composed in verse by Simon de Freine ca. 1180. From the early 13th century to the late
15th, at least thirteen versions of the Consolatio were produced in French. Some of these
were simply revisions of earlier versions. The five earliest of these translations are in
prose, suggesting that translators were initially more interested in the philosophical
content than in the literary character of Boethius’s prosimetrum text. These five prose
translations, which seem to have been produced independently of each other, are by an
anonymous Burgundian (early 13th c.; one manuscript), an anonymous Wallonian (late
13th c.; one manuscript), Bonaventure da Demena (late 13th or early 14th c.; one
manuscript), Pierre de Paris (1305–09; one manuscript), and Jean de Meun (probably
after 1285; eighteen manuscripts). Except for the Wallonian version, these prose
translations can be associated with academic interests through their incorporation of
medieval commentaries and glosses on the Consolatio. Jean de Meun’s version achieved
considerable currency for a number of reasons: Jean’s literary reputation, which was
founded not only on the Roman de la Rose but on other translations he had made (as well
as on works attributed to him), including translations of Abélard’s Historia calamitatum
and Vegetius’s De re militari; the clarity and rigor of his translation of the Consolatio,
which also incorporated glosses by the philosopher William of Conches; and Jean’s
preface to his translation, in which he dedicates the work to Philip IV, thus identifying his
vernacular text with a cosmopolitan court culture and the very center of political power.
Chaucer consulted Jean de Meun’s version for his own Middle English translation of the
Consolatio.
Jean’s prologue became better known than his translation: his dedicatory preface was
affixed to another translation of the Consolatio, made in the mid-14th century, a
prosimetrum version that, though less rigorous than Jean’s prose, achieved enormous
success, surviving in at least sixty-four manuscripts, mainly of the 15th century. This
version, composed probably 1350–60, is actually a revision of a prosimetrum translation
that had been composed ca. 1330, known in only four manuscripts. The revised
prosimetrum exists in two forms, glossed and unglossed: the glossed version incorporates
commentary, translated into French, from a redaction of William of Conches’s
commentary. The success of the revised prosimetrum translation is probably the result of
two factors: its attribution to Jean de Meun because Jean’s prologue was affixed to it in
most manuscripts, and its attention to the formal properties of Boethius’s text, which
identifies the translation as much with vernacular literary interests as with learned
academic concerns.
The middle and late 14th century produced four verse translations of the Consolatio.
One of these, by an anonymous author from Meun (date uncertain), exists complete in
only one manuscript; this translation, consisting of over 12,000 lines of verse, is
interesting for its encyclopedic and mythographic interests. In 1336 or 1337, the
Dominican friar Renaut de Louens composed a verse translation that incorporated glosses
from the commentary on the Consolatio by a 14th-century English Dominican, Nicholas
Trevet. Renaut’s version, surviving in over thirty manuscripts, was twice revised in the
late 14th century; one of these revisions, by an anonymous Benedictine, achieved great
popularity on its own, also extant in over thirty manuscripts. Two further prosimetrum
translations were composed in the 15th century: one of these was a partial revision of the
Benedictine’s version of Renaut’s verse translation, and the other was printed by Colard
Mansion in 1477 and again by Antoine Vérard in 1494.
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