The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna - Raymond de Bexiers, Religious Experience and Translation in Fourteenth Century Court
The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna - Raymond de Bexiers, Religious Experience and Translation in Fourteenth Century Court
The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna - Raymond de Bexiers, Religious Experience and Translation in Fourteenth Century Court
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so, I not only trace the outlines of an inner (albeit fictional)
transformation but also give weight to the real social work
tudies of conversion raise powerful questions that this conversion does in the context of its particular his-
about the relation between culture and the self. torical moment with all of its anxieties and investments.
Conversion, as traditionally defined, describes a The adventures of two jackals named Kalila and Dimna
great change that takes place within an individual, (along with other animals) fill the pages of lat. 8504. The jack-
In this interdisciplinary project I have relied on the advice of many colleagues. I am deeply grateful to those who have provided assistance
along the way, including Nancy Andrews, Michael Davis, Charlotte Denol, Bridget Franco, Francisco Gago-Jover, Heidi Gearhart, Kendy
Hess, Cecily Hilsdale, Eva Hoffman, Joan Holladay, Ellis Jones, Nadine Knight, Min Kyung Lee, Vivian Mann, Elizabeth Morrison, Mika Natif,
Glenn Peers, Joanne Pierce, Virginia Raguin, Elizabeth Ross, Anna Russakoff, Benjamin Tilghman, Edward Vodoklys, and especially Alicia
Walker. I would also like to acknowledge important feedback from the editors and anonymous reviewers at Gesta. Funding for this project was
generously provided by awards from the College of the Holy Cross Committee on Faculty Scholarship in 2010 and 2015.
1. Andrew Buckser and Stephen D. Glazier, Preface, and Diane Austin-Broos, The Anthropology of Conversion: An Introduction, in
The Anthropology of Religious Conversion, ed. Andrew Buckser and Stephen D. Glazier (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), xixviii
and 112, respectively; Pierre Beaucage, Deirdre Meintel, and Graldine Mossire, Introduction: Social and Political Dimensions of Religious
Conversion, Anthropologica 49, no. 1 (2007): 1116; Lieke Stelling, Harald Hendrix, and Todd M. Richardson, eds., The Turn of the Soul:
Representations of Religious Conversion in Early Modern Art and Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2012); and Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farha
dian, introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion, ed. Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2014), 122.
2. The Latin text of the manuscript has been edited in Lopold Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins depuis le sicle dAuguste jusqu la fin du
Moyen ge, vol. 5 (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1899), 3974, 379775. For a comprehensive list of scholarship on the manuscript and its miniatures,
see Alison Stones, Gothic Manuscripts, 12601320, pt. 1, vol. 2 (London: Harvey Miller, 2013), cat. no. I-60, 12628. See below for additional
bibliography.
17. Raymond mentions the cleric who originally gave the Cas-
tilian manuscript to Queen Jeanne, but we know no more about
him. Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 386; and Paris, Raymond de
des Sept Sages), ed. Marion Uhlig and Yasmina Foehr-Janssens Bziers, 191. Elsewhere I suggest that the manuscript, which had
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 30928. come from Navarre, might have been a gift (delivered by the cleric)
12. The relation between the Castilian version and Raymonds from the people of Navarre to Jeanne, their queen. For the role of
text is analyzed in Cacho Blecua and Lacarra, Calila e Dimna, the queen as recipient of the Castilian manuscript and patron of
4244; and Taylor, Raimundus de Biterriss Liber Kalile et Dimne, its translation in lat. 8504, see Amanda Luyster, Political Moves:
18691. Jeanne de Navarre, Queenship, and Kalila and Dimna, in Moving
13. Firdausi, in the introduction to his Shahnama, referred to Women, Moving Objects, ed. Tracy Chapman Hamilton and Mariah
many paintings being added to Kalila wa Dimna in the tenth cen- Proctor-Tiffany (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).
tury. There is also a reference in the Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, 18. [I]n linguam latinam, que lingua communior est et intelligi-
often called Tarikh al-Tabari (Universal History), written in the tenth bilior ceteris. Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 385.
century, to a Central Asian prince on trial in 841 for owning illus- 19. John of Capua, like Raymond, proposed a new title for his
trated books; he defended himself by accusing the judge of possess- work, the Directorium humanae vitae, alias parabola antiquorum
ing an illustrated copy of Kalila wa Dimna. Atl, Kalila wa Dimna, sapientum. He also added his own prologue to the text, in which
61; Julian Raby, Between Sogdia and the Mamluks: A Note on he identifies himself as a convert from Judaism, but his translation
the Earliest Illustrations to Kalila wa Dimna, Oriental Art 33, no. 4 in general contains substantially fewer additions than Raymonds.
(198788): 38198; and Jill Cowen, Kalila wa-Dimna: An Animal Therefore, the theme of conversion, while intriguingly present in
Allegory of the Mongol Court; The Istanbul University Album (New John of Capuas personal history, is much less prominent in his
York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 12. text. There are no contemporary illuminated copies of Johns work,
14. Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France (hereafter BnF), MS although two fifteenth-century manuscript copies bear rubrics
arabe 3465. Atl, Kalila wa Dimna, 61. (London, British Library, MS Add. 11437 and Munich, Bayerische
15. For thirteenth- and fourteenth-century manuscripts in Ara- Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 14120). The text of the Directorium was
bic and Persian, see, among others, Raby, Between Sogdia; Cowen, edited by Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 331, 79337, and can be
Kalila wa-Dimna; E. Grube, Prolegomena for a Corpus Publication found online at http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~Harsch/Chronologia
of Illustrated Kalilah wa Dimnah Manuscripts, Islamic Art 4 (1991): /Lspost13/IohannesCapua/cap_di00.html.
301481; Bernard OKane, Early Persian Painting: Kalila and 20. Silvestre de Sacy, Notice de louvrage, 40; Paris, Raymond
Dimna Manuscripts of the Late Fourteenth Century (New York: Tau- de Bziers, 239; Taylor, Raimundus de Biterriss Liber Kalile et
ris, 2003), 19; and Mika Natif, The SOAS Anvr-i Suhayl: The Jour- Dimne, 184, 192; and Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 104.
ney of a Reincarnated Manuscript, Muqarnas 25 (2008): 33158. 21. Raymond reworked both his Spanish and his Latin sources
16. OKane, Early Persian Painting, 5052. in typical medieval fashion, incessantly amplifying, abridging,
Prayer
Four long extracts from the Anticlaudianus accompany
the miniatures depicting Burzuyas conversion in lat. 8504.62
This treatise on morals was written as an allegory in which
Nature, seeing human corruption and deciding to create a
new being, asks Prudence to seek a perfect soul.63 Prudence
and her sister, Reason, go on a journey toward heaven, aided
by the seven liberal arts, who create a chariot for them, and
the five senses, who act as steeds. The travelers finally reach
God, the Virgin appears on a throne, and they receive the
soul of New Man. Perhaps the most influential part of the
Figure 7. Burzuya travels to India with a letter from King Anushirvan,
detail of fol. 13v, translation of Kalila and Dimna (Liber regius), Anticlaudianus was a prayer known as the Summe parens,
Raymond de Bziers, ca. 1313, Paris, Bibliothque nationale de which was so popular that it also circulated independently.64
France, MS lat. 8504 (photo: Bibliothque nationale de France). See The Summe parens appears in the right column on fol. 19r
the electronic edition of Gesta for a color version of this image. of lat. 8504, just after the first appearance of the converted
Burzuya (Fig. 8). It is identified here as Burzuyas invoca-
of the Virgin in lat. 8504 serves as a visual encapsulation of tion, the same invocation that preceded his sleep/death,
her history (fol. 21v, Fig. 11). At the left is the Annunciation, vision, and rebirth, as described in Raymonds summary of
where she is astonished at Gabriels news of her divine con- chapter 3. This prayer is of central importance and is instru-
ception, and on the right she holds the tiny Christ child in mental in what follows. In the manuscript, Burzuyas figure
her role as Queen of Heaven, now wearing a violet robe and a kneels at the lower left of the page while he directs his prayer
crown. This regal depiction appears again in the last minia-
ture in this section (fol. 22v, Fig. 12). While the first image of
the Virgin summarized her story, this final depiction is to be 61. An example of a single-image conversion, also painted in
read as the capstone: Burzuya is vouchsafed an audience with fourteenth-century France, can be found in Gautier de Coincys Mira
cles de Nostre Dame (BnF, MS nouv. acq. fr. 24541), executed about
the Queen of Heaven. No longer is the divine only a vision in 133040. Fol. 67v represents a turbaned Sarrazin praying to a statue
the sky; Burzuya now occupies the same small space as the of the Virgin. Across medieval Europe, the most common conversion
Virgin and Child. Burzuya kneels at her feet, looking up in images (as attested by the Index of Christian Arts online database)
adoration, and the Child, now older and more alert than the appear to be that of the apostle Paul and those accomplished by John
tiny baby on the previous page, is revealed in all his splendor the Evangelist; these, too, regularly show the conversion in a single
scene. Not much has been written on conversion imagery as a genre,
and blesses the supplicant. The relation between the two is
but see Lucy-Anne Hunt, Excommunicata generatione: Christian
active, engaged. This intimate moment caps the series of min- Imagery of Mission and Conversion of the Muslim Other between
iatures, modeling a conversion initiated through questioning, the First Crusade and the Early Fourteenth Century, Al-Masaq
followed by textual learning, glimpsing divinity, coming to a 8, no. 1 (1995): 79153; and Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Seeing
deeper understanding of the nature and history of the uni- Religious Conversion through the Arts, in Rambo and Farhadian,
verse and Gods role in it, and culminating in an intimate and Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion, 32742.
62. Alan of Lille, Anticlaudianus: texte critique, ed. R. Bossuat
personal relationship with the divine. (Paris: Vrin, 1955), 46; cf. Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins. The bor-
The emphasis on the process of conversion, of an identity rowings are as follows: Anticl. 5, 278305 = Hervieux, 43334;
slowly developed through time, effort, and divine grace, is Anticl. 5, 376406 = Hervieux, 43435; Anticl. 5, 40786 = Hervieux,
43537; Anticl. 5, 487543 = Hervieux, 43739.
63. Bossuat, Anticlaudianus, 2630.
Prado-Vilar, The Gothic Anamorphic Gaze: Regarding the Worth 64. Taylor, Raimundus de Biterriss Liber Kalile et Dimne, 191,
of Others, in Robinson and Rouhi, Under the Influence, 67100. 195.
to the upper right, toward the vision of Christ. If we follow The theological implications of stamping or sealing, as noted
Burzuyas gaze past the miniature, it intersects with the begin- in the phrase marking with the stamp of form, are explored
ning of the Summe parens at the top of the right column, cre- by Brigitte Bedos-Rezak in her analyses of French metaphors
ating the illusion that he looks up at Christ and speaks these of sealing from the eleventh through the thirteenth century.67
words. The prayer is carefully spaced and contains, unusu- She describes the way the act of stampingbringing the metal
ally, up to six lines of commentary between each two lines of die or sigillum into contact with hot wax to create an impres-
verse.65 It focuses on stamping, sculpting, and perfecting form sioncan create an identity of sameness between two forms
(the commentary is omitted here): even though they are made of different materials.68 Medieval
authors used sealing metaphors in diverse and shifting ways,
Father in the highest, eternally God . . . who shapest but Alan of Lille, in the passage above, refers to this crea-
the outward form of things and the shadow of the sen- tion of identity between the old mass, the wax, and Gods
sible world from the example of the mental world, por- sigillum as an act that creates semblance between the physical
traying the latter outwardly in the image of the earthly
form; who invests the old mass, complaining of the
ugliness of its appearance, with a better raiment and, exemplar, idea, or the technical action of forming an imitation: the
marking with the stamp of form [formeque sigillo sig- metal sigillum is the forma of the wax seal. Robert W. Scheller, Exem-
plum: Model-Book Drawings and the Practice of Artistic Transmission
nans], removes the disturbance by a mediating bond. . . .
in the Middle Ages (ca. 900ca. 1470), trans. Michael Hoyle (Amster-
Shine Thou upon me with divine light and . . . rain dam: Amsterdam University Press, 1995), 13.
upon, cleanse the marks of shame of my soul and, cut- 67. Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, Replica: Images of Identity and the
ting away, dispel the shadows, and make me serene in Identity of Images in Prescholastic France, in The Minds Eye: Art
the splendor of Thy light.66 and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey F. Ham-
burger and Anne-Marie Bouch (Princeton: Dept. of Art and
Archaeology, Princeton University, 2006), 4664; and eadem, When
65. Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 109. Ego Was Imago: Signs of Identity in the Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill,
66. English translation in William Hafner Cornog, The Anti- 2011), esp. 18991.
claudian of Alain de Lille: Prologue, Argument and Nine Books 68. The culture of the replica promoted a particular notion of
(PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1935), 110. Latin original in personal identity, producing and presenting identity as a figure of
Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 433; cf. lat. 8504, fols. 19r19v. Note sameness rather than as a ground for individual differentiation.
that forma may be understood in multiple ways, including model, Bedos-Rezak, Replica, 5556.
Figure 11. Annunciation to Mary and Mary enthroned with the Figure 12. Burzuya receives an audience with the Queen of Heaven
Christ child, detail of fol. 21v, translation of Kalila and Dimna (Liber and is blessed by the Christ child, detail of fol. 22v, translation of
regius), Raymond de Bziers, ca. 1313, Paris, Bibliothque nationale Kalila and Dimna (Liber regius), Raymond de Bziers, ca. 1313,
de France, MS lat. 8504 (photo: Bibliothque nationale de France). Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France, MS lat. 8504 (photo:
See the electronic edition of Gesta for a color version of this image. Bibliothque nationale de France). See the electronic edition of Gesta
for a color version of this image.
104. Brown and Regalado, La grant feste, 67, 6970, and ta 111. Edward J. Neugaard, The Sources of the Folk Tales in
ble 3.2; and Nancy Freeman Regalado, Staging the Roman de Ramon Llulls Llibre de les bsties, Journal of American Folklore 84,
Renart: Medieval Theater and the Diffusion of Political Concerns in no. 333 (1971): 33337; Batany, La cour du lion, 23; Bonner, Doc-
Popular Culture, Mediaevalia 18 (1995): 11142. tor Illuminatus, 242n247, 254n213; and Anthony Bonner and Lola
105. Brown and Regalado, La grant feste, 70; and Regalado, Badia, Llull, Ramon, in Emmerson and Emmerson, Key Figures in
Staging the Roman de Renart, 132. Medieval Europe, 40912.
106. Friedlander, Hammer of the Inquisitors, 98. 112. Bonner, Doctor Illuminatus, 242.
107. Ibid., 99; and Brown, Prince Is Father of the King, 287. 113. As noted briefly by Stones, Gothic Manuscripts, 128.
108. Paris, Raymond de Bziers, 221; and Taylor, Raimundus 114. Willene B. Clark, The Aviary-Bestiary at the Houghton
de Biterriss Liber Kalile et Dimne, 187. At other times Raymond Library, Harvard, in Beasts and Birds of the Middle Ages: The Besti-
uses lupus (wolf); Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 107. ary and Its Legacy, ed. Willene B. Clark and Meradith T. McMunn
109. Paris, Raymond de Bziers, 221. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 2652; and
110. Jean Batany, La cour du lion, autour du Pantchatantra et Willene B. Clark, ed. and trans., The Medieval Book of Birds: Hugh of
du Jugement de Renart, Marche romane 28 (1978): 1725, at 2124; Fouilloys Aviarum (Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts
and Amer, Esope au fminin, 20. & Studies, 1992).
also to the Renart traditions. If the former is scientific and miniatures show the conversion of a significant character in
the latter political and popular, both were deeply informed the source, the Persian narrator Burzuya, as a lengthy and
by Christian theology. Raymonds work translated the Kalila personal process that begins with an encounter with a text,
and Dimna stories into a new realm of meaning in which its expands through increased knowledge of the divine, and cul-
animal actors generate new echoes and resonances with more minates in an intimate moment with the Virgin and Child.
familiar animals known from street plays and learned bestiar- The conversion of Burzuya also provides Christian author-
ies. Perhaps it is not too much to see in this transformation of ity for the author Raymond de Bziers. A Christian narrator
Kalila and Dimna yet another conversion. For they, too, have can be trusted, and an author who provides such a trustwor-
been brought into the thought world of the French court: they thy narrator can also be trusted. Yet the authors place of birth,
have been introduced to confession, to sin, to the converted Bziers, had a history of religious and political conflict with
Burzuya, to the Christian matrix, and to God as its ruler; they the crown that affected the local bishop, the nobility, and the
are foxes now, no longer jackals. They nose around the French townspeople. I have argued that the authors experience of
court, sniffing out its trickery and its moral quandaries. that conflicted history may lie at the root of his repeated em-
phasis on Christian conversion, orthodox faith, and loyalty
to the French crown, which appear so insistently and on so
Conclusion
many levels in lat. 8504. The charismatic animal characters
The changes that Raymond de Bziers made to his source remain the books ostensible raison dtre, but they appear in
material resulted in a story quite different from the Castilian somewhat altered form. One could imagine, in a perfectly
Kalila and Dimna. Raymond reoriented the focus from secu- harmonious world, individuals from many lands and reli-
lar knowledge and kingship to spiritual truth. The narrative gious backgrounds debating the human truths revealed in
is no longer about the exploration of foreign lands; it is now animal stories. These tales often focus on the interaction be-
about the exploration and acceptance of Christianity. The ad- tween self and community, and they generate questions about
dition of the prefatory pages provided a new outermost frame appropriate action and the moral self. But medieval France
story, echoing in its structure the king, court, and the liter- was not that harmonious world, and in order for Kalila and
ary physician of the original Persian frametale, but now set Dimna to be accepted, it was necessary for the tales, like their
at the court of the most Christian king Philip the Fair. The narrator, Burzuya, to undergo a conversion.