Bose 1996

FROM EXEGESIS TO APPROPRIATION: THE MEDIEVAL SOLOMON
Author(s): MISHTOONI BOSE

Source: Medium Ævum, Vol. 65, No. 2 (1996), pp. 187-210
Published by: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43629847
Accessed: 08-10-2016 17:15 UTC
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MEDIUM JEV UM
VOL. LXV, No. 2 1996
FROM EXEGESIS TO APPROPRIATION: THE MEDIEVAL SOLOMON
During the summer of 1024, Fulbert of Chartres was called upon

nounce on a question raised by Duke William of Aquitaine as to wheth
not King Solomon had been granted salvation.1 The scriptural ba
William's anxieties would have been the account in I Kings xi of t
king's ignominious decline into a lecherous and idolatrous dotage. The p
account of King Solomon's career in the Book of Chronicles cont
evidence of this decline, and both narratives conclude by mentioning t
was buried in the same city as his father, King David, which might b
to imply that he had atoned for any supposed lapse into idolatr
problems encountered by Fulbert in attempting to resolve the re
uncertainty over Solomon's salvation were exacerbated in that his
authorities, Bacharius, Bede and Rabanus Maurus, stoudy refused to be
into a dialectical synthesis of opinion. Bacharius had given Solom
benefit of the doubt, arguing that he did penance for his later idolat
lust 'in the secrecy of his conscience', proof of which was provided b
declarations in Scripture that he was buried among the kings of
Kings xi.43; II Chronicles ix.31). Passing on the necessary references i
to his intermediary, Hildegar, then sub-dean of Chartres, Fulbert corro
this view:
Non ambigo, frater, de penitencia eius quae non inscribitur publicis legibus; et
fortasse ideo acceptabilior iudicatur, quia non ad faciem populi sed in secreto
conscienciae Deo teste penituit. Veniam autem ex hoc consecutum esse
agnoscimus: quia cum solutus fuisset a corpore, sepultum ilium inter regum
Israhelitarum corpora scriptura commémorât.
(I have no doubt, brother, as to his repentance, though this was not recorded
in the public laws; and he may have been judged all the more acceptable
1 88 Medium JEvöu lxv.2
because he did penance, not

conscience with God as his w
this: that when he was relea
buried among the bodies of t
This was by no means a com

Fulbert concluded his letter
opposite view, on the basis o
Solomon's penitence. Bede h
his idolatry. Likewise, Raba
there was no scriptural evid
By ending his letter with
Rabanus, flenda submersio 'a
Solomon remained a figure c
but not demonstrable certitude.
Fulbert's letter shows that, while the dialectical lining-up of arguments pro
and contra was an instinctive response, even in an informal, epistolary setting,
to the problems of interpreting biblical exempla, dialectic could not always
provide the required synthesis when its arguments were not engendered simply
from the necessity of drawing semantic distinctions but were taken from the
intractably opposed aspects of a biblical figure. In attending to a specific
question concerning the Old Testament king, Fulbert necessarily confined his
discussion to the implications of I Kings xi.43, but the discrepancy between
this sinister end and the wholly laudatory account of Solomon's reign in
Chronicles had laid the foundations for centuries of uncertainty among
commentators as to his eventual fate. According to the composite 'biography'
of Solomon collated from the historical books of Scripture and from those
believed to have been written by him, the king chose the gift of wisdom with
which he was pre-eminently associated (I Kings iii.4-15), pronounced his
celebrated 'judgement' (iii. 16-28), built the Temple at Jerusalem (v-vii),
married Pharaoh's daughter (ix.16, 24), and overwhelmed the Queen of Sheba
with his glory and wisdom (x.1-10). Towards the end of his life, however, he
succumbed to the wiles of his many foreign wives and declined into paganism
(xi.1-1 3), writing Ecclesiastes in penitential retrospect.4 Amongst most of the
schoolmen, Solomon was treated simply as a model king and temple-builder,
the auctor of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs.5 Nevertheless, the
medieval Solomon remained a multivalent rather than a merely ambivalent
figure. In the Divina Commedia , for example, Solomon's status as la quinta luce
in Paradise, and Thomas Aquinas' approbation of his regal prudenza, which is
said to surpass the riches of the liberal arts, are balanced by Dante's
observation that the entire world wishes to receive novella 'tidings' concerning
him, a reference which is clearly attributable to this lingering uncertainty over
his salvation.6
The complex connotations engendered by the tensions between Solomon's
dual status as fallible actor and flawless auctor created an interpretative vacuum
which a spectrum of medieval writers, theologians and poets rushed to fill.
The Medieval Solomon 189
Solomon does not have a place among the Nine Wort

medieval German epic poem Salman und Morolf, did n
a substantial narrative, as did Alexander, with w
compared.7 Nevertheless, it has been suggested of
clear picture of his personality is to be found in th
have of his father, David', and it is precisely the en
of his character in the scriptural narratives that ma
number of interdependent Jewish, Islamic and Christ
his gnomic wisdom, his reputed power over dem
description of his powers in I Kings iv.29- 34) an
women are repeatedly tested.8 The most recent edit
prose Dialogue of Solomon and Saturn comment that
spiritual and natural worlds that it raises 'assume kn
body of literature which arose to explain the stateme
of scripture'.9 In the case of the medieval Solomo
discussions of the clerks, and appropriations of
vernacular literature may be regarded as creative re
between the two dimensions of his reputation which
would not close. Both the exegetes and the poets wer
silences', to provide their own 'tidings'. The examples
have, accordingly, been selected from a widely di
Solomon legends in support of the argument that m
of Solomon as a literary figure were engendered
surrounding him and were animated by the compulsio
and even perpetuate the discrepancies in the king's r
For the purposes of this discussion, 'appropriation'
process by which an author reinvents his source by
his own purposes. In Solomon's case, this process of
include the moulding of an historical and biblica
character, as when Dante allows Solomon to utter th
concerning the union of the soul with the glorified b
tion of the dominant motifs in the most widely disse
three kinds of appropriation will be discussed. The first
et Marcolfi, which reinvented Solomon as a participant
subjecting his authority to sceptical questioning which
The second developed from legends concerning the fi
in which Solomon and his wife were granted imp
example is January's use of Solomon's words in '
device whereby Chaucer exposes the extent to which
biblical exegesis, which often depended upon the
from the 'actor', were inimical to poetry which thr
between the two.
Confronted with Solomon's contradictory aspects, commentators were
faced with several options. The first was to shore up Solomon's reputation,
for the entirely constructive purpose of adding to the store of Christian
I90 Medium ^Evum lxv.2
exempla. This could be achieved e

from Solomon the author, ignori
or, like Jerome, by treating Eccle
would enable Solomon's reputation
that by far the most common use
and disembodied authority, a figu
who enjoys instead a vestigial exi
Equally, and much as one migh
medieval writers simply as a lif
medieval authors in order to r
abstract, without any real interes
character or history. Many medie
from the chaff in Solomon's care
wisdom with his vulnerability off
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,
strengths in association with the P
and conventional tirade against
connection between these conflic
author. The anointing of Solomon
his association with the powers o
and far more powerfully through
kingship than the incidental su
vernacular literature.11 His later t
principally commemorated as t
repeatedly achieved by the forcin
king and his exemplary authorial
treatise De institutione regia , Bish
authorial voice in Proverbs while
of a situation in which the sins o
their children.12 A life of Edward
Solomon's career in order to draw
Testament king:
Videretur innovari in eo illud don

David regnum terrores compescuit
in solio glorie pacis exhibuit regnu
(There seemed to have been renew

which David, after a martial reign,
to his son Solomon, who followe
peace.)13
To a great extent, also, it proved undesirable to dislodge Solomon the

auctor from his pedestal. Clerks were most often content to cite the sapiential
books without any reference whatever to the troubled personal history of
their author. On other occasions, commentaries on the Song of Songs
distinguished between the historical facts attendant on its composition
The Medieval Solomon i9i
(Solomon's marriage with Pharaoh's daughter), and

of it with which the commentators were more conc
to his commentary on the Song of Songs presents
attributed to Solomon in terms of a hierarchy of k
moral discipline provided in Proverbs, the understan
drawn on in Ecclesiastes, and the 'inspective' discip
combination of science and profound spiritual know
Song of Songs.15 This linking of the three books in
also used by Jerome and by Hugh of Saint-Victor.16
of and borrowings from the Song naturally endors
clerks in not seeking to use translation as an oppor
complex relationship between the authority of the w
attributed to its supposed author.17 Instead, the fo
tirelessly used as an apparently inexhaustible gu
authority. The Book of Proverbs is the most widely
Solomon's utterances freighting both secular and
prologue to the Proverbes de Salemon by Sanson de
king his traditional portion of wisdom and comme
association between the name Solomon and Peace:
De cele grant perfectïun

Fist Deus sa grace a Salemon:
La nonante nueme part out
Del sens Adam, cume Deus vout ...
Sis nuns par ethimologie
Paisible Deu nus senefie.18
The second approach, which was more rewarding in intellectual and

imaginative terms, involved treating the question of Solomon's authority as
an unresolved case, leaving a putative audience to make up its own mind: an
approach adopted in Fulbert's dialectical epistle, which does not disguise the
fact that the conclusion which it reaches is only provisional. St Augustine's
pessimistic but complex response to the career of Solomon typified the
irresolution which was to characterize the most searching medieval treatments
of the king:
Apparet enim in persona hujus Salomonis et mira excellentia, et mira subversio.

Quod igitur in ilio diversis temporibus exstitit, prius bonum, et posterius malum,
hoc in Ecclesia in isto adhuc saeculo simul uno tempore ostenditur. Nam bono
illius, bonos Ecclesiae; malo autem illius, malos Ecclesiae significatos puto.
(In the person of this man Solomon appear both an astounding excellence and
its equally astounding overthrow. What happened to him at different times,
first the good fortune and afterwards the misfortune, therefore, is nowadays
evident in the Church all at the same time. For I think that his good fortune
signifies that of the Church, and that the evil which befell him signifies that
with which it is beset.)19
1 92 Medium JEvum lxv.2
The third course was to adopt a pess

fied by Walter Map's casual but mor
career:
Sol hominum Salomon, thesaurus deliciarum Domini, sapi

domicilium, crasso tenebrarum fuscatus atramento lucem ani
fame sue, gloriam domus sue feminarum amisit fascino, et post
coram Baalim, ex ecclesiaste Domini mutatus est in membrum
(Solomon, the sun of men, the treasury of the Lord's delig

abode of wisdom, having been stained by the thick ink of da
the light of his soul, the perfume of his renown and the gl
because the glamour of women, and in the end bowed his kne
from being the preacher of the Lord turned to be a limb of th
It will be immediately evident that each choice had im

consequences. The first approach, which strongly empha
froze the successful episodes of Solomon's life, transforming
of durable literary and pictorial icons; the second brought his
the sphere of disputation; Map's account casts Solomon as th
a de casibus tragedy. Thus, in a period during which the lit
both pagan and Christian antiquity were being dismem
misattributed and selectively synthesized, Solomon pres
theological problem but also a spectrum of literary opportun
The shared resonances behind the examples to be discussed
be fully appreciated without some knowledge of the contex
developed. As might be expected, medieval appropriations of
of the Solomon legend and persona are only part of what has
transmutation of his often conflicting legacies, from antiq
modern period. In addition to the historical Solomon, for wh
canon formed the principal source, medieval writers had ac
of myth, stories about whom had circulated in a series of ap
which originated in the earliest Hebrew commentaries on th
narratives and gradually permeated into European literar
having also spawned parallel Islamic and oriental versions.22
in Solomon's biography originated with the accounts of his
reign in the canonic Scriptures, and the Jewish legend
perpetuate this. As David's son by Bathsheba, Solomon w
controversial union, and his ascendancy was not free from st
the Jewish legends exemplify Solomon's discriminatory pow
derive from the scriptural account of his famous judgement i
28. According to one story, Solomon seeks to prove, by testi
a happily married couple, that no dependence may be placed
another, he tests the integrity of three men, each of whom a
of theft; in another, he adjudicates in controversies submit
animals. Thus, the motifs of problem-solving and conju
Solomon story in Boccaccio's Decameron are utterly charact
The Medieval Solomon i93
king is approached by two men, who request his a

loved, the other seeks to punish his recalcitrant wif
ami, all'altro che vada al Ponte all'oca'.23 Part of S
leads to the sound beating and thorough submission
The most important and fertile dimensions of
however, revolve around the anxieties unleashed by
idolatry, the two vices inexorably bound together in
concerned with Solomon's batde against demonic pow
known legends, the Solomon stories rapidly bec
exploration of these elements, which crystallized int
the early modern period. The Talmud expands consid
account of the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon, giv
of a riddling exchange between the two.24 Furthermo
the Talmudic sources that Solomon is temporarily m
his kingdom as a direct punishment for his polygamy
increase in his wealth and property. Having gained c
Asmodeus with the aid of a magic ring, Solomon forc
completion of the Temple, but Asmodeus, who memo
Solomon his power to foresee an individual's future, l
sleight of hand and temporarily banishes Solomon fro
A number of the Jewish legends permeated into
through the Antiquitates Judaicae of Flavius Josephus
Comes tor drew for his Historia scholastica. This mate
Vincent of Beauvais for his Speculum historíale .26 To
Voragine's Legenda aurea , these works formed a stan
acted as synopsis of and supplement to the scriptural a
translations of Proverbs and the Song of Songs show,
and embellish biblical material was perpetuated in th
English literature, for example, most of the strands o
were scattered throughout The Mirour of Mans Salvaciou
the South English Legendary. The version of Solo
preserved in these sources, however, is a consider
amount of material concerning Solomon which w
circulation during the Middle Ages. The disseminatio
ranging from the Talmudic and oriental narratives to
the parodies, dialogues and romances of the West, ha
of attention from scholars principally engaged in th
analogues for the many late medieval Solomon storie
largely concentrated on the relationship between
challenge Solomon in narratives modelled on his orig
Asmodeus. In Western versions, Solomon's opponent
by the demon Saturnus in the Anglo-Saxon dialogues,2
'brother' Morolf, in the German epic Salman und Mo
Marcolf in the Latin Dialogus Salomonis et Marcolfi and i
Furthermore, in Slavic versions of the original Talm
i94 Medium íEvum lxv.2
contained in the Russian Palea,

illustrating Christian history, th
centaur.31 It is sufficient for the
note that these legends share a
responses to the forces, ranging f
and the power of the 'commonpl
The Morolf/Marcolf figure's ma
of women is only one aspect of
contrast with the trusting naive
Salman und Morolf, Solomon's wif
who is placed under her guard as
of his brother, Morolf. It is only
his own life, that Solomon is abl
to another heathen, King Princia
by Morolf. When subject to the
found severely wanting, and lacki
his continuing happiness.
A similar awareness also underpin
but the form and tone of this na
more emphatically, making it wo
In this version, which casts the t
his shrewd and repulsive wife, co
this comparatively short work is
Marcolfs gross sister to the inn
believes that Solomon has ordere
reference to Solomon's own repu
parts: in the first, Solomon and
Marcolf plays verbal and practica
an inch of his life.
It is probable that the confrontation between king and churl which was
perpetuated in the Solomon and Marcolf dialogues originated not in I Kings
x, in which the Queen of Sheba comes to test Solomon with riddles, but in
the account given by Josephus, in the Antiquitates J u dai cae, concerning the
riddling letters sent by Solomon to King Hiram of Tyre, who supplied
Solomon with some of the raw materials for the Temple at Jerusalem (I
Kings V.1-12).33 In a narrative identical with that of the Talmudic account,
Josephus quotes from two histories of Tyre, by Menander of Ephesus and by
Dius, in which Solomon initiates a riddling competition with Hiram. The
latter, unable to respond, is rescued by a young Tyrian named Abdemon,
who, according to Menander, 'always successfully solved the problems which
were submitted to him by Solomon'. In Dius' narrative, Abdemon 'solved the
riddles proposed and himself offered others which Solomon was unable to
solve, and paid large sums to Eiromos in return'.34 Although it is only in the
account by Menander that he is actually described as a Ttaíç vecòxepoç,
Abdemon's youth is clearly significant, adding an absurd dimension to the
solemn competition between the two kings.35 The

schoolmen of the sixth-century Latin translation of J
that this anecdote passed into scholastic general know
possible context for the Dialogus Solomonis et Marcolf
vernacular versions of the encounter between the two
known reference to some version of the encounter wa
of the eleventh century by Notker of St Gall, wh
contest between the words of Marcolf and the prove
that the former's utterances are scôniû âne uuârheit 'beau
The possibility that the dialogue tradition was a trope
was later explored by William of Tyre, who, when r
his twelfth-century Chronicon , speculates: 'hic fort
popularium narrationes Marcolfum vocant, de quo
solvebat enigmata et ei respondebat equipollenter, iter
('he is perhaps the one whom the fabulous stories of
"Marcolf', about whom it is said that he solved Solom
to him on equal terms, offering him in turn enigmas
In the verbal batdes of the Latin dialogue, the two d
exclusive truths against each other; Solomon loses to
to assert and thereby prove the unassailable authority
and that view of the state of nature which might be
collage of his observations from Proverbs, Ecclesiastes
is systematically undermined by Marcolf s assertion o
way of viewing the situations upon which Solomon p
clash of registers, each authoritative on its own term
and terms are lofty and prescriptive, whereas M
sublunary, not to say downright quotidian. It could r
neither Solomon nor Marcolf wins outright, since the
pronouncements oudives this slight dialogue, but, as
be quick to point out, as a 'villein' he has nothin
actually gains something by his successful provocatio
righteous king. 'Courteous' and 'villainous' versions o
as Solomon offers counsels of perfection only to hav
often effectively cancelled out by Marcolfs cynical pu
modulation between different styles is well conveyed i
English translation. Solomon opens the altercation
wealth and status if he has the better of the debat
physician promysyth the seeke folke helthe whan
Solomon's observations throughout the first part of
taken from Scripture, and an attempt is clearly being
and authoritative philosophy from the literature attr
with a statement of his credentials: 'I have iuged bet
which dwellyd in oon house and forlaye a chylde', bu
Marcolf, who responds: 'Where erys are there are cau
there are wordys.' Solomon tries again by pointing o
i96 Medium JEvjju lxv.2
in my mouth, for me lyke is none

routs him by asserting: 'He that h
Several of Solomon's sallies may be
'A woman stronge in doyng good
othre preyse the' (Proverbs xxvii.2
(Ecclesiastes ii.24); 'Alle things h
iii.i); Tor the colde the slouthfu
brede: and no man wolde hym gev
hand, responds with villainous wi
S: A ferdefull woman shalbe pray

M: A Catte that hath a good skyn
S: A whyt kerchyf becomst wele
M: It standyth wryten: that the fu
undre a whyte cloth often are hy
A tactic frequendy used by Marcol

substratum of unacknowledged
unimpeachable of Solomon's exh
up youre children and from thay
responds: 'He that fedyth well is cow
Marcolf is only too ready on othe
interest in some situations: to Sol
men are bownded to love othre', h
not the, thou lesyth thyn love.'43
Ecclesiastes that is tardy rebuked b
villein. Thus, to Solomon's sonoro
ayen to theyr furst nature', Marc
ayen to his furst kynde.'44 When
Marcolf responds, in a manner pe
reader: 'The hungery dyeth aswel
undermines the judgement of Sol
reader, by arguing, plausibly enoug
thereby raising the possibility tha
child may have been dissembling.
praise of women as 'honest, chast
mannes rybbe and geven unto h
employs his wiles in order to f
question. Spreading a rumour amon
ordered every man to take seve
between Solomon and one of the
words against the evidence of his
Solomon gives vent to a misogynis
Solomon's tranquil authority is qu
confronted by the imperatives
Marcolf 's escaping justice, the deep
and legacy has been re-established as surely as has th

of wisdom between king and churl.
This dialogue tradition, therefore, reopens a qu
with its effective dismissal of the Queen of Sheba, r
solved, but which remains open in Josephus' Abdem
or not a priori wisdom is proof against anythin
experience, or even the happy instincts of youth, c
responses, whilst sometimes incidentally coinciding
with those of his adversary, are nevertheless ground
nature is worth more than nurture and that therefore there are swathes of
experience which remain untouched by the carefully engrafted, insistendy
literary polish of the kind of wisdom offered by Solomon. The archetype of
'wisdom' is tested and can only respond on his own terms; in this dialogue, it
is implied that wisdom is really multivocal.
The concentrated exchange of proverbs in the first part of the dialogue,
therefore, intimates that wisdom is not confined to the divinely inspired king.
Rather, it permits the realization that an exalted style may not be appropriate
for the uttering of wise saws. In the prologue to his translation of Proverbs,
Sanson de Nanteuil had in a different way indicated the tension between
the commonplace wisdom communicated in Proverbs and their exalted
provenance:
'Masloť nos numad le premer

Dun paroles volt designer;
Li pueples Proverbes les claimet
E les respeiz quë il molt aimet:
Ço sunt les Respeiz Salemon
E del Vilain dunt nos parlum.
Vilain en apelent la gent
Pur ceo ques dit apertement;
Cil de seculer corteisie
Li aturnent a vilanie,
Mais la raisun n'est pas vilaine,
Ki vent de la cort suveraine.48
The last lines argue that Solomon's 'sovereign' authority should guarantee the
value of what he says, albeit in a bald and homely style.49 The contrast between
the profundity of Solomon's thoughts and the brusque way in which they
were expressed was discussed in a different context by St Bonaventure, who
argued that in Ecclesiaste s we hear Solomon speaking in two voices, one wise
and the other foolish, the terminal scepticism of the latter a foil for the
contemptus mundi wisdom of the former:
dicendum, quod loqui aliquid in persona fatui vel carnalis est dupliciter: vel ut
approbet, vel ut reprobet et vanum esse ostendat. Primo modo non convenit
scientiae veritatis; secundo modo convenit, sicut si aliquis veliet errorem
reprobare et prius ilium explicaret, postmodum destrueret ... sicut dicit
Hieronymus, ut tradunt Hebraei, liber iste Salomonis fuit poenitentiam agentas;
i98 Medium Mv um lxv.z
et quia non abiicit Deus poenitente

erat Salomon in statu reprehensib
sanctus non tantum loquitur vera e
unde et [Dominus] per Balaam expr
etiam carnalem multa bona dixit ..
hoc, quod non debite se disponebat
(It must be said that to say someth

person has two possible purposes: ei
castigate it and show that it is vai
knowledge of the truth, but the sec
some error and first of all explaine
to Jerome Jewish tradition has it th
doing penance. God does not cast o
the light of this, Solomon was not i
book ... the Holy Spirit speaks that
mouths of good, but also of evil m
terms through the mouth of Bal
through the mouth of Solomon, car
not in teaching, but in not behavin
Bonaventure's method of appro

development of the method adopte
Solomon's three books in ascendin
for the directness of Proverbs, th
consummate sublime of the Song
'foolish' voices in Ecclesiastes, h
adopted by Solomon explicitly in
functioning as alternative registe
Marcolfi , however, inverts the a
unpolished manner without losing
confronting the king with a rough
to utter pertinent truths.
In whatever guise it appeared, th
sceptical or comic parody, exploit
of Solomon's gnomic utterances an
ness and misogyny. A very differ
found in the French plays whic
collectively known as the Mistère d
static, exemplary figure, whose ro
whose historical and mythical d
complicate his value as a literary a
the principal events of the king's
The most remarkable part of the s
the scriptural narrative but whic
and evidendy has some relationsh
iii. 1 6-2 8. A man with three sons d
in foliage and fruits. They dispute
tree for himself. Solomon suggests that they exhu

against the tree and shoot an arrow at its heart. It
third son to perform this task that marks him out as
of the tree.52 In the final part of the 'Solomon' seq
arrives just as the king is dedicating the Temple; h
provoke her unqualified admiration and, in general,
restrained and cultivated manner with each oth
ments are unimpeachable:
L'homme plein de perversité
Suscite noises et tençons;
Ung menteur en une cité
Meult guerres et divisions;
Mais Thomme constant, vertueux,
Qui est muny de pascience
Est à craindre et plus dangereux
Que les combateurs à oultrance.
Overwhelmed, the queen's responses are confined t

discipline' and 'angelique doctrine', and she and t
True Cross and the Virgin. Jewish and Islamic
confrontations between the king and queen which c
concerning her sexual independence, at best a c
affront to his omnipotence.54 While this French S
character in his own right, an attempt was clearly b
as many of the legends associated with him as possib
dignity.
The tensions between Solomon and women proved irresistible to those
who evidendy wished to close the breach between them in an explicitly
Christian way, and it was the legends of the True Cross that provided later
medieval writers with a means of accomplishing this. St Augustine's scepticism
concerning the usefulness of Solomon as an exemplar extended to his
carefulness in playing down his dynastic importance as a forebear of Christ, a
concern at its most clear in De civitate Dei :
Facta est quidem nonnulla imago rei futurae etiam in Salomone, in eo quod
templům aedificavit, et pacem habuit secundum nomen suum ... sed eadem sua
persona per umbram futuri praenuntiabat etiam ipse Christum dominum
nostrum, non exhibebat. Unde quaedam de ilio ita scripta sunt, quasi de ipso
ista praedicta sint, dum Scriptura sancta etiam rebus gestis prophetans, quodam-
modo in eo figuram delineat futurorum ... Nec ob aliud, vivente adhuc patre
suo David, regnare Salomon coepit ... nisi ut hinc quoque satis eluceat non esse
ipsum, quem prophetia ista praesignat, quae ad ejus patrem loquitur.
(No doubt a partial reflection of the future reality was shown even in Solomon,
in that he did build the Temple, and that he enjoyed the peace that fits his
name ... Even so, Solomon himself in his own person merely gave notice of the
coming of Christ, by a foreshadowing of the future; he did not show men the
Lord Christ himself. Hence some things are written about him as if they were
200 Medium ¿Evum lxv.i
predictions of Christ himsel

historical events also, sketc
Moreover, the reason why
still alive ... was simply to
not the man designated by t
By granting Solomon a
reworking his relationship
legend, with the Queen of
legend provided an alterna
The version of the legen
Solomon's typological signif
story of his meeting with
throne for his mother, Ba
Cursor mundi has an even m
with his devotion to 'clerg
within the framework of
reported that it was the Q
would hang upon the tre
'forest house'.59 There was
legend in the Legenda aurea
Solomon, in the process of
with which to finish the w
made to hew it into shap
builders' purposes, howev
bridge. The Queen of Sh
Solomon, but, in a reversal
far more precious to him:
3eot heo seide, 1>are scha
ï>oru3 3wam al ļ>e lawe of
Overcome by fear, Solomo

The Cursor mundi manusc
foresees that the tree will b
with whom Solomon has a
romance versions of the le
while treating Solomon as a
in furthering the telos of
significant digression conc
medieval Estoire del Saint Gr
the key elements in the Sol
writers, and here, as has r
transmuted and incorporate
a reprise of the importanc
transfers all of the authorit
(an enigma which is to ind
advent) to his wife. In this version of even

edited out and transformed into a strong-
owes more than a little to that of the skittish
Sir Thomas Malory's recasting of this story,
he wente there had be no good woman born
in hys bookis' - as confidendy garbled a ver
might wish.64 In both Malory and his Frenc
pursuit of the materials for the ship, and un
the Tree of Life in order to invest the shi
represented as having both repulsive and ad
loses his temper with her before acknowle
lously'.65 The thirteenth-century romance
represent an important juncture in the hist
Solomon and his wife. Briefly but signific
hinges on which the literal and allegorical
Solomon by means of his typological reson
the mediator between fallen Eve and trium
domineering, coercive and manipulative
justified in the decisiveness and resourceful
for her husband his heart's desire. These G
Solomon's wife from the reputation which Sa
in such a way as to suggest the possibility o
demands of biblical typology and those of a
part of the j Queste may thus be read as th
attempts to use the legend of the Cross as a
the theologians' uncertainty over Solomon
That exegesis and vernacular appropriatio
on a continuum of literary creativity may
case of the final use of Solomon to be discussed here. Patristic literature
provided an egregious example of a resourceful response to Solomon's works
in the form of St Jerome's polemical Libri duo adversus Jovinianum , in which a
collage of pronouncements, albeit in widely differing registers, from the
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, is put together in dispraise of
women in order to refute Jovinian, who had argued against the subordination
of the married state to that of the celibate and virginal.67 What makes this a
true act of appropriation, rather than a simple case of citation, is that Jerome
presses into service a series of disparate utterences in order to ascribe a
coherendy misogynistic attitude to Solomon, thus making these words serve
his own purpose entirely.68 Having cited discrete portions of Proverbs and
Ecclesiastes in which women are criticized, he passes to the Song of Songs,
which, he assures his adversary, is not in the least concerned with marriage
but is actually a celebration of virginity and of the passing of the Old Law in
order that the authority of the New be established. The turde-dove whose
voice is heard in ii.12 is, he argues, a type of Christ the Saviour; the hortus
conclusus is a symbol of virginity and, by extension, represents the Virgin.
loi Medium JEv um lxv.2
This reading of the Song o

with the previous scriptura
which was to prove extr
throughout the Middle Ag
business of appropriation
conjugal love, when he mad
of Solomon when wooing h
Rys up, my wyf, my love,
The turtles voys is herd,
The wynter is goon with
Com forth now, with thy
How fairer been thy bres
The gardyn is enclosed a
Com forth, my white spo
As has been noted by recen

of allegorical interpretatio
defiantly literal use of the
complex: neither wholly ri
anything but pure, his conc
could still be argued that s
Songs not only survives but
ing. This is, moreover, an
citation in that, unlike the
tales, notably the Tale of M
buted; he has not merely i
succeeded, Xeetingly but m
pointed out that January's
associates his use of the Son
the text used in the liturgy
therefore, to recognize the
as being engaged in fundam
appropriating the voice o
perspective on the relation
medieval writers usually w
authoritative Solomon has
ambiguous legacy in the M
experiment it is. January's
exegesis to recover the fr
customary allegorical freigh
The debate, in the same
the authority of Solomon
revealed in this context not
concerning the status of w
which had evolved of prese
any awareness of his contr
Solomon's own experiences are invoked by Proserpin

in Ecclesiastes that 'he foond no good womman
unreasonable plea that she 'take the sentence of the
'He mente thus, that in sovereyn bontee/Nis noon
ne she', Proserpine cattily adverts to Solomon's fallibi
What though he made a temple, Goddes hous?

What though he were riche and glorious?
So made he eek a temple of false goddis ...
Pardee, as faire as ye his name emplastre,
He was a lecchour and an ydolastre ...
For sithen he seyde that we been jangleresses,
As evere hool I moote brouke my tresses,
I shal nat spare, for no curteisye,
To speke hym harm that wolde us vileynye.73
In her intemperance, Proserpine is, of course, only p

like those of the Wife of Bath, her scriptural refere
called quotations, are adventitious and incomplet
eloquent witness to the difficulty of achieving an int
a problem which was perpetuated by those theol
historical person from his 'authoritative' persona in
of what modern critics would recognize as 'the
Chaucer was aware, it may always prove difficult, if
one's knowledge of a teller to the extent that one en
The example of Solomon, therefore, shows medieva
varying degrees of commitment, in developing and
interpretation established by exegetes, with skill, h
This was not, however, a simple case of the transmiss
wisdom from the Latin clerical tradition to the vern
case of clerical auctoritas being subjected to burlesq
of the treatments discussed here was a response to a
the enigmatic, the majestic and the bathetic dim
legend, and, while many were content to keep these
more enterprising, such as Chaucer and the dialogu
the centre of their works. Others, by transfusin
achieved a means of healing the wounds inflicted by
recorded in Scripture and legend, through spiritual
appropriations of Solomon in later medieval literatur
to the eagerness with which some medieval writers
not merely to recycle and embellish the legends wh
to them in the Old Testament but actively to ex
dimensions of those legends which were permitted
between canon and apocrypha.
Somerville College, MISHTOONI BOSE

Oxford
204 Medium JEv um lxv.2
NOTES
A revised version of a paper delivered under the auspices of the Society for the St
of Medieval Languages and Literature at the Second International Medieval Cong
at Leeds in July 1995. 1 am grateful to the participants on that occasion, to the edi
of Medium jEvum and to Brian Young, for their helpful comments and criticism.
1 The Letters and Poems of Fulbert of Chartres , ed. and trans. Frederick Behrends (Oxf
I97^), pp. 164-9.
2 Ibid., pp. 166-7.
3 The texts used by Fulbert were: Bacharius, Liber de reparatione lapsi , xn ( PL , XX, c
1048); Bede, In Regum librum xxx quaestiones, xxxix (Opera, II, ed. D. Hurst and J.
Hudson (Turnhout, 1983), p. 520); Rabanus, Commentarla in libros iv Regum (PL,
col. 199), drawing on Isidore, Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentům in Regum tertium ,
(PL, LXXXIII, col. 417).
4 Jerome's reading of Ecclesiastes in the light of Hebrew traditions was influen
'Aiunt Hebraei hunc librum Salomonis esse paenitentiam agentis, quod in sapien
divitiisque confisus, per mulieres offenderit Deum' (Commentarius in Ecclesiasten ,
72 (Turnhout, 1959), 258).
5 In addition, Ecclesiasticus was sometimes cited with reference to him. St Augu
discusses the unauthorized association of Solomon with Ecclesiasticus in De civitate
Dei , XVII, XX (PL, XLI, cols 554-5). See also Jerome, Praefatio in libros Salomonis (PL,
XXVIII, cols 1 241-4). Jerome adds that the book of Wisdom ťapud Hebraeos
nusquam est, quia et ipse stylus Graecam eloquentiam redolet: et nonnulli scriptorum
veterum hunc esse Judaei Philonis affirmant' (ibid., col. 1242). John of Salisbury
considered that Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs had been compiled by
King Hezekiah of Jerusalem and his colleagues on the basis of Solomon's oral wisdom:
The Letters of John of Salisbury, II: The Later Letters (1163-1180), ed. W. J. Miller and C. N.
L. Brooke (Oxford, 1979), p. 328. Medieval views concerning the authorship of the
Book of Wisdom are discussed further in A. J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship :
Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, 2nd edn (Aldershot, 1988), pp. 95-7.
6 Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Paradiso , trans, with commentary by Charles S.
Singleton (Princeton, NJ, 1975), x.i 08-11 (p. 114). Singleton emphasizes that the
matter remained unresolved among medieval theologians, who contrasted the
optimism of Jerome concerning Solomon's eventual fate with the pessimism of
Augustine (ibid., p. 187). This is a standard reading of these lines; see also William
Warren Vernon, Readings on the ' Paradiso ' of Dante, 2nd edn, 2 vols (London, 1909), I,
354-5. A lengthy and vigorous discussion, which bears ample witness to the durability
of interest in Solomon's case, is the twelfth-century treatise by Philip of Harvengt,
Responsio de damnatione Salomonis (PL, CCIII, cols 6 2 3-66).
7 On important connections and parallels between the legends of Solomon and of
Alexander in the Middle Ages, see G. Cary, The Medieval Alexander, ed. D. J. A. Ross
(Cambridge, 1955), pp. 19, 93, 171, 254 n. 5; Alexandre Cizek, 'La recontre de deux
"Sages": Salomon le "Pacifique" et Alexandre le Grand dans la légende héllénistique
et médiévale', Sénéfiance, 11 (1982), 75-99; Emmanuèle Baumgartner, 'Figures du
destinateur: Salomon, Arthur, le roi Henry d'Angleterre', in Anglo-Norman Anniversary
Essays 2, ed. Ian Short, Anglo-Norman Text Society Occasional Publications (London,
Ï993), pp. i -10. On the German epic, see Die deutschen Dichtungen von Salomon und
Markolf I: Salman und Morolf ed. Friedrich Vogt (Halle, 1880); Michael Curschmann,
'Salman und Morolf, in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt
Ruh et al. (henceforth 2VL), VIII (Berlin and New York, 1992), cols 515-23.
8 The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Churchy ed. F. L.

2nd edn (Oxford, 1993), pp. 1287-8.
9 The Prose ' Solomon and Saturn * and 'Adrian and Ritheus', e
D. Hill (Toronto, Buffalo and London, 1982), p. 5. This dia
in a catechetic manner wholly affirmative of Christian teac
that body of literature, since it uses as its model a confr
and a demon which has its roots in the earliest apocryphal
king.
10 Paradiso , xiv.43-60 (trans. Singleton, pp. 154-6). For discussion, see Singleton's
commentary, p. 244; Vernon, Readings , I, 464-9.
11 On the use of Solomon as an exemplum in ecclesiastical contexts, particularly by
Merovingian and Carolingian monarchs, see Johan Chydenius, 'Medieval institutions
and the Old Testament', Commentationes humanarum litterarum , 37 (1965), 1-140; P. E.
Schramm, Kaiser ' Könige und Päpste: gesammelte Aufsätze %ur Geschichte des Mittelalters , 5
vols (Stuttgart, 1970), IV.i, 127-30, 134.
12 Jonas d'Orléans, Le Métier de roi (De institutione regia), ed. and trans. Alain Dubreucq
(Paris, 1995). The references to Proverbs are: iv.36-56 (pp. 200-1); vi.3-10 (pp. 212-
13); the historical Solomon is criticized on the basis of I Kings xi.31-2 at 111.96 (pp.
190-1).
13 The Life of King Edward Who Rests at Westminster , ed. and trans. Frank Barlow, 2nd
edn (Oxford, 1992), pp. 18-19. This Vita Eadwardi is attributed to a monk of Saint-
Bertin.
14 On Solomon as a 'Biblical master of love', see Jean Leclerq, Monks and Love in
Twelfth-Century France: Psycho-Historical Essays (Oxford, 1979), pp. 27-9. For discussion
and illustration of the way in which the literature attributed to Solomon was used in
florilegia, and in particular of the way in which allegorical exegesis of the Song of
Songs influenced the development of religious iconography, see Jeffrey F. Hamburger,
The Rothschild Canticles: Art and Mysticism in Flanders and the Rhineland circa 1300 (New
Haven and London, 1990), esp. pp. 26-7, 105-17. Hamburger points out that the
inescapable eroticism of the literal sense of the Song presented few problems to
medieval artists: 'The mystical union miniatures in the Rothschild Canticles translate the
metaphors of the Song of Songs into visual images without any shyness or reserve'
(ibid., p. 115).
15 Origenis in Canticum Canticorum prologus (PG, XIII, col. 74).
16 Jerome (PL, XXIII, cols 1 01 2-1 3); Hugh of Saint-Victor, In Salomonis Ecclesiasten
homiliae xix (PL, CLXXV, cols 115-16). On the widely perceived connection between
Solomon's three books and the three parts of philosophy, see E. Ann Matter, The
Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia, Pa,
I99°)» P*
17 In a discussion of the influence of the Song of Songs on medieval vernacular
literature, Peter Dronke concentrates on treatments of the Song which drew on its
'elliptical, evocative style', its 'dream-logic' and 'associational montage': 'The Song of
Songs and medieval love-lyric', in The Bible and Medieval Culture , ed. W. Lourdeaux and
D. Verhelst (Louvain, 1979), pp. 236-62. For an example of one such adaptation, see
The Song of Songs: A Twelfth-Centuņ French Version , ed. C. Pickford (Oxford, 1974). For
further discussion of Solomon the auctor, see Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship, pp.
47-58.
18 Les Proverbes de Salemon by Sanson de Nanteuil ' ed. C. Claire Isoz, 3 vols (London,
1988-95), I, lines 69-72, 79-80 (pp. 2-3).
19 Contra Faustum Manichaeum , xxn, lxxxviii {PL, XLII, col. 459); my translation.
2o6 Medium ^Evum lxv.i
Augustine's scepticism, howev

that Solomon, with David, was
of the Trinity: see Introducit
20 De nugis curia li um t ed. a
Mynors (Oxford, 1983), pp. 2
medieval view of Solomon, is ta
ne uxorem ducat , a text perpet
with which Solomon was perp
duo , ii, iv: 'Salomon, amabil
mulierum fuit, a Dei amore d
xvii: 'Salomon bonis initiis,
discussions in patristic litera
sündige Heilige in der Legende
(Munich, 1967), pp. 42-3.
21 Medieval invocations of bi
strengths are acutely obser
letteratura medievale', in Dant
2Ï3-25.
22 For full accounts of the Jewish legends collated from the tractates of the Talmu
see Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews , 7 vols (Philadelphia, Pa, 1909-59), I
125-76; VI, 277-303; Jewish Encyclopaedia , s.n. 'Solomon'; Encyclopaedia of Islam , s.
'Suleiman'. For a comprehensive study of both the Jewish and the Islamic representa
tions of the Queen of Sheba, see Jacob Lassner, Demoniņng the Queen of Sheba: Boundari
of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam (Chicago and Lond
1993); the relevant stories are printed in translation on pp. 161-214.
23 Decameron , ix, 9 (Decamerone, Filocolo, Ameto, Fiammetta, La letteratura italiana
(Milan, 1952), p. 658).
24 Ginzberg, Legends , IV, 145-9.
25 The confrontation between Solomon and demons is the subject of a Testament
Salomonis which bears signs of both Jewish and Christian influences. This text h
been translated by M. Whittaker as The Testament of Solomon , in The Apocņphal O
Testament , ed. H. F. D. Sparks (Oxford, 1984), pp. 733-51. The work's nineteenth
century editor comments that the name 'Solomon' was used as a collective name f
wisdom and 'white' magic, and that there were apocryphal attributions to him of lat
years spent in idolatry, after he had fallen into the insanity which was meted out t
him as punishment for his pride (S. Fleck: editorial annotation to Testamentům Salomoni
PG , CXXII, cols 1315-16). For further discussion of Solomon's enduring associati
with magic, see W. F. Ryan, 'Solomon, SATOR, acrostics, and Leo the Wise in Russ
Oxford Slavonic Papers , n.s. 19 (1986), 46-61. It is possible that the Interdictio Salomo
(otherwise known as the Contradictio Salomonis ), which is listed among the proscrib
apocrypha in the Decretum Gelasianum , is a version of the Testamentům : see Das Decretu
Gelasianum de libris recipiendis et non re ripien dis, ed. Ernst von Dobschütz, Texte u
Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 38 (Leipzig, 1 911- 1
pp. 13, 74, 319. In the Talmud, the story of Asmodeus' temporary usurpation
Solomon's kingdom (which is recounted in the Tractate Gittin, fol 68r-v) is used
some rabbis to explain Ecclesiastes i.12 (in the Vulgate text: 'ego Ecclesiastes fui r
Israhel in Hierusalem'; my emphasis): see, for example, the discussion in Sanhédri
fol. 20v.
26 Speculum historíale (Douai, 1624; repr. Graz, 1964-5), II, lxxvi-lxxxiii (pp. 70-4).
27 For further discussion of the Solomon episodes in the Anttqmtates, see Louis
Feldman, 'Josephus as an apologist of the Greco-Roma

Solomon', in Aspects of Religious Propaganda in Judaism and Ea
Schüssler Fiorenza (Notre Dame and London, 1976), pp.
Josephus on Western medieval writers (particularly compila
berg, Die Flavius Josephus-Tradition in Antike und Mitte
Schreckenberg and Kurt Schubert, Jewish Historiography a
Medieval Christianity (Assen and Maastricht, 1992); Loui
source of Peter Comestor's commentary on Genesis in
Begegnungen 3 wischen Christentum und Judentum in Antike un
Hein% Schreckenbergt ed. Dietrich-Alex Koch and Hermann
1993), pp. 93-121. On Comestor in particular, see James H
biblical paraphrase, and the medieval popular Bible', Specu
28 The pioneering work in this area was undertaken in the
Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus with an Historical Introductio
1848); Alexander Veselovsky, CjiaBfiHCKifl CKa3aHÍ£ o C
3anaflHUÄ jiereHflu o Mopojib<ļ>£ h Mepjimrfc (St Peter
and still influential study appeared with fuller endnotes
CoHHHeHÍH, VlII.i (St Petersburg, 1921). Veselovsky expand
in 'Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte der Salomonssage', Archiv
(1882), 393-4", 548-90.
29 On the Anglo-Saxon prose tradition, see Kemble, The Dialog
Cross and Hill, The Prose ( Solomon and Saturn* ' on the poe
Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn (London, 1941).
30 On the relationship between the 'MorolP epic and the
see Curschmann, 'Salman und MorolP (see n. 7 above); and
see Curschmann, 'Dialogus Salomonis et Marcolfi', 2VL ,
MarcolP, in Dictionaņ of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph R. Str
pp. 366-70. The dialogue in its medieval German form is Die
Salomon und Markolf II: Salomon und Markolf ed. Walter H
31 Given the impetus behind many of the later Solomon leg
between opposed but equally necessary facets of human n
the centaur, whose outward form expresses the dual nature
character, as a particularly challenging interlocutor for
emerges in Slavic versions of Talmud legends, see Veselovsk
pp. 209-44; Salman und Marolf ed. Vogt, pp. li- lviii, 213
diffusion of the legend in parallel texts from the Babyloni
and the late thirteenth-century Russian Palea' Veselovsky
and passim, partly written in response to Vogťs arguments
de la légende vieux-russe de Salomon et Kitovras', Revue des
62, which explains the metamorphosis of demon into c
familiarity, among some Slavs, with Byzantine traditi
inconnue de Salomon et Kitovras dans un manuscrit du x
slaves , 43 (1964), 7-12. On the transmission of oriental lege
see further Aurelio De Santos Otero, Die handschriftliche Üb
Apokryphen , 2 vols (Berlin and New York, 1978), I, 26-7. O
of the Russian Palea , see the Dictionnaire de théologie catholiq
32 The Latin version is Salomon et Marcolfus , ed. W. Ben
English translation is The Dialogue or Communing between
Marcolphus , ed. E. Gordon Duff (London, 1892).
33 For further discussion of the translatio of a motif fr
2o8 Medium JEv um lxv.z
literature, see Mark Balfour, '

and the chansons de geste' ALE
34 Antiquities , viii, 148-9 {Josep
al., V (London, 1958), pp. 651,
35 His youth makes Abdemon t
many dialogues cognate with th
sought through disputations wh
A full discussion of the genre
Daly and Walter Suchier, Alterca
in Language and Literature 24
36 Die Schriften Notkers und sei
H, 522. For brief discussions
Salomon and Saturnus , pp. 12,
Er^ählformen des ij. und 16. Ja
Fortuna Vitrea 8 (Tübingen, 1
37 Wtlhelmi Tyrensis Archiepi
(Turnhout, 1986), p. 586); my
made the Josephus story even
followed Josephus (and Menan
(PL, CXCVIII, col. 1 369).
38 On late medieval German m
and on its sixteenth-century
Michael Curschman, 'Marcolfus t
ed. Johannes Janota et al., 2 v
detailed analysis of the tone a
pp. 156-64).
39 On related examples of the genre, which forced confrontations between cultural
antitheses, see Kathryn Gravdal, Vilain and Courtois: Trasgressive Parodj in French
Literature of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Lincoln, Nebr., and London, 1989). On
the ideological implications of the patterns of subversion in the Latin version of the
dialogue, see Maria Corti, 'Models and antimodels in medieval culture', New Literary
Histoiy , 10 (1979), 339-66.
40 The Dialogue or Communing, p. 6.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid., p. 7.
43 Ibid., p. 9.
44 Ibid., p. 7.
45 Ibid., p. 10.
46 Ibid., pp. 24-5.
47 Curschmann points out the importance of the distinction between the two phases
of Solomon's humiliation: 'Markolfs Misogynie ... ist das Aktionskorrelat zu seiner
verbalen unhuhescheiť ('Marcolfus deutsch', p. 170).
48 Proverbes de Salemon , ed. Isoz, I, lines 143-54 (pp. 4-5).
49 Sanson is clearly referring here to the French tradition of the Proverbes au vilain , in
which enduring commonplaces are put into the mouths of a churl, the very 'common-
ness' of common sense proving a challenge to those who consider themselves wise; but
there also existed a cognate French version of the 'Proverbes de Marcoul et de Salemon'.
On this tradition, see La Littérature didactique, allégorique et satirique , ed. H. R. Jauss,
Grundriß der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters 6:2 (Heidelberg, 1970). Among
the many collections of proverbs and commonplaces, note in particular nos 3068:
'Li Proverbes au vilain'; 3076: 'Proverbes de Marcoul et de

del curteis et del vilain'; 3116: Sanson's own 'Proverbes de
50 Commentarius in Ecclesiasten , q. m, resp., and q. iv, resp. 1,
omnia, ed. studia et cura pp. Collegii a S. Bonaventura, 10 v
VI, 8; trans, in Medieval Uterary Theoiy and Criticism c.iioo-c.ipj : T
ed. A. J. Minnis and A. B. Scott, rev. edn (Oxford, 1991),
51 Le Mistère du Vtěl Testamenty ed. Baron James de Rothsc
IV, 395-6, 403-5.
52 Ibid., lines 34626-35927 (pp. 329-83). This tale, which or
of a legal point in the Talmud (Tractate Baba Bathra, fol. 5 8
medieval French art and literature via the Gesta Romanorum. The Latin version is in the
Gesta Romanorum, ed. Hermann Oesterley (Berlin, 1871-2), cap. xliv, pp. 342-4; for
the English version, see The Early English Versions of the Gesta Romanorum , ed. Sidney J.
H. Herrtage, EETS, es 23 (London, 1879), xlii (pp. 167-70). It was used twice by
Vincent of Beauvais ( Speculum morale , III, v, ix, col. 1 188D-E and x, xxv, cols 1490D-
iA). The identification of the 'judge' with Solomon, however, is a particular feature of
French versions of the story. It was illustrated, together with images of Solomon
teaching, the 'judgement of the mothers' and sometimes the visit of the Queen of
Sheba, in many French Bibles from the thirteenth century onwards, including Guiart
Desmoulins's Bible historíale and a Bible belonging to the duc de Berry. At the time of
the composition of these mystery plays, therefore, the story had acquired as much
authority as the canonic Solomon stories from I Kings. For further discussion, see
Wolfgang Stechow, 'Shooting at father's corpse', Art Bulletin, 24 (1942), 213-25.
53 Le Mistere, ed. de Rothschild, lines 36,383-94 (p. 403).
54 See, e.g., S. Grébaut, 'Salomon et la reine de Saba', Revue de l'orient chrétien , 17 (191 2),
3 1 5-1 8, an account in which the queen agrees to stay with Solomon on condition that
he permits her to remain a virgin, since she views her royalty as being dependent on
her continuing virginity. See further Lassner, Demoniņng the Queen of Sheba.
55 De civitate Dei , xvn, viii ( PL , XLI, col. 541); trans. Henry Bettenson as City of God '
rev. edn (Harmondsworth, 1984), pp. 735-6.
56 It is interesting to note that, by contrast to the Contradictio Salomonis , the 'scriptura
de inventione crucis' was listed among the apocrypha whose doctrinal authority was
endorsed by the Decretum Gelasianum {Das Decretum , p. 10).
57 The Mirour of Mans Salvacioun : A Middle English Translation of 'Speculum Humanae
Salvationis', ed. Avril Henry (Aldershot, 1986); lines 1147-58 (p. 75), 4467-80 (p. 200),
3893-390° (p. 185). Cf. the illustrations in the Biblia pauperum , which associated the
Queen of Sheba's visit with the acknowledgement of Christ by the Gentiles, and
Solomon's enthronement of Bathsheba in I Kings ii. 19-20, with the Coronation of
the Virgin (Avril Henry, ( Biblia Pauperum V A Facsimile and Edition (Aldershot, 1987),
pp. 54, no).
58 'Cursor mundi': Four Versions, ed. Richard Morris, 5 vols, EETS, os 59, London,
1875; repr. 1966), II, lines 481-532.
59 Historia scholastica {PL, CXCVIII, cols 1 369-70).
60 Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea , ed. Th. Graesse, 3rd edn (Breslau, 1890), lxviii:
'De inventione sanctae crucis', p. 304; trans, as 'The Finding of the Holy Cross' in The
Golden Legend' Readings on the Saints , trans William Granger Ryan, 2 vols (Princeton, NJ,
I99î). II, 277-8.
" The Early South-English Legendary or Lives of Saints: /, ed. Carl Horstmann, EETS, os
87 (London, 1887), lines 297-8 (pp. 9-10). This legend is obviously based on I Peter
ii.7: 'lapis quem reprobaverunt aedificantes hie factus est in caput anguli'.
2 io Medium íEvum lxv.2
62 Pauline Matarasso, The Redem

(Geneva, 1979), p. 22; The Vulg
Sommer, I: Lestoire del Saint G
ed. Albert Pauphilet, 2nd edn
63 For further discussion of
cooperation - a healing of the
Solomonic stories - see Charlott
'Cleanness* (Columbia and Lon
the significance of the activity
one brings to one's reading o
conte alors très répandu, pro
Salomon ... l'incarnation de la
personnage de fabliau. Or, elle
de la Providence. Elle n'a rien
divine reçue par Salomon provi
sa femme: idée originale qui r
péché et préfiguration, la fe
cycle de la Vulgate', in Le Roman
Literaturen des Mittelalters 4
64 The Works of Sir Thomas M
3 vols (Oxford, 1990), II, 991
65 Ibid., II, 585.
66 In the Queste, Solomon's pra
Perceval's sister, who perform
the romance. On this aspect o
le pain : Essai sur La Queste del
attention to the way in whic
and Galahad with Eve, Solom
ventional oppositions between
on the other (p. 94 n. 19).
67 St Jerome, Libri duo adve
critical examination of Jero
Life, Writings and Controversi
68 Kelly points out that 'Solo
p. 183).
69 On the development of anti
Women Defended' An Antholog
Katharina M. Wilson and Eliza
Marriage: Misogamous Literature
70 Merchant's Tale, IV.2138-4
71 On the influence of the So
Matter, The Voice of My Belove
(Ithaca and London, 1990), dis
7, 29-32).
72 The connections between the Merchant's Tale and Jerome's polemical treatise are
briefly established in R. E. Kaske, 'The Canticum Canticorum in the Miller's Tale',
Studies in Philology , 59 (1962), 479-500 (p. 479). For further connections with the Feast
of the Assumption, see James I. Wimsatt, 'Chaucer and the Canticle of Canticles', in
Chaucer the Love-Poet , ed. J. Mitchell and W. Provost (Athens, Ga, 1973), pp. 66-90.
73 Merchant's Tale, IV. 2 29 3-2 3 10.

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FROM EXEGESIS TO APPROPRIATION: THE MEDIEVAL SOLOMON

Author(s): MISHTOONI BOSE

FROM EXEGESIS TO APPROPRIATION: THE MEDIEVAL SOLOMON

During the summer of 1024, Fulbert of Chartres was called upon

because he did penance, not

This was by no means a com

Solomon does not have a place among the Nine Wort

exempla. This could be achieved e

Videretur innovari in eo illud don

(There seemed to have been renew

To a great extent, also, it proved undesirable to dislodge Solomon the

(Solomon's marriage with Pharaoh's daughter), and

De cele grant perfectïun

The second approach, which was more rewarding in intellectual and

Apparet enim in persona hujus Salomonis et mira excellentia, et mira subversio.

The third course was to adopt a pess

Sol hominum Salomon, thesaurus deliciarum Domini, sapi

(Solomon, the sun of men, the treasury of the Lord's delig

It will be immediately evident that each choice had im

king is approached by two men, who request his a

contained in the Russian Palea,

solemn competition between the two kings.35 The

in my mouth, for me lyke is none

S: A ferdefull woman shalbe pray

A tactic frequendy used by Marcol

and legacy has been re-established as surely as has th

'Masloť nos numad le premer

et quia non abiicit Deus poenitente

(It must be said that to say someth

Bonaventure's method of appro

tree for himself. Solomon suggests that they exhu

Overwhelmed, the queen's responses are confined t

predictions of Christ himsel

Overcome by fear, Solomo

advent) to his wife. In this version of even

This reading of the Song o

As has been noted by recen

Solomon's own experiences are invoked by Proserpin

What though he made a temple, Goddes hous?

In her intemperance, Proserpine is, of course, only p

Somerville College, MISHTOONI BOSE

8 The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Churchy ed. F. L.

Augustine's scepticism, howev

Feldman, 'Josephus as an apologist of the Greco-Roma

literature, see Mark Balfour, '

'Li Proverbes au vilain'; 3076: 'Proverbes de Marcoul et de

62 Pauline Matarasso, The Redem

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