Narrating Pain and Healing in Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin (1496)

Marculescu, Andreea

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-15553-7_9

Andreea Marculescu⁷

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Experience ((PSHE))

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Abstract

Somatic expressions of pain and healing are volatile patterns, difficult to incorporate within language. They can, however, be acknowledged as a fait accompli: a particular saint performs a miracle and heals a blind person, a paralytic, a demoniac, or a leper. But the processual aspect of the act of healing in its minutiae and the corporeal ways in which it affectively impacts the subject and those close to his/her entourage is difficult to capture. The aesthetic regime of late medieval devotional theatre in the vernacular, however, facilitates close attention towards bodily expressions of pain and the act of healing. In fact, one of the reasons for which the Middle Ages garnered a strong anti-theatrical prejudice was precisely the fact that religious theatre in the vernacular focused too much on the body. Such performative models allow disabled and sick characters in the plays to narrate their condition alluding to both somatic and emotional reactions they developed as a result of blindness, physical impairment, or disease. In addition, the formal structure of the plays written in verses, expanding on sacred narratives and hagiographical sources, facilitates the incorporation of a plurality of voices: the sick, those witnessing his or her condition, and the saint as healer. This way the condition of impairment is never the prerogative of only one character, but enters the realm of communal storytelling enhanced through embodied performance. Focusing on a fifteenth-century hagiographical play, Mystère de saint Martin, authored by Andrieu de la Vigne, one of the well-known French poetic voices from the end of the Middle Ages, this paper analyses how impairment and religious healing become through embodied storytelling part of a demotic conversation about disease, communal care, and attention towards the sick.

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Notes

1.
Goodich (1995, 6–8). See also the Introduction to this volume.
2.
Goodich (1995, 7–8).
3.
Kuuliala (2016, 25–26).
4.
Goodich (1995, 8–9).
5.
Vauchez (1988).
6.
Goodich (1995).
7.
McGuire (2008, 12).
8.
Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo (2010, 2–3).
9.
See also the Introduction to this volume for historiography.
10.
Kuuliala (2016, 244).
11.
Runnalls (1996, 468–516).
12.
Bordier (1998, 48–51).
13.
Amstrong and Kay (2011, 197–99).
14.
Amstrong and Kay (2011, 199).
15.
Marculescu (2018).
16.
Frank (2013, 35–36).
17.
Frank (2013, 35–36)
18.
Runnalls (1996, 468–516).
19.
Meschonnic (1957), de Kerdaniel (1923), and Brown (1995).
20.
André Duplat, ‘Introduction,’ in de la Vigne (1979, 12).
21.
André Duplat, ‘Introduction,’ in de la Vigne (1979, 19–20).
22.
Sulpice Sévère, Vie de saint Martin.
23.
Sulpice Sévère, Vie de saint Martin, 6. 16–19, vol. 1, 287–95.
24.
Sigal (1985).
25.
For further analysis of pain in narratives of miraculous healings, see Cohen (2010, esp. 133–38).
26.
All translations in the plays are mine unless otherwise specified. Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Douleur a si tresgrant regence// Sur mon corps que je n’en puis plus (vv. 7423–7424) // […] Toujours ma langueur se renforce (v. 7431)//[…] De douleur tout le corps me tremble! (v. 7438)’.
27.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘La grant douleur qui me tempeste //M’a mys en si tresgrant destroit //Que de mourir suis toute prest (vv. 7692–7694)’.
28.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Hellas, le cueur! Hé, Dieu, la teste! (v. 7689)’.
29.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Couvrez moy; las, je meurs de froit! (v. 7695)’.
30.
A further analysis about the ways in which acts of demonic possession affect those witnessing them, see Marculescu (2018).
31.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Tetradius: Monsieur, vella le douloureux; //Regardez la pitié terrible. Premier: Jamais povre homme langoureux//Ne souffrit douleur si orrible (vv. 7552–7555)’.
32.
Kristeva (1982, 53).
33.
Orlemanski (2012, 142–57).
34.
Demaitre (2007, 112–13).
35.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘De voir mes membres interdis, //Putreffaitz, pourris, reffroidis! (vv. 7604–7605)// […] Mallade suis, en brief langaige, //Pousif, pugnais, plain de bagaige, (vv. 7635–7636) […]// Langueur, rigueur me tient soubz las// De douleur et extreme raige,// Fort sentant mon muguelïas (vv. 7639–7641)’.
36.
Kafer (2013, 34–40).
37.
Kafer (2013, 34).
38.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Que ferai ge?//Que dirai ge?//Ou irai ge?//Ne viendrai ge?// Quant lepreux suis vil et pourry?//Quel heur ai ge?//Pleurerai ge?//Chanterai ge? (vv. 7612–7619)’.
39.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Lasse, dolente, que ferai ge? //De ceste grant adversité//Jamais alegence n’aurai ge?//Las, en douleur tousjours serai ge? (vv. 7685–7688).’
40.
See Footnotes 16–17.
41.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Il estrainct les dens (v. 7512).’
42.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘A payne tenir le pourrons, //Regardez! (v. 7511).’
43.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Je m’esbahis comme//Il peult porter le mal (vv. 7523–7524).’
44.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Pause de menestriers. Il retourne. Puis doit crier ung homme desmonyacle enferré par les piedz et [par les] mains’ [Break of musicians. He returns. Then a demoniac manacled in his hands and legs must howl]’.
45.
Fritz (1992).
46.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Le premier serviteur: Je ne sais pas que nous ferons// Second serviteur: L’Ennemy d’enffer trop l’estoque (vv. 7506–7507) […]// Second: Trop de payne et trop de travaulx// Le dyable luy fait sans cesser (vv. 7558–7559).’
47.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Le Prince Tetradius, maistre dudict desmoniacle: Il faut que ce povre homme on guyde//Au sainct arcevesque de Tours, //Car, s’il le voit, pour vray je cuyde//Qu’il luy donrra quelque secours.// Regardez! Ses jours sont bien cours, //Le diable d’enfer le tourmente (vv. 7489–7494).’ See also the articles of Jenni Kuuliala (p. 265–292) and Ron Morgan (p. 293–318), for cures of demonic possession.
48.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Mais ja trois moys elle a esté // De douleur quasi enraigee (vv. 7387–7388).’
49.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Ma fille les fievres a heu//Et au lit depuis lors a geu, //Maigre, deffaicte, macte et fade (vv. 7768–7770).’
50.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘La mere: Ma doulce fille chiere et tendre, //Mon enfant et ma nourriture, // Vous me faictes tout le coeur fender // De vostre tresgriefve adventure. […] La Seur: Hellas, ma seur, quant je recors // La grant douleur que vous avez, //Pas ne sont en moy les acors // De nul plaisir, comme sçavez!’ [The mother: My sweet and gentle beloved daughter, my child and my nourishment, you really break my heart with your wretched unfortune (vv. 7407–7410) […] Alas, my sister, when I see the excruciating pain you have, I am all saddened, as you know (vv. 7415–7418)].
51.
Skoda (2010, 53–66), Metzler (2006), and Kuuliala (2016, 149–242).
52.
Mitchell and Snyder (2000).
53.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin, 464: ‘En disant ces choses [the leper, my note], saint Martin doibt escouter, passant son chemin avec ses gens’.
54.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Sainct Martin: Qu’avez vous? (v. 7381) […]//Mais ou gist vostre adversité? (v. 7384) […] //Pere: Mais ja trois mois elle a esté // De douleur quasi enraigee.// Conclusion: tout est gasté (vv. 7387–7389).’
55.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin, 454: ‘Ilz viennent a la maison de la fille qui est au lit’ [They come to the house of the girl who is in bed].’
56.
Shildrick (2009, 17–38).
57.
Csordas (2002, 18).
58.
Csordas (2002, 18).
59.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin, 455: ‘Il prent de l’uille et luy en fait le signe de la croix sur le front’ [He takes oil and he makes the sign of the cross on her forehead]’.
60.
Csordas (2002, 18). ‘Puisque de moy se desordonne//Mon grand mal et ma dure rage (vv. 7463–64)’.
61.
Bériou and Touati (1991) and Peyroux (2000, 172–88).
62.
Schmitt (1990, 180, 297–98).
63.
Schmitt (1990, 185).
64.
Sulpice Sévère, Vie de saint Martin.
65.
See also Jenni Kuuliala’s article in this volume, p. 265–292, for a saint healing the social impacts of disfiguring conditions.
66.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Ma ladrerie est consommé, //Car je me sens joyeux et sain// Et la douleur esterminee// Dont je fus au jour d’uy si vain (vv. 7672–7675)’.
67.
Garner (1994, 44) quoted in Beckwith (2001, 64).
68.
Beckwith (2001, 64).
69.
According to an archival note which accompanies the manuscript of the play, the actors were presumably members of the community of Seurre. A complete list of actors, see de la Vigne (1979, 105–15). The role of Saint Martin is played by a certain Jehan de Ponthoux and that of the leper by Messire Jehan Chevrel.
70.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Icy baise le ladre et soubdain la ladrerie chiet jus du visage.’
71.
Le Pontifical romano-germanique du Xe siècle, 3 vols.; Chave-Mahir (2011).
72.
Le Pontifical romano-germanique du Xe siècle, 2: cxix, 1: ‘adiuro te, inmunde spiritus per adventum domini nostri Iesu Christi, ut tollas te et exeas ab omnibus membris istius (…) a capite, a capillis, ab humeris, a collo, a branchiis, a dorso, a scapulis, ab interioribus partibus, a ventre, a genibus’.
73.
Chave-Mahir (2011, 134–57; 2014, 305–25).
74.
A more detailed analysis of the use of exorcist scripts in the corpus of late-medieval French drama, see Marculescu (2018, 101–25).
75.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Deable qui t’es au corps bouté//De ceste povre creature,//Afin qu’en soit debouté//De par mon Dieu je [te] conjure//Que, sans a nully faire injure,//Dés maintenant tu voise hors!//Puisque de par luy je t’adjure,//Vuyde tost de [ce] povre corps! (vv. 7566–7573)’.
76.
The stage directions are explicit in this sense: Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin, 461: ‘Icy doibt avoit ung petit diableteau sortant de son lit, et s’en va en enffer, cryant et braillant comme ung deable [Here there must be a little devil that jumps from behind the scene that goes to Hell yelling and bawling like a devil]’.
77.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘reparateur (v. 7582)’.
78.
Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin: ‘Le digne et parfaict inventeur//De ma guerison et santé (vv. 7584–7585)’.

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Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA
Andreea Marculescu

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Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
Jenni Kuuliala
Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
Rose-Marie Peake
University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Päivi Räisänen-Schröder

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Marculescu, A. (2019). Narrating Pain and Healing in Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin (1496). In: Kuuliala, J., Peake, RM., Räisänen-Schröder, P. (eds) Lived Religion and Everyday Life in Early Modern Hagiographic Material. Palgrave Studies in the History of Experience. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15553-7_9

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Published: 23 October 2019
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