Humble and humiliated. Medieval stories of humiliation

Like all societies, medieval society abhorred humiliation and saw it as the most formidable of punishments. The world of chivalry, as portrayed and idealized in literature, sought honor, shunned shame, and was intoxicated by ostentation and pomp. Yet this same society claims to be a religion founded on the abasement of God made man and the humiliation of the cross. A religion that invites man both to imitate the divine abasement and to recognize himself as a sinner through the practice of humility, a moral notion foreign to Antiquity. But this very religion denies humility at the same time as it exalts it: Christ's resurrection transforms the cross into a sign of victory and glory; the Church encourages reforms aimed at rediscovering evangelical poverty, but is wary of their most radical manifestations and sees in its temporal power the triumph of Christ; humility, now a virtue, escapes humiliation. We would say that medieval society was marked by a culture of shame, and Christianity by a culture of guilt, but medieval society was Christian.
The lecture will study these interweavings and contradictions, not in themselves, but through medieval narratives of humility and humiliation: narratives of humiliation. Tales of humiliation focus not only on the humiliated, but also - and often even more so - on the one who inflicts the humiliation, either directly or as a bystander. It multiplies perspectives on humiliation, which exists precisely as humiliation only under the gaze of the other. Finally, the story, a universe of signs, amplifies those of humiliation. Yet suffering is in the sign that makes it humiliation. The narrative of humiliation is worse than the humiliation itself.
We'll be looking at episodes from chansons de geste, novels, chronicles, pious tales and hagiographic accounts. From the trial of Ganelon to the falsely accused hermit, from the Chevalier de la charrette to the deposition of Edward II and Richard II, from the Congés d'Arras to Franciscan literature, from fabliaux to mysteries, we'll tackle stories as varied and as different in spirit as possible.