and has them thrown into the sea. They are found on the shore by another childless man whose wife’s dream had sent him looking there. The man adopts the children. Their real mother is disgraced by the supposed unnatural birth, and driven into exile. Shepherds take care of her. One day the companions of the boy taunt him as a foundling. He is impatient to find his own family. So he and his sister go on their journey guided by a dream, and the son finds his mother, besides dragons to encounter, and riches, and a wife. In a Berber story, the boy reinstates his mother as well.** A man has two wives, one of whom bears a son. The father com- 41. Kinos, Tirkische Volksmarchen J. Riviere, Recueil de Contes Popu- aus Stambul, 339. laires de la Kabylie du Djurdjura, 39.22 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS mands her to devote herself to the care of the infant while the other wife does the work. ‘This makes the childless wife jealous. She sends the favored one to get water while the husband is away. She takes the child from its cradle and exchanges it with a passing merchant for a half-dead crow. When the husband and the mother come in, they see the bird in the cradle. The other wife says, “Look! She is the mother of a crow!” The crow is killed, and the mother is reduced to a mean place in the household. Years later the boy learns from his foster-mother, the merchant’s wife, that he is not her son. He demands to be taken back to the house where he was so cheaply sold. When food is brought to him there, he says, “J shall not eat unless the other wife is brought in.” ‘They protest that she is a bad woman because her child was really a crow, and had assumed its proper shape very soon. “Did the child have a birth mark?” asks the boy; and triumphantly displays his own to prove his identity. Thus he restores his mother to her rightful place. Such stories are particularly interesting because they reach a solution—the restoration of the wronged lady—through the child himself. This conclusion occurs frequently in both marchen and romance. In Zulu tradition,” a chief’s wife once gave birth to a huge snake which was cast into a pool and avoided in horror by the people. The mother was disgraced, and had to live in an isolated hut near the gateway of the new village. One day ten children come out of the deserted snake. They seek out their father’s village. In some hidden way, they know about their mother’s fate, and are able to answer their father’s questions and to point her out. The oldest says reproachfully, “I see that my mother was troubled.” The father apologizes—and hastily abdi- cates. The credulity of the husband in a tale such as this becomes more understandable when one recalls the numberless cases of human mothers in folk-tales who actually do bear animals. In the most primitive type of literature, the possibility is always gravely con- ceded. A Malay story °° has a heroine who bears a dog as son; and it is noteworthy that a dog is actually the father as well. 21 Another story in the same collection ** tells of an ape born of a human mother, who is unspelled and given human shape by mar- Henry Callaway, Nursery Tales... aus Madagaskar und Insulinde, Jena, of the Zulus, 268. 1922, no. 60. *® Paul Hambruch, Malaiische Marchen 1 Thid., no. 26.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 23 riage with the king’s daughter. The Zulus tell of a snake born of a chief’s favorite wife, after three preceding children have been destroyed by a jealous sister, who is a rival wife. ‘The snake- child is unspelled by a girl who is brave enough to marry him: whereupon it appears that the transformation of shape was a device of his mother’s to save him from the jealous rival.2”? In Europe, also, there are countless tales which begin with the birth of an animal from a human mother, as the result of an incautiously expressed wish: “I wish I might have a child, even if it were only a cat,” or snake, or puppy, or what not. To this family of tales belongs the King Lindorm type, in which the liberation of the animal is brought about by a girl who marries and unspells him.” Stories of this type render quite understandable the plausibility which earlier story-tellers, and later ones as well, found in the accusation of an animal birth. As for the stories in which the charge is brought falsely and malevolently, for one cause or another, they too are multifarious but very similar to one another. One large group, which may be called “The Exchanged Letter,” presents a definite plot with a definite logic of sequent events, roughly the same in all instances. When this is true of a popular tale with a rather complex plot, one may suspect a genealogical family relation among the obtain- able instances of the type, especially when these instances are not separated by insuperable geographical barriers. And the family relationship among numerous contemporary tales implies descent from a common ancestor, when a fairly complicated plot has main- tained its form as persistently the same in outline, even it tes scattered and multiplied in many variant versions. Let us assume with Bolte and Polivka,* for instance, that the ramified variants of the Exchanged Letter story (similar to Chau- cer’s Constance-story) go back to a single source and locality which are unknown to us. Does that mean necessarily that the group has no significance for an attempt like this, to discover universal thought-ways of primitive story-tellers, through similar beliefs 2 Henry Callaway, op. cit., 321. *4 Johannes Bolte and Georg Polivka, 3 F.g., Klara Stroebe, Nordische Volks- Ammerkungen wu den Kinder- und Haus- marchen, no. 1. marchen der Bruder Grimm, Leipzig; 1913, II, 380.24 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS similarly manifest the world over in stories of independent origin? Must the stories considered be limited to those simpler ones which quite clearly do not stand in any definite genealogical series—which seem to have arisen independently out of similar customs and be- liefs? I think not, for two reasons. In the first place, even the “Urmiarchen” of the more complicated type is made up of con- stituent parts which may be closely paralleled in simple independent stones or customs the world over; which are none the less primi- tive for being used elsewhere as part of a mosaic of such formulae. ‘Thus, the motive used at the beginning of the Exchanged Letter tale in many of its versions (the desire of a king to marry his own daughter) may be found in the classical fables of Hyginus and in the Cinderella-marchen. In the latter case, the heroine escapes from her father with magnificent clothes which serve to dazzle a prince at three successive balls, while she serves by day as kitchen maid in the royal palace. This is but one instance of the ubiqui- tousness of such formulae. Even if one gifted story-teller at one definite time was responsible for the weaving of such inherited themes into a more elaborate fabric, the strands themselves may be recognized separately and identified elsewhere. The second reason for attaching some importance to related family groups of stories is this: after the “Urmarchen,” in its hypothetical original form, had become current among the various nations of Europe, it was modified here and there, and substitu- tions were made, and new formulae of equally ancient date were introduced in place of old ones. Thus, at the beginning of the story, the cruel persecuting father or the malevolent stepmother might be substituted for the incestuous father. In this way, the shifting, kaleidoscopic plot becomes anew tl le repository of varying yet similar motives of independent origin in popular custom. This increases its significance for the student. The heroine who suffers exile because of an has borne animals is common] gild’s in Chaucer.?® departure.”° accusation that she y the victim of forgery like Done- We may take an Italian tale as a point of 25 “145 5 2 For a bibliography of this type of *° A. de Gubernatis, Tradizioni Popolari folk-tale, see Bolte and Polivka, I, 302- de S. Stefano di Calcinaia, Rome, 1894, 311. Only typical variants will be sum- 146. marized here,ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 25 A King, departing for war, leaves his wife in the care of his mother, who is hostile to the young Queen. The wife bears a son and a daugh- ter. The enraged mother-in-law writes a letter to her son about the event; but, instead of reporting the truth, she says that the Queen has borne puppies. The King is very sad when he receives this piece of news; but, thinking it is his blood as well as hers [he is not primitive enough to suspect animal parenthood for the children, as do some], he replies with a command to have his wife well cared for. Instead, the mother-in-law has her set adrift in a chest with the two children. A fisherman finds them on an island, and cares for them for six years. One day the King comes, and sees his children. He finds his wife and hears the tale of her wrongs; and the family is happily reunited. But the wicked mother-in-law is put to death. In a second tale from the same country,”’ the King’s mother hates her daughter-in-law because she is of peasant birth. Here the old woman herself stirs up the war which calls her son away; and instead of accusing the young mother by letter merely, she actually substitutes dogs for the children, and exposes the babies in the forest. Both of these tales represent a simple and reduced form of the plot. There is, so far, no introduction explaining how the King came to marry the heroine; and the mother-in-law writes an original letter instead of forging an exchanged one. In a Turkish story, we find a more complicated machinery: ** To escape marriage with a Dev (demonic creature), a girl flees on a magic horse. She is married by the Padishah of the strange land to which the horse takes her. While her husband is away at war, she bears a son and a daughter. A Tartar messenger is despatched with the good news, but he tarries overnight with the Dev. While the Tartar is asleep, the girl’s inhuman lover changes the message to read “two dogs’’ instead of two children. On the way back, the Tartar spends a second night with the Dev, and the humane commands of the Padishah to have his wife cared for are changed into the curt order: “Cast her and her off- spring into the mountains!” The heroine is rescued once more from the Dev by her magic horse. It rides itself to death to serve her, and then changes itself into a palace in which she lives with her two chil- dren. When her husband returns home, he learns the truth after a few astonished inquiries and a glance at the changed letter. He sets out to ™Stanislao Prato, Quattro Novelline Popolari Livornesi, Spoleto, 1880, 92- 136 (with bibliography). Also Hermann Knust, Italienische Mdarchen, no. 1. Ignaz Kiunos, Turkische Volksmar- chen aus Stambul, 172.26 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS find his wife, and finally reaches the magic palace. While he is being served, his wife sends the two children out to ask for food for their wooden horse. ‘Can these toys eat?” ask the guests. “Can a woman bear dogs?” the children reply; and a recognition scene takes place on the spot. The changing of the letter during the messenger’s sleep is a usual feature of these stories. In this respect, the plot bears a slicht resemblance to legends such as the Dit de PEmpereur Con- stant, where a young man is saved from death by a piece of kindly forgery while he is asleep. The Turkish variant has used a demon persecutor in place of the malevolent mother-in-law, just as witch or devil was used in her place as the accuser in the infanticide stories. Further variations may be found in Siberian folk litera- ture. In one tale,” the treason and false accusation of animal birth are the work of forty co-wives, helped by a witch-woman. The mother and child are exposed, although the letter had been changed to a command for death. No reason is given for the more humane sentence. It ought logically to proceed from a friend of the heroine—like the Constable in the Man of Law”s Tale. A second Siberian legend *° also multiplies the number of per- secutors. The girl becomes the victim of a wolf-woman (mother of a wolf she had refused to marry) and of her own mother-in- law. A third variant** in the same collection contains the accu- sation, made by a witch-woman, that the monstrous child is the son of a seven-headed Jelbagan (whatever variety of horror that may be); but the father-in-law who sends the messages is entirely innocent of the charges in them. A blurred tradition from Silesia*? tells how a King marries the daughter of a poor forest dweller, “although she has no fingers.” (The reason for this mutilation is not given; elsewhere we meet a similar disfigurement of the heroine explained in many ways.) His mother is horrified, and ®W. Radloff, Proben der Volkslitera- who write to the affectionate kindly, tur der tirkischen Stamme Siidsibiriens, St. Petersburg, 1866-1870, III, 733. In an Arabic tale translated by Daumling (Studie iiber den Typus des “Mdadchens ohne Hande,” Munich, 1912, 57 ff.), the forgery is the work of jealous concubines mother-in-law. ®°'W. Radloff, Proben der Volkslitera- tur der tirkischen Stamme Siidsibiriens, St. Petersburg, 1866-1870, III, 372. © Tbid., I, 563. *° Anton Peter, Volkstiimliches aus Oes- terreich-schlesien, Troppau, 1867, 197.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 27 his neighbors indignantly declare war on him. While the King is away fighting them, the mother orders the young Queen to be taken out into the forest and killed, but she does not avail herself of the use of the forged letter. of course, and her husband finds her years later, takes her home, ‘The murderers spare their victim, and punishes his mother. All of these stories appear to be confused and illogical rework- ings, reminiscences perhaps, of an originally clear plot. Every attempt to heighten the effect of the heroine’s sufferings, through repetition of accusations or duplication of persecutors, simply results in a loss of logical sequence and probability. Nevertheless the cen- tral scheme begins to emerge with increasing clarity, despite all disfiguring variations. A number of European examples illustrate the most significant of these variations. A German story, for instance, substitutes the girl’s own mother for a mother-in-law as 3 persecutor;** other stories retain the King’s mother as persecutor beside the girl’s own mother, making her the victim of two women 4 instead of one.** A confused tale of this type, beginning with the mother as persecutor but not clear in its later course, has been 36 com- recorded by Jean Fleury.*’ A popular story from Italy bines mother and mother-in-law as persecutors, and represents the two old women as working together. Another*’ lays the whole treason, both the initial persecution and the letter reporting the A Sicilian story °** deliberately contrasts the cruelty of the girl’s proper mother One detail of this last plot is remarkable, and deserves to be mentioned birth of monsters, to the account of the mother alone. with the tenderness and humanity of the King’s mother. parenthetically. When the evil mother tampers with the first letter, she does not write in an accusation of an animal birth, but of infidelity on the part of the young queen. ‘This accusation is so 33 Heinrich Prohle, Kinder- und Volks- marchen, Leipzig, 1853, no. 36. *4 Christian Schneller, Sagen aus Walschtirol, Innsbruck, 1867, no. 50. Cf. Grimm, no. 31. Also I. and J. Zingerle, Kinder- und Hausmar- Stiddeutschland, Regensburg, Marchen und chen aus 1854, 124. Sit. Orale de la Basse-Normandie, Paris, 1883, 151. *® Gherardo Nerucci, Sessanta Novelle Popolari Montalesi, Florence, 1880, 43. 57 Thid., 134. The list could be ex- tended, of course. $8 Laura Gonzenbach, Sicilianische Mar- chen, Leipzig, 1870, no. 24. For bibli- ography, see Stanislao Prato, Quattro Novelline, Spoleto, 1880, 94 ff.28 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS very rare in folk-tales—almost unheard of, in fact—that such an occurrence makes the rarity all the more striking. We have not yet exhausted all the types of story which center about the more primitive accusation. As the preceding instances show, there are many reasons given for the exile, or for exile and handlessness, in which the King finds the heroine before he mar- ries her and which—usually—expose her to the resentment of his mother. So far as any exile is mentioned at all, it has been ex- plained by desire to escape a marriage with a monster, or persecution by a jealous mother. Here is a more edifying motive employed to reduce the girl to that condition of helplessness and mutilation which kings in folk-tales found so irresistible: “ A very poor couple have a daughter. One day a stranger stops at the hut, and offers to provide for the girl if they will surrender her to him completely after twelve years. The father consents, and espies the cloven hoof too late. At the end of twelve years, the Devil comes to claim her; but she has washed and crossed herself, and he has no power over her. To prevent this frustration of his plans a second time, he orders the greedy father to cut off her hands and lead her into the forest. Since she contrives to wash and cross herself before losing her hands, the Devil has no power over her, even in exile. The young King riding by sees her, and takes her home and marries her. While he is away at war, she bears twins. ‘The messenger meets a witch whose evil glances change the letter into news of the birth of cats. The horrified King gives com- mand to expose her in the forest again. When she tries to drink from a spring, one of her children falls into the water. Her hands are restored by her grasping after it with the stumps. She is harbored in a magic castle, and served by invisible hands. Meantime the King has “learned the truth” [how?], sets out to find her, and finally does so. He takes her home; and the magic castle vanishes. A more coherent form of the same plot is summarized by de Puymaigre *° from a Catalan story. Here again a father sells his daughter to the Devil, and her hands are cut off because she persists in nullifying the bargain by crossing herself. It is the same Devil, not an intruding witch, who changes the letters. This same economy of plot distinguishes the tale of Das Madchen ohne Hande in Grimm. In a Lithuanian story,** the girl’s fear of her © Dietrich Jecklin, Volkstiimliches aus de DHistoire des Religions, X, 193-209. Graubiinden, Zurich, 1874, I, 111. “August Schleicher, Litauische Mar- La Fille aux Mains Coupées, Revue chen, Weimar, 1857, 20.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 29 father is well founded, and her exile is well deserved, because she has killed one of his best servants. Several traits of this fairy tale recall La Belle Héléne de Constantinople, a medieval romance: the stealing of the young Queen’s letter-seal by her mother-in-law, who writes that two puppies have been born; the Queen’s hand tied around her child’s neck; the stealing of the infants by an animal; the manner of recognition by means of the hand. The tale may indeed be descended directly from some consciously artistic narrative. Other stories explain the first exile of the heroine by her father’s irritation at her excessive piety, which provokes him into driving her forth handless. Such, for instance, is the motive in the Italian legend of Oliva.” The name of this heroine suggests a relation- ship with the medieval legend of Saint Olive, which was popular in Italy as a miracle play. A short story from Armagnac*® con- cerns another heroine who suffers persecution, loss of her hands, and exile, because her father resents her devotion to the poor. The instigator of the father’s actions is one of the ubiquitous step- mothers, so potent for evil in marchen. The story does not con- tain a royal marriage for the young exile, or accusations of an animal birth and a second exile. It simply restores her to her parish as quickly as possible, where her presence has a very desirable effect on the crops. It illustrates, incidentally, the separate exist- ence of component parts of our more complicated type-tale, and makes clear that every handless girl does not necessarily marry a king’s son, or go into exile because her father wants to marry her. The ingredients of the Exchanged Letter story exist separately ; and in combination they show endless variation. This fact is a reminder of the hopelessness of tracing a folk-tale to a definite original home. Ohne is led to posit an “Urtypus” as original an- cestor; and then suddenly the figures of demons and witches and “G. Nerucci, Sessanta Novelle Popo- wives write to their husband that she lari, 324. See notes on Grimm, no. 31 has been unchaste. So she is exiled with (Anmerkungen, I, 295), Das Madchen her child, and her hands ohne Hande. One of the Arabian Nights when is devoted to such a tale (ed. Burton, water. IV, 281-283). The girl’s hands had “ Jean Francois Blade, Contes et Pro- been cut off because she violated a royal werbes Populaires Recueillis en Armagnac, decree against almsgiving; the King Paris, 1867, 55. marries her nevertheless; her jealous co- are restored she reaches after them into the30 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS cruel fathers and stepmothers begin to shift and merge into one another in the most bewildering fashion. Who shall undertake to decide between the merits of witch and stepmother as claimants to the role of original persecutor? ™ A few words remain to be said about the stepmother, who has been hitherto neglected in this discussion. A fair example of her activities in the Exchanged Letter story may be found in Brittany i A man remarries, and his daughter by the first wife is badly treated by her stepmother. During his absence the unfortunate Euphrosine 1s left in a tree in the forest, handless. A young gentleman finds her, takes her home, and marries her. ‘The affection of his mother towards her turns to hatred. While the husband of Euphrosine is absent, she bears twins. Her mother-in-law sends word to him that they are a dog and a calf. He replies that the animals are to be killed, but his wife must be spared. Instead, she is forced to go into exile a second time with her children strapped to her back. Her hands are restored to her when she reaches into magic water after her babies. Years later, the husband finds wife and children while he is hunting in the forest. He imprisons his mother in punishment. Almost identical is the story of the fair Rosina from Italy,” except that her second exile takes the form of floating across the sea in a chest with her two children. “The mother-in-law is not present in the castle when the children are born, but the messenger stays with her a night on each trip, and gives her each time an opportunity to change the letter. The brother of the absent King is the person who suggests that the Queen be set afloat instead of being killed then and there. A Greek story*’ containing a stepmother is worthy of mention because it is another of the few which substitute an accusation of infidelity for an accusation of bearing animals. ‘This fact, besides the general courtly and literary flavor of the plot (notice the use of a tournament, for instance, to bring characters together! ) makes one doubt the popular nature of the story; but, whether or not it has been affected by self-conscious literature, it must be reckoned with: “Cf. also Radloff, Proben der Volks- “°G. Nerucci, Sessanta Novelle Popo- lit., IV, 408. Again the story stops with lari, 348. the first exile. “T Emile Legrand, Recueil de Contes “Paul Sébillot, Contes Populaires de Populaires Grecs, Paris, 1881, 241. la Haute-Bretagne, Paris, 1880, I, 105.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 31 Princess Marie is deprived of her hands and driven into exile by her wicked stepmother. A King’s son finds her, and, with his father’s reluc- tant consent, marries her. Her husband goes to a tournament proclaimed by her father. There Marie’s stepmother falls in love with him, and there he is supposed to receive news of the birth of two sons. But the stepmother intercepts the tender greetings that are to go back to Marie, and changes them to a command to kill her because she is of disgraceful origin and unfaithful. Her father-in-law exposes her instead. The Virgin restores her hands. Her husband, having heard his father’s tale, seeks her and finds her. She divulges her identity, and goes with\her husband to visit her father. The stepmother is burnt to death.*® This story appeared in the seventeenth century in a book called ‘H tOv auaptwrAdv owtypia*® by a monk of Crete. The proba- bility of literary connections is thus increased. A rather restricted group presents still another personage as traitor and persecutor: namely, the wife of the heroine’s brother. It is a familiar trait of fairy-tale heroes that they are unusually devoted to their sisters, and accompany them through the most trying adventures with witches and stepmothers. Sisters, too, com- monly display a most admirable desire to free their brothers from inhuman shapes or inhuman behests. One is tempted to see in this devotion a distant trace of early matriarchal society, with its close dependence of a sister and her children upon her brother, which has left other marks as well on the constitution of conservative fairy-tale society. However that may be, the conflict between a man’s sister and his wife underlies this interesting legend, which contains some additional material on the custom of infanticide in fairy tales.°° A father who has twelve children tries to rid himself of the two oldest by losing them in the forest. His second attempt succeeds. Brother and sister have an adventure with a forest witch. They escape from her together. In time, the brother marries an evil woman, who tries to ruin the innocent Jeanne, her sister-in-law. She kills her own child and accuses Jeanne of the crime. For some unfathomable reason Jeanne fails to defend herself. She is turned out of the house with both arms torn AG Ch: Etudes sur la Lit. ® Cf. also Wuk Stephanowitsch Karad- See schitsch, Volksmarchen der Serben, Ber- lin, 1854, no. 33. ®Te Salut des Pecheurs, par Agapios de Créte, moine de Mont Athos, 1641. Gidel, Grecque Moderne, Paris, 1866, 289. ©F. M. Luzel, Chrétiennes de la Basse-Bretagne, 1881, II, 235. Légendes e Paris, a 332 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS off by her brother. A nobleman finds her in the forest and marries her, in spite of her mutilation. While he is away at war, she bears twins. But the messenger passes the house of her wicked sister-in-law, who changes the letter to report “a cat and a dog,” and the return letter to a command -for the exile of all three. Jeanne goes forth into exile once more.. She finds asylum with the converted witch (who figured at the beginning of the story). Her father finds her here, with her arms restored by the witch. A belated explana- tion takes place on the part of the too-reticent Jeanne, and the wicked sister-in-law meets her deserved punishment. A Russian parallel °* omits the episode of the witch and the exposure of brother and sister by an unnatural father; but the sister-in-law plays the same part. In a Finnish variant, the heroine again maintains an irrational silence in the face of her sister-in-law’s accusation.”*” ‘This time, the changer of the letter is an “evil woman,” whose connection with the plot is not clear, and whose forgeries are repeated a be- wildering number of times. Each time the children alone are exiled, whereupon the Devil takes them. After the fourth birth and treachery, the Queen herself, with the last infant, is set adrift on the sea. In the end, she is restored to her husband but not to her brother, who is apparently forgotten. This family of stories, no matter how close their relationship, presents enough variety to widen considerably our knowledge of persecutors. Again it is to be noticed that no character similar to the villain Robbrecht has been cited, nor have I found any such in examining folk-tales. The accusation of infidelity is very sel- dom encountered. We move still in a world of frenetic family hostilities: hatred of stepmother for stepdaughter, mother for daugh- ter, mother-in-law for daughter-in-law. The mother-in-law leads She is usually the forger of lying let- The hostility of an old queen towards her son’s wife is not confined to this definite pat- in numerical importance. ters.°° One wonders why, of course. tern marchen. It may be worth while to glance at a few instances outside of the Exchanged Letter cycle. 5 August von Léwis of Menar, Rus- sische Volksmarchen, Jena, 1921, no. 26. 52.4. von Loéwis of Menar, Finnische Marchen, 53. "Sin an isolated instance, the loss of the mother-in-law as persecutor has left the burden of forgery to the messenger himself. His behavior is unmotivated; and the story would be incomprehensible without the other members of the cycle. (Klara Stroebe, Nordische Volksmarchen, 1)ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 33 1. In Grimm’s Marchen no. 49, Die sechs Schwane, a sister redeems her brothers from raven’s form by seven years of silence, during which she makes a magic shirt for each brother. Her mother-in-law takes ad- vantage of the girl’s supposed dumbness to expose her children succes- sively, substituting animals. 2. A. de Gubernatis, Florilegio delle Novellime Popolari (Milan 1883) p. 306. A King’s mother hates his young wife. During his absence at war she orders the young woman taken out into the woods and killed. Instead, the servitor blinds her and takes the eyes home. Her adventures end with restored sight for her and death for the dowager. 3. V. Imbriani, La Novellaja Fiorentina, 1844, p. 232. A King goes hunting. He unspells a fair lady in an enchanted castle, and mar- ries her secretly. He says nothing to his mother, even when his wife bears children. But the old Queen finds out his secret, and attempts to destroy the family of her son. 4, Avenstrup and Treitel, Islandische Marchen und Volkssagen, Ber- lin, 1919, p. 24. Hildur is the young wife of the King of the Nether- world. She is loved by husband, children, and subjects; but her mother- in-law hates her and curses her, so that she is compelled to spend every day and night of the year on earth as a witch, except only Christmas Eve. The King pleads with his mother to remove the spells (p. 30): “Take back your curses, mother, and give ear to my prayers, so that my Queen need no longer remain far from me, and my joy at our meetings may last longer than it does now.” She answers: “All of my curses shall be upon her still, and nothing will move me to recall them.” MHildur is eventually unspelled by a bold mortal who witnesses these scenes under the protection of invisibility. And so on.°* It may be futile to look for an explanation for causeless hostilities in the bewitched world of fairy tales. “The characters and motives in that world seem at first too topsy-turvy, too remote from rational sequence and reality, for satisfactory ex- planation. But the more one studies popular tales the more they reveal a logic of their own, even in the matter of family hostilities. And these family hostilities, it seems to me, turn quite clearly on the matriarchal arrangement of society which they imply. How many a princess, for instance, is surrounded by her father with all sorts of restrictions to prevent her marriage, because her husband, rather than her brother, is to be his successor (and displacer) on the throne! ‘The list is well-nigh endless, and particularly inter- 'For a very interesting extra-Euro- wrath of the mother-in-law is as fiend- pean example, see Paul Hambruch, Siid- ish as it is unprovoked; and it extends seemarchen, Jena, 1921, no. 23. The to her grandchildren as well.Ne ee 34 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS esting in connection with Damiet and her father in Esmoreit. How many a tabu marriage, like that of Amor and Psyche, recalls matriarchal exogamy! And if we are justified in this interpre- tation, we may see in the secret marriage of the King in the third tale above, a strong reminiscence of the time when a man sup- ported his mother and sister, while his wife remained elsewhere and was supported, along with her children, by her own family of brothers.°° If this is true, it is easier to understand the hostility of the mother-in-law to any arrangement which might shift her son’s allegiance and support from her own domicile to his wife’s. One is tempted to say definitely that the mother-in-law got her traditional rdle assigned to her—a rdle perpetuated still in current jokes—during a time of transition from the one phase of family life to the other. ‘The speech of the King of the Netherworld in the Icelandic tale*® sounds very much like a plea for the change! Apparently not all human races went through just this evolution of domestic loyalties, or in just this order.°’ Many anthropologists believe that the order is as often reversed. But it seems to me that a large number of marchen, European and extra-European, bear traces of an origin among people who were living in such a transitional stage, when filial allegiance was beginning to shift toward marital allegiance. It is hard not to think so when one finds stories stating expressly that ““The King became so fond of his wife that he neglected his mother, and she sat brooding revenge in her own castle’—or something of the sort. Her wrath and jealousy are a matter of tradition, then, even after the transition is complete. And she is still wrathful and jealous in medieval literature. Because of these indications (proofs one can hardly call them), namely, numerical preponderance, and consonance with a demon- strable form of primitive society, I am inclined to select the mother- in-law as the most ancient persecutor. If an Urmirchen of the For interesting echoes of this condi- No. 4 above. tion in later literature, see W. O. Farns- “Robert H. Lowie argues strongly worth, Uncle and Nephew in the Old against the universality of such a se- French Chansons de Geste, New York, quence in Primitive Society, New York, 1913; and A. W. Aron, Traces of Matri- 19205 (Ch! Tv. archy im Germanic Hero-Lore, Univer- sity of Wisconsin Series, 1920.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 35 Exchanged Letter type really existed as common ancestor of mod- ern European ones, it might have run something like this: A girl is exiled for some cause over which she has no control: her stepmother’s jealousy, her sister-in-law’s hatred, her father’s cruelty, or a supernatural persecution. A King finds her, usually mutilated as to hands, and takes her home to marry her. His mother resents the mar- riage, and retires to her own castle. When the young Queen gives birth to children during the King’s absence, the messenger is entertained by the old Queen, who changes the letter during his sleep to report the birth of animals. The King receives the letter and is properly horrified, but he nevertheless replies with a command to care for his wife tenderly. The old Queen changes this humane message into an order for the exile of mother and children, either in the forest or on the waters. Through supernatural aid (magic spring, grateful animals, fairies, etc.) the hero- ine’s hands are restored and a house is provided for her. Here her hus- band discovers her, having brought to light the treason in the family by a few well-placed questions, and having punished his mother with a sufficiently barbarous death. The innumerable variants of this hypothetical plot show how completely the people have made it their own. ‘The most salient feature of it—the accusation of bearing animals—remains, how- ever, surprisingly constant; and the figure of the mother-in-law is the motive power for evil in a majority of the stories. More we cannot say about the origin of the type. One subdivision of the cycle, important for its affiliations in medieval literature, remains to be discussed. I refer to that group of stories which motivate the heroine’s initial exile by the perse- cution of an incestuous father. Although that formula is impor- tant enough in literary versions which combine it with the Ex- changed Letter, it is seldom employed in fairy tales as prologue to our plot. The few instances I have found seem clearly trace- able to known medieval versions, and belong properly therefore in another chapter. Such, for instance, is the Italian “La Madre Oliva,” °* which, by its very title, betrays descent from the medie- val legend of that name: A Queen, dying, exhorts her daughter to continue her work of alms- % Archivo per lo Studio delle Tradixioni Popolari, Palermo, 1882, I, 520.36 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS giving. [This seems to be a faint approach to the use of piety as a trait provoking paternal persecution.] One day the King sees his daugh- ter, and remarks to her abruptly, “My daughter, I am in love.” She asks innocently, “With whom, father?” ‘With your beautiful hands,” he replies. She promptly cuts them off and sends them in a golden. vessel to her father. He is much chagrined. To express his disapproval of her conduct, he sets her afloat over the sea in a chest. Near her landing place, she is found by a King who, of course, marries her. His mother disapproves strongly, and announces, “I shall retire to a monastery.” During the King’s absence, the usual treason is perpetrated by the King’s mother. The accusation is again the birth of animals. The second forgery demands the death of mother and children. Instead “they” cut off the hands of the young Queen [again!] and let her wander into the forest. She recovers hands and husband in the usual way. In one story from Hesse given by Grimm in his notes, as a variant of the usual “(Madchen ohne Hande”’ type, the girl is again driven out handless by her father in the beginning, because he wanted to marry her. Such is the order of events made familiar to us by poems of the Middle Ages like Mai und Beaflor. But it must be confessed that just this sequence is foreign to the folk-tales, except in a few If the hypothetical author of the Urmiarchen really began with the incest-motive (as is sometimes suspiciously literary instances.” assumed), why has this opening formula been so universally re- The question leads back to another one already raised: Is not the whole plot simply an accretion of separately existent independent for- mulas? placed by others in contemporary versions recently collected? But that query is merely interesting, not answerable. It so happens that the formula of the incestuous father as perse- cutor does occur very frequently in marchen,” outside of the group we are now discussing. It is generally associated with the Cinder- ella heroine, who wins herself a prince as husband by her mysteri- ous appearance at three successive balls in magically radiant gowns. A typical and conveniently elementary form is preserved in a Lith- uanian tale: °** Cinderella: Five Cf. Romanceiro, Choix de Vieux Chants Portugais (trans. by de Puy- Three Hundred and Forty Variants, London, 1893, xxxii- maigre), Paris, 1881, nos. 9 and 10, and the bibliographies of each. Cf. Daum- ling’s Arabic tale mentioned on p. 26, n. © For a tabulation of variants of this Cinderella tale see Marian Roalfe Cox, Xxxili ef passim. * A. Leskien and K. Brugmann, Litau- ische VWolkslieder und Marchen, Strass- burg, 1882, no. 24.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 37 A King loses his Queen, and can find no woman fair enough to marry after her—except his own daughter. She protests in vain; she spends the next night in tears. Her mother appears to her, and advises her to demand a dress of the sun as price of her consent. She obtains this from her father; also sun-gloves and sun-shoes; a moon-dress and a star- dress, and finally a complete coat of rat-skin. She puts on all her glorious raiment under the gray coat, and is carried away by her mother in a storm. Her father kills himself. She finds herself near a rock, under which she hides the clothes. She appears as a rat to the King as he rides by. Because the rat can speak It is taken to the royal palace and given to a lackey as a curiosity. One day the lackey forgets to polish the King’s shoes, The rat-girl does so and presents them to her master the King, who merely strikes her in reward. She follows him to church in her star-array, and dazzles him. When he asks whence she came, she says “From Shoe Castle.” On another occasion she brings his knife to™him at table, is struck by him for her pains, and follows him to church in moon-attire. This time she says she comes from Knife Castle. The third time she receives a blow when she fetches his forgotten handkerchief, and tells him in church that she comes from Handkerchief Castle. As she is leaving, one of her sun-shoes remains clinging in the tar that has been spread for the purpose. The King goes through the world searching for its owner, whom, of course, he eventually finds at home in the person of the despised rat-girl. ‘The second part of the story does not concern us here; but the first part, which is used as one means of getting our much harassed heroine into exile, most certainly does. It concerns us especially just because it does appear so often as part of another story. But it deserves to be considered separately, not merely as an introduction to the Exchanged Letter story. In the Cinderella-cycle, the king’s desire to marry his daughter is often based on a request of his dying wife. She bids him remarry only if he can find a woman whom her ring or clothes will fit. The king is unable to discover such a person until his daughter is grown; and then she accidentally proves her fitness for the honor by trying on the articles in question. In many stories the ring of her mother is the fatal object.°* Other stories use the dead queen’s ® A. de Gubernatis, Tradizione Popo- 1567) in Favola 4. These versions are lari de S. Stefano di Calcinaia, no. 3; closely related, as their geographical dis- Isdem, Florilegio delle Novelline Popo- tribution would indicate. The differences lari, 25 and 56; Gonzenbach, Sicilian- concern merely the exact nature of the ische Marchen, no. 38; and the popular magic dresses demanded by the heroine tale recorded by Straparola (Venice, from her father (usually gowns of solar38 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS clothes as a test for her successor.°* One of these®* uses the king- who-wants-to-marry-his-daughter to introduce an entirely different type of plot, resembling Danaé’s story rather than Cinderella’s. In a few stories the queen makes her husband promise to marry only a woman more fair than she, and the fairer one is their own daughter. Such is the plot of Le Taureau @Or, which has a sec- ond part different from the Exchanged Letter or the Cinderella ending: °° A King is happily married. After his wife’s death and his promise about remarrying, he discovers that his daughter alone is more fair. He orders the wedding. The daughter, to delay it, asks him on her god- mother’s advice to get her a robe of the color of the sun; then one like the moon; finally a golden bull. She bribes the workmen to have the bull made hollow. She enters it secretly, and no one knows whither she has gone. Her father, now grown indifferent to the bull, sends it to a young Prince who is languishing for one. While the young man sleeps she steps out of it. One day he feigns sleep, and sees her. She restores him to health by giving him a new interest in life. She is married to him, and reconciled to her unnatural father.®° A similar legend is current in Germany to this day concerning Henry the Fowler and his daughter.°*. He wished to marry her after his wife’s death because she was more beautiful. She begged him to relinquish his design, and he replied that he would if she would work a marvellous cover on which all animals could be seen. With the Devil’s help, she accomplished her task, and her father died of chagrin. and lunar splendor, sometimes represent- ing ocean and fields and sky: a sore temptation for a bit of nature interpre- tation!), the kind of disguise in which she escapes, and the exact method she uses to bedazzle the eyes of the prince But the outline remains firm and constant. J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, I, 226 (representing many others in which the god- mother advises her to demand the mar- vellous clothes); Auguste Dozon, Contes Albanais, 41 because the King’s mother appears again as a sub- she serves. girl’s (noteworthy Other fathers give no reason for their sidiary persecutor); Emile Legrand, Re- cueil de Contes Populaires Grecs, 217. ®4ty. and JI. Naumann, I[slandische Marchen, 221. ® Emmanuel Cosquin, Contes Popu- laires de Lorraine, I, 273. ® The escape in a chest and marriage with its next owner may be found in other tales: Straparola, Favola 4; Dozon, Contes Albanais, 41; a rather compli- cated narrative from Serbo-Croatia, no. 56, in A. Leskien’s Balkanmdarchen (Jena, 1919), and so forth. % Kiihn and Schwartz, Sagen, 184. NorddeutscheACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 39 strange demand.** One instance,” unique so far as I know, opens with a threatened incestuous marriage between brother and sister. The heroine goes into exile rather than carry out the wish of her dying parents, the King and Queen. the Cinderella-type. Not only is the formula of the incestuous father mot exclusively associated with one definite type of story like the Exchanged Letter or Cinderella (with which, as a matter of fact, it may have become associated by a kind of accretion, like the outer layer of a huge snow ball), but it sometimes exists quite alone or in other sur- roundings. In a group of marchen to which Stefanovié first called the incestuous father not only causes his daughter’s flight in the beginning, but pursues her later with persecution after she has married. In this case, as in the Offa story of the Middle Ages, he—instead of the mother-in-law—may be the person who changes the letter; Her other adventures are of attention,*° 2 or he may substitute animals;‘? or he may kill his daughter’s children and leave a bloody knife beside her to incriminate her.** If she is thus victimized by an accusation of child-murder, she is quite often driven into exile with the bodies of her children, and a miracle restores them to life before she is dis- covered and reclaimed by her husband. Here the use of the father on two occasions as a persecutor constitutes a gain in unity; the use of the bloody dagger suggests another popular story-group of the Middle Ages: the Crescentia-cycle. Radloff tells the Siberian legend of an ill-fated maiden whose father forced her to marry him;** and it is reported of the legendary Vortigern that he too married his daughter.” Perhaps a popular tale lurks behind this tradition, as with Henry the Fowler in modern Germany; perhaps something of the sort really happened. ‘The question arises: why should a father appear in the guise of unnatural persecutor so often? And why, for that matter, is the same ungrateful func- tion given so frequently to mothers-in-law in marchen? SW. Webster, Basque Legends, Lon- don, 1877, 165; P. Sébillot, Lit. Orale de la Haute-Bretagne, 73; J. G. von Hahn, Griechische und albanische Mar- chen, Leipzig, 1864, no. 27, etc. ® A. von Léwis of Menar, Russische Volksmarchen, no. 9 Anglia, XXXV, 1912, 483-525. ™No. 6 (p. 498) group: a Rumanian tale. 7 Ibid., no. 4. Ibid., no. 6 et passim. ™ Proben der Volkslit. der tirkischen Stamme Sitidsbiriens, I, 190. ™ Nennius, cap. 39; repeated by Henry of Huntingdon and Matthew of Paris. of Stefanovié’s40 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS C. MorivaTIoN OF THE PERSECUTION A comparison of modern folk-tales with certain classical myths will suggest an answer to the question about the reasons for paternal persecution in fairy tales. Hyginus, the classical Grimm (at least in respect to his zeal for recording popular tales, “fabulae’’), lists a number of instances of father-daughter incest in connection with fable 253: Cinyras and Myrrha, Clymenus and Harpalyce (sepa- rately related in fable 206), Oenomaus and Hippodamia (fable 253), Erechtheus and Procris, Thyestes and his daughter (fable 87), Epopeus of Lesbos and Nyctimene (fable 204). In com- menting on these and similar traditional occurrences, Sir James Frazer is led to inquire whether the stories may not have had an origin in some more rational, or at least pseudo-rational and under- standable motive than a sensational and perverted imagination. The former assumption is more apt to lead to a satisfactory result, if one’s aim is the philosophical attempt to harmonize facts and to discover a measurable order and causation in the study of fairy tales. Speaking of the ancestry of Adonis, whose father begot him on his own daughter Myrrha at a festival of the corn goddess, the author of The Golden Bough remarks that the multiplicity of such stories gives rise to the suspicion that the events (legendary or not) must be due to some cause other than an outburst of un- natural lust. He suggests this explanation:’® “In countries where royal blood was traced through women only, and where conse- quently the king held office merely in virtue of his marriage with an hereditary princess, who was the real sovereign, it appears to have often happened that a prince married his own sister, the princess royal, in order to obtain with her hand the crown which otherwise would have gone to another man, perhaps a stranger.” May not the same rule of descent have furnished a motive for incest with a daughter? For it seems a natural corollary from such a rule that the king was bound to vacate the throne on the death of his wife, the queen, since he occupied it only by virtue of his marriage with her. When that marriage terminated, his 7 The Golden Bough, IV, 44. the royal crown actually does pass to ™ Cf. Hyginus, fable 143, and the ‘another man, a stranger,” not of royal Russian tale mentioned on p. 39, note 69, blood at all, who happens to win the and the innumerable fairy tales in which princess.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 41 right to the throne terminated with it, and passed at once to his daughter’s husband. Hence, if the king desired to reign after his wife’s death, the only way in which he could legitimately continue to do so was by marrying his daughter, and thus prolong through her the title which had formerly been his through her mother.” As an illustration of the survival of this principle of descent, we are reminded that the Flamen Dialis in Rome was bound to vacate his priesthood at the death of his wife, the Flaminica.’* Frazer does not suggest the group of European fairy tales we have just been considering as another illustrative survival, but the tales them- selves surely offer a very close parallel to the customs he quotes. They are more convincing than the classical fables, because they more clearly center about a question of dynastic succession under a condition of matriarchy. Matriarchy, or that system of human society in which descent is reckoned through the mother, exists or is traceable in several variations. In royal families, the successor to a king is often not his own son, but the husband of his daughter. “The woman may not be the actual sovereign, but she confers the title on her consort because she is her mother’s daughter. ‘This family arrangement, however, shows signs of advancement towards patriarchy. In a still more primitive form, we are to imagine the mother and her children living without the father, while the place of protector is taken by the woman’s brother. In a number of tribes, to this day, a husband does not live with his wife, but with his mother and sisters, only visiting his wife furtively. He supports his mother’s family while he is continuing the family of his wife’s brother.” So the kings in some of our folk-tales are at some pains to keep their marriages secret from their mothers, and the domiciles of the two women separate. The Khasis of Assam are a living example of this arrangement. Children inherit through the mother only, and their father knows of no kinship with them. He belongs to his mother’s clan as they do to theirs; what he earns goes to his own maternal stock. In Jowai, he neither lives nor eats in his wife’s house, but visits it ™ The Golden Bough, IV, 45. if all institutions of all races had fol- 7 A very clear discussion (perhaps over- lowed the same universal course) may be clear in that it invests a complicated sub- found in Edwin Sidney Hartland’s Primi- ject with a too-geometrical simplicity, as tive Society, London, 1921.42 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS only after dark. In ancestor worship, only the primal ancestress and her brother are regarded. Among the Pelew Islanders (Micro- nesian stock) a man’s heirs are not his own children, but the chil- dren of his sister or his maternal aunt.*° Before this arrangement had been established, the rdle of husband apparently did not exist at all. According to Mr. Hartland, the institution of matriarchy unquestionably goes back to a time when people were ignorant of the physical aspect of paternity.** To an uninformed and unde- veloped mind, unable to span the lapse of almost a year between cause and effect, the relation of father to child might well remain unguessed. But the relation of mother to child is obvious and strong, and would logically form the central fact in the origins of family development. ‘The social relations of primitive people point to great laxness, though not to absolute promiscuity, so far as we can judge; and this very laxness, prevailing as it does even among the extremely young, would be another cause tending to obscure the nature of paternity. “Whatever the exact course of evolution, the tie of kinship through the mother is that which meets us as most archaic in human societies.”*°* This makes the transition to later forms of kinship seem more probable, since all forms of society are conditioned by what people know of them- selves. “If mankind began by recognizing kinship with the father, the much more patent and undeniable relation with and through the mother must also have been recognized; how then could gen- tile kinship—kinship on one side only—have emerged? But if kinship with and through the mother was the primeval reckoning, though it might have taken generations or ages to pass through it, it is intelligible that kinship through the father might ultimately have arisen through the capture of women, the arrogance of con- querors, the overgrowth of clans or the decadence and dying out of clans. . . . That the course of evolution should have been re- versed is inconceivable.” ** _A number of illustrative examples could be quoted: matrilocal marriage among the Polynesians; matrilineal institutions among the Micronesians of the Pacific; matriarchy and © Golden Bough, VI, 202-206. sation in the Exchanged Letter story, that “The marchen, of course, perpetuate the queen has borne animals, is another this ancient ignorance in their endless survival. tales of magic supernatural births with- *E. S. Hartland, op. cit., 36. out a father’s agency; and the very accu- S Tbid., 166 f.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 43 traces of it among the Australians; the power of a maternal uncle over his sister and her children among the Fantis and the Bahuana of the Congo Basin; and the perceptible transition from mother- right to father-right on the Gold Coast of Africa. “Wherever we find a tribe wavering between female descent and male descent, we may be sure that it is in the act of passing from mother-kin to father-kin, and not in the reverse direction, since there are many motives** which induce men to exchange mother-kin for father- kin but none which induce them to exchange father-kin for mother- kin,” © Such is the reasoning of one entirely committed to the thesis that matriarchy must always have preceded patriarchy in the evolu- On the other hand, many American anthro- pologists deny this necessity, and point out that the arguments in tion of human society. support of it are constructed @ priori, without regard for examples of the reverse order of transition observed in contemporary primi- tive life. Perhaps English writers have been over-eager to make axiomatic statements and to reduce a very complex subject to a The evidence of fairy tales may have a certain significance; and it so happens that the body of fairy tales philosophic scheme.*® concerning accused queens points to the precedence of matriarchy over patriarchy.** We have already met one indication of this precedence in the attitude of mothers-in-law towards their sons’ wives, who threaten their dominance under the old family scheme. The Incestuous Father group seems to me to contain another such indication; but the following remarks are not to be understood as generalizations about all primitive human society. They apply merely to that society out of which grew the fairy tales now being discussed. A difference in attitude towards incestuous marriages with rela- tives on the father’s side and those with relatives on the mother’s The side is evident where paternity is the advancing institution. *4Such as growing certainty of pater- 8 TYartland’s views are unquestioningly nity, desire to have children inherit their father’s property, etc. 8% For material, see Edward Wester- marck, The History of Human Marri- age, London, 1891, Ch. XIV. The argu- ments there advanced are answered by Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, IV, 92. accepted by A. W. Aron, Traces of Matri- archy in Germanic Hero-Lore, Univer- sity of Wisconsin Studies, 1920. * Other groups might, of course, point to the reverse order. It would be worth while to investigate this possibility.44 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS difference is of especial importance as a help in understanding the marchen type of the Incestuous Father. According to Mr. Hart- land’s reasoning, the story was possible partly because a daughter’s relationship with her father was not always clearly realized, and then for a subsequent epoch it was not felt to be so strong as her relationship with the members of her mother’s clan. Afterwards, when the prohibition of incestuous marriages is gaining ground among primitive people who are leaving matriarchy for patriarchy, it always extends first to the maternal side, while marriages with paternal relatives are long afterwards considered highly proper and respectable. The lowest stage may be found among the Kukis, where any marriage might occur except that of mother and son. Among the Karens of Tenasserin, alliances between brother and sister and father and daughter are still fairly common. ‘The King of the Warua had in his harem sisters and daughters.** “Among the Wanyoro, brothers may marry their sisters, and even fathers their daughters, but a son does not marry his own mother, although the other widows of his father become his property.” ** As brother- sister marriages come to be looked upon as incestuous, a difference is made between the marnage with a half-sister who had the same mother, and one who had the same father. “The former is often forbidden even when the latter is still permitted, as among the natives of Guatemala and Yucatan,”” and in the royal family of the Banyoro in Africa.” A definite connection apparently exists, therefore, between the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy, and the extension of the degrees of forbidden marriage to the father’s side as well as the mother’s. Both changes imply a growing consciousness of father- hood as a basis of family organization. And they are both im- portant for the understanding of that marchen formula so often used as an opening of the Exchanged Letter story, the Cinderella- story, and others. ‘The story seems to have arisen among people who were passing into a clearer state of patriarchy from one in which matrilineal succession held good and in which marriage with a paternal relative was still possible. ‘The king’s desire to marry his daughter would then be comprehensible enough in the light of Totemism and Exogamy, IV, 132. ™ Ibid., 295. © Thid., 291. Hartland, Primitive Society, 82.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 45 obsolescent custom; and the marriage would be advisable as well as permissible for him if he wished to reign after his wife’s death. The daughter’s repugnance would be an index of the new and growing point of view. ‘The conflict of the two, the old and the new, is thus incorporated dramatically in the tale. ‘The story, having once originated under conditions so auspicious for a plot of conflicts (like the tales which preserve in dramatic form the conflict of a prince’s loyalties to his mother, the older claimant, and to his wife, the newer claimant), continued to be told in its ancient outlines long after the cause of the escaping princess had been victorious, and father-daughter marnages had become a thing of the past. Hence the figure of the king merged into the vague horrible background of customs long disused and misunderstood but not yet forgotten; and the fading comprehension of his motives made him appear purely ogreish and monstrous. Yet one can some- times detect a trace of the old restriction of succession which caused a king to seek marriage with his own daughter. Memories of it may explain the aversion of so many kings in folk-tales to the marriage of their daughters to any wooers whatsoever. The mar- riage would end the father’s royal tenure, and his son-in-law would become his premature successor. Hence perhaps the manifold leg- ends of princesses confined in windowless towers, kept away from the sight of men, or given in marriage only after their suitors have performed deeds of impossible difficulty to gain them. Hence tales like the classical myths of Atalanta and Hippodamia. It is inter- esting to recall that Apollodorus,”* discussing the latter, suggests that her father’s miserly attitude towards her suitors might be ex- plained through fear of his son-in-law or a desire to marry her himself. The request of a dying queen in fairy tales and romance”® that her successor should look like her, seems to be due to a dis- torted reminiscence of the time when she herself had constituted her husband’s right and claim to the crown; and when it was perhaps necessary for him, in order to rule after her death, to marry one who could be regarded, in some mysterious way, as identical with her: either through resemblance, or daughterhood, or "EP ritome, Il, 3, ff: Tod 8& Aéyovow, site yonouwov exovtos Baotrevovtoc ILtone Oivoutov tedeutiioat txd tod yrwovtos avtHy, Qvyatéon exovtos ‘Innodduciav, dvdelc adtiv éAdupavev eic yuvatya. ‘ 7 > ~ . wai elite atthe ée@vtos, dc tives 8 FE.g., La Manekine.46 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS ability to wear some token that magically transferred her person- ality to its pre-ordained wearer. And though the succession of kings in French romance is quite clearly patriarchal, traces of the old order lurk even in La Manekine, which begins with this familiar folk-tale situation. One thing is sure about the system of marriage and succession which, in passing away, apparently gave rise to the story of the incestuous father. If matriarchy goes back to a time when the nature of paternity was not understood, it presupposes an original absence of jealousy on the part of husbands in matrilocal marriages: jealousy, that is, concerning the fatherhood of their children. Such is indeed the case among contemporary savage tribes. As Mr. Hart- land says, with perhaps an over-dogmatic and unqualified positive- ness: “It is clear that sexual jealousy plays a smaller part in savage life than in high civilization, and that where it occurs on the part of the man the danger of tainting the family descent does not generally enter into consideration. ‘The truth is that the actual father is of no importance in these stages of society.”°* And curiously, we have found this condition to be true of the folk- tales, with their many reasons for exiling a heroine and persecuting her, apart from and exclusive of jealousy. The most striking result thus far has been negative. We have found very few accusations of infidelity, and no persecution arising from suspicious jealousy. We have followed the fortunes of heroines who go into exile or are otherwise persecuted because of jealous co-wives, insistent de- mon lovers, malevolent mothers-in-law, jealous mothers, incestuous fathers, impious fathers, and stepmothers. In this particular cycle, the accusation is almost universally a charge that the queen has borne animals instead of children;°° and the persecutor seems for several reasons to have been originally the king’s mother, who re- sents the transfer of her son’s devotion to his wife (a change from the ideal matriarchal scheme). As for the king himself, he shows a conspicuous lack of resentment when he reads the forged letter, Primitive Society, 23. witchcraft or animal nature in the mother. ® The bearing of animals might mean, to peoples who understood paternity and yet believed in the possibility of such form of infidelity story) rather than births, a very gross (ae in the Pasiphaé 3ut the miarchen which use animal par- turition as an accusation seem to ignore this possibility. At least they show no interest in the question of fatherhood.ACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 47 and he almost invariably sends back a command to guard his wife tenderly until his return. Evidently a royal husband was not ex- pected to feel so much indignation if his wife bore puppies, as did the husband in the first group, where she supposedly killed or ate her children. Such at least is the situation to be found in folk- tales; and it is nicely in accord with Mr. Hartland’s statement about the absence of jealousy in regard to the fatherhood of the children—even if, as one suspects in some versions, their father is supposed to be an animal. D. OTHER MARCHEN TYPEs The discussion of the Exchanged Letter story and its motivation has led us far afield. “The digression, however, is not without importance, since the motives discovered in the course of it will appear again and again in the stories still to be considered, both popular and literary. There are a few remaining groups of marchen in which a queen is accused of crimes by a persecutor. In one of these, she is again accused of bearing animals. As one might expect, the identity of accusation with that in the Exchanged Letter cycle has caused, in certain instances, a merging of the two plots. An example of the mixed type will serve to introduce the new group: ** A peasant girl named Marie, whose fortune it is to marry the King of France, has an envious sister. The latter sends news to the King, during his absence, that his wife has borne a dog. The same treason is repeated the next year, and likewise the third year. At last the King orders that his wife be confined in a “basse fosse”—not, be it noted, sent into exile. Meantime the three children have been successively exposed by the jealous sister and reared by the hermit who found them. When the three (two boys and a girl) are old enough, they leave their foster- father, taking a magic ring he gives them. They live with a kind old woman. The wishing ring helps them to prosper. One day the two brothers are turned into stone during an ill-fated visit to a fairy’s castle. The kind old woman (really the Virgin) directs Marie in unspelling her brothers. The fairy becomes their friend. One day the King sees his children. He is very much impressed by his daughter’s power through the ring, and wants to marry her. But the princess-fairy reveals their relationship; the wronged Queen is liberated FF. M. Luzel, Légendes Chrétiennes de la Basse-Bretagne, II, 274.48 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS to die in peace; and the King marries the fairy princess, and puts the wicked sister of the first wife to death. A second tale of this type introduces the quest of the two brothers of the heroine for a talking bird, a singing tree, and dancing water; but it retains from another source the mother-in-law instead of the envious sister as the cause of evil.°’ A convenient version to rep- resent the story in its uncontaminated form is contained in the supplement to the Thousand and One Nights,°* where the plot is worked out in great detail. Stripped of its elaborate descriptions and its polished courtly dialogues, the outline is reduced to this: A Persian King wanders through the city by night with his Vizir, and hears three sisters making wishes. The oldest says she should like to marry the King’s baker; the second prefers the King’s cook; and the third says she should like to marry the King himself. If she were his consort, she would bear him a son with gold and silver hair, and pearl tears. ‘The listening monarch decides to satisfy these wishes. ‘The two older sisters are incensed at the good luck of the younger one, and decide to cause her ruin. ‘They remain with her when she bears her first child; and, in place of the promised wonder-prince, they substitute a dead puppy. The King is annoyed, but his Vizir reminds him that the young Sultana is not responsible for Nature’s freaks, and she is spared. The second year a “‘cat” is born, and the Vizir has difficulty in calming his prince; the third year the sisters announce the arrival of a “piece of wood.” At this, the Sultan flares up in anger, and pronounces the death sentence over his wife. At the intercession of his advisers, this is changed into a fate cruel enough: she is walled into a space at the door of the chief mosque, and every Moslem who passes is compelled to spit in her face on pain of instant punishment. Meantime the three real children have been exposed by the envious sisters. They are discovered and adopted by the court gardener, who leaves them at his death a beautiful estate in the country. One day a strange woman visits them, and tells the sister about the speaking bird, singing tree, and dancing water. (She is not an emissary of the envious sisters, as in so many European tales: she merely chances to mention the magic objects.) As usual, the brothers succumb to the perils of the quest, and are unspelled by their more successful sister. The wonders are brought home. One day while the King is hunting, he encounters the two brothers. V7. Imbriani, La Novelaja Fiorentina, to Europe by Galland in the eighteenth 10f. century; but his Arabic source has not Burton, Supplemental Arabian Nights, yet been discovered. IV, 491. This story was first introducedACCUSED QUEENS IN FOLK-TALES 49 He is entertained by them and their sister. When, according to the advice of the speaking bird, he is served with pearl-filled gurkins, he exclaims in astonishment, “One can’t eat pearls!” The bird replies: “Yet you believe that your consort bore a cat, a dog, and a piece of wood.” It then tells the whole story of treason and deception. The Sultan orders the culprits tortured and killed, and the Queen is restored after her years of unspeakable agony. Other Oriental tales, more recently collected, present variations of some importance. In an Arabian tale current in modern Egypt,” the quests are instigated by a woman sent by the envious sisters; the brother undertakes all three quests, and is uniformly successful; the fairy owner of the talking rose, whom he wins as bride, tells him and his sister of their ancestry. In a Bengal story, six child- less jealous co-wives do the substituting of puppies in place of the promised wonder children; the recognition is brought about as in the Egyptian tale. A Buddhist legend*®° is constructed on a simpler formula. “The Queen, formerly a destitute girl, is envied by the other wives. When her twin children are born, they cover her eyes, cast the infants into the river, and smear her face with blood. ‘They accuse her of having eaten her two sons, and she is con- demned to death. A wise man at court learns the truth through a heaven-sent dream; the children are restored—after exposure and adoption—because of their striking resemblance to the King. The quests are entirely lacking. As for the accusation of cannibalism brought against the Queen, it is not at all unique, though it is not usual in this cycle. We have encountered it frequently elsewhere. Smearing with blood may be a more primitive device than substi- tuting animals, but we cannot judge with certainty. The European parallels to this tale are very numerous and very faithful to its structure.*"* Bolte and Polfvka point out that the uniformity of all versions and the logical sequence of the com- plicated plot indicate a single source unknown to us. In only one detail do the European fairy tales improve on the logic of events ®G. Spitta Bey, Contes Arabes Mo- of Nepal, Calcutta, 1882, 65-66. Sum- dernes, Paris, 1883; summary in Clous- mary by Clouston, op. cit., 647. ton’s notes to Burton’s Supplemental Ara- 1A bibliography of them will be bian Nights, IV, 619. found in the notes of Bolte and Polivka 1© Mitra, Sanskrit Buddhist Literature to Grimm, Miarchen 96, Anmerkungen, II, 380.50 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS in the Oriental version. ‘They motivate the desire of the young princess for the three magical objects through the report of them, not from a chance visitor, but from the envious sisters who wish to destroy her. The European versions of this tale run more true to type than the variants of the Exchanged Letter story. It will be convenient and legitimate in this case to construct a composite marchen from, say, twenty typical examples. The following will be used and referred to by number. Important variations are noted in paren- theses. 1. E. Cosquin, Contes Populaires de la Lorraine, |, 186. 2. T. F. Crane, Italian Popular Tales, New York, 1885, p. 17. 3. J. Curtin, Myths and Folktales of the Russians, London, 1890, i : 4, A, Dirr, Kaukasische Marchen, Jena, 1920, no. 9. 5. A. Dozon, Contes Albanais, p. 7. 6. L. Gonzenbach, Sicilianische Marchen, no. 5. 7, A. de Gubernatis, Florilegio delle Novelline Popolari, p. 309. g. Ibid., p. 315. 9, J. G. von Hahn, Griechische und albanische Marchen, no. 69. 10. V. Imbriani, La Novellaja Fiorentina, p. 81. ie db ep 114. 12. P. Kretschmer, Neugriechische Marchen, Jena, 1919, p. 257. 13. I. Kuinos, Turkische Volksmarchen, p. 63. 14, E. Legrand, Recueil de Contes Populaires Grecs, p. 77. 15. . La Belle Héléne de Constantinople, MSS. in Paris, Arras, and Lyon. Summary in Mess. des Sciences Hist. ef Archives des Arts de Belgique, Ghent, 1846, 169-209. A prose re- cension of the poem by Jean Wau- quelin (1448) is contained in MS. 9967 of the Bibl. Royale, Brussels. Many folk-books were derived from this romance later. See Appendix II, no. 1; also R. Ruths, Die fr. Fassungen der Belle Héléne, Greifswald, 1897. . Mai und Beaflor, Leipzig, 1848. A romance in the Austro-Bavarian dia- lect, dated by Suchier in the thir- teenth century. . La Manekine by Phillipe de Remi, Sire de Beaumanoir, Paris, 1884. Written ca. 1270. A prose version of the poem by Jean Wauquelin is published in this edition, II, 267- 366. . Jansen Enikel’s story of the daugh- ter of the King of Russia, 1. 26678 ff. of his Weltchronik. Published by the Gesellschaft fiir deutsche Geschichtskunde, Hanover and Leip- zig, 1900. . La Comtesse d’Anjou by Jehan Mail- lart. Composed in 1316. Summa- ries in: P. Paris, Les Mamnuscrits Francais de la Bibliothéque du Roi, V, 42; A. d’Ancona, Sacre Rappre- sentazioni dei Secoli XIV, XV, XVI, Florence, 1872. Ed. Romanisches Museum, 1, Greifswald, 1920. . Fabula romanensis de rege Franco- rum, cujus nomen reticetur, qui in filia sua adulterium © incestum com- mittere voluit. In the Bibl. Nat. in Paris; written 1370. Cf. Ritson, Ancient English Metrical Romances, London, 1802, III, 324. Historia del Rey de Hungria, a Ca- talan tale of the fourteenth century; summarized by Suchier, La Mane- kine, I, xlii; published in Docu- mentos Literarios en Antiqua Lin- gua Catalana, Barcelona, 1857. See Daumling, Das Madchen ohne Hande, Munich, 1912, 39 ff. h. Ystoria Regis Franchorum et Fille 5 in qua Adulterium Comitere Voluit, ed. Suchier, Romania, XXXIX, 61- 76. Fourteenth century. [This proves to be identical with version ‘“f” above. } De Alixandre, Roy de Hongrie, qui voulut espouser sa fille, Published in Nouvelles Francaises imedites du Quinziéme Siécle, ed. E. Langlois, Paris, 1908, 61-67. . Il Pecorone by Giovanni Fiorentino, tenth day, first tale. . Biheler’s Kdmnigstochter von Frank- reich, edited by J. F. L. T. Merz- dorf, Oldenburg, 1867. The text is based on editions of 1500; Biheler wrote in 1401. Novella della Figlia del Re di Dacia, ed. A. Wesselofsky, Pisa, 1866. The date of composition is uncertain, but it may well be much earlier than the date of the MS. (fifteenth century). . Emare, A Middle English romance of the fourteenth century. Edited by A. B. Gough, London, 1901; also for the EETS by Edith Rickert, 1908. . Italian Oliva stories, contained in the poem Regina Oliva and the play Santa Oliva. See Revue de lHis- toire des Religions, X, 197 f.; and d@’Ancona, Sacre Rappresentazioni dei Secoli XIV, XV, XVI, Florence, 1872. . A French miracle play, no. 37, in Miracles de Nostre Dame, ed. Soc. des An. Textes Fr. . Yde et Olive, a continuation of Huon de Bordeaux, published in Ausgaben und Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der romanischen Philo- logie, LXXX, 152 ff. . Herzog Herpin, ed. in Karl Sim- rock’s series Die deutschen Volks- bicher, XI, 408 ff. Based on an unedited chanson de geste, Lion de Bourges, MSS. in Bibl. Nat., Paris. Fonds Fr. 22, 555 contains the per- tinent episode, fol. 144b ff.; no. 351 omits it.70 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS and Spanish begin with the flight of the heroine from her father to avoid an incestuous marriage, and conclude with her adventures as a persecuted wife, victim of a mother-in-law who tampers with royal mail and forges accusations under the royal seal. “The three closely related versions'® by Nicolas Trivet, John Gower, and Geof- frey Chaucer, substitute another formula in the beginning to replace the Incestuous Father. ‘This form of the story is best known, because it was adopted by Chaucer. It retains the second formula, that of the Exchanged Letters, as faithfully as the others, from which it diverges at first. These stories differ as did the fairy tales in explaining the father’s conduct in the opening situation.** Sometimes a reason is given, and sometimes not. Most interesting are those romances which imply that the real difficulty arises from the attempts of the king or his barons to prevent the succession of the young princess and her future husband. ‘The barons shall have a male heir; the king are determined that their king will not marry again, or will marry only his wife’s second self; and so the choice is narrowed down to the incestuous union of father and daughter as an escape from female succession. In the entertaining romance of La Belle Héléne de Constantinople, for instance, the heroine is the grand- daughter of the Emperor Richars of Rome. “Et nauoit cestui empereur nul hoir masle senon une seule fille laquelle estoit une tresplaisant damoiselle.”*® This damoiselle becomes Empress of Constantinople and dies in her turn, leaving, again, only a daughter I . Bartolommeo Fazio’s De Origine is a play which endeavors to treat Belli inter Gallos et Britamnos His- toria, ed. Camusat, Bibliotheca Cia- conii, Amsterdam and Leipzig, 1744, cols. 893-902. Late fifteenth cen- tury. See Wesselofsky’s edition of g, appendix ii; also Cinderella by Marian R. Cox, Ixiii f. s. Le Victorial, chronicle of Don Pedro Nino, by Gutierre Diaz de Gamez, 1379-1449. Translated into French by de Circourt and de Puymaigre, Paris, 1867. The pertinent passage occurs in Bk. II, Ch. XXVI. t. Columpnarium, MS. Lat. 8163 of the Bibl. Nat., fourteenth century. Summarized by Edith Rickert in her introduction to Emare, xxxiii ff. It the theme in a classical manner, with pseudo-classical names. 13 Nicolas Trivet’s Anglo-Norman Life of Constance, Chaucer Soc. Pub., Lon- don, 1872; Chaucer’s Man of Lavo’s Tale; Gower’s Confessio Amantis, ed. R. Pauli, London, 1857, I, 179 ff. 14Suchier and Gough classify the sto- ries according as the heroine is led into the forest for her second exile (the mar- chen setting), or drifts across the ocean, usually to Rome (more literary). The distinction is useful elsewhere, but is not relevant to the present purpose. Besides, the same distinction could be made as to the methods of motivating the first exile. 15 MS. fol. 9b (prose version).THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 71 Héléne. The Emperor of Constantinople is exceedingly distressed. He turns with intensified affection to his daughter; and the author invokes the devil to explain the change of his affection into passion when Héléne is grown, instead of using a promise of the King to Héléne’s mother. ‘There follow the usual stormy scenes, the appeal of the father for a papal dispensation, and the flight of the princess. In the Middle High German Mai und Beaflor, similarly, the father’s inconsolable grief for his Queen prepares the way for his unnatural passion for his daughter years later. “The author is care- ful to explain that Beaflor was reared away from her father’s sight, so that her sudden appearance before him in complete adult beauty and resemblance to her mother makes plausible his change of feel- ing. In La Comtesse d’Anjou, the father simply falls in love with his daughter one day while he is playing chess with her; in the Historia del Rey de Hungria the beauty of her hands inflames his love. In Alixandre the French prose states simply, “Le roy, pour la-beaute d’elle, en fut si amoureaux que oster n’en pouit son cuer.” So he issues a decree to legitimize their marriage. Her resistance to this decree causes him to set her adrift in a boat with her maid. She is handless because, having learned that her father loved her hands especially, she has cut them off and sent them to him.*® In La Figlia del Re di Dacia the devil is once more blamed for the unholy passion which drives the heroine forth: “‘Lo re, tantato del nimico, villamente comincio a baciare lei, e oltre a questo le mise le mani in seno e ’n piu disonesto luogo; onde costei si vergogno molto di cio che ’] padre avea fatto.”*’ Hence she is bidden in a dream to cut off the disgraced hand. In the Middle English Emare as in Mai und Beaflor the heroine is reared away from her father, after her mother’s death at her birth. No explanation but her beauty is given for her father’s changed attitude. Other versions state explicitly that it is the girl’s resemblance This prominence of the girl’s hands __untary act of self-mutilation. If we may as a love-inducing feature seems to be trust the evidence of the fairy tales, we late. It comes about apparently as a should deduce that the hands were origi- rationalization of forms of the story in nally cut off as tokens to prove that she which she enters upon one or another of _ had really been put to death as her per- her exiles handless, as “La fille aux secutor commanded. Fairy tales are full mains coupées.” Sometimes the hands are of such mutilations for the sake of evi- cut off as punishment for her stubborn- dence. ness in resisting her father; sometimes, Ds 3: as in La Manekine, their loss is a vol-72 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS to her dead mother which suggests to her father the idea of mar- riage. Thus in the Victorial the father and daughter mourn to- gether, and he tells her that he should die if he did not have her, with her resemblance to her mother, as his comfort. Later his love changes and he wishes to marry her, saying that he cannot bring himself to marry one unlike his first wife. He kisses her hands; therefore she commands a trusty servitor to cut them off. In Yde et Olive the excessive grief of the father is again used to prepare us for the astounding decision to marry his daughter “pour > whom she closely resembles. But Yde flees lamour de sa mere,’ the next day, disguised as a man; and her further adventures here and in the corresponding miracle play include her difficulties when she is expected to marry the daughter of an Emperor. In the romance, she is conveniently transformed into a man; in the play, the Emperor, when the truth becomes known, marries her himself. Both solutions are popular enough and can be paralleled elsewhere. They have nothing to do, however, with persecuted ladies. More interesting still are the versions in which the royal father is urged to marry or decides to marry thus on account of the succession to the throne, with or without a limiting tabu imposed by his dead wife. ‘These stories bring us into the region of the problems of the fairy tales. In the famous romance La Manekine, for instance, the King of Hungary promises his dying wife to marry only her double in looks and beauty. ‘The wording of her request shows some reason for exacting it: 129 Sire je vous requier et proi Que vous ja mais femme aprés moi Ne voelliés prendre a nes un jor. Et si li prince et li contour De ce pais ne voelent mie Que li roialmes de Hongrie Demeurt a ma fille aprés vous Anchois vos requierent que vous Vous mariés pour fil avoir, Bien vous otroi, se vous avoir Poés femme de mon sanlant. He promises; and when his daughter Joie is grown, she alone ful- fills the requirement. The barons begin to urge a second marriage;THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 73 he tells of his contract with the dead Queen; and after messengers have returned unsuccessful from a quest for her like among other princesses, it is the barons who suggest the incestuous marriage, urged on by Joie’s own squire. Then comes the dispensation of the Pope; Joie’s heroic attempt to disqualify herself by cutting off her hand (for no king in “Hongarie” is supposed to marry a woman who lacks any member), and her drifting across the sea in a little boat. Here the nobles of the court must bear most of the blame. The King succumbs to passion only after they had suggested the marriage. And in the narratives derived from La Manekine the responsibility is also placed on the dying Queen and the barons. The dying wife begs her husband, Edward of Britain, “ne quam, ea In the chronicle of Fazio, the situation is much the same. mortua, uxorem induceret, quae non genere & forma par esset, quod quidem postulatum eo pertinere videbatur, ut rex memoriam ejus cum charitate perpetuo retineret; quum sibi persuaserat Regem nun- quam inventurum, quae sibi his duobus ornamentis responderet.”’?® Her motive is a simple desire to prevent entirely the King’s remar- riage. In time, the matter of succession begins to worry the nobles, and they implore him to marry “that he may leave behind him an heir of the male sex, to reign after him.” While messengers are abroad searching for the bride, he falls into his ill-starred passion for his daughter. “Stimulabat eum virginis decor, matri aequalis,” Her flight follows In Columpnarium, also, the dying Queen persuades —but no special mention is made of her hands. inevitably. Emolphus to marry only someone similar to”herself; and hence his daughter is obliged to flee with her nurse Phocis, by sea. Other romances made no reference to a definite promise, but they introduce the condition that the second wife must resemble the first. stories, the King imposes the condition voluntarily, for sentimental In the prolix romance of Biiheler and in the Olive- reasons; in Enikel’s account, the King tells his barons he will marry only a woman who resembles his daughter, or, finally, only his daughter herself. “The girl tries to avoid the marriage by cut- “In Herzog Herpin, the nobles urge Erbe unlike her mother—another ingenious the marriage “damit er gewanne_ rationalization of her lack of hands. und das Land nicht an Frohlich seine ein- zige Tochter fiele.” The girl cuts off her hand in order that she may become “Meine Mutter hatte alle ihre Glieder,” she announces; “ich aber nicht” (409). * Cols. 893-894.74 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS ting off her hair and scratching her face until she is ‘“‘den tiuvel gelich.”” She is set afloat in a vessel, richly dressed. ‘The splendor of her garments here and in Mai und Beaflor and Emare recalls the series of supernatural robes obtained by the heroines of folk- tales from their fathers.”° It is evident that tradition was not uniform in accounting for the strange desire of the heroine’s father to marry her. The oldest medieval instances, Offa I and La Belle Héléne, like many suc- ceeding stories, simply state the fact baldly; others like La Mane- kine and its group use the device so insistently employed in the fairy tales, a promise to the dying Queen, with or without the advice of the barons of the realm; others use the striking similar- ity of mother and daughter. The daughter’s resemblance to her mother reminds us, indeed, of the talismans used in folk-tales: a ring or an article of clothing which only the dying queen’s suc- cessor can wear—a sort of external proof of organic connection (even unity) with her. In the last two groups, the motivation hinges on the question of succession to the throne; and this was exactly the question which we found lurking behind the folk-tale cycle studied in the previous chapter. ‘The difference is that here the problem is presented from the patriarchal point of view: the king must marry to have a male heir, so that his daughter and her husband may not inherit. This new coloring is peculiar to the romances, as one might expect. In fairy tales, there is no cause for alarm when a king has daughters only. A son-in-law is con- sidered a natural and highly desirable heir for such monarchs. The form of the Constance-legend immortalized by Chaucer has substituted another mechanism for the opening action, as we have seen,”? in order to reduce the heroine to her first condition of distress. A wicked mother-in-law is used in the first part as well as in the second, though she is not, of course, the same mother- in-law. A trace of a different beginning may perhaps be detected 4 The Incestuous Father episode found its way into the biography of Saint Bar- bara, as told by Hermann von Fritslar. “Dise jungfrowe was s0 schéne daz ir eigin vater begerte si zu nemene zu einer élichen vrowen, and liz einen turn biwen dar Gffe her si wolde behalden, und hiz zwei venster dar in machen.” Das Heilj- genleben, Leipzig, 1845, 12. “For the relation of Gower and Chau- cer to their source and to each other, see E. Liicke, Das Leben der Constanze bei Trivet, Gower und Chaucer, Anglia, XIV, 1892, 77-112 and 147-185; also the note on p. 132 ff. Cf. summary of Man of Law’s Tale, Ch. I.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 75 in the unwillingness of Constance to reveal herself to her father when she returns to Rome in exile. Her reticence where he is concerned is probably due to superseded versions in which she is fleeing from her father because he wanted to marry her. Gower and Chaucer both retain from Trivet the rebuffed suitor?” and his spectacular revenge. All three have been led by the change in the opening to a duplication of the persecution by a mother-in- law. Gower explains in one line the reason for this animosity on the part of the Soudan’s mother, apart from her resentment about the change of religion. She laments the coming of a younger queen Fore min estate shall so be lassed. This is the universal grievance already noticed in folk-tales, still strong and remarkably potent in romance. Other authors modify the opening situation in order to soften the effect.** In Jl Pecorone, Dionigia flees from her father, not to avoid marriage with him, but to escape alliance with the aged and unattractive Signore of Alamagna, who has been chosen as *8 See O. Siefken, Das geduldige Weib in der englischen Lit., Rathenow, 1963. The author points out that this incident of the bloody dagger is an importation by Trivet or his source from the Crescen- tia-cycle, and should not be used, there- fore, as proof of the identity of Con- stance and Pyrd. The use of the bloody dagger is a popular feature. It appears in Seghelijn van Jerusalem, Tristan de Nantueil, Roman de la Violette. *31t has been suggested that the Con- stance-story, outside of the Trivet modi- fications, owes something to the familiar legend of Apollonius of Tyre (cf. Su- chier, Introd. Ixxxv). In the latter, how- ever, the father’s desire is gratified and the princess does not escape; whereas in the Constance-group, she always avoids the marriage by flight. Each formula remains perfectly distinct in all of its versions: there is no evidence of con- tamination. The Greek romance may, however, form independent evidence of the father-daughter situation as survival. Erwin Rohde conjectures that the incest is a detachable part added and clumsily interwoven with the main plot to explain the wanderings of the hero afterwards. We have seen that, except in rare cases of superior plot-structure such as Vita Offae I, the episode is equally detachable in the Constance-saga, is used to motivate the heroine’s exile, and could as easily be replaced by other formulae such as a wicked stepmother or an impious father from modern fairy tales. The importance of Apollonius as a possible influence on Constance comes from the circumstance that it was known in England at the time when the Offa-Constance story was tak- ing shape there. The wording of the first part of the Anglo-Saxon prose Apol- lonius does remind one of the beginning of La Manekine: the death of the Queen, the growing up of the princess, and the father’s failure to marry her to any one of her suitors; but the similarity, such as it is, ends there. The alleged simi- larity of Constance’s exposure at sea and the drifting of Apollonius’s wife (sup- posedly dead) in her coffin, seems to me fortuitous. The latter situation is used in Jourdains de Blaivies in a foreign context.76 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS husband for her. In J/ Pentamerone, an incestuous brother is sub- stituted for the usual father from whom the heroine flees. But throughout the most of the group, as we have seen, the elements of the first adventure have remained true to form, and they present no startling deviations from the material contained in similar folk- tales. This is even more definitely noticeable in the treatments of the second half of the story. The heroine has in all of them to be- come the consort of the king in whose lands she found refuge from her unnatural parent (or the Sultan’s mother). When she is doomed to go forth once more, miserable and helpless, her per- secutor is usually the old mother of her husband, and the machina- tion against her is set in motion by the forging of an exchanged letter. The king, who has gone to war, awaits tidings of the birth of his expected child. The messenger who bears the good tidings, however, rests over night at the castle of the jealous old queen. She changes the letter to a report of the birth of animals or mon- sters; and, on the return of the messenger, she substitutes a com- mand for the death of her daughter-in-law, in place of the humane reply of the king. The heroine is allowed to go into exile never- theless; and she remains there until her husband finds her. For us, the interesting feature of this section of the story is the presence of a persecuting mother-in-law, fierce and cruel as in the folk- tales. Her indignation at the supposed unworthy marriage of her son causes her to retire in anger to a distant castle of her own. Yet this indignation does not seem plausible in versions where the heroine appears in radiant apparel, with a golden crown on her head.** In one romance only, La Comtesse d’ Anjou, the traditional mother-in-law is replaced by the aunt of the Countess’s husband. This deviation only throws into sharper relief the unanimity of the other versions. If the heroine has not lost her hand or hands through her first misadventure, she very frequently loses them in the second, as does Héléne de Constantinople, for instance.** Sometimes she retains *E.g., Emare, 1. 349 ff. preserve the amputated arm which brings * This legend has been enriched by the about a recognition. The story is also addition of features from the Eustachius- largely influenced by a local interest in cycle. The children are separated from ‘Tours and its saint. Miss Rickert (Mod. their mother by wild beasts; but they PAzdl., II, 374) supposes that the story {THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE Tih her hands throughout the story, as in the Chaucer group. In Trivet and his derivatives, many of the rudest effects are softened. “The mother-in-law, Donegild, commands not the death of Constance, but her exile. She writes in her son’s name that the Queen must leave the land because her presence will cause misfortune in war. Constance goes, prompted by sympathy for the folk. On her way overseas to Rome, she endures the amorous advances of a renegade heathen who joins her “en la Mere despayn envers la terre del orient.” She escapes this danger, however, as she had escaped from the amorous seneschal who accused her falsely before her mar- It would seem logical for her Probably she does not because her story had been told otherwise by a prede- riage, and finds shelter in Rome. to seek her father, since she parted from him amicably. cessor of Trivet. The most interesting feature of all is the accusation contained It is quite harmonious with the folk-tale nature of the plot. The mother-in-law of La Manekine writes “monster” instead of “son”; in La Belle Héléne, the letter reads in the forged letters. “deux monstres tant ydeux que apeinnes est il home qui les ose regarder”; in Mai und Beaflor, it reports the birth of a devil; in the Chaucer group, again, a monster; in [1 Pecorone, “due ber- tuccini piu sozzi e piu contraffatti che mai si vedessero”’; in Emare, a monster with the head of a lion, a bear, and a dragon. ‘Thus most of the romances. Only in Fazio’s chronicle and the Olive- stories is the prevailing accusation changed to one more modern and familiar to us. In the former, the Queen is accused of adul- tery and other nefarious acts; in the latter, the accusation of a monstrous birth is heightened by the addition “che la [Uliva] debbe esser qualche meretrice.”” The overwhelming majority of cases remain miarchen-like in the handling of accuser and accusation. Although many modifications have crept into this type-story from time to time, the much-used plot has remained fairly constant. The lene. Her story, as told by Jaques d’Ac- took its present form at Tours, and had Mundi, Historiae Imaginis its origin from sources in York “in which the story of the innocent wife had come to be influenced by some legend of St. Helen, mother of Constantine, perhaps through a confusion of Tiberius Con- stantine with Constantine the Great.” I do not think, however, that St. Helena need be invoked to explain La Belle Hé- qui, Chron. Patriae Monumenta, III, 1390-1392, has no resemblance, so far as I can see, to the present cycle. The folk-books about Helena the Pa- tient (Helena de Verduldige, in Dutch) are very close to the romance.78 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS foregoing analysis of episodes shows clearly that the Constance- story is made up of two separable formulae, either of which may be used separately. In the Chaucer group, the persecution comes from mothers-in-law alone; in Yde et Olive, Le Miracle, Vita Offe I, Das Heiligenleben,”® and an episode of Belle Héléne,’®* from fathers only. Yet, in most versions, these two figures are associated, and associated in the same manner. ‘The persistent fea- tures are still those noticed in marchen and in popular belief: a credible accusation of bearing animals; jealousy on the part of a mother-in-law; exchanged letters; exposure of mother and chil- dren in the forest or at sea; the desire of a father to marry his daughter because of some mysterious factor of identity with her mother, added to a concern for the succession to the throne. The accusations are strange enough, but still, except in the isolated case of Fazio, the malevolent old queen-mother does not quite dare to accuse her daughter-in-law of the new crime of infidelity. The motivation is equally recognizable in a second cycle of malevolent queen-mothers and persecuted queens: the story of the Swan Children. ‘This cycle is the subject of a world of literature in itself, both critical and imaginative. It presents many problems, from totemism and metamorphosis on the one hand to the Crusades and heraldry* on the other. It touches problems of history”* and of folk-tales.°* Fortunately its significance here is definitely lim- ited. Since the mother of the Swan Knight is a persecuted lady, we need only inquire of what she is accused and how she is restored to her former dignity, and whether her story shows traits of pop- ular literature. A much reduced statement of the plot reveals quite as many marchen elements as those identified in the preceding cycle. A king out hunting in the forest discovers a fair and mysterious lady, no doubt a fée, and brings her home to marry her. His mother hates her and resents her presence. When the young queen bears seven children at once, her antagonist substitutes seven puppies and orders the infants killed. “They are exposed instead, found by a hermit, and brought up by him in the forest. The old queen, Chip. 74, 0: Schwanritter, ZERP XXI, 1ff. and 176 ff. a The escape of the Princess of Bava- *H. von der Hagen, Die Schwanen- ria from her incestuous father, MS. Bibl. sage, Abhandlungen der berliner Aka- Nat. 12,482, fol. 57 ff. demie der Wissenschaften, 1846, 564 ff. 7. F. D. Bléde, Der historische ® No. 49 of Grimm.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 79 learning of their existence, sends an agent to dispose of them. He does so by removing from their necks the silver birth-chains which indicate their origin from a supernatural mother. capes. Only one es- It is this child who vindicates his mother—imprisoned for many years in the palace—and restores the other children to their One child alone, whose chain is destroyed, must human form. remain a swan. Such is the story told by Johannes de Alta Silva in his Latin Dolopathos,*® a European off-shoot of the great cycle of the Seven Sages of Rome.** According to Johannes, the child who brings about the disenchantment of its swan-brothers and the restoration of its mother is a girl. Tvhis trait recalls the analogous tale Die In Johannes we have, besides, a jealous old queen of the traditional type, who achieves revenge for dimin- ished honor by the familiar accusation. sechs Schwaine of Grimm. The story of Johannes has several unmistakable popular traits; and he himself reports these things “non ut visa sed ut audita.”** The chief persecutor, the accusation of animal birth, the return of children to vindicate their mother, are all familiar elements. ‘The antiquity of the legend and its relation to the general cycle of persecuted heroines have long been recognized.** The punishment of the young mother, who is buried up to her breast in the palace, is strongly suggestive of the tale of the Envious Sisters, discussed in the preceding chap- ter. ‘The similarity is enhanced by the presence of the same accu- sation and the same solution. Huet has argued®™ that the story of the Swan Children owes much directly to the story of the Envious Sisters, which must therefore have been current in Lorraine in the twelfth century. He does not think the story became known to Europe from Eastern sources only after the Renascence; he even ® Ed. Alfons. Hilka, Heidelberg, 1913. *. The Swan Children story is not to be found in the Seven Sages proper. Cf. A. J. Botermans, Die Hystorie van die seven wijse Mannen van Romen, Har- lem, 1898, 21 et passim; Killis Campell, The Seven Sages of Rome, New York, 1907, Introduction. Johannes wrote in the last decade of the twelfth century, or thereabouts, Early in the next century a version appeared in verse by one Herbert le Clerc: Le Roman de Dolopathos, pub. Paris, 1856. “It has been suggested that Johannes heard the tale as an orally delivered chan- son, not as a fairy tale in our sense of the word. See Huet, Sur quelques Formes de la Légende du Chevalier au Cygne, Romania, XXXIX, 206-214. *3 See von der Hagen’s article, alluded to above; also G. Paris, Romania, XIX, 314-340. * De Gids, 1906*, 415-440.80 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS doubts the necessity of assuming an Eastern origin. He, like Todd and Paris, admits the pertinence of Grimm’s 49th tale concerning the six brothers who were bewitched into swans. There, it will be remembered, the brothers are unspelled by a sister who must weave shirts for them during seven years of silence; and her mother-in-law takes advantage of her muteness to practise the usual fraud and accuse her of bearing animals. ‘The prominence of the sister in Johannes is therefore supposed to be a primitive trait, even though the mother, not the sister herself, is the accused queen in Dolopathos. several points of similarity with the Envious Sisters tale. The relations here are difficult to determine, beyond I should be tempted to say that mothers-in-law are probably older than sisters as persecutors, if we may judge from the instances reviewed; and Let us see what becomes of her and her accusation in succeeding versions. a poem of the twelfth century, is not directly connected with this inquiry, for a very Queen here dies at the birth of her seven children, and so she is removed from the possibility of being in the Swan Children story we have a mother-in-law.*° La Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne,*° simple reason. ‘The young persecuted. The change is a step towards refining the story and bringing it closer to the beliefs of a more civilized state of society. But the change does weaken the motivation for the exposure of the children. by the old tribal jealousy. One can only assume that the King’s mother is actuated ‘The seven children are born during their father’s absence. The old Queen Matrosilie appears to be scandalized by the plural birth. When the maids tell her that there are seven children she replies: 1297 VII! por la bele crois, mervelle avés contee, Jo ne vauroie mie qu’ele*” me fust mostree; Plevissiés ¢a vos fois que c’ert cose celee, N’a home ne a feme qui de mere soit nee Ne sera ceste cose ja par vos revelee. This is the nearest approach to an explanation for the command * Huet, in De Gids, is one of the few substitution of real animals here; and to parallel the incidents of the story with popular custom and belief. He cites actual cases of belief in the birth of ani- mals from human mothers; remarks that the Exchanged Letter device in the Con- stance-group is less primitive than the accounts for the prominence of women in such stories, from the fact that women are the chief tellers of miarchen. * Published by Henry Alfred Todd, Mod. Lang. Assn. of America, IV, 245. * Sc. la portee.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 81 that the children be put into baskets and disposed of by a retainer: the feeling, namely, that it is a disgrace for a woman to have borne more than one child at a time. As the Lay of the Ash and Galerent testify, this event had come to be regarded, with the growing comprehension of paternity, as a sign of infidelity on the mother’s part. It is a new possibility to be reckoned with in the cycle of persecuted queens.** No wonder Matrosilie was horrified at the thought of seven simultaneous grandchildren! In the so-called Beatrix version®*® of the Swan Children, the exposure of the infants is further prepared by a harsh trait in their mother. Before the birth of her own children, Beatrix has thrown doubt on the parenthood of a beggar woman’s twins, in accordance with the superstition that such children must have two different fathers. When she herself bears six sons and a daughter, her mother-in-law Matabrune (“de plus male vielle n’oit nus hom par- ler”) reminds her triumphantly of her own words, removes the children, and shows seven puppies to her son, King Oriant, in their place. Thus she acts the part of avenging justice, though she is still the fairy-tale persecutor as well. At the conclusion of this story, the son who vindicates his mother, the swan knight Helyas, has become so prominent that he completely overshadows his sister who, in Johannes and the Grimm fairy tale, bring about the disen- chantment. A sister is still present, but she has no distinctive part, and could as well be a seventh brother. It may be noticed too that in this version, and others following it, the heinousness of the Queen’s supposed offense is emphasized in a rather surprising man- ner. In the Chevalier au Cygne published by Baron Reiffenberg, Beatrix is openly accused of committing adultery with a dog, just before she is rescued by her son. ‘This accusation, itself not with- out parallels in popular literature, is taken up and repeated more The idea may be found also among less “civilized” folk than of the Middle Ages. ‘Among various savages,” says Edward Westermarck, “it is the custom that, if a woman gives birth to twins, one or both of them are de- stroyed. ‘They are regarded sometimes as an indication of unfaithfulness on the part of the mother—in accordance with the audiences the notion that one man cannot be the father of two children at the same time —and sometimes as an evil portent or as the result of the wrath of a fetish.” (The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, London, 1906, I, 395.) Cf. Kihn und Schwartz, Norddeutsche Sagen, 208; another version, 257; Paul the Deacon, History of the Langobards, I, 15; J. W. Wolf, Ned. Sagen, 57. Ed. C. Hippeau, Paris, 1874; also by Baron de Reiffenberg, Brussels, 1846.82 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS or less circumstantially in the French, Flemish, and English prose Another interesting feature is the frequent appearance of the name Macaire redactions which followed the verse in popular favor.*° This is a name else- It is associated with the more courtly, un-popular plots to be considered for the agent and champion of Matabrune. where connected with queens unjustly accused in romances. later, in which a villain is both accuser and persecutor, instead of a fairy-tale queen-mother. “Thus, in the Swan Children cycle, very old traits exist side by side with rudimentary modern ones. The remaining members of the family of stories require com- In the Isomberte** romance, preserved only in Spanish form in chapters 47-48 of the ment only for the sake of their divergences. compendious Gran Conquista de Ultramar, the plot has been com- The old Queen is still there, with her familiar hostility; but, instead bined ingeniously with the device of the Exchanged Letter. of substituting real puppies for the children, she merely writes the word in the letter originally dispatched by the faithful seneschal to her absent son. “The beginning and end of the story are, how- ever, unmistakably of the Swan Children formula.* In two miracle plays, French and Italian, the plot has been notably simplified by the omission of the swan-metamorphosis. In the French play,** it is not clear why the old Queen hates her daughter-in-law Osanne. Nothing is said of her being found in a forest. She undergoes both forms of suffering possible for a persecuted heroine: imprisonment and exile. Her reunion with hus- band and sons occurs in Jerusalem. It is perhaps little known that a version of Osanne’s story is included in the unpublished chanson de geste Theseus de Cologne and in the prose redaction which so faithfully follows it.** This treatment is remarkable for a very significant change in the identity of Osanne’s persecutor. Her behavior and tactics are those of the Eustache, who finds her. explanation “See Grimm’s Deutsche Sagen, no. 534; L. Ph. C. van den Berg’s De Ned- erlandsche Volksromanen, 1838. This illogical clearly the influence of stories in which she had run away to shows “ Romania, XIX, 320 ff. “When the heroine is discovered in the forest in the beginning, she says that she has run away from her father because he wanted her to marry, in spite of her theoretical ebjections to marriage. Yet she has no objections to marriage with avoid marriage with her own father. “1. J. N. Monmerqué and Francisque Michel, Théatre Francais du Moyen-Age, Paris, 1839, 551. “For a summary of this section of the romance, see Appendix II, no. 2.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 83 usual mother-in-law, but she herself, Clodas, is an ambitious lady of the court, widow of one of the King’s late enemies, who is anxious to rehabilitate her fortunes by marrying the King. To do this, she must rid herself of the Queen. Hence the accusation of animal birth, the substitution of puppies, the exposure of the three children.“ When these sons are grown, Clodas identifies them and continues to fight against them, but she loses in the end. She is, throughout, a scheming woman with political ambitions. In comparison with Matabrune, she is a very Elizabethan figure. Her desires are clear and un-witchlike, but her methods belong to fairy tales still: the old accusation of an animal parturition, and the exposure of the children. Because Clodas represents a develop- ment away from fairy tales a change observable in other medie- val romances—she has an important place in the gallery of accusers. “And the romance, Theseus de Cologne, in which she does her mis- chief, is a highly diverting tale, well worth rescuing from the obscurity in which it at present reposes. The Italian play of Stella belongs more particularly to the Ex- changed Letter class,** but the name of its heroine, Stella, seems to be taken from the Italian poem on the Swan Children: Istoria della Regina Stella e Mattabruna. The play is compounded of several motives. Here a wicked stepmother acts as double perse- cutor. She first drives the girl from her home, and later changes the second letter to a command for Stella’s execution. Considerando como d’adulterio Ha fatto duo figlino’ la fraudolente.*’ The accusation shows a certain relation to the belief underlying some of the later forms of the Swan Children tale: the impossibility for one father to have more than one child at a time. Through quite natural transitions, this becomes an unqualified accusation of infidelity; but only after the transitions as we have noticed them: (1) accusation of the birth of animals; (2) accusation of the birth of animals and of infidelity because of the plurality of offspring; (3) accusation of infidelity pure and simple. “Theseus resembles the miracle play “Sacre Rappresentazioni dei Secoli in the reduction of the number of chil- XIV, XV, XVI, Florence, 1872. dren to three. lesa: Size84 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS It would be easy to extend the versions indefinitely, by including the endless prose books on the Knight of the Swan, in many lan- guages. ‘The story, having been current in the Low Countries in verse based on the French, appeared in prose soon after the inven- tion of printing. The oldest Flemish prose version appeared in Antwerp early in the sixteenth century; and although the oldest extant copy from Holland proper is supposedly one from Amster- dam in 1651,*8 we know that others must have existed before ltrs The edition of 1763, for instance, has its license (approbatie) dated from 1547. The tale was reprinted again and again, with very slight changes in wording and spelling, through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In France, the story appeared in print as early as 1504; Copland’s translation into English was set up in the type of Wynkyn de Worde in 1512. ‘These popular books contribute nothing new to our knowledge of the story. Their virtue consists in their quaint woodcuts, their earnestness of style, and (especially in the Dutch) their delightful vigor of phraseology. They also indicate the great popularity of the theme long after the passing of the Middle Ages. In English, it is true, the story did not enjoy a long career of popularity and reprintings, as it did in Dutch. But it was familiar enough to readers in the sixteenth century on both sides of the Channel. Considered as a whole, the series of stories included in the Swan Children cycle has a distinct bearing on the general problem of persecuted queens in literature. It is another example, like the Constance-story, of a very primitive accusation adopted in medieval literature and retained there with a fair degree of clarity. ‘There is, to be sure, a tendency to develop the marchen accuser into a more literary type (Clodas); and the accusation undergoes several changes, as we have seen, until it emerges at times as the more modern charge of infidelity pure and simple. In this, it differs from the accusation in the Exchanged Letter group. There the plot, also composed of marchen elements, remained more rigidly constant; and the tendency to substitute a reasonable and credible “WwW. Nijhoff, Catalogus van Boeken, “Cf. W. de Vreese, Tijdschrift voor Pt. V, col. 180 ff. But there is a copy Ned. Taal- en Letterkunde, 1894, 38-52. in the Leiden University Library from Copies of the 1651 edition are in Leiden Amsterdam which is catalogued as ca. and The Hague. 1543.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 85 accusation for the obsolescent primitive one, appears only in two minor instances. Here, on the other hand, a logical evolution of the original primitive accusation is evident, even while the accuser remains generally the same person: a begrudging mother-in-law, whose prominence is unquestioned in both cycles. In these groups, therefore, characters and plots have generally remained true to marchen formulae, with no accusation of infidelity and no villain or spurned lover as accuser. In the next group we shall find the malicious mother-in-law threatened by the introduction of a new, subsidiary character.CHAPTER IV THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE cont'd: THE ADVENT OF THE VILLAIN HP mother-in-law holds sway in other romances than those examined in the preceding chapter, but in them her preéminence is not unchallenged. She appears as a person of fading rank and significance, literally speaking, in the cycles of Octavian and Valentine. The active execution of the villainy 1s taken over more and more by a courtier-aide, who becomes the favored character of the future. In the Octavian stories, the process can be observed clearly. “The accusation develops, too, as did Matabrune’s, into a charge of infidelity pure and simple. The legend of the Emperor Octavian* probably goes back to a chanson de geste of the twelfth century* which had a plot much like that of the romance Octavian. A much longer, more clut- tered romance called Florent et Octavian dates from the four- teenth century. It has a similar beginning, but the latter part of the story is burdened with many duplicated and imported adventures which appear to be secondary parasitic growths. It shows advan- tageously the change from fairy-tale motivation which one would expect in a fourteenth-century romance. From the earlier form, Octavian, or from an almost identical version, are derived two Middle English metrical romances; from Florent et Octavian, chapters 42-52 of Book II of Reali di Francia, and the folk-books. The earlier romance tells the tale. of a mother-in-law who is very angry—without reason, it would appear at first—at the birth of two +The versions discussed here are: Folk Books: See P. O. Backstrom, Octavian, ed. Karl Vollméller, Heil- Swenska Folkbécker, I, 235-236, and Paul bronn, 1883. Streve, Die Octavian Sage, Erlangen, Octavian (two Middle English ver- 1884. The story was evidently popular sions), ed. Gregor Sarrazin, Heilbronn, in its prose dress. It was published as 1885. Florent et Lyon, Troyes, 1534; and as Florent et Octavian, MS. in Bibl. Nat., the Histori von dem Keyser Octaviano summary in Hist. Lit., XXVI, 303 ff. und seinem Weib und sxweyen Stinen, I Reali di Francia, ed. Giuseppi Van- Strassburg, 1535. delli, Bologne, 1892. ®Vollméller’s introduction, xviii.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 87 grandchildren. She accuses the Queen of unfaithfulness, and bribes a youth to lie beside her in Octavian’s place while the young mother is asleep. Octavian, convinced by the sight, kills the youth and sends his wife and children into exile. The two boys are carried off by kidnap- ping beasts in a forest, but the mother soon recovers one of them and continues her journey into the Orient, accompanied by a kindly lion. Years later, the family is reunited by a war with the Saracens around Paris. Octavian and his sons come there to help King Dagobert, and finally recognize one another. Octavian has already discovered the fraud of his mother, and so he takes back his wife, who has persisted, in spite of everything, in an attitude of invincible humility. Here we have the accusation of infidelity based, as in the Swan Children cycle, on the birth of more than one child; but this ancient charge is further supported by ocular evidence for the ben- efit of the Emperor Octavian. Step by step, we are finding the old explanations and accusations supplanted by new ones. For the first time, a definite person is employed to bear the blame of being the Queen’s lover. The two Middle English versions—derived separately in North- ern and Southern England from the French original—do not present any striking peculiarities, except in vividness of style and striking picturesque effects, especially in the scenes where the inno- cence of the wronged Queen is contrasted with the dastardly be- 3 3 havior of the mother-in-law.* The same folk-tale King’s mother is to be found in Florent et Octavian. The Empress Florimonde bears twins in her husband’s absence. When Octavian returns home, his mother meets him and accuses Florimonde of licentious behavior. She urges him to disown the children. But he will not do so when he sees that each of them has a red-cross birthmark. So the old woman bribes a page to become her tool. Florimonde and her two sons are exiled; and the major part of the romance concerns the adventures and exploits of this exile. During a war with the Saracens the senior Octavian is captured, and his wicked mother is left to rule the besieged city of Rome. The younger Octavian fights in defence of the city; but he openly accuses his grandmother and, like Helyas, defeats her champion. In the midst of episodes amorous and military, he rescues his father and his brother Florent from the heathen, and brings about the reconciliation between his mother and father. * When the Emperor and his mother . . + and also warm break into the room he smites off the head He drew pat hedde with lowryng chere of the rash youth Into be lady barm. (Southern Oct. 1. 208.) ~188 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS I Reali di Francia has a peculiar interest. Just as the story of the Swan Children’s mother was modified to make her sufferings consonant with poetic justice, so the woes of Drusolina, here, are rendered more endurable for a reader because they are due to over- weening pride, Perhaps, indeed, the incident is a direct borrowing from the Matabrune group. The story relates how a poor woman comes to the court of young King Fioravante to beg for help, since her warrior husband is dead and she is unable to support her twin children. Drusolina says haughtily, “Tt cannot be that two children were born of one father at one time.” Fioravante interposes, “Do not say that, Drusolina, because nothing is impossible to God,” and he gives gold to the woman. Later Drusolina herself becomes the mother of twins. While she is asleep, the King’s mother bids Antonio, a young cupbearer, stay beside her, everyone else being out of the room, “for a jest.” He protests that this would be unfitting, but she insists. Then she hurries to Fioravante and slanders the two, saying that the children must be Antonio’s. The King rushes in and kills Antonio; the Queen is finally allowed to go into exile instead of being burnt. Her adventures and her sons’ are like those of Flori- monde and her children. In the end, it is the kindly lion who restores the members of the family to one another, and gives Fioravante the opportunity to ask pardon of Drusolina for his too great credulity years before. And the grandmother is burned, to the profound satisfaction of all concerned.* The group about Octavian’s mother is another evidence, like the Man of Law’s Tale, of the vitality of that malicious power attributed, in folk-tales, to royal mothers-in-law. These stories show her still in the full exercise of that power, but new motives and accusations are beginning to spring up around her: the accu- sation of illegitimacy of the children is used in place of the sub- stitution of animals; the old stigma attached to the birth of more than one child at once is brought up again; the old queen’s tool, the guileless if stupid courtier, complicates the action by the addi- “The folk-books offer little subject for comment. The Swedish may be taken as typical. When Octavian’s wife bears twins, his mother plots evil against her. First, she slanders the Queen to her son, appreciate as well as reward a pretext for putting her away. Of course the Em- peror kills the misguided courtier and casts his wife and children into prison to await the stake. The Queen protests saying “that the two children were not bis.” When he refuses to listen, she per- suades an underling that the King would like to be rid of his wife, and would her innocence and begs for mercy in be- half of the children. He finally grants her exile instead of death. The rest of the story follows the usual lines.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 89 tion of a supposed lover. In the presence of these new, or at least additional factors, the hostility of the old queen is allowed to pass unexplained more often than not; and her traditional jealousy seems It does not fit well with accusations of infidelity, which are becoming increas- to be more than ever a heritage from forgotten times. ingly popular. Another group of stories centers about the figure of a perse- cuting mother-in-law: the family of legends which are to be traced to a French original (now lost) concerning two heroes, Valentine and Nameless—probably Sansnom in the French. The most vehe- ment persecuting is still done by the king’s mother, but beside her stands another figure of increasing importance: a wicked villain who has determined on the destruction of the queen for reasons of his own. In the Valentine-tales, the motives of this evil creature are not made clear. He is therefore a needless duplication of the fairy-tale persecutor, and his presence seems to indicate a transition. In the evolution of the story, there are two phases to be distin- guished, just as in the Octavian group. Again, the earlier form is simpler, while the later is burdened with bewildering adventures. The former goes by the name of Valentine and Nameless; the latter is called Valentine and Oursson from the existent French (and other) folk-books. The Middle Dutch® poem which is de- rived from the older French form is unfortunately too fragmen- tary to reveal clearly the story in its complete form, but this lack is supplied by a Middle Low German poem’ which gives the entire Whether the Dutch is dependent on the Low German or vice versa® makes little difference here, since the story was in narrative. any case widely known. ‘Thus it is told in the poem called Valen- tines Bok: King Pippin has a sister Phila and a daughter Clarina. King Crisosto- mus of Hungary asks for the hand of the fair Phila in marriage, and word is sent back to Hungary that his request is granted. He rejoices, but his mother is wroth. ®*The Dutch version from which we ™W. Seelmann, Valentin und Namelos, deduce the hypothetical French ancestor has the form Nameloos. ® G. Kalff, Middelnederlandsche epische Fragmenten, Groningen, 1885, no. xi. Leipzig, 1884. ® Kalff (208) holds the former view; Seelmann thinks the German the older form.90 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS 43 Crisostomus wart der mere vro unde al sin gesinde dé, sunder siner moder was dat leit. Crisostomus decides to ride to Pippin’s court to receive his bride, and ‘nvites his court to accompany him. His mother and her confederate, Bishop Frankhart, refuse. The King thereupon expresses extreme anger, and Bishop Frankhart retracts. But the two evil ones nourish their resent- ment; and, when the marriage is celebrated at Pippin’s court, they await their opportunity. An astrologer announces that Phila is to become the mother of twins. ‘The Bishop and the old Queen arrange to drown the children at birth. Their ferocity is quite unaccounted for. The maid to whom the task is entrusted exposes one of the boys in the forest, where a wolf adopts him; and she sets the other afloat in a box carefully pro- vided with air holes. Phila’s husband asks her where her children are. She does not know. His mother “bets” (ik weddes!) that Phila has murdered them, and Crisostomus believes this primitive accusation. Even Pippin, Phila’s bro- ther, yields full belief from the beginning. When she is tried, 269 do sprak ere broder ‘du dumme wif, wes nemestu den kinderen ere lif?’ The bishop makes a speech in which he asserts that she has confessed her guilt. She pulls his hair, denying it fiercely. Pippin insists that she should be burnt, but she is allowed to go into exile with a young knight Blandemer. She finds refuge in the castle of a maiden whom they meet amd rescue on the way. Meantime one of the children, Valentine, has been found drifting on the water by Clarina, his cousin. When he is grown up he encounters his savage brother in the forest and tames him. There follow various adventures for Valentine and Nameless which do not affect the funda- mental plot. Their mother has yet to be reunited to them. In her castle asylum, she has been forced to repulse the love of a wicked knight Gawin, who thereupon murders the young princess with whom she is sleeping, and hurries to awaken the King. Phila of course protests her ‘nnocence and horror at the deed. She is to be burnt nevertheless; but at the last moment her two sons come riding up with Blandemer. Valen- tine fights for her and rescues her, not knowing who she is. He leaves her with a regret he cannot understand, and proceeds on his quest to find his parents. There is dramatic irony in their situation, which is repeated when the two brothers help their own father, again unwittingly. Next day they encounter a serpent which addresses them with the unexpected remark: “Follow me and learn about your parents.” It leads them to the castle of a maiden from whom they learn what they wish to know; Phila is rescued by her son from a second predicament; the family is reunited; and the Bishop is punished.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 91 The enveloping story of Phila, aside from the numerous chival- ric adventures which fill her exile and her children’s, is clearly composed of standard marchen ingredients: wicked mother-in-law (as in the Constance-story, and the Swan Children and Octavian cycles), credulous king, accusation of child-murder (as in Esmo- reit), and exposure of children. When the unnecessary Bishop is removed, the folk-tale constitution of the framing plot becomes more apparent. Let the Queen stay in prison instead of going into exile, and the similarity is even more striking. The enveloping plot belongs to marchen; the discursive central action is medieval romance pure and simple. ‘The relation of the parts is the same The German® prose versions are very similar in plot and wording. Again the Bishop and the mother-in-law conspire, and again Phila’s credulous fairy-tale husband and her brother believe the inhuman fairy-tale accusation of child-murder. in all other treatments of Valentine and Nameless. and Swedish ?° Surely the story can not be considered quite apart from the logic of folk-lore and popular liter- ature if one is to understand the behavior of the chief characters in the opening action.”* We meet one of these persecutors again in Valentine and Ours- son, the elaborated form of the fiction in French prose, and in the many folk-books descended from it. motives becomes clearer. Here the nature of the Whereas in Valentine and Nameless no reason was given for the animosity of the Bishop, in Valentine and Oursson the Bishop’s persecution is motivated, and motivated in a very significant fashion. ‘The primitive mother-in-law is sup- pressed entirely, and he commits the villainy alone—all because of ®Seelmann, 74-104. law. The old lady therefore sets her 7° G. E. Klemming, Nammlés och Wal- grandchild adrift and accuses the Queen entin, en Medeltids-Roman, Stockholm, of killing her own child. The arrival 1846. of a kindly fée, Oriande, resolves the “For fragments of other versions see trouble without any fatalities; but the Altdeutsche Blatter, Leipzig, 1836, I, situation must have been familiar enough 204-206; Kalff, Epische Fragmenten, no. to the Low Countries xis Seelmann, Introduction; Klemming, before the publication of Malegijs. Introduction. use of such an readers in even The accusation, here as in In the latter part of the Dutch folk- book Malegijs, a similar archaic charge is brought against a young Queen for equally archaic reasons. The King of Armenia has married a maiden beneath his class, who is hated by her mother-in- Valentine and Nameless and in Esmoreit, is surely a survival. 77,A study of the sources of this ro- mance is being prepared by Mr. Arthur Dickson, of Columbia University.92 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS the pangs of unrequited love. “These changes constitute an approach to the realm of courtly love and courtly literature, far away from fairy tales and their ogreish characters. The discomfited ecclesi- astic reports to Bellisant’s husband that she has confessed the sin of infidelity to him. The credulous monarch sends her into exile with one companion, who is very soon forced to protect her from the pursuing Archbishop, in sight of a witness. “The Queen bears her children alone in the forest. One of them—Oursson, of course —is carried off by a bear, and the other is taken by Pippin while she is lying unconscious. Meantime the villain accuser has been challenged and defeated by the merchant who witnessed his pur- suit of the Queen. Thus the truth about the accusation has been brought to light, but the story is not near its conclusion. When the younger generation, Valentine and his bearish brother, become the center of attention, they are involved in a long series of fan- tastic adventures which have no pertinence to the skeleton plot. Valentine appears several times as the rescuer of his father; but, in the end, he kills him unwittingly in a battle against the heathen in Hungary. He retires from the world to do seven years’ penance for learning and practising the black art.” In spite of a general resemblance to the earlier Valentine and Nameless, the prose romance has clearly been transformed by the presence of many new elements. Either these additional elements existed in the common French source of Valentine and Nameless and Valentine and Oursson, and were suppressed in Valentine and Nameless; or, Valentine and Oursson has made additions which Probably the latter is the case here, as with Octavian and its later modification Florent and Octa- required essential changes as well. vian. The changes in both pairs of romances are instructively 18-The remarks on Valentine and Ours- son are based on the Paris edition of 1525 and the Amsterdam edition of 1798 (both in the Staatsbibliothek, Munich), and those of Deventer, 1791, and Ghent (n.d.) in the British Museum, A quaint edition in German, from the British Mu- seum, is thus entitled: In disem buch werden begriffen und gefunden zwo wun- derbarlicher hystorien ganz lieblich ze lesen/ ouch dienen ze fil erfarnyss. Die erst hystori von zweyen triwen gesellen . . . Olivier eynes kiinigs sun von Alga- bria . . . Die ander hystori sagt von zweyen brederen Valentino und Orso/ deren vatter eyn keiser zu Constantino- pel/ und ir mutter eines kiinigs dochter in Frankrich gewesen/ mit namen Pep- pin/ gezogen vss frantzosischer Zungen in diitsch durch Wilhelm Ziely von Bern in ochtlandt. Anno MDXXI. The first story, Olivier and Artus, be- longs to the Amis and Amiles type.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 93 similar: an effacing of the mother-in-law, a change of accusation, a shift of interest from the parents to the exiled children, besides a formidable increase in the number of irresponsible, irrelevant adventures. Other medieval romances, in being changed into prose folk-books, are known to have suffered the same unmerciful stretching and padding and modification of plot. Some of the transforming ingredients can be detected and separated without difficulty, especially those that affect the enveloping plot about the persecuted queen: 1. The complete disappearance of the primitive mother-in-law, and her replacement by a wicked lover, are due to the influence of stories like Macaire, whose name, it will be remembered, was encountered in a developed form of the Swan Children story. Macaire (see p. 104 ff.) may be taken as a type of the very wicked man, usually of Ganelon’s race and character, who tries to ruin an innocent heroine because his love has been scorned. He belongs distinctly to the chansons de geste rather than the romances based on folk-lore. He is to be found in more than one legend con- cerning virtuous ladies in distress. 2. Since the mother-in-law and her gruesome accusations— which must necessarily follow the birth of children—have been disposed of, the way is left clear for a favorite and frequently recurring scene: the birth of children in a forest, far away from help. Moreover, the defeat of the villain and the vindication of the Queen are now accomplished by a champion other than a son of the Queen. 3. The chivalric additions come from a later age of story- telling than those that they supplant; primitive motives have been modified and withdrawn in favor of more modern, comprehensible ones. It has been suggested that Valentine and Oursson owes a direct debt to the folk-book Octavian. But, as Seelmann re- marks,*® all the similar traits of Octavian existed already in the earlier form of this story, and inferentially, in the ultimate French original of Valentine and Nameless. None of the special peculi- arities of Octavian are to be found here. These considerations lead Seelmann to conclude “that an ancient popular marchen lurks here “Compare, for example, the Dutch gis d’Aigremont. folk-book Malegijs with the poem Mau- * Op. cit., li-lvi.94 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS [in the older Valentine material], which was expanded and trans- formed by a North French minstrel.” The northern provenance of Valentine and Oursson seems the more probable in view of the northward spread of both Valentine and Nameless and Valentine and Oursson in the Low German dialects.** In the fairy tale, the bearish character of one of the brothers may well have formed a chief attraction, as indeed it still forms a marked characteristic of this family of romances.” 8 who has hovered for some time in The villain male persecutor,’ the background, now steps forward to occupy a position of central interest. In Le Chevalier au Cygne, he played a minor part as Queen Matabrune’s agent, who was defeated in combat by Helyas; in Octavian, the old Queen’s agent was stupid rather than villain- ous; in Valentine and Nameless, he worked with the old Queen and served her purpose without any tangible reason, merely as a duplication of her more efficient self; and, in Valentine and Ours- son, he has appeared at last alone, a vindictive seeker of satisfaction for spurned love. In this last romantic guise he will be seen in the next group. 1° The Scandinavian recensions seem to be based on the Dutch. The British Mu- reason, is early separated from his pa- rents. It seems to be a wilful variation seum, for instance, contains an Icelandic MS. (Add. 4863, fol. 229-335) of Falen- tins og Ursins Saga in which Dutch ori- gin is indicated by the proper names: S6 er skrifad i fornum sogum ad sa haborni konungr Pippin hafi first byriad sina rykesstiorn { Brabant vid Holland, Anno Christi DCXV.—Seelmann men- tions a MS. in Stockholm: Eyn fogur og Fridanleg Historia . . . Furst Samsett I Fronsku Tale: Sydan aa Hollendsku. “The fact that kills his long-sought father unwittingly is a com- monplace of medieval Valentine romance and of popular literature generally, which may be attached to any hero who, for any in Valentine and Oursson; since the hero has encountered his father several times before, and the time for a recognition scene, whether tragic or otherwise, is long ast. % In the story of Pwyll, Son of Dyved, in the Mabinogion, a Queen’s infant son disappears in the night, and the negligent watchers smear blood on her mouth to prove that she ate him. This is an un- usual transfer of the mother-in-law’s ac- cusation to minor characters. The story seems to be mutilated or incomplete in comparison with other tales of accused queens.CHAPTER V THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE con?d: THE VILLAIN AS SOLE ACCUSER A. THE Ampirious ACCUSER N a large number of romances of the Middle Ages, the accu- sation of an innocent queen comes from one whose motives are quite different from those of fairy-tale persecutors: name- ly, rejected love or political ambition. As might be expected, this villain flourishes best in the atmosphere of the chansons de geste, with their feudal and patriarchal society. “Treason against an inno- cent queen is thus brought into relation with the great tragic treason of the whole Charlemagne-cycle. Accordingly, the villain is usu- ally made a member of the prolific race of Ganelon. Perhaps, indeed, the change from more primitive persecutors was hastened by the popularity of the chansons de geste and their mode of nar- rative. Perhaps villain-accusers of innocent queens are due en- tirely to the chansons de geste. Some of the plots would make one think so. In harmony with these changes is the great popularity of an accusation of infidelity. The fairy-tale charges are forgotten or ignored in the new setting. The society which makes that setting is society as we know it; and the number of accusations possible is, for that very reason, narrowed down to infidelity and treason. The stories related to Doon de la Roche, contained in a manu- script in the British Museum, illustrate these transformations clearly. The French chanson de geste’ and the Icelandic? and Spanish® * Brit. Mus. MS. Harl. 4404, fol. 1 ff. Wolf, User die Oliva-Sage, Denkschrif- Published by the Soc. des An. Textes Fr. ten der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wis- See Appendix II, no. 3. senschaften, Vienna, 1857, 180-282, An- * Landres-pattr, a retelling of a French hang A (Philosophisch-historische Classe). original in the second recension of the ® Enrrique Fi de Oliva, a Spanish ro- Icelandic Karlamagnussaga. See C. R. mance also derived from the French. Unger, Karlamagnus Saga ok Kappa See F. Wolf, Uber die neuesten Leistun- Hans, Christiania, 1860, 50-75. For sum- gen der Franzosen fiir die Heraus gabe maries and discussion, see appendix and threr National-Heldengedichte, Vienna, Grundtvig’s Danemarks amle Folks- 1833, 98-123. wiser, Copenhagen, 1853, I, 177 ff.; F.96 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS recensions have a villain related explicitly to Ganelon, who is actu- ated by ambition, and who uses a charge of infidelity as his weapon. In the French version, this individual, Tomile by name, is a nephew of Ganelon, who slanders the heroine to Doon without any appar- ent reason. His method is that of Octavian’s old mother: the introduction of a page into Olive’s room while she lies in a drugged sleep. From the first, Doon believes in his wife’s guilt, and be- comes the unresisting victim of Tomile’s machinations. He obedi- ently marries Tomile’s daughter, disowns his son as a bastard, and sends him into exile. It is this son, Landri, who reéstablishes his mother after adventures which, like Esmoreit’s, include a love- affair with a princess in the Orient. Tomile and his daughter are confounded; and Doon and Olive are remarried, to the great satis- faction of their son. The motivation of this narrative is not clear. One wonders why Tomile should display such animosity against Olive. His device to implicate her is conventional enough, but only later is his reason indicated: a desire to put forward his own daughter. The Spanish romance explains his behavior more definitely, through ambition alone. Here Tomillas, the father of Ganelon, exercises an undue influence on Duke de la Ronche from the beginning. He is disappointed by the Duke’s marriage to Oliva, because he had wanted his sister to become Duchess. So much being clear, the rest of the action becomes easily comprehensible. Tomillas employs more complicated magical devices to produce the scene* which incriminates Oliva, but the scene itself, the accusation, and Oliva’s protestation of innocence, are the same. Enrrique, the ex- iled son, also brings about the reinstatement of his mother, though not without delays and interruptions in the execution of his filial duty. The skeleton of the story and the type of its characters still correspond closely to the type set by Esmoreit. We have the am- bitious villain as accuser, the credulous king, the son whose youth is spent in exile, and even the love-affair with a princess in foreign parts, before the vindication. Many other plots belonging to kin- dred cycles show a general similarity to the Dutch play. So far, however, the accusation has not been spoken by a scorned “Here, as in the Danish ballads to be _ various tests to prove her innocence. Her mentioned later, she offers to undergo offers are rejected.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE oT lover. It has been the result of ambition rather than of hurt feel- ings. In the Icelandic recension, two new elements are introduced which greatly modify the situation. The persecutor, Milon, is one of the long series of wicked seneschals so popular in medieval fic- tion; and his attitude toward Olif is at first amorous. Having been left in charge of her during her husband’s absence, he pays court to her (by solemnly comparing his age and qualities to her husband’s), is properly rejected, and ruins her by a scene staged for her husband. The second new element appears immediately after this public accusation. When the Queen has vainly offered to undergo tests of innocence, a knight named Engilbert of Dyn- hart steps forward, strikes the villain, challenges him as a liar, and defeats him in combat. ‘This innovation almost brings about a premature conclusion to the tale; and this conclusion would trans- fer to a knightly champion the office usually reserved for the Queen’s son. But Milon loudly exclaims that his defeat is due to the Queen’s witchcraft. She is confined in a stone tower for many years until her grown son Landn, her traditional and more suc- cessful champion, finds her and frees her. The scene resembles the end of Esmoreit more closely than did the corresponding one in the Spanish romance. In the earlier part of the Icelandic tale, the change from the ambitious Tomile to the false seneschal Milon has made a number of differences in the plot. The former was probably the original accuser, and his ambition was the original motive. One effect of the suppressed motivation is the unexplained marriage of the husband of Olif to Milon’s daughter after the imprisonment of the first wife. ‘This episode has become unneces- sary, since the ambitious impulse of Milon has been changed to an erotic one. Grundtvig’s assertion that the Icelandic is older than the Spanish version must therefore not be taken to mean that it is the more primitive in form. It does preserve a story very similar to the French and the Spanish, and all traits common to it and to the Spanish may well be assumed to be inherited from the same source; but its structure has been organically affected by a different type of plot. One person, Engilbert of Dynhart, the Queen’s champion, is entirely due to this extraneous plot. He is the knight who offered to defend his lady against her accuser when all her other friends had deserted her. If he had been allowed to cham-98 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS pion her successfully, the presence of her son would have been superfluous. So his championship remains ineffective; but the solu- lution which he might have afforded is fully accepted in another type of stories. B. THE SENESCHAL As ACCUSER I refer to a family of tales standing somewhat aside from these, in which the accused queen is not defended or restored by a child, but by a chivalrous and disinterested champion. In its simplest form the legend became attached to Charlemagne. It is to be found in the Karlmeinet,’ developed romantically and without any indication of an historical genesis. High treason is at work as usual; treason against the knight-champion, however, rather than Queen Galia. It is because some courtiers are jealous of the noble knight Morand that they accuse him and Galia to the Emperor. Morand fights a long battle in self-defense and wins. Being ac- cused himself, he is compelled to undertake the combat. Else- where, however, the champion is usually disinterested. Such tales contain a rebuffed lover as well as an innocent queen, a credulous king, and the generous champion. A group of Danish ballads edited by Grundtvig tells this type of story dramatically. “These ballads generally localize the action about the city of Spires. “The heroine Gunild is left in the care of a villain during her husband’s absence, as in the Landres-pattr. She is obliged to refuse him her love (in one group, her sword), and he accuses her to her husband of infidelity foot, as in the Landres-battr again, she asks for a champion in the generally with an Archbishop. Bareheaded and bare- hall, but none responds except Memering, her faithful knight. In all ballads the Queen’s champion wins, and her husband begs her forgiveness. Obviously this is a new conclusion. With the im- prisonment and the child removed, the central fact becomes the combat fought by one outside of the family; and that, as Gaston Paris has pointed out, is distinctly medieval.® There is little folk- lore to be detected in the story. Chivalrous institutions condition it entirely. The same essentially chivalrous plot is preserved in the SEd. Adelbert ven Keller, Stuttgart, 834) 1190-1210. 1858. Galia’s story is on pp. 326-431. ° Annales du Midi, XII, Toulouse, The poem is dated by Lachmann (iéid., 1900, 26-32.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 99 German folk-book Ritter Galmy,’ the French Palanus,* and Danish Den Kydske Dronning,° in the cycle of the Erl of Toulouse,’® in the Latin epistle of Jacob Wimfeling which contains a version of the Accused Queen and Wicked Seneschal formula™ current in the fifteenth century in the region of Spires; the group of Danish and Icelandic ballads, which also localize the action in the city of Spires; and the legends told of several historical personages by medieval chroniclers.?? At least one simple inference may be drawn from this far- branching story. Originating as it evidently does in comparatively recent times, in centuries which saw the growth of feudalism— for the combat is the most constant feature—certainly far enough 7™Simrock, Die deutschen Volksbicher, XI, 447 ff. The false seneschal accuses the Queen of infidelity with a cook (as in Octavian); Galmy disguises as a monk, hears her confession, and vindicates her innocence. ® Ed. from MS. by A. de Terrebasse, Lyon, 1833. =C; J. Brandt, Romantisk Digting fra Middelalderen, Copenhagen, 1870, II, 89-128. ® The English romance and a number : of similar Spanish ones warrant the as- sumption of a lost French original. The English has been edited by Gustav Lidtke, Berlin, 1881, with a detailed account of all versions, and bases. of possible historical Two knights attempt in turn to gain the love of the Empress, and are rejected in They then trick a knight into acting the part of a lover of the Empress, and stab him in the midst of the prepared scene. The Earl of Tou- louse, her generous and turn. devoted cham- pion, convinces himself of her innocence as did Galmy, and wins the combat for her. The two villains are put to death by fire. The Spanish com- plete. The motivation is not made clear. Liidtke sees in Judith, wife of Louis the Pious, and Bernard I, Count of Barce- lona and Toulouse, the historical proto- types of the Empress and her champion. He believes that the versions were brought into being by an oral Aqui- versions are less Spanis] tanian legend concerning Bernardus “comes Tolosanus.” I confess that I do not see much similarity between the political intrigues of Judith and her favorites, and the English and Spanish romances as we have them. Even if his- torical events furnished the kernel of these stories, romantic ingredients have completely transformed them. Two Provengal chronicles, like the Eng- lish romance, account for the accusation by means of the wicked seneschal for- mula (spurned love). Caesar de Nostra- damus tells the story of Henry V of Ger- many and his Empress Mathilde; Lg Royalle Couronne des Roys d@ Arles (Avignon, 1641) calls the Emperor Hen- ry III. The rescuer is Raymond of Pro- vence. “MS. Brit. Mus. Add. 27,569, fol. 15b-21a, published in Zeitschrife fur ver- leichende Litteraturgeschichte, IV, 342- 55, 1891. Jacob heard the legend in 1470 when he was journeying from Spires towards The text relates how Lampertus, Duke of Burgundy, left his government and his wife Let ~oQ Strassboure. in charge of Count Philopertus during his absence at war; how the Count, victim of a hope- less passion for the Duchess Eugenia, re- tired secretly from court; how his suc- Iipeai cused her of adultery with the cook; how cessor, se rebuked by Eugenia, ac- she was condemned to death because no and how Philo- pertus returned from his self-imposed ex- false one would fight for her; ile to champion her and kill her The mention of a cook recalls the analogous tales of Octavian, Ritter Galmy, and Genevieve of Brabant. “@ Cf. for example, Paul the Deacon’s History of the Langobards, IV, 47. accuser.100 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS ° removed from the ancient legendary state of matriarchy, it might be expected to ignore all possible accusations except the one we have found most closely associated with patriarchy; and it does. In none of these ballads or poems or chronicles for which an his- torical basis may for any reason be claimed, is there any charge other than infidelity. The two motives used, political ambition and spurned love, seem equally modern when set beside the jealousy of mothers-in-law. ‘The villainy of a male persecutor is developed by distinctly modern motivation throughout. An exception to this may be found in the thirteenth-century poem Wolfdietrich,’* which is closer than the champion-stories to the general literary type because its heroine, like Chaucer’s Con- stance and most of the others, has a child. As in Esmoreit, the child is the important factor in reéstablishing his mother. ‘There ss another false seneschal in Wolfdietrich, who is repulsed by the Queen during her husband’s absence. His revenge takes the form of an intensified accusation: not only is she unfaithful, but her child is of Satanic origin. After this affair has been cleared up by the faithful Berchtung, and King Hugdietrich has died,. the widowed Queen is nevertheless idiotic enough to marry the villain who has caused her so much woe,"* in spite of all advice and her knowledge of his character. The story is, as a whole, unsatisfac- torily built. The tactics of the villain after he has been repulsed, leave room for possible explanations between the virtuous Queen and her husband which would have destroyed him utterly. And the accusation is unsupported by any attempt at proof. Mothers- in-law managed things better! Perhaps the second marriage of Wolfdietrich’s mother constitutes a deliberate, not very happy modi- fication of the faithless-seneschal motif in order to connect this version of Wolfdietrich’s youth with other well-known material about him and a stepfather.*° W olfdietrich is probably Frankish in origin. The name of the hero’s father, Hugdietrich, means Dietrich the Frank; the Franks receive the place of honor in the tale; and above all, a resemblance has been noticed between it and the French chanson de geste, Parise % Wolfdietrich A: see Das deutsche doin de Sebource. Heldenbuch, 25-37, In Der grosse Wolfdietrich, for ex- 14 She is not alone in doing this. Count- ample, the story of the hero’s youth in ess Rose makes the same mistake in Bau- exile is quite different.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 101 la Duchesse,* which is believed by Heinzel to contain Frankish elements.*’ All this may be true; but too much importance must not be attached to the appearance of the ubiquitous accused wife and wicked major domo in any setting whatsoever. ‘They are uni- versally popular, not limited to the Franks.*® Parise la Duchesse is indeed an analogous story, but so, as we have seen, are many others. Moreover, the exile of the heroine is brought about in an entirely different fashion. Twelve traitors of the race of Ganelon, who have already killed her father, plan to destroy her as well for safety’s sake. They send her some poisoned apples, which she innocently offers to her brother-in-law Boevon. She thus becomes seemingly responsible for his death. The accusation against her is treason.t® She is condemned to die by fire; but, on her plea to live until her child is born, she is allowed to go into exile in- stead. Her son is born in the forests of Hungary, is taken from her by robbers and presented to the King of that country, and, like Esmoreit, falls in love with his foster sister when he is grown up. Like Esmoreit too he feels that his first and most pressing duty is to seek his parents. Some of Ganelon’s omnipresent tribe call him a foundling, and he sets out to find his mother (who identifies him in Cologne by a birthmark on his shoulder), to convince his father of the injustice of his decree, and to reunite his parents. And he does all this before he marries his foster sister in Hungary. If this chanson de geste has any connection with Wolfdietrich, it also diverges notably from the German. Instead of the love= smitten, revengeful seneschal, we have traitors of the race of Ganelon, no less than twelve; the motive is political, as it was in the Olive stories, not amorous; the accusation is treason, not infi- delity; the child is born after the mother’s exile and is not con- cerned in the accusation or disgrace of the mother, since his parent- hood is never doubted; the Duke marries a relative of the chief villain, as in the Olive stories, instead of dying and leaving his wife to remarry as in Wolfdietrich. The whole action resembles the Olive-cycle rather than any other. Tomile, it will be remem- ® Anciens Poetes de la France, Paris, % This may not mean, of course, that 1860. the rest of the Hugdietrich-cycle may not ™R. Heinzel: Uber die ostgothische be distinctively Frankish. Heldensage, Sitzungsberichte der k. Aka- ® The same accusation is brought against demie der Wissenschaften, CXIV, 1889, Guinevere in the Mort Artu. no. 3 (Philosophisch-historische Classe).102 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS bered, had wished the Duke to marry a relative of his, just as the Duke here is persuaded to marry a traitor’s daughter after Parise has been sent away. ‘The similarities which remain between Parise and Wolfdietrich—the birthmark of the hero, the exile of the Queen, her faithful friend, the restoration of mother and son— are commonplaces in this general type of story. Other pairs of narratives are more closely connected than these two. And a third romance, somewhat like Parise, varies still more from Wolfdie- trich. In Doon de Maience,” the wicked and ambitious seneschal accuses the heroine of her husband’s death, and tries to have her children murdered by their tutor. Her son Doon escapes, however, and returns just in time to save his mother from the death by fire to which she had been condemned for the second time. In Charles le Chauve,*: likewise, a traitor causes the exile of the grandson of Charles by exposure, and young Dieudonné returns with an army just in time to effect a thnilling rescue of his mother from the same death. These rescue scenes are very often the most successful epi- sodes in the romances they adorn, but they can not be considered anything but commonplaces of medieval fiction. One of the many episodes of Theseus de Cologne, which 1s partly localized, like Parise, in that famous Rhine city, turns like- wise on an accusation of treason. ‘The motive for it is, however, the more usual resentment of a lover rebuffed. Theseus, leaving Cologne to fight his vindictive old father-in-law, confides his wife Flore and the city to the care of the steward Melfior. This person follows the best romantic precedent by falling in love with his lady. fol. 96b Yseut morut damours Jen vueil morir [aussy]; Le saige aristote tout son sens y perdy, he pleads. When she rejects his suit, he necessarily retracts and pretends that he only meant to test her fidelity to her husband. In revenge, he forges a treasonable correspondence between Flore and the enemy. Then he accuses her of treason before the assembled barons. She pleads her own version of the affair: fol. 98b Pour dieu beau sires new parlez ensement, Ongues ne le pensay saches par mon sermemt.. - Se ma fait Melchior le traitre faillis, Qui lautrier me pris qwvil fut mes amis. rd. M. A. Pey, Paris, 1859. accuses the Queen of cannibalism. See 2 The villain is a rejected lover who Appendix II, 8.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 103 When she is about to be burnt, like most damsels in her case, her husband arrives. He is as credulous as anyone concerning the slanders. But a certain goldsmith, a bourgeois friend of Theseus, offers combat in her behalf, and reproaches Theseus for his little faith in her integrity. After many days, the combat takes place; but a lacuna (of sense, not of script) occurs in the MS.”* just before the gallant goldsmith draws his sword. We know from the corresponding passage in the folk-book that the amorous steward is defeated and forced to withdraw his accusation, so that Flore is freed of the charge of treason. Romances like Parise and Theseus are interesting for another reason. “The woes of these heroines are dwelt upon and enlarged in a style clearly intended to arouse the tears and sympathy of lis- teners. ‘There is a striving after the emotional values which may be extracted from their situation. ‘They are no longer mute vic- tims of a mother-in-law’s hatred, entirely passive as in the fairy tales and some of the romances. ‘They have become alive, elo- quent, and full of dignity. Before Parise goes into exile she insists upon entering her husband’s castle at night to look upon him in silence. The scene is really affecting. Other treatments strive also to realize the dramatic and human possibilities of the accused queen; but very rarely, even then, is the repentanee of her husband pro- portionate to the sympathy she has aroused. Some of these stories have been distinguished by variety in the number of traitors. Parise was the victim of twelve; the Empress of Alemayn in some cases was the victim of two. A plurality of persecutors is rather awkward for a story-teller to manage, as we noticed in the legend of Valentine, where the mother-in-law was duplicated by a bishop. Another duplication, similar to that in the Erl of Toulouse, is contained in an episode of the Didrekssaga,”* where Sisibe, the mother of Sigfroed (Sigurd) is the accused Queen, and the part of the wicked seneschal is taken by two men, Her- mann and Hartvin. They are rejected in turn, compare notes, form an improbable alliance in evil, accuse Sisibe to her husband, and receive the royal command to put her to death in the forest. Here one of them kills the other, and Sisibe dies in giving birth to = At the end of fol. 110. feature, probably due to the lost German 30, R. Unger, Saga Didriks Konumgs original of the Saga; and even in that af Bern, Christiania, 1853, 157-170. The original it must have been a borrowed character of an accused queen, which is feature from romance sources. given to Sigfroed’s mother here, is a new104 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS her son. may be explained in such cases by the well-known Biblical story The presence of two unwelcome lovers instead of one of Susannah, the popularity of which is attested in the history of painting.” C. THe Lover anp Dwarr as ACCUSERS Another group of romances*’ presents a new confederate for the villain: not a second lover, but a dwarf. “These romances possess the stock features of a standard chanson de geste plot: the empha- sized wickedness of the villain, the prominence given to the sen- eschal (which Heinzel attributes to the historical importance of the Merovingian major domo among the Franks), and the birth of the queen’s child in exile under distressing circumstances.”” Here the dwarf-tool of the villain is nearly always consciously bad like his master. The villain for whom Macaire is named (a member of Ganelon’s accursed tribe) orders his dwarf to incriminate Queen The dwarf acts He also wishes to ruin Blanchefleur because she has hurt his dignity as an Blanchefleur because he has been rejected by her. his unpleasant part in full consciousness of its meaning. intermediary. In Diu Kiinigin von Frankrich, on the other hand, the dwarf is a passive and innocent victim, whom the villain lays beside the sleeping Queen while he is also asleep.”* In the Dutch folk-book”® and Spanish prose romance about Sibille, both no doubt distressed heroines are com- Genoveva was called “De *4 Some pared to her. nederlandsche Susanna” (in a list of books to be had of the publishing house 1 2c. Ghent, contained in an edition of Valentijn en Oursson), and Aubert le Mire, Fasti Belgici 1622, also compares her The letter of Wimfeling Susan- Paemel, et Burgun- dice, Brussels, to Susannah. Eugenia’s “Quid namque Susanne compares situation to nah’s: fol. 19a, contigit que nephas consimile exegisse putabatur.. .” Cf. also Chaucer, Man of Law’s Tale, 1. 541. * The versions are: Macaire, chanson de geste, ed. M. F. Guessard, Paris, 1866. The story also appears in the Gesta Romanorum and in the chronicle of ,Albericus Trium Fon- tium, ed. Leibnitz, II, Pt. 1, 105-106. Diu Kiinigin von Frankrich, von der Hagen’s Gesammtabenteuer, 1, 165-188. Hystoria de la Reyna Sebilla, in the Spanish romance, La Gran Conquista de Ultramar. See Wolf, Uber die neusten Leistungen der Franzosen, 124-159. Koningin Sibille, a Dutch folk-book. See Denkschriften der k. Akademie der Vienna, 1857, 180-282 (Philosophisch-historische Classe). Sir Tryamour, a Middle English ro- mance, Percy Society, London, 1846. *°This was apparently a very popular feature, deliberately used to arouse sym- pathy. Cf. Aol, among others, where the heroine goes into exile with her hus- band, and is not accused herself; also Lion de Bourges. The villain is an unnamed Marshal, not related to Ganelon. The German ro- mance diverges from the typically French characteristics throughout. 7 No Middle Dutch romance is extant; but the existence of one can be inferred. Wissenschaften,THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 105 derived from a French folk-book, the dwarf is rejected with a blow on the mouth when he approaches the Queen,?® and is there- fore eager to ruin her even at the risk of his own life. But it is Macaire who pursues the exiled Queen, kills her faithful com- panion, and is identified and undone by the slain man’s dog. The Dutch and Spanish treatments are diversified by the humorous ex- ploits of the peasant Baroquel who rescues the Queen. He must have existed in the lost French source, since he appears also in the summary given in the chronicle of Albericus Trium Fontium, and in some fragments of a French poem on the subject. The English romance Sir Tryamour varies from the other ro- mances of this family in that it suppresses the dwarf entirely. Sir Marrok, the wicked steward, is the only villain. Yet Sir Try- amour undoubtedly belongs to the group in which a dwarf properly appears, since the rest of the plot, and especially the use of a dog as champion of virtue, corresponds to the others. Sir Marrok simply tells the King that the Queen has had a lover whom he has virtu- ously killed, and that the child she is expecting is illegitimate. He offers no proof, nor is any demanded by the credulous King. This whole group shows the usual traits of romance as opposed to fairy tales: motivation by a villain because of spurned love, use of com- bat as a means of vindicating virtue, the accusation of infidelity (and sometimes of illegitimacy as well). The special task given to the faithful dog has produced an additional change: the removal of the filial duty of championship from the son, who therefore becomes an inactive character in the tale of his mother’s wrongs. Without the preceding romances, we should probably not have the mosaic story of Theseus de Cologne,*® part of which has already been discussed. ‘The first part of the romance (which includes no less than three accused queens) concerns the fair Alidoyne, wife of Floridas, who is accused also of having a dwarf as lover. Her accuser is the typical rebuffed villain, but the dwarf is not only quite innocent, but her champion as well. ‘The accusation here receives a certain color of probability from the aspect of the Queen’s child, who is born small, ugly, and crippled; but that birth is ac- See L. Petit, Middelnederlandsche Bibl., hhoofde sloech met haer vuyst.” ” 30 . 1556; For summary, see Appendix II, no 4. In the Dutch, Ch. 3: “hoe die naen The first pages of the MS. are defective; der coninghinnen oneerbaerheyt te voren but their contents may be surmised from leyde, ende hoe si hem drie tanden wten the prose folk-book.106 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS counted for as in the Swan Children cycle: as a punishment from heaven because Alidoyne had mocked the mother of a similar child before the birth of her own (though here it is the ugliness of the one child, not the existence of twins, which makes the Queen sus- pect evil). Her punishment is carried out in the manner peculiar to the present cycle, by the accusations of a rejected lover, rather than the persecutions of a mother-in-law. ‘The child helps to clear The un- aided villainy of the lover here resembles that of other solitary evil doers like Tomile, Marrok, and Robbrecht. The Theseus epi- sode illustrates the inexhaustible number of variations possible on his mother’s name, but he is not actually her champion. the basic literary theme of an accused heroine. D. PeErsEcuToRS IN Pious TALEs Another variation is the conversion of the heroine into a patient and long-suffering saint whose story is meant to convey religious edification. Such are Genevieve of Brabant, Hirlanda of Brittany, and Idda of Tockenburg. In the stories of these ladies, the vil- lain’s part is thoroughly conventional and romantic. These legends contain old and familiar elements, but their appearance in popular This is well known to be true of Genevieve of Brabant,*? who has been discussed at greater length than Hirlanda and Idda. the middle ages, originated in a monastery—Laach, 1325-1425?— as a means of glorifying its tradition and its founder. A Count of the Palatinate named Siegfried (died 1113) was a second founder of this monastery, and his name was evidently used as a The Rhineland and the Low Countries were especially kindly to such form was late. It seems probable that her story, like many others in center for fictional commonplaces about persecuted wives. tales, as we have noticed, and so this tradition became popular there,°* for the sake of the heroine rather than of the hero. It is 81 Seuffert, Die Legende von der Pfalz- 1613. Bishop Matthias Emmich wrote grafin Genovefa, Wirzburg, 1877; B. Golz, Pfalzgrafm Genoveva in der deutschen Dichtung, Leipzig, 1897; H. W. Puckett, The “Genoveva” Theme, Mod. Phil., 1916, XIII, 609-624. 82 Marquard Freher, following MSS. derived from Laach, incorporated it in the appendix of his Origines Palatinae, the legend in Latin (edited in Latin and French by M. E. de la Bédollierre, Paris, 1841); but it first achieved popularity in the ornate version by the French Jesuit, René de Cerisiers (1603-1662): L’Inno- cence Reconnue, ou la Vie de Sainte Genevieve de Brabant, first datable print, 1638. In 1640 the same story was toldTHE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 107 a very simple plot. ‘The false seneschal Golo plays the usual part of lover and accuser, and Genevieve simply goes into exile to wait resignedly in the forest until her husband finds her. The accu- sation is not supported by a prepared scene with a supposed lover, as in the Emperor Octavian.** ‘The child is entirely passive, and merely adds to the pathos of the situation. Golo himself is the beginning and end of the action, the clearest instance of the roman- tic traitor as rejected lover—the substitution of medieval romance for fairy-tale persecutors of more ancient date. The story of Hirlanda of Brittany, published in 1640 as com- panion tale to Genevieve of Brabant,** is not so simple. In several features it reminds one of Esmoreit and the Swan Children cycle. In fact, like Theseus de Cologne, it seems to be a late composite of elements from several such tales.** The villain Gerard is simply another Robbrecht. His reason for hating Hirlanda is really am- bition. He hates his infant nephew, her child, because he himself wishes to succeed his brother. He connives at the kidnapping of the child in order to put him out of the way, and to serve the pur- pose of a foreign king at the same time. Then he accuses Hirlanda of child-murder and infidelity. with a few minor differences. All of this is true in Esmoreit, In Hirlanda, however, the heroine’s misadventure is uselessly duplicated. In both stories, her son is the rescuer. ‘The boy’s guardian learns of his ancestry here as does the hermit in the story of the Swan Children. None of the elements of the story is new; the whole is additional proof of the popularity of all of them. The legend of St. Idda, more strictly local and ecclesiastical, takes us to the source of the Rhine. It is explicitly connected with as one of three: Les Trois Etats de L’In- therefore be compared to the waning mocence Affligée dans Jeanne d’arc, Re- commue dans Genevieve de Brabant, Cour- rommée dans Hirlande, Duchesse de Bre- tagne. A Dutch translation of Cerisiers’ appeared in 1645, and in the eighteenth century came the Dutch and Flemish folk- books, which have remained popular to this day. %3In the best known versions, Golo uses a witch as confederate to support his accusation. But she is not a feature of the oldest forms of the story, and cannot witch-like mother-in-law of other stories. “Also: Hirlanda, die gekrinte Un- schuld, ca. 1700. (Title-page missing in the Brit. Mus. copy.) Summary in Ap- pendix II, no. 5. The origin of the story, and its in- debtedness to the romances, is discussed by Hermann Steinberger, Hirlanda von Bretagne, Munich, 1913. He points out the peculiarity of this plot in using am- bition instead of scorned love as a mo- tive (18-19).108 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS the monastery of Fisching. The Latin Vita of 1685 °° mentions learned Latin histories which related the tale as fact. The legend merely tells how the heroine is basely accused by a courtier who hates her—‘“‘nescio, qua de causa,” says the author. The only evi- dence is the presence of her wedding ring, which a crow had car- ried away, on the finger of a huntsman who had found it. Idda is thrown from a tower, but she miraculously survives and lives in the wilderness like Genevieve of Brabant, until she is found by her repentant husband. She does not return to him even after she has pardoned him, but retires to a religious retreat near the Bene- dictine Abbey of Fisching, where she often hears mass. Her mira- cles make the place famous. This story is more successful as propaganda than as narrative. The villainy is quite unmotivated. In this respect, Saint Idda differs from Genevieve, which it most resembles. In all three, /dda, Genevieve, and Hirlanda, the character of the villain is crucial, and he does his evil work alone, like the truly romantic person he is. E. THe BRoTHER-IN-LAW AS ACCUSER One other solitary romantic villain remains to be discussed. This is the brother-in-law of the heroine who, in a numerous and pop- ular cycle named from the Crescentia-version, accuses her of infi- delity because, as in other groups, she has been obliged to cut short his wooing during her husband’s absence. He does not present evi- dence to support his accusation. The heroine’s exile is always diversified by many thnilling adventures, which were occasionally borrowed to adorn entirely independent narratives. One usual fea- ture of an accused queen’s exile is, however, lacking: she does not have a child. Nevertheless she is most emphatically the victim of accusations, like so many of her sisters. Although the Crescentia-plot is not simple, it can be resolved into several formulae, some of which are common in fairy tales. S86) sy" ~ ¢ : x . 7 Vita et Confraternitas S. Jddae Co- Beschreibung von dem Leben/ und Wan- mitissae Tockenburgi cum genealogijs del/ der gottseligen Frauwen S. Idda illustrissimorum comitum de Tockenburg. Graffin von Kirchberg u. So inn dem . . . Constantiae, Anno MDCLXXXV. Wirdigen Gottshaus Vischingen seliglich In 1481, a German Life was translated ruwet . . . Allen frommen Ehefrawen into Latin by Albert of Bonstetten, who su Trost und Exempel ganz nutzlich ond later retranslated his little book “in ele- kurzweilig xulesen. Erstmals in Truck gantiorem vernaculam.” In 1596, an- firgestellt. Getriickt zu Freyburg in other German version appeared: Kurze Vchtland, MDXCVI.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 109 Wallenskéld maintained®’ that the story is of Oriental origin and goes back to an hypothetical Indian source, inferred from the Tat Nameh of Nachshabi in the fourteenth century, from Arabic inter- polations in the Thousand and One Nights, and’ from the story of Repsima in the Persian Thousand and One Days. Stefanovié,*® on the other hand, points out that these versions are all much later than the oldest European one, and that there is a considerable group of European fairy tales which contain parallels to a very charac- teristic incident: the bloody dagger used to implicate the heroine in a charge of murder. He points out that the number of perse- cutors is greatest in the Eastern versions, and that simplification would not be likely in the supposedly derivative Western versions: rather, that simplicity is a sign of antiquity. He stresses also those features of the Hildegard sub-group (such as general similarity to the Snow-White type of fairy tale) which suggest Germanic sources; and he connects the much-debated Banished Wifes La- ment in Old English with this cycle of romances.*® How far all this may be valid is of course unsettled; but the comparison with fairy tales, which Wallenskéld had neglected, is very valuable indeed. The oldest known literary version goes by the name of Crescen- tia,*® and was written in Middle High German of the mid-twelfth century. It tells how Crescentia of Rome, besieged by her brother-in-law’s woo- ing, commands him to build a tower for them before she will consent; how she cleverly contrives his incarceration in this same tower, but rashly sets him free on the day of her husband’s return; how she is thrown into the Tiber by her husband, who believes the accusation brought against her by his brother; how a spurned lover in the court where she finds “Te Conte de la Femme Chaste con- ” Kaiserchronik, ed. H. F. Massmann, woitée par son Beau-Frere, in: Acta So- Quedlinburg, 1854, Ill. 11,367-12,828. ctetatis Scientiarum Fenmnicae, XXXIV, Von der Hagen, Gesammtabenteuer, I, no. 1; also his introduction to Florence 129-164; edited and revised by Oskar de Rome for the Soc. des An. Textes Schade, Berlin, 1853. A later, thirteenth- Fr. Cf. also R. Kohler, Archiv fir Lit.- century form is given by Von der Hagen, geschichte, XII, 92-148. I, Intro., c. Prose versions: Altdeutsche * Rom. Forschungen, XXIX, 461-556. Blatter, I, 300-308; Die deutschen Mun- ® For an interpretation connecting this darten, II, 7; the prose redaction of the Lament with the Constance-cycle—a more Kaiserchronik.. As a folk-book, only in likely connection, it seems to me—see the nineteenth century (ed. Schénhuth, W. W. Lawrence in Mod. Phil., V, 1908, 1864). 387-406.So 110 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS refuge accuses her of murdering her fosterling, and she is cast into the water again because the testimony of the bloody dagger by her side seems conclusive; and how finally all of her persecutors, struck by punitive maladies, come to be cured by her healing power, which was granted to her by St. Peter after her many sufferings. She heals her persecutors after they have made full confession. So the truth is made manifest, and she retires to a convent with her name cleared. The plot-scheme of this early treatment holds for succeeding versions: exile caused by the accusation of a rejected brother-in- law, a varying number of persecutions and sufferings, and a heal- The use of a bloody dagger by one of the persecutors has already ap- ing of her persecutors after they have confessed their sins. peared in certain fairy tales and in the Chaucer-group of the Con- stance-saga. In the latter, it is true, there is an important differ- ence, since the murdered victim is the wife, not the child, of the protector of Constance. In one group of Crescentia-tales, the emphasis is laid on the saint-like character of the lady, and on the miraculous means of her restoration. 41 The group is made up of plays and edifying legends** which are likewise quite simple in plot; though the opening varies considerably, the brother-in-law is usually the persecutor** who is punished by disease and healed by Another The chief rep- resentatives of the story in this division center about the French romance Florence de Rome.** the miraculous powers of her whom he has wronged. group is less pious and more romantic and martial. This group results from the dilu- tion of the essential plot with medieval ingredients: fights with the heathen, cities besieged for the sake of a fair princess, knightly combats, ladies watching from the castle walls. The marriage of “THe version of the story told by II, 1-128) contains both the murder and Vincent of Beauvais as a miracle of the Virgin (Spec. Hist., VII, 90-92) was very popular. Jacob van Maerlant retold it from Vincent (Pt. I, Bk. VII, Ch. 45). Here the episode of the child-murder is retained; it is dropped from the French miracle play. In the Italian group (a fifteenth-century poem edited by A. Mus- safia: Siteungsberichte der k. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, II, 589 ff., and the Vita and play about St. Gugli- elma) there is no tower episode, and new introductions are provided. Gautier de Coinsi’s poem (M. Méon, Nouveau Re- cueil de Fabliaux et Contes, Paris, 1823, the tower. “In the Italian poem, edited by Mus- safia, the villain is a nephew, and the rejected lover who murders the child is also a nephew of the child’s father. An Italian novella of the fourteenth century (Novelle dIncerti Autori del Secolo XIV, Bologna, 1861) combines the brother-in- law episode with the murder of the child, and makes the child This results in the old primitive accusa- tion of having murdered her own child. “For the Middle English romance see Le Bone Florence de Rome, ed. by Vietor and Knobbe, Marburg, 1899. the heroine’s own.THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 111 Florence to Esmere occurs during the bustle and clamor of a war against the besieger, Garcy of Constantinople; and it is to pursue this Garcy that Esmere leaves his wife to the guardianship and persecutions of his brother Miles. Her later adventures include not only the usual accusation of having murdered her infant charge, but narrow escapes from other amorous or covetous persecutors as well. In this French romance and in Le Dit de Flourence de Rome*™ (early fourteenth century), there is a deliberate heighten- ing of effects by familiar methods in order to arouse sympathy for the unhappy exiled lady. The Dit is more labored than the ro- mance in its straining after excitement and sympathy. The Gesta Romanorum also contains a version of this pathetic tale,*® which provided the source for Thomas Hocleve’s Fabula de quadam Imperatrice Romana.*® In both of these, the heroine en- dures a variety of persecutions during her exile; but she is not act- ually accused by the brother-in-law to her husband. wronged, not slandered. She is directly In the Hildegard group,** however, her husband (Charlemagne) listens to accusations from his brother Talandus, and gives orders himself for her exposure in the forest. This particular form of the legend is simpler than most, because it lacks the usual persecutions from the child-murderer, the un- grateful youth saved from the gallows, and the amorous mariner, which are to be found in other versions. It ends with the usual scene of reunion brought about by the heroine’s cures. The story was believed by some wniters to be historical, and was introduced into chronicles, sermons, and old histories, especially from the chronicle of the Abbey of Kempten, written by the Bavarian Jo- hannes Birck. “A. Jubinal, Nouveau Recueil des ciated with the molesters of innocent Contes, Dits, Fabliaux ... des 13-15 ladies. See Von der Hagen, Gesammta- Siécles, Paris, 1839, 88-117. Here, the benteuer, I, civ. advent of the two brothers is not pre- pared for, as in the romance. Names appear abruptly throughout, as if the poem were somewhat unskillfully con- densed. The woes of the heroine are partly attributed to her breaking a vow not to marry. Her brother-in-law does not accuse her, but subjects her to mis- treatment from which she is rescued. Her persecutor at the home of her rescuer is called Macaire—a name elsewhere asso- “Ed. J. G. T. Grasse, Leipzig, 1842, II, 152, no. 87. In the English Gesta, Ed. Sir F. Madden, no. 69, the Emperor is called ‘Merelaus” instead of ‘“Octa- vianus.” “EETS, London, 1892, I, 140. “'Wallenskéld, Introduction; K. Rei- ser, Sagen, Gebrauche und Sprichwéorter des Allgaus, I, 442; Backstrom, Svenska Folkbocker, 1, 264-271; Belg. Museum, III, 241.112 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS The Crescentia-story appeared in Middle Dutch in a form which has the distinction of being generally neglected by those who have discussed the cycle as a whole. Perhaps it has been overlooked because it forms part of the long patchwork epic, Seghelijn van Jerusalem,** and the Crescentia-patch appears near the end. The poem is apparently not translated from any other language,*” and may be called an original work as it stands, even though much of it is plainly modeled on known French romances. At his best, the author writes in a fresh and vivid style that makes events con- cretely visible; but he is not always able to bring a logical relation- ship into the events he combines from his various sources. ‘The passage in question here is a good example of the strength and weak- ness of his work. The heroine is sent into exile by a villain who is not a brother-in-law, although all of his actions have been bor- rowed from brothers-in-law, in the kindred cycle. Her persecu- tion at the court of her first protector is modified to an accusation of poisoning, much as in the chanson de geste Parise la Duchesse.”° She is condemned to die by fire, but spared at last for exile, like Parise. She bears a child alone in the forest without help. This scene is almost certainly due to romances like Parise. But in the succeeding adventures with the ungrateful youth saved from the gallows and the amorous mariner, the child is completely forgotten and reappears only at the end, when the cures and reconciliations take place. His casual appearance and disappearance result from the combination of two alien plots; but such inconsistencies weigh little in comparison with the unforced charm and gaiety of the scene in which Florette plays unwittingly with the poisoned pear, while the mirthful young knight Antidotes tries to win it from her. The romance is written with liveliness and originality, even if the multiple themes from French romance are imperfectly com- bined. If the genial author drew directly from French sources, as he not improbably did, his work suggests a typical channel through which accused queens of the civilized chanson de geste type entered the vernacular literature of the Low Countries. Whether or not * Ed. Verdam, Leiden, 1878, 94 ff. Tkint in haren buke vloech, ” Ibid., v. Daer ment toesaech, op ende neder. © These lines particularly recall Parise: Sebastiaen seide, “Nu leit weder 9220 Florette die stont al bevende Die vrouwe in den kerker dijn... Van groeter pine in haer gedoech. 9233 Wat heeft ons dat kint misdaen?”THE ACCUSED QUEEN IN ROMANCE 113 he actually drew on Parise, does not matter. Something of the sort he surely did use, subject to the modifications of his own cre- ative fancy. And this was happening in the fourteenth century, about the time of the composition of Esmoreit in the same country. So we gain, perhaps, some little insight into the possibilities for the genesis of the Netherlandish drama. It too has a plot com- pounded of several commonplaces of romance, probably derived from French models, and probably put together with a certain freedom. And Esmoreit also, on a smaller scale, results in an illogical plot because the weaving is not quite skilful enough. SUMMARY The stories discussed in this chapter illustrate the final stages of a process of plot-evolution. ‘They employ uniformly the more advanced types of motivation: an ambitious or a love-sick villain uttering accusations of infidelity or treason. The change is un- mistakable; and this later plot-machinery has become thoroughly conventional, being used again and again in repetitions of which medieval audiences never wearied. Let us recapitulate the entire process as it has been revealed in this study. In folk-tales, queens are accused of strange, incredible crimes: cannibalism, witchcraft, child-murder, the birth of animals. The accusers and persecutors are demons, witches, fathers, mothers- in-law, and stepmothers. In romances, several of these motives reappear, much as they exist in folk-tales. But some romances, like Octavian and Valentine, present a combination of mirchen motives like these with others apparently more romantic and sophis- ticated: the jealousies and desires of court intrigue. The com- bination seems to indicate a transition. Moreover, certain definite story-cycles, which have been preserved both in older and more recent stages of development, show the actual process of dropping the marchen machinery in favor of more modern devices. Thus, in the Swan Children story and in Valentine, one can see primitive persecutors and accusations (mothers-in-law, animal birth, and child-murder) being supplanted by more modern ones (courtiers, like Macaire and the Bishop; treason; or infidelity). Finally, the greater number of romances limit themselves to persecution by a villain instead of a demonic or tribal tyrant, and the accusation ofa ae nan nee 114. CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS treason or infidelity is the weapon used against innocence. ‘The two changes occur simultaneously. The villain, typical of the latest stage, is often of the race of Ganelon,”* and he works either for the sake of ambition or for the satisfaction of revenge for rejected love. His behavior is conventional and calculable enough, and is common in the fiction of our own times. Chaucer’s Constance and the Queen in Esmoreit are, therefore, far from unique in character and situation. Other queens have, like Constance, been accused of the birth of monsters; queens other than Esmoreit’s mother have been accused of child-murder or an illicit love affair; others have been rescued from prison or exile by their grown children; others have suffered these things at the hands of a mother-in-law or a scheming villain. Donegild in Chaucer belongs to the Matabrune-type; Robbrecht in Esmoreit belongs to the Macaire-type, common in the chansons de geste, though it is not so clear in the play why the Queen’s destruction is necessary to him. “Take him away and we have simply the formula of the exposed or persecuted child, who suffers because a great king fears him. ‘The presence of this formula in marchen and romance suggests another study: an inquiry into the reasons for the exposure or persecution of a child, in the light of folk-lore and obsolescent custom. It would no doubt yield illuminating results concerning the origin and development of tales about found- lings and exiled princes, no less interesting than the results pre- sented here from a study of accused queens. Certainly the ro- mances in which the persecuted mother of an exposed child is made the central sympathetic figure have a warmth and charm that is lacking in the more martial, exciting romances where her son becomes the chief character. “That is why even the minor ana- logues of Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale are worthy of study if one would gain insight into one of the most attractive types of medieval romance. 51 2 5 : et See Ernst Sauerland, Ganelon umd sein Geschlecht im altfranzdischen Epos, Margurb, 1886.APPENDICESAPPENDIX I ADDITIONAL ANALOGUES OF £SMOREIT The plot of the Flemish play Esmoreit, which contains the con- ventional characters of accused queen, scheming villain, persecuted child, and credulous husband, is composed of incidents which be- came commonplaces of medieval fiction. The following addi- tional analogues will indicate the prevalence of these conventional motives: 1. The King of Damascus tries to prevent his daughter’s marriage according to the prophecy.—In other words, .Damiet is regarded to a certain extent as a Danaé whose future husband is the enemy of her father. Such situations are frequent in fairy tales, and they appear in romances again and again. The father surrounds the marriage of his daughter with difficulties, kills her suitors, persecutes his son-in-law, or exiles his grandson as the monarchs of fairy tales are wont to do. The Danaé situation is traceable in: Richars li Biaus, the Middle Dutch play Gloriant, the Dutch folk-book T'urias ende Florete, Hugdietrich, Tor- rent of Portyngale, Sir Eglamour, Sir Degarre, Amadis de Gaul, Theseus de Cologne (see Appendix II), the Dutch folk-book Malegijs (in the part concerning the hero’s brother Vivian), Boeve de Hamptone, the Dit de P Empereur Constant, and the innumerable other members of the cycle in which an exchanged letter saves the life of the future son-in-law. Not all of these romances, however, use a prophecy to initiate the perse- cution. In one interesting case, the prophecy is employed to warn the hero’s father of doom at his son’s hands. This Oedipus-situation is to be found in Seghelijn van Jerusalem (see Appendix II, no. 7); and the scene in which the court astrologer reads the doleful prophecy in the stars is very similar to the one in Esmoreit between the heathen King and Meester Platus. 2. The hero is exposed or sold by the villain, or is otherwise perse- cuted, because he interferes with the latter’s ambition.—Analogues to this situation occur in: Theseus de Cologne, Historia Meriadoci,2 Seghelijn, Guillaume de Palerne, Doon de Maience, Jourdains de Blaivies, Aiol, Baudoin de Sebourc, Herzog Herpin, Floriant et Florete, Malegijs, Boeve de Hamptone, and Sir Generides. The villains of these stories are of the conventional French type, sometimes definitely related to Ganelon. * See Romania, VI, 161 ff.; R. Kéh- Hamleticum, I, Berlin, 1912. ler, Zur erzahlenden Dichtung des Mit- “Ed. James D. Bruce, Hesperia, Ergan- telalters, 355 £f.; Josef Schick, Corpus zungsreihe, 2 Heft, 1913.118 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS Jan uut den Vergier® contains a son exiled by his own father and per- secuted by a villain. The similarity of some sections of this folk-book to Esmoreit, and the occurrence of passages of verbal similarity, have led Priebsch* to the conclusion that the material of Jan served directly to furnish out the plot of Esmoreit, It must be confessed that the very rhymes correspond closely in the passage resembling Esmoreit’s outburst to Damiet when he discovers that he is a foundling; but the exclamations of all exposed princes on such occasions are very similar and highly con- ventional. Lines 1238 ff. of the Low German Valentine are also very similar to Esmoreit’s and Jan’s speeches under like circumstances, but in other respects all three plots are very dissimilar. I do not think it likely that Jan alone is so important in explaining Esmoreit. 3. The hero, a foundling, falls in love with his foster sister.—This very common situation occurs in: Jan uut den Vergier, Malegijs, Boeve de Hamptone, Guillaume de Palerne, Theseus de Cologne (the Gadifer and Osanne episode), Remzer, Charles le Chauve, and with slight modi- fications, in Baudoin de Sebourc, Richars li Biaus, and Ogier the Dane. Very frequently in these the foundling’s clothes bring about his iden- tification. A popular prose tale of the fifteenth century in Flanders attaches such a foundling story to the family of St. Louis of France. It is told that the consort of St. Louis, while she was crusading with her husband, bore a son named Jehan-Tristan. A Saracen woman acting as a spy steals the child out of the city of Damietta and delivers him to the Sultan Saladin of Turkey, who gives out that the boy is his son. So Jehan-Tristan grows up to fight against his own relatives. One day when he is about to enter combat with his uncle Charles of Sicily, he notices that both of them are being held back by an invisible force. An angel descends from heaven to reveal his ancestry to Jehan-Tristan. He is converted on the spot, returns home, is reunited to his mother, and returns to the East to fetch the fair Helaine who had loved him when she had believed him to be her cousin. Here, attached to historical personages, we have a story very close to Esmoreit, except for the villain Robbrecht, who, we have elsewhere de- cided, is a detachable romantic character in the midst of other material. And geographically also Le Livre de Baudoyn is important. It represents a popular sort of pseudo-history, really crusading romance, current in the Low Countries which produced Essmoreit about the same time, and other tales like it. It features conspicuously the siege of Damietta in Egypt, where the fabulous Jehan-Tristan was supposedly kidnapped. Now the 5 Sammlung bibliothekswissenschaftlicher Arbeit, Leipzig, 1895, VIII, 1-23. The style of Seghelijn. There is a Middle High German poem on the same subject. folk-book is evidently based on a lost poem in Middle Dutch, since the prose retains traces of rhyme and rhythm. The poem probably belonged to the time and “ Neophilologus, VII, 57-62. 5 ne Livre de Baudoyn, Conte de Flan- dre, Brussels, 1836 (republished from the 1485 edition), 150 ff.APPENDICES 119 heroine of Esmoreit bears the name of that city, which was such a strate- gic point for the crusaders; and one can easily imagine that her name— or its name—was very often on people’s lips in the Netherlands, since a detachment of Dutch-speaking soldiers under Count William of Hol- land was very active at the siege of 1218-1219. | Indeed, the word for a bell is damiet to this day, because of the bells which were brought home from the siege as trophies. It is not strange, therefore, to find a character named Damiet in a story which obviously took its present form under the influence of crusading romances and chamsons de geste in gen- eral. The heathen princess of Esmoreit, moreover, is closely paralleled by the Saracen Helayne in Le Livre de Baudoyn. ‘This book suggests not only the presence of enlightening analogues to Esmoreit in the pop- ular literature of the Low Countries, but also the geographical origin and diffusion of them. 4, Sicily is the scene of part of the action.—Many of the tales already mentioned are staged on this attractive island: Floriant et Florete, Remier, Maugis 2’ Aigremont, Dolopathos, Charles le Chauve, Lion de Bourges; also Ipomedon, Prothesileus, and parts of Jourdains de Blawies, En- fances Garin de Montglane, Tristan de Nantueil, and Le Livre de Bau- doyn. ‘The reasons for this romantic and literary interest in Sicily® are probably geographic again, because the crusading expeditions of Western Europe brought many individuals to that island where poetry and story- telling were so diligently fostered by the successive dynasties ruling there. Many an expedition against Damietta, composed of Sicilian Normans and soldiers from Northern Europe—Dutch and Flemish among others departed from Sicily. All of these connections are vague enough, but they do serve to bring together such names as Sicily, Flanders, Damietta, and the Saracens. It is not at all strange that Sicily should be chosen as the scene of a Flemish play of the late fourteenth century, which is full of the spirit of the crusades, and contains a character named Damiet, an accused queen, an exiled son, and a Saracen king as foster father—espe- cially if that play reached Flanders by way of France and French liter- ature. As for the popularity of such themes in the Netherlands and Rhineland, we have already had abundant evidence of that in the ver- sions of La Belle Héléne, Valentine, Theseus de Cologne, Doon de la Roche, Parise la Duchesse, Baudoin de Sebourc, Seghelijn, Le Livre de Baudoyn, Jan uut den Vergier, Olive, Malegijs, Genoveva of Brabant, Moriaen, and De Ridder metter Mouwe, which circulated in these parts or localized their action there. *T have already discussed one phase of it in The Romanic Review, XIV, 168-188.APPENDIX II SUMMARIES OF ROMANCES 1. La Belle Héléne de Constantinople, MS. 9967 in the Bibliothéque Royale, Brussels. This prose version of the poem was made by Jean Wauquelin in 1448. The codex is beautifully lettered in clear charac- ters, and adorned with decorated capitals and pictures from the story. Jean dedicates his translation to “Phillipe par la Grace de dieu duc de bourgoinge de lothringem de brabant et de lembourg. Conte de flandres dartois de bourgozgne palatin de haynaw/t, de holland de zeelande et de namur Marquis du saint empire seigneur de frise de Salmes et de Malines.” It was especially in the low-lying, Germanic-speaking sections of these possessions that the story became most popular later in the form of folk- books, The folk-books listed by Florian Forcheur (Messager des Sciences His- toriques de Belgique, Ghent, 1846, pp. 169-209) are but a part of those still extant. A very cursory search in the libraries of Holland and Bel- gium reveals many more, especially Dutch ones. One popular book com- bined the tale of Helena with two others: De Vrouwenperle ofte dry- voudige Historie van Helena de Verduldige, Griseldis de Saechtmoedige, Florentina de Getrouwe, Antwerp, 1621 (modern reprint, Harlem, 1910). Neither poem nor prose version has been published. The story runs thus: Héléne’s mother dies, leaving her father, the Emperor of Con- stantinople, disconsolate. He loves his daughter more deeply than ever in his sorrow. When Héléne is grown, the devil turns the Emperor’s affection into unlawful love. —The Emperor serves the Pope in war against the heathen, but demands in return a dispensation permitting him to marry his own daughter. When he arrives in Constantinople, he is re- ceived by Héléne “‘comme celle qui a autre chose ne pensoit fort que a tout honneur et a tout bien, ne iamais neust pense que son pere lempereur fust en celle erreur en laquelle il estoit quant il se partist.’? She is soon confronted with the truth. Her father confides her to the care of a certain Dame Beatrix who, instead of guarding her, allows her to escape. A friendly mariner conveys her “au bort de la mer en ung pays nome pour le temps vautezbron Mais comme dist nostre hystoire on le appelle maintenant la marche de flandres.” * Here she takes refuge in a convent; but the wooing of the then pagan King of Flanders causes her to flee once more. On the way, she is temporarily endangered by an amorous pirate, who is opportunely drowned in the storm which casts her ashore in England, near the King’s castle. King Henry finds her, and * Fol. 21a. * Fol. 25b.APPENDICES 121 falls in love with her. He marries her in spite of his mother’s objection to her as a fille esgarée. The King’s mother is thus characterized: ‘“‘Cestui noble roy auoit une mere qui ia estoit tres ancienne et estoit de tres malle nature car a nul bien fait apiezne pouoit elle entendre.” * And she warns her son before the marriage: “Je vous prometz par la foi que dois adieu mow createur se vous le faictes iamais a moy naurez paix ne elle aussi.” He replies to all aspersions on Héléne that she would be worthy of the marriage even if she were the daughter of the poorest man in the world, being what she is. When he goes to war, he leaves his wife in care of the Duke of Gloucester. The mother-in-law visits Héléne long enough to have a counterfeit seal made. With this she seals the substituted letters which she gives to the drunken messenger. The chaplain who writes from her dictation the accusation of a monstrous birth, protests against the lie. She silences him with money, and, when the letter is written, cuts his throat. In Rome, King Henry has learned of his wife’s ancestry and her rela- tionship to the Pope, by pictures of her which he finds there. When the forged letter reaches them, the Pope shrewdly asks whether Héléne has incurred the enmity of anyone in England on account of her mar- riage. Henry tells about his mother; and the Pope suggests the mes- sage in return, asking the Duke of Gloucester to guard the Queen. This second letter is changed to a command to burn mother and children. The Duke says, “Affin que quant monsseur le roy retournera nous lui monstrons aucune chose de vostre noble corps. Je vous Trencheray ung bras deuant et en presence de tous ceulx qui cy sont.”* The daughter of the Duke, Marie, offers to be burnt instead of Héléne, and they actu- ally agree. So an arm is cut off Marie too, and the Queen’s arm is attached to one of the two children when they are set afloat with their mother. When Henry returns he traces the deceit to its source, and has his mother’s head cut off. Héléne’s father comes to England searching for her, and joins her husband in his quest. From this moment the plot becomes repetitious and long-winded to wearisomeness. Henry recognizes his two sons in Tours because of the embalmed hand of their mother which they still carry with them. Héléne is also in Tours at the time; but she leaves before they find her. She leads them a pretty dance up and down Europe and back to Tours again, evidently fearing that the mood of her father and husband has not changed. Finally, after many alarms, pursuits, and escapes, she is discovered in Tours once more. Her hand is restored to her arm by prayer; she cries her husband mercy for the great travail she has caused him. Her attitude is surprisingly humble, when one considers that she still thinks he wrote the second substituted letter. However, explanations follow simply enough. Héléne’s son Martin becomes the successor of his patron the Archbishop of Tours. 5 Fol. 33a. * Fol. 56b.122 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS 2. Theseus de Cologne, MS. Brit. Mus. Add. 16,955. The section which resembles the Swan Children cycle begins on fol. 161b. Gadifer, son of Theseus, has grown up with Osanne, his foster sister. He marries her after he has been told that he is a foundling, but before he knows that he is of royal ‘ancestry. Later, when he has defeated his enemies and regained his heritage, he takes his humble wife with him as Empress. But Clodas, the widow of one of his enemies, wishes to usurp the place of Osanne in order to rehabilitate her fallen fortunes. She uses the mechanism of a conventional fairy-tale mother-in-law. When she hears that the Empress has borne three children during her husband’s absence, Clodas removes them and substitutes puppies. The infants are given to a bribed confederate to be “killed in some forest or cast into some river” ; but they are exposed instead. It will be necessary, says Clodas, to tell the Emperor Que de chiens se laissa vo moulier habiter que la dame sest deliuree de trois chiens Et tant vous en dy bien ne le vous doy et que ung chien les a conceuz et engen- celer driez en la dame.° Que vous ferez vostre nom abaisser & blasmer Si jamais la lessez auec vous demourer.® The Emperor accepts her theory. He orders his wife into prison, and curses the hour of their marriage. ‘For he who gave her to me knew of a truth that I was of high and royal line, and he made her my wife that his line might be exalted and his daughter rise to high estate, which was a great wrong to me.” Osanne is exiled after a term in prison. Her absence gives the wicked Clodas her opportunity. She throws herself constantly in Gadifer’s way: La royne Clodas la fit moult varier Il nalloit en nul lieu feust en chambre Et se mectoit en lieu chambre & en solier ou en salle que il ne trouuast tousiours la Ou le roy ne pouoit contrester ne laisser.’ mauuaise femme Clodas deuant luy. And she does succeed in captivating him, “for when a woman wishes to spread her nets to catch and deceive a man, it is marvel indeed if he escape unless he takes flight entirely from such folk,” says the author of the prose book. However, the ambition of Clodas is not gratified by marriage with the Emperor. Meantime a charcoalburner named Renier has found the three exposed boys. He joyfully displays them to his wife, who for her part objects that they will be a great burden and little profit. The honest Renier promises that he will eat and drink less to make up for the expense, and that he will abstain from the tavern until the boys are ten years old. His wife accepts the offer, but threatens to expose the foundlings once more if he breaks his promise. © Chanson de geste, fol. 164a. ™ Chanson de geste, fol. 166a. ®° Folk-Book, ed. Paris, ca. 1530, fol. 8 Folk-Book, fol. 174a. 170a.APPENDICES 123 Le gentis charbonmiers les ama et tint Et quant la preudefemme le vouloit bien cher esmayer ou couroucer elle portoit les trois Ne onques puis nosa sa femme couroucer enfans dessus ung fumier ou faisoit sem- Et guant sa femme le voit esmaier blant de les rapporter au bois.” Les iii enfans portoit pardessus ung fu- mier.° From that day the good man is entirely ruled by his wife, who employs the threat with great effect. But at least the children have an asylum. When they are grown up, they take service under their own father, rescue him in combat with the heathen, and are knighted by him. Their ma- terial rewards they divide with the honest charcoalburner, who is de- lighted with them. But the wicked Clodas notices their resemblance to the Emperor, and suspects who they are. So she mixes poison in some wine, and bids a page carry it to the Emperor, saying that the three young champions have sent it. The squire who tastes it for the Emperor dies; the Emperor casts the three accused youths into prison. The gallant Renier thereupon offers himself as champion to fight Richier, knight of Clodas. Of course the just side wins; Richier confesses complicity to the crime, Clodas is sentenced, the baby-clothes of the foundlings are produced, and the Emperor joyfully recognizes his sons. But many years and many adventures intervene before he finds his wife Osanne in Jeru- salem, where, as in the Old French play, she had taken refuge. 3. Doon de la Roche, MS. Brit. Mus. Har., 4404.—Doon ]’Alemant is rewarded by Pippin for long service by marriage with his sister Olive. The two have a son named Landri. Their happiness is interrupted by Tomile of Cologne, a descendant of Ganelon. This person takes Doon aside and whispers to him fol. 3b Madame ne uous aimme vallisant .i. bouton; Iermain la pris prouee gisant a .i. garcon. Doon sternly bids the slanderer hold his peace, but Tomile persists in his unexplained hostility to Olive. He bids a young man of the court lie beside her in her room, where she is stupified from a drink Tomile has given her. The youth is tempted by the bribes offered, and goes. Doon is called in to see the prepared scene, and the unhappy youth is punished immediately with death. Olive wakes. Doon is restrained with diffi- culty from executing her as well. She offers to endure various tests of her innocence. His answer is not very logical: ““Mauuaise die li duc pour quoi parles tazt?” As he leaves the chamber he meets his young son, whom he strikes cruelly. Pippin is summoned to Cologne; Olive repeats her offer: fol. 8a He dex ia suis ie preste de mise porter, ° i Soit en feu ou en eaue ou la ou~ vous uoudres. ° Chanson de geste, fol. 163b. UMS., Iaiou. 1° Folk-Book, fol. 171b.124 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS But in spite of her offers and the protests of a few knights, Landri and his mother are disowned by Doon and Pippin. She is kept under guard, and Tomile promptly begins to urge Doon to marry his daughter. Pippin consents to this second marriage of Doon, provided his sister is well cared for. Young Landri goes to the wedding and cries out manfully: fol. 13b Sire duc de la roche grant pechie i aues, Qui ma dame lassies, aultre fame prenes, fol. 14a Et moi toles ma terre et aultrui la donnes: Ma dame est toute preste di mise porter, Soit en feu ou em eue ou la ou vous voudres. Olive is also present, but mother and son only rouse Doon to taunt and disown them. Olive faints. Landri exchanges blows with Tomile. Doon interposes, and commands the two intruders to go back to their hostel. Audegour, Doon’s new wife, begins to work immediately against Lan- dri. As she herself says, rather inelegantly, fol. 18a Je ne verai landri que nan aie duel ou vantre. She also objects to Olive’s comparative freedom. She bears a son who calls Landri Bastard as soon as he is old enough. This taunt brings about a fight in which the older generation becomes involved. Such scenes as this cause Doon to urge the departure of Landri, for the boy’s own safety. Landri goes to Paris, but he is repudiated by Pippin at the gates, and so he proceeds to Constantinople. Here he fights in a tournament, where he wins the love of the Emperor’s daughter Salmadrine. The Emperor does not entirely approve of his daughter’s choice, because Landri’s ances- try is unknown, both parenthood and unclehood! fol. 29a Mais il ne scauoit mie cui fut filz ne cui nies He sends messengers to France to ask Pippin about Landri’s status. Sal- madrine intercepts them and commands them, with vigorous threats, to bring back the kind of answer she wants. They hastily agree. Meantime Audegour’s son has begun to work against Olive and Doon. Olive is sent into exile, and Doon finds himself locked out of his own city, with the humiliating command to follow her in her disgrace. Doon replies, fol. 42b Elle ne fut onques pute ie le scai de uerite. He retires into Hungary. While he is serving the Hungarian King, he is sent on an expedition against Constantinople, where he fights against his own son and is captured. Landri has decided that he must go home and reéstablish his mother; but the recognition by his father occurs first, and also his marriage to Salmadrine. Then father and son depart to- gether to punish the evil ones at home. This process is long and exciting. Tomile confesses everything after his defeat. Olive and Doon are re- married.APPENDICES 125 4. Theseus de Cologne: the accusation of Queen Alidoyne and the dwarf.—This episode comes at the beginning of the story. The first pages of the MS. are missing, but the faithful prose folk-book supplies their contents. King Floridas of Cologne is summoned one day to the castle window by his wife Alidoyne. © She has just seen a woman go by with a child “nain & bossu & le plus contrefait & le plus malforme que onques dieu crea sur terre.”** She laughs mockingly and remarks that such offspring must be the result of infidelity. God is angry, and sends her in punish- ment a child as ugly as the one she had derided. This event naturally distresses her, and she wonders what her husband will say. She orders her women to have the child drowned; but they report the affair to the King instead. Floridas says: “Puis quil a pleu a Dieu me lenuoyer: il le me fault prendre en patience.” He orders it baptized, but will not see it. Young Theseus grows fast—and ugly. A courtier named Fernagus falls in love with the Queen. He speaks to her, but she bids him hold his peace, on pain of her divulging every- thing. Prompted now by fear of her, Fernagus tells the King that Theseus is really the son of Corvitant the dwarf.** The King believes the tale; so do the barons. They agree that she should be burnt. A faithful knight hurries out to warn her. (Here the MS. begins.) She flees. Her disappearance is taken as an admission of guilt. Floridas now orders the death of his young son: fol. 5b Faictes que theseus ait la vie fiznee; Jamais de coste moy ne dormira journee, Je ne vueil point nourir filz de pute afolee. So Theseus is led out into the forest near Cologne to be put to death. From the squires who conduct him he learns of the accusation of bastardy. He responds by mighty blows which evoke pain and admiration in the squires. They think it a pity that so gallant a spirit should be lodged in such a body. They tell him he must die. He suddenly becomes gentle and prays for the father who has wronged him. A miracle now occurs.1* The boy becomes as beautiful and strong as his heredity would properly make him. He returns to Cologne with the amazed squires. Floridas is still seeking his wife, who has taken refuge with a discreet knight named Geoffrey. The dwarf is brought in and given a chance to protest his innocence, and to offer combat, in spite of his diminutive stature. The barons begin to smile and to speak in his behalf. Floridas hesitates. At this moment the transformed Theseus appears. He de- mands that the accused Queen his mother be brought forth. He says, “King of Cologne, do you not know me? I have little cause to love you, for you have denied me without reason and decreed my death; 2 Folk-Book, fol. 1b. 4 Cf. a similar situation in The King 8 On fol. 1la of the MS., the dwarf’s of Tars, ed. K. Breul, Oppeln, 1886, sh as c name is given as Luras. 1895.126 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS know of a truth that I hold it unfitting to call you my father until you have brought back my mother, who is innocent of the grievous charge put upon her.” Floridas asks in delight and doubt whether this is really his son. ‘The squires assure him that it is. They tell of the miracle they witnessed. The King expresses regret for his behavior towards his son, who sagely replies: fol. 10a Vous mauez engendre par droit engendrement .. . Si pouez bien sur moy momstrer vo maltalent; Mais vous auez mespris trop grandement, Cest a douter ma mere™ tant jay le cuer dolent. The King embraces him again after this wise speech. The Queen is led forth by the faithful Geoffrey. Fernagus would like to escape, but neither bystanders nor readers wish to be cheated of the picturesque com- bat of the villain (under handicap) with the dwarf. Of course the just side triumphs and wickedness is punished. 5. Hirlanda of Brittany, folk-book in the British Museum: Hirlanda, die gekrinte Unschuld, ca. 1700. Title-page missing. This edition begins with a moral discourse of 180 pages in an exceed- ingly flamboyant style. At last the author approaches the story of his heroine. Hirlanda’s husband, Artus of Brittany, departs for war, leaving her with a moral speech of farewell. While Hirlanda remains at home waiting for the birth of her child, Gerard, her brother-in-law, 1s work- ing against both of them in England. He is anxious to destroy his nephew and become his brother’s successor. So, when the sick King of England learns that he can be cured only by the blood and heart of a new-born child, “gantz warm und rohe/ wie es auss dem Leib genommen,” Gerard agrees to obtain them. He crosses to Brittany, bribes Hirlanda’s nurses, and smuggles the child out of the country. But the child is captured by armed men and later rescued by a prelate. When Hirlanda asks to see her child, they tell her that it was a shape- less monster, “ein rohes Stuck Fleisch,” which they have already buried. Gerard circulates the tale that she had killed the child because it was a bastard. Hirlanda flees, for she hears that her husband has given orders for her death. Artus returns to an empty house. Seven years later, a nobleman of his. Olive, discovers Hirlanda tending flocks in the guise of a peasant woman. Artus takes her back, rather against her will. “Hat nit Gerard,” she says to Olive, “noch den alten Antrib mir zu schaden/ und sein Bruder die vorige Unbesonnenheit zu glanben/ ohne Verhorung dess anderen Theils?”?2® Artus had thought she was dead, yet he receives her with apologies for what she has suffered. At the end of seven years, Hirlanda bears a second child, again to the annoyance of Gerard. “Gerard 1B MS., cest a ma douter mere. 6p, 280.APPENDICES 127 der Bésswicht/ als er sahe dass ihme durch die Geburt diser Erbin/ der Zuspruch auff seines Bruders Erbschaft auss Handen gienge/ fasste das verfluchte Vorhaben/ ihme den Ursprung solcher neuen Frucht verdach- tig zu machen.” *7_ He bribes a nobleman to accuse Hirlanda of unfaith- fulness with Olive, and she is promptly condemned to the stake. But the first child, enlightened by an angelic vision of his guardian, appears in time to rescue his mother and completely clear her name. 6. Theseus de Cologne: the story of Theseus and Flore, or The Golden Eagle. MS., fol. 16b-161a; folk-book, 17a-139b.—Theseus leaves his reconciled mother and father (see e summary 4) to search for adven- ture. He arrives in Rome and lodges with a goldsmith. Here he sees a likeness of the Princess of Rome, Flo refusing her to all. This jealous parent is none other than Esmere, the successful young hero of Florence de Rome, now grown old and become re, whose ether guards her strictly, a typical Danaé’s father.18 Theseus resolves to gain this difficult beauty for himself. He disguises himself as a messenger and demands her in his own name from the Emperor. He is rebuffed: fol. 22b Telz xl plus grant ma fille ont demandee Qui ne lowt point eue ne laront de lannee. Sire dit thesews or layes bien gardee, Si vous ne lui donnes par la vertue louee, En la fin vous porra bien estre emblee With this veiled threat he leaves. He persuades the goldsmith to hide him in a large golden eagle, which is transported as a gift to the chamber of Flore. When Theseus first reveals himself to her, she is overcome with fright; but his second attempt is so far successful that he rapidly wins his way to her heart. His pleading and his assurances that he is of noble descent move her to arrange a secret marriage. Meantime the powerful heathen Abilant of Cons stantinople has demanded her in mar- riage, and her father has replied, in his obstinate ignorance, fol. 36a Dictes a vo sire qui gresse doit garder Que je nay nulle fille que ly doye donner, / 4 i 7 / Ne ma fille si na talent de marier. Within a few days Theseus and Flore have made their escape, but they soon encounter disaster. They are ca ptured and violently separated by the heathen forces under Abilant. Theseus is carried off to Antioch. Of course, all available heathen princes fall in love with Flore. Abilant marries her, but is immediately killed by a rival. Flore is taken to Con- stantinople, where the people hail soe as Empress. They also receive her child as their Emperor’s heir and successor, though the boy is really the son of Theseus. aeP ee Ga: 8 His appearance here is an indication of the lateness of Theseus de Cologne.128 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS Griffon, the Emperor’s brother, is very much annoyed at the birth of the child. He had hoped to succeed to the throne himself. He orders the infant’s death, but a passing knight rescues him from the assassins and rears him under the name Gadifer. He has heard the current ver- sion of the boy’s ancestry, and believes that he is harboring Abilant’s son. Everyone in the story is now “triste et dolent.” Esmere wages war on Cologne in revenge for the stealing of his daughter. Griffon wishes to return her to her father, and she is sent back in spite of her terrified protestations that he will surely put her to death. Esmere angrily orders her into prison. He also holds captive the parents of Theseus, who have succumbed to his greater power. ‘The war continues. ‘Theseus appears from distant parts to rescue his parents, his wife, and his city from the grasp of his fanatically hostile father-in-law. Cologne is besieged once more. Combats and sieges are prolonged endlessly. Gadifer, son of Theseus, grows up. When he learns the story of his supposed ancestry he has already married his foster sister Osanne. He goes to Constantinople to revenge himself on the traitor Griffon, and to claim the city as his heritage. He succeeds. But Griffon summons many allies to help him, including Theseus (who is at peace with his father- in-law at last). ‘Thus it comes about that young Gadifer captures his own father in battle, and hears the true tale of his birth by cross-exam- ination of his distinguished prisoner afterwards. A few wars remain to be settled, and then the way is clear to a conclusion through a series of reconciliations. 7. Seghelijn van Jerusalem. "The author of this poem is unknown, but there is evidence that he wrote in Flanders, ca. 1330-1350, not long after Jacob van Maerlant’s death.*® ‘The poem as a whole seems original, though it is heavily indebted to French romance for individual episodes (such as the Crescentia-adventures of Seghelijn’s wife). The MS. is, like that of Esmoreit, a paper codex of the early fifteenth century. There are a number of early prints.”° The poem has been discussed from time to time since 1856, but usually as philological material only. Little attention has been given to origins and analogues of the plot. The similarity of the story to Crescentia, the Grail romances, Oedipus,?4 and the whole family of beprophesied children has also been neglected. The method of exposure because of prophecy here forms an interesting parallel to Esmoreit.— The King of Jerusalem and his wife Blensefleur are expecting a child. Ed. J. Verdam, Leiden, 1878, vi. versity Library. Werdam mentions all of Antwerp, 1511; Antwerp, 1517; one these in his introduction. as early as 1484, perhaps (see Campbell, Ww. Benary, ZfRP, XXXVII, 622, Annales de la Typographie Néerlandaise, called attention to the relation of Seg- The Hague, 1874, no. 980). An edition helijn to the cycle of Gregorios and the before 1517, omitted from Petit’s Bibli- | Emperor Constant. ography, is contained in the Leiden Uni-APPENDICES 129 The King summons the court astrologer, who prophesies that the boy will kill his father-in-law and become a Christian. The King immedi- ately resolves to struggle against fate by ordering his son’s death. But when he tells the Queen, she resolves with equal firmness to save the child. She shows great courage in achieving her purpose. She goes out alone into the forest to bear her child, to save it from its father. Three “prophetesses of God” give the child three gifts: seghe (victory), irre- sistible eyes, and the promise of heaven after his death. They take the infant, and bid its mother substitute a stillborn child. Seghelijn is given to a fisherman to be reared. The King is deceived, and rejoices in his supposed security; but the astronomer tells him that his child is living nevertheless. The King seeks his wife and questions her. She asks him if he is mad. He leaves her room, finds the astrologer outside, and simply kills him.** When Seghelijn has grown sufficiently, he is sent to the city with fish. The Queen notices him, and gives him gold so that he may go back to school. His foster father takes it away from him. The next time Seg- helijn receives bounty, he tells his foster father that he got it by killing aman. He is greeted then by the inevitable taunt vomdelimc, and he demands to know the truth. When he hears the tale and receives the ring left with him by the prophetesses, he resolves to seek his parents. As weapon, he receives a rusty sword, formerly used by St. Peter to cut off the soldier’s ear. When he appears before the Queen again, his ring leads to recognition; but she asks him to keep his identity secret from his father. This he agrees to do. He preaches Christianity to her. His position at court evokes envy, especially from Robbolijn, a con- ventional chanson de geste villain. This false knight inflames the King against him on several pretexts. It comes to a fight in which the King takes part against Seghelijn; but the latter, knowing the prophecy, de- termines not to be a parricide, and he behaves with great forbearance. The King is touched. But now Robbolijn whispers that the Queen and Seghelijn love each other, for he has noticed the young man change color when she says, ““Willecome, lieve kint!”” Seghelijn resolves to break away from this entangling net of jealousy. His mother embraces him. Rob- bolijn sees and reports this scene. He accuses Seghelijn openly, and 1s killed for his pains. The King is helpless to resent this, so long as he sees his son’s irresistible eyes. That night an angel warns Seghelijn to flee. The young man departs after a sorrowful farewell from his mother. He goes through many adventures which are described with great zest and animation. One, at the castle of his maternal uncle, is an obvious imitation of the traditional Grail scene.2* In another adventure, he becomes the father of the Seven Sages of Rome. Then he marries Flor- “The abrupt exit of the astrologer removes one of the strongest similarities to 23 Esmoreit. P. 43.130 CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS ette, daughter of St. Helena, whose sufferings have already been de- scribed. The prophecy is fulfilled as in the story of St. Julian. Seg- helijn’s father comes to Rome, with Blensefleur, to be cured of a disease. Florette receives them in her husband’s absence. When she learns who they are, she treats them with great honor and surrenders her room to them. A traitor tells Seghelijn that his wife has a lover with her. Seghelijn rushes to the room without removing his spurs, and kills his sleeping parents. An angel reveals what he has done. Florette comes in. He drops his sword and tells her, horrified. She dies on the spot. Seghelijn retires to a forest and does penance for fifty years, at the end of which time—like Gregorius der guote Sundaere—he is chosen Pope. 8. Charles le Chauve, MS. Bibl. Nat. 24,372. The story of Dieu- donné begins on folio 22a. His father Phillip, son of Charles le Chauve, after winning a wife and kingdom for himself in Sicily, departs for Jerusalem before the birth of his son. He leaves Butor in charge of Queen Dorame. This false seneschal, like so many others, tries to win her for himself, first by reporting her husband’s death, then by argu- ments, and finally by force; but she, like many other virtuous queens, responds by knocking out three of his teeth. He thereupon bribes the sage-femme by a promise of marriage and the royal crown to destroy the child who would stand in the way of both of them. When Dieudonné is born and the Queen is lying asleep, fol. 23a Celle vint a sa dame ef son enfant li prent Et li mist .1. poulet estranle laidement. The child is given over to Butor, who orders a varlet to have it killed. When the man is about to murder it, his heart is moved in the conven- tional way by the sight of the infant’s smile. He exposes Dieudonné on the branch of a tree, where a passing knight finds him. He takes him home to’be reared with his son and daughter. When the barons come to take their young prince to be baptised, the false nurse discloses the chicken and cries: fol. 24a Ay fausce royne vo corps soit maleis Mengie aves lenfant car du sanc est honnis Li viaire de vous ef trestous en rougis. Butor feigns great horror: fol. 24a Butor tout en criant cest du lieu departis En le salle est venus si trouua les marchis A haute vois leur crie seigneurs pour ihesu cris Que ferons de no dame dont li corps soit honnis Elle ne weult mengier quenfanchoms petis.APPENDICES 131 The Queen protests, and tells the story of his behavior to her: fol. 24a lLautre jour me requist li glous de druerie Et me dist gue mort est li sires de hongrie.™ Butor consents to have her imprisoned, instead of being burnt at once. During the childhood of Dieudonné as a foundling, he is often taunted by his foster brother who is jealous of him; but his foster sister is loyal to him. She falls in love with him and asks him to marry her when they are grown up. But her brother quarrels violently with Dieudonné, who is forced to kill him in self-defense. The foundling thereupon departs to find his parents, as he had long since resolved to do. After some adventures he arrives at the castle of a fairy named Gloriande, who tells him about his parentage and exposure. Thence he proceeds to the rescue of his mother, as do so many other foundlings in medieval fiction. ** Hongrie is often used to designate well. His high regard for it is expressed the kingdom of Sicily in this romance. fol. 7a. The author seems to know the islandAPPENDIX IIl CHAUCER, GOWER, AND TRIVET The question of the relationship of Chaucer and Gower to Trivet and to each other has been discussed several times since the publication of Trivet’s chronicle. Before that time, Tyrwhitt naturally supposed that Chaucer’s only source was Gower; and later, Wright (ed. of Canterbury Tales, I, 206) and Furnivall (note to Brock’s ed. of Trivet for the Chaucer Society) thought that Chaucer drew on a lost French romance, while Gower had used Trivet. In 1892, Liicke (Anglia XIV, 77-112 and 149-185) made a careful comparison of the three versions, in great detail, and proved conclusively that Chaucer also used Trivet directly, since many details omitted or changed by Gower are identical in Chaucer and Trivet. Liicke infers from this that Chaucer used both Gower and Trivet; but there is nothing in his evidence to prove that it was not Gower who used both Chaucer and Trivet. Liicke does not state why he thinks Gower wrote first. Tatlock considers this matter in some detail (Development and Chron- ology, p. 172 ff.). He is convinced that Chaucer must have written after the completion of Gower’s Confessio Amantis for several reasons. In the first place, the Introduction to the Man of Law’s Prologue, which expresses horror at the wicked example of Canace and Apollonius of Tyre (both incest-stories), is supposed to refer to Gower’s treatment of them in the Confessio.. It may be replied that the words of the Man of Law are just as much a condemnation of Ovid, Gower’s source for Canace’s story, as they are of Gower himself; and since Chaucer no doubt knew other treatments of Apollonius than that in the Comfessio, it is not neces- sary to suppose that Gower had as yet written these tales when the Man of Law’s Tale was composed. There is another reason why these remarks may have been prefixed to the story of Constance without any reference to Gower’s work. It is hardly possible that Chaucer did not know some of the many medieval versions, like Emare, in which the heroine is driven into exile by an incestuous father, and the assurance that ““Chau- cer” does not treat of such “unkinde abhominaciouns” may simply mark his deliberate choice of a version which—no matter how awkwardly— does away with them. One trait in the story itself, as told by all three writers, preserves a trace of the Incestuous Father plot. When Constance arrives in England, according to Trivet, ° ses ditz riens ne voleit reconustre de Tiberie, lemperour, son piere, ne del soudan.” Chaucer says ‘entre 1 mI cn . . Root, The Poetry of Chaucer, rejects this argument.APPENDICES 133 524 But what she was, she wolde no man seye, For foul ne fair, thogh that she shulde deye. When she arrives in Rome, where her father is, both Gower and Chaucer emphasize her reticence and her aversion to telling anything about her- self. This seems strange, since she has no reason to suppose that her father would not welcome her with open arms. ‘Tatlock (p. 180, n.) suggests that she is really an other-world character who may not reveal her name; but is it not more likely that the silence of Constance is due to versions like Evmare and La Manekine, in which the heroine has excel- lent reasons for concealing her whereabouts? Probably Chaucer, Gower, and Trivet had such tales in mind as they wrote. Possibly these tales suggested the exclamation of the Man of Law against incest-stories in general. Another argument used to establish Gower’s precedence is Chaucer’s comment concerning the invitation sent to the Emperor at the end by Constance and Alla: 1086 Som men wold seyn, how that the child Maurice Doth this message un-to the emperour, but Chaucer believes that Alla had more sense of the fitness of things than to send a child. Tatlock argues that “Som men” must mean Gower, because, although Trivet says the same thing about Maurice, few people would be likely to have read the Anglo-Norman chronicle in comparison with those who had read the Comfessio Amantis. This is plausible, but the fact remains that Chaucer cou/d have found the incident in Trivet alone. Arguments based on style and verse-form have been advanced to prove that the Man of Law’s Tale is early work: Skeat thinks that it antedates the Comfessio, at least in its first form, and was revised for the Canter- bury Tales; Pollard agrees that the date is early. The use of rime royal has been thought to indicate composition before the Canterbury Tales. These are matters of subjective judgment; but it does not seem at all impossible to me that Chaucer chose to return to the stanzaic form in telling a story which he thought fitting to that style of expression; nor do I see traces of youthful inexperience in the telling of it. The plot is weak, repetitious, and diffuse, of course; but so are most plots of accused queens. Chaucer was hardly the one to change the general plan of a story which was known in so many treatments: he contented himself with the choice of a version in which the most unpleasing feature had been removed. As Tatlock says, there seems to be no presumption one way OF the other, since the similarities between Gower and Chaucer in wording (some of them are very close) might have resulted from borrowing by either from either. In general, the evidence of the lateness of the Man of134. CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS Law’s Tale? strengthens the likelihood that Gower wrote first and Chau- cer used him. Chaucer agrees with Gower wherever the latter deviates noticeably from Trivet (except for the worse deviations); and Gower, who was not noted for condensation, omits Chaucer’s elaborations such as the description of Constance. The balance seems to be in favor of Gower’s priority, though none of the evidence is conclusive. One important deviation of Gower from Trivet and Chaucer concerns the attitude of the Sultaness to Constance. The latter two account for the hatred of the old Queen because of the obligation to change her religion, but Gower says: 639 But that which nevere was wel herted, Envie tho began travaile In disturbance of this spousaile... The Sultaness reflects 626 If so it is Mi sone him wedde in this manere, Than have I lost my joies hiere, For myn astat schal so be lassed. This change in motive, which Gower carries out consistently, brings his story closer to marchen and romances about queens accused by a jealous mother-in-law, whose motive is, as we have seen, resentment at the loss of honor and dignity to a younger woman. The reason for the change is of course Gower’s general plan, in which each tale illustrates a sin against love; and the story of Constance is very easily adapted, by this slight modification, to the purpose of illustrating envy. In making the to type—Gower may have been influenced by the numerous cycles like Octavian and the Swan Children, which contain envious mothers-in-law. When he treats of the second persecution, by Domild, he does not give a motive (Chaucer and Trivet say that Constance was “hated” by Alla’s mother as a “stranger” whom the people loved), but one infers the same sin: envy. If Chaucer, in comparing Gower with Trivet, was faced with the necessity of choosing change—which seems like a reversion between their accounts of the behavior of the Sultaness, he would have no reason for deviating from the older text of Trivet, since he was not following any scheme like that of the Confessio Amantis.° ‘The treat- ment of this episode by Chaucer is perhaps a piece of evidence in favor of Liicke’s thesis that he used both Gower and Trivet. *The failure of Alcestis to mention argument that the Canterbury Tales were this tale of feminine constancy in the intended to illustrate the seven deadly prologue to the Legend of Good Women; sins. If the Tale of Constance is sup- the inclusion of passages from Innocent’s posed to illustrate envy as in Gower, De Contemptu Mundi, the translation of which seems to have been a comparatively late work of Chaucer. *This reversion of Chaucer to Trivet —if it be a reversion—weakens Tupper’s Chaucer might have emphasized his point as Gower did; but I think it is precisely because he is of telling the story as an example of envy that he uses Trivet’s motivation without change.INDEXINDEX Adonis: 40. Agapios of Crete: 31 n. Aiol: 104 n., 117. Albericus Trium Fontium: 104, 105. Albert of Bonstetten: Life of Sz. Idda, 108 n. Alixandre, Roy de Hongrie: 69 n., 71. Amadis of Gaul: 117. Amis and Amiles: 92 n. Amor and Psyche: 34, 54. Ancona, A. d’: Sacre Rappresentazioni, 69 n. Animal birth: accusation of, 11, 21-37, 39, 46, 47, 53, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 76 ff.. 113; belief in, 22. Apollodorus: Epitome, 45 and n. Apollonius of Tyre: 75 n., 132. Arabian Nights: 29 n., 48, 109. Arfert, P.: Das Motiv schobenen Braut, 54 n. Aron, A. W.: Matriarchy in Germanic Hero-Lore, 34 n., 43 n. Atalanta: 45. Avenstrup and Treitel: Islandische Mar- chen, 33, 58. Ayres, H. M.: Tr. of Esmoreit, 10 n. von der unter- Backstrém: Svenska Folkbocker, 5, 111 n. Banished Wife’s Lament: 109. Baudoin de Sebourc: 100 n., 117, 118, 119. Beatrix: $1. Beaumanoir: 5 n., 69. Bédollierre, M. E.: Ed. Genevieve of Brabant, 106 n. Belle Héléne de Constantinople, La: 5, 29; 64, 69'n., 70: f., 74, 76, 78, 119, 120-121. Benary, W.: 128 n. Beowulf: 65 n., 67, 68. Berg, L. P. C. van den: Nederlandsche Volksromanen, 82 n. Berta, daughter of Charlemagne: 67. Bey, G. Spitta: 49 n. Birck, Johannes: Chronicle, 111. Blade, J. F.: Contes Recueillis en Ar- magnac, 29 n. Bléde, J. F. D.: Der historische Schwan- ritter, 78 n. Boer, R. C.: on the Offa-story, 67 n. Boeve de Hamptone: 117, 118. Bolte and Polivka: Anmerkungen zu den Marchen der Briider Grimm, 23, 24 n., 49 and n. Botermans, A. J.: Die seven wijse Man- nen van Romen, 79 n, Brandt, C. J.: Romantisk Digting fra Middelalderen, 99 n. Breul, K.: Ed. The King of Tars, 125. Bruce, J. D.: Ed. Historia Meriadoci, 117 n. 3rugmann: see Leskien and Brugmann. Biheler: Kénigstochter von Frankreich, 64, 69 n., 73. Burton: Supplemental 48 n. Nights, Arabian Caesar de Nostradamus: Chronicle, 99 n. Callaway, Henry: Nursery Tales of the Zulus, 22 n. Campbell, J. F.: Popular Tales of the West Highlands, 38 n. Campbell, Killis: The Seven Sages of Rome, 79. Campbell, M. F. A. G.: 128 n. Canace: 132. Canterbury Tales: 3. Carnoy, H.: Lit. Orale de la Picardie, 15; 16: Cerisiers, René de: bant, 106 n. Chambers, R. W.: Introd. to the Study of Beowulf, 65, 68. Chansons de geste: 11, 82, 93, 95, 100, 101, 104, 112, 114, 129. Charlemagne-cycle: 98. Charles le Chauve: 102, 118, 119, 130- IS: Chaucer: 3505: 65 75 Sep lle) 15, 2leeo ZAy 61°63. G4, 7.05.74 na 975 7A. 8 100, 104 n., 110, 114, 132-134. Chevalier au Cygne: 6, 81, 94. Chrétien de Troyes: 3. Cinderella: 24, 36 and n., 37 ff., 44, 64, 65, 70 n. Cinyras: 40. Circourt, de: Ed. Le Victorial, 70 n. Clouston, W. A.: 49 n. Clymenus: 40. Columpnarium: 70 n., 73. Comtesse d’Anjou, La: 69 n., 71, 76. Confessio Amantis: 132 ff. Genevieve de Bra-138 Constance-story: 3, 4, 5, 9, 11, 13, 23; 26, 61, 62, 63, 64 n., 67, 74 and n., 75 n., 84, 88, 91, 100, 104 n., 110, 114; analogues of, 5, 7, 8.132) fi; sources of, 5, 6. Copland’s Knight of the Swan: 84. Corington, R. H.: The Melanesians, 18. Cosquin, Emmanuel: Contes Populaires de Lorraine, 38 n., 50. Co-wife as persecutor: 14, 20:21; 23; 26, 46, 49. Cox, Marion R.: Cinderella, 36 n., 70. Crane, T. F.: Italian Popular Tales, 50. Crescentia-story: 39, 75 n., 108, 109 ff., 128. Crooke, W.: Popular Religion of North- ern India, 17. Curr, E.: The Australian Race, 17. Curtin, J.: Folktales of the Russians, 57. Cynebryd: 68. Cyrus the Great: 56 n. Damiet: 34, 117, 119. Damietta: 118 f. Danaé: 56, 58, 59, 117, 127. Danish ballads: 96 n. Daumling, H.: Das Madchen Hande, 26 n., 36 n., 69 na. Dirr, A.: Kaukasische Marchen, 16, 50. Dit de Florence de Rome, Le: 111. Dit de VEmpereur Constant, Le: 26, 117, 128 n. Dolopathos: 79, 80, 119. Donegild: 4, 5, 6, 24, 77, 114. Doon de la Roche: 95 f., 119, 123-124. Doon de Maience: 102, 117. Dozon, Auguste: Contes Albanais, 38 n., 50. Drida: 67. okme Ellis, W.: Polynesian Researches, 18. Emare: 6, 69 n., 70 n., 71, 74, 76 2. Hise, 153% Emmich, Matthias: Genevieve of Bra- bant, 106 n. Enfances Garin de Montglane: 119. Enikel, Jansen: Weltchronik, 69 n., 73. Enrrique Fi de Oliva: 95 n. Envious sister as persecutor: 23, 47 ff., 53, 79. Epopeus of Lesbos: 40. Erechtheus: 40. Erl of Toulouse: 99, 103. Esmoreit: 9 ff., 34, 54, 56, 91 n., 96, 100, 107, 113, 114, 117 ff., 128, 129. CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS Exchanged Letter story: 5, 11, 23-37, 44, 46, 47, 52, 53, 64 ff., 76 ff., 82, 33. Exposed children: 14, 114. Eyre, E. J.: Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia, 18 n. Fabliaux: 3. Fabula Romanensis: 69 n. Falentins og Ursins Saga: 94 n. Fallersleben, Hoffmann von: 9 n. Farnsworth, W. O.: Uncle and Nephew in the Chansons de Geste, 34 n. Father as persecutor: 29, 31, 32, 46, 56, DLS3 Father-in-law as persecutor: 10, 33, 45, 56, 60, 117. Fazio, Bartolomeo: 69 n., 735. [laos Figlia del Re di Dacia, La: 69 n., 71. Fiorentino, Giovanni: I] Pecorone, 69 n. Fleury, Jean: Lit. Orale de la Basse-Nor- mandie, 27. Florence de Rome: 6, 7 and n., 109 n,, 110 and n., 111, 127. Florent et Lyon: 86 n. Florent et Octavian: 86, 87, 92. Florentina de Getrouwe: 120. Fleriant et Florete: 117, 119. Folk-books: 5 n., 9 n., 77 n., 84, 86 n, 88, 89, 93, 99, 104 n., 105 and n, 107, 109 n., 117, 118, 122 n. Folk-lore (of accused queens): 7 ff. Forcheur, Florian: La Belle Héléene de Constantinople, 120. Frazer, Sir J. G.: The Golden Bough, 17, 19 n., 40, 41, 42; Totemism and Exogamy, 18, 19 n., 43 n., 44 n. Freher, Marquard: Origines Palatinae, 106 n. Fritzlar, Herman von: 74 n. Galerent: 81. Galland: Translator of Arabian Nights, 48 n. Gamez, Diaz de: Le Victorial, 70 n. Ganelon: 95, 96, 101, 104 and n, 114, 123. Gautier de Coinsi: 110 n. Genevieve of Brabant: 99 n., 104 n, 106, 107, 108, 119. Gesta Romanorum: 104 n,, 111. Gidel, Ch.: Etudes sur la Lit. Grecque Moderne, 31 n. Gloriant: 117. Golden Eagle, The: 127. Golz, B.: Pfalzegrafn Genoveva, 106 n.INDEX Gonzenbach, Laura: Sicilianische Mdr- chen, 27 n., 37 n., 50, 56, 575 SO) ns Gough: On the Constance-Saga, 6, 64, 70 n.; Ed. Emare, 69 n. Gower, John: 70, 74 n., 75, 132-134. Grail-story: 128, 129. Gran Conquista de Ultramar: 82, 104 n. Grasse, J. G. T.: Ed. Gesta Romanorum, 111 n. Gregorius-legend: 51 n., 128 n., 130. Grimm: Marchen, 28, 29 n., 33, 36, 49 n., 78 n., 79, 80, 81; Deutsche Sagen, 82 n. Griseldis: 120. Groot, J. J. M. de: Religious System of China, 17. Grundtvig, Svend: 97, 98. Gubernatis, A. de: Tradizioni Popolari, 24, 33, 37 n., 50. Guessard, M. F.: Ed, Macaire, Guglielma, Saint: 110 n. Guillaume de Palerne: 117, 118. Guinevere, 101 n. 104 n. Hagen, H. von der: Crescentia, 109 n., 111; Kinigin von Frankrich, 104 n.; Schwanensage, Die, 78 n. Hahn, J. G. von: Griechische Marchen, 16 and n., 39 n., 50, 55 n., 58. Hambruch, Paul: Malaiische Marchen, 22 n., 55 n.3 Sidseemarchen, 33 n. Harpalyce: 40. Hartland, E. S.: Legend of Perseus, 59 n.; Primitive Society, 41 n., 42, 43 n., 44 and n., 46, 53. Heiligenleben, Das: 78. Heinzel, R.: Uber die ostgothische Hel- densage, 101 and n., 104. Helena Antonia of Constantinopel: 5. Helena, Saint: 77 n., 130. Helyas, Knight of the Swan: 81, 94. Henry of Huntington: 39 n. Henry the Fowler: 38, 39, 67. Herbert le Clerc: 79 n. Herodotus: 56 n. Herzog Herpin: 69 n., 73 n., 117. lso Lion de Bourges.) (See al Hildegard-story: 109, 111. Hilka, Alfons: Ed. Dolopathos, 79 n. Hippeau, C.; Ed. Chevalier au Cygne, 81 n. Hippodamia: 45. Hirlanda of Brittany: 7, 106, 107 and m, 103; 126. 139 Historia del Rey de Humgria: 69 n., 71. Historia Meriadoci: 117. Hocleve, Thomas: Fabula de Imperatrice, 111. Hollis, A. C.: The Masai, 14 n. Holthausen, F.: Ed. Beowulf, 65. Howitt, A. W.: Native Tribes of South East Australia, 18. Huet, B.: La Légende du Chevalier au Cygne, 79 and n. Hugdietrich: 100, 101 n., 117. Huon de Bordeaux: 69 n. Hyginus: 24, 40 and n. Quadam Idda of Tockenburg: 7, 106, 107, 108. Imbriani, V.: 33, 48, 50. Incestuous Father as persecutor: 5, 24, 35 ff., 43, 44, 45, 46, 52, 56, 64 ff., 132. Infanticide: as accusation, 11, 39, 49, 52, 60, 90, 91, 102 n., 107, 113; causes of, 19; for sacrifice, 19 ff. Infidelity, accusation of: 29 n., 30, 31, 32: 46; ($3. 61. 63. Si; 8322885095; La Novellaja Fiorentina, 107, 113. Innocent III: De Contemptu. Mundi, 132 n. Ipomedon: 119. Isomberte: 82. Jacques d’Acqui: 77 n. Jan uut den Vergiere: 9 n., 118, 119. Jealous husband as persecutor: 46, 60 f., 62; 96; 117. Jecklin, Dietrich: Volkstimliches aus Graubiinden, 28 n. Johannes de Alta Silva: 79, 81. Jourdains de Blaivies: 75 n., 117, 119. Jubinal, A.: Nouveau Recueil des Contes, 111 n. Julian, Saint: 130. Kaakebeen and Ligthard: Ed. Esmorest, 9 n. Kaiserchronik: 109 n. Kalff, G.: Middelnederlandsche epische Fragmenten, 89 n., 91 n. Karadschitsch, W. S.: Volksmarchen der Serben, 31 n: Karlamagnus Saga: 95 n. Karlmeinet: 98. Keller, Adelbert von: 98 n. Kempten, Abbey of: 111. King of Tars, The: 125 n. Ed. Karlmeinet,140 Klemming, G. E.: Nammnlés och Valen- tin, 91 n. Knust, Hermann: [talienische Marchen, Z5)an- Koch, J.: Der gegenwartige Stand der Chaucer-Forschung, 6. Kohler, R.: 109 n., 117 n. Koningin Sibille: 104 n. Krauss, F. S.: Sagen und Marchen der Sidslaven, 57. Kretschmer, P.: Neugriechische Marchen, 50. Kiihn and Schwartz: Norddeutsche Sa- gen, 20, 38 n, 81 n. Kiinigin von Frankrich, Die, 104. Kinos, I.: Tirkische Volksmarchen, 21 Ne 25) ot, 50: Kydske Dronning, Den: 99. Landres-pattr: 95 n., 97, 98. Lawrence, W. W.: 109 n. Lay of the Ash: 81. Leendertz, P.: Middelnederlandsche dra- matische Poezie, 9 n. Legrand, Emile: Recueil de Grecs, 30 n., 38 n., 50. Leskien, A.: Balkanmdrchen, 38 n., 50. Leskien and Brugmann: Litauische Mar- chen, 36 n. Life-tokens: 53. Ligthard: see Kaakebeen and Ligthard. Lion de Bourges: 69 n., 104 n., 119. Livre de Baudoyn, Le: 118 and n., 119. Louis, Saint: 118. Contes Lowie, Robert H.: Primitive Society, 34 n. Lowis of Menar, A. von: Finmische Marchen, 12 n.; Russische Marchen, los S200.) 59) 0: Liicke, E.: Trivet, Gower und Chaucer, 74 n., 132, 134. Liidthe, Gustav: Ed. Erl of Toulouse, 99 n. Luzel, F. M.: Légendes Chrétiennes, 31 n.; 47 n., 58. Mabinogion: 94 n. Macaire: 93, 104 f., Um, tio; 114. Madden, Sir F.: Ed. Gesta Romanorum, Miia; Maerlant, Jacob van: 128. Mai und Beaflor: 36, 69, 71, 74, 77. Maillart, Jehan: 69 n. Malegijs: 91 n., 93 mn. 117, 118, 119. Man of Law’s Tale: see Constance-story. CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS Manekine, La: 5 n., 45 n., 46, 69 ny, Flom) fly 135 74> 79) Des My LOS Massmann, H. F.: Ed. Kaiserchrontk, 109 n. Matabrune: 6, 81, 82, 83, 88, 114. Matriarchy: 33 f., 40 ff., 58, 61; defi- nition of, 41. Matthew of Paris: 39 n., 65 and n, 66 n. Maugis d’Aigremont: 93 n., 119. Meinhof, C.: Africanische Marchen, 14n. Méon, M.: Nouveau Recueil de Fabliaux, 110 n. Michel, Francisque: see Monmerqué and Michel. Mijatovies, C.: Serbian Folk-lore, 50. Miracles de Nostre Dame: 69 n., 78. Mire, Aubert le: Fasti Belgici, 104 n. Mitra, S.: Sanskrit Buddhist Lit., 49 n. Moltzer, H. E.: De middelnederlandsche dramatische Poexie, 9 n. Monmerqué and Michel: Théatre Fran- cais du Moyen-Age, 82 n. Moriaen: 119. Mors, Hella: Arabische Marchen, 13 n. Mort Artu: 101 n. Mother-in-law as persecutor: 5, 6, 9, 11, 13; 20; 25, 26; 29, 30; 32; 33-534, 46, 60, 61, 62, 63, 76. i, 86) a. L005 1035107 nr als: Mussafia, A.: 110 n. Myrrha: 40. Nachshabi: Tat Nameh, 109. Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne: 80. Naumann, H. and I.: Islandische Mar- chen, 38 n., 54 n. Nennius: 39 n. Nerucci, Gherardo: Sessanta Novelle, 27 N..20) 1.) 30). Nijhoff, W.: Catalogus, 84 n. Nyctimene: 40. Octavian: 86 ff., 91, 93, 94, 96, 99 n., L076 USS 184: Oedipus: 18, 117, 128. Offa: see Vitae Duorum Offarum. Ogier the Dane: 118. Oliva-story: 95 ff., 101, 119. Olive, Saint: 29 and n., 35, 69 n., 73, ths Oliver and Artus: 92 n. Palanus: 99. Paris, Gaston: 80, 98.INDEX Paris, P.: Les Manuscrits Francais, 69 n. Parise la Duchesse: 6, 7, 100 f., 102, Nei, Wie Gah yhiey Pasiphaé: 46 n. Patriarchy: 41. Paul the Deacon: 81 n., 99 n. Pauli, R.: Ed. Gower, 70 n. Peau d?Ane: 65. Pecorone, Il: 69 n., 75, 77. Pentamerone, Il: 76. Peter, Anton: Volkstiimliches aus Oester- reich-schlesien, 26 n. Petit, L.: Middelnederlandsche graphie, 105 n., 128. Plural birth: 81, 83, 88. Polivka: see Bolte and Polivka. Potter, M. A.: Sohkrab and Rustum, 53. Prato, Stanislao: Quatro Novelline Popo- lari, 25 n., 27 n. Priebsch: 9 n., 118. Procris: 40. Prohle, Heinrich: Kinder- marchen, 27 n., 50. Prophecies as cause of persecution: 10, Dos lle 129. Prothesileus: 119. Puckett, H. W.: The “Genoveva” Theme, 106 n. Puymaigre, Count de: La Fille aux Mains Coupées, 5, 28; Ed. Le Victorial, 70 n. Pwyll Son of Dyved: 94 n. Biblio- und Volks- Radloff, W.: Proben der Volkslit. der tiirkischen Stamme, 26 n., 30 n., 39. Reali di Francia: 86, 88. Regina Stella e Mattabruna, La: 83. Reiffenberg, Baron de: Ed. Chevalier au Cygne, 81. Reiser, K.: Sagen des Allgaus, 111 n. Rejected lover as accuser: 63, 75, 92, 95 fire, 125: Remi, Phillipe de: see Beaumanoir. Renier: 118, 119. Richars li Biaus: 117, 118. Rickert, Edith: 6, 65 n., 69 n., 70 n., 76 n. Ridder metter Mouwe, De: 119. Ritson: Ancient English Metrical Ro- mances, 69 n. Ritter Galmy: 99. Riviére, J.: Contes Populaires de la Kabylie du Djurdjura, 14 n., 21 n. Robbrecht: 11, 12, 21, 32, 61, 106, 107, 114, 118. Rohde, Erwin: 75 n. Roman de la Violette: 6, 75 n. 141 Romanciero: Choix de Portugais, 36 n. Root, R. K.: Poetry of Chaucer, 132. Royalle Couronne des Roye @’ Arles, La: 99 n. Ruths, R.: Die fr. Fassungen der Belle Heéléne, 69 n. Vieux Chants Sandras, E. G.: Etude sur G. Chaucer, 657 Sarrazin, Gregor: Ed. Octavian, 86 n. Sauerland, Ernst: Ganelon und sein Ge- schlecht, 114 n. Schade, Oskar: Ed. Crescentia, 109 n. Schick, Josef: Corpus Hamleticum, 117 n. SUECnEL August: Litauische Marchen, 28 n. Schmidt, B.: Griechische Marchen, 13-n. Schneller, Christian: Marchen aus Walsch- tirol, 27 n., 50. Schott, A. and A.: Walachische Marchen, 57 Sebilla: 104 n. Sébillot, P.: Lit. Orale de la Haute Bre- fagne, 16, 30 n., 39 n. Seelmann, W.: Valentin und Namelos, 89 n., 91 n., 94 n. Seghelijn van Jerusalem: 7, 51 n., 75 n, LIZ; Ze Oe 128 rr, Seneschal as accuser: cuser. Seuffert, B.: Die Legende von Genovefa, 106 n. Seven Sages of Rome, The: 79, 129. Sicily) LL8s 119s i351 n: Siefken, O.: Das geduldige Weib, 6 and n., 75; Der Konstanze-Griseldistypus, 6 and n. Simrock, Karl: Die bicher, 69 n., 99 n. Sir Degarre: 117. Sir Eglamour: 117. Sir Generides: 117. Sir Tryamour: 104 n., 105. Sister-in-law as persecutor: 31. Smyth, R. B.: Aborigines of Victoria, 17. Sohrab and Rustem: 53. Spencer and Gillen: Native Central Australia, 18. Stefanovié: 6, 7 n., 39 and n., 66, 109. Hirlanda see Villain as ac- deutschen Volks- Tribes of Steinberger, Hermann: von Bretagne, 107. Stella: 83. Stepmother as persecutor: 12, 20, 24, 29, 303) SL, 4-6; 62) 1135142 Stigand, C. H.: To Abyssinia through an Unknown Land, 17. Straparola: 37 n., 38 n. Streve, Paul: Die Octavian Sage, 86 n. Stroebe, Klara: Nordische Marchen, 16 M32 Ds OF Substituted Bride: 54, 60. Suchier, H.: Ed. of La Manekine, 64, 65, 66 n., 69 n., 70 n. Susannah: 104 and n. Swan Children story: 62, 78 ff., 87, 91, 93, 106, 107, 113, 122, 134. Swan Knight: 53, 78 ff. Sympathetic magic: 53. Tabu: 54, 60. Tatlock, J. S. P.: Development and Chronology of Chaucer’s Works, 132, 133. Terrebasse, A. de: Ed. Palanus, 99. Theseus de Cologne: 7, 82, 83, 102, 103, 105, 107, 117, 119, 122-123, 125-126, 127-128. Didrekssaga: 103 and n. Thousand and One Days: 109. Thousand and One Nights: see Arabian Nights. Thyestes: 40. pryd: 68, 75 n. Todd, H. A.: Ed. Chevalier au Cygne, 79, 80 n. Torrent of Portyngale: 117. Treason, accusation of: 63, 95, 113. Treitel: see Avenstrup and Treitel. Tremearne, A. J. M.: Hansa Supersti- tions and Customs, 16 n. Tristan de Nantueil: 75 n., 119. Trivet, Nicholas: Life of Constance, 5, 64, 70, 74. n., 75 and n., 77, 132-134. Tupper, F.: 134. Turias ende Florete: 117. Tyrwhitt: 132. Valentine and Nameless: 63, 86, 89 ff., 1035 1135 119: Valentine and Oursson: 89 ff., 93, 104 mn, LS; 119: Vandelli, G.: Ed. I Reali di Francia, 86 n. Verdam, J.: Ed. Seghelijn, 7 n., 112 n., 128 n. CHAUCER’S CONSTANCE AND ACCUSED QUEENS Victorial, Le: 70 n., 72. Villain as accuser: 11, 15, 32, 61, 63, 94, 95 #., 107, 108, 113, 117, 123 ff. Vincent of Beauvais: Spec. Hist., 110 n. Vitae Duorum Offarum: 5, 39, 64, 65, 66, 67, 74, 75 n., 78. Vollméller, Karl: Ed. Octavian, 86 n. Vortigern: 39. Vreese, W. de: On the Knight of the Swan, 84 n. Wallenskéld, A.: 109, 111 n. Wardrop, Marjory: Georgian Fairy Tales, If Wats, W.: Ed. Vitae Durorum Offarum, 65 n. Wauquelin, Jean: 69 n., 120. Webster, W.: Basque Legends, 39 n., 50. Wesselofsky, A.: Ed. Novella del Re di Dacia, 69 n., 70 n. Westermarck, Edward: History of Hu- man Marriage, 43 n.; Origin of the Moral Ideas, 81 n. Wilhelm, R.: Chinesische Volksmarchen, 20 n. William, Count of Holland: 119. Wimfeling, Jacob: 7, 99 and n., 104 n. Winters Tale, A: 61. Witch as persecutor: 12, 15, 20, 26, 28, 62, 11S: Witchcraft, accusation of: 60, 63, 113. Wolf, F.: Uber die neuesten Leistungen der Franzosen, 95 n., 104 n.; Uber die Oliva-Saga, 95 n. Wolf, J. W.: Niederlandische Sagen, 20 Ni, wou oI Wolfdietrich: 100 and n., 101, 102. Worde, Wynkyn de: 84. Wright, Thomas: Ed. of The Canter- bury Tales, 132. Yde et Olive: 69 n., 72, 78. Ystoria Regis Franchorum: 69 n. Zaunert, P.: Deutsche Marchen seit Grimm, 16 n., 50. Zingerle, J.: Kinder- und Hausmdachen, 7 n.