This ballad seems first to have got into print in the latt.er part of the seventet!nth century, but was no doubt circulating orally some time before that, for it is in the truly popular tOlle. The fact that two friars hear the confession would militate against a much earlier date. Eleanor of Aquitaine was married to Henry II of .Eugland in 1152, a few weeks after her divorce frolll Louis VII of France, she being then about thirty and Henry nineteen years of age. "It is needless to observe," says Percy, "that the following ballad is altogether fabulous; whatever gallantries Eleanor encouraged in the time of her first husband, nOlle are imputed to her ill that of her second." In Peele's play of Edward I (1593) the story is absurdly transferred to Edward Long-shanks and that model of women and wives, Eleallor of Castile. There are several sets of tales in which a husband takes a shrift-father's place and hears his wife's confession. Such are the fabliau "Du Chevalier qui fist sa femme confesse" (Montaiglon, No,1tl); Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, 1432, No, 78; Boccaccio, vii, 5. A
This page most recently updated on 09-Dec-2010, 23:26:36. Return to main index
