Spring 2017

It was common in the Middle Ages to bind diverse texts together, resulting in fascinating, strange, colorful, many-feathered books. Professor Leach, who has previously written on the significance of birdsong in medieval Europe, will be showing an interdisciplinary audience what can be learned through the close study of a single manuscript. Peacocks—strutting, preening, and…roasted—will take centerstage.

Prof Leach’s talk will focus on the Manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 308.  The diverse contents of this single book have some obvious points of contact, including literal repetition, deliberate citation, and thematic links. But her paper will look at what is an initially less tractable juxtaposition, that between the two opening works, both widely copied elsewhere but never otherwise placed within the same covers. The first is Jacque de Longuyon’s late Alexander romance, Les voeux du paon (The Vows of the Peacock), and the second is Richard de Fournival’s Bestiaire d’amour (Bestiary of Love). The sole link between them is the figure of the peacock itself—central to the first work and mentioned, ostensibly in passing, in the second. Drawing on the resonances evoked by the varied and typically contradictory meanings of the peacock in various medieval discourses, this paper explores the possible meanings served by the unique joint copying and ordering of these two works in Douce 308.

Elizabeth Eva Leach is Professor of Music at Oxford University, a recent keynote speaker at the Medieval Academy of America, and a recipient of the Royal Musical Association’s Dent Medal.  Her research examines songs, counterpoint, and singing with a particular focus on medieval secular lyrics in French. Other interests include music and philosophy, ideas of musical meaning, music analysis (especially of pre-tonal repertoires), music and gender, and music in literature.  To learn more about Prof. Leach and her interests, check out her blog here.