What *is* an author?

Tonight I found myself asking the question “what is an author?” and this question came at me two fold where, as a scholar, I had a grasp on the gravitas of such an inquiry and was able to discern the proper theoretical implications, while simultaneously asking this question from a far more naive position that presumed nothing and genuinely, and very simply, wanted to know “what is an author?”

It was actually the simplicity of it that was the most startling as I fumbled to begin defining authorship. For those of you familiar with my work, especially with the French female writing (the trobairitz and the female scribe of the Lancelot post-vulgate cycle) I wrestle with this term quite often and just as often feel as though I have defined it somehow, or at the very least have breached into it sufficiently for dissection. I have carved out pieces of the term for my own use and have applied my acquired definitions of authorship across spectrums of writing believing to have defined aspects of textual activities.

As far back as in undergrad most of us were taught that authorship is intricately tied with authority, and for those of us in medieval studies we divided “experience though noon auctoritee” from the Wife of Bath’s prologue while also attempting to decipher the various meanings of “auctorite” found in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale all the while formulating connections between the two, among innumerable other encounters with the term.

But that was the beginning many years ago, and now I find myself questioning authorship from the margins in terms associated with its physicality – transcribing, collating, describing, and editing – asking myself how these processes fit into the existing parameters of authorship. I have personally come to the conclusion that they usurp authority and consequently authorship by virtue of creating meaning within their respective confines. In other words, all of these functions are imbued with the power of creation (or recreation) and challenge the axiomatic understandings of “writing” – or whatever that term entails.

Yesterday evening I received a very exciting email being invited to present at a colloquium at the University of Minnesota on “Power, Kinship, and Gender” where I will be discussing the role of female authors in thirteenth century France. My paper traces the relationship between female scribal activities and the power often wielded through the process of writing, and more importantly editing (specifically within a single manuscript) during a time period when the privilege of magisterium vocis was revoked from women via Gregorian Reforms (should you be in the area, the colloquium will be held April 17th).

While researching and reworking my findings and writing my paper I constantly returned to the same question: what is an author? I am certainly not questioning Chretien de Troyes’s original work on the Arthurian legends, nor am I ascribing the post-vulgate version of this text to any one person, but I find each rendering of the tale a nuanced version of the original, recalling there are over two hundred extant manuscripts within the Lancelot cycle alone. Morseso, each edition tellingly bears an agenda where every hand responsible for its reproduction carries its scribe’s signature far beyond colophons. But what does this mean?

This is where I reach an impasse. While I focus on the single female scribe of Paris, BnF fr. 342, her emendations serve to question authorship, scribal activities, and even gender boundaries. Her ambitions are a cross between all of the above and bring to question my most simple understandings of textuality where I am forced to draw a line between original text and textual scholarship – is she engaging in such scholarship when she consciously edits her primary sources, including illuminations? Further, are the graphics, or illuminations associated with her fair copy of the text inclusive in the analyses of the manuscript? Are the two intertwined within what would be considered a “text?” Is she an author of the images by virtue of guiding the artist via her word choices and specified narrative? How does the manuscript as a whole relate to the evidence presented by her selection and omission of the original text?

I have serval conjectures that I present in my paper, and I admittedly ascribe much power to her scribal activities. But I also invite debate and conversation on the topic where I deliberately leave gaps for interpretation because as much as I navigate through the murky topic of authorship, I don’t have all the answers. My research leads to various conclusions, and I firmly believe she had an agenda. Yet, as she pens her manuscript and edits the story of Lancelot, even as she breaches the boundary between scribe and creator, the question remains: what is an author?

Comments?

A History Lesson in Six Lines

Very little is known about Romanian medieval literature. This is not a geographical statement, but a cultural one that focuses on language. While literature was most definitely produced within the confines of what would be considered Romania and therefore Romanian medieval literature does exist, literature of any kind was not written in the Romanian language until centuries after the medieval period.

A brief history should explain the different processions of the territory.

The earliest records of the Romanians indicate they initially inhabited the land of Dacia, modern day Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldova (the latter of which has been problematic until its recent independence). Around the mid third century the land was taken over by the Romans (which consequently brought Christianity to the people). Latin and Dacian mixed, and the dominant source of language, Latin, influenced the majority of the new language that eventually came to be known as Romanian. Interestingly, almost nothing is known of the Dacian language and its existence can be deciphered mainly by working backwards from early Romanian into Latin and noting the differences. In the mid sixth century Slavs invaded Romania, followed by several more invasions over the next six hundred years. Yet despite the disparate nationalities that were traipsing through the land, Romanians managed to maintain an almost impenetrable national identity and language, evident from historic accounts and linguistic studies which concur that while Romanian was influenced by its various invasions, the language only marginally acquired borrowed language, and to this day remains predominantly Latin based.

Nevertheless, the spoken language didn’t survive in extant manuscripts which mainly reflected the dominating nationalities, progressing from liturgical texts written in Latin, to psalters in Slavic, to general texts in Greek (while Romania was under Ottoman rule), until the early sixteenth century when Romanian as we know it finally became part of the textual tradition.

I rarely if ever encounter early texts written in Romanian, but today I was lucky and quite accidentally came upon a short poem written in 1644 by Udriste Nasturel, a scholar and poet. He was greatly concerned with the state of Romanian nationality in the face of so much diplomatic fluctuation where the country changed hands between neighboring nations on a consistent basis without ever holding autonomy.

His brief poem, “Stihuri in stema domniei Tarii Romanesti, neam casei basarabeasca” (Verses on the heraldry of the reign of the Romanian Country, nation of the House Basarab) already carries certain connotations in its title. Despite having been written in the mid seventeenth century, it recalls the rule of House Basarab that had solidified the Wallachia territory in the early fourteenth century, and successfully liberated the land from the Hungarians. Notably, while Nasturel is writing his work, the Romanian nation is juggling power back from the Ottoman Empire with various degrees of success. In other words, the title of his poem reminds his readers of their national descent from House Basarab, drawing on the houses’s success at fending off a vast enemy as a source of inspiration for a call to action against the Ottomans.

640px-Viennese_Illuminated_Chronicle_Posada

(The battle at Posada where the Hungarian forces were defeated by Basarab’s army – Chronicon Hungariae Pictum).

Secondly, “stema” has a double meaning of “heraldry” which I chose to use here, but also “tradition.” These are obviously intertwined even in our modern understanding as heraldry is steeped in tradition, but I think the latter word broadens the meaning outside of simply those who would use heraldry and becomes a nationally inclusive term. Tradition extends to an entire population of people who can identify with the symbols of their nation, as we will shortly see in the poem, whereas heraldry is far more confining to specific groups, namely families, and those in support of those families.

Here is the short poem with my own translation:

Ceastă ţeară corbu-ş poartă întru pecetea ei,
fericit acum se-au dat adaos peceţii.
Scut la pieptul corbului cu un semn ca acela,
om den jeţiu şezându-ş toiag laudă acela.
Mare neam băsărăbesc cu aceasta semnează,
că marea acelor isprăvi a toţ(i) să-i vază.
This country the raven carries in its seal,
Happy now to have been added as another symbol.
Shield at the breast of the raven with a sign that he,
A man gripping his throne, praises it.
Large Basarab nation with this signs,
So their great feats all will see.

 

The poem has a very direct aabbcc rhyme scheme which serves to divide the narrative as each couplet depicts a brief episode of the story. Tellingly, Nasturel uses a Fourteener for his lines, a metrical line of 14 syllables which was commonly used between the Middle Ages through the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries for narrative poetry. Despite the brevity of his words, he is noting his larger intention.

This is a very image oriented poem that derives meaning from envisioning a connection to the past, not unlike the ways in which the title draws a connection between the contemporary audience and its ancestors.

“This” at the start of the poem does not refer to the Romanian nation, but another, namely the Hungarians, which would be understood by the image of the raven that sits in the middle of their national coat of arms. In the first two lines one possessing entity is subsumed by another, and by the end of the second line the raven is carried not by its original country, but added as a symbol – won over – by another nation. The seal of Hungary becomes a trophy for a victor in the battle, here referring directly to House Basarab.

The image of the raven is again brought to the forefront, depicted on the shields of men in battle, with its heraldic meaning directly related to the king. However, this king that praises the raven and its significance is here shown practically at the edge of his seat, gripping his throne as he is about to lose it.

The last two lines solidify the victory of the Basarab nation over the Hungarians. By overtaking the raven the Basarab nation “signs” its fate, and parades their victory in terms of the enemy’s flag for all to witness.

Further, the last two lines also draw another parallel between past and potential future victories. At the time Nasturel is writing this, the ruler of Wallachia, Matei Brancoveanu, who would soon help the Romanian people in pivotal fights against invaders, had recently declared his descent from House Basarab and consequently rechristened himself Matei Basarab.

And finally, by naming Basarab within the poem he also pays tribute to a man who just a decade earlier made it possible for men like Nasturel to practice their arts with greater efficiency. Starting with his reign in 1632 Matei Basarab was a great patron of the arts and scholarship. With invariable influence from his wife, Elena, who just happened to be Nasturel’s sister, Basarab became the founder of schools and a university, and was responsible for bringing the printing press into Wallachia. He was perhaps the most literate and literature oriented ruler the territory had at that point had, and culture flourished under his rule.

Thus in his brief poem Nasturel manages to navigate several narratives and tie together episodes from the past and present. What a neat little trick!

Sources:

Ghyka, Matila. A Documented Chronology of Romanian History.

Giurescu, Constantin C. The Making of the Romanian People and Language.

Johanna Granville. “Dej-a-Vu: Early Roots of Romania’s Independence.”

Teodor, Dan. Istoria Romaniei de la inceputuri pana in secolul al VIII-lea. 

Theodorescu, Razvan. “Civilizatia romanilor intre medieval modern.”

“Mout avetz faich long estatge”

MS A f. 168v

(Castelloza and an anonymous chavalier, Vatican Library lat 5232 MS A f. 168v)

It has been a while, but I continue my translation and brief analysis of Castelloza within my Trobairitz research. I didn’t mean to take so long, but this is a peripheral study disjointed from my primary research or other projects. At the moment I don’t know if I will be doing anything with this other than creating a series of blog posts as I translate each of the Trobairitz poems piecemeal. But, honestly, I am hooked and can’t stop. The Trobairitz are like the sirens of medieval studies, beckoning me to their chansons despite the ticking time-bomb of pending deadlines and papers looming, ever closer as Fall season approaches even though we have not yet even crossed the threshold of Spring.

Alright, enough ranting…. here is my latest (ever small) contribution to the Trobairitz tradition of a translation of Castelloza’s “Mout avetz.” Yes, her work has previously been translated, but I have found I understand the works better when I provide my own translations and analyses.

Mout avetz faich long estatge
Amics, pois de mi.us partitz,
Et es me greu e salvatge,
Quar me juretz e.m plevitz
Que als jorns de vostra vida
Non acsetz dompna mas me;
E si d’autra vos perte,
M’avetz morta e trahida,
Qu’avi’en vos m’esperanssa
Que m’amassetz ses doptanssa.

Bels amics, de fin coratge
Vos amei, pois m’abellitz,
E sai que faich ai follatge,
Que plus m’en etz escaritz;
Qu’anc non fis vas vos ganchida,
E si.m fasetz mal per be:
Be.us am e non m’en recre;
Mas tan m’a amors sazida
Qu’ieu non cre que benananssa
Puosc’aver ses vostre’amanssa.

Mout aurai mes mal usatge
A las autras amairitz:
Qu’om sol trametre messatge
E motz triatz e chausitz.
Et ieu tenc me per garida,
Amics, a la mia fe,
Quan vos prec, qu’aissi.m.cove;
Que.l plus pros n’es enriquida
S’a de vos qualqu’aondanssa
De baissar o d’acoindanssa.

Mal aj’ieu s’anc cor voltage
Vos aic ni.us fui camjairitz,
Ni drutz de negum paratge
Per me non fo encobitz;
Anz sui pensiv’e marrida
Car de m’amor nu.us sove,
E si de vos jois no.m ve,
Tost me trobaretz fenida:
Car per pauc de malananssa
Mor dompna, s’om tot no.il lanssa.

Tot lo maltraich e.l dampnatge
Que per vos m’es escaritz
Vos fai grazer mos linhatge
E sobre totz mos maritz;
E s’anc fetz vas me fallida,
Perdon la.us per bona fe;
E prec que venhatz a me,
Despois quez auretz auzida
Ma chanson, que.us fatz fiansa
Sai trobetz bella semblansa.

Much time have you stayed away
Friend, since you parted from me,
And it is to me hard and cruel,
Because to me you swore and pled
That all the days of your life
You will have no lady but me;
And if in another you lose yourself,
You will have me dead and betrayed,
Because in you I have my faith
That you love me without hesitation.

Fine friend, of boundless heart
I love you, since you pleased me,
And I know I was foolish;
For which you abandoned me;
Though I have never denied you,
And if you give me bad for good:
I love you and wish you no ill;
Since love so has seized me
When I can believe no goodness
Could be had without your love.

A most terrible practice I show
To all other female lovers:
When a man usually sends the message
And tries and chooses his words.
And I am thought fulfilled,
Friends, by my faith,
When I provoke you, as it fits me;
As the most deserving woman is enriched
If she gains from you enough
Kisses and embraces.

Bad luck to me if ever I had a rancid heart
Towards you or was counterfeit,
Or another favorite of any class
Was had by me;
I am sooner pensive and tormented
Because my love is not known,
And if from you joy is not found
Then you will find me dead:
Because from her affliction
A lady will die if not helped.

For all the mistreatment and the damage
That you have brought me
My family will grace you
And more so will my husband;
And if ever towards me you were false,
I pardon you in good faith;
And I pray you come to me,
After you will have heard
My song, when I assure you
You will find a nice reception.

First, the poem follows Castelloza’s general style of the five stanza format while also maintaining the stricter style and subject of Trobairtiz poetry. She laments the loss of her love, his betrayal, and her subsequent suffering, but she places no blame upon him and proceeds to forgive him for the pain he has inflicted upon her. Yet once again her forgiveness is laced with anger towards his abandonment as she indirectly chastises him for his neglect.

Nevertheless she delivers her poem with a dose of sarcasm that does not escape detection, and also conveniently allows us a glimpse into her society. The time of greatest activity for the Trobairitz coincided with an overall renaissance in women’s rights since in the middle of the twelfth century in France, especially in the southern regions and Occitania, women regained much of the power they had not seen for nearly two hundred years. Thus when Castelloza steps into the dominant role, generally reserved for her male counterpart in poetry, she does so from the vantage point of a woman in possession of not just her quill and voice, but uses that voice to echo her position in society. She may be (as I discussed in a previous post) socioeconomically beneath her love interest, nevertheless regardless of her reasons for positioning herself beneath him, it is not because she is a woman. In other words, the implication here is that her stance which positions her beneath her lover is as much a self created pose as it is for the male Troubadour who castigates himself at the foot of his lady’s pedestal.

She blatantly recognizes her reversal as she concedes that general practice is “Qu’om sol trametre messatge,” (When a man usually sends the message) of love to an ever patiently awaiting woman. Bouchard analyzed these lines as an apology where Castelloza negotiates her place within a poetic tradition through a pseudo apology – a practice the Troubadours never had to partake in since it was implied that men never had to apologize for their existence in any sphere and could move with a freedom unreserved for women.  While I love Bouchard’s close reading of these lines, I do have to disagree and found another reason for Castelloza’s insertion of these seemingly apologetic lines. Almost smirkingly Castelloza acknowledges that her behavior sets a terrible example for all other female lovers while synchronously encouraging them to do the same. She is not apologizing as much as drawing attention to the solidarity between women who will now partake in this perhaps liberating behavior and act upon their desires as opposed to remaining within the confined roles of passive love interests. Her apology is really just a nod towards the agency she has a hand in eliciting. There are in fact several instances within the chanson that mark her extrapolation from self to a universal feminine exemplum – her personal grief and simultaneous joy derived from her lover become the suffering and joy of every woman. These instances are set off from the rest of the chanson by her deliberate usage of the third person pronoun as she moves from “I” to “she” and from “my” to “her” (lines 28-30 and 39-40).

Even though there are innumerable more points to be discussed here, especially concerning the feudal language she employs that allows us an even more detailed glimpse into the relationship between her and her lover, I think that is best left to another time – perhaps one day this will be more than just a series of blogposts.

In the meantime, I want to draw attention to one last bit of a testament to what I feel is Castelloza’s sense of humor. The last stanza  has been translated differently by Dronke and Paden in regards to her family and their response, real or perceived, to her predicament. My own translation is also a bit different, but as Bec has stated, what can be surmised and agreed upon is her reference to having a husband. I do not believe her family/lineage or husband will be elevated due to her status as a Trobairitz as others have stipulated, so the pain her lover has inflicted upon her for which those around her are glad is not reflective of their joy at the literary and performative success that the suffering has brought about, but rather it is an ironically descriptive statement. Most notably her husband’s joy at her misfortune would fit perfectly well within the genre of a malmarie where Castelloza acknowledges her husband and lover within the same composition while the former would have every reason to rejoice at the grief the latter inflicts upon his adulterous wife. And Castelloza does not skirt the issue. This is the work of a woman in control of her situation who doesn’t paint fairy tales, but navigates the problematic reality of her dual existence by choosing to candidly admit her reality one line before negating its importance as she returns her attention to her lover and her unending love for him despite how he torments her. Much like in her poem, Amics, here too she ends with a promise, yet this time it is not a veiled threat of what should befall him if he abandons her, but a promise of the kind reception that awaits his return.

BnF_ms._854_fol._125_-_Na_Castelloza_(1)

(Castelloza, BnF MS 843 f. 125)

Even though the actual score for this chanson has not survived, and actually only one Trobairitz musical accompaniment has been preserved, by Beatritz de Dia, I found a pleasing rendition of Castelloza’s Mout Avetz set to music. Enjoy!

 

Sources:

Bec, Pierre. Chants d’amour des femmes-troubadours: Trobairitz et “chasons de femme.”

Bouchard,Constance Brittain. Strong of Body, Brave and Noble: Chivalry and Society in Medieval France.

Dronke, Peter. “The Provencal Trobairitz: Castelloza.”

Gravdal, Kathryn. “Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Medieval Women Trobairitz.”

Paden, William. The Voice of the Trobairitz: Perspectives on the Women Troubadours.