May Eve in the Concilium Romarici Montis

Abstract

In the Concilium Romarici Montis the nuns of the royal abbeyof Remiremont participate in a poetic debate that parodies a formalchurch council. Their topic is love, and they enthusiastically arguewhether scholars or soldiers are the better lovers. The short (241lines) poem is linguistically simple but remarkably witty. In line 50the speaker refers to the delectatio Aprilis cum Maio, which isto be understood as a specific and clever reference to the licentiousbehavior that occurs on May Eve. Four lines later April and May againfigure in the verse: Sic Maius disposuit et Aprilis monuit.Both the hysteron-proteron and the prosaic et are problematic,and the sentence is virtually meaningless. By emending et tout, however, we can explain the order of May and April, breakup the monotonous sequence of three successive lines with et,and restore the intended correlative sense: Sic Maius disposuit utAprilis monuit ("Thus May disposed as April proposed"). The key toemending the text is to notice that delectatio Aprilis cum Maioin line 50 refers to May Eve ("April's dalliance with May").