Ireland was the westernmost point of medieval Francophonia, a loosely defined region that, far from being confined to the borders of France, stretched across Europe and as far as the Levant. Keith Busby's monumental French in Medieval Ireland, Ireland in Medieval French is the latest contribution to the larger movement toward the study of the French language and literature beyond France, building upon the work of scholars such as Jocelyn Wogan-Browne and Thelma Fenster on the French of England and the French of Outremer.
Busby is the first to focus exclusively on Ireland and its Hiberno-French texts, but this is only half of his project: the book is divided into two complementary sections with intersecting themes, each of which would be more than substantial enough to stand on its own. The first section (chapters one and two) explores the linguistic situation in Ireland before and after the arrival of the first Cambro-Norman colonists in 1169 and provides an exhaustive survey of the French texts composed there. The second section (chapters three through five) discusses the origins and evolution of Ireland's depiction as a land of marvels, primarily in the romance tradition.
Chapter 1, "In confusionem linguarum: Ground Zero," presents the linguistic situation in Ireland in the twelfth century. Although the invasions of 1169 and 1170 brought large numbers of French speakers to Ireland from South Wales and elsewhere, Busby convincingly demonstrates that French was spoken on the island before then and that (at least at the Abbey of Mellifont, founded by French Cistercians) the language held a privileged position, nearly on par with Latin. Busby uses Gerald of Wales' Topographia Hibernica and Expugnatio Hibernica as a way to explore the Cambro-Norman worldview, and extrapolates from other non-Irish sources (especially Roger Bacon) to speculate about the relative prestige of various vernaculars and learned languages. Following this, Busby sifts through a dizzying array of documentary and literary sources to find occasional glimpses of the translators and interpreters who facilitated diplomatic, legal, ecclesiastical, and other formal interactions in multilingual Ireland.
In his second chapter, "Verba volant, scripta manent: The Texts," Busby surveys a vast quantity of French texts produced in Ireland, ranging in genre from inscriptions on gravestones to a sophisticated poem celebrating the accomplishments of New Ross, one of the bustling colonial port cities. His chronological reach is equally broad, extending from the late twelfth-century Geste des Engleis in Yrlande through early sixteenth-century inventories of the library of the earls of Kildare. Especially notable within this chapter are Busby's sophisticated readings of the political implications of the French poems of British Library MS Harley 913, and his convincing argument relocating the translation activity of the Dominican Jofroi de Waterford and his scribe and collaborator the Walloon Servais Copale to Waterford, rather than Paris. (In brief: the reference to "les exemplaires de Paris," usually used to argue that Jofroi and Servais worked together in Paris, could as easily be interpreted as "'the copies made in Paris' or 'the copies from Paris in our possession' or 'the copies sent to us from Paris'" [159]. Moreover, newly uncovered documentary evidence shows that Servais held a senior role in the civic administration of Waterford at precisely the right time to collaborate with Jofroi.) The sheer breadth of this chapter ably demonstrates the extent of Ireland's shared literary culture with francophones in England and on the Continent, while also opening many avenues for new research.
Busby moves from his titular "French in Medieval Ireland" to "Ireland in Medieval French" in the second half of this book, beginning with chapter 3, "Mirabilia Hibernica: The Wondrous Isle." Here, he surveys the origins of Ireland's reputation as a land of wonders, a complement and counterbalance to the equally geographically peripheral wonders of the east. His focus is on the Latin monastic authors of texts such as theNavigatio Brendani, the Visio Tnugdali, and the Tractatus de Purgatorio sancti Patricii, which were widely distributed in and out of Ireland and adapted and translated into French. These translations take on the language of secular literature, framed as aventures; the distinction between mirabilium (wonder) and miraculum (miracle) collapses in these texts and both categories are translated interchangeably as merveilles(marvels).
Paradoxically, even as the English colonists and the French-speaking world in general became increasingly familiar with Ireland, its reputation as a land of marvels did not immediately diminish. Busby highlights this paradox in his fourth chapter, "Historia et fabula: The Two Irelands." By this time, the idea of a miraculous and marvelous Ireland was "an indispensable part of the romance world" that nevertheless existed "alongside an island whose actual geography, inhabitants, and customs soon became common knowledge in the kind of social circles which consumed literature and took part in the politics of the new land under ongoing colonization" (265). Chretien de Troyes' Erec et Enide, contemporary with the colonization of Ireland, takes place in a fictionalized Wales and reflects tensions between England, Wales, and Ireland, while also deploying the expected marvels. Somewhat later, two thirteenth-century Arthurian verse romances, Les merveilles de Rigomerand Durmart le Galois, show signs of their authors' familiarity with medieval Irish geography and the relations between the native Irish and the colonists. Meanwhile, non-Arthurian ancestral romances like Waldef, King Horn, Gui de Warewic, and the prose Fouke le Fitz Waryn all have ostensibly historical settings and play down the marvelous aspects of romance, but don't eliminate them entirely. Fouke in particular blends chronicle and romance, giving well-known local historical figures imagined Irish lands and battles with giants and dragons.
Busby's final chapter, "Familia Hibernica: The Importance of Being Irish," introduces the idea of "necessary Irishness" in romance literature. Although very many romances are driven by a knight's quest for his love, these brides are disproportionately described as Irish princesses. Busby notes the parallel with the English colonists who gained wealth and status by marrying the daughters of Irish rulers and hypothesizes that the trope of an Irish princess simultaneously shows the aspirations of fictional romance knights and historical English colonists. Just as the historical marriages often resulted in disputes about dower and inheritance, romance intermarriages reflect those tensions, most famously in the tumultuous marriage between Iseut of Ireland and King Mark of Cornwall in the Tristan romances. As textual traditions evolved, the central Arthurian figures retroactively acquired Irish ancestry (usually through an ancestor's marriage to an Irish princess). Romance places and objects, including the Grail itself, were linked to Ireland, while in francophone Dublin local landmarks and geographical features were associated with Iseut of Ireland and named after her. But the idea of wondrous Ireland decreased over time. Although Jean Froissart's late (ca. 1365) Arthurian verse romance Melyador features aventures in Ireland, mostly chivalric combats, there are no merveilles--only reflections of the antagonistic relationship between England and Ireland at the time of the Statutes of Kilkenny.
Ireland was on the periphery of medieval Francophonia, and there were never as many French speakers there as in England. But as Busby shows in the first half of this book, French was used in urban eastern Ireland for both literary and social expression, predominantly in aristocratic circles. Meanwhile, the depiction of Ireland in romances as "central or peripheral, ally or enemy, courtly or savage, reflects the colonists' struggle with their new domains and their ongoing attempts to expand their lordship of the island in the face of varying degrees of opposition" (421). Acknowledging the dual purpose of this book and its appeal for scholars specializing both in medieval Ireland and in French language and literature, Busby is careful to provide background information to make his work accessible to scholars from very different fields. As a result, this book offers a thorough introduction to a variety of topics, each accompanied with extensive reference lists and historiographical overview, and could as easily function as a reference volume (though this would be aided by the addition of descriptive subheadings, a notable absence in a book where chapters can run to 100+ pages).
This volume is carefully edited and handsomely produced, including its sixteen well-placed black and white images. Unfortunately, through no fault of the author, a binding error in the copy sent to me (and at least one other copy that I consulted) has resulted in disordered pages in one quire of the book. But this is a minor quibble at most and should not dissuade readers, though one hopes that Brepols was able to contain this mistake to only part of the printrun.