A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Mary (of Normandy)
MARY, an Anglo-Norman Poetess, of the 13th Century.
It is well known that all the Northern nations had a sort of oral, itinerant poets, who were admired and revered by them, under different titles. The Normans, being a colony from Norway and Denmark, it is probable that many would accompany Rollo at the time of his expedition into France, and leave behind them successors in the art; who in time, mixing with the people, became Troubadours or Norman Rymours; who were in the following century introduced into England by Rollo's descendant, William the Conqueror. Among these Anglo-Norman Trouveurs, Mary, who has been called the Sappho of her age, makes a considerable figure.
We are informed by this lady, that she was born in France; but she does not mention in what province, or the reasons which induced her to come to England. Perhaps it was Normandy, as Philip-Augustus made himself master of that country in 1204; and many families, from attachment to the English government, went over and settled in Great Britain.
She appears to have understood the Bas Breton, or Armoric tongue, whence it may be also inferred she was born in Brittany; she was besides extremely well versed in the literature of that province, and borrowed much from the writers of that country. She might, however, acquire both the Armoric and English languages. She was also well acquainted with the Latin, and from her application to those different languages must have been of a rank of life that allowed her leisure to attain them. She has, however, said nothing which can throw light upon her station or her family name.
The first poems of Mary are A Collection of Lays, in French Verse, on the Romances of Chivalry amongst the Welch and Armoric Britons, which she dedicated to some King.
Mons. La Rue, the acute and elegant historian of Mary, in the 13th vol. of the English Archæologia, determines it to be Henry III. These are twelve in number, and constitute the largest and most ancient specimen of Anglo-Norman poetry of this kind, that has been handed down to us. "The smaller ones are in general of much importance, as to the knowledge of ancient chivalry. She has described manners with a pencil at once faithful and pleasing; arrests the attention of her readers by the subjects of her stories, by the interest which she skilfully blends in them, and by the simple and natural manner in which she relates them. In spite of her rapid and flowing stile, nothing is forgotten in her details and descriptions. Mary did not only possess a most refined taste; she had also to boast a mind of sensibility. The English muse seems to have inspired her, all her subjects are sad and melancholy. She appears to have designed to melt the hearts of her readers; always speaks to the soul, calls forth all its feelings, and very frequently throws it into the utmost consternation."
Her second work is a collection of Æsopian Fables, which, she says, she engaged in at the solicitation of an Earl William, the flower of chivalry and courtesy. This earl, whom Le Grand, the translator of some of the fables into French prose, supposes to have been earl William de Dampiere, M. la Rue shews must have been William Longsword, natural son of Henry II. and created earl of Salisbury by Richard Cœur de Lion.
There are three MS. copies of this work in the British Museum. Though these fables are called Æsopian, few of them are really so. It is supposed she made her translation from an heterogeneous collection, not now in being; because, out of 108 fables in her work, there are only 39 which are similar to those we have of that ancient writer. "Her fables are written with all that acuteness of mind, that penetrates the very inmost recesses of the human heart; and, at the same time, with that beautiful simplicity peculiar to the ancient romance language. It appears that Fontaine has imitated her, rather than the fabulists of either Greece or Rome, and some fables he has taken completely from her.
A third work of Mary's, is a translation, in French Verse, of a history or tale of St. Patrick's Purgatory. Whether she wrote any more is uncertain; but no more has come down to us.