Nicholas Bozon (fl.c. 1320), orNicole Bozon, was anAnglo-Norman writer andFranciscanfriar who spent most of his life in theEast Midlands andEast Anglia. He was a prolific author in prose and verse, and composed a number of hagiographies of women saints, reworkings of fables, and allegories.
What we know of Bozon is what can be inferred from his work.[1] He may have belonged to the Bozon family ofWhissonsett,Norfolk, or to the Bozon family from Screveton.[2] He may have studied atOxford University. He was, by his own admission,del ordre de freres menours ("of the order of the Friars Minor"),[3] and probably associated with theNottingham friary, since he refers in his own writings to theTrent andDerwent rivers, and linguistic evidence from the occasional English proverb or word also points to that area.[4] In the allegorical poem "Char d'orgueil" he specifically calls himselfordeynours, probably indicating the privilege of grantingabsolution, a privilege (normally reserved for bishops) that had been granted to the Franciscan friars of Nottingham; Bozon's use of the term indicates "a friar who had full authority to hear confession and administer absolution".[5]
Most of Bozon's literary works can be classified asallegories,Marian poems,saints' lives, andsermons. He wrote both in prose and in verse,[6] and it has been noted that his prose fables contain what was called the "débris of French verses", leading some editors to print the material in verse.[7] His allegories include theChar d'orgueil ("where the individual parts of the car are made to represent different aspects of the sin of pride"[8]), and thePassion, asoteriological allegory, in which Christ, a knightin love and dressed in thecoat-of-arms ofAdam, his squire, fightsBelial to save his lover, Humanity. He also wrote asatire of corruption, thePlainte d'amour, perhaps inspired by thepapal bullExivi de paradiso (1312). His most famous work, the aptly titledContes moralisés ("Moralising Tales"), probably composed sometime after 1320, is a collection ofexempla, probably for use in sermons. It includesfables, contemporaryanecdotes, and facts taken frombestiaries. The tales have been much appreciated for their worldly curiosity and "down-to-earth attitude". Though Nicholas wrote in Anglo-Norman, he occasionally finished his fables with a proverb inMiddle English,[9] such as his version of the fox who attempts to catch an animal by making it believe the reflection of the moon in a well is a cheese.[10] He also used some English words (e.g. "wapentak").[11]
What is now called his "Gospel Poem", already edited byPaul Meyer from the Rawlinson Poetry MS 241 and then calledLe Evangel translaté de latin en frranceys, was identified as Bozon's definitively by Sister M. Amelia Klenke in a 1951 article and then published, with six hagiographies of women saints by Bozon (based on theGolden Legend), asSeven More Poems by Nicholas Bozon. The text she used was BL Cotton Domitian xi. Five other manuscripts contain the poem, andWilliam of Waddington cited it extensively in hisManuel des peches.[12] Domitian xi contains hagiographies by Bozon on the following women:Saint Lucy,Mary Magdalene,Saint Margaret,Saint Martha,Elizabeth of Hungary,Saint Christina,Juliana of Nicomedia,Saint Agnes, andSaint Agatha.[13]
The poemDe bone femme la bounté is now usually ascribed to Bozon, but not definitively; it was previously ascribed toWalter of Bibbesworth.[14]
Modern knowledge of Bozon is due toPaul Meyer,[15] who published an important article on him inRomania in 1884, and subsequently edited and published a number of his texts.[16]
