DOUIN DE LAVESNE
(fl. mid-13th c.). Author of Trubert, a poem of 2,984 octosyllables. Masquerading
variously as a fool, a carpenter, a doctor, a knight, and a girl, Trubert succeeds in duping
the duke and duchess of Burgundy. The poem is violent, anarchic, sometimes obscene,
and its central character, amoral. Trubert calls itself a fabliau, but it resembles rather a
series of fabliaux linked by the figure of Trubert. Composed in the mid-13th century,
Trubert is found in a single manuscript (B.N. fr. 2188).
Keith Busby
Douin de Lavesne. Trubert, fabliau du XIIIe siècle, ed. Guy Raynaud de Lage. Geneva: Droz, 1974.
Badel, Pierre-Yves. Le sauvage et le sot: le fabliau de Trubert et la tradition orale. Paris:
Champion, 1978.
Gravdal, Kathryn. Vilain and Courtois: Transgressive Parody in French Literature of the Twelfth
and Thirteenth Centuries. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.
DOWRY
. The resources brought by a woman to a marriage for the support of the couple. In early-
medieval France, the Frankish brideprice was replaced by the dowry, accompanied at
times by the Morgangabe, which the groom provided following the consummation of the
marriage, and by other family gifts to the bride. The dowry thus came to resemble the
Roman dos, the gift by the bride or her family to the groom.
In the high and late Middle Ages, the dos and a donatio propter nuptias, augment, or
“dower” were common. Landed or movable wealth might constitute the dowry; women
of urban merchant families in southern France often received monetary sums as dowry. In
most regions, the real property of a woman’s dowry came under her husband’s control
(Grand coutumier de France, Coutumes de Beauvaisis), but she retained some right of
approval for the alienation of property. In the case of movables, custom differed. The
Coutumes de Beauvaisis granted the husband the right to administer movables, as did the
Très ancienne coutume de Bretagne, but in the south of France the wife tended to retain
control of her personal property, or bona paraphernalia.
In most regions, a woman could recover her dowry upon death or divorce; on the
death of her spouse, the widow was entitled to her dower rights, which usually ranged
from one-half to one-third of his property (Coutumes de Beauvaisis, Les établissements
de saint Louis).
Kathryn L.Reyerson
[See also: BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE CONTRACTS; WIDOWS AND
WIDOWHOOD]
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 580