7—
Courage, Moderation, and Their Opposites (Book III)
The Function and Status of the Images
The illustrations for Book III of the Ethiques present subjects more familiar to the reader than those of Aristotle's generic definition of virtue and the theory of the mean. Figures 15, 15a and 16, 16a depict personifications of Fortitude (Courage) and Temperance (Self-Control). Since both Fortitude and Temperance (Actrempance in A , Attrempance in C ) belong to the quartet of cardinal virtues long associated in medieval art with the ideal ruler, the reader probably did not require extensive verbal or visual explication of these concepts.[1] Unlike Plato in the Republic , Aristotle does not discuss the cardinal virtues in the Ethics as unified or related ideas.[2] Instead, he considers them as individual moral virtues to which he applies his generic definition of virtue and the theory of the mean. Moreover, in Book II, among other individual virtues and vices, Aristotle had already introduced Fortitude and Temperance and their opposites.[3] These two virtues are illustrated in the order of Aristotle's discussion: Fortitude is first, Temperance second.[4]
While the personification allegories illustrating Book II serve as subject guides, they also provide a profound interpretation of linked concepts. Figures 15 and 16, by contrast, depict separate personifications. Their function is indexical and limited to that of a visual table of contents.[5] To aid the reader in locating textual explanations that correspond to the inscriptions in the miniatures, the illustrations are placed on the same folios as the list of chapter headings. Yet unlike the illustrations of Book II, which take up an important position at the head of a column (Fig. 11) or of a folio (Fig. 12), both Figures 15 and 16 occupy less prominent places that tie them more closely to the chapter headings and their subject guide function. Figure 15 stands at the bottom of the second column of folio 39 in A immediately following the chapter headings and the rubrics for the first chapter of Book III. Figure 16 occupies the second of three divisions of the folio immediately above the introductory paragraph and chapter headings for Book III. Compared to the illustration of Book II in A (Fig. 11), the reduced size of Figure 15 indicates its lesser importance within the cycle.[6] Yet Figure 15 was considered important enough that the usual quaternion structure was disrupted and a new gathering of ten leaves was begun with the chapter headings and illustration of Book III. So although Figures 15 and 16 no longer occupy the top place of their respective folios, their functions as visual tables of contents receive recognition by their relationship to the text and the decorative elements of the folio layouts.
Visual Definitions
The familiar concept of Fortitude or Courage is Fortitudo in Latin; in medieval French the equivalent noun was force . Oresme changed the Latin ending to introduce Fortitude as a neologism.[7] If the reader is unfamiliar with the term included in the inscription of Figure 15, the meaning can be found in the glossary of difficult words supplied by Oresme: "C'est la vertu moral par laquelle l'en se contient et porte deüement et convenablement vers choses terribles en fais de guerre, si comme il appert ou tiers livre; et par especial ou .xvi.e chapitre en glose" (It is the moral strength by which one controls and bears oneself appropriately and fittingly in the face of the terrible events of war, as is revealed in the third book, in particular a gloss of the sixteenth chapter).[8] The titles for Chapters 14 through 21 include the word Fortitude and provide another system for the reader to find locations in the text itself where the inscription of Figure 15 is repeated.
The visual definitions of Fortitude in these two images represent the virtue as male. Such a choice, an acceptable and traditional alternative to the depiction of Fortitude as female, has obvious advantages. First, a masculine Fortitude more naturally associates the sphere of activity of this virtue with conduct on the battlefield, an exclusively male domain. Second, the representation of Fortitude as an armed knight signifies the warrior class, one of the three estates of medieval society. In Figure 15 the addition of a crown to the representation, as well as the conspicuous fleur-de-lis background, specifically associates Fortitude with a virtue possessed by the king of France. A direct precedent for such an identification occurs in an illustration from the Morgan Avis au roys (Fig. 17). In this miniature, the king not only carries a sword but holds a measuring stick, symbolizing reason. The representation is connected with the rubric emphasizing that "bon princes doit avoir force par mesure" (a good prince must possess courage with moderation).[9] Moreover, a subsequent passage identifies Courage (called Force) with "li bon roy de France" (the good king of France).[10] Although Charles V was not an active military leader, Christine de Pizan continues to associate him with the warrior role of French kings.[11]
The forward-moving figure of Fortitude (Fig. 15) is seated on his blue-draped mount and clad in armor. As he advances into battle, his frown and tight grip on his horse's reins, as well as his upright posture, express consciousness of danger. The horse's bent leg and open mouth echo his rider's alert response to approaching danger. A sense of compelling motion is conveyed by the horse's fluttering drapery, which overlaps the quadrilobe frame.
The right half of Figure 15 is occupied by a second cardinal virtue, Actrempance, or Temperance. Oresme defines the nature of Actrempance in Chapter 22: "Or avon nous dit devant que actrempance est moienneresse vers delectacions et les modere" (Now we have said earlier that temperance is the mean [midpoint] in the direction of pleasure and serves to moderate the latter).[12] He elaborates in a sentence from the first gloss in this chapter, which compares Fortitude with
Figure 15
Fortitude, Actrempance. Les éthiques d'Aristote, MS A.
Figure 15A
Detail of Fig. 15
Temperance: "Item, fortitude resgarde les choses qui sont corrumpables de vie humaine. Et actrempance resgarde celles qui la conservent ou en singulier comme boire ou mengier, ou en son espece comme fait ou culpe charnel" (Item, Fortitude concerns things that are capable of corrupting human life. And Temperance concerns those which preserve it either individually, like drinking or eating, or in its species, as in the sin of the flesh).[13] Thus, the pairing of the two virtues not only follows the textual sequence but also presents a contrast for explication by Oresme.
The program for Figure 15 effectively juxtaposes the two virtues. Fortitude looks to the right, Actrempance to the left. The first wears blue garments set against a background of red fleur-de-lis; the second is clad in red and rose set against a dark blue field of the same motif. The traditional female gender of Actrempance, whose wary glance and upraised hand express an appropriate spiritual alertness and restraint, contrasts with the masculine activity and movement of Fortitude. The latter is active and engaged; the former, detached and contemplative. The widowlike wimple worn by Actrempance further accentuates her spiritual character of moderation in respect to bodily pleasures. The miniaturist has imbued the two virtues with expressive qualities consistent with their verbal definitions.
The likeness and difference between Fortitude and Actrempance explained in the gloss cited above also emerge from other aspects of the pictorial design. The two virtues are united in one quadrilobe, but within the common space they inhabit separate rooms,[14] divided by a central column supporting two pointed
Figure 16
Above, from left : Oultrecuidance, Fortitude, Couardie; below, from left : Désattrempance,
Attrempance, Insensibilité. Les éthiques d'Aristote, MS C.
Figure 16A
Detail of Fig. 16
Figure 17
A French King as an Exemplar of Courage. Avis au roys.
arches. These arches are in turn topped by a rectangular wall segment with a large central spandrel and two smaller ones terminating in a row of seven crenellations. The gray color suggests a stone structure, although its practical function is difficult to determine. Initially this wall, or gateway motif, appears in two miniatures of A beginning with Books III and IV (Figs. 15 and 20) as a means of separating two representations. But in the remaining illustrations of the cycle, except for that of Book VII, the wall is undivided, embracing a single representation. While it is possible to explain the prevalence of the crenellated wall motif as a decorative device, its repetition in the miniatures of A may also have symbolic connotations. In various literary and visual images, personifications of the virtues are often placed within a tower, castle, or city wall setting. The crenellated wall motif here generally connotes a stronghold: a safe or fortified place in which the virtues exist. This tradition is a feature of the medieval iconography of the virtues.[15]
The crenellated wall motif could also function as a memory gateway. As noted earlier, medieval memory treatises stress the usefulness of visual images in fixing in the mind general concepts by associating them with distinctive corporeal forms located within architectural places.[16] The brightly lit crenellated wall and arches of Figure 15 correspond in a general way to the tower or castle gateway inhabited by Lady Memory in Richard de Fournivall's Li bestiaires d'amour (Fig. 18).[17] Set within the gateway under identical pointed arches silhouetted against contrasting backgrounds, stand strikingly opposed figures (Fig. 15). Connected by the inscriptions with verbal concepts, the individualized personifications of Fortitude and Temperance lend themselves to association with the appropriate left or right location within the gateway. The symmetrical division of the crenellated wall by the central column in Figure 15 encourages visual identification of each half of the picture field with the specific personification. Like two painted sculptures, Fortitude presses forward on the left like an equestrian statue, countered on the right by the still, columnar form of Actrempance. Coordinated also with the central vertical division of the quadrilobe, the separate spaces of the two virtues within the memory gateway are identified with distinctive but juxtaposed verbal concepts and visual images. Simple as it appears, the structure of Figure 15 mirrors not only the order of the text but also its spiritual dimensions. The juxtaposition of opposing concepts, reinforced by gender and color contrasts, corresponds also to rhetorical theory.[18]
The Expanded Subject Guide of the C Miniature
The expansion of both visual imagery and verbal identification in Figure 16 offers a subtle critique of the program of Figure 15. No longer confined by the width of the text column, quadrilobe frame, or gateway setting of Figure 15, the miniature for Book III in C (Fig. 16) returns to a horizontally oriented two-register format first employed in the frontispiece of this manuscript. Like Figure 15, the upper zone of Figure 16 depicts Fortitude in the central position. Here, however, the vices opposed to Fortitude are represented in off-center places: Rashness (Oul-
Figure 18
Lady Memory and the Doors of Sight and Hearing. Richard de
Fournivall , Li bestiaires d'amour.
trecuidance) on the left and Cowardice (Couardie) on the right. The same scheme is followed on the lower register. Temperance (Attrempance) occupies the center between the vices of Self-Indulgence (Désattrempance) on the left and Insensibility (Insensibilité) on the right. In addition to the nouns identifying the personifications written on the shallow ground plane below the figures, adjectives further characterizing them are inscribed on rectangular bands above their heads. Thus, "trop hardi" above Oultrecuidance applies to one who "excede et superhabunde en oser ou en emprendre vers les choses terribles" (is foolhardy and rash in daring and in undertaking terrible things).[19] The other extreme, the "couart," lacks daring and experiences too great fear. Oresme explains in a gloss: "Et en tant comme il deffaut en oser il est appelé couart en françois" (And inasmuch as he lacks daring, he is called a coward in French).[20]Preuz is translated as "valiant" and reinforces the definition of Fortitude previously cited.
The adjectival reinforcements of the upper register help differentiate the remarkably similar figures of Oultrecuidance, Fortitude, and Couardie. The striking resemblance between the first two may well reflect Aristotle's idea that "rashness is thought liker and nearer to courage and cowardice more unlike."[21] This concept, expressed in terms of visual identity, could, without the descriptive adjectives,
obscure the more important distinction between the vice and the virtue. Since Fortitude is not distinguished from Oultrecuidance or Couardie by scale, the device used in the Book II miniatures (Figs. 11 and 12), the positions and directions of the figures are the decisive visual means of communicating their moral qualities. The notion of virtue as a mean, established by the scheme of Figures 11 and 12, is again associated with the midpoint of the picture field here occupied by Fortitude. Likewise, the vices of excess and deficiency occupy the same places on left and right as their generic predecessors, the giant and dwarf of the Book II illustrations. The scheme of a central norm and its moral opposites on each side appears to repeat the preference for a triadic organization allied to Aristotle's mnemonic theory.[22] In Oresme's discussion of Oultrecuidance and Couardie in Chapter 16 of Book III, the former is discussed first.[23] Thus the position of an image on the left of the picture field once again relates to order in the text. An extratextual device, however, reinforces the notion of Couardie's moral stance established by his pose. By moving in the opposite direction taken by Oultrecuidance and Fortitude and by raising his helmet, Couardie shows that the lack of daring makes him flee the battlefield. This witty and ingenious notion shows another instance of Oresme's inventiveness as author of the program of illustrations.
In the lower register the virtue of Attrempance occupies the central position held above by Fortitude. Unlike the latter and his opposing vices, Attrempance and the extremes on either side of her are identified by nouns but not characterized by adjectives. Perhaps the actions of the figures on the lower level were deemed to be sufficiently distinguished one from another to make their points without verbal reinforcements. For Attrempance is no longer a still, standing form, detached from any specific activity, as she is pictured in Figure 15. Instead, her moral position in respect to bodily pleasures and pains is exemplified by the vignette in which she is the central actress. In Figure 16 Attrempance is seated behind a table furnished with food and implements for eating and drinking. The picture of sobriety in her nunlike robe, the virtue sits alone sipping from a cup. Her upright posture and frontal pose also convey a detached and abstemious attitude. Without any reference to scale, the notion of the mean is, as in the upper register, expressed by the virtue's central position. The repetition of the scheme devised in the upper register helps, however, to reinforce the notion of the central mean surrounded by the two extremes. An illustration in the Morgan Avis au roys (Fig. 19) exemplifies Attrempance by representing a king seated at a table laden with food and drink and furnished with four gold vessels. He holds his finger to his lips in a gesture that conveys restraint and self-control based on reason.[24] Although Figure 16 relies on similar exemplification of the concept personified in Figure 15, the pictorial notion of the mean developed in this illustration and in the Book II miniatures of A and C appear to be original features of Oresme's programs.
The vice of Self-Indulgence, or Désattrempance, is personified and exemplified in Figure 16 by a man and a woman seated before a bountiful table. Fashionably dressed, the man reaches out with his left hand to touch the woman's arm, while
Figure 19
A French King as an Exemplar of Temperance. Avis au roys.
he prepares to attack a large portion of food he holds to his mouth. About to drink from a big bowl, his partner is shown with a smart contemporary hairdo of braided tresses. Her dress features a low-cut bodice and tight sleeves that differentiate her costume from the modest garments of Attrempance and Insensibilité. The inclusion of a male figure in the scene makes clear that "delectation charnel" includes sexual as well as gastronomic excess.[25]
The opposite vice, on the right, is associated with deficiency rather than excess. Insensibilité is a rare human defect, applying to persons deficient with regard to pleasures.[26] Indeed, Insensibility is not natural since even animals enjoy eating. Oresme terms this vice "inhuman."[27] In Figure 16 a woman in widow's garb, also seated at a table, personifies Insensibilité. Yet although she reaches for an object on the table, she neither eats nor drinks. Her headdress gives some further clue to her identity. Of a more worldly nature than the nunlike veil of Attrempance, the head covering of Insensibilité sports a central point, or horn. This unusual feature characterizes the personification in Book IV (Fig. 21) of the vice of Avarice. Also a vice of deficiency, Avarice is in medieval thought associated with usury, a practice often connected with money lending by the Jews. As a mark of their inferior status in Christian society, Jews of western Europe were forced to wear pointed hats or hoods.[28] In 1326, following the council of Avignon, a papal bull decreed that Jewish women wear a veil with horns, called a cornalia .[29] Why Insensibilité is
identified with a Jewish woman is more puzzling than the similar association of Avarice. The vices share, however, a lack of common human feeling, a failing often attributed to Jews in anti-Semitic literature. Furthermore, the Jewish dietary laws forbid the eating of certain foods favored by Christians. Such deviance from common standards of enjoyment may have further contributed to the identification of Jews with Insensibilité. Since such allusions are extratextual, the negative associations were presumably understood by readers on the basis of the horned headdress. Thus, a rare moral deficiency is associated with a small minority of contemporary society regarded as inhuman and aberrant.
In short, the illustrations for Book III in A and C are not as prominent as those for Book II, and their imagery is less innovative. Nevertheless, within the overall programs of illustration they are significant. Figure 15 introduces the motif of the crenellated wall, which stands for the stronghold of the virtues and a memory gateway. The juxtaposition of associated but sharply differentiated ethical concepts also follows Aristotelian theories of memory and rhetoric taken up in medieval sources.[30] On two levels Figure 16 carries out the mean and extremes scheme in a concise and witty manner. Thus both miniatures fulfill their functions as visual definitions and subject guides in styles appropriate to the manuscripts they illustrate.