From Convent to Court: Ermengarde d'Anjou's Decision to Reenter the World

Summary

At first glance, Ermengarde of Anjou, the countess of Brittany who died in 1146, does not seem especially suitable for a study of the role of women in the emergence of secular literature in the aristocratic court. She is not named as a patroness in any roman courtois, and only one extant lyric celebrates her beauty, not the work of a troubadour or trouvère, but a Latin poem written by Marbode, the bishop of Rennes. Nonetheless, in La femme au temps des cathédrales, Régine Pernoud uses Ermengarde as an example of how women could inspire an attitude of “courtliness,” of love and respect, in even the most austere men of the church. Furthermore, Pernoud explicitly connects this twelfth-century “courtliness” to the sixth-century poet Venantius Fortunatus, who expressed himself in similar terms in the Latin poems he addressed to the sainted Merovingian queen and nun Radegund.

Despite this common thread, the experiences of Ermengarde and Radegund were quite different, and these differences lead one to question the simple relationship between “courtliness” and respect for women proposed by Pernoud. Fortunatus and Marbode both extol the beauty and grace of their addressees, but their poems are firmly rooted in the culture of the church.