Table Of ContentGender, Power, and Persona in the Poetry of Baudri of
Bourgueil
by
Susannah Giulia Brower
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Centre for Medieval Studies
University of Toronto
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Gender, Power, and Persona in the Poetry of Baudri of Bourgueil
Susannah Giulia Brower
Doctor of Philosophy
Centre for Medieval Studies
University of Toronto
2011
Abstract
The late eleventh and early twelfth centuries saw a revival in the study of Ovid in the literary
circles of the Loire Valley region of France. The poetry of Baudri, abbot of Bourgueil from
approximately 1078-1107 and archbishop of Dol from 1107 until his death in 1130, exemplifies
this trend. Baudri‘s determinedly Ovidian collection contains 256 poems, several of which are
addressed to nuns and to boys subject to his authority as abbot. Baudri‘s use of Ovid displays an
intricate understanding of the issues of gender and power at play in Ovid‘s works, in particular
the Ars Amatoria and Amores. Baudri uses his position of authority to manipulate his inferiors
into behaving in ways that are pleasing to him, crafting an unflattering persona that shares many
characteristics with the unsympathetic Ovidian amator and praeceptor amoris. Baudri‘s letters
to boys problematically evoke the tradition of monastic friendship letters, using classical allusion
to represent an inappropriately sexualized and manipulative discourse. His letter to the nun
Constance and her reply depict a struggle for control of discourse. Constance, by following
Ovid‘s instructions to the elegiac puella in her reply to Baudri, demonstrates that she is
circumscribed by Baudri‘s dominant male discourse, which she nonetheless manages to
undermine from within. Baudri‘s depiction of the power relationships between himself and his
social inferiors mirrors the relationship between the Ovidian praeceptor amoris and the elegiac
puella, and consequently engages with the plight of his inferiors in the same way that Ovid‘s
ii
poetry draws attention to the dangerous lives of the courtesans in his elegy. Furthermore, his
Ovidianism can be situated within the context of the contemporary Gregorian Reforms. In the
same way that the puella can be seen as a projection of elite Roman males‘ experience of
disenfranchisement amidst the rise of the Principate, Baudri‘s problematic correspondence with
his social inferiors reflects social anxieties in the face of the Church‘s assertion of centralized
power and curtailment of clerical freedoms.
iii
Acknowledgments
I have been extremely fortunate in the support I have received at all stages of writing this
dissertation. Most importantly I want to thank my supervisor, Professor David Townsend, whose
patience and guidance have been unfailing throughout my time at Toronto. He has been a
constant source of support as I have completed my coursework, my major fields, and now this
dissertation, helping me organize my scattered thoughts into a coherent topic and take the project
into a far more sophisticated direction than I had initially imagined. He is always willing to
make time to talk about ideas, even by phone when he is out of town, and I could not have asked
for a better supervisor. I also thank the rest of my dissertation advisory committee, Professors
John Magee and Alison Keith, both of whom devoted a great deal of their time to reading and
providing helpful feedback on drafts. Professor Keith generously agreed to join the committee
even though she had only met me once, and she has always taken care to include me in Classics
department events that may be of interest. Professor Magee has consistently gone out of his way
to be helpful, starting during my MA year when he took time out of his busy schedule to
supervise a directed reading course for me. Finally, I am grateful to the whole committee for
their forbearance and understanding during my final rush to submit before the deadline.
Professor Lawrin Armstrong deserves special mention for all of his help during my major fields.
I wish that there had been a feasible way of working the Humanists into the dissertation, because
it would have given me an excuse to keep him on board.
I would also like to thank Grace Desa, Rosemary Beattie, and Liz Pulickeel, without whom I
suspect the Centre would entirely cease to function.
I am very grateful to Professors Michael Herren and Sharon James, my internal and external
examiners, for their time and attention. Both professors gave me thought-provoking and useful
feedback, and their insights will be a tremendous help as I continue my work on this topic. Extra
thanks are due to Professor James, whose own work on elegy was one of my main sources of
inspiration for this dissertation.
I would never have decided to pursue a graduate degree if not for the encouragement I received
as an undergraduate at Bryn Mawr College. I owe a debt of gratitute to the entire faculty of the
French and Classics departments, but in particular to Professors Darby Scott, Grace Armstrong,
iv
and especially Julia Gaisser. Professors Armstrong and Gaisser have kept in touch with me and
encouraged me in my various endeavors, and I appreciate their mentorship more than I can say.
I would also like to thank my high school Latin teacher, Gale McCall. I only took Latin in tenth
grade because the psychology class I wanted to take was full. But her teaching was so inspiring
that I immediately fell in love with the subject, and here I am now.
Many of my friends have been a source of support through the years. From Bryn Mawr, Kathryn
Kleppinger and Sarah Janda deserve special mention; my time abroad in France and Italy would
have been nowhere near as much fun without them. Thanks also go to Stephanie Riley for
generously agreeing to proofread my bibliography.
At Toronto, my fellow students have been a source of both moral support and academic
collaboration. Thanks in particular go to Beth Watkins, Laura Mitchell, Dan Brielmaier, Clare
Snow, Jen Konieczny, Eileen Kim, Emily Butler, Emily Blakelock, Anna Wilson, Justin Haynes,
Sandy Carpenter, Giselle Gos, Alice Hutton Sharp, Abbie Owen, Kaitlin Heller, Vanessa
McCarthy, Jen Gilchrist, Steffany Campbell, Rachel Kessler, Lindsay Irvin, Amy Tanzer
Hawkes, the entire Facebook Thesis Support Group, and many others. They are the sort of
friends who will drop everything to help in a crisis, no matter how busy they are themselves.
I can‘t end without thanking one Sam the Cat. Adopting him last year provided a much-needed
morale boost at a time when everything seemed to be going wrong.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for their endless support, especially my brothers, Natty
and Ben Brower, who on occasion drove me to Toronto from Syracuse, picked me up at train
stations, drove me to airports, and helped me whenever I needed it. The biggest thanks of course
go to my parents, Rena and David Brower, to whom this work is dedicated. I can‘t even begin to
list everything they have done for me, and I could never have made it anywhere near this far
without them.
v
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................................... iv
Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................... vi
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1
Chapter 1 Contemporary and Medieval Approaches to Ovid ..................................................... 18
Chapter 2 The Baudri-Constance Correspondence and Other Poems to Women ........................ 54
Chapter 3 Baudri‘s Poems to Boys ..........................................................................................113
Chapter 4 The Historical-Political Context of Baudri‘s Poetry .................................................169
Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................216
Bibliography ...........................................................................................................................224
Primary Sources: Editions, Commentaries, and Translations ...............................................224
Secondary Sources ..............................................................................................................227
vi
1
Introduction
Baudri of Bourgueil, sometimes called Baldric of Dol,1 was a prolific author of the late eleventh
and early twelfth centuries who served as abbot of Bourgueil and ultimately as archbishop of
Dol-de-Bretagne. The bulk of Baudri‘s literary output, which will be discussed below, consists
of prose works, but he also published a diverse collection of poetry; his Ovidian letter poems,
specifically those addressed to nuns and boys, are the subject of this dissertation. When
discussing Baudri‘s Ovidianism, previous scholars have tended to focus on his use of the
Heroides. While I agree that the Heroides represent an extremely important source text for
Baudri, here I explore instead his use of Ovid‘s Ars and Amores, and discuss the implications of
his decision to emulate the elegiac genre as an abbot. I argue that the current feminist
understanding of Ovidian elegy is instructive for such an inquiry, because the same concerns
with power and gender that feminist scholars have noted in Ovid are also visible in Baudri‘s
adaptations of Ovid. In Chapter 1, I discuss the current state of feminist scholarship on Ovid,
and also outline the surviving medieval commentary tradition on Ovid‘s poems. Despite the
evident disjunction between the modern understanding of Ovid and the documented medieval
readings of his poems, I argue that the best indication of medieval understanding is not
necessarily these surviving commentaries, which present mainly the background information
deemed essential for elementary students. An analysis of medieval poetry that engages with
classical sources can be more instructive, as it illustrates the issues that scholars saw on a more
1 There are, of course, numerous variations of his name, both medieval and modern (Baudry, Baldricus, etc.), and
while it is more customary to refer to him by the seat of his abbacy rather than by that of his archbishopric, both
toponyms are common. See Henri Pasquier, Un poète latin du XIe siècle: Baudri, abbé de Bourgueil, archevêque de
Dol, 1046-1130, d‟après des documents inédits (Angers: Lachèse et Dolbeau, 1878), 22-23, for an account of
several variations of Baudri‘s name.
2
profound level. In Baudri‘s case, his poetry reveals his engagement with the complex issues of
power and control that we discuss in Ovid today.
In Chapter 2, I examine Baudri‘s paired correspondence with a nun named Constance,
and I also touch upon his other poems addressed to women. I discuss the current debate in
modern scholarship regarding Constance‘s authorship of her reply to Baudri and the implications
of this debate. I argue that whether Baudri or Constance wrote the poem, however, Baudri‘s
decision to include it in his collection allows us to draw conclusions about his poetic project
based on the contents of the letter. The Baudri-Constance correspondence depicts a struggle for
control of discourse that mirrors the power struggle between the amator and puella in Ovidian
elegy. By following the Ovidian praeceptor‘s instructions to the elegiac puella in her reply to
Baudri, Constance demonstrates that she is circumscribed by Baudri‘s dominant male discourse
in the same way that the puella is circumscribed by Ovid‘s elegiac discourse. At the same time,
Constance‘s poem still manages to undermine this discourse from within.
Chapter 3 focuses on Baudri‘s poems to boys and their use of sexual themes borrowed
from Ovid, Horace, and Vergil. Although some scholars have argued that the poems‘
homoerotic undertones are mere literary convention put to the use of moral instruction, I argue
that their erotic subtext cannot be ignored.2 The poems‘ ambiguity is in fact integral to their
meaning, as Baudri uses sexual language to manipulate the boys into behaving in ways that
please him. Although his demands seem on one level like legitimate spiritual advice, a reading
that accounts for their sexual undertones problematizes the poems‘ message, and Baudri‘s poetic
persona along with it. In Baudri‘s poems to women and his poems to boys, he repeatedly uses
2 When I speak of erotic verse, I am referring to poems that contain any sort of romantically or sexually charged
language, explicit or implied.
3
the language of Ovidian elegy, as well as tropes borrowed from other classical poets, to
problematize his persona‘s use of his authority as abbot.
Chapter 4 situates Baudri‘s poems within the context of the contemporary Gregorian
Reforms, and draws a comparison between Baudri‘s poetic engagement with the reforms and the
relationship between Roman elegy and the social changes that occurred at the beginning of
Augustus‘ reign. In the same way that the puella can be seen as a projection of elite Roman
males‘ experience of disenfranchisement amidst the rise of the Principate, Baudri‘s problematic
correspondence with his social inferiors reflects social anxieties in the face of the Church‘s
assertion of centralized power and curtailment of clerical freedoms. I argue that, although
Baudri presumably did not know the full details of Augustus‘ reforms and did not necessarily
understand Ovid‘s poems as a reaction to the Augustan moral program, he did note the
overwhelming concern with power and control in Ovid‘s poetry. Moreover, the public discourse
of the Gregorian Reforms linked power and sexuality in much the same way we see in Ovid‘s
poems. Ovidian elegy therefore presented itself as an ideal medium for Baudri to grapple with
contemporary anxieties about the reform movement and to formulate a discourse of dissent.
Despite Baudri‘s prolific literary output and the prestige of his office, surprisingly little is
known about his life. To date there exists only one book-length biography of Baudri, that of
Henri Pasquier, which dates from 1878. As Jean-Yves Tilliette has observed, the biography is
―well-informed,‖ but does tend towards an overly-favorable portrayal of Baudri.3 Tilliette refers
on more than one occasion to Pasquier as Baudri‘s ―hagiographer,‖4 and this assertion is not
unfounded. As Tilliette also notes, the only surviving documents detailing Baudri‘s life are
3 Jean-Yves Tilliette, introduction to Baudri de Bourgueil, Poèmes, vol. 1 (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1998), v.
4 Jean-Yves Tilliette, ―Hermès amoureux, ou les métamorphoses de la Chimère: Réflexions sur les Carmina 200 et
201 de Baudri de Bourgueil,‖ in Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome, Moyen Age 104, no. 1 (1992): 126;
Tilliette, introduction to Poèmes, vol. 1, viii.
Description:The late eleventh and early twelfth centuries saw a revival in the study of Ovid in the literary circles of the Loire Valley region of France. The poetry of Baudri, abbot of Bourgueil from approximately 1078-1107 and archbishop of Dol from 1107 until his death in 1130, exemplifies this trend. Baudri
