ABSTRACT
Born in Paris c. 1430-35, Martial d’Auvergne composed his earliest work, the Arrêts d’Amour, using the legal setting he knew so well as procureur in Parlement. The author’s preoccupation with judgements on love was abruptly halted, however, by a fi t of madness, recorded in the Chronique scandaleuse: on 24 June 1466, Martial threw himself out of a window and nearly died.1 Thereafter, he abandoned ‘livres d’amours et vanité’ [books of love and vanity] and focused on more serious subjects.2 Perhaps in penance for his frivolous youth or in thanks for having regained his health, Martial composed two texts using a liturgical model for their underlying structure: the ‘Vigiles de la mort du roy Charles VII’ and the ‘Matines de la Vierge’. For the fi rst, he exploited the psalms and lessons of the Offi ce of the Dead; for the second, those of the Offi ce of the Virgin. Both were composed during the reign of Louis XI, that is, prior to 1483,3 and the number of early printed editions attests to their popularity. In order to update the text, however, the prayer for the soul of the late king was altered from ‘Charles septiesme’ [Charles VII (1403-61)] in the earlier manuscripts to ‘Loyz onziesme’ [Louis XI (1423-83)] in the printed editions.4 To what extent Martial
1 Dictionnaire des Lettres Françaises: Le Moyen Age, ed. Geneviève Hasenohr and Michel Zink (Paris: Fayard, 1992), p. 994.
