Literary Authority and Chivalric Authority in the Works of Jean III de Werchin (›Le Songe de la barge‹, challenge letters and ballads composed with Guillebert de Lannoy)

Abstract

The works of Jean III de Werchin point out an evolution of literary practices at the turn of the 14^th and 15^th centuries. The challenge letters sent by the seneschal to his potential opponents rely on a double literary authority: firstly, on the model of past knights, especially those of the Round Table; secondly, on the courtly scenario of a man fighting for his lady’s honour. The inclusion of those challenge letters in a manuscript containing 15^th century pas d’armes shows that Werchin’s rhetoric stands at the transition from ›plain‹ military practices to military challenges based on literary scenarios. As for Werchin’s ›Songe de la barge‹ and poetic debate with his squire Guillebert de Lannoy, both works testify to the development of a literary aesthetic among knights, especially from the 14^th century onwards. This aesthetic relies on the cultural companionship and complicity between members of the chivalric class – a class whose function is to take sides in cultural, social and military conflicts. Within this class, the literary form of the ‹debate› aims less at a reflection on the world than at a playful opposition, on both linguistic and cultural levels.