average. Whereas most other farces are constructed around a single trick, the anonymous
author of Pathelin has woven an intricate web of mutual deception. Pierre Pathelin, a
down-and-out pettifogging lawyer, purchases cloth on credit from Guillaume the clothier,
who cheats him on the price. Guillaume’s attempt to collect his money is thwarted by
Pathelin, with his wife’s complicity, in an inspired scene of comic delirium. Because
Guillaume has also cheated his shepherd on his wages, the latter kills and eats a number
of the sheep. Accused of the slaughter, the shepherd hires Pathelin to defend him in court.
The latter deceives the judge by having the shepherd reply “Baa” to all his questions.
Finally, when Pathelin asks to be paid, the shepherd dutifully replies “Baa” to all his
entreaties. The theme of trickster tricked (a trompeur, trompeur et demi) is thus
exemplified several times over.
The length of the play allows the author to develop the characters to an extent not
possible in other farces, and some have called Pathelin the first comedy of character. The
play’s comic dimension derives also from its clever situations, its telling gestures, and
especially its verbal acrobatics. In such a tissue of deceptions, the words of the characters
are like the gold they promise in payment: empty of meaning and devoid of reality. The
playwright’s satire is far more radical than a simple attack on the venality of merchants
and lawyers; it puts into question language itself and its ability to convey the mutual trust
on which society depends.
Alan E.Knight
[See also: FARCE]
Holbrook, Richard T., ed. Maistre Pierre Pathelin. 2nd ed. Paris: Champion, 1937.
Dufournet, Jean, and Michel Rousse. Sur “La farce de maître Pierre Pathelin.” Paris: Champion,
1986.
Maddox, Donald. Semiotics of Deceit: The Pathelin Era. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press,
1984.
PÂTURAGE.
Use of pasture for domestic animals in the forest and common lands of a village; the
word also refers to the grazing lands themselves. Originally public rights vested in
Carolingian officials, rights to pâturage came to be part of the seigneurial or banal rights
of lords, who began in the central Middle Ages to exact fees for or to limit use of and
access to such grazing lands. Such pasture rights also included rights to graze animals on
fallow, to allow pigs into the forest to eat acorns and other nuts, to collect bedding for
animals, and other forest uses essential to the village economy. Pasture lands (generally,
pascua in Latin) should not be confused with meadows (Lat. prata, Fr. prés), which were
much more valuable holdings in particularly well watered, sometimes even irrigated,
locations along streams, where they would produce multiple cuttings of hay each
summer.
Constance H.Berman
[See also: AGRICULTURE; ANIMALS (DOMESTIC); TRANSHUMANCE]
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