interests, the Tractatus de diversis materiis predicabilibus is organized according to the
seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and is the first representative of this genre. Étienne died
before the work was completed. He wrote five sections, on fear, piety, knowledge,
fortitude, and wisdom (unfinished). More commonly known as Tractatus de donis Spiritu
Sancti or De septem donis Spiritu Sancti, this work includes the first account of the
legendary female pontiff Pope Joan. Étienne’s collection includes almost 3,000 stories
from a great number of sources. Since his accounts of heroic Christians have affinities
with the figures of Arthurian romance, his work registers a movement between and
integration of popular and theological literary interests and cultures.
E.Kay Harris
[See also: FOLKLORE; PREACHING]
Étienne de Bourbon. Anecdotes historiques, légendes et apologues, tirés du recueil inédit d’Étienne
de Bourbon, dominican du XIIIe siècle, ed. A.Lecoy de la Marche. Paris: Renouard, 1877.
[Partial edition.]
Munro, Dana Carleton, ed. Medieval Sermons-Stories: Revised Edition of Monastic Tales of the
XIIIth Century. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1901.
Berlioz, Jacques, and J.L.Eichenlaub. “Les tombeaux des chevaliers de la Table ronde à Saint-
Émiland (Saône-et-Loire)?: à propos d’un exemplum d’Étienne de Bourbon.” Romania
109(1988):18–40.
ÉTIENNE DE FOUGÈRES
(d. 1178). King’s chaplain and member of the chancellery of Henry II Plantagenêt,
Étienne de Fougères was appointed bishop of Rennes in 1168. His writings were
principally in Latin and, of these, two saints’ lives, those of St. Firmatus and Abbot
Vitalis of Savigny, survive along with his account of the embellishment of his cathedral
at Rennes. The only French poem ascribed to him, the Livre des manières (1174–78), is
preserved in a single manuscript (Angers 304 [295], fol. 141–50). Dedicated to the
countess of Hereford, it is written in the western dialect of the Plantagenêt domain in
monorhymed quatrains of eight-syllable lines. Since all of Étienne’s other known
writings were in Latin, the possibility exists that the Livre des manières is an anonymous
translation from a Latin original by Étienne. The Livre des manières is the first of a
number of Old French texts treating the estates of society. It is divided into two equal
parts: lines 1–672 treat the higher orders of society (king, clergy, knights), while lines
677–1,344 discuss the lower estates (peasants, bourgeois, and women). Dividing these
sections is the famous quatrain on social order:
Li clerc deivent por toz orer,
li chevalier sanz demorer
deivent defendre et ennorer,
et li païsant laborer.(ed. Lodge, 11. 673–76)Medieval france: an encyclopedia 622