Through the lens of the fourteenth century manuscript Roman de Fauvel, BN 146, this inquiry explores a golden era of achievement in the late Middle Ages, with a particular focus on artistic and technical development in fourteenth century France. By using this manuscript as a focal po8int through which to examine crucial historical, political, and cultural events of late medieval France, the groundwork emerges for the great polyphonic achievements of fourteenth-century France. These technical and artistic developments, and their parallels with today's progressive technical age, provide insightful inspiration for contemporary life. Much as the medieval scholars looked to ancient Greece for philosophical insights and reasoning, so too, can twenty-first century persons look back to this golden medieval era to acquire additional self-knowledge and intellectual discernment.
In this inquiry, the term polyphony becomes the connecting metaphor for the fourteenth century progressive complexities evolving in medieval manuscripts, music, art, and the social milieu. A crucial component leading to this era of achievement was the shift in focus, site, and production from the monastery to secular laypersons, along with the recognition of individual artistic achievement. The emergence of the guild system served to organize production, increase effective distribution, and allow for specialization. By looking at these cultural shifts through a discerning lens grounded in BN 146, an encompassing view comes into focus of a highly progressive, developing culture. The strengths of the monastery were its core, while the founding of universities created the immense need for dramatically increased manuscript production. Business and commerce generated record-keeping and specialization. Political factions and fractures in the Church hierarchy served to create multiple areas of artistic production along with political and religious centers. Meanwhile, the relative political stability in France which made possible the thriving University of Paris, Europe's leading university, combined to foster artistic and intellectual creativity.
Significantly, the great theological debate of the Middle Ages concerning the synthesis of faith and reason served to situate a place for the faithful within the secular world of commerce and production. The Guild system and commerce prospered, while faith still looked heavenward, symbolized by the soaring Gothic cathedral spires, human endeavors in the growing towns, coupled with artistic and scientific achievements emerged as authentic lasting components of medieval culture. Their achievements created strong foundations which are still continually embellished today.
The story of Fauvel, told as a satirical animal allegory, highlights the great debates, confrontations, and foibles of the Age, related amidst complex wit and polyphonic artistry. This inquiry into the books, art, and music of fourteen the century France focuses a lens on the Fauvel manuscript BN 146 in order to examine the artistic output of a golden age. Polyphonic creativity stands as both the product and the reaction of its Age, and Fauvel survives as a rich repository of late medieval culture. Originally penned as a satirical poem, BN 146 is unique as the only surviving manuscript of Fauvel that includes music and illustrations. Fauvel functions today as a glittering jeweled vault of late medieval French culture. Its music comprises a compilation of several centuries of sacred and secular pieces along with new compositions that initiated the Ars Nova era of polyphonic music. Fauvel's illustrations provide witty and insightful social commentaries illuminating the foibles of its day while the poem itself stands as a brilliant, satirical animal allegory commenting on the corruption of power. This enduring text brilliantly illuminates its on era, and focuses a discerning lens on contemporary life as well.