Les Mots d'Aliénor: Aliénor d'Aquitaine et son siècle by

Katy Bernard (review)

Wendy Pfeffer

Tenso, Volume 33, Numbers 1-2, Spring-Fall 2018, pp. 121-125 (Review)

Published by Société Guilhem IX

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ten.2018.0007

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/689732

Access provided by University of South Dakota (5 Aug 2018 11:02 GMT)

Katy Bernard. Les Mots d’Aliénor: Aliénor d’Aquitaine et
son siècle. [Bordeaux]: Éditions Confluences, 2015. 275
pp. ISBN: 978–2–35527–147–2. €18
In its title and organization, Les Mots d’Aliénor is a bit like a
children’s book; Katy Bernard has intended an abécédaire of the
woman we call Eleanor of Aquitaine. The subtitle of the work,
“Eleanor and Her World” or “Eleanor and Her Times,” is a much
better description of Bernard’s effort, for in Les Mots d’Aliénor the
French scholar attempts a jigsaw-puzzle portrait not only of the
Duchess of Aquitaine, Queen first of France and then of England,
but also of the world Aliénor lived in, using, insofar as possible,
contemporary texts, sometimes cited at length. In this work for the
general public, Bernard succeeds fairly well; the scholarly reader
will also find interesting nuggets of information.
Bernard chose 198 headers or rubrics by which to organize the
information. Given the format, some duplication among entries
is unavoidable, but the repeats are only evident to the reader
who chooses to start at the letter A (“Aliénor” is the first entry)
and continues to the end, the letter W (“Westminster, abbaye
de”). Between these pillars are entries on topics as varied as the
storyteller Bléhéri, Manuel I Comnenus (emperor of Byzantium),
the Nun of Barking, and Wace. More germane to Tenso readers are
the multiple entries on troubadours who may have had contact with
Aliénor and her family, including Bernart de Ventadorn, Bertran
de Born, Cercamon, Gaucelm Faidit, Guilhem IX, Jaufre Rudel,
Marcabru, and Rigaut de Barbezieux. Broader topics of Occitan
literary interest include “cour d’amour,” “courtoisie,” “croisade
contre les Albigeois,” “fin’amor,” “langue d’oc” and “langues”
in general, “matière troubadouresque,” “mécène et inspiratrice,”
“occitan ou langue d’oc,” “rayonnement troubadouresque,”
“trobar,” “trobairitz,” “troubadours,” and “vidas et razos.”
Many of the entries are short, though Bernard does expand when
there is sufficient source material to warrant a longer discussion.
Such expansions are particularly true when she is discussing
individual authors who may have interacted with Aliénor and her
family in some way or other. Bertran de Born, for example, merits
some ten pages (28–37), which open with Dante’s description of the
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troubadour in Inferno (XXVIII, vv. 118–135) alongside an excerpt

from Bertran’s vida. A brief description of Bertran’s involvement
in the Plantagenet family feuds is amplified by excerpts from “Ges
no mi desconort” (PC 80,21; PC numbers are not provided in the
book) and “Ges de far sirventes no·m tartz” (PC 80,20). Bertran’s
welcome of a new world order in 1189 is demonstrated by means of
lines from “Belh m’es quan vey camjar lo senhoratge” (PC 80,7).
Bernard cites other songs as well, for example, “Ges de disnar
no·m fora oi mais maitis” (PC 80,19), composed in celebration of
Mathilda of Saxony; or a lyric addressed to Geoffrey of Brittany,
“Rassa, tan creis e mont’e poia” (PC 80,37). Bernard portrays
Bertran as growing wiser with age, composing “Can mi perpens
ni m‘arbire” (PC 80,43) shortly before retiring to a monastery
in Dalon. Bernard concludes her defense of Bertran against the
Dantean attack by citing one last song, “Qan la novella flors par
el vergan” (PC 80,21), as evidence of the troubadour’s ability to
move with the wind, “Chant atressi cum fant li autre ausel” (PC
80,21 v.4). Similar varied and lengthy quotations accompany the
entries on Guilhem IX, Cercamon, and Bernart de Ventadorn;
Jaufre Rudel gets somewhat shorter shrift.
Bernard must be applauded for her use of original languages
whenever appropriate: Dante is quoted in Italian, the troubadours
in Occitan, Chrétien de Troyes in Old French, Philippe de Thaon
in Anglo-Norman, each citation with its French translation. When
discussing John Lackland, Bernard turns to William Shakespeare,
citing his King John (I, 1) in English with French translation (the
English could have used better proof-reading: for “goog mother,”
read “good mother,” 121). Latin works are presented only in
French translation.
The presentation of entries varies. Usually, each topic is
addressed more or less neutrally. But sometimes, Bernard decides
to use a form of direct address, so as to change the tone. For
example, on the subject of Aliénor’s birth place (“Naissance”),
“Où es-tu née Aliénor? A quelle date précise? Tu ne nous l’as pas
dit… On suppose que tu serais née en 1122 ou 1124…” (190). Or
she has Aliénor address the reader directly, “Mon nom a traversé
les âges,…. Il a été porté avant moi, en même temps que moi,

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mais il est devenu mon nom…”—this from the first entry in the
ABC, “Aliénor” (11). On occasion, Bernard waxes poetic, as
when describing Aliénor’s travels, under the rubric “Cavalière,”
amplified with excerpts from “Farai un vers de dreit nien” (PC
183,7). “Cavalière” opens with the words, “De grands espaces à
perte de vue, des forêts comme il en reste peu, des plaines à se
croire libérée de tout, des lacs qui sondent la profondeur du ciel.
Passer un cours d’eau, regarder passer les fleuves. C’est le vent qui
siffle à ses oreilles, qui cherche la chevelure, qui la trouve parfois”
(41). From here, Bernard recounts several of the trips Aliénor made
over the course of her life (though we learn nothing of her as a
horsewoman), before concluding at the queen’s final resting place,
“Au calme d’une couche de pierre, la tête bien calée, les yeux mi-
clos, tu lis un texte que toi seule peux voir encore” (43). The shift
in voice and tone is perhaps disconcerting. For the entry on Philip
Augustus, Bernard sets Aliénor as the author of the entry, as if she
had written his epitaph, “Tu es l’héritier que je n’ai pas à Louis…
mon premier mari.…” (51).
One entry worthy of note is “Ecrits.” Truth is, we have no
documents signed by Aliénor herself. Bernard takes advantage of
letters and charters that reflect her personality, offering the reader
a mini-anthology of Aliénorschriften, so that the non-specialist
can have a sense of the ruler; the specialist can be encouraged to
seek further.
That Bernard has searched far and wide to document her
Aliénor is clear from the breadth of her citation of literary and
historic sources; she ponders the gisant of Aliénor at Fontevraud,
the queen’s final resting place, and invites us to consider the text
being read, citing a contemporary literary work on this theme,
Valérie Beaudouin’s contribution to Oulipo’s Le Livre d’Aliénor
(139). The bibliography at the end, organized topically, includes
“Fonds historiques,” “Fonds littéraires et autres écrits (XIIe-
XIIIs.),” a “Casier des chartes, chroniques et correspondances,”
and then “Fonds complémentaires” for everything else. Given the
audience for this book, the bibliography appears very useful and
fairly complete, albeit dominated by French-language materials.

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“Gisant d’Aliénor d’Aquitaine (Abbaye de Fontevraud)”

by Hocusfocus55, originally posted at
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/98933807@N08/14721240048> email 2017–12

Also included are several pages of color illustrations (145–

152) that relate to entries in the volume: several illustrated initials
of troubadours, pictures from the Grandes Chroniques de France
that relate to Aliénor’s life as wife of Louis VII, pictures of various
Plantagenet kings, a photo of a charter issued in Aliénor’s name,
and a map of territories associated with her, the Plantagenet
Empire, and the Kingdom of France. The ABC is completed by
a family tree, from Aliénor’s grandparents to her grandchildren.
Katy Bernard is a comparatively young scholar who has sought
to make the troubadours better known to the non-specialist audience.
This book, using the lure of an important and enigmatic queen,
succeeds in putting troubadour lyric before the reader, integrating
that lyric into what is, in essence, an historical approach to the queen.
The volume is reasonably priced and readily available. Importantly,
it accomplishes its goal: to reach individuals who want to discover
or rediscover Aliénor and the literature of the twelfth century.

Wendy Pfeffer
University of Louisville

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WORK CITED

Oulipo. Le Livre d’Aliénor, ouvrage réalisé à l’occasion de

l’installation multimédia à l’Abbaye de Fontevraud du 14
juin au 16 octobre 2014. Installation conçue par l’Oulipo
(Valérie Beaudouin, Marcel Bénabou, Paul Fournel et
Jacques Roubaud) et Elena García-Oliveros, artiste visuelle,
avec le soutien de la direction de l’abbaye, de la DRAC
et de la Région Pays de La Loire. <http://oulipo.net/fr/
jeudis/fontevraud-le-livre-dalienor>; <www.fontevraud.fr/
lelivredalienor/>

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