An Anglo-Norman Prose Tale and the Source of the Seventh Novel of the Seventh Day in the Decameron

Abstract

Prior to the publication of Schofield's classic study The Source and History of the Seventh Novel of the Seventh Day in the Decameron, 1 there was general unanimity among critics that the source of Boccaccio's novella was the Continental French fabliau La Borgoise d'Orliens. 2 Schofield, however, was influenced by an episode in the Old French Romans de Bauduin de Sebourc, dating from the first half of the fourteenth century, to believe that Boccaccio's version of "le mari cocu, battu et content" theme was founded "on a floating story of which both the Borgoise and the episode in Bauduin are variants independent of each other and of Boccaccio" (190). He did not speculate further on what might have been the nature of this "floating story" other than to trace the early history and possible sources of those features common to the episode in Bauduin and Boccaccio's novella but missing from La Borgoise d'Orliens. No version of "le mari cocu, battu et content" story which would satisfy the criteria stipulated by Schofield has been discovered since he published his study, but some evidence which he ignored or undervalued contributes to a better understanding of the probable nature of this lost exemplar. Once collated with the known facts, this new evidence supports an interpretation of Boccaccio's source materials different from that suggested by the texts assembled in Schofield's study.

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