(Fr.).
In 12th-century usage, a literary work in the vernacular (Old French) rather than in Latin. After Chrétien de Troyes (fl c1160–90) used the term to refer to narrative, it came to be used as a generic term for medieval narrative romance. A roman in the early period was a narrative in octosyllabic rhyming couplets which reworked a variety of older sources into a ‘very beautiful combination’ (‘molt bele conjointure’), according to Chrétien. Its poetic form and subject matter (Alexander the Great, Troy, Arthurian subjects including Tristan and Iseut and the Grail legends, for example) distinguish the roman from the Chanson de geste, a French epic poem in monorhymed, assonanced laisses (verse sections). 12th-century romans are marvellous adventures that treat of armes et amors, the noble arms and love of an idealized aristocracy imbued with chevalerie (knightliness) and courtoisie (courtliness).
During the 13th century such romans gradually came to be written in prose, while new kinds of verse romance developed, such as non-Arthurian romances in contemporary settings and allegorical or dream-vision romances. (By the 14th century, this sort of work, often pseudo-autobiographical and didactic, was more frequently called a dit.) The most important of the 13th-century dream-visions is the Roman de la rose (completed 1270s) of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, a poetic summa that directly inspired poets throughout the 14th century and for much of the 15th. More important for music history, however, is the tendency, probably first seen about 1210 in Jean Renart’s non-Arthurian Roman de la rose (often called the Roman de Guillaume de Dole to distinguish it from the more famous work of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun), of heightening the sense of realism by interpolating into the narrative diverse lyrical genres from the contemporary repertory.
This article will concentrate on this literary hybrid form of the roman, a narrative poem with lyric insertions, sometimes supplied with music in the manuscripts, which was cultivated almost exclusively in France from the early 13th century to the early 15th. In the broadest sense, the practice covers the insertion of lyrics – including chansons courtoises, rondels and other dance forms, refrains, lais, complaintes, motets and the 14th-century formes fixes (ballade, rondeau, virelai) – into framing genres, both prose and poetry, such as romances, chronicles, pseudo-autobiographical dits and dramas. The romans are thus links in an intertextual matrix connecting chansonniers and motet anthologies.
Literary scholars have begun to analyse the romans by considering, for example, the ways in which lyrics are incorporated into the narrative, the degree of heterogeneity or disruption occasioned by the contrast of genres, and how a given lyric expresses a particular character’s sentiments. Except for the Roman de Fauvel, the romans have been the subject of few musicological studies. Even when the manuscripts lack music, however, the romansmay provide anthologies of specific (often datable) slices of the repertory and valuable information about performing practice and the function of the various lyrical genres in courtly society.
Jean Renart, in his Roman de la rose or Guillaume de Dole (c1210; ed. F. Lecoy, Paris, 1979) described his work as an innovation:
For just as one dyes cloth red to gain praise and esteem, so too the author has placed songs and melodies into this Roman de la rose, which is a new thing; and there are so many beautiful verses woven in, by such diverse authors, that peasants could know nothing of it (lines 8–15).
Along with an epic laisse, 46 lyrics are quoted in the course of the narrative, including stanzas from 16 chansons courtoises, among them works attributed to three troubadours and seven trouvères, a collection of ten anonymous chansons in a more popular style (chansons de toile, pastourelles etc.) and 20 dance-songs and refrains. This anthology (unfortunately the single extant source, I-Rvat Reg.lat.1725, lacks music) predates any of the extant troubadour and trouvère chansonniers. A few of the prominent 13th-century examples after the Guillaume de Dole include: Gerbert de Montreuil, Roman de la violette (c1230; ed. D.L. Buffum, Paris, 1928; 40 refrains and chansons); Gautier de Coincy, Les miracles de Nostre-Dame (1214–33; ed. in PSFM, xv, 1959; 22 chansons, many contrafacta of trouvère songs, plus 35 additional insertions in F-Pa 3517-18); the Roman de Tristan en prose (anonymous) (c1240; ed. T. Fotich and R. Steiner, Munich, 1974; 22 strophic lais); Tibaut, Roman de la poire (c1250; ed. C. Marchello-Nizia, Paris, 1984; 19 refrains); Adam de la Bassée, Ludus super Anticlaudianum (c1280; ed. P. Bayart, Tourcoing, 1930; 38 Latin insertions, including contrafacta of liturgical items and trouvère songs); Jacques Bretel, Le tournoi de Chauvency (1285; ed. M. Delbouille, Liège, 1932; 35 refrains); Adam de la Halle, Le jeu de Robin et de Marion (c1285; ed. S.I. Schwam-Baird and M.G. Scheuermann, New York, 1994; 17 refrains and chansons); Jacquemart Giélée, Renart le nouvel (c1289; ed. H. Roussel, Paris, 1961; c65 refrains and two liturgical items); and Jakemes, Roman du castelain de Coucy et de la dame de Fayel (c1300; ed. L.J. Friedman, Cambridge, MA, 1958; ten songs). The anonymous chante-fable (song-story) Aucassin et Nicolette (F-Pn fr.2168; c1225–60; ed. J. Dufornet, Paris, 2/1984), which alternates between sung verse in assonanced octosyllabic laisses (fully notated in the manuscript) and prose, is exceptional because the 21 verse segments are not insertions, but are integral to the overall form of the work. (For music example see Chanson de geste, ex.3.)
The most important musical monument of the early Ars Nova, the Roman de Fauvel (1314) of Gervès du Bus in the enlarged version of F-Pn fr.146 (c1318; facs., New York, 1990), is the best-known of the 14th-century romans, although it is exceptional in that the 169 insertions (including not just French chansons or refrains, but also Latin conductus, polyphonic motets and other genres) comment on a pre-existing narrative, and thus were not introduced by the original author of the narrative. The same manuscript transmits two diz entés by Jehannot de l’Escurel (ed. in CMM, xxx, 1966), ‘Gracieuse, faitisse et sage’ (24 refrains) and ‘Gracieus temps est’ (28 refrains). The Roman de Fauvel and three other romans (which unfortunately lack music in the extant sources), Nicole de Margival’s Dit de la panthere (c1310; ed. H.A. Todd, Paris, 1883; 16 songs or refrains, including six chansons by Adam de la Halle), Jehan Acart’s Prise amoureuse (1322; ed. E. Hoepffner, Dresden, 1910; nine ballades and nine rondeaux) and Jehan de le Mote’s Li regret Guillaume (1339; ed. A. Scheler, Leuven, 1882; 30 ballades), are important for the emergence of the formes fixes. Many of the dits amoureux of Machaut include lyrical insertions, of which the most important are the Remede de Fortune (c1340; ed. and trans. J.I. Wimsatt, W. Kibler and R.A. Baltzer, Athens, GA, 1988; seven songs set to music and a verse prière) and the Voir dit (1365; ed. and trans. R.R. Palmer and D. Leech-Wilkinson, New York, 1998; 63 lyrics, eight set to music). Several of Froissart’s dits amoureux incorporate fixed-form lyrics of his own composition, or, in the case of his Arthurian romane Meliador (c1383; ed. A. Longnon, Paris, 1895–9), those of his patron Wenceslas de Brabant. Except for one ballade in Meliador found in F-Pn n.a.fr.6771 and CZ-Pu XI E 9, no music is known for these works; nevertheless, the contexts provide useful material on contemporary performing practice. In the early 15th century, three of Christine de Pizan’s dits (ed. M. Roy, Paris, 1891–6) and the anonymous Pastoralet (1422–5; ed. J. Blanchard, Paris, 1983; 30 insertions) provide the last medieval examples of this hybrid form. Outside France only a handful of works exhibit the technique of the roman with lyric insertions: Dante’s La vita nuova (c1292–3; ed. G. Gorni, Turin, 1996; 31 lyrics), Ulrich von Liechtenstein’s Frauendienst (1255; ed. V. Spechtler, Göppingen, 1987; 58 lyrics), and a few works from the Iberian peninsula, of which the best-known is the Libro de buen amor of Arcipreste de Hita (1330, enlarged 1343; ed. and trans. R.S. Willis, Princeton, NJ, 1972; 21 lyrics).
Bibliographical control of the romans with lyrical insertions remains incomplete. Ludwig’s list of works and manuscript sources (1923) in many respects is unsurpassed, particularly for the 13th century; some additional 14th-century examples are included in Boulton (1993, appx i). Van den Boogaard (1969) gives a nearly complete list of 13th-century romans, but supplies concordances only for refrains and dance-songs. Fowler (1979, appx i) supplies a complete concordance for all types of insertions for 33 of the 13th- and 14th-century romans with lyrics. Gennrich gives surviving music for the insertions in 13th- and early 14th-century works, but his attempts to reconstruct dance-songs often take too much licence with the evidence of the manuscripts; Fowler’s editions (1979, appx ii) follow the sources.
F. Gennrich, ed.: Rondeaux, Virelais und Balladen aus dem Ende des XII., dem XIII. und dem ersten Drittel des XIV. Jahrhunderts, i (Dresden, 1921); ii (Göttingen, 1927); iii, as Das altfranzösische Rondeau und Virelai im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert, SMM, x (1963)
F. Ludwig: ‘Die Quellen der Motetten ältesten Stils’, AMw, v (1923), 185–222, 273–315
N.H.J. van den Boogaard: Rondeaux et refrains du XIIe siècle au début du XIVe (Paris, 1969)
A. Hughes: ‘The Ludus super Anticlaudianum of Adam de la Bassée’, JAMS, xxiii (1970), 1–25
M.V. Fowler: Musical Interpolations in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century French Narratives (diss. Yale U., 1979)
M.V. Coldwell: ‘Guillaume de Dole and Medieval Romances with Musical Interpolations’, MD, xxxv (1981), 55–86
J. Cerquiglini: ‘Le jeu des formes’, ‘Un engin si soutil’: Guillaume de Machaut et l’écriture au XIVe siècle (Paris, 1985), 23–49
A. Butterfield: Interpolated Lyric in Medieval Narrative Poetry (diss., U. of Cambridge, 1987)
L. Earp: ‘Lyrics for Reading and Lyrics for Singing in Late Medieval France: the Development of the Dance Lyrics from Adam de la Halle to Guillaume de Machaut’, The Union of Words and Music in Medieval Poetry: Austin 1987, 101–31
S. Huot: From Song to Book: the Poetics of Writing in Old French and Lyrical Narrative Poetry (Ithaca, NY, 1987)
J.H.M. Taylor: ‘The Lyric Insertion: Towards a Functional Model’, Courtly Literature: Culture and Context: Dalfsen 1986, ed. K. Busby and E. Kooper (Amsterdam, 1990), 539–48
M.B.McC. Boulton: The Song in the Story: Lyric Insertions in French Narrative Fiction, 1200–1400 (Philadelphia, 1993)
H. van der Werf: ‘Jean Renart and Medieval Song’, Jean Renart and the Art of Romance: Essays on ‘Guillaume de Dole’, ed. N. Vine Durling (Gainesville, FL, 1997), 157–222
A. Butterfield: ‘The Refrain and the Transformation of Genre in the Roman de Fauvel’, Fauvel Studies: Allegory, Chronicle, Music, and Image in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS français 146, ed. M. Bent and A. Wathey (Oxford, 1998), 105–59
C. Page: ‘Tradition and Innovation in BN fr.146: the Background to the Ballades’, ibid., 353–94
For further bibliography see Chanson; Medieval drama; Fauvel, Roman de; Troubadours, trouvères; and Sources, MS, §III, 4.
LAWRENCE M. EARP