7 - Art Imitating Life Imitating Art? Representations of the Pas d’armes in Burgundian Prose Romance: The Case of Jehan d’Avennes

Summary

Scholarship on the pas d’armes over the last thirty years or so has definitively laid to rest the idea that this type of literary-inspired tournament is in any way symptomatic of the decadence or infantilism of the chivalric culture of the late Middle Ages, as earlier commentators such as Johan Huizinga once claimed. Thus, for example, Michel Stanesco has attributed the popularity of the pas d’armes in fifteenth-century Anjou and Burgundy to a genuine desire on the part of the late medieval nobility to emulate their literary avatars, a process he dubs the enromancement (‘romanticisation’) of daily life. Jean-Pierre Jourdan, for his part, has shown how these spectacles of elite sporting prowess were integral to the political life of the period, being organised as part of larger occasions such as marriages, peace treaties and ceremonial entries at which the nobility conducted its essential business and affirmed its identity as an exclusive social group. Furthermore, as Christiane Raynaud observes, being timed to coincide with key dates in the liturgical calendar, these events could also be an encouragement to undertake crusade, the very highest application of chivalric prowess for serious military and spiritual ends, as in the case of the famous Pas de la Fontaine des Pleurs of 1449–50 that was organised by the Burgundian knight Jacques de Lalaing during the year of the jubilee in Rome.

As the ultimate late medieval example of life imitating art, the pas d’armes are based on often elaborate literary scenarios, with the idea of amorous service to a mysterious Lady acting as a pretext for the tournament itself. While some pas are inspired by fairly generic romance motifs such as combat by a ford or a bridge against foes such as shepherds or wild men, others draw on specific literary texts, though not always with great fidelity to the original source.