Song, Desire, and Persuasion in Thirteenth-Century France

Medieval    texts    simultaneously    laud    and    critique    music’s    capacity to persuade. This paper first compares such musical persuasion  with  the  similar  powers  attributed  to  sexual  desire  in texts surrounding the thirteenth-century reform of marriage. Such    accounts    consistently    hold    positive    consequences    in    tension  with  moral  problems.  Music  might  calm  the  warlike,  while   wives   might   exploit   their   husband’s   sexual   desire   to   persuade    him    into    righteous    behaviour.    Conversely,    the    pleasure  afforded  by  music  and  sex  can  all  too  easily  overtake  human  rationality,  preventing  humans  from  being  guided  by  moral   intentions.   I   then   turn   to   thirteenth-century   French   literature, showing that authors including Gerbert de Montreuil and  Henri  de  Valenciennes  variously  adopt,  satirize,  and  play  with   these   parallels   between   music,   sex,   and   persuasion   to   give vivid life to their protagonists.

Matthew  P.  Thomson  is  a  Government  of  Ireland  Postdoctoral  Research Fellow at University College Dublin, having previously received  his  doctorate  from  the  University  of  Oxford.  His  work  appears   in   Plainsong   and   Medieval   Music   and   the   book   he   co-edited  with  Elizabeth  Eva  Leach  and  Joseph  W.  Mason,  A  Medieval Songbook: Trouvère Manuscript C, is out with Boydell and Brewer.

Presenter: Matthew P. Thomson Chair: Dr Eleanor J. Giraud