Gautier the Satirist

Paronomasia, rhetorical wordplay, is an almost ubiquitous feature of the Miracles which is most forcefully employed as part of the invective which animates Gautier's satirical digressions, themselves a conspicuous part of his treatment of the miracles associated with Ildefonsus of Toledo (1 Mir 11). Gautier's personal attachment to learning is naturally reflected in this figure, whose master was Isidore of Seville and who is described as ‘mireours et essamplaires / ... de toz biens’ (702f) – he gave away all his wealth! It is two of his personal attributes which produce striking excursus by Gautier. The first, an attack on the Jews (209–476; ‘Ci parole des Gïus’ in some manuscripts), is occasioned by Ildefonsus's own opposition to them (‘Mout les haï et je si fas’, 209; ‘Mout les haï Hyldefonsus’, 461) and begins with a passage on their misunderstanding of Scripture, exploiting as an exegetical metaphor the familiar images of the kernel (noiel) and shell (escorce, escaille) of a nut, to which are added the crust (croste) and inner part (mie) of a loaf of bread, incorporated as rimes équivoques (approximate in the case of 225–6):

The insistence with which Gautier criticizes the Jews is expressed through traductio on dur and annominatio on derivatives of sac, sachier and savoir to describe their inevitable fate:

Trop durement leur durtez dure: