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Manners, Norms and Transgressions in the History of English: Literary and linguistic approaches
Edited by Andreas H. Jucker and Irma Taavitsainen
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 312] 2020
► pp. 25–49

Ipomedon and the elusive nature of blunders in the courtly literature of medieval England

| Sorbonne Université
When the word blonder, which comes from Old Norse, appeared in the English language in the late fourteenth century, it had a stronger and more negative meaning than its Present-Day reflex: rather than an embarrassing faux-pas, blunders always had potentially serious repercussions, not only for their perpetrators, but also for the society they lived in. This is exemplified in an Anglo-Norman romance called Ipomedon, in which the hero and the heroine’s youthful gaffes have grave consequences. This poem was later adapted for English-speaking audiences with the characters’ errors of judgment slightly modified. The changes made by the English compilers are analysed in this paper as they shed light on the evolution of politeness strategies (understood then as courtly behaviours) throughout the Middle Ages in England. They also show how difficult it was during that period to even consider the possibility of any transgression being a minor one.
Keywords: Ipomedon, Ipomadon, pragmatics, Anglo-Norman literature, Middle English literature, medieval literary theory, medieval ethics, translation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The tale of Ipomedon as a succession of blunders
    • 2.1The incident with the boteler
    • 2.2The Proud One’s blunder
    • 2.3Ipomedon the troublemaker
  • 3.The evolution of politeness strategies in the Middle English retellings of Fr. Ipomedon
    • 3.1The refashioning of minor transgressions
    • 3.2The reinvention of Ipomedon as a fallible human being and a model of courtly values
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Sources
  • Dictionaries
  • References
Published online: 11 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.312.02sil
References (43)
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Oxford English Dictionary. [URL].
Middle English Dictionary. [URL].
CNRTL Etymological Dictionary of the French language. [URL].
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