![\"\"](\"http:\/\/everycodextellsastory.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/chrquifist.jpg\" "\\"chrquifist\\"")
<\/a>Titulus with obscenity expunged
Paris, BNF, fr. 837 (pre 1300), f. 148v
Reproduced by courtesy of Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France: http:\/\/gallica.bnf.fr\/?<\/p><\/div>\n
Here are the titles of texts he deemed obscene:
\n\u2018Du chevalier qui fist les cons paller’
\n\u2018De la dolente qui fu foutue (sur la fosse de son mari)’
\n\u2018Du con qui fu fez a la besche’
\n\u2018De la damoisele qui ne pooit oir parler de foutre’
\n\u2018Du cul et du con’
\n\u2018Du vit et de la couille’
\n\u2018Des vins doan’
\n\u2018De la couille noire’
\n\u2018Des cons’
\n\u2018De honte et de puterie’.<\/p>\n
Although he found the word \u2018vin\u2019 to be obscene in this one instance, there are several other texts in the manuscript with the word \u2018vin\u2019 in the title that he left alone, whereas he did expunge the titles for the majority of what we would consider obscene titles.<\/p>\n
Interestingly enough, However, there was one text where he did attempt to make revisions within the text itself: ‘du vit et de la couille’. In these Paris, BNF, fr. 837 (pre 1300), ff. 215r It is really fascinating having this insight into the relative degrees of obscenity one medieval reader believed different words had. As well as ‘vit’ being more obscene than ‘couille’ or ‘con’, we can also see that he thought that ‘con’ was more obscene than ‘cul’. For the explicit of ‘du cul et du con’, he expunged the word ‘con’, but not the word ‘cul’. Next: a reader who put the obscenities back in<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another reader did not care for obscenities, and wished to protect other readers from them. When he found an obscene word in a text\u2019s title or explicit, he would rub it out. Here, he has expunged the word ‘cons’ from … Continue reading <\/a>he rarely expunged words within the text itself. This image shows the beginning of the text ‘des cons’, with the word ‘cons’ expunged from the title, but appearing twice immediately below it.<\/p>\n<\/a>extracts, the obscenities ‘vit’, ‘couille’ and ‘con’ are circled. We can see that most of the instances of ‘vit’ are expunged; that the word ‘couille’ is sometimes expunged, sometimes not; that within this text, he rarely bothered to expunge the word ‘con’. This reader was not nearly as thorough in his censorship as the typical nineteenth-century bowdleriser.<\/p>\n<\/a>
Reproduced by courtesy of Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France: http:\/\/gallica.bnf.fr\/?<\/p><\/div>\n<\/a><\/p>\n