Text with facing translation of an undeservedly neglected, humorous
French lay, in which the women of Arthur's court have their virtue
challenged by a magic mantle.
The Old French lay of Mantel belongs to the group of anonymous lays that
were composed in the late twelfth or thirteenth century. These short
narratives vary in tone and usually deal with some aspect of love,
usually in anaristocratic, courtly setting. Here, this is Arthur's
court, with its well-known characters involved, and the tone is satiric
and comic; the story is a chastity test, which the ladies of the court
undergo in public by donning themantle - if it does not fit, their
behaviour is betrayed. The poem plays on the insecurities of the
knights, who are at first confident of their loves' fidelity, but in the
end are all too anxious to ignore their transgressions.
The popularity of the lay is attested by its survival in five
manuscripts, an unusually high number. It is edited here from MS Paris,
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, nouv. acq. fr. 1104, a manuscript
containing twenty-four lays, including nine by Marie de France whose
work has to some extent defined the genre. The text is accompanied by a
facing translation, and presented with introduction, elucidatory notes,
bibliography, and indices.
Glyn S. Burgess is Emeritus Professor of French, University of
Liverpool; Leslie C. Brook is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in French,
University of Birmingham.
