Conflicting Economies in the Fabliaux

Abstract

This essay examines several fabliaux through sociological and anthropological theories of exchange. When read in this context, fabliaux such as Constant du Hamel (1.2), Les Deus Changeors (5.51), and Le Bourhier d’Abeville (3.18) register a conflict among different modes of economic organization—gift, barter, and money economies. The conflict among these different models in turn helps explain what can often seem to be unmotivated acts in fabliau plots. More importantly, these different models of economic structure and the social logic they imply can explain the mutability of the fabliau as a genre and the mobility of their audience(s).

This chapter traces conflicting modes of economic organization in the fabliau, arguing that the hybridization of money reflects the genre’s interest in mobile corporeal negotiations.