Abstract
Gautier de Coinci (1177/1178–1236) was a paradoxical man: he was a monk and a prior as well as a trouvère. Into his immensely popular and influential narrative collection, Les Miracles de Nostre Dame1 (almost eighty-manuscripts of which survive), Gautier interpolated vernacular songs in honor of Mary, songs for which he borrowed the melodies from a wide variety of sources, including contemporary secular chansons by Picard trouvères and the new Latin musical sources from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Gautier fashioned these borrowed melodies into new songs, both courtly and mystical, in honor of his lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Gautier’s Miracles thus illustrate the apparently incongruous complexity of the man himself; while their subject matter is religious, the chansons themselves reflect the secular style of the northern French lyric.2
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
see Marcia Jenneth Epstein, “Prions en chantant: “ Devotional Songs of the Trouvères (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997).
Michelle Bolduc, “The Poetics of Contraries: The Sacred and Profane in Vernacular Literature of the High Middle Ages.” PhD dissertation (University of Oregon, 2000).
Dominique Roussel, Soissons, Documents d’évaluation du patrimoine archéologique des villes de France 21 (Paris: Monum, Éditions du patrimoine, 2002), p. 25.
Lewis Thorpe, The History of the Franks (London: Penguin, 1974), p. 140.
Michael Enright, Iona, Tara and Soissons (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 1985), p. 124 and n78.
Clovis Brunei, “Les Actes mérovingiens pour l’Abbaye de Saint-Médard de Soissons,” in Mélanges d’Histoire de Moyen Age dédiés à la Memoire de Louis Halphen, ed. C.E. Perrin (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1951), pp. 71–81.
See Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankisk Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751–987 (New York and London: Longman, 1983), p. 125.
see Jean Dunbabin, France in the Making, 843–1180 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 95–97.
Louis Halphen, La Pénitence de Louis le Pieux à Saint-Médard de Soissons (Paris: E. Alcan, 1904), p. 11.
William M. Newman, Les Seigneurs de Nesle en Picardie (XIIe–XIIIe Siècle): Leurs Chartes et leur Histoire, 1 (Paris: A & J Picard, 1971), pp. 36–50.
Dany Sandron, La Cathédrale de Soissons: architecure du pourior (Paris: Picard, 1998), p. 36.
John W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), p. 178.
Sheila Bonde and Clark Maines, eds., Saint-Jean-des-Vignes in Soissons: Approaches to Its Architecture, Archaeology and History (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003).
see Carl F. Barnes, Jr., “The Documentation for Notre-Dame de Soissons,” Gesta 15 (1976): 61–70.
G. Bourgin, La Commune de Soissons et le Groupe communal Soissonais, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes 167 (Paris: H. Champion, 1908), pp. 424–28.
Olivier Collet, Glossaire et Index critiques des Oeuvres d’Attribution certaine de Gautier de Coinci (Geneva: Droz, 2000).
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2005 Stephanie Hayes-Healy
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mayer-Martin, D. (2005). Soissons and the Royal Abbey of Saint-Médard: Historical Contexts for the Life and Works of Gautier de Coinci. In: Hayes-Healy, S. (eds) Medieval Paradigms. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-03706-0_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-03706-0_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-73500-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-03706-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)