La partie de cache-cache la plus longue du monde. Auteurs médiévaux contre critiques modernes

A great deal of medieval literature is formed by texts without any indication of the author’s name: thus the cliché of medieval authors as humble writers who hesitated to sign their work, as opposed to the cliché of Renaissance artists who were aware of their individuality and claimed their original texts with their signature. In this article, we propose to re-examine the topic of the medieval author’s name, stressing the simple fact that almost everything is a matter of criticism. We can raise a text from anonymity and attribute it to a famous writer, we can decide that a patronym is in fact a pseudonym, or make a name appear from a pile of letters by organizing them into an anagram: in any case, it is the scholar who ultimately decides. By considering the cases of Marie de France and, especially, Jean Renart, we propose to retrace a part of the history of criticism and signal its importance for our approach to medieval studies