Richard de Fournival

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bestiaire d'amour , XIV sec. ( Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana )

Richard de Fournival (born October 10, 1201 in Amiens , † March 1, 1260 in Amiens) was a northern French cleric , scholar, surgeon , astronomer , alchemist , librarian , poet and musician . His most famous work is the Bestiary of Love (Le Bestiaire d'Amour).

Life

Richard de Fournival was a son of Roger de Fournival, the personal physician of the French King Philip II , and Elisabeth de Pierre. His mother brought into the marriage a son named Arnoul, who was Bishop of Amiens from 1236 to 1246 . Richard de Fournival studied the Seven Liberal Arts (Septem artes liberales) in Paris , plus law, medicine and theology . He was a canon ( Canon ) in Amiens and Rouen , chancellor of the cathedral chapter of Notre-Dame in Amiens and chaplain of Cardinal Robert de Sommercote. One from Pope Gregory IX. granted, renewed dispensation by Pope Innocent IV in 1246, allowing him to practice surgery .

A polymath

In addition to his ecclesiastical career, Richard de Fournival created a secular and literary work, he is considered the author of an alchemy and astronomy treatise, the Speculum astronomiae , and the Latin description of an ideal library, probably his own, Biblionomia . As the first in Europe and in library history , he had the idea of ​​a “public library”; he wanted to make his own books available to those inquisitive. The remainder of his collection can now be found in the treasures of several libraries, including the oldest core of the former Sorbonne library. Through the Latin poem De vetula , which was also ascribed to him , an alleged autobiography of the Roman poet Ovid that appeared around 1250 , and the speculations about dice numbers described there, his name also appears in the history of probability calculations .

The literary work

Particularly noteworthy is his literary work, which was influenced by Ovid's love art ( Ars amatoria and Remedia amoris ) as well as the songs of the Provencal troubadours and the trouvères in northern France . About 20 courtly songs by him have survived, as well as a love guide (Li Consaus d'Amours) for women and a cycle of poems about the power of love (La Poissance d'Amours) for men.

His main work, however, is the love bestiary (Le Bestiaire d'Amour) from around 1250, handed down in 22 manuscripts , which radically reveals the millennial tradition of the moral-religious animal book, which dates back to the anonymous Physiologus written in Alexandria in the 2nd century AD remodeled. If the - fantastic and real - animals, such as rooster , fox , unicorn and Caladrius , and their behavior were interpreted in that tradition in terms of Christological and salvation history, Richard de Fournival uses these and around sixty other animal examples in a strictly secular, profane, erotic one Senses and thereby creates a complete love casuistry. His letter treatise on love is addressed to a "lady" who remains anonymous, whom he wants to convince of his love, but who rejects his solicitation.

In several manuscripts the author appears as "Master Richard de Fournival" during the writing act or the handing over of his manuscript to the copyist or a messenger who brings the writing to the "lady".

Aftermath

The most important reaction to Richard de Fournival's bestiary of love is the anonymous answer from the lady (Li Response du Bestiaire) , which was written in the 13th century and has been handed down in four manuscripts . It is a harsh rejection of the male seduction speech and interprets the didactically authoritarian animal examples from a female perspective radically different. According to the feminist thesis (J. Beer), the text actually comes from a woman, according to other authors from a cleric posing as a “woman” who, in the tradition of the poetry controversies cultivated by the troubadours, anti-Richard de Fournival's speech and argument - Opposing courtly, anti-platonic, anti-feminist arguments with a feminine position.

Richard de Fournival's bestiary of love was noticed far beyond the borders of France in medieval Europe, it provoked imitations and translations into Tuscan, Flemish, Middle Lower Franconian, Provencal, Welsh and the like. a. m. A German translation has only been available since 2014.

“Richard de Fournival's pioneering company is (...) a tightrope walk between tradition and renewal, a game with echoes and quotations ( Aristotle , Ovid , the Troubadours, etc.). It is a pseudo-autobiographical, contradicting, sometimes euphoric, sometimes desperate speech, a deadly serious, ironic, charming and cruel suada about the power of love and its effects on body and soul ”(R. Dutli).

expenditure

(Selection)

  • Richard de Fournival: Le Bestiaire d'amour, suivi de la Réponse de la Dame. Publiés pour la première fois d'après le manuscrit de la Bibliothèque Impériale par Célestin Hippeau. Aubry, Paris 1860 (Reprint: Slatkine Reprints, Geneva 1969) ( digitized at Google Books )
  • Li Bestiaires d'Amours di Maistre Richart de Fornival e li Response du Bestiaire. A cura di Cesare Segre. Ricciardi, Milano / Napoli 1957
  • Richard de Fournival: Le Bestiaire d'amour et la Response du Bestiaire. Publication, traduction, presentation and notes by Gabriel Bianciotto. Champion, Paris 2009
  • Richard de Fournival, The Bestiary of Love. Translated from the 13th century French and with an essay by Ralph Dutli. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2014 (also contains The Lady's Answer )

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Bruno Roy: Richard de Fournival author du Speculum astronomiae ? In: Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge, No. 67, 2000, pp. 159-180
  2. ^ L. Delisle: La Biblionomie de Richard de Fournival. In: Cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, II, chap. XXVI, Paris 1874
  3. ^ Paul Klopsch: Middle Latin Studies and Texts Volume II. Pseudo-ovidius de vetula . 1965, p. 85ff. ( Excerpts from Google Books )
  4. ↑ L'Oeuvre lyrique de Richard de Fournival. Édition critique par Yvan G. Lepage, Éditions de L'Université d'Ottawa, Ottawa 1981
  5. ^ Dictionnaire des Lettres françaises. Le Moyen Âge. Fayard, Paris 1964, p. 635; GB Speroni, Il "Consaus d'amours" by Richard de Fournival. In: Medioevo Romanzo, I, fasc. 2, 1974, pp. 216-278; GB Speroni, La Poissance d'Amours dello pseudo-Richard de Fournival, Firenze 1975 (Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di lettere e filosofia dell'Università di Pavia, 21)
  6. ↑ Ursula Peters: Das Ich im Bild: the figure of the author in vernacular illuminated manuscripts from the 13th to 16th centuries . Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2008, p. 104 ( Google Books )
  7. ↑ Jeanette Beer: Beasts of Love. Richard de Fournival's "Bestiaire d'amour" and a Woman's "Response". University of Toronto Press, Toronto 2003
  8. ↑ Richard de Fournival: The love bestiary. Translated from the 13th century French and with an essay by Ralph Dutli. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2014, p. 162
personal data
SURNAME Richard de Fournival
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Northern French cleric, scholar, surgeon, astronomer, alchemist, librarian, poet and musician
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1201
PLACE OF BIRTH Amiens
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 1260
Place of death Amiens