Olivier Maillard in an Age of Reform

Abstract

Observing the animated demeanor of the Franciscan friar and nun in the Ship of Fools, one might be tempted to agree with modern critics that they represent clerical corruption in fifteenth-century society. The painting attributed to Hieronymus Bosch has long fueled speculation about the meaning behind its absurd tableau of monks and laypeople drifting in a sea of drunken bathers. But the fact that these monks are leading what appears to be a sing-along shows them hewing to a traditional Franciscan way of life as “Jongleurs of God”, singers of penitential songs. This paper argues that Bosch may have modeled his representation on Olivier Maillard, a renowned Observant Franciscan preacher who sang his penitential contrafactum “Il faut mourir à ce coup cy” to the tune of the pastourelle “Bergerotte savoysienne”. Reading Maillard’s song in light of Bosch’s panel helps to expose the complex relationship between the sacred and profane inherent in Observant Franciscan spirituality.

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