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II.—The Catalan Mascarón and an Episode in Jacob Van Maerlant's Merlijn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

J. P. Wickersham Crawford
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Extract

A popular allegorical subject in the Middle Ages was that which represented the struggle of the good and evil powers for the possession of man's soul. Frequently the evil power is centralized in the devil or his procurator, and the contest is excited by the harrowing of Hell and the release of the damned souls by Christ. According to some of the Church Fathers, the devil had certain rights over man after the first sin, a right which was the more legitimate since it was sanctioned by God himself. The whole subject is closely connected with the dogmatic traditions of the Church concerning the redemption. In the twelfth century, Hugo of St. Victor in his commentary on the fifteenth Psalm gives an account of a dispute between Christ and Satan, in which the devil asserts his right to man as having been consigned to him after the Fall. We find this reproduced in an Italian version of the thirteenth century entitled Piato del Dio col Nemico. According to other versions, the Virgin Mary undertook the defense of man against the claims of the devil. This idea was a product of the worship of the Virgin which affected so many of the doctrines of the Church. As the protecting Mother of sinners, she was the natural adversary of the forces of evil. Mary, the Queen of Heaven, was thus contrasted with Lucifer, the independent ruler of Hell. In certain cases, the story represents a trial scene in which Christ appears as the judge, the Virgin Mary as the advocate of mankind and Mascaron, the devil's procurator, as the plaintiff. This version is found in three texts, Dutch, Latin, and Catalan, which show marked similarities.

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Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , 1911, pp. 31 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1911

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References

page 31 note 1 See Roderich Stintzing, Geschichte der populären Literatur des kanonisch römischen Rechts in Deutschland, pp. 259–271; Roediger, Contrasti Antichi, Florence, 1887, p. 95; Roskoff, Geschichte des Teufels, Vol. i, p. 228.

page 31 note 2 Hugo: Misc. Annotationes Elucidatoriœ in quosdam Psalmos David, Cap. xii. Migne, clxxvii, pp. 596–7.

page 31 note 3 Edited by F. Roediger, Contrasti Antichi. Florence, 1887.

page 32 note 1 Jacob van Maerlant's Merlijn, ed. by van Vloten, Leiden, 1880. The relation of this version to the allegory of the Four Daughters of God, or Procès de Dieu, has been studied by Miss Hope Traver in her monograph, The Four Daughters of God, Philadelphia, 1907. I am indebted to this work for many suggestions.

page 32 note 2 Jan de Winkel in Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, ii, i, 458 and 465.

page 34 note 1 Op. cit., p. 55.

page 34 note 2 See Miss Traver's monograph for a study of the allegory of the Four Daughters of God, or Procès de Dieu, based upon Psalm lxxxiv, 11, Misericordia et Veritas obviaverunt sibi; Justitia et Pax osculatœ sunt.

page 35 note 1 Op. cit., p. 62.

page 35 note 2 F. A. Snellaert, Nederlandsche Gedichten uit de veertiende eeuw, van Jan Boendale, Hein van Aken, en anderen, Brussels, 1869, pp. lxiii–lxxviii and 493–549. It is found in a manuscript in the Bodleian Library, Marshall Coll., No. 32, of the late fourteenth century.

page 35 note 3 Op. cit., p. 265.

page 35 note 4 I have not been able to see a copy of this version, which formed a part of Stintzing's own collection.

page 36 note 1 I owe to the kindness of Prof. A. L. Stiefel a transcript of a copy of this version which is found in the Stadtbibliothek of Munich. In studying this version, I shall designate it by the name Ascaron.

page 36 note 2 Op. cit., p. 266.

page 36 note 3 Op. cit., p. 61.

page 37 note 1 Obras completas, Vol. vi, Barcelona, 1895, pp. 216.

page 38 note 1 Biblioteca de autores españoles, Vol. ii, p. 152n.

page 38 note 2 Orundriss der romanischen Philologie, Vol. ii, 2, p. 88.

page 48 note 1 This interpretation of the dream of Procula, the wife of Pilate, is found in the Gospel of Nicodemus, cap. ii. In La Passion de Jésus-Christ by Arnoul Greban, ll. 23342–52, Satan succeeds in bringing about the death sentence of Jesus, but Lucifer is not satisfied and a messenger is sent to appear to Pilate's wife in a dream and to urge her to prevent the crucifixion of Jesus. See Wieck, Die Teufel auf der mittelalterlichen Mysterienbühne Frankreichs, Leipzig, 1897. The same subject is treated in the English York and Coventry plays. See L. W. Cushman, The Devil and the Vice in the English Dramatic Literature before Shakespeare, Halle, 1900, p. 17.

page 49 note 1 Colección de autos, farsas y coloquios del siglo XVI, Vol. iv, p. 287. The Aucto de Acusación contra el género humano is published in Vol. ii, p. 449.

page 49 note 2 The version of Bartolus was also the source of the French L'Advocacie Notre-Dame ou la Vièrge Marie plaidant contre le Diable, a fourteenth century play ascribed to Jean de Justice. Ed. by Alphonse Chassant, Paris, 1855.

page 49 note 3 Ed. by Rouanet, op. cit., Vol. i, p. 152, and Vol. ii, p. 330.

page 50 note 1 Op. cit., Vol. iv, p. 155.

page 50 note 2 Arjona, Anales, p. 54.

page 50 note 3 Ed. by Rouanet, Paris, 1897.

page 50 note 4 Published in the Academy edition of the plays of Lope de Vega, Vol. ii.