Patronage and Audiences
The rapid increase in translations from Latin into the vernacular is a hallmark of fourteenth-century cultural history.[1] The process had begun by the beginning of the thirteenth century, when social, political, and economic conditions in western Europe created a climate favorable to the spread of literacy among the lay population. Among the new audiences who read for pleasure, business, or both, were members of the royal bureaucracies, the feudal nobility, merchants, and growing numbers of the middle class living in towns or cities.[2] Earlier waves of translations addressed to a learned and largely clerical audience had made accessible many works of the Greek and Roman scientific and philosophical corpus previously unknown to medieval culture. These Latin translations are closely tied to the rise of universities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.[3] The appropriation and assimilation of classical and Arabic texts into medieval Christian culture through the mediation of the university curriculum marks a significant turning point in Western thought.
Less well known, however, is the process by which authoritative texts in Latin were translated into the vernacular. Such translations involve another stage in the appropriation of classical culture by secular patrons and audiences, who chose the language, texts, and channels for the dissemination of knowledge.[4] Accurate versions of serious and scholarly works on philosophy, theology, and natural science became available in modern languages.[5] Although a rich body of literary texts in vernacular tongues had long existed, the fourteenth century witnessed the development of modern languages as instruments of abstract and scientific thought.
Modern scholarship has linked a preference for the vernacular by lay audiences to the growth of personal libraries and to new methods of reading.[6] Certain types of vernacular literature composed for aristocratic circles, such as chansons de geste, romances, and poetry, were intended for oral performance. Also read aloud was the popular thirteenth-century compilation in verse known as the Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César . Around 1200 French prose became the favored vehicle of vernacular historiography. During the course of the thirteenth century, members of the nobility commissioned for a French-speaking laity historical texts chronicling royal deeds written in the vernacular.[7] Of great importance is the translation from Latin into French of the official national history in 1274 by Primat, a monk of Saint-Denis, the royal abbey entrusted with this responsibility. The moral value of his-
tory as a guide to contemporary rule, the creation of a mythic French past, and the appeal to a lay audience provided important models for the political context of vernacular translations.[8]
The practice of composing original works in or translating them into French vernacular prose did not, however, suddenly eliminate the oral recitation of written texts. But Paul Saenger dates to the middle of the fourteenth century a shift among the aristocracy from oral performance or reading in small groups to silent, visual reading. As Saenger explains, the practice of individual reading and advances in the compilation of texts had begun during the thirteenth century in academic circles to enable students to master texts of the university curriculum. Such improvements encouraged the demand for and production of new vernacular texts.[9]
During the second half of the thirteenth century, royal patrons and members of the nobility closely tied to court circles commissioned various translations of serious or scholarly works in French prose.[10] As a young man, King Philip IV ordered translations of Giles of Rome's influential Mirror of Princes text, intended for the political and moral counsel of rulers, the De regimine principum , and later of the perennial medieval favorite, Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae .[11] The pace of translations accelerated during the first half of the fourteenth century, when French queens and princesses, unschooled in Latin, encouraged the commission of vernacular works.[12] Among the texts chosen for translation into French by royal patrons were works of history, classical mythology, liturgical and biblical texts, and treatises of moral instruction and personal devotion.[13]
The father of Charles V, King John the Good, who reigned from 1350 to 1364, continued the royal tradition of patronage of vernacular texts and of sumptuously illustrated manuscripts. As the founder of the royal library housed in the Louvre and as the first French king to envisage a program of artistic patronage for political ends, John the Good set an important precedent for his son. While still duke of Normandy, John commissioned the translation of James of Cessola's De ludo scaccorum from John of Vignai. After his accession to the throne, King John ordered from Master Jean de Sy a vernacular version of the Bible.[14] After the battle of Poitiers in 1356, the imprisonment of the French monarch interrupted this ambitious project. Even in captivity, King John ordered both religious and secular books written in French.[15]
The most important secular translation commissioned by King John was Pierre Bersuire's French version of Livy's History of Rome . Bersuire, a Benedictine, was a longtime resident of Avignon, which, as the temporary seat of the papacy, was an important cultural crossroads. Bersuire's translation profited both from the manuscripts in the papal library and from his contacts with Petrarch. The famous humanist may have furnished the translator with missing portions of Livy's text.[16] After Bersuire's return to Paris from Avignon in 1350, he seems to have enjoyed the protection of King John. Bersuire and Petrarch, whose friendship continued by correspondence, met again in Paris, when in 1361 the latter served as an ambassador to the French court of Galeazzo Visconti, ruler of Milan. In an address congratulating King John on his return from his English imprisonment, Petrarch deeply impressed his audience, including the future Charles V.[17]
Completed by 1356, Bersuire's translation of the first, third, and fourth Decades of Livy's History of Rome is the first word-for-word translation of a classical work executed on French soil.[18] In his prologue addressed to the king, Bersuire emphasizes that Livy's narrative contains valuable information for contemporary princes. The war between France and England may have increased the practical appeal of Livy's text in its account of Rome's policy on defense of native territory, conquest of foreign lands, and aid to allies.[19] On another level, Bersuire's emphasis on the Roman rise to world dominance from humble beginnings had particular relevance because of the mythical descent of French rulers from the Trojans, legendary founders of Rome. The appropriation of Livy's work by French royalty sounds the theme of the translatio studii , the transfer of linguistic, military, and cultural dominance.[20]
From a practical standpoint, Bersuire's compilation of the text shows his understanding of the need to re-present the work for his lay audience. To make Livy's text easier to follow, the translator breaks up the three main sections (Decades) into short chapters introduced by titles. Intermingled with the texts are sets of notes or comments, entitled Incidens , that furnish the reader with information about unfamiliar Roman place names, terms, people, events, and institutions.[21] To aid the reader in comprehending the many new terms he introduces into French, Bersuire provides a glossary of some eighty terms arranged at the beginning of the text in rough alphabetical order.[22] Also influential on later translations is Bersuire's method of transforming Latin words into French ones by changing the endings or spelling.[23] By this method of calques , Bersuire added forty-three neologisms to French.
King John's commission provided an important precedent for Charles's translation project, particularly for Oresme's French version of Aristotle's works. The French translation of such an authoritative classical text as a guide to political rule is noteworthy. Also significant are the linguistic methods and compilation features configured to re-present the work to a new lay readership.