1422). On November 2, 1388, the cardinal of Laon proposed in the royal council that
Charles dismiss the dukes and assume personal control of the government. Aycelin died
six days later, amid widespread suspicions of poison. A subsequent remark by Clisson
suggests that Pierre had indeed been the spokesman of the Marmousets when he made his
proposal. He was the last member of the family to hold a powerful position, as the male
line ended with the death of his nephew Louis, lord of Montaigu, in 1427.
Franklin J.Pegues
[See also: CHARLES VI; MARMOUSETS; PHILIP IV THE FAIR]
Henneman, John Bell. “Who Were the Marmousets?” Medieval Prosopography 5(1984):19–63.
McNamara, Jo Ann. Gilles Aycelin: The Servant of Two Masters. Syracuse: Syracuse University
Press, 1973.
Pegues, Franklin J. The Lawyers of the Last Capetians. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1962.
AYE D’AVIGNON
. Preserved complete in a single manuscript (B.N. fr. 2170), this anonymous late 12th-
century chanson de geste of some 4,132 Alexandrines combines epic and romance
characteristics. Starting as an epic attached to the small Nanteuil Cycle (thematically
related to the Rebellious Vassal Cycle), it tells, in outline, of the marriage of the
eponymous heroine to Garnier de Nanteuil and the maneuvers of the treacherous clan of
Ganelon to secure the marriage for one of its members instead. They succeed in buying
the favor of Charlemagne and in capturing Aye; she spends some time as prisoner of a
virtuous Saracen king, Ganor, who wishes to marry her. Rescued by Garnier in disguise,
Aye returns to Avignon with him and gives him a son, Gui. The Ganelonides succeed in
treacherously killing Garnier and bribing Charlemagne to give his widow to their leader,
Milon. Ganor, who had earlier abducted Gui, now returns to the rescue with the youth,
who kills Milon in battle; Ganor, having proved himself worthy of Aye’s love and been
converted, marries her.
The interest of this action-packed poem lies in the dovetailing of the romantic story of
Ganor’s love and his suit for Aye’s hand into an epic (the inevitable passivity of the
beautiful heiress being the unifying link) and in the poet’s transcendance of the normal
epic assumption that Saracens and Christians have clear and opposite moral roles: here,
the boundaries are intriguingly smudged.
Wolfgang G.van Emden
[See also: CHANSON DE GESTE; NANTEUIL CYCLE; REBELLIOUS VASSAL
CYCLE]
Borg, Sam J., ed. Aye d’Avignon: chanson de geste anonyme. Geneva: Droz, 1967.
van Emden, Wolfgang G. “Aye d’Avignon: à propos d’une étude récente.” Studi francesi 76
(1982):69–76. [Responds to E.R. Woods.]
Woods, Ellen Rose. Aye d’Avignon: A Study of Genre and Society. Geneva: Droz, 1978.
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