SOURCE: "Wine Reckonings in Bodel's Jeu de Saint Nicolas," in Modern Language Notes, Vol. L, No. 1, January, 1935, pp. 9-13.

[In the following essay, Frank considers the humor and trickery in the tavern scenes from Jeu de Saint Nicolas.]

Schulze, Guesnon and Jeanroy have all tried to solve the reckonings of the tavern-keeper in the Jeu de S. Nicolas, but with results none too satisfactory even to themselves.¹ As Jeanroy says, these accounts are "volontairement boîteux, et c'est en cela précisément que doit consister le comique de la scène." If we are to share in this fun, however, it seems worth while attempting to discover just wherein these accounts do limp. Moreover, it appears from looking into them that Bodel is not only satirizing the mathematics of publicans, as Jeanroy suggests, but is also playing upon the Pathelinian theme of the cheater cheated, or, he robs best who robs last.

The first scene to involve a discussion of the host's wine-prices begins at line 251. Li Tavreniers offers his wine at the tariff of the town (258) and Auberon, the King's messenger, drinks une pinte (262). When Auberon comes to pay for his pint, he asks the price and is told that it costs a denier, but that if he will drink another pint, he may have the second for a maille (i. e., half a denier), that is, the two pints for 1 ½d. Take your choice, says the host in effect, "pay a denier or drink again" (274-7).

Now it is clear from these lines that the host is reckoning his wine at one denier the pint (with a reduced rate for two pints)² and that, accordingly, when he adds "c'est a douze deniers sans faille" (276), he means that 12 pints of his wine are worth 12 deniers. But what is this measure of 12 pints? Jeanroy (note to 1. 707) asks the question without answering it, and Guesnon, confusing the issue by assuming that the measure must contain 4 lots, confesses he does not know. The measure, however, is most probably that mentioned in line 1038, the broc (Picard, broche) which Cotgrave defines as "a steane, great flagon, tankard or pot; holding (most commonly) twelve Parisian pints."³

Auberon, in the scene just discussed, demurs at the host's price. He is willing to pay the maille at once and later, on his return, to drink another pint and pay the denier then. But the host does not trust him and demands at least "trois partis" forthwith in payment of the wine already drunk. Guesnon and Schulze correctly interpret these "trois partis" as equal to half of 1½ d., that is ¾ d. (or 1½ mailles, the parti being worth ½ maille). Jeanroy, misled by the reckoning of 1. 680 f., somehow reached the conclusion that the parti was there equivalent to a demi-denier, but in this later reckoning, as in 1. 817, the "trois partis" are still equivalent to % d. and, as we shall see, it is for quite another reason that the account of 1. 680 f. is in error.

While Auberon is disputing with the host, Cliquet appears (290), eager for a little game of dice. Auberon and Cliquet shake for the drinks and the former wins, thereby shifting the burden of the debt to the latter. For the rest of the play it is Cliquet, a thief, who owes the "trois partis" for the messenger's drink. Cliquet remains at the inn and presently welcomes there a second thief, Pincedé, inviting his companion to drink and calling to the tavern-boy, Caignet, to draw the wine for them:

Bevons un denier, toute voie.
Saque nous demi lot, Caignet!
(676-7)

Evidently, for Cliquet a demi lot of wine may be had for a denier. But, as we have seen above, the host's regular price for his wine was 1 d. a pinte. The demi lot ought therefore to be the equivalent of a pint. I think it was. Guesnon, however, assumed, as we have seen,⁴ that in this play a lot contained four pints; Schulze did not specify but believed the lot "ein ziemlich grosses Mass," whereas Jeanroy maintained that "nous ne savons pas quel rapport il y avait entre le lot et la pinte."

Some further evidence is available on the subject. Cotgrave states that the French or Parisian pinte is equal to about 27 English ounces, that the lot contains about as much as the English pottle, and that the pottle contains 64 ounces. A lot, therefore, by Cotgrave's day was equal to about 10 ounces more than two French or Parisian pints.⁵ This is, roughly, the relation between the lot and the pint indicated in the example cited by Godefroy (1 lot = 1 quart, or 2 pints; see note 4). It is also the equivalence known to La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, who says, s. v. lot, "un Artésien m'a dit qu'un lot, à Arras, étoit le double de la pinte dans le même lieu." It seems reasonable to assume therefore that in our play the demi lot was little, if any, more than the pint, and that the host's normal price for his wine was 1 d. a demi lot, even as Cliquet assumes, 2 d. a lot,⁶ and 12 d. a broc.

This, however, is not what the tavern-keeper proceeds to charge. He evidently knows Cliquet and his thieving companions. He also knows how to take advantage of their drunkenness. For the King's messenger he may be willing to reduce his prices slightly (2 pints for 1½d.). But Cliquet and company are quite another matter. He cheats them roundly by charging them 3 d., sometimes 3¼d., a lot for their wine (680, 753, 815), 2 d. for a demi-lot (753).

The first time that the new rate goes into effect, the host refrains from stating outright what he is charging (680 f.):

Cliquet, tu devoies un lot
Et puis un denier de ton gieu,
Et trois partis pour le courlieu.
Che sont cinc deniers, poi s'en faut.

And Cliquet answers:

Cinc denier soient, ne m'en chaut.
Aine ostes ne me trouva dur.

In other words, the host is here charging a levy of 1 d. on the game of dice, plus ¾d. for the messenger's drink, and the rest of the "cinc deniers" (or "poi s'en faut") is the price of Cliquet's lot of wine—¾ d.! Cliquet knows the count is false—though in his muddled condition he probably thinks it is only ¼ d. and not 1¼ d. too much—but he answers: "Let it be 5 d.; I don't care—no host ever found me hard on him."

The second time that a wine bill is mentioned (752-3),⁷ the lot is reckoned at 3 d. (this is the lot ordered in 1. 736), and the demi lot is priced, still more exorbitantly, at 2 d. (this was ordered in 1. 677 and was still unconsumed 1. 716). Finally, the first reckoning is repeated (815), this time with a direct charge of 3 d. for the first lot, though the full bill again involves a charge of 3¼ d.⁸

Now, the audience, knowing the host's original price to the King's messenger, must have greeted each new false reckoning to Cliquet and his friends with special amusement. Here, as in the dicing scene (891,948-9) where the tavern-boy manages to abstract 3 d. for himself and thus leave the robbers only a depleted pool of 6 d. to divide between the three of them, some of the fun must surely have consisted in watching the thieves themselves being fleeced.

Notes

¹ Schulze, ZRP., XXX (1906), 103 f.; Guesnon, Moyen Age, XII (1908), 75 f.; Jeanroy, ed. CFMA., notes to lines 274-89, 680-4, 707.

² Guesnon missed this point, unfortunately, and assumed that the price of "trois partis" was the normal price for a pint of wine, that four pints were equivalent to one lot, and that accordingly the host's later reckoning of 3 d. per lot (4 x ¾d.) was correct. But it is evident from the context that the host's normal rate was 1 pint = 1 denier and that the price of ¾d. to Auberon was a reduction of the normal tariff.

³ The jalaye also, according to Cotgrave, was a wine measure "containing 12 (French) Pintes," but since the broc is mentioned elsewhere in our text, it seems more likely to have been the vessel used.

⁴ Guesnon perhaps relied upon Godefroy, who says, s. v. lot: "Dans l'Ile-de-France, la Picardie, I'Artois et la Flandre, le lot valait quatre pintes." But Godefroy gives us no proof for this statement, and it is well known that the measure varied from time to time and place to place. Indeed one of Godefroy's examples ("Dialog. fr.-flam., fo 2c, Michelant") states that "le pinte nomme on en aucun lieu chopine et le lot une quarte" (i. e. 2 pints) and it is this equivalence of 1 lot = 2 pints that I believe is revealed by our play. Godefroy's example is from Le Livre des Mestiers; cf. J. Gessler's ed., III, 8.

⁵ These figures may be verified in Cotgrave's Dictionary s. v. lot, pinte, pottle, quart. According to the same authority (s. v. pinte), "La pinte de S. Dennis, et de plusieurs autres lieux a l'entour de Paris. Is halfe as big again as the ordinary one of Paris," but this measure does not seem to be involved in our play.

⁶ If the price were 1 d. a pint, and the lot were 10 ounces more than 2 French pints, it would still be reasonable to sell this wine at 2 d. the lot, since a slight reduction might be expected for the larger quantity. In Courtois d'Arras, which is roughly contemporaneous with our text, the wine is reckoned 6 d. the lot (1. 129), but the inn visited by Courtois is an exceptionally luxurious place (133-41).

⁷ I agree with Jeanroy (note to 752-3) that it would be appropriate to attribute this speech to Caignet. Incidentally, this bill of 752-3 is not mentioned again, apparently being charged to Pincede and Rasoir (cf. 1332); but in the end Cliquet's coat pays for both wine accounts, as well as for a loan of 11 d. plus 1 d. tax (1333).