The eight papers that make up this volume go back to a 2001 conference organized by the Centre for Vernacular Medieval Literature at what used to be known as the University of Odense in Funen, Denmark. Among the papers that seem to have been considerably expanded are two written by the Danish editors. Leif Søndergaard’s “Far West of Spain – the Land of Cockaigne” (173–208) is about the visions or fantasies of a land of plenty, leisure, and wish-fulfillment for people used to hard labor and worries about sufficient food. It covers ground pretty well-travelled, particularly in the 1980s, with Anna Birgitta Rooth’s Swedish monograph of 1983 (Från lögnsaga till paradis), Martin Müller’s German collection of texts and pictures from 1984 (Das Schlaraffenland) and Dieter Richter’s German monograph, with the same title, of 1989. Søndergaard discusses Cockaigne’s (varying) geographical location, its relation to vision literature, and its rootedness in Bakhtin’s carnival culture; most texts make it clear that they are not to be taken overly seriously.
Rasmus Thorning Hansen’s “Monsters and Miracles in Yvain” (113–44) follows Chrétien de Troyes’ hero’s path from self-centered and self-aggrandizing knight to one acting with consideration and pity, not least by heeding the example of his faithful lion and thus becoming truly worthy of being part of King Arthur’s Round Table. He relates it to Bernard of Clairvaux’ Twelve Steps of Humility and Pride—nine descending steps of pride and three ascending steps of humility. Not every step has an explicit equivalent in the story, but the author makes a convincing case; after all, both Bernard and Chrétien saw it as their task to channel the raw energies of the old warrior class into projects which would benefit the entire community (at least the Christian one) and to permeate a class culture with Christian ideas and ideals. The inaccuracies in William W. Kibler’s Penguin translation of the Old French text are allowed to pass uncorrected.
The most substantial contribution is Peter Dinzelbacher’s comprehensive survey “Die mittelalterliche Allegorie der Lebensreise” (65–112); it complements his monographs Die Jenseitsbrücke im Mittelalter (1983), An der Schwelle zum Jenseits (1989) and Himmel, Hölle, Heilige (2002). More than half is concerned with the allegorical concept of life as a pilgrimage, which in the later Middle Ages can take on epic proportions, as in the work of the fourteenth-century French Cistercian Guillaume de Digullelville. One section is devoted to the Queste, the knightly variety of life as a real journey, another to the ladder, going back to Jacob’s vision in the Old Testament, and shorter ones to the bridge and the labyrinth, which also convey the idea of progress through life. A last section is concerned with French and English dramatizations of the theme.
The article most directly concerned with the book’s subject is Robert B. Friedman’s “Monsters at the Earth’s Imagined Corners: Wonders and Discovery in the Late Middle Ages” (41–64). It shows how discoveries made possible by refinements in the instruments of navigation pushed back the Amazons, the wild men, Gog and Magog, and other strange creatures attested by Classical and Biblical sources, to the ends of the known world and to regions also given to climatic extremes. It is a fascinating account, by the University of Illinois-based author of The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought, of how observation and received authorities were inextricably mixed in the late-medieval world view. Friedman quotes texts in the original languages and provides translations or paraphrases but leaves some shorter passages in need of explanation.
The first two contributions, Evelyn Edson’s “Mapping the Middle Ages: The Imaginary and the Real Universe of the Mappaemundi” (11–25) and Naomi Reed Kline’s “The World of the Strange Races” (27–40), show how this mixture of observation and authority appeared on medieval maps, notably the large map made ca. 1300 for Hereford Cathedral. These maps had both a spatial and a temporal dimension, starting with creation and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from (walled) Paradise (located at the top, then the normal place for East) and incorporating the Crucifixion and the Last Judgment; Jerusalem was usually placed in the center.
The two remaining contributions are concerned with Spain and Ireland, respectively. Sieglinde Hartmann’s “Gebirgslandschaft mit ‘wilden’ Frauen: Juan Ruiz’ literarischer Streifzug durch die Sierra da Guadarrama” (145–60) discusses a burlesque episode in the Libro de Buen Amor, where a traveller in the depopulated mountain region between Old and New Castile falls into the hands of strong and ugly shepherdesses, who warm and feed him but demand their reward in the form of sexual intercourse, a fitting prelude to the following battle between Don Carnal and Doña Caresma (Sir Carnal and Lady Lent). In the other paper, Bern(h)ard Maier or Meier (the author’s name appears in three different guises; not the only instance of sloppy proof-reading) writes on “Imaginary Journeys among the Celts” (161–72), largely a discussion of the etymology and meaning of Celtic words meaning ‘here,’ ‘beyond,’ and ‘world.’
The book is graced with thirty-two color plates and five black and white ones. While these add greatly to the book’s usefulness and attractiveness, the format does not allow the reader to recognize the details of the Hereford world map. As a collection of conference papers, the book is inevitably a not entirely homogeneous mixture, but it contains enough substance and quality to make it worth acquiring.
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[Review length: 890 words • Review posted on May 31, 2006]