Humour and Household Relationships: Servants in Late Medieval and Sixteenth-Century French Farce

Abstract

In recent scholarship, the notion of the household has been defined at its most basic level as the members of the same consumption or dwelling group.² Late medieval French literature and drama share this broad conception. Not limited to family members who are kin through blood or marriage, individuals who live together under the same roof, eat together at the same table and sleep in the same space share household resources and emotional ties. Activities such as these, common in the limited space of many middle- and lower-class medieval dwellings, facilitate communication and provide opportunity for dialogue between members of the extended family, servants and sometimes long-term guests. Co-residency leading to both affection and strife is a theme treated frequently in medieval through sixteenth-century French comic drama and narrative literature.

Si en mesnaige y a discorde On ne sçauroit fructifier. [If in the household there is discord / It will not prosper.] La Farce du cuvier¹