The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna: Raymond de

Bziers, Religious Experience, and Translation

at the Fourteenth-Century French Court
A m a n da Lu yster College of the Holy Cross

Abstract yet recent scholarly work in many fields, including literature,

Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France, MS lat. 8504 is a Latin
translation of a group of animal fables known as Kalila and
Dimna that were popular in Islamic lands. In the illustrations
of lat. 8504, Burzuya, the narrator of the frame story, under-
goes a previously unrecognized conversion to Christianity. I
argue that this conversion scene is significant not only in itself
but as the key to a new reading of the manuscript as a whole.
Conversio, or a turning toward Christianity, marks the text,
characters, structure, and many other aspects of this manu-
script. Furthermore, I offer a suggestion about the identity of the
translator of the text, Raymond de Bziers, and argue that an
understanding of the history of interactions between the town of
Bziers and the French crown is relevant to the focus on conver-
sion in lat. 8504.
history, and anthropology, has shifted focus to the social,
cultural, and political matrices within which that personal
transformation unfolds.1 These studies explore the causes and
effects of conversion in larger groups and the ways conversion
may depend on interpersonal connections and social and po-
litical aspirations. In what follows, I examine a well-known
medieval manuscript (Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France,
MS lat. 8504, hereafter lat. 8504) in relation to these ideas.2
I draw attention to a previously unrecognized fictional con-
version and analyze the construction of that conversion be-
fore expanding outward to consider the historical relevance
of the conversion to the manuscripts translator, Raymond de
Bziers, and his religious experiences and social contacts in
the context of the fourteenth-century French court. In doing

S
tudies of conversion raise powerful questions
about the relation between culture and the self.
Conversion, as traditionally defined, describes a
great change that takes place within an individual,
so, I not only trace the outlines of an inner (albeit fictional)
transformation but also give weight to the real social work
that this conversion does in the context of its particular his-
torical moment with all of its anxieties and investments.
The adventures of two jackals named Kalila and Dimna
(along with other animals) fill the pages of lat. 8504. The jack-

In this interdisciplinary project I have relied on the advice of many colleagues. I am deeply grateful to those who have provided assistance
along the way, including Nancy Andrews, Michael Davis, Charlotte Denol, Bridget Franco, Francisco Gago-Jover, Heidi Gearhart, Kendy
Hess, Cecily Hilsdale, Eva Hoffman, Joan Holladay, Ellis Jones, Nadine Knight, Min Kyung Lee, Vivian Mann, Elizabeth Morrison, Mika Natif,
Glenn Peers, Joanne Pierce, Virginia Raguin, Elizabeth Ross, Anna Russakoff, Benjamin Tilghman, Edward Vodoklys, and especially Alicia
Walker. I would also like to acknowledge important feedback from the editors and anonymous reviewers at Gesta. Funding for this project was
generously provided by awards from the College of the Holy Cross Committee on Faculty Scholarship in 2010 and 2015.

1. Andrew Buckser and Stephen D. Glazier, Preface, and Diane Austin-Broos, The Anthropology of Conversion: An Introduction, in
The Anthropology of Religious Conversion, ed. Andrew Buckser and Stephen D. Glazier (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), xixviii
and 112, respectively; Pierre Beaucage, Deirdre Meintel, and Graldine Mossire, Introduction: Social and Political Dimensions of Religious
Conversion, Anthropologica 49, no. 1 (2007): 1116; Lieke Stelling, Harald Hendrix, and Todd M. Richardson, eds., The Turn of the Soul:
Representations of Religious Conversion in Early Modern Art and Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2012); and Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farha
dian, introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion, ed. Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2014), 122.
2. The Latin text of the manuscript has been edited in Lopold Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins depuis le sicle dAuguste jusqu la fin du
Moyen ge, vol. 5 (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1899), 3974, 379775. For a comprehensive list of scholarship on the manuscript and its miniatures,
see Alison Stones, Gothic Manuscripts, 12601320, pt. 1, vol. 2 (London: Harvey Miller, 2013), cat. no. I-60, 12628. See below for additional
bibliography.

Gesta v56n1 (Spring 2017).

0031-8248/2017/7703-0004 $10.00. Copyright 2017 by the International Center of Medieval Art. All rights reserved.

v56n1, Spring 2017 The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna 81

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als lend their names to the fable collection that is therefore
known as Kalila and Dimna, in English, or Kalila wa Dimna,
in its well-known Arabic recension. Kalila and Dimna was a
popular work in several cultures, and it existed in many dif-
ferent translations. Lat. 8504 contains Raymond de Bziers
Latin translation of about 1313, made in Paris for the French
royal family. It was based on a gift copy of the mid-thirteenth-
century Castilian version, which was itself based on Abdullah
ibn al-Muqaffas eighth-century Arabic version derived from
the Middle Persian, which in turn relied on a Sanskrit origi-
nal.3 The latter half of lat. 8504 also relies on a late thirteenth-
century Latin translation of the fables by John of Capua. The
whole of lat. 8504 is also peppered with Raymonds additions
from grammar-school, Christian, and classical traditions.
Prefatory miniatures, a dedication frontispiece, and 139 single-
column miniatures, many ornamented with gold leaf, feature
prominently.4
In many versions of Kalila and Dimna, including the
Arabic, the stories of the animal protagonists are set within
a larger framing narrative. The narrator of the frame story
is Burzuya, a Persian traveling physician. Only in the Latin
translation of lat. 8504 does Burzuya have a vision of Christ,
dream of God surrounded by angels, and see himself mi-
raculously in the company of the Virgin and her infant son.
Raymond de Bziers used one of his longest textual interpo-
lations, from the twelfth-century Anticlaudianus by Alan of
Lille (ca. 11281202), to enact and describe the conversion
of Burzuya. To a modern reader, this Christian twist is highly
unexpected in a tale told by a Persian narrator that takes place
largely in India. Yet Burzuyas conversion to Christianityfor
that is what is represented here in text and imagehas never
been recognized as such.5 This is despite the fact that lat. 8504,
3. Esin Atl, Kalila wa Dimna: Fables from a Fourteenth-Century
Arabic Manuscript (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1981), 910; Franois De Blois, Burzoys Voyage to India and the
Origin of the Book of Kallah wa Dimnah (London: Royal Asiatic
Society, 1990); Barry Taylor, Raimundus de Biterriss Liber Kalile
et Dimne: Notes on the Western Reception of an Eastern Exemplum
Book, in Cultures in Contact in Medieval Spain: Historical and Lit-
erary Essays Presented to L. P. Harvey, ed. David Hook and Barry
Taylor (London: Kings College London Medieval Studies, 1990),
183203, at 183; and Robert Irwin, The Arabic Beast Fable, Journal
of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 55 (1992): 3650.
4. Stones, Gothic Manuscripts, 127.
5. The relevant selection of text and images was last described in
two essays written more than a century ago, and the series of events
depicted was never identified as a conversion story. Gaston Paris
noted that the text was almost entirely borrowed, and he did not
dwell on the miniatures accompanying the text. Paris, Raymond de
Bziers, traducteur et compilateur, Histoire littraire de la France 33
(1906): 191253, at 249. Almost a century earlier, Antoine Isaac Sil-
vestre de Sacy had described the relevant section of the manuscript,
82 Gestav56n1, Spring 2017
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completed by its translator for the French king Philip the Fair
(Philippe IV le Bel, r. 12851314), is relatively well known for
a medieval manuscript. It has appeared in a number of books,
articles, and exhibitions over the years, although most art his-
torical attention has focused on the frontispiece and prefatory
folios, which provide the earliest known pictorial represen-
tation of a historical royal celebration.6 I look beyond the
frequently studied prefatory images to show how Burzuyas
conversion offers a key to understanding the operation of the
manuscript as a whole, as an ensemble of text and image and
within its historical context.
The French queen Jeanne de Navarre (12731305) origi-
nally commissioned Raymonds Latin translation. She had
received a Castilian copy of Kalila and Dimna as a gift, and
she wished to have it translated into Latin. However, at her
death in 1305 the translation remained incomplete. Raymond
seems to have done nothing with his draft for some years,
but then he resumed work, aided by John of Capuas Latin
translation, which he had apparently found in the meantime.
Raymond de Bziers finished the manuscript of lat. 8504
shortly after Pentecost in 1313, and he offered it as a gift to
Jeannes husband, Philip the Fair, and their sons. The reasons
behind the completion of the project are twofold: it appears
that the final presentation of the manuscript represented the
execution of an agreed-on commission and also acted as a bid
for the translator to be accepted at court, probably as a tutor
to the princes.7 The French royal family plays a prominent
role in the early folios of the manuscript, appearing in majesty
in the frontispiece and in the prefatory folios, chronicling the
events of Pentecost in 1313 (Fig. 1). The contemporary event
to which Raymond ties his completed translation is Pentecost,
the acknowledgment of the gift of tongues, the divinely or-
dained ability to translate from and into many languages so
that the agenda of Godthe conversion to Christianity of all
the peoples on earthmay be realized.
In this manuscript, and in my study, the nature and pro-
cess of conversion provide a central theme, highlighted by the
pointing out that the translator had made Burzuya a Christian
monk: On a vu prcdemment de quelle manire Raimond de
Bziers a fait de Brosias un moine chrtien, et a dfigur tout le
chapitre. Silvestre de Sacy, Notice de louvrage intitul Liber de
Dina et Kalila: manuscrits Latins de la Bibliothque du Roi, nos. 8504
et 8505, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothque du Roi
et autres bibliothques 10, no. 2 (1818): 365, at 35; see also 2528.
6. Nancy Freeman Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius: The
Tutorial Book of Raymond de Bziers (Paris, BNF MS Lat. 8504), in
Satura: Studies in Medieval Literature in Honour of Robert R. Raymo,
ed. Nancy M. Reale and Ruth E. Sternglantz (Donington: Shaun
Tyas, 2001), 10323, at 106.
7. Ibid., 10323.
Figure 1. Knighting of the sons of King Philip the Fair and royal parade in Paris during celebration of Pentecost in 1313, fol. bv, translation of
Kalila and Dimna (Liber regius), Raymond de Bziers, ca. 1313, Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France, MS lat. 8504 (photo: Bibliothque
nationale de France).

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conversion of Burzuya and the visual prefacing of the tales
with images of Pentecost celebrations. The medieval term
conversio, conversion, implied a turning or returning toward
God, a moral change.8 To explore the ways that Raymond de
Bziers altered his text to be relevant in Paris in the early four-
teenth century, I consider three forms of conversion: the act of
translation (the conversion of the source text); the fictive nar-
rative (the conversion of Burzuya); and the historical experi-
ence (the conversion of the persona of the author-translator,
Raymond). Each of these three conversions manifests a turn-
ing toward or conversio to Christianity.
I begin by providing a history of the manuscript, including
the cultural significance of Kalila and Dimna in general and
the commission and completion of lat. 8504 in particular. The
first conversion, that of the text, creates a new, Christianized
narrative, translated from Castilian into Latin, with a new
title (Liber regius, or Royal Book), new dedication (to the
French king), new frametale (set at the French court), and
incorporation of new Christian texts. The outermost frame
story, while bearing structural similarities to the original
one, is now explicitly Christian. The heretofore unrecognized
conversion of Burzuya, the Persian narrator of the original
frametale, provides our second and, indeed, central focus.
This conversion is described through a remarkable series of
images and text that emphasize the process of conversion as
initiated by questioning, followed by textual learning, glimps-
ing divinity, engaging with a deeper understanding of the
nature and history of the universe and Gods role in it, and,
finally, culminating in an intimate and personal relationship
with the divine. Burzuyas conversion authenticates his post-
conversion voice and therefore also authenticates the moral
value of all the stories that follow, which Burzuya has brought
home to relay to us, the readers. I suggest that Burzuyas au-
thentication through Christian conversion also authorizes
Raymond, the translator, who has produced the moralizing
text in which the conversion is communicated. The third con-
8. Benedict Guldner, Conversion, in The Catholic Encyclope-
dia (New York: Appleton, 1908), vol. 4, http://www.newadvent.org
/cathen/04347a.htm. Christopher Abram provides a useful review
of conversion theory across disciplines: Abram, Modeling Reli-
gious Experience in Old Norse Conversion Narratives: The Case of
lfr Tryggvason and Hallfrer vandraskld, Speculum 90, no. 1
(2015): 11457, at 119, 14950. The literature on conversion is vast;
in addition to other works cited here, see Gerhart B. Ladner, The
Idea of Reform: Its Impact on Christian Thought and Action in the Age
of the Fathers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959),
3233, 4951, 36667; Karl Morrison, Understanding Conversion
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992); and James Mul-
doon, Introduction: The Conversion of Europe, in Varieties of Reli-
gious Conversion in the Middle Ages, ed. James Muldoon (Gaines-
ville: University Press of Florida, 1997), 110.
84 Gestav56n1, Spring 2017
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version is implied by the authorial and historical persona of
Raymond de Bziers. I posit that Raymond creates a persona
that he believes will be useful in the Parisian court and that
his understanding of a desirable court persona is inflected by
his experience in the town of Bziers. The history of Bziers
was one of religious and political conflicts motivated by the
French crowns attempt to control local religious practices.
Therefore, the turmoil of Bziers, presumably witnessed by
Raymond, may help to explain the emphasis on religious con
formity and orthodoxy that undergird the manuscript as a
whole. This conversion might be thought of as a social con-
version, albeit one that has religious conformity and ortho-
doxy very much in its purview. Each conversionthat of text,
narrator, and authorial personaresides within the previous
one like nesting dolls. The work accomplished by this fictive
conversion, unique to lat. 8504, is apparent in the degree to
which it is entangled with the many levels of the manuscript,
including narrative structure, authorial agency, and historical
social matrices.
One might ask whether I should have chosen the term
Christianizing, or even translating, instead of conversion as a
framework for analyzing lat. 8504, especially when the manu-
script does not address any specific non-Christian faith di-
rectly or at length. As a response, it is worth examining the
usefulness of the term conversion. The text in lat. 8504 spe-
cifically states that Burzuya was convertedconversus est ad
Deumto the Catholic faith, but it describes his preconver-
sion state as simply one of ignorance or indifference, rather
than indicating Hindu, Muslim, or another non-Christian re-
ligion. Nor is lat. 8504 alone in its indifferent preconversion
narrator, as more recent examples as well as the conversio of
the scholar Ramon Llull (12321316), discussed below, make
clear.9 Although a conversion from indifference or ignorance
may not be the kind of conversion we expect, it clearly played
a role in medieval and later narratives. The value of using the
9. According to Arthur Darby Nock, conversion requires the
reorientation of the soul of an individual, his deliberate turning
from indifference or from an earlier form of piety to another, a turn-
ing which implies a consciousness that a great change is involved.
Nock, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander
the Great to Augustine of Hippo (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1933), 7; and Abram, Modeling Religious Experience, 119. Con-
version from a state of indifference can be found in modern narra-
tives of conversion, too, as in that related by Janet Soskice in Find-
ing God in the Shower, Guardian, 28 June 2009: I can remember
being an atheist, or perhaps an agnostic, for in those days I did not
think much about God one way or another. . . . [I]f I have my life
to live over I will try to have a higher class of conversion experi-
encebut this is what happened to me. I was turned around.
Converted. . . . I was much the same person, but facing in a new
direction. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009
/jun/28/conversion-religion-philosophy.
term conversion in this essay is, therefore, twofold. First, it is
important to recognize that this kind of conversion was part
of the medieval understanding of what conversion might be.
Second, conversion is a telling and appropriate term of analy-
sis for this manuscript because its own phrasing focuses our
attention on the notion of meaningful, decisive, and self-
conscious Christian change. This kind of great change, I sug-
gest, lies at the root of the many alterations Raymond made to
this manuscript, including the explicit conversion of Burzuya,
and the strength of the term conversion helps us see sustained,
insistent change on multiple levels throughout the manuscript.
In addition to the human actors, I address the animal pro-
tagonists of the tales. Visual and textual links between Kalila,
Dimna, and foxes suggest lat. 8504s links to French bestiaries
and allegorical fables of the famous fox Renart. While bes-
tiaries might be considered scientific and Latinate, and tales
of Renart tend to be political, popular, and vernacular, both
categories of texts are deeply informed by Christian theol-
ogy, albeit expressed in quite different tones. Parisians were
accustomed to using animals as ways of thinking through
political and social interactions at court and in other social
spheres. The animals in Kalila and Dimna connected easily
to the thought world of the Parisians around 1313. Moreover,
it is possible that the vibrant interest in animal tales in early
fourteenth-century Paris triggered the queens interest and
thereby lay at the root of Raymonds project.
The Conversion of the Source Text
Interspersed among Kalila and Dimnas many stories of
animals and men, the tales addressing the titular jackals pre
sent a clear contrast in terms of life choices. While both are
courtiers under the king lion, Kalila embraces a retired life
whereas the ambitious Dimna climbs ever higher in the court
hierarchy. With Dimnas help, the kingly lion becomes friends
with the ox, but Dimna grows jealous of the oxs increasing
influence. Dimna then encourages enmity between the lion
and the ox, which results in the former killing the latter. In
the end, Dimna is tried and condemned for his greed and de-
ceit and is put to death. Raymond de Bziers prefaces Dimnas
death with several long passages in which Dimna takes a con-
fessor (indeed, the confessor is Burzuya himself), repents of
his sins, and accepts God.10 Raymond also adds a full-page
10. According to the text of lat. 8504, et reconciliaret se et con-
verteret se ad Dominum, atque bene confiteretur peccata sua. Her-
vieux, Les fabulistes latins, 525; Paris, Raymond de Bziers, 24950;
and Taylor, Raimundus de Biterriss Liber Kalile et Dimne, 197.
Nancy Freeman Regalado traces a political catchphrase (I would
rather be a swineherd than curry Fauvel) found in this confes-
sion, apparently added by Raymond and also found in other works
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diagram of the Christian sins (luxuria, avaritia, superbia, in-
vidia, ira, etc.) on fol. 59v, the only full-page diagram in the
manuscript, thereby placing Dimnas death within the context
of a learned Christian understanding of the nature and types
of sin and the acts of confession and penance.
The stories of Kalila and Dimna, accompanied by many
other tales, are all embedded in a framing narrative. In that
story, Burzuya, the narrator and traveling physician, leaves
the Sasanian Persian court to discover a life-giving herb in
India. He finds that the herb is actually a book of animal fa-
bles (including the stories of Kalila and Dimna) that deliver
lessons on human behavior and politics, and he brings that
book back to the Sasanian king. The frametale that describes
the quest to bring back the book was apparently based on
historical events. The book of animal fables, including the
tales of Kalila and Dimna, was probably written down around
300 CE in Kashmir as the Sanskrit Panchatantra (Five Tales).
In the middle of the sixth century, the Sasanian king requested
that a physician named Burzuya go to India and bring the life-
giving herb/book to Iran and translate it into Pahlavi (Middle
Persian). In the middle of the eighth century, Abdullah ibn
al-Muqaffa rendered Burzuyas Pahlavi version into Arabic.
This work circulated widely and became the source for later
translations and renditions in Arabic, Persian, and Turk
ish. In the mid-thirteenth century Ibn Muqaffas Arabic ren-
dering was translated for the Castilian king Alfonso X (the
Wise, r. 125284), the first Eastern collection of stories
ever translated into Castilian and a veritable monument of
medieval Spanish fiction.11 It was evidently a copy of this
from the Parisian court and chancery. Regalado, Le porcher au
palais: Kalila et Dimna, le Roman de Fauvel, Machaut et Boccace,
tudes littraires 31, no. 2 (1999): 11932; and eadem, Swineherds
at Court: Kalila et Dimna, Le Roman de Fauvel, Machaut, and the
Decameron, in Chanon legiere a chanter: Essays on Old French
Literature in Honor of Samuel N. Rosenberg, ed. Karen Fresco and
Wendy Pfeffer (Birmingham, AL: Summa, 2007), 23554.
11. Luis M. Girn-Negrn, How the Go-Between Cut Her Nose:
Two Ibero-Medieval Translations of a Kalilah wa Dimnah Story, in
Under the Influence: Questioning the Comparative in Medieval Cas-
tile, ed. Cynthia Robinson and Leyla Rouhi (Leiden: Brill, 2005),
23159. For details on the Castilian manuscripts and tradition,
see Juan Manuel Cacho Blecua and Mara Jess Lacarra, Calila
e Dimna (Madrid: Castalia, 1984), 977; H.-J. Dhla, El libro de
Calila e Dimna (1251): edicin nueva de los dos manuscritos caste
llanos, con una introduccin intercultural y un anlisis lexicogrfico
rabe-espaol (PhD diss., University of Zurich, 2007), https://www
.zora.uzh.ch/17989/1/CalilaV.pdf; Jerrilynn D. Dodds, Maria Rosa
Menocal, and Abigail Krasner Balbale, The Arts of Intimacy: Chris-
tians, Jews, and Muslims in the Making of Castilian Culture (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 23235; and Hugo O. Bizzarri,
Limage enchsse dans le Calila e Dimna, in DOrient en Occident:
les recueils de fables enchsses avant les Mille et Une Nuits de Galland
(Barlaam et Josaphat, Calila et Dimna, Disciplina clericalis, Roman
The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna 85
Castilian translation that was offered to Jeanne de Navarre
sometime before 1305.12
Although we do not know whether Jeannes Castilian text
was illustrated, an image cycle was part of the narrative from
at least the tenth century, and illustrations became a signifi
cant feature of Kalila and Dimna.13 The oldest illustrated man-
uscript that survives is an Arabic version thought to have been
copied in Syria in the early thirteenth century.14 This and later
illustrated manuscripts deriving from the Kalila and Dimna
tradition in Arabic, Persian, and other languages have been
the subjects of substantial scholarly research.15 The large ma-
jority of images in these manuscripts are devoted to the ani-
mal tales, although two of Burzuya are often present in Arabic
and Persian thirteenth- and fourteenth-century manuscripts:
Anushirvan, the Persian king, giving an audience to Burzuya;
and Burzuya attending a patient.16 Lat. 8504 provides substan-
tially more miniatures that depict Burzuya, and the theme of
these new illustrations is quite different even though the first
image of Burzuya in lat. 8504 also shows his audience with
the Persian king.
Sometime before 1305, then, a cleric presented a Castilian
copy of Kalila and Dimna to the queen of France, Jeanne de
des Sept Sages), ed. Marion Uhlig and Yasmina Foehr-Janssens
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 30928.
12. The relation between the Castilian version and Raymonds
text is analyzed in Cacho Blecua and Lacarra, Calila e Dimna,
4244; and Taylor, Raimundus de Biterriss Liber Kalile et Dimne,
18691.
13. Firdausi, in the introduction to his Shahnama, referred to
many paintings being added to Kalila wa Dimna in the tenth cen-
tury. There is also a reference in the Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk,
often called Tarikh al-Tabari (Universal History), written in the tenth
century, to a Central Asian prince on trial in 841 for owning illus-
trated books; he defended himself by accusing the judge of possess-
ing an illustrated copy of Kalila wa Dimna. Atl, Kalila wa Dimna,
61; Julian Raby, Between Sogdia and the Mamluks: A Note on
the Earliest Illustrations to Kalila wa Dimna, Oriental Art 33, no. 4
(198788): 38198; and Jill Cowen, Kalila wa-Dimna: An Animal
Allegory of the Mongol Court; The Istanbul University Album (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 12.
14. Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France (hereafter BnF), MS
arabe 3465. Atl, Kalila wa Dimna, 61.
15. For thirteenth- and fourteenth-century manuscripts in Ara-
bic and Persian, see, among others, Raby, Between Sogdia; Cowen,
Kalila wa-Dimna; E. Grube, Prolegomena for a Corpus Publication
of Illustrated Kalilah wa Dimnah Manuscripts, Islamic Art 4 (1991):
301481; Bernard OKane, Early Persian Painting: Kalila and
Dimna Manuscripts of the Late Fourteenth Century (New York: Tau-
ris, 2003), 19; and Mika Natif, The SOAS Anvr-i Suhayl: The Jour-
ney of a Reincarnated Manuscript, Muqarnas 25 (2008): 33158.
16. OKane, Early Persian Painting, 5052.
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Navarre.17 She asked a physician, Raymond de Bziers,totrans
late it into Latina more common and generally compre-
hensible language, as Raymond later records in his text.18
Raymond began work, but Jeanne died in 1305, before he had
completed his translation. The text languished for some time,
but then Raymond resumed work on it, perhaps spurred by
his discovery of the recent Latin translation by John of Capua.
This work, titled Directorium humanae vitae, executed be-
tween about 1263 and 1278, was based on a Hebrew recen-
sion.19 For approximately the second half of his translation,
Raymond relied heavily on John of Capuas work.20
Raymond made a number of significant changes to his
Castilian source text during the process of translation, each
marked by a turn toward God. The translation from Castilian
to Latin arguably acts as a type of Christianization in itself,
since Latin was the language of the majority of religious
texts in Paris around the year 1300. Even when translating
both from (when relying on John of Capuas recension) and
to Latin, however, Raymond did not simply aim to convey
the words in front of him.21 Medieval translators almost al-
ways attempted not just to transmit but also to surpass their
17. Raymond mentions the cleric who originally gave the Cas-
tilian manuscript to Queen Jeanne, but we know no more about
him. Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 386; and Paris, Raymond de
Bziers, 191. Elsewhere I suggest that the manuscript, which had
come from Navarre, might have been a gift (delivered by the cleric)
from the people of Navarre to Jeanne, their queen. For the role of
the queen as recipient of the Castilian manuscript and patron of
its translation in lat. 8504, see Amanda Luyster, Political Moves:
Jeanne de Navarre, Queenship, and Kalila and Dimna, in Moving
Women, Moving Objects, ed. Tracy Chapman Hamilton and Mariah
Proctor-Tiffany (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).
18. [I]n linguam latinam, que lingua communior est et intelligi-
bilior ceteris. Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 385.
19. John of Capua, like Raymond, proposed a new title for his
work, the Directorium humanae vitae, alias parabola antiquorum
sapientum. He also added his own prologue to the text, in which
he identifies himself as a convert from Judaism, but his translation
in general contains substantially fewer additions than Raymonds.
Therefore, the theme of conversion, while intriguingly present in
John of Capuas personal history, is much less prominent in his
text. There are no contemporary illuminated copies of Johns work,
although two fifteenth-century manuscript copies bear rubrics
(London, British Library, MS Add. 11437 and Munich, Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 14120). The text of the Directorium was
edited by Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 331, 79337, and can be
found online at http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~Harsch/Chronologia
/Lspost13/IohannesCapua/cap_di00.html.
20. Silvestre de Sacy, Notice de louvrage, 40; Paris, Raymond
de Bziers, 239; Taylor, Raimundus de Biterriss Liber Kalile et
Dimne, 184, 192; and Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 104.
21. Raymond reworked both his Spanish and his Latin sources
in typical medieval fashion, incessantly amplifying, abridging,
sources, while at the same time shaping their material to suit
contemporary patrons.22 Indeed, Raymond incorporated so
much new text that the length of the volume was doubled.23
Raymonds additions number in the hundreds: they include
grammar-school maxims, sayings, and longer texts from both
classical and Christian sourcesCato, Cicero, Ovid, Seneca,
and the Bible, as well as Pamphilus, Walter of Chtillon, Alan
of Lille, and Albertanus of Brescia.24 Many (but not all) in-
terpolations are signaled by a phrase like as Solomon said,
leading to sections of text that are saturated with references
to source texts. For instance, a single bifolio (36r36v) names
Solomon three times and Seneca twice, in addition to the
apostle (Paul) in the Epistle to the Romans.25 In those in-
stances where authors well known in the Christian tradition
are listed, their names increase the Christianization of the
text.26 Furthermore, Raymond proclaims a new title for the
work: it should be known, he wrote, as Liber regius, the Royal
Book,27 thereby obscuring the Arabic origins of the stories. A
dedication to the French kingthe descendant of the sainted
Louis IXwas introduced (discussed below). Raymond also
wrote that he intended the volume for the young princes, par-
ticularly Louis of Navarre, and that through his volume, You
will learn how to rule yourselves, and to conduct yourselves
among princes and barons, and preserve yourselves from
dangers that arise in royal courts.28 Each of these changes to
the source text(s)language, material, title, and dedication
acts as a kind of conversion.
selecting, and arranging. Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius,
104.
22. Sahar Amer, sope au fminin: Marie de France et la politique
de linterculturalit (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999), 18; Catherine Batt,
introduction to Translating the Middle Ages, ed. Karen L. Fresco and
Charles D. Wright (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012), 17; and Eva R.
Hoffman, Translating Image and Text in the Medieval Mediterra-
nean World between the Tenth and Thirteenth Centuries, in Mech-
anisms of Exchange: Transmission in Medieval Art and Architecture
of the Mediterranean, ca. 10001500, ed. Heather E. Grossman and
Alicia Walker, special issue, Medieval Encounters 18, nos. 45 (2012):
584623, at 594.
23. Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 111.
24. Taylor, Raimundus de Biterriss Liber Kalile et Dimne, 194;
and Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 111, 11315.
25. Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 47273.
26. My thanks to one of Gestas anonymous reviewers for point-
ing this out.
27. Quare autum dictus liber Kalile et Dy[m]ne ita intituletur,
unde originaliter translatus fuerit, et quare dicatur Liber regius, et
quomodo dominus rex et regni maiores per ipsum in regimine ins-
truantur.Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 385; see also 383. See also
Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 103.
28. Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 103.
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Raymond also added some rather doleful lines describing
his own position in the city of Paris after the queens death.
He calls himself a stranger (aligena), seeking admittance
to court but finding no one who will let him in.29 He writes
that he had gone to Paris to seek his fortune, but it appears
he had not yet found it. Finally, however, Raymond did dis-
cover someone willing to introduce him (or at least a copy
of his manuscript) to court; this was the chancellor Pierre de
Latilly.30 Pierre is described in lat. 8504 as bishop of Chlons-
sur-Marne, a position he did not obtain until 2 December
1313. The rubric states that the manuscript was presented in
the same year as the celebrations at Pentecost, so it was pre-
sumably sometime between December 1313 and Easter 1314
that the manuscript was presented at court, if indeed it was
(Figs. 23).31 Prefatory folios (Figs. 12) were added, depict-
ing the recent events surrounding Pentecost in 1313, includ-
ing the knighting of Louis of Navarre and his siblings (Fig. 1,
top and center) and the taking of the cross by royals and
commoners (Figs. 2, 4).32 A two-column dedication frontis-
piece (Fig. 5) was also painted, showing Philip IV enthroned
on a lion faldstool, surrounded by his sons and other family
members, seated and wearing heraldic robes. Alison Stones
notes that the faces and crowns in all the prefatory minia-
tures and in the frontispiece have been partly repainted, mak-
ing identification of the original style difficult, although the
29. [P]rimo, quia sum aligena et conditionis humilis. Hervieux,
Les fabulistes latins, 380. See also Paris, Raymond de Bziers, 191;
and Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 1045.
30. Paris, Raymond de Bziers, 19495.
31. Ibid., 194; and Stones, Gothic Manuscripts, 127. According to
the mos gallicanus (French calculation), years were reckoned from
the movable feast of Easter. This method of dating was introduced
by Philip Augustus (r. 11801223) and was popular in court circles,
although it was not always accepted across the whole of France. C. R.
Cheney, ed., A Handbook of Dates: For Students of British History,
new ed., rev. by Michael Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000), 13.
32. Elizabeth A. R. Brown and Nancy Freeman Regalado, La
grant feste: Philip the Fairs Celebration of the Knighting of His
Sons in Paris at Pentecost of 1313, in City and Spectacle in Medieval
Europe, ed. Barbara A. Hanawalt and Kathryn L. Reyerson (Minne-
apolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 5686; eaedem, Uni-
versitas et communitas: The Parade of the Parisians at the Pentecost
Feast of 1313, in Moving Subjects: Processional Performance in the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Kathleen Ashley and Wim
Hsken (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), 11754; and Nancy Freeman
Regalado, Festbeschreibungen in Paris und Metz im frhen 14. Jahr
hundert: UnterweisungAnsehenIdentittGedchtnis, in Theater
und Fest in Europa: Perspektiven von Identitt und Gemeinschaft, ed.
Erika Fischer-Lichte, Matthias Warstat, and Anna Littmann (Tbingen:
Francke, 2012), 16180.
The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna 87

Figure 2. Presentation of the manuscript and celebration of Pentecost
in Paris in 1313, fol. 1r, translation of Kalila and Dimna (Liber re-
gius), Raymond de Bziers, ca. 1313, Paris, Bibliothque nationale de
France, MS lat. 8504 (photo: Bibliothque nationale de France). See
the electronic edition of Gesta for a color version of this image.
nondescript drawing style of the fable illustrations can be
connected to other manuscripts made in France about 1300.33
Given how important this manuscript was to Raymond
in his bid for a position at court, it is surprising that cer-
tain aspects of its production are inept and careless. Some
features of the book do convey luxury status, including the
large frontispiece and the five (of an original six) prefatory
images accompanied by text in blue, gold, and maroon ink.34
33. Stones (Gothic Manuscripts, 12728) suggests some pos-
sible cognates, including a pair of books made for a queen (perhaps
Jeanne de Bourgogne-Artois, wife of Philip V), Paris, Bibliothque
Sainte-Genevive, MS 588, and BnF, MS fr. 24429; and Ramon Llulls
Doctrine denfant, BnF, MS fr. 22933.
34. Ibid., 127.
88 Gestav56n1, Spring 2017
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Figure 3. Presentation of the manuscript, detail of fol. 1r, translation
of Kalila and Dimna (Liber regius), Raymond de Bziers, ca. 1313,
Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France, MS lat. 8504 (photo:
Bibliothque nationale de France).
The standard dark-brown script has been augmented by mul-
tiple passages in red ink that mark interpolations and verse
added by Raymond.35 Yet at the same time, certain features
appear substandard, particularly for a manuscript that was in-
tended to be presented to the royal court. The Latin is highly
inexpert, and the script has been described by some as hor-
rible and by several incompetent scribes36although oth-
ers have suggested that this peculiar and personal script,
which changes gradually through the codex, may have been
Raymonds own hand.37 In addition, the flyleaf bears text
from a discarded preliminary version of the preface, surely an
odd circumstance for a formal version of a work.38 The prefa-
tory miniatures, which I discuss below, were actually cut out
from a different source and pasted on their pages. Care was
taken to integrate these cutouts into their new layout, with
gold leaves added at the corners and captions in multicolored
ink written next to each image, but despite the seeming atten-
tion to detail, some miniatures were pasted next to the wrong
35. Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 117.
36. Stones, Gothic Manuscripts, 126.
37. Regalado (Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 117) proposes
that The idiosyncratic design of Lat. 8504taken together with
its peculiar handsuggests that Raymond may have supervised or
even copied his manuscript himself for the king. It is written in a
personal hand which becomes gradually larger and looser; it is that
of someone accustomed to writing but not that of a professional,
well-trained scribe.
38. As observed by Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, Manu-
scripts and Their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval
Paris, 12001500 (Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2000), 1:124.

Figure 4. Papal emissary handing out crosses during celebration of
Pentecost in 1313, detail of fol. 1r, translation of Kalila and Dimna
(Liber regius), Raymond de Bziers, ca. 1313, Paris, Bibliothque natio-
nale de France, MS lat. 8504 (photo: Bibliothque nationale de France).
See the electronic edition of Gesta for a color version of this image.
captions.39 There is no way to ascertain the original context
for which these miniatures were made.40
One scholar has called this manuscript a joke, and oth-
ers have asserted that it could never have been presented to
the king at court, that perhaps Pierre de Latilly had an addi-
tional, final copy made at his own expense to serve as the true
presentation copy.41 At the same time, the manifest imper-
fections in lat. 8504 should be weighed against evidence that
manuscripts of indifferent quality were regularly presented to
individuals, even members of the royal house, at the French
39. The miniature that shows the parade of the Parisians,
described in caption 5, was placed next to caption 3, which describes
the crusading sermon; the miniature that depicts the presentation of
the manuscript, described in caption 6, was placed beside caption 5;
and the one that illustrates the taking of the cross was placed next to
caption 6. A missing miniature depicted the joy of the Parisians.
See esp. Brown and Regalado, Universitas et communitas, 121; also
Brown and Regalado, La grant feste, 79n44; and Rouse and Rouse,
Manuscripts and Their Makers, 1:12425.
40. I am grateful to one of Gestas anonymous readers for point-
ing this out. Perhaps the prefatory miniatures were originally made
for a different manuscript.
41. Stones (Gothic Manuscripts, 128) writes, Was this Raymond
de Bziers [sic] idea of a joke? A book like this could hardly have
been taken seriously at Pentecost 1313, whereas the Rouses (Manu-
scripts and Their Makers, 1:124) conclude, From external appear-
ances we assume that at its inception this was meant to be the pre-
sentation copy for Philip IV, Louis father; but it is a book which has
had so much go wrong that, despite the elaborate and surely expen-
sive measures taken in the first few folios in an attempt to cover
changes of heart and circumstances, we are reluctant to suppose that
it was ever given over to the king.
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court.42 Moreover, if these imperfections distract from, they
do not erase the many markers of luxury status, including the
liberal use of gold leaf and multicolored inks. Whether or not
lat. 8504 was presented at court, however, the fact remains
that its author (as Raymond calls himself) intended this work
to be presented, and therefore we may read the manuscripts
images and texts in that context.
The Prefatory Miniatures and the Frontispiece
In representing the events of the weeklong observance of
Pentecost in 1313, shortly before the books presentation, the
miniatures on the prefatory folios (Figs. 12) are, as noted
above, the earliest known historical depictions of a royal
celebration.43 It focused on the knighting of Philip the Fairs
three sons (first two miniatures on fol. bv, Fig. 1, correctly
placed next to captions 1 and 2), royal parades (final min-
iature on fol. bv but misplaced, as it relates to caption 5 on
fol. 1r), and the taking of the crossvowing to go on crusade
by members of the royal house and commoners (final minia-
ture on fol. 1r, Fig. 2, and Fig. 4, misplaced, since it relates to
caption 3 on fol. bv). The image missing at the top of fol. 1r,
which presumably would have related correctly to caption 4,
describes the joy of the Parisians. The final caption on these
prefatory folios, caption 6 (Fig. 2), states that the book was
presented on the advice of the chancellor, Petrus, bishop of
Chlons-sur-Marne, but the miniature related to this cap-
tion has been pasted next to caption 5 above, describing the
42. My thanks to one of Gestas anonymous readers for mak-
ing this point. See note 33 above and the cognates listed in
Stones, Gothic Manuscripts, 12728. Additionally, an abbrevi
ated Latin version of Raymonds Kalila and Dimna was writ-
ten in 1496 (BnF, MS lat. 8505), largely but not entirely based on
lat. 8504. The later MS lat. 8505 omits some of the maxims and com-
mentary, including the conversion sequence, but it also contains
some text not found in lat. 8504. Therefore, MS lat. 8505 suggests the
existence of a third version of Raymonds Kalila, now lost. If a more
carefully prepared presentation copy had been created, perhaps MS
lat. 8505 was based on that example. Lopold Delisle, Compte-
rendu de Lopold Hervieux, Notices sur les fables latines dorigine
indienne, Journal des savants (March 1898): 15873, at 166; Taylor,
Raimundus de Biterriss Liber Kalile et Dimne, 18586; and Rouse
and Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers, 1:359n202. Inventories
indicate that at least one copy of Kalila and Dimna was in the royal
library later in the fourteenth century, although it was apparently
distinct from lat. 8504. This copy of Le livre de Quilila et Dymas was
described as rim et histori; now lost, it was originally owned by
King Jean le Bon (r. 135064). Paris, Raymond de Bziers, 253; and
Rouse and Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers, 1:359n202.
43. Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 106. Regalado and
Brown have published a series of important essays on these prefatory
miniatures and the historical events depicted; see note 32 above.
The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna 89
Figure 5. Dedication frontispiece with King Philip the Fair and family, fol. 1v, translation of Kalila and Dimna (Liber regius), Raymond de
Bziers, ca. 1313, Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France, MS lat. 8504 (photo: Bibliothque nationale de France).

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royal parade. The miniature depicting the manuscripts pre-
sentation (fol. 1r, middle; Figs. 23) shows chancellor Pierre
de Latilly extending the presentation copy to King Philip IV
while Raymond kneels behind, in the simple garb of a scholar.
Even though the last caption on the prefatory pages concludes
with the presentation of the manuscript, the final miniature
shows crosses being handed out to attendant crowds (fol. 1r,
bottom; Figs. 2, 4). This cannot have been intentional. One won-
ders which of the two conclusions was meant and what impact
one or the other might have had on a reader: is the end of the
story the manuscripts presentation or the taking of the cross?
The reverse of this folio bears the first image in the manu-
script proper: the frontispiece (fol. 1v, Fig. 5). We see a fam-
ily portrait with Philip the Fair; his three sons, including the
eldest, Louis of Navarre; a queen of England (either Margaret,
Philips half sister, or, more likely, his daughter, Isabelle); and
another male, perhaps Philips half brother Louis of vreux.44
Unlike the preceding images, the frontispiece was not pasted
in but painted directly on the page.
Presented through these initial folios, then, are the mem-
bers of an extended Christian family who between them bear
four crowns and represent three kingdoms: England, France,
and Navarre. This Christian identity is particularly clear in
the scene in which crosses are handed out to Philip, his sons,
and Parisian commoners (Fig. 4): the press of bodies and the
movement of many hands and crosses against a shimmering
gold ground focus our attention on the hands, the crosses,
and the popes emissary, whose body provides the central
compositional feature. The previous two miniatures depicting
the sacred ceremony of knighting would also have reminded
medieval viewers of not only the social but also the Christian
significance of that ceremony (Fig. 1, top and middle). As
Ruth Mazo Karras states, Although the church never made
dubbing to knighthood a formal sacrament, its deliberate ef-
forts since the eleventh century had infused knighthood with
a good deal of religious symbolism and imagery.45
The French kings larger scale and centrality in the pa-
rade miniature (Fig. 1, bottom) and the frontispiece (Fig. 5)
44. The proper identification of the queen and the additional
royal male has been contested. Stones (Gothic Manuscripts, 12728)
provides a useful review of the heraldry and scholarship. See also
Suzanne Lewis, The Apocalypse of Isabella of France: Paris, Bibl.
Nat. Ms. Fr. 13096, Art Bulletin 72, no. 2 (1990): 22460, at 225; and
Rouse and Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers, 1:125.
45. For instance, the shape of the sword used to tap the knight
signified the cross, and both a prayer vigil in a church the night
before the ceremony and a Mass directly following it were part of
the usual ritual. Ruth Mazo Karras, From Boys to Men: Formations
of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 42.
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emphasize his senior position and role as engenderer of
kings, head of a Christian royal family that stretches beyond
geographic boundaries and encompasses multiple peoples.
Raymonds dedicatory text below the frontispiece also high-
lights Philips role as a most Christian king. This text, privi-
leged by its placement in the volume, reads:
To the most Christian, devoted, and serene leader,
fighter, defender, and pillar of the holy Church and the
orthodox faith, to his lord, lord Philip, the illustrious
king of the kingdom of France, blessed by divine provi-
dence and confirmed by God, Raymond of Bziers,
the physician, a native of the said kingdom, and to it
submissive and faithful, with the humble and devoted
recommendation of himself, presenting this little work,
and a servant devoted in all things.46
This passage describes Philips role as a Christian exemplar,
staunchly defending the faith and standing as a supportive
pillar of the Church and orthodoxy. In addition, the dedi-
cation highlights Raymonds fittingly submissive and faith-
ful obedience to Philip and his kingdom. The color of the
ink helps the reader parse the distinct roles of the king and
Raymond, for the phrases addressing the king are written in
red; when Raymonds name appears, dark brown ink is used.
This draws attention to the authors name while simulta
neously signaling his submissive position in relation to King
Philip.
The frontispieces text and image highlight the centrality
of Philips Christian identity in multiple ways. For instance,
the first term used to describe Philip in the dedication, and
indeed the first word in the text, properly speaking (after the
prefatory pages), is Christianissimo (most Christian). The
kings dark-stockinged foot points directly to this word, at
the top of the left column of text, clearly associating his body
with this modifier. The line created by the kings extended foot
is continued in the gestural line of the large, illuminated X
(chi) that begins Christianissimo. Indeed, the composition
of the X is echoed by the chiastic position of the kings body;
his right arm suggests a line continued by the left foot of his
faldstool, and his gesturing left arm aligns with his pointing
46. Authors translation, with significant assistance from Nancy
Andrews and Edward Vodoklys. [Text begins in red ink] Chris-
tianissimo, devoto serenissimo que principi, pugili, deffensori ac
columne sante ecclesie et fidei orthodoxe, domino suo, domino
Philippo, divina providencia benedicti et confirmati a Deo, regni
Francie regi illustri, [shifts to brown ink] Raymondus de Byterris
phisicus, de dicto regno oriundus, eiusque subditus et fidelis, cum
sui recommendatione humili et devota, presens opusculum, et devo-
tum in omnibus famulatum. Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 284.
The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna 91
right foot, visually connecting the kings own body with the
alternating straight and gently gestural lines of the X.47 In this
way, the dedicatory text, the ordering of that text, the illumi-
nated initial, the composition of the kings body, and the way
it interacts with both word and illuminated initial all unite to
create a sense of visual unity between the king and his most
Christian nature.
Taken together, these preliminary texts and images add a
new outermost frame story to Kalila and Dimna, which has
become explicitly Christian. It is now set in the well-ruled city
and court of Paris, to which, at least according to the minia-
tures, Raymond has been piously presented. While the set-
ting and characters of this new story are clearly Christian, the
frametale functions structurally like the original story of the
Persian court. The French king occupies a position analogous
to that of the Sasanian Persian ruler, and the French physi-
cian and writer Raymond has a role akin to that of the Persian
physician and writer Burzuya: both of them translated animal
fables into the language of their rulers court.48
The addition of the outermost frame story and its striking
images of the ruling family suggests a metaphorical Christian
annexation of Kalila and Dimna, already well known in the
Islamicate world. Modern scholars might be tempted to inter-
pret the manuscript using the opposition between Christians
and Muslims as a consistent concern, but there is little evi-
dence that this Christian/Muslim binary would have been
obvious to a medieval reader. The taking of the cross is the
strongest example, evoking a faceless but presumably Muslim
enemy (Fig. 4).49 None of the captions explains the rationale
for the crosses, however, instead describing the royals and
common people who took part in the events of Pentecost,
47. I am grateful to Benjamin Tilghman for making this point to
me and also for his opinions on the role of the illuminated initial on
this page.
48. The parallel between these two stories is also noted by
Regalado (Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 106): Similar images
of a king receiving wise counsel from a physician, philosopher, or
teacher recur at every level of Kalila et Dimna.
49. If the prefatory pages invite comparison between Christians
and their faceless enemy (one presumes Muslims) in the scene of the
taking of the cross, an act considered preparatory to crusading, it is
worth noting that Philip never went on crusade to the Holy Land. He
had been knighted shortly before a crusade against Christian Ara-
gon. Elizabeth A. R. Brown, The Prince Is Father of the King: The
Character and Childhood of Philip the Fair of France, Mediaeval
Studies 49 (1987): 282334, at 330. I address below the Albigensian
Crusade, directed against southern France. The scene in Figure 4
could certainly suggest the invisible presence of Muslims, but, given
the mixed heritage of crusading in France, it could also evoke more
generally the presence of enemies of the Catholic faith.
92 Gestav56n1, Spring 2017
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their great joy, and the festivities in Paris.50 It therefore seems
unlikely that a medieval French reader would have per-
ceived a Muslim presence elsewhere in the text or image.
In lat. 8504, the affiliation between the tale and its substan-
tial Islamic heritage is minimal. The language of the source
material is repeatedly identified as Spanish, and Raymond
did indeed use a Spanish (Castilian) version. At one point
only is a (partially correct) history of the tales translation
through many languages recounted: from the language of the
Indians, to Persian, to Arabic, to Hebrew, in which form the
tale was taken to Toledo, translated into Spanish, then car-
ried to Navarre, and, finally, to France.51 The books long and
influential history in the Islamicate world is referenced here
only in the single word arabitum, a misspelling of arabicum,
Arabic.52 Kalila and Dimna was not well known in France at
the turn of the fourteenth century, and the majority of French
readers could not have been aware of its origins.53
Nevertheless, the translation of the text marks out an at-
tempt to create a new, Christianized narrative, translated from
Spanish into Latin, with a new title, new dedication to the most
Christian French king, new frame story (set at the French
court), and including newand in some instances Christian
texts. The translation effects a conversion of the text, orient-
ing it in a new direction. Yet the preconversion identity of
the text is not heavily marked as Muslim, nor are any specific
religions in Persia or India, where the jackal tales take place,
clearly referenced. Lat. 8504 bears witness to Christians ef-
fective appropriation of source materials from non-Christian
cultures and the eliding of that materials true origins.
The Conversion of Burzuya
Burzuyas conversion in lat. 8504 similarly focuses atten-
tion on his new, explicitly Christian identity while avoiding
any sustained or detailed examination of his previous, pre-
Christian faith. The conversion of the Persian narrator of the
original frame story is represented in a remarkable series of
50. Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 38283. See also Brown and
Regalado, Universitas et communitas, esp. 13940.
51. Qui quidem ab Indorum lingua fuit in ydioma persicum,
satisque aubsequenter in arabitum (sic), ex hinc in ebracum, a quo
finaliter apud Toletum ob eius documentorum memorandum ac
venerabile mysterium in hyspanicum translatus, ab illisque partibus
ad regnum Navarre, sed ex hinc ad superexcellens regnum Francie
per dilectissimum quemdem clericum apportatus (sic), mihique
Parisius creditus per eundem. Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 386.
52. Noted by Hervieux; ibid.
53. Even Raymond did not know that Kalila wa Dimna had
already been translated into Latin by John of Capua until his own
translation from Castilian was perhaps half complete. Taylor, Rai-
mundus de Biterriss Liber Kalile et Dimne, 184, 192.
images and text between fols. 13r and 22v; there are seven
miniatures in this section, and the last five relate directly to
the conversion. Burzuyas conversion lends authority to the
subsequent tales. His preconversion identity is structured only
as a position of ignorance: neither word nor image provides
Burzuya with a more specific faith, since the text describes
him as a doctor and miniatures show him in a scholars garb.
His postconversion identity, however, is clearly specified as
Catholic. The section in lat. 8504 in which Burzuya converts
to Christianity is among the lengthiest interpolations that
Raymond made to his Castilian source text, and it includes
one of the few passages (the Summe parens prayer) to which
Raymond added multiple lines of glossing between each line
of text.54 The emphasis here on the process of conversion,
slowly developed through a series of images and texts, is
impressive. These folios model conversion as occurring first
through the questioning of self, then via an encounter with
texts, then in an increasingly intimate relationship with divin-
ity. The specific terms used, as well as the carefully structured
and lengthy experience of conversion itself, emphasize the
significance of Burzuyas acceptance of his new faith.
The text and images that describe Burzuyas conversion
in lat. 8504 have been inserted into Kalila and Dimna in the
place where earlier Castilian and Arabic versions (and John
of Capuas translation) provide a brief biography of the physi-
cian. This biography functions as a preface to the stories of
Kalila and Dimna and other animals. In the earlier versions,
Burzuya, after training as a doctor, begins to question worldly
values and undertakes a search for the true religion; finding
none totally convincing and purely spiritual, he becomes an
ascetic.55 Raymond alters this text to make clear that Burzuya
converts to the Catholic faith, although which faith Burzuya
converts from is never mentioned. In the table of contents,
Raymond summarizes this chapter as follows:
The third chapter is about these things which Burzuya
the physician said about his own deeds, by reciting his
origin and whence he had come from his nativity up to
the point when he began to philosophize. He translated
54. For a description of the glossing, see below; and Regalado,
Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 109. In the section describing Bur-
zuyas conversion, the text added to the Castilian Kalila and Dimna
runs from fol. 14r to fol. 22v or pages 42039 in Hervieux, although
this text does not all derive from a single source. This may be com-
pared with Raymonds longest single interpolation, which has been
misplaced in the second council of the starlings, spanning fols. 84v
95v, omitted but discussed in Hervieux. For Raymonds addition to
the council of the starlings, see Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 598
600; Taylor, Raimundus de Biterriss Liber Kalile et Dimne, 195;
and Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 110.
55. Atl, Kalila wa Dimna, 79.
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that book from the language of the Indians and he in-
terpreted the very book. And it is a chapter about the
justice and fear of God and about the love of God and of
ones neighbor, and about contempt for the world. What
is contained by this chapter is what is the Catholic faith
and what things are required for faith; what is hope
and what things are required for hope, and what is de-
served; what is charity and what is deserving of charity;
and how we ought to act around the poor according to
the perceptions of the soul, which are two, intellect and
feeling, and the five senses of the body, which are sight,
hearing, taste, smell, and touch. And how he was con-
verted to God [conversus est ad Deum] by doing works
of charity, by glorifying and praising God, the Creator of
all things, by reciting his inscrutable works, which neither
the human intellect nor rational argument is capable of
understanding, and by invoking divine aid. When he had
made this invocation, sleep seized [rapuit] Burzuya, and
he fell asleep in the Lord [obdormuit in Domino], and
having been snatched [raptus] in paradise at that hour,
having been illuminated by the grace of the Holy Spirit,
he saw celestial places and the celestial citizenry and all
the chosen, and the male and female saints of God and
the nine orders of angels, as well as God standing in
their very midst in his divinity and essence, giving back
to each one what is his own, and after a measure of time,
how and in what way he was willing to be incarnated
and to become God and man, and finally he saw the
blessed Mary holding the son of God in her arms. And,
roused from sleep [excitatus a sompno], having recalled
all the things which he had seen in his vision, he began
to think over and to render in his writings, by praising
and invoking God and his glorious mother in the most
elegant verses, by praying on bended knees face to face
with her. And finally he became a hermit, honoring God,
leaving behind the corruptible matters of the world for
eternal things.56 (my emphasis)
The text carefully explains the way Burzuya was conver-
sus (converted). Furthermore, the language used to describe
Burzuyas sleep and subsequent reawakening recounts a
deathlike experience followed by rebirth, suggesting that the
conversion functions as a birth into a new life.57 The language
used to describe Burzuyas sleep, obdormuit in Domino,
56. My translation, with many thanks to Nancy Andrews. Latin
from Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 389.
57. Death and rebirth are metaphors frequently used in rites of
initiation and other rites of passage the world over. A. J. M. Wedder-
burn, Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Pauline Theology against
Its Graeco-Roman Background (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1987), 391.
The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna 93
falling asleep in the Lord, is also used to characterize death
in the letters of Paul.58 The seriousness of this falling asleep
for Burzuya is echoed by the subsequent repeated use of
forms of the verb rapere (in rapuit and raptus, meaning seized
or snatched), indicating Burzuyas visit to paradise. Burzuyas
awakening after the vision, a sudden or sharp arousal (ex-
citatus a sompno), may be compared to entering life again.
Finally, Burzuya recollects his entire vision and reenters life,
changed, as a hermit, leaving behind the corruptible matters
of the world for eternal things. The conversion of Burzuya
is thus accomplished through various steps in the text, many
of which correlate to the visual stages rendered in the minia-
tures. These include doing works of charity, recognizing Gods
divinity, reciting Gods works, prayer, and the death/rebirth
experience that precedes Burzuyas becoming a hermit.
In this chapter Raymond also inserts many full pages of
text copied from Alan of Lilles Anticlaudianus (ca. 118183),
a classicizing poetic treatise on faith, hope, charity, the senses,
and God. While the text quoted above from the table of con-
tents most clearly lays out the narrative of the chapter, in the
main, selections from the Anticlaudianus accompany the min-
iatures depicting Burzuyas conversion. The treatise thus helps
shape our understanding of the nature of that conversion.
The miniature on fol. 13r depicts Burzuya meeting with
the Persian king Anushirvan (Fig. 6), and the verso shows
Burzuya traveling to India, carrying a letter from the king
(Fig. 7). In both images Burzuya wears the robe and flat cap
that identify him as a learned man.59 After several pages of
text from the Anticlaudianus, Burzuya appears in another Figure 6. Burzuya meets with the Persian king Anushirvan, fol. 13r,
miniature, totally changed (fol. 19r, Fig. 8). He now wears translation of Kalila and Dimna (Liber regius), Raymond de Bziers,
the long beard and robes of a hermit or holy man. The cross- ca. 1313, Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France, MS lat. 8504
(photo: Bibliothque nationale de France). See the electronic edition
nimbed Christ appears in a vision to convince Burzuya of
of Gesta for a color version of this image.
the truth of the Gospel book he carries, and Burzuya falls to
his knees before Christ, instantly recognizing his divinity.
Burzuya falls asleep in a miniature on fol. 20r (Fig. 9), and on creator and ruler of the universe. This is just one example of
fol. 20v he is granted a vision of God in heaven surrounded many in which the artist has reduced the vast cast of charac-
by nine legions of angels, according to the rubric, although ters presented in the text and, often ignoring the rubrics, fo-
only two are included in the illumination (Fig. 10). This vi- cused instead on the relationship between Burzuya and God
sion is more sophisticated and theological in nature. God, or Burzuya and Mary. Nevertheless, the arc (clouds?) separat-
stern and powerful, appears in the heavens holding the globe ing Burzuya from God shows that the two do not share the
of the earth, the orbus mundi. The vision is not a personal dis- same space.
covery of faith, like the first; rather, it reveals that God is the The last two miniatures in this section are devoted to the
Virgin Mary and Christ as a child. The Virgin was known and
I am grateful to Nancy Andrews and Joanne Pierce for their sen- (reputedly) adored by both Christians and non-Christians;
sitive readings of this passage, which were essential in shaping my she figures importantly in some miracle stories that end in
analysis. conversions to Christianity, for instance, in the thirteenth-
58. Believers have fallen asleep in Christ (1 Cor. 15:18) and in century Castilian Cantigas de Santa Mara.60 The first image
Jesus (1 Thess. 4:14). Elsewhere in Pauls letters believers are also
said to fall asleep (1 Cor. 15:6, 15:20; 1 Thess. 4:13, 4:15).
59. Elsewhere in the manuscript (e.g., both miniatures on 60. Alexandra Cuffel, Henceforward All Generations Will Call
fol. 10r), the same robe and cap are used for a figure described as a Me Blessed: Medieval Christian Tales of Non-Christian Marian
philosopher. Devotion, Mediterranean Studies 12 (2003): 3760; and Francisco

94 Gestav56n1, Spring 2017

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Figure 7. Burzuya travels to India with a letter from King Anushirvan,
detail of fol. 13v, translation of Kalila and Dimna (Liber regius),
Raymond de Bziers, ca. 1313, Paris, Bibliothque nationale de
France, MS lat. 8504 (photo: Bibliothque nationale de France). See
the electronic edition of Gesta for a color version of this image.
of the Virgin in lat. 8504 serves as a visual encapsulation of
her history (fol. 21v, Fig. 11). At the left is the Annunciation,
where she is astonished at Gabriels news of her divine con-
ception, and on the right she holds the tiny Christ child in
her role as Queen of Heaven, now wearing a violet robe and a
crown. This regal depiction appears again in the last minia-
ture in this section (fol. 22v, Fig. 12). While the first image of
the Virgin summarized her story, this final depiction is to be
read as the capstone: Burzuya is vouchsafed an audience with
the Queen of Heaven. No longer is the divine only a vision in
the sky; Burzuya now occupies the same small space as the
Virgin and Child. Burzuya kneels at her feet, looking up in
adoration, and the Child, now older and more alert than the
tiny baby on the previous page, is revealed in all his splendor
and blesses the supplicant. The relation between the two is
active, engaged. This intimate moment caps the series of min-
iatures, modeling a conversion initiated through questioning,
followed by textual learning, glimpsing divinity, coming to a
deeper understanding of the nature and history of the uni-
verse and Gods role in it, and culminating in an intimate and
personal relationship with the divine.
The emphasis on the process of conversion, of an identity
slowly developed through time, effort, and divine grace, is
Prado-Vilar, The Gothic Anamorphic Gaze: Regarding the Worth
of Others, in Robinson and Rouhi, Under the Influence, 67100.
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rarely so fully depicted in medieval art. Other images of con-
version in medieval Europe tend to show it in a single scene
rather than spread across multiple images as in lat. 8504.61
The number of folios devoted to the process of Burzuyas con-
version reinforces the thematic importance of conversion in
the manuscript as a whole.
Prayer
Four long extracts from the Anticlaudianus accompany
the miniatures depicting Burzuyas conversion in lat. 8504.62
This treatise on morals was written as an allegory in which
Nature, seeing human corruption and deciding to create a
new being, asks Prudence to seek a perfect soul.63 Prudence
and her sister, Reason, go on a journey toward heaven, aided
by the seven liberal arts, who create a chariot for them, and
the five senses, who act as steeds. The travelers finally reach
God, the Virgin appears on a throne, and they receive the
soul of New Man. Perhaps the most influential part of the
Anticlaudianus was a prayer known as the Summe parens,
which was so popular that it also circulated independently.64
The Summe parens appears in the right column on fol. 19r
of lat. 8504, just after the first appearance of the converted
Burzuya (Fig. 8). It is identified here as Burzuyas invoca-
tion, the same invocation that preceded his sleep/death,
vision, and rebirth, as described in Raymonds summary of
chapter 3. This prayer is of central importance and is instru-
mental in what follows. In the manuscript, Burzuyas figure
kneels at the lower left of the page while he directs his prayer
61. An example of a single-image conversion, also painted in
fourteenth-century France, can be found in Gautier de Coincys Mira
cles de Nostre Dame (BnF, MS nouv. acq. fr. 24541), executed about
133040. Fol. 67v represents a turbaned Sarrazin praying to a statue
of the Virgin. Across medieval Europe, the most common conversion
images (as attested by the Index of Christian Arts online database)
appear to be that of the apostle Paul and those accomplished by John
the Evangelist; these, too, regularly show the conversion in a single
scene. Not much has been written on conversion imagery as a genre,
but see Lucy-Anne Hunt, Excommunicata generatione: Christian
Imagery of Mission and Conversion of the Muslim Other between
the First Crusade and the Early Fourteenth Century, Al-Masaq
8, no. 1 (1995): 79153; and Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Seeing
Religious Conversion through the Arts, in Rambo and Farhadian,
Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion, 32742.
62. Alan of Lille, Anticlaudianus: texte critique, ed. R. Bossuat
(Paris: Vrin, 1955), 46; cf. Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins. The bor-
rowings are as follows: Anticl. 5, 278305 = Hervieux, 43334;
Anticl. 5, 376406 = Hervieux, 43435; Anticl. 5, 40786 = Hervieux,
43537; Anticl. 5, 487543 = Hervieux, 43739.
63. Bossuat, Anticlaudianus, 2630.
64. Taylor, Raimundus de Biterriss Liber Kalile et Dimne, 191,
195.
The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna 95
Figure 8. Burzuya as a hermit or holy man kneeling before Christ, fol. 19r, translation of Kalila and Dimna (Liber regius), Raymond de Bziers,
ca. 1313, Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France, MS lat. 8504 (photo: Bibliothque nationale de France). See the electronic edition of Gesta for
a color version of this image.

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Figure 9. Burzuya falls asleep, detail of fol. 20r, translation of Kalila
and Dimna (Liber regius), Raymond de Bziers, ca. 1313, Paris,
Bibliothque nationale de France, MS lat. 8504 (photo: Bibliothque
nationale de France). See the electronic edition of Gesta for a color
version of this image.
to the upper right, toward the vision of Christ. If we follow
Burzuyas gaze past the miniature, it intersects with the begin-
ning of the Summe parens at the top of the right column, cre-
ating the illusion that he looks up at Christ and speaks these
words. The prayer is carefully spaced and contains, unusu-
ally, up to six lines of commentary between each two lines of
verse.65 It focuses on stamping, sculpting, and perfecting form
(the commentary is omitted here):
Father in the highest, eternally God . . . who shapest
the outward form of things and the shadow of the sen-
sible world from the example of the mental world, por-
traying the latter outwardly in the image of the earthly
form; who invests the old mass, complaining of the
ugliness of its appearance, with a better raiment and,
marking with the stamp of form [formeque sigillo sig-
nans], removes the disturbance by a mediating bond. . . .
Shine Thou upon me with divine light and . . . rain
upon, cleanse the marks of shame of my soul and, cut-
ting away, dispel the shadows, and make me serene in
the splendor of Thy light.66
65. Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 109.
66. English translation in William Hafner Cornog, The Anti-
claudian of Alain de Lille: Prologue, Argument and Nine Books
(PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1935), 110. Latin original in
Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 433; cf. lat. 8504, fols. 19r19v. Note
that forma may be understood in multiple ways, including model,
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Figure 10. Burzuya has a vision of heaven, detail of fol. 20v, transla-
tion of Kalila and Dimna (Liber regius), Raymond de Bziers, ca.
1313, Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France, MS lat. 8504 (photo:
Bibliothque nationale de France). See the electronic edition of Gesta
for a color version of this image.
The theological implications of stamping or sealing, as noted
in the phrase marking with the stamp of form, are explored
by Brigitte Bedos-Rezak in her analyses of French metaphors
of sealing from the eleventh through the thirteenth century.67
She describes the way the act of stampingbringing the metal
die or sigillum into contact with hot wax to create an impres-
sioncan create an identity of sameness between two forms
even though they are made of different materials.68 Medieval
authors used sealing metaphors in diverse and shifting ways,
but Alan of Lille, in the passage above, refers to this crea-
tion of identity between the old mass, the wax, and Gods
sigillum as an act that creates semblance between the physical
exemplar, idea, or the technical action of forming an imitation: the
metal sigillum is the forma of the wax seal. Robert W. Scheller, Exem-
plum: Model-Book Drawings and the Practice of Artistic Transmission
in the Middle Ages (ca. 900ca. 1470), trans. Michael Hoyle (Amster-
dam: Amsterdam University Press, 1995), 13.
67. Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, Replica: Images of Identity and the
Identity of Images in Prescholastic France, in The Minds Eye: Art
and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey F. Ham-
burger and Anne-Marie Bouch (Princeton: Dept. of Art and
Archaeology, Princeton University, 2006), 4664; and eadem, When
Ego Was Imago: Signs of Identity in the Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill,
2011), esp. 18991.
68. The culture of the replica promoted a particular notion of
personal identity, producing and presenting identity as a figure of
sameness rather than as a ground for individual differentiation.
Bedos-Rezak, Replica, 5556.
The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna 97

Figure 11. Annunciation to Mary and Mary enthroned with the
Christ child, detail of fol. 21v, translation of Kalila and Dimna (Liber
regius), Raymond de Bziers, ca. 1313, Paris, Bibliothque nationale
de France, MS lat. 8504 (photo: Bibliothque nationale de France).
See the electronic edition of Gesta for a color version of this image.
and mental worlds, thereby remov[ing] the disturbance, or
the difference, between them.69 The placement of this passage
in lat. 8504, where it is used as a glossed and spoken prayer
accompanying a conversion to Christianity, implies a connec-
tion between the act of sealing and the act of conversion. Just
as the wax seal impression is marked by the metal sigillum,
so the converted soul will be marked by the imprint of God.
The use of the seal metaphor in such a significant location
in the conversion narrative is not entirely unexpected. The
church fathers, Peter Lombard, and other authors compared
the sacrament of baptism, entering a new, Christian life, to the
seal of God.70 God stamps the old mass, which is ugly, with
new form; he cuts away the shameful parts. The source of the
raw material is unimportant, both in this prayer and in the
manuscript. This may be why so little stress is laid on origins,
on Burzuyas or Kalila and Dimnas pre-Christian identity. The
conversion narrative emphasizes Christian transformation
and the ways it can alter and recuperate individuals, and this
69. Alan of Lille also used the metaphor of striking coins from a
die to refer to Natures act of creation. Scheller, Exemplum, 14.
70. Bedos-Rezak, When Ego Was Imago, 188 for citation; also
142, 18689. For the use of the seal metaphor in conjunction with
baptism, see G. W. H. Lampe, The Seal of the Spirit: A Study in the
Doctrine of Baptism and Confirmation in the New Testament and the
Fathers, 2nd ed. (London: S.P.C.K., 1967).
98 Gestav56n1, Spring 2017
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Figure 12. Burzuya receives an audience with the Queen of Heaven
and is blessed by the Christ child, detail of fol. 22v, translation of
Kalila and Dimna (Liber regius), Raymond de Bziers, ca. 1313,
Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France, MS lat. 8504 (photo:
Bibliothque nationale de France). See the electronic edition of Gesta
for a color version of this image.
focus might also hold for the Kalila and Dimna in lat. 8504:
the material deriving from a non-Christian tradition has been
redeemed by being changed and brought into the Christian
domain.
The Conversion of Raymond de Bziers
The conversion narrative in lat. 8504 affects the readers
response to the narrator, Burzuya: he is now a trusted source.
Burzuyas authentication through Christian conversion also
serves to authorize Raymond de Bziers, who has produced
the moralizing manuscript in which the conversion takes
place. This can best be demonstrated by considering a differ-
ent conversion narrative, composed in Paris at the same time
by the well-known scholar Ramon Llull (12321316).
Llull was a prolific Catalan philosopher and mystic, origi-
nally from Majorca, who had spent decades traveling between
the courts of Europe seeking support for his missionary ac-
tivities.71 Raymond must have known Llull, since Raymonds
71. J. N. Hillgarth, Ramon Lull and Lullism in Fourteenth-
Century France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971); Anthony Bonner,
ed., Selected Works of Ramn Llull (12321316), 2 vols. (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1985); and idem, ed., Doctor Illuminatus:
A Ramn Llull Reader (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
name appears in 1310 as one of the members of the University
of Paris who approved Llulls lectures on the Ars brevis.72 In
addition to other stays in the city, Llull probably lived in Paris
from the fall of 1309 until September 1311, and the work in
question was written toward the end of that sojourn.73
Llulls conversion to penitence (conversio ad poeniten-
tiam) became a well-known section of his autobiography,
the Contemporary Life.74 I highlight here the similarities and
differences between Llulls conversion narrative and that of
Raymonds Burzuya. Llull begins by claiming that before his
conversion he was ignorant and worldly;75 when Burzuya
encounters writings that will heal the defects of his soul, he,
too, begins his interaction with them by interrogating his
soul, asking why it has been so full of defects.76 Both Llull
and Burzuya are granted a series of visions, each more power-
ful than the previous one. Llull saw the Crucifixion for five
nights in a row, larger each time,77 while Burzuya experiences
a series of increasingly intimate visions and encounters with
divinity whose depiction occupies five miniatures. After the
admission of ignorance and the series of visions, both Llull
and Burzuya reject their previous lives and turn toward a new
Christian devotion.
Both conversion narratives were composed at almost the
same time, and we need not assume that Raymonds was
based on Llulls; both may have relied on earlier common
antecedents. Ryan Szpiech remarks that Llull follows mod-
els that place renewed emphasis on conversion as a nar-
72. The document approving the lectures was written on 10 Feb-
ruary 1310. Llulls two main supporters in the University of Paris,
Pierre Lacepierre of Limoges (d. 1306) and Thomas Le Mysier of
Arras (d. 1336), were doctors of medicine at the faculty where Ray-
mond de Bziers was a bachelor of medicine: Hillgarth (Ramon Lull,
118, 155, 158) noted that Llulls followers tended to come from the
faculties of Arts and Medicine in Paris, rather than that of Theology.
The 1310 document was published by Heinrich Denifle and mile
Chatelain, but see comments and corrections in Hillgarth, ibid.;
Denifle and Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol.
2 (Paris: Delalain, 1891), 14041, no. 679; Bonner, Selected Works,
2:789; idem, Doctor Illuminatus, 38n117; and Stones, Gothic Manu-
scripts, 126.
73. Bonner, Doctor Illuminatus, 10, 38n116. See also Hillgarth,
Ramon Lull, 108.
74. For a cogent review and translation of the Contemporary Life
(Vita coaetanea), see Bonner, Doctor Illuminatus, 1044; and see
also Ryan Szpiech, Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious
Authority in Medieval Polemic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl-
vania Press, 2013), 13841. Bruce Hindmarsh provides a useful anal-
ysis of the narrative and autobiography of conversion in Hindmarsh,
Religious Conversion as Narrative and Autobiography, in Rambo
and Farhadian, Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion, 34368.
75. Szpiech, Conversion and Narrative, 13940.
76. Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 41920.
77. Bonner, Selected Works, 1:1315 and notes 4950.
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rated story.78 For both protagonists, earlier ignorance will
later contrast with the position of knowledge occupied by the
postconversion self,79 and in both cases, the visions granted
suggest divine recognition of the individuals worth. In au-
thenticating the authorial voice of the postconversion narra-
tor, the conversions authenticate the value of the stories that
follow.80
In addition to Burzuyas conversion, other features in the
manuscript point to the transformations that Raymond un-
dertook to make the Kalila and Dimna text relevant to the
French court and palatable for French consumption. These
adaptations are all ways of making clear Raymonds author-
ship, and his construction of himself as author is also his cre-
ation of a Christian self who will be valuable at court. Nancy
Freeman Regalado has usefully analyzed lat. 8504 as an au-
thorial construction of the model tutor, in which the man-
uscript itself advertises the authors value as an appropriate
tutor for the princes:
In this manuscript, Raymond stages himself in what we
may call a tutorial performance: first, he portrays him-
self as a teacher to the king . . . ; second, he inserts a tu-
torial programme, a copious number of interpolations
into his translation of Kalila et Dimna; third, he creates
a book design and page layout that spotlight his addi-
tions [in red ink] and his special role as teacher; finally,
he celebrates his illustrious pupils.81
Raymonds other interpolations, discussed above, also con-
tribute to his authorial persona of a learned Christian tutor.
Since the construction of authorial identity is a clear con-
cern in the manuscript, we must also investigate the historical
identity of Raymond of Bziers, or Raimundum de Biterris
physicum, as he calls himself in the manuscript on fol. bv
(Fig. 1).82 Raymond has been described as the otherwise
unknown physician,83 but he is not entirely unknown, given
78. Szpiech, Conversion and Narrative, 138.
79. Following his models, Llulls claim to ignorance forms part
of the construction of his post-conversion identity as the opposite of
his preconversion self. Ibid., 139.
80. With regard to Llull, ibid., 140.
81. Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 106. This argument
also permeates Nancy Freeman Regalado, Le Kalila et Dimna de
Paris, BnF, MS fonds Lat. 8504 (1313): Raymond de Bziers enseigne
la fable orientale aux princes franais, in Uhlig and Foehr-Janssens,
DOrient en Occident, 283308, esp. 287.
82. Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 382.
83. Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 103; and Sharon
Kinoshita, Translatio/n, Empire, and the Worlding of Medieval
Literature: The Travels of Kalila wa Dimna, Postcolonial Studies 11,
no. 4 (2008): 37185, at 371.
The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna 99
that his name appears among the forty Masters and Bachelors
of Arts and Sciences who approved Llulls university lectures.
This confirms that Raymond was a scholar as well as a physi-
cian. He knew Castilian, and it has been suggested that he, or
an ancestor, may have been a Spanish Jewish migr.84 Bziers,
in southern France, encompassed both Spanish and Jewish
communities. In 1306 Philip the Fair had seized the property
of all Jews and expelled them from France.85 Might Raymond
have recently converted to Christianity? No specific evidence
supports this, but the possibility cannot be ruled out.86
Conversion for Survival: Bziers, the Trencavel,
and French Royal Authority
It is also possible that Raymond de Bziers was the scion
of a noble family, and in this section I explore the history
of Bziers, the one point of certainty about the translators
identity that we possess. Any inhabitant of the town would
have been marked by its history of repeated conflicts with the
84. Kinoshita, Translatio/n, Empire, 376. See also Hervieux, Les
fabulistes latins, 530.
85. Simon R. Schwarzfuchs, The Expulsion of the Jews from
France (1306), Jewish Quarterly Review 57 (1967): 48289, at 483;
Isaac Alteras, Jewish Physicians in Southern France during the
13th and 14th Centuries, Jewish Quarterly Review 68, no. 4 (1978):
20923, at 223; and William Chester Jordan, Home Again: The Jews
in the Kingdom of France, 13151322, in The Stranger in Medieval
Society, ed. F. R. P. Akehurst and Stephanie Cain Van dElden (Min-
neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 2745.
86. I have not found in the secondary literature any Jews named
Raymond in the region of Bziers. Converted Jews frequently took
a name that referred to their newly Christian identity, such as Lau-
rentius Paschalis. It is possible, however, that Raymond could
refer to a Jewish convert if the sponsors name were Raymond. For
this suggestion I thank William C. Jordan, oral communication, 16
May 2015. See also William Chester Jordan, The French Monarchy
and the Jews: From Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians (Philadel-
phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 189; Gustave Saige,
De la condition des Juifs du comt de Toulouse avant le XIVe sicle,
Bibliothque de lcole des chartes 39 (1878): 255322; idem, De la
condition des Juifs du comt de Toulouse avant le XIVe sicle: pices
justificatives, Bibliothque de lcole des chartes 40 (1879): 42456;
Alteras, Jewish Physicians; Claudie Duhamel-Amado, Les Juifs
Bziers avant 1209: entre la tolrance et la perscution, in Les Juifs
Montpellier et dans le Languedoc travers lhistoire du Moyen ge
nos jours . . . , ed. Carol Iancu (Montpellier: Centre de Recherches
et dtudes Juives et Hbraques, 1988), 14556, and other essays in
that volume; Ron Barkai, Between East and West: A Jewish Doc-
tor from Spain, in Intercultural Contacts in the Medieval Mediter-
ranean, ed. Benjamin Arbel, special issue, Mediterranean Histori-
cal Review 10, nos. 12 (1995): 4963; Jordan, Home Again; and
Susan L. Einbinder, No Place of Rest: Jewish Literature, Expulsion,
and the Memory of Medieval France (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2009).
100 Gestav56n1, Spring 2017
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French crown. The details of that history are relevant because
they may have motivated both Raymonds great desire to be
accepted at court and the insistent and repeated conversions
that I have adduced in lat. 8504. In particular, I consider the
failing fortunes of a noble family in Bziers whose political
and religious legitimacy was contested by the crown. The his-
tory of Bziers calls us to reassess the devotion to the royal
family expressed in Raymonds dedication, in which he em-
phasizes that he is a native of the said kingdom, and to it
submissive and faithful and calls himself a servant devoted
to the king. Are these words formulaic, heartfelt, or both?
There was a well-known medieval family in which indi-
viduals customarily described themselves as de Bziers and
often named their sons Raymond, and a case can be made
for a connection between this family and the Raymond de
Bziers of lat. 8504. The family is better known to scholars
as the Trencavel.87 In November 1209, a century before our
Raymond finished his translation, Raimond Roger, previ-
ously viscount of Bziers, Carcassonne, Albi, and Razs, died
in a dungeon in Carcassonne.88 He met his death in conjunc-
tion with the Albigensian Crusade, which had been called in
1208 by Pope Innocent III as an immediate response to the
murder of a papal legate but, more broadly, was intended to
eliminate the Cathar heresy in southern France. The crusade
marked the beginning of a decades-long conflict that increas-
ingly took on a political dimension and was led by the French
crown. The Trencavel family and their cousins, the viscounts
of Nmes, are remarkable because they were the only mem-
bers of the higher nobility to be destroyed by the Crusade.89
Regarding the familys onomastic practices,
the name which most expressed their identity was
not their nickname [Trencavel] but the toponym of
Bziers. . . . [T]he name continued in use long after
Bziers had been lost to the French Crown: in 1263,
Roger, son of Raimond Trencavel, participated in his
fathers charter under the name Roger of Bziers. In
contrast to their identification by others as the Trencavel
family, the Trencavel identified themselves principally
through the Bziers toponym, creating a family identity
which persisted when their rule of the town was only a
memory.90
87. Elaine Graham-Leigh, The Southern French Nobility and the
Albigensian Crusade (Rochester, NY: Boydell, 2005), 1 and passim.
See also Helene Debax and Laurent Mace, Deux sceaux inedits
des Trencavel (1185 et 1202), Annales du Midi 116, no. 247 (2004):
37791.
88. Graham-Leigh, Southern French Nobility, 1.
89. Ibid., 9.
90. Ibid., 14546.
The effects of the Albigensian Crusade on the Trencavel fam-
ily were catastrophic. The family lands passed in their entirety
to the French king with the treaty of 1229, and the head of the
family, Raimond Trencavel, finally surrendered to the crown
in 1247.91 In 1263 Raimond left behind his two sons, Roger
and Raimond Roger, and went on crusade to the Holy Land,
perhaps imposed by King Louis IX as a condition after his
surrender.92 His son Roger de Bziers also went on crusade in
1269.93 The second son, Raimond Roger, apparently remained
in the region of Bziers, and if he reached maturity about
1270 he was of appropriate age to have a son reach his own
maturity in about 1300and that son might very well have
been named Raymond de Bziers.
As with the Jewish hypothesis, there is nothing to prove
that the author of lat. 8504 was a Trencavel. Nevertheless, the
fate of that family, which embroiled the region and the town
of Bziers in turmoil for decades, must have been known to
him. When the Trencavel stood in opposition to the Cath
olic Church and the French crown, they were crushed, forced
to go crawling back to the king, and finally attempting to
revive their flagging fortunes by joining Louis IX on cru-
sade. The lodestars of religious orthodoxy and loyalty to the
French crown would surely be impressed on the author of our
manuscript, a man named Raymond from Bziers. He must
have learned that without these two guiding principles, ones
fate was dark. Raymonds decision to leave home for Paris,
although he was aligena, a stranger there, and far from the
realm of his native tongue (Occitan rather than French was
spoken in Bziers), now seems more clear: loyalty to the
crown and the orthodox faith provided the only paths to per-
sonal success.
The Cathar heresy was not the only religious movement in
Bziers kept under harsh control by the French king. In 1278,
when Raymond of Bziers was presumably still resident there,
the local bishop had built or authorized a new synagogue that
was razed by the king at the bishops expense.94 Nor was the
notion of heresy firmly in the past by the year 1300. In the
early 1300s Philip the Fair visited Languedoc to check the ex-
cesses of the Inquisition, but the plot later discovered there
caused him to redouble his efforts.
Moral or religious purity was closely tied to political
loyalty. When . . . it was discovered that there was a plot
in the heartland of the old Cathar heresy to withdraw
91. Ibid., 167.
92. Ibid.; and Claude de Vic and Joseph Vaisste, eds., Histoire
gnrale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pices justificatives (Tou-
louse: Paya, 1843), 6:70.
93. De Vic and Vaisste, Histoire gnrale de Languedoc, 6:70.
94. Jordan, French Monarchy and the Jews, 150.
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obedience from Philip and seek the protection of the
king of Majorca, the enraged northerner moved swiftly
to execute the plotters and redoubled his commitment
to the Inquisition.95
Philip, a king in a holy dynasty (Louis IX had been canonized
in 1297), acted as if it were his duty to create a kingdom mir-
roring that of God, in which the entire populace was perfect
in its religion and its devotion to the anointed ruler.96 His ef-
forts to enforce spiritual purity and political loyalty in Bziers
must have been clearly manifest. Many different kinds of peo-
ple in Bziers, from Jews to bishops, and including the for-
mer vicontiel family of Trencavel and all those who knew of
their fate, may have felt insecure about their religious identity
and their relationship to their king. This sense of historical
insecurity in the face of religious orthodoxy and royal power
stands in stark contrast to the insistence on both elements
in lat. 8504. Those very insecurities could lie at the root of
Raymonds staunch affirmations of the importance of the
Catholic faith and the French monarch, inserted repeatedly
in the manuscript.
Raymond de Bziers in Paris
One more topic that bears on the historical person of
Raymond de Bziers is the nature of his acquaintance with
the royal court, in particular with Queen Jeanne de Navarre
and Pierre de Latilly, the chancellor who offered to present
Raymonds manuscript after Pentecost 1313. How did it come
about that a physician from Bziers, without apparent con-
nections in Paris, was asked by the queen of France to com-
plete a translation? Perhaps there was some initial contact
between Raymond and Jeanne and/or Pierre de Latilly in the
south of France, in which case the religious and political un-
certainties of the region could have been in the background
from the beginning. Alternatively, Raymonds access to the
court in Paris might have been facilitated by Ramon Llull,
whose own scholarly works were consistently motivated by
his desire to convert non-Christians. Either of these types of
contact would have underscored the need for Raymond to
express his own orthodox religiosity, especially when faced
with translating a work written in a foreign language that had
come from outside France.
95. Ibid., 200.
96. Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The Kings Two Bodies: A Study in
Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1957), 24958; Joseph R. Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair (Prince
ton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 26279; Brown, Prince Is
Father of the King, 28889; and Jordan, French Monarchy and the
Jews, 200.
The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna 101
 Jeanne had accompanied her husband on his tour of the
Midi in the winter of 13034, and she showed independence
in . . . accepting gifts from the citizens of Bziers, whose or-
thodoxy and loyalty were suspect.97 The king and queen and
their children stayed in Bziers from 7 to 13 February 1304.98
Jeanne was sympathetic to Bernard Dlicieux, the Franciscan
who had led a revolt of southerners against the king in 1304,
and both before and after her death she was praised by south-
erners for having truly brought succor to the people of the
Midi.99 Jeannes sympathies and movements suggest that she
might well have befriended a promising scholar from that
troubled town, Bziers. Similarly, Pierre de Latilly visited
Languedoc frequently. In 1297 he organized the tax collection
there, and in 1301 he supervised the seizing of goods from the
Jewish population.100 In 1303 he went to Carcassonne, ninety
kilometers from Bziers, to transact business for the king.101
Thus, it is possible that both Jeanne and Pierre first encoun-
tered Raymond in the south of France and that the contact
was renewed later in Paris.
A further bond between Raymond and Jeanne was Ramon
Llull, who had links to both individuals. Llull presented
Jeanne with a French translation of his Arbre de filosofia
damor in 1298,102 and we have already noted that Raymond
de Bziers supported Ramons lectures at the University of
Paris. Raymonds connection to Jeanne in Paris could well
have been initiated or strengthened by such a scholarly mu-
tual acquaintance. Llull had personal audiences with Philip
the Fair; he bore letters of approval signed by Philip; and his
knowledge of the Parisian court must have been greater than
97. Elizabeth A. R. Brown, Jeanne of Navarre (12731305), in
Key Figures in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia, ed. Richard K.
Emmerson and Sandra Clayton-Emmerson (New York: Routledge,
2006), 36970. See also B. Haurau, Bernard Dlicieux et linquisition
albigeoise, 13001320 (Paris: Hachette, 1877), 9596; and Brown,
Prince Is Father of the King, 3056.
98. Elisabeth Lalou, Itinraire de Philippe IV le Bel, 12851314
(Paris: Acadmie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 2007), 2:236.
99. Alan Friedlander, The Hammer of the Inquisitors: Brother Ber-
nard Dlicieux and the Struggle against the Inquisition in Fourteenth-
Century France (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 101. See also Brown, Prince
Is Father of the King, 305; Alan Friedlander, Processus Bernardi
Delitiosi: The Trial of Fr. Bernard Dlicieux, 3 September8 Decem-
ber 1319 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1996); and
Rina Lahav, A Mirror of Queenship: The Speculum dominarum and
the Demands of Justice, in Virtue Ethics for Women, 12501500,
ed. Karen Green and Constant J. Mews (New York: Springer, 2011),
3144, at 33.
100. Jean Favier, Philippe le Bel (Paris: Fayard, 1978), 26.
101. M. Pcheur, Notice sur Pierre de Latilly, chancelier de
France et vque de Chlons, Bulletin de la Socit archologique his-
torique et scientifique de Soissons, 2nd ser., 1 (1867): 21829, at 220.
102. Hillgarth, Ramon Lull, 108n254, 164.
102 Gestav56n1, Spring 2017
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Raymonds.103 The native languages of Raymond and Ramon,
Occitan and Catalan, were spoken in adjacent regions and
were linguistically close; if the two men had spoken with each
other (after Ramons Ars brevis lecture, for instance), they
may have felt some sense of shared identity.
Whether Raymond met his patrons in the unstable Midi or
in Paris, both the history of Bziers and the presence at court
of such individuals as Llull could have reinforced in his mind
the themes of heresy and conversion. This may have suggested
to Raymond that stories translated from a foreign language by
a stranger in Paris might have greater success if their for-
eignness appeared in the familiar outlines of a Christian text
with a Christian narrator, and that this gesture of conversion
might be a powerful form of flattery to the texts royal recipi-
ent. The construction of the conversion sequence provides
authority not only to the voice of Burzuya, the narrator, but
also to the voice of Raymond, the translator. That authority is
specifically Christian and, as such, represents the third and
final form of conversion in lat. 8504. The reason behind the
insistent Christianization may lie in the history of the town of
Bziers and the Trencavel family. Raymond might have been
a descendant, as his name suggests, but even if he was not, any
man from Bziers would have been familiar with the fate of
those who had contested royal and religious authority.
A learned inhabitant of Bziers would be sensitized to
nuances in images and textsnuances that could be used to
suggest heresy or orthodoxy, allegiance or disloyalty. In the
eyes of that learned citizen, features like the illuminated X of
Christianissimo on fol. 1v and its formal connection to the
X formed by Philips leg and stool would be clearly apparent
(Fig. 5), as would the conversion of Burzuya over numerous
folios (fols. 13r22v, Figs. 612). Lat. 8504s visual and textual
ties to Christian orthodoxy and loyal fealty would stand out
clearly to a man like Raymond de Bziers and to the intended
recipients of the book.
Jackals and Foxes
Before concluding, it is fitting to address the animal actors
in lat. 8504, the content that made the stories worth translat-
ing in the first place. The manuscript does not explain why
the queen was so interested in the fables as to commission
a translation, but I propose that in early fourteenth-century
Paris, both at court and among the bourgeoisie, people and
103. Llull visited Paris four times, and three of those four visits
were lengthy; he was in the city 128789, 129799, 1306, and 1309
11. During his last visit, Llull presented seven of the thirty works
he wrote to Philip; indeed, one of them was written in or near the
palace of Vincennes in October 1310. Hillgarth, Ramon Lull, 47, 108,
11819; and Bonner, Doctor Illuminatus, 23n66, 32n92.
politics were often understood in terms of animals. Animal
tales provided a way to categorize and analyze human behav-
ior, and they were also used as political satire. The festival at
Pentecost in 1313 was quite notable in this respect: alongside
tableaux vivants from Christian scripture appeared popular
and satirical scenes from the life of Renart the fox.104 The royal
minister Enguerran de Marigny, on his downfall in 1315, was
called a Renart,105 and Bernard Saisset, an Occitan bishop,
compared King Philip IV to an owl, an animal of majestic
appearance but vacuous mind.106 Bernard Dlicieux echoed
Saissets description and also called the king a pig who, in al-
ways wanting to be near his wife, wallowing in the pleasures
of the flesh, was therefore timid and ineffective.107 The queens
interest in these animal tales likely derived from this more
general tendency to anthropomorphize animals and zoomor-
phize people.
Features of both image and text in lat. 8504 mesh neatly
with traditions about animals, particularly foxes, that were
well established by the fourteenth century and that help us
understand Jeannes interest in the project. We cannot be cer-
tain that Raymond designed his manuscript with these popu-
lar traditions in mind, but many of the manuscripts readers
surely would have recognized them. Significantly, Raymond
often (but not always) renders loups-cerviers or lobo cerval,
terms used in the Spanish version to refer to the jackals Kalila
and Dimna, as uulpis, fox.108 To the reader of lat. 8504, the
animal protagonists are no longer jackals but are, at least fre-
quently, foxes, and foxes were well known as clever creatures
and often tricksters. The most famous fox in Paris in 1313
was Renart. Interestingly, Raymonds translation is not the
only one that links Dimna and Renart on the textual level. A
twelfth-century Hebrew translation of Kalila wa Dimna by a
Rabbi Joel already referred to one of the animals as a fox, and
John of Capuas translation of the 1270s followed this.109 Kalila
and Dimna is thought to have informed early branches of the
Roman de Renart.110
104. Brown and Regalado, La grant feste, 67, 6970, and ta
ble 3.2; and Nancy Freeman Regalado, Staging the Roman de
Renart: Medieval Theater and the Diffusion of Political Concerns in
Popular Culture, Mediaevalia 18 (1995): 11142.
105. Brown and Regalado, La grant feste, 70; and Regalado,
Staging the Roman de Renart, 132.
106. Friedlander, Hammer of the Inquisitors, 98.
107. Ibid., 99; and Brown, Prince Is Father of the King, 287.
108. Paris, Raymond de Bziers, 221; and Taylor, Raimundus
de Biterriss Liber Kalile et Dimne, 187. At other times Raymond
uses lupus (wolf); Regalado, Kalila et Dimna, liber regius, 107.
109. Paris, Raymond de Bziers, 221.
110. Jean Batany, La cour du lion, autour du Pantchatantra et
du Jugement de Renart, Marche romane 28 (1978): 1725, at 2124;
and Amer, Esope au fminin, 20.
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Llull included a chapter titled Book of the Beasts in his
Book of Wonders (probably completed 128789) that offered
an adaptation of Kalila and Dimna with some references to
the Roman de Renart; it follows the adventures not of a jackal
named Dimna but a fox named Na Renard.111 Llull concludes:
Here ends the Book of the Beasts, which Felix brought to
a king so that he might learn, from the things done by the
beasts, how a king should reign, and how to keep himself from
evil counsel and from treacherous men. Largely because of
the time and place of the manuscripts completion, scholars
agree that the king in question must be Philip IV the Fair.112
Llulls Book of the Beasts, then, provides an early prototype
of a manuscript in many ways similar to Raymonds: both use
the tales of Kalila and Dimna as their main material, adding
some reference to the popular French tradition of Renart, and
both manuscripts are intended as political treatises to guide
the French king and his heirs. One wonders whether Llull and
Raymond might ever have spoken of their common transla-
tion efforts. The repeated connection between foxes, particu-
larly the cunning Renart, and the jackals of Kalila and Dimna
suggests a cross-cultural topos that remained meaningful.
Certain miniatures in lat. 8504 recall scenes not only from
the Roman de Renart but also from bestiaries.113 For instance,
after Dimna has been imprisoned, Kalila dies of grief, as seen
in the miniature on fol. 52r (Fig. 13). Kalilas corpse takes the
form of a bushy-tailed fox playing dead, its paws in the air.
This was the characteristic pose of a fox in a bestiary, for foxes
were thought to feign death so when birds perched on their
bodies, they could open their jaws and devour the birds. This
devious means of catching prey was considered typical of the
cunning fox and is shown in a northern French bestiary of the
third quarter of the thirteenth century (Fig. 14). The fox has
the same pose and tail as the dead Kalila in lat. 8504.114
The presence of foxes in the text and visual tropes com-
monly associated with foxes in the miniatures could have sug-
gested to French viewers links not only to the bestiary but
111. Edward J. Neugaard, The Sources of the Folk Tales in
Ramon Llulls Llibre de les bsties, Journal of American Folklore 84,
no. 333 (1971): 33337; Batany, La cour du lion, 23; Bonner, Doc-
tor Illuminatus, 242n247, 254n213; and Anthony Bonner and Lola
Badia, Llull, Ramon, in Emmerson and Emmerson, Key Figures in
Medieval Europe, 40912.
112. Bonner, Doctor Illuminatus, 242.
113. As noted briefly by Stones, Gothic Manuscripts, 128.
114. Willene B. Clark, The Aviary-Bestiary at the Houghton
Library, Harvard, in Beasts and Birds of the Middle Ages: The Besti-
ary and Its Legacy, ed. Willene B. Clark and Meradith T. McMunn
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 2652; and
Willene B. Clark, ed. and trans., The Medieval Book of Birds: Hugh of
Fouilloys Aviarum (Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts
& Studies, 1992).
The Conversion of Kalila and Dimna 103
Figure 13. Kalila dies and Dimna is in prison, detail of fol. 52r,
translation of Kalila and Dimna (Liber regius), Raymond de Bziers,
ca. 1313, Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France, MS lat. 8504
(photo: Bibliothque nationale de France). See the electronic edition
of Gesta for a color version of this image.
also to the Renart traditions. If the former is scientific and
the latter political and popular, both were deeply informed
by Christian theology. Raymonds work translated the Kalila
and Dimna stories into a new realm of meaning in which its
animal actors generate new echoes and resonances with more
familiar animals known from street plays and learned bestiar-
ies. Perhaps it is not too much to see in this transformation of
Kalila and Dimna yet another conversion. For they, too, have
been brought into the thought world of the French court: they
have been introduced to confession, to sin, to the converted
Burzuya, to the Christian matrix, and to God as its ruler; they
are foxes now, no longer jackals. They nose around the French
court, sniffing out its trickery and its moral quandaries.
Conclusion
The changes that Raymond de Bziers made to his source
material resulted in a story quite different from the Castilian
Kalila and Dimna. Raymond reoriented the focus from secu-
lar knowledge and kingship to spiritual truth. The narrative
is no longer about the exploration of foreign lands; it is now
about the exploration and acceptance of Christianity. The ad-
dition of the prefatory pages provided a new outermost frame
story, echoing in its structure the king, court, and the liter-
ary physician of the original Persian frametale, but now set
at the court of the most Christian king Philip the Fair. The
104 Gestav56n1, Spring 2017
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Figure 14. A fox playing dead, fol. 110r, bestiary, made in northern
France, ca. 125075, Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France,
MS lat. 14429 (photo: Bibliothque nationale de France). See the
electronic edition of Gesta for a color version of this image.
miniatures show the conversion of a significant character in
the source, the Persian narrator Burzuya, as a lengthy and
personal process that begins with an encounter with a text,
expands through increased knowledge of the divine, and cul-
minates in an intimate moment with the Virgin and Child.
The conversion of Burzuya also provides Christian author-
ity for the author Raymond de Bziers. A Christian narrator
can be trusted, and an author who provides such a trustwor-
thy narrator can also be trusted. Yet the authors place of birth,
Bziers, had a history of religious and political conflict with
the crown that affected the local bishop, the nobility, and the
townspeople. I have argued that the authors experience of
that conflicted history may lie at the root of his repeated em-
phasis on Christian conversion, orthodox faith, and loyalty
to the French crown, which appear so insistently and on so
many levels in lat. 8504. The charismatic animal characters
remain the books ostensible raison dtre, but they appear in
somewhat altered form. One could imagine, in a perfectly
harmonious world, individuals from many lands and reli-
gious backgrounds debating the human truths revealed in
animal stories. These tales often focus on the interaction be-
tween self and community, and they generate questions about
appropriate action and the moral self. But medieval France
was not that harmonious world, and in order for Kalila and
Dimna to be accepted, it was necessary for the tales, like their
narrator, Burzuya, to undergo a conversion.