From 1919 to 1924, a small troupe of women toured America and Europe, enthralling audiences with their performances of medieval theater and song (Fig. 1). Spectators described them as an illuminated manuscript brought to life: “enchanting,” “naïve,” and resurrecting “these Middle Ages whose productivity we have so unjustly neglected.” The program featured Guibour ou La femme que Nostre-Dame garda d'estre arse, from the fourteenth-century Miracles de Nostre- Dame par personnages, followed by a selection of songs by composers such as Thibaut de Champagne, Adam de la Halle, and Guillaume de Machaut, or by chansons de toile, estampies, drinking songs, and liturgical chants in Latin. Sometimes, the medieval repertory was juxtaposed with more modern music to illustrate the development of French lyric through the ages, a process that awakened audiences to the “strange modernity” of medieval literature.

These were, in fact, student performances directed by Yvette Guilbert (1865– 1944), and they reflected her idiosyncratic theories about staged interpretation, which anticipated by nearly a century today's performance-based studies of medieval works. Fascinated by early drama and song, Guilbert dedicated her life to making them accessible: “Pour toucher le grand public, il n'y a que le théâtre” (Only theater can reach the masses). This essay argues that although her contributions have been forgotten today, Guilbert brought “old France” to life through performance, making her mark as one of the most effective popularizers of medieval literature in early twentieth-century America and France.