Le Goff, Jacques. The Birth of Purgatory, trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1984.
Turner, Victor, and Edith Turner. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological
Perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell, 1978, pp. 104–39.
PUY. Puys were poetic societies that thrived mainly in northern French towns, some from as
early as the 11th century, most from the 13th and 14th centuries. The earliest surviving
records are those of the Confrérie des Jongleurs et des Bourgeois d’Arras, written in
1194, with later additions. These tell of the miraculous origin of the society, in which the
Virgin gave two jongleurs a holy candle with powers to heal plague victims. The other
two oldest puys, those of Rouen (1072) and Valenciennes (1229), share some details with
the Arras foundation story: Rouen by having a similar legendary origin in a miracle of
Notre Dame, Valenciennes by claiming to possess its own candle formed from wax
gathered from the holy candle at Arras. Most of the puys from this region, such as Douai
(1330), Amiens (1388), Abbeville (late 14th c.), Dieppe (15th c.), and Caen (1527), were
dedicated to the Virgin. Puys are also known to have existed at Lille, Tournai, Cambrai,
and Béthune; princes des sots were elected in Ath, Bouchain, Denain, and Condé. A
poetic companhia was founded at Toulouse in 1323, which drew up its own rules of
poetry known as the Flors del gay saber. Further allusions to southern puys occur in
poems by 12th-century troubadours, such as Peire d’Alvernhe. We also possess detailed
records from the end of the 13th century of a puy at London.
It is not always easy to distinguish the puys from other kinds of poetic and charitable
fraternities, such as professional guilds, the chambres de rhétorique, and the (perhaps
imaginary) Courts of Love. For instance, Arras possessed a separate Puy de Notre-Dame
as well as the Confrérie, and Abbeville has references not only to a Puys d’Amours, but
also a Puy de la Conception, to a feast where a prince des sots was elected, and a minstrel
contest on Mardi Gras at the Fosse-aux-Ballades. Douai had both a Confrérie and a
Chambre de Rhétorique. Paris has no records of a puy as such, only of a corporation of
musicians founded in 1321; of a huge series of plays sponsored between 1339 and 1382
by the Goldsmiths’ Guild, which also gave prizes for serventois; and of a Cour d’Amour,
instituted in 1400 or 1401, with apparently over 600 members.
The puys usually have several features in common: a major annual festival, often on
the feast of the Conception of the Virgin (December 8), with a dinner at which a maître
would be elected and a contest held for the best song (chant royal, ballade, serventois,
fatras divin, or rondeau). All the entries would be performed in front of the company
(with music, according to the London puy regulations), the winner receiving a silver
crown and the title prince du puy: The poems had to be written on a set refrain, which
was composed by the old maître and given out some days before the feast. Certain puys
specialized in a single lyric genre; others, such as Amiens and Dieppe, gave a range of
prizes for a variety of genres. Many puy poems have survived, identifiable from their
refrains, internal allusions, or, if they won, from being marked in the manuscript with a
crown.
Ardis T.B.Butterfield
[See also: CANTUS CORONATUS; SIRVENTES]
The Encyclopedia 1453