Beyond the Islamic Revolution

Perceptions of Modernity and Tradition

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Beyond the Islamic Revolution
Worlds of Islam –
Welten des Islams –
Mondes de l’Islam

Im Auftrag der Schweizerischen Asiengesellschaft –

On behalf of the Swiss Asia Society –
Au nom de la Société Suisse-Asie

Edited by
Bettina Dennerlein
Anke von Kügelgen
Silvia Naef
Maurus Reinkowski
Ulrich Rudolph

Volume 8
Beyond the
Islamic
Revolution
Perceptions of Modernity and Tradition in Iran
before and after 1979

Edited by
Amir Sheikhzadegan and Astrid Meier
This publication was made possible due to the support of Swiss Academy of
Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW).

ISBN 978-3-11-039959-2
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-039988-2
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-040005-2
ISSN 1661-6278

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at: http://dnb.dnb.de.

© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Cover image: Parastou Forouhar, “Red + Green III_C”
Typesetting: jürgen ullrich typosatz, Nördlingen
Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
♾ Printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Germany

www.degruyter.com
Table of Contents

Notes on Transliteration VII

Amir Sheikhzadegan and Astrid Meier

Introduction 1

Part I: Main Intellectual Trends

Ramin Jahanbegloo
Intellectuals and Society in Iran since 1953 17

Amir Sheikhzadegan
The Trajectory of the 1953 Military Coup and the Course of Liberal Islam in Iran:
A Sociological Analysis 31

Katajun Amirpur
Constructing and Deconstructing Othering: Polycentrism versus
Westoxication in Iran 60

Part II: The Voices of the Less Visible

Roswitha Badry
Insurmountable Hurdles to the Countering of Patriarchal Gender Discourse
under a Clerical Oligarchy? Experiences of (Islamic) Feminists in the Islamic
Republic of Iran (1979–2009) 89

Erika Friedl
Heirs of Modernity in Rural Iran 112

Part III: Social Change in the Mirror of Art

Katja Föllmer
The Rebellious Man and the Courageous Woman: Social Criticism and Gender
Relations in Iranian Film Production before and after the Islamic
Revolution 131
VI Table of Contents

Tobias Nünlist
Between Change and Persistence: Reżā Julāʾi’s Short Story Miti-Jenn as a Mirror
of Social Developments in Iran 155

Note on Contributors 177

Index of Names and Places 179

Notes on Transliteration
Throughout this book, the transliteration of Persian names and terms follows the
system of the Encyclopaedia Iranica (www.iranicaonline.org/pages/guidelines).
Arabic words are transliterated according to the norms of the International
Journal of Middle East Studies.
In cases of proper names that have common English spellings, such as places
and individuals, we opted for the English spelling (e. g. Tehran, Shiraz, Reza
Shah, Khomeini, and Ahmadinejad instead of Tehrān, Širāz, Reżā Šāh, Ḵomeini,
and Aḥmadinežād). The same holds for Arabic and Persian terms that have
entered English lexicons (e. g. mullah, Ayatollah, and Khan instead of mullā,
Āyatollāh, and Ḵān), as well as for the names of Iranian scholars who have
published in languages other than Persian.
Dates are given according to the Common Era calender. In the case both the
Islamic (Hijri) and the Common Era calender are used, dates appear in the
following form: Hijri/Common Era. The common form for Hijra dates is the solar
calendar, with the lunar ones being marked with the abbreviation “h.q.” (for Hijri
Qamari).

DOI 10.1515/9783110399882-203
Amir Sheikhzadegan and Astrid Meier
Introduction
The Islamic Revolution of 1979 has marked Iran’s recent history to an exceptional
degree and counts as an event of global importance. As unexpected as the results
of the demonstrations of 1978 and 1979 were at the time, it seems quite impossible
today to imagine the Iran of the last Shah, that of Moṣaddeq or the Pahlavi period
as a whole, let alone the Constitutional Revolution or the Qājārs. Yet these names
and the corresponding events are constituent elements of any Iranian reflections
on modern history and collective identity. When we organized a symposium on
Iran on behalf of the “Swiss Society for Middle East Studies and Islamic Civiliza-
tion” in 2008 and 2009, Iranian politics were high on the agenda of the world
media. The focus was on the supposed Iranian nuclear weapons program, the re-
election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the demonstrations against the manip-
ulation of the election results, known as the Green Movement. Some commenta-
tors prophesized the imminent downfall of the ruling regime, yet the Islamic
Republic seemed to have reinvented itself from inside by the presidential elec-
tions of 2013, which saw the victory of the moderate candidate Hassan Rouhani. It
remains to be seen whether the alleged “historic” nuclear deal of 2015 between
Iran and the world powers will have any substantial impact on Iran’s political
system.
Politics and political history are, however, not the focus of this volume. The
contributors are more interested in the long-term transformations of the society
that have roots in the period before the Revolution. Viewed from the outside,
Iran’s society today seems to be full of contradictions: religious and secular,
modern and traditional, theocratic and democratic, to name but a few of the
epithets often used to describe it. These contradictory images awakened our
interest in the various dimensions of the transformation processes that have
shaped the recent history of Iran, with a special focus on the question of how
images of tradition and modernity have played into, and been transformed by,
societal change in the country.
Much research on societal change in Iran is being done, and scholars in and
outside Iran debate with an increasingly global academic community a myriad of
aspects of the social life of this country. With regard to the temporal dimension of
societal change, the debates cover two different scales.
One approach looks at the “longue durée”, focusing on the continuities,
discontinuities and gradual changes of Iranian society from a long historical
perspective. Typical examples of this type of research are Homa Katouzian’s
works on the dialectics of arbitrary rule and social disorder in Iranian his-

DOI 10.1515/9783110399882-001
2 Amir Sheikhzadegan and Astrid Meier

tory,1 Ahmad Ashraf’s studies of Iranian identity,2 Afsaneh Najmabadi’s study of

gender relations in Iran from the Safavid period up to the present time3, and
Willem Floor’s work on sexual relations in the country.4 This type of study
sometimes focuses on a special social group; examples being Richard Tapper’s
research into the social history of the Shahsevan5 or David Yeroushalmi’s edited
volume on the history of Jews and their artistic achievements in Iran.6
The second strand of scholarship limits itself to a more recent period, the time
of tajaddod-ṭalabi, the quest for modernity; a common point of departure is the
Constitutional Revolution of 1905 to 1911, Enqelāb-e Mašruṭeh in Persian. Most
studies that belong to this group focus on a specific period, such as the Constitu-
tional Revolution, the Pahlavi era or post-revolutionary Iran. Only recently have
some scholars tried to surmount the dividing lines between specific periods and
historical junctures.7
In many of the existing studies of collective images of self and other in Iran,
the notion of modernity is of central importance. Iran is a particularly interesting
case of this global phenomenon as the divide between what is perceived to be
modern and what counts as traditional has been complicated by nativist con-
structions of “Iranianness” or of being Muslim. Images of modernity in Iran have
very often been a “cultural translation”8 of concepts associated with modernity in
Europe. Depending on one’s interests and/or inclination, one would take a
concept such as rationalism, empiricism/positivism, industrialization, individu-
alism, democracy, secularization, nation state, or a combination of such con-
cepts, as the manifestation of modernity.9
Iranians, however, were not only fascinated by modernist narratives of his-
tory, society and mankind, but also receptive to intellectual movements which
were critical of modernity, be it in its philosophical foundations or in its manifes-
tation in material life. Of particular appeal were post-colonial theories, existenti-
alism in both its French and German manifestations, the critical sociology of the

1 Katouzian 2003.
2 Ashraf 2006/2012.
3 Najmabadi 2005.
4 Floor 2008.
5 Tapper 1997.
6 Yeroushalmi 2012.
7 Some examples of this strand of research are: Najmabadi 2005, Ashraf 1991, Chehabi 1998,
Ghamari-Tabrizi 2004, Talattof 1997, Abrahamian 2008, Vahdat 2002.
8 Schulze 2003: 22.
9 Regarding its impact on Iranian intellectual discourse, Vahdat highlights two “pillars” of
modernity: subjectivity and universality (see Vahdat 2002).
 Introduction 3

Frankfurt School, the works of the so-called postmodern thinkers, and even the
radical views of intellectuals such as Ivan Illich, Paulo Freire, Erich Fromm and
Everett Reimer. Each train of thought resonated with one or other group of Iranian
intellectuals.
The concept of modernity, as understood in the nineteenth as well as the
better part of the twentieth century, was based on several presumptions of which
the following were the most prominent.
Firstly, it was based on a dichotomy between “modernity” and “tradition”
while essentializing both. As Peter Wehling noted, it was because of this “globa-
lized, ahistorical, and abstract dichotomy” that all attempts to define modernity
became tautological.10
Secondly, it implied a normative view of both concepts: While modernity was
considered rational, progressive and humane, tradition was labeled irrational,
backward and oppressive. This construct served, as is well known, as a legitimiza-
tion of colonialism and imperialism. The negative attitude towards tradition
found its strongest expression when it came to religion, most vociferously from
those of a Marxist point of view. As Armando Salvatore has put it: “The Marxian
intervention that followed Feuerbach’s radical deconstruction of religion de facto
severed the link of religion from practice and made it the kernel of the ideology of
tradition. Religion was described as a crucial instrument of domination and as the
principal manifestation of human alienation, to be transcended through the
dialectics of historical materialism.”11
Thirdly, it was based on a linear, evolutionist view of human history, in which
the whole world would pass through the same developmental stages as “the
West”. Initially introduced by August Comte’s “Law of the three stages”12, an
evolutionary paradigm was adopted by many other 19th-century theorists. One of
the most popular of these models was Karl Marx’s evolutionist theory of historical
development. In the post-World War II era, the American sociologist Talcott
Parsons (1902–1979) presented an influential new formulation of the evolutionary

10 Wehling 1992: 117.

11 Salvatore 2007: 45.
12 According to Comte’s law of the three stages, the history of human knowledge goes through
three successive developmental stages: in the theological stage, people believe in personified
supernatural forces as the causes of phenomena. In the metaphysical stage, this belief takes more
abstract forms. Thus God, Satan, the angels etc. replace the personified deities. In the positive
stage, people look for the laws governing phenomena. The first stage is characterized by the
supremacy of the military, the second by the supremacy of the clergy and lawyers, and the third
by the supremacy of industry.
4 Amir Sheikhzadegan and Astrid Meier

approach to the development of societies. Inspired partly by Parsonian sociology,

there emerged various “modernization theories” including the “five stages mod-
el”13 of Walt W. Rostow (1916–2003).14 During the Cold War, these theories were
very influential in the countries belonging to the Western “camp”, including Iran.
Fourthly and finally, it had a strong Eurocentric bias as it labelled Europe and
other Western countries modern and progressive while considering non-Eur-
opean countries traditional and backward. As Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi ob-
served: “The conventional Enlightenment story treats modernity as a peculiarly
European development and as a byproduct of ‘Occidental rationalism’. Viewed
from within this hegemonic paradigm, non-European societies were ‘modernized’
as a result of Western impact and influence. Thus Westernization, modernization,
and acculturation were conceived as interchangeable concepts accounting for the
transition of ‘traditional’ and ‘non-Western’ societies.”15
Based on these premises, modernity served as a meta-narrative, as a “social
myth” (“Sozialmythos”)16, which encompassed all aspects of individual and
social life. To speak with Henri Lefebvre, “modern” turned into “a talisman, an
open sesame” with a “lifelong guarantee”.17
In recent decades, however, all these presumptions have been challenged by
new theoretical concepts as well as empirical findings.
The dichotomy of West vs. East has been questioned by new historical
findings that show the interconnectedness of the historical development of the
Euro-Mediterranean civilizational space18, as well as the confluence of Hellenic
and Abrahamian traditions.19 The Eurocentrist dimension of the concept has been
criticized by post-colonial theorists among others. The evolutionist premise of the
modernization theories is challenged by the theory of “multiple modernities”20
which postulates different paths of societal transformation. The notion that in the
process of modernization, religion will gradually vanish has faded in the light of

13 According to Rostow, economic growth goes through five stages of 1) traditional society, 2)
preconditions for take-off, 3) take-off, 4) drive to maturity and 5) age of high mass consumption.
He believed that the Western countries were the pioneers of economic development and that the
whole world would sooner or later follow their path (see Rostow 1960).
14 In his late and widely neglected work Action Theory and the Human Condition, Parsons (1978)
distanced himself from modernization theory which he criticized for its simplistic view of
(religious) traditions (for a short review, see Joas/Knöbl: 2004: 137–139.
15 Tavakoli-Targhi 2001: 2.
16 Schnädelbach 1989. See also Wehling 1992.
17 Lefebvre 1995: 185.
18 Salvatore 2007: 3.
19 Salvatore 2007: 3. See also Hobson 2004.
20 Eisenstadt 2000.
 Introduction 5

abundant empirical evidence of the increasing role of religion in the public sphere
and a questioning of the public-private divide in societies with a secular self-
image.21 Finally, the positivist dimension of the concept has lost its appeal in the
face of constructivist as well as hermeneutical approaches in social sciences and
humanities.
Whereas modernity has been the object of hot debates, the concept of
tradition has been widely neglected. Even social anthropology which considers
tradition a key concept has not developed a theory of tradition, and only few
anthropologists have called for one.22 In most discussions, therefore, tradition
seems defined merely as the counterpart of modernity, of that which came before
modernity from the perspective of progress. Tradition usually refers to objects,
practices, texts and ideas which originated in the past and are transmitted
through the generations down to the present where they remain authoritative and
in use. This includes cases of “invention of tradition” where the legitimizing tie to
the past becomes particularly visible.23
The reevaluation of the concepts of modernity regarding the role of religion
in particular has renewed not only scholarly interest, but also an intellectual
debate about the dynamic and critical part tradition can play in knowledge
production and societal change. Talal Asad recently pointed to the seminal
importance of developing an adequate understanding of tradition. Referring to
his own usage, he says: “I have used the term ‘tradition’ in my writings in two
ways: first, as a theoretical location for raising questions about authority, time,
language use, and embodiment; and second, as an empirical arrangement in
which discursivity and materiality are connected through the minutiae of every-
day living. The discursive aspect of tradition is primarily a matter of linguistic acts
passed down the generations as part of a form of life, a process in which one
learns/relearns ‘how to do things with words’, sometimes reflectively and some-
times unthinkingly, and learns/relearns how to comport one’s body and how to
feel in particular contexts.”24
Such a complex and multifaceted approach to tradition opens up fruitful
debates about the various ways societies and social groups and movements refer
to what they understand as modern and traditional and the historical moments at
which these notions come into play. The papers collected in this volume take up
this challenge and point to the diversity of attempts to define the ever-shifting

21 For a well-documented review of theories and empirical findings see Wilson 2011.
22 See Boyer 1990.
23 Hobsbawm/Ranger 1983.
24 Asad 2015; cf. Asad 1986.
6 Amir Sheikhzadegan and Astrid Meier

and often contradictory notions of modernity and tradition in recent Iranian

intellectual thought. From different angles and with various methodologies, they
aim at a more differentiated and critical analysis of the trajectories of using these
concepts. Prior to this enquiry, however, it was necessary to develop a better
understanding of the dialectics of social life and intellectual discourse in order to
gain a more comprehensive perception of what had happened in Iran over the
previous five decades. Three dimensions of societal change were identified as of
crucial interest for the contributions to this volume:
a) The long-term aspect: We wanted to look beyond the rupture of the Islamic
Revolution back to the period of the Pahlavis in order to understand more
thoroughly the impact of the modernizing reforms of the Pahlavi regime and
the counter-reforms of the Islamic Republic.
b) The methodological approach: In order to come to a more comprehensive
understanding of Iranian society and the changes it lived through, it was
necessary to open an inter- and cross-disciplinary debate. The present vol-
ume takes up this challenge by bringing together insights from the fields of
Oriental studies, history, sociology, literature and social anthropology. How-
ever, the volume also points to the difficulty in bringing the various ap-
proaches into a meaningful conversation, as the configurations of social and
societal change, politics and cultural production are complex and not easy to
describe. The fact that some contributions in this volume remain more iso-
lated than others may be explained to some degree by the differences
between social sciences and the humanities and the specific logic of such
areas as cinema and literature. In their disciplinary “Eigensinn”, however,
they point to features of social and societal change that are often overlooked
in more conventional sociological analyses.
c) The subjective dimension: The volume focuses on the subjective dimension
of societal change as it is primarily interested in a better understanding of the
self-perceptions and worldviews of Iranians.

In the long-term perspective adopted, the coup of 1953 is, for the following
reasons, a meaningful point of departure. Firstly, it was only in the post-Moṣad-
deq era that Iran witnessed the rise of a full-fledged rentier state, even though oil
revenues had played a major role in the Iranian economy since the rule of Reza
Shah. The dependence on oil is a phenomenon that has, up to the present, been
one of the most salient features of the Iranian state, with far-reaching conse-
quences for state-society relations.
Secondly, the role of the USA and the UK in the 1953 coup against the
democratically elected Prime Minister Moṣaddeq caused resentment in the Ira-
nian public and constituted proof for nationalists of all kinds of the colonialist
 Introduction 7

attitude of “the West”: while advocating democracy, Western powers backed an

authoritarian military administration. The resentment towards the outside world
was reinforced by disappointment with the Soviet Union for its imperialist politics
despite its rhetoric of international solidarity against imperialism. This situation
led many to question the validity of values propagated as “modern”.
Thirdly, with the fall of Moṣaddeq’s government, the modernist authoritarian-
ism of the Reza Shah era returned to the political stage. At the top of the agenda,
therefore, were not core values of modernity such as democracy and equality, but
materialistic perceptions of it (expressed in a modern economy, infrastructure,
army etc.) – a process which further delegitimized modernity and boosted nativist
worldviews.
Fourthly and finally, disillusionment with peaceful means of protest and
parliamentarianism sowed the seeds of violent politics and triggered a trajectory
that brought about, a quarter of a century later, an Islamist regime notorious for
its perpetual violation of human rights.
This volume brings together some of the papers presented at the conference
“Iran and the World: Societal Change, Self-Images and Worldviews in Iran since
1953” which took place at the University of Basel, Switzerland, on November 13th
and 14th, 2009 and which had been organized by the “Swiss Society for Middle
East Studies and Islamic Civilization” (SGMOIK/SSMOCI/SSMEC). In order to do
justice to the spectrum of topics treated, some additional contributions have been
included in the present volume.
The collection starts with three contributions that outline from different
angles the most important trends in the intellectual history of Iran in the second
half of the 20th century and beyond. All three essays highlight the impact of the
ground-breaking essay Ḡarbzadegi (usually translated as Westoxication) by Jalāl
Āl-e Aḥmad in 1962 which became paradigmatic as the most influential example
of “othering” for several decades. By positing that the West and values associated
with it, embodied in the notion of modernity, came over Iran like a sickness, the
essay cemented the perception of an autochthonous Iranian tradition, seen as
essentially Islamic, that had to be protected against this threat. This striking
image had a strong influence on the following generations of both secular and
religious intellectuals and contributed substantially to a stereotyping of Islam as
positive and “the West” as negative.
In his article Intellectuals and Society in Iran since 1953, Ramin Jahanbegloo
addresses the question of why and how violence became the dominant intellec-
tual project in the pre-revolutionary era. As Jahanbegloo illustrates, the lawful,
pacifist ambitions of Iran’s elites, originating in the Constitutional Revolution of
1906, were shattered by the coup against Prime Minister Moḥammad Moṣaddeq
in 1953. During the 1960s, Frantz Fanon’s celebration of violence as a means of
8 Amir Sheikhzadegan and Astrid Meier

liberation from colonial rule became a source of inspiration for both the religious
and the secular segments of the Iranian intelligentsia who were dreaming of
putting an end to the Shah’s oppressive regime. It was on the violent stage set up
and normalized by Mohammad Reza Shah and his Marxist opponents that
Ayatollah Khomeini succeeded in establishing a violent theocracy in Iran. Those
who undid Moṣaddeq’s nonviolent reforms could not know that they were guid-
ing Iranian society towards tremendous, inexorable violence twenty-five years
later.
Amir Sheikhzadegan’s article The Trajectory of the 1953 Military Coup and the
Course of Liberal Islam in Iran: A Sociological Analysis follows the path of this
intellectual and/or political movement and its repeated reinvention against the
background of societal change. Rooted in the Constitutional Revolution (1905–
1911), liberal Islam was revitalized in the 1940s after an eclipse under Reza Shah’s
rule (1925–1940). The coup of 1953, however, gave rise to a movement with a
different agenda. The advocates of this new liberal Islam were deeply politicized
and regarded resistance to the regime as the most urgent task of a Muslim
believer. Moreover, they showed a positivist attitude toward modernity and saw
the salvation of Muslim societies in the adoption of modern science and technol-
ogy while living Islamic values. The golden days of liberal Islam did not last long.
Political repression combined with radical impulses from the world system
resulted in the emergence of violent ideologies and led finally to the rise of a
repressive Islamist regime.
In the long term, however, Islamist repression triggered a culture of resis-
tance which boosted, in turn, a reformist movement based on Islamic liberalism.
This liberal interpretation is characterized by a new approach to Islam as well as
to modernity. Striving for a “humanistic hermeneutics” of Islam, it clearly shows
the influence of postmodern schools of thought and marks a radical departure
from the positivist attitudes of the older generation.
In her article Constructing and Deconstructing Othering: Polycentrism versus
Westoxication in Iran, Katajun Amirpur traces the historical roots and the context
of the emergence of a group of Iranian intellectuals whom she describes as the
first true post-colonial thinkers in the Muslim world. She refers to intellectuals
like Soruš, Yusefi-Eškevari, Kadivar and Šabestari who distance themselves from
the clichéd depiction of the West that had dominated the works of their masters
Āl-e Aḥmad and Šariʿati and who are much more familiar with various aspects of
intellectual traditions of the Western world. This post-Islamist intellectual move-
ment is, however, far from dominant within the Iranian system. According to
Amirpur, the Heideggerian philosopher Aḥmad Fardid and his followers advocate
the postcolonial worldviews of Āl-e Aḥmad and Šariʿati, thereby providing the
ruling class with an intellectual basis for its anti-Western ideology.
 Introduction 9

The two essays of the second part add important dimensions to the percep-
tion of modernity and tradition by focusing on often overlooked aspects of social
reality in Iran. Gender relations, a core topic of reformist intellectuals, are the
focus of Roswitha Badry’s overview of feminist and other readings towards a
gendered theology of Islam. The perspective of a rural-tribal community is the
point of reference in Erika Friedl’s contribution.
In her article Insurmountable Hurdles to the Countering of the Patriarchal
Gender Discourse under a Clerical Oligarchy? Experiences of (Islamic) Feminists in
the Islamic Republic of Iran, Badry analyses the ideological origins as well as the
historical development of gender discourse in post-revolutionary Iran. First, she
discusses the pre-revolutionary discourse on the image of women in Islam by
focusing on Ayatollah Moṭahhari’s neo-traditionalist notion of complementarity of
gender-specific roles as well as on ʿAli Šariʿati’s romanticized, ahistorical descrip-
tion of female idols in early Islam. She then distinguishes four trends in post-
revolutionary gender discourse, i.e. textualists, semi-textualists, contextualists,
and semi-contextualists. All these groups start from the reading of the classical
Islamic texts such as the Qur’an, yet they differ in the literality of their interpreta-
tions and the degree of sensitivity to the socio-historical context of the texts as well
as the necessities of the present time. Badry concludes by remarking that even
though Islamic feminists can look back at an impressive record of enduring struggle
for gender equality, they have not yet succeeded in bringing about a feminist
theology.
An overwhelming part of research on the changing perception of modernity
in Iran is focused on urban populations. Consequently, we know much less
about this issue in rural Iran. The small progress made before the revolution of
1979 in the anthropology of rural and tribal areas in Iran was seriously ham-
pered by the demise of social sciences as a result of the Cultural Revolution
(1980–1982) and by travelling restrictions on Western scholars in post-revolu-
tionary Iran. The anthropological works available are relatively scarce and
highly fragmented. Even rarer is research that goes beyond the ethnographic
scope to document social change in rural and/or tribal communities over longer
periods.
In her contribution Heirs of Modernity in Rural Iran, Erika Friedl addresses
this shortcoming by providing an in-depth insight into the evolution of the
perception of modernity in rural communities of Iran from the pre-revolutionary
era up to the present. Drawing on her long-time field research in Boir Ahmad, a
tribal area in the Zagros Mountains, she shows how socio-cultural change is
linked with the evolution of attitudes of the respective community towards
modernity. Distancing herself from essentializing approaches to the concepts of
tradition and modernity, Friedl focuses on people’s motivation for abandoning
10 Amir Sheikhzadegan and Astrid Meier

their customs and values, and she shows, from a lifeworld perspective, that
social change happens at the level of personal decisions in everyday life.
According to Friedl, Iranian villagers, contrary to the dominant stereotypes
among urban populations, are neither isolated from the national public sphere
nor tradition-bound people unaware of, or uninterested in, modern urban life-
styles, but rather they are in constant and creative interaction with towns and
cities thus developing clear aspirations for modern ways of life. For the village of
Sisakht, “to make progress” (pišraft kardan) has been the leitmotiv par excellence
of social life for decades if not for a whole century.
This brings us to our third part: In Iran, as in any other society, modernization
has gone hand in hand with an intense dialectical relation between social change
and diverse forms of artistic expression. On the one hand, Iranian artists have
inspired or catalysed, if not directly caused, in some way or another, changes in the
worldviews as well as self-perceptions of Iranians, thus contributing to the structural
transformation of society. On the other hand, gradual changes as well as ruptures in
the social structure and/or in the cultural sphere of Iran have affected, with varying
degrees of intensity, the form as well as the content of Iranian art production. In this
volume, we refer to two forms of artistic expression, cinema and literary prose.
Katja Föllmer’s contribution The Rebellious Man and the Courageous Woman:
Social Criticism and Gender Relations in Iranian Film Production before and after
the Islamic Revolution takes two Iranian feature films, produced in two different
periods, to show how representations of manhood and womanhood have chan-
ged since the 1960s. Föllmer demonstrates how in the beginning, Iranian movies
were amateur imitations of foreign films, with modest success in Iran and without
any resonance abroad. In the 1960s, a new, self-confident Iranian cinema
emerged in search of an artistic expression of its own. During this period, the
Iranian film industry became a medium of critical reflection on a variety of social
issues including the dialectics of tradition and modernity.
Yet despite the modernist ideology of the Pahlavi regime, Iranian cinema was
less progressive and innovative before the Revolution than it has been since. Many
pre-revolutionary Iranian films showed a conventional image of traditional patri-
archal society. Even the movies preoccupied with political opposition to the status
quo had mainly male characters as their leads. Post-revolutionary films, in con-
trast, are more innovative as well as progressive. Despite the conservative ideology
of the Islamist regime with its restrictions on the public appearance of women,
Iranian film industry has provided “courageous” female directors and actresses
with new spheres of influence within which they explore creative means of addres-
sing social taboos.
Whereas the cinema had to wait long before finding its way into Iranian
public life, modern literature has accompanied Iranian society since the early 20th
 Introduction 11

century. In his interpretation of the short story Miti-Jenn, Tobias Nünlist shows
how the social and political processes shaping contemporary Iranian society are
mirrored in an astonishing piece of Iranian literature.
The writer of the story, Reżā Julāʾi, is a “third-generation” writer of literary
prose who won several distinguished literary prizes. As Nünlist shows, the writer
is convinced that the tortuous past of Iranian society, characterized by cruel
invasions and arbitrary rule, has had an enduring impact on the present, making
the Iranian psyche a sophisticated labyrinth. Julāʾi tries to explore the psychologi-
cal dimensions of human existence in contemporary Iran in the light of what
happened in the past. By locating his story in the era of the Constitutional
Revolution, Julāʾi avoids any explicit hints at more recent political events or
characters. He creates a safe space to paint an impressive image of what he sees
as the roots of the malaise of contemporary Iranian society: a belief in super-
natural saviors, blind followership, superstition, populism, leaders rising out of
the sub-proletariat and political repression.
Miti-Jenn has a complex, multi-layered and multi-level structure with a
myriad of themes developing into one another, and the story cannot be reduced
to a single topic. Nevertheless, tensions between tradition and modernity, parti-
cularly those between rationalism on the one hand and superstition and demonic
beliefs on the other, appear to be paramount themes. Julāʾi’s writing style – his
working with elements of mystical realism, constant shifts between past and
present as well as between the real and the imaginary – adds to the thematic
complexity.
During the long time it took to produce this volume, we incurred many debts
of gratitude. First of all, we would like to thank the authors for their cooperation
and their patience. We are grateful to the University of Basel, the Swiss Academy
of Humanities and Social Sciences and the SGMOIK, in particular to its treasurer
Martha Vogel and its former president Monika Winet, for their support in the
organization of the conference. We thank Prof. Ulrich Rudolph, Prof. Bettina
Dennerlein and the Swiss Asian Society for including the volume in the “Welten
des Islams/Mondes de l’Islam” series. Last but not least, we thank Christine
O’Neill for proofreading the manuscript, Matthias Sulz and Dominik Österle for
their help in the preparation of the volume.
In conclusion, we would like to emphasize that this volume does not aspire to
be comprehensive. It goes without saying that any endeavor to shed light on
perceptions of modernity and tradition and their co-constitutive construction is
necessarily limited to specific authors and specific historical moments. If one
wanted to characterize Iranian discourse on these issues, it would be misleading
to describe it indiscriminately as essentializing. While in various contributions to
the debate presented here, essentializing elements do play an important role in
12 Amir Sheikhzadegan and Astrid Meier

the construction of “we” and “other” – particularly of “the West” –, the discourse
itself is far more varied and open. This seems to be a good starting point to rethink
the “othering” of Iran in many parts of the world today.

Amir Sheikhzadegan and Astrid Meier

Zurich and Beirut, November 2015

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Ashraf, Ahmad (1991): “State and Agrarian Relations before and after the Iranian Revolution,
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Frankfurt.
Katouzian, Homa (2003): Iranian History and Politics: The Dialectic of State and Society. London.
Lefebvre, Henri (1995): Introduction to Modernity: Twelve Preludes, September 1959–May 1961,
translated by John Moore. London/New York.
Najmabadi, Afsaneh (2005): Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual
Anxieties of Iranian Modernity. Berkeley.
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bridge.
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der Dialektik der Aufklärung: Zwischen Moderne und Postmoderne, edited by Harry Kunne-
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Schulze, Reinhard (2003): Geschichte der islamischen Welt im 20. Jahrhundert. Munich.
 Introduction 13

Talattof, Kamran (1997): “Iranian Women’s Literature: From Pre-Revolutionary Social Discourse
to Post-Revolutionary Feminism.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 29(4):
531–558.
Tapper, Richard (1997): Frontier Nomads of Iran: A Political and Social History of the Shahsevan.
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Aviv.
Part I: Main Intellectual Trends
Ramin Jahanbegloo
Intellectuals and Society in Iran since 1953

Abstract: The 1953 Coup against Prime Minister Moḥammad Moṣaddeq marks a
clear rupture with the lawful and nonviolent aspirations of the Iranian elites
which were mainly formulated and experienced during the Constitutional Revolu-
tion of 1906.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Frantz Fanon’s celebration of violence as a means of
liberation from colonial rule became a source of inspiration for all those who were
dreaming of putting an end to the Shah’s oppressive regime. Violence as the
dominant intellectual project of pre-revolutionary Iran was embodied by the
religious and secular segments of the Iranian intelligentsia. At the same time, the
nativist attitudes of thinkers like Šariʿati and Āl-e Aḥmad left plenty of space for
tradition to become a political statement.
The two utopias of a classless society and Islamic government became the
dominant narratives of dissident thought and action in the Pahlavi state. As such,
the Shah’s political war against Iranian liberalism and the followers of Moṣaddeq
in the 1950s and 1960s resulted in the diminution of nonviolent political discourse
and the rise of the radical Left and Islamic fundamentalism in pre-revolutionary
Iran.
It was on the violent stage framed and normalized by Mohammad Reza Shah
and his Marxist opponents that Ayatollah Khomeini succeeded in establishing a
violent theocracy in Iran. Those who made Moṣaddeq’s nonviolent reforms im-
possible did not know that they were guiding Iranian society towards tremen-
dous, inexorable violence twenty-five years later.

The overthrow of Prime Minister Moḥammad Moṣaddeq by the intelligence

agencies of the United States and Great Britain in August 1953 occupies an
immensely significant place in the evolution of intellectual consciousness and
discourse in Iran. The Coup and its consequences marked a clear rupture with
the lawful and nonviolent aspirations of the Iranian elites which were mainly
formulated and experienced during the Constitutional Revolution of 1906. Mo-
ṣaddeq’s rise to leadership in the movement for the nationalization of the Iranian
oil industry and his premiership can be explained as a direct consequence of
Iran’s encounter with modernity and the nationalist aspirations of the Iranian
urban middle-class against imperialist intrusions. The close affiliation of Moṣad-
deq with the liberal and nonviolent values of the Revolution of 1906 and his

DOI 10.1515/9783110399882-002
18 Ramin Jahanbegloo

advocacy of a civic nationalism in Iran reinforced his position as the head of a

movement that contested foreign imperial hegemony while promoting demo-
cratic constitutionalism.
The explanation of the success of the coup of 1953 against Moṣaddeq, however,
resides not only in the political weaknesses of Iranian institutions of the day, but
can also be found in relation to Moṣaddeq’s nonviolent personality and his refusal
to act forcefully against his opponents. In addition to the tactical mistakes that
were made by Moṣaddeq and his National Front colleagues, one needs to point to
the role of the violent mob as the focus of political movements in Iranian contem-
porary history. “In the rioting of August 17 the mob was the vortex around which
the balance of political forces rotated.”1 The role played by the local gang-leader
Šaʿbān Jaʿfari, known as Šaʿbān Bimoḵ (“Brainless”) during the coup of 1953 and
later during Mohammad Reza Shah’s regime superbly describes the use of violence
to impose social control and achieve mob rule in contemporary Iran. This mob
violence had no decision-making structure and came about for political reasons.
But the mob disturbances which persisted in the wake of the coup of 1953 against
Moṣaddeq suggest quite clearly that the coup cannot be blamed solely on General
Fażlollāh Zāhedi and the foreign actors, but must also be blamed on Iranian crowd
psychology as the principal generator of social hostility and political violence.
There are many examples of mob psychology in modern and contemporary
Iran, the coup d’état of 1953 being just one of them. From the anti-Bābi sentiments
and pogroms during the Qājār era to the culture of violence promoted by the
Islamic Republic and perpetuated by staging various forms of physical punish-
ment in public, mob psychology in Iran shows that Iranians tend to behave in a
different manner when part of a group rather then when they act independently.
As members of thug groups they are likely to commit acts they would never
commit alone. This is not due to a change in their beliefs or principles, but rather
that thus, they tend to ignore or avoid their moral conscience or rational judg-
ment. It is true that the role of mobs in the political evolution of contemporary
Iran alone cannot suffice for a sociological analysis of Iranian society. But what it
can reveal is plenty of evidence for structural violence in Iranian society which
has complemeted the system of arbitrary rule throughout Iranian history. It goes
without saying that in a society as unpredictable as Iran, mob rule has been and
is still largely in the hands of anti-democratic forces which are massively in favor
of a political development in the direction of organized violence. Thus, Moṣad-
deq’s opponents used planned and strategic violence continuously against him
and his allies in order to weaken the rule of law and democratic practices. It is

1 Efimenco 1955: 404.

 Intellectuals and Society in Iran since 1953 19

therefore difficult to think how Moṣaddeq’s nonviolent premiership could have

survived, even if the Americans had not decided to prepare a coup against him.2
As Homa Katouzian underlines correctly, “Mosaddeq and the Popular Movement
– whatever their shortcomings … believed in a plural as well as constitutional
society and did not wish to eliminate anyone else.”3 Thus the growing tendency
in the second Pahlavi era was toward total elimination of pluralism and practice
of violence through the army and secret police forces.
One could scarcely have expected a significantly different outcome of the
arbitrary rule of the Shah after the fall of Moṣaddeq and the end of nonviolent
parliamentarianism. In the same manner as his father, Reza Khan, Mohammad
Reza Shah crushed all hope of democracy and nonviolent pluralism by his iron-
willed arbitrary rule. All this was because the regime was founding its legitimacy
on the coup of August 1953 which was anything but a lawful act of nonviolent
democratization of Iranian society. Homa Katouzian divides the reign of the Shah
into two periods of dictatorship and arbitrary rule. According to him, “From 1963
to 1977 power became concentrated at an accelerating rate because all opposition
had been beaten, the oil revenues were accruing to the state at a rapidly increas-
ing (later exploding) rate, and foreign powers, Western as well as Soviet and East
European, became increasingly uncritical towards the regime, not least because
of the absence of an organized opposition, and the increasing oil wealth.”4 It was
not only the Shah and his dictatorial psychology, but also Iran’s historical
dynamics of violence that prepared the road to the development and acceleration
of philosophies of violence among Iranian intellectuals and opponents in the
1960s and 1970s. In the period in question, it was widely believed by the Shah and
his political allies that dictatorship was a necessary evil for maintaining state-
building in Iran. Therefore, the absence of power sharing which had begun with
the coup of 1953 was continued in the process of royal autocracy. “Mohammad
Reza Shah’s justification for his style of government was based on three basic
assumptions: the threat of infiltration and subversion from hostile neighbors to

2 Some historians of contemporary Iran have pointed to an alleged cooperation of the National
Front and Navvāb Ṣafavi in the assassination of Prime Minister ʿAli Razmārā. This conspiracy has
been discussed in Ali Rahnama’s (2005) book Niruhāy-e Maẕhabi bar Bestar-e Ḥarekat-e Nehżat-e
Melli (Religious Forces in the Context of the Nationalist Movement). But another historian of
contemporaray Iran, Fakhreddin Azimi, brings very solid and convincing arguments to reject this
absurd claim. According to him the “confessions” of Navvāb Ṣafavi in his 1334 trial – which were
absent in his 1330 confessions! – were but a conspiracy of the regime to stain the name of
Moṣaddeq. See interview in Persian with Azimi (1395/1975).
3 Katouzian 2004: 20.
4 Katouzian 2003: 110.
20 Ramin Jahanbegloo

the north and west; the masses’ incapacity for effective political participation due
to illiteracy, poverty, and fanaticism; and the necessity of rapid economic expan-
sion and industrialization free from political and parochial interests.”5 Largely
due to its incapacity to analyze the political environment of Iran, the one-man
rule of the Shah’s regime opened the door to violent guerrilla mentality and
radical Islamic opposition.
The two utopias of a classless society and Islamic government became the
dominant narratives of dissident thought and action in the Pahlavi state. As such,
the Shah’s political war against Iranian liberalism and the followers of Moṣaddeq
in the 1950s and 1960s resulted in the diminution of nonviolent political discourse
and the rise of the radical Left and Islamic fundamentalism in pre-revolutionary
Iran. As such, the intellectual language of protest against the Shah and his regime
was characterized by discourses that were either revivalist or revolutionary. It
should be recalled, however, that the Iranian Left was more challenged by the
Pahlavi state’s security apparatus than some of the Shiite clerics and militant
groups. “It is important to note that throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, while the
Left and liberal/social democratic forces and their institutions were hounded and
banned by the Pahlavi state, the religious establishment expanded considerably
and its institutions proliferated. Networks of mosques, seminaries, and lecture
halls, the publication of religious journals and books, access to the print and
electronic media, and the steady stream of mullahs (clerics) emerging from the
theological schools of Qom and elsewhere provided the leaders of political Islam
with an important social base, organization, and resources.”6 The fall and failure
of Moṣaddeq’s nationalist-liberal movement and its replacement by Ayatollah
Khomeini’s radical Islamist protest in 1963 helped to fuel the violent revolutionary
mentality. It was in those turbulent years and as an alternative to Pahlavi’s
monarchy that Ayatollah Khomeini formulated his theory of Islamic government.
“In this rather novel theory, during the absence of the prophet’s heirs – vacant
since the ‘great occultation’ or disappearance of the twelfth Imam Mahdi in the
tenth century – the world can be governed legitimately only by a Vali-e-Faqih –
the only one who can execute God’s will on behalf of the Hidden Imam – the
agency with a mandate to rule both politically and spiritually.”7
Given such social and political configurations under Islamic banners, it
would have been difficult to build an anti-Shah intellectual dissent on anything
but the anti-Western stand of Khomeini (as in the case of Jalāl Āl-e Aḥmad) or on

5 Amuzegar 1991: 125.

6 Mirsepassi 2000: 163.
7 Amuzegar 1991: 27.
 Intellectuals and Society in Iran since 1953 21

the paradigm of Karbala and the martyrdom of Imām Ḥosayn as an active

demonstration of opposition to the Shah’s autocratic regime (ʿAli Šariʿati). The
principles of a Shiite Imamate were thus manipulated by Iranian intellectuals in
order to unify disparate social categories into one revolutionary movement. Time
and time again, thinkers like Šariʿati articulated the revolutionary content of
Shiism, while making a distinction between a static and passive Islam and a
dynamic Islam. “If we are Muslims, if we are Shi‘ites,” he affirms, “and believe in
the Islamic and Shi‘i precepts, and yet those precepts have had no positive results
upon our lives, it is obvious that we have to doubt our understanding of them. For
we all believe that it is not possible for a nation to be Muslim, to believe in Ali and
his way and yet to gain no benefit from such a belief.”8 To many observers, the
success of the Iranian Revolution in 1979 was largely due not only to the political
capacities of Ayatollah Khomeini to rally the traditional loyalties of the masses,
but also to the intellectual genius of those who highlighted the revolutionary
elements of Twelver Shiism in order to produce a fundamental paradigm shift
from a Western model of modernization to a model of “national modernity”
basically concerned with the purposes and values of a revolutionary Islam.
Šariʿati set the standards of revolutionary praxis within the metaphor of
martyrdom where “only blood could distinguish the boundary between truth and
falsehood.” As such, “Whenever and wherever a liberated person has refused to
submit to despotism and its attempts for distorting supreme values, and has
preferred death to a dehumanized purposeless existence under a monstrous
regime and inhuman social system, it is a response to Hussein’s call. Wherever
there is struggle for liberation, Hussein is present on the battlefield.”9 The same
vision was expressed by Šariʿati in a speech on the courage of martyrdom:

The great teacher of martyrdom has risen to teach a lesson to those who believe that struggle
against dictatorship should be waged only when victory is possible, and to those who have
despaired or have compromised with the Establishment, or have become indifferent to their
environment. Hossein teaches that shahadat is a choice through which a mujahid, by
sacrificing himself on the altar of the temple of freedom and love, is irrevocably victorious.
Hossein has come to teach the Children of Adam how to die. He declares that people who
submit themselves to all forms of humiliations, injustice and oppression just to live a little
longer are destined to die a ‘black death’. Those who lack the courage to choose martyrdom,
death will choose them.10

8 Quoted in Bayat-Phillip 1980: 156.

9 Quoted in Irfani 1983: 131–132.
10 Irfani 1983: 133.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 d’armes, Geneuois, bidaus et arbalestriers; et commandèrent
les ouvriers à ouvrer, sus le fiance de
leurs gardes. Quant li ouvrier eurent ouvré un jour
[122] jusques à miedi, messires Gautiers de Mauni et aucun
de ses compagnons entrèrent en leurs nefs, et coururent
sus ces ouvriers et leurs gardes. Et en y eut
fuison de mors et de bleciés, et couvint les ouvriers
5 laissier oevre et retourner arrière. Et fu adonc tout
deffait quanques fait avoient; et y laissièrent des
mors et des noiiés grant plenté. Cilz debas et ceste
rihote recommençoient cescun jour. Au pardaarrain,
li signeur de France y furent si estoffeement, et si
10 bien gardèrent leurs ouvriers, que li pons fu fais bons
et fors. Si passèrent adonc li signeur et toute li hos
oultre, armé et ordonné par manière de bataille. Et
assallirent à ce donc le chastiel d’Aguillon fortement
et durement, sans yaus espargnier. Et y eut en ce
15 jour très fort assaut et maint homme bleciet, car cil
de dedens se deffendoient si vassaument que merveilles
seroit à recorder. Et dura cilz assaus un jour
tout entier, mès riens n’i fisent. Si retournèrent au
soir en leurs logeis, pour yaus reposer et aisier. Il
20 avoient bien de quoi, car leur host estoit bien pourveue
de tous biens. Chil dou chastiel se retraisent
ossi, et remisent à point ce qui brisiet et romput
estoit, car il avoient grant fuison d’ouvriers.

§ 249. Quant ce vint à l’endemain, cil signeur de

25 France s’assamblèrent et regardèrent et avisèrent entre
yaus comment il poroient le mieus et le plus apertement
grever chiaus dou chastiel. Si ordonnèrent,
pour plus travillier leurs ennemis, que il partiroient
leur host en quatre parties: des quèles li première
30 partie assaurroit dou matin jusques à prime, la seconde
de prime jusques à miedi, la tierce de miedi
[123] jusques à vespres, et la quarte de vespres jusques à
 le nuit; car, il pensoient que li deffendant ne poroient
tant durer: si le fisent ensi par grant avis. Et
assallirent par tèle ordenance cinq jours ou six, mais
5 ce ne leur valli riens; ains y pardirent grossement
de leurs gens. Car cil dou chastiel ne furent onques
si recreant, comment qu’il fuissent travaillet oultre
mesure, qu’il ne s’abandonnassent au deffendre si
vassaument, par quoi cil de l’host peuissent riens
10 gaegnier sus yaus, nes tant seulement le pont que estoit
devant le chastiel. Et quant il veirent ce que assaut
que il feissent ne leur pourfitoit riens, si en furent
tout confus, et eurent aultre conseil. Car il envoiièrent
querre à Thoulouse huit les plus grans engiens qui y
15 fuissent, et encores en fisent il faire et carpenter
quatre plus grans assés. Et fisent sans cesser ces douze
engiens getter jour et nuit par dedens le chastiel;
mais cil de le forterèce estoient si bien garitet que
onques pière d’engien ne les greva, fors as thois des
20 manandies. Et avoient chil dou chastiel bons engiens
qui debrisoient tous les engiens de dehors; et en peu
d’eure en debrisièrent jusques à six, dont cil de l’host
furent moult courouciet. Et toutdis avisoient et soutilloient
comment il les poroient le mieuls grever.

25 § 250. Ensi estoit li chastiaus d’Aguillon et cil qui

le deffendoient assalli par plusieurs manières, car
priès que toutes les sepmainnes on y trouvoit et avisoit
aucune cose de nouviel. Et ossi cil dou chastiel
revisoient à l’encontre, pour eulz deffendre. Le siège
30 durant devant Aguillon, il avint par pluiseurs fois que
messires Gautiers de Mauni s’en issi hors à tout cent
[124] ou six vingt compagnons, et en aloient par oultre le
rivière de leur costé fourer, et ramenoient, voiant
ceulz de l’host, souvent grant proie, dont li François
avoient grant anoi.
5 Et avint un jour que messires Charles de Montmorensi,
 mareschaus de l’host, chevauçoit et avoit bien
cinq cens compagnons tout à cheval, et ramenoit grant
proie en leur host, qu’il avoit fait recueillier sus le
pays, pour avitaillier l’ost. Si s’encontrèrent desous
10 Aguillon ces deux chevaucies. Messires Gautiers de
Mauni ne volt mies refuser, comment qu’il euist le
mains de gens, mès se feri tantost en ces François, et
cil entre eulz. Là eut dur hustin et fort, et maint
homme reversé par terre, mort et bleciet. Et y fisent
15 les deux chapitainnes grans apertises d’armes, et
vaillamment
se combatirent. Toutes fois, li Englès en
euissent eu le pieur, car li François estoient bien
cinq contre un. Mès les nouvelles vinrent dedens
Aguillon que leur compagnon se combatoient, et qu’il
20 n’estoient mies bien parti as François. Adonc issirent
il, cescuns qui mieulz mieulz, et le conte de Pennebruch
tout devant. Si vinrent tout à point à le meslée,
et trouvèrent monsigneur Gautier de Mauni qui estoit
à terre, enclos de ses ennemis, et là y faisoit merveilles
25 d’armes. Si fu tantost rescous et remontés,
que li contes de Pennebruch fu venus.
Or vous dirai que li François avoient fait. Entroes
que leurs gens se combatoient et ensonnioient les Englès,
il cacièrent leur proie oultre, et le misent à sauveté;
30 autrement il l’euissent perdu. Car li Englès qui
issirent hors d’Aguillon, pour secourir leurs compagnons,
li contes de Pennebruch, messires Franke de
[125] Halle, messires Hues de Hastinges, messires Robers de
Nuefville et li aultre s’i portèrent si vassaument, que
tantost il espardirent ces François, et rescousent tous
leurs compagnons, et prisent plusieurs prisonniers. Et
5 à grant meschief se sauva messires Charles de
Montmorensi,
qui s’en revint arrière, ensi que tous desconfis.
Et li Englès retournèrent dedens Aguillon.
 § 251. De telz rencontres et de tels hustins y avoit
souvent, sans les assaus et les escarmuces, qui estoient
10 priès que tous les jours à chiaus dou chastiel. Et che
arguoit durement le duch de Normendie, pour tant
que cil d’Aguillon se tenoient si vaillamment. Et estoit
tèle li intention dou duch qu’il ne s’en partiroit
par nulle condition, si li rois de France ses pères ne
15 le remandoit, se l’aroit conquis, et les Englès, qui dedens
estoient, mis à volenté. Or avisèrent li François
une aultre manière d’assaut, et fist on un jour armer
tous chiaus de l’host. Et commandèrent li signeur
que cil de Thoulouse, de Carcassonne et cil de Biaukaire
20 et leurs seneschaudies assausissent dou matin
jusques à miedi; et chil de Roerge, de Chaours et
d’Aginois, à leur retrette, jusques à vespres. Et cilz
qui poroit gaegnier premiers le pont de le porte dou
chastiel, on li donroit tantost cent escus. Li dus de
25 Normendie, pour mieulz furnir cest assaut, fist venir
et assambler sus le rivière grant planté de nefs et de
chalans. Li pluiseur entrèrent ens pour passer le ditte
rivière, et li aucun passèrent au pont. Chil dou chastiel,
qui veirent l’ordenance de l’assaut, furent tout
30 apparilliet pour deffendre. Lors commença uns trop
plus fors assaus qu’il n’i euist encores eu. Qui là veist
[126] gens abandonner vies et corps, et approcier le pont,
pour le convoitise de gaegnier les cent escus, et
presser l’un sus l’autre, si com par envie; et qui regardast
ossi chiaus dou chastiel yaus deffendre vassaument,
5 il se peuist bien esmervillier.
Finablement, au fort de le besongne, aucun se
misent par une nacielle en l’aigue par desous le
pont. Et jettèrent grans gros kros et havés au dit
pont leveis; et puis tirèrent si fort qu’il rompirent
10 les chainnes qui le pont tenoient, et l’avalèrent jus
par force. Qui donc veist gens lancier sus ce pont,
et tresbucier li uns sus l’autre, dix ou douze ens
 un mont, et veist chiaus d’amont en le porte jetter
grans pières, pos plains de cauch et grans mairiens,
15 bien peuist veoir grant merveille, et gens mehagnier
et morir et tresbuchier en l’aigue. Toutes fois, fu li
pons conquis par force, mès il cousta grandement
de leurs gens plus qu’il ne vaulsist. Quant li pons fu
gaegniés, chil de l’host eurent otant ou plus à faire
20 que devant, car il ne peurent aviser voie comment
il peuissent gaegnier le porte. Si se retraisent à leur
logeis, car jà estoit tart, et avoient mestier de reposer.
Quant il furent retrait, chil dou chastiel issirent
hors et refisent le pont plus fort que devant.

25 § 252. A l’endemain, vinrent doi mestre engigneour

au duch de Normendie et as signeurs de son conseil,
et dirent, se on les voloit croire et livrer bois et ouvriers
à fuison, il feroient quatre grans kas fors et
haus sus quatre grandes fortes nefs, que on menroit
30 jusques as murs dou chastiel. Et seroient si hault
qu’il sourmonteroient les murs: par quoi cil qui dedens
[127] les dis chas se tenroient, se combateroient main
à main à chiaus qui seroient sus les murs dou chastiel.
A ces paroles entendi li dus volentiers, et commanda
que cil quatre chat fuissent fait, quoi qu’il
5 deuissent couster, et que on mesist en oevre tous les
carpentiers dou pays, et que on lor paiast largement
leur journée, par quoi il ouvrassent plus volentiers
et mieulz apertement. Chil quatre kat furent fait, à
le devise et ordenance des deux maistres, en quatre
10 fortes nefs. On y mist longement, et coustèrent grans
deniers. Quant il furent parfait, et les gens d’armes
dedens entré, qui à chiaus dou chastiel devoient combattre,
et il eurent passet le moitié de le rivière, chil
dou chastiel fisent desclichier quatre martinés que il
15 avoient nouvellement fais faire, pour remediier contre
les quatre kas dessus dis. Chil quatre martinet jettèrent
 si grosses pières, et si souvent sur ces chas qu’il
furent bien tos debrisiés, et si confroissiés que les gens
d’armes et cil qui les conduisoient ne se peurent dedens
20 garandir. Si les couvint retraire arrière, ançois
qu’il fuissent oultre le rivière. Et en fu li uns effondrés
au fons de l’aigue, et la plus grant partie de
chiaus qui dedens estoient noiiet, dont ce fu pités et
damages; car il y avoit des bons chevaliers et escuiers,
25 qui grant desir avoient de leurs corps, pour leur honneur,
avancier.

§ 253. Quant li dus de Normendie et li signeur

de France veirent le grant meschief, et que par ce il
ne pooient parvenir à leur entention, il furent moult
30 courouciet. Et fisent les aultres trois nefs et les kas
cesser et retraire, et issir hors tous ceulz qui dedens
[128] estoient. Si ne pooient li signeur plus aviser voie,
manière ne engien comment il peuissent le fort chastiel
d’Aghillon prendre ne avoir. Et se n’i avoit prince
ne baron, tant fust grans sires ne proçains de linage
5 au duch de Normendie, qui osast parler dou deslogier
ne traire aultre part, car li dis dus en avoit parlé
moult avant qu’il ne s’en partiroit, si aroit le chastiel à
se volenté et chiaus qui dedens estoient, non se li
rois ses pères ne le remandoit.
10 Si avisèrent li signeur que li contes de Ghines,
connestables de France, et li contes de Tankarville se
departiroient dou siège et s’en retourneroient en
France, pour remoustrer et conter au dit roy l’ordenance
et l’estat dou siège d’Aguillon. Si se partirent
15 de l’host chil doi conte dessus dit, assés par le congiet
dou duch, et chevaucièrent tant par leurs journées
qu’il vinrent à Paris, où il trouvèrent le roy Phelippe.
Se li recordèrent le manière et l’estat dou siège d’Aguillon,
et comment li dus ses filz l’avoit fait assallir
20 par pluiseurs assaus, et riens n’i conqueroit. Li rois
 en fu tous esmervilliés, et ne remanda point adonc le
duch son fil, mès voloit bien qu’il se tenist encores
devant Aguillon, jusques à tant qu’il les euist constrains
et conquis par famine, puis que par assaut ne
25 les pooit avoir. Or nous soufferons à parler dou duch
de Normendie et dou siège d’Aguillon, et parlerons
dou roy Edouwart d’Engleterre et d’une grosse chevaucie
qu’il fist en celle saison par deça le mer.

§ 254. Bien avoit oy recorder li dessus dis rois

30 d’Engleterre que ses gens estoient durement astrains
et fort assegiet dedens le chastiel d’Aguillon, et que
[129] li contes Derbi ses cousins, qui se tenoit à Bourdiaus,
n’estoit mies fors pour le temps de tenir les camps et
lever le siège dou duch de Normendie devant Aguillon.
Si s’apensa qu’il metteroit sus une grosse armée de
5 gens d’armes, et les amenroit en Gascongne. Si commença
à faire ses pourveances tout bellement, et à
mander gens parmi son royaume, et ailleurs ossi où
il les esperoit à avoir, parmi ses denierz paians.
En ce temps arriva en Engleterre messires Godefrois
10 de Harcourt, qui estoit banis de France, ensi que
vous avés oy. Si se traist tantost devers le roy et le
royne, qui se tenoient adonc à Cartesée, à quatorze
liewes de le cité de Londres, sus le rivière de le Tamise,
qui rechurent ledit monsigneur Godefroi moult
15 liement. Et le retint tantost li rois de son hostel et
de son conseil, et li assigna belle terre et grande en
Engleterre, pour lui et pour son estat tenir et parmaintenir
bien et estoffeement.
Assés tost apriès, eut li rois d’Engleterre ordonné
20 et appareilliet une partie de ses besongnes, et avoit
fait venir et assambler ou havene de Hantonne grant
quantité de naves et de vaissiaus, et faisoit celle part
traire toutes manières de gens d’armes et d’arciers.
 Environ le jour Saint Jehan Baptiste, l’an mil trois
25 cens quarante six, se parti li rois de madame la
royne sa femme, et prist congiet à lui, et le recommenda
en le garde dou conte de Kent son cousin. Et
establi le signeur de Persi et le signeur de Nuefville
à estre gardiien de tout son royalme, avoecques quatre
30 prelas, loist à savoir, l’arcevesque de Cantorbie,
l’archevesque d’Iorch, l’evesque de Lincolle et l’evesque
de Durem. Et ne vuida mies son royalme telement
[130] qu’il ne demorast assés de bonne gent pour le garder,
se mestier faisoit, et bien deffendre. Puis vint et chevauça
li rois sus les marces de Hantonne; et là se tint
tant qu’il eut vent pour lui et pour toutes ses gens.
5 Si entra en son vaissiel et li princes de Galles ses filz,
et messires Godefrois de Harcourt, et cescuns aultres
sires, contes et barons entre ses gens, ensi que ordonnés
estoit. Si pooient estre en nombre sept mil
hommes d’armes et dix mil arciers, sans les Irois
10 et aucuns Galois qui sievoient son host tout à piet.
Or vous nommerai aucuns grans signeurs qui estoient
avoecques le dit roy: et premiers Edowart
son ainsnet fil, prince de Galles, qui lors estoit en
l’eage de treize ans ou environ, li contes de Herfort,
15 li contes de Norenton, li contes d’Arondiel, li contes
de Cornuaille, li contes de Warvich, li contes de
Hostidonne, li contes de Sufforch et li contes d’Askesuffore;
et de barons, messires Jehans de Mortemer,
qui puis fu contes de le Marce, messires Jehans, messires
20 Loeis et messires Rogiers de Biaucamp, messires
Renaulz de Gobehen, li sires de Montbray, li
sires de Ros, li sires de Lussi, li sires de Felleton, li
sires de Brasseton, li sires de Multon, li sires de le
Ware, li sires de Manne, li sires de Basset, li sires
25 de Sulli, li sires de Bercler, li sires de Willebi et
pluiseurs aultres; et de bachelers, messires Jehans
Chandos, messires Guillaumes Filz Warine, messires
 Pières et messires James d’Audelée, messires Rogiers
de Wettevale, messires Bietremieus de Brues, messires
30 Richars de Pennebruge, et moult d’autres que je
ne puis mies tous nommer. Peu d’estragniers y avoit.
Si y estoient le conte de Haynau, messires Oulphars
[131] de Ghistelles et cinq ou six chevaliers d’Alemagne
que je ne sçai mies nommer. Si singlèrent ce premier
jour à l’ordenance de Dieu et dou vent et des
maronniers, et eurent assés bon esploit pour aller
5 devers Gascongne, où li rois tendoit à aller. Au tierch
jour qu’il se furent mis sus mer, li vens leur fu tous
contraires et les rebouta sus les marces de Cornuaille;
si jeurent là à l’ancre six jours.
En ce terme, eut li rois aultre conseil par l’enort
10 et information de monsigneur Godefroy de Harcourt,
qui li consilla, pour le mieulz et faire plus
grant esploit, qu’il presist terre en Normendie. Et
dist bien adonc au roy li dis messires Godefrois:
«Sire, li pays de Normendie est li uns des plus gras
15 dou monde. Et vous prommech, sus l’abandon de
ma teste, que, se vous arrivés là, vous y prenderés
terre à vostre volenté; ne jà nulz ne vous venra au
devant qui rien vous dure, car ce sont gens en Normendie
qui onques ne furent armé. Et toute la fleur
20 de le chevalerie, qui y poet estre, gist maintenant devant
Aguillon avoech le duch. Et trouverés en Normendie
grosses villes batices, qui point ne sont fremées,
où vos gens aront si grant pourfit qu’il en
vauront mieulz vingt ans ensievant. Et vous pora
25 vostre navie sievir jusques bien priés de Ken en
Normendie. Si vous pri que je soie oys et creus de
ce voiage.»

§ 255. Li rois d’Engleterre, qui pour le temps de

lors estoit en le fleur de se jonèce, et qui ne desiroit
30 fors à trouver les armes et ses ennemis, s’enclina de
 grant volenté as parolles de monsigneur Godefroy
[132] de Harcourt qu’il appelloit son cousin. Si commanda
à ses maronniers qu’il tournaissent viers Normendie.
Et il meismes prist l’ensengne de l’amiral le conte de
Warvich, et volt estre amiraus pour ce voiage, et se
5 mist tout devant, comme patrons et gouvrenères de
toute le navie. Et singlèrent avoech le vent qu’il
avoient à volenté. Si arriva la navie dou roy d’Engleterre
en l’ille de Constentin, et sus un certain port
que on appelle le Hoghe Saint Vast. Ces nouvelles
10 s’espardirent tantost sus le pays, que li Englès avoient
là pris terre. Et vinrent messagier acourant jusques
à Paris devers le roy de France, envoiiés de par les
villes de Constentin.
Bien avoit oy recorder li rois de France en celle
15 saison, que li rois d’Engleterre metoit sus une grant
armée de gens d’armes. Et plus avant on les avoit
veus sus mer des bendes de Normendie et de Bretagne,
mais on ne savoit encores quel part il voloient
traire. Dont si tretost que li dis rois entendi que li
20 Englès avoient pris terre en Normendie, il fist haster
son connestable le conte de Ghines, et le conte de
Tankarville, qui nouvellement estoient revenu d’Aguillon;
et leur dist qu’il se traissent devers Ken et se
tenissent là, et gardassent le ville et le marce contre
25 les Englès. Chil respondirent: «Volentiers», et qu’il
en feroient leur pooir. Si se partirent, dou roy et de
Paris à tout grant fuison de gens d’armes, et tous les
jours leur en venoit. Et chevaucièrent tant qu’il vinrent
en le bonne ville de Kem, où il furent receu à
30 grant joie des bourgois et des bonnes gens d’environ
qui là s’estoient retrait. Si entendirent li dessus dit
signeur as ordenances de le ville, qui pour le temps
[133] n’estoit point fremée, et aussi à faire armer et appareillier
et pourveir d’armeures, cescun selonch son
estat. Or revenrons au roy d’Engleterre, qui estoit arrivés
 en le Hoge Saint Vast, assés priés de Saint Salveur
5 le Visconte, l’iretage à monsigneur Godefroi de
Harcourt.

§ 256. Quant la navie dou roy d’Engleterre eut

pris terre en la Hoge, et elle fu toute arestée et ancrée
sus le sablon, li dis rois issi de son vaissiel; et,
10 dou premier piet qu’il mist sus terre, il chei si roidement
que li sans li vola hors dou nés. Adonc le
prisent si chevalier, qui dalés lui estoient, et li disent:
«Chiers sires, retraiiés vous en vostre nef et ne venés
meshui à terre, car veci un petit signe pour
15 vous.» Donc respondi li rois tout pourveuement et
sans delay: «Pour quoi? mès uns très bons signes
pour mi, car la terre me desire.» De ceste response
furent ses gens tout resjoy.
Ensi se loga li rois ce jour et le nuit, et encores
20 l’endemain tout le jour et toute le nuit, sus le sabelon.
Entrues descarga on le navie des chevaus et
de tout leur harnois. Et eurent conseil là en dedens
comment il se poroient maintenir. Si fist li rois deux
mareschaus en son host, l’un monsigneur Godefroi
25 de Harcourt et l’autre le conte de Warvich, et connestable
le conte d’Arondiel; et ordonna le conte de
Hostidonne à demorer sus leur navie, à cent hommes
d’armes et quatre cens archiers. Et puis eurent
aultre conseil comment il chevauceroient. Il ordonnèrent
30 leur gens en trois batailles: li une iroit d’un
lés tout serrant le marine à destre, et li aultre à
[134] senestre; et li rois et li princes ses filz iroient par
terre. Et devoit toutes les nuis la bataille des mareschaus
retraire ou logeis dou roy.
Si commencièrent à chevaucier et aler ces gens
5 d’armes, ensi que ordonné estoit. Chil qui s’en
aloient par mer, selonch le marine, prendoient toutes
 les navies, petites et grandes, qu’il trouvoient, et les
emmenoient avoecques yaus. Arcier et gens de piet
aloient de costet selonch le marine, et reuboient,
10 pilloient et prendoient tout che qu’il trouvoient. Et
tant alèrent et cil de mer et cil de terre qu’il vinrent
à un port de mer et une forte ville que on claime
Barflues; et le conquisent tantost, car li bourgois se
rendirent pour le doubtance de mort. Mès pour ce,
15 ne demora mies que toute la ville ne fust reubée, et
pris or et argent et chiers jeuiaulz, car il en trouvèrent
si grant fuison, que garçon n’avoient cure de
draps fourés de vair. Et fisent tous les hommes de le
ville issir hors de leur ville, et entrer ens ès vaissiaus
20 avoecques yaus, et aler ent ossi avoech yaus, pour ce
qu’il ne voloient mies que ces gens se peuissent
rassambler, pour yaus grever, quant il seroient oultre
passet.

§ 257. Apriès ce que la ville de Barflues fu prise

25 et reubée sans ardoir, il s’espardirent parmi le pays,
selonch le marine. Si y fisent une grant part de leurs
volentés, car il ne trouvèrent homme qui leur deveast.
Et alèrent tant qu’il vinrent jusques à une
bonne ville grosse et riche et port de mer, qui s’appelle
30 Chierebourch. Si en ardirent et reubèrent une
partie, mès dedens le chastiel ne peurent il entrer,
[135] car il le trouvèrent trop fort et bien garni de gens
d’armes. Et puis passèrent oultre, et vinrent viers
Montebourch et Valoigne[330]. Si le prisent et reubèrent
toute, et puis l’ardirent, et en tel manière grant fuison
5 de villes en celle contrée. Et conquisent si fier
et si grant avoir que merveilles seroit à penser et à
nombrer.
En apriès, il vinrent à une moult grosse ville
et bien fremée, que on appelle Quarentin, et ossi il
10 y a moult bon chastiel. Et adonc y avoit grant
 fuison de saudoiiers qui le gardoient. Adonc descendirent
li signeur et les gens d’armes de leurs naves,
et vinrent devant le ville de Quarentin, et l’assallirent
vistement et fortement. Quant li bourgois veirent
15 chou, il eurent grant paour de perdre corps et
avoir; si se rendirent, salves leurs corps, leurs femmes
et leurs enfans, maugret les gens d’armes qui
avoecques yaus estoient, et misent leur avoir à volenté,
car il savoient bien qu’il estoit perdus davantage.
20 Quant li saudoiier veirent ce, il se traisent par
devers le chastiel qui estoit moult fors, et cil signeur
d’Engleterre ne veurent mies laissier le chastiel ensi.
Si se traisent en le ville, puis fisent assallir au dit
chastiel par deux jours, si fortement qui cil qui dedens
25 estoient et qui nul secours ne veoient, le rendirent,
salve leur corps et leur avoir; si s’en partirent
et alèrent aultre part. Et li Englès fisent leur volenté
de celle bonne ville et dou fort chastiel. Et regardèrent
qu’il ne le poroient tenir; si l’ardirent tout et
[136] abatirent, et fisent les bourgois de Quarentin entrer
en leur navie. Et alèrent avoecques yaus, tout ensi
que il avoient fait chiaux de Barflues, de Chierebourch
et des villes voisines, qu’il avoient pris et pilliés
5 sus le marine. Or parlerons nous un petit otant
bien de le chevaucie le roy d’Engleterre, que nous
avons parlé de ceste.
 § 258. Quant li rois d’Engleterre eut envoiiet ses
gens selonch le marine, l’un de ses mareschaus le
10 conte de Warvich et monsigneur Renault de Gobehen,
ensi que vous avés oy, assés tost apriès il se
parti de le Hoghe Saint Vast, là où il estoit arrivés.
Et fist monsigneur Godefroy de Harcourt conduiseur
de toute son host, pour tant qu’il savoit les entrées
15 et les issues en Normendie. Li quels messires Godefrois
se parti de le route dou roy, à cinq cens armeures
et deux mil arciers, et chevauça bien six ou sept
liewes loing en sus de l’host le roi, ardant et essillant
le pays. Si trouvèrent le pays gras et plentiveus
20 de toutes coses, les gragnes plainnes de blés, les maisons
plainnes de toutes rikèces, riches bourgois, chars,
charètes, et chevaus, pourciaus, brebis et moutons et
les plus biaus bues dou monde que on nourist ens
ou pays. Si en prisent à leur volenté, des quelz qu’il
25 veurent, et amenerent en l’ost le roy. Mais li varlet.
ne donnoient point, ne rendoient as gens le roy l’or
et l’argent qu’il trouvoient; ançois le retenoient pour
yaus. Ensi chevauçoit messires Godefrois de Harcourt
cescun jour d’encoste le grant host le roy, au
30 destre costet, et revenoit le soir o toute sa compagnie
là où il savoit que li rois devoit logier; et telz
[137] fois estoit qu’il demoroit deux jours, quant il trouvoit
gras pays et assés à fourer.
Si prist li dis rois son chemin et son charoi devers
Saint Leu en Constentin. Mès, ançois qu’il y parvenist,
5 il se loga sus une rivière trois jours, attendans
ses gens qui avoient fait le chevaucie sus le marine,
ensi que vous avés oy. Quant il furent revenu et il
eurent tout leur avoir mis à voiture, li contes de
Warvich et li contes de Sufforch et messires Thumas
10 de Hollandes et messires Renaulz de Gobehen et leur
route reprisent le chemin à senestre, ardant et exiliant
 le pays ensi que messires Godefrois de Harcourt
faisoit. Et li rois chevauçoit entre ces batailles; et
tous les jours se trouvoient il ensamble.

15 § 259. Ensi par les Englès estoit ars et exilliés,

robés, gastés et pilliés li bons pays et li gras de Normendie.
Dont les plaintes et les nouvelles vinrent au
roy de France, qui se tenoit en le cité de Paris, comment
li rois d’Engleterre estoit arrivés en Constentin
20 et gastoit tout devant lui, à destre et à senestre. Dont
dist li rois Phelippes et jura que jamais ne retourroient
li Englès si aroient esté combatu, et les destourbiers
et anois qu’il faisoient à [ses[331]] gens leur
seroient chier vendu. Si fist tantost et sans delay li
25 dis roys lettres escrire à grant fuison. Et envoia
premierement devers ses bons amis de l’Empire, pour
tant qu’il li estoient plus lontain: premierement au
gentil roy de Behagne que moult amoit, et ossi à
[138] monsigneur Charle de Behagne son fil, qui dès lors
s’appeloit rois d’Alemagne, et en estoit rois notorement,
par l’ayde et pourcach de monsigneur Charle
son père et dou roy de France, et avoit jà encargiet
5 les armes de l’Empire. Si les pria li rois de France,
si acertes comme il peut, que il venissent o tout leur
effort, car il voloit chevaucier contre les Englès qui
li ardoient et gastoient son pays. Li dessus nommet
signeur ne se veurent mies escuser, mès fisent leur
10 amas de gens d’armes, d’Alemans et de Behagnons
et de Lussemboursins, et s’en vinrent en France devers
le roy efforciement. Ossi escrisi li dis rois au
duch de Loeraingne, qui le vint servir à plus de quatre
cens lances. Si y vint li contes de Saumes en
15 Saumois, li contes de Salebruges, li contes de Flandres,
li contes Guillaumes de Namur, cescuns à moult
belle route. Encores escrisi li rois et manda especialement
monsigneur Jehan de Haynau, qui nouvellement
 s’estoit alliés à lui, par le pourcach dou conte
20 Loeis de Blois son fil, et dou signeur de Fagnuelles.
Si vint li gentilz sires de Byaumont, messires Jehans
de Haynau, servir le roy de France moult estoffeement
et à grant fuison de bonne bacelerie de le
conté de Haynau et d’ailleurs: dont li rois eut grant
25 joie de sa venue, et le retint pour son corps et de
son plus privet et especial conseil. Ensi manda li
rois de France par tout gens d’armes, là où il les pensoit
à avoir. Et fist une des grosses assamblées de
grans signeurs, dus, contes, barons et chevaliers,
30 que on ewist veu en France cent ans en devant. Et
pour tant que il mandoit ensi gens par tout en lontains
pays, il ne furent mies sitost venu ne assamblé.
[139] Ançois eut li rois d’Engleterre moult malement
courut et arret le pays de Constentin et de Normendie,
ensi que vous orés recorder en sievant.

§ 260. Vous avez chi dessus bien oy compter

5 l’ordenance des Englès, et comment il chevauçoient
en trois batailles, li mareschal à destre et à senestre,
et li rois et li princes de Galles ses filz en le moiiène.
Et vous di que li rois chevauçoit à petites journées.
Tout dis estoient il logiet entre tierce et miedi. Et trouvoient
10 le pays si plentiveus et si garni de tous vivres
qu’il ne leur couvenoit faire nulles pourveances fors
que de vins: si en trouvoient il assés par raison. Si
n’estoit point de merveilles se cil dou pays estoient effraet
ne esbahi, car avant ce il n’avoient onques veu
15 homme d’armes, et ne savoient que c’estoit de guerre
ne de bataille. Si fuioient devant les Englès de si
lonch qu’il en ooient parler, et laissoient leurs maisons,
leurs gragnes toutes plainnes; ne il n’avoient
mies art ne manière dou sauver ne dou garder. Li
20 rois d’Engleterre et li princes de Galles ses filz avoient
en leur route environ trois mil hommes d’armes,
 six mil arciers et dix mil sergans de piet, sans chiaus
qui chevauçoient avoech les mareschaus.
Si chevauça li dis rois en tel manière que je vous
25 di, ardans et essillans le pays, et sans point brisier
sen ordenance. Et ne tourna point vers le cité de
Coustances, ains s’en alla par devers le grosse ville de
Saint Leu en Constentin, qui pour le temps estoit durement
riche et marchande, et valloit trois [fois[332]] tant
[140] que la cité de Coustances. En celle ville de Saint Leu
[en] Constentin avoit très grande draperie et grosse,
et grant fuison de riches bourgois. Et trouvast on
bien en le ditte ville de Saint Leu manans huit mil
5 ou neuf mil, bourgois que gens de mestier. Quant li
rois d’Engleterre fu venus assés priès, il se loga dehors,
car il ne voet mies logier en le ville, pour le
doubtance dou feu. Si envoia ses gens par devant, et
fu la ville tantost conquise à peu de fait, courue et
10 robée par tout; ne il n’est homs vivans qui poroit
croire ne penser le grant avoir qui là fu gaagniés
et robés, et le grant fuison de bons draps qu’il y
trouvèrent. Il en euissent donnet grant marciet, s’il
les seuissent à qui vendre. Et moult y eut d’avoir
15 conquis qui point ne vint à cognissance.

§ 261. Quant li rois d’Engleterre et ses gens eurent

fait leurs volentés de le bonne ville de Saint Leu
[en] Constentin, il s’en partirent et prisent lor chemin
pour venir encores par devers plus grosse ville trois
20 fois, qui s’appelle Kem, qui est priés ossi grande que
la cité de Roem. La ville de Kem est plainne de très
grant rikèce, de draperie, et de toutes marcheandises,
de riches bourgois, de nobles dames et de moult
belles eglises. Et par especial il y a deux, grosses abbeyes
25 durement riches, seans l’une à l’un des cor[on]s
de le ville, et l’autre à l’autre; et appell’on l’une de
Saint Estievene, et l’autre de le Trinité. En celi des
 dames doit avoir six vingt dames à plainne prouvende.
D’autre part, à l’un des lés de le ville, siet li chastiaus,
30 qui est un des biaus et des fors de toute Normendie.
Si en estoit chapitainne adonc uns bons chevaliers
[141] preus [et hardis[333]] de Normendie, qui s’appelloit
messires Robers de Wargni. Et avoit dedens le
chastiel en garnison avoecques lui bien trois cens
Geneuois. Ou corps de le ville estoient li contes d’Eu
5 et de Ghines, connestables pour le temps de France,
et li contes de Tankarville, et grant fuison de bonnes
gens d’armes que li rois de France y avoit envoiiés,
pour garder le ville et le passage contre les Englès.
Li rois d’Engleterre avoit bien entendu que la ville
10 de Kem estoit durement grosse et riche, et bien
pourvue de bonnes gens d’armes. Si chevauça celle
part tout sagement, et remist ses batailles ensamble,
et se loga celle nuit sus les camps à [deux liewes
priès. Et tousjours le suivoit et costioit sa navire, et
15 vint jusques[334]] à deux petites liewes priès de Kem, à
une ville et sus un havene que on appelle Austrehem;
jusques à là, et sus le rivière de Ourne, qui court
parmi Kem, [il fist venir le conte[335]] de Hostidonne,
qui en estoit conduisières et paterons.
20 Li connestables de France et li aultre signeur, qui
là estoient assamblé, gettièrent moult souffisamment
le ville de Kem celle nuit, et ne fisent mies trop grant
compte des Englès. L’endemain au matin, li dit signeur,
baron et chevalier qui là estoient, s’armèrent
25 et fisent armer leurs gens et tous les bourgois de le
ville, et puis se traisent en conseil ensamble pour savoir
comment il se mainte[n]roient. Si fu adonc li intention
et ordenance dou connestable de France et
[142] dou conte de Tankarville, que nulz ne vuidast le ville,
mais gardaissent les portes et le pont et le rivière, et
laissassent les premiers fausbours as Englès, pour tant
qu’il n’estoient point fremés; car encores seroient il
 5 bien ensonniiet de garder le corps de le ville, qui n’estoit
fremée fors de le rivière. Chil de le ville respondirent
qu’il ne feroient mies ensi, et qu’il se trairoient
sus les camps et attenderoient la poissance dou roy
d’Engleterre, car il estoient gens et fors assés pour le
10 combatre. Quant li connestables oy leur bonne volenté,
si respondi: «Ce soit ou nom de Dieu, et vous
ne vous combaterés point sans mi et sans mes gens.»
Dont se traisent au dehors de le ville, et se misent à
ce commencement assés en bonne ordenance, et
15 fisent grant semblant d’yaus bien deffendre et de
mettre leurs vies en aventure.

§ 262. En ce jour se levèrent li Englès moult

matin, et se apparillièrent d’aler celle part. Si oy li
dis rois messe devant soleil levant, et puis monta à
20 cheval et li princes ses filz et messires Godefrois de
Harcourt, qui estoit mareschaus et gouvrenères de
l’host, et par quel conseil li rois ouvroit en partie. Si
se traisent tout bellement celle part leurs batailles
rengies, et chevauçoient les banières des mareschaus
25 tout devant. Si approcièrent durement le grosse ville
de Kem et ces gens d’armes qui tout s’estoient trait
sus les camps, et par samblant assés en bon couvenant.
Si tretost que chil bourgois de le ville de Kem
veirent approcier ces Englès qui venoient en trois
30 batailles drut et sieret, et perchurent ces banières et
ces pennons à grant fuison bauloiier et venteler, et
[143] oïrent ces arciers ruire qu’il n’avoient point acoustumé
de veir ne de sentir, si furent si effraet et si
desconfi d’yaus meismes, que tout cil dou monde ne
les euissent mies retenus qu’il ne se fuissent mis à la
5 fuite. Si se retraisent cescuns viers leur ville, sans
arroi, vosist li connestables ou non. Adonc peuist on
veir gens fremir et esbahir, et celle bataille ensi rengie
desconfire à peu de fait, car cescuns se pena de rentrer
 en le ville à sauveté. Là eut grant encauch et
10 maint homme reversé et jetté par terre. Et cheoient
à mons l’un sus l’autre, tant estoient il fort enhidé. Li
connestables de France et li contes de Tankarville et
aucun chevalier se misent en une porte sus l’entrée
dou pont à sauveté; car bien veirent, puisque leurs
15 gens fuioient, que de recouvrier n’i avoit point; car
cil Englès estoient jà entré et avalé entre yaus, et les
occioient sans merci à volenté. Aucun chevalier et
escuier et aultres gens, qui savoient le chemin viers
le chastiel, se traioient celle part. Et tous les recueilloit
20 messires Robers de Wargni, car li chastiaus est
durement grans et plentiveus. Chil furent à sauveté
qui là peurent venir. Englès, gens d’armes et arciers,
qui encauçoient les fuians, faisoient grant occision,
car il ne prendoient nullui à merci.
25 Dont il avint que li connestables de France et li
contes de Tankarville, qui estoient monté en celle
porte au piet dou pont à sauveté, regardoient au
lonch et amont le rue, et veoient si grant pestilence
et tribulation que grans hideurs estoit à considerer
30 et imaginer. Si se doubtèrent d’eulz meismes que il
n’escheissent en ce parti et entre mains d’arciers, qui
point ne les cognuissent. Ensi que il regardoient aval
[144] en grant doubte ces gens tuer, il perçurent un gentil
chevalier englès, qui n’avoit c’un oel, que on clamoit
monsigneur Thumas de Hollandes, et cinq ou six bons
chevaliers avoecques lui: lequel monsigneur Thumas
5 ravisèrent bien, car il s’estoient aultre fois veu et
compagniet l’un l’autre à Grenade et en Prusse et en
aultres voiages, ensi que chevalier se truevent. Si
furent tout reconforté quant il le veirent; si l’appellèrent
en passant, et li disent: «Monsigneur Thumas,
10 monsigneur Thumas, parlés à nous!» Quant li chevaliers
se oy nommer, il s’arresta tous quois et demanda:
«Qui estes vous, signeur, qui me cognissiés?»