considered undue usurpation of family land by ecclesiastics who had persuaded dying
men and women to make deathbed grants for their souls.
Constance H.Berman
PREMIERFAIT, LAURENT DE
(1388–1420). Humanist and translator from Premierfait, near Troyes. Laurent produced
French versions of major Latin and Italian texts, such as Cicero’s De senectute in 1405
and De amicitia in 1410 and Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium in 1409 and
Decameron in 1414. He may also have translated Aristotle’s Economics into French.
The Decameron translation, dedicated to John, duke of Berry, is commonly known as
the Cent nouvelles. Its popularity is attested by its preservation in fifteen manuscripts and
in eight editions of the 1485 Vérard printed text. Laurent’s remained the only French
version of the Decameron for well over a century, until Marguerite de Navarre in 1545
commissioned Anthoine le Maçon to prepare a new translation.
Assessments of Laurent’s skill as a translator vary. Evaluation of the Cent nouvelles in
particular is difficult, both because it still awaits a modern edition and because Laurent,
whose command of Florentine was inadequate, translated not Boccaccio’s text but a Latin
intermediary prepared by Antonio d’Arezzo. Moreover, scholars consulting less than
reliable manuscripts have concluded that Laurent was guilty of verbosity and wearisome
moralizing. Study of the best manuscripts (e.g., Vatican, Pal. lat. 1989) reveals that he
respected his sources far more than has generally been thought, limiting himself to the
small interpolations and modifications characteristic of early translators.
Norris J.Lacy
[See also: BERSUIRE, PIERRE; TRANSLATION]
Cucchi, Paolo. “The First French Decameron: Laurent de Premierfait’s Translation and the Early
French Nouvelle.” In The French Short Story. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press,
1975, pp. 1–14.
Famiglietti, Richard C. “Laurent de Premierfait: The Career of a Humanist in Early Fifteenth-
Century Paris.” Journal of Medieval History 9 (1983):25–42.
PREMONSTRATENSIAN
ARCHITECTURE
. The study of Premonstratensian architecture has been dominated by the idea that the
churches of Prémontré followed Cistercian plans. The evidence suggests that there were
some built on a plan that loosely resembled the so-called “Bernardine” plan: square
chevet and projecting transept with contiguous eastern chapels. This is by no means the
rule, however, as comparison of the plans of Braine, Dommartin, and Saint-Martin at
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