G
GAB
. A word from Old Norse gabba meaning originally “to mock, to sneer; a mockery, an
insult,” it became famous through its peculiar usage in the late 12th-century Voyage de
Charlemagne: “a boast.” Attested as early as the 10th century in Provençal and later in
Old French texts, mostly centered in the northwest, the word retained its original
meanings until the 16th century, when it finally died out. Because of the renown of the
Voyage, however, modern scholars tend to recognize “boast” as its most frequent
meaning. The episode that celebrates it occurs in Constantinople, where, after a copious
dinner well supplied with claret, Charles and the peers make extravagant boasts to while
away the time, as is their custom (ll. 448–617). The host, Hugon, places a spy in the
chambers and learns that his guests, during their amusements, have insulted him. In rage,
he calls upon them to perform their boasts. It takes only three of the gabs to prove that
the French are superior, so Hugon releases them from further obligation and becomes
Charles’s vassal. The fame of this adventure has left its mark on Galien restore and may
have inspired the poems of the Vow Cycle.
In southern France, the troubadours adopted the word to express themes of boasting,
so that scholars may refer to certain songs generically as gabs. Although an identifiable
autonomous genre was never constituted, an argument for the existence of a latent
narrative genre can be made.
John L.Grigsby
[See also: GALIEN RESTORE; VOW CYCLE; VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE À
JERUSALEM ET À CONSTANTINOPLE]
Von Kraemer, Erik. “Semantique de l’ancien français gab et gaber comparée a celles des termes
correspondants dans d’autres langues romanes.” In Mélanges de philologie et de linguistique
offerts a Tauno Nurmela. Turku: Annales Universitatis Turkuensis, 1967, pp. 73–90.
GABELLE
. The term gabelle had widespread use in Mediterranean Europe to describe indirect taxes
on the sale of merchandise. In France, after the mid-14th century, it came to refer almost
exclusively to a royal tax on salt. Originally a seigneurial right like other mineral
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