Several models influenced Philippe’s compilation. He was inspired by its more
famous 15th-century namesake, the anonymous Cent nouvelles nouvelles. He also drew
on, sparingly, the Decameron, Poggio’s Liber facetiarum, and other Italian storytellers.
But his chief sources were the ubiquitous fabliau tradition, with its insistance on the
salacious, and oral stories heard by him in his native Lorraine or on his voyages. The
stories, placed in a concrete milieu, constitute a priceless document preserving the daily
life of the bourgeoisie of Metz at the waning of the Middle Ages.
Peter F.Dembowski
[See also: CENT NOUVELLES NOUVELLES, LES; FABLIAU; METZ]
Vigneulles, Philippe de. La chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, ed. Charles Bruneau. 4 vols.
Metz: Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de la Lorraine, 1927–33.
——. Gedenbuch des Metzer Bürgers Philippe von Vigneules, ed. Henri Michelant. Stuttgart:
Literarischer Verein, 1852. [Edition of Philippe’s Journal.]
——. Les cent nouvelles nouvelles, ed. Charles H.Livingston with Françoise R.Livingston and
Robert T.Ivy, Jr. Geneva: Droz, 1972.
VIGNORY
. Founded ca. 1000, the church of Saint-Étienne of Vignory (Haute-Marne) is one of the
earliest Romanesque structures in France. Built largely between 1032 and 1057, it
consists of a nine-bay nave under an open-timber roof, separated from the side aisles by a
two-story arcade: wide arcades, a false tribune of twin bays with sculpted capitals, and
high windows. A high triumphal arch separates the nave from the vaulted choir with
ambulatory, Gothic radiating chapels, and twin flanking towers, which are 12th-century.
The church contains some beautiful 14th- and 15th-century statuary in Champenois style.
The most remarkable are an altar frontal showing the Crowning of Mary between
SS.Peter and Paul and an altar frontal of the Passion flanked by donors presented by John
the Baptist and St. Catherine.
William W.Kibler/William W.Clark
The Encyclopedia 1807