[In the essay below, Reinhard asserts that the form of Aucassin et Nicolette did not originate with the work, but is indebted to the traditions readily available to the author—that is, to the literary traditions of Greece and Rome.]

The new edition of Aucassin et Nicolette by Mario Roques¹ once more offers occasion for the discussion of its peculiar literary form, that of alternate prose and verse. In his Introduction, Roques briefly discusses “cette forme originale et unique dans la littérature du moyen âge,”² and after rejecting the various definitions of Aucassin as a “roman,”a “conte,” a “nouvelle,” a “fabliau,” and a “récit,” he arrives at the conclusion that it is a “mime.”³ If a technical name must be found for the type of literature which Aucassin represents, why not call it, as did its author, a cantefable? If it is felt that this term needs explanation, we can find none better than that of Gaston Paris, who has definitely explained the chantefable as “ce mélange de prose et de vers, de morceaux où l’on chante, et de morceaux où l’on dit et conte et fable.”⁴

So far as we know, Aucassin et Nicolette is the only specimen of French literature in the Middle Ages which is composed of verse andrsquoand prose, and thus it is rightly called unique. But if we view the chantefable as being in its elementary form simply a literary style in which prose and verse operate together as a unit in narrative function, and if we disregard the special characteristic of musical notation on the manuscript of Aucassin, then we shall be able to match it with other pieces of literature written in this style in both earlier and later times. Examples of prose-and-verse in which the verse is purely adventitious and does not form an integral part of the narrative vehicle have not been included among the following quotations. That Aucassin represents a type of literature which in France was eventually attracted to the theatre, is a matter we shall not discuss. Our interest in the document lies not so much in its successors as in its literary antecedents, and these, we shall show, were of various types.

Scholars who have treated the various problems offered by Aucassin et Nicolette have not neglected the matter of its form.⁵ A variety of opinion prevails on this subject. G. Gröber (Grundriss, II, i, 529) and H. Heiss⁶ consider the form to be the invention of the author. Ten Brink explained the prose as having grown out of a commentary on the verse.⁷ H. Suchier seems to consider the form as a transition stage between the verse novel and the prose novel.⁸ Other scholars are of the opinion that the form of Aucassin derives from Arabic or other oriental literary models. W. Hertz⁹ in his notes to Aucassin et Nicolette gives some oriental analogies. K. Burdach seems to hold this theory also.¹⁰ It is very ably, though inconclusively, supported by L. Jordan,¹¹ whereas W. Suchier in the Einleitung to his ninth edition of Aucassin et Nicolette reverts to Gröber's opinion as to the form, while postulating an Arabico-Byzantine source for the story.¹² A still different opinion as to the origin of the mixed prose and verse form of Aucassin is held by W. Meyer-Lübke.¹³ He discards the opinions of Gröber, Suchier, and Hertz, mentions the Provençal razos and the Vita Nuova as showing similar form. But when considering the origin of Old-French narrative, says Meyer-Lübke, we are inclined to look to the west and to the Celts, whose literature likewise shows prose interspersed with verse. He then quotes several passages (without references) from R. Thurneysen's Sagen aus dem alten Irland.¹⁴

But this scholar's Irish parallels prove no more than do Hertz's oriental analogues. Meyer-Lübke might have quoted—as he does not—numerous passages from Old-Norse literature, of which mixed prose and verse is one of the outstanding stylistic characteristics.¹⁵

That Aucassin et Nicolette owes its form to oriental, Celtic, or Old-Norse literature still remains to be proved by documentary evidence. On the other hand, it seems to be a reasonable conjecture that the mediaeval artistic author, where he did not invent—and he was not inventive, whatever other virtues he may have possessed—followed the guidance of familiar literary models. So far as the present writer is aware, the Mohammedan Empire, Ireland, Iceland, however many stories and plots they may have furnished, did not contribute any traditions of literary workmanship to the mediaeval world.¹⁶ The mediaeval author did not deliberately look into far corners for literary guides: rarely did he possess the learning that would have enabled him to do so, even if he had thought of it. What he did do was, in our opinion, to make use of what lay ready to his hand—the literary traditions of antiquity in which he had been reared. The aim of this article is to show what literary traditions of Greece and Rome lay behind the prose-and-verse form of writing as illustrated by Aucassin et Nicolette.

If the form of Aucassin et Nicolette has piqued the interest of students of French literature, the form of the Vita Nuova, which Dante followed again in the Convito, has piqued that of students of Italian literature. From Dante and his contemporaries, Francesco da Barberino and Brunetto Latini, it is but a step to Sedulius Scotus (fl. ca. 850), and another step to Boëthius and Martianus Capella, with whom we have arrived at the borders of Roman literature. Continuing our search backward through the centuries we are halted by the hilarious personalities of Lucius Apuleius and Petronius Arbiter, with the latter's somewhat heavier contemporary, Seneca the Younger. But our search does not end here, for Cicero directs our attention to Varro and Menippus.¹⁷

With Menippus of Gadara, who flourished ca. 280 b.c., our quest comes to an end. He was the author, and apparently the originator, as far as the Occident is concerned,¹⁸ of a type of literature in mixed prose and verse called after him the Satura Menippea.¹⁹ In this style “he interspersed jocular and commonplace topics with moral maxims and philosophical doctrines, and may have added contemporary pictures, though this is uncertain.” His works seem to have perished almost completely.²⁰ Still we may perhaps judge his style, even though imperfectly, from the Menippean Satires of Varro, who, as we have seen, imitated him.

The Saturae Menippeae of M. Terentius Varro (116-28 b.c.) are written in mixed prose and verse and sometimes alternate prose and verse. He treats all kinds of subjects just as they come to hand, “often with much grossness, but with sparkling point.” Though the Saturae originally extended to one hundred and fifty books, only fragments now remain, comprising 591 lines in all. This fragmentary state makes illustration difficult, but the piece called Est Modus Matulae may serve our purpose. This seems to be an altercation between a partisan of wine-drinking and a prohibitionist who laments the bad example set by the gods.

I. vino nihil iucundius quisquam bibit:
                                        hoc aegritudinem ad medendam invenerunt,
                                        hoc hilaritatis dulce seminarium,
                                        hoc continet coagulum convivia

IV. dolia atque apothecas, tricliniaris, Melicas, Calenas obbas et Cumanos calices

V. non vides ipsos deos, siquando volunt gustare vinum, derepere ad hominum fana et tamen tum ipsi illi Libero simpuio vinum dari?²¹

Here we see prose and verse acting together in narrative function in spite of the fragmentary state of the quotation. A better illustration of the Menippean style is given by the Apocolocyntosis of Seneca (3-65 a.d.). This ‘Pumpkinification’ of the Emperor Claudius “is a bitter satire on the apotheosis of that heavy prince.” When Claudius appears in heaven, Hercules is told off to interview him.

VII. Tum Hercules ‘audi me’ inquit ‘tu desine fatuari. venisti huc, ubi mures ferrum rodunt. citius mihi verum, ne tibi alogias excutiam.’ et quo terribilior esset, tragicus fit et ait:

‘exprome propere, sede qua genitus cluas,
hoc ne peremptus stipite ad terram accidas;
haec clava reges saepe mactavit feros.
quid nunc profatu vocis incerto sonas?
quae patria, quae gens mobile eduxit caput?
edissere.’

… haec satis animose et fortiter, nihilo minus mentis suae non est et timet μωρου πληγνν. Claudius ut vidit virum valentem, oblitus nugarum intellexit neminem Romae sibi parem fuisse, illic non habere se idem gratiae: gallum in suo sterquilino plurimum posse. itaque quantum intellegi potuit, haec visus est dicere:²²

Here we see more clearly than in Varro that the verse continues and advances the narrative in prose. The fact that the prose-and-verse style was used by Menippus, Varro, Seneca, and, in a somewhat different fashion, by Petronius as a vehicle for satire is not prejudicial to the purpose for which these passages are quoted. We have already been told that the form was used as a vehicle for drama in Aucassin et Nicolette; later we shall see it used as a medium of literary criticism and didactics also.

In 65 a.d. Petronius Arbiter, declining to “endure the suspense of hope and fear,” himself opened his veins in a bath, bequeathing to his master Nero—so the story goes—a fearful revenge in the Satiricon. The incident of Encolpius's rage at the perfidy of Ascyltos and Giton will illustrate Petronius's use of the prose-and-verse style.

LXXX. … fulminatus hac pronuntiatione, sic ut eram, sine gladio in lectulum decidi, et attulissem mihi damnatus manus, si non inimici victoriae invidissem. egreditur superbus cum praemio Ascyltos et paulo ante carissimum sibi commilitonem fortunaeque etiam similitudine parem in loco peregrino destituit abiectum.

nomen amicitiae sic, quatenus expedit, haeret;
                    calculus in tabula mobile ducit opus.
cum fortuna manet, vultum servatis, amici;
                    cum cecidit, turpi vertitis ora fuga.
grex agit in scaena mimum: pater ille vocatur,
                    filius hic, nomen divitis ille tenet.
mox ubi ridendas inclusit pagina partes,
                    vera redit facies, dum simulata perit.

LXXXI. nec diu tamen lacrimis indulsi. …²³

By the time of Lucius Apuleius (125 (?)-200 (?) a.d.), the prose and-verse style was no longer a novelty in Latin literature. It may have been used in other Milesian tales—now lost to use—than those of Petronius. The use made of it in the Metamorphoseon represents rather a survival than an active continuation of the style. Since there is only one poem in the whole work (iv, 22)—and that an oracle, which would naturally be pronounced in verse—space need not be taken to quote from Apuleius here.

Somehow or other the style was kept alive in Latin literature for the next two hundred years, so that ca. 410-427 Martianus Capella was able to use it with vigor and effect in his de Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii.²⁴ The following passage from that fanciful allegory describes the bridal array of the doctissima virgo Philologia:

… At cingulum, quo pectus annecteret, sibi prudens mater exsoluit et, ne Philologia ipsius Phronesis careret ornatibus, eius pectori, quo uerius comeretur, appoint. calceos praeterea ex papyro textili subligavit nequid eius membra pollueret morticinum. acerra autem multo aromate grauidata eademque candenti manus uirginis onerantur.

et iam tunc roseo subtexere sidera peplo
coeperat ambrosium promens Aurora pudorem,
cum creperum lux alma micat, gemmata Dione
cum nitet, aurato uel cum fit Phosphorus astro.
tunc candens tenero glaciatur rore pruina
et matutina greges quatiunt in pascua caulas,
languida mordaces cum pulsant pectora curae
et fugit expulsus Lethaea ad litora somnus.

Ecce ante fores quidam dulcis sonus multifidis suauitatibus cietur, quem Musarum conuenientium chorus impendens nuptialibus sacramentis modulationis doctae tinnitibus concinebat.²⁵

A greater man and a greater literary artist than Martianus was Anicius Manlius Boëthius Severinus, ca. 480-524. The richness of the Consolatio Philosophiae makes the selection of an illustrative passage difficult, but Prosa 2 (ad fin.) and Metrum 2 of Book ii may serve our purpose. Attention is called to the fact that the prose and verse are exceptionally close knit, and that the latter not only advances the narrative, but invests it with a dramatic intensity:

Nonne adulescentulus in Iouis limine iacere didicisti? Quid si uberius de bonorum parte sumpsisti? Quid si a te non tota discessi? Quid si haec ipsa mei mutabilitas iusta tibi causa est sperandi meliora? Tamen ne animo contabescas et intra commune omnibus regnum locatus proprio uiuere iure desideres.

Si quantas rapidis flatibus incitus
                                                                                Pontus uersat harenas
Aut quot stelliferis edita noctibus
                                                                                Caelo sidera fulgent
Tantas fundat opes nec retrahat manum
                                                                                Pleno copia cornu,
Humanum miseras haud ideo genus
                                                                                Cesset flere querellas.
Quamuis uota libens excipiat deus
                                                                                Multi prodigus auri
Et claris auidos ornet honoribus,
                                                                                Nil iam parta uidentur,
Sed quaesita uorans saeua rapacitas
                                                                                Altos pandit hiatus.
Quae iam praecipitem frena cupidinem
                                                                                Certo fine retentent,
Largis cum potius muneribus fluens
                                                                                Sitis ardescit habendi?
Numquam diues agit qui trepidus gemens
                                                                                Sese credit egentem.(26)

But we are still far from the year 1225. Is there anything between the beginning of the sixth century and the beginning of the thirteenth which bridges the gap? Did Martianus and Boëthius, representing the culmination of an anterior period, also fructify a suceeding one? Or did the tradition of the prose-and-verse style sink too far beneath the surface of literary usage to have any effect on such a work as Aucassin et Nicolette? The facts are that Martianus's manual was constantly studied in the schools, wherever there was a school, from Charlemagne's revival of studies throughout the Middle Ages. Indeed, the Schoolmen occupied themselves with a controversy over the respective claims of the Classics themselves and those of the Liberal Arts as represented by the de Nuptiis. It was a favorite book of Joannes Scottus (ca. 810-ca. 875), who wrote a commentary on it. In the same century Martianus was attacked by Prudentius, Bishop of Troyes, and Remi of Auxerre commented on him.²⁷ In the tenth century Walter of Speier shows acquaintance with his work; Notker Labeo († 1022) translated it. Saxo Grammaticus in the twelfth century copied his prosimetrum in the Gesta Danorum. Alain de Lille shows his influence in the Anti-Claudianus.

As in the case of Martianus, the tradition and influence of Boëthius was constant throughout the Middle Ages. Sedulius Scottus (fl. ca. 850) composed a Liber de Rectoribus Christianis, modelling the form on the Consolatio. He begins his work with a poem, and recapitulates the contents of each of the twenty prose chapters, except the last, in verse. King Alfred the Great made a translation of the Consolatio about 888. Provençal literature contains a version of it in 257 decasyllables, dated ca. 1000. Alfanus, Archbishop of Salerno (1058-1085), imitated Boëthius's verse. Notker Labeo translated some of his tracts. In the twelfth century his prosimetrum was copied by Bernard Silvester of Tours in his de Mundi Universitate. Alain de Lille (†1203) shows direct influence from the Consolatio in the mixed prose and verse of his de Planctu Naturae. It was translated into French in the twelfth century by Simon de Fraisne, and in the thirteenth by Jean de Meung. The book was the constant companion of Dante's maturity. If the Schoolmen had not read what lay behind them, namely, the literature of Rome, what would they have had to read?

Thus we see that the use in Latin of a style of literary composition in mixed prose and verse was constant in western Europe from the time of Cicero to the death of Alain de Lille in 1203. The author of Aucassin could hardly have avoided encountering the style at home: certainly he did not need to search for it abroad, in the literature of the Celts or the Arabs.

If, now, we were able to find a document written in this style which showed musical notation as well, we should have a still better model for Aucassin et Nicolette. It may be that such a document does exist in the Psalter of Louis the German, wherein certain metra from Boëthius's Consolatio have been set to music. This document, which is to be found in a Berlin manuscript, I have not been able to consult.²⁸

But it was not only in Latin that prosimetrum was cultivated in western Europe. That cursor mundi, Brunetto Latini (1210-1294?), resorted to the use of it for didactic purposes in the work known to us as the Tesoretto.²⁹ He intended to write this key to the Tesoro entirely in verse, but in chapter five he tells us that, ‘when he wishes to treat of things that would be obscure in verse, he will dispose the matter in prose so that it may be understood and learned.’ Illustrations are not particularly good, but the following quotation from this chapter will show how these scraps of prose were inserted:

                                                                                Che ad ogni creatura
Dispose per misura,
                                                                                Secondo ’l convenete
Suo corso e sua semente;
                                                                                Ma tanto ne so dire,
Ch’ i’ le vidi ubbidire,
                                                                                Finire e ’ncominciare,
Morire e ’ngenerare.

E sappiate che tutte le cose che hanno cominciamento, cioè che furo fatte di alcuna materia, si aranno fine.³⁰

The style was used for didactic purposes by Francesco da Barberino (1264-1348) also, in Del Reggimento e Costumi di Donna.³¹ In this book of edification the author aims to instruct women in the way in which they should behave under various circumstances. A passage from Parte prima touching the problem of talkativeness will serve as an illustration.

III. Una donzella parlava molto. Una fiata a tavola disse uno suo balio: “Tu parli per tutti quegli chessono a tavola.” Disse ella: “Mesere, costoro sanno parlare, e però si possono posare; ma io non so, sichè mi conviene parlare per imprendere. …”

IV. Ritorno alla materia,
                                E dico, che non è sì da taciere;
                                Che altri non parli mai,
                                Sì c’ altri non dicesse: “Ella
non parla
                                Perch’ ella è muta,”
                                Ma dico, da taciere è e da parlare,
                                Come lo luogo e lo tenpo richiede.(32)

Perhaps the most graceful and artistic use of the prosimetrum in modern times has been made by Dante (1265-1321) in the Vita Nuova (ca. 1295). Dante's verse is usually but a repetition of what has already been told in prose,³³ or rather, the prose is only an amplified account of what has been said in rhyme. This is especially true in the Convito (ca. 1308) wherein, even more than in the Vita Nuova, prose is the medium of literary criticism of a given verse-text. In some instances in the Vita Nuova,³⁴ however, the verse continues the narrative and forms an integral part thereof:

XX. Appresso che questa canzone fue alquanto divolgata tra le genti, con ciò fosse cosa che alcuno amico l’udisse, volontade lo mosse a pregare me che io li dovesse dire che è Amore, avendo forse per l’udite parole speranza di me oltre che degna. Onde io, pensando che appresso di cotale trattato bello era trattare alquanto d’Amore, e pensando che l’amico era da servire, propuosi di dire parole ne le quali io trattassi d’Amore; e allora dissi questo sonetto, lo qual comincia: Amore e ’l cor gentil.

Amore e ’l cor gentil sono una cosa,
        sì come il saggio in suo dittare pone,
        e così esser l’un sanza l’altro
osa
        com’ alma razional sanza ragione.
        Falli natura quand’ è amorosa,
        Amor per sire e ’l cor per sua magione,
        dentro la qual dormendo si riposa
        tal volta poca e tal lunga stagione.
Bieltate appare in saggia donna pui,
        che piace a gli occhi sì, che dentro al core
        nasce un disio de la cosa piacente;
        e tanto dura talora in costui,
        che fa svegliar lo spirito d’Amore.
        E simil face in donna omo valente.

Then follows the explanation.

XXI. Poscia che trattai d’Amore ne la soprascritta rima, vennemi volontade di volere dire anche, in loda di questa gentilissima, parole, per le quali io mostrasse come per lei si sveglia questo Amore, e come non solamente si sveglia là ove dorme, ma là ove non è in potenzia, ella, mirabilmente, operando lo fa venire. E allora dissi questo sonetto, lo quale comincia: Ne li occhi porta.

The literary form of prosimetrum did not come to an end with Dante. Jacopo Sannazzaro (1458-1530) employed it in his Arcadia (1481-86). Here the poems are usually inserts in the form of musical compositions by some one of the assembled company, but there are also some verses used in the way illustrated above.³⁵ Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), whose Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1580-81) appeared in 1590, followed Sannazzaro in this as in other things.³⁶ Shakespere often varies his blank verse with prose and lyrics. At the close of the sixteenth century Leroy, Gillot, Chrestien, Rapin, Pithou, Passerat and Durant united in writing, in prose and verse, La Satire Ménippée (1593), which, by its title, sends our thoughts back to Varro and Menippus.³⁷ Finally we may note that certain Italian novellieri, following the example of Boccaccio (1313-78) in the Decameron, adorned their prose with canzoni. Such were Giovanni Fiorentino (ca. 1350-1406), Giovan Francesco Straparola (ca. 1480?-1565?) and Giraldi Cinzio (ca. 1504-73).³⁸

We have now reached—and passed—the period in which Aucassin et Nicolette was composed, and I have endeavored to show by a sufficient, though not complete, series of examples that the chantefable does not stand alone, but forms a member of an extensive body of literature whose tradition was constant in western Europe down to the close of the Middle Ages. With such a persistent anterior and contemporary use of the prosimetrum style, the astonishing thing is, not that the author of Aucassin should have used it, but that it had no further fortune in France, as it had in Italy.³⁹

Notes

1. Aucassin et Nicolette: Chantefable du xiii^e siècle, éditée par Mario Roques (Paris: Champion, Classiques français du moyen âge, 1925).

2. The italics in this quotation are mine.

3. Roques, op. cit., pp. iv-vi.

4. G. Paris, Poèmes et Légendes du moyen âge (Paris, 1900), p. 99.

5. See the bibliography listed by M. Roques on pp. xxix-xxxvi of the work cited above.

6. “Die Form der Cantefable,” Zs. f. franz. Spr. u. Lit., XLII (1912), 250 ff.

7. B. ten Brink, Dauer und Klang (Strassburg, 1879), p. iv.

8. H. Suchier-A. Birsch Hirschfeld, Geschichte der französischen Literatur (2. Aufl., Leipzig und Wien: Bibliographisches Institut, 1913), I, 226, 227. Although he does not say so, he may have had in mind the Ninus fragments and the erotica of Parthenius.

9. Spielmannsbuch (3d ed., Berlin, 1905), pp. 435-455.

10. Sitzungsberichte der kgl. preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Kl., 1904, p. 899; 1918, p. 1097, note 1.

11. “Die Quelle des Aucassin,” Zs. f. roman. Philol. XLIV (1924), 291 ff.

12. H. Brunner, Über Aucassin und Nicolette (Halle, 1880), pointed out that Aucassin = Al-Kásim, the name of a Moorish king who ruled Cordova between 1018 and 1021.

13. “Aucassin und Nicolette,” Zs. f. roman. Philol., XXXIV (1910), 513 ff.

14. Better Celtic illustrations of prose mixed with verse, in which the latter is an indispensable and even dramatic part of the narrative, may be found in English in J. Dunn's translation of the Táin Bó Cúalnge (London: Nutt, 1914). For the Irish text of this, together with a German translation, see edition of E. Windish, Die altirische Heldensage Táin Bó Cúalnge (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1905).

15. It would be tedious and pedantic to cite at length; one may mention Howard the Halt, The Banded Men, The Ere-Dwellers, and other pieces translated by Morris and Magnússon in the Saga Library. For a detailed study of prose-and-verse in Old-Norse literature the reader is referred to H. A. Bellows, The Relations between Prose and Metrical Composition in Old Norse Literature (Harvard diss., 1910). The present state of critical opinion—with the exception of Jordan's article mentioned above—has been admirably summed up by Roques, op. cit., pp. vii-x.

16. The theory that derives Provençal poetry from Arabic poetry is now no longer largely credited.

17. Academica, i, 2. See also Quintilian, Institutiones, x, 1, 95, Aulus Gellius, Noctes atticae, ii, 18.

18. The Book of Judges, for example, is written in prose-and-verse.

19. C. Wachsmuth, Sillographorum graecorum reliquiae (2d ed., Leipzig, 1885), p. 79, writes: Hic igitur Menippus, quem acerbissime philosophos mortuous irridere videmus in Luciani scriptis, vivos irrisse audimus ex Diogene apud Lucian., mort. dialog I 1, conscripsit ad philosophos potissimum sigillandos satiras prosa oratione eam variavit immixtis diversi generis versibus parodiis facetiis. quod ita sese habere, etsi cetera omnia deessent testimonia, iam satis demonstraretur eo quod Varro Menippeus vocatus est ob saturas cynicas, quas ille Menippeas appellavit et composuit, ut ipse ait, ‘Menippum imitatus, non interpretatus.’

20. I have not been able to find, as W. C. Wright directs in her History of Greek Literature (New York: American Book Co., 1907), p. 378, any fragments of Menippus under Bion in C. Wachsmuth's work cited above; I do find, however, this statement on p. 85 of the Sillographorum: “Fati autem invidia factum est, ut Menippi Meliagrique sπουδογελοίων librorum paene nihil sit relictum.”

21. Cf. Petronii Saturae et Liber Priapeorum, 5th ed., F. Bücheler-W. Heraeus (Berlin: Weidmann, 1912), pp. 193, 194.

22. Bücheler-Heraeus, ed. cit., pp. 256, 257.

23. Bücheler-Heraeus, ed. cit., p. 56. A still better illustration is found in chapter CXXXI ed. cit., pp. 102 ff.

24. Ed. A. Dick, Martianus Capella (Liepzig: Teubner, 1925).

25. Ed. cit., pp. 48, 49.

26. Ed. H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand (London: Loeb Library, 1918), pp. 180, 182.

27. John the Scot's commentary on Martianus, discovered by Hauréau among the ninth century MSS once belonging to the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Notices et Extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale (Paris, 1862), XX (2), 1 ff.), further attests the familiarity with him in this century.

28. Cf. M. Manitius, Geschichte der Lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters (München: Beck, 1911), I, 33 (“Fortleben der Consolatio”).

29. I have not been able to consult a complete edition of this document; the edition of B. Wiese in Zs. f. roman. Philol., VII (1883), 236 ff., reprinted in the Bibliotheca Romanica, Nos. 94, 95, contains no prose. I have used L. Gaiter, Il Tesoro di Brunetto Latini volgarizzato da Bono Giamboni raffrontato col testo autentico francese edito da P. Chabaille, emendato con mss. ed illustrato (Bologna, 1878), Vol. I, in the Introduction whereof certain extracts of prose and verse from the Tesoretto are found.

30. L. Gaiter, op. cit., I, 173 ff.

31. Ed. Carlo Baudi di Vesme (Bologna, 1875).

32. Op. cit., p. 28. See also Parte nona, pp. 273, 279.

33. Cf. Liber de Rectoribus of Sedulius, supra, p. 165.

34. Text quoted from Le Opere di Dante, edited by the Società Dantesca Italiana (Florence: R. Bemporad e Figlio, 1921), pp. 24, 25.

35. Cf. the end of Prosa VIII and Egloga VIII.

36. Cf. ed. E. A. Baker (reprinted by Routledge and Sons: London, 1921), p. 144.

37. J. C. F. Bähr, Geschichte der Römischen Literatur (Karlsruhe: 1868), I, 557, § 141, note 19, refers to the Satira Menippea of the Dutch classical scholar Justus Lipsius in J. Lipsii Opera (Antwerp, 1637 ff.), I, 417 ff. I have not been able to consult this work.

38. The works of these authors may be found in Raccolta di Novellieri Italiani (Firenze: Tipografia Borghi e Compagni, 1833-34), II, 2225 ff., 1287 ff., 1753 ff., except the Piacevoli Notti of Straparola, edited by G. Rua, Bologna, 1898-1908.

39. Rutebeuf's Dit de l’Herberie, consisting of a piece of prose and a piece of poetry, is not a chantefable. The Satire Ménippée ignores native mediaeval tradition and is inspired by classical antiquity. Examples of narrative verse interspersed with lyrics are afforded by Cleomadès, Meliacin and Guillaume de Dole. The Provençal razo contains a prose dedication to a poem. Further examples of a bastard sort of rhyme-prose may be found by consulting the Index of Manitius, op. cit. supra, sub voce “Reimprosa.”