Country of Feast

Origin

In its book the hunger and abundance , Massimo Montanari locates the birth of the myth of Feast between 12th and the 14th century. One would find one of the oldest references in the Carmina Burana, these songs of rebellious and défroqués wandering clerks who celebrated the wine, the free love, the play and the vice (the Goliards). A character is presented to it in the form of an abbot of Feast: “ Ego sum abbas cucaniensis ”. In 1250 approximately, a text as former French entitled the Fabliau of Coquaigne describes this country of continual festivals, of the luxury and of idleness, where more one sleeps and more one gains.

Feast comes according to the ones from the canton from Cuccagna in Italy, on the road of Rome to Loreto; according to others, of the poet Macaronique Teofilo Folengo, called Merlin Coccaie , which in its worms would have described this delicious country; or finally of an instituted festival with Naples under a similar name, in which one distributed to the people of edible and the wine.

Etymology

The country of abundance had the same name or almost in much of European languages, as in English “the Land off Cockaigne”, or “Cokaygne”, in Italian “Cuccagna”. The Flemings called sometimes it “Het Luilekkerland” (“Country of the soft delicacies”), sometimes “Kokanje”, but also “Cockaengen”.

The etymology of the name was very discussed:

In the Netherlands, one said that it came from that of the town of Kockengen in the province of Utrecht, or of the expression “het Land van of honingkoeken”: “country of the honeycombs”.
the English word “cockaigne” would be attested as of worms approximately 1305, resulting from former French “coquaigne”. Itself is of obscure origin: does it come from words inherited Latin “coquere”, “to cook” (for example English “to cook”) or then of other Germanic words indicating the cakes, like English “cake”, the “couque” Walloon, etc?
But the “hulls” or “coquaignes” indicate also bread rolls of Pastel manufactured in the top Languedoc for the blue Teinture of which they are the last data processing run, and who made the fortune of this country.

A pictorial representation: Country of Feast of Pieter Bruegel Old the

In 1567, perhaps while at the same time Brussels was already put at fire and with blood by the pile cluster and its 60.000 soldiers, come in the name of Philippe II from Spain to persecute the heretic anabaptist, the protesting Lutheran or calvinist and to subdue the Révolte of Gueux, Pieter Bruegel took refuge in the painting of its Country of Feast.

The table shows three characters deadened or drowsing, repus, under a tree which carries a covered table of mets. A clerk, a knight and a peasant represent there the three orders medieval company: the Clergy, the Nobility of weapon and the farming community, all three here equal in the beanfeast and opulent quietude.

The land borders of the Country of Feast are made mountains of face or frost. Once arrived in this region iaque Paradise, one can expect that the ruails all fall to us roast into the gosier, like do it the soldier located on the left of the table, stop large open, and nevertheless protected by a tart roof covered. One sees there geese which come to throw all cooked on the dishes, of the pigs which run towards us larded of a knife and formed cacti of wafers, boiled eggs which run…

Here the soldiers deposited their weapons, the farmers their plague, the students lie down on their books, for a perpetual trève under the auspices of a generous nature. The country of Feast can be seen like an expression of the aspiration to universal prosperity, peace and the equality, a terrestrial Paradis, a Utopie.

Country of Feast in Music

Edward Elgar wrote in 1901 an opening in concert, Cockaigne describing a idealized London place.

See too

Abundance
Set of themes of the Golden age

Random links: