The Language of Sex. Five Voices from Northern France around 1200 by John W. Baldwin, and: Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe by John Boswell (review)

BOOK REVIEWS79 Aside from the careful summary of Alfonsi's main ideas, Tolan's book is especially valuable because he demonstrates how later generations used Alfonsi as an authority. The number of surviving manuscripts (about 160) of the Dialogi and the Disciplina clericalis testifies to Alfonsi's popularity especially in England and northern France. The Victorines found Alfonsi's ideas on Judaism helpful for their exegesis of the Old Testament. Others, such as Roger Bacon, were attracted by his scientific contributions. Most, however, found in his Dialogi an arsenal of anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic arguments and shaped his work to their own purposes. Vincent of Beauvais, for example, eliminated the dialogue form and turned the Dialogi into a straightforward attack on Judaism. In like manner Jacques de Vitry recounted many of the stories in the Disciplina clericalis. Tolan provides us with the first Latin edition and English translation of Alfonsi's Epístola ad Peripatéticos, a treatise chastising French scholars for their smug refusal to receive the more up-to-date scientific knowledge that he was prepared to impart. A descriptive catalogue of extant manuscripts of the Dialogi and the Disciplina clericalis and a discussion of other works attributed to Alfonsi are included in the appendices. Illustrations of Alfonsi's map of the world, the orbit of the sun, and the climates are noteworthy. Despite some repetition, Tolan's study places Petrus Alfonsi firmly in our perspective as an essential intellectual connection between the Islamic and Christian worlds of the twelfth century. Joseph F. O'Callaghan Fordham University The Language of Sex. Five Voices from Northern France around 1200. By John W. Baldwin. [The Chicago Series on Sexuality, History, and Society.] (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1994. Pp. xviii, 331. »37.50.) Same-Sex Unions in Premodem Europe. By John Boswell. (New York: Villard Books. 1994. Pp. 390. «25.00.) The Language of Sex, a carefully circumscribed and meticulously documented work by an accomplished scholar, is an admirable example ofresearch into a subject recently troubled by partisanship and unscholarly propaganda. The "five voices" of the title are ( 1 ) those of the moral theologians, notably Pierre the Chanter, Robert of Courçon, and Thomas Chobham, supplemented by that of Marie d'Oignies, a married conversa; (2) of the physicians in the tradition of Galen; (3) of Andreas Capellanus, the contemporary exponent of Ovid's view of the arts of love; (4) of Jean Renart, the pseudonym of the author of the Roman de la Rose, supplemented by his sources, the Tristan legend, the Lai de Lanval of Marie de France, and the writings of Chrétien de Troyes; and (5) of the fabliaux ofJean Bodel, probably a jongleur of Arras, 80BOOK REVIEWS who began this new genre. The first three voices speak Latin, the last, two varieties of French. The period concentrated on is 1185 to 1215; the place, France, meaning in particular Brittany, Champaign, Normandy, and Paris. Baldwin , already known for his work on the Chanter, treats his data cautiously, is generous in his arguments, and modest in his conclusions. The Language of Sex is a measured work of mature erudition. Baldwin consciously resists imposing modern categories on his material. I note a single deviation: he refers to the Fourth Lateran Council's requirement of annual confession as establishing "the mechanism to supervise the sexual lives of lay men and women throughout Latin Christendom" (p. 226). That is a Foucaultism, a transformation of a medicinal sacrament in the understanding of its sponsors into a tool of control. The only other point where it seems to me one might resist his observations Is his contention that the five voices, when compared and juxtaposed, "point to a center where presumably lies social reality" (p. 238). I am not persuaded that one can go from the texts to a center of social reality. Andreas Capellanus worked in a special genre, and the seriousness of his intentions has been much disputed. The physicians handed on ancient lore. The romantic writers wrote for a special courtly audience, the theologians for another specialized group; the fabliaux aimed for a laugh. The effort to distill practice from the varied voices seems to me mistaken and...