Magic at Court and on the Piazza

Abstract

As the three previous chapters show, oral performances in the medieval period were infinite in their variety. Some were spontaneous, the outbursts of court jesters or village fools, or the witticisms of clever individuals. Others were prepared. The preacher had studied the sermon tale he told to small or medium-sized crowds outdoors or to larger audiences in church; the minstrel had closely read the courtly epic that he sang or chanted for a courtly household and its servants, and he might check it against a prompt sheet in the course of his performance if he needed reminders. Coarse and bawdy fabliaux might be told with snickers and winks to guffawing listeners of either high or low status, or both together. All of these performance occasions were court-, church-, or household-related, that is, they took place among people who gathered together because they governed or served at court, or were addressed by the church and its functionaries, or were sharing the same roof, either briefly or for the long term. Among all of the storytelling venues that existed in the medieval period, court, church, and household venues predominated into the high Middle Ages, that is, until around 1250–1300.