Gender, perception and knowledge in the Old French and Latin Seven Sages of Rome

Combining manuscript studies with close textual readings, this doctoral thesis aims at shedding new light on the Old French and Latin tradition of the Seven Sages of Rome (SSR), whose concern with issues related to gender, perception and knowledge will be examined. The text, a collection of tales in a frame-story, entered Romance literary tradition around the middle of the 12th c. and the spectacular fortune it enjoyed is witnessed by the wealth of its versions and redactions: besides two verse versions (K, C), we can count at least five prose versions (A, L, D, M, H). The analysis conducted in the thesis runs across these seven versions, including the thirteenth-century Latin translation from Old French. By approaching the mouvance of medieval texts more as a possibility to retrieve the contemporary reception of the text than as a limit to its faithful reconstruction, the several versions are confronted and compared, highlighting how both plot and descriptions of the characters are subject to substantial variations depending on each version. In Chapter 1, the attention is predominantly (although not exclusively) dedicated to the construction of female characters in the SSR, i.e., the Empress as well as the other women appearing in the tales. The misogyny usually ascribed to the SSR’s narrative is therefore put under scrutiny, showing how different texts articulate the antifeminist discourse underpinning the text in different ways. The chapter also attempts to put the variability of the misogynistic features in the context of the reception of the texts. Chapter 2 focuses on the verse version K, which is analysed by taking into account the context of its only manuscript, BnF fr. 1553. By looking at the other texts contained in the same codicological unit as K, a case is made for K’s concern with the deceitfulness of the senses and perception, showing how this relates to gender representations as well as the broader cultural context of the 12th and 13th century. The third and final Chapter looks at the way in which the problem of the senses and perception is articulated in the later Latin translation of the SSR, with particular emphasis on the reductiones (i.e. religious interpretations of the frame-story and tales) appearing in its earlier manuscripts. Once again, a case is made for the importance of issues related to the senses and perception in order to understand the reception of the SSR, while also showing how this theme is readjusted according to the needs of the producer(s) of the version(s) and their audience(s).