International Medieval Society, Paris
Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris

Symposium 2006 Abstracts

‘Francis scire, sitis Anglis, nescire Britannis, / Fastus Normannis crescit crescentibus annis’—according to a Paris manuscript (BN 18522) of the thirteenth century, French, English, Breton and Norman students were all making steady progress in their studies, albeit not in equally honourable disciplines: the English in drinking, the Bretons in their ignorance, the Normans in their pride. At about the same time, in the Historia Occidentalis, preacher Jacques de Vitry makes reference to similar insults which student members of the university nations were hurling at each other: the English were drunkards and had tails, the French were arrogant and effeminate, the Germans hot-tempered and obscene, the Normans vain and boastful, and so on. In this case, Jacques de Vitry is referring to twelve nations in the French faculty of arts. In the thirteenth century, however, there finally emerged only four nations in Paris: the French,  Norman, Picard and the English-German nation. These university associations were generally of mixed composition, and could therefore be hotbeds of ‘nationalist’ or ethnic conflicts, both internally as well as with other rival nations.

These kinds of stereotypical insults were commonplace in twelfth and thirteenth century satirical literature. In my paper, I intend to place these ethnic stereotypes in their literary and socio-historical context. I will focus on the relationship between these national characteristics and examples from antiquity and the early middle ages. To what extent did the image of the rough, barbaric Teuton from late antiquity live on in the stereotypical German in the twelfth century? Can the prevailing stereotypes be labelled as oversimplified characterizations of existing cultural differences, or were they perhaps topoi borrowed from classical or early medieval literature? Were the students influenced by existing ethnic images in the texts studied within the university curriculum? And how did these images live on in the satirical literature of their time?

In addressing these issues, I will try to place these archetypical ethnic stereotypes into the following categories: character (the evil, the proud, the fierce, the stupid, the fickle, the generous and the stingy); language (Roman versus Germanic), manners and customs (the drunkard, the wine or beer drinker, the butter ball) and apparel (the effeminate, the rough). In other words, how stereotypical were the ethnic stereotypes hurled at the members of the student nations in Paris?