La Disme de Penitanche (review)

This text (JJournH in the DEAF system) is interesting for a number of reasons: it is precisely dated by the author to 1288 (vv. 3287–92); it is an important example of Picard scripta, but the author wrote his treatise in Nicosia (v. 3293), a reminder of the importance of French as a cultural and commercial (and diplomatic) language in the eastern Mediterranean throughout the Middle Ages. Hesketh’s edition advantageously replaces the unsatisfactory effort by Hermann Breymann in 1874. It presents a substantial vernacular treatise which thus of necessity contains lexical items that are relatively rare in French, since the subject-matter more readily lends itself to (or has been preserved in) treatments in Latin. To the exegesis of this text Hesketh brings the experience and knowledge accrued during the preparation of his edition of the roughly contemporary Lumere as Lais (ANTS). The text itself is fairly (indeed, surprisingly) corrupt and a number of lines defy analysis (e.g. 2601). The edition is well presented; it is preceded by a thorough, traditional philological treatment which, if it is principally devoted to phonology and morphology, nevertheless allocates a page to each of lexis and versification. It might have been interesting to see what the application of some of the findings of Dees would have told us about this text (or indeed about Dees’s data). Lexically, in particular, the influence—presumably on the author not on the scribe—of the French of the Mediterranean/Holy Land is apparent, e.g. amermer v. 112, cf. P. Nobel, La Bible d’Acre (Universitéde Franche-Comté, 2006); 121 [n. to 12,8]; G. Roques, review of La Disme de Penitanche, RLiR 72 (2008), 256–267; so it is a pity that Cyril Aslanov, Le français au Levant (Champion, 2006) had not appeared in time for inclusion in the bibliography alongside Jacoby’s 1982 paper to the Société Rencesvals congress in Padua. The text is followed by extensive notes that deal in considerable detail with the textual problems which the Disme presents, the doctrinal issues which it raises, and its sources. A useful innovation is a summary and tabulation of two prolonged disquisitions on sin (vv. 1545ff.) and on satisfaction (vv. 1979ff.). The glossary is short and ‘selective’ and for many words, the reader needs also (or instead) to go to the notes (which occupy over sixty pages). Good use is made of dictionaries (Gdf, TL, FEW—but no DEAF, curiously) and encyclopaedic-type information is provided on, notably, games of various (often obscure) sorts (vv. 2590ff.). In short, this is a thorough, competent edition (at a reasonable price, moreover), which makes a significant contribution and serves as a reminder that despite (sometimes) the impression one might have, there are still interesting OF texts out there awaiting editors.