Marginal thinking: 18. The 23 verses

We have seen how out of the 26 verses in Dance aux Aveugles, the 23 have been reused in "La Vie de l'Homme" and then copied by Godard. As mentioned, texts and sequence vary between each publication so therefore it's amazing to find that this number, 23, is rather fixed.

But the 23 verses appear in another connection, namely those "shepherd's calendars", that were popular in the same period. There is a certain logic in that since the books of hours contained almanacs, then the calendars also had to contain religious texts. In the shepherdess-calendar from 1499, the picture of Death on a pale horse is accompanied by 23 verses. Each verse has a small heading, e.g.: »Mort declaire icy son povoir dessus nature humaine« ("Death declares here his power over human nature").

Compost et Kalendrier des bergeres, 1499

Calendrier des bergeres

Calendrier des bergeres

Calendrier des bergeres

It's time for yet another table. I have transcribed the 23 verses from the calendar in the left column with headings and the two first lines. The right column is an extract of the table on the previous page: The text is from Aveugles and the two numbers in parenthesis are respectively from Aveugles and La Vie de l'Homme.

The famous manuscript BNF MS 995 has the last verse of "Aveugles" with the headline: "Mort fait finablement tous aller au iugement".

As one can see the two columns are fairly identical, and there's nothing odd in this: We are dealing with two redactions of the same work, La dance aux Aveugles, which was exacty what the table was meant to demonstrate.

Nevertheless there are difference: For instance »Endort les gens entretant« versus »Endort plusieurs entretant«. One can also see that verse 22 in the calendar (»Ainsy doncques mes Menestreux«) is placed as number 18 in La Dance aux Aveugles (this was the same verse that gave us problems in the table on the previous page as well).

This only goes to show that there always are great variations between the separate publications, and on this background it is particularly astonishing that the two columns share the same 23 verses. This means that the editor of the calendar has selected the same 23 verses (or if you will: rejected the other 3 verses) from La Dance aux Aveugles, as the author of La Vie de l'Homme has used for creating his own text.

On the whole, the figure 23 is a common thread in the middle of the chaos:

• The calendar has taken 23 verses from La Dance aux Aveugles.
• The author of La Vie de l'Homme has taken the same 23 verses.
• Les Loups ravissans contains 23 different images (in the dance of death section).
• La Vie de l'Homme contains 23 different images.
• Godard's version (the one in Bibliothèque Mazarine) contains 23 verses from La Dance aux Aveugles with 23 illustrations.
• One of the books of hours with La Vie de l'Homme contains 23 verses (the one from Poitiers has an ekstra verse: »Aucun pays est puni […]«).
• The other book of hours with La Vie de l'Homme also has 23 verses (the one from University of Pennsylvania has an extra verse: »Jay maladie ma loyalle servante«).

The relationship between the different sources

We have now found three sources for the dance of death in the margins: The general idea comes from Mors de la pomme, the pictures come from Les loups ravissans, and the text comes from La Dance aux Aveugles. But sorting out the relationship still presents an unsolvable puzzle.

The number of scenes

This scene from "Accidens de l'Homme" has no counterpart in "La Vie de l'Homme".

This scene from "Accidens de l'Homme" has no counterpart in "La Vie de l'Homme".

Mary Beth Winn speculates why one of the woodcuts in "Les loups ravissans" appears twice, so that there are only 23 different pictures for the 24 chapters. The chapter that is illustrated with the woodcut the second time around is about Cicero, who was decapitated. In "Accidens de l'Homme" there is a scene with such a decapitation (picture to the left), and Winn suggests that there originally was such an image in Loups, but that this disappeared early on — after Vostre had copied it for "Accidens de l'Homme", but before Hardouyn and Godard had time to copy it.

But "Accidens de l'Homme" contains yet another scene, which isn't included in neither Loups nor Vie (picture to the right), and for that matter also includes the authority. This hypothesis thus cannot explain why there is 1 chapter more in Loups than there are verses in Vie. Actually this is another similarity since "Accidens de l'Homme" contains 26 verses/images, like Aveugles. One probably shouldn't put too much importance on this since the three extra images in Accidens don't seem to be related to the three extra verses in Aveugles.

Mary Beth Winn assumes that Hardouyn (or one of his employees) has copied the woodcuts from Loups and written the 23 verses based on Aveugles.(2) But why only 23 verses, when there are 24 chapters in Loups? There's no avoiding the fact that the 23 verses had already been selected in the calendar from 1499 — ca. six years before Loups.

The images

The examples below show some general tendencies:

1. Hardouyn, Godard and Vostre's images are very compact due to the physical restrictions (i.e. the limited space in the margins).

2. Every time Accidens appears in Loups (picture to the left), he is portrayed as Death in the three other versions.

3. Hardouyn is much closer to Loups, than Simon Vostre is.

4. Godard's woodcuts are close copies of Hardouyn.(3)

5. With Godard and Vostre, Death's skull is flat like a mask.

Les loups rauissans.
From the left: Accidens, Plague, War and Famine.

Vie de l'Homme. In front: Plague, War and Famine in armour.

Godard. Reversed order: Famine, War and Plague.

Accidens de l'Homme: Famine as a woman, War and Plague.

The above four images may show a development: To the left, Accidens presents his three comrades-in-arms: Plague, War and Famine. These three are sitting down; Plague and Famine are covered with each a cloak / carpet, but Plague's skinny leg protrudes from under the carpet.

The figures in Hardouyn's images have been squeezed together due to space restrictions, so Accidens (who has been replaced by Death) stands behind the three comrades, and all are standing up. Plague still sticks out her naked leg, and she also exposes her throat and naked chest.(4) For inscrutable reasons, Famine wears the same armour as War. Maybe because Famine's headdress is reminiscent of War's helmet, and because Famine has the same round plate on her elbow as War has several places on his armour. Famine still has a carpet over her legs, even though she is standing up.

Godard's image has been laterally inversed. Death's skull is flatter and mask-like. Famine's hairdo could easily be taken for that of a woman, while the carpet, which makes no sense on the standing person, could easily be interpreted as a skirt. Plague's extended leg gives the impression of a walking person; her flat breast and scrawny throat has become some sort of a bib with a bow tied at the top.

At last we have Vostre's image. Famine has become an expensively dressed woman, and Plague comes walking. The breast/bib has become part of the cloak.

The years

The most troublesome aspect might be the relative ages of the works. It is certain that Dance aux Aveugles is the oldest from ca. 1465. Mors de la Pomme is almost just as old, from 1468, but we will ignore that work, since its influence is only indirect. It is certain that the calendar is from 1499, and there are many good reasons to assume that Les loups ravissans is from around 1505.

After this it all becomes very iffy, for it's the rule rather than the exception that the books of hours by Hardouyn and Godard are without a date. Therefore one typically looks in the almanacs that are placed at the beginning of the books and contain tables of the moveable feasts for the next 20-30 years. The argument is that nobody would pay their lifetime earnings for a book with a table of past Easters. This argument, tempting as it is, isn't quite water-proof though, because in those books of hours, where the year of printing has been specified, one sometimes sees that these almanacs in fact can be several years older than the rest of the book. For instance, Pigouchet published a splendid edition on 16^th September 1498 with the almanac covering the 21 years from 1488 to 1508.

A very concrete problem arises when we look at the relationship between the version with Latin quotes (Las Horas) and Accidens de l'Homme.

The three copies I have seen of the former are written in Spanish, Latin and English respectively. Therefore it is tempting to assume that Accidens is the original version (of these two), but that Nicolas Higman and Simon Vostre didn't want to translate the French rhymes into Spanish, Latin and English, and that they instead chose to replace the verses with sundry quotes in Latin that they found in the printed version of La Danse Macabre.

This is contradicted by the years of publication. In the Spanish almanac it says (page 14): »Año del nascimiento de nuestro señor de mill. ccccxcv«, and in the Italian: »anno a nativitate domini M.cccc.xcv«. Thus these two versions of Las Horas are from 1495, whereas we hardly meet copies of Accidens before 1512. This means that Las Horas is older than the calendar as well as Loups.

Winn, however, doubts that such books exist: »However, no such edition from 1495 exists«.(5) In another case where a book of hours with images from Accidens is dated 1503, the solution is to assume that it should have said 1513.(6)

The texts

The relationship between the texts is also very tricky. Loups is a very voluminous text of 3.244 lines (just for the half with Accident), where Death, Accidens, Adam, Cain, Cicero, Xerxes or one of the many victims speak in turn. On the other hand the basic idea of Death being assisted by Accidens, Plague, War and Famine, is still the same as in Aveugles. One can't help wondering why one series is named Accidens de l'Homme, when the word "accidens" only appears twice in this particular work, while the last half of "Loups rauissans", where Accident plays the main part over 3,244 lines doesn't have a title of its own.

Death moves slowly

Sleeping in the property

And this leads to the last connection, viz. that the headlines in the shepherdess calendar — at least to begin with — are a perfect description of Accidens. Take the three first headlines: »Mort declaire icy son povoir dessus nature humaine«, »Mort fut engendree de adam et de eve« and »Mort fist mourir abel«. This sequence does not describe Vie, where Death comes at last, and neither Loups where an image of a crowd comes as number two.

The headlines continue, »Mort depuis fait mourir toutes gens«, and at this point Accidens does indeed show Death confronting a crowd, but it should noted that there are several such scenes with crowds in Accidens (here and here). The next headline is »Mort pour tarder ne fault a venir«, and indeed the woodcut (to the left) shows Death riding a bull — slowly but unstoppable. On the other hand the text doesn't allude to the bull (unlike Vie which says »Dessus ce beuf qui s'en va pas-à-pas«). The next headline, »Mort prent gens endormis en leurs aises« is strongly paralleled in the text (to the right): »quant s'endorment en leurs biens«. The woodcut — as a precursor to Holbein's dance of death — does indeed show a person being surprised by Death in the middle of his daily life, although he doesn't seem to be sleeping.

The two works, Accidens and the calendar, run in parallel, until number 15, i.e. the decapitation (picture above to the left), which doesn't appear in neither Vie nor Aveugles, and after this the connection becomes looser.

A final question is concerning the copies made by Godard. Douce had described a booklet, in which the text had been copied from Aveugles, but in the exemplar we studied, the text (to the limited extent that there even was a text), was copied from Vie. This book of hours was — according to the almanac — from 1515. The question is, which of these two versions came first — and whether there maybe exists a third (older) version, where the whole text has been copied from Vie — in the right sequence.

In fact it's another problem that the publications of both Hardouyn and Godard's are so jumbled that one cannot make head or tail of them (see for instance this table). In comparison Vostre's publications are far more consequent. The difference between Las Horas and Accidens is only that scenes number 19 and 20 have been exchanged. Outside this I have only seen a single copy of Accidens, where the scenes did not come in the proper sequence (see here and here).

There are no easy answers so to wrap up this section, we will finish by looking at two more modern copies: first Leon le Maire.

 

The next chapter is about a copy from the 19^th century by Leon le Maire.

The previous subject was Guillaume Godard.

External links

• The shepherdess-calendar can be downloaded in high resolution. As an added bonus, the book also contains the Danse macabre for women. Calendrier des bergeres (PDF-file, 166 MB!).
• More details about the shepherdess-calendar

Footnotes: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

The dance of death Marginals The 23 verses