Thus far, politeness in Old and Middle French and in older languages in general has not been closely examined. This dissertation therefore presents a detailed linguistic analysis of politeness in Medieval French. Relying heavily on data from a wide range of texts from Latin to Middle French, this dissertation discusses several aspects of linguistic politeness that traditionally have been misinterpreted or not considered. First and foremost, the evidence indicates that polite and deferential speech existed from early Latin onward, although its representation could vary from one period to another. The analysis of the linguistic systems of Latin and Medieval French introduces non-pronominal linguistic devices used to express politeness, the role of the pronominal address system in polite speech, and the evolution of the pronominal address system after the emergence of the deferential pronoun vous. Moreover, a diachronic analysis of the data reveals the spread of conventionalized polite and formal language, which was an instrument representing upper class society, to middle class society and the generalization of the polite linguistic devices in Middle French. This observation shows that, paradoxically, in the Classical period, conventional polite language could no longer be associated merely with upper class society. Subsequently, in contrast to the majority of previous studies, it is argued that the alleged inconsistency in the use of the pronominal address system of Old French was not significant and that it in fact followed a regular pattern. As a result, the Old French pronominal address system did not represent an irregular or isolated system, but a system in evolution. Finally, from a sociolinguistic perspective, this study partially supports the theory of a universal view of politeness postulated by Brown and Levinson (1987), because some of polite linguistic devices put forth in their theory (e.g. honorifics, impersonal structures, hedges, etc.) are found in older languages. Yet, this dissertation emphasizes that strategies used to express politeness changed over time, indicating that politeness is culturally defined. / text

This study focuses on the literary subgenre of Mirrors for Princes. A number of twelfth-century works from three genres of Old French literature are examined in order to ascertain what forms any didacticism takes, and whether the texts can be read as Mirrors for Princes. The three genres studied are epic, romance and pseudo-historical chronicle. From epic, I discuss La Chanson de Roland, Le Voyage de Charlemagne, La Chançun de Willame and Le Couronnement de Louis. Chrétien de Troyes forms the study of Mirrors for Princes in romance, and for pseudo-historical chronicle I examine Wace’s Roman de Brut. The didacticism present in the studied texts assumes two forms. The first is direct didacticism, in which the narrator or a character portrays an instruction or moral lesson through “speech”. This gives extra emphasis to the message, whether addressed directly to the audience or to another character within the narrative. The second form is indirect didacticism, which is more common in these texts. It consists of exemplary characters, their actions, behaviour and reputations. The Mirrors for Princes aspects of these texts provide not only examples of successful kings, but also of excellent vassals and queens. The mirrors for the women involve virtuous characteristics, where they fulfil their wifely and noble duties. They are addressed to regents and queens consort more so than to queens regnant, who were uncommon figures in the twelfth century. As well as providing examples and lessons on what is optimal behaviour for the ruling class, there are characters who supply examples of behaviour that is to be avoided. With these ignoble characters, common methods of transmitting the didactic messages are through their lasting reputation, the consequences of their actions, or the nature of their deaths. The study concludes that the examined texts can be read as Mirrors for Princes, despite most of them not being originally conceived as belonging to this subgenre. Lessons for vassals, noblemen and noblewomen, queens and kings are present to varying extents throughout these works using both forms of didacticism outlined above.

Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Robert L. Clark / Medieval French literature provides the modern researcher with references to the healing arts in many passages that are incorporated into prose or poetic works. Because there was no clear separation of the genres into modern classifications, references to treatment of sicknesses of body, mind or spirit are woven into many literary works, providing us with a kind of snapshot of the state of the art healing practices of the day. Texts make reference to herbs and plants used to cure the ailments of the body, gardens and flowers that refresh the spirit, miraculous unguents, cures through the intercession of the saints and the Virgin Mary and surgical procedures. Texts examined here include Le Roman de la Rose, Erec et Enide, Aucassin et Nicolette, Les Lais of Marie de France, Le conte du Graal, Le chevalier de la charrette, La Condamnation de Banquet, Yvain, Cligès, La Chanson de Roland and Treize Miracles de Notre-Dame. The picture they provide of the medicine of the time has a certain charm and quaintness that many moderns seek in holistic treatments of today which hearken back to this more rustic medicine.

acase@tulane.edu / This study examines the Old French narrative lay from the perspectives of orality, performance, and reception. The Old French narrative lay is a short medieval genre often conflated with romance or with other short forms due to similar themes and/or structure. However, the medieval author had a variety of terms from which to choose; and connections can and should be drawn between texts that self-identify as one type or another. While the twelve lays of Marie de France have come to define the genre, many others do not conform to this standard. This study rejects the accepted notion of a static lay standard modeled on the works of Marie de France and instead seeks to reconstruct the medieval understanding of the genre over time by analyzing a later, non-standard example. Long considered a generic aberration, the lay of Lecheor appears to mock the genre by presenting a tale of courtly ladies who compose a song in praise of the uncourtly cunt. Yet of greater interest is its metatextual commentary on lay composition, performance, and reception, which serves as the framework for this study. Following an introduction to the lay in Chapter One, Chapter Two draws from Orality and Literary Studies to situate the lays in the context of writing as authority in Anglo-Norman Britain. Chapter Three transitions from orality as communication to orality as aesthetic, looking to oral theory and performance studies to explore performances in and of the lay. In Chapter Four, I turn to reception theory to justify the application of Lecheor’s troublesome view of courtly love to other lays and, by extension, romance. Each chapter addresses one or two lays that exemplify or challenge the schema provided by Lecheor. This intertextual analysis of the Old French narrative lay reveals a new “horizon of expectations” closer to that experienced by the contemporary reader and demonstrates that he or she was already aware of the literary concerns that these and other medieval texts continue to pose to modern scholars. In short, this study both reevaluates the genre and closes the perceived gap between medieval and modern receptions of the work. / 1 / Tamara Bentley Caudill

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Le point de départ de la thèse est une interrogation sur l'importance de la variation du sémantisme en français médiéval entre les différents genres textuels au cours du Moyen Âge. L'étude a été menée sur plusieurs dénominations féodales dont il s’agit de déterminer le contenu sémantique et son éventuelle évolution du XIIe au XVe siècle. La recherche s'appuie sur un corpus comportant des textes de genres suivants : chansons de geste, romans, chroniques et textes documentaires. L'analyse du sémantisme des dénominations étudiées se fait par le biais de l'étude des occurrences relevées au cours du dépouillement exhaustif, automatique ou manuel, de la totalité des textes de notre corpus. Deux angles sont adoptés lors de l'analyse : l'étude du co-texte linguistique des occurrences et l'étude du contexte narratif de leur apparition. En raison des dénominations étudiées, qui appartiennent pleinement au vocabulaire de la féodalité, l'analyse linguistique ne se sépare pas des travaux d’historiens et de littéraires concernant l'évolution de la société féodale et les textes de notre corpus. Au terme de la thèse sont apparus nettement des régularités dans les évolutions des emplois et du contenu sémantique des dénominations étudiées, ce qui démontre la nécessité d'intégrer la question des genres textuels dans les études sémantiques. Au-delà de résultats pour ces dénominations, il s’agit l'expérimentation d'une méthode pour la sémantique du français médiéval. / The starting point of our thesis was the examination on the importance of semantic variations in Medieval French throughout different text genres during the medieval period. It was based on the study of several feudal names; the aim of the research was to point out their semantic structures and eventual change from the 12th to the 15th century. The corpus that we used consisted of texts of following genres: Epic texts, chivalry romances, chronicles and documentary texts. We analysed all texts by manual or automatic counting of all examples of the investigated names. Two perspectives were adopted: the study of the linguistic co-text of the names and that of narrative context of their use. Given the nature of the studied names, which are integrated in the feudal vocabulary, the linguistic analysis was completed by historical and literary studies on the feudal society and the texts of the corpus. The research pointed out clearly a number of regularities in the uses, semantic structures and linguistic change of the studied names; it confirms the relevance to consider the variation of text genre in semantic studies. Beyond the results for the examined names, our thesis suggests a method for Medieval French semantic studies.

This thesis investigates conceptual networks —systems of organising, understanding and explaining thought and knowledge— and the ways in which they underlie both text and its mise en page across a range of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century French and Catalan literary texts and their manuscript witnesses. Each of the three chapters explores a separate corpus of texts, using two of four interrelated network theories: Michel Serres’ notion of parasites and hosts as the basic interconnecting units that combine to constitute all relational networks; the ubiquitous organizational tree; Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the fold as the primary factor in producing differentiation and identity; and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s unruly, anti-hierarchical and anti-arborescent rhizomatic systems. The first chapter engages primarily with parasites and trees; the second with trees and folds; and the third with folds and rhizomes. However, resonances with the other network theories are discussed as they occur, in order to demonstrate the fundamentally interconnected and often interchangeable nature of these systems. Each chapter includes close analysis of manuscript witnesses of the texts under discussion. The first chapter, ‘Saints Denis and Fanuel: Parasitism and Arborescence on the Manuscript Page’, examines parasitic and arboreal networks in two hagiographic texts: late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century prose redactions of the Vie de Saint Denis, and the thirteenth‐century hagiographic romance Li Romanz de Saint Fanuel. The second chapter, ‘Ramon Llull’s Folding Forests: The World, the Tree and the Book’, addresses arborescent and folding structures in Llull’s encyclopaedic Arbre de ciència [Tree of Science], composed between 1295 and 1296. The third chapter, ‘Transgender Genealogy: Turning, Folding and Crossing Gender’, considers three characters in medieval French texts who can be read as transgender: Saint Fanuel; the King of Torelore in Aucassin et Nicolette; and Blanchandin/e in Tristan de Nanteuil. The chapter explores the ways in which these characters’ queer trajectories can be understood through conceptions of directionality which relate to the fold and the rhizome.

En partant de l'édition et de l'élaboration informatisée d'un corpus de chartes franc-comtoises (AD de la Haute-Saône et du Jura) du XIIIe siècle en langue française, notre thèse étudie les caractéristiques syntaxiques des chartes en les considérant sous leur aspect de genre textuel. L'analyse poursuit le but d'éclairer les structures syntaxiques et discursives qui construisent la charte dans ses différentes parties en prenant en considération les stratégies médiales et communicatives mises en œuvre. En plus de l'analyse selon des modèles contemporains comme la macro-/microsyntaxe, des phénomènes de jonction et de connexion et de l'ordre des constituants syntaxiques, l'analyse complète des temps verbaux et des circonstants temporels nous a permis d'établir des caractéristiques propres au genre textuel, propre à un type de document à l'intérieur du genre, propre à une partie de discours du genre textuel. / This work is based on the transcription and electronic edition of unedited charters from 1243-1296 in French language. It analyses the syntactical and discursive characteristics structuring the different parts of speech. The medial and communicative strategies of a charter are questioned with the help of recent models, like macrosyntax or the temporal semantics by Gosselin, always considering the specifics related to a certain type of text. Hence, phenomenons of junction and connection as well as the order of syntactical components are taken into consideration, a special focus is put on analyzing the organization and the meaning of tenses in the corpus.

Although the works of Christine de Pizan have been of interest to scholars for some time, technological advances and initiatives to make digital copies of manuscripts available online have only recently enabled close comparisons between the visual programmes of her works to be made. This thesis demonstrates that detail usually considered secondary or 'paratextual' in Christine's manuscripts actually formed a carefully-constructed part of the work itself that Christine explicitly asks her audience to read. Through 'reading' the text and image simultaneously, the visual programme proves to comprise additional layers of meaning that were woven into her didactic works. These meanings can serve to supplement the educational and moral aims of the works, or, conversely, can be inconsistent with the message conveyed in the text, leading the reader-viewer to contemplate further on the matters presented and form their own opinions on them. Sometimes, meaning is created by intervisual connections with pre-existing iconography, such that viewers may be creating associations between the miniatures seen in Christine's manuscripts and other imagery, leading them to make certain associations - this is notably the case in author-portraits of Christine. As manuscripts prepared under the author's supervision came to be copied, changes were made to the iconographic programmes, testifying to and enabling different types of readings to take place. The findings of this thesis have implications for editorial practices of medieval works in general, as these tend to circulate in editions without the visual programme, providing modern readers with only a partial view of the complete work.

À la croisée des études historiques et linguistiques, cette recherche vise à saisir le fonctionnement du langage et des langues dans les inscriptions médiévales, en tant qu'institution et pratique sociale, angle sous lequel elles n'avaient jamais été abordées. Les méthodes sociolinguistiques et d'analyse de discours y sont privilégiées pour traiter un corpus de 678 textes épigraphiques des XIIe-XIVe siècles de l'Ouest de la France. Les inscriptions sont un moyen de communication écrite avec un but de conservation de la mémoire et de transmission de l'information au public large, prenant place dans un matériau le plus souvent durable. À cette fin, elles utilisent des moyens langagiers et graphiques (des codes) qui leur sont propres et qui permettent de parler d'un « discours épigraphique ». Ces codes sont la brièveté, l'emploi des formules, des déictiques et l'usage des majuscules. En parallèle, le discours épigraphique a recours aux éléments de la rhétorique, montre une recherche esthétique et élabore une pragmatique. Au cours des XIIe- XIVe siècles, ce discours, jusque là en latin, accueille la langue romane, comme les autres sources écrites. Cette période est un « tuilage », car les deux langues cohabitent. Le français apparaît d'abord dans des mots isolés, puis à l'échelle de textes entiers, selon des chronologies variables suivant les régions. Ce changement linguistique est dû à de nouveaux acteurs de la communication, plus nombreux et plus diversifiés : les laïcs. Par l'entremise des inscriptions, le français pénètre publiquement et durablement dans des espaces où il n'était qu'oral, ceux de la sphère religieuse, et modifie ainsi son statut sociolinguistique. / This dissertation examines twelfth-to-fourteenth-century inscriptions in the west of France in order to understand how language was used, both as an institution and as social practice. The theoretic background is drawn from linguistic trends such as discourse analysis and sociolinguistics, and as a result, it is situated at the intersection of history and linguistics. Inscriptions, as a form of written communication, present durable messages preserved in stone, glass, metal, wood... These epigraphic messages use specific linguistic and graphic means (codes) that may be understood as a type of "epigraphic discourse." The codes consist of brevity, formulae, deictic words, and the use of capital letters. At the same time, the authors of inscriptions demonstrate an aesthetic and pragmatic use of rhetorical figures. Latin is the predominant language. However, a few noteworthy examples of inscriptions in French begin to appear in the twelfth century. The use of French for inscriptions becomes a widespread phenomenon from the second half of the thirteenth century onwards, but Latin does not disappear. At first, only a few words of an inscription are in French. Then, the vernacular is used for the entire text. This linguistic shift from Latin to French suggests the introduction of new actors in written communication: lay people. As the use of French for inscriptions increased, vernacular epigraphic texts begin to appear in ecclesiastical spaces, where the vernacular had only been used orally. Epigraphy allowed for sustainable exhibition of the vernacular language and, thus, provided French with a prestige that increased the language's perceived sociolinguistic status.