Gestuelle courtoise et écarts discourtois dans Flamenca (roman occitan du XIIIe siecle)
Gestural Courtesy and Discourteous Discrepancies in Flamenca (Occitan Novel of the 12th Century)

Summary/Abstract: Coagulated at the end of the 11th century at the seigniorial courts from the southern France and spread afterward in the northern French territory, the courteous ethical code intended to be a set of rules representative for the nobility. It included, between other elegant specifics, the discipline of the body, necessarily based on the self-control and, in the same time, on a distinguished, elegant, polite and moderated gesture. The Middle Ages imaginary and mainly the literature from the 12th and the 13th centuries are full of this kind of examples. In fact, the elite’s will to adhere on this ethics and to appropriate it till transforming it in its second nature represents the theme of the courteous novels, focused on some characters which are symbols for the ideal courteous values. By contrast, some other characters are not only at the limit of the courteous model, but also transgress its principles by more or less serious discourteous deviations. The Occitan novel Flamenca (from the 13th century), that we are focusing on, illustrates this trend: one of its principal characters, the signor Archambaut, shows, immediately after his marriage with Flamenca, an unexpected regression, in fact a profound alteration of the courtly behavior, in terms of verbal and mainly gestural manners.

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