Objects, Possession and Identity in the Lais of Marie de France

Nancy Bradley Warren

Indiana University

In her Lais, Marie de France employs a code or system of identification based on objects and possessions. Although Marie spends very little time on physical description of her characters and very little time on what twentieth-century readers would consider “characterization,” she does associate characters in almost all of her lais with an object or possession of some kind. In Marie’s Lais, association with objects and ownership (or lack thereof) are profoundly tied with characters’ identities. In The Field of Cultural Production Pierre Bourdieu writes that symbolic systems are expressions of social relations transformed to a greater or lesser degree (32). Though much has been written about the symbolism in Marie’s Lais and the symbolic meanings of particular objects, this paper does not focus on symbolism per se. Rather, I am interested in examining how using objects as a way of constructing identity is itself a kind of symbol, and what this technique may express about the social relations which provide the textual environment for the Lais.

Social and literary conventions are partly behind Marie’s descriptive technique and her way of characterizing identity with possessions. It is not unusual that Marie does not devote extended passages to physical description, for such description is rarely found in twelfth-century literature. Physical description in the Lais consists largely of stock phrases—the women are beautiful with clear eyes, well-placed noses, and well formed limbs while the men are handsome, endowed with noble bodies appropriate to their prowess. The lack of physical description in the Lais is also part of the medieval literary tradition of abbreviatio. Micheline de Combarieu says that Marie practices an “esthétique de la brièveté” (37). It is more important to Marie’s project that she focus on action and on human social relations than on the physical particularities of the characters involved.

Identification by physical details with its corresponding de-emphasis upon description spills over into characterization as well. Personality and complex psychology as twentieth-century readers know them play little role in Marie’s Lais, and this is the case with many texts of her period. As with physical description, the details of a lord’s or lady’s personality are relatively unimportant in comparison to social position. Just as there are stock physical descriptions of beautiful, clear-eyed ladies and handsome, strong knights, there are likewise stock character descriptions. Knights are brave, husbands and wives are faithful (or the opposite), ladies are virtuous (or the opposite), old men are jealous, etc.

Such lack of details makes it even more curious and significant that Marie shifts her focus from action and relationships to objects as character indicators in her Lais, even if the association of characters with objects as a means of identification is somewhat conventional. Identifying a character by portraying him or her with an object is common in the visual arts of Marie’s period (as well as those before and after her time). In writing about twelfth-century English painting, T. A. Heslop says that the most straightforward method of indicating status and personality is through

the depiction of attributes such as clothing and equipment. Crown, orb and sceptre signify a king, whereas apron, hammer and tongs indicate a smith. (137)

Marie does use objects in this way, as a straightforward means of marking and identification. For example, in Milun, the son’s possession of the silk cloth and the gold ring unambiguously indicates his nobility.

While Marie uses objects somewhat conventionally as a way of placing characters within a particular social register or to a particular realm, I believe that the objects Marie associates with her characters serve as more than markers. The objects are more fundamentally connected to the characters’ identities, even to the extent that the identities depend on the objects rather than just being indicated by the objects. Although this system of identification is evident throughout the Lais, here for the sake of time I will focus primarily on Fresne, Bisclavret, Lanval, Laüstic, and Chaitivel as examples of different variations of the technique.

In Milun and Fresne the interior and invisible become public and concrete by means of property, thus creating identity. In each of these lais, a child is given a golden ring and is wrapped in precious cloths (Milun 96–104, Fresne 121–34). The son in Milun already knows his family history, for he is able to recount the story of his birth to Milun. He has also been able to create an identity for himself as a knight by virtue of his deeds and his worthiness. He is even given a name based on his actions:

Puis ad tant fet par sa pruësce,

Par sa bunté, par sa largesce,

Que cil ki nel seivent numer

L’apeloent partut “Sanz Per.” (Milun 337–40)

In fact, “Sanz Per” is the only name Marie gives us for the son, and this is one of the few instances in the Lais where a character is identified primarily by actions rather than possessions. In Milun, the ring partially creates identity in that it confirms identity and makes it public, but actually the ring is not the sole creator of identity as objects and possessions are in other lais.

Fresne, unlike Sanz Per, does not know her true parentage, nor does she know the true origin of the cloth and the ring. The cloth, which plays no real role in establishing identity in Milun, is crucial in Fresne. When Fresne’s mother asks her about the cloth, Fresne responds:

Dame, m’aunte ki me nuri,

L’abeesse kil me bailla,

A garder le me comanda.

Cest e un anel me baillerent

Cil ki a nurir m’enveierent. (Fresne 436–40)

For Fresne, unlike Sanz Per, creating an identity primarily through deeds and actions is not possible. Although she behaves admirably and fulfills the identity of a noble lady as well as Sanz Per fulfills the role of knight, because Fresne lacks documentation of her nobility she is rejected as an suitable wife for the king. For Fresne, the ring ultimately confirms her social identity, but it is possession of the cloth that makes this confirmation possible. Possession of the cloth also allows her to make manifest her noble character traits in a way that other actions alone seem unable to do.

Fresne’s mother gives her the paile roé (Fresne 123) and the ring of fin or set with une jagunce (129–30) in order to establish the child’s social identity. The mother wants whoever finds the child to know “Qu’ele est nee de bone gent” (Fresne 134).^[1] In one respect, the ploy works, for the porter who finds the child realizes “Qu’ele est nee de haute gent” (Fresne 210). However, in another respect, the mother’s attempt fails. The child is named not for the silk cloth or for the ring with its precious stone, but for another object, the ash tree in which she is found. The association with this object creates an identity for Fresne which is faulty and which is ultimately given as the cause of her rejection by the king’s retainers in favor of her twin Codre as a wife for the king. The knights tell the king:

Pur le freisne que vus larrez

En eschange le codre avrez;

En la codre ad noiz e deduiz,

Li freisnes ne porte unke fruiz! (Fresne 337–40)

The problem lies in the fact that Fresne’s identity is predicated on association with the wrong object.

When Fresne gives up her cloth, placing it on her lover’s marriage bed, she is giving up her hopes of establishing her identity. Paradoxically, it is this very act that allows Fresne to establish her social identity, for it is the cloth her mother first recognizes so that she is finally moved to confess. Judith Rothschild says of Fresne’s gift to her beloved, “In her gesture of placing the silken coverlet upon the bed, her sense of propriety and beauty is exteriorized” (78). I would expand this reading beyond aesthetic exteriorization to include exteriorization and concretization of the noble nature and noble actions Fresne has exhibited all along. Fresne’s noble actions up until she places the cloth on the bed are to no avail, at least as far as establishing her identity goes. It is only through her property (and paradoxically through giving up that property which establishes her identity) that she is able to make known effectively her identity as both socially noble and noble in character. Without the cloth and the ring, Fresne would be nothing in spite of her noble character traits. Sanz Per does not seem to have this problem, possibly because, as a man, his public actions speak louder than the domestic actions of a woman. In her discussion of Le Fresne, Michelle Freeman writes that Fresne’s placing the cloth on the bed

allows her story to be removed from the private context of women, rendering it possible for her true identity to be made public, complete, and legitimate. (256)

Identity does not count until it is made public, and Sanz Per can accomplish this through his actions, albeit only partially since he needs the ring to confirm his identity. However, Fresne can only make her identity public through her possessions.

In Bisclavret, Marie gives another example of a character whose internal identity can only be known (and thus can only be real as far as society is concerned) through his possessions. Bisclavret’s transformation into a werewolf occurs spontaneously; however, he can only change back into his human form by putting on his own clothes again. He tells his wife that if he does not have his own clothes, “Bisclavret sereie a tuz jurs” (Bisclavret 75).^[2] The name “Bisclavret” itself is related to clothing, as J. Loth demonstrates:

Bisclavret n’a besoin d’aucune modification; il se décompose en bisc- et lavret: bisc, écourté; lavret, qui porte des hauts-de-chusses ou culotte. (305)

That we know no other name for the protagonist of this lai except “Bisclavret” underlines the fact that his identity depends on his clothing.

When Bisclavret’s wife has his clothes stolen and he must remain a werewolf, it is clear that he retains his rational, human identity, and this identity is at least somewhat recognizable. When Bisclavret in his werewolf form prostrates himself before the king, the king says, “Ele ad sen d’hume, merci crie” (Bisclavret 153). Like Fresne, who is noble all along but unable to prove her identity or make it concretely known without her property, Bisclavret is human all along. However, he is unable publicly to make his humanity entirely recognizable as such without his clothing. Again, the identity does not count in a socially important way until it is made public, and this is only accomplished through property. Even after Bisclavret’s wife has confessed, Bisclavret’s identity is not fully accepted until he puts on his clothes and is seen in human form.

There seems to be more than werewolf lore at work in Bisclavret; clothes have a particular significance in twelfth-century Anglo-Norman systems of identification. Heslop shows that in the twelfth-century visual arts in England, clothing is a prime method of indicating social position and rank (141). In other of Marie’s lais (especially Guigemar), clothing has a special relationship to identity. Interestingly, there is a passage in Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain, another work from the late twelfth century, in which identity depends on clothing. Yvain, having gone mad, is asleep naked in the woods. A young woman, upon seeing him, does not recognize him, and Chrétien points out that it is because of Yvain’s nudity that the girl cannot recognize him. If he were dressed as usual, she would have no trouble in determining his identity. Chrétien writes:

Vers l’ome nu, que eles voient,

Cort et desçant l’une des trois,

Mes mout le regarda, einçois

Que rien nule sor lui veïst,

Qui reconoistre li feïst;

Si l’avoit ele tant veü,

Que tost l’eüst reconeü,

Se il fust de si riche ator,

Come il avoit esté maint jor. (Yvain 2892–900)

Yvain is, like Marie’s Lais, a work in which identity is often constructed through associations and possessions in complex and interesting ways. For example, Yvain, in the course of his quest, abandons his given name and adopts the name “Le chevalier au lion” after the lion who accompanies him. The change in name accompanies a change in Yvain’s character, personality, and identity.

Bisclavret and Fresne as well as the passage from Yvain show how lack of property, being deprived of a possession, can lead to the loss of identity (or, for Fresne, the potential of permanent lack of proper identity). In Lanval, as in Equitan, where the seneschal’s wife protests that the king’s wealth makes him an unsuitable partner for her (Equitan 121–28), identity has an economic component. Lanval, neglected by King Arthur (Lanval 14–26) and unable to draw on his own family’s wealth because he is far from home (27–28), cannot function as a knight in King Arthur’s court. Because he cannot fulfill this identity, he departs (Lanval 39–42).

As Michèle Koubichkine indicates: “Lanval est réduit à l’absence d’être; sans attaches matérielles, sociales ou affectives dans ce monde, il n’existe pas” (473). What Lanval needs to re-establish himself as a worthy knight is wealth, and this is exactly what the fairy mistress will provide. In fact, she and her maidens are first and foremost identified and associated with great wealth. When the two maidens appear to Lanval, Marie first mentions their beauty, but she then concentrates on their rich clothing and the precious objects they carry, such as the golden basin borne by the eldest. Before the fairy mistress herself appears, Marie describes the incredible richness of her tref, more than Semiramis or Octavian could afford, thus predicating her identity on wealth and property (Lanval 82–86).

The limitless riches granted to Lanval by the fairy mistress allow him to be himself, to fulfill his identity. Lanval gives rich gifts and practices great charity with his new wealth (Lanval 209–12). As is the case with Fresne, the property enables him to make public and thus make real the noble and generous nature always within him. Koubichkine calls this Lanval’s “naissance . . . à lui-meme” (476). When Lanval breaks the fairy mistress’s commandment and speaks of her, thus losing not only his love but also the source of his wealth, he returns to non-identity. According to Koubichkine, Lanval “redevient objet quasi impersonnel aux mains des autres (411–14) et son retour à l’inexistence est plusiers fois souligné par Marie de France” (478). Thus Lanval loses his identity with his property. Without property, objects, he becomes object rather than subject.

Like Lanval, the lady in Laüstic is able to move from the status of object (wife possessed by her husband) to that of a subject with a proper identity through possessions. Also like Lanval, the lady returns to being an object when possession is compromised. In Laüstic characters’ identities, objects, and love relationships seem linked in such a way that destruction of the objects and the destruction of the relationships are tied to the destruction of the characters’ identities. The vase which encloses the corpse of the nightingale contains not only the symbol of the relationship (itself an important aspect of the identities of the lover and the lady) but also that which makes possible the lady’s identity as separate and independent of her husband. When the husband questions that lady concerning her nocturnal activities, she tells him, “Il nen ad joië en cest mund / Ki n’ot le laüstic chanter” (Laüstic 84–85). The nightingale, as the lady’s excuse, provides an opportunity for her to have a relationship which gives her true happiness and which separates her from her husband. In her response the lady also identifies herself as one whose appreciations and pleasures (the song of the nightingale as well as true love) are distinct from, and presumably superior to, those of her husband.

In a reference to the Philomela story, Marie writes that the lady wraps the nightingale in “une piece de samit / A or brusdé e tut escrit” (Laüstic 135–36). Like Philomela, who tells her story to her sister by weaving it into a tapestry, this lady has inscribed her story, and thus her identity, on the cloth which she sends, wrapped around the dead bird, to her lover. The lover takes on the identity of the vase he has constructed to hold the nightingale’s corpse. He, like the vase, becomes a receptacle of memories, and appropriately he is permanently associated with the vase: “Tuz jurs l’ad fete od lui porter” (Laüstic 156).

Chaitivel presents an unusual case as there is no object per se with which any character is associated. However, the four lovers themselves become objects, simultaneously creating an identity for the lady and lacking individual identities and subjectivity themselves. Until three of the four knights are killed in the tournament, all four are interchangeable. Marie writes:

En Bretaine ot quatre baruns,

Mes jeo ne sai numer lur nuns;

Il n’aveient gueres d’eé,

Mes mut erent de grant beauté

E chevalier pruz e vaillant,

Large, curteis e despendant. (Chaitivel 33–38)

The nameless knights all share the same character traits, and the lady, unable to choose, shows them all equal favor. The issue of names is important here, for, while Marie does not give the names of the knights or the lady, she says she does not know the knights’ names. This de-emphasizes an important aspect of the knights’ identities. However, each of the knights uses the lady’s name as his battle cry: “E chescuns escriot sun nun” (Chaitivel 70). The lady thus gains an identity by possessing these four knights, but because no knight truly possesses her, none has a particular identity.^[3]

When three of the four knights are killed in the tournament, the one remaining knight does gain a kind of identity. Ironically, it is an identity predicated on loss rather than on possession, and this is the tragedy of Chaitivel. The fourth knight is wounded in such a way that he can never consummate his relationship with the lady and never fully possess her in a sexual relationship (Chaitivel 122–24). This wound also deprives the knight of the chance to pass on a name to future generations, an effect which further emphasizes the knight’s namelessness and lack of identity. He does not even possess the lady’s thoughts, for she continually mourns for the three dead knights. She tells him that she thinks about “voz cumpainuns” (Chaitivel 194), and she also seems to see herself as having lost her identity with the loss of the three knights vying for her. She says:

Jamés dame de mun parage,

Ja tant n’iert bele, pruz ne sage,

Teus quatre ensemble n’amera

Ne en un jur si nes perdra. (Chaitivel 195–98)

The issue of names resurfaces at the end of the lai when the lady and the remaining knight discuss the name of the lai. She wants to call it Quatre Dols, but he prevails on her to call it Chaitivel, the name which reflects his losses.

The pervasiveness of Marie’s technique in different permutations as well as the similarity between Marie’s and Chrétien’s methods of constructing and describing identity lend strength to Bourdieu’s formulation that symbolic systems are expressions of social relations. Georges Duby notes that the feudalization of the eleventh and twelfth centuries “represents a privatization of power” (8), but one might “equally well say that in feudal society everything became public” (9). Twelfth-century Anglo-Norman society evidently viewed identity as something more dependent on external factors than internal ones, and this view seems consonant with a society in which the concepts of public and private property and power were shifting. An identity which must be made public to be actualized and which must involve property and ownership to be made public underlines the importance of private property and emphasizes it as the basis for public power.

Works Cited

Benkov, Edith Joyce. “The Naked Beast: Clothing and Humanity in Bisclavret.” Chimères 19 (1988): 27–43.

Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production. Ed. Randal Johnson. New York: Columbia UP, 1990.

Chrétien de Troyes. Yvain ou Le Chevalier au Lion. Ed. Michel Rousse. Paris: Flammarion, 1990.

Combarieu, Micheline de. “Les Objets dans les lais de Marie de France.” Marche Romane 30.3–4 (1980): 37–48.

Duby, Georges. “Private Power, Public Power.” Revelations of the Medieval World. A History of Private Life 2. Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Ed. Georges Duby. Cambridge: Belknap- Harvard UP, 1988.

Freeman, Michelle. “The Power of Sisterhood: Marie de France’s Le Fresne’.” Women and Power in the Middle Ages. Ed. Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1988. 250–64.

Heslop, T. A. “Romanesque Painting and Social Distinction: The Magi and the Shepherds.” England in the Twelfth-Century Proceedings of the 1988 Harlaxton Symposium. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1990. 137–52.

Koubichkine, Michèle. “A Propos du Lai de Lanval.” Le Moyen Age 4th ser. 26 (1972): 467–88.

Loth, J. “Le Lai du Bisclavret: Le Sens de ce nom et son importance.” Revue Celtique 44(1927): 300–07.

Marie de France. Lais. Ed. Jean Rychner. Les Classiques Français du Moyen Age. Paris: Champion, 1983.

Rothschild, Judith Rice. Narrative Techniques in the Lais of Marie de France: Themes and Variations. Vol. 1. North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures 39. Ed. Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce. Chapel Hill: UNC Department of Romance Languages, 1974.

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^[1]On this point, Michelle Freeman writes, “Since the cloth will be so closely associated with Le Fresne and the uncovering of her true identity, I cannot help but conclude that the superlatives used in its description also apply metonymically to the child it protects” (252).

^[2]The use of clothing as the agent of transformation for a werewolf is not a technique invented by Marie. As Edith Benkov points out, Ovid and Pliny “stress the need for the same clothing for the transformation from wolf to man” (29).

^[3]The concept of a name as a kind of “property” which confers public identity surfaces in a different way in Le Fresne. In Le Fresne, Michelle Freeman notes that, although Fresne recovers her father’s name when her mother identifies her, and although in less than a day she marries and takes her husband’s name, we are told neither of these “official public titles” (259). Fresne “is not identified by Marie’s text in terms of the men to whom she ostensibly belongs” (Freeman 259). For Freeman, the absence of such names and the lack of this particular kind of identity indicates the text’s “exemplarity as a woman’s narrative” (259).