Antoine de La Sale

Antoine de La Sale (* around 1385 in the Provence, † 1460 in Châtelet -sur -Oise ) was a French writer of the early Renaissance.

Life

La Sale came from a small noble family of Provence and spent his life largely in the service of princes. He was first Page at Duke Louis II of Anjou († 1417 ) and served that 1415 also as a military; later, he was ( as secretary? ) to the retinue of Louis son of Duke Ludwig III. († 1434 ), whom he accompanied on many trips. 1429/30 he held a higher military and administrative posts in Arles. 1434 he was appointed teacher of Jean de Calabre, the eldest son of Duke René I of Anjou. For his princely pupil, he began to write all sorts of edifying, educational and / or entertaining stories, which he put together in 1441 under the title La Salade witty. In 1438 he accompanied Duke René on his way to Naples, where that took him being transmitted royal crown in possession. 1448 left La Sale the service of the Angevins and changed into that of a Burgundian grandees, Louis of Luxembourg, Count of Saint-Pol, from which he was appointed tutor to his sons. For them he wrote didactically intended narrative texts, which he put together in 1451 under the title La Sale. As a follower of Louis, he joined the Good of Burgundy in relation to the magnificent court of the rich and powerful Duke Philip.

Reception

In the mellow age of around 70 La Sale presented in 1456 his main work done: the not-too- long historical novel Le petit Jehan de Saintre. The plant, whose action takes place mid-14th century, reported relatively realistic ( in comparison to the often magical conventional romances of the time) and with a clear ironic distance of the narrator the career of an initially rather poor young nobleman, who ascends to the prestigious Knight: Jehan comes with 13 as a squire to the royal court and likes a rich young widow, who patronized him, educates and equips with money. After he is knighted and has proven itself in tournaments on both the French and at foreign courts, he is finally introduced her in the arts of love. As he sets out on his own initiative in a longer journey to the distant imperial court, the queen moves offended back to their estates, but where she soon succumbs to the courtship of a rich and stately bourgeois priest. On these Jehan encounters on his return and is ignominiously defeated by him twice in wrestling. Carelessly leaves the opponent is also a fight with knightly weapons, where Jehan can defeat him in turn and humble. He then takes revenge on the lady at the court by making it her little befitting relationship with the bourgeois priest known. However, this is, recover quickly from his wounds, his relationship continued.

La Sales Saintre is now considered one of the best and most interesting literary texts of his time, even as the first modern novel; he apparently learned but only towards the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century a certain charge in printed editions, which were probably read by a predominantly middle-class audience.

His last years were spent in La Sale Châtelet -sur- Oise. Here he wrote 1457/58 for a lady who had lost her son, the book of consolation Le Reconfort [= consolation ] de Madame de Fresne. In 1459, he still had a didactic work done: Des anciens et tournois faicts d'armes ( = of former tournaments and feats of arms ), a kind of textbook of heraldry and the court ceremonial.

The satire Les Quinze joyes du mariage and the collection of short stories Cent nouvelles nouvelles in the style of Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, some of which were attributed to him, are most likely not from him.

Works (selection)

• The fifteen joys of marriage and its sequel. The sixteenth joy of marriage. Übers from the Middle Franz. and with an afterword vers. by Claudia Probst. Culture Kadmos, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-931659-49-6 ( published anonymously )