Medieval Mummery

Medieval Mummery THE FOOL OF VENUS--George Cronyn --Covici, Friede ($3). Of the ten long years that went to the making of The Fool of Venus, eight were spent on research and the other two were wasted. In spite of all the pomp and panoply of a conscientiously historical novel, this lengthy (438 pp.) tale of a 12th Century troubadour rarely makes sense as a story about human beings. By dint of piling on medieval facts and such medieval words as bliaut, destrier, devinalh, joc-partitz, tenson, Author Cronyn has built a massive keep whose outlines are impressive but inside are only senseless shadows. Peire Vidal, famed troubadour who actually lived until Author Cronyn began to put him down on paper, was the cast-off son of a furrier in Toulouse. Awkward and ugly, but with the gift of song, he soon made a name for himself. From court to castle he went his amorous and lyric way, wooing his hostesses with varying success. Once, on his way to serenade a lady, and clad only in a wolfskin, a pack of clogs nearly finished his career. Once a jealous husband had his tongue slit. Though he started on two crusades and did his share of fighting against his fellow-Christians, he never got farther than Cyprus. There he brought off his most dangerous coup by eloping with the Princess Xene, captive of Richard Coeur de Lion. Xene was the daughter of a deposed Emperor of New Rome (Constantinople), so the son she bore Peire Vidal was a claimant to the throne. In New Rome disaster finally overtook Troubadour Vidal. In the sack of the city by the Crusaders (1204) his wife and son were killed and he lost his reason. Years later, when he was about to be put to death as a heretic, in spite of his madness, one of his oldest flames rescued him, took him home to die.

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