La Dérision au Moyen Âge: De la pratique sociale au rituel politique (review)

The theme of la dérision – loosely defined as 'une moquerie non dépourvue de méchanceté cherchant non seulement à faire rire, mais à humilier, à discréditer, voire à annihiler, au moins symboliquement, celui ou ceux qu'elle vise' (p. 7) – unites this collection of essays, which span a particularly broad range of medieval manifestations of the phenomenon. The chronological sweep is vast indeed – we move from the second to the sixteenth century – as is the geographical scope – from France to Byzantium via Italy – and the range of subject areas, covering social, political, iconographical and literary spheres. The pieces are generally elegantly written, but the approach throughout is inevitably descriptive and introductory rather than analytical, and a number of contributors simply recall the etymology of the term rather than set out the concept as an interpretative problematic. However, the brief introduction sets the volume within the context of work on the social and political construction of emotions in specific historical periods, reminding us that medieval society is one of honour and reputation, making mockery a particularly dangerous weapon. The best pieces bring la dérision into contact with other terms: Paul Magdalino's piece on Byzantine literary texts introduces the issues of power and of literary subjectivity; Élodie Lecuppre-Desjardin notes the tendency of the people of Flanders to use la dérision against their leaders sparingly in order to preserve the possibility of reconciliation, whereas Lauro Martines's analysis of the novelle asks whether humiliation truly can be considered a form of cruelty compared with other more brutal medieval punishment practices. Other contributions that will interest readers of French Studies include Jacques Verger's intriguing article on the degrading 'welcome' offered to béjaunes (freshers) at universities in France; Laurent Vissière's account of the neglected corpus of sources on the grotesque, ironic and often derisory rhyming patter of Parisian street merchants, as well as Romain Telliez's analysis of court records of trials for mockery of figures of authority in late medieval France. Some of the remaining pieces rework materials published elsewhere and sometimes long ago; thus, Philippe Ménard looks again at some well-known examples of mockery found in the chanson de geste, hardly revising the conclusions of his thesis from the 1960s, and deploying the same theoretical framework of now centenarian critical work on comedy. Yet, overall, this collection should provide a useful starting point for studies on the theme, offering as it does a condensed introduction to past and present research.