7 - The Vegetal Imaginary in Exemplary Literature: The Case of the Ci nous dit

Summary

THE PAST THIRTY years have seen significant growth in high-quality research focusing on exemplary literature. Publications of round-table discussions have clarified the status of the medieval exemplum, and resulted in the publication of works such as the Thesaurus Exemplorum Medii Aevi. In this context, the Ci nous dit, a fourteenth century collection of 781 exempla that take the form of short, moralising narratives, has been the subject of several studies. According to Jacques Le Goff, an exemplum is a short story, given as true. It provides a moral lesson with a didactic and convincing aim and it is designed to be included in an oral discourse, often of a religious nature. More recently, scholars have developed the idea of a process of ‘exemplification’ of any kind of narrative form, a process that renders it difficult to confine exempla to a single literary genre.

The oldest French copy of the Ci nous dit was written by an anonymous author between 1313 and 1330 in the North of France. Given the 812 images that come with the 781 exempla in this manuscript, it seems to have been written for a lay aristocratic readership. Why should we begin yet another study of this collection of exempla? Simply because, until now, the place of vegetation in this collection has not been examined by the academic community. A book about animals in exempla was published in 1999, but representations of the vegetal world, which occupy a significant place in collections of exemplary literature, have yet to be explored. A number of questions might be asked. What kinds of plants are used? What do they represent? And what are their functions within exempla? This list of questions is far from exhaustive. Rather than concentrating on providing direct answers, the aim of this chapter is to outline a new area of research and a series of pertinent issues. The chapter will not broach the question of sources for the exempla, which is addressed in Gérard Blangez's edition of the Ci nous dit. I will begin by proposing an overview of the vegetal world in the collection before classifying the different uses of vegetation in the exempla (decorative roles, supporting roles, key roles) and finally present the symbolic function of vegetation when it appears in supporting or key roles.