Fox MariedeFrance 1910
Fox MariedeFrance 1910
Fox MariedeFrance 1910
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The English Historical Review
Sciant igitur omnes fideles Sancte Ecclesie quod ego Brientius filius
In litteris Comitis, quem bonus rex Henricus nutriuit, et cUi arma dedit
rubris et honorem, ea que in hoc scripto assero contra Henricuni
conscript. nepoteni Regis Henrici, episcopum Wintonie et Apostolice sedis
legatum, presto sum probare uel bello uel iudicio per unum clericumn uel
per unum laicum.
Marie de Fr-ance.
I Muarie de France, Seven of her Lays (1901). For a bibliography, see The Cambridge
History of English Literature i. 469; and see Dr. Karl Warnke's latest editions of the
Lays and the Fables (1900) and H. L. D. Ward's Catalogue of Romances, i. (1883),
407-415, and ii. (1893) 291-307.
Court atmosphere of the time. For the rest, Miss Rickert must be
quoted at length:
2 Court, Household and Itinerary of Henry II, pp. 75 n., 85 n., 182, 244, Index,
sub tit. ' Anjou, Cointes of.'
Cited from Dugd. Mon., ii. 484, No. xx.
4 HarL MS. 61, fo. 26. The second charter is incorrectly dated 1 John,
The charter proceeds to remit the liability of the abbess and nuns
to repair the bridge and gate. The expression durante guerra in regno
nostro can only refer to the years 1215 or 1216. In May 1215 the
barons were in arms and the king was actively preparing for the
struggle. He gave orders to the earl of Salisbury concerning the
repair of the royal castles, and that of Salisbury amnongst them.'0
The earl was sheriff of Wiltshire in 1213, and probably in 1215,11 and
apparently in that capacity he was called upon to levy a distress
upon the Wiltshire possessions of the abbess of Shaftesbury towards
the repair of the castle of Salisbury. The king was enforcing a legal
right which the abbess evidently disputed, and their relations
must have been less friendly than at the time when he addressed her
as carissima antita mea. Assuming the identity of the abbess with
Marie de France, it was an unhappy stroke of fortune that selected as
the instrument bv which the king enforced his right the same 'Count
William' for love of whom the Fables had been translated some
thirty years before. In September 1216 the custody of the abbev
was granted to the prior of Wareham,12 and the name of Mary
appears no more.
It is easilv conceivable that a woman whose circumstances of
birth were those of Geoffrey Plantagenet's daughter should, under
the influence of bitter feeling, use her pen to express the unorthodox
opinion attributed to AMarie de France in connexion with l'amour
courtois.
King Alfred was the founder of the monastery of Shaftesbury,'3
and if Wright is correct in his view that Marie attributed the English
version of the Fables to Alfred,'4 it is open to observation that a work
of the founder's would be a likely subject for an abbess with literary
tastes to choose for translation, and it is not impossible, according
to the given dates, that the Fables were translated after the king's
sister entered Shaftesbury. The title ' Dame' of course would be
correctly applied to an abbess.
According to Hutchins, William Longespee gave land to the
abbey of Shaftesbury.', Agnes Lungspe, who was elected abbess in
1243,16 has not been identified as a daughter of the Earl of Salisbury,17
but the name, the position of abbess, and the date point to the
existence of some near relationship.
In the absence of conflicting evidence, may we not say that a
strong presumption is raised in favour of the identity of Marie
de France with the sister of Henry II ?
JOHN CHARLES FOX.