# Nicholas Bozon

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{{distinguish|Nicholas Boson}}{{Short description|Anglo-Norman writer}}
'''Nicholas Bozon''' (''[fl.](/source/Floruit)'' {{circa|1320}}), or ''Nicole Bozon'', was an [Anglo-Norman](/source/Anglo-Normans) writer and [Franciscan](/source/Franciscan) [friar](/source/friar) who spent most of his life in the [East Midlands](/source/East_Midlands) and [East Anglia](/source/East_Anglia). He was a prolific author in prose and verse, and composed a number of hagiographies of women saints, reworkings of fables, and allegories.

==Life==
What we know of Bozon is what can be inferred from his work.<ref>Postlewate 7.</ref> He may have belonged to the Bozon family of [Whissonsett](/source/Whissonsett), [Norfolk](/source/Norfolk), or to the Bozon family from Screveton.<ref>Postlewate 8.</ref> He may have studied at [Oxford University](/source/Oxford_University). He was, by his own admission, ''del ordre de freres menours'' ("of the order of the Friars Minor"),<ref>Postlewate 7.</ref> and probably associated with the [Nottingham](/source/Nottingham) friary, since he refers in his own writings to the [Trent](/source/River_Trent) and [Derwent](/source/River_Derwent%2C_Derbyshire) rivers, and linguistic evidence from the occasional English proverb or word also points to that area.<ref>Postlewate 9.</ref> In the allegorical poem "Char d'orgueil" he specifically calls himself ''ordeynours'', probably indicating the privilege of granting [absolution](/source/absolution), a privilege (normally reserved for bishops) that had been granted to the Franciscan friars of Nottingham; Bozon's use of the term indicates "a friar who had full authority to hear confession and administer absolution".<ref>Postlewate 9-11.</ref>

==Works==
Most of Bozon's literary works can be classified as [allegories](/source/allegories), [Marian poems](/source/Roman_Catholic_Mariology), [saints' lives](/source/Hagiography), and [sermon](/source/sermon)s. He wrote both in prose and in verse,<ref>Harry 5.</ref> and it has been noted that his prose fables contain what was called the "''débris'' of French verses", leading some editors to print the material in verse.<ref>Harry 6.</ref> His allegories include the ''Char d'orgueil'' ("where the individual parts of the car are made to represent different aspects of the sin of pride"<ref>{{cite journal|title=Henry of Lancaster and Geoffrey Chaucer: Anglo-French and Middle English inFourteenth-Century England|first=W.|last=Rothwell|journal=The Modern Language Review|volume=99|issue=2|year=2004|pages=313–327|jstor=3738748|doi=10.2307/3738748}}</ref>), and the ''Passion'', a [soteriological](/source/soteriological) allegory, in which Christ, a knight [in love](/source/Courtly_love) and dressed in the [coat-of-arms](/source/coat-of-arms) of [Adam](/source/Adam), his squire, fights [Belial](/source/Belial) to save his lover, Humanity. He also wrote a [satire](/source/satire) of corruption, the ''Plainte d'amour'', perhaps inspired by the [papal bull](/source/papal_bull) ''[Exivi de paradiso](/source/Exivi_de_paradiso)'' (1312). His most famous work, the aptly titled ''Contes moralisés'' ("Moralising Tales"), probably composed sometime after 1320, is a collection of ''[exempla](/source/exempla)'', probably for use in sermons. It includes [fable](/source/fable)s, contemporary [anecdote](/source/anecdote)s, and facts taken from [bestiaries](/source/bestiaries). The tales have been much appreciated for their worldly curiosity and "down-to-earth attitude". Though Nicholas wrote in Anglo-Norman, he occasionally finished his fables with a proverb in [Middle English](/source/Middle_English),<ref>Harry 6.</ref> such as his version of the fox who attempts to catch an animal by making it believe the reflection of the moon in a well is a cheese.<ref>{{cite book|title=Middle English humorous tales in verse|first=George Harley|last=McKnight|location=Boston|publisher=D.C. Heath|year=1913|page=lii|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hwpp7f;view=1up;seq=60}}</ref> He also used some English words (e.g. "[wapentak](/source/wapentak)").<ref>Gray.</ref>

What is now called his "Gospel Poem", already edited by [Paul Meyer](/source/Paul_Meyer_(philologist)) from the Rawlinson Poetry MS 241 and then called ''Le Evangel translaté de latin en frranceys'', was identified as Bozon's definitively by Sister M. Amelia Klenke in a 1951 article and then published, with six hagiographies of women saints by Bozon (based on the ''[Golden Legend](/source/Golden_Legend)''), as ''Seven More Poems by Nicholas Bozon''. The text she used was BL Cotton Domitian xi. Five other manuscripts contain the poem, and [William of Waddington](/source/William_of_Waddington) cited it extensively in his ''Manuel des peches''.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Holmes|first=Urban T.|year=1952|title=Review of Klenke, ''Seven More Poems by Nicholas Bozon''|journal=[Speculum](/source/Speculum_(journal))|volume=27|issue=3|pages=396–397|jstor=2853111|doi=10.2307/2853111}}</ref> Domitian xi contains hagiographies by Bozon on the following women: [Saint Lucy](/source/Saint_Lucy), [Mary Magdalene](/source/Mary_Magdalene), [Saint Margaret](/source/Margaret_the_Virgin), [Saint Martha](/source/Martha), [Elizabeth of Hungary](/source/Elizabeth_of_Hungary), [Saint Christina](/source/Christina_of_Bolsena), [Juliana of Nicomedia](/source/Juliana_of_Nicomedia), [Saint Agnes](/source/Saint_Agnes), and [Saint Agatha](/source/Saint_Agatha).<ref name=brun>{{cite web|url=https://www.arlima.net/mp/nicole_bozon.html|first=Laurent|last=Brun|date=26 March 2017|publisher=Arlima|access-date=2 November 2017|language=fr|title=Nicole Bozon OFM}}</ref>

The poem ''De bone femme la bounté'' is now usually ascribed to Bozon, but not definitively; it was previously ascribed to [Walter of Bibbesworth](/source/Walter_of_Bibbesworth).<ref>{{cite web |first=Tony |last=Hunt |title=Bibbesworth, Walter of |website=[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography](/source/Oxford_Dictionary_of_National_Biography) |year=2004 |url=http://oxforddnb.com/view/article/2340?&docPos=9&backToResults= |type=subscription required}}</ref>

Modern knowledge of Bozon is due to [Paul Meyer](/source/Paul_Meyer_(philologist)),<ref>{{cite journal|last=Smith|first=Lucy Toulmin|year=1892|title=English Popular Preaching in the Fourteenth Century|journal=The English Historical Review|volume=7|issue=25|pages=25–36|doi=10.1093/ehr/vii.xxv.25|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1431670}}</ref> who published an important article on him in ''Romania'' in 1884, and subsequently edited and published a number of his texts.<ref>{{cite book|last=Vising|first=Johan|year=1919|title=Deux poèmes de Nicholas Bozon: Le Char d'Orgueil; La Lettre de l'empereur Orgueil|location=Göteborg|publisher=Elander |series=Göteborgs högskolas årsskrift |volume=25 |issue=3 |oclc=186986437 }}</ref>

==References==
===Notes===
{{Reflist}}

===Bibliography===
*Gray, Douglas (2004). [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37213 "Bozon, Nicholas (''fl''. ''c''.1320)".] ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Accessed 17 August 2008. 
*{{cite thesis|last=Harry|first=Philip Warner|year=1903|title=A Comparative Study of the Aesopic Fable in Nicole Bozon|publisher=University of Cincinnati}}
*{{cite journal |last=[Klenke] |first=M. Amelia |date=October 1940 |title=Nicholas Bozon |journal=[Speculum](/source/Speculum_(journal)) |volume=15 |issue=4 |pages=444–53 |jstor=2853462 |doi=10.2307/2853462 }}
*{{cite journal |last=Klenke |first=M. Amelia |year=1951 |title=An Anglo-Norman Gospel Poem, by Nicholas Bozon(?) |journal=Studies in Philology |volume=48 |issue=2 |pages=250–66 |jstor=4172975 }}
*{{cite journal |last=Klenke |first=M. Amelia |date=April 1954 |title=Nicholas Bozon |journal=Modern Language Notes |volume=69 |issue=4 |pages=256–60 |doi=10.2307/3040196 |jstor=3040196 }}
*{{cite thesis|last=Postlewate|first=Laurie|publisher=New York University|year=1996|title=Moral and Spiritual Instruction in the Works of Nichole Bozon}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite book |first=M. Amelia |last=Klenke |title=Three Saints Lives by Nicholas Bozon |location=St. Bonaventure, New York |publisher=Franciscan Institute |series=Franciscan Institute Publications, History Series |volume=1 |year=1947 |oclc=311319993 }}
*{{cite book |first=M. Amelia |last=Klenke |title=Seven More Poems by Nicholas Bozon |location=St. Bonaventure, New York |publisher=Franciscan Institute |series=Franciscan Institute Publications, History Series |volume=2 |year=1951 |oclc=489831967 }}

==External links==
*[https://www.arlima.net/mp/nicole_bozon.html Bibliography from Arlima.net]
*[http://jonas.irht.cnrs.fr/consulter/intervenant/detail_intervenant.php?intervenant=681 Bibliography from JONAS], at [Centre national de la recherche scientifique](/source/Centre_national_de_la_recherche_scientifique)

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bozon, Nicholas}}
Category:People from Breckland District
Category:Norman Franciscans
Category:Anglo-Norman literature
Category:French-language British writers

Category:14th-century English writers

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Nicholas Bozon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Bozon) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Bozon?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.