Charity Cannon Willard
[See also: AUVERGNE, MARTIAL D’; CHARTIER, ALAIN; HERENC, BAUDET;
LE FRANC, MARTIN]
Chartier, Alain. La belle dame sans merci et les poésies lyriques, ed. Arthur Paiget. Geneva: Droz,
1949.
——. The Poetical Works of Alain Chartier, ed. J.C.Laidlaw. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1974.
Champion, Pierre. Histoire poétique du XVe siècle. Paris: Champion, 1923, pp. 60–73.
Piaget, Arthur. “La belle dame sans merci et ses imitations.” Romania 30 (1901):23–24, 314–51;31
(1902):315–49; 33 (1904):179–208; 34(1905):421–560, 575–88.
QUARREL OF THE ROMAN DE LA
ROSE
. Although it is no longer believed that Christine de Pizan’s Épistre au Dieu d’Amour
(1399) launched the debate over the merit of Jean de Meun’s continuation of the Roman
de la Rose, she publicized the affair by presenting copies of the letters it inspired to the
queen of France and the provost of Paris (1402). The debate was begun by Jean de
Montreuil (1401). He and colleagues at the royal chancellery enjoyed literary debates, as
his correspondence shows. They underestimated Christine de Pizan’s reaction when they
engaged her participation, although she had already criticized Jean de Meun’s attitude
toward women and his questionable influence on young contemporaries.
The letters grew out of a conversation by Jean de Montreuil with Christine and a
“notable clerk” who seems to have shared Christine’s views. Later, Jean de Montreuil
sent them both a treatise insisting on the poem’s merits. Christine’s polite reply expressed
support for the other person. Her tone changed only after others entered the debate. For
Christine, the most important of these was Jean Gerson, who on August 25 preached a
sermon taking Jean de Montreuil’s views to task. Gontier Col then wrote to Christine
playfully expressing his astonishment that anyone should attack such a learned man as
Jean de Meun and suggesting that her views merely reflected those of others more wise
than she. In reply, Christine, like Gerson, questioned the propriety of some of Jean de
Meun’s language, suspecting his motives in using it, and even more those of his admiring
disciples. Col’s patronizing reply annoyed Christine and perhaps encouraged her to make
the correspondence public. For her, the issue had become Jean de Meun’s unjust slander
of women.
On May 18, 1402, Gerson attacked Jean de Meun in an allegorical Vision, where he
referred to obscene illustrations in some contemporary manuscripts of the poem.
Although Gerson and Christine were not objecting to exactly the same things, together
they formed a powerful opposition.
In the debate’s final round, Pierre Col took issue with both Gerson and Christine in an
even more offensive tone, which Christine reproved in her reply. Gerson expressed his
disapproval to Col in Latin, suggesting that his ideas skirted heresy and that a canon of
Notre-Dame cathedral should turn his mind to more serious matters. The debate ended at
The Encyclopedia 1457