The fabliaux frequently show an interest in language and its uses or misuses. Some are
mere puns: in Estula, a man calls to his dog, but the dog’s name, Estula, also means “Are
you there?” and a thief hiding in the garden responds, “Yes, I’m here.” Linguistic taboos
provide the subject of La damoisele qui ne pooit oïr parler de foutre, a work about a
young woman who finds the sexual act considerably less offensive than the word. Several
texts offer amusing anecdotes that play on the distinction between figurative and literal
language. In Brunain, la vache au prestre, an avaricious priest tells a naive couple that
whatever they give to God will be returned doubly to them; they take his words literally
(as indeed he intended) and obediently give the priest their cow, but the tables are turned
when the cow comes home later, leading the priest’s own.
Revenge is the motivating force in some of the best fabliaux. L’enfant qui fu remis au
soleil has a woman explain her pregnancy to her husband by noting that a snowflake fell
into her mouth and grew inside her; the husband bides his time, eventually sells the child
into slavery, and explains his disappearance by insisting that the hot sun melted him. Le
boucher d’Abbeville deals with a butcher who seeks shelter in a priest’s house and takes
revenge when the priest refuses it to him; he steals one of the priest’s sheep, trades it for
lodging, shares the meat, and seduces the priest’s maidservant and mistress by offering
both of them the sheep-skin—which he then sells to the priest himself.
The authors of fabliaux show a keen interest in genitalia. They thus give us works in
which genitals talk, multiply, detach themselves from their owners, exhibit prodigious
dimensions, and are frequently personified and described in endlessly imaginative ways.
At the other end of the thematic and tonal spectrum are texts of subtlety and refinement,
even though they are still intended for amusement and often have seduction as their
subject. Guillaume au faucon presents a young man who is passionately in love with his
noble master’s wife and who fasts nearly unto death when the lady repels his advances.
When her husband asks the reason for William’s suffering, the woman, inventing an
explanation in order to avoid complications, replies that William has asked for her
husband’s falcon. Most of this text is indistinguishable from a lai or an episode from a
courtly romance, but it presents an ingeniously humorous conclusion, turning on the pun
involving faucon (“falcon” and “false cunt”) and on the result of her pretext: he orders
her to give the young man what he wants.
A commonplace of fabliau criticism concerns the anticlericalism and antifeminism of
these compositions. In the former instance, it is true that the fabliaux are populated with
priests who are most often avaricious or lascivious; while the reader never senses that
authors are attacking the institution of the church itself, it is indisputably true that priests
themselves provide a tempting and popular target for humor. The question of
antifeminism is more complex. Certain female characters in the fabliaux are presented as
intelligent and virtuous, and the Borgoise d’Orliens is treated sympathetically even as she
commits adultery while her husband is being brutally beaten nearby. In general, however,
the weight of evidence, drawn both from situations and from explicit authorial
commentary, suggests a considerably less than favorable view of women, many of whom
are explicitly condemned for lasciviousness and deceitfulness. Admittedly, the fabliaux
also criticize some men, but it is often for their foolishness in trusting women or allowing
themselves to be led astray by them, and the condemnation thus extends to women as
well. The most extreme treatment of women is exemplified by La dame escoilliee, in
which a wife’s strong will and presumption are attributed to her having testicles, a
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