A Miniature of Marcabru's Pastorella

The Troubadour King, Alfonso X (King of Castille and Lord of the Holy Roman Empire), composed songs for the Virgin Mary. “And that which I seek is to praise the Virgin, Mother of our Lord, Holy Mary, the most wondrous of His creations. Therefore I wish, from this day forth to be Her troubadour, and I pray that She will have me for Her troubadour and accept my songs, for through them I seek to reveal the miracles She performed. Hence from now on I choose to sing for no other lady, and I think thereby to recover all that I have wasted on others.” The Troubadour King thus declared himself as Mary’s Troubadour, and in his corpus of works, “Las Cantigas de Santa Maria,” he exposed Her miracles— finding the Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, for his people. Marian Worship was based on the idea that Mary was also a human and thus could understand and sympathize with the peoples’ earthly problems. However, because Mary was chosen by God to bear His son and thus was the Mother of Jesus Christ, humans could ask Mary to intervene for them with Jesus Christ and God. With this dual dynamic, Mary could thus lead humans on the path to salvation and paradise better than even God or Jesus Christ themselves. Alfonso X’s love for Mary was not fin’amor— it was a divine love of the Virgin Mary. It was requited, reciprocal, and purely platonic. What I found most inspiring about Alfonso X’s “Las Cantigas de Santa Maria” were the series of miniatures that accompanied the songs. The miniatures illustrated the miracles of the Virgin Mary in an instructional manner, depicting her interventions as an attempt to show his people the direction they should be heading. For my creative project, I decided to apply this concept to Marcabru (fl. 1129-1150), because his messages were also critical and instructional. Marcabru, like Alfonso X, was highly religious and had a strict moral code. His songs, from his Pastorella to his Crusade song, showed people the write way to live through his moralizing tone and prophetic stance. Marcabru was known for his distinction between true love and false love— extolling the first and condemning the second. As my own interpretation, I think that Marcabru believed that false love was bestial— strictly desire and lust. However, true love, was characterized by divine reason. Marcabru believed that fin’amor, true love, while secular and of this earth, realized a divine intention because the man and woman share a love that is good, has courtly virtues, and is the calling of their class. Fin’amor thus separates the man from the beast driven solely by desire (and further distinguishes the Troubadour as a man of the court)— He sings rather than braying like a beast. Marcabru condemned the other Troubadours of the court as being false lovers, masking their purely bestial desires as true love in the court setting, which Marcabru found morally irreproachable. Thus, for my creative project I decided to represent Marcabru’s Pastorella using the miniature form seen in Alfonso X’s “Las Cantigas de Santa Maria.” The fundamental purpose of the miniatures is to be illustrative, informative, and instructive. Thus, I wanted to represent the Troubadour lyric in a way that was accessible to a modern audience with little to no prior knowledge of this time and lyric tradition. Thus, I chose to include Goldin’s English, rather than Occitan translation of Marcabru’s Pastorella. Further, I took artistic license with the miniatures based on my interpretation of the song, thus providing a modern audience with a lens through which view the Pastorella. The main artistic liberty that I took was expanding the role of the owl from the tornada. I present the owl in the traditional role of watchman (which is otherwise absent in the Pastorella). I saw the prophetic owl as the voice of Marcabru, and Marcabru as a proxy for God. Marcabru’s Pastorella is a song in which a knight of the court attempts to seduce a shepherdess who, while of lowly peasant birth, behaves “correctly” according to societal norms. The first illustration sets the scene of the Pastorella— a meeting in the middle of a field between a courtly knight and a shepherdess of the peasant class. The peasant girl is wearing modest, simple, and functional clothes that Tertullian would approve of. The knight, on the other hand, is dressed excessively and effeminately. (Marcabru detested the effeminate nature and moral laxity of the court.) The knight is prepared for war, though there is none, strictly to appeal to his own vanity and to impress others (namely, the shepherdess). The wind is blowing the shepherdess’s hair, representing her own modesty and lack of narcissism. While there is no one in sight other than the shepherdess’s cows, I present the owl as the traditional watchman. The owl appears to be making the wind showing that the force of nature (or God via Marcabru) is behind the shepherdess not the knight. In the second illustration the knight ‘sings’ to the shepherdess in the troubadour fashion, attempting to woo her, and the shepherdess rejects him. In this scene the owl swoops in, dropping a jester’s hat onto the knights head, just as he removes his helmet to bow to the shepherdess. Thus the owl (Marcabru) claims that this self proclaimed troubadour does not deserve this title, and is merely a jester. (This would be the troubadours worst nightmare— to be called an entertainer of the court— a jester or a fool— rather than a poet— an artist to be respected. However, the shepherdess sees right through the knight, saying that she can differentiate between what is foolishness and what is sense, thus diminishing his troubadour status further (because he sings of fol’amor rather than fin’amor). This is in line with the fact that Marcabru thought that the other troubadours of the court were false lovers, perverting true love to vile lust. However, he saw himself as the true troubadour, extolling true love and condemning false love— and further, exposing the other troubadours for what they were. In the third scene the knight attempts to appeal to the shepherdesses vanity, singing her praises, persuading her that her father must have been a knight and her mother a courtly peasant in order to produce such a beautiful and dignified daughter. However, the owl serves as guardian— separating the knight’s false claim that the girls father was a knight and mother was a peasant, represented by the coat of arms with both a sword and sickle, as an attempt to legitimize his own desire to be with the shepherdess. The peasant girl however sides with the owl (facing her), confirming that her family has been peasants all the way back, represented by the sickle and plow. Further, the shepherdess condemns the knight’s lifestyle, saying that knights would be better off if they worked six days a week like peasants do. It makes sense that Marcabru has the shepherdess rather than the knight be the voice of common sense and moral righteousness, because he himself was of low birth, and entered the court scene only through noble patronage. However, he saw himself as being the seeing among the blind— a true lover surrounded by false lovers who pervert the purity of fin’amor with their songs. In the fourth scene, the knight attempts to seduce the shepherdess who rejects him fiercely. Saying that even though he praised her in an enviable fashion (as is the art form of the Troubadours), she sees right through him (because he is a false lover not a true one). While the knight begs and bribes the shepherdess to sleep with him, she can indentify attempts as false love, and thus rejects his advances. The owl soars high above and watches the scene, with no need to intervene because the shepherdess is embodying Marcabru’s and God’s values. The peasant girl glows with white light, representing her purity and virginity. She would not give up her virginity for anything but fin’amor: she identifies the knight’s love as false despite his futile attempts to convince her it is true love (This is what Marcabru condemns the other troubadours for, disguising their false love as fin’amor by singing of it in the court. He considers this morally irreproachable.) In the firth scene, the knight makes his final attempt, saying that every creature reverts to its nature, and that the two “lovers” should become equals and consummate their love. The irony is, that while he thinks he is above her due to his superior social ranking (as a knight of the court), he is in fact inferior because he believes in fol’amor. The shepherdess, while of lowly peasant birth, extols fin’amor. The shepherdess’s cloak (made of news print to represent “the truth”) transforms into a pair of wings, making her look like an angel. However the knight transforms into a cow— a beast— know he is being shepherded by the peasant girl, who is showing him the right path. (And thus the shepherdess becomes the figure of Mary from Alfonso X’s “Las Cantigas de Santa Maria.)* Desire is the driving force to succeed and survive in life. Physicality— food, water, sleep, sex—for beasts, such as the knight, it ends at that. However, humans are also moral beings— capable of curtailing their desire for the sake of reason. Not fully beast or god, human lives are driven by both desire and reason. This is why the human condition is unique—they have free will, or the ability to choose what part of the dual nature to follow. Thus when the knight and shepherdess revert to their nature, the troubadour becomes a beast while the shepherdess becomes a god-like figure. In the sixth scene, the owl (as a proxy of Marcabru as a proxy of God) makes his prophecy— condemning the knight of the court (all of the other troubadours) to waste his time in false hopes while the girl knows what reality is. Thus, the girl flies off with the owl (on Marcabru’s shoulder’s to God’s realm of Heaven and Paradise and Salvation) while the knight remains on earth with the beasts. * In The Elizabethan World Picture, E. M. W. Tillyard claims, “Man is called a little world…because he possesses all the faculties of the universe. For in the universe there are gods, the four elements, the dumb beasts, and the plants. Of all these man possesses the faculties: for he possesses the godlike faculty of reason; and the nature of the elements, which consists in nourishment growth and reproduction… Man though he possesses all the faculties is deficient in each. For we possess the faculty of reason less eminently than the gods… our energies and desires are weaker than the beasts’.... Whence, being an amalgam of varied elements, we find our life difficult to order. For every other creature is guided by one principle; but we are pulled in different directions by our different faculties. For instance at one time we are drawn towards the better by the god-like element, and at another time towards the worse by the domination of the bestial element, within us.” (Tillyard, 6 Marcabru’s Pastorella The other day, beside a row of hedges,• I found a shepherdess of lowly birth, • full of joy and common sense. • And, like the daughter of a woman of the fields, • she wore cape and cloak and fur, • and a shift of drill, • and shoes, and woolen stockings. I came to her across the level ground. • “Girl,” I said, “beautiful, • I am unhappy because the cold is piercing you.” • “Lord,” this peasant’s child said to me, • “thanks be to God and the woman who nursed me, • it’s nothing to me if the wind ruffles my hair, • because I feel good and I’m healthy.” “Girl,” I said, “you’re sweet and innocent, • I came out of my way • to keep you company; • for a peasant girl like you • should not, without a comrade near by, • pasture so many cattle • all alone in such a place.” “Master,” she said, “whatever I may be, • I can tell sense from foolishness. • Your comradeship, • Lord,” said this girl of the fields and pastures, • “let it stay where it belongs, • for such as I, when she thinks she has it • for herself, has nothing but the look of it.” “O you are a girl of noble quality, • your father was a knight who got your mother with you • because she was a courtly peasant. • The more I look at you, the more beautiful you are • to me, and I am lit up by your joy, • or would be if you had some humanity.” “Master, my whole lineage and descent • I trace all the way back • to the sickle and the plow, • my Lord,” said this peasant girl to me; • “and such as calls himself a knight • would do better to work, like them, • six days every week.” “Girl,” I said, “a gentle fairy • endowed you at birth • with your beauty, which is pure • beyond every other peasant girl. • And yet you would be twice as beautiful if once I saw you • underneath and me on top.” “Lord, you have praised me so high, • how everyone would envy me! • Since you have driven up my worth, • my Lord,” said this peasant girl, • “for that you will have as your reward: • ‘Gape, fool, gape,’ as we part, • and waiting and waiting the whole afternoon.” “Girl, every shy and wild heart • grows tame with a little getting used to, • and I know that, passing by, • a man can offer a peasant girl • like you a fine cash companionship, • with real affection in his heart, • if one doesn’t cheat on the other.” • “Master, a man hounded by madness • promises and pledges and puts up security: • that’s how you would do homage to me, • Lord,” said this peasant girl; • “but I am not willing, for a little • entrance fee, to cash in my virginity • for the fame of a whore.” “Girl, every creature • reverts to its nature: • let us become a couple of equals, • you and I, my peasant girl, • in the cover there, by the pasture, • you will feel more at ease there • we we do the sweet you know what.” “Master, yes; but, as it is right, • the fool seeks out his foolishness, • a man of the court, his courtly adventure; • and let the peasant be with his peasant girl. • ‘Good sense suffers from disease • where men do not observe degrees’: • that’s what the ancients say.” “Girl, I never saw another • more roguish in her face • or more false in her heart.” “Master, that owl is making you a prophecy: • this one stands gaping in front of a painting, • and that one waits for manna.”