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Summary
The name of the Dutch poet and prose-writer Dirc Potter (ca. 1370 - 30th April 1428) is associated with three literary works: Der minnen loep (The course of love), Blome der doechden (Flowers of virtue) and Van Mellibeo ende van sinre vrouwen Prudencia (On Mellibeus and his wife Prudencia). The present study is concerned with Der minnen loep, a rhymed treatise about love consisting of more than 11.000 verses.
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Chapter One
The first chapter begins with an analysis of the information which the narrator of Der minnen loep, the ‘I’ who writes a poem about love, provides about himself. This information purports to be autobiographical, and has been used by scholars to supplement the scanty, known facts of Dirc Potter's life and career. It can be shown, however, that the narrator's information is a mixture of fact and fiction, and should therefore be used with caution. Dirc Potter was born between 1368 and 1370. He attended a grammar school where he was taught Latin language and literature, and entered the service of the Count of Holland. At the Court of The Hague he remained employed for the rest of his life. He undertook several diplomatic journeys, one of which, probably between February 1411 and May 1412, was to Rome, and another one to England. In Rome he either wrote or conceived Der minnen loep. His prose-treatises Blome der doechden and Van Mellibeo ende van sinre vrouwen Prudencia were written later in his career.
Blome der doechden is a Middle Dutch representative of the Summae virtutum ac vitiorum tradition. Although the work has never been subjected to a careful investigation, its relationship to the Italian Fiore di virtù is evident.
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Van Mellibeo ende van sinre vrouwen Prudencia has been studied and edited by B.G.L. Overmaat in 1950. The work derives (by way of a French intermediary) from the Liber consolationis of Albertanus of Brescia.
Der minnen loep, probably written in 1411-1412, has been preserved in two manuscripts: The Hague, Royal Library, 128 E 6 (ca. 1480) and Leyden, University Library, Letterk. 205, a manuscript copied in 1486 by Claes Willemsz. The seventeenth-century Leiden professor M.Z. Boxhornius possessed a manuscript of Der minnen loep which was probably not identical which either of the two extant manuscripts, and which was sold in 1654 by the auctioneer Petrus Leffen in Leyden. It is not known, however, what has become of this manuscript.
Der minnen loep consists of four books, making a total of more than 11.000 verses. The introduction provides an explanation of the several kinds of love, and Der minnen loep is concerned with the sexual kind. The author divides this type of love into four categories: ghecke minne (foolish love), goede [rechte, edele, reyne] minne (good [right, noble, chaste] love) - in four degrees -, ongheoerlofde minne (illicit love) and gheoerlofde minne (licit love), which is the fourth degree of the goede minne. Potter devotes one book to each of these four categories. Each book consists of a theoretical exposition interspersed with admonitions and moral warnings to the reader, and exemplified by stories about love and lovers. There are nearly sixty of these stories, which together comprise half of the text, and which can be traced back to classical, medieval, or biblical sources. In some cases the direct source has not yet been identified.
Literary historians have paid little attention to Der minnen loep. In fact the same could be said for practically all literary works produced in the county of Holland during the period of 1350-1450. Some notable exceptions can be
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mentioned however: P. Leendertz Wz., who edited Der minnen loep in 1845-1847, Karl Bartsch, Jan te Winkel, Aleide Roessingh, Jan F. Vanderheijden, Ingeborg Glier, and, more recently, Brian Murdoch. The most important contribution to Potter research is the succinct survey by Ingeborg Glier in which she analyses Potter's work and determines its position in European literature. She concludes that Der minnen loep occupies an ‘eigentümliche Sonderstellung’ among the late medieval artes amandi. In her view, Der minnen loep, presumably in accordance with an Italian model, is structurally related with cyclic works like Boccaccio's Decameron and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; typologically, its place in European literature of the fourteenth and early fifteenth century is somewhere between the Decameron and Gower's Confessio amantis.
Chapter One leads to the conclusion that Der minnen loep needs to be subjected to further research, which should be focussed on two aspects: on Der minnen loep as an ars amandi, and on the tales that illustrate this ars amandi.
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Chapter Two
This chapter surveys the medieval tradition of the ars amandi and the tradition of collection of tales.
An ars amandi contains a theoretical exposition as well as practical rules of conduct relating to love. The following types can be discerned.
a. Compendia. Works in which the rules of conduct in love affairs are taught more or less systematically. In the Middle Ages the best-known are: Ovid's Ars amatoria and Remedia amoris, Andreas Capellanus' De amore libri tres and a number of Pseudo-Ovidiana, among which figure Pamphilus, De vetula and Facetus. There are adaptations of Andreas' De amore and of Ovid's Ars and Remedia in the medieval vernaculars. Furthermore, some partially original artes amandi of this
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type were written directly in the vernacular.
b. ‘Minnereden’. No satisfactory definition can be given of this type of ars amandi. The term has been applied, mainly by German scholars, to a wide range of works in which reflections on love, its different manifestations, causes and effects, form the main theme. The setting is often, but not always, that of a story; moral lessons are given implicitly or explicitly, but seldom in the form of practical rules of conduct. Some scholars consider love allegories as a subcategory of Minnereden; I prefer to distinguish them as a separate group.
c. Love allegories. These differ from the traditional artes amandi by their allegorical form, and unlike the majority of Minnereden, contain practical rules of conduct. The most important love allegory is, of course, the Roman de la Rose.
In sections 2.2.1. - 2.2.6. a number of works in the ars amandi tradition are compared with Der minnen loep. Only vague resemblances are discernible, and each time Ingeborg Glier's characterization of Der minnen loep as a work with an ‘eigentümliche Sonderstellung’ seems confirmed. However, assuming that Der minnen loep belongs to the tradition of the artes amandi, it hardly seems conceivable that no closer links would exist between Der minnen loep and this tradition. For three reasons Ovid's works clearly have to be considered: his Ars amatoria and Remedia amoris lie at the root of all medieval artes amandi; Dirc Potter must have studied Ovid's work in school; and there is a certain similarity in composition between the Ars amatoria and Der minnen loep: both works contain numerous small ‘excursions’, and both illustrate the theory of love with exemplary tales. The relation between Ovid and Potter is discussed in Chapter Five.
The stories told in Der minnen loep are thematically related in that they are all love stories illustrating Potter's
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theory of love. This aspect of Der minnen loep is compared with the tradition of the collections of tales current in late medieval Europe (sections 2.3.1. - 2.3.7.). Ingeborg Glier mentions Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio's Decameron and Gower's Confessio amantis in connection with Der minnen loep. There is one major difference, however: while Potter places his stories in a theoretical frame-work, viz., the exposition of a theory of love, Chaucer and Boccaccio, and to some extent also Gower, present a much more elaborate narrative frame-work.
Another unifying element may be seen in the provenance of the stories in Der minnen loep. Of the sixty or so exemplary tales, fourteen are based on Ovid's Heroides and nine on his Metamorphoses. No structural relationship can be established between Der minnen loep and Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris, Chaucer's Legend of good women and the Ovide moralisé, all works which were directly or indirectly influenced by Ovid. On the other hand, the Bible provided the subject-matter for ten of the exemplary tales in Der minnen loep.
A survey of the works mentioned above leads to the conclusion that none of them has a structure comparable with that of Der minnen loep. The fact remains, however, that Ovid's works, and especially the Heroides have provided Potter with the material for so many of his stories. It is evident that Der minnen loep is related to Ovid's works in both its theoretical and narrative aspects. While the theoretical part can be linked with Ovid's Ars amatoria and Remedia amoris, the stories betray the influence of the Epistulae Heroidum and, to a lesser extent, of the Metamorphoses.
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Chapter Three
This chapter is devoted to some problems of the prologue (verses 1-324 of Book I).
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In the opening passage, the narrator confronts the arts with earthly riches on the one hand, and on the other hand the blessed poor man with the wealthy miser who is not interested in the arts. There are different kinds of arts, but the narrator informs his public about his own art, ‘good old grammar’, and about his education. One day, during his stay in Rome he says, Venus appeared to him; she instructed him to write about love and to tell love stories. When Venus had disappeared, he thought of those who had written about love: Gallus, Ovidius, Anacreon, Callimachus and others, and decided to write a work in which he will explain, to the best of his ability, the meaning of love to young people, even though he himself considers love as a burden. For this reason he will not encourage anyone to love. However, if somebody is willing to serve love, he will consider it his task to advise him. According to the narrator, there are many kinds of love, but he will restrict himself to the love between man and woman.
It is evident that the structure of the prologue has been dictated in some degree by the rules of the classical ars rhetorica. It consists of two parts and its function is to make the reader/listener docilem, attentum and benevolum. The prohemium (I, 1-76) concerns itself with general questions, which are not directly related to the contents of the work; the actual prologus (I, 77-324) contains the introduction to the work itself.
In the exposition the narrator discusses the content of the notion minne (love) and deals briefly with a number of medieval ideas about love. Special emphasis is laid on the love between man and woman, husband and wife. The narrator holds the view that two components play a rôle in this relation: friendship and lust (amicitia and cupiditas).
The description of Venus in the prologue agrees with an iconographical tradition, though it is difficult to determine its
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exact relationship with this tradition. The opinion of Overmaat, according to whom Venus evokes ‘numerous reminiscences’ of German literature, must be rejected.
Since the figure of Venus is known to have a twofold function in medieval literature - she can be either pure or lascivious - her function in the prologue of Der minnen loep is subjected to a closer examination. Textual evidence points to the pure Venus. The Goddess who commissioned the narrator to write Der minnen loep is the Venus of the goede and the gheoerlofde minne (good and licit love), i.e. the Venus of conjugal love.
Thus far, the list of poets in the prologue (Gallus, Ovidius, Callimachus, etc.) has not been identified. It is clear, however, that this list derives from either Ovid's Ars amatoria (III, 329-340) or from his Remedia amoris (758-766). The implication is that the narrator places himself in the ranks of the poets of love, mentioned by Ovid. This points to a further connection between Ovid's work and Der minnen loep.
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Chapter Four
In this chapter the contents of Der minnen loep are analysed. The central themes of the work are the following.
1. Ghecke minne (foolish love) is characterized by some form of thoughtlessness. Several forms of thoughtlessness are treated in the first book of Der minnen loep and the narrator points out how one can prevent foolish love.
2. Goede minne (good love) is defined by four properties: fidelity, equality, nobleness, and chastity. It has four degrees or phases: visual contact in the street, dalliance in the garden, petting in honour and decency ‘upstairs in the room’, and coition on the bed. This last and highest degree is the gheoerlofde minne (licit love) which forms the subject of Book IV of Der
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minnen loep. In each degree of the development of his love the lover stands in need of the assistance of a special cardinal virtue. These are also associated with colours: Temperance is clothed in green (courtliness, modesty, hope), Wisdom in white (diffidence, prudence, secrecy), Strength in red (joy, decency), and Justice in blue (constancy, fidelity). Good love is not dependent on the free choice of the lover; Love's nature is capricious. Brute force is rejected as a means of reaching one's aim, but ruse is permitted. In any case, care must be taken to safeguard the woman's honour, if only for the sake of appearances. The need for secrecy is paramount. A trusted friend is indispensable.
3. Ongheoerlofde minne (illicit love) consists of three kinds: homosexuality, bestiality, and sexual relations with relatives. In each of these cases sin and ignominy are important issues. To these three kinds of illicit love are added separately: violation of women, love relations with Jews, and love relations with pagans.
4. Gheoerlofde minne (licit love) is conjugal love. It is characterized as free, that is free of the sorrows inherent to the other three degrees of good love. In licit love there is no danger of sin, and the secrecy is no longer a cause of concern for the lovers. The main thing in marriage is fidelity; its opposite, infidelity, leads to loss of honour and to ignominy. Both partners have their rights and duties, but the duties of the wife are more numerous. She has to be submissive and to accept many things. She has to be faithful through and through. There are two things she should especially eschew: believing rumours about her husband, and spying on him.
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Chapter Five
This chapter begins with some observations on the study of Ovid in the Middle Ages (5.2.). In many medieval manuscripts of Ovid
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the classical text has been annotated with interlinear and marginal glosses, and with scholia. Moreover, many texts are preceded by an introduction, an Accessus ad auctorem. In the Accessus six points are usually discussed: the vita auctoris (the life of the author), the titulus operis (the title of the work), the intentio auctoris (the intention of the author), the materia operis (the subject-matter of the work), the causa finalis or utilitas (the usefulness) and the question cui parti philosophiae supponatur (under which part of philosophy the work is to be classified). A detailed study of the Accessus ad auctorem preceding Ovid's Heroides establishes beyond any doubt that the conception of Der minnen loep is based on the medieval Heroides commentaries (5.3.). According to medieval commentators of the Heroides the intentio auctoris is: ‘commendare quasdam a licito amore [...], alias reprehendere ab illicito [...], alias etiam reprehendere a stulto amore’, ‘to commend some of them [= the women writers of the epistles] for their licit love [...], to reprehend others for their illicit love [...], and to reprehend still others for their foolish love’. These categories, amor stultus, amor illicitus, and amor licitus are identical with those used by Potter in books I, III, and IV of Der minnen loep. Potter's category of goede minne (good love) has no counterpart in the Heroides commentaries, a problem which is
discussed in Chapter Seven.
The connection between Der minnen loep and both the commentary on, and the text of the Heroides is strengthened by the evidence of the exemplary stories in Der minnen loep. Potter's use of the examples borrowed from the Heroides agrees with the interpretation of these examples in the medieval commentaries. The epistles that are regarded as examples of foolish love are used in the chapter on amor stultus (Book I of Der minnen loep), while the examples of illicit love and licit love are used in the chapters on amor
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illicitus (Book III) and amor licitus (Book IV) respectively (5.4.4.).
Many of the characteristics of the different kinds of love observed in Chapter Four concur with those given in the Heroides commentaries. This similarity between Der minnen loep and the commentaries provides yet another argument for the thesis that the Heroides text and its medieval commentaries underlie Der minnen loep (5.5.-5.5.5.).
In the second part of Chapter Five (5.6.-5.6.5.) the relationship is investigated between Ovid's Ars amatoria and Remedia amoris and their medieval commentaries on the one hand, and Der minnen loep on the other. Here, too, it becomes evident that Potter uses these Ovidian works as well as their medieval commentaries. Some of his borrowings are obvious, others are only probable or possible. The conclusion of this chapter (5.7.) is that Der minnen loep, in view of its dependence on medieval Ovid commentaries, and in view of the use Potter makes of this material, occupies a unique position in the tradition of the medieval artes amandi. There are no other representatives of this genre which resemble Der minnen loep in this respect. This is all the more remarkable because one would expect the ideas promulgated in the medieval classrooms, where the Heroides were assiduously studied, to have left their traces elsewhere, too, either in theoretical and/or narrative works.
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Chapter Six
Little attention has been paid by literary historians to the stories incorporated into Der minnen loep as illustrations of Potter's theory and moral precepts. A summary of previous research is given in 6.2. Five stories are selected for an exploration of Potter's technique as an adaptor. A comparison of Phyllis and Demophon (6.3.1.), Jason and Medea (6.3.2.),
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and Iphis and Anaxarete (6.3.3.) with their respective counterparts in classical literature leads to the conclusion that the main feature of Potter's adaptations is a process of ‘concentration’. He restricts himself to the essentials of the plot, and omits details that have no relevance for the point he wishes to make. The setting of the story is ‘medievalized’; its content is often subtly reshaped in order to serve as an illustration of an element in Potter's exposition.
In the stories borrowed from Ovid's Metamorphoses Potter usually eliminates the metamorphosis, replacing it by some more natural dénouement. The same tendency has been observed by Stackmann in the work of Albrecht von Halberstadt and of Konrad von Würzburg, and by Wilkinson in the work of Chaucer. In Potter's case, the elimination of the metamorphosis seems to have been dictated by the exemplary purpose which the story assumes in the context of Der minnen loep (6.4.1.).
The story of the chaste Susanna (6.4.2.) is studied as an instance of Potter's treatment of biblical material. His retelling of Daniel 13:1-64 is very free; the main difference being that in his version Susanna is an unmarried girl. The story serves as an example of brute force used in sexual matters. Potter has deviated from his source (in which Susanna was depicted as a married woman) in order to bring the story into accordance with the theme of the second book of Der minnen loep, which is concerned with pre-marital good love.
The story of Cydippe and Aconcius (6.4.3.) diverges widely from the version in Ovid's Heroides which Potter nevertheless seems to have used. The solution of the enigma is once again to be found in the medieval standard commentary on the Heroides which provided Potter with the outline and some of the details of his version of the story.
In the conclusion of this chapter (6.5.) the necessity is stressed of studying the stories not in isolation but as
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parts of the argument of Der minnen loep.
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Chapter Seven
In the final chapter two related problems are discussed, viz. the origin of Potter's concept of goede minne (good love) as expounded in the second book of Der minnen loep (7.2.), and the possible relationship between Andreas Capellanus' De amore and Der minnen loep (7.3.). At the end of the chapter some general conclusions are drawn (7.4. - 7.4.2.).
It can be shown that Potter's essential concern in Der minnen loep was with Christian marriage. The good love described in the second book is conceived as pre-marital love developing, by way of four degrees, from amorousness to the consummation of love in marriage. Potter cannot have borrowed his ideas on good love from the commentaries on Ovid's Heroides where the concept is absent. The category of good love is in all probability an addition of his own to the traditional system of categories of love. The content of the category is, however, traditional. Potter's exposition of good love is ultimately based upon the classical ‘gradus amoris’ or ‘(quinque) lineae amoris’, although he adapted the concept to suit his own ideas.
In this context the question has to be answered whether Potter has undergone the influence of Andreas' De amore, in which the gradus amoris play an important rôle. A direct relationship cannot be demonstrated, and there is only one element that might point to a closer connection between the two works. Potter's ‘heelghesel’ (the ‘good secret friend’ of the lover) may have been modelled after Andreas' secretarius. But the evidence is by no means conclusive; the concept of the ‘heelghesel’ may also derive from Ovid.
Drawing on a body of traditional ideas on love, especially on the typology found in the medieval Accessus to, and
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commentaries on, Ovid's works on love, and illustrating his theory and practical rules of conduct with narrative material mainly borrowed from Ovid and the Bible, Potter has produced a highly original composition. The final conclusion is that Der minnen loep occupies, among the medieval artes amandi, a place of its own. |
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