Founding Feminisms in Medieval Studies: Essays in Honor of E. Jane Burns [Illustrated] 1843844273, 9781843844273

Table of contents :
Frontcover
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Work of E. Jane Burns and the Feminisms of Medieval
Studies
E. Jane Burns: A Bibliography
Part I: Debating Gender
Natural and Unnatural Woman: Melusine Inside and Out
Nurturing Debate in Le Roman de Silence
The Man Backing Down from the Lady in Trobairitz Tensos
Having Fun with Women: Why a Feminist Teaches Fabliaux
Part II: Sartorial Bodies
Hats and Veils: There’s No Such Thing as Freedom of Choice, And It’s a
Good Thing Too
When the Knight Undresses, his Clothing Speaks: Vestimentary
Allegories in the Works of Baudouin de Condé (c. 1240–1280)
John/Eleanor Rykener Revisited
Part III: Mapping Margins
Women’s Healing: From Binaries to a Nexus
Silk in the Age of Marco Polo
Another Land’s End of Literature: Honorat Bovet and the Timbuktu
Effect
Part IV: Female Authority: Networks and Influence
Anne de Bretagne and Anne de France: French Female Networks at the
Dawn of the Renaissance
Staging Female Authority in Chantilly MS 522: Marguerite de
Navarre’s La Coche
Babies and Books: The Holy Kinship as a Way of Thinking About
Women’s Power in Late Medieval Northern Europe
Page Layout and Reading Practices in Christine de Pisan’s Epistre
Othea: Reading with the Ladies in London, BL, MS Harley 4431
Afterword: A Response to the Volume
Feminism and Medieval Studies: Where Have We Been, Where
Are We Now, and Where Are We Going? Or, What Has Happened
to Women in Feminist Studies of the Middle Ages?
Index
Tabula Gratulatoria

Citation preview

FoundingFeminisms_Romance 26/11/2015 14:16 Page 1

COntriButOrS: Cynthia J. Brown, matilda tomaryn Bruckner, Kristin L. Burr, madeline H. Caviness, Laine E. Doggett, Sarah-grace Heller, ruth mazo Karras, roberta L. Krueger, Sharon Kinoshita, tom Linkinen, Daniel E. O’Sullivan, Lisa Perfetti, ann marie rasmussen, nancy Freeman regalado, Elizabeth robertson, Helen Solterer

an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com

FOunDing FEminiSmS in mEDiEvaL StuDiES Essays in Honor of E.Jane Burns

Edited by

Laine E. Doggett and Daniel E. O’Sullivan

Doggett, O’Sullivan (eds)

LainE E. DOggEtt is associate Professor of French at St. mary’s College of maryland, St. mary’s City; DaniEL E. O’SuLLivan is Professor of French at the university of mississippi.

FOunDing FEminiSmS in mEDiEvaL StuDiES

Feminist discourses have called into question axiomatic world views and shown how gender and sexuality inevitably shape our perceptions, both historically and in the present moment. Founding Feminisms in Medieval Studies advances that critical endeavour with new questions and insights relating to gender and queer studies, sexualities, the subaltern, margins, and blurred boundaries. the volume’s contributions, from French literary studies as well as german, English, history and art history, evince a variety of modes of feminist analysis, primarily in medieval studies but with extensions into early modernism. Several interrogate the ethics of feminist hermeneutics, the function of women characters in various literary genres, and so-called ‘natural’ binaries – sex/gender, male/female, East/West, etc. – that undergird our vision of the world. Others investigate learned women and notions of female readership, authorship, and patronage in the production and reception of texts and manuscripts. Still others look at bodies – male, female, neither, and both – and how clothes cover and socially encode them. Founding Feminisms in Medieval Studies is a tribute to E. Jane Burns, whose important work has proven foundational to late twentieth- and early twenty-firstcentury Old French feminist studies. through her scholarship, teaching, and leadership in co-founding the Society for medieval Feminist Scholarship, Burns has inspired a new generation of feminist scholars.

Gallica

Gallica Volume 39

FOUNDING FEMINISMS IN MEDIEVAL STUDIES

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 1

04/01/2016 10:07

Gallica ISSN 1749-­091X General Editor: Sarah Kay

Gallica aims to provide a forum for the best current work in medieval and Renaissance French studies. Literary studies are particularly welcome and preference is given to works written in English, although publication in French is not excluded. Proposals or queries should be sent in the first instance to the editor, or to the publisher, at the addresses given below; all submissions receive prompt and informed consideration. Professor Sarah Kay, Department of French, New York University, 13-­19 University Place, 6th floor, New York, NY 10003, USA The Editorial Director, Gallica, Boydell & Brewer Ltd., PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK

Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the end of this volume.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 2

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 3

04/01/2016 10:07

E. Jane Burns, courtesy of Ned Burns

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 4

04/01/2016 10:07

FOUNDING FEMINISMS IN MEDIEVAL STUDIES ESSAYS IN HONOR OF E. JANE BURNS

Edited by LAINE E. DOGGETT AND DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

D. S. BREWER

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 5

04/01/2016 10:07

© Contributors 2016 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner First published 2016 D. S. Brewer, Cambridge ISBN 978-­1-­84384-­427-­3 D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view these images please refer to the printed version of the book.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-­party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate This publication is printed on acid-­free paper

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 6

20/01/2016 17:03

CONTENTS List of Illustrations

ix

List of Contributors

xiii

Acknowledgementsxv Introduction: The Work of E. Jane Burns and the Feminisms of Medieval Studies1 Laine E. Doggett and Daniel E. O’Sullivan

E. Jane Burns: A Bibliography

15

Part I: Debating Gender Natural and Unnatural Woman: Melusine Inside and Out

21

Nurturing Debate in Le Roman de Silence

33

The Man Backing Down from the Lady in Trobairitz Tensos

45

Having Fun with Women: Why a Feminist Teaches Fabliaux

61

Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner Kristin L. Burr

Daniel E. O’Sullivan Lisa Perfetti

Part II: Sartorial Bodies Hats and Veils: There’s No Such Thing as Freedom of Choice, And It’s a Good Thing Too

73

When the Knight Undresses, his Clothing Speaks: Vestimentary Allegories in the Works of Baudouin de Condé (c. 1240–1280)

97

Madeline H. Caviness

Sarah-­Grace Heller

John/Eleanor Rykener Revisited

Ruth Mazo Karras and Tom Linkinen

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 7

111

20/01/2016 17:03

viii

CONTENTS

Part III: Mapping Margins Women’s Healing: From Binaries to a Nexus

125

Silk in the Age of Marco Polo

141

Laine E. Doggett

Sharon Kinoshita

Another Land’s End of Literature: Honorat Bovet and the Timbuktu Effect153 Helen Solterer

Part IV: Female Authority: Networks and Influence Anne de Bretagne and Anne de France: French Female Networks at the Dawn of the Renaissance

171

Staging Female Authority in Chantilly MS 522: Marguerite de Navarre’s La Coche

187

Babies and Books: The Holy Kinship as a Way of Thinking About Women’s Power in Late Medieval Northern Europe

205

Page Layout and Reading Practices in Christine de Pisan’s Epistre Othea: Reading with the Ladies in London, BL, MS Harley 4431

219

Cynthia J. Brown

Roberta L. Krueger

Ann Marie Rasmussen

Nancy Freeman Regalado

Afterword: A Response to the Volume Feminism and Medieval Studies: Where Have We Been, Where Are We Now, and Where Are We Going? Or, What Has Happened to Women in Feminist Studies of the Middle Ages? Elizabeth Robertson

237

Index247 Tabula Gratulatoria

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 8

255

20/01/2016 17:03

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view these images please refer to the printed version of the book.

ILLUSTRATIONS Madeline H. Caviness, “Hats and Veils” Fig. 1. Prostitutes greeting the Prodigal Son (after Deremble, Les vitraux narratifs, fig. 68, by permission of the author)

76

Fig. 2. A woman of reduced legal capacity. Sachsenspiegel III.47. Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, MS Cod. Guelf. 3.1 Aug. 2o, fol. 48r, register 5, detail (photo. HAB, by permission)

77

Fig. 3. Mary Magdalene recognizing Christ risen (after Deremble Les vitraux narratifs, fig. 13, by permission of the author)

78

Fig. 4. The Three Kings (Magi) journeying (after Caviness, Windows,79 fig. 149) Fig. 5. Seal of the Jews in Augsburg. Plaster cast in the 80 Hohenlohe-­Waldenburg Schlossmuseum, Städtische Archiv (after Friedenberg, Medieval Jewish Seals, 1987, entry 79, p. 171, by permission of the publisher) Fig. 6a. Men and women wearing Jewish hats. Wenzel Bible, Bavaria, Vienna Österreischische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2759–2764, vol. III, fol. 112v (photo. ONB, by permission)

82

Fig. 6b. Man and woman in “Jewish hats.” Peter Comestor, Historia evangelica. Freiburg in Breisgau, Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, Cod. Tennenbach 8, fol. 75r (photo. BLB, by permission)

83

Fig. 7. Jewish men and women riding on Elijah’s ass into Jerusalem. Library of Congress Hebr. MS 1, fol. 19v (photo. Courtesy of the Hebraic Division of the Library of Congress)

84

Fig. 8. Married and unmarried daughters dividing their inheritance. Sachsenspiegel I.3. Wolfenbüttel, fol. 11v reg 5, detail (photo. HAB, by permission)

85

Fig. 9. Statue of Mary of Egypt or Mary Magdalene (photo. Jean-­Gilles Berizzi licensed by Art Resource)

86

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 9

20/01/2016 17:03

x

ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 10. Hartmann Schedel, Mary Magdalene Lifted Up by Angels.87 Cambridge University Library, Peterborough.U.5.17, fol. 108r (photo. Cambridge Digital Library, Inc.0.A.7.2[888], by permission) Fig. 11. Gerlachus, The Virgin Mary at the Crucifixion (detail); after Schmitz, Die Glasgemälde, vol. II, Pl. 1

89

Fig. 12. St Brigitta with nuns, The Burnet Psalter, University of Aberdeen, MS 25, fol. 61r (detail) (Courtesy of the UA)

89

Fig. 13. Hildegard of Bingen, Liber Divinorum Operum, Lucca, Biblioteca Statale, MS 1942, fol. 132r (photo. by permission of Ministro dei Beni e le Attività culturali e del Turismo)

91

Fig. 14. Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, c. 1175, formerly Wiesbaden MS 1 (missing), fol. 66r (photo. Rhenisches Bidarchiv, , Cologne by permission)

92

Fig. 15. The Virgin/Ecclesia trampling Satan and Judith slaying Holofernes, Codex Cremifanensis 243, fol. 35v (detail) (photo. courtesy of Stiftsbibliothek, Kremünster)

93

Fig. 16. Gosswin van der Weyden, Gift of Kalmthout. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie (photo, Jörg P. Anders, licensed by Art Resource)

94

Helen Solterer, “Another Land’s End of Literature” Fig. 1. The “petit libel l’Apparacion maistre Jean de Meun.” Paris, BnF, français 810, fol. 6v (photo. BnF, by permission) Fig. 2.

Le Livre du Gentil et des trois sages of Raymond Lull. Paris, BnF, français 22933, fol. 64 (photo. BnF, by permission)

Fig. 3. Catalan Atlas. Paris, BnF, espagnol 30, tableau 7 (photo.  BnF, by permission)

154 158 167

Cynthia J. Brown, “Anne de Bretagne and Anne de France” Fig. 1. Woodcut of Anne de France. Symphorien Champier, La Nef des dames vertueuses, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal 4o B 4344, fol. B3v (photo. Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal by permission)

173

Fig. 2. Painted woodcut of Anne de France. Symphorien Champier, La Nef des dames vertueuses, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Rés. Vélins 1972, fol. B3v (photo. BnF, by permission)

176

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view these images please refer to the printed version of the book.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 10

20/01/2016 17:03



ILLUSTRATIONS 

xi

Fig. 3. Anne de France’s dedication of her Enseignements. From A.-­M. Chazaud, ed., Les Enseignements d’Anne de France, Duchesse de Bourbonnois et d’Auvergne à sa fille Susanne de Bourbon (Moulins: Desrosiers, 1878), p. XLII

178

Fig. 4. Anne de Bretagne at her prie-­dieu. The Primer of Claude de France, Cambridge University, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 159, p. 1, © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

184

Fig. 5. Claude de France at her prie-­dieu. The Primer of Claude de France, Cambridge University, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 159, p. 14. © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

185

Roberta L. Krueger, “Staging Female Authority in Chantilly MS 522” Fig. 1. Opening folio of La Coche. Chantilly, Bibliothèque du Château, MS 522, fol. 2r: Cliché CNRS-­IRHT, ©Bibliothèque et archives du Château de Chantilly

190

Fig. 2. Legend for the fifth hystoire. Berne, Bibliothèque de la Bourgeoisie, COD. A 65, fol. 11r, (photo, Bibliothèque de la Bourgeoisie, by permission)

191

Fig. 3. The Queen of Navarre. Chantilly, Bibliothèque du Château, MS 522, fol. 13v, cliché CNRS-­IRHT, ©Bibliothèque et archives du Château de Chantilly

193

Fig. 4. The Queen of Navarre hands La Coche to the Duchesse d’Estampes. Chantilly, Bibliothèque du Château, MS 522, fol. 43 v, cliché CNRS-­IRHT, ©Bibliothèque et archives du Château de Chantilly

194

Anne Marie Rasmussen, “Babies and Books” Fig. 1. Holy Kinship Altarpiece, c. 1500. Rodsted (?), Jutland,  Danish National Museum, Copenhagen, inv. D11104 (photo, Danish National Museum, courtesy)

205

Nancy Freeman Regalado, “Page Layout and Reading Practices in Christine de Pisan’s ‘Epistre Othea’” Fig. 1. Frontispiece: Christine presents her book to Queen Isabeau. London, British Library, MS Harley 4431, fol. 3r, © The British Library Board

220

Fig. 2. The goddess Diana presides over a group of women readers. London, British Library, MS Harley 4431, fol. 107r, © The British Library Board

221

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view these images please refer to the printed version of the book.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 11

20/01/2016 17:03

xii

ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 3. Christine presents the Epistre Othea to Louis of Orleans. London, British Library, MS Harley 4431, fol. 95r, © The British Library Board

223

Fig. 4.

225

Othea presents her epistle to Hector. London, British Library MS Harley 4431, fol. 95v, © The British Library Board

Fig. 5. Aurora, Pasiphae. Epistre Othea, Chs. 44–45:, British Library, 230 MS Harley 4431, fols. 115v–116r, © The British Library Board Fig. 6.

Aurora, Pasiphae. Epistre Othea, Chs. 44–45, Paris, BnF, Fr. 606, fols 21v–22r (photo. BnF, by permission)

232

The editors, contributors and publishers are grateful to all the institutions and persons listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publishers will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions.

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view these images please refer to the printed version of the book.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 12

20/01/2016 17:03

CONTRIBUTORS Cynthia J. Brown is Professor of French at University of California, Santa Barbara. Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner is Professor Emerita of French at Boston College. Kristin L. Burr is Associate Professor of French at Saint Joseph’s University. Madeline Harrison Caviness is the Mary Richardson Professor Emerita of Art History at Tufts University. Laine E. Doggett is Associate Professor of French at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Sarah-Grace Heller is Associate Professor of French and Medieval Studies at the Ohio State University. Ruth Karras is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Sharon Kinoshita is Professor of World Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Roberta Krueger is the Burgess Professor of French at Hamilton College. Tom Linkinen is a Research Fellow in the Department of Cultural History and a founding member of the Turku Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at University of Turku, Finland. Daniel E. O’Sullivan is Professor of French at the University of Mississippi. Lisa Perfetti is Professor of French and English and Associate Dean for Faculty Development at Whitman College. Ann Marie Rasmussen is the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker Memorial Chair in German Literary Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada. 

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 13

20/01/2016 17:03

xiv

CONTRIBUTORS

Helen Solterer is Professor of French at Duke University. Nancy Freeman Regalado is Professor Emerita of French at New York University. Elizabeth Robertson is Professor and Chair of English Language at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 14

20/01/2016 17:03

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The editors would like to thank the following people and entities for their generous support: at Boydell and Brewer, Caroline Palmer, Rohais Haughton, Nick Bingham and Rob Kinsey, whose expertise and professionalism made the process much easier; our anonymous reader, whose feedback was invaluable; at the University of Mississippi, Dr. Donald L. Dyer, chair of the Department of Modern Languages; Dr. Glenn Hopkins and Dr. Richard Forgette in the Office of the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts; and the Office of Research and Special Programs; at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, the library staff, especially Brenda Rodgers in Interlibrary Loan and longtime director Celia Rabinowitz, whose leadership is greatly admired; Linda Ward in the Office of Information Technology, the Summer Writing Group, the Department of International Languages and Cultures and the Office of the Dean. We are also greatly indebted to our families: Dan to Patti, Marion, and Colm, whose patience seemingly knows no bounds, and Laine to Doug, who was always willing to serve as informal IT support. Even if he deemed my technology skills “lacking,” one would be hard pressed to find another engineer who so wholeheartedly believes in medieval studies and medievalists. Finally, we would not be the scholars we are today without Jane’s inspiration and effort on our behalf. We are deeply indebted to her encouragement, scholarship, and work in the academy.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 15

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 16

04/01/2016 10:07

Introduction: The Work of E. Jane Burns and the Feminisms of Medieval Studies Laine E. Doggett

and

Daniel E. O’Sullivan

For over a century, scholars in literature, history, art history, religious studies, and related fields have examined women’s lives, roles, and contributions to medieval society and culture. Even so, until these approaches moved from sporadic and piecemeal to more widespread and coherent, it remained difficult to see the import of work focused on women. Over the last generation, sufficient feminist scholarship in medieval studies has indeed created a solid and broad foundation, endowing feminist approaches with more visibility, inter-­relatability, and viability in academe. The editors offer the present volume in celebration of the lifetime contributions of one particularly important feminist and medievalist scholar: E. Jane Burns. Consideration of her work as a whole reveals the depth and complexity of her feminist interrogations as well as her unwavering commitment to women, both medieval and modern. In great part through her scholarship, but also in her service and leadership roles, Burns blazed a new trail. While the contents of this volume attest to what has been accomplished, the gathered contributions simultaneously chart paths forward in the application of feminist modes of analysis to topics typical of feminist studies as well as to matters that have traditionally lain beyond the scope of such inquiry. The cross-­fertilization among the disciplines addressed between the volume’s covers, through their intersection with feminist criticism, will, it is hoped, mutually benefit them all. The very foundation upon which feminism rests is arguably the separation of sex (biological attributes) from gender (how one identifies and expresses oneself). Simone de Beauvoir was adamant in her groundbreaking work Le Deuxième Sexe (1949): women are not born, but rather made by society. Considerations of female gender quickly connect to and lead in to other gender identities such as masculinity, queer, and transgender, and the list is growing.1 The continually expanding body of feminist theory opens up broad vistas with 1 In the sphere of contemporary social media, there is perhaps no better example of how far we have come from binarisms in terms of sex and gender than the decision by Facebook in 2014 to offer their members the choice of fifty different gender identity labels for their profiles (http:// www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/02/13/facebook_custom_gender_options _here_are_ all_56_custom_options.html).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 1

04/01/2016 10:07

2

LAINE E. DOGGETT AND DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

social, psychological, and cultural import in ways that cross and even muddle disciplinary boundaries.2 Building on feminism’s strong commitment to interrogating received notions, feminist theory contributes analytical approaches that have been applied to women and other subalterns. As scholars continue to investigate mechanisms of gender inequality in the past and relate them to superstructures in the present, theorists expose those deep strategies of exclusion and discrimination that inform the very way we understand notions of history, art, political discourse, and philosophy. While the separation of sex from gender remains axiomatic to academic feminists today, the focus on biological women and their social roles, influence, power, and authority continues to reveal an almost limitless number of subjects for study.3 In medieval studies, the potential for analyzing women in history, society, and culture offers more than one scholar could address in several lifetimes. Conduct manuals, for example, prescribed behavior that was perhaps not at all natural to noble women, but getting to the root of the question requires an investigation into social norms, political economy, and Church teaching. The Church’s stark dualism of Mary/Eve set real women up to fail by portraying them as the cause of evil in the world and redemptive only by renouncing a vast array of experiences – sex, marriage, and motherhood.4 Covering such topics requires expertise in language, literature, history, religious studies, material culture, manuscript studies, and perhaps a dozen related fields. This kind of cross-­disciplinary perspective sheds light on women in other domains such as politics, the domestic sphere, and notions of female propriety as promulgated by powerful institutions such as the Court and the Church. Much work has been accomplished, yet more remains to be done.We deliberately use the plural form, feminisms, to signal the diversity of topics and approaches in feminist scholarship as well as the need to continue to broaden those areas. Feminist medieval studies offers but one way 2 In the United States, women within different ethnic and racial communities have articulated other ways of relating feminism to their daily lived experiences. Black feminists, for example, look to writers such as Alice Walker, who coined the term “womanist” to articulate a stance that addresses issues unique to African-­American women. Chicana feminism or Xicanism looks to analyze the situation of Mexican, Chicana, and Hispanic women in the United States. 3 Through the work of historians like Eileen Power (Medieval Women, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1975) and Judith M. Bennett (Women in the Medieval English Countryside, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1987), the life of real women in the Middle Ages came more clearly into focus, helping contextualize women in literature and art. 4 Historically informed and theoretically sophisticated studies of conduct manuals have been undertaken in the last twenty years. The collection Medieval Conduct (ed. Kathleen Ashley and Robert L. A. Clark, Minneapolis, MN, Minneapolis University Press, 2011) examines a wide array of those texts in several languages in contributions penned by two authors in the present volume: Ann Marie Rasmussen and Roberta L. Krueger. For an anthology of such texts in different languages with critical introductions to each, plus an excellent general introduction to the genre by Roberta L. Krueger, see Mark Johnston’s edited volume, Medieval Conduct Literature: An Anthology of Vernacular Guides to Behaviour for Youths with English Translations (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2009).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 2

04/01/2016 10:07



INTRODUCTION: THE WORK OF E. JANE BURNS

3

out of the dilemma of the separation – at times o­ mission – of the study of the Middle Ages. A focus on women and feminist lines of enquiry crosses many time periods, and geographical, disciplinary, and theoretical boundaries.5 More exchanges with those who analyze women from different time periods and who use disciplinary lenses beyond the ones in this collection (such as anthropology and sociology) will mutually benefit these fields.6 The lifetime scholarship of E. Jane Burns wonderfully combines all the terms of our volume’s title – Founding Feminisms in Medieval Studies – as it interweaves feminist questions, analysis, and theory to make foundational contributions to the field of feminist medieval studies, and it falls to the next generation to further her and her colleagues’ work. Burns’ first book, Arthurian Fictions: Rereading the Vulgate Cycle (1985), was not overtly feminist in theme since she wrote it as an untenured professor at a time when feminist approaches were often met with disdain by traditional scholars. Yet it shares many characteristics with feminist criticism: Burns evaluates narrative techniques previously considered weaknesses and problematizes narrative structure in order to uncover plural voices in the texts, thereby precluding any totalizing view. Over the years, her expertise on Arthurian materials led her to contribute to the translation of The Quest for the Holy Grail, volume IV of the Lancelot-­Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-­Vulgate in Translation (1995), to publish articles focused on issues of gender and clothing such as “Ladies Don’t Wear Braies: Underwear and Outerwear in the French Prose Lancelot” in essay collections dedicated to Arthurian studies, and to pen several encyclopedia articles.7 After her first book secured her tenure, Burns began writing from an unapologetically feminist perspective and collaborating with likeminded scholars. With Roberta L. Krueger, she guest-­edited a special issue of Romance Notes (25, no. 3; 1985) with the title Courtly Ideology and Women’s Place in Medieval French Literature. The appearance of such a special issue in a publication sponsored by a department long known for its traditional philological outlook was a statement in and of itself. The introduction and appended selective bibliography on women in medieval French literature, both co-­authored by Burns and Krueger, helped focus scholars’ attention on the work done up to that point as well as the need for further study. The collected articles include readings of such literary giants as Chrétien de Troyes and the troubadours – Burns’s feminist deconstruction of troubadour discourse in her own essay has well stood the test 5 As Burns herself suggests in “Feminism and Medieval Studies: Moving Forward,” Exemplaria 26, nos. 2–3 (Summer/Fall 2014), pp. 291–98, at p. 296. 6 Sharon Kinoshita argues persuasively that a more nuanced understanding of the Middle Ages is crucial for current discussions of globalization in “Deprovincializing the Middle Ages,” in The Worlding Project: Doing Cultural Studies in the Era of Globalization, ed. Rob Wilson and Christopher Leigh Connery (Santa Cruz, CA, New Pacific Press, 2007), pp. 61–75, at pp. 63 and 75. 7 See The Lancelot-­Grail Cycle, ed. W. W. Kibler (Austin, University of Texas Press, 1995).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 3

04/01/2016 10:07

4

LAINE E. DOGGETT AND DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

of time – together with important studies of early women’s literary voices such as Marie de France, Christine de Pizan, and the trobairitz (women troubadours). Furthermore, the Romance of Silence, the thirteenth-­century work that would receive so much critical attention in the subsequent thirty years (including in the present collection), receives attention in three separate articles in the special volume of Romance Notes. In 1992, Burns broke new ground when she combined the alternative reading strategies honed in her work on Arthurian literature with deep reading of Anglo-­ American and French feminist theory. In Bodytalk: When Women Speak in Old French Literature, she offered radically new readings of women’s speech in well-­known, canonical texts to show how women’s words, often dismissed or denigrated, had the potential to give voice to women’s desires and wishes. Building upon a plethora of exclusively female theorists (including several Europeans less known in the US), Burns elucidated the notion of “bodytalk”: a doubled discourse in which women’s distinctive voices could be heard by the attentive reader at the same time that they perpetuated social and cultural institutions, including gender norms. By questioning assumed binaries, Burns offered feminist critics a powerful new way to read gendered discourse that issued from women’s bodies. The book had legs: the term “bodytalk” began to be heard at conferences, referenced in articles, and debated in online forums such as MEDFEM-­L. Having clearly seen the potential for the notion’s further application, feminist scholars felt encouraged to take similar analytical risks and reap the rewards of voicing feminist analyses in a shifting academic atmosphere. Evidence of this shift came in several professional endeavors to foster collaboration among feminist scholars. In 1986, Burns co-­founded the Medieval Feminist Newsletter with Roberta Krueger and Elizabeth Robertson, and later Thelma Fenster joined them as co-­editor. Burns served as an editor for a ten-­ year period, and editor-­in-­chief for three of those years. In 1999, the newsletter took the name Medieval Feminist Forum to better reflect its status as an academic journal. In the meantime, the co-­founders organized the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship, or SMFS, which has grown significantly and expanded its activities and means of support for scholars in the field.8 Burns also co-­founded the North Carolina Research Group on Medieval and Early Modern Women and was a member throughout her time at the University of North Carolina. In addition, she was a member of the organizing committee for the October 1995 conference at the same university, “What Difference Does Gender Make?” Such service became a form of leadership that contributed to the viability and visibility of the field. Studies taking a synthetic, critical analysis of the burgeoning field began to appear. In 1996, a multi-­authored article with Sarah Kay, Roberta L. Krueger, and Helen Solterer, “Feminism and the Discipline of Old French Studies: Une See the website: smfsweb.org.

8

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 4

04/01/2016 10:07



INTRODUCTION: THE WORK OF E. JANE BURNS

5

Bele Disjointure,” appeared in Medievalism and the Modernist Temper. The four prominent scholars described the work that had been done but also depicted the many difficulties surrounding it from the complex subject positions of medieval women to those of feminist medievalists.9 The collection in which this article was published was among others in the same decade that questioned a number of directions across medieval studies, including reinterpretations of past approaches (such as philology and text editing) and calls for new interdisciplinary combinations with fields such as anthropology.10 After this period of self-­ reflection and definition of new subfields and redefinition of old ones, medieval studies has made good on the potential inherent in the questions by growing and broadening substantially. In 2001, Burns published another synthetic meta-­analysis, “Courtly Love, Who Needs It? Recent Feminist Work in the Medieval Tradition,” in Signs: Journal of Women and Culture in Society, the foremost interdisciplinary feminist journal in North America.11 By discussing courtly love in the context of the popular but controversial title The Rules: Time Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right, Burns argued that rules for love have not changed as much one might think, yet that feminism offers ways to interrogate both courtly love in medieval texts and modern approaches that share elements with it.12 The article linked the Middle Ages to the present in compelling ways, and offered contemporary women strategies to bring to bear in their rule-­bound lives. The linking of medieval conceptions to the modern and the foregrounding of women’s lived experience appear not only in Burns’ scholarship but also in a lifetime of projects that have created the conditions for more – and more visible – feminist work in the academy. Burns’ continued analysis of material culture with focus on clothing and textiles provided a fertile field of work. In 2002, Courtly Love Undressed: Reading through Clothes in Medieval French Culture asked readers to consider the role of clothing and decorative fabrics and in the figuration of the courtly lady, with readings that interrogated givens in courtly literature such as the binary divisions East/West and center/margins and how they figure in representations of subjectivity, desire, gender identity, and social class as related to courtly love. Burns argued that feminist analysis of material culture “allows for the possibility of at least partial female agency while also acknowledging structural 9 In Medievalism and the Modernist Temper, ed. R. Howard Bloch and Stephen G. Nichols (Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 225–66, at pp. 227 and 228. See p. 229 on the elitism of medieval studies. Note, too, that the article focuses on Old French alone, leaving out other complexities in medieval women’s history and numerous other fields. Each field has a subset of different problems, although there is also overlap. 10 The New Medievalism, ed. Marina S. Brownlee, Kevin Brownlee, and Stephen G. Nichols (Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991); The Future of the Middle Ages: Medieval Literature in the 1990s, ed. William D. Paden (Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 1994). 11 Signs: Journal of Women and Culture in Society 27, no. 1 (Fall 2001), pp. 23–57. 12 The book is by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider (New York, Warner, 1996).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 5

04/01/2016 10:07

6

LAINE E. DOGGETT AND DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

and ideological relations of gender.”13 On the heels of this monograph, Burns published a collection, Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Cloth Work, and Other Cultural Imaginings (2004), in which contributors examined a range of textile expressions in contexts including literature, stained-­glass windows, philosophy, and histories of the Church and of weaving. The articles expanded feminist analyses of clothing and textiles as gendered, building on feminist analyses of fashion as well those of Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, and Pierre Bourdieu.14 Burns furthered her own approach to one fabric in 2009’s Sea of Silk: A Textual Geography of Women’s Work in Medieval French Literature, combining material culture approaches with a focus on female textile workers. At the same time, she showed how France played a crucial role in the economy of silk in the medieval Mediterranean world. In addition to producing substantial work in material culture, Burns has continued to interrogate notions of gender and sexuality. In From Beasts to Souls: Gender and Embodiment in Medieval Europe (2013), the readings interrogate the definition and significance of bodies in the Middle Ages. From her earlier concern with female human bodies, Burns and her collaborators – many of whom Burns had now worked with for thirty years – turned to an analysis of other bodied creatures in the Middle Ages: woman/serpent hybrids like Melusine, dragons, worms, werewolves, and other creatures that help readers question assumed binaries such as male/female, nature/culture, human/animal, and center/margins. The editors have chosen to present the articles in the current volume in four parts. In “Debating Gender,” we will extend analyses of the complexities of gender construction in three medieval genres, and in “Sartorial Bodies,” contributors study the social coding of clothing and textiles. The contributors to the third division, “Mapping Margins,” interrogate the assumed binary of center/ margin in geographical questions connected to healing, textiles, and learned debate. Finally, authors analyze women’s influence in families and/or communities as matriarchs, patrons, and readers in our last section: “Female Authority: Networks and Influence.” Perhaps it goes without saying that we cannot touch upon all the possible subjects, approaches, and inter-­relations in feminist medieval studies that have appeared in recent years, but this attests to the richness and variety in the field. Part I: Debating Gender At a time where same-­sex marriage and transgender issues are discussed openly in public, one might be forgiven for thinking disputes about gender and sexual roles are unique to modern times, but similar debates raged in the Middle Ages. 13 Courtly Love Undressed: Reading through Clothes in Medieval French Culture (Philadelphia University Press, 2002), p. 16. 14 Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork and Other Cultural Imaginings (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 3–4.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 6

04/01/2016 10:07



INTRODUCTION: THE WORK OF E. JANE BURNS

7

Moreover, as the French word “genre” denotes both literary type – i.e., genre – and a person’s gender, it is only fitting that a section on debating gender includes studies of various literary genres. Women are depicted in widely different ways across the genres discussed in this opening section of the volume, emphasizing how widely Burns has worked in medieval literary studies. Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner considers the nature of woman in the late medieval prose narrative written by Jean d’Arras known widely as the Mélusine. Bruckner’s contribution, “Natural and Unnatural Woman: Melusine Inside and Out,” examines competing notions of woman’s nature in Jean d’Arras’ work: first, an Aristotelian construct of finality wherein all things in nature strive toward perfection or fail to meet that standard, and second, a Biblical notion of nature as ultimately unknowable after the Fall of Man, the evidence of which manifests itself in supernatural (or unnatural) marvels. Melusine’s nature is therefore problematic. As Bruckner puts it: “Melusine is natural only if limited to her identity as a woman, not in the diverse shapes of a fairy. Contained within her supernatural self is a kernel that may or may not be a natural woman” (p. 23). Bruckner’s reading teases out of Jean’s prose a veritable bestiary of magical creatures that would astonish a J. K. Rowling: serpents, winged dragons, unicorns, and even a contemporary analogy to lobsters, the giant, grotesque-­looking sea insect prized by gastronomes the world over. Through appeals to Augustine, Ambrose, the Gnostics, and even medieval Jewish poets, Bruckner provides a penetrating analysis of Melusine’s tale/tail, her hybridity, her metamorphoses, and her natural unnaturalness. Kristin L. Burr studies a romance in which gender is overtly debated by the allegorical figures of Nature and Nurture. Her essay, “Nurturing Debate in Le Roman de Silence,” lays bare strategies employed by the narrator for encouraging debate in this tale of a girl brought up as a boy who becomes first an exemplary knight and then a minstrel, only to marry the king in the end, thus bringing her transgeneric transgressions to a halt. But Burr doesn’t stop at enumerating the narrator’s tools: she interrogates the reliability of this most stealthy of narrators. He or she – is Heldris, the romance’s author, a man or a woman? – seemingly accuses characters, especially females, of things for which their actions in the narrative provide little or no evidence. And while engaging in generalizations about women throughout the story, the narrator warns readers explicitly against the use of generalizations. What are readers to make of this doubletalk and the narrator’s mixed messages? The answer is debatable, and Burr believes that is precisely the point. The image of the beautiful and virtuous lady or domna of troubadour song is well known and has been studied by medievalists since the nineteenth century. The songs of the women troubadours, or trobairitz, have only come under scrutiny more recently. In “The Man Backing Down from the Lady in Trobairitz Tensos,” Daniel E. O’Sullivan riffs on the title and subject of Burns’ 1985 article, “The Man behind the Lady in Troubadour Lyric.” In that piece, Burns shows how male troubadours, while ostensibly focusing on the lady, are really making cases for their poetic prowess and social standing. Against this

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 7

04/01/2016 10:07

8

LAINE E. DOGGETT AND DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

b­ ackdrop, O’Sullivan studies an important subset of trobairitz debate songs (tensos), namely, those between a man and his beloved. In these songs, men must share the stage and they must be held accountable for their words, a situation that differs starkly from the singing of single-­voice love songs (cansos). Moreover, if the man makes an argument for his rhetorical prowess in the canso, it is the lady of these tensos who masters the discourse of courtly love (fin’amors) by exploiting loopholes in the man’s words and turns his own strategies back on him. If there is a medieval genre that has been roundly denounced as misogynistic, it is the fabliau, but, as Lisa Perfetti explains in “Having Fun with Women: Why a Feminist Teaches Fabliaux,” medievalist feminists who would dismiss these all-­too-­often vicious short stories as unworthy of scholarly and pedagogical attention do so at their peril. Employing a hermeneutic developed in Burns’ Bodytalk, Perfetti builds upon her earlier work on comic literature to argue for including fabliaux in medieval literature courses in order to help students develop critical thinking that reaches beyond the genre’s obvious shock value. That is not to say that the task does not present pedagogical and ethical quandaries to teachers and students alike: at a time when the usefulness of “trigger warnings” is hotly debated in the professional literature, Perfetti urges us to take those questions head on, rather than side-­step them. Moreover, while the fabliaux often append explicit morals to the story, the didactic aim of the author often seems incidental to what modern readers see as the essential action of the narrative. Perfetti believes stressing the seemingly disconnected heuristic makes students better readers because they learn to see texts from several perspectives, consider what these texts meant to medieval audiences, and contemplate their applicability to the modern moment. Part II: Sartorial Bodies Burns studies bodies, especially female bodies, but also clothes that cover bodies. Since 2002, she has enthralled her readers with commentaries on the social signification of clothes – how they looked, what they were made from, who wore them, and when they came off. Scholarly debate on those very ideas has ensued in the wake of her many publications, and the following contributors show just how rich is the soil that Burns tills and how much fruit such work has borne. Madeline H. Caviness studies dress codes in medieval culture and draws parallels to similar systems today, particularly to the veils worn by Muslim women, in order to contest the oft-­repeated comment that these veils repress these women’s freedom of expression. Her title, “Hats and Veils: There’s No Such Thing as Freedom of Choice, and It’s a Good Thing Too,” recalls Stanley Fish’s 1992 piece “There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech and It’s a Good Thing Too.”15 Caviness suggests that there is, in fact, no such thing as freedom of Boston Review 17 (February 1992), pp. 3–30.

15

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 8

04/01/2016 10:07



INTRODUCTION: THE WORK OF E. JANE BURNS

9

sartorial expression because we are always socially constrained in our choice of clothing. In the Middle Ages, royals and ecclesiastical authorities wore purple in accordance with sumptuary laws, prostitutes were prescribed colorful garments to distinguish them from other women, and Jewish men wore beards to set themselves apart from their Christian neighbors. Specifically in terms of veils, Caviness examines the complexity of that particular garment, for they are, in her words, “long-­standing metaphors for covering up and revealing the truth, and they resonate throughout western philosophy, literature, and even optics” (p. 81). Nuns wore veils, and representations of a figure such as Mary Magdalene were identifiable by her lack of a veil. The type of veil could also vary with the religious order – Dominicans, Benedictines, and others – and, of course, secular women also wore veils, simpler or fuller depending upon the fashion at the moment. With these examples in mind, Caviness admonishes her readers to ask whose agenda is advanced with each new change in dress code, especially in places such as France, where public veiling of women has been banned. Sarah-­Grace Heller has published widely on medieval clothing and fashion and returns to those questions in her contribution, “When the Knight Undresses, His Clothing Speaks: Vestimentary Allegories in the Works of Baudouin de Condé (c. 1240–1280).” While other contributors and Burns herself focus largely on coverings of women’s bodies, Heller seeks to provide some balance to our view by turning to Baudouin, whose eye is unwaveringly set upon the male body. Clothes provide Baudouin with fodder for his moralistic agenda: criticizing avarice and praising largesse, the poet weaves clothes throughout his allegorical poems in ways that recall but also differ from other famous allegories such as the Roman de la Rose. A type of defensive garment, the gardecors, becomes a lesson in a lord’s largesse, for the lord who distributes well-­fitting gardecors to his men makes those men his own gardecor. Another garment, which Bauduoin calls the “mantle of honor” and which God will give to those who do his will, permits the poet to harken back once again to the “good old days” when nobility of birth and deed were still prized. In accordance with such longing for days gone by, Baudouin laments the richness of dress of the heralds of his day – apparently, heralds were once humbler – and decries how minstrels like him must compete with heralds for a knight’s hand-­me-­down clothes. Baudouin’s tone may be moralistic, but his poems are indeed grounded in reality and lived experience. In the last contribution to this section, Ruth Mazo Karras and Tom Linkinen offer “John/Eleanor Rykener Revisited,” an analysis and critical review of a puppet show, “John-­Eleanor,” first performed at the 2012 Turku Festival and based upon a cross-­dressing prostitute from late medieval London, John/Eleanor Rykener. The authors acknowledge the difficulty in representing the historical figure adequately, for medieval society did not distinguish sex from gender or sexual orientation in the same way that we do today. Translating Latin person pronouns with gender-­neutral pronouns like “ze” for “he or she” and “hir” for “his or her,” Karras and Linkinen examine the single historical document that we possess attesting to Rykener’s existence and alleged crimes – a biased record

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 9

04/01/2016 10:07

10

LAINE E. DOGGETT AND DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

of hir hostile questioning – together with other modern scholars’ assessments of the case’s repercussions for historical understanding of gender construction. From there, the authors discuss the play and puppet show that Linkinen created and performed with others as a way of creatively exploring John/Eleanor Rykener. Ze was essentially caught in the middle of the medieval, binary way of understanding sex and gender, and the play, with live actors and puppets, seeks to portray an individual trying to work within the limits of hir time. Part III: Mapping Margins The essays in Part III reconsider center and margin in geographical terms as they reconstruct maps in regions stretching north from West Africa through much of Europe and east through China to the Pacific Ocean. The new maps greatly expand the traditional cartography we envision of medieval Europe, indicating alternative ways to conceive of these spaces at the same time that they trace objects, such as silk, and ideas, both those in learned and popular traditions, on their trajectories across those spaces. In Laine E. Doggett’s article, “Women’s Healing: From Binaries to a Nexus,” the object of study is female healers who wash, treat and bind the wounds that knights sustain in battle. Healing episodes appear often in romance, epic and the chantefable Aucassin et Nicolette. Yet critics overlook these healers or dismiss their work as “magic” without any context for the term or consideration for the overlap of magic and medicine in the high Middle Ages. Binaries that easily accrete to folk medicine limit or obscure our understanding of these healers. By providing contextualization on healing knowledge from the East, plants and their virtues, and the oral transmission of this knowledge among informally trained healers and similarities between formally and informally trained practitioners, Doggett encourages us to read these scenes in the complex nexus of medieval healing and associated religious contexts of which they form a part. Sharon Kinoshita’s article, “Silk in the Age of Marco Polo,” analyzes mid-­ thirteenth century silk production in Marco Polo’s Le Devisement du monde to greatly expand the geographical scope of readings of silk that Burns undertook in Sea of Silk and Courtly Love Undressed, far beyond the Mediterranean through China to the Pacific Ocean. Polo’s text reveals changes in demand for silks in Europe so that silk becomes “a prominent point of convergence for cultures across Eurasia” (p. 142, emphasis mine), building upon Burns’ reading of the courtly lady dressed in silks who functions as a point of convergence for the concept East/West, with Europe figured as the West and the East as the modern Middle East, or land of the Saracens. The dividing line between the two entities is constantly muddled by textiles that cross over. Kinoshita explains the short-­lived pax mongolica, which led to important changes in silk production, specifically in cloth of gold and Italian silks, as Marco Polo travels west to east, describing silk workers, varieties of silks previously unknown in Europe, and the transmission of styles of silk production.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 10

04/01/2016 10:07



INTRODUCTION: THE WORK OF E. JANE BURNS

11

In “Another Land’s End of Literature: Honorat Bovet and the Timbuktu Effect,” Helen Solterer argues that Honoré Bovet’s Apparicion Maistre Jehan de Meun sketches out the landscape of the pole opposing the northern point (Brittany) as sub-­Saharan Africa, a world apart from southern France, typically imagined as the opposite. Bovet stages a political debate – at a moment when France is menaced by Saracens – among learned men of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions in which the Saracen figure challenges Western intellectual traditions. Bovet’s invented Saracen figure openly criticizes France at the same time that he makes more familiar the mysterious city of Timbuktu. The fictional relationship Bovet depicts “raises the bar of cultural understanding” (p. 168). These three articles, albeit in different ways, reposition Western Europe away from the center and more on the edge of the maps they describe. This act of zooming out unmakes the binary center/margins and in the process brings new places into the visual field, enabling us to consider relationships that had previously gone unnoticed. In this way, women healers and other subalterns such as those from the Far East and Saracens from sub-­Saharan Africa challenge our perceptions of the exchange of goods and ideas. Part IV: Female Authority: Networks and Influence The articles in the last section move in the opposite direction, by zooming in on details of manuscripts, texts and an altarpiece and reading these in the contexts of female readers, viewers and book owners. Women’s family relationships and friendships figure prominently in this section, as does their capacity to assert influence in various spheres. Cynthia J. Brown’s “Anne de Bretagne and Anne de France: French Female Networks at the Dawn of the Renaissance” treats book production and selection by Anne of France (1461–1522) and Anne of Bretagne (1477–1514) as a means to determine their influence and legacies, pointing out that books commissioned by women strengthened relationships and alliances, in contrast to the competition and fighting that occurred between men over books. Brown analyzes book production and woodcuts or illuminations of the dedicatee and written dedications in Symphorien Champier’s Nef des dames vertueuses as an example of the transmission of knowledge from women to men, and, in contrast, the Enseignements, written by Anne de France herself and dedicated to her daughter. The opening miniature of the latter shows the Duchess and her daughter with open books on their laps, an unusual depiction of the dissemination of the book’s contents. Anne’s daughter, Suzanne de Bourbon, arranged to have the book printed for wider distribution. In this and other examples, Brown makes the case that these books “exemplif[y] late medieval female family networking” (p. 186). In “Staging Female Authority in Chantilly MS 522: Marguerite de Navarre’s La Coche,” Roberta L. Krueger examines relationships between text and image. Krueger posits that Marguerite de Navarre carefully planned and oversaw the production of Chantilly MS 522 to emphasize female authority – at a point

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 11

04/01/2016 10:07

12

LAINE E. DOGGETT AND DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

when Marguerite was attempting to influence the question of marriage of her daughter being considered by King François I. At the center of the text, a coterie of female characters relate their misfortunes in love in the form of a debate, alongside illuminations that reveal in intimate detail the ladies’ suffering. At the conclusion of the love stories, the discussion turns to who will serve as judge, and Marguerite describes the King and his mistress reading the work together. By staging the reading of the book by the King with the Duchess d’Estampes, Marguerite suggests her influence in the King’s decision-­making process. Although Marguerite did not succeed in changing the King’s mind, her work nevertheless stands as a testament to her increased status as an author, especially given that the final illumination depicts Marguerite returning to court after a self-­imposed exile and giving the book to the Duchess. Ann Marie Rasmussen’s essay, “Babies and Books: The Holy Kinship as a Way of Thinking about Women’s Power in Late Medieval Northern Europe,” focuses on the Holy Kinship, an extended family of saints, as carved in the Rodsted altarpiece. According to legend, the family members were born of Saint Anne, Christ’s maternal grandmother. The simple wooden altarpiece portrays a group of family members, living and dead, with Saint Anne at the center of a lively family group – reading a book. Rasmussen argues that the altarpiece screen depicts not only women’s influence but also matriliny, or descent through women, in this prosperous, convivial extended family. Moreover, Saint Anne’s emphasis on learning and implied education of children echoes other phenomena such as medieval women book owners and textual examples of late medieval Northern European women who win debates against churchmen. Saint Anne and other learned women should lead us to reconsider stock notions about women’s lack of learning. The last article is Nancy Freeman Regalado’s “Page Layout and Reading Practices in Christine de Pizan’s Epistre Othea: Reading with the Ladies in London, BL, MS Harley 4431.” Christine herself played a role in the production of the manuscript, and she figures in illuminations throughout it. Christine intervenes in the reader’s experience of the text to shape the understanding she takes away from it, providing moral and spiritual guidance gleaned from the stories. Through Regalado’s careful reading we see how Christine in the Othea uses “illustration, compositional structure, and mise en page to teach her (women) readers how to find moral and spiritual lessons as they read” (p. 222). We open with questions of Melusine’s hybrid identity and close with Christine de Pizan’s guidance on how we might best read and in turn apply those lessons to life. The Afterword, “Feminism and Medieval Studies: Where Have We Been, Where Are We Now, and Where Are We Going? Or, What Has Happened to Women in Feminist Studies of the Middle Ages?” by Elizabeth Robertson sketches a history of feminism in medieval studies, both its successes and its continuing challenges. Robertson asks us to consider if the proliferation and range of gender and sexuality studies and the related other investigations into subalterns spawned by or simultaneous with feminism have resulted in losing sight of women themselves, even as these lines of inquiry reveal feminism’s

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 12

04/01/2016 10:07



INTRODUCTION: THE WORK OF E. JANE BURNS

13

openness, flexibility and capacity for self criticism. Yet, as Robertson notes, the essays in this volume respond to many critical questions that Jane Burns poses throughout her work. Robertson traces a path through the myriad topics and approaches, linking them through the polyvalent figure of Melusine. Fitting indeed, for Burns herself reminds us that Melusine is “a woman who creates marvels while remaining all the while dependable, foundational and reliable.”16

16 E. Jane Burns, “Magical Politics from Poitou to Armenia: Mélusine, Jean de Berry, and the Eastern Mediterranean” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 43, no. 2 (Spring 2013), pp. 275–301, at p. 276.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 13

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 14

04/01/2016 10:07

E. Jane Burns: A Bibliography

E. JANE BURNS: A BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Sea of Silk: A Textile Geography of Women’s Work in Medieval French Literature (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). Courtly Love Undressed: Reading through Clothes in Medieval French Culture (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). The Quest for the Holy Grail. In Lancelot-­Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-­Vulgate in Translation, ed. Norris J. Lacy. Vol. 4 (New York, Garland, l995). Bodytalk: When Women Speak in Old French Literature (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993). Arthurian Fictions: Rereading the Vulgate Cycle (Columbus, Ohio State University Press, 1985). EDITED VOLUMES From Beasts to Souls: Gender and Embodiment in Medieval Europe, ed. E. Jane Burns and Peggy McCracken (Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 2013). Cultural Performances in Medieval France, ed. Eglal Doss-­Quinby, Roberta L. Krueger, and E. Jane Burns (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2007). Subject Editor for Literature, Women and Gender in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Margaret Schaus (New York, Routledge, 2006). Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Courtly Ideology and Woman’s Place in Medieval French Literature, special issue of Romance Notes 25, no. 3 (1985); guest edited with Roberta L. Krueger. ARTICLES “Feminism and Medieval Studies: Moving Forward,” Exemplaria 26, nos. 2–3 (Summer–Fall 2014), pp. 291–8. “A Snake-­Tailed Woman: Hybridity and Dynasty in the Roman de Mélusine,” in From Beasts to Souls: Gender and Embodiment in Medieval Europe, ed. E. Jane Burns and Peggy McCracken (Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), pp. 185–220.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 15

04/01/2016 10:07

16

E. JANE BURNS: A BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Magical Politics from Poitou to Armenia: Mélusine, Jean de Berry, and the Eastern Mediterranean,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 43, no. 2 (Spring 2013), pp. 275–301. “Performing Courtliness,” in The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, ed. Judith M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 396–411. “Shaping Saladin: Courtly Men Dressed in Silk,” in Shaping Courtliness in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, ed. Daniel E. O’Sullivan and Laurie Shepard (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2013), pp. 241– 53. “A Cultural Performance in Silk: Sebelinne’s aumosniere,” in Cultural Quinby, Roberta Performances in Medieval France, ed. Eglal Doss-­ L. Krueger, and E. Jane Burns (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2007), pp. 71–8. “Saracen Silk and the Virgin’s Chemise: Cultural Crossings in Cloth,” Speculum 81 (2006), pp. 365–97. “Courtly Love,” in Women and Gender in the Middle Ages, An Encyclopedia, ed. Margaret Schaus (New York, Routledge, 2006). “Sewing like a Girl: Working Women in the chanson de toile,” in Medieval Women’s Song: Crosscultural Approaches, ed. Anne L. Klinck and Ann Marie Rasmussen (Philadelphia, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), pp. 99–126. “Courtly Love, Who Needs It? Recent Feminist Work in the Medieval French Tradition,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 27, no. 1 (Fall 2001), pp. 23–57. “Raping Men: What’s Motherhood Got to Do with It,” in Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, ed. Elizabeth Robertson and Christine M. Rose (New York, Palgrave, 2001), pp. 127–60. “Speculum of the Courtly Lady: Women, Love and Clothes,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 29, no. 2 (Spring 1999), pp. 253–92. “Devilish Ways: Sexing the Subject in the Queste del Saint Graal,” Arthuriana 11–32. Special issue on “Symbolic and 2, no. 2 (Summer l998), pp.  Sexual Economies in Arthurian Literature,” ed. Martin B. Shichtman and Laurie Finke. “Refashioning Courtly Love: Lancelot as Ladies Man or Lady/Man?” in Constructing Medieval Sexuality, ed. Karma Lochrie, Peggy McCracken, and James Schultz (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press 1997), pp. 111–34. “Rewriting Men’s Stories: Enide’s Disruptive Mouths,” in Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Thelma Fenster (New York, Garland, 1996), pp. 19–40. “Feminism and the Discipline of Old French Studies: Une Bele Disjointure,” co-­authored with Sarah Kay, Roberta L. Krueger, and Helen Solterer, in Medievalism and the Modernist Temper: On the Discipline of Medieval Studies, ed. R. Howard Bloch and Stephen G. Nichols, Jr. (Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 225–66. “Which Queen? Guenevere’s Transvestism in the French Prose Lancelot,” in Lancelot and Guenevere, ed. Lori Walters (New York, Garland Publishing, l995), pp. 247–65.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 16

04/01/2016 10:07



E. JANE BURNS: A BIBLIOGRAPHY

17

“Ladies Don’t Wear Braies: Underwear and Outerwear in the French Prose Lancelot,” in The Lancelot-­ Grail Cycle, ed. William W. Kibler (Austin, University of Texas Press, 1995), pp. 152–74. “Post Vulgate Romance,” in Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, ed. William W. Kibler (New York, Garland, 1995). “Vulgate Cycle,” in Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, ed. William W. Kibler (New York, Garland, 1995). “Prose Romance,” in Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, ed. William W. Kibler (New York, Garland, 1995). “Women Talk Back in Old French Fabliaux,” in Feminist Approaches to the Body in Medieval Literature, ed. Linda Lomperis and Sarah Stanbury (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), pp. 188–213. Introduction to Lancelot-­Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-­ Vulgate in Translation, ed. Norris J. Lacy, vol. 1 (New York, Garland, 1992), pp. xv–xxxiii. “Knowing Women: Female Orifices in Old French Farce and Fabliau,” Exemplaria 4, no. 1 (Spring l992), pp. 81–104. Response to “A Symposium on Women, History, and Literature: Theory and Methodology.” Exemplaria 2, no. 2 (1990), pp. 712–14. “1209? Death of Walter Map, A Scholar at the Court of Henry II,” in A New History of French Literature, ed. Denis Hollier (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press 1989), pp. 66–70. “1209? Mort de Gautier Map, un des favoris d’Henri Plantagenêt: le roman passe à la prose” in De la Littérature française, ed. Denis Hollier, R. Howard Bloch and François Rigolot (Paris, Bordas, 1993). “La Voie de la voix: The Aesthetics of Indirection in the Prose Lancelot,” in The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes, ed. Norris J. Lacy, Douglas Kelly, and Keith Busby, vol. 2 (Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1988), pp. 151–67. “Quest and Questioning in the Conte du Graal,” Romance Philology 41, no. 3 (1988), pp. 251–66. “The Vulgate Cycle,” in The Arthurian Encyclopedia, ed. Norris J. Lacy (New York, Garland, 1986), pp. 609–14. Rpt. in The New Arthurian Encyclopedia (1991), pp. 496–9. “The Man behind the Lady in Troubadour Lyric,” Courtly Ideology and Woman’s Place in Medieval French Literature, special issue of Romance Notes 25, no. 3 (1985), pp. 254–70. “La répétition et la mémoire du texte dans la vulgate arthurienne,” in Jeux de mémoire: Aspects de la mnémotechnie médiévale (Montréal, Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1985), pp. 65–71. “The Teller in the Tale: The Anonymous Estoire del Saint Graal,” Assays 3 (1985), pp. 73–84. “Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be: The Middle Ages In Literature and Film,” in Shadows of the Magic Lamp: Science Fiction in Fantasy and Film. ed. George Slusser and Eric Rabkin (Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1985), pp. 86–97.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 17

04/01/2016 10:07

18

E. JANE BURNS: A BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Portraits of Kinship in the Pèlerinage de Charlemagne,” Olifant 10, no. 4 (1984), pp. 161–81. “How Lovers Lie Together: Adultery and Fictive Discourse in Béroul’s Roman de Tristan,” Tristania 8, no. 2 (1983), pp. 15–30. Rpt. in Tristan and Iseut, ed. Joan Grimbert (New York, Garland, 1995). “Feigned Allegory: Intertextuality in the Queste del Saint Graal,” Kentucky Romance Quarterly 29, no. 4 (1982), pp. 347–63. “The Doubled-­Question Test: Mystic Discourse in Chrétien’s Conte du Graal,” Romance Notes 23, no. 1 (1982), pp. 1–8. “Of Arthurian Bondage: Image Patterns in the Vulgate Romances,” Medievalia et Humanistica n.s. 11 (1982), pp. 165–76. BOOK REVIEWS Clothes Make the Man by Valerie Hotchkiss, Medieval Feminist Newsletter (Spring 1999). Women Readers and the Ideology of Gender in Old French Verse Romance, by Roberta L. Krueger, Romance Quarterly (l996). Feminist Theory: Women’s Writing, by Laurie Finke, Speculum (l995). Ravishing Maidens: Writing Rape in Medieval French Literature and Law, by Kathryn Gravdal, Speculum (l995). Le Roman des Eles, by Raoul de Houdenc, ed. Keith Busby, Romance Philology 41, no. 1 (1987), pp. 114–15. Le Roman du Graal, by Robert de Boron, ed. Bernard Cerquiligni, Romance Philology 39, no. 3 (1986), pp. 376–78. The Sower and His Seed: Essays on Chrétien de Troyes, ed. Rupert Pickens, MLN 100, no. 4 (1985), pp. 905–7. Chrétien de Troyes: The Man and His Work, ed. Jean Frappier, trans. Raymond Cormier, Romance Philology 38, no. 2 (1984), pp. 261–4. French Arthurian Prose Romance: An Index of Proper Names, by G. D. West, Tristania 5, no. 1 (1979), pp. 43–8.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 18

04/01/2016 10:07

PART I Debating Gender

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 19

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 20

04/01/2016 10:07

Natural and Unnatural Woman: Melusine Inside and Out Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner “You make me feel like a natural woman” Carole King and Gerry Goffin

What is nature, what is woman? Jean d’Arras’s fourteenth-­century amalgam of romance, history, genealogy, crusade epic, and fairytale reminds us that the definition of nature is a work in progress, changing through time, depending as much on culture’s framing optics as on the state of scientific knowledge. And woman’s inscription into nature, as suggested by Melusine and multiple traditions of Western culture, is decidedly not the same as man’s. Jean’s prologue implies two views of nature that will uncomfortably coexist as his romance unfolds. One is attached to Aristotle’s notion of finality: in nature, all things tend toward perfection or fail to reach it because of their “vices” (p.  110) – that is, in Aristotelian terms, deficiencies in their seed that produce the likes of monsters and human twins. En toutes choses commencier on doit appeller le Createur des creatures qui est maistre de toutes les choses faites et a faire qui doivent tendre a perfection de bien et les autres pervenir selon les vices des creatures. [In beginning all things, one should call upon the Creator of creatures who is the master of all the things made and to be made that must tend to perfection of being and of the others that reach only as far as their vices allow.]1 Mixed with this Aristotelian perspective is Jean’s Christian and biblical concept of nature: God has created wonders that surpass human understanding, invisible things about which only Adam before the Fall had perfect knowledge. La creature de Dieu raisonnable doit entendre, selon que dit Aristote que des choses invisibles . . . si comme saint Pol le dit . . . que les choses qu’il a faictes 1 Mélusine ou la noble histoire de Lusignan, ed. Jean-­Jacques Vincensini (Paris, Librairie générale française, 2003), p. 110. All quotations (identified by page number) are taken from this edition; translations are mine. On Jean’s Aristotelianism, see pp. 26 and 111 (n. 1), and Gabrielle M. Spiegel, “Maternity and Monstrosity: Reproductive Biology in the Roman de Mélusine,” in Melusine of Lusignan: Founding Fiction in Late Medieval France, ed. Donald Maddox and Sara Sturn-­Maddox (Athens, University of Georgia Press, 1996), pp. 100–24.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 21

04/01/2016 10:07

22

MATILDA TOMARYN BRUCKNER

seront veues et sceues par la creature du monde . . . qui voit les livres lire et adjouste foy es atteurs, entendre les anciens, les provinces, terre et royaumes visiter. L’en treuve tant de merveilles . . . et si nouvelles que humain entendement est contraint de dire les jugemens de Dieu sont abisme sans fons et sans rive. Et sont ces choses merveilleuses et en tant de formes et manieres diverses, et en tant paÿs selon leur diverse nature espandues que . . . je cuide qu’onques homme, se Adam non, n’ot parfaicte congnoissance des euvres invisibles de Dieu . . . (p. 114) [The reasonable creature of God must understand, as Aristotle says that there are invisible things, . . . and as Saint Paul says, . . . that the things He has made will be seen and known by the human creature . . . who sees books read and has faith in the authors, understands the ancients, visits provinces, countries and realms. One finds so many marvels and such new ones that human understanding is forced to say that the judgments of God are an abyss without bottom or shore. And these things are marvelous and diverse in forms and ways and dispersed in so many countries according to their diverse natures, that . . . I believe no man, except Adam, had perfect knowledge of the i­ nvisible works of God . . .]2

Books and travel attest to the many marvels of existence, but God’s judgments are an unfathomable abyss outside the purview of human reason. Like a black box, divine secrets hide the gaps between Aristotelian rationalism and Christian doctrine, invoked to guarantee the credibility of the marvelous story about to unfold. In Jean’s “vrayes coroniquez” [true chronicles, p. 110], yet other views of nature will emerge.3 Fairy, woman, siren, serpente (whether snake or dragon), Melusine’s hybrid identity is shaped by her mother Presine’s curse, the punishment imposed for burying her father, King Elinas, under a mountain – an act of revenge undertaken by Melusine and her sisters to punish him for violating the taboo imposed by his fairy wife. As Presine explains, their father’s seed would have drawn his three daughters born in a single birth toward his human nature, “hors des meurs nimphes et faees sans y retorner” [away from the ways of nymphs and fairies without ever returning to them, p. 134]. Now Melusine’s only chance to live out 2 After Geoffroi burns the abbey at Maillezais (with his brother Fromont, the abbot, and a hundred monks inside), both Raymond and Melusine return to these concepts: Raymond accuses Melusine of producing bad fruit unable to come to “perfection de bien” (p. 688); she reasons that the monks surely burned for punishment of sins known to God. Nature and God’s judgments remain mysterious, just as the mystery of her mother Presine’s fairy origin obscures the way ends are inscribed in (unknown) beginnings. On Augustine and Adam’s perfect knowledge, see Christopher Lucken, “Les hiéroglyphes de Dieu, La demonstrance des Bestiaires au regard de la senefiance des animaux selon l’exégèse de saint Augustin,” Compar(a)ison 1 (1994), pp. 47–53. 3 Jean’s epilogue notes that grosser minds have a hard time believing, but the more refined the mind (p. 816: “deliee de engin et de science naturelle”), the better one believes and accepts the limits of human knowledge in relation to what God knows and does. On the issue of truth and believability, cf. Steven Justice, “Did the Middle Ages Believe in Their Miracles?” Representations 103 (Summer 2008), pp. 1–29.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 22

04/01/2016 10:07



NATURAL AND UNNATURAL WOMAN: MELUSINE

23

a natural life as a natural woman ending with a natural death is through marriage with a mortal who will remain faithful to his promise never to see her on Saturday, when she turns into a serpent from the navel down. The reprise of her parents’ story thus offers the possibility of a different ending. Competing views of nature overlap, intersect and diverge, include or exclude Melusine. On the one hand, nature, as all of creation, contains wonders we don’t know how to explain and thus encompasses the multiple forms of Melusine. But, on the other hand, some creatures are designated as natural and others not: a woman who can die a Catholic death is natural; a fairy who suffers penance until the Day of Judgment, as Melusine will once her husband has publicly transgressed the taboo, is not. In this view, there are necessary exclusions: Melusine is natural only if limited to her identity as a woman, not in the diverse shapes of a fairy. Contained within her supernatural self is a kernel that may or may not be a natural woman. Origins and endings possess Jean’s romance, primal stories whose beginnings set the parameters for how they turn out: Aristotelian finality; mortal and fairy marriages that end badly (collected in the prologue); creation stories told in Genesis, male and female created in God’s image from earth or rib, the primordial story of the Fall – which numerous scholars have discerned in the outlines of Melusine’s tale/tail as narration and serpentine appendage.4 Using a variety of viewpoints and intertexts, including bestiary traditions and biblical exegeses, I approach that biblical link kaleidoscopically in order to highlight the inclusions and exclusions that locate Melusine in relation to nature. This essay examines two Melusines: first, the natural Melusine living the life of a woman, then the unnatural Melusine, with all her animal and supernatural excesses out of the closet. But of course they are the same. As André Breton put it, “Mélusine, avant et après la métamorphose, est Mélusine.”5 Oneness that contains multiplicity is disruptive, especially as both parts of my analysis engage the same core: the Garden of Eden with its fundamental questions about knowledge, power, and relationship, identity, fate, fault and punishment. We are lured back repeatedly to watch the basic scenario replay, as characters work out their identity in relation to the other human, the animal other, and the divine (whether God or god-­like). The importance of Melusine’s life as a natural woman for Jean’s historically minded readers can be gauged by her successful production of ten sons, most of whom (despite their animal markings) follow natural human lives and produce another generation (unequivocally human) that will lead to Jean de Berry and 4 See, for example: Jean Markale, Mélusine ou l’androgyne (Paris, Retz, 1983); Françoise Clier-­Colombani, La Fée Mélusine au moyen âge: images, mythes et symboles (Paris, Le Léopold d’Or, 1991); and E. Jane Burns, “A Snake-­Tailed Woman: Hybridity and Dynasty in the Roman de Mélusine,” in From Beasts to Souls: Gender and Embodiment in Medieval Europe, ed. E. Jane Burns and Peggy McCracken (Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), pp. 185–220. 5 André Breton, Arcane 17, quoted in Markale, Mélusine, p. 196.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 23

04/01/2016 10:07

24

MATILDA TOMARYN BRUCKNER

his contemporaries. As a woman following the natural course of a natural life, Melusine persists in the narrative through Raymond’s first transgression (when he sees her in her Saturday bath). A strangely natural woman, but accepted as the aristocratic lady, wife, and mother she presents herself to be, this Melusine crosses over between the different parameters of nature articulated by author and characters. She perfectly corresponds to the narrative force driving the alignment of a couple made for each other, a man and a woman who need each other to be what they are. Consider to what extent the romance twins Melusine and Raymond by establishing them as male and female expressions of the same human experience. Most notably, both are guilty of a parricide-­like transgression just when they come into agency at the critical moment of adolescence. To Melusine’s entombment of her father corresponds Raymond’s accidental murder of his uncle, an event astrologically forecast by the stars deciphered by the Count of Poitou moments before his death when Raymond tries to protect him from the charge of a monstrous boar – an animal totem connecting Melusine, Raymond, and their son Geoffroi au Grand Dent.6 There is, to be sure, a certain asymmetry in their experience and expression of love, a difference between what she knows and what he must not know except that no diabolical illusion is at work. When a lost and desperate Raymond encounters Melusine in the forest, this beautiful stranger unaccountably knows who he is. In proposing their alliance, she makes it clear that only she can make the stars’ announcement a reality, just as Presine predicted that only a mortal husband can make Melusine a natural woman. Their need for each other, linked to the problematic question of knowledge, fits most tantalizingly into the way Adam Phillips describes the fundamental interdependence that characterizes the human condition. In a riff on Stanley Cavell’s reading of Othello, he notes: There is nothing we could know about ourselves or another that can solve the problem that other people actually exist, and we are utterly dependent on them as actually existing, separate people whom we need. There is nothing to know apart from this, and everything else we know, or claim to know, or are supposed to know, or not know, follows on from this.7

Raymond and Melusine’s initial intersection, the interrelatedness of their destinies, acknowledges that interdependence. The young Raymond knows that his 6 See Sylvie Roblin, “Le sanglier et la serpente: Geoffroy la Grant’Dent dans l’histoire des Lusignan,” in Métamorphose et bestiaire fantastique au moyen âge, ed. Laurence Harf-­ Lancner (Paris, Ecole normale supérieure de jeunes filles, 1985), pp. 247–85; Laurence Harf-­ Lancner, “La serpente et le sanglier: les manuscrits enluminés des deux romans français de Mélusine,” Le Moyen Age 101 (1995), pp. 65–87; Claudio Galderisi, “Mélusine et Geoffroi à la grand dent: apories diégétiques et réécriture romanesque,” Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes 2 (1996), pp. 73–84. 7 Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life (New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), pp. 73–4.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 24

04/01/2016 10:07



NATURAL AND UNNATURAL WOMAN: MELUSINE

25

future depends utterly on Melusine and requires that he not know any more about her than what she tells him.8 When, many years later, his brother reports rumors of Melusine spending those absent Saturdays in fornication or in penance as “un esperit faé” [fairy spirit, p. 658], jealousy and rage make Raymond forget what he knows and want to know something else about his wife. As Phillips remarks, “real knowledge” may be “hidden by all our other forms of knowing” (p. 73). Raymond carves a small hole in the door behind which Melusine sits in her marble bath, making great splashes that rise to the vaulted ceiling with her tail. What does he know now? Given its phallic implications, that tail has elicited a variety of interpretations, but I’d like to stress the comic nature of the narrator’s description: a tail “aussi grosse comme une tonne ou on met harenc” [as thick as a barrel to hold herring, p. 660] diffuses the tension for husband and readers as it restores Melusine to playful innocence, the weight of her serpent’s tail reduced to fishy fun.9 By contrast, Raymond’s subsequent transformation is dramatic. As angry doubts give way to doleful regrets, he knows that he has failed to keep his word. Lamenting, he compares Melusine to a unicorn and himself to an asp. What is the logic of these animal others? Sylvie Lefèvre helps illuminate the bestiary tradition that lies behind such comparisons.10 In the move from animal lore to allegory, whether to explain Christian doctrine or give moral lessons on human behavior, bestiary animals function as metaphors to conjure the polymorphism of the world and catch in a network of signification an incomprehensible strangeness particularly associated with the body, woman and God (p. 239). Though hybrids generate repulsion when natural differences between animal and human, male and female, are violated, hybridity also captures the mystery of the Incarnation, the supernatural union of contraries in which the Savior is father and son, human and divine (p. 240). Raymond has seen his wife’s tail but takes on its serpentine form as self-­ perception: “je sui le faulx crueux aspis et vous estes licorne precieuse, je vous ay par mon faulx venin trahie” [I am the false, cruel asp and you are the precious unicorn; I have betrayed you by my false venom, p. 664].11 A snake who betrays 8 Cf. Markale’s view of Melusine as a mirror in which our desire for self-­knowledge crystallizes (Mélusine, p. 132). On Melusine as the figure of Raymond’s destiny, see Lucken, “Roman de Mélusine ou Histoire de Lusignan? La fable de l’histoire,” in Mélusines continentales et insulaires (Paris, Honoré Champion, 1999), pp. 141–67 (pp. 156–7). 9 Kevin Brownlee also sees the comic aspect of the scene (p. 82): “Melusine’s Hybrid Body and the Poetics of Metamorphosis,” in Melusine of Lusignan, pp. 76–99. Other readings include: the bath as purification from menstruation (Clier-­Colombani, La Fée, pp. 180–81); an androgyne masturbating in her phallic form (Markale, Mélusine, p. 17); and a Freudian view of insatiable female desire and male inadequacy: Denyse Delcourt, “Métamorphose, mystère et féminité: lecture du Roman de Mélusine par Jean d’Arras,” Le Moyen Age 33 (1993), pp. 85–107. 10 “Polymorphisme and métamorphose: les mythes de la naissance dans les bestiaires,” in Métamorphose, pp. 215–46. 11 As Christine Ferlampin-­Acher comments on Raymond’s first fault, “Voir le monstre revient à le faire exister. . . . Le monstre est devenu le miroir de l’homme” (p. 80). “Le

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 25

04/01/2016 10:07

26

MATILDA TOMARYN BRUCKNER

an innocent speaks clearly in a Christian context, though echoes of Melusine’s siren-­like appearance press disturbingly in the comparison: the bestiary asp blocks its ears to avoid enchantment.12 Here the serpent is Raymond – indeed Melusine never betrays her husband, though he betrays her twice. The guilt they share for transgressions against fathers makes them equal co-­dependants, but Raymond emerges within the couple as the more guilty of the two, even if his silence about what he now knows temporarily preserves the status quo.13 Knowledge of her serpent’s tail is covered over by what he really knows and now remembers: his need for her as she actually exists. She gave him medicine to cure “[s]on premier crueulx venin” [his first cruel venom, p. 664], the murder of his uncle now seen as his first snake-­like act. What of Melusine as unicorn? Raymond’s choice of fantastic animal offers multiple possibilities for capturing the subtleties of his own personal savior. Like the siren finishing as bird or fish, the unicorn of bestiary lore is a hybrid. In the long version of Pierre de Beauvais, it combines a horse’s body, elephant feet, a boar’s coiling tail, and a stag’s head with a single horn planted on its forehead. All versions emphasize the fierce power of the beast: Guillaume le Clerc describes how it attacks the elephant by piercing the underside of its belly.14 Hunters know that the unicorn can only be captured by the lure of a virgin – hence the allegorization that makes the unicorn a figure of Christ, the one betrayed in the story of the Virgin, used to trap in flesh the son of God.15 A family betrayal redeemed as felix culpa appears as the photographic negamonstre dans les romans des XIIIème et XIVème siècles,” in Ecriture et modes de pensée au Moyen Age (VIIIème–XVème siècles), ed. D. Boutet and L. Harf-­Lancner (Paris, Rue d’Ulm, 1993), pp. 69–90. 12 Among the family of serpents in the bestiaries, Melusine’s hybrid form also recalls the viper described as a woman down to the navel with a crocodile’s tail. Male vipers with the face of a man appear in Physiologus, trans. Michael J. Curley (Austin, University of Texas Press, 1979), XII, pp. 15–16, but later bestiaries tend to focus on the murderous and murdered female viper: she bites off the male’s head in intercourse; her offspring, emerging from their mother’s side, kill her. See Markale, Mélusine, p. 95; Lefèvre, “Polymorphisme,” pp. 233–6. As Jane Burns has shown, a snake with a female face easily crosses over from the Garden of Eden to the romance of Melusine (“A Snake-­Tailed Woman,” especially pp. 204–11). 13 Cf. the debate among Christian interpreters assessing Eve and Adam’s guilt, discussed in Gary A. Anderson, The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination (Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), pp. 99–107. 14 Le Bestiaire, Version longue attribuée à Pierre de Beauvais, ed. Craig Baker, CFMA 163 (Paris, Champion, 2010), XXXVII, pp. 188–89. Le Bestiaire: das Thierbuch des normannischen Dichters Guillaume le Clerc, zum ersten Male vollständig nach den Handschriften von London, Paris und Berlin, ed. Robert Reinsch (1890; rpt. Wiesbaden, 1967), lines 1375–92. See Florence McCulloch, Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries, University of North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures 33, rev. edn. (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1962), pp. 179–83. 15 Jacques Voisenet explores the unicorn’s potential for positive and negative significations: Bêtes et hommes dans le monde médiéval: le bestiaire des clercs du Ve au XIIe siècle (Turnhout, Brepols, 2000), pp. 62–3. Brownlee compares Melusine’s polycorporeality and open-­ended hybridity to the Incarnation (“Melusine’s Hybrid Body,” p. 96).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 26

04/01/2016 10:07



NATURAL AND UNNATURAL WOMAN: MELUSINE

27

tive of betrayal in the romance where gender roles reverse to reveal the underside of Melusine’s supernatural identity, thus preparing her husband’s second transgression. This time, Raymond (like Adam blaming Eve) projects onto Melusine the negative associations tied to Eden’s false serpent. His public accusation – “tresfaulse serpente” (p. 692) – triggers Melusine’s complete metamorphosis and the loss (at least for Raymond’s eyes) of her shape as a woman.16 In the form of a flying dragon with a terrifying fifteen-­foot tail, she becomes the mirror image of her husband’s rage, the patrimony of anger inherited from his father and passed on to his son Geoffroi, whose act of fratricide – burning down an abbey with his brother and all the monks inside – is the precipitating cause of Raymond’s unreasoning fury.17 He made her a natural woman; now he makes her a dragon in his own image. Before moving on to that unnaturally draconian Melusine, consider another creature infiltrating her unicorn persona. The romance does not mention elephants, but their bestiary lore usefully triangulates between Melusine’s tale and the story of Adam and Eve in Paradise. Bestiaries record the elephant’s long life and wisdom, its chastity and fidelity, its trunk shaped like a snake – all traits that we might align with Melusine.18 But it is in the description of elephant sexuality that parallels develop most suggestively. At mating time, the elephant pair goes East; the female eats the mandragore, then gives it to her mate so that he too will eat. Sex follows immediately. The mother gives birth in water, guarded by the male elephant, lest their dragon enemy devour the offspring. As metaphors for Adam and Eve eating forbidden fruit, elephants reenact the fall into sin and sexuality, calling for the Incarnation, the new Adam, to lead us out of the world’s muddy waters. In this scenario, the female elephant doubles for Eve as well as a snaky seducer, while the dragon assumes all the diabolical connotations of Christian allegory. The configuration suggests how Melusine too might be cast in a variety of human and animal roles to reexamine Eden’s trio. Where and how do we humans begin? What is our nature, and what is the nature of the world in which we express our sexuality, give birth and experience death? In their interpretations of Genesis, Christian exegetes have looked for and disagreed about answers, so it may be useful to rehearse Elaine Pagels’s account of how Augustine’s formulation of original sin overturned early ­traditions that 16 The motif of falsity is first introduced by Presine describing her husband’s betrayal (p. 132). Raymond’s accusation is later echoed and turned back against him by Melusine (pp. 694, 696, 702). 17 From their mother and father, Melusine’s sons inherit double natures pulling in diverse directions, although in his mad rage Raymond sees them as only Melusine’s: imperfect creatures born from “aucune esperite . . . toute fantosme ou illusion” [some spirit, all phantom or illusion, p. 688]. 18 Voisenet quotes Isidore’s Etymologies on the elephant’s “trompe en forme de serpent” (Bêtes, p. 63). Brunetto Latini uses the same motif in his Livre du trésor, in Jeux et sapience du moyen âge, ed. Albert Pauphilet, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (Paris, Gallimard, 1960), p. 816.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 27

04/01/2016 10:07

28

MATILDA TOMARYN BRUCKNER

emphasized human freedom bought through baptism.19 Pagels follows the controversy between Augustine and Julian of Eclanum, who, like Pelagius, argued that death is part of the structure of nature. Julian distinguished what is voluntary (and therefore subject to human choice) from acts of God, which are necessary and natural. Augustine argued that death is unnatural, introduced along with sexual desire by Adam’s sin. His supernatural power to change nature can be undone only by Christ’s supernatural power, because all humans after Adam are stained by original sin, transmitted through human semen, and therefore powerless to master even their own will.20 The polemic echoes Melusine’s paradoxical situation in relation to Raymond. According to the conditions first presented by Presine and later revealed by Melusine (pp. 134–6, 694–6), their mortal husbands’ ability to obey or transgress the taboo imposed (like God’s prohibition in the Garden of Eden) puts them in the same place as Augustine’s exceptional Adam, able to change the nature of nature. Raymond had – and then lost – the supernatural power to change Melusine’s nature by removing the fairy parts of her multiplicity. The romance appears to restage (through ancient recall of fairy, dragon and serpent) the controversy played out in earlier Christian tradition. Although we already know the ending from the very beginning, dramatic tension emerges in the way the taboos phrase a possibility, as if there’s a chance Raymond won’t transgress, Melusine will become the natural woman she aspires to be . . . before they are pulled back into the orbit of original sin, the inevitable failure that can only be redeemed by Christian penance and God’s grace. The Melusine who might have continued her natural course through a human life takes us back to the essential problem of human nature’s dualities. Just as bestiary animals serve as metaphors, her hybrid nature stands as a pointer to the way humans cross boundaries, overlap the categories of physical and spiritual, animal and divine, monstrous and supernatural. From the male point of view, the female version of the species frequently represents the threatening ways in which the natural human mix exceeds simple classification and representation. In that view, the strangeness of Melusine can be read from one angle as the image of natural woman; from another, she is a monster of frightening yet fascinating otherness. Melusine flying around in the form of a winged dragon is indeed a horrifying spectacle, especially as she cries out piteously in the “voix femmenine” [feminine voice, p. 704] of a lady. Modern readers trying to gauge the effect for a medieval public might find an equivalent with the help of David Foster Wallace considering the lobster: 19 Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York, Vintage, 1989), especially Chapter VI, “The Nature of Nature,” pp. 127–50. 20 Reading in Latin, Augustine misinterprets the grammar of a key prepositional phrase in St. Paul, but his error was accepted as authoritative. Julian’s charge that he was inventing a new interpretation of sin was rejected, even though theologians as diverse as Origen, John Chrysostom and Pelagius did not find the sexualized interpretation of sin Augustine claimed to find articulated in Romans (Pagels, Adam, pp. 143–4).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 28

04/01/2016 10:07



NATURAL AND UNNATURAL WOMAN: MELUSINE

29

lobsters are basically giant sea insects. Like most arthropods, they date from the Jurassic period, biologically so much older than mammalia that they might as well be from another planet. And they are – particularly in their natural brown-­ green state, brandishing their claws like weapons and with thick ­antennae awhip – not nice to look at.21

Has Melusine’s “not nice to look at” dragon form resumed her primeval shape? To seek answers, we need to interrogate unnatural Melusine. In Arsenal 3353, three miniatures place a little dragon next to Melusine, between a super-­sized Presine and three daughters recoiling from the force of her curse. Is the little dragon a forecast of what lies ahead or a look back to origins? Scholars differ; no doubt we can entertain dragons both forward and back.22 Like turtles all the way down, dragons connect to primordial myths that surface in Genesis and elsewhere in the Bible, drawing the attention of Jewish and Christian commentators for whom the serpent becomes a symbol and archetype of evil. The negative charge of “false serpent” carries into Jean’s romance all the accumulated weight of Christian opprobrium, however ill-­fitting for the Melusine we know. But there are traces of other traditions in the two creation stories told in Genesis, ancient myths in which, as Marc Epstein phrases it, “The dragon symbolized the domination of the universe by the power of fate and ­predestination . . . as read in the motion of the stars actuated by the whim of the celestial dragon.”23 The great sea monsters in Genesis 1 are correlated with the primordial serpent of Genesis 2. Leviathan as ouraboros is the serpent whose body forms the sky or wraps round the earth; the celestial snake surrounds and holds up the world. Originally gods in their own right, these agents of fate exercise power over life and death (pp. 71–4, 94–5). In these representations, we can discern a mythic substratum that illuminates Melusine’s origins as a creature of earth, water, and sky, a mix of bird and fish, snake and serpent, fairy as Fata and dragon who reads the stars as well as the Count of Poitou. She is an agent of destiny whose own fate is placed in the hands of her husband, as they reinvent Eden’s threesome as a duet. Both rabbinic and Christian exegetes pick up legends of the seductive snake which has sexual relations with Eve. Usurping Adam’s place as God’s image means usurping the very place of God.24 The threat repeatedly posed by the dragon is 21 Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (New York, Little, Brown and Company, 2006), pp. 235–54, at p. 237. 22 Harf-­Lancner finds no indication of animal form for Presine: Les fées au moyen âge. Morgane et Mélusine: la naissance des fées (Paris, Slatkine, 1984), p. 107. Clier-­Colombani interprets the little dragon as a “marque chtonienne” (La Fée, p. 40) and suggests that Melusine momentarily takes dragon form at parturition. 23 Marc Epstein, Dreams of Subversion in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature (University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), pp. 62, 64. 24 Epstein, Dreams, pp. 73–4; Anderson, Genesis, pp. 91–2, on the Protevangelium of Thomas and two Jewish sources claiming the snake had intercourse with Eve and Cain is their son.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 29

04/01/2016 10:07

30

MATILDA TOMARYN BRUCKNER

the erasure of the boundary between the divine and the demonic, a ­confusion of categories within the supernatural that mirrors the confusion created by the beauty of Melusine’s face and the horror of her tail. Her marvelous nature produces contradictory effects, wonder but also fear; her god-­like powers seem diabolical and salvific, responsible for the rise but also the decline of Lusignan (pp. 164, 698). Is Melusine deceived by the snake, that most subtle of all animals (Gen 3:1), or is she herself the serpent wearing a female face? As Jane Burns has shown, in imagining Melusine, the romance reverses clerical tradition’s negative reading of Eve.25 Does this reversal constitute a return of the repressed? Before Augustinian tradition triumphed and silenced them, gnostic Christians, as Pagels explains, “read the story of Adam and Eve as an account of what takes place within a person . . . engaged in the process of spiritual self-­discovery.”26 Eve is the spiritual self, the higher principle; she goes through a series of metamorphoses, as the Tree of Life, the Instructor in serpent form and Wisdom.27 We might compare this Eve to Melusine and the dragon described by Yehudah HaLevi, twelfth-­century poet and philosopher, as “a symbol of the world of the intellect, because by this name are known those hidden things which are impossible to perceive with the senses.”28 Inspired by dragons and a gnostic understanding of the divine being as “hidden . . . within human nature,”29 might we turn the natural and unnatural Melusine inside out, revealing her supernatural self within the natural woman, rather than dividing and separating the two? Ambrose too recognizes the snake as the wisest of all animals, but, more orthodox, he limits its wisdom to the world and the flesh.30 Just so, the Christian frame in which Jean d’Arras tries to contain Melusine protects God’s hidden things from prying human reason. We are invited to accept her metamorphoses and supernatural power as food for thought and wonder: “y penser et soy esmerveillier” [think about it and marvel, p. 112]. Certainly Jean’s description of Melusine’s final scene with Raymond pulls out all the stops to make us suspend disbelief and identify with the intense emotions of his protagonists. With the assembled ladies and barons, we witness 25 “Snake-­tailed Woman,” pp. 196, 204, 209–10. Cf. also the rapprochement with Lilith in Markale, Mélusine, pp. 174–90; Clier-­Colombani, La Fée, pp. 96–7, 186, 197–203. 26 Adam, p. 66. 27 Pagels, “Exegesis and Exposition of the Genesis Accounts in Selected Texts from Nag Hammadi,” in Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, ed. C. Hedrick and R. Hodgson (Peabody, MA, Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 1986), pp. 257–86, at p. 271. Cf. Markale on Melusine as “l’anguipède, le Serpent de la Genèse, celle qui a la Connaissance” (Mélusine, p. 60). 28 Quoted in Epstein, Dreams, p. 71. 29 Pagels, Adam, p. 65. 30 Ambrose, De Paradiso 1, p. 301: “Serpens autem erat sapientior omnium bestiarum quae erant super terram quas fecit Dominus Deus,” quoted by Jeanette Beer, trans., Beasts of Love: Richard De Fournival’s Bestiaire d’Amour and a Woman’s Response (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1986), p. 49.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 30

04/01/2016 10:07



NATURAL AND UNNATURAL WOMAN: MELUSINE

31

Raymond’s furious accusation and Melusine’s heart-­wrenching farewell. At the very moment of reaching the end of her course as a natural woman without reaching a natural woman’s end, Melusine insists emphatically on her human credentials, even as she leaps to the castle window “aussi legierement comme se elle volast et eust esles” [as lightly as if she flew and had wings, p. 700]. All should know that her children are not born from a “mauvaise mere ne de serpente ne de faee” [bad mother nor a serpent or fairy, p. 702]. As Melusine explains, she is the daugher of King Elinas and Queen Presine, one of three sisters given a cruel destiny and grievous punishment, about which she can say no more, adding only a last word of farewell for Raymond. Let me turn my last words to the asymmetry of their love, the pattern put into place by Melusine’s parents. Lured to a fountain and awed by the fairy’s beauty, Elinas and Raymond fall in love immediately.31 Like her mother, Melusine puts her love into words only at the moment of loss. Her terms of endearment are echoed by his. But their fate is irreversible: though Melusine willingly pardons Raymond, because of his fault God will not let her stay (pp. 696–8). Melusine cannot be a natural woman without a mortal man, hence her departure in the shape of an unnatural serpent and her returns in a variety of forms but never as wife to Raymond. Without Melusine, her husband cannot be what she made him, hence Raymond’s “metamorphosis” into a hermit and the change in his family’s destiny. Geoffroi’s adventure in the cave, completed after Melusine’s disappearance, rediscovers and retells the story of King Elinas and Presine. The analeptic gesture mirrors the proleptic stories of fairies and mortals, rewrites the beginning into the end, and thereby anticipates the series of additions that mark the open-­ended character of Jean’s ending, including Melusine’s latest reappearance to announce the moment when the English Creswell loses Lusignan and it returns to the displaced family heir, Jean Duc de Berry, son of the French king and literary patron. The patterns are already inscribed into history and myth before the narrative begins. “Melusine, before and after her metamorphosis, is Melusine.”

31 When Presine’s singing first attracts Elinas, the narrator explicitly evokes “sereine, faee ne nimphe” [siren, nymph, and fairy] in describing his reaction to her voice, perceived as “voix angelique,” angelic yet recognizably feminine: “il entendy asséz par la grant doulçour de la voix que c’estoit voix femenine” [he understood by the great sweetness of the voice that it was a woman’s voice, p. 122].

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 31

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 32

04/01/2016 10:07

Nurturing Debate in Le Roman de Silence Kristin L. Burr Despite its title and emphasis on the value of holding one’s tongue, Heldris de Cornuälle’s thirteenth-­century1 Le Roman de Silence has inspired anything but silence on the part of medievalists for the past two decades. To be sure, the romance seems tailored to today’s audience. Scholars and students alike are drawn to the story of the world’s most beautiful baby girl, who is raised as a boy for inheritance purposes, becomes the King of England’s most loyal and talented knight, emerges unscathed from the queen’s vindictive attempts to bring about Silence’s permanent exile or death, and eventually weds the sovereign to become queen herself. Still, the plot alone does not explain the tale’s appeal. Equally important are the myriad questions that the text raises but never answers conclusively. Who was Heldris de Cornuälle – and, the designation of “Maistres” notwithstanding, was Heldris a man or a woman?2 Do two references to Arthur and the late arrival of Merlin suffice to qualify the romance as Arthurian?3 Is the tale ultimately misogynistic, transmitting an ultra-­conservative message, or does it reveal more radical, proto-­feminist tendencies?4 If the latter, does Heldris 1 In his introduction to the romance, Lewis Thorpe dates it to the second half of the thirteenth century, probably nearer to the end of the period than the beginning. See Lewis Thorpe, Le Roman de Silence: A Thirteenth-­Century Arthurian Verse-­Romance by Heldris de Cornuälle (Cambridge, W. Heffer and Sons, 1972), p. 10. 2 Peter Haidu notes that “de Cornuälle” may indicate the English Cornwall or La Cornuaille in France, near Nantes. See Peter Haidu, The Subject Medieval/Modern: Text and Governance in the Middle Ages (Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 239. While Heldris could be a man or woman, the pronoun “he” will be used in this essay to refer to the author. 3 Beate Schmolke-­Hasselmann does not include it in the Arthurian corpus in The Evolution of Arthurian Romance: The Verse Tradition from Chrétien to Froissart, trans. Margaret and Roger Middleton (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 4. Karen Pratt shares Schmolke-­Hasselmann’s doubts in “Humour in the Roman de Silence,” in Arthurian Literature XIX: Comedy in Arthurian Literature, ed. Keith Busby and Roger Dalrymple (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2002), pp. 87–103, at p. 88. 4 This question has generated the greatest critical response. For varied viewpoints, see: among others: Caroline Jewers, “The Non-­Existent Knight: Adventure in Le Roman de Silence,” Arthuriana 7 (Summer 1997), pp. 87–110; Catherine L. White, “Not So Dutiful Daughters: Women and Their Fathers in Three French Medieval Works: Le Roman de Silence, Erec et Enide, and Le Livre de la cité des dames,” Cincinnati Romance Review 18 (1999), pp. 189–99; Sarah Roche-­Mahdi, “A Reappraisal of the Role of Merlin in the Roman de Silence,” Arthuriana 12 (Spring 2002), pp. 6–21; Kathleen J. Brahney, “When Silence Was

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 33

04/01/2016 10:07

34

KRISTIN L. BURR

espouse this viewpoint, or does it result despite attempts to prove women’s “natural” inferiority? These questions are not merely imposed by twenty-­first-­century critics looking at the romance through modern eyes. Rather, they are built into the text itself. That is, the storyline and the tale’s presentation repeatedly call our attention to these issues – and to their lack of definitive resolution.5 In fact, the ambiguity in Le Roman de Silence adds immeasurably to its interest: the unanswered, and perhaps unanswerable, questions invite discussion. The narrator, who consistently sends mixed messages, plays a key role in this process. From beginning to end, Heldris-­the-­composer employs varied strategies to shape a narrator who guarantees that the romance will inspire controversy. Ambiguous portraits of characters – whose actions often undermine the qualities for which the narrator praises them – blanket statements condemning an entire group, and narratorial contradictions from one statement to the next render impossible any straightforward interpretation of the tale. The complex characters and diverse perspectives that result from these approaches encourage audience members to draw their own conclusions, ensuring that the debates within the romance will provoke dialogue extratextually well after Le Roman de Silence concludes. As the tale begins, the characters presented appear in a very favorable light. From an opening commentary on the lamentable state of honor in his own day, the narrator passes to a detailed description of King Ebain’s courtliness. Comparing the English sovereign to Arthur, the narrator lauds the way in which Ebain maintains peace, upholds justice, and generously supports his young knights – with particular emphasis on the last (106–31).6 By juxtaposing Ebain with the avaricious nobles of later times, Heldris presents the English king as the exemplar of honor. Ebain’s bride, Eufeme, whom he weds to end Golden: Female Personae in the Roman de Silence,” in The Spirit of the Court, ed. Glyn S. Burgess and Robert A. Taylor (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 1985), pp. 52–61; Gregory Walter Gross, Secrecy and Confession in Late Medieval Narrative: Gender, Sexuality, and the Rhetorical Subject. Ann Arbor, MI, University Microfilms International, 1994; Roberta L. Krueger, Women Readers and the Ideology of Gender in Old French Verse Romances (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 103–26; Peggy McCracken, “‘The Boy Who Was a Girl’: Reading Gender in the Roman de Silence,” Romanic Review 85 (1994), pp. 517–36; and Kofi Campbell, “Queer from the Very Beginning: (En)gendering the Vernacular in Medieval France,” in Identities across Time and Cultures, ed. Jarrod Hayes, Margaret R. Higonnet, and William J. Spurlin (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 23–43, esp. p. 40. 5 Katherine H. Terrell attributes the divergent readings of the text to the inherent instability in the concept of gender; see “Competing Gender Ideologies and the Limitations of Language in Le Roman de Silence,” Romance Quarterly 55 (Winter 2008), pp. 35–48, at p. 43. Barbara Newman remarks that the question of whether humans are intrinsically good or evil remains unanswered too; see God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), p. 127. 6 References and citations come from Heldris de Cornuälle, Silence: A Thirteenth-­ Century French Romance, ed. and trans. Sarah Roche-­Mahdi (East Lansing, MI, Colleagues Press, 1992), with verse numbers following each citation. Translations are mine.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 34

04/01/2016 10:07



NURTURING DEBATE IN LE ROMAN DE SILENCE

35

a war between England and Norway, is depicted as a good match for the king. The narrator qualifies her as a “beautiful gem” (166), and Ebain views her as a treasure (182). The royal pair possesses the attributes an audience would expect of a sovereign and his wife, with no indication of any flaws. Other key characters display equally distinguished traits. Cador, described as the most valiant, best-­loved, and bravest of Ebain’s knights (393–4), proves his worth without hesitation when a dragon attacks Ebain and his retinue. Unbeknownst to anyone except his squire, Cador prepares to battle the dragon – who has already killed thirty men – and slays it, living up to Ebain’s expectations for honorable conduct. Cador’s future bride, Eufemie, also demonstrates her desire to behave nobly. Having healed Cador from the wounds incurred during his combat with the dragon, she struggles with her nascent love for the young knight.7 Caught between suffering caused by her unspoken feelings and her hesitation at speaking out, Eufemie opts for the latter. On her way to Cador’s chamber, however, her fear temporarily gets the better of her. Notably, she couches her internal conflict in terms of honor and shame, thrice accusing her heart of seeking to disgrace her (848–9, 851, 860). Only a linguistic faux pas resulting from her emotional turmoil finally suggests to Cador that she loves him. The perfectly matched couple find their virtue validated in an exceptional gift from Ebain: the right to choose any mate. It is small wonder that the generous king sees fit to reward two subjects who have displayed valiance and noble character. Yet there is a gap between what the narrator tells us about these characters and their acts, suggesting that honor does not entirely dominate in any of them. Throughout the tale, each engages in behavior that can hardly be construed as exemplary. Ebain prohibits women from inheriting after two of his counts, wed to twin sisters, kill each other in an argument over which sibling was born first. The king thus punishes all women, although the sisters themselves are blameless in the situation. Moreover, despite Ebain’s promise to allow Cador and Eufemie to select a partner, his reaction to hearing the two ask him to keep his pledge suggests a degree of insincerity.8 After assuring each one separately that he will respect his or her choice, Ebain meets with his council and announces that he wants Cador to wed Eufemie and that someone 7 For more on Eufemie’s role in the romance, see Chapter 5 of Laine Doggett, Love Cures: Healing and Love Magic in Old French Romance (University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009). 8 A number of scholars have analyzed Ebain’s behavior and eventual marriage to Silence in the context of inheritance law. See, for instance: Craig A. Berry, “What Silence Desires: Female Inheritance and the Romance of Property in the Roman de Silence,” in Translating Desire in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, ed. Craig A. Berry and Heather Richardson Hayton (Tempe, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005), pp. 191–206; Sharon Kinoshita, “Male-­Order Brides: Marriage, Patriarchy, and Monarchy in the Roman de Silence,” Arthuriana 12 (Spring 2002), pp. 64–75; and Christopher Callahan, “Canon Law, Primogeniture, and the Marriage of Ebain and Silence,” Romance Quarterly 49 (Winter 2002), pp. 12–20.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 35

04/01/2016 10:07

36

KRISTIN L. BURR

should explain the wisdom of the decision to the pair. In short, Ebain vows to Cador and Eufemie that he will give each the desired lady or lord, and then proceeds to choose a spouse for them. Only the fact that his wishes correspond to those of the couple prevents a conflict. In this instance, the king is honorable by default. The narrator concludes the episode that leads to Cador and Eufemie’s wedding with another excursus on the shift in values over time. Eufemie’s father journeys to accompany the couple back to his lands after their marriage. The narrator offers nothing but praise for the count, who is generous, courtly, and without baseness or treachery (1547–8) – in contrast to the deceit, baseness, flattery, disregard for the truth, and, especially, shame that overshadow love and virtue in Heldris’s day (1551–76). By placing the digression here, the romance also invites us to reconsider what has just occurred. Although the narrator never condemns Ebain, Cador and Eufemie’s union has been brought about by many of the traits that Heldris laments: deception, flattery, and an ability to manipulate the truth. After the count’s death, Cador and Eufemie, too, display questionable judgment. First, the two consciously contravene the king’s law by raising their daughter as a son, a decision that requires a good deal of planning.9 Later, Cador follows in Ebain’s footsteps by banning all minstrels owing to his mistaken belief that two jongleurs have kidnapped Silence. While the choice is explicitly Cador’s, it comes after lengthy passages insisting on the grief experienced by both Cador and Eufemie, who are regularly linked by the pronouns “they” and “we.”10 No character undergoes a more radical transformation than does Eufeme. The same queen who was a “gem” and greeted the king courteously upon her arrival in England becomes ruthless and calculating. She repeatedly tries to seduce Silence (whom she believes to be a man) and then goes to great lengths to punish the youth for rejecting her advances. She claims that Silence has tried to rape her, falsifies a letter from her husband to the French king in an effort to have Silence killed, devises an ostensibly impossible task that will lead to Silence’s permanent exile, and is finally discovered to have a lover who disguises himself as a nun to be near the queen. The narrator thus paints two 9 Erika E. Hess argues that Cador’s solution depends on the natural right to inherit. See “Inheritance Law and Gender Identity in the Roman de Silence,” in Law and Sovereignty in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Robert S. Sturges (Turnhout, Brepols, 2011), pp. 217–35, esp. p. 235. This interpretation may explain potential audience support for Cador’s decision. Furthermore, although Cador takes the initiative in proposing that Silence be raised as a boy, the romance consistently emphasizes that Cador and Eufemie act as one, and Eufemie immediately agrees to the plan. 10 Like Cador, Silence defies Ebain’s edict, opting to live as a man even after reaching adolescence and realizing that the body developing is definitely female. While Silence’s choice stems from the recognition that being male has many advantages, it is also motivated by the desire not to betray Cador. In Silence’s case, the honorable decision to protect Cador outweighs the potential dishonor in disobeying the king.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 36

04/01/2016 10:07



NURTURING DEBATE IN LE ROMAN DE SILENCE

37

portraits of important characters. Praised for their honorable qualities, Ebain, Cador, Eufemie, and Eufeme do not always act in accordance with expectations. With this pattern, the audience cannot ignore the divergence between the examples the narrator provides and the exemplary traits first highlighted – and must wonder how to interpret the dissonance. Actions speak louder than words. The narrator himself plays an enigmatic role, as becomes evident in the tale’s prologue. The poem’s opening, which introduces a high degree of ambiguity and raises doubts about the teller’s motives, provides no hint of the story to come. All that we discover at the end of the first 106 lines is that Heldris wishes to begin the tale – information conveyed in a mere five verses. More surprising, Heldris offers no praise for a patron at the narrative’s outset. To the contrary, he chastises those who do not recognize good stories or remunerate those who recount them.11 Contrasting the current state of affairs with that of the past, Heldris asserts that Honor lor est si esloignie Que il n’en ont une puignie. Doner, joster et tornoier, Mances porter et dosnoier Ont torné en fiens entasser. (41–5). [“Honor is so far distant from them (the stingy) that they don’t have a handful of it. Generosity, jousting and tourneying, wearing ladies’ sleeves and courting have turned into piles of dung.”]

This passage comes in the midst of a diatribe against avarice and the evils of wealth; Heldris implies that munificence can prevent one from becoming mean-­spirited and miserable. Yet Heldris seems less concerned with the effects of stinginess on those who hoard wealth than with the consequences of their behavior for composers and performers. Underscoring the honor gained from generosity and the shame born of greed permits Heldris to make a case for financial compensation for minstrels, revealing his self-­interest. He sets the stage for his own remuneration. As the prologue concludes, the audience may wonder what it has to do with the romance. The narrator’s goals are unclear; Heldris appears to be mainly interested in criticizing contemporary social woes rather than in recounting Silence’s story. One may also suspect that the narrator is unable to provide an introduction designed to pique the curiosity of readers and listeners and draw them into the narrative to come. As Suzanne Kocher notes, more than anything else, the prologue ostensibly acts as therapy for a narrator she characterizes as 11 The criticism of stingy nobles calls to mind songs from the trouvère tradition; it is far less typical in romance. For more on avarice in Le Roman de Silence, see Nicole D. Smith, Sartorial Strategies: Outfitting Aristocrats and Fashioning Conduct in Late Medieval Literature (Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), esp. pp. 62–3.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 37

04/01/2016 10:07

38

KRISTIN L. BURR

“grouchy and possibly inebriated.”12 From the beginning, the romance casts doubt upon the narrator’s skill and authority. He appears to be a man of limited ability. Dismissing the narrator as simple or untalented, however, is only possible if one overlooks the fact that the prologue does in fact set the scene for what it to come by introducing a theme that will play a key role throughout. The prologue is far less distinct from the romance than it initially seems to be, for, Heldris explicitly links generosity to honor and stinginess to shame and ensures that no one can miss his point: words based on one concept or the other appear eleven times in the passage. Albeit indirectly, the tale’s opening thus prepares the story to come, in which remarks concerning generosity, avarice, honor, and shame are rife.13 As the narrator makes clear throughout, honor and shame in particular serve as strong motivators: characters pursue the first and endeavor to avoid the second (or are supposed to, since they are not always entirely successful). This is especially true for Silence, who consistently seeks to preserve others from disgrace, whether by continuing to live as a man to protect Cador and Eufemie, rejecting Eufeme’s overtures by telling the queen that any other choice would mean dishonoring the king, or keeping quiet when faced with the queen’s accusation of rape because refuting it would mean a loss of honor for both Cador and Eufeme. Precisely because the prologue differs from conventional beginnings, we are invited to scrutinize it and cannot neglect the attention accorded to honor and disgrace. Like so many of the characters, then, the narrator is not necessarily what he appears to be. His ability is cloaked in ambiguity; the audience must watch this character, too, closely to determine what his goals and skills may be. The narrator’s strongly worded views concerning women reveal another of Heldris-­the-­composer’s strategies for encouraging debate: the use of generalizations.14 Implicitly condoning the count’s plan to raise Silence as a boy, the narrator notes that the gifts the child’s parents give to Cador’s cousin, who has agreed to help them, are well deserved. After all, he reminds us, Cador and Eufemie 12 Suzanne Kocher, “Narrative Structures of the Roman de Silence: Lessons in Interpretation,” Romance Notes 42 (Spring 2002), pp. 349–58, at p. 352. Kocher also characterizes the narrator as “curmudgeonly” (p. 349), “untrustworthy,” “quirky,” and “self-­ contradicting” (p. 351). Regina Psaki describes the narrator as neither dignified nor learned; see Heldris de Cornuälle, Le Roman de Silence, trans. Regina Psaki (New York, Garland, 1991), pp. xxv–xxxi. Kate Mason Cooper further remarks on the narrator’s tendency to break his own story in “Elle and L: Sexualized Identity in Le Roman de Silence,” Romance Notes 25 (Spring 1985), pp. 341–60, at p. 353. 13 Heather Tanner contends that the prologue introduces other essential themes, including lordship and the importance of counsel and discretion. See her “Lords, Wives, and Vassals in the Roman de Silence,” Journal of Women’s History 24 (Spring 2012), pp. 138–59, at p. 141. 14 Mary Ellen Ryder and Linda Marie Zaerr contend that another type of ­generalization – the generic expression of Silence’s actions in scenes with fighting or minstrelsy – helps prepare the audience for the tale’s end. See their “A Stylistic Analysis of Le Roman de Silence,” Arthuriana 18 (Spring 2008), pp. 22–40, at p. 28. They argue persuasively that Silence’s power is consistently diminished throughout the romance.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 38

04/01/2016 10:07



NURTURING DEBATE IN LE ROMAN DE SILENCE

39

will get a boy instead of a girl, a male heir rather than a daughter (2207–10). Whereas this passage criticizes women indirectly, later comments point out all of the sex’s stereotypical flaws. When Queen Eufeme grows enamored of the cross-­dressed Silence, the narrator finds ample opportunity to condemn evil female nature. Woman easily abandons love for hate and is fickle, vindictive, manipulative, and dominated by her baser emotions, the narrator informs the audience in one rant (3901–24). Later, when Eufeme discovers that her plan to have Silence killed by the French king has failed, her reaction provides more fodder for the narrator’s misogyny. Noting the disjunction between the queen’s inner rage and the sweet demeanor she shows her husband, Heldris once again compares love and hate before censuring all women: Faintice feme paltoniere, Quant violt d’ome estre parçoniere, Pasmer et plorer est sa guise. Mais ja n’iert d’ome si soprise, Por cho qu’il n’ait de s’amor cure, Ne voelle sa male aventure. Feme faintice n’ainme mie, Ains faint pur furnir sa folie. Moult a a dire en fainte feme. (5233–41) [“Fainting and crying is the way of deceitful wanton woman, when she wants a share of a man. But she will never be so taken with a man that she does not desire his misfortune if he does not want her love. A deceitful woman does not love, rather she pretends to in order to fulfill her lewd desires/folly. There is much to say about deceitful woman.”]

Based on the reprehensible conduct of one woman, the narrator condemns the entire sex. The main male characters of the romance echo the narrator’s sentiments in a notably similar way. Cador, for example, chooses not to reveal his feelings for Eufemie early in the romance because of concerns that she may love another. While his justification is logical, the remarks with which he follows it seem unnecessarily severe. Not only does Cador allude to woman’s fickleness, but also he notes that she confuses will and reason, looks for occasions to disgrace herself, does not do her best, and has a will that contradicts nature, reason, and right (667–75). Ebain, too, refers to unflattering aspects of female “nature.” For instance, although he has no intention of demanding Silence’s execution after Eufeme accuses the youth of attempted rape, he remains silent when the queen insists on such a punishment. He holds his tongue solely because he knows how argumentative woman is (4265–70). The narrator, Cador, and Ebain all generalize about the female sex. Yet there is a problem with their sweeping statements: they do not hold true in the context of the romance. While no one attempts to redeem Eufeme, Eufemie behavior does not embody any of Cador’s criticisms. Moreover, Silence’s ­

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 39

04/01/2016 10:07

40

KRISTIN L. BURR

u­ ndermines the tale’s misogynistic overtones.15 The decision to deceive the king by cross-­dressing may be less than admirable, yet in every other way Silence incarnates honor.16 The youth’s reaction to Eufeme’s false allegation of rape is particularly telling: well aware of the lie, Silence says nothing in order to protect the queen’s reputation (4166–8). Only Eufeme behaves in a way that deserves harsh criticism, and she hardly represents all women.17 Even the narrator’s conclusion serves as an aside rather than a rational ending to the tale. Heldris exhorts all “good women” in the audience not to take offense at the depiction of Eufeme and to find comfort in the positive portrayal of Silence – a provocative suggestion, given that Silence has cross-­ dressed, become an exceptional knight, and finally wed the king. Furthermore, Heldris offers a backhanded compliment to the “good women” he addresses, informing the audience that woman has less opportunity to be good than bad, so being good requires working against nature (6683–91). Continuing, he entreats such women not to take offense at other’s faults but to make a more concerted effort to do what is right (6699–701). The narrator’s comments can hardly be construed as truly positive; they imply that most women are inherently bad. Yet the fact that they do not logically follow from Silence’s story opens them to scrutiny. Moreover, they represent a shift away from the earlier grouping of all women in the misogynistic passages, for they admit exceptions and draw attention to women rather than Woman. The narrator, prone to generalizing about women, closes the tale with a reminder that such generalizations are untenable.18 The placement of the men’s statements further mitigates the misogyny. By the tale’s end, Ebain has good reason to doubt Eufeme; the king has already discovered that she has acted abominably. In no other case, however, is condemnation of women supported by the plot. No particular instance of female misbehavior motivates Cador’s comments about women’s fickleness and desire to dishonor themselves. Nor does the tale explain why Ebain alludes to woman’s argumentative nature from hearing Eufeme accuse Silence of trying to rape her and demanding suitable punishment. And while the narrator may justifiably note that Eufeme’s love for Silence turns to hate, the twenty-­five lines devoted to woman’s irrationality and vindictiveness seem to grow from more than a desire to explain the queen’s change of heart. In short, the most blatantly ­misogynistic 15 For more on the roles played by Eufeme, Eufemie, and Silence, see Anita Benaim Lasry, “The Ideal Heroine in Medieval Romances: A Quest for a Paradigm,” Kentucky Romance Quarterly 32 (1985), pp. 227–43. 16 Smith, p. 91, views Silence’s transvestism as a visible sign of filial honor and integrity, making even cross-­dressing a positive reflection on Silence’s moral character. 17 Katie Keene and Heather Tanner propose that Ebain may play a role in Eufeme’s behavior. See Keene’s “‘Cherchez Eufeme’: The Evil Queen in Le Roman de Silence,” Arthuriana 14 (Fall 2004), pp. 3–22, esp. p. 17; and Tanner’s “Lords, Wives, and Vassals in the Roman de Silence,” Journal of Women’s History 24 (Spring 2012), pp. 138–59, esp. pp. 149–52. 18 Kocher argues that the narrator best illustrates excessive loquaciousness and the failure to keep secrets, two shortcomings attributed to women (p. 355).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 40

04/01/2016 10:07



NURTURING DEBATE IN LE ROMAN DE SILENCE

41

passages appear to be digressions; they could easily be removed without affecting the storyline in any way. Heldris-­the-­composer thus marginalizes the tirades, which draws attention to them and raises questions about the veracity of the ideas they assert. The implicit distinction between an essential Woman and all members of the sex notwithstanding, the narrator consistently insists on innate female “badness.” Yet a closer look at the tale’s emphasis on false appearances raises questions about what assumptions one can truly make about women’s nature and brings to the fore another textual strategy for generating discussion: the narrator’s tendency to contradict himself. Bypassing the most blatant examples of a gap between appearance and reality – Silence’s cross-­dressing and later disguise as a minstrel – I will concentrate on a series of scenes examining the role that Nature and Nurture play in creating and maintaining such appearances. The narrator clearly depicts Nature’s supremacy as he recounts Silence’s creation. Informing the audience that Nature uses the finest raw material when she wishes to make someone of quality, the narrator notes that at times Nature grows careless and accidentally mixes in a bit of coarser matter – which explains why a “good” body can conceal a base heart. Similarly, if a small quantity of fine material is added to the coarser ingredients with which Nature makes the lower classes, those who are not of high birth can possess a noble character (1835–60). Appearances can be deceiving – an appropriate commentary immediately prior to Silence’s birth. Nature also seemingly predetermines one’s character: regardless of social status, one is born good or bad and cannot escape innate moral traits. Fewer than five hundred verses later, the narrator disproves this philosophy. In a lengthy passage that initially insists on Nature’s power, Heldris’s perspective shifts without any acknowledgement of the change. After claiming that naturally “bad” men who do the right thing because of nurture merely fear the consequences and eventually return to their wicked nature, the narrator points to the potential power of nurture. A naturally vile heart can never permanently reject its wickedness, but a noble heart can become so corrupted by nurture that it risks being lost (2296–342). To be sure, the narrator does not paint a flattering picture of nurture – or of humankind in general. Nonetheless, the assertion of nurture’s influence conflicts with the narrator’s stance on nature’s dominance. Moreover, later in the romance the narrator privileges nurture even more greatly. During a brief intrusion, Heldris announces that good manners are crucial for a courtly life. He informs the audience that: Mains hom fait tols jors desonor Que s’il eüst flairié honor Et maintenue dé l’enfance Ki n’avroit cure de viltance. (5171–4) [“Many a man who does shameful acts each day would not care for base deeds, if he had tasted [smelled] honor and lived with it from childhood.”]

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 41

04/01/2016 10:07

42

KRISTIN L. BURR

Without voicing the terms “nature” or “nurture,” the narrator expresses precisely these concepts – and implies that “good” nurture can correct “bad” nature. A false appearance can become true. The overall function of Nature and Nurture in the romance can be fully understood only when examined with Silence. While the young protagonist frequently serves as a counterexample to the narrator’s diatribes, in this case the youth is at once counterexample and example. Silence’s success as a knight belies narratorial insinuations that Nurture cannot equal Nature. Were such the case, Silence would quickly be unmasked as a woman, yet Merlin alone can reveal Silence’s biological sex. Nurture’s importance cannot be denied, despite the ending and Silence’s repeated doubts about the wisdom of leading a cross-­ dressed life. And yet the youth’s story is not so straightforward, for Nature and Nurture do not exist in true opposition. As important as Nurture is in Silence’s upbringing, Nature, too, plays a key role. The narrator attributes the child’s capacity for education to Nature – innate qualities help the young Silence to learn much alone, just as a good falcon trains itself (2382–90). Describing the young Silence’s efforts to excel when praised, the narrator tacitly acknowledges Nature’s role in Silence’s success. He explains that when the wicked are praised, they grow arrogant (2410–13) and that wickedness increases (2417– 19), concluding “Et por cho di jo que Nature / Signorist desor Noreture” [“And so I say that Nature rules Nurture”] (2423–4). Nature continues to influence Silence as an adolescent, when the protagonist continues to exhibit an inherently noble character. While serving two jongleurs in an attempt to learn an appropriately feminine skill for the future, the apprentice quickly surpasses the masters. Simultaneously returning once more to the theme of honor and shame and contradicting passages that point to the influence of Nurture, the narrator remarks that: Silences croist moult en francise, Li jogleör en culvertise, Tant com li buens tent a l’onor Et malvais a le dishonor. (3201–4) [“Silence grew greatly in nobility, and the jongleurs in baseness, just as the good tend to honor, and the bad to dishonor.”]

Nature guides Silence, despite the concealment of the youth’s biological body. One might even say that Silence’s proclivity for learning Nurture’s lessons so thoroughly stems from Nature, which is often defined in terms not of one’s body, but of one’s heart.19 Given the tangled strands woven between Nature, Nurture, and Silence, the narrator sends a mixed message. False appearances are not always deserv19 Krueger notes that “Nature” has a series of meanings, from biological sex to good breeding: Women Readers, p. 117.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 42

04/01/2016 10:07

NURTURING DEBATE IN LE ROMAN DE SILENCE



43

ing of condemnation; Silence’s “unnatural” existence leads to rewards, and Nature has a hand in the youth’s success. And Nature only ultimately stands ­victorious  in instances where Nurture – which signifies more than adopting male dress and behavior – does not prove to be a stronger influence. For Silence, both encourage the pursuit of honor; the two in tandem create an identity.20 Complicating the impulse to dismiss the narrator as untrustworthy is the fact that he, too, is a study in contradiction: not all of his assessments are erroneous. After Cador bans jongleurs, the narrator decries the injustice, voicing his opinion that the minstrels were not to blame (3131–7). Here, his judgment is accurate. Furthermore, in a series of comments that he makes about the truth, he never purports to be entirely veracious. Rather, prior to launching into Silence’s story, he admits that fiction mingled with truth will embellish the tale (1662–9); later, he notes that those who tell too much of the truth can destroy their credibility (3099–3101). The narrator himself thus raises the possibility that not every element of the work is entirely truthful and therefore that he may be somewhat unreliable. By mixing contradictions with truth and admitting the need to enhance the story, the narrator keeps the audience guessing. He may be more sophisticated than is often thought.21 At the very least, Heldris-­ the-­composer artfully weaves the narrator’s comments into the romance, providing coherence between Silence’s story and the “extratextual” opinions of Heldris-­the-­narrator. What, then, are we to make of the narrator in Le Roman de Silence? Perhaps, as Psaki and Kocher have suggested, the character is unsophisticated. Ambiguous portraits of characters that result from actions that subvert qualities that are praised, generalizations that are both untrue and appear to digress from the story, and reversals from one statement to the next that reveal inherent contradictions may all be techniques used by Heldris-­the-­composer to point out the narrator’s unreliability. Even this aspect of the work, however, is arguable. The narratorial divagations are not truly separate from the romance, for they repeatedly underscore major themes, such as the function of honor, the moral character of women, the naturalness of false appearances, and questions of truth. Moreover, they are carefully placed at the beginning and end of the tale or at key points such as Silence’s creation, ensuring that they draw attention to themselves. It is impossible to know if the narrator is meant to offer contrast with the tale of Silence through a lack of sophistication or is intended to be a more aware character who harps on key themes to draw the audience’s focus to them. Regardless, the narrator fosters – even forces – discussion about the romance. See Terrell for more on the overlap between Nature and Nurture (p. 39). Roberta L. Krueger asserts that the narrator anticipates a critical response from the audience. See “Beyond Debate: Gender in Play in Old French Courtly Fiction,” in Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance, ed. Thelma S. Fenster and Clare A. Lees (New York, Palgrave, 2002), pp. 79–95, at p. 90. This may also suggest a degree of sophistication. 20 21

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 43

04/01/2016 10:07

44

KRISTIN L. BURR

Ultimately, Heldris’s work is all the more satisfying for it. With no real guidance that might lead the audience to clear conclusions, the tale leaves us with a provocatively ambiguous message that will generate controversy for years to come. The question of whether Nature or Nurture truly reigns supreme in Le Roman de Silence may remain unanswered, but there is no doubt that Heldris displays a remarkable talent for nurturing debate.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 44

04/01/2016 10:07

The Man Backing Down from the Lady in Trobairitz Tensos Daniel E. O’Sullivan In troubadour love songs (cansos) the lady, a fiction conceived in the mind of the poet, is molded in language and recognizable through poetic tradition and convention. The poet proclaims from center stage his longing for his lady, a desire that manifests outwardly in songs of praise that describe her indescribable beauty. The idealized lady is ephemeral, even chimerical, and the poet’s quest is essentially a self-­fulfilled prophecy: he sings because he does not possess his love object, and so he sings all the more. Despite his faithful service, he, the lover, is a victim, and his beloved a victimizer. E. Jane Burns persuasively analyzes the troubadour’s position in Bernart de Ventadorn’s cansos as follows: The voice of the Provençal troubadour, set adrift between private and public worlds, hovers uncertainly between natural desire and its domesticated expression in song, between the hope of making contact with the woman and the impossibility of even achieving such contact through the only means available to him. The song he composes tends to objectify and distance the desired woman; it can neither secure nor wholly substitute for sexual gratification.1

The male-­authored canso is narcissistic in nature: while it may be ostensibly about the praiseworthy Other, it’s really about the praising Self.2 At the same time, the desire that the poet expresses over and over again remains, must remain, unfulfilled, for were the poet to accomplish his goal, the love quest would end. Thus all while the male poet coaxes, cajoles, and swears never to accept defeat, he knows that he cannot accept victory either. Burns puts it succinctly: 1 E. Jane Burns, “The Man behind the Lady in Troubadour Lyric,” Romance Notes 25 (1985), pp. 254–70, at pp. 263–4 (emphasis added). 2 The foundational study of Narcissus, and one upon which Burns relies for her own analysis, is Frederick Goldin, The Mirror of Narcissus in the Courtly Love Lyric (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1967). A few years later after Burns’ article, Tilde Sankovitch wrote, “Narcissus’s exclamation upon perceiving himself in the water of the fountain, “Iste ego sum” (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3: 463), might well serve as a lapidary formulation of the troubadours’ self-­referential erotic quest for beauty and perfection.” “Lombarda’s Reluctant Mirror: Speculum of Another Poet” in The Voice of the Trobaritz: Perspectives on the Women Troubadours, ed. William Paden (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), pp. 183–93, at p. 184.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 45

04/01/2016 10:07

46

DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

[P]oetic creation is generally motivated by the Lady’s rebuke; the choice of the poet to be a composer of love songs depends precisely on his not being loved. It is in this sense that longing for the Lady becomes more valuable to him psychologically and professionally than the possession of her, and the mal d’amour can function as le plus grand bien.3

More than a narcissist, the troubadour is a masochist. Amorous satisfaction would bring about poetic nullification, for the pain he feels, his ultimate source of inspiration, would cease, and silence would ensue. Sure, he could seek out other quarry, but then his proclamations of loving only one and the best woman for ever and ever would indeed ring hollow. Having painted himself into a rhetorical corner, the poet must reveal himself as insincere at some level: is he lying about why he sings or about whom he sings? It is instructive to read trobairitz, or female-­voiced, songs, both cansos and tensos, in light of the promises made in the male-­voiced cansos. Especially interesting are those tensos between lovers, as I intend to show, because while a lover may easily manipulate his story to listeners ignorant of what goes on behind closed bedroom doors, it is quite different when he speaks in front of the one person who knows the whole story. These songs show us exactly what happens when, to echo Burns’ words, the poet has indeed made contact with the woman. Will he seize the moment? In female-­voiced cansos, women take the floor alone and sing about their own experiences in loving; needless to say, they often paint a very different picture from what we see in troubadour lyrics.4 The Comtessa de Dia exclaims in “A Chantar m’er de so q’ieu no volria” (PC 46,2) that, though her lover apparently praised her beauty and worthiness, she now says that she must sing about what she’d rather not: “c’altressi.m sui enganada e trahia / com degr’esser s’ieu fos desavinens” (6–7) [for I am every bit as betrayed and wronged / as I’d deserve to be if I were ugly].5 Na Castelloza begins one song (PC 109,1) with a similar claim of treachery: Amics, s’ie.us trobes avinen, humil e franc e de bona merce, Burns, “The Man behind the Lady,” p. 264. Burns demonstrates the disruptive potential in women’s speech, even in seemingly hostile textual environments: “[E]ven the most misogynous of medieval literary texts, where a long-­standing tradition figures women’s body as the precondition for and guarantor of male intellectual, sexual and chivalric prowess, can be seen to reveal repeatedly how women’s bodies and the voices issuing from them can resist the constructions that contain and define them” (Bodytalk: When Women Speak in Old French Literature [Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press], p. 6). Burns takes the concept of women seeing themselves and their bodies “from elsewhere” from Theresa de Lauretis’ work and, in particular, her Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1987). 5 I take all citations and translations from Matilda Bruckner, Laurie Shepard, and Sarah White, Songs of the Women Troubadours (New York and London, Garland, 1995), unless otherwise indicated. All songs are identified by their standard number in Alfred Pillet and Henry Carstens, Bilbiographie der Troubadours (New York, Burt Franklin, 1968 [rpt.]). 3 4

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 46

04/01/2016 10:07



THE MAN BACKING DOWN IN TROBAIRITZ TENSOS

47

be.us amera, quand era m’en sove q’us trob vas mil mal e fellon e tric (1–4) [Friend, if I had found you kind, humble, frank and merciful, I’d love you well; but now I recall that I find you evil, harsh and false to me.]

These women’s complaints come down to one thing: they believed men’s false promises of love and fealty. Obviously, what we hear in the troubadour canso does not hold up in the testimonies of the trobaritiz canso.6 Women don’t only complain about their lovers when they speak alone: they also express dissatisfaction with their lot in debate songs (tensos) with both male and female interlocutors. These lively interactions sometimes move beyond the rarified discourse of the canso, as in “Na Carenza al bel cors avinenz” (PC 12,1; 108,1) where the discussion turns to marriage and childbirth, stretched bellies and sagging breasts. Elsewhere, third parties intervene on behalf of lovers: in “Dompna N’Almulcs, si.us plages” (PC 20,2; 253,1), Iseut begs forgiveness from Almuc on behalf of a man who wronged her, thus allying women on the side of the treacherous lover. A man seeks advice from a woman about how to win the heart of his beloved, as in “S’ie.us qier conseill, bella amia Alamanda” (PC 12a,1; 242,69). In other lyrics, women and men discuss love in a more dispassionate, even academic, tone, as when Maria de Ventadorn and Gui d’Ussel discuss equity between the sexes in love (“Gui d’Ussel, be.m pesa” [PC 194,9; 295,1]). These dialogic songs are varied and complex, and they add color to the starker contrast of viewpoints set out in male-­ and female-­voiced cansos. The ante is upped considerably, however, when interlocutors are lovers in the courtly and poetic game of fin’amors.7 Indeed, the irresistible force of the male 6 Joan Ferrante undertakes a comparative rhetorical analysis between male-­and female-­ authored songs in “Notes toward the Study of a Female Rhetoric in the Trobairitz,” The Voice of the Trobairitz: Perspectives on the Women Troubadours, pp. 63–72. Among the conclusions from her statistical analysis, she finds that women tend to use direct second-­person address when interacting with their lovers and they prefer the more egalitarian epithet “amics” to the hierarchical “seigner.” In addition to this eye-­to-­eye approach to love partners, women use the subjunctive mood more often than men, suggesting that they speak more often of what might be or might have been more often than their male peers. 7 Scholarly literature on the subject of fin’amors and what is termed somewhat erroneously “courtly love” is vast. “Courtly love” or amour courtois was a term coined by Gaston Paris in the late nineteenth century, but modern analyses usually begin with Moshé Lazar’s Amour courtois et fin’amors dans la littérature du XIIe siècle (Paris, Libairie C. Klincksieck, 1964). It has been criticized by various scholars, such as Simon Gaunt in his Gender and Genre in Medieval French Literature (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995). An excellent summary and feminist critique of scholarship prior to 2000 comes in E. Jane Burns, “Courtly Love: Who Needs It? Recent Feminist Work in the Medieval French Tradition,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 27 (2001), pp. 23–57, and James Schultz assesses the usefulness of the concept before undertaking his study of Middle High German

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 47

04/01/2016 10:07

48

DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

poet’s unbridled desire meets the immovable object of the lady’s demand for faithfulness. It should be a moment of triumph for the man, for it is the moment for which he has longed: his chance to confess his love to the lady in viva voce and thereby win her heart. However, as I argue above, that happy ending would cause the dynamic of fin’amors to implode upon itself. In the pages that follow, I look at three tensos in which the man finds himself in front of his lady. The physical distance having been reduced between himself and his beloved, the man needs to find ways to establish rhetorical distance, thereby putting off any impending implosion. I posit that the women in these songs see through to men’s ploys but play along in order to turn the tables and reclaim the rhetorical space ceded by the man for their own. As the troubadour backs down from his lady, she steps up and successfully resists the place in which the poet and poetic tradition would have her inscribed. In “Bona dona d’une re que.us deman” (PC 87,1; 75,1), a six-­stanza debate (plus two tornadas) between Bertran del Poget and his unnamed beloved, the troubadour hides his intentions at first.8 He asks her whether, provided her lover has proven faithful, she will return his love or prolong his suffering. He fears rejection, an anxiety which is part and parcel of the courtly love paradigm.9 He represents himself as a messenger who will convey the answer back to the long-­suffering lover: si.us vostre fins amics vos ama tan c’altra ves vos non razona ni.n blan, ar mi digaz segon vostre veiaire si l’aimerez o sofrirez son dan. q’eu sui aqel que lo.ill sabrai retraire. (3–7, emphasis added) literature in Courtly Love, the Love of Courtliness, and the History of Sexuality (Chicago, IL, and London, University of Chicago Press, 2006). A useful reference work comes in volume 2 of A Cultural History of Sexuality (Oxford, Berg, 2010): that volume, edited by Ruth Evans, is dedicated to the Middle Ages. Finally, several contributions to Shaping Courtliness in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2013) incorporate analyses of fin’amors in the wider context of courtliness, especially Peter Haidu’s essay, “A Perfume of Reality: Desublimating the Courtly,” pp. 25–45. 8 The anonymous identity of the female in the song opens the door to the long-­standing debate between féminité génétique and féminité textuelle. One of the best reviews of the question comes in Joan Tasker Grimbert’s comments in the introduction to Eglal Doss-­Quinby, Joan Tasker Grimbert, Wendy Pfeffer, and Elizabeth Aubrey, eds., Songs of the Women Trouvères (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 1–72, at pp. 11–14. Grimbert asks pointedly: “Because there is evidence that European women were indeed composing songs in the high Middle Ages as in earlier periods, by what logic does it follow that none of the extant anonymous chansons de femme were composed by women?” (p. 14). We might extend the same logic to the tenso under consideration here: because there is evidence of known women and known men who participated in tensos, why should we assume an anonymous female voice was the creation of the male interlocutor? 9 See Glynnis M. Cropp’s seminal thematic study Le vocabulaire courtois des troubadours de l’époque classique (Geneva, Droz, 1975), and especially pp. 200–03, for an in-­depth analysis of the terminology of fear in troubadour song.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 48

04/01/2016 10:07



THE MAN BACKING DOWN IN TROBAIRITZ TENSOS

49

[if your true love loves you so much that he neither courts nor flatters anyone but you, then tell me, according to your thinking, if you’ll love him or allow him to suffer, for I’m the one who can convey your answer to him.]

The lady reacts with suspicion and wonders if this messenger is trying to deceive her: E vos digaz, fei que.m devez, Bertran, cals es l’amics q.el vol saber enan, qu’eu tem de vos, per que vau plus doptan, que vos siaz messagiers per engan. (8–11) [And tell me, Bertran, by the truth you owe me, who is this friend, for I want to know that first, for I’m afraid (this is why I grow more hesitant) that you may be a devious messenger.]

As in female-­voiced cansos, honesty proves paramount to the woman. If the lady is going to reciprocate, she needs to trust the people with whom she deals, especially in regard to love. Nevertheless, here the lady shows some flexibility. When Bertran assures her that this man loves her faithfully, she seemingly makes a leap of faith: Per vostr’amor, Bertran, car m’en pregaz, l’amarai eu, mas el er pauc amaz, qu’eu no.ill promet ni nuill respeit no.ill faz que.ill do m’amor, car s’es ves mi celaz. (22–5) [For love of you, Bertran, because you ask me, I will love him, but he’ll be little loved for I promise I’ll neither grant him hope nor give my love, because he’s hidden himself from me.]

The lady promises to love the man in question, but only a little and only because she trusts the man in front of her, Bertran. Or then again, does she suspect that the man before her is playing coy with her emotions? If it is the second, she would seem to test his resolve with her subsequent step: ni eu non cre c’amors l’apoder gaire, que s’ill ames n.il forces voluntaz, calque semblan feira que fos amaire (26–8) [nor do I think he really feels love’s power, for if he loved and if desire compelled him he would give some sign that he was a lover.]

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 49

04/01/2016 10:07

50

DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

No longer content to be strung along, the lady shows herself to be master of the tenets of fin’amors and lays a rhetorical trap: if a man fails to declare his love, his love is not true. Bertran, cornered, takes the bait: Domna, eu sui lo vostr’amics aitals, fis e fecels, vers e dreiç e leials [. . .] e vos, domna, si cum es de bon aire, retenez mi, que ben es votres sals ab tan que ia de ren vas vos no vaire. (29–30, 33–5, emphasis added) Lady, I am that lover of yours, perfect and faithful, true and just and loyal [. . .] And you, Lady, as gracious as you are, accept my service, for it’s much to your advantage as long as I never stray from you in any way.

Bertran has no choice but to declare his love, and he rattles off a concatenation of epithets: he claims to be perfect and faithful, true and just and loyal. However, the manuscript tradition would seem to reveal just how casually these terms are thrown about in the troubadour tradition. Laurie Shepard notes in her critical apparatus: “31. The line, a catalog of the standard attributes of a courtly lover, varies considerably in the different manuscripts. fis: COST read francs (noble, sincere). fecels: COSTa read humils (humble). vers e dreiç: Ca read vertadiers (truthful), I reads vas vos dreitz (true to you).”10 With so many similes for the qualities that men profess to possess and women demand, is it any wonder that a woman would not believe she is being fed a line? He may claim his love to her and to have shown, in the words of the lady, “some sign that he was a lover,” but the woman’s memory is not so short that she has forgotten that he was less than truthful and forthcoming just a few verses before. In her last full cobla, the lady calls out the ludic, even artificial, basis upon which the relationship has been established: Amics Bertran, ben es iocs cumunals q’eu am celui qu’es mos amics corals, e l’amics voill que sia, sabez cals? fis e ficels, vertadiers e no fals ni trop parliers ni ianglos ni gabaire mas de bon prez a son poder sivals c’aissi cove fors e dinz son repaire. (36–42, emphasis added) [Friend Bertran, this is a game we share for I love the one who is my heartfelt lover, Bruckner et al., Songs of the Women Troubadours, p. 162.

10

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 50

04/01/2016 10:07

THE MAN BACKING DOWN IN TROBAIRITZ TENSOS



51

and do you know how I want that friend to be? Perfect and faithful, truthful and undeceiving, not too talkative, or indiscreet, or boastful, but very worthy at least as far as he can be, because it’s fitting at his home or away from it.]

The lady appropriates the man’s speech by recasting many of the words he uses to describe himself before adding to that list. In an important way, she subsumes his qualities into herself. Bertran may have initiated this exchange, but the lady has clearly taken control. Moreover, if the lover thinks that he has won her heart, he might be concluding too rashly, for in the exchange of tornadas, the lady speaks last, and her final word is far from committal: Donna, cel sui que non enten en als ni ves altra mos cors no pot atraire Amics Bertran, ben deu anar cabals druz, cant es francs, fiçels e non trichaire. (43–6) [Lady, I am he who thinks of no one else, nor can my heart by drawn to any other. Friend Bertran, a lover must ask nobly if he is honest, faithful, and no deceiver.]

The lady’s final words, “non trichaire” [no deceiver], are telling. The lady appears to be parsing her words very carefully. Perhaps she is accepting and just reiterating her priorities that he remain faithful. Once again, the manuscript tradition proves interesting. According to Shepard, MS C reads “gabaire” [boastful] instead of “trichaire.”11 The alternative ending might hint not at a lack of trust but at the lady’s acceptance provided he assures her of not bragging about his conquest. However, one might also read the lines as a deferment of the final decision, with the last words as a nod to the fact that the man had just moments ago been less than forthcoming. The lady has taken over the game, and it is she who strings along the would-­be lover, prolonging it beyond the song’s performance and remaining independent of entanglements. Our second song constitutes an exchange between Felipa and Arnaut Plagues, “Ben volgra midons saubes” (PC 32,1), a unique piece in that, rather than exchange stanzas, the interlocutors trade smaller snippets of dialogue. Sometimes they both speak within the space of a single verse.12 Like the song

Bruckner et al., Songs of the Women Troubadours, p. 162. Brucker wonders if the swift repartee points to a singular composer and an invented lady interlocutor. She does leave, however, a sliver of possibility for féminité génétique: “When male and female speakers alternate phrases within the same line, as in Arnaut Plagues and Felipa’s “Ben volgra midons saubes” (no. 20), we may find it difficult to believe that two poets have really invented the dialogue for two voices, even though the lady is named in the 11

12

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 51

04/01/2016 10:07

52

DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

sung by between Bertran and his lady, Arnaut plays coy with revealing an identity, here that of the lady he loves: Ben volgra midons saubes mon cor ayssi cum yeu.l say, e que.l plagues q’ieu fos lay on es sos guays cors cortes. E si dic sobransaria? (1–5) [I really wish my lady knew my heart as well as I know it; I wish she were pleased to have me near her fair hair, gracious body. Is this presumptuous speech?]

The ensuing short exchanges could be best described as banter: questions are mostly answered with other questions or rhetorical pirouettes. In the last four verses of this cobla, Felipa responds, then Arnaut, and then Felipa again: “Diguas, e cuias qu’o sia?” “Yeu non, que no.m sent tan ricx.” “Suefre e no t’amendicx que de ben leu s’avenria.” (6–10) [“Speak! Do you think this might be?” “I? No, for I do not feel so proud.” “Endure; don’t put a friar’s cloak on, for it could easily occur.”]

How could Felipa know that the lady would respond favorably to his suit? She may be speaking generally, or perhaps she knows the person about whom he speaks. Or it could very well be that we are facing the same situation as in the song above: the man stands before his would-­be beloved, and he is trying to find the courage to reveal his intentions. When the poem is read in this way, as I show below, a similar rhetorical mastery is shown by the lady over the man. If Bertran revealed his true feelings unambiguously at some point, Arnaut prolongs the interaction by continuing to talk in riddles without ever making his intentions perfectly clear. Felipa, like the lady who paints Bertran into a corner, pushes Arnaut to persevere, even unto death: “Non es mals qu’ayssi m’aucia languen?” “Non ges, quar un dia er tos bes, si no t’en gicx, ab sol que no la cambicx.” E morray?” “Oc, si.s volia.” (23–7) first of two tornadas” (Bruckner et al., Songs of the Women Troubadours, p. xliii). See also the comments above in note 8.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 52

04/01/2016 10:07



THE MAN BACKING DOWN IN TROBAIRITZ TENSOS

53

[“It isn’t evil that she lets me die languishing?” “Not at all! One day all will be well if you persist, provided you don’t turn from her.” “And I’ll die?” “Yes, if she wills it.”]

If the troubadour wishes to wallow in self-­inflicted pain, Felipa seems ­perfectly willing to accommodate him, testing his determination. When she suggests that he give up his suit, he replies that he will not do so, despite all that has been said before. Felipa advises him consequently on how to proceed: “No t’en laissarias ges?” “Non yeu.” “Doncx aissi o fay cum ieu t’o ensenharai: sias adreitz e cortes, francx e de bella paria, e fay so que ben estia, quan poiras, e no t’en tricx, qu’aissi deu renhar amicx, oc, e mielhs si mielhs podia.” (37–45, emphasis added) [“You wouldn’t give it up?” “Not I!” “Then do as I tell you: be nimble and courteous, open and sociable; do what seems right when you can, and don’t hang back, for that’s the way a friend should act, yes, and still better, if he could.”]

Like Bertran’s lady who called their exchange a game, Felipa makes her own metacommentary on this dialogue when she tells him not to hold back. She demonstrates her mastery over the exchange not only by countering what Arnaut says but also by intimating that she knows what he is not saying. Arnaut, however, backs down: “Na Felipa, s’ieu avia tals rictatz don ieu fos ricx, atressi.us seri’amicx de ben dir, si cum solia.” (46–9) [“Lady Felipa, if I had the high rank that would make me rich, then I’d be your friend in speaking well, the way I used to be.”]

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 53

04/01/2016 10:07

54

DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

In the tornada that follows this one, the identity of the speaker is unclear: Chanso, en Castella ten via al rey qui dobla.ls destricx qu’om pren ab los avols ricx quant es en lor companhia. (50–53) [Song, go out to Castille to the king who doubles the injuries one suffers from the wicked rich when one is in their company.]

The final expression “si cum solia” (or “the way I used to be”) invites further speculation: did the troubadour somehow meet with some mishap that has led to his no longer holding a station in life worthy of courting Felipa? In this case, the “richness” of which he speaks is literal. Or rather is this a case of Arnaut making an oblique reference to a relationship that he once had with Felipa, in which case the richness that he mentions should be taken metaphorically? He is poorer for not being her lover any longer, and now he wishes to rekindle the romance, but Felipa is not going along. The final tornada, leaves the listener hanging, for its connection to the preceding verses is unclear. The final song under study here has attracted the attention of previous scholars: the tenso between Bernart Arnaut and the lady Lombarda.13 The song survives as an unica in Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, lat 3207 on fol. 43v, accompanied by a miniature and a razo. Razos were, of course, like the vidas, narrative explanations of songs meant first and foremost to engage audiences in Italy and northern Spain that were culturally distanced from the troubadour art as it was cultivated in Occitania.14 As such, it forms one of the first interpretations of the song. In it, we read that Lombarda was a gracious and learned lady of Toulouse and that Don Bernart Arnaut, having heard of her goodness and merit, came to Toulouse to visit her. The composer further stipulates: “Et estet con ella de gra[n] desmestegesa et inqueri la d’amor, e fo molt son amic” [He lived in great familiarity with her, sought her love, and was very much her friend]. The last sentence of the firt part of the razo, the part just preceding Bernaut’s coblas, is intriguing. It reads: “E fez aquestas coblas de le, e mandet le ad esa, al seu alberg; e pois montet a caval ses le vezer, e si s’en anet in sua 13 In this respect, it is similar in form to the exchange between a Domna and Raimon de la Salas, “Si.m fos graziz mos chanz, eu m’esforcera” (PC 409,5). Raimon addresses three stanzas to his lady, and she responds with two stanzas. It would seem that the dialogic nature of the exchange was not readily apparent to the scribe. See Shepard’s notes in Bruckner et al., Songs of the Women Troubadours, p. 173. 14 For the texts of vidas and razos, scholars continue to refer to J. Boutière and A.-­H. Schutz, Biographies des troubadours: textes provençaux des XIIIe et XIVe siècles (Paris, A. G. Nizet, 1964), and an essential critical discussion comes in Elizabeth Wilson Poe, From Poetry to Prose in Old Provençal: The Emergence of the “Vidas,” the “Razos,” and the “Razos de trobar” (Birmingham, AL, Summa Publications, 1984).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 54

04/01/2016 10:07



THE MAN BACKING DOWN IN TROBAIRITZ TENSOS

55

tera” [He wrote these verses about her, and sent them to her in her house. Then he mounted his horse, and, without seeing her, went away to his own country]. The rhetorical distance that we have seen in the preceding two songs seems to have been narrativized by the composer of the razo as he has the troubadours literally putting distance between himself and his beloved. The composer of the razo follows up with Lombarda’s reaction, inserting after Bernart’s coblas, “Na Lombarda se fes gran meraveilla qant ella ausi contar que Bernautz N’Arnautz s’en era andat se le veser et mandet le aquestas coblas” [Na Lombarda was much amazed when she heard that Lord Bernart Arnaut had gone away without seeing her, and she sent him these verses]. The medieval interpreter obviously found an openness in the exchange, one that leaves the woman bewildered, but her reply brings no closure, but rather more openness, just as Bertran’s domna and Felipa do in their exchanges. Bernart’s coblas constitute ostensibly a private missive between himself and his beloved, but they are hardly alone in the text itself. He addresses his lady indirectly at first, as if direct address would reduce any distance that he wishes to put between himself and her, even as he seems to bridge that distance by recasting himself with her name: Lombards volgr’eu eser per Na Lonbarda q’Alamanda no.m plaz tan hi Giscarda, qar ab sos oiltz plaisenz tan ien mi garda, qe par qu.m don s’amor, mas trop me tarda. qar bel veser e mon plaiser ten e bel ris en garda, com nuls no.l pod mover. (1–8) [I’d like to be a Lombard for Lady Lombarda; I’m not as pleased by Alamanda or Giscarda. She looks at me so kindly with her sweet eyes that she appears to love me, but too slowly, for she withholds from me sweet sight and pleasure and keeps her sweet smile to herself; no one can move her.]

The distancing that stems from indirect address together with a simultaneous renaming results in ambiguity. Sankovitch reads the renaming as an act of possession, and the multiplication of female names beneath a flaunting of his buying power: When he compares Lombarda to Giscarda and Alamanda, he portrays himself, not as one inevitably, fatefully, possessed, but as one judiciously shopping for a possession. When, therefore, he adopts the name Lombard, he does not obliterate his identity in passionate abandon to another’s being but rather invests that name with his status as a natural owner – natural, that

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 55

04/01/2016 10:07

56

DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

is, by male birthright, as well as by virtue of his belonging to the landowning class.15

More than this, the troubadour, rather than stand close and alone with his beloved, finds a way to bring other people into situation, namely, more ladies, called Alamanda and Giscarda.16 The strategy of pulling others into the conversation continues into the next cobla where Bernart does address someone directly, but not Lombarda. He turns to another man: Seigner Iordan, se vos lais Alamagna Fransa e Peiteus, Normandia e Bretagna, be me devez laisar senes mesclagna Lonbardia, Livorno e Lomagna. E si.m valez, eu per un dex valdr’e.us ab leis q’estragna de se tot avol prez. (9–16) [Lord Jordan, if I leave you Allemagna, France, Poitou, Normandy and Brittany, you should surely leave me, without protest, Lombardy, Livorno and Lomagna. And if you’ll help me I’ll willingly help you ten times as much with your own lady, who is foreign to all base values.]

This cobla’s insistence on lands furthers Sankovitch’s analysis of love as possession, but it also pushes the discussion away from the negotiating feelings between two lovers to a negotiation of conquered lands between two men. What began as an intimate exchange between two lovers morphs into the kind of homosocial bonds that critics like Burns have highlighted in their own studies of troubadour lyric. Even when women and men are ostensibly talking to each other, it is really men talking among themselves with women standing to the side. In Bernart’s tornada, he addresses his lady directly in use of apostrophe, but once again he simultaneously establishes distance by using a metaphorical name. He calls her the “Mirror of Worth”:

Sankovitch, “Lombarda’s Reluctant Mirror,” p. 189. Elizabeth Poe investigates the identity of these ladies in “Lombarda’s Mirrors: Reflections on PC 288,1 as a Response to PC 54,1,” in Shaping Courtliness in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, ed. Daniel E. O’Sullivan and Laurie Shepard (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2013), pp. 165–82, at pp. 168–71. If Poe’s analysis is correct, Lombarda is referring to a tenso between Raimon (de la Salas?) and a Bertran in which the women of Provence are compared to the ladies of Lombardy – i.e., Lombardas – who are stereotyped as rather large ladies. Poe sees humor in this reply. 15 16

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 56

04/01/2016 10:07

THE MAN BACKING DOWN IN TROBAIRITZ TENSOS



57

Mirail de Pres, conort avez, ges per vila no.s fragna l’amor en qe.m tenez. (17–20) [Mirror of Worth, comfort is yours, Let the love in which you bind me not be broken for a villain’s sake.]

Others have commented on the figure of the mirror in this and other medieval literary contexts, and it proves to be polyvalent. Elizabeth Poe mentions Bertran de Born’s use of the figure as a senhal in PC 80,12, the use of mirror as “paragon” in a song by Arnaut de Maroill (PC 30,6), the oft cited trope of Narcissus, and the “mirror” in the heart of the loving subject in yet another song by Arnaut de Maroill (PC 30,26). Sankovitch links this final gesture of naming with the first: Bernart’s coblas begin and end with the notion of the significant name, thanks to etymology and senhal. The function of the senhal appears here in all its possible ambiguity: while it guarantees discretion, it also signifies appropriation, as it occults the domna’s identity and absorbs it. In line 1, the domna’s name is invaded; in the tornada it is effectively effaced and replaced. In line 1 her name is reduced to mirroring the male name – it is like a mirror; in the tornada her name is Mirror.17

In addition, I would argue, the mirror emblematizes the strategy of deflection that Bernart employs in order to prolong his suit and avoid closure. He wishes the love that binds them not to be broken, but seen in this light, it is a question not of the fulfillment of his love quest, but of its prolongation. Moreover, his is a mirror that focuses not just on the lady but also on himself, as well as on all that is around him as further possible possessions. Like the domna who called Bernart out on his artifice and Felipa who outduels Arnaut verbally, Lombarda matches fire with fire in her reply to Bernarda by using similar strategies of deflection in her answer. She transforms his name and applies it to herself: Nom volgr’aver per Bernard Na Bernada e per N’Arnaut N’Arnauda apellada, e grans merses, seigner, car vos agrada c’ab tals doas domna mi aves nomnada. (21–4) [I’d like to have the name Bernarda. and to be called, for Lord Arnaut, Arnauda; and many thanks, my lord, for being kind enough to mention me with two great ladies.] Sankovitch, “Lombarda’s Reluctant Mirror,” p. 190.

17

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 57

04/01/2016 10:07

58

DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

Like Bernart, Lombarda multiplies the number of named women in the discussion, but rather than point outward to others with whom she could be compared, Lombarda’s newly named women all refer back to her. The two other ladies mentioned by Bernart here go unnamed in Lombarda’s speech. Lombarda replaces Bernart’s convex mirror which draws our view away from the lady as the center of attention with her own concave mirror which concentrates our gaze on her to the expense of everything around her. She says as much in the last four lines of the cobla: Voil qe.m digaz cals mais vos plaz ses cuberta selada, e.l mirail on miraz. (25–8) [I want you to say and not conceal it: which one pleases you the most, and in which mirror are you gazing?]

She cannot tell in which mirror he is gazing because his mirror, more than reflect, deflects attention away from his putative object of desire. In her last cobla, Lombarda would, rather than distract us, seek to focus our attention on the ultimate ambiguity in Bernart’s missive: how can a mirror reflect something or someone who is absent? It may very well be this verse that inspired the razo’s narrative of Bernart riding away: Car lo mirailz e no veser descorda tan mon acord, c’ab pauc vo.l desacorda, mas can record so q’el meus noms recorda en bon acord totz mons pensars s’acorda; mas del cor pes on l’avez mes, qe sa maiso ni borda no vei, que lui taises. (29–36) [For mirroring and absence so discord my chords that I can barely stay accorded, but, remembering what my name recalls, all my thoughts accord in good accordance; still, I wonder where you’ve put your heart; in neither house nor hut I see it; you keep silent.]

The anominatio on cor [heart] works to harmonize all of the disparate elements of mirrors, names, hearts, and bodies in the woman’s speech: she has put them all en bon acord [in good accordance]. Rather than scatter our gaze, she

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 58

04/01/2016 10:07



THE MAN BACKING DOWN IN TROBAIRITZ TENSOS

59

focuses it for real where it was only ostensibly put: on herself.18 Moreover, since anominatio appears commonly in didactic literature, we might read Lombarda’s utilization of the figure as a more than implicit rebuke: she wishes not only to respond to Bernart, but also to teach, correct, and admonish him.19 Where is the lady’s tornada? In the tenso between Bertran and his lady, each speaks the same number of coblas and tornadas. In the exchange between Felipa and Arnaut, there is also an even number of stanzas, though, admittedly, who speaks the final tornada is open for debate. The manuscript, as Sankovitch notes, seems to leave room for a tornada, but she reads the last four verses as a tornada: After this last cobla there is a blank space in the manuscript, and it has been suggested that this space, the equivalent of a few lines, might have been intended for Lombarda’s tornada. But we may also consider that the last lines of the second cobla function as a tornada, counterbalancing Bernart’s tornada to Lombarda. The fear he signalled with the mention of the verb franher (line 19) has become a reality – not because of a hostile outsider (vilha, line 19) but because of the mirror’s insubordination. It has indeed shattered, shattering his self-­image, destroying his wholeness, which depended on the mirror’s hold and frame.20

This interpretation’s central argument is persuasive, and I would concur that the last four lines of the second cobla do function in that way. However, the lack of a tornada may point to a simpler but more elegant conclusion: the absence of a tornada accomplishes the lady’s rhetorical goal by establishing poetic and, once the poem is copied into a manuscript, material asymmetry. She refuses to be assimilated into Bernart’s mirror, and so she sends a two-­cobla reply that breaks formal symmetry with that two-­cobla-­plus-­tornada mirror. In conclusion, the troubadour’s game of love depends on the deferral of closure. This is perceptible in the troubadour canso, as Burns has demonstrated in a more theoretical sense, and in the trobairitz canso in the complaints that women make regarding the men who keep their options open by breaking their promises. Yet it is in the tensos between men and women on the verge of 18 This interpretation complements Sankovitch’s psychoanalytic interpretation of the figure accord – record as a trope of self-­discovery: accord points to a sense of self and inner harmony and the mirror becomes a speculum, a recording instrument of self-­examination: “Lombarda’s Reluctant Mirror,” p. 191. 19 Nancy Freeman Regalado examines anominatio and reviews its previous reception by scholars studying Rutebeuf, a major didactic poet of the late thirteenth century, in Poetic Patterns in Rutebeuf: A Study in NonCourtly Poetic Modes of the Thirteenth Century (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1970), pp. 191–2, 205ff. Daniel E. O’Sullivan discusses the crucial role of the figure in the devotional and didactic work by Gautier de Coinci, a poet closer in chronological time to the trobairitz, in Marian Devotion in Thirteenth-­Century French Lyric (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2005), pp. 18–19, 23, 24, 26–7, and in “Reading Children in Gautier de Coinci’s Miracles de Nostre Dame,” Neophilologus 89 (2005), pp. 201–19. 20 Sankovitch, “Lombarda’s Reluctant Mirror,” pp. 191–2.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 59

04/01/2016 10:07

60

DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN

e­ ntering upon a love relationship that the man’s near pathological fear of commitment is most keenly but subtly felt. The troubadour, for all his bravado while singing cansos on center stage, blinks when he is confronted with his beloved. Standing alone on stage in front of an audience that cannot know the real story, the man may easily boast of dealing honestly, openly, and faithfully with his intended. However, when the lady takes the stage with him, the troubadour must be a bit cagier. The lady, intuiting that all is not as it seems, deftly exposes the man’s rhetorical sleights-­of-­hand, turns his strategy on its ear, and employs his own tools against him. Bertan’s lady ensnares him in a rhetorical trap, thereby forcing his hand, and she feeds his cheap pick-­up line back to him; Felipa gives as good as she gets from Arnaut’s quick banter, insinuates how well she understands what’s going on, and shuts him down; and finally, Lombarda remakes Bernart Arnaut’s convex mirror which turns the listener’s attention away from the lady into a concave looking glass that focuses our gaze solely on her. Yes, it is in many ways the same game – the iocs cummunal – but the game is now played according to the lady’s rules. E. Jane Burns demonstrates how troubadours stand behind the lady in their cansos, but the ladies of these three tensos are unwilling to remain rhetorical human shields. They shine a harsh light indeed on these silver-­tongued charmers who, lacking the backbone to stand on their own, must back down.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 60

04/01/2016 10:07

Having Fun with Women: Why a Feminist Teaches Fabliaux Lisa Perfetti Seven years after Christopher Hitchens launched his polemical claim that women are not funny, writers and their online readers continue to engage in vigorous, often acrimonious, conversations as to whether women are able to create humor.1 Even after the author himself has passed away, readers express indignation that anyone in the twenty-­first century would try to erase from all women such a fundamentally human characteristic. Hitchens, of course, was famous for his deliberately provocational writing aimed at stirring up controversy (the subtitle “provocation” is actually announced at the top of the Vanity Fair piece). Some of the irritation provoked by Hitchens’s article, I would argue, stems less from an objection to the claim itself than from the author’s knowing disregard for the reactions of his female readers. Realizing full well that he would raise the ire of women, he delighted in the feminist reactions his words would provoke, as was made evident in his 2008 YouTube video, “Why Women Still Aren’t Funny.” While a common feature of Hitchens’s journalism was its brazen pillorying of a wide range of cherished ideas or beliefs, the “Why Women Aren’t Funny” piece was just another in a long list of male-­authored pieces having a bit of fun with women, and this joke is, well, getting a bit old. But more to the point of my essay, Hitchens’s piece essentially boils down to a simplistic evolutionary argument that men have had to be funny in order to demonstrate their intellect and attract women whereas women, to attract men, need simply rely on their physical desirability: men make jokes and women laugh at them. There is actually nothing controversial in that claim. Hitchens essentially said that sexist norms continue today – but he did so in a way that replicated the patronizing stance of countless male authors who have made jokes to exclude, rather than include, their female audiences, and who tend to excuse their offensive words by blaming humorless or unskilled female readers.2 But actually studying jokes and humorous texts entails a much more sophisticated toolbox of perspectives 1 The claim was originally made in “Why Women Aren’t Funny,” Vanity Fair (January 2007). The online reactions continue today, with titles including “Tina Fey’s superfunnysmart feminism: Take that, Christopher Hitchens!” (April 2014). 2 In fact, in his video, Hitchens rails against women readers for mischaracterizing his main argument, and chuckles that perhaps he should have written a follow-­up piece called “Why Some Women Apparently Can’t Even Read.” We may hear echoes of the debate over

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 61

04/01/2016 10:07

62

LISA PERFETTI

from anthropology, history, linguistics, philosophy, and literature. Evolutionary biology, on its own, is simply not up to the task of something so culturally contingent and context-­specific. Studying humor, regardless of where we are on the gender spectrum ourselves, makes us not only smarter “consumers” of a multitude of ­gender-­coded texts that surround us every day but better readers overall. For the feminist teacher of medieval history or literature, this presents a particular problem, for examples of what we would readily consider humor are scarce in the relatively few medieval texts we have that are known to be authored by women, and while women in those centuries surely engaged in multiple forms of jesting, their words have largely been lost to us. For the most part, we need to settle for anonymous or male-­authored texts in which female characters speak, and these texts often appear to us to be having fun at women’s expense rather than trying to get a laugh out of women. Of the many key contributions to medieval studies made by Jane Burns, there is perhaps none more useful from a teacher’s point of view than Bodytalk, a foundational work that has provided contemporary feminists with an interpretive strategy through which we may discover “how medieval heroines can speak both within and against the social and rhetorical conventions used to construct them.”3 Informed by a philological and philosophical framework that puts words in context, this approach invites us to reconstruct a range of possible reading positions and to imagine the ways in which conventional antifeminist tropes can be interrogated and even laughed at. Reading the bodytalk of medieval literary women has enabled feminist scholars to demonstrate the multivalent nature of the representation of women in medieval texts and to reimagine the interpretations that medieval women may have made of the cultural production of their day. Elsewhere I have described the ways in which the female voices in medieval comic texts could invoke pleasures that are more intellectual than corporeal and have suggested how they may point to traces of women’s own wit.4 In this essay I focus on the value of teaching comic texts, particularly to undergraduates, even those texts that may offend with their apparent misogyny, and explore how the interpretive strategies we employ can make students more savvy and engaged readers. I will focus on the fabliaux, providing more of an overview than an analysis. In doing so, I hope to suggest that teaching these texts, not often valued for their feminist perspectives, can foster the interpretive skills and sophisticated understanding of gender that we wish students to take away from our courses. the Roman de la Rose, in which Christine de Pisan rebutted similar attacks by her learned male colleagues. 3 E. Jane Burns, Bodytalk: When Women Speak in Old French Literature (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), p. 7. I had the great fortune to study medieval literature with Jane Burns during my graduate education, and to her I owe my career as a feminist who writes and teaches about humor and my dedication to bringing fabliaux into the classroom. Jane includes a discussion of fabliaux in the first chapter of Bodytalk. 4 See, for example, Lisa Perfetti, “The Lewd and the Ludic: Female Pleasure in the Fabliaux,” in Comic Provocations: Exposing the Corpus of Old French Fabliaux, ed. Holly A. Crocker, Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures (New York, Palgrave, 2006), pp. 17–32.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 62

04/01/2016 10:07



FUN WITH WOMEN: WHY A FEMINIST TEACHES FABLIAUX

63

My first argument is that, while teaching is serious business, especially when dealing with difficult topics related to identity, strategic use of humor is a powerful way to engage students in learning. Research into how we learn has increasingly emphasized the powerful role of emotion. Tapping into students’ motivations, attending to their fears, and cultivating their feelings about what they study reinforces, rather than detracts from, the intellectual work we ask them to do.5 Comic texts, with their taboo topics, outrageous plots, and wordplay, can tap into these emotional zones. Yet exploring the comic production of the Middle Ages also engages students in serious challenges related to cultural differences, not only in terms of assessing different standards for gender roles and for humor but also in terms of what cultural historians of emotion call “emotion standards.”6 Some of us ourselves may have had a first exposure to fabliaux in our student days that soured us to the genre. Perhaps our professors expected us to laugh at supposedly comic stories of women being raped because we should recognize that medieval standards are different from our own. Or perhaps, in the long tradition of viewing women as lacking a sense of humor, our male professors simply assumed that if we didn’t find something funny we were simply being too sensitive. To teach the fabliaux responsibly, an instructor needs to address head-­on what might be objectionable to students rather than asking them to laugh it off. Any text that probes areas related to deeply held identity categories is potentially risky in the classroom. Recent debates about the use of “trigger warnings” (statements on syllabi or assignments warning students about potentially disturbing material) demonstrate the ethical quandaries teachers face.7 In choosing fabliaux for my courses on medieval literature, I have deliberately chosen fabliaux that represent women from a variety of angles: while the Vilain de Bailleul [The Peasant from Bailleul] closes with the categorical declaration that women can’t be trusted and men shouldn’t believe them, the Vilain Mire [The Peasant Doctor] shows us a woman whose cruel husband is justly punished for his treatment of her. The importance of choosing diverse fabliaux relates to a 5 Studies include James Zull, The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching the Practice of Teaching by Exploring the Biology of Learning (Sterling, VA, Stylus, 2002), especially Chapter 4. For more practical applications, see Susan A. Ambrose, Michael W. Bridges, Michele DiPietro, Marsha C. Lovett, and Marie K. Norman, How Learning Works: Seven Research-­Based Principles for Smart Teaching (San Francisco, CA, Jossey-­Bass, 2010). Chapter 3, “What Factors Motivate Students to Learn?,” and Chapter 6, “Why Do Student Development and Course Climate Matter for Student Learning?,” are especially relevant. 6 The interest in the cultural history of emotion is evident in the 2011 founding of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions. For an example of medievalist work in this area, see Barbara H. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2006). 7 In a series of printed articles and blogged comments in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2014, writers expressed a variety of views, from objections that trigger warnings pander to a consumer-­driven education model where entitled students are too coddled to passionate defenses of attending to the needs of students scarred by emotional events in their past that they are not able to “check at the door.”

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 63

04/01/2016 10:07

64

LISA PERFETTI

larger point about medieval literature generally. Our students typically come to us associating the Middle Ages with heroic knights and beautiful damsels. One of our goals as teachers is to demonstrate to them the wide range of male and female characters and gendered relations that exist not only across the broad range of medieval genres, but even within courtly literature itself.8 Thanks to the work of Keith Busby and others, we also now recognize that fabliaux, far from being removed from courtly or religious settings, circulated alongside sermons, dream visions, fables, and other wholesome and earnest narratives.9 Interlacing fabliaux with texts in courtly or didactic registers helps to create a fuller picture of the range of medieval attitudes toward women and gender and the modes through which those attitudes could be manifest. I sometimes wonder about my choice not to teach the worst of the fabliaux, such as La Dame escoliée [The Castrated Lady], in which the castration of the bossy wife testifies to the most egregious forms of medieval misogyny, but it is neither representative of the genre nor especially clever compared to some of the more sophisticated wordplay of other tales. The more frankly sexual of the fabliaux pose a problem, not so much because of their view of women but because some students are either grappling with their own sexual identities or have been raised to view sexuality as shameful: it can be hard for them to share in the laughter of their classmates. Assumptions that women today are more readily embarrassed or offended by this humor are not entirely on target. A 1998 review of multiple studies of reactions to sexual jokes and cartoons demonstrated that women enjoyed dirty jokes as much as men, as long as the jokes weren’t sexist.10 This echoes an observation by Brian Levy about medieval audiences: intratextual evidence in fabliaux such as Les Trois Meschines [The Three Girls] suggests that women in fabliaux audiences could greet the obscene language and sexual scenes “with as much frank hilarity as would any man.”11 As a female professor of almost entirely female ­students 8 Jane Burns has noted that “the desires expressed by courtly protagonists range far beyond the limited models offered by amorous knights and troubadours. We learn of the desire of female singers to court male lovers; the desire of men to love other men and women to love other women; the desire of women to choose their marriage partners, not to marry at all, or even to kill their boorish or abusive husbands. “Performing Courtliness,” in The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 396–411, at p. 397. 9 Keith Busby, Codex and Context: Reading Old French Verse Narrative in Manuscript, 2 vols. (Amsterdam and New York, Rodopi, 2002). Chapters 5 and 6 are especially relevant. 10 This review is mentioned in a recent article in the online magazine Slate (April 3, 2014) by Joel Warner and Peter McGraw, a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and director of the Humor Research Lab. They discuss their own research, which shows that jokes written by men and women were judged almost equally funny by their undergraduate research subjects. The biggest gender difference they discovered was that that jokes written by men were more often rated as offensive. 11 Brian J. Levy, “Performing Fabliaux,” in Performing Medieval Narrative, ed. Evelyn Birge Vitz, Nancy Freeman Regalado, and Marilyn Lawrence (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2005), pp. 123–40, at p. 135.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 64

04/01/2016 10:07



FUN WITH WOMEN: WHY A FEMINIST TEACHES FABLIAUX

65

in French courses, I have found it not too uncomfortable to include such openly sexual tales as La Saineresse [The Lady Doctor], in which an ailing wife describes in explicit, but metaphorical, detail to her husband the “treatment” she received from the visiting lady doctor, actually her lover in disguise, or Bérangier au long cul [Long-­Assed Berangier], in which a braggart husband is forced literally to kiss his wife’s ass. A mixed-­gender classroom may call upon the teacher to put more thought into discussion dynamics, and it is important to be sensitive to students’ varying comfort levels with talking about sex. It is also evident that the teacher needs to use a good translation and find moments to engage students with the original Old French text in order that they get a better sense of the text’s humor.12 Another advantage of the fabliaux is that they challenge the tendency by our students, especially earlier in their education, to extract the central “message” of a text, whether in using a highlighter to pull out the main ideas of a textbook or trying to find the moral of a fictional narrative. While fabliaux frequently do end with a didactic message, making them similar to exempla, just as often the tale itself undermines a straightforward interpretation. In some cases, the “moral” is quite clearly the opposite of the meaning suggested by the tale itself, making the closing proverb deliberately ironic.13 La Saineresse [The Lady Doctor], which is on the surface a tale about deceitful and adulterous wives, aligns the reader with the wife, whose humor resides less in her successfully hiding her adultery than in her actually describing it to her husband without his understanding the joke. The very last line of the fabliau ends by declaring the wife as the one who “Boula son seignor premerains!” [Did a premier job of tricking her lord].14 When faced with such an ambivalent “message,” readers are forced to rethink the story’s interpretive frame, question their own reading, and read again. Students also learn that these texts, which seem so straightforward, are actually highly playful, self-­reflexive, and sophisticated. This is a point that is productively paired with the declaration in Marie de France’s prologue to her lais that the deliberate obscurity of texts of the past forces future students to study 12 An excellent modern English translation is Nathaniel E. Dubin, The Fabliaux (New York, Norton, 2013). It includes sixty-­nine fabliaux, including some of the most explicitly sexual. Although the translations are loose, they capture the play with language that is so central to the genre’s humor. The anthology also has facing-­page Old French-­modern French text so teachers can select sections of the original for use. For students of French, I have used Fabliaux Érotiques, ed. Luciano Rossi (Paris, Librairie Générale Française, 1992), which also has facing-­page translations. 13 Scholars have noted the tendency of fabliaux to resist moralizing interpretations. See, for example, Simon Gaunt, Gender and Genre in Medieval French Literature (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 272–5, and Katherine A. Brown, Boccaccio’s Fabliaux: Medieval Short Stories and the Function of Reversal (Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2014). Brown argues that the manuscript anthologies of fabliaux, which intentionally group and juxtapose fabliaux and other texts in a way that challenges singular interpretations, anticipate the similar practices in Boccaccio’s Decameron. 14 Nouveau recueil complet des fabliaux, ed. Willem Noomen and Nico van den Boogard, 10 vols. (Assen, Netherlands, Van Gorcum, 1983–98), vol. 4, v. 116.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 65

04/01/2016 10:07

66

LISA PERFETTI

them carefully and thereby develop a more subtle understanding.15 Indeed, Marie’s own lais, like the fabliaux, seem aimed to force readers to reflect on whose perspectives are represented in the narrative. Just as Marie points to the competing titles for tales – “Le chaitivel” [The Unhappy One] vs. “Quatre dols” [The Four Sorrows] and “Elidus” vs. “Guildeluëc ha Guilliadun” – the fableors invite readers to use their critical faculties to reread and to be attentive to the circulation of truisms, clichés, and facile moralizing. One of the skills I have emphasized in my efforts to help students develop their writing skills is the ability to find ideas worth writing about, which implicitly involves the careful reading of a text, whether literary or otherwise. In an exercise called “Seems to Be About X, But Could Also Be (Is Really) About Y,” students question their first reaction to a reading.16 With a fabliau such as La Saineresse, the results might look like this: Seems Seems Seems Seems

to to to to

be be be be

about about about about

women wanting sex, but really is about stupid husbands. sex, but really is about power in marriage. language about sex more than sex itself. not just language, but telling stories skillfully.

This kind of exercise helps students to see that some fabliaux problematize rather than naturalize gender and to recognize that in some cases the interesting questions raised in fabliaux are only incidentally about gender. Yet, it is important not to dismiss what the fabliaux have to say about women. Even though we can argue that the fabliaux really aren’t about women, readers, whether medieval or modern, connect these humorous narratives to the actual worlds around them.17 As Chaucer’s Wife of Bath asked: “Be ther none othere 15 See Marie’s Prologue in Les Lais de Marie de France, ed. Jean Rychner (Paris, Honoré Champion, 1983): “Custume fu as ancïens, / Ceo testimoine Precïens, / Es livres ke jadis feseient, / Assez oscurement diseient / Pur ceus ki a venir esteient / E ki aprendre les deveient, / K’i peüssent gloser la lettre / E de lur sen le surplus mettre. / Li philesophe le saveient, / Par eus meïsmes entendeient, / Cum plus trespassereit li tens, / Plus serreient sutil de sens / E plus se savreient garder / De ceo k’i ert a trespasser (vv. 9–22). [It was customary for the ancients, in the books which they wrote (Priscian testifies to this), to express themselves very obscurely so that those in later generations, who had to learn them, could provide a gloss for the text and put the finishing touches to their meaning. Men of learning were aware of this and their experience had taught them that the more time they spent studying texts the more subtle would be their understanding of them and they would be better able to avoid future mistakes.] Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby, trans., The Lais of Marie de France (New York, Penguin, 1999), p. 41. 16 This writing prompt is described by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen, Writing Analytically, 6th edn. (Boston, MA, Wadsworth, 2011), pp. 101–3. 17 Jane Burns makes this point forcefully in Bodytalk. Critiquing Howard Bloch’s analysis of female genitalia in the fabliaux as a stand-­in for questions about narrative representation (in Scandal of the Fabliaux), she notes, “Many feminist readers will wonder how much is gained ultimately when a deft deconstruction of the critical assumptions concerning the naturalistic representation of the fabliau ushers in, instead and without question, the phallogocentric logic of another set of critical assumptions” (p. 47). Simon Gaunt, in Gender and

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 66

04/01/2016 10:07



FUN WITH WOMEN: WHY A FEMINIST TEACHES FABLIAUX

67

maner resemblances / That ye may likne youre parables to, / But if a sely wife be oon of tho?” [Are there no other resemblances you can liken your parables to unless an innocent wife/woman be one of them?]18 Writing about women as a category, and making of them a topic for intellectual exercise, ignores the lived realities of actual women, including women readers. In teaching fabliaux, we should emphasize both that they are about more than gender and stress the ways in which having fun with women could have real consequences for readers. A special advantage to us as medievalist teachers is that in studying texts from centuries in the past, and asking what they may have meant for audiences of that time, we help to illuminate similar contemporary issues that seem more familiar to students. Many of our students come to us having reflected very little on what feminism might actually mean. This stems not only from the fact that, like many “isms,” feminism is a term so often used as to be emptied of some of its original force, but also from the fact that our students live in an era where it is not even clear which “wave” of feminism we are experiencing, with many young people even thinking we have moved “beyond” feminism. By taking students far away from their current cultural context, studying fabliaux can enable students to examine current attitudes toward women and gender with fresh eyes. An assignment students in my courses have enjoyed is debating whether the fabliaux are “antifeminist.” After students have read six or so fabliaux, I divide them into two groups: one half will prepare an argument that the fabliaux are antifeminist, and the other half will argue the opposite. I deliberately don’t provide a definition, although I do give each half a different article to read ahead of time.19 In this way, students discover for themselves questions such as the following: does the fact that women typically win in the end because of their husbands’ stupidity, gullibility, or arrogance make the portrayal of their trickery and adultery less objectionable? What does it mean for women to have “power”? Are the traits ascribed to women the result of nature or culture? Does this text invite us to laugh at women or laugh with them? How do our own cultural context, our identity, and our values shape our laughter? Because humor plays with norms in order to produce laughter, comic texts like the fabliaux suggest the ways in which social norms call upon both men and women to perform their gender and subtly question the implicit belief in gender as something naturally given. Generally they do not ridicule or reject these norms; rather, they make Genre, notes that while the fabliaux are ultimately concerned more generally with reversing hierarchies, to read instances of gender as merely metaphorical is irresponsible, for even if a text destabilizes a dominant discourse, its content is not effaced (p. 236) and “misogyny has real and violent consequences for women” (p. 275). 18 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn. (Boston, MA, Houghton Mifflin, 1987), vv. 368–70. 19 Although this pairing has its problems, partly because the choice of fabliaux selected within each article is related to each author’s agenda, I have had one group read Lesley Johnson, “Women on Top: Antifeminism in the Fabliaux,” The Modern Language Review 78 (1983), pp. 298–307, and the other read Norris J. Lacy, “Women in the Fabliaux,” from Reading Fabliaux (New York, Garland, 1993), pp. 60–77.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 67

04/01/2016 10:07

68

LISA PERFETTI

those norms visible where they might otherwise remain invisible, internalized, and naturalized. It is worth noting that many medieval authors, including those famous for their comic masterpieces, such as Chaucer and Boccaccio, are quite overt about making gender a subject of debate, and that is, in itself, something important for students to learn.20 More importantly, teaching fabliaux in context can help students to recognize the hollow insufficiency of the statement “I was just joking” when instances of social banter occur in their interactions with others. A discussion of a medieval text that presents itself as meant to amuse, when put into the context of questions about what people find amusing – as well as when and why – can awaken them to the many kinds of joking interactions that surround them on a daily basis and the difficulty of interpreting and knowing how to respond to them.21 This leads to my last point: students often come to us skeptical about the relevance of our material to their lives. This can be irritating as it seems not only to reinforce our worst fears about a so-­called “me” generation that we see as unwilling to be curious about things that we think should have intrinsic interest, but also to remind us of the rampant presentism in politics, the media, and even academe. Yet making our material relevant to students’ interests and experiences is one of the most important things we can do to help them learn and retain information and difficult concepts. And we can do this with any medieval text we teach with some minimal framing, brief reflection prompts connecting to current social issues, and perhaps some creative assignments that call upon them to think critically about how medieval debates relate to those of our own era.22 The fabliaux are highly relevant to the kind of interpretive quandaries students face in their own entertainment world. A recent book by Linda Mizejewski, Pretty/Funny: Women Comedians and Body Politics, examines the debate about the television show 30 Rock, particularly regarding its portrayal of women and feminism.23 Much of this interpretive difficulty stems from the show’s humor: some viewers fail to realize that the heroine of the show is meant more as a 20 For a treatment of the various ways in which gender was debated in intellectual communities of the Middle Ages, see Thelma Fenster and Clare A. Lees, eds., Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance (New York, Palgrave, 2002). 21 In addition to sharing with students a brief overview of the three main theories of humor (relief, superiority, and incongruity), it is helpful to show examples of how these theories appeared in the medieval period. One helpful source continues to be Glending Olson, Literature as Recreation in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1982). 22 The importance of making material relevant to students is evident in the recent wave of books devoted to the practical implications for professors of the research on how we learn. Instructors are encouraged to develop “authentic” assignments as close as possible to “real world” situations students face or will face. A failing of these books is that their examples rarely focus on the humanities. See, for example, Terry Doyle, Learner-­Centered Teaching: Putting the Research on Learning into Practice (Sterling, VA, Stylus Publishing, 2011), pp. 31–50. 23 Linda Mizejewski, Pretty/Funny: Women Comedians and Body Politics (Austin, University of Texas Press, 2014). The second chapter is devoted to 30 Rock. Other

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 68

04/01/2016 10:07



FUN WITH WOMEN: WHY A FEMINIST TEACHES FABLIAUX

69

parody of a feminist than a true feminist, and they conflate the character of the show (Liz Lemon) with the actress who plays her (Tina Fey). Rather than taking political stands and advocating for change, Liz uses tropes of feminist discourse merely for narrowly self-­serving ends. As Mizejewski notes, this parody, while it entertains thorny questions about sexuality, the body, comedy, and women’s power, ultimately fails to take a progressive feminist stance, relying instead on playful ironizing of important issues, including the representation of women in the media. It is significant that the show revolves around a television comedy show. Its self-­referentiality and circularity at once raise questions about its own ideological underpinnings, yet sidestep any effort to engage more fundamentally with social change. The fabliaux, I would argue, provide a similar example of such circularity, and inviting students to draw parallels between the ambivalence of the words spoken by female characters in medieval texts and those placed in the mouths of contemporary television or film characters both makes the relevance of the fabliaux evident and enables students to be more savvy interpreters of popular culture and, in particular, more astute readers of parody and irony.24 Even if we are not consumers of popular culture ourselves, a simple invitation to students to make such connections can significantly deepen their learning, coaxing them to see the continued relevance of medieval texts today and providing them with opportunities to practice the interpretive strategies we have taught them and to engage in this interpretation with other people.25 We might even assign students to respond to the online comments about course-­related events in the media that all too often are first-­read reactions rather than thoughtful reflections.26 And of c­ omediennes discussed in the book include Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, and Ellen DeGeneres. 24 Gaunt rightly notes that, despite the fabliaux’s denaturalization and destabilization of the gender categories they seem to rely on, they do not ultimately deny misogyny and in repeating antifeminist aphorisms and proverbs “they also perpetuate it, running the risk that some readers will take their misogyny literally, as many modern critics have done” (Gender and Genre, p. 274). 25 While some teachers believe that it is important to have familiarity with the cultural products students consume in order to use this knowledge in the classroom, this terrain is so vast, and so continually shifting, that many of us find it difficult to keep up. As someone who prefers to read books in her spare time, my knowledge of what students enjoy watching comes mostly through what I read. But my ignorance is in some ways an advantage. Simply asking a broad question like “How might this representation of gender and humor relate to the shows you and your friends watch?” gets students talking, and puts them in the position of teaching me about something familiar to them. Because of my own unfamiliarity with popular culture (sometimes shared by other students in the class), they have to assess the many examples available to them and the diversity of that field itself, and then explain the parallels or differences, which of course makes them think more critically about the shows they enjoy. Asking students to do this kind of work is an example of the pedagogical approach encouraged by Alison Cook-­Sather, Catherine Bovill, and Peter Felten, Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching: A Guide for Faculty (San Francisco, CA, Wiley, 2014). 26 In the conclusion to her study of Boccaccio’s Fabliaux, Katherine Brown laments the technological changes that she believes have fundamentally changed the individual and

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 69

04/01/2016 10:07

70

LISA PERFETTI

course, one of the principal joys of teaching is that our students challenge us to step back from the distant world that we, as scholars, know so well, and to explain why studying the past is relevant, and essential, to understanding our world today.27 Our subject matter rarely affords us the opportunity to be public intellectuals in the way that our colleagues in other disciplines can, but the students we teach take with them what they have learned about gender, feminism, and interpreting culture. By encouraging them more intentionally to see the connections between the world we study and the world in which they live, we make it more likely that the knowledge we have shared within the classroom will make its mark outside of the classroom. I have not undertaken a scientific analysis – a simple googling of “medieval,” “women,” and “syllabus” was the extent of my ­investigation – but my impression is that feminist medievalists often do not give much attention to comic texts when they consider what to share with students. This is partly because there are so many fascinating texts and important topics to teach. But it may also be because many comic texts such as the fabliaux seem more bent on “having fun with women” in the traditional sense of exploiting them for men’s amusement. But in shifting the use of these texts toward the fun of critical reading, of understanding ambiguity and irony, along with the satisfaction of understanding their danger, “having fun” can be viewed as both a pedagogical pleasure and an ethical undertaking.28 In writing this essay, I have tried to suggest that, when planning their courses and writing their syllabi, teachers might give the fabliaux a second read.

creative experience of reading, noting the World Wide Web, “where the reader can instantaneously search a community of other readers for a satisfying interpretation, the ‘answer’ to understanding the text” (p. 168). While she is right to note the less intimate space posed by online comments, blogs, or other interpretive communities, these venues potentially enable students to bring their more sophisticated understanding of both gender and textual analysis to a larger audience, an experience that can feel more authentic. 27 I would like to thank the many graduates of Muhlenberg College with whom I had fun studying medieval texts over the course of my teaching career. 28 In noting the relationship between ethics and literary interpretation, I am thinking primarily of the work of Martha Nussbaum, who has written passionately in defense of the study of literature as a way to cultivate a more compassionate and just world. See Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1998). While justly critiqued by Barbara Rosenwein (Emotional Communities, pp. 16–17) for her dismissal of the Middle Ages in her study of emotion (Upheavals of Thought), Nussbaum’s work has much to offer feminist medieval studies. I am also thinking of the recent richly theoretical work of my Whitman colleague Zahi Zalloua, Reading Unruly: Interpretation and its Ethical Demands (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2014). Zalloua mentions Nussbaum’s work (pp. 149–51) and engages with questions of difference and its implications for criticism, including feminist criticism.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 70

04/01/2016 10:07

PART II Sartorial Bodies

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 71

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 72

04/01/2016 10:07

Hats and Veils: There’s No Such Thing as Freedom of Choice, and It’s a Good Thing Too Madeline H. Caviness This essay will use some of the hats and veils worn (in representation) by medieval men and women to challenge the modernist notion that socially mandated dress codes infringe upon something called “freedom of expression” in modern times. In a famous article, “There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech and It’s a Good Thing Too,” first published in 1992, Stanley Fish argued that if speech could be free it would be meaningless, because all normal verbal interactions have an impact that “costs” in some way.1 In a nutshell: “Free speech is just the name we give to verbal behavior that serves the substantive agendas we wish to advance.”2 I am suggesting that “dress” or “costuming” could be substituted for “speech,” in the following citation: “The good news is that precisely because speech is never “free” in the two senses required – free of consequences and free from state pressure – speech always matters, is always doing work.”3 No matter how “free” an individual member of civil society believes their costuming to be, it has legal limits; it also has an impact on viewers, whether at cost or gain to the wearer. What people wear matters because it has consequences. Dress codes are signs that communicate group identity, and as such they are a part of identity politics. Even when an individual submits “willingly” to wearing a uniform as a condition of a wanted position, any such people – whether waiters, nannies, nuns, hospital workers, hard-­hat construction workers, police officers, or military personnel – are donning a badge that connotes they do not own the means of production; the particulars of their uniform were decided for them, and wearing it is made a condition of employment. On the far end of the spectrum are the people who have been involuntarily coerced into wearing an identifying 1 Stanley Fish, “There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech and It’s a Good Thing Too,” Boston Review 17/1, no. 1 (Feb. 1992), pp. 3–4, 23–6. I am grateful to Laura Tillery, Lora Webb, and Johanna Miller, who have helped me with the research and editing of this paper, and Gabriel Quick who assisted with image permissions. 2 I cite the version reprinted as a chapter of a book: Stanley Eugene Fish, There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing, Too (New York, Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 102–19, at p. 102. 3 Fish, There’s No Such Thing, pp. 104, 114.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 73

04/01/2016 10:07

74

MADELINE H. CAVINESS

sign, such as a prison uniform. This paper is about the contested areas in which what appears from the outside to be coercion may be within the norms of social negotiation and even individual choice. A decade after Fish wrote this piece, “freedom” was trumpeted by the Bush administration in the US as a justification for the American Oil Wars that are still being fought in Iraq (Wars I and III) and Afghanistan (Wars II and IV).4 First Lady Laura Bush and others tried to enlist the women’s movement to support the war in order to save Afghan women from being veiled and secluded by the Taliban.5 They seem to have missed the cognitive dissonance of advocating freedom, in view of the fact that an army of men and women dressed strictly according to military regulations, and presumably proud of their uniforms, had been launched into another people’s homeland in the name of freedom of expression. They also did not notice that Taliban men have to cover their uncut hair with an elaborately wound turban. If Americans are not concerned about personal freedom in matters of appearance in the battlefield, a powerful reason is that recognition of friend and foe is a matter of life and death: dress codes matter. Modern military forces are wearing updated versions of the knight’s shield, crest, and coat of arms that identified him and his men in combat, when their visors were down. Muslim women cover their hair with veils when they go outside their home, much as medieval wives and widows did (the body-­ covering burqa is admittedly more extreme). This is not to say that contemporary Muslim culture is “medieval” and therefore backward, but that it is worth examining medieval dress codes to find out how they worked, and to question whether conformity was oppressive.6 The same questions are currently being asked about Muslim veiling. The issue of women veiling/veiling of women is proving extremely divisive in some countries, east and west. For instance, since 2004 French government restrictions prohibit Muslim girls from wearing the veil in public schools, thereby inverting the free/unfree paradigm since those subjected to such controls resist in the name of freedom, just as Fish predicted in such cases.7 It is in fact 4 I use the term Oils Wars in reference to the Opium Wars Britain launched on China in 1839 and 1856. Oil is now the contested commodity: Since these wars are without end, I list the dates of the US invasions: I. Iraq Gulf War, 1990; II. Afghanistan, 2001; III. Iraq, 2003; IV. Afghanistan, renewed deployment 2006. 5 Diane Sawyer had reported on the women of Afghanistan on “20/20” five years earlier, and many western feminists including myself had joined in blogs and petitions because of the reintroduction of the burqa, and the closing of girls’ schools. 6 I take note of the risk articulated by Kathleen Davis of seeming to enlist Medievalism and Orientalism in a discussion of modern and medieval social identities: Kathleen Davis, “Time behind the Veil: The Media, the Middle Ages, and Orientalism Now,” in The Postcolonial Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2000), pp. 105–22. 7 Following many published studies, a recent book brings together a number of studies relating to this issue: Sieglinde Rosenberger and Birgit Sauer, Politics, Religion and Gender: Framing and Regulating the Veil, Routledge Studies in Religion and Politics (Abingdon and New York, Routledge, 2012). The New York Times has a topics section online: http://topics.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 74

04/01/2016 10:07



HATS AND VEILS: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS FREEDOM OF CHOICE

75

a ­long-­standing custom in French universities for students to ridicule anyone wearing ethnic or religious head-­coverings, often a form of racism exercised in the name of laïcité (secularity); in the Sorbonne dining halls in 1960, I well remember the table-­thumping that always greeted a Sikh who wore the turban that is mandatory in his culture.8 In 1936, the Reza Shah of Iran had also proscribed the veil, with the ultimate result that its use was enforced by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.9 Regulations pro and con have not been regarded in the west as equally threatening to freedom. The issue of women’s veiling has come to the fore in all countries where Islamists or Islamophobes are advancing political agendas.10 Many Muslim women have responded to the controversy by choosing to wear the veil as a mark of personal freedom. This has stimulated the fashion industry to provide colorful and attractive variations; social theorists might point out that these women have merely succumbed to a different master, that of capitalist business. Playing both sides, the film industry and advertising have even benefited from images of veiled women as erotic spectacle.11 Yet one has to credit some women’s personal enjoyment of wearing a veil, and their appreciation of the freedom it gives them to go unnoticed in public, and to be voyeurs.12 The longer historical view offered by the study of medieval Europe often sheds light on our contemporary dilemmas and vice versa. Medieval culture was thoroughly familiar with dress codes that were sometimes voiced in national and local regulations: for instance, as described by Jane Burns, sumptuary laws proscribed purple (what we might now call scarlet), and certain furs, to any but royals and the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries.13 Among women, prostitutes nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/m/muslim_veiling/index.html. As of July 2, 2014, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the French ban. 8 For the struggle over secularization in France, see: Rada Ivekovic, “The Veil in France: Secularism, Nation, Women,” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 11 (2004), pp. 1117–19. A profound historical analysis is that of Joan Wallach Scott, The Politics of the Veil (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2007). 9 Faegheh Shirazi, The Veil Unveiled: The Hijab in modern culture (Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2001), pp. 7, 88–109. For the history of attempts to ban the veil: Stephanie Cronin, ed. Anti-­Veiling Campaigns in the Muslim World: Gender, Modernism and the Politics of Dress (Abingdon and New York, Routledge, 2014). 10 Egypt and Turkey are current hot spots that can be followed on the internet; e.g., http:// www.al-­monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/11/islamic-­headscarves-­turkey.html# 11 Shirazi, Veil Unveiled, pp. 10–87. 12 Reassessments of the veil based on these views are presented by Katherine Bullock, Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical & Modern Stereotypes (Herndon, VA, International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2002), and Sahar Amer, What Is Veiling? (Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 2014), pp. 131–97. 13 For bibliography on sumptuary laws, see: E. Jane Burns, Courtly Love Undressed. Reading through Clothes in Medieval French Culture (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), p. 246 n. 24; for thirteenth-­century sumptuary laws, see: Sarah-­Grace Heller, “Limiting Yardage and Changes of Clothes: Sumptuary Legislation in Thirteenth-­Century France, Languedoc, and Italy,” in Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings, ed. E. Jane Burns (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 121–36.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 75

04/01/2016 10:07

76

MADELINE H. CAVINESS

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of the book.

Fig. 1.  Prostitutes greeting the Prodigal Son, c. 1210, Chartres Cathedral Notre-­Dame, Window 35, panel 6 (after Deremble, Les vitraux narratifs, fig. 68, by permission of the author).

were singled out for special control. At times, colorful garments were prescribed and finery raised no objection, because this allowed them to be distinguished from respectable women in the street;14 the ones who entertain the Prodigal Son in an early thirteenth-­century window in the north transept window of Chartres Cathedral model long, tightly belted colorful chemises that reveal hourglass figures. They also wear the latest fashion in the touret, a kind of pill-­box hat that covers the swept-­back hair, and stays in place with a chin strap that leaves the neck bare (fig. 1).15 Colette Manhes-­Deremble notes that the veil was soon after forbidden to prostitutes in France, but statutes in Arles had already proscribed it in the twelfth century according to Sarah-­Grace Heller, and in the fourteenth-­century statutes of London, Ruth Karras has found that by then the reason given for forbidding finery to whores was to distinguish them from richly adorned “good and noble ladies.”16 In the illustrated recension of the German 14 Françoise Piponnier and Perrine Mane, Dress in the Middle Ages, trans. Caroline Beamish (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 139–41. 15 Colette Manhes-­Deremble, Les Vitraux narratifs de la cathédrale de Chartres: étude iconographique, Corpus Vitrearum, France: Étude 2 (Paris, Léopard d’Or, 1993), pp. 162, 348, figs. 68 and 70, Window 35. 16 Heller, “Limiting Yardage,” p. 126; Ruth Mazo Karras, “‘Because the Other is a

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 76

04/01/2016 10:07



HATS AND VEILS: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS FREEDOM OF CHOICE

77

Fig. 2.  A woman of reduced legal capacity, and the rape of an itinerant woman or the man’s lover, c. 1360: Sachsenspiegel III.47. Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Ms Cod. Guelf. 3.1 Aug. 2o, fol. 48r, register 5, detail (photo. HAB, by permission).

law book known as The Mirror of Saxons (Sachsenspiegel), which dates from about 1360, the concubine or vagrant minstrel being raped has long blonde hair visible below her touret, and a tight-­fitting red chemise, whereas a woman of reduced legal capacity is demurely veiled (fig. 2).17 Despite the affirmation in the law that rape of such low-­class women is a punishable crime, the one being attacked is dressed like a whore, raising doubts about her blamelessness, and the perpetrator’s punishment is not represented. Mary Magdalene, in a window in the west end of the nave of Chartres Cathedral, is dressed as a repentant prostitute, in long chemise and loosely draped mantle, and a veil that completely Poor Woman She Shall Be Called His Wench:’ Gender, Sexuality, and Social Status in Late Medieval England,” in Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages, ed. Sharon Farmer and Carol Braun Pasternack, Medieval Cultures (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2003), pp. 214–15. 17 Sachsenspiegel III.47: Maria Dobozy, The Saxon Mirror: A Sachsenspiegel of the Fourteenth Century (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), pp. 127, 232 n. 65, 66. For the middle German text and modern rendering see: Ruth Schmidt-­Wiegand, ed., Eike von Repgow: Sachsenspiegel. Die Wolfenbütteler Bilderhandschrift Cod. Guelf. 3.1 Aug. 2°, vol. 2: Textband (Berlin, Akademie Verlag,1993), pp. 246–7.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 77

04/01/2016 10:07

78

MADELINE H. CAVINESS

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of the book.

Fig. 3.  Mary Magdalene recognizing Christ risen, c. 1210, Chartres Cathedral Notre-­Dame, Window 46, panel 12 (after Deremble Les vitraux narratifs, fig. 13, by permission of the author).

covers her hair and neck (fig. 3).18 Monastic houses were often founded in her name, to accommodate women who wanted to reform their lives. Proscription is more common than prescription in medieval laws, which raises the question to what extent the veils that identify women as wives, widows and nuns, or any of the head-­coverings worn by men to indicate their social station, were mandatory. Crowns, coronets, the papal tiara, and mitres were conferred in elaborate rituals, and although they were only worn on solemn occasions, iconography requires that they are always visible in artistic representations; the three Kings, for instance, usually sleep and ride in their crowns (fig. 4).19 In Manhes-­Deremble, Vitraux narratifs, pp. 42–5, 368–9, Window 46. Madeline H. Caviness, The Windows of Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Great Britain II (London, Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1981), p. 90, figs. 149–50. 18 19

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 78

04/01/2016 10:07



HATS AND VEILS: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS FREEDOM OF CHOICE

79

Fig. 4.  The Three Kings (Magi) journeying, c. 1180, Canterbury, Christ Church Cathedral, north choir aisle window n.XV, panel 38 (after Caviness, Windows, fig. 149).

the Sachsenspiegel, the hierarchical authority of the local secular courts was maintained by the hats worn by the highest officials, but in the king’s court “no Schöffen or judge may wear a cap, hat, cowl, hood, or gloves.”20 The hats worn by Jewish men in the middle ages were self-­regulated, though many scholars wrongly believe these were required as a result of the Lateran Council of 1215.21 Representations of Jewish men in tall hats go back to late antiquity, and are common by the twelfth century.22 In kingdoms where regulations were issued in accordance with the Council’s call for a mark of difference, the stipulated signs to 20 Sachsenspiegel III.69: Dobozy, The Saxon Mirror, p. 134; Schmidt-­ Wiegand, ed., Wolfenbütteler Textband, pp. 270–71. The Schöffen held hereditary appointments to the court with a function approximating our jurors. 21 This argument is presented fully in my forthcoming book Women and Jews in the Sachsenspiegel Picture Books (Turnout, Brepols, forthcoming), Chapter 5. 22 Strauss, Raphael. “The ‘Jewish Hat’ as an Aspect of Social History,” Jewish Social Studies 4 (1942), pp. 59–72. Many early medieval representations of Jews with hats are

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 79

04/01/2016 10:07

80

MADELINE H. CAVINESS

Fig. 5.  Seal of the Jews in Augsburg with the Imperial eagle, a Jewish hat, and inscriptions in Hebrew and Latin, 1298; plaster cast in the Hohenlohe-­Waldenburg Schlossmuseum from the original in Augsburg, Stadtische Archiv (after Friedenberg, Medieval Jewish Seals, 1987, entry 79 p. 171, by permission of the publisher).

be sewn on outer garments were a yellow bezant (roundel) or bands resembling Moses’ tablets; the German Emperors did not issue directives, despite reminders from the pope. In Germany, Jewish communities chose to represent funnel-­ shaped hats on their seals, coins, and tombs; the seal of the Jewish merchants of Augsburg even had the imperial eagle surmounted by a Jewish hat instead of a crown, identifying them proudly as the Emperor’s people (Kammerknecht) (fig. 5).23 A Rhenish Synod of 1200–1220 declared that men should not shave in the manner of Christians, so beards, already customary in representation, r­ eproduced in Heinz Schreckenberg, The Jews in Christian Art: An Illustrated History, trans. John Bowden (New York, Continuum, 1996). 23 The best source for this material is Daniel M. Friedenberg, Medieval Jewish Seals from Europe (Detroit, MI, Wayne State University Press, 1987); for the Augsburg seal illustrated here see pp. 171–2. For the cast: Friedrich Karl Fürst zu Hohenlohe-­Waldenburg,

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 80

04/01/2016 10:07



HATS AND VEILS: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS FREEDOM OF CHOICE

81

became another Jewish marker regulated by their own community leaders. This does not, of course, remove the lack of parity between the Christian majority and the Jewish minority, but it underlines the fact that the religious leaders of both groups saw the advantages of ready recognition in public, since they forbade mixed marriages. And easy identification for Jewish men was supposed to protect them from armed attack in the street, under the Imperial Peace. It remains puzzling that Jewish women, though also required by the Council to wear a mark of difference in their clothing, seem to have followed the same fashions in veils as their Christian counterparts throughout the middle ages.24 In 1415 papal legislation called for a circular mark of difference to be worn on the front of the veil, but I have found none in representations.25 Only in the sixteenth century, when a few German cities required Jewish men to wear their customary hats in the street, do we find images of women wearing the same funnel-­ shaped hat over their veils (fig. 6). The habitual lack of distinction could have given rise to confusion in the street, just as it can for art historians deciphering iconography. For instance, the Washington Haggadah, which was written and illuminated by Joel Ben Simeon in Germany in 1498, has an unusual depiction of Elijah (or the Messiah) approaching a magnificent house on a donkey (fig. 7). A well-­dressed man, in a red chaperon, rides on the rump of the donkey with a boy, and a woman, in a tall hennin, and a girl are astride the tail, while an old woman holds onto its end. According to a tale that was elaborated in the fifteenth century, the Jews would ride on the Messiah’s ass and the Christians on its tail, so that when he guided it into the sea all the gentile persecutors would drown.26 The elegant lady is identified as Jewish by the glass of Passover wine she holds, despite her position on the tail. It seems that wealthy Jews of both sexes might overstep (in fantasy, if not in fact) the sumptuary regulations ­formulated by their own leaders as well as by town fathers.27 The matter of veiling is complex. Veiling and unveiling are long-­standing metaphors for covering up and revealing the truth, and they resonate throughout western philosophy, literature, and even optics.28 What is veiled may be held in suspicion.29 Yet the multivalent resonances of the veil include opposite values; Sphragistische Aphorismen; 300 Mittelalterliche Siegel, systematisch classificirt und ­erläutert (Heilbronn: Schell, 1882, and Google e-­Book), p. 99 no. 272, Pl. XXXIV. 24 I have examined Old Testament images in Christian art as well as images in Jewish manuscripts, and in Schreckenberg, Jews in Christian Art. 25 Piponnier and Mane, Dress in the Middle Ages, p. 137; the authors also claim that married Jewish women wore two blue bands on their veils, but I have not seen depictions. 26 Katrin Kogman-­Appel in David Stern and Katrin Kogman-­Appel, eds., The Washington Haggadah Copied and Illustrated by Joel ben Simeon (Cambridge, MA, and Washington, DC, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press and The Library of Congress, 2011), pp. 80–82. 27 Kogman-­Appel in Stern, Washington Haggadah, p. 103. 28 Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Seeing through the Veil: Optical Theory and Medieval Allegory (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2004). 29 An attitude that was very clear in the French debate: Scott, Politics of the Veil, pp. 132–4.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 81

04/01/2016 10:07

82

MADELINE H. CAVINESS

Fig. 6a.  Men and women wearing Jewish hats (the celebration of Passover), c. 1390, Wenzel Bible, Bavaria, Vienna Österreischische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2759–2764, vol. III, f. 112v. (photo. ONB, by permission).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 82

04/01/2016 10:07



HATS AND VEILS: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS FREEDOM OF CHOICE

83

Fig. 6b.  Man and woman in “Jewish hats” paying Judas, 1399, Peter Comestor, Historia evangelica. Freiburg in Breisgau. Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, Cod. Tennenbach 8, fol. 75r (photo. BLB, by permission).

the veil proves to be an unstable signifier – as unstable as “women” themselves were held to be by the Christian clergy.30 The mature woman’s veil in the middle ages was supposed to be a demonstration of her modesty and honesty, but young girls before they were married – presumably innocent virgins – wore their long hair uncovered, as seen in the Sachsenspiegel when a married and an unmarried sister divide their inheritance (fig. 8). By an odd twist of theology, Christianity adopted the ancient custom of assiduously covering up most women’s hair with cloth veils even though Saint Paul saw a woman’s long hair as her glory, since it can serve as a veil to cover her body: “nec ipsa natura docet vos quod vir quidem si comam nutria ignominia est illi; mulier vero si 30 A perusal of a collection of medieval texts on women will confirm this: Alcuin Blamires, ed., Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 83

04/01/2016 10:07

84

MADELINE H. CAVINESS

Fig. 7.  Jewish men and women riding on Elijah’s ass into Jerusalem, 1478, Joel ben Simeon, Washington Haggadah. Library of Congress Hebr. Ms. 1, f. 19v. (photo. Courtesy of the Hebraic Division of the Library of Congress).

comam nutria Gloria est illi quoniam capilli pro velamine ei dati sunt.” [“Doth not even nature itself teach you, that a man indeed, if he nourish his hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman nourish her hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given to her for a covering.” I Corinthians 11:14–15.] Yet for nuns, the veil was a substitute for shaven hair, which might have seemed against nature.31 Images of Saints Mary Magdalene, Mary of Egypt, and Agnes demonstrate the possibility of hair serving as a veil to cover a woman’s breasts and even her sex; an early fourteenth-­century statue at Écouis (Normandy) has floor-­length hair that covers her back completely and all but her face and neck in front (fig.  9).32 Late medieval images often showed Mary Magdalene with hair all 31 Désirée Koslin, “The Robe of Simplicity: Initiation, Robing, and Veiling of Nuns in the Middle Ages,” in Robes of Honor: The Medieval World of Investiture, ed. Stewart Gordon (New York, Palgrave, 2001), p. 257. 32 Dorothy Gillerman, Enguerran de Marigny and the Church of Notre-­Dame at Ecouis: Art and Patronage in the Reign of Philip the Fair (University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), pp. 106, 109–10, 188–9, fig. 45; Danielle Gaborit-­Chopin et al., eds., L’art au temps des rois maudits, Philippe le Bel et ses fils, 1285–1328 (Paris, Réunion des Musées Nationaux,1998), pp. 106–7.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 84

04/01/2016 10:07



HATS AND VEILS: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS FREEDOM OF CHOICE

85

Fig. 8.  Married and unmarried daughters dividing their inheritance, c. 1360, Sachsenspiegel I.3. Wolfenbüttel, fol. 11v reg 5, detail (photo. HAB, by permission).

over her body, ­sometimes leaving her breasts bare (fig. 10). In the early sixteenth century a German author known as Henricus Cornelius Agrippa praised women for growing their hair to cover “the more shameful parts,” while noting that another of their blessings is that those do not protrude as men’s do.33 In the eleventh century, the Pauline proscriptions were taken up by reforming churchmen such as Saint Ivo of Chartres. In his Panormia, a guide to correct behavior in marriage written in the 1090s, Ivo admonished men not to wear their hair long like a veil because “natural order” dictated that women should be veiled; women are not the glory or image of God, so men must rule over them, and long hair in men would be a sign that they had given up this natural right. It is notable that Ivo has transposed Saint Paul’s “glory,” from women’s hair to the statement that women were not created in the glory of God.34 It begins to sound as though veiling was imposed on women by men as a heavily freighted symbol of their subjugation in a “natural” order ordained by God. However when women questioned the need to wear a veil, they were not rebelling against the socio-­religious order. Veiling was a subject for negotiation between nuns and their male mentors or peers, or at least I know of three such recorded exchanges. The first is between Heloise and Abelard, when she asked him to justify the existence of nuns, and begged him for a 33 Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex, trans. Albert Rabil (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago, 1996), pp. 54–6. 34 Ivo Carrnotensis, Panormia, in Patrologia Latina online, vol. 161, Cap. 95: “mulier autem idea velat, quia non est Gloria, aut imago Dei;” see also Cap. 92, “Quare mulier debeat velare caput suum.”

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 85

04/01/2016 10:07

86

MADELINE H. CAVINESS

Fig. 9.  Statue of Mary of Egypt or Mary Magdalen, 1311–1313, stone with traces of polychromy, Church of Notre-­Dame, Écouis (Normandy), 147 x 50.6 x 34cm (photo: Jean-­Gilles Berizzi licensed by Art Resource).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 86

04/01/2016 10:07



HATS AND VEILS: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS FREEDOM OF CHOICE

87

Fig. 10.  Hartmann Schedel, Mary Magdalen lifted up by angels, 1493, woodblock print, Nuremberg, printed Anton Koberger, Nuremberg Chronicle (Liber Chronicarum), Cambridge University Library, Peterborough.U.5.17, fol. 108r (photo: Cambridge Digital Library, Inc.0.A.7.2[888], by permission).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 87

04/01/2016 10:07

88

MADELINE H. CAVINESS

rule and habit better suited to women than the standard Benedictine cowl and wool tunic of their order.35 Abelard replied with examples of many famous women, biblical and saintly, who might inspire her. One is Saint Agatha, who “saved the heathen from the fires of Etna by means of her veil, a miracle which no man’s cowl has ever achieved.”36 In the Third Letter of Direction, his justification of the habit begins with the reasons not to wear fine clothes; essentially that costly clothing makes the owner too careful and mindful of material things, and is less warm.37 He then justifies the choice of fabrics before expanding on the veil: black clothes are fitting for penitents, and lamb’s wool for virginal brides of Christ. Veils are to be made of dyed linen, not silk, of two sorts: those for virgins already consecrated by the bishop have the sign of the Cross stitched in white on the forehead, signifying the ­“integrity of their virginity”; this will also prevent lascivious gazes. The veils of those not consecrated shall not bear this mark.38 Apparently the distinction was maintained after death; consecrated nuns were buried with their veils.39 An embroidered cross occasionally appears on the Virgin Mary’s veil in the late twelfth century, as in the central east widow of the Cathedral of Poitiers, and in the crucifixion window formerly in the Berlin Schlossmuseum that was attributed to Gerlachus.40 The small Greek cross is painted in black on the blue or white veil (fig. 11). In the early thirteenth century, the Dominican author of the Ancrene Wisse was more lenient than Abelard, especially when it came to thick underwear and the wimple or gorget that is worn under the veil and completely envelops the chin and neck (fig. 12).41 Writing for three anchorites somewhere in the west country of England, he emphasizes that there are no fixed rules because they are already hidden from men: Saint Paul’s injunction to cover their heads is the 35 Betty Radice, ed., The Letters of Abelard and Heloise (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1974), p. 160. 36 Radice, ed., The Letters, p. 181, letter 6. 37 Radice, ed., The Letters, p. 250, letter 7. 38 Abelard continues that all nuns should wear clean undergarments next to their skin and always sleep in them (his answer to her plea not to have to keep wool drawers on at all times, because of menstruation). 39 Koslin, “Robe of Simplicity,” pp. 256–7; she also explains the differences between the conventual and enclosed sisters. 40 Marcel Aubert et al., Le Vitrail français (Paris, Éditions des Deux Mondes, 1958), Pl. I. The German window was destroyed in 1945: Hermann Schmitz, Die Glasgemälde des Königlichen kunstgewerbe-­museums zu Berlin, vol. II (Berlin, Julius Bard, 1913), p. 3, Pl. 1; H. Wentzel, Meisterwerke der Glasmalerei, 2nd enlarged edn. (Berlin, Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1954), pp. 19, 85, Pl. 21; for the cross, see Robert Grinnell, “Iconography and Philosophy in the Crucifixion Window at Poitiers,” Art Bulletin 28, no. 3 (1946), pp. 172, 178 n. 27. 41 Hugh White, ed., Ancrene Wisse: Guide for Anchoresses (London and New York, Penguin Books, 1993), pp. xix–xx, 193–96; James Morton, ed., The Ancren Riwle: A Treatise on the Rules and Duties of Monastic Life (New York, AMS Press, 1968), pp. 418–21, with the middle English text.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 88

04/01/2016 10:07



HATS AND VEILS: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS FREEDOM OF CHOICE

89

Fig. 11.  Gerlachus, the Virgin Mary at the Crucifixion (detail), c. 1170–1180, stained glass window from Ulm, formerly in the Berlin Schlossmuseum, destroyed in 1945 (after Schmitz, Die Glasgemälde, vol. II, Pl. 1).

Fig. 12.  St Brigitta with nuns habited in black with white wimples, initial letter “O Ihesu Christe eternal” from the Fifteen prayers of St. Bridget, first half of the fifteenth century, The Burnet Psalter (University of Aberdeen, MS 25, fol.61r, detail) (Courtesy of the UA).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 89

04/01/2016 10:07

90

MADELINE H. CAVINESS

only biblical prescription, so they should wear warm caps (but not of silk) and black or white veils over them; they must cover their shame, but “not turn the covering into adornment and finery;” their hair should be cropped, or shaved if they prefer. He urges them to be comfortable because their inner spiritual state is more important than their outer regime. A very different exchange from those of Heloise and Abelard, or the anchorites and their confessor, occurred between two women heads of houses, a reformed canoness and a Benedictine Magistra. Close to the height of her productivity and influence, about 1150, Hildegard of Bingen received a letter from Magistra Tengswich (Tenxwind) of Andernach, asking about “strange and irregular ­practices” at Disibodenberg.42 In a deeply ironic tone, Tengswich appears to be incredulous of reports that her nuns wore diadems and long white silk veils on high feast days, and were accustomed to sing the psalms with their hair loose. Hildegard’s reply was eloquent and uncompromising: O, woman, what a splendid being you are! For you have set your foundation in the sun, and have conquered the world. . . . a woman once married, ought not to indulge herself in prideful adornment of hair or person, nor ought she to lift herself up to vanity, wearing a crown and other golden ornaments . . . But these strictures do not apply to a virgin, for she stands in the unsullied purity of paradise, lovely and unwithering, and she always remains in the full vitality of the budding rod. A virgin is not commanded to cover up her hair.43

Hildegard also replied with images: In the Luca manuscript of her Liber Divinorum Operum, Vision III, three female figures, personifying Love, Humility, and Peace, wear diadems over their long loose hair, and two are in white silk chemises, none of which is specified in the text (fig. 13).44 I assume that these figures, particularly since they included Humility, were drawn by Hildegard to reassert her view of the appropriateness of such rich attire.45 Their secular appearance also recalls that of the virgins in the bosom of Ecclesia in 42 Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman, The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, vol. 2 (New York, Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 127–8, Letter 52. Alfred Haverkamp, “Tenxwind von Andernach und Hildegard von Bingen: Zwei ‘Weltanschauungen’ in der Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts,” in Institutionen, Kultur und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Josef Fleckenstein zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, ed. Lutz Fenske et al. (Sigmaringen, J. Thorbecke, 1984), p. 521, revealed that Tenxwind was a sister of Richard, abbot of the reformed college of canons at Springiersbach. 43 Baird and Ehrman, Letters of Hildegard, pp. 128–9, Letter 52r. 44 Albert Derolez and Peter Dronke, eds., Hildegardis Bingensis Liber Divinorum Operum, Corpus Christianorum continuatio mediaevalis, 92 (Turnhout, Brepols, 1996), pp. 379–85. 45 Madeline H. Caviness, “Hildegard as Designer of the Illustrations to her Works,” in Hildegard of Bingen: The Context of her Thought and Art, ed. Charles Burnett and Peter Dronke, Warburg Institute Colloquia, Vol. 4 (London, The Warburg Institute, 1998), pp. 35–42; reprinted in Madeline H. Caviness, Art in the Medieval West and its Audience (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2001), Chapter VIII.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 90

04/01/2016 10:07



HATS AND VEILS: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS FREEDOM OF CHOICE

91

Fig. 13.  Hildegard of Bingen, Liber Divinorum Operum, c. 1225, Lucca, Biblioteca Statale, Ms. 1942, fol. 132r. (photo. Su concessione del Ministro dei Beni e le Attività culturali e del Turismo).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 91

04/01/2016 10:07

92

MADELINE H. CAVINESS

Fig. 14.  Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, c. 1175, formerly Wiesbaden Ms 1 (missing), fol. 66r (photo. Rhenisches Bidarchiv, Cologne, by permission).

the lost Wiesbaden Scivias, Book II vision 5, where the central figure wears a red gown (fig. 14).46 Hildegard returned to the Pauline notion of a woman’s long hair as her glory, a gift from God. The sensuality of clinging silk chemise and veil or garlanded golden hair is intended for their spiritual bridegroom, for Christ’s eyes alone. She is careful to describe them only as things ordinary married women should not indulge in, yet the manuscript painting reveals uncensored sensuality, the fulfillment of Hildegard and her nuns’ desire, albeit in a visionary realm where they contrast with the Benedictine habit worn by the Magistra/author/voyeur who records the scene (fig. 13). A distant echo is found in the thirteenth-­century lyric of a Provençal trobairitz that Jane Burns uses to great effect in arguing for the significance of clothing in “courtly Romance” as an expression of women’s desire; in sirventesca the female poet laments the restrictions placed on women of her class by the sumptuary laws, which have caused them “harm and ­dishonour,” and urges others to reject the wimple and veil in favour of “garlands of flowers in the summer for love.”47 The medieval linen wimple was likely hot and restricting, as some of our contemporaries in convents would 46 Adelgundis Führkötter and Angela Carlevaris, eds., Hildegardis Bingensis Scivias, Corpus Christianorum continuatio mediaevalis, 43 (Turnhout, Brepols, 1978), pp. 180–81. 47 Burns, Courtly Love, pp. 60, 75–7. The poem, Bruckner no. 29, is by P. Basc, who is assumed to be female.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 92

04/01/2016 10:07



HATS AND VEILS: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS FREEDOM OF CHOICE

93

Fig. 15.  The Virgin/Ecclesia trampling Satan and Judith slaying Holofernes, late thirteenth-­century, Speculum humanae salvationis, Kremsmünster Benedictine Abbey, Codex Cremifanensis 243, fol. 35v (detail). (photo. Courtesy of Stistsbibliothek, Kremünster).

know from experience, so it is not surprising that medieval nuns complained about it. Yet the protests of Hildegard and the trobairitz were not just against discomfort; they stand out for their expressed desire to allow women to construct themselves as glorious apparitions. In the mute world of secular art we can get many glimpses of women’s “bodies forged from cloth,” notably in the increasingly elaborate head-­dresses worn by high-­born matrons as well as the layers of embroidered gowns and lined mantles; the hennin worn in the fifteenth century has already been noticed (see fig. 7). Few nuns or canonesses seem to have aspired to follow these fashions, but the winged cornette head-­dress of the nuns of Saint Vincent de Paul, worn until recently, is a vestige of extreme fashion left over from the early seventeenth century, when wealthy women enlisted to found the Daughters of Charity. The nun’s veil is probably over-­exaggerated as a mark of difference in the high middle ages, since married women and widows ubiquitously wore similar veils as brides of Christ or as brides of laymen.48 This changed in the age of fashion, with ever fuller and more exaggerated veils being designed by or for laywomen. Artists used their abundance of silk to indicate the vigorous movements of the wearers, as when Judith severs Holofernes’ head (fig. 15, right). Veils provided a new “semantic versatility” for draftsmen to exploit in the interests of narrative.49 Yet these subjects also convey the negative view held by male adjudicators of female attire; the Virgin and saints are more demure – even Margaret as she conquers the dragon (fig. 15, left). In the late middle ages a proliferation of sumptuary laws in German towns addressed the shape and As observed by Koslin, “Robe of Simplicity,” p. 265. Shirazi, Veil Unveiled, p. 7.

48 49

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 93

04/01/2016 10:07

94

MADELINE H. CAVINESS

Fig. 16.  Gosswin van der Weyden, “Gift of Kalmthout,” 1511, Oil on oak panel, 153 x 153 cm. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie. (photo: Jörg P. Anders, licensed by Art Resource).

fabric of most kinds of headgear, and limited their decoration.50 Nonetheless the head-­dress continued to expand sideways or upwards, becoming a pre-­modern hat that frames the forehead and chin, the neck, and the shoulders (fig. 16). Like much high fashion, it also restricts movement, announcing that this is a lady who does not do a servant’s work in her household. I well remember the huge hats with ribbons and flowers and veils that we wore in England into the 1960s; women greeting each other at the Ascot horse races, or the Prize Day as a boys’ public school, could not lean toward each other as they shook hands.51 They willingly colluded with conspicuous consumption, though they might not have liked the label. This essay has been written with the politicisation of the Muslim women’s body as a backdrop. As noted at the outset, non-­Muslims have been quick to regard veiling as an imposition on women, abrogating their freedom of choice. 50 Liselotte Constanze Eisenbart, Kleiderordnungen der deutschen Städte zwischen 1350 und 1700: ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte des deutschen Bürgertums, Göttinger Bausteine zur Geschichtswissenschaft, 32 (Göttingen, Musterschmidt, 1962), pp. 149–59. 51 These summer events involved constant changes of hats. My grandmother’s generation had a formula that the hat worn to the first day at the Henley boat races would do for the second day at Ascot horse races.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 94

04/01/2016 10:07



HATS AND VEILS: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS FREEDOM OF CHOICE

95

And when it has been mistaken as a religious rather than a cultural sign, banning the veil has a serious cost – as in France, where many girls stopped going to school. When Muslim women found a voice, they protested that they chose the veil freely (for personal reasons), yet it had become political – neither free from consequences nor free from state pressure. Christian and Jewish women have been spared such extreme contention. By the early 1960s, when the Catholic Church abolished mandated dress codes for their religious, the veil was isolating nuns from the general population, so they were “freed” from it, even though in entering their order they had willingly submitted to wearing it.52 In that they no longer wear a uniform they no longer signal their vowed service to the Church, and they are free to dress as they wish – unless, of course, they prefer the traditional habit. Each time a dress code is imposed, abandoned, or changed it is worth asking whose agenda it advances, and whether it was negotiated by the wearers. Prior to the modern era, social agreements about public dress appear to have created a coherent set of visual signs that all could decipher, and these were never abrogated by individual “freedom of choice;” that issue would not have arisen.53 We have seen that even Hildegard and the trobairitz vociferated on behalf of groups of women. Conformity in public places quietly served identity politics, without placing women at the centre of economic, religious, and ethnic power struggles. Long before Stanley Fish, there seems to have been an understanding that the way people dress has social and political consequences, so it is better negotiated than forced on one group by another.

As noted by Koslin, “Robe of Simplicity,” p. 255. Even Joan of Arc claimed to be motivated by her will to serve God, not by a personal desire to cross-­dress. 52 53

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 95

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 96

04/01/2016 10:07

When the Knight Undresses, His Clothing Speaks: Vestimentary Allegories in the Works of Baudouin de Condé (c. 1240–1280) Sarah-­Grace Heller To the thirteenth-­century poet Baudouin de Condé are ascribed a number of didactic narrative poems that reflect on the decaying state of the social order using masculine military garments as object lessons.1 The extant manuscripts anthologize these poems among a number of Baudouin’s poems in the bestiary tradition (on pelicans, elephants, and dragons, notably), so these garment meditations might be termed a kind of “vestiary.”2 In “Du Gardecors,” the poet compares a protective garment to a lord’s loyal vassals who should protect him and his lands in difficult times. “Du Manteau d’Honneur” allegorizes the knight’s outer garment to extoll virtues that should adorn his moral character. “Des Hérauts” is another manifestation of this author’s didactic program directed at the subordinates of great lords and ladies. It contrasts the excessively fine dress of contemporary heralds with the humbler garb of times gone by when heralds wore knights’ discarded cotes and boots, turning the noble cast-­offs into rags through all weather, as better suited their station. Throughout his works Baudouin wages a campaign of words, “biaus mots,” against unworthy courtly followers and villains, particularly the parasitic types who use words only to deprecate others. He also urges the powerful to listen to preudomes, worthy men of good conduct, rather than self-­serving slanderers. This didactic program aimed at the subalterns who covet the robes that knights discard or give as loyalty gifts deserves to be scrutinized in the light of Jane Burns’ ­recommendations to “read 1 I am using the edition of Willy van Hoecke, L’oeuvre de Baudouin de Condé et le problème de l’édition critique (Ph.D. thesis, Katholieke Universiteit catholique te Leuven, 1970), 5 vols. Cf. the edition of August Scheler, Dits et contes de Baudouin de Condé et de son fils Jean de Condé, publiés d’après les manuscrits de Bruxelles, Turin, Rome, Paris, et Vienne et accompagnés de variants et de notes explicatives, 3 vols. (Brussels, Victor Devaux et cie, 1866–1867), vol. 1. Translations are my own. 2 On the manuscript tradition, see van Hoecke, L’oeuvre de Baudouin de Condé, vol. 2a, pp. 1–89; Yasmina Foehr-­Janssens, “Variations autour d’une figure d’auteur: Baudouin de Condé dans les manuscrits,” in Lors est ce jour grant joie nee: essais de langue et de literature françaises du Moyen Age, ed. Michèle Goyens and Werner Verbeke, Mediaevalia Lovaniensia series I/ studia XLI (Leuven, Leuven University Press, 2009), pp. 97–126.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 97

04/01/2016 10:07

98

SARAH-­GRACE HELLER

through” clothing to find its deeper messages.3 These didactic and at times vituperative poems also provide some balance to Burn’s studies of clerkly and misogynist criticism of women’s clothing: Baudouin’s gaze is fixed exclusively on men. Baudouin’s works have not received extensive critical attention,4 and when they have, the reception has often been ambivalent. In 1856 Paulin Paris condemned Baudouin for minimal originality, deriding his use of “strange rhymes” and double meanings as irritating (“pénible”).5 Baudouin’s editor August Scheler assigned him to the “decadent” period of French poetry, praising the corpus’ utility for the history of the French language but summoning no more than faint praise for its “mediocre charm.”6 However, Willy van Hoecke faulted Sheler’s edition on many levels and with his own sought to demonstrate the poems’ survival in a rich and complex manuscript tradition. Jeanroy aptly called the poems “leçons de morale mondaine,” lessons on worldly morals, but derided their use of the “insignificant and boring” generic traits of the dit.7 As “leçons mondaines” they often employ fashionable images to reach a high-­society audience: I would argue that they have interest for examining the ­intersections of material culture and literature. Looking closer at Baudouin’s rhetoric, Payen praised him as a master of equivocal rhyme (rhyming on two words of different meaning that sound alike).8 Saverio Panunzio characterized Baudouin’s moralizing efforts as an ethical validation of feudal society that attempted to regulate interpersonal relations within the social hierarchy. He vindicates Baudouin’s poetic skill with close readings of his extensive formal deployment of “rhetorical colors,” particularly his magisterial use of paranomasia, playing upon words that sound alike: punning.9 It is worth noting 3 E. Jane Burns, Courtly Love Undressed: Reading through Clothes in Medieval French Culture (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), pp. 11–16; also Bodytalk: When Women Speak in Old French Literature (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), which, while focused on women, encourages “listening” for indirect types of expression such as that figured on bodies. 4 For bibliography, see “Baudouin de Condé”, ARLIMA: Archives de littérature du Moyen Age, http://www.arlima.net/ad/baudouin_de_conde.html (accessed August 1, 2014). 5 Paulin Paris, “Dits,” in Histoire littéraire de la France (Paris, Firmin Didot et Treuttel et Wurtz, 1856) vol. 23, pp. 266–86, at p. 282. 6 Scheler, Dits et contes, vol. 1, p. xxx. Cf. the similar opinions of J. Stecher in the Biographie Nationale de Belgique (Brussels, Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-­Arts, 1873), vol. 4, p. 346. 7 Alfred Jeanroy, La Littérature de langue française des origines à Ronsard (Paris, Plon, 1921) pp. 59, 397. 8 Jean-­Charles Payen, Histoire de la littérature française: Le Moyen Age (rev. ed., Paris, Flammarion, 1997), p. 250. 9 Saverio Panunzio, Baudouin de Condé: ideologia et scrittura (Fasano, Italy, Schena, 1992). See Panunzio’s collaborations with Matteo Majorano, “‘Mesure’ et ‘desmesure’ in Baudouin de Condé,” Lectures 16 (1985), pp. 11–36; “Il registro didattico-­religioso nella scrittura di Baudouin de Condé,” in Miscellanea di studi romanzi offerta a Giuliano Gasca-­ Queirazza per il suo 65 compleanno, ed. Anna Cornagliotti et al. (Alessandria, Edizioni dell’Orso, 1988) vol. 2, pp. 557–605; “Baudouin de Condé e l’interdiscorsività dei generi e

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 98

04/01/2016 10:07



WHEN THE KNIGHT UNDRESSES, HIS CLOTHING SPEAKS

99

that the only modern translations are Pununzio’s, into Italian.10 In the examples that follow, some readers may sympathize with Paris’ distaste for the poet’s repetitious word play. Others may, like Panunzio, perceive the effective didactic and dramatic properties of the word-­sounds repeated with slight variations, which challenge the listener to seize the sense and smile at the turns of meaning.11 These poems have not been attractive to feminist scholars, lacking much focus on women at all. It is true that the corpus has a preponderant focus on the varieties of the masculine courtly experience. Many of the poems feature first-­ person narration, often identifying the narrator’s voice as belonging to Baudouin de Condé.12 This voice addresses a male courtly audience, concerning male social roles in a male-­dominated society. For one example, in “Du Gardecors,” the narrator calls upon the “haus hon” (men of high station) to love and listen to their “chevaliers et preudonmez” (knights and loyal men, lines 155, 174). Predictably for a medieval moralist, he laments the misdeeds of Eve and subsequent women preceding the Virgin Mary in “L’Ave Maria” and “Du Pélican” (The Pelican, or On Avarice), but the tone remains respectful in general. As Panunzio and Majorano have argued, Baudouin was an ardent proponent of “mesure” (moderation). He cannot particularly be construed as misogynist. His ire is reserved for the degenerate members of his own class of court followers, minstrels, and heralds, whom he always presents as masculine. He calls upon young men to honor “toutes dames” (all ladies) in “Du Bachelier” (On the Noble Young Man, lines 79–90). Women holding seigneurial roles are treated at times as great lords, for instance in “Du Prud’homme” (On Worthy Men) in which he addresses both lords and ladies (“Je di as seigneurs et as dames,” line 188); he includes great ladies in descending gradatio following kings, dukes, and counts (“Se n’i a roy ne duc ne conte/ ne grant dame . . .” lines 193–4). There is a literal quality to his treatment of great ladies as peers of great men (albeit listed last among them), supported moreover by the historical likelihood that he served at the court of a countess. While there are multiple “Baudoïns de Condé” or “Condet” in thirteenth-­century charters in northern France, many of whom are unidentifiable as this poet, this author has been identified as the Baudouin de Condé at the court of Marguerite II of Constantinople, Countess of Flanders, and later of her son, Guy de Dampierre.13 Although there are a few love poems dei registri,” in Studia in honorem prof. M. de Riquer (Barcelona, Quadrens Crema, 1991) vol. 4, pp. 455–506. 10 Baudouin de Condé, Il mantello d’onore, trans. Saverio Panunzio (Milan and Trento, Luni, 1999). 11 In favor of this device, it is worth recalling that Shakespeare was one of paranomasia’s greatest proponents. 12 Foehr-­Janssens has shown how the manuscript reception has construed Baudouin de Condé as an “author” with an identity as a minstrel, similarly to Adenet le Roi and later Watriquet de Couvin, Baudouin’s son Jean de Condé, and Rutebeuf, “Variations autour d’une figure d’auteur: Baudouin de Condé dans les manuscrits.” See also Van Hoecke, L’oeuvre de Baudouin de Condé, vol. 1, pp. 58–79. 13 Scheler, Dits et contes, vol. 1, pp. vii–xiii; M. D. Stanger, “Literary Patronage at

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 99

04/01/2016 10:07

100

SARAH-­GRACE HELLER

ascribed to him, featuring familiar courtly commonplaces lauding the elevating effects of the love for a worthy lady upon a young man (“D’Amour,” “De la Rose,” “D’Amour Fine”), most of the above-­mentioned poems are not characterized by expressions of desire for a love object. Rather, the desires expressed largely concern remediation of the decayed state of the social order. Women are treated with distance and respect: they do not rouse his ire. Avarice: moralizing the desire for new clothes Avarice is the poet’s repeated target, and largesse his ideal. Avarice is allegorized as feminine, following the grammatical gender of the term and an extensive literary tradition.14 However, Baudouin’s spare descriptions contrast with those of Guillaume de Lorris, for example, whose Avarice is dramatized through women’s clothing: many lines linger over her worn-­out cote and mantle and her refusal to spend money on new clothes. Similarly, Guillaume’s Largesse wears a “newly dyed Saracen purple gown,” whose newness expresses both her wealth and her constant renewal of wardrobe due to generous habits.15 Baudouin’s feminine allegorical figures are not strikingly garbed. Rather, they alternatively inhibit and offer the possibility of new clothing and other gifts to the courtly male audience. Baudouin’s Avarice is presented repeatedly as an “amie” (lover or companion), allegorized as the object of courtly masculine desire. She is the “amie” of the wealthy and powerful in “De Tunis” (Concerning Tunis, lines 309–12). In “The Pelican,” she is “lady and queen,” sitting above the queen of Fortune, crowned with gold, surrounded by her “amis” who rally to her banner (lines 73–7). Princes, kings, dukes, and counts serve at her command (lines 92–7). In contrast, Avarice in “Du Preux Avaricieux” (The Worthy Miser) is bellicose and strategic, and denuded of even these minimally feminine attributes. The poem’s hypothetical miser initially surrenders to Avarice but then seeks Prouesse (Valor) to improve his reputation, notably by liberal gifts of silver, robes, and horses to knights, equipment to squires, and coins (deniers) and robes to heralds and minstrels (lines 116–44). Reputation gained, Avarice reasserts her power, and in a vivid textile simile Largesse shrinks like a piece of wool in water (lines 160–5), “de large et de lonc” (in width and breadth, line 163). Largesse is the desirable quality at the heart of these poems: it motivates the distribution of the new (if perhaps somewhat used) items of clothing to a lord’s the Medieval Court of Flanders,” French Studies 11 (1957), pp. 214–27; see summary in Panunzio, Baudouin de Condé, pp. 9–11. 14 Richard Newhauser, The Early History of Greed: The Sin of Avarice in Early Medieval Thought and Literature (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000). 15 Le Roman de la Rose, ed. Félix Lecoy (Paris, Champion, 1965–1970), lines 207–26 and 1161–2. Sarah-­Grace Heller, Fashion in Medieval France (Woodbridge, Boydell and Brewer, 2007), pp. 66–7, 70. Similarly for Fortune, which is often allegorized in terms of dress: see Andrea Denny-­Brown, Fashioning Change: The Trope of Clothing in High-­and Late-­Medieval England (Columbus, Ohio State University Press, 2012).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 100

04/01/2016 10:07



WHEN THE KNIGHT UNDRESSES, HIS CLOTHING SPEAKS

101

men as recompense for good service and loyalty. In an example of Baudouin’s paranymic tendency to combine metaphors with multisyllabic rhymes that reiterate his point for listeners,16 in “De Tunis,” he reproves the behavior of secular lords by rhyming verbs signifying clothing, drawing a parallel between clothing oneself in a virtue and literally giving clothing away on a regular basis: . . . quant il laissent, par avarisse, Tout bien et toute gentelisse Et foi et charité perir, C’on soloit jadis si chierir Que li preudoume s’en paroient, Dont leur œvres bien aparoient. Et maintenoient courtoisie Qui soloit estre si prisie. [. . . as much as, out of avarice, they abandon all good conduct, gentility, faith and charity to perish, qualities with which good men used to clothe themselves, through which their works appeared. They used to uphold Courtesy, which was once so valued.] (lines 93–100, ­emphasis mine)

Charitable deeds comprised part of a preudome’s good countenance in the good old days, an “appearance” which translated inner qualities transparently. The narrator adds that Avarice’s company was considered quite loathsome (male) because Courtesy “het dras en male” (hates cloth in a trunk, lines 103–4), a proverb deriding cloth kept hidden in coffers (male) as opposed to used and shared. Avarice, on the contrary, does not hate hoarded clothing at all, and she is the “amie” of those powerful people who hate giving (lines 105–18). Baudouin’s Avarice is presented in a number of incarnations: sometimes a kind of “domna,” a woman holding men in her sway by maintaining a hold on their desires, in other poems very much a warrior figure, with only grammatically feminine attributes. Likewise, her opposites Largesse and Courtesy sometimes have human qualities, elsewhere are metaphors such as the shrunken wool after a textile calamity. Ultimately, these are warriors in the battleground for courtly comfort: they express the misery and anxiety of the court subordinate’s material position. Allegorizing defensive garments In “Du Gardecors,” Baudouin systematically puns and rhymes on the eponymous protective garment in his attempt to moralize for men of fashion, perhaps to humorous effect.17 It is worth quoting this passage at length to highlight the paranymic effects: Panunzio, Baudouin de Condé, pp. 82–5, 93. Foehr-­Janssens speculates Baudouin had burlesque intentions, “La voix et le vêtement

16 17

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 101

04/01/2016 10:07

102

SARAH-­GRACE HELLER

Et puis qu’il li sauvent le cors, dont les apiau je “gardecors.” Gardecors par droit les apele, et se le droit vous en espele. Il n’est nus si finz gardecors, car il vaut mieus k’argens ne k’ors, li gardecors qui le cors garde, qui droiture et raison regarde. Celui doit li sirez aquerre, cil est bons, a pais et a guerre, cil est de si tres bonne taille. Quant li sirez est en bataille entre ses anemis mortels, se li est li gardecors tels qu’il le garandist a la mort. Et des puis c’on l’eüst la mort se ne fust ses bons gardecors, dont en est mout biaus li recors. Celui claim je gardecors chier. [And since they keep his body safe, I call them gardecors. Gardecors is the right name for them, as I am explaining. There is nowhere any finer gardecors than the one that protects his body, for it is worth more than silver or gold to whoever holds righteousness and reason in regard. This is what a lord must seek. It is good in peace and in war, it is perfectly tailored. When the lord is in battle, amidst his mortal enemies, the gardecors protects him from death. He might already be dead if it were not for his good gardecors, which gives him great security. I declare this type of gardecors most valuable.] (lines 207–25, emphasis mine)

The term “gardecorps” is difficult to translate. It was a sort of exterior garment worn by both men and women: by men clearly for military purposes, by women for travel.18 Scheler glossed it as a piece of clothing, long like a soutane with a front closure, worn like a chemise; a “vêtement de sûreté,” worn for ­protection.19 It might be translated literally as “bodyguard,” but in English that signifies a profession, and the vestimentary metaphor would be lost. While Baudouin manages to discuss the “gardecors” for some three hundred lines, he does not dans le Dits des Hérauts de Baudouin de Condé,” in Formes de la critique: parodie et satire dans la France et l’Italie médiévales, ed. Jean-­Claude Mühlethaler, Alain Corbellari, and Barbara Wahlen (Paris, Champion, 2003), pp. 87–113. 18 Mary Houston, Medieval Costume in England and France (New York, Macmillan, 1939), pp. 46–7, 222; Frédéric Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française, et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle (Paris, Vieweg, 1880–1902), vol. 4, p. 223, s.v. “gardecors,” cites John of Garland associating it with “milites” in Latin; Saint Louis wore it interchangeably with his cote when he took off his chape (hood/cape). 19 Scheler, Dits et contes, vol. 1, p. 388.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 102

04/01/2016 10:07



WHEN THE KNIGHT UNDRESSES, HIS CLOTHING SPEAKS

103

allegorize details of the historical garment permitting the reader to understand its cut or contours, how it was worn, or its value. His style is not ekphrastic: he does not paint a specific gardecors on a specific lord. Rather, he assumes readers’ familiar with this garment, requiring no assistance to imagine it sufficiently to render the extended metaphor effective. Panunzio and Majorano have argued that his rhetorical flourishes are grounded in realistic details of daily life,20 but his technique contrasts with that of many narrative romance writers. He does not linger over the fabrics or their exotic origins, nor over the seams or who wrought them, nor over sleeves or accessories.21 Some metaphorical emphasis is placed on the value of good tailoring (“de si très bonne taille”), suggesting that a good set of men is as protective as a well-­cut garment, as opposed to the risks of injury posed by poorly fitting or loose-­fitting clothing. Rather, just as he links key terms (garde, cors) and their homophones line after line for his listener’s ears, for their minds there is a rhetorical linking of prescriptions for a healthy courtly social order: if the lord dresses his men in well-­fitting gardecors, they will become his gardecors. One might translate: if you be my bodyguard, I will clothe you in a “bodyguard”; or, wear my trenchcoat, be my trenchcoat. Moralizing reward-­garments The “Gardecors” poetic formula must have enjoyed some measure of success, attested by the survival of multiple manuscript witnesses.22 The success of the poem is suggested in a reference to that poem in the “The Pelican,” in a passage that highlights Baudouin’s philosophy of using familiar objects as lenses for understanding the world: Cil qui trova Dou Gardecors nous raconte k’en tous les cors dou monde se puet on mirer, c’on i voit le siecle empirer et toute joie remanoir.

20 Panunzio and Majorano, “Baudouin de Condé e l’interdiscorsività dei generi e dei registri,” p. XX; Panunzio, “Baudouin de Condé,” pp. 85, 89. 21 Cf., for instance, the works studied by E. Jane Burns, Courtly Love Undressed and Sea of Silk: A Textile Geography of Women’s Work in Medieval French Literature (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009): Monica L. Wright, Weaving Narrative: Clothing in Twelfth-­ Century French Romance (University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009); Sharon Kinoshita, “Almería Silk and the French Feudal Imaginary: Towards a ‘Material’ History of the Medieval Mediterranean,” in Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings, ed. E. Jane Burns (New York, Palgrave, 2004), pp. 165–76. 22 “Du Gardecors” survives in six manuscripts anthologizing Baudouin’s poems, as well as the Turin manuscript (T1), which burned in 1904. Van Hoecke, L’Oeuvre de Baudouin de Condé, vol. 2b, pp. 265–7.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 103

04/01/2016 10:07

104

SARAH-­GRACE HELLER

[He who wrote the poem “The Gardecors” tells us that we can see our reflection in all the material things of this world, in them we can see how the world is going wrong and how joy may prevail.] (lines 1–5)

The poet’s declared modus operandi, “seeing our reflection through the material things of this world,” is a clear invitation to “read through clothes,” as Burns proposed, to understand the poet’s intention to convey symbolic political and social meaning through clothes as “material objects balanced on the threshold between culture and nature,”23 and thus eminently suited as polysemous conveyers of social messages. Baudouin is not a proponent of trobar clus, nor of refracting allegories whose gloss remains ever elusive (as in the Roman de la Rose). He allegorizes commonplace objects in the interest of improving fraught relations close to him, rather than exotic garments to explore ideals in a marvelous fictitious world. Whereas Burns examined how clothes could materially or metaphorically mark partners in love or amorous intentions, Baudouin’s poetic garments perform something different. They represent the rewards a courtly man coveted, both on earth and in heaven. In the “Du Manteau d’Honneur” (The Mantle of Honor), the central metaphor is the type of garment God, as lord, will offer his loyal men. Baudouin crafts this “haut parement” (high apparel) on the familiar model of the chivalric mantle, inventing superlatives to elevate each aspect of the garment. Whereas in “Du Gardecors” Baudouin gave few garment particulars, assuming his audience’s familiarity with the utility of the gardecors, in this poem he moves beyond the familiar into the ideal, and through this fictive enterprise he reveals much about improvements the men of his world imagined for their clothing. God’s perfect mantle cannot be purchased for money (“. . . c’on ne l’a pour deniers,” line 84). It will not get soaked in wet weather (“se ne s’en embeure,” line 85). It will be incomparable (“A ce parement comparéz/ n’est autrez, tant soit aparans,” lines 88–9), impervious to concerns that someone might judge it fashionable or unfashionable, or compare it to any other. It will not fade or lose its valuable dye qualities, nor will it get lost, become old, or come unstitched (“K’estre ne puet descoulouréz/ ne lais ne viéz ne descousus,” lines 100–01). This passage reads as a revealing list of complaints about the reality of clothing in the second half of the thirteenth century: it soon lost its rich color, it was not sufficiently weatherproof, and moreover it was not as indestructible as active noblemen would find ideal. The moralist achieves his goal in part by pleasing: it must have been pleasant to imagine a better mantle. Reaching a kind of metaphorical climax, God’s mantle of honor will not be cut or sewn by base hands (“Si n’est pas tailliéz ne cousus/ De main vilaine, ains fust copée,” lines 102–3). The narrator asks dramatically, “ – De coi dont?” – By whom then? (line 105). This launches a new metaphorical direction: it will

Burns, Courtly Love Undressed, p. 13.

23

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 104

04/01/2016 10:07



WHEN THE KNIGHT UNDRESSES, HIS CLOTHING SPEAKS

105

be tailored (note the paranymic repetition of this term) with knightly weapons and bodies: – De poing et d’espee; tailliéz et cousus, sans perece, de hardement et de proëce et de vigour de chevalier, qui tient l’espée et set taillier en pogneïs et en bataille et faire, au besoing, large taille, tranchier hiaumez et fer maillé; qui dechà mer a si taillé et delà d’espée à téz taillez . . . [ – With fists and swords; cut and sewn, without laziness, with boldness and prowess and a knight’s vigor, a knight who holds the sword and knows how to “cut” with his fists and in battle and how to cut a large swath, when needed, slicing helmets and iron chainmail – [this knight] has done such “cutting” with his sword across the sea and beyond . . .] (lines 105–13, my emphasis)

The ultimate “tailor” in this image is the crusader who has taken his righteous weapons into distant lands to fight the enemies of God. The notion of the garment not sewn by mortal hands is reminiscent of Christ’s seamless robe (John 19:23– 4), emphasizing the inferiority of all mortal goods compared to those touched by the divine. But the poet’s replacement of scissors and needles with swords and fists is noteworthy in light of Burns’ notion of how medieval clothing fused with flesh in literature, “neither clothes nor body could be understood separately.”24 The ultimate reward garment will be made not from mere material tools, but rather by a fusion of high virtue, a strong and capable body, and the weapons that serve as extensions of both the moral and physical faculties of the knight. The point about the divine mantle of honor not being made by “vilain” hands suggests a kind of anxiety concerning what sorts of people were producing clothing. Making the lance and the sword the fabricants removes the work from women’s hands. On the other hand, this could be a reaction to increased urban production, which jarred with biblical and traditional notions of clothing production as worthy domestic work.25 Such a tension would be in keeping with Baudouin’s constant elevation of the “good old days” and his constant chagrin over current affairs. The ideal seems to be that noble clothing should be untouched by baseness, therefore made by some kind of noble hand, contrary to contemporary commercial realities. There may also be a suggestion of Burns, Courtly Love Undressed, p. 13. Heller, “Obscure Lands and Obscured Hands: Fairy Embroidery and the Ambiguous Vocabulary of Medieval Textile Decoration,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 5 (2009), pp. 15–35; on the changing status of women silk workers and the often obscure origins of fine textiles, Burns, Sea of Silk, pp. 26, 36–69. 24 25

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 105

04/01/2016 10:07

106

SARAH-­GRACE HELLER

f­rustration with the inferior products available on the market, compelling the poet to imagine that superior beings could produce something more desirable. Fashion for minstrels and heralds God might be the ideal bestower of mantles, but mortal bodies still required practical clothing. Anxiety that seigneurial generosity was wasted on unworthy men is the theme of a somewhat different poem, “Des Hérauts” (The Tale of the Herald). Whereas most of Baudouin’s poems feature first-­person narration in a preaching vein, meditating on social decay and then moving through a series of allegorical object lessons, here the first-­person narrator recounts an encounter he had while traveling alone as a minstrel in unfamiliar lands (lines 1–6). He meets an ugly (“noir et viel et magre et fronci,” black, old, skinny, and wrinkled [line 15]) but kindly vallet carting wine in the service of the local lord. The narrator asks if the lord welcomes minstrels. The servant vaunts his master and lady’s generous hospitality, but bemoans the quality of the men at the court (they are “de felons et de heteux,/ D’anieus et maldeduisans/ Et envïeus et mesdisans,” treacherous and odious, troublesome and tiresome, envious and slandering [lines 56–8]) who do nothing but eat, drink, and speak ill of others. The old man takes on the voice that “Baudouin” as narrator normally uses to denounce the ills of society, and brings the minstrel to court. An arrival at a new court is typically a moment of judging and being judged by appearances in medieval literature, and this tale follows suit.26 The minstrel is welcomed by the lord, who commands that he be served wine, and the lady, who passes him her own dish of food (lines 435–50). Seeing him eat and drink hungrily, a rude herald calls him a name and declares anyone who empties platters like that must have an empty gut (“ci est venus Vuide Escuëlle!/ Dius, qu’il a vide le boëlle!” lines 453–4). Reacting to the insult, the minstrel in turn observes rather cryptically that this herald was dressed in linen (“toile,” line 457) “like a windmill” (“vestuz si com molins à vent,” line 456). This begs the question of how thirteenth-­century windmills might have been “dressed.” The Brussels Royal Library Livre des comptes du Vieil Rentier from around 1270, roughly contemporary with this text, shows four perpendicular sails emerging from a round stone tower. Each sail’s frame has three long parallel beams crossed with four or five short beams, creating a grid or lattice effect, with linen attached to catch the wind. It may be that this herald was wearing a kind of linen robe pieced or decorated in a square checkered pattern. The narrator himself had been judged earlier by the old servant according to his clothing: “Et quels hom iès tu, Que voi sifaitement viestu

Wright, Weaving Narrative, p. 125.

26

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 106

04/01/2016 10:07



WHEN THE KNIGHT UNDRESSES, HIS CLOTHING SPEAKS

107

De dras ouvers et fenestrés? Di moi se tu es menestrés.” [“And whose man are you, whom I see dressed in this way, in fine slashed clothes?27 Tell me if you are a minstrel.”] (lines 171–8)

Like the herald, the minstrel wears distinctively patterned clothing announcing his profession, easily “read” by strangers. The servant’s question implies that his fashionably slashed and ornamented garments visibly signified that he enjoyed the patronage of a lord of some significance. The herald’s rudeness prompts the narrator into a long reminiscence on the humbler dress of heralds of time gone by. They were far less well dressed than now: Je vi que d’une cote armoire et d’uns dras linges, sans mentir, – jà si pou ne fussent entir – et d’uns viés sollers feretés, c’uns chevaliers ot jus jetés, estoit bien parés uns hiraus. En tel abit, ch’os bien dire, aus, les vi aler de marce en marce. [I recall the days when a herald was well dressed if he had a coat of arms28 of linen cloth, it’s no lie – and very unlikely that it was in good shape – and an old pair of hobnailed boots that a knight had thrown away. In such apparel, I daresay, I saw them go from market to market.] (lines 460–67)

He remembers them traveling from Denmark to Scotland to Iceland, working as heralds in Holland, Flanders, Brabant, and elsewhere, “seeking honor in a shameful state” (“a grant honte querre honour,” line 474). This paradox reflects attitudes expressed in scripture, hagiography, and monastic rules advocating apostolic poverty: honor must be sought in worldly humility and bodily misery, and therefore vestimentary penury. The ugly but kind valet had already announced this theme. The narrator elaborates at length in a passage worth quoting for its amplification: S’avoient haslées et noires les chars en ces cotes armoires 27 Van Hoecke saw the fashion for open-­sided surcoats in the term “ouvers”; Scheler interpreted this as “dras ouvriés,” decorated or worked cloth (“ouvrer” signified embroidery or other embellishment wrought on cloth). They agree that “fenestrés” signified slashed ­garments, Dits et contes, vol. 1, p. 452; Oeuvres, vol. 4, p. 275. 28 “Armoire” is unattested elsewhere as an adjective as Scheler notes, Dits et contes, vol. 1, p. 458. It may be an example of Baudouin’s tendency to stretch the lexicon to construct a rich rhyme.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 107

04/01/2016 10:07

108

SARAH-­GRACE HELLER

tous les estés. Et les yvers estoient encore plus divers, car il avoient mout souvent l’assaut de le pluie et dou vent sor chemin, o les grans gelees de noif et de gresill mellees, si con lasses gens et destroites en ces cotes d’armes estroites, de toille ou de cendal, crotees, derroutes et haligotées. Si avoit des uns et des autres, que, s’ils fuissent repris a vautres, s’estoient il bien despané. N’estoient mie bien lané lor drap, ains avoit en lor cotes plus de pertruis et d’aligotes qu’il n’ait entour un maistre autel de reliques . . . [Their skin was sunburned and black in these coats of arms every summer. And in the winters they looked even stranger, since they were often assaulted by rain and wind on the road, or storms with snow mixed with ice, giving them the look of weary and distressed men in those tight coats of arms of linen or silk, shabby, ripped, and ragged. Men and clothing both looked as if they had been taken from the dogs, they were very tattered indeed. Their cloth was not sturdy and fulled, and their sides were full of rents and holes, worse than what you find around a reliquary altar . . .] (lines 475–94).

The narrator compares the costumes of these heralds of old to the rags of paupers and the afflicted who sought miracles from holy sites, again with the implication that humbler appearance corresponded to worthier men, relative to their status. One gets the sense that heralding was once a profession for rough and ready adventurers, but that now heralds have become spoiled and vain, bullying within the safe hothouse confines of the court rather than risking body and wardrobe in the service of their lords’ reputations. On another level, the passage suggests that textiles and wardrobes had improved by his time in the second half of the thirteenth century, offering greater comfort and protection. That heralds wore knights’ cast-­off clothing and footwear is a key element expressing the superior virtue of yesteryear. The poet casts the new clothing (and other rewards) that contemporary court servants had come to expect as indicative of their falseness and mendacity. Used chivalric clothing both brought heralds into proximity with their betters and kept them subordinate, at a rank lower on the vestimentary food chain. Coupled with the virtue of humility of their rags, there is the idea that clothing that had come into physical contact with the nobility conferred a kind of noble virtue by association. As Burns observes, passing clothing to persons associated with their courts lower rank

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 108

04/01/2016 10:07



WHEN THE KNIGHT UNDRESSES, HIS CLOTHING SPEAKS

109

such as heralds, minstrels, lesser knights, and servants served to make the nobility look generous, a necessary mark of largesse. Baudouin’s poems systematically promoted largesse, as discussed above. As Burns also notes, gifts also could make recipients “visibly more courtly than their lineage or occupation would otherwise indicate.”29 This is at the heart of the conflict in this poem: Baudouin objects to the gifts of excessively luxurious dress to men he judges unworthy. The rags of heralds of times gone by may or may not be a fiction serving to reinforce this point. Times have changed, the narrator further insists, illustrating the tensions over gifts’ potential for falsification of status as he enumerates the garments and furs now seen on heralds. Or ont changié tout cel abit, li mal glout, qui tempés labit. Il ont mis jus les heraudies et vestent les cotes hardies et les robes as chevaliers. Trop les ont en haus escaliers montés et d’orgueill enaigris li chevalier qui vair et gris lor donnent par lor negligence. J’os bien dire ce que j’en pense: je ne croi k’au monde soit gent tant soit en honor negligent que cil qui parerent premiers de vair et de gris les fumiers et la reson de toute ordure. Par foi, li vairs grant honte endure quant de si haut si bas revient. [Now those evil gluttons have changed their style, how times have changed! They have set aside the herald’s tabards and put on cotehardies and knight’s robes. The knights who negligently give them vair and grey furs have raised them too high on the ladder and soured them with pride. I dare to speak my mind about it: I do not think there are any men so negligent of honor in this world as those who first dressed manure in vair and gris and reason in filth. By faith, the vair endures great shame when it returns so low from being so high.] (lines 513–29)

That negligent knights undress and leave their finery to undeserving subordinates rouses an impressive amount of Baudouin’s ire. To dramatize this, Baudouin dresses manure in luxury furs. The clothing images here alternate between the literal styles of the day, shifting to a fermentation metaphor when 29 Burns, Courtly Love Undressed, p. 29. See also the discussion of gifts in Wright, Weaving Narrative, pp. 34–41.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 109

04/01/2016 10:07

110

SARAH-­GRACE HELLER

servants are handed down the costliest imported furs (rhyming enaigris/ gris), leading into the personified dung’s shame when overdressed. It is worth noting that the “cotehardies” mentioned here are normally considered a fourteenth-­ century style. This is one of the earliest attestations of the word, so the etymological sense of “bold cote,” signifying a military garment, is probably quite strong. Knights should be bold, like their garments; if in other poems Baudouin encourages them to be generous, giving furs to persons without moral value is deemed misguided. Baudouin’s concerns were grounded in a social reality. Noble spending obligations, reinforced by jongleurs and minstrels such as Baudouin himself, forced the great households into constant debt. They borrowed from usurers to finance their own richer and richer clothing styles, the number of sets of which sumptuary laws attempted to limit. Such statutes also put noteworthy restrictions on gifts to companions.30 Largesse also came at a greater and greater price. The accounts of Mahaut, the Countess of Artois in the early fourteenth century, show that she regularly received groups of “menestraux” and “trompeurs,” various types of performers. They came in groups of two, three, or four, and were given money (16–21 sous each), robes, and hanaps (drinking cups) during their stays.31 It would have been difficult to turn them away, since if spurned there were plenty of songs about Avarice at their disposal for damaging the ­reputations of the unwelcoming host. Baudouin dresses lords in the protective garments of their men and brave knights in a perfected heavenly mantle; he would strip unworthy heralds and minstrels of the garments bestowed upon them by undressing knights. It is worth noting that nowhere does he dress or undress a lady, in contrast with the gaze so frequently directed at the lady and her clothing in medieval narrative, as Burns and others have amply shown. It is worth remembering that the majority of financial control was in men’s hands. If clerical sermons or figures such as the unhappy husband in the Roman de la Rose complained about women’s expenditure, the reality was still that men spent more on themselves, and moreover on their expensive companions, as seen in these poems. Baudouin de Condé’s works demonstrate the high tensions and acrimony between the men who fought over the knights’ hand-­me-­downs, especially as the quality of the cast-­offs became finer, and as minstrels sought to manipulate generosity with their discourses on largesse and avarice. The court subordinate’s gaze was fixed on his rivals.

30 Heller, “Anxiety, Hierarchy, and Appearance in Thirteenth-­Century Sumptuary Laws and the Romance of the Rose,” French Historical Studies 27 (Spring 2004), pp. 311–48. 31 Jules-­Marie Richard, Une petite nièce de Saint Louis: Mahaut Comtesse d’Artois et de Bourgogne (1302–1329) (Paris, Champion, 1887; rpt. Cressé, Editions des Régionalismes, 2010/2013), p. 89.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 110

04/01/2016 10:07

John/Eleanor Rykener Revisited Ruth Mazo Karras

and

Tom Linkinen

As we sat together at the karonkka (banquet) following Tom Linkinen’s 2013 Ph.D. defense, at which Ruth Karras had been the opponent (outside examiner), the two of us discussed John/Eleanor Rykener, the cross-­dressing prostitute from late medieval London about whom Karras and David Boyd had written in the 1990s.1 Karras noted that if she were to write those articles over again she would suggest that we might understand Rykener as a transgender person rather than as “transvestite,” the term used in that article.2 Because it is very difficult to know anything about Rykener’s own feelings on the topic from the medieval evidence – a brief account of Rykener’s arrest and confession to various sexual acts, found in London court rolls – she had thought of making the case via fiction. However, with no experience in writing fiction, she had found the process very difficult and returned to the archives, where she felt more comfortable. Linkinen told her that he agreed about Rykener as transgender and had written a conference paper to that effect.3 After dinner, the attendees were ushered into a small theater in which, to Karras’s astonishment, Linkinen and others performed a puppet show entitled “John-­Eleanor,” which opened up precisely this p­ ossibility.4 This show, which had been performed at the Turku Festival in 2012 and subsequently elsewhere in Europe, powerfully demonstrated to a contemporary audience the uses of imagination in the study of history. This work, together with the novel A Burnable Book by Bruce Holsinger 1 David Lorenzo Boyd and Ruth Mazo Karras, “The Interrogation of a Male Transvestite Prostitute in Fourteenth-­Century London,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 1 (1995), pp. 459–65; David Lorenzo Boyd and Ruth Mazo Karras, “Ut cum muliere: A Male Transvestite Prostitute in Fourteenth Century London,” in Premodern Sexualities, ed. Louise Fradenburg and Carla Freccero (London, Routledge, 1996), pp. 99–116. 2 We use the term “transgender” in this chapter in its broadest sense, as “movement away from an initially assigned gender position . . . [including] any and all kinds of variation from gender norms and expectations” (Susan Stryker, Transgender History (Berkeley, CA, Seal Press, 2008), p.19). It is thus broader than “tran[s]sexual,” generally used to mean a person born with a body of one sex who wishes to have the body of a member of the other. Some activists and scholars use the term “genderqueer” for something akin to the range of meaning we here attribute to “transgender.” 3 For Linkinen’s scholarly take on Rykener see Tom Linkinen, Same-­Sex Sexuality in Later Medieval English Culture, Crossing Boundaries: Turku Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2015), pp. 62–5. 4 http://www.turku2011.fi/en/john-­eleanor_en, accessed January 28, 2014.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 111

04/01/2016 10:07

112

RUTH MAZO KARRAS AND TOM LINKINEN

(2014), which makes use of the same case, indicate the hold that clothing as a signifier of gender binaries has on that imagination.5 These two works – which can be considered works of scholarship presented in fictional form – make the argument that it is clothes that make the medieval woman or man. In the absence of subjective indicators of medieval identities, modern scholars can rely on records of outward behavior and markers, and clothing is most prominent among these. Following the lead of Judith Bennett’s work on lesbianism in the Middle Ages, we can say that even if we do not know anything about Rykener’s self-­identification, hir life as a male-­bodied woman was “transgender-­like.”6 John Rykener, “calling hirself Eleanor” and wearing women’s clothing, was arrested while committing “that detestable, unmentionable, and ignominious vice” in 1394.7 According to the record in the London Plea and Memoranda rolls, Rykener claimed that a whore named Anna had “taught him to practice this detestable vice in the manner of a woman” and that one Elizabeth Brouderer “first dressed him in women’s clothing.”8 If taken at face value, this would suggest that Rykener had not been wearing women’s clothing nor having sexual relations with men until encouraged into it by two women, and that hir choice to do so was connected with the need to earn money as a prostitute. It would have been in Rykener’s interest, however, to place the blame on others for hir initiation into deviant practices, and we cannot by any means take hir testimony at face value. Rykener indicated ze had worked in a variety of women’s occupations. Ruth Evans suggested that not sticking to one type of work was one of the things that made Rykener out of place in the late medieval city.9 Working at a variety of tasks, however, was characteristic of women’s work generally; they could not belong to the craft guilds, except alongside their husbands.10 Given differentials at the time between men’s and women’s wages, it is unlikely that ze chose to Bruce Holsinger, A Burnable Book (New York, William Morrow, 2014). This chapter uses a set of gender-­neutral pronouns commonly used by transgender activists and practitioners of transgender studies: ze, hir, hirs, hirself. For Bennett’s work see Judith M. Bennett, “‘Lesbian-­Like’ and the Social History of Lesbianisms,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 9 (2000), pp. 1–24. In particular we note Bennett’s comment (p. 13) that “a refusal to apply ‘lesbian’ to the distant past stabilizes things that are better kept in a state of productive instability . . . Is there such a stable entity as a modern lesbian? Clearly not . . . We should play with these instabilities and learn from them, not reify one in order to deny relationship with the other.” See also Robert Mills, Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 2015), p. 86 “on transgender-like”. 7 Boyd and Karras, “Interrogation,” p. 462. When translating Latin pronouns of indeterminate gender, Boyd and Karras used the masculine, on the grounds that the record itself uses the masculine much more often than the feminine, but they placed it in brackets. Here we have substituted gender-­neutral pronouns. 8 Boyd and Karras, “Interrogation,” p. 463. 9 Ruth Evans, “The Production of Space in Chaucer’s London,” in Chaucer and the City, ed. Ardis Butterfield (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2006), pp. 41–56, at p. 49. 10 Barbara Hanawalt, The Wealth of Wives: Women, Law, and Economy in Late Medieval London (New York, Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 160–62. 5 6

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 112

04/01/2016 10:07



JOHN/ELEANOR RYKENER REVISITED

113

live as a woman because of these earning opportunities. Rather, embroidery and tavern work were the tasks available once ze had chosen to wear women’s clothing not just on the street as a prostitute, but daily, moving to Oxfordshire, where ze was not known and could pass. This suggests that, whether or not it is true that the two women had initiated or enabled Rykener’s identification as a woman by introducing hir to women’s clothing and women’s sexual role, ze had chosen to live that identification. However, ze also confessed to sex “as a man with many women, both married and otherwise.”11 Rykener wore women’s clothing at least some of the time. Ze had sex with both men and women. Ze lived in a male body. Historians are faced with a difficult problem in determining whether ze thought of hirself as a man who wore women’s clothing, perhaps as a way to attract men for sex, or as a woman in a male body, or as something else. To say that Rykener “identified as” a man or a woman is itself problematic, because medieval people did not distinguish among sex, gender, and sexual orientation, or operate with the same concepts of identity as the contemporary West. They recognized the existence of intersex bodies, or bodies that were physically of one sex but felt the desire associated with the other, but as the exception that proves the rule of the gender binary: these were monsters because they did not fit.12 In Rykener’s case the only source gives us no information about hir physical body, only about hir employment, sexual activity, and clothing. We do not know whether ze was what we would recognize as a male-­ identified man performing in drag (and to what extent ze performed femininity beyond the wearing of clothing), or a transexual woman, or any of the other positions covered by the term “transgender.”13 If we have only a hostile court record to give us access to Rykener’s subjective identity, if the terms in which we categorize identities do not apply in the medieval period (transgender? cross-­dresser? bisexual?), and recourse to the awkward “transgender-­like” is required, one might ask what makes the case worth discussing. It is precisely because the categories medieval people used are different from contemporary ones that the case and the characters become interesting. But the case also matters in another way: it suggests to us how historians can use imagination – an imagination inevitably shaped by the culture in which we live – to fill in the gaps in the record, while being careful to note where evidence ends and imagination begins. Boyd and Karras, “Interrogation,” p. 463. Joan Cadden, Nothing Natural is Shameful: Sodomy and Science in Late Medieval Europe (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), pp. 122–8. The terms “monstrous” or “monstrosity” were commonly used to refer to “hermaphrodites” or those born with the genitals of both women and men, and sometimes, as in the work of Pietro d’Abano, to those men who have a blockage such that their sperm collects near the anus and they desire to be anally penetrated. Women, too, could be considered monsters, since in Aristotelian terms they were defective men. 13 On the distinction (under some circumstances) between a gay man in drag and a transgender person in a contemporary context, see David Valentine, Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2007), p. 81. 11

12

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 113

04/01/2016 10:07

114

RUTH MAZO KARRAS AND TOM LINKINEN

“Transgender” is rooted in a particular contemporary cultural formation, part of an “epistemological imaginary” shaped by particular directions in activism, institutional practices, and various “modes of scientific and popular knowing” in the late twentieth and early twenty-­first century.14 Contemporary GLBT studies insists on self-­identification for gender as well as sexual identity, including transgender; one of the tenets of transgender studies is that transgender people’s experiences of their own bodies and feelings are what defines them – not an external, and especially not a pathologized, explanation. As Pat Califa writes: “In autobiographical or fictional accounts, they may set down what they perceive to be true about themselves and the world around them, but it is the medical doctor, therapist, academic, and feminist theoretician who interpret ‘them’ for the rest of ‘us,’ and thus claim to be the voice of reality.”15 But we do not have Rykener’s autobiographical or fictional account. While we do not know what Rykener’s self-­identification would have been, it is safe to say that “transgender” was not it. Ze most likely would have thought of hirself as either a man acting as a woman, or as a woman; but we do not know which. Nevertheless the term “transgender,” precisely because it can cover so many possibilities in “variation from gender norms and expectations,” is relevant for discussing Rykener. The idea of “transgender” emerged because modern society, at least some pockets of it distinguished by particular class and racial positions, has separated sexual orientation and gender identity. A contemporary transwoman may desire either men or women (or both) as sexual partners, and a contemporary man does not become transgender by desiring or having sex with men: “like hormones and surgery, the distinction between gender-­normative homosexuality and transgender identity is also a modern technology.”16 Medieval society did not make that distinction, as indeed not all contemporary people do, but that does not mean that we cannot make it analytically about those medieval individuals about whom we have evidence to work with. If we must think of medieval people only in medieval terms there would be no analysis. If “transgender has enabled certain people to see themselves and others as being part of this category in order to bring about social change,” it can also enable us to see historical people as being part of the category in order to bring about historical understandings that can underpin social change.17 Modern transgender studies, and transgender people, may find Rykener useful to think with, and the contemporary concept of transgender makes more visible to medievalists the range of transgender-­like possibilities we may imagine for hir. To Valentine, Imagining Transgender, p. 19. Pat Califia, Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism (San Francisco, CA, Cleis Press, 1997), pp. 1–2. 16 Valentine, Imagining Transgender, p. 156. See also pp. 40, 57. Valentine accepts Foucault’s argument that “homosexuality” only emerged as an identity in the nineteenth century. Without agreeing with him on that point, we can certainly agree that the way same-­sex desire was understood changed significantly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 17 Valentine, Imagining Transgender, p. 23. 14 15

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 114

04/01/2016 10:07



JOHN/ELEANOR RYKENER REVISITED

115

call hir a “transvestite” or “cross-­dresser,” as Boyd and Karras did in 1995, is limiting: ze was certainly a male-­bodied person wearing women’s clothing, but we cannot assume that hir gender-­nonconformity was limited to clothing. Rykener’s clothing and work practices and not just hir sexual activity (or “orientation”) are relevant to the question of how we can understand hir. According to hir testimony, ze had sex with both men and women, apparently being paid by the men and not the women. This distinction might indicate where hir desire lay, but it is impossible to conclude this in light of economic structures and assumptions in medieval Europe, where sex was something that men did to women and therefore not something that women paid for. Boyd and Karras raised in 1995 the question of “the construction, or lack thereof, of specific sexualities and whether such a sexuality was attributed to Rykener.”18 In contemporary parlance having sexual desire for both men and women might make one bisexual, but it does not necessarily affect one’s gender identity or presentation. Many, probably most, gay men identify as masculine and are seen as masculine by others, and choose partners who are similarly gender-­normative. In the Middle Ages, because of the conceptual equivalence of the receptive role in sex with the feminine, a man or boy who was a bottom could be considered effeminate, regardless of gender presentation. When men are said to have sex with Rykener ut cum muliere (“as with a woman”), this receptive role is all that is implied.19 But in wearing women’s clothing and doing women’s work, Rykener went beyond the gender-­crossing medieval people saw as entailed in hir sexual behavior. In other words, Rykener performed feminine gender in a variety of ways, not limited to the sexual.20 It is significant that Rykener’s performance was not limited to clothing. As Judith Bennett and Shannon McSheffrey point out, for the late Middle Ages there are a number of cases of female cross-­dressing from London (and one other, in addition to the Rykener case, in which a man wore women’s clothing). None provides as much information as Rykener’s. All refer only to the clothing or hairstyle of the opposite gender, rather than to work or other behavior. Bennett and McSheffrey characterize the cross-­dressing as temporary and not a real attempt to pass.21 It is possible that more was recorded in Rykener’s case because of the particular interest of the scribe or the circumstances under which ze was arrested, but it is not possible to rule out that the others arrested for cross-­dressing also had stories that went a good deal deeper. Rykener may not have been unique; but ze is unique to our knowledge. Reading and re-­reading a hostile record of a hostile questioning does not lead to a definitive understanding of what Rykener thought of hirself. The Boyd and Karras, “Interrogation,” p. 463. Boyd and Karras, “Interrogation,” p. 463. 20 Cordelia Beattie, “Gender and Femininity in Medieval England,” in Writing Medieval History, ed. Nancy Partner (London, Hodder Arnold, 2005), pp. 153–70, at pp. 155–7. 21 Judith M. Bennett and Shannon McSheffrey, “Early, Erotic and Alien: Women Dressed as Men in Late Medieval London,” History Workshop Journal 77 (2014), pp. 1–25. 18 19

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 115

04/01/2016 10:07

116

RUTH MAZO KARRAS AND TOM LINKINEN

q­ uestioning focused on sin and vice, not subjective gender identities. However, if we trust that the document is based on actual questions and answers, it suggests that Rykener was, at times, passing as a woman. The real efforts ze made to perform this social gender role indicate that it was deliberate: ze wished to pass as a woman. Besides dressing as a woman, Rykener had sex as a woman, performing as a female prostitute, to a point that the memorandum concerning hir questioning mentions “three unsuspecting scholars” in Oxford who “practiced the abominable vice often” with Rykener.22 If these scholars indeed were “unsuspecting” despite having sex with Rykener “often,” hir passing was truly effective. At least outside of London – in Oxford and then in Burford, Oxfordshire – ze passed as a woman in various gendered professions other than prostitution; ze worked as an embroideress and as a tapster. Carolyn Dinshaw has been one of the scholars to take up the Rykener case most thoughtfully, asking not “who was Rykener and what was ze doing?” but rather “what we can do with this information. What kinds of histories, and what kinds of communities, can we create with it?” She suggests that such questions can lead to “queer historical touches” through “affective contact between marginalized people now and then.”23 Dinshaw suggests that Rykener’s choice to take up women’s work – poorly paid, even if skilled – and to wear women’s clothing, perhaps even requesting it from the prostitute Anna who ze testified first gave it to hir, reflects queer desires.24 Dinshaw’s conflation of what we might call transgender with the experience of same-­sex sexual desire goes against the experience of many contemporary transgender individuals who consider themselves gay or lesbian after they have transitioned. Desiring men sexually is not necessarily part of what makes someone identify as a woman, although Dinshaw assumes that in Rykener’s case it was a part of it. By Rykener’s account ze moved back and forth between having sex with women “as a man” and with men “as a woman.” It is not clear from the record that ze switched clothing along with sexual role; a person in women’s clothing who penetrated another person would be considered to be performing “as a man.” It is even possible that Rykener was the medieval equivalent of a lesbian transwoman. The ongoing sexual relationships with men could be part of hir work life, shifting between prostitution and other forms of low paid women’s work as did so many women. Although the question of “how did Rykener think of hirself” is not definitively answerable, there are potential answers to Dinshaw’s query of “what kind of histories can we create with this information?” The inevitably s­ peculative nature Boyd and Karras, “Interrogation,” p. 463. Carolyn Dinshaw, “Queer Relations,” Essays in Medieval Studies 16 (1999), pp. 79–99, at p. 80; Carolyn Dinshaw, Lee Edelman, Roderick A. Ferguson, Carla Freccero, Elizabeth Freeman, Judith Halberstam, Annemarie Jagose, Christopher Nealon, and Nguyen Tan Hoang, “Theorizing Queer Temporalities: A Roundtable Discussion,” GLQ 13 (2007), pp. 177–95, at p. 178. Dinshaw uses her discussion of Rykener to set up a discussion of the Pardoner in her Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre-­and Postmodern (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 101–42. 24 Dinshaw, “Queer Relations,” p. 87. 22 23

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 116

04/01/2016 10:07



JOHN/ELEANOR RYKENER REVISITED

117

of such histories can make some scholars uncomfortable with them. Translating them into other forms than academic writing, however, can not only open room for speculation but also bring the issues they raise before a wider audience. We present here two fictionalizations of Rykener’s experience, both of which make the argument that clothes make the woman: that changing from men’s to women’s clothing and back marked a change not just in how gender was outwardly signaled, but even in the person’s gender itself. Both works are written in the twenty-­first century and imbued with twenty-­first-­century ideas about gender. This in itself does not differentiate them from works more formally labeled History. Fiction can use the same kind of evidence, and can construct historical arguments. Fictional histories are not held to the standards of academic peer review, but they are much more widely publicly reviewed. Especially in a field like the history of sexuality, where the only tools we have to work with are words from our own time, the line between historical scholarship and scholarship-­based imaginative work is blurred, and drama and fiction become effective vehicles to give tentative answers to questions that we are not able to answer definitively. The play John/Eleanor, combining medieval studies, drama, and puppetry, poses three main questions: first, the limits and possibilities of interpretation; second, which elements of drama and fiction resonate with audiences; and third, the message that the authors and production team wished to air with the play. Like scholarly interpretations based on primary historical sources, an artistic interpretation of the past can engage with probable or possible actualities. Linkinen, as a medievalist involved in creating a fictional story of John/Eleanor Rykener by means of drama and puppetry, followed an ethical commitment to “what possibly happened,” as opposed to the “what actually happened” of positivist scholarship. The postmodern turn has taught us that historical research works on levels of interpretation, as does historical fiction. Both genres bring us the probable and the possible: readers of an implausible historical novel, for example, are few. A historian who works outside the scholarly field still wants to engage with the actual as far as we can know it. From the beginning of the project that became the puppet-­theater play John/Eleanor, Linkinen focused precisely on the possible in imagining the life of Rykener, and pondered the range of possible identities for hir. Drama allows multiple presentations of alternatives, yet history sets limits to the possibilities. Scholars know something of what it meant to be a man or a woman in the later Middle Ages. The play had to consider what it could possibly have meant for a medieval person to be something in between. The relations between “abominable vice” and gender issues in medieval culture were also questions not to be bypassed in the production. Within these limits, questions and guidelines, Linkinen and puppeteer Timo Väntsi wrote a script for a play that premiered in Turku, Finland, in February 2011.25 25 A short video of clips from the performance, without dialogue, is available at http:// vimeo.com/42237789, accessed 15 December 15, 2014, and another, with dialogue in Finnish, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59LxWHcIgUE, accessed December 15, 2014.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 117

04/01/2016 10:07

118

RUTH MAZO KARRAS AND TOM LINKINEN

The play begins with a short presentation, from in the house but not onstage, by Linkinen playing a medievalist. Actor Timo Väntsi then joins Linkinen on stage, and together they introduce the audience to medieval ideas about womanhood. Väntsi appears in drag throughout, and plays a prostitute as well as Linkinen’s interlocutor and the puppeteer. After the historian leaves the stage, the puppeteer uses puppets to act out one possible childhood for Rykener. The story then follows Rykener’s (possible) life as told in the medieval document, the medievalist contextualizing the story and the actor reimagining it with puppets. Settings include the streets of London by day and by night; a brothel; a chapel; and Rykener’s visits to Oxford and Burford in Oxfordshire. Sexual encounters, which are many, are enacted by various kinds of puppets. The puppets follow one medieval tradition of puppetry in which mere heads signify characters, with the puppeteer’s hands and fingers serving as the torsos and arms of the characters. Some scenes are acted out by the puppeteer moving cardboard cutouts around on a board. Rykener is arrested in a stable near Soper’s Lane, as in the fourteenth-­century record, and ends up in a dungeon before being questioned by the Lord Mayor himself. While the puppet action takes place on stage, the character of Linkinen shifts from medievalist contextualizing events to queer theorist, who is encouraged enough to ponder not just probabilities but the limits of possibility. The play ends on a hopeful note; it is after all a comedy, not a tragedy. As in the original legal document, it is only an interrogation, not a trial, and the audience is left with the possibility that Rykener departs to carry on with hir life. Presenting the possible story of Rykener through actors and puppets rather than by reading a lone document allows a story to be built through speculative presumptions and assumptions. Educated guesses can be part of interpretation in scholarly research, but the play offers more opportunities for more speculative, possibility-­oriented interpretation. Actor and puppeteer Timo Väntsi is situated in a position to ask all the “impossible” questions and enact various situations of Rykener’s possible life that are not touched upon in the legal record at all. Thus the play includes Rykener’s possible childhood and hir fascination with female clothing, as well as the documented plot of hir entry into the practice of prostitution. The question of audience-­pleasing elements in historical drama is crucial, of course. The play should be entertaining. With this in mind, Linkinen and Väntsi decided from the beginning that a good story needs love. They added some romance in the story, but in doing so presented Rykener considering out loud how ze “didn’t really know what love is,” referring to the hostile framework of sin and crime with which hir culture surrounded hir possible feelings of love. A good story needs a thickening plot; hence the elements of romance are imagined and constructed in such a way that the plot leads Rykener to be betrayed and disappointed with love. While the role of love in the story came from the realm of possibility, the sexual acts came from the documentary record. The play indeed includes a lot of sexual activity, realized by means of puppetry, and involving Rykener as John, Rykener as Eleanor, and both male and female

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 118

04/01/2016 10:07



JOHN/ELEANOR RYKENER REVISITED

119

partners. These scenes produce a good deal of laughter among the audience, but they also strike a more serious note in considering and presenting the sex acts and daily routine of a sex worker. The goal of the play was not merely to entertain but to share a deeper message with audiences. Following Carolyn Dinshaw’s questions about what we can do with historical information, what kind of stories we can create, and why, the creative team deliberately avoided depicting Rykener as a victim. Instead, they wished to create a survivor’s story in which Rykener becomes the hero/ine of hir own life. In doing so they created one possibility for Rykener’s story, recognizing that the plot in which ze overcomes the limits and hazards of hir own time is also relevant to contemporary audiences in a variety of ways. Rykener may have been “a freak” in hir time, but ze may not have been a victim. Raising the possibility of Rykener’s having been considered a “freak” was also intended to create a situation in which members of the audience find themselves facing a “queer moment,” a moment of re-­thinking sexual and gender norms, both medieval and postmodern. Where John/Eleanor occupies a borderline position between history and fiction – we might call it a form of creative publicly engaged history – Holsinger’s A Burnable Book is fiction with a historical core. The poet John Gower narrates parts of this literary puzzle/murder mystery, while the rest is told in an omniscient third-­person voice. Besides Gower, Geoffrey Chaucer, Katherine Swynford, and John Hawkwood also appear prominently. So do a number of prostitutes, including one known as Eleanor/Edgar Rykener, who is a major character. Although Holsinger has changed the male name, he calls the character “inspired by” the Rykener case.26 The events of the book are set in 1385, so they provide a plausible backstory to the 1394 legal account. Eleanor/Edgar (Holsinger gives the name in that order in his Cast of Characters) is a “swerver,” a term which Holsinger seems to have invented (it does not appear in the Middle English Dictionary) but which is certainly plausible as a medieval way of saying “deviant.” “A man in body, a woman in soul . . . Eleanor would do all and be all for her loyal jakes,” or alternatively “[a] man in body, but in soul a man and a woman both . . .”27 Rykener “start[ed] to discover her second life” at the age of thirteen, becoming a prostitute at sixteen after a period of wardship in a household where the wife made hir work hard and the husband “wouldn’t leave her alone once he found out what she was.”28 Younger brother Gerald Rykener, cautioned that the butcher to whom he is apprenticed is a dubious character, recognizes his sibling’s doubleness: “Part of him knew his brother was right – well, his sister – his broster, his sither, whichever way in God’s name Edgar-­Eleanor was swerving these days . . .”29 When speaking as omniscient narrator, Holsinger chooses the name/prounoun Holsinger, Holsinger, 28 Holsinger, 29 Holsinger, 26 27

A Burnable A Burnable A Burnable A Burnable

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 119

Book, Book, Book, Book,

p. 440. pp. 44, 89. p. 90. pp. 102–3.

04/01/2016 10:07

120

RUTH MAZO KARRAS AND TOM LINKINEN

for his character depending on the clothing ze is wearing at a given moment. In one two-­paragraph sequence, “by Vespertime her tongue, her lips, her arse, even her cock ached from a day of hard use. She needed cider . . . She shed her dress and pulled on her breeches . . . Edgar was able to nudge himself a space on the broad hearth, where he sipped contentedly and watched the crowd.”30 Similarly, the narrator describes how Rykener, in effect, changes pronouns: Grimes’ shop and yard on Cutter Lane were empty, as she knew they would be. Eleanor peered over the streetside fence, spying exactly what she had hoped to find: a row of clothes drying on the line. She vaulted the fence, took what she needed, and stripped off her dress, bunching it into her bag for later. She pulled on a pair of breeches and a one-­piece shirt of the sort favored by the butchers. An old pair of slaughter boots, found in the corner of the first barn, completed the outfit, though as Edgar left the yard he grabbed a stained apron from a hook and wrapped it around his middle. He roughed up his hair, put on a cap, smeared a bit of ash on his cheeks and brow, then left the butchers’ precinct the way he had come, heading for the palace, and Gerald’s fate.31

The implicit claim here, as the omniscient narrator briefly adopts Rykener’s point of view, is that Rykener thinks of hirself as gendered according to the clothing ze is currently wearing. But as the (no doubt deliberately) jarring phrase “her cock” indicates, the character Eleanor tops men even when she is wearing women’s clothing; some, if not all of her customers, choose her for this reason and not because they mistake her for a ciswoman. One customer, James Tewburn, “liked to take it as a woman, mouth and arse alike,” with Eleanor in women’s clothing: “[h]e didn’t recognize Edgar in mannish garb. Not yet,” but he is certainly aware that Eleanor is equipped with a penis, and later when Edgar visits him in his office in men’s clothing Tewburn recognizes him and then fellates him.32 John/Eleanor Rykener in the court case, however, had sexual relations with men “as a woman” and with women “as a man,” without it being entirely clear that this refers to clothing rather than sexual role. It is no secret to characters in A Burnable Book, even outside the milieu of the prostitutes, that Rykener is a cross-­dresser. Gerald’s master recognizes Eleanor when he sees her: “Get that swervin’ Ganymede outta my boy’s way.”33 The fact that a stranger thinks Edgar is “a young woman taking on a man’s role” indicates a certain androgyny in appearance.34 In Holsinger’s account, Rykener moves back and forth between genders rather easily; people are aware of it, and it is only the butchers who seem particularly bothered by it. While medieval people would perhaps have understood a “woman’s soul in a man’s body” or a man who wished to have sex with men also wishing to be Holsinger, Holsinger, 32 Holsinger, 33 Holsinger, 34 Holsinger, 30 31

A Burnable A Burnable A Burnable A Burnable A Burnable

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 120

Book, Book, Book, Book, Book,

p. 184. p. 348. pp. 115, 176–7. p. 337. p. 231.

04/01/2016 10:07



JOHN/ELEANOR RYKENER REVISITED

121

a woman, they may have had less understanding of transgender as a refusal to be bound by gender conventions, at least within the secular world (religious texts bent gender in a variety of ways, although these tended to be more metaphorical). Some transgender people today wish to, and do, transition from one sex to the other permanently through surgery and hormones. Others do so without medical intervention by changing their name, dress, and behaviors. And others – many of whom prefer the term “genderqueer” – do not wish to pass as members of the “opposite” gender but to occupy new gender positions, to refuse to specify M or F, he or she, to “expand the number of acceptable ways of being gendered.”35 Rykener was caught in a binary because of the society in which ze lived. Ze may have wished to be a woman, but ze may not have known the possibility of being neither a man nor a woman. Yet, as the play John/Eleanor plausibly suggests, ze was a survivor working within the limits of the possible for hir time. Through the use of clothing ze could stake out, not a middle position, but a flexible one that went back and forth. The limits of representing a fluid identity on stage or in a novel – the need to use clothing with which to do it – corresponds to the limits of the historian’s knowledge of a subject’s identity. It is in using that clothing to present hirself in the way ze chose that Rykener was perhaps transgender-­like.36

35 Laurel Westbrook, “Becoming Knowably Gendered: The Production of Transgender Possibilities and Constraints in the Mass and Alternative Press from 1990–2005 in the United States,” in Transgender Identities: Towards a Social Analysis of Gender Diversity (New York, Routledge, 2010), pp. 43–63, at p. 50. A useful recent discussion of gender diversity and transgender, with perhaps more sympathy for transgender people who wish to remain within a gender binary than for theorists who wish to do away with the binary, is Patricia Elliot, Debates in Transgender, Queer, and Feminist Theory: Contested Sites (Farnham, Ashgate, 2010), esp. pp. 33–41. 36 Jeremy Goldberg, “John Rykener, Richard II and the Governance of London,” Leeds Studies in English N.S. 45 (2014), 49–70, which appeared too late for us to take account of it in this chapter, provides a detailed argument that the Record was written as a critical allegory against Richard II.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 121

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 122

04/01/2016 10:07

PART III Mapping Margins

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 123

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 124

04/01/2016 10:07

Women’s Healing: From Binaries to a Nexus Laine E. Doggett Old French medieval literature abounds with examples in which a woman quickly and confidently treats a battle wound.1 In this article I analyze episodes from several twelfth-­and thirteenth-­century Old French romances, epics, and the chantefable Aucassin et Nicolette that portray women ministering to and healing a knight’s battle wounds. At first glance, the means to heal, nothing more than plant derivatives, may appear simplistic and lacking value.2 However, the flora is known for its healing virtues, in many cases as a symbol of God’s providence for humans, carefully infused into highly valued formulations, applied in skilled ways by informally trained healers in a long line of tradition; and the salves bring excellent results with the help of God. This entire set of highly connected associations – healing, plant matter, the natural world, order and plan in cosmology, God’s providence, and the application of human intelligence – underscores the complexity of healing. To fully perceive the interrelated and overlapping aspects of healing in these texts we must apply a “both/and” logic rather than an “either/or,” an additive comprehension rather than a divisional or divisive one, a strategy that informs the work of E. Jane Burns.3 The depiction of healing in 1 See Muriel Joy Hughes, Women Healers in Medieval Life and Literature (Rpt. Books for Libraries Press, Freeport, NY, 1968; 1943), for long lists of examples. Men, too, occasionally heal (as we will see below), but literature depicts far more women in the role – all the more reason to render them more visible and comprehensible. 2 While some healing preparations also include other ingredients with virtues such as precious stones or animal parts, those are beyond the scope of this article. 3 See, for example, E. Jane Burns, Bodytalk: When Women Speak in Old French Literature (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), throughout and pp. 4–7 for discussion. Burns offers further example of the approach in “Feminism and Medieval Studies: Moving Forward,” Exemplaria 26, nos. 2–3 (Summer/Fall 2014), pp. 291–8, at p. 295. Studies of magic that avoid binary thinking include Claire Fanger, ed., Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic (University Park, Pennsylvania University Press, 1998), and Michel Stanesco, “Nigromance et université: scolastique du merveilleux dans le roman français du Moyen Age,” in Milieux universitaires et mentalité urbaine au Moyen Age: colloque du Département d’Etudes médiévales de Paris-­ Sorbonne et de l’université de Bonn (Paris, Presses Universitaires de Paris, 1987), pp. 129–44. Both of these address learned magic, not common, or folk, magic. For related arguments that link healing and love magic, see Laine E. Doggett, Love Cures: Healing and Love Magic in Old French Romance (University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009), which contains extensive context for medieval magic and medicine in the high and later Middle Ages. Conditions evolve in the later Middle Ages, with more formally trained

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 125

04/01/2016 10:07

126

LAINE E. DOGGETT

the texts under consideration here provides but one example of the necessity of reading the entire set of overlapping and intermingling associations instead of applying binaries such as courtly/non-­courtly, magic/religion, and magic/proto-­ science. Such binaries can impose hierarchies of knowledge and skills that did not inhere in the high Middle Ages and obscure the complementarity of aspects of healing. The healers apply a vast store of antique and medieval lore on plants and their virtues that affect the human body, knowledge that was transmitted orally and in writing, much of it from the East.4 Formally and informally trained healers, both male and female, applied these remedies.5 In some cases, critics call the techniques and/or characters magic, and move on.6 This overlooks the varied and often conflicting uses of the word in the high Middle Ages, the extensive naturalistic plant lore transmitted, and the overlap of magic and medicine at the time.7 When applied by modern critics, the word magic is often devoid of context, a move that disregards the knowledge and skills of female healers and easily permits modern binaries such as magic/science to shape our reception of these episodes.8 doctors and competition as well as more virulent and well-­known Church pronouncements on magic. 4 John M. Riddle, “The Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugs in the Early Middle Ages,” in Quid pro Quo: Studies in the History of Drugs (Brattleboro, VT, Variorum, 1992), pp. 185–98; Jerry Stannard, “Medieval Herbalism and Post-­Medieval Folk Medicine,” in Folklore and Folk Medicines, ed. John Scarborough (Madison, WI, American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, 1987), pp. 10–20. 5 Monica H. Green, “Documenting Medieval Women’s Medical Practice,” in Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death, ed. Luis Garcia-­Ballester et al. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp. 322–52; Monica H. Green, “The Possibilities of Literacy and the Limits of Reading: Women and the Gendering of Medieval Literacy,” in Women’s Healthcare in the Medieval West (Burlington, VT, Ashgate-­Variorum, 2000), pp.1–76; Nancy G. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 17–47. 6 See, for example: Bernard Guidot in “Héroïsme et fantaisie imaginative dans Elie de Saint-­Gilles,” Olifant 25, nos. 1–2 (2006), pp. 201–22, at p. 215; Francis Dubost, Aspects fantastiques de la littérature narrative médiévale (XIIe–XIIIe siècles): l’autre, l’ailleurs, l’autrefois (Geneva, Slatkine, 1991), p. 360; Friedrich Wolfzettel, “Idéologie chevaleresque et conception féodale dans Durmart le Galois: l’altération du schéma arthurien sous l’impact de la réalité politique du XIIIe siècle,” Actes du 14e congrès international arthurien: Rennes, 16–21 août 1984 (Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 1985), pp. 668–86, at p. 668. 7 On magic, see: Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989), and Karen Jolly, “Medieval Magic: Definitions, Beliefs, Practices,” in Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Middle Ages, ed. Bengt Ankerloo and Stuart Clark (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). Kieckhefer discusses the overlap of magic and medicine at p. 8 and pp. 57–64; Jolly at pp. 30–35; Siraisi at pp. 149–52. See also Jerry Stannard, “Magiferious Plants and Magic in Medieval Medical Botany,” The Maryland Historian 7 (Spring 1977), pp. 33–46. 8 Karen Jolly notes that the modern construct magic – religion – science is deeply embedded in our thought, pp. 8–9. A similar example of applying modern conceptions (in this case, of nationhood) to medieval geographies is found in Sharon Kinoshita, Medieval

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 126

04/01/2016 10:07



WOMEN’S HEALING: FROM BINARIES TO A NEXUS

127

Wounds and their healing in Romance Knights suffer battle wounds regularly in Old French texts, and there is very often a healer nearby with recognized skills to wash, treat, and bandage the wounds. Treatments include ointments and potions, applied in courtly settings complete with luxury items and meticulous care. In Chrétien de Troyes’ Erec et Enide, it takes some time to get to the healing episode because Erec repeatedly refuses to have his wounds treated since it will delay his journey.9 Erec fights twice with King Guivret the Small. After the first battle, Erec declines Guivet’s request to come to his castle for healing, in order to continue his journey (vv. 3883–85); [49]. As a stopgap measure, the knights tear strips from each other’s shirts and bandage each other’s wounds (3904–06); [49]. The second time they fight, Guivret again invites Erec, telling him his two sisters know a great deal about healing wounds (5065–73); [64].10 Erec agrees to go the next day. That night, Enide washes Erec’s wounds and bandages them (5093–94); [64]. Both Guivret and Enide comment that he should eat, but not a lot, and drink only watered wine due to his condition (5123–27); [64]. Upon arriving at the castle of Poiturie, where Guivret’s sisters live, Guivret leads Erec to “An une chanbre delitable,/ loing de noise, et bien essorable” (vv. 5151–53)11 [“an enchanting, airy room, away from all noise” (65)],12 suggesting that a wounded knight would be advantaged by peace and quiet as well as beautiful surroundings. Guivret’s sisters then begin to help Erec, going beyond the earlier strips of cloth and Enide’s ministrations: A lui garir ont molt pené ses serors que il an pria. Erec an eles se fia, car celes molt l’aseürerent. Premiers, la morte char osterent, puis mistrent sus antrait et tante; a lui garir ont grant antante, Boundaries: Rethinking Difference in Old French Literature (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), at p. 3. 9 In contrast, an earlier episode in the story portrays Erec and Yder as seriously wounded, but there is no mention of wound treatment or bandaging. Had they been wounded as severely as described, it is unlikely they would have been able to continue. Female healers may be dismissed due to exaggerated results and/or short time needed for healing. However, this same sort of hyperbole consistently describes knightly prowess in medieval literature, without calling into question the knight’s abilities. We must consider generalized exaggeration in the literature when reading healing as well. 10 Erec is able to accept Guivret’s second invitation because at this point in the story he has proven himself as a knight and has been reconciled with his wife, Enide, whose criticism of his lack of knightly behavior spurred him on his quest. 11 All quotes from Chrétien de Troyes, Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes, I Erec et Enide, ed. Mario Roques (Paris, Honoré Champion, 1990). 12 All translations of this work from The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes, trans. David Staines (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1990).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 127

04/01/2016 10:07

128

LAINE E. DOGGETT

et celes, qui molt an savoient, sovant ses plaies li lavoient et remetoient l’antrait sus. Chascun jor catre foiz ou plus le feisoient mangier et boivre, sel gardoient d’ail et de poivre . . . A lui garir mistrent grant painne les puceles: ainçois quinzainne ne santi il mal ne dolor. Lors, por revenir sa color, le comancierent a baignier: an eles n’ot que anseignier, car bien lor an sot covenir (5154–66; 5177–83) [Following their brother’s request the two sisters did their best to heal Erec, and because they inspired his confidence, he trusted them completely. They went to great lengths to heal his wounds, first removing the dead skin, then applying ointment and a dressing. Much experienced in these matters, they often washed his wounds and reapplied the ointment over them. Every day they made him eat and drink four times or more, permitting, however, no garlic or pepper . . . Because the maidens devoted themselves so much to his recovery, within a fortnight he felt no pain or suffering. Then they began to bathe him so that his color might return. They had nothing to learn in this regard, for they knew all about healing (65)].

The sisters are said to have more healing skill and knowledge than others, and this gives Erec confidence. As Enide did, the sisters wash and bandage the wounds, but also treat them in more detail, removing the dead flesh and applying ointment they have at the ready.13 They also give more specific directions about the foods that Erec should avoid or should eat. After two weeks with ointment and wound dressing, Erec is pain-­free, and then the two provide healing baths as the next step in treatment. Their care covers numerous aspects, an indication of breadth and depth of healing knowledge. Once Erec is healed, the newly restored physical body is fit to be adorned, and the narrator describes in great detail the beautiful and luxurious clothing he receives (5184–91); [65]. Further, the couple again shares a bed and they take delight in each other, after their “penance” (5205); (65), as they have “lor grant amor afermee” (v. 5210); [“reaffirmed their deep love,” 65]. Chrétien’s Lancelot also contains an episode in which the eponymous hero’s battle wounds draw attention. King Bademagu welcomes Lancelot and offers aid to the wounded knight, who has just crossed the sword-­bridge: 13 Here and elsewhere the ointment is not described. However, in another episode, King Arthur offers to Erec a wound ointment given to him by his sister, Morgan la fée (v. 4196); [53]. Other ointments are ascribed to Morgan in other texts which points out another association to be incorporated into the understanding of medieval wound healing.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 128

04/01/2016 10:07



WOMEN’S HEALING: FROM BINARIES TO A NEXUS

129

De l’oignemant as trois Maries et de meillor, s’an le trovoit, vos donrai ge, car molt covoit vostre aise et vostre garrison. (3358–61)14 [I shall give you some ointment of the Three Marys and some that is even better, if it can be found, for I am concerned about your comfort and your recovery. (211)]15

Rather than proposing a healer who can aid the process, the king focuses first on a healing unguent with Christian associations. The ointment of the Three Marys comes from the biblical story of the visitation of three Marys at the crucifixion of Christ. The king says Lancelot should heal for fifteen days or three weeks (vv. 3398–99), but Lancelot wishes to fight immediately. The king supplies Lancelot with a horse and sends a healer, in this case a man who “et de plaies garir savoit/plus que tuit cil de Montpellier” (vv. 3484–85) [“had greater skill than all the men of Montpellier in the healing of wounds,” 212]. There is no description of the treatment, and in this case, the healer is male, one who is said to know more than the men of Montpellier, famous for the medical school founded in the eleventh century.16 Healing here emphasizes the ointment with Christian associations and the healer’s knowledge. Another romance example that shares elements with the episode from Erec is found in Durmart le Galois. Durmart, wounded on his quest, encounters a maiden who shelters him in a red tent, then promises and undertakes healing: “Merci De, bien m’en sai mesler D’une grant plaie meciner; Se vos n’estes a mort navrés, Ains quart jor serés tos sanés.” Atant est la plaie mostree, La pucele l’a bien tentee, Mout le manoie dolcement, Sa droiture le fait briement. Une poison fait aporter, Ne sai pas les herbes nomer. Quant la posion fu destempree, 14 All quotes from Chrétien de Troyes, Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes, III, Le Chevalier de la charrete, ed. Mario Roques (Paris, Honoré Champion) 1983. 15 All translations of this work from The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes, trans. David Staines (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1990). 16 On the medical school at Montpellier, see Vern L. Bullough, The Development of Medicine as a Profession: The Contribution of the Medical University to Modern Medicine (New York, Hafner, 1966), pp. 52–60. Although a medical school is mentioned here, Danielle Jacquart notes that after the twelfth century, barely half, or 51.3 per cent of known doctors can be shown to have a formal medical degree. See her Le Milieu médical en France du XIe au XVe siècle: en annexe 2e supplément au “Dictionnaire” d’Ernest Wickersheimer (Geneva, Droz, 1981), p. 59.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 129

04/01/2016 10:07

130

LAINE E. DOGGETT

D’une mout grant cope doree En boit mesire Durmars lors; Mout le rasuage le cors . . . “Sire, dist la pucele simple, La poison que je vos donai Est cele que millor ne sai; Ele vos garira dedans Et par defors li ongemens Que j’ai sor vostre plaie mis. Ains quart jor serés tos garis. (3163–76; 3180–86)17 [“Thanks be to God, I know how to take care of this And how to heal a severe wound. Unless you have been mortally wounded, You will be completely healthy in four days.” When he showed the wound to her, The maiden carefully examined it. She handled it very gently; She did this precisely and quickly. She had a potion brought, I could not tell you the herbs that were in it. When the potion was mixed, Sir Durmart then drank it From a large, gilded goblet; It greatly soothed his body . . . “Sire,” said the simple maiden, “The potion that I am giving you Is better than anyone knows; It will heal you on the inside And on the outside, ointment that I have Put on your wound will heal you. Four days from now, you will be completely healed.]

The young lady shows the same confidence and certainty in her healing skills as Guivret’s sisters, and she boasts that the process will only take four days, much faster than was judged necessary for the healing of Erec’s and Lancelot’s wounds. The maiden treats Durmart inside and out, first offering him a potion that he drinks from a gilded cup.18 The decorated goblet recalls Erec’s beautiful chamber and appointments at Guivret’s castle, an example of the luxury 17 All quotes from Durmart le Galois, roman arthurien du treizième siècle, ed. Joseph Gildea (Villanova, PA, Villanova Press, 1965). Translations of this text are mine. 18 In “Medieval Herbalism” Stannard points out that some 400 preparations with only one plant, or simples, were known, in addition to compounds at p. 10. Siraisi also discusses oral and written transmission (Greek and Arabic) of simples and compounds at pp. 141–46. Faith Lyons describes medical writers of the time such as Roger of Salerno and others who discuss wound cleaning and dressing as well as beverages to give the patient. See her “The Wounding of Durmart,” French Studies 25, no. 2 (April 1971), pp. 129–35, at pp. 131–2.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 130

04/01/2016 10:07



WOMEN’S HEALING: FROM BINARIES TO A NEXUS

131

t­rappings that surround the healing scenes under consideration and which contribute to an atmosphere of refinement and courtliness even in the midst of the unpleasant realities of battle wounds. Although the narrator has no knowledge of the herbal contents of the potion, the maiden assures that it is the best one available. She also salves Durmart’s wounds with ointment. In these romances battle wounds are treated by two women (and one man) whose knowledge and skill are noted or vaunted. Healing descriptions often include luxury decorations such as a beautiful room, linen sheets, or a decorated goblet. In contrast to the refined surroundings, wounds can be messy and unpleasant, with dead flesh that must be removed. They require washings and repeated application of medicated bandages. All of the episodes above rely on the application of an ointment, one from the Three Marys, which reiterates the role of God in healing, and an herbal tincture whose contents the narrator cannot specify. Wounds and their healing in epic Healing episodes in epic depict similar bandages and remedies applied by a confident maiden in courtly milieux.19 However, we will see that in comparison to romances, epics foreground considerably religious contexts and associations. Nevertheless, healing also requires human intervention and knowledgeable application. Otinel contains a simple and quick healing scene. After a battle, three maidens remove the armor of the knight, Ogier, and begin the process: Ses plaies levent, si l[e] mettent culchier. D’une herbe duce li donent à mangier, Ke Deu méisme planta en sun vergier; Seine at à nun, tel pot hum préiser. Cil dormi tost, qui en at grant mester. Quant il s’esveille, si se sent tut legier, E plus fu sein que prune de pruner. (1048–54, italics mine)20 [They washed his wounds and put him to bed. They gave him a sweet herb to eat, That God himself planted in his orchard; It’s name is “Healthy,” as such it can be valued. 19 For a summary of differences between romance and epic, see Catherine M. Jones, An Introduction to the Chanson de Geste (Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2014), at pp. 23–4. She points out that later texts of both genres show fewer differences. For an analysis of the role of politics in epic, see Sarah Kay, The Chanson de Geste in the Age of Romance: Political Fictions (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995). 20 Otinel, ed. F. Guessard and H. Michelant (Paris, F. Vieweg, 1859), in Les Anciens Poètes de la France, Nouvelle Série de la Bibliothèque elzevirienne, Gui de Bourgogne, Otinel, Floovant, ed. M. F. Guessard (Paris, P. Jannet, 1858). Translations of this work are mine.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 131

04/01/2016 10:07

132

LAINE E. DOGGETT

He fell asleep quickly, [as he] sorely needed to. When he awoke, he felt quite sprightly And was healthier than the plum of a plum tree.

The young women follow the same procedure of cleaning seen in other texts, and they use a single unspecified herb. In contrast to the romances above, the narrator points out that the healing herb comes from God and was put in the “orchard” (v. 1050), a word choice that emphasizes planning and usefulness. Ogier heals extremely quickly: after the treatment and one night’s sleep, he has returned to health, in contrast to Erec’s two weeks in bed and Durmart’s four days. If Otinel makes passing mention of the role of God in healing, an episode in La Mort Aymeri de Narbonne extends this notion considerably. After a battle, Guillaume d’Orange and others lament the loss of the best knight, but a maiden, Clarissant, replies: ‘Seignor François,’ dist ele, ‘ne dotez: ‘Je l’avrai ja gari et respassé.’ Entre ses braz prist lo conte soef, Dist .iii. paroles de sainte Trinité Et de la croiz de la crestienté, Dont estanchierent les plaies criminel; Et de vin blanc li a fetes laver; (1986–92)21 [“French Lord,” she said, “Do not doubt. I will very soon have healed and mended him.” She gently took the count in her arms, Said the three words of the Holy Trinity And of the cross of Christianity, Then the reprehensible wounds closed, And she washed him with white wine.]

As in Durmart above, the maiden states simply that she will be able to heal the knight. However, before she begins, she invokes God with the words of the Trinity and the cross, and these words begin the healing process. In this way, La Mort Aymeri de Narbonne depicts clearly the role of God and religious invocation in healing, which recalls the commonplace medieval belief that healing emanates from the divine and cannot be achieved without it.22 Yet human action also forms 21 La Mort Aymeri de Narbonne: Chanson de geste, ed. J. Couraye du Parc (Paris, Firmin Didot, 1884; rpt. London, Johnson Reprint Company, 1966). Translations of this text are mine. 22 For more examples of religious healing, charms, and verbal remedies, see Sara Ritchey, “Affective Medicine: Later Medieval Healing Communities and Feminization of Health Care Practices in the Thirteenth-­Century Low Countries,” The Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 40, no. 2 (2014), pp. 113–43, at pp. 130–33. Ritchey argues that the study of women’s religious healing can lead us to “recognize whole new categories of health” (p. 117) in an analysis that undoes a number of binaries.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 132

04/01/2016 10:07



WOMEN’S HEALING: FROM BINARIES TO A NEXUS

133

part of the picture, for the young woman then washes the wounds with wine, a standard part of the healing procedure that we have seen in other texts. When she reaches for the ointment, the narrator fully recounts the biblical story of its origin: Un oignement tret d’un escrin paré Qui contrevaut tot l’or de .x. citez; De tot l’avoir a trois rois coronez Ne seroit il esligiez n’achetez. Quant Jhesus Criz fu en la croiz penez, Que Juï l’orent batu et flajelé, Li trois Marie l’alerent visiter. Nicodemus dut la boiste garder; En Femenie l’en fist Longis porter: Lo païs aime por ce qu’il en fu nez. Lo mortex plaies en a fait aesmer, Dedanz tochier et defors adeser, Et un petit l’en fist lo col passer, Et puis drecier et en estant lever, Ez vos lo conte gari et respassé (1993–2007) [She took an ointment from an ornamented box That was as valuable as the gold of ten cities; For all the wealth of three crowned kings It would not be obtained nor bought. When Jesus Christ was hung on the cross, After the Jews had beaten and flagellated him, The three Marys went there to visit. Nicodemus was supposed to take care of the precious box; Longinus had it brought to Feminie: He loved the country because he had been born there. She applied it to his mortal wounds, Putting it inside and outside, And she had him drink a little bit of it, And raise himself up until he was standing And then the count was healed and mended.]

The young maiden used the same treatment that was offered to Lancelot above, that of the Three Marys. She has stored it in a decorated box, the first indicator of its value. The narrator further describes its worth, more than the gold of ten cities, and then recounts the story of Christ’s crucifixion and the visit by the Three Marys.23 Whereas in Lancelot, above, the ointment was merely mentioned and its strong power declared, La Mort Aymeri explains its history and affirms its status as a relic, a much stronger religious association.24 In this case 23 Longinus was the name of the soldier who wounded Christ on the cross. Hughes points out that the story shows up in Anglo-­Saxon charms used in healing at p. 31. 24 For more on relics in epic, see Marc Le Person, “Le Pouvoir merveilleux, ­surnaturel et sacré des reliques de la passion dans le ‘Petit cycle de reliques’,” in Chanter de Geste: L’art

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 133

04/01/2016 10:07

134

LAINE E. DOGGETT

as well, the knight rises quickly from the sickbed. Near the end of the work, as Guillaume recounts his exploits to King Louis, he describes Clarissant as a “mirienesse” (v. 2285); [doctor].25 The epic text Elie de Saint-­Gilles takes a slightly different approach, foregrounding an intended conversion and abbreviating the biblical story. Rosemonde decides to convert to Christianity even before she meets Elye (although she only does so at the end of the story). Shortly before Elye is brought to her, Rosamonde listens to the birds in the garden, including the nightingale, which reminds her of love, and voices her intention: “Vrais Dieus,” dist la pucele, “con tu es presïous! Tu fais croistre les arbres, porter foilles et flors, Et le blé nous fais sourdre de la terre en amour! Et en la Sainte Viergene, presis anonsion, Biaus Sire, et sanc et char i presistes por nous! Aussi con chou est voirs, Biaus sire glorïous, Desfendés le Franchois de mort et de prison! Por la soie amistier, renoierai Mahon, Et guerpirai ma loi, que je voi que n’est prous!” (1370–78)26 [“True God,” said the maid, “how wonderful You are! You make the trees grow and bear leaves and flowers, And Your love for us causes wheat to sprout from the earth, And in the Holy Virgin, You took shape and form. Dear Lord, You took on flesh and blood for us. Just as this is true, dear glorious Lord, Preserve the Frenchman from death and from prison. For love of him, I’ll renounce Mohamet, And I’ll leave my religion, which I know is worthless.”]

Rosemonde praises God for the beauty and usefulness of creation and describes the appearance of Christ on Earth. She describes a causal chain that relates nature to God and to the birth of Jesus Christ, and so declares herself ready to renounce Mohamed and Islam because they are valueless.27 In contrast, the Saracens ascribe nature’s bounty to Mohamed (vv. 745–7). Like the maiden in Durmart, Rosamonde offers quick healing: “Venés ent avoec moi,” dist la franche pucele, “En tel lieu vous metrai, ains petitet de terme, épique et son rayonnement, Hommage à Jean-­Claude Vallecalle, ed. Marylène Possamaï-­ Perez and Jean-­René Valette (Paris, Honoré Champion, 2013), pp. 221–40. 25 Francis Dubost reads her healing as an example of Christianized magic at p. 697. 26 All quotes and translations from Elye of Saint-­Gilles: A Chanson de Geste, ed. and trans. A. Richard Hartman and Sandra C. Malicote (New York, Italica Press, 2011). 27 Bernard Guidot argues that although she is swayed by love, her conversion is in good faith. See his “Rosamonde et l’illusion du pouvoir,” in Chanter de Geste, l’art épique et son rayonnement, ed. Possamaï-­Perez and Valette, pp. 137–51.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 134

04/01/2016 10:07



WOMEN’S HEALING: FROM BINARIES TO A NEXUS

135

Que vous serés tous sains, ains que viegne li vespres !” “E! Dieus,” che dist Elye, “conment pora chou estre? Che ne poroit nus faire, fors Dameldé chelestre !” (1435–9) [Then the noble maiden said, “Come in here with me. I’ll keep you in such a place that before long You’ll be completely healed, before vespers come.” “My God!” Elye said, “How can that be? “No one could do that except the Lord God in heaven!”]

Rosamond has great confidence in her healing ability, although Elye counters with the notion that only God can restore health. Undeterred, Rosamonde begins by putting him in a bed made with beautiful, luxurious covers. The bed stands in a room that “Mout fu bien pointuree a oiseus et a bestes” (1442) [“It was beautifully painted with birds and animals”], which echoes the delightful room Erec was given.28 The painting of the natural world echoes Rosamonde’s appreciation of nature and God’s creation of it that inspired her intention to convert. Among the biblical allusions and promise of conversion, Rosemonde carries out healing actions as seen in Otinel, Durmart, and La Mort Ameryi, by preparing plants and giving them to Elye: Rosamonde s’en torne, et son escrin deferme, A ses mains qu’ele ot blances, en a traite .ii. herbes Que Dieus ot sou ses piés, li glorïeus chelestre, Quant en crois le leverent, la pute gent averse. En .i. anap de madre les souda la puchele, Onques Dieus ne fist home, se le col en traverse, Que ne soit ausi sains con li pisson sor tere. Ele en dona Elye, .i. chevalier honestes; Li ber en a beü, por l’amor la puchele, Tous fu sains et garis (1445–54) [Rosamonde went over and unlocked her chest. With her white hands she took out two herbs That God had under His feet, the celestial glorious King, When the evil enemy raised Him on the cross! In a wooden chalice she dissolved them. Never was man made, that if this potion went down his throat, He would not become as healthy as a fish in the sea. She gave some to Elye, the honorable knight. The youth drank some of it, for love of the lady; He was completely cured and well.]

Rosamonde has available the same herbs that were at the feet of Jesus during his crucifixion. She mixes them into a remedy.29 The narrator again points out that 28 In their translation of Elye, Hartman and Malicote note other references to richly painted rooms, p. 208. 29 This episode thus shares elements with Tristan narratives and their intertexts such as Cligés and the Roman de Silence as discussed in Doggett, Love Cures.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 135

04/01/2016 10:07

136

LAINE E. DOGGETT

the herbs form part of God’s creation, a thread that runs throughout the healing episodes. Rosamonde takes two herbs from her chest and dissolves them, and Elie is cured as soon as he drinks the preparation. A shorter healing description follows in the next laisse, but uses similar elements: Rosamonde la bele ama mout le vasal: Tex .ix. herbes li done, qu’ele li destenpra, Puis qu’il en ot beü, et le col trepassa, Tout fu sains et garris; a mangier demanda (1459–62). [Beautiful Rosamonde loved the knight very much. Nine such herbs she gave him that she had infused. When he drank some of the potion, and it went down his throat, He was completely cured and well. He asked for some food.]

The healing here is less detailed but more complex. Rosamonde appears to have prepared the healing tincture in advance because nine herbs had been steeped to make it. It works as quickly as those we have seen in other epics. In Elie de Saint-­Gilles, the healing episode is thoroughly woven into the larger context of the competition between Christianity and Islam that structures many Old French epics, but it simultaneously depicts a maiden with healing knowledge, skills, and the application of plants with healing virtues. The treatment of battle wounds in the epics above follows a pattern similar to that in the romances examined: wounds are washed, ointments (or, in one case, a single herb) are applied, and bandaging follows. However, more than in the romances, an emphasis is placed on the Christianization of healing elements in these stories that foreground religion as a cause of war even though the ointments and the healing knowledge and skills have their origins in the East and/or in other religious traditions. These texts highlight links to God and God’s creation, nature, and a plan for the cosmos. In contrast to romances, healing episodes in epic often portray unguents applied by Saracen female healers as specifically Christian by describing links to various episodes of the Bible (Mort Aymeri de Narbonne, Elie de Saint-­Gilles) or the role of God in healing. Aucassin et Nicolette If occasionally in romance and repeatedly in epic, the notion that all healing ultimately comes from God is emphasized, a comic reworking of these elements goes even further. The singular chantefable Aucassin et Nicolette, known for the parody of several genres, draws on the elements previously discussed but enjoins readers to reconsider them through mockery and hyperbole.30 30 For a summary of the scholarship on parody on this work, see E. Jane Burns, Sea of Silk: A Textile Geography of Women’s Work in Medieval French Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), p. 216 n. 30. Sarah Kay sheds new light on the ability of parody to mock and simultaneously invoke the notion of norm through comic

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 136

04/01/2016 10:07



WOMEN’S HEALING: FROM BINARIES TO A NEXUS

137

Flowers, herbs, and plants play prominent roles throughout the chantefable, both as reminders of love and because of their healing virtues. Aucassin describes Nicolette as a “flors de lis” (p. 74): “fleur-­de-­lis.”31 Later when Aucassin feels sad because of his separation from Nicolette, an unnamed knight recognizes Aucassin’s lovesick state and counsels him to go riding along the edge of the forest, where he’ll see flowers and herbs and hear birds singing, which will distract him (p. 104). When Aucassin dislocates his shoulder (by falling from a horse), Nicolette applies knowledge of the human body and herbs to heal him. Aucassin tells her that her mere presence is enough to heal him. She assesses the injury and understands how to treat it: Ele le portasta et trova qu’il avoit l’espaulle hors de liu. Ele le mania tant a ses blances mains et porsaca, si con Dix le vaut qui les amans ainme, qu’ele revint a liu. Et puis si prist des flors et de l’erbe fresce et des fuelles verdes, si le loia sus au pan de sa cemisse, et il fu tox garis (p. 124) [She felt carefully and realized that he had dislocated his shoulder. She manipulated it continuously it in such a way with her white hands, according to the will of God who loves lovers, so that she eased the joint back into place. And then she applied flowers, fresh grasses and green leaves, tied up in the flap of her chemise, and he was completely healed.]

Nicolette skillfully moves Aucassin’s shoulder back into joint and then gathers the plants necessary to make a poultice, one that most likely serves as a ­liniment.32 Although the text parodies extensively, the common use of poultices at the time suggests that in this episode Nicolette applies the same knowledge and techniques known to be used by other healers, and thus places herself in the realm of an informally trained healer who knows physical techniques and plant lore that will ease the pain. This is not to say that Aucassin et Nicolette does not parody the virtue of plants, for it does. As Aucassin rides through the woods, he finds more than the beauty of nature in the form of an amazing flower and grass shelter that Nicolette built as a sign to him:

spectacle in “Genre, Parody and Spectacle in Aucassin et Nicolette and Other Short Comic Tales,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval French Literature, ed. Simon Guant and Sarah Kay (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008). 31 All quotes from this text are from Aucassin et Nicolette, édition critique; deuxième édition revue et corrigée, ed. Jean Dufournet (Paris, Flammarion, 1984). All translations are mine. 32 For the use of poultices, see Jerry Stannard, “Alimentary and Medical Uses of Plants,” in Medieval Gardens (Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Trustees for Harvard University, 1986), pp. 71–91. Burns points out the use of fabrics in healing in Sea of Silk, pp. 117–36, esp. pp. 126–7, as an example of Nicolette’s handiwork and discusses the use of linen cloth in contrast to the silk. Note that in almost all the examples discussed there, fabric is used for wound binding.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 137

04/01/2016 10:07

138

LAINE E. DOGGETT

Ele prist des flors de lis Et de l’erbe du garris Et de la foille autresi Une bele loge en fist: Ainques tante gente ne vi. (p. 100) [She took fleur de lis And grasses from the landscape With other kinds of leaves And made a beautiful hut Of a kind that no one had ever seen before.]

Nicolette sculpts plants into a beautiful and elaborate message in the form of a hut for her beloved Aucassin. This flower and plant construction celebrates the greenery itself and Nicolette’s powers to transform the raw materials into a strikingly beautiful new entity. The beauty echoes Nicolette’s physical beauty and the beauty of creation, first by God who made the world and then by the artist, Nicolette, who weaves together the strands into a glorious composition. Aucassin successfully reads Nicolette’s plant-­o-­gram, understanding immediately that Nicolette made it with her beautiful hands and that he should stay there for the night (p. 119). This object of beauty also has practical uses, first transmitting information to Aucassin and then offering him shelter. The hut’s combined beauty and practicality recall the virtues of the plants used in the ointments above, in spite of the fact that it exaggerates in every way given that Nicolette could have achieved the same ends with less elaborate means. The chantefable also parodies healing, for earlier in the narrative we see Nicolette’s over-­the-­top ability to heal a mad pilgrim whom she passes by showing him her leg (pp. 75–7). The depiction culminates in the person and body of Nicolette, who describes her body as a relic, a send-­up of the idea of religious healing.33 While it is common for lovers to feel immediately better upon the arrival of the beloved, as Aucassin does when Nicolette enters the hut, claiming that one is equivalent to a holy relic exaggerates Nicolette’s healing abilities for comic effect. Conclusion Women as healers are expected, typical and successful in treating battle wounds sustained by knights in a range of Old French texts. They are prepared, with the healing materials (bandages, herbs, ointments) at hand and ready for use. They rely heavily on physical manipulation such as washing and binding wounds and also always include an ointment and/or herb or herbal potion made of one or more plants whose virtues are known as part of the extensive plant lore of the time. In several cases, biblical allusions or brief stories accompany the 33 See Burns, Sea of Silk, at pp. 131–5, on Nicolette as relic, and Kay, “Genre,” at pp. 169–70, who argues that the text conflates miracle and sexual fantasy.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 138

04/01/2016 10:07



WOMEN’S HEALING: FROM BINARIES TO A NEXUS

139

description of the plant preparation (with more regularity in epic than romance). These enhance the perceived healing potential since they form a part of the web of interrelated and overlapping ideas in the medieval conceptualization of healing, long before the binary science/non-­science becomes a means of assessing healing effectiveness. These parts of the puzzle complement each other: healing comes ultimately from God, but through plants with healing virtues and the knowledgeable application by humans. Knights’ wounds and their vital need for attention bring a bloody mess to court, disrupting the beauty, ease, and refinement found there. Healing and the restoration of the knight’s body enable a return to full participation in court life. It is not sufficient to simply apply highly valued plants known for their virtues, alone or in compounds and mixtures. Healing very often also includes luxurious courtly accoutrements such as textiles, from fabrics used to bind wounds to the beautiful coverings on the bed, and decorative items (goblets and ornamental boxes), and often takes place in a beautiful room or at least an ornate tent. In the end, the healing aspects of welcoming a wounded knight to court form part of and are woven into courtly behavior and expectations. The varied romances, epics, and chantefable considered have sufficient similarities to enable us to read women’s healing as an interconnected web of influences (and enough differences to raise questions for further research). Following Aucassin’s example, they enjoin us to read plant creations, be they a hut built by Nicolette or a healing ointment, in all their complexity, beauty, and practicality, recognizing the contributions of the female healer as far more than a magic trick.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 139

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 140

04/01/2016 10:07

Silk in the Age of Marco Polo Sharon Kinoshita A bolt of silk for each clear toned song. Still these beauties do not think it is enough. Little do they know of a weaving girl, Sitting cold by her window, Endlessly throwing her shuttle to and fro. Ch’ien T’ao, “Written at a Party Where My Lord Gave Away a Thousand Bolts of Silk”1

In her 2009 book Sea of Silk, Jane Burns begins her “textile geography of women’s work in medieval French literature” with the traditional tale of a Chinese princess who, sent to marry the ruler of the kingdom of Khotan, brings sericulture to Central Asia by smuggling silkworm larvae and mulberry seeds concealed in her head-­dress. One of the so-­called “Dunhuang tales,” this well-­ known legend takes its place alongside Procopius’s oft-­repeated account of the two sixth-­century monks who smuggled silkworm eggs out of “Serindia” under the eastern emperor Justinian to explain the westward dissemination of the art of silkmaking.2 Together, these two tales describe the east-­to-­west transfer not of intellectual or political power (as in the twinned topoi of translatio studii et imperii cited at the outset of Chrétien de Troyes’s Cligés3) but of cultural hegemony, with silk serving as the nexus of diplomacy, commerce, and ­industrial espionage. The travels of the thirteenth-­ century Venetian merchant Marco Polo, in contrast, invert the east-­to-­west itineraries of the Byzantine monks and the Khotanese bride, tracing a journey from the Latin west to the shores of the Pacific. In 1298, three years after his return to Venice following a twenty-­four-­ year absence, Marco and the Arthurian romance writer Rustichello of Pisa ­co-­authored Le Devisement du monde (The Description of the World), known today as The Travels. Composed in Franco-­Italian (a loose name for the dialect 1 In The Orchid Boat: Women Poets of China, trans. and ed. Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung (New York, McGraw-­Hill, 1972), p. 34. Ch’ien T’ao was a concubine of K’ou Chun (961–1023), an early eleventh-­century Sung prime minister (p. 123). 2 E. Jane Burns, Sea of Silk: A Textile Geography of Women’s Work in Medieval French Literature (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), pp. 21–3. 3 Sharon Kinoshita, “The Politics of Translatio: French-­Byzantine Relations in Chrétien de Troyes’s Cligès,” Exemplaria 8, no. 2 (1996), pp. 315–54.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 141

04/01/2016 10:07

142

SHARON KINOSHITA

of Old French adopted by Italians wishing to write in the vernacular rather than in Latin), the Devisement reflects the dynamism of trans-­Asian exchange at the midpoint of the remarkable century chronicled by Janet Abu-­Lughod in Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350, in which the pax mongolica created by the conquests of Genghis Khan and his successors produced a cosmopolitan world of travel, communication, and the circulation of people, goods, and ideas on an unprecedented scale.4 In this essay, I take Le Devisement du monde as a window onto the cosmopolitan world of silk production and commerce across Eurasia, c. 1250–1300. In Courtly Love Undressed (2002), Jane Burns identified the stock romance character of the courtly lady clad in silk as “a map for points of convergence between western Europe and the eastern Mediterranean,” a figure through which “the ideological divide between a Saracen east and Christian west [was] systematically undermined.”5 The Devisement greatly extends the geographical scope of this ideological convergence. The emergence of Mongol power rapidly reconfigured the conditions for silk production throughout much of Asia. This in turn stimulated important changes in Latin Europe, from the meteoric rise in the demand for panni tartarici (“Tartar” cloth-­of-­gold) to the expansion and consolidation of the silk industry in thirteenth-­and early fourteenth-­century Lucca (the neighbor and close rival of Rustichello’s Pisa). In contrast to the mystery and exoticism with which the so-­called Silk Road has long been associated, the Devisement du monde reveals a textured world of complex contacts and exchange, with silk as a prominent point of convergence for cultures across Eurasia.6 I. Silk pervades the Devisement du monde. It is first mentioned as the “dras de soie cremosi et d’autres color, mout biaus et riches” (XXI.6) [very beautiful and rich silk cloth in crimson and other colors] found in “Turcomania” (Anatolia, formerly the territory of the Seljuk sultanate of Rum), in Marco’s day in the sphere of influence of the Ilkhans (the Mongol rulers) of Persia.7 Within the Ilkhanate 4 Janet L. Abu-­Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350 (New York, Oxford University Press, 1989). 5 Burns, Sea of Silk, p. 143, and E. Jane Burns, Courtly Love Undressed: Reading through Clothes in Medieval French Culture (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), pp. 179–229. 6 For a critique of the exoticization of Marco Polo, see Sharon Kinoshita, “Traveling Texts: Marco Polo’s The Description of the World and the World Empire of Letters,” in Travel, Agency, and the Circulation of Knowledge, ed. Gesa Mackenthun, Andrea Nicolas, and Stephanie Wodianka (Münster, Waxmann, forthcoming). 7 Throughout, I quote the Franco-­Italian “F” text found in Paris, BNF f. fr. 1116, published in Marco Polo, Milione/Le Divisament dou monde. Il Milione nelle redazioni toscana e franco-­italiana, ed. Gabriella Ronchi (Milan, Mondadori, 1982). On the preeminence of this version, see Simon Gaunt, Marco Polo’s Le Devisement du monde: Narrative Voice, Language

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 142

04/01/2016 10:07



SILK IN THE AGE OF MARCO POLO

143

itself, pride of place goes to Baghdad, the former capital of the Abbasid caliphate, conquered by Khubilai’s brother Hülegü in 1258, long a producer of highly prized silks: “En Baudac se laborent de ma[n]tes faison de dras d’ores et de soie, ce sunt nassit et nac et cremosi et de deverses maineres, laborés a bestes et ausiaus mout richemant” (XXV.6, p. 330) [In Baghdad, many kinds of cloth of gold-­and-­silk are produced – that is, nassit, nac, and cremosi of many kinds, very richly worked with animals and birds].8 Nassit and nac are the Devisement’s transcriptions of nasij, short for nasij al-­dhahab al-­harir: cloth (from the Arabic word for “weave”) of gold and silk. Originating in western Asia, this silk brocaded with ornamental gold threads was the “Tartar cloth” or panni tartarici so prized in Europe in the late Middle Ages which we will meet again and again in the Devisement’s description of Mongol lands.9 At the same time, silks “apellés mosulin” (XXIV.6, p. 329) [called muslins] from Mosul, on the upper Tigris, and those “s’apeles iasdi” (XXXIV.2, p. 342) [called iasdi] from Yazd, in the deserts of central Iran, were also well known enough to be “branded” by their places of origin, while the Ilkhanid capital of Tabriz featured “maintes dras a or et de soie et de grant vaillance” (XXX.2, p. 337) [many cloths of gold and silk, of great value]. Patterned or embroidered silks are typically described using the reflexive verb “se laborent” [is worked], which grammatically suppresses the agency behind their production: the legion of anonymous artisans and skilled workers responsible for the rich textiles so coveted in the Latin west disappears into text’s seamless prose. The exception that proves the rule occurs in the account of the Persian kingdom of Kerman. After noting the excellence of the “harnois de chevalier” (XXXV.4, p. 343) [knightly equipment] – saddles, spurs, swords, and so forth – made there, the text adds: Et lor dames et damoiseles labourent mout noblemant de aguille sor dras de soie de tous colors, a bestes et a osiaus et a moutes autres ymages. Elle laborent les cortines des barons et des grans homes si bien et si ricamant, que c’est una grant mervoille a veoir; et coltres et coisin et horeiler laborent ausi mout sotilment. (XXXV.5–6, p. 343) And their ladies and maidens nobly ply their needles on silk cloths of all colors, making animals, birds, and many other images. So well do they work and Diversity, Gallica (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2013), pp. 13–15, 21–3. Translations are my own, from my annotated translation, Marco Polo, The Description of the World (Indianapolis, IN, Hackett Press, forthcoming). 8 Baghdadi silk (panni di Bagadello) had reached Genoa by 1160. David Jacoby, “Genoa, Silk Trade and Silk Manufacture in the Mediterranean Region (ca. 1100–1300),” in Tessuti, oreficerie, miniaure in Liguria, XIII–SV secolo, ed. A. R. Calderoni Masetti, C. Di Fabio, and M. Marcenaro (Bordighera, 1999), pp. 11–40, at p. 14; rpt. David Jacoby, Commercial Exchange across the Mediterranean: Byzantium, the Crusader Levant, Egypt and Italy (Aldershort, Variorum, 2005), article XI. 9 Thomas T. Allsen, Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 2–3. See also Burns, Sea of Silk, p. 47.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 143

04/01/2016 10:07

144

SHARON KINOSHITA

the hangings for barons and lords that it’s a marvel to see; they also do very delicate work on coverlets, cushions, and pillow covers.

In contrast to the Devisement’s routine enumeration of textiles and other commodities to be found in any given locale, this passage could easily come from one of the many romances treated in Burns’s Sea of Silk. As in her examples, fine needlework is explicitly gendered, whether in the collective labor of the three hundred silk workers in Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain or in the individual artistry atrributed to “elite women who ‘work’ silk on an intimate scale not for profit but for pleasure,” such as Lienor and her mother in Jean Renart’s early thirteenth-­century Le Roman de la rose ou de Guillaume de Dole.10 Where romance prefers the verb “ovrer,” with overtones of skill and craftsmanship, the Devisement uses the more pedestrian “labourer,” with its suggestion of outdoor agricultural labor. In other respects, however, this Persian analogue to the literary and historical world of silkworking women in the Latin Europe serves as a salutary caution against facile presumptions of the Devisement’s orientalizing gaze. II. The traffic in silk had long mediated relations between China and the nomadic confederations of Central Asia. As early as the second century BCE, an envoy dispatched by the Han emperor Wu Ti reported that the peoples around Fergana and Soghdiana (in what would become the heart of the Silk Road) “could be won over by gifts” – especially silk, which became the currency of choice in exchange for prized Central Asian horses.11 Over the centuries, there arose an Asian version of what the Byzantine textile historian Anna Muthesius has called “silken diplomacy.”12 An eighth-­century funerary inscription composed, in epic style, in the voice of the Kök Türk ruler for his younger brother Kül Tigin reads: I came to rule in this place and I made peace with the Chinese people. And they gave us gold, silver, brocade, and silk cloth in abundance. The words of the Chinese people are sweet and the silk of the Chinese people is soft. They attract remote peoples, luring them with sweet words and soft silk. When the Chinese have settled remote peoples nearby, they devise schemes to create discontent there. Good wise men and good brave men are prevented from moving about freely. If a man turns against them, they show no mercy towards his family, his people, nor even towards babies Burns, Sea of Silk, pp. 43–4, 61–2. Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, rev. edn. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 120, 250. 12 Anna Muthesius, “Silken Diplomacy,” in Byzantine Diplomacy: Papers from the Twenty-­Fourth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Cambridge, March 1990, ed. Jonathan Shepard and Simon Franklin (Aldershot, Variorum, 1992), pp. 237–48. 10 11

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 144

04/01/2016 10:07



SILK IN THE AGE OF MARCO POLO

145

in the cradle. In this way, enticed by the sweet words and the soft silk of the Chinese, many of you Türk people perished.13

The lure of Chinese silk, Bilge Qagan suggests, lies at the heart of the conflict between traditional nomadic and sedentary ways of life that would prove so divisive among the Mongols over five centuries later. Textiles, as historian Thomas Allsen notes, were central to the Mongols’ political culture. Acquired through plunder, tribute, taxation, and state-­ sponsored production, silk (in the form of ceremonial robes of honor or uncut bolts of cloth) was distributed to “officials, clerics, envoys, and foreign rulers” as a reward for special military or civil service, “acts of charity, vestments for clerics, peace offerings, prizes in athletic contests, and diplomatic gifts.”14 John of Plano Carpini, the Franciscan dispatched on a diplomatic mission by Pope Innocent IV in 1245–47, described ordinary dress that included “tunics of buckram, velvet or brocade (Bucarano purpura vel baldakino)” and reported that “The Emperor [i.e., the Great Khan], the nobles and other important men own large quantities of gold and silver, silk, precious stones and jewels.”15 William of Rubruck, who traveled east at the behest of French king Louis IX in 1253–55, described the pan-­Asian tributary network feeding the Mongols’ demand for such finery: From Cathay and other countries to the east, and also from Persia and other districts of the south, come cloths of silk and gold and cotton materials which they wear in the summer. From Russia, Moxel, Great Bulgaria and Pascatu, which is Greater Hungary, and Kerkis, which are all districts towards the north, and full of forests, and from many other regions in the north which are subject to them, valuable furs of many kinds are brought for them, such as I have never seen in our part of the world; and these they wear in winter.16

On arriving at the kuriltai (great assembly) that was about to elect Güyük Great Khan, William records an instance of the Mongol custom of donning jisün (robes of one color) for ceremonial occasions: “On the first day they were all 13 “The Kül Tigin Inscription,” trans. Kurtulus Öztopçu and Sherry Smith-­Williams, in An Anthology of Turkish Literature, ed. Kemal Silay, Indiana University Turkish Studies (Indianapolis, IN, Cem Publishing, 2006), pp. 1–10, at pp. 1–2. The inscriptions are from the Orkhon valley in present-­day Mongolia. 14 Allsen, Commodity and Exchange, pp. 22–3. Thus in the case of silks, Allsen observes, it is highly misleading to contrast “necessities” with so-­called “luxuries,” since they were often in fact a “form of political currency.” Commodity and Exchange, pp. 103–4. 15 Christopher Dawson, ed., Mission to Asia, Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching 8 (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1980), pp. 7–8 (emphasis added). 16 Dawson, Mission to Asia, p. 101. This account of luxury fabrics coming from “Persia and other districts of the south” predates the Mongol conquest of Baghdad (putting an end to the Abbasid caliphate) by Khubilai’s younger brother Hülegü in 1258. Also of interest in this passage is William’s use of “east,” “south,” and “north,” in relation not to Latin Europe but to Mongol-­ruled Central Asia.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 145

04/01/2016 10:07

146

SHARON KINOSHITA

clothed in white velvet, on the second in red[,] on the third day they were all in blue velvet and on the fourth in the finest brocade.”17 As the Mongols consolidated their rule over their conquests in Central and East Asia, they went from exacting silk from others to mobilizing the resources of their new empires to produce it on a massive scale. As armies and merchant caravans, travelers, and missionaries traversed this vast region that linked the eastern Iranian world with China, goods – ­especially luxury silks – moved from one part of Asia to another, and with them the motifs with which they were woven. Entire colonies of craftsmen . . . who had been captured by the Mongols in northern China and the eastern Iranian world and resettled in distant cities of Mongolia and Central Asia brought with them the weaving techniques and decorative repertories of their homelands.18

By the time Marco Polo reached “Cathay” (Latin Europe’s name for northern China), the Mongols were well on their way to transforming the infrastructure of silk production across Eastern and Central Asia. In the Yuan shi (the official history of Mongol rule in China), Khubilai is depicted actively directing this process: The Founding Emperor originated in the north. There the custom was not to depend on silkworms for clothing and not to depend on plowing for food, so at the beginning they did not engage in these activities. Soon after the Founding Emperor acceded to the throne, [however,] he decreed to the entire realm that the people are the foundation of the state, that food and clothing are the foundation of the people, and that agriculture and sericulture are the foundation of food and clothing.19

Joining food production as a major imperial concern, silk cultivation in its various phases of production was overseen by a proliferation of government agencies. In 1273, the Court of the National Granaries published the Essential Compilation of Agriculture and Sericulture (Nongsang jiyao), which (among other things) described the different types of mulberry trees feeding silkworms that produced different grades of silk.20 In 1275, Khubilai Khan relocated artisans from Besh Baliq, in Uighur lands then under attack by the rival Chagatai 17 Dawson, Mission to Asia, p. 61. The Mongol custom is attested as early as 1209. Allsen, Commodity and Exchange, pp. 19–21. 18 James C. Y. Watt and Anne E. Wardwell, When Silk Was Gold: Central Asian and Chinese Textiles (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997), p. 127. On the transportation of artisans for the manufacture of nasij, see also Sharon Kinoshita, “Reorientations: The Worlding of Marco Polo,” in Cosmopolitanism and the Middle Ages, ed. John Ganim and Shayne Legassie (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 39–57, at pp. 45–6. 19 Yuan shi (Beijing, Zhonghua shuju, 1976), 93:2354, cited in Zhao Feng, “Silk Artistry of the Yuan Dynasty,” in Chinese Silks, ed. Dieter Kuhn (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2012), pp. 326–67, at p. 327. Yuan was the Chinese dynastic name for the Mongols. 20 A spate of other technical manuals followed in the second decade of the fourteenth century. Zhao, “Silk Artistry,” pp. 328–31.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 146

04/01/2016 10:07



SILK IN THE AGE OF MARCO POLO

147

khanate, to Dadu (present-­day Beijing), making his new capital a chief center for the production of nasij collars and cuffs.21 Marco Polo describes the influx of the raw silk feeding this imperially sponsored workshop: “sachiés de voir que chascun jor hi entre en ceste ville plus de M charete chargiés de soie, car il i se laborent maint dras d’ors et de soie” (XCV.12, p. 438) [know in truth that each day, more than a thousand carts loaded with silk enter this city, for many cloths of gold-­and-­silk are produced here]. Nothing better exemplifies the Mongols’ effect on silk production across Eurasia than the names of two of the most prestigious silks produced in Yuan China. In the early thirteenth century, on the eve of the Mongol conquest, each of the two great empires comprising much of modern-­day China had its own distinctive style of silk. South of the Huai River, in the territory of the Southern Song (the native Chinese dynasty that had been displaced by successive waves of invaders from the north), silk production was dominated by weaves of twill damask and complex gauze, decorated with floral scrolls or sprays.22 North of the Huai, the Jin, the dynastic name of the Jurchen (forest nomads from Mongolia who had displaced the Khitai Liao dynasty in 1125) favored gold brocade, often adorned with teardrop-­shaped patterns containing wild animals – notably those (swans, antelopes) that were the objects of seasonally based ceremonial hunts.23 While silks of similar weaves and designs continued to be produced under the Mongols, the changes that their redistribution of resources and artisans wrought in the infrastructure of silk production is reflected in the naturalization of the terms nashishi and sadaliqi. Nashishi is the Chinese form of nasij, the west Asian cloth-­of-­gold that Marco Polo had first named in his account of Baghdad. Among the Mongols, it was associated with the highest status of the ruling elite and was produced primarily in official workshops, such as the one established in Dadu in 1275. It was one of three kinds of gilded silks produced in Yuan China.24 As Marco Polo commented after listing the “dras d’ores que l’en apelle nascisi fin et nac, et dras de soie de maintes maineres” [cloth-­of-­gold called fine nasij and nac, and many kinds of silk cloth] to be found in the province of Tenduc (north of the Yellow River): “ausint com nos 21 For example, the edging of the collar shown in the famous portrait on silk (today in the National Palace Museum in Taipei) of Khubilai Khan’s chief wife, Chabi. Watt and Wardwell, When Silk Was Gold, pp. 130–31. 22 Zhao, “Silk Artistry,” p. 340. 23 Watt and Wardwell, When Silk Was Gold, pp. 107–8. Similar ceremonial hunts are described in the official history of the Liao dynasty and in Marco Polo’s description of Khubilai Khan’s court, pointing to what historian Thomas T. Allsen has described as a widespread and long-­lived pan-­Eurasian practice. See The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History, Encounters with Asia (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006). 24 Nashishi was a compound weave interwoven with threads of sheepskin leather wrapped in gold foil. Jinduanzi, in which gold was wrapped around a core of paper, decorated with traditional Han designs including phoenixes and dragons, was popular under the Tang and Song and remained so under the Yuan. Zhao, “Silk Artistry,” pp. 335–6. On the widespread Chinese term jin, for which there is no English equivalent, see Dieter Kuhn, Glossary, in Chinese Silks, ed. Kuhn, at p. 523.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 147

04/01/2016 10:07

148

SHARON KINOSHITA

avons les dras de laine de maintes maineres, ausint il ont dras d’ores et de soie de maintes maineres” (LXXIV.14, p. 398) [just as we have many kinds of wool cloth, so they have many kinds of cloths of gold-­and-­silk]. Another apparent neologism in Chinese occurs in the Yuan shi account of the year 1287, which records that a certain Jamal al-­Din “directed (or arrived with) artisans” producing sa-­da-­la-­qi. This is likely a transcription of zandaniji, the name (derived from the village of Zandana, near Bukhara) given to a number of Soghdian silks from the seventh to ninth centuries.25 The upshot of this rapid circulation of technology, styles, and terminology is that Central Asian textiles of Mongol era “defy any attempt at definition,” and the “bewildering variety of designs and structures” they display overlap with and are frequently difficult to distinguish from contemporary silks from China.26 Yuan China, like much of Mongol Eurasia, was awash in a sea of silk.27 In Xi’an, the ancient capital of China, are found “dras d’ore et de soie de toutes mainere” (CXI.7, p. 457) [every kind of cloth of gold-­and-­silk] – the luxury fabric becoming known in the Latin west as panni tartarici; the countryside east of the city, the Devisement du monde reports, is “pl[e]ne de moriaus, ce sunt les arbres de coi les vermines que funt la soie vivent de lor foies” (CXI.2, p. 457) [full of mulberries; the worms that make silk live from the leaves of these trees]. “Mangi,” Marco’s name for the former empire of the Southern Song (conquered in 1276, just after the Polos’ arrival), likewise abounds in “dras de soie et d’ores de maintes faisonz . . . asez” (CXLI.4, p. 501) [lots of silk and gold cloth of many kinds]. In the great city of Quinsai, former capital of the Southern Song (modern Hangzhou), Marco reports that “de la soie que ont si grant abundance est mout grandisme le droit . . . sachiés que de la soie se done X por cent e ce monte desmesuré monoie” (CLIII.7–9, p. 520) [they have silk in such abundance that the duty is exceedingly great . . . Know that silk renders 10 per cent and this adds up to money beyond measure]. William of Rubruck, who had journeyed to the east just about the time of Marco Polo’s birth, had described the Mongols wearing “cloths of silk and gold 25 Zhao calls zandaniji the “most representative” polychrome silk fabric (jin) of the age, even while admitting that today it is “difficult to know for sure which extant works are sadalaqi”. Zhao, “Silk Artistry,” pp. 341–4, at p. 341, and Watt and Wardwell, When Silk Was Gold, at p. 140. On “zandaniji” silks, see Watt and Wardwell, When Silk Was Gold, pp. 21–3. Richard Bulliet argues that by the tenth century, zandaniji referred to cloth not of silk but of cotton. See his Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran: A Moment in World History (New York, Columbia University Press, 2009), pp. 66–7. 26 Watt and Wardwell, When Silk Was Gold, p. 127. On the dissemination of Yuan era and earlier Chinese silks in Persia, see Linda Komaroff, “The Transmission and Dissemination of a New Visual Language,” in The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256–1353, ed. Linda Komaroff and Stefano Carboni (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002), pp. 169–95, at 174–5. 27 One striking exception, at least to judge by the Devisement, was Khotan, home of the legendary silk-­bearing Chinese princess. Marco’s description includes cotton and vines, but makes no mention of silk nor of jade, the other commodity traditionally associated with the area (LIV, p. 368).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 148

04/01/2016 10:07



SILK IN THE AGE OF MARCO POLO

149

and cotton” in the summer and “valuable furs never seen in our part of the world” in the winter.28 Writing over four decades later, Marco Polo describes members of the Mongol elite dressed in “dras d’ores et dras de soie et riches pennes çebellines et ermines et vair et de voupes mout ricamant” (LXX.6, p. 389) [cloth-­of-­gold and silk cloth, with rich linings of sable, ermine, miniver, and fox]. Like William’s Itinerarium, Le Devisement du monde highlights the role of jisün in Mongol court rituals, but on an infinitely vaster scale. At Khubilai’s birthday celebration in late September, Marco reports, “le grant kaan se vest de noble dras a or batu, et bien XIIm baronç et chevaliers se vestent cun lui do u[n] color et d’une mainere semblable a cel dou grant sire” (LXXXVII.3, p. 424) [the Great Khan dresses in noble cloth of beaten gold, and a good 12,000 barons and knights dress like him in one color and in the same way as the great lord]. At New Year’s, “Il est uçance que le grant kan, con tout seç sojés, se vestent de robbe blanche . . . po[r]ce que blance vesteure senble elz beneurose et bone” (LXXXIX.2–3, pp. 425–26) [It is customary that the Great Khan, with all his subjects, dress in white clothing . . . because white clothing seems to them auspicious and good]. Marco further reports that to all 12,000 members of his imperial guard (keshig), the Great Khan gave: “XIII robes, chascune de color devisé l’une de l’autre . . . aornés de perles et de pieres et d’autres riches chouses mout noblemant” (XC.5, p. 428) [13 robes, each of a different color . . . very nobly decorated with pearls, stones, and other rich things] to be worn at thirteen different festivals – totaling, notes Marco the merchant, an astonishing 156,000 sets of clothing.29 Moreover, “ausi le grant sire en a XIII senblable a seç baronç, ce est de coleur, mes il sunt plus nobles et de greignor vaillance et [mi]elz aornés; [e]t toutes foies se vest d’un senblable com sez baronç” (XC.4, p. 428) [the great lord also has 13 sets of clothes just like his barons – of the same color, that is, but more noble, of greater value, and better adorned; and each time he dresses in one like his barons]. In the empire of Khubilai Khan, even the beds at the relay stations of the famed Mongol postal service (yam) are furnished with “riches dras de soie” (XCVIII.4, p. 443) [rich silk sheets]. III. Already by the year 1000, there existed an “International style” of silk weaving in the eastern and western Mediterranean [such that] on occasion it becomes difficult to distinguish surviving Byzantine and Islamic silks from one another, either stylistically or technically.30 Dawson, ed., Mission to Asia, at p. 101. It may have been the addition of pearls and precious stones that distinguished jisün wear intended for imperial banquets from ordinary nasij. Watt and Wardwell, When Silk Was Gold, at p. 138. 30 Muthesius, “Silk in the Medieval World,” p. 327. 28 29

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 149

04/01/2016 10:07

150

SHARON KINOSHITA

In the eleventh and through much of the twelfth century, Latin Europe was an avid consumer of such silks, some from as far east as Khorasan.31 In medieval French epic and romance, fabrics from Mediterranean ports such as Almería, Constantinople, and Alexandria were signifiers of splendor, wealth, and nobility.32­ By the mid-­twelfth century, Latin Europe had a nascent silk industry of its own. But it was the second half of the thirteenth century – roughly between Marco Polo’s birth (1254) and the composition of his Devisement du monde (1298) – that brought the rapid expansion of silk production in northern Italy, particularly in Lucca, a scant 20 kilometers from Rustichello’s Pisa. Raw materials for the budding Lucchese silk industry (which had been producing high-­grade silks since the second half of the twelfth century) were supplied by the Genoese, who since the time of the First Crusade (c. 1100) had been increasingly involved in the trans-­Mediterranean commerce in both fine silks and the raw materials needed for their production. Significantly, imports of raw silk from Cathay, likely transshipped through Cilician Armenia, are first documented in 1257, three years before the elder Polos’ first departure for the east. It proved inferior in quality, however, to silk from Persia or Turkestan (in part because of the degradation it suffered in the course of its long journey) and disappears from Genoese notarial records by the end of the century – likely because the designation of its Chinese origin would have depressed, rather than enhanced, its selling price. Meanwhile, the Genoese had also begun manufacturing silk themselves, albeit on a smaller scale – their high-­quality production being limited to fabrics interwoven with gold and purpure (produced by specialized artisans attested in the city from the early part of the century).33 Venice, too, was developing its production capabilities, specializing in silks and half-­silks (cloths in which the main warp consisted of coarse linen) decorated with animals and birds or sacred/ecclesiastical figures and destined primarily for markets in Germany and England.34 Given this context, it is certainly not far-­fetched to understand Niccolo and Maffeo Polo’s first journey to the east in 1260–1269 and their second journey, with Marco, in 1271–1295 against the background of Venetian-­ Genoese ­competition over trade not just in finished luxury silks but also in raw materials 31 For example, the so-­called Shroud of Saint-­Josse, a piece of samite featuring confronted elephants and a blessing in stylized Kufic script, donated to the abbey of Saint-­ Josse (in Pas-­de-­Calais, France) by Stephen of Blois, the future king of England, in 1134. www  louvre.fr/oeuvre-­notices/suaire-­de-­saint-­josse-­0 (accessed July 13, 2014). 32 Sharon Kinoshita, “Almería Silk and the French Feudal Imaginary: Towards a ‘Material’ History of the Medieval Mediterranean,” in Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings, ed. E. Jane Burns (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 165–76; see also Burns, Courtly Love Undressed, pp. 181–229. 33 Robert Sabatino Lopez, “China Silk in Europe in the Yuan Period,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 72, no. 2 (1952), pp. 72–6, at pp. 74–5, and Jacoby, “Genoa, Silk Trade and Silk Manufacture.” 34 Donald King, “Some Unrecognised Venetian Woven Fabrics,” Victoria and Albert Museum Yearbook 1 (1969), pp. 53–63; rpt. in Collected Textile Studies, ed. A. Muthesius and M. King (London, Pindar Press, 2004), pp. 111–34.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 150

04/01/2016 10:07



SILK IN THE AGE OF MARCO POLO

151

to feed the expansion of silk production in northern Italy itself. Economic historian Robert Lopez long ago noted “indications that Genoese merchants going to Cathay endeavored to keep secret their intentions to prevent competitors from jumping on the band wagon”;35 in the Devisement du monde, Marco notes that “les marchians de Jene” [merchants from Genoa] have been sailing the Caspian Sea, source of “la soie ke est apellé G[h]elle” (XXIII.17–18, p. 328) [the silk called Ghelle]. An anonymous merchant manual dated to 1278 and alluding to the silk markets of Alexandria, Acre, Laiazzo (in Cilician Armenia), Ania (Asia Minor), and the Frankish Peloponnese suggests the interest Rustichello’s Pisa would have had in the silk trade.36 By the time Marco and Rustichello composed the Devisement du monde, silks from Mongol lands had become luxury items in Latin Europe: a case in point is the gold-­on-­white lampas with a pattern of tiny flowers in the cope of Benedict XI (d. 1304), the last Roman pope before the Babylonian Captivity.37 Moreover, imported “Tartar” cloths had begun to “revolutionize” western silk design: “dragons, exotic birds and swirling foliate motifs” were imitated from imported panni tartarici. “Traditional animals were set in dynamic compositions often accompanied by an exotic creature borrowed from the east and scrolls bearing pseudo Islamic script.”38 Such borrowings sometimes made it difficult to distinguish Italian silks from imported ones: already in 1311 (a year after the composition of BNF f. fr. 1116, the Franco-­Italian manuscript containing the version of the Devisement du monde widely acknowledged as being closest to the lost original), an inventory made for Pope Clement V lists a tunic “of Mongol or Lucchese cloth.”39 Produced by the same historical conjuncture chronicled in Marco Polo’s Le Devisement du monde, this “Mongol-­Lucchese” silk marks a departure from the “International style” that had dominated silk production in the high medieval Mediterranean for centuries. Most of the changes associated with the pax mongolica proved short-­lived: Mongol rule was overthrown in Persia in the 1330s and in China in 1368. Marco Polo’s Le Devisement du monde, however, chronicles the moment when Mongol power was in its ascendancy, when the traffic in silk catalyzed contact between cultures ranging from Latin Europe to China, in dynamic modalities of exchange that unsettled political, confessional, and cultural binarisms of all kinds.

Lopez, “China Silk in Europe,” pp. 75–6. Jacoby, “Genoa, Silk Trade and Silk Manufacture,” p. 29. 37 Watt and Wardwell, When Silk Was Gold, catalogue number 37, pp. 146–7. The cope is in the Church of San Domenico in Perugia, where Boniface died; two fragments are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (19.191.3 and 46.156.22). Watt and Wardwell compare “the seemingly haphazard abandon with which the tiny motifs have been strewn across the surface” to the patterns of “flowers, animals, and birds . . . on a dense ground of small, scattered leaves” found in Uighur kesi. When Silk Was Gold, p. 129. 38 Muthesius, “Silk in the Medieval World,” p. 351. Muthesius places this influence in the “early thirteenth” century, but her examples are from the early fourteenth. 39 Watt and Wardwell, When Silk Was Gold, p. 132. 35 36

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 151

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 152

04/01/2016 10:07

Another Land’s End of Literature: Honorat Bovet and the Timbuktu Effect Helen Solterer Amid a line-­up of intellectuals representing major traditions in pre-­modern Europe, a Muslim figure stands out (fig. 1). The only man of color, “aussy noir comme charbon,” as black as coal, he steps out, dressed in a fur-­line robe that displays his wealth and prestige.1 This portrait introduces a Saracen who takes his place with these men of science while he rivals them in all his difference. His authority is doubly challenging. Not only does his presence between a doctor and a Jew raise the Muslim question for intellectual life in late medieval Paris; but he does so at the center of the French Christian tradition. Honorat Bovet, the author who created this Muslim figure, did so when the kingdom of France was at war, during a “tres perilleux temps, Nombre de XIIII cens ans, au dit commun de maint Crestiens, Juifs, Sarrazins et payens” [very perilous time, 1400, as is commonly said by many Christians, Jews, Saracens, and pagans].2 Crusaders had been routed at Nicopolis, and bulletins of their humiliating enslavement sent back to Paris: the Christian world was braced against their adversaries in the East, the Ottoman Turks, for the first time. Bovet admits to his patron, Jean de Montaigu, the dread this situation inspires: “jay paour . . . et sy doubte que les Sarrazins durement ne griefvent Crestineté” [I fear and am apprehensive of the harm Saracens can inflict on the Christian world, l. 28–29, 60]. It is in this defeatist context, nonetheless, that Bovet invents an eloquent Saracen to ventriloquize a Muslim tradition menacing the French. Rather than keeping the enemy at bay, in a rare move, he entertains its representative. In the Apparicion Maistre Jean de Meun, Bovet designs a political 1 Michael Hanly signals this “black Sarrazin as ultimate cultural outsider” in his excellent edition Medieval Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Dialogue: The Apparicion Maistre Jehan de Meun of Honorat de Bovet (Tempe, AZ, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005), p. 37. On the moral and cultural significance of blackness, see Lynn T. Ramey, Black Legacies: Race and the European Middle Ages (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 2014), and Michel Pastoureau, Noir: Histoire d’une couleur (Paris, Seuil, 2013). For all kinds of debate around Muslim and Jewish culture in France and Spain, I thank Émilie Picherot, Jill Ross, and the “Pre-­Modern Times” seminar at Duke University and the University of Toronto, especially Caroline Purse. 2 Paris, BnF, français 810, fol. 4v; Hanley, ed., Medieval Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Dialogue, p. 64; all translations mine.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 153

04/01/2016 10:07

154

HELEN SOLTERER

Fig. 1.  Paris, BnF, français 810, dated 1398–99. Fol. 6v. The ‘petit libel l’Apparacion maistre Jean de Meun’ (the little book the Apparition master Jean de Meun): a copy prepared for Jean de Montaigu, a counselor of Louis d’Orléans. The Prior of Salon speaking to Master Jean de Meun, on the left, presents four debaters: a physician, a Saracen, a Jew, a Dominican.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 154

04/01/2016 10:07



ANOTHER LAND’S END OF LITERATURE: HONORAT BOVET

155

debate that unfolds before Paris’s most esteemed vernacular poet, is moderated by his fictive double, the Prior of Salon, and foregrounds the Saracen debater holding forth at great length. Bovet develops his voice strategically. He enlists it to report on the failings of the French, to reckon with their defeat, and to call urgently for reform. He even directs the Saracen’s critique to those in power, delivering two manuscript copies of the Apparicion to the circle of Louis, Duke of Orléans, the king’s brother.3 The strategic writing of this little-­known author challenges us to think further about the creative rapport between scholastic Catholic and Muslim traditions in pre-­modern France. Creative, yes, because I’ll argue that Bovet transforms the expected confrontation between them by experimenting with the learning of the adversary in a tour de force of writing. Bovet’s Saracen points to a writer conversant with literature of Muslim domains. The figures and genres that Bovet uses are not the familiar ones coming from the first literary contact zone with Muslim North Africa and the Middle East: love literature. Instead of courtly poetry, he taps into political and historical genres as they were conceived in Muslim realms. The Apparicion as a whole has the quality of an experiment with a variety of modes less familiar to audiences in Paris, and other French-­ speaking areas. It’s this experimental character that is symptomatic of a different kind of engagement between Christian writer and Muslim tradition – a fruitful one. My interest here is the writer’s ingenuity: the choice of working tactically with (the fictions of) the enemy and innovating his own writing in the process. However easy it is to assess the Apparicion as an exotic, Orientalist vision, it is worthwhile resisting this reflex. Rather than view it as one more work that co-­opts elements of Muslim culture roughly, ignorant of their specific qualities, adamant to dominate, it is useful to look again – and this because the multi-­layered character of this work, and its Saracen figurehead, suggest another writerly modus operandi entirely. Bovet’s inventiveness depends on a subtle rapprochement with writing from the Muslim world instead of outright opposition to it. In his political vision, admitting fear and striking a defensive posture paves the way for new, productive poetic relations. This is a model that takes the writer and his readers all the way to another land’s end of literature. The Islamic South is far less known than the finis terra of Brittany and the Celtic domains that grounded so much of pre-­modern fiction.4­This is especially true for the deep South of the Sahara. Yet its resources were no less promising, and no less available to writers in French. While we 3 The Parisian manuscripts, c. 1400, were dedicated to a military man, Jean de Montaigu, who advised Charles VI, Paris, BnF, français 810, fol. 1; to Louis d’Orléans, Charles VI’s brother, a monsieur duc d’orleans, BnF, français 810, fol. 1v; and to his consort, a ma dame d’orliens, Valentine Visconti, another Southerner whom Bovet defended with poetry, BnF, français 811, fols. 1v–2, 8. 4 Sharon Kinoshita has done much to open up this inquiry: “Worlding Medieval French Literature,” in French Global: A New Approach to Literary History, ed. Christy McDonald and Susan Rubin Suleiman (New York, Columbia University Press, 2010), pp. 3–20.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 155

04/01/2016 10:07

156

HELEN SOLTERER

are ­accustomed to think of these resources in the context of other late medieval Romance literatures, of Catalan or Castilian and its relations with the poets of al-­Andalus, the promise for those composing in Occitan among other vernaculars of the French kingdom was also strong, if less immediate or pressing.5 In order to conceptualize this other literary land’s end, I will focus on literary form – that crucible of innovation for pre-­modern writers. Examining Bovet’s Apparicion in formal terms will help us to discover the ways a writer probed Muslim traditions to their limit – beyond the usual circumference of Mediterranean culture and its celebrated love literature. This inquiry begins, then, with a critical double-­take, a practice that many will recognize as a Jane Burns signature. With an eye for detail, and a sense of play, she zeroes in consistently on the inventions of literature that have been distorted or forgotten. Her book Sea of Silk makes a grand tour of a multitude of such figures from Saracen lands into French.6 In the playful spirit of her thinking, I’ll investigate the case of Bovet and his Apparicion so as to explore a far-­ reaching view onto the Islamic South, one that extends into the Sahara and the African interior. Bovet and his little-­known work offer a test case for situating pre-­modern political writers in relation to a wider expanse of Islam, and tracking the literary exchange that gave their writing renewed force. Speaking discord What forms of debate between religious traditions could Bovet invent anew? Close to his own generation was the voluminous writing of Ramon Lull, one of the uncommon clerics who mastered literary Arabic, disputed with Muslim intellectuals, and sought to train Christian missionaries in this learned culture.7 His Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men (c. 1275) crackles with a polemic designed to correct errors in belief: segneurs dist li uns des sages a ses compaignons. Pensez au granz domages s’ensuit. De ce que toutes genz ne vont a une creance tout seulement. Et come grant bone aventure et con granz profiz seroit se il avoient une seule loy. Si 5 Landmark contributions include: Luce López Baralt, Huellas del Islam en la literatura española de Juan Ruiz a Juan Goytisolo (Madrid, Hiperión 1989); The Literature of ­Al-­Andalus, ed. María Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006); Ryan Szpiech, Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press 2013). 6 E. Jane Burns, Sea of Silk: A Textile Geography of Women’s Work in Medieval French Literature (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), pp. 5–7. 7 According to Jean de Roquetaillade, Lull’s work was known in Avignon (1356); see Raymond Lull et le pays d’oc (Toulouse, Privat, 1987), p. 71. Lull also had a major following in Paris, Bovet’s second country; see J. N. Hillgarth, Ramon Lull and Lullism in Fourteenth-­ Century France (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971), at pp. 69, 124, and 151. On his Arabic, see Dominique Urvoy, Penser l’Islam: les présupposés islamiques de l’art de Lull (Paris, J. Vrin, 1980).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 156

04/01/2016 10:07



ANOTHER LAND’S END OF LITERATURE: HONORAT BOVET

157

dist seigneur vos vendroit il a pleisur que nos fusson dely ceste fonteinne en l’ombre de ces biaus arbre et que nos desputissons de nos creances . . . [Think, gentlemen. . .of the harm that comes from men not belonging to a single sect, and of the good that would come from everyone being beneath one faith and one religion. This being the case, do you not think it would be a good idea for us to sit beneath these trees. . .and discuss what we believe . . .?]8

The drive for doctrinal dominance that we notice today defines the combative rhetoric and logical showdowns of the debate genre. In such a framework, the credos of competing religions would clearly not stand. Yet in his Book, not unlike Bovet’s Apparacion, Lull nonetheless devotes equal time to a Jewish, Christian, and Saracen seigneur each of whom in turn espouses his cause (fig. 2). It pitches their debate to the so-­called gentile, a foreigner who lies outside the pale of all belief. Lull familiarizes Christian audiences with the vying claims of the religions of the “Book,” combining them in the trees of knowledge, and the trees of vices and virtues, so as to claim in the end the Christians’ own superior reason. Lull’s Jewish, Christian, Saracen debate brings to the fore the paradox that John Tolan captures so well: the writing of Christian proselytizers is informed by the Muslim culture it decries.9 It draws on a major repertory including Judah Halevi’s Kuzari or Book of Refutation and Proof on behalf of the Despised Religion (c. 1130) and Mohammed Shahrastani’s Book of Religions and Philosophical Sects (c. 1130).10 In Lull’s case, the triptych form links his writing to these communities who co-­existed in his native Majorca, as along the coast of North Africa, in the Maghreb. So do the multiple languages of his Book; composed first in the Arabic he had learned, and reworked in Catalan and French. Translation helped circulate the work in milieux as far-­flung as the medina of Bougie in modern-­day Algeria, as the papal court in Avignon, and as the university corridors in Paris where this manuscript of Lull’s book was made around 1300. Bovet’s Saracen is certainly akin to Lull’s – an erudite debater who “speaks truly, according to his Muhammed” [l. 300–01, 82]. Yet Bovet creates a figure with a trenchant political voice, one commenting authoritatively on the French people, as well as on the internal strife dividing Christendom. He does so 8 Selected Works of Ramon Lull (1232–1316), ed. and trans. Anthony Bonner (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1985), vol. 1, p. 116. Paris, BnF, français 22933, fol. 68. See also Dominique de Courcelles’ translation of the Catalan text: Raymond Lulle, Le Livre du Gentil et des trois sages (Combas, Éditions de l’Éclat, 1992), p. 35, and William E. Burgwinkle, “The Translator as Interpretant: Passing with the Work of Ramon Llull,” in Rethinking Medieval Translation: Ethics, Politics, Theory, ed. Emma Campbell and Robert Mills (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2012), pp. 184–203. 9 John Tolan, “Forging New Paradigms: Towards a History of Islamo-­ Christian Civilization,” in A Sea of Languages: Rethinking the Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History, ed. Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Karla Mallette (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2013), p. 65. 10 Alex J. Novikoff, The Medieval Culture of Disputation: Pedagogy, Practice, and Performance (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), pp. 201–2.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 157

04/01/2016 10:07

158

HELEN SOLTERER

Fig. 2.  Paris, BnF, français 22933, fol. 64. Le Livre du Gentil et des trois sages of Raymond Lull, translated in French, in a Parisian compilation of didactic works. The Saracen here, without a turban, but with other headwear, is a less identifiable figure.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 158

04/01/2016 10:07



ANOTHER LAND’S END OF LITERATURE: HONORAT BOVET

159

­strategically, externalizing first the dangers of such commentary: “sire . . . or vy je mal ceste encontree, Se pour ce me faites mourir” [Sire . . . I have a bad feeling about this encounter, for you could have me killed, l. 344–5, 84].11 This voice is less the rational one of Lull’s theological debate than a passionate, politically minded one. Bovet fields the risk of an outsider speaking truth by composing a dialogue among equals – although none is more equal than the Christian and Muslim sages. “Sire” is the address used by Jean de Meun and Saracen, highlighted by gilt initials in the manuscript for Jean de Montaigu; even when the Saracen spars with the Dominican, they maintain dignified terms of mutual respect (BnF 810, fol. 11v; l.1234, 130). Bovet uses this Islamo-­Christian face-­off to cast the theological problem of the schism as a political struggle. These two figures debate Christendom’s international power in jeopardy. The Saracen is the first to outline the military danger: quant nostre gent bien saura Ce descord qui entre vous va, Ilz n’auront doubte ne paour De Crestienté mettre en cremour, Car gent qui a descort en loy Ne s’aydera par bon arroy, Ne ja victoire n’aura gent S’en une loy ne se maintient. [when our people learn about this strife among you, they will no longer doubt or fear that they can terrify Christianity, because people divided in belief will never help themselves to fight the good fight, nor will they ever have victory unless they accept one law, l. 366–71, 86.]

The Dominican is left the task of tackling the crisis: le temps est venus Qu’ilz ne en seront plus creuz, Car ly mondes voit par exprez Leurs oultrages et leurs excez, Sy feront tant princes et clers Que, puis qu’ilz ont fait droit envers, Ilz retourneront l’envers droit, Pour ce que chascun aye droit. [the time has come when they [the Roman popes] will no longer be believed for the world clearly sees their folly and their extravagance and since they have upended the law, many princes and clergy will return it to order so that everyone will have rights, l. 1236–43, 130] 11 Jean-­Claude Mühlethaler, “Tristesse de l’engagement: l’affectivité dans le discours politique sous le règne de Charles VI,” Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes 24 (2012), pp. 21–36.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 159

04/01/2016 10:07

160

HELEN SOLTERER

In such a political analysis of the schism, Muslim and Christian are in tacit agreement. From different sides of the battlefield, they assess the state of war similarly. Bovet’s inventive “unholy” alliance conjoins religion and politics in a manner typical of pre-­modern thought on theocracy; it is also akin to an ­attitude today that typecasts the Arab world in distorted religious terms of Islam. Yet Bovet underscores the political stakes through the controversial arguments of each speaker. The doctor challenges efforts to discredit his science at a time when the monarch, Charles VI, needs medical attention. The Jew campaigns for his return to the French kingdom, and the necessary, reputable practice of loaning money. It is the Saracen-­Dominican duo, however, that epitomizes the politicization of the debate: a Christian charging his Church with tyranny, in league with a Muslim who indicts Christendom for systematic corruption. This political tenor marks a change that sets Bovet’s Apparacion apart from the traditional religious dialogues known for splitting every doctrinal hair. A freelance interpreter Such a re-­invented form of debate gives the Saracen a new profile. Car je suy plus franc trocimant Qui soit en Sarrazime grant; Car je scay parler tout langage; Et sy suy homme de parage Et suy bon clerc en nostre ploy; En tous estas m’enten un poy, Et sys cay faire ryme et vers Et le droit retourner enver. [I am an interpreter, the most free and clear among the great ­Saracens; for I know how to speak all languages; I am a nobleman, and I am a cleric well versed in our tradition; I understand something of all class of people and I also know how to compose in rhyme and verse, and to turn the law all around, l. 303–10, 82].

“Trocimant,” from the Arabic targuman, identifies him as an interpreter – in the largest sense – the role that Zrinka Stahuljak has brought to our critical attention.12 Here is an intellectual whose range of expertise exemplifies the versatility of the Muslim sage and distinguishes him from the majority of European schoolmen at the time – Ramon Lull excepting. It is striking that Bovet uses this Arabic term to accentuate the Saracen’s novelty. He is 12 See Zrinka Stahuljak, “Medieval Fixers: Politics of Interpreting in Western Historiography,” in Rethinking Medieval Translation, pp. 148–9; Laura Minervini, “Les Emprunts arabes et grecs dans le lexique français d’Orient (XIIIe–XIVe siècles),” Revue de linguistique romane 76 (2012), pp. 27–8. In manuscript, Paris, BnF 811, fol. 11, a later hand adds the translating comment: “truchement.”

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 160

04/01/2016 10:07



ANOTHER LAND’S END OF LITERATURE: HONORAT BOVET

161

a  twin neither of the infidel warrior in epic literature nor of the merchant or pirate from comic tales such as Aucassin et Nicolette.13 This Saracen is a scholar, a wandering one sent to observe “l’estat des Crestians, Et tout especial des Frans” [the state of Christendom, and especially the French, l. 313–14, 82]. Bovet creates a Muslim persona whose learning is the fruit of his travels. Although his starting point is never explicit, the Apparacion makes clear that he has set out from the Ottoman stronghold in Turkey, traveled through Rome, and halted outside Paris, the site of the debate. He is on his way to Granada, and the caliphate of al-­Andalus, via the kingdom of Aragon. He will continue on, “to Belamary,” the territories of the Marinids in Morocco-­Algeria, “et aux autres roys qui sont dela Tant que vers miedy terre y a” [and to the other kings there, those down in southern lands, l. 732–4, 104]. His itinerary spans the world of Islam, from the eastern Mediterranean to the west, from Europe, in the north, to the interior of the Maghreb, in the south; and it is designed to take him through the centers of Christian authority. Bovet’s traveling persona startles all the more because he is the “plus franc trocimant qui soit en Sarrazime grant” [the most noble and frank interpreter in all of the Muslim world, l. 303]. For any French-­speaking audience, “franc” is their signature trait. “Franchise,” a freedom from all social and economic ties, distinguishes the people of France and grounds the myth of their singularity.14­ Is Bovet provoking his audience? A Saracen who appears more “franc” than the French themselves? The lexical play is certainly in keeping with the experimental, probing style of his work, and the respect given this figure all the way along. In all his traits, this freelance Muslim interpreter is the culmination of Bovet’s formal experimentation. Fleshed out more fully than the persona in Paris’s miracle plays who speaks “saracen and Turkish,” he plays a larger role than Froissart’s translator, the “drug(e)man,” in contemporaneous chronicles of the Crusades.15 The real innovation here comes in representing a traveling life identified with the Muslim intellectual. “In order to train themselves, students set out on camelback or on foot,” Ibn Khaldūn writes around 1375, “and it is desirable that they acquire knowledge of the people, of those who don’t have much experience.”16 Travel in search of knowledge was essential, the very 13 Sharon Kinoshita, “Beyond Philology: Cross-­Cultural Engagement in Literary History and Beyond,” in A Sea of Languages, p. 33. 14 Colette Beaune, La Naissance de la nation France (Paris, Gallimard, 1985), p. 420. 15 “Je vous y vail un drugeman / Pour ce que j’entends bien latin / Et que je parle sarrasin et turquien,” in Miracle de Nostre Dame par personnage ed. Gaston Paris et Ulysse Robert (Paris, Firmin Didot, 1876), vol. 5, l. 2123–6, 328; Jean Froissart, Chroniques, in Oeuvres de Froissart, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove (Brussels, Académie royale de Belgique, 1867) vol. 14, book 4, chap. XV, p. 233. 16 Ibn Khaldoûn, Les Textes sociologiques et économiques de la Mouqaddima, ­1375–1379, trans. and ed. G.-­H. Bousquet (Paris, Éditions Marcel Rivière et Cie, 1965), p. 19. My ­translation from the French.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 161

04/01/2016 10:07

162

HELEN SOLTERER

c­ ondition for knowing oneself, as this renowned scholar and Bovet’s contemporary explained in a treatise on the social science of history.17 By characterizing his traveling Saracen in this way, Bovet adapts the Muslim profile of the man of science. His figure surpasses any scholar in Europe who wanders from university to university, the Irish “nation” to Paris, the Slavic one to Bologna. He is exceptional because his traveling qualifies him as an ethnographer of sorts. Reporting on a culture not his own, evaluating customs and behavior, he personifies the scholar committed to investigating less known societies for the benefit of his own. In this, Bovet differentiates him from the other debaters in the Apparition. His Saracen does not appear to have ever belonged to the world of Paris; nor is he likely to join. This intellectual is defined by his movement – a passeur. Through a fictive persona whose name and role Bovet fashions with Muslim literary tradition, the writer creates an effective critic. It’s this figure, with the widest, most worldly perspective, who interprets the political debacle and delivers the necessary corrective. Bovet’s ethnographer–interpreter becomes the mouthpiece for an in-­depth analysis of “the state of France” following the “saracen” victory (l. 34, 64). In military terms, their divided state makes the French easy to conquer, their weakness revealed by their disregard for their own soldiers in Ottoman slavery. In moral terms, they are soft-­willed: “Crestienté ne vit qu’en bobance, Et par especial gent de Franc” [Christians always live debauched lives, especially the French people, l. 669–70, 100]. Bovet reverses the stereotype of opulent, effeminate Muslims and makes his first audience in Paris, the Armagnac party surrounding the king, the butt of their own judgment. Their attributes are tallied up – perjury, brigandage, disrespect for marriage – and the result is a full-­fledged critical ethnography of the people of France. Such ethnographic writing gives a remarkably creative twist to the paradox of indebtedness to Muslim culture, for it gives priority to a Muslim point of view, as well as to this novel literary mode of transmitting it. The Saracen script Over and above the shock value of Bovet’s writing for the royal court of France, his persona serves a tactical purpose. The Muslim interpreter is a foil for the ­writer’s invective. Under the guise of a foreign, rival persona of his own making, he delivers his judgment of the French, Christian community with impunity. Long before Montesquieu and his Persian Letters, as Jean Batany demonstrates, an intellectual deploys a fictive Easterner to introduce a critical vantage point from without, an alarming one that proves ultimately productive.18 Bovet’s 17 See Ramzi Rouighi, The Making of a Mediterranean Emirate, Ifrīquiyā and Its Andalusis, 1200–1400 (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), p. 132. 18 Jean Batany, “Un Usbek au XIVe siècle: le Sarrasin juge des Français dans L’Apparicion Jehan de Meun,” in Images et signes de l’Orient dans l’Occident médiéval: littérature et ­civilisation, ed. Jean Arrouye, Sénéfiance 11 (1982), p. 43.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 162

04/01/2016 10:07



ANOTHER LAND’S END OF LITERATURE: HONORAT BOVET

163

version of this tactic of fiction is also self-­protective. The Saracen ethnographer is his perfect double because he offers a script for France’s disarray while providing a shield for such a “free” critique. This invention radicalizes Bovet’s fiction, further politicizing the debate in a way unprecedented for the time. With the brilliant strategy of his Saracen double, Bovet responds to the fundamental tension between truth and power that defines any dealings of writer and ruler.19 The outside posture reinforces the value of his account. No one in the entire Apparicion broaches more home truths, more clearly than the Saracen interpreter–ethnographer; in fact, his voice exemplifies the virtue that the Parisian scholastic de Meun espouses: “Et se je fusse com jadiz, / Je deisse bien mon adviz /Au monde plain d’iniquité . . . De dire le vray sans mentir / Quer vecy tres perilleux temps” [If I were my former self, I would certainly give my advice to this world full of iniquity . . . I would speak without lying, for this is a very perilous time, l. 21–7, 64]. So the way is paved for the final installment of critique, articulated this time in the voice of Bovet’s own persona, the Prior. Alert to the threat his candid report poses for his patrons, Saracen-­ like, he voices the fear surrounding truth-­telling: “je n’ay pas mestier d’estre en hayne de personne du monde, comme cellui qui suy hors de mon pays” [I have no need of being hated by anyone in the world, as someone outside my own country, l. 161–2, 148]. Bovet and the Prior are twinned again: foreigners who flag the precarious position in which their critique puts them; critics who still do not back off. What follows is an eccentric exemplum of a date palm tree and a gourd. Bovet transposes a literary form that is stock-­in-­trade for Parisian schoolmen with figures coming from elsewhere. Southern flora are the figures of a tale about his former patron, Raymond Roger, and his unruly politics in Provence. The exemplum expresses Bovet’s Occitan roots.20 It also demonstrates a literary culture shared with the Arabo-­Muslim traditions which makes rich use of these figures; in the Koran, as in the short stories, the Maqamat, where these trees and vegetables abound.21 The exemplum even signals Bovet’s ingenuity in making his own persona, the Prior, tell didactic stories akin to those of Islam – his skill complementing the Saracen’s knowledge of French Christendom. An entirely different persona for the writer is taking form here, one little known to Bovet’s first audiences in Paris. Interpreter, traveling ethnographer, free-­speaking critic who converses increasingly with various Muslim cultures: all these distinctive qualities make for a complex, diverse, and worldly wise figure. They contribute richly to what is already a composite persona. Late 19 Michael Hanly calls the Sarrazin, “the Prieur in black-­face.” “Et prendre nom de Sarrazin: Islam as the Symptom of Western Iniquity in Honorat Bovet’s L’apparicion maistre Jehan de Meun,” multilingua 18, nos. 2–3 (1999), p. 232. 20 Hélène Biu, “Honorat Bovet,” Histoire littéraire de la France 43, no. 1 (2005), p. 95, and “La traduction occitane de ‘L’arbre des batailles’ d’Honorat Bovet,” thesis, École ­nationale des chartes, 2000. 21 See BnF, arabe 5837, c. 1237, esp. fol. 100v.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 163

04/01/2016 10:07

164

HELEN SOLTERER

medieval literature abounds with other profiles that Bovet adopts. The Roman counselor who gives truthful advice to his leader is visible in Jean de Meun’s persona.22 The scholastic scribe resurfaces, the textual worker whom Christine de Pizan will later adopt to acknowledge her inferior status and authorize her work. The Biblical prophet appears too, the face adopted by many visionary writers grappling with the schism. Introducing this Saracen transforms the persona in another sophisticated manner. Bovet pioneers an international, political persona of the writer emerging from, and engaging with the South. All the innovations that we have uncovered – the debate genre, the Saracen figure, and the writer’s new persona – are exceptional. Bovet chose to explore Arabo-­Islamic literary culture precisely when that world, from the Ottomans to the Marinids in the Maghreb, was a violent political threat to his own. His background put him in position to do so. Born in Provence, trained in law at Montpellier and Avignon, where he served the papal court, he had ample opportunity to learn something of these other cultures.23 In these southern milieux, he crossed paths with Andalusis and Maghrebines. When he entered service of the French king, Charles VI, he undertook missions to the kingdom of Aragon in Spain around 1390, and it was there that he likely encountered emissaries from caliphates further south. This Occitan writer whose culture was already infused with Arabo-­Muslim traditions was primed to delve deeper into its literatures, and thereby enrich his own expertly. Bovet’s biography helps us to recognize the full implications of the formal play of his writing. During protracted conflict on all political fronts, on the home front with the schismatic papacy in Avignon, as abroad with the Ottoman war, literature promises much. It can offer an early form for negotiation. The so-­called “second-­hand” work of the writer of fiction is crucial. By orchestrating a greater formal diversity in his work, Bovet makes connections between the Christian culture of the French kingdom and its Muslim counterparts. While the Apparicion conveys a defensive and combative message, its mix of genres and personae does more. It begins to establish a rapport between adversaries. What happens formally in the writing suggests a rapprochement that all-­out war prevents. Bovet makes his mark as a fiction-­maker in just this subtle manner. The unusual combinations that incorporate Muslim literary forms in his writing are proof of his skill at poetic negotiation. The experimental mix is often baffling for some of his first audience, as for us. It’s also ingenious. Bovet was on the 22 Foucault examines this role of truth-­telling, of saying everything, parrêsia, in relation to the Greeks, but the pre-­modern record is equally strong: see Le Courage de la vérité:  le gouvernement de soi, et des autres cours au Collège de France 1983–84 (Paris, Gallimard, 2009); “The Practice of Parrhesia,” in Discourse and Truth: The Problematization of Parrhesia, ed. Joseph Pearson, Digital Archive: Foucault info, 1999: http://foucault.info/ documents/­parrhesia/index.html. 23 Hélène Biu, “Honorat Bovet,” p. 95; Hélène Millet et Michael Hanly, “Les Batailles d’Honorat Bovet: essai de biographie,” Romania 114 (1996), p. 144.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 164

04/01/2016 10:07



ANOTHER LAND’S END OF LITERATURE: HONORAT BOVET

165

front line between rival cultures, drawing them closer together through the shape and texture of his fiction: the writer as diplomat.24 At a formal level, his political literature is an art of the possible: the writing inventive, because it is open-­ended, multicultural. It proceeds by imagining intercourse between peoples who otherwise are governed by murderous competition and hatred. The writer’s diplomatic word, then, emerges as a key medium of communication. In the Ambaxiator Brevilogus, a treatise that circulated some thirty years after the Apparacion, it is the qualities of fearlessness, honesty, and diversity that define the ambassador and his language – the very traits distinguishing Bovet and his text.25 This type of interpreter, the treatise emphasizes, can assume the name ambassador (fol. 46v). Modus loquendi diversus – this manner of speaking that is the ambassador’s calling card – includes different modes of expression. Bovet the diplomatic writer counts among his what Ramon Lull called the Arabic mode.26 If it does not involve mastery of the actual language, it does suggest working with various literary forms that typify this other tradition. And Bovet seems to pursue this engagement in a spirit that is less the martial one of absolute hostility, than the diplomatic one of curiosity and respect. In such sustained play with Muslim literature, he posits a creative relation between demoralized Christian France and the Ottomans on the rise, entertaining a most subtle negotiation. To recognize this form and function of the vision poem places Bovet arguably in another cohort of writers. It puts him beside Ibn Khaldūn, the historian renowned for negotiating between warring peoples in the Maghreb, the Hafsid kingdom of Ifriqiya in Tunis, and the Marinids in Fez.27 The Christian writer working in French can be associated with his Muslim contemporary just as strongly as with those of his own tribe: cleric Jean Gerson, court poet Eustache Deschamps, political writer Philipe de Mezières, or fellow Southerner Christine de Pizan. The Timbuktu effect Accounting for Honorat Bovet’s Arabic mode brings us ultimately up against what I call the Timbuktu effect. It is simple enough to gauge: Arabo-­Muslim 24 Timothy Hampton, Fictions of Embassy: Literature and Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2009), p. 18. 25 See “de qualitate et moribus ambaxiatorum,” BnF, lat. 6020, fols. 46v–47v. It is worth noting that this 1436 work, considered the first manual of diplomacy, was composed by another Southerner, Bernard du Rogier, a Toulouse jurist and Bovet’s near contemporary. 26 Lull admits the difficulty of his modus loquendi arabicus when lecturing at the University of Paris, c. 1310. See Ramon Lull, A Contemporary Life, ed. and trans. Anthony Bonner (Barcelona, Barcino, 2010), pp. 46–7, n. 36. 27 Jean Batany considers Ibn Khaldūn Bovet’s homologue: “Un Usbek au XIVe siècle,” p. 49. For the paradigmatic Muslim diplomat, see Roland Oliver and Anthony Atmore, Medieval Africa, 1250–1850 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 35–7; Michael Brett, Ibn Khaldūn and the Medieval Maghrib (Aldershot, Ashgate, 1999); Mohamed Talbi, Ibn Kaldun et l’histoire (Tunis, Maison tunisienne de l’Édition, 1973).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 165

04/01/2016 10:07

166

HELEN SOLTERER

cultures that appear alien to viewers in Europe are alluring. The more distant they are, the more attractive they become. In pre-­modern times, there was no more strangely distant one on the southern horizon than this one, shimmering in the desert-­like sea.28 In today’s popular culture, this Timbuktu is still in effect: think of Donald Duck, among other adventurers, enjoying the quest leading to an exotic city. Such a notion is bred, of course, out of ignorance; it creates a gulf that seems to banish pre-­modern writers of French-­speaking realms from major literate cultures of the Islamic South, including that of sub-­Saharan Africa. A negative side thus appears as well. For Christian writers, the renowned center of letters of Timbuktu takes on the appearance of a threat; and to polemicists, an unknown one of enemies gathering force. This negative side persists, emerging again recently in the news of Tuareg warriors destroying fifteenth-­century manuscripts and kidnapping Europeans.29 Bovet’s Apparicion counters the Timbuktu effect decisively. All the formal inventions of its Arabic mode that negotiate a more open relation to the world of Islam have another consequence as well. They add up to a sense of culture expanding toward the North African Muslim domain. In the words of his Saracen double, they reach “aux aultres roys qui sont dela Tant que vers miedy terre y a” [to the other kings there, those towards southern lands, l. 733–4, 104]. Bovet envisages the Maghreb and the ultimate frontier that was Timbuktu. Instead of the fabled city created by the effect, in his writing, a place that can be known comes into view. One of the significant repercussions of Bovet’s work was perhaps this: pushing recognition of foreign, adversarial Muslim cultures as far as this city of letters, as far as was possible for his milieu. By transmitting something of this southernmost world of Islam to the French court, he joins the Majorcan cartographer Abraham Cresques, whose atlas was given by Jaime I of Aragon to Charles V around 1375 (fig. 3). Cresques also established a coordinate for Timbuktu [tenbuch], in a map laying out one of the earliest geographically accurate representations of the world as it was known from the vantage point of Majorca – north towards Scandinavia, and south deep into the Sahara. Cresques gives Timbuktu a human face too. In fact, Bovet’s black Saracen heading in the direction of Timbuktu resembles Muss Melli in the atlas, “senyor dels negres de giseva aquest reyes lo pu rich et pus noble senyor de tote esta” [king of the blacks of this region, the most noble and rich of this part], holding a golden ball.30 Together they point to this other land’s end of the southernmost Muslim domains, in the region known as Ginyia (Guinea). They introduce the actual city and its people to audiences in Paris’s royal court, and thereby foster an interest in learning more of its culture. The Saracen’s image in one of Bovet’s Parisian manuscripts show tantalizing traces of an audience’s 28 David Abulafia, “Mediterraneans,” in Rethinking the Mediterranean, ed. W. V. Harris (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 65. 29 Jean-­Michel Djian, Les Manuscrits de Tombouctou: secrets, mythes et réalités (Paris, J. C. Lattès, 2012), pp. 74–5. 30 Paris, BnF, mss. espagnol 30, 3.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 166

04/01/2016 10:07



ANOTHER LAND’S END OF LITERATURE: HONORAT BOVET

167

Fig. 3.  Paris, BnF, espagnol 30, tableau 7. The Catalan Atlas gifted from the King of Aragon to the King of France.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 167

04/01/2016 10:07

168

HELEN SOLTERER

reactions: are the smudges on his face and body the sign of a caress, or a destructive touch?31 It is difficult to say for sure, just as we cannot judge whether this black Muslim doesn’t also betoken a menacing figure. Yet one way or another, the deliberate rubbing of the Saracen is a sign of curiosity. Honorat Bovet is a vernacular author whose legacy is slim at best. During his lifetime, politics at the royal court in Paris did not ultimately favor him, or his poetic form of negotiation. He was likely trapped in the power struggle around the king, his efforts to direct his writing and his carefully constructed manuscripts to key figures in Louis d’Orléans’s Armagnac party of no real enduring influence. With little subsequent reprise of this innovative work, he appears to fade away in literary history. Were it not for Christine de Pizan, who “dreamed” of his other major work, a military treatise, as she wrote her own, there would be precious little recognition of his writing. It is telling now to take up his record reinstated by Hanly, Millet, and Biu, for all that it can tell us about the experimental rapports fiction can forge between warring cultures. In the Islamo-­Christian forms he explores, Bovet raises the bar of cultural understanding, not only for his own generations but for all the subsequent ones coming down to our own day. In the diplomatic art of writing he pursued, learned and diverse, his work suggests a literary practice other than a condescending, ethnocentric one. His own Arabic mode in the Apparacion promotes deeper learning of the Arabo-­Islamic South, and in a spirit that runs counter to any colonizing enterprise avant la lettre. Bovet’s proverbial wisdom: if you can’t beat the enemy, you can approach them inventively for the time being. By puncturing the Timbuktu effect in this style, he reforms the deep forgetfulness of European intellectual life about its relations with Muslim cultures, including, as François-­Xavier Fauvelle-­Aymar argues, this center of learning and gateway to black Africa.32 With his Southern view, Bovet offers critics another model for the full expansiveness and diversity of pre-­modern literature.

31 Paris, BnF, fr. 810, fol. 10v. It is tricky to “date” the smudges, to establish whether they happened in the early years the manuscript circulated or in the intervening centuries. The ink, however, suggests that they are not modern. 32 François-­Xavier Fauvelle-­Aymar, Le Rhinocéros d’or: histoires du Moyen Âge africain (Paris, Alma, 2013), p. 23.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 168

04/01/2016 10:07

PART IV Female Authority: Networks and Influence

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 169

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 170

04/01/2016 10:07

Anne de Bretagne and Anne de France: French Female Networks at the Dawn of the Renaissance Cynthia J. Brown This article examines female networks in two French royal families of the late medieval and early Renaissance periods through a study of the paratextual dynamics in books chosen by women for other women. I concentrate on the female lineage generated by Anne de France (1461–1522), duchess of Bourbon, daughter and sister of two kings (Louis XI, Charles VIII) and unofficial regent of France (1483–1491), and Anne de Bretagne (1477–1514), twice queen of France as spouse of Charles VIII and Louis XII. Not only were these two women interconnected through Charles VIII, but an important correlation can be established between their progeny and the posterity of their books. Because neither of the two Annes produced a male heir, their cultural legacies can be partially measured through the manuscripts they had made for their female offspring.1 In focusing on two works whose creation was initiated by these mothers for their daughters, Anne de France’s Enseignements [Lessons] and the Primer of Claude de France, commissioned by Anne de Bretagne, I wish to argue that French family female networking relied on the book as a site of convergence, rather than a site of struggle and contestation, as was often the case of male-­ authored works for and about women.2 To contextualize the remarkable way in which the duchess and queen had these material objects and gifts fashioned for their female offspring, I first examine the traditional mode of the transfer of knowledge to women – from male to female – in Symphorien Champier’s Nef des dames vertueuses. Inviting Anne de France and her daughter Suzanne de Bourbon (1491–1521) to consider examples of female virtue, Symphorien Champier dedicated his printed edition of the Nef des dames vertueuses, published in Lyon in 1503,3 to 1 For biographical details, see: Jean Cluzel, Anne de France, fille de Louis XI, duchesse de Bourbon (Paris, Fayard, 2002); Pierre Pradel, Anne de France 1461–1522 (Paris, Publisud, 1986); Georges Minois, Anne de Bretagne (Paris, Fayard, 1999); and Pauline Matarasso, Queen’s Mate: Three Women of Power in France on the Eve of the Renaissance (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2001). 2 See, for example, Cynthia J. Brown, The Queen’s Library: Image-­Making at the Court of Anne of Brittany 1477–1514 (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). 3 For details on this work, see Judy Kem’s introduction to her critical edition of Symphorien Champier, La Nef des dames vertueuses (Paris, Champion, 2007), pp. 9–41. See

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 171

04/01/2016 10:07

172

CYNTHIA J. BROWN

both mother and daughter, thereby bonding them in a simultaneous sharing of his work. Book I of the Nef des dames, which exploits the popular famous-­women topos, begins not with a verbal dedication to the duchess, like many contemporary works,4 but rather with a literary tribute to Anne de France, who is integrated into the prologue’s allegorical staging of the work: following Lady Prudence’s request that the author–narrator write a defense of women, a figure suddenly appears on the scene in the guise of the duchess of Bourbon to serve as a model of virtue. Anne’s allegorical presence in the paratextual frame of the Nef des dames is highlighted by a woodcut featuring the author offering his book to the duchess of Bourbon in a more or less conventional dedication scene at the beginning of Book I (fig. 1). A rubric below the woodcut advertises the names of the image’s two protagonists: Cy commence ung petit liure intitulé les louenges, fleurs et deffenssoir des dames: composé par maistre Simphorien Champier, desdyé et enuoyé a tresnoble et tresuertueuse princesse Anne de France dame et duchesse de Bourbon et d’Auuergne. (fol. 7v)5 [Here begins a little book entitled the praises, flowers and defense of ladies: composed by Master Symphorien Champier, dedicated and sent to the most noble and most virtuous princess Anne of France, lady and duchess of Bourbon and Auvergne.]

While such liminary illustrations usually depicted the dedicatee seated and even enthroned, here Anne de France stands as she is offered the book by the kneeling author. Dressed in noble fashion, she is the centrally positioned figure in the illustration and stands out as much as she stands erect. Although most dedication woodcuts in early printed books were generic and repeatedly recycled,­this illustration was specially made for this first edition of Champier’s work, for Anne’s arms are prominently displayed at the top of the folio. The two female figures standing behind her to the right, conversing about the action

also Cynthia J. Brown, “The ‘Famous Women’ Topos in Early Sixteenth-­Century France: Echoes of Christine de Pizan,” in ‘Rien ne m’est seur que la chose incertaine’: études sur l’art d’écrire au Moyen Âge offertes à Eric Hicks, ed. J.-­C. Mühlethaler and D. Billotte (Geneva, Slatkine, 2001), pp. 149–60, and Helen Swift, Gender, Writing and Performance (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2008), pp. 172–81. 4 See, for example, Cynthia J. Brown, “Dédicaces à Anne de Bretagne: éloges d’une reine,” in Publics et publications dans les éloges collectifs de femmes à la fin du Moyen Age et sous l’Ancien Régime, ed. R.-­C. Breitenstein, Études françaises 47, no. 3 (2012), pp. 29–54. 5 In this and other citations taken directly from the original source, abbreviations have been expanded, modern capitalization has been adopted, the elision of vowels is indicated by an apostrophe and the accent aigu marks past participles. Punctuation follows ­sixteenth-­century conventions whenever possible.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 172

04/01/2016 10:07



ANNE DE BRETAGNE AND ANNE DE FRANCE: FRENCH FEMALE NETWORKS 173

Fig. 1.  Woodcut of author offering his book to Anne de France, with daughter Suzanne de Bourbon and court ladies as witnesses. Symphorien Champier, La Nef des dames vertueuses (Lyon, 1503). Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal 4o B 4344, fol. B3v.

before them, represent witnesses from the duchess’s entourage, which was comprised of noble ladies and girls Anne was well known for educating at her court.6 Two unusual features in this woodcut are noteworthy. In between Anne and Champier stands a smaller individual, whose head rises slightly above that of 6 See Eliane Viennot, “La Transmission du savoir-­faire politique, d’Anne de France à Marie de Médicis,” in La Transmission du savoir dans l’Europe des XVIe et XVIIe siècles, ed. M. R. Miranda (Paris, Champion, 2000), pp. 93–4, who claims that it was Anne de France who initiated the “nouveauté spectaculaire” [spectacular novelty] of an increased female entourage at court.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 173

04/01/2016 10:07

174

CYNTHIA J. BROWN

the kneeling author: this figure is obviously meant to represent Suzanne de Bourbon, who would have been twelve years old in 1503. Suzanne’s hand gesture indicates her reaction to the dedication of this book to her mother. What is also somewhat unconventional is the fact that the book being offered to Anne is open. Is this particular staging meant to symbolically transmit both the dedication and reception of the book, on the one hand, and the reading of it with the dedicatee’s daughter and perhaps the ladies at court, on the other hand? At the very least, the personally crafted woodcut visually translates Champier’s double dedication of his Nef des dames vertueuses to mother and daughter. For he specifically writes Book I in honor of the duchess of Bourbon, as the dedication quoted above confirms. In addition, Book III, a French translation of the Sibylles’ prophecies, and Book IV, Le livre de vraye amour [The Book of True Love], are also dedicated to Anne de France. Book II, a treatise on marriage, is dedicated to Suzanne, who in 1503 was engaged to marry Charles d’Alençon.7 Why the author designed this publication to be shared and if he imagined how that actual sharing would take place remain unknown.8 He may have anticipated that mother and daughter might read the book together, or that each would peruse the book or books dedicated to her in separate settings. Champier probably knew about Anne de France’s moralistic leanings and perhaps also her interest in conduct literature. Moreover, given Suzanne’s forthcoming marriage, the time was propitious to gain the Bourbon females’ interest in his book and in his financial well-­being. There is no evidence, however, that the Nef des dames was commissioned or that the author was compensated for his efforts. In the end, Champier’s economic and publication strategy, likely devised in conjunction with the printer, allowed him to take advantage of the potential associations between his subject matter and prospective benefactors, paying public homage to Anne de France and Suzanne de Bourbon and perhaps hoping for the daughter’s future patronage.9 At the same time, Champier targeted a wider, anonymous audience of middle-­class readers, who likely believed the book was authorized through his visual association with the ladies of the Bourbon Court in the dedication woodcut. The existence of a special copy of the work, BnF Rés. Vélins 1972, 7 The engagement was subsequently broken off. See Champier, pp. 125, 175, 235, for the other dedications. 8 For a discussion of the sharing of books made for Anne de Bretagne and/or her daughter, see Cynthia J. Brown, ‘Like Mother, Like Daughter: The Blurring of Royal Imagery in Books for Anne de Bretagne and Claude de France’, in The Cultural and Political Legacy of Anne de Bretagne, ed. C. J. Brown (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 101–21. 9 In Champier, pp. 12–13, Kem contends that the author was actually seeking a position as physician at the Bourbon court. In “Antoine Dufour’s Vies des femmes célèbres,” in The Cultural and Political Legacy of Anne de Bretagne: Negotiating Convention in Books and Documents, ed. C. J. Brown (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2010), p. 66, Michelle Szkilnik examines how Champier “positioned himself in regard to his royal patron and the ladies for whom he wrote.”

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 174

04/01/2016 10:07



ANNE DE BRETAGNE AND ANNE DE FRANCE: FRENCH FEMALE NETWORKS 175

i­ ntroduces an interesting wrinkle into the history of this first edition of the Nef des dames vertueuses. Printed on vellum and decorated with painted w ­ oodcuts, this version resembles the many hybrid publications specially prepared by Champier’s contemporary, the famous publisher Antoine Vérard, for his noble clients.10 Champier had apparently approached the printer, Jacques Arnoullet, because of his expertise in such luxury volumes.11 It has long been assumed, given the book’s lavish character, the integration of Anne de France into the allegorical narrative, the presence of her arms in the dedication woodcut and Champier’s dedication of three books of the work to the duchess, that this manuscript-­like copy was the very one offered to Anne de France herself. In the painted dedication illustration (fig. 2), Anne is dressed in a more fashionable brocade gown than in the woodcut, with a slightly different headdress. One of the two female figures standing behind Anne looks more like a nun, or perhaps a lady in mourning, than the stylish lady of the original woodcut. Most striking is the absence of Suzanne de Bourbon: she has essentially been painted out of this supposedly personalized version. Why would one of the bookmakers have had the figure representing Anne de France’s daughter and co-­dedicatee eliminated from the original woodcut? Were two different dedication copies envisioned – one for Anne and one for Suzanne – so that each would have her own hybrid book? Unfortunately, existing evidence does not shed light on this mystery. Moreover, while the strategically dedicated Nef des dames books appear to be relevant to female readers, in fact, an examination of their contents reveals a more contradictory and complex presentation by Champier, who was simultaneously targeting an educated male public.12 In the end, the volume was not made solely for two royal females; its subject and dedicatees were exploited for other ends. A more meaningful way to measure Anne de France’s engagement with female cultural networking through books, a practice she seemingly inherited from her mother,13 is through an examination of the Enseignements, expressly written by Anne and dedicated to her daughter in a specially prepared manuscript copy just before Suzanne’s marriage to Charles de Bourbon in May 1505, when she would have been about fourteen years old.14 The manuscript copy of this work made for Suzanne, most likely created under her mother’s ­supervision, was last known to have been housed in the St. Petersburg 10 See Mary Beth Winn, Anthoine Vérard: Parisian Publisher (1485–1512) (Geneva, Droz, 1997). 11 See James B. Wadsworth’s edition of Champier’s Livre de vraye amour (The Hague, Mouton, 1962), p. 39. 12 For details, see Brown, “The ‘Famous Women’ Topos,” pp. 155–60. 13 See Anne-­Marie Legare, “Charlotte de Savoie’s Library and Illuminators,” Journal of the Early Book Society (2001), pp. 32–85, especially the Table on pp. 69–79, which ­indicates the books belonging to Charlotte de Savoie that appeared in the library of her daughter. 14 Élodie Lequain, “La maison de Bourbon, ‘Escolle de vertu et de perfection’: Anne de France, Suzanne de Bourbon et Pierre Martin,” Médiévales 48 (Spring 2005), p. 41.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 175

04/01/2016 10:07

176

CYNTHIA J. BROWN

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of the book.

Fig. 2.  Painted woodcut of author offering his book to Anne de France, with court ladies as witnesses and Suzanne de Bourbon painted out of original woodcut, in specially made hybrid copy. Symphorien Champier, La Nef des dames vertueuses (Lyon, 1503). Bibliothèque nationale de France, Rés. Vélins 1972, fol. B3v.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 176

04/01/2016 10:07



ANNE DE BRETAGNE AND ANNE DE FRANCE: FRENCH FEMALE NETWORKS 177

library as MS Fr. Q. v. III. 2,15 but it has regrettably been missing for many years. Fortunately, A.-­M. Chazaud published a catalogue description of the manuscript in 1878 along with his edition of the Enseignements. Alexandre de Laborde’s 1938 inventory of French manuscripts in St. Petersburg provides further information on this lost codex. The contemporary binding bore the name “Susanne” in the upper register and her device “Esperance” [Hope] in the lower register, with the initials for Jesus and Maria in the center,16 ­evidence of the importance of the holy mother and son for Suzanne. Suzanne’s  signature  and proof of ownership appear on a flyleaf – “Se livre est à moy, Susanne de Bourbon, et l’ey eu de la meson de Bourbon” [This book belongs to me Suzanne de Bourbon and I acquired it from the House of Bourbon]17 – and a full-­page miniature on folio iv dramatically displays her arms,18 confirming that Suzanne was dedicatee, recipient and proprietor of this manuscript.19 Anne de France’s critical function in the production of this special book for her daughter was likewise dramatically staged in the manuscript’s remarkable full-­page miniature on folio 1r depicting the duchess and her daughter. Although the illumination vanished with the manuscript containing it, Armand Queyroy provided Chazaud with an engraved reproduction of the dedication miniature that had initially appeared in the codex before its disappearance (fig. 3).20 We must therefore imagine a beautifully painted illumination that must have been of the highest quality, for its unknown artist has been associated with the best miniaturists of the day.21 As exhibited in Champier’s Nef des dames vertueuses edition, a book’s liminary space frequently featured a dedication miniature, in 15 See A.-­M. Chazaud, editor of Les Enseignements d’Anne de France, Duchesse de Bourbonnois et d’Auvergne à sa fille Susanne de Bourbon (Moulins, Desrosiers, 1878), pp. VI–VIII, and Alexandre de Laborde, Les Principaux manuscrits à peintures conservés dans l’ancienne Bibliothèque Impériale publique de Saint-­Pétersbourg, pt. II (Paris, Société Française de Reproductions de Manuscrits à Peintures, 1938), pp. 142–4, for a history of the manuscript’s peregrinations from Suzanne’s library to St. Petersburg. Chazaud, p. II, cites the Livret de l’Ermitage description of the codex as having been executed under the author’s supervision. 16 See Chazaud, p. II, and Laborde, p. 143 and Plate LVII, a photograph of the binding that is incorrectly labeled as a work by “Anne de Bretagne” for her daughter Suzanne. 17 Chazaud, p. III and Plate I. 18 See Laborde’s description, pp. 142–3. 19 Chazaud, pp. III–VII, offers other details about the manuscript’s paratext and documentation of Suzanne’s ownership. 20 This miniature introduces the Enseignements. Eighteen other illuminations, reproduced in Queyroy’s engravings, decorate a narrative included in the St. Petersburg manuscript. For this text and illustrations, see Anne de France, Enseignements à sa fille suivi de l’Histoire du siège de Brest, ed. Tatiana Clavier and Éliane Viennot (Saint-­Étienne, Publications de l’Université de Saint-­Étienne, 2006), pp. 95–133. For a discussion of this work, see Tracy Adams, “Theorizing Female Regency: Anne of France’s Enseignements à sa fille,” in Les femmes, la culture et les arts en Europe entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance, ed. C. J. Brown and A.-­M. Legaré (Turnhout, Brepols, 2015) pp. 387–401. 21 Chazaud, p. VIII.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 177

04/01/2016 10:07

178

CYNTHIA J. BROWN

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of the book.

Fig. 3.  Anne de France’s dedication of her Enseignements to daughter Suzanne de Bourbon. From A.-­M. Chazaud, ed., Les Enseignements d’Anne de France, Duchesse de Bourbonnois et d’Auvergne à sa fille Susanne de Bourbon (Moulins: Desrosiers, 1878), p. XLII.

which an author formally bestowed a special copy of his work on his patron. However, one would not expect such a conventional scenario in this unique case, in which a mother–author presents her own writing to her daughter. While depictions of mother and daughter together are not absent from contemporary

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 178

04/01/2016 10:07



ANNE DE BRETAGNE AND ANNE DE FRANCE: FRENCH FEMALE NETWORKS 179

manuscripts, they are relatively rare.22 This is an exceptional image, not only because mother and daughter are portrayed together but also because it provides the visual rendition of a female family network in action, as the mother figure conveys to her daughter special knowledge from her own book. I know of no other contemporary depiction of this kind. The subtly hierarchical staging of Anne de France, the larger, more prominent figure in the illustration, seated facing the smaller figure of her daughter Suzanne, who is slightly withdrawn from the right foreground, makes clear the relationship between the two women. In the center background, a group of some fifteen to twenty women (only three entire figures are visible), who represent the many ladies associated with Anne’s court,23 witness and perhaps listen to the mother–daughter interaction. Most noteworthy are the books that lie open on the laps of mother and ­daughter, presumably copies of the Enseignements, their thickness replicating the 113 folios of the original manuscript.24 Do Suzanne’s lowered eyes indicate that it is she who is reading her mother’s teachings about the proper comportment of a royal princess, while Anne listens, or are they meant to register the daughter’s humility before her mother – certainly one of the many lessons of the book25 – while Anne, whose eyes do not look at the book before her, lectures her daughter? Or are the two sharing in alternating readings of the work for the benefit of the women in their entourage depicted in the background of the miniature? If so, this would indicate that the oral transmission and auditory reception of knowledge about the proper conduct of noble women was still as much a mode of female cultural transfer as was its conveyance through the reading of the material object of the manuscript book. Whatever the exact nature of this extraordinary scenario, which seems to juxtapose oral and written culture, its staging of an intellectual and moral exchange among women through the pages of books and female voice is unique. Visual focus is placed not on the reception of the work, as in the Nef des dames dedication woodcut, but rather on the dissemination of its contents. Anne de France, as mother and adviser, thus authors a book of social principles for her daughter in a remarkable example 22 See, for example, the miniatures of Anne de Bretagne and Claude de France in BnF MS fr. 226, fol. 165, BnF MS fr. 5083, fol. 1v, and Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Cod. 241, fol. 1, discussed in Brown, “Like Mother, Like Daughter,” and the presumed depiction of Louise de Savoie and her daughter Marguerite in BnF, Rés. Vélins 2239, fol. 1v. 23 Lequain, p. 44, cites Brantôme’s claim that there were always a large number of ladies and girls under the moral guidance of Anne de France at her court. 24 See note 20. Adams, p. 390, describes the scene as “Anne explaining to Suzanne how to put the precepts of the Enseignements into action, perhaps with reference to the exemplum that follows that work.” 25 Lequain, p. 47, quotes a passage from the Enseignements in which Anne urges her daughter to pray often and to follow mass “en grant dévotion et tous jours à genoulx, si possible est, en aïant les yeulx ententiz envers le prestre à l’autel, ou en vostre livre” [with great devotion and always kneeling, if possible, with your eyes looking attentively at the priest at the altar or in your book] (my emphasis).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 179

04/01/2016 10:07

180

CYNTHIA J. BROWN

of maternal devotion and moral guidance that was designed to have a more concrete and longer-­lasting life than orally transmitted wisdom and to keep Anne’s memory alive through the visual imprimatur of her likeness, pedigree and cultural engagement with her daughter. Anne’s accompanying verbal dedication to Suzanne is somewhat touching, but above all it is solemn, laconic and sobering in its self-­deprecation, as the female author adopts conventional self-­critical terms to describe her own faculties and infuses her remarks with an extreme anxiety about the fragility of life in general and her looming death in particular.26 The mother fervently wishes to leave her young and inexperienced daughter some bits of wisdom before she dies. La parfaicte amour naturelle que j’ay à vous, ma fille, considérant l’estat de nostre povre fragilité, et meschante vie présente, (innumérables et grans dangiers, en ce monde transsitoire, sont à passer) aussi après, recongnoissant la très-­briefve subdaine et hastive mort que à toute heure j’attens, nonobstant mon povre rude et débile engin, me donne couraige et vouloir de vous faire, tandis que je vous suis présente, aucuns petis enseignemens, advertissans vostre ignorance et petite jeunesse, espérant que en aucun temps en aurez souvenance, et vous pourroient quelque peu profiter; doncques, sans vous faire nulz longs prologues, ne aussi de peu de chose grans parlemens . . .27 [My daughter, the perfect natural love that I have for you – while bearing in mind our lamentable weakness and our present wretched life (innumerable and great dangers must be overcome in this transitory world), recognizing the imminent, sudden, and early death that I expect at any moment, and notwithstanding my poor, rude, and limited ability – gives me the desire and the determination to prepare a few little lessons for you while I am still with you, knowing well your inexperience and extreme youth and hoping that in time you will recall these lessons and that they will help you a little; therefore, without any long introduction and in a few words . . .28]

Anne’s dedication is as measured and serious as is the advice that follows. The mother not only figures centrally in the paratextual material of the manuscript

The duke of Bourbon had recently died, in October 1503. Chazaud, pp. 1–2. 28 Translation from Anne of France, Lessons for My Daughter, trans. Sharon L. Jansen (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2004), p. 25. 26 27

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 180

04/01/2016 10:07



ANNE DE BRETAGNE AND ANNE DE FRANCE: FRENCH FEMALE NETWORKS 181

that she offers and essentially shares with her daughter, but also in the text’s very words that Suzanne will absorb. The Enseignements was not solely transmitted from mother to daughter and (simultaneously) from mother and daughter to their female entourage through oral/audition and manuscript reading, as this illustration suggests. Thanks to Suzanne de Bourbon herself, a wider female public soon had access to her mother’s ideas about the expected comportment of female nobles through its reproduction in print. Sometime before her untimely death in 1521, Suzanne approached the Lyon printer Pierre de Sainte Lucie29 about reproducing her mother’s work for a broader audience.30 The small, beautifully printed book bears a title page advertising the edition’s royal provenance, not the book’s title or contents, and explicitly spells out Suzanne’s initiative in launching this venture and her illustrious lineage:31 A la requeste de treshaulte et puissante princesse, madame Susanne de Bourbon, femme de tresillustre et puissant prince: monseigneur Charles duc de Bourbon, et d’Auuvergne, et de Chastellerault: Connestable, Per, et Chambrier de France: et fille de treshaulte et tresexcellente dame madame Anne de France, duchesse desdictes duchez: fille et seur des roys Loys .xi. et Charles .viii. [Upon the request of the most noble and powerful princess, Madame Suzanne de Bourbon, wife of the most renowned and powerful prince, my lord Charles, duke of Bourbon and Auvergne and Chastellerault, Constable, Peer and Chamberlain of France; and daughter of the most noble and most excellent lady, Madame Anne de France, duchess of said duchies; sister and daughter of Kings Louis XI and Charles VIII.]

The printer–bookseller would have profited from this prominently placed announcement, which associated him with the royal project,32 thereby ­implicitly authorizing its contents and heightening its value in printed form. Here again we see evidence of a correlation between and explication of a book’s pedigree and the original manuscript owner. The sharing, consumption and exchange of female culture among middle-­class bookmakers and readers that the print industry facilitated may explain why Suzanne sought to venture outside of royal circles to propagate her mother’s work. As a representative of a younger 29 Although the book bears no date or printer’s name, the address “chez Le Prince” was that of Sainte Lucie. See William Kemp, “Textes composés ou traduits par des femmes et imprimés en France avant 1550: bibliographie des imprimés féminins (1488–1549), ” Littératures 18 (1998), p. 180. 30 Chazaud, p. X, states this happened “sans doute avec le consentement de sa mere,” [doubtless with the mother’s consent] but there is no way of confirming this claim. 31 Chazaud reproduces the title page opposite p. X. 32 According to Clavier and Viennot, pp. 30–31, the Histoire du siege de Brest does not appear in this edition.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 181

04/01/2016 10:07

182

CYNTHIA J. BROWN

g­ eneration, perhaps she more readily understood print’s capacity to broadcast and publicize the image of her family, the Bourbon Court and her mother. If so, she played a role in re-­defining and expanding cultural exchange among noble and middle-­class women at the time. While there was no transference of this knowledge to the next generation of Bourbon females – Suzanne died without leaving any heirs a year before her mother – the fact that the Enseignements was reprinted in 1535 confirms its diffusion to the following generation of noble and middle-­class women, for the reference to Suzanne de Bourbon on the Sainte Lucie title page was replaced with a dedication to Marguerite de Navarre.33 The sharing of paratextual and textual space that we witness in Suzanne de Bourbon’s manuscript copy of the Enseignements plays itself out somewhat differently in another example of female family networking associated with Anne de Bretagne and her daughter Claude de France (1499–1524) in the so-­ called Primer of Claude de France, currently housed in Cambridge University’s Fitzwilliam Museum as MS 159; its illuminator has been identified as the Master of Antoine de Roche.34 Like the Enseignements, the Primer that Anne de Bretagne had created for Claude reflects the reality that many of the books making up the libraries of noble women in medieval and early modern Europe tended to be of a religious and moralistic nature.35 The liminal miniature of this Primer, which Anne de Bretagne offered her daughter around 1505,36 when Claude would have been six years old, features the French queen; in fact, Anne’s, not Claude’s, coat of arms is reproduced in the left and lower margins (fig. 4). In this opening miniature, Anne is staged in a symmetrical position with her daughter, who is featured in the volume’s concluding illustration in a similar pose before a prie-­dieu (fig. 5); however, the queen is kneeling and her daughter is standing in their respective illustrations, thereby conveying their different ages and statures. Just as Anne de Bretagne’s initial A is repeatedly embroidered in gold along with fleurs-­de-­lis on the blue prie-­dieu cloth in the opening miniature, mirroring the gold of her attire and the blue of the dress of her companion, Mary, so too in the manuscript’s final 33 The title page reads: “A tresillvstre et pvissante princesse et Dame, Madame Marguerite de France, Royne de Nauarre, Duchesse d’Alencon, et de Berry, Comtesse d’Armagnac, auec humble reuerence prompte et fidelité seruitude, par vng vostre treshumble seruiteur, Iehan Barril marchant de Thoulouze, par vng vray zelle presente, Salut et paix” [To the most renowned and powerful princess and lady, Madam Margaret of France, Queen of Navarre, Duchess of Alençon and of Berry, Countess of Armagnac, with humble reverence, ready and faithful service, from your most humble servant, John Barril, merchant of Toulouse, with a true zealous presence, greetings and peace] (Kemp, p. 181). The edition contains other texts not found in the Sainte Lucie edition. 34 Eberhard Konig, “The Illuminator,” in The Primer of Claude de France: MS 159, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Luzern, Verlag Luzern, 2012), pp. 139–49, suggests the artist may be Guido Mazzoni from Modena. 35 See, for example, Livres et lectures de femmes en Europe entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance, ed. A.-­M. Legaré (Turnhout, Brepols, 2007). 36 Roger S. Wieck, “The Prayers,” in The Primer of Claude de France, p. 128.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 182

04/01/2016 10:07

ANNE DE BRETAGNE AND ANNE DE FRANCE: FRENCH FEMALE NETWORKS 183



image Claude’s gold initial C is replicated with fleur-­de-­lis on a field of blue (again mirroring Mary’s blue dress), but only on half of the prie-­dieu cloth. The second half of the fabric features Claude’s repeated black initial C on a field of gray along with black ermines, symbols of Brittany, harmonizing with the color of her garb.37 This pattern echoes the one found on Anne’s coat of arms, which reappear in the right and lower margins of this final folio both as a kind of imprimatur of Anne de Bretagne’s presence in Claude’s education and as a political reminder of her daughter’s future role as duchess of Brittany (and princess of France), following in the very footsteps of her mother. In focusing on the liminal miniature alone, we note that it too signals the French queen’s keen interest in educating her children,38 for it illustrates Anne kneeling before her daughter’s patron, Saint Claude, to whom she had successfully prayed during her first pregnancy with Louis XII and after whom she named her offspring. Roger Wieck suggests that here Anne de Bretagne “offers herself as a model for her daughter” in an illustration in which she has had herself portrayed as a young woman, thus projecting herself back to a time when she “had already learned how to read and to pray.”39 Standing behind Anne de Bretagne is her namesake, Saint Anne, whose arms envelop at once her own daughter, Mary, and the French queen; Mary’s right hand touches Anne de Bretagne’s, her eyes directed to the queen, thereby completing an intimate feminine circle. The hands that visually connect all three females also draw the viewer’s eye toward Anne’s prayer-­like gesture as her folded hands rest on the closed book on the prie-­dieu. This is presumably the prayer book that Anne will bestow upon her daughter once it is blessed by Saint Claude, to whom her eyes are raised. Thus, in another example of a book commissioned by a mother for her daughter that echoes the Enseignements offered by Anne de France to Suzanne, we witness not the dedication or gifting of the book, but rather the staging of female networks associated with the book and its transmission of wisdom. Here, the pairing of the holy mother and daughter, Saint Anne and the Virgin Mary, the archetype of female teaching and edification,­ at least since the fourteenth century,40 anticipates the sharing of knowledge between Anne and Claude through the cultural connection established between the saints and the French queen. This doubling of female family networks is configured in a slightly different fashion in the companion miniature at the end of the Primer, where Claude takes center stage as she stands before the prie-­dieu, hands folded in prayer on what See Wieck, “The Pictures,” in The Primer of Claude de France, pp. 153, 163. Wieck, “The Prayers,” pp. 126–27, compares this prayer book with the Primer of Charles-­Orland Anne had created around 1495 for her son, the dauphin, who died at three years (Pierpont Morgan Library M. 50). 39 “The Pictures,” pp. 153–4. 40 Pamela Sheingorn, “‘The Wise Mother’: The Image of St. Anne Teaching the Virgin Mary,” Gesta XXXII/1 (1993), p. 70, states that from the fourteenth century to the Reformation scenes of Saint Anne teaching Mary were popular in Northern European art, especially in devotional contexts. 37 38

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 183

04/01/2016 10:07

184

CYNTHIA J. BROWN

Fig. 4.  Anne de Bretagne at her prie-­dieu before St. Claude, accompanied by Sts Anne and Mary. The Primer of Claude de France. Cambridge University, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 159, p. 1. © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

is now an open volume, presumably the very Primer she has received from her mother and which she is ready to read. Claude’s eyes are not yet directed toward the book, however; instead she raises them up toward her religious teachers, Saints Anne and Mary, standing before her. Whereas Anne was gently protected by the hands of her patron saint in the opening miniature, here Saint Claude safeguards his namesake with a similar gesture. Just as Mary’s hand gesture and eyes in the opening miniature were directed at Anne de Bretagne, as if handing down to her the teachings she had acquired from her mother, so too, in this final illustration, Mary serves as the conduit between the sacred lessons she has received from her mother, Saint Anne, who also holds an open book on her lap, and. the young Claude, by directing attention with her hand toward the open prayer book before Anne’s daughter. Since no one’s eyes are focused on either codex, this scenario appears to be an oral exchange among the three females, although it more likely symbolizes Claude’s educational process as inspired by the holy mother and daughter. This depiction of the oral and verbal transmission of saintly words and ideas from holy mother and daughter to the French princess, who would have just been learning to read the large Latin

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 184

04/01/2016 10:07



ANNE DE BRETAGNE AND ANNE DE FRANCE: FRENCH FEMALE NETWORKS 185

Fig. 5.  Claude de France at her prie-­dieu before Sts. Anne and Mary, accompanied by St Claude. The Primer of Claude de France. Cambridge University, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 159, p. 14. © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

script of the various prayers41 and to understand the biblical scenes depicted in this prayer book, this depiction of female networks of teaching and learning is reminiscent of the illustration just examined in which another of Saint Anne’s namesakes, Anne de France, transmitted moral lessons to Suzanne de Bourbon. Here, however, greater emphasis is placed on the doubling of mother–­daughter networks: that is, on the mediation of the holy female pairing on behalf of the royal female pairing. On the one hand, Saints Anne and Mary dominate these framing miniatures of MS 159; on the other, Anne and Claude figure separately in their respective illuminations as recipients and future conduits of 41 The Primer contains the alphabet and basic prayers (Our Father, Hail Mary, Apostles’ Creed, Graces before and after Meals, the Act of Confession, and Prayers for Mass). Michael Clancy, “Images of Ladies with Prayer Books: What Do They Signify?” in The Church and the Book, ed. R. N. Swanson (Woodbridge, Boydell, 2004), p. 111, quotes Adelaide Bennett, who argues that the Book of Hours “provided the chief means of instructing a lay women to read in Latin . . . It was a primer. Through pronunciation, recitation and familiarity of Latin texts in her constant practice of devotions, she learned to read.”

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 185

04/01/2016 10:07

186

CYNTHIA J. BROWN

Christian-­based knowledge and edification. While the Anne de France–Suzanne de Bourbon configuration (fig. 3) lacks the religious dimension so central to the Anne de Bretagne–Claude de France miniatures (figs. 4–5), they both call to mind the depiction of Anne de France and Suzanne de Bourbon with St. Anne in the famous Moulins Triptych.42 Although no books are featured in that portrait, we recognize in it the same intimacy of female networking, with familiar hand gestures of presentation and prayer, and women kneeling before the holy queen mother, who, no longer a young girl conveying spiritual knowledge to her disciples, is now a mother holding her child. Anne de France’s and Anne de Bretagne’s gifting of these books to their respective daughters, their oversight of the conception, fabrication and transference of these instruments of moral and spiritual knowledge to the next generation and the visual inscription of their own emblems and images alongside those of their daughters exemplifies late medieval female family networking. By directly or indirectly assimilating their own mother–daughter bonding with the holy model of female lineage par excellence, the duchess of Bourbon and queen of France staged themselves and their female offspring as sacred inheritors of an even more enduring tradition, whose collective female memory had been passed down for several centuries and would continue to thrive through multiple female generations in the future.

42 See http://www.wikiart.org/en/jean-­hey/the-­bourbon-­altarpiece-­the-­moulins-­triptych for a reproduction. Lequain, p. 47, also notes the implicit association between Saint Anne and Anne de France’s Enseignements.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 186

04/01/2016 10:07

Staging Female Authority in Chantilly MS 522: Marguerite de Navarre’s La Coche Roberta L. Krueger In 1541, in the midst of protracted marriage negotiations on behalf of her young daughter, Marguerite de Navarre penned a 1401-­line love debate poem, commissioned a series of eleven illustrations for it, and gave an illuminated copy of the manuscript to Anne de Pisselieu, Duchesse d’Estampes, the mistress of Marguerite’s brother, King François I.43 Chantilly MS 522, which we will examine here, is one of two extant illustrated manuscripts of this poem.44 Written at a difficult time during Marguerite’s life,45 La Coche dramatizes the self-­imposed exile of the poet, Queen of Navarre, in the countryside, where she encounters three grieving women who describe their unhappiness in love, each advancing particular reasons for being the most miserable in a unique style of versification and rhyme. As they take refuge from the rain in a coach and journey back to court, the women argue about who should judge the debate, which Marguerite has agreed to write down; the matter concludes with Marguerite’s presentation of her book to the Duchess, who will read it with the King. The book thus stages a mise-­en-­abyme of its creation and transmission, and seems to mark, for its author, a watershed in her literary career. Marguerite de Navarre includes La Coche in the first printed edition of her collected works, where it is the only fully illustrated work.46 After La Coche, she writes more often in a

43 Marguerite de Navarre, La Coche, ed. Robert Marichal (Geneva, Droz, 1971); all citations are from this edition. Translations are from Marguerite de Navarre, Selected Writings: A Bilingual Edition, ed. and trans. Rouben Cholakian and Mary Skemp (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 2008), pp. 151–231. A more recent edition, Marguerite de Navarre, Oeuvres completes, ed. André Gendre, Loris Petris, and Simone de Reyff (Paris, Honoré Champion, 2012), vol. V, pp. 267–388, reproduces the full series of illuminations. 44 A nearly identical copy from the same workshop is Oxford Bodleian Library MS 21665 (Douce 91). 45 On the poem’s relation to Marguerite’s emotional crisis and its role in her resurgence as a writer, see Patricia F. Cholakian and Rouben C. Cholakian, Marguerite de Navarre, Mother of the Renaissance (New York, Columbia University Press, 2006), pp. 206–28. See also La Coche, ed. Gendré, Petris, and Reyff, pp. 271–6. 46 Les Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses; texte de l’édition de 1547, ed. Félix Frank (Paris, Librarie de bibliophiles, 1873) vol. 4. On the printed poem’s ten engravings, see Tom Conley, “Inklines and Lifelines: About ‘La Coche’ (1547) by Marguerite de Navarre,”

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 187

04/01/2016 10:07

188

ROBERTA L. KRUEGER

secular mode; shortly after this time, she may have begun to pen some of the tales for the Heptaméron, which was published posthumously. For its querelle among female voices about courtly love, La Coche has long been recognized as a precursor to the Heptaméron. Renaissance critics have examined its valorization of female friendship47 and its dramatization of a community of women offering support to a woman writer who takes up her pen in their interests.48 The illustrated manuscript, Chantilly MS 522, executed by the artist identified as the Parisian Master of François de Royan,49 has been hailed as a precious example of a Renaissance illuminated manuscript that depicts its female author.50 Perhaps just as remarkable are three unadorned manuscripts with prose “legends” providing detailed instructions for the artist inserted where the images should be; many critics believe that Marguerite wrote these instructions herself.51 Although art historians have analyzed the illustrated manuscripts’ importance for book history and literary critics have plumbed the poem’s themes, the textual and visual performance that emerges from La Coche’s interplay of verse and image in the Chantilly manuscript – read with the accompanying legends in the other manuscripts – invites a closer look.52 Well into the age of print, French Renaissance poetry circulated in manuscript form, especially among women authors, who may have experienced social restraints against print publication.53 Parallax 6, no. 1 (2000), pp. 92–110. Conley does not discuss the earlier manuscripts, which contain the original illustrations and the legends. 47 Colette Winn, “Aux origines du discours féminin sur l’amitié . . . Marguerite de Navarre, La Coche (1541),” Women in French Studies 7 (1999), pp. 9–24. 48 Mary Skemp, “Reading a Woman’s Story in Marguerite de Navarre’s La Coche,” Explorations in Renaissance Culture 31, no. 2 (Winter 2005), pp. 279–303. 49 See Myra D. Orth, “The Master of François de Rohan: A Familiar French Renaissance Miniaturist with a New Name,” in Illuminating the Book: Makers and Interpreters. Essays in Honor of Janet Backhouse, ed. Michelle P. Brown and Scot McKendrick (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1998), pp. 69–91. 50 Myra Orth, “French Renaissance Manuscripts and L’Histoire du Livre,” Viator 32 (2001) pp. 245–78 at pp. 259–61, and “Manuscript Production and Illumination in Renaissance Paris (1500–1565),” Journal of the Early Book Society 6 (2003), pp. 125–35. 51 The manuscripts with legends are Paris, Arsenal MS 5112, Paris, Bibl. nat., MS fr. 12485, and Berne, Bibl. de la Bourgeoisie MS A 65, described by Marichal, ed., La Coche, pp. 62–78; the legends are included in this and subsequent editions. Marichal considers the legends the instructions that Marguerite would have given to her secretary, Adam Martel, for the artist. Myra Orth concurs that Marguerite wrote the instructions; Orth, “Manuscript Production,” p. 127. See also Robert Marichal, “Texte ou image?” in Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit, ed. Henri-­Jean Martin and Jean Vezin (Paris, Editions du Cercle de la librairie-­Promodis, 1990), pp. 426–34. 52 A fine study that offers a thoughtful examination of text and image in La Coche is Sherry C. M. Lindquist, “ ‘Parlant de moy:’ Manuscripts of La Coche by Marguerite of Navarre,” in Excavating the Medieval Image: Manuscripts, Artists, Audiences: Essays in Honor of Sandra Hindman, ed. Davis S. Areford and Nina A. Rowe (Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2004), pp. 197–221. This article came to my attention as I was in the final stages of preparing the present study, too late for me to engage with the author’s arguments in the analysis that follows. 53 Orth, “French Renaissance Manuscripts,” p. 259.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 188

04/01/2016 10:07



STAGING FEMALE AUTHORITY IN CHANTILLY MS 522

189

Marguerite’s La Coche provides striking evidence that what Jane Taylor has described as the lively social interchange and performativity of late medieval poetry remained robust well into the Renaissance, perhaps especially in elite coteries.54 Furthermore, important as the female dedicatee and other female readers may be in the poem’s reception, and as significant as the King may be as ultimate judge, Marguerite’s displacement of the monarch’s role deserves greater attention. Drawing upon the work of Jane Burns, who has taught us to look more closely at the gender dynamics of courtly texts, we propose to read Marguerite de Navarre’s staging of a textual and visual performance that ­valorizes her authority and subtly disrupts the male hegemony of the court.55 In Chantilly MS 522, Marguerite has carefully orchestrated her book to present a series of tableaux vivants about loss, lamented love, and recovery through writing. This small book, consisting of 44 velum folios, contains only La Coche and may be the copy presented to the Duchess.56 She would undoubtedly have admired the gift, with its elegant script, 18 lines per page in a single column, punctuated by red and blue pieds de mouche and decorated initials at the beginning of new sections. Records show that in 1541 Marguerite paid Adam Martel, her chaplain, 50 écus for the poem’s copying, illumination, and binding.57 Each illustrated page introduces a shift of scene or speaker and underscores emotional crises by incorporating verse – a sixain (in all but three images), a rhyming couplet (images 6 and 10), a quatrain (final image, 11) – in a framed window set within the larger, more elaborate frame that fills the page. Written in the same hand as the rest of the manuscript, the poem becomes part of the illustrated page, and the image is integral to the verse. Five illustrated folios incorporate the Queen’s devise ‘Plus vous que moy ’ within the frame (images 4, 5, 6, 9, and 11); the motto is repeated in a little banner at the very end (fol. 45v). Eleven densely illustrated folios depict colorful and finely detailed tableaux that serve as dramatic frames for the ensuing action, which unfolds in five acts. The first act places the Queen in a pastoral setting (fig. 1, illustration 1, fol. 2) and includes the arrival of the ladies (illustration 2, fol. 3v); the second act sets 54 Jane H. M. Taylor, The Making of Poetry: Late-­Medieval French Poetic Anthologies (Turnhout, Brepols, 2007). 55 On the way that illustrated manuscripts can stage their own performance, see Pam Sheingorn, “Performing the Illustrated Manuscript: Great Reckonings in Little Books,” in Visualizing Medieval Performance: Perspectives, Histories, Contexts, ed. Elina Gertsman (Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2008), pp. 57–82. While Sheingorn’s religious texts invite the reader to participate in an interior journey, Marguerite’s poem invites readers to empathize with and participate in the suffering of others outside the text. 56 On Marguerite’s possible gift of this particular manuscript to the Duchess, see Marichal, ed. La Coche, pp. 73–74. See also Myra Dickman Orth, “Family Values: Manuscripts as Gifts and Legacies among French Renaissance Women,” Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History 4 (2001), pp. 89–90. 57 Chantilly: Le Cabinet des livres, manuscrits (Paris, Plon, 1900), vol. 2, p. 144.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 189

04/01/2016 10:07

190

ROBERTA L. KRUEGER

Fig. 1.  Chantilly, Bibliothèque du Château, MS 522, fol. 2r : Opening folio of La Coche. The Queen of Navarre has withdrawn from court life and speaks to a peasant in the countryside. Cliché CNRS-­IRHT, ©Bibliothèque et archives du Château de Chantilly.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 190

04/01/2016 10:07



STAGING FEMALE AUTHORITY IN CHANTILLY MS 522

191

Fig. 2.  Berne, Bibliothèque de la Bourgeoisie, COD. A 65, fol. 11r : Legend for the fifth hystoire, inserted where the image shown in Figure 3 would be.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 191

04/01/2016 10:07

192

ROBERTA L. KRUEGER

forth the ladies’ different tales of woe (illustration 3, fol. 5; illustration 4, fol. 7; fig. 3, illustration 5, fol. 13v; illustration 6, fol. 18); the third act (illustration 7, fol. 22v; illustration 8, fol. 32v) launches the debate, with each lady presenting her case in her particular style; the fourth act takes place after the ladies alight within the coach (illustration 9, fol. 34), where they debate who should judge the matter; the fifth act includes the ladies’ arrival at court (illustration 10, fol. 42v) and Marguerite’s presentation of her book to the Duchess (fig. 4, illustration 11, fol. 43v). A small dog at the feet of the Duchess (visible in the Bodleian MS) has been cut out of the last image. Marguerite’s imposing figure appears on every illustrated page. The legends in the three manuscripts without illustrations function as didascalies, or stage instructions, providing detailed information about the mise en scène, the dramatis personae and their costumes, the placement of characters within the setting, their emotional and physical states, their gestures and positions with respect to each other, and their relationship to the author. Written with care and placed exactly where the images should be, the legends are an integral part of the unadorned manuscripts (see fig. 2). If we read the legends as a kind of “hyper-­text” supplement to the verse and illustrated manuscript, we will see that they reveal the gestures, themes, and relationships that Marguerite accentuates in her poem. Let us look at the interplay of text and image in selected scenes of Chantilly MS 522, with reference to the legends preserved in Marichal’s edition. The opening page, fol. 2v (fig. 1), portrays the poet’s self-­imposed exile from court. The first six lines of verse, three rhyming decasyllabic couplets, are enclosed within the frame that presents the opening image, thus bringing text and image within the same perceptual field. Repeated participles of loss – “Ayant perdu” (lines 1, 4) – launch the narrative and underscore the poet’s melancholy and diminished powers. The speaker has lost not only all feeling of love, but also any memory of it, as well as the power, glory, and the sweet pleasure of writing, her natural inclination: Ayant perdu de l’aveugle vaincueur Non seullement le sentement du cueur, Mais de son nom, dictz et faicts la memoire, Ayant perdu le pouvoir et la gloire, Et le plaisir de la doulce escripture, Où tant je fuz incline de nature . . . (lines 1–6) [Having lost not only the ability to love but also the memory of the name, the words, and the deeds of that blind conqueror, having lost the power, the glory, and the sweet pleasure or writing, to which I am naturally inclined . . .]

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 192

04/01/2016 10:07



STAGING FEMALE AUTHORITY IN CHANTILLY MS 522

193

Fig. 3.  Chantilly, Bibliothèque du Château, MS 522, fol. 13v : The Queen of Navarre cuts the laces of the lady who has just fainted, as another friend prepares to speak. Cliché CNRS-­IRHT, ©Bibliothèque et archives du Château de Chantilly.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 193

04/01/2016 10:07

194

ROBERTA L. KRUEGER

Fig. 4.  Chantilly, Bibliothèque du Château, MS 522, fol. 43 v : The Queen of Navarre hands La Coche to the Duchesse d’Estampes. Cliché CNRS-­IRHT, ©Bibliothèque et archives du Château de Chantilly.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 194

04/01/2016 10:07



STAGING FEMALE AUTHORITY IN CHANTILLY MS 522

195

These lines portray the poet’s melancholic state, but leave the consequences hanging in an incomplete sentence; the verse fragment thus draws us into the ensuing poem, as occurs in other illustrated panels.58 In contrast to the plaintive tone of Marguerite’s verse, the legend’s narrator speaks with assurance, describing exactly how the Queen should be portrayed and situated: Soit noté qu’en ce livre sont contenues unze hystoires jouxte le subject d’iceluy, lesquelles hystoires sont devisées chascune en son endroit. Et icy est la premiere où est ung pre dedans lequel est une compagnie d’hommes et femmes se esbatans. Au bout duquel pré est une femme acoustrée comme la Royne de Navarre, cheminant par une petite sente loing des autres. Et contre une hayse qui est le long dudict pré est ung bon homme de village vestu de grix auquel parle ladicte dame. (p.143) [Let it be noted that this book contains eleven stories that make up The Coach, each of which is told in its proper order. Here is the first, which takes place in a meadow where a company of men and women are enjoying themselves. At one end of the meadow there is a woman, dressed like the Queen of Navarre, who is walking on a little path far from the others. Standing by a hedge bordering the meadow, there is a man from the village dressed in gray, to whom she speaks.]

In the opening image (fig. 1), seven brightly clad courtiers converse on the left and make music; a man plays a pipe, while a woman strums a lute; two men in leggings, caps thrown down, wrestle at center left; a woman “dressed like the Queen of Navarre,” wearing the Queen’s signature mourning garb (which the historical Marguerite wore since the death of her only son, Jean)59 has turned away from the courtiers. Her left hand holds her gloves; her raised right hand indicates her conversation with the bonhomme next to the fence, who is dressed in a blue cap and short blue-­gray tunic; he appears to be holding a tool, perhaps to mend the fence. The Queen dominates the landscape; she stands far forward to the right of a tall tree that marks the center in the following nine images.60 She towers over the bonhomme; her deep black costume bestows an air of solemnity and gravitas missing in the other figures, who are clad in light blues, golds, and reds. A small forest provides bucolic atmosphere at back left; a distant château or small city can be seen beyond a rocky promontory on the right. Within the ensuing verse, the poet’s solitude is soon interrupted by the emergence from the leafy woods of three women, whose costume and actions are carefully described (lines 35–48). Dressed in black like the Queen, with their 58 A similar conceptual enjambement occurs in images 2, 3, 5, 8, and 11, making a total of six of the eleven images. Five images frame complete sentences: 4, 6, 7, 9, and 10. 59 As noted by Cholakian and Cholakian, Marguerite de Navarre, p. 227. 60 Marguerite’s distinctive costume and the tree are not indicated until later legends, which suggests that the artist read through all the instructions carefully and incorporated the entirety of these directions into the illustrations.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 195

04/01/2016 10:07

196

ROBERTA L. KRUEGER

collars and hoods covering their heads and faces, eyes lowered, the women are all of the same stature. As their sighs sound out through the air, they speak not a word; their slow gait reflects their sadness. The verse itself recounts the appearance of the ladies as if the poet were instructing them how to act (lines 43–8), and these instructions are repeated in the second legend, which describes the ladies emerging from the woods, dressed as they are in the poem, with their heads lowered, and with the Queen of Navarre turning towards them, as if intending to speak with them (p. 145). Verse, legend, and illustration all work in harmony to set the stage for the dramatic storytelling that will ensue. As the poet observes this “piteux object” [pitiful object], she thinks it worthy of an Alain Chartier, who might serve the ladies in their need. Having experienced intense emotions herself, the Queen understands what must lie beneath their “patience” (lines 49–56). Marguerite de Navarre thus reveals her debt to Chartier and the medieval love debate tradition, although it is ironic, as Mary Skemp points out, that Marguerite suggests that the author of La belle dame sans merci, with its negative portrayal of a woman who refuses love, might been seen as a proper champion for these grieving women.61 Noting similarities between the bucolic setting of La Coche and Chartier’s Quatre Dames, illustrated in Arsenal MS 2940, Robert Marichal asserts that Marguerite may quite possibly have seen an illustrated manuscript of Des quatre dames and have had it in mind as she created La Coche.62 If that is so, Marguerite goes well beyond her forebear. Chantilly MS 522 is more densely illustrated, with more than twice as many illuminations (eleven of 45 folios in Chantilly MS 522 versus five of 63 folios in Arsenal MS 2940). Although the Chartier manuscript similarly features elaborate frames that enclose the verse and portray the melancholic poet in each image, in the first four images, Alain’s persona remains at the side, observing inertly, without dynamic interaction with the ladies, who are distinguished from each other only by the color of their gowns. (In the final image, he presents the book to his lady.) By contrast, Marguerite actively interacts with her interlocutors, emotionally and physically, and their configuration changes in each frame. La Coche’s poet is personally concerned and proactive. Indeed, Marguerite may pay homage to the renowned lyric master only to mark her evident departure from the courtly tradition. Her critique of love and notions of female solidarity­ seem to draw more inspiration from Christine de Pizan, although La Coche does not name her.63 Marguerite would surely have had access to royal libraries that contained Christine’s works.64 Her borrowings from Christine’s love debate poems include 61 Marguerite de Navarre, The Coach, trans. Mary Skemp in Marguerite de Navarre, Selected Writings, p. 402, n. 8. 62 Marichal, ed. La Coche, p. 14. 63 Marichal discusses Marguerite’s unspoken debt to Christine, La Coche, ed. Marichal, pp. 8–11. 64 Paula Sommers, “Marguerite de Navarre as Reader of Christine de Pizan,” in The

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 196

04/01/2016 10:07



STAGING FEMALE AUTHORITY IN CHANTILLY MS 522

197

the friendship of the author with the devisants, as in the Dit de Poissy, and her decision to write her poem as soon as she returns from her journey;65 her valorization of friendships between women;66 and her voicing of women’s sorrow in love.67 Indeed, Marguerite’s critical account of the sufferings of amorous women engaged in courtly love makes her a worthy successor to Christine. We cannot know, of course, if Marguerite was able to peruse any of the manuscripts illustrated under Christine’s supervision, but in commissioning the illustration of La Coche, in carefully determining its program of illuminations, and in doing so in a way that valorizes her authority, she follows in Christine’s creative path.68 As in Christine’s work, the author’s feigned professions of reluctance to write and of her insufficiency as well as her hesitation in the face of male interlocutors (as we shall see) are far overshadowed by the authoritative ways in which the author stages her creative production. Finally, Barbara Altmann has noted that Christine’s love debate poems are “very much about the act of writing and the art of offering.”69 The miniatures in Christine’s debate poems often depict Christine in the process of presenting her dispute to her patron. As will become evident, the mise-­en-­abyme of its own telling is at the heart of the textual and visual performance of La Coche. The ensuing verse, legends, and illustrations continue to dramatize the interaction of the four women, as the three ladies implore Marguerite to attend to them, and she urges them to tell their stories. The Queen agrees to take up her pen again to reveal their story: “je reprandray la plume/ et feray mieux que je n’ay de coustume/ Si le subject me voullez descouvrir” (lines 121–23) [I will take up the pen again/and will do an even better job than usual/ if you want to reveal the subject to me70]. The despondent, inactive writer, who is roused from her apathy by three ladies urging her to tell the women’s stories, recalls a similar motif in Christine de Pizan’s Cité des dames, albeit in a very different register.71­ La Coche’s mourners are not allegorical voices recast from the Boethian tradition but personal friends in intimate conversation, albeit anonymously presented (and whose stories may, of course, represent aspects of Marguerite’s own Reception of Christine de Pizan from the Fifteenth through the Nineteenth Centuries: Visitors to the City, ed. Glenda K. McLeod (Lewiston, ME, 1991), pp. 71–82, at pp. 73–4. 65 As noted by Marichal; La Coche, ed. Marichal, p. 12. 66 Sommers, “Marguerite de Navarre as Reader.” 67 Mary Skemp, “Editor’s Introduction,” The Coach, in Marguerite de Navarre, Selected Writings, p. 152. 68 Much has been written about Christine’s involvement in the illustration of her works; see, for example, Sandra L. Hindman, “With Ink and Mortar: Christine de Pizan’s Cité des dames, An Art Essay,” Feminist Studies 10 (1984), pp. 457–84. 69 Barbara K. Altmann, The Love Debate Poems of Christine de Pizan; “Le Livre du Débat des deux amans, Le Livre des trois jugemens, Le Livre du dit de Poissy,” (Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 1998), p. 17. 70 Our translation differs here from Skemp, which reads “if you want me to make the subject of your story known” (p. 163). 71 Christine de Pizan, La Cité des dames, ed. and trans. Thérèse Moreau and Eric Hicks (Paris, Stock, 1996), pp. 38–42.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 197

04/01/2016 10:07

198

ROBERTA L. KRUEGER

autobiography).72 But La Coche does function as a kind of collective consolatio, and the women’s appearance has the same effect on the writer in La Coche and La Cité des dames. Encouraged by other women, the Queen transmits stories of feminine constancy and female suffering from a woman’s perspective. The fourth, fifth, and sixth hystoires introduce the women’s stories, poetic exempla of amorous woes, not unlike those that are told in third book of La Cité des dames or in many of the female-­voiced tales of the Heptaméron. Let us look more closely at the verse, legend, and illustration of the fifth hystoire to observe Marguerite’s elaborate staging of amorous grief. The story of the second lady begins after the first lady has collapsed, weeping and unable to speak, while the Queen cuts the laces of her dress to allow her to breathe. Six verses framed on fol. 13v accentuate the embodiment of grief, which literally spills over in a torrent of tears into the surrounding countryside at the moment the Queen intervenes: Les yeulx levez au ciel, crevez de pleurs, Jectans torrens dont arrousoit les fleurs, Donna silence à sa bouche vermeille, Car la douleur qui sembloit nompareille Faisoit sa voix par souppirs estoupper Tant qu’il fallut destacher et coupper [Ses vestemens pour soulaiger son cueur] (lines 349–55) [Eyes raised to the heavens, the lady poured out a stream of tears Watering the meadow flowers around her. The tears silenced her crimson mouth, For the pain that seemed unparalleled to her Broke up her voice with sigh, So much so that others had to loosen her clothing] (p. 175)

The legend accompanying this moment in the text – appearing just before these verses in the Berne manuscript (see fig. 2) – underscores precisely the lady’s physical collapse, the women’s intimate interaction, and the decisive intervention of the Reine de Navarre. A final sentence tells us that another lady takes Marguerite by the hand and indicates that she, too, would like to speak. We also learn that the sun will set in one hour: Icy est la quinte hystoire où est une des troys dames levant les yeulx en hault comme pasmée et couchée par terre, et une des compagnes la soustient par derrière en son gryon, et la Royne de Navarre luy couppe son lacet. L’autre des dames prent la Royne par la main et de l’autre main faict signe qu’elle veut parler à elle; et apparest le ciel et le soleil en couleur telle qu’il est une heure avant son coucher. (p. 160) [Here is the fifth story in which the lady who has just spoken falls back on the ground as if she is fainting, her eyes reflecting the pain she feels. One of her Cholakian and Cholakian, Marguerite de Navarre, pp. 216–17.

72

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 198

04/01/2016 10:07



STAGING FEMALE AUTHORITY IN CHANTILLY MS 522

199

companions [holds her from behind in her lap73] and the Queen of Navarre loosens her laces. The other lady takes the Queen’s hand and indicates with her other hand that she wants to speak. The position of the sun in the sky and its color indicate that it is one hour before sunset.]

The illustration accompanying the fifth hystoire enacts these indications quite precisely (fig. 3). The ‘bon homme’ has receded from the page: in image 3, we see him guzzling from a jug on the other side of the wicket; in image 4, he walks away with a sheaf of straw in one hand and a small scythe in the other; image 5 is the first one without the man. A rosy sky indicates approaching sunset. On the left, one of the ladies lies in a swoon, her head in the lap of one of her companions, who clutches a handkerchief with one hand and comforts her friend with the other. The Queen stands in the center, her right hand holding a large pair of scissors, with which she cuts the bodice laces of the fainting victim; her left hand beckons to the third friend who is about to speak. As one woman reaches out to another, there is a continuous line of contact from one side of the page to the other; this visual link, which can be “read” in either direction, underscores the common emotional bond shared by the four actors. Cutting one lady’s laces so she may breathe, holding the hand of another who begins to speak, the imposing figure of the Queen functions visually and thematically as the connective current that moves the poem from silence to speech. The lady’s swoon, the torrent of sadness, the cut laces – verse, legend, and illustration all record these telling details, establishing a carefully orchestrated concordance between verse and image which heightens the emotional charge of the scene. The ladies’ debate about suffering in love continues in the sixth, seventh, and eight hystoires, each time with thematic motifs in the verse that are repeated in the legend and clearly illustrated, each time with distinctive patterns of rhyme and versification, with a different configuration of the ladies with respect to one another, as they each swoon in turn and finally rise to begin to quarrel about who suffers most. The illuminations’ visual repetition and variation of the women’s subtly nuanced hand gestures, posture, and placement underscore the commonality of their pain, as well as their individual experience; the legends precisely indicate these shifting positions. Each women voices her tale differently,­yet their stories are interconnected: the first lady, consumed by doubts, express fears in terza rima that her lover no longer desires her; she rebuffs attentions of a man she does not love, who has left her friend, the second lady. The second lady has been brutally abandoned by her lover, who loves the first woman; the second lady, inconsolable, speaks in halting, mono-­rhymed triplets: a broken four-­ syllable line, followed by two decasyllabic lines. The third lady, who speaks in decasyllabic quatrains of rime embrassée, a harmonious form, has been blessed by an “amour parfaict” (line 513), but she cannot allow herself to enjoy love while her friends suffer; she calls upon death to carry them all away. 73 Skemp translates “la soustient par derrière en son gryon,” as “supports her around her waist from behind.” I read “gyron” as “lap.”

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 199

04/01/2016 10:07

200

ROBERTA L. KRUEGER

The Queen intercedes in a different way in each image. Dressed in mourning, like her friends, she wears a distinctive white collar and a double row of gilded buttons that run from neck to waist on her gown; she carries gloves (not always depicted) in place of a handkerchief. In the seventh hystoire, for example, she uses both hands to revive the woman who had been on her knees in the previous scene (fol. 22v). A striking theatricality pervades the didascalies and corresponding images. Marguerite composed biblical and secular plays throughout her lifetime,74 among them the secular “Comédie des quatres femmes” (1542), which could be read as a ludic recasting of matters treated soberly here.75 Marguerite’s activities as playwright and quite possibly director during the early 1540s suggest that she may have been particularly inclined to envisage the storytellers’ gestures, positions, and emotional states – those features explained so carefully in the legends – to enhance the poetic and visual performance that will be experienced by readers when the poem arrives at court. The ninth hystoire recounts the debate within the eponymous coach that moves the group from the countryside to the court. With nearly three hundred lines divided into four speaking parts, this is the longest section of the poem, a mini-­debate in which each lady, including the poet, presents her arguments in her particular verse style about who should judge the debate. At stake is less the question “Who suffers most?” than the judgment of the poet’s work and indeed of Marguerite herself. The first speaker extols the King in a series of hyperboles that depict him as highest in virtue and most worthy to rule and to judge (lines 1075–1112). Such a lengthy encomium pays respectful homage to the monarch who presides over the court where Marguerite’s story will be read. Yet even as she affirms the King’s superiority in no uncertain terms, Marguerite subtly deflects his position as supreme arbiter. Fearing his criticism, the poet refuses to submit her writing to his judgment and declines to be the judge herself (1114–26). Having passed the age of fifty, her thoughts are turned away from love to death (lines 1220–24)­. Whatever court intrigues might have accompanied the composition of this poem, Marguerite portrays its public presentation as an event fraught with peril for the woman writer. She fears that if she were to present the worthy tales of the ladies, her very presence would make the stories “indignes d’estre leuz/ devant le roy” (lines 1130–31). The third friend, regretting that neither the King in his wisdom nor Marguerite is available, suggests a woman whose beauty shines like a sun among the stars, who is renowned for her virtue, “la plus parfaictement aymée” [the most perfectly loved woman] (line 1246), Madame la Duchesse, the King’s mistress. Quickly approving this choice, the poet imagines that the King and 74 Marguerite de Navarre, Oeuvres completes, vol. IV: Théâtre, ed. Geneviève Hasenohr and Olivier Millet (Paris, Honoré Champion, 2002). 75 Marguerite de Navarre, “Comédie [des Quatres Femmes],” in Oeuvres completes, vol. IV: Théâtre, pp. 381–407.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 200

04/01/2016 10:07



STAGING FEMALE AUTHORITY IN CHANTILLY MS 522

201

the Duchess will read the work together, and that the Duchess’s great goodness will excuse Marguerite’s “ignorantes faultes” [ignorant errors] and serve as gentle protection [“doulce couverture”] for “ma povre ecriture” [poor writing] (lines 1301–3). As she has positioned her female storytellers in relation to one another in her legends and the corresponding images, Marguerite here deftly places her readers before her work and attempts to influence their reception. When the King and his mistress read the book side by side, the Duchess’s presence will soften the King’s “severité” (line 1315). The long debate about who will judge the poem thus provides an extended didascalie for its paratextual performance: Marguerite directs the King to read the poem seated next to the Duchess, whose gentle influence may soften his judgment. Turning the pages of the exquisite manuscript Marguerite has so carefully planned for the Duchess, the King cannot fail to notice the Queen’s doleful yet imposing figure and admire her poetic mastery. To be sure, Marguerite never falters in paying homage to the King. But her sly disruption of male hegemony returns us to the moment in the fourth scene when the ladies banish the Queen’s sole male interlocutor, described by the grieving women as a “fascheux paisant” [tedious peasant] (line 70). Unlike most other debates in the courtly tradition, La Coche is a love debate between women alone, overheard solely by a woman, who transcribes the arguments of male lovers as voiced by their amies. La Coche’s only vision of love, be it courtly or neo-­platonic, is from the women’s perspective. When the poet arranges for the women’s debate to be aired in court in the presence of her “amye parfaite” [perfect friend], she subtly disrupts the gender hierarchy in which the King is the sole and ultimate judge. The tenth hystoire illustrates the Queen’s triumphant return to court in the most visually charged image of the poem. This is the only page where nature, locus of solitude and reflection, disappears completely. Spectators emerge from every doorway, as if the courtiers who disappeared at the beginning have returned in profusion. The three ladies take their leave at left, knees bent in a bow, still clutching their handkerchiefs. A page carrying two torches leads the centrally placed Queen to her chambers; he seems to announce the work that Marguerite will do that night. Staged by the poet, executed by her illustrator, this image enacts a kind of royal entry, celebrating Marguerite’s return as a writer emboldened to tell her story at the King’s court.76 Throughout the poem, the legends and verse hystoires have portrayed Marguerite’s engagement with and support of her female companions through a series of dramatic gestures: a hand raised to bid adieu to the peasant, to enjoin the ladies to speak, to cut the laces of the fainting victim; two hands reviving the hand of another lady; a palm beckoning toward a darkening sky or inviting 76 On female royal entries in the Renaissance and some books that commemorate them, see Cynthia J. Brown, The Queen’s Library: Image-­Making at the Court of Anne of Brittany, 1477–1514 (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), pp. 15–62. Marguerite’s “entry” is of course a fictional event, imagined for her own honor.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 201

04/01/2016 10:07

202

ROBERTA L. KRUEGER

the ladies to enter the coach; in the penultimate scene, a benediction. The final image on fol. 43v foregrounds Marguerite’s authorial hand, the one that has penned the story we have read. The concluding illumination (fig. 4) frames a quatrain directed to “Vous, ma cousine et maistresse,” beseeching her to hold the book (lines 1330–33). At the center, a confident Marguerite extends her work to the outstretched hand of the Duchesse d’Estampes. The legend names the dedicatee and provides the poem’s most explicit sartorial instructions about dress: the Duchess wears “a cloth made of gold frisé, trimmed with flecked ermine, over a dress of crimson gold, cut low at the neck and gilded with precious stone” (Skemp, p. 227). Similarly, the cut, fabric, and trim of Marguerite’s costume are described so precisely – a sable-­trimmed high collar, with a bit of her pleated chemise showing at the neckline – that friends and family will recognize her instantly. The royal poet thus “signs” her manuscript in a way that her authorship cannot be doubted; the legend specifies that the Queen’s distinctive costume should be repeated in every image, as indeed it is. Far from disappearing from court life, the poet who had lost “le pouvoir et la gloire, et le plaisir de la doulce scripture” [the power and the glory, and the sweet pleasure of writing] returns in full command. In the poem’s final image, Marguerite foregrounds the illustrated manuscript handed from one woman to another, the book that the Duchess will read with the King. As it turns out, Marguerite de Navarre was not able to change the King’s decision to marry her daughter, Jeanne d’Albret, to the Duc de Clèves.77 But in the space and time of La Coche’s visual and textual performance, the authorial presence of the Queen de Navarre looms large. The poet skillfully stages the spectacle of three women literally floored by love and invites her reader(s) to sympathize with their plight. The Queen herself emerges as a creative force who will spin these tales of woe into dramatic textual and visual representations powerful enough, perhaps, to give the King pause. Although Marguerite de Navarre does not dismantle the gender hierarchy of the Renaissance court, she teases at the foundations of power, portraying the King’s inevitable judgment as subject to feminine influence when he reads a beautifully illustrated book alongside a lady who would advocate for its female author. Whatever Marguerite’s personal or political motives might have been in writing La Coche, the book was an important step in her emerging authorship.­ When she arranged for print publication of some of her works in 1547, La Coche was the only work that carried a full series of illuminations – proof that Marguerite considered the images integral to her poetic performance.78 La Coche recounts the poetic journey of a despondent, aging writer who re-­emerges from literary and social exile to create a work that, in her own words, will be better than her usual fare, worthy indeed of lavish illustration. The manuscripts commissioned by Marguerite appear to have been instrumental in furthering 77 The marriage took place that year, in 1541, when Jeanne was only twelve; it was annulled four years later. 78 For an analysis of the print images, see Conley, “Inklines and Lifelines.”

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 202

04/01/2016 10:07



STAGING FEMALE AUTHORITY IN CHANTILLY MS 522

203

her literary “gloire,” if not her political “pouvoir.” The Queen of Navarre’s ­manuscript production and print publication of La Coche richly embody the dynamic textualities of early modern culture, as the poem moves from annotated text, to illustrated manuscript, and finally to the printed page. Despite the poet’s initial misgivings, Marguerite de Navarre stages an authoritative performance in La Coche that evokes “le plaisir de la doulce escripture” [the sweet pleasure of writing], in its many forms.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 203

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 204

04/01/2016 10:07

Babies and Books: The Holy Kinship as a Way of Thinking about Women’s Power in Late Medieval Northern Europe Ann Marie Rasmussen1

Fig. 1.  Holy Kinship Altarpiece, ca. 1500, Rodsted (?), Jutland, Danish National Museum, Copenhagen, inv. D11104

1 Portions of this essay were delivered as lectures: in April 1–2, 2011, as “Family as a Way of Thinking through the Middle Ages,” at Mater(ia) Familias: Family Matters, Medievalists@Penn, Third Annual Graduate Student Conference, University of Pennsylvania; and September 16–19, 2012, as“Recovering Saint Anne and the Holy Kinship,” at the conference A Room of Its Own: Middle Low German between Colonialism, Cultural Transfer, and Bilingualism, sponsored by the Kungliga Vitterhets Akademie, Stockholm, Sweden.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 205

04/01/2016 10:07

206

ANN MARIE RASMUSSEN

A woman sits with an open book in her lap. She is of indeterminate age. Her skin is smooth, her face unlined, yet her hair and chin are completely covered by the wimple and neckband typically worn by older, married women in the late Middle Ages. She wears the clothing of a well-­to-­do matron, a rich and voluminous blue robe and over it a cloak or cape lined in red. We have caught her in the act of reading. As her left hand carefully grasps a page of the bound volume to lay it back in place, the index finger of her right hand (now missing, but the tip is visible) slides down the page, guiding her eyes line by line through the text. Who is this woman reading, and where is she doing this? Is she a nun or a beguine, sitting quietly with others in a warm room? A woman with a room of her own quietly meditating on a pious book or perusing a romance? Far from it. Here sits Saint Anne, reading, surrounded by the hubbub of three generations of family. Perhaps the word “din” would better describe this scene. In the foreground little boys play: on the far right, a child of about four is touching, tickling or pinching, the toddler on their mother’s lap. Close to the center, two little boys pretend to cook, clanging a stirrer in a clay pot; a puppy sits below them, scratching. To the far left, a fifth little boy rides his hobbyhorse, his upraised arms signaling perhaps the cries with which he urges on his mount. Above him, the young woman who is probably his mother breast-­feeds an infant (this hardly a silent activity), and beside her another young woman, crowned, rocks a naked infant, often a response to a crying child. Behind the three young woman are six bearded men, arranged three and three on either side of Saint Anne, whose lively hand gestures probably signal speech. Families are social constructions, thought and made using social and cultural categories. They change over time. Genealogy, which is based on socially constructed notions of family relationship and descent, is both a way of organizing the world and a way of thinking about it. Genealogies embody social networks, enact norms, make and contain stories, and they, too, change over time. What we are seeing in the unpretentious Rodsted altarpiece, made around the year 1500 in Germany and housed in the National Museum of Denmark, is one very popular, late medieval version of Christ’s genealogy, centered literally on Christ’s maternal grandmother, Saint Anne, who is surrounded by her daughters and grandchildren, with the women’s husbands (both living and dead) ranged along the back.2 This way of imagining Christ’s lineage is known as the Holy Kinship. It organizes Christ’s kinship network as matriliny – that is to say, as descent and connection through sainted women – thereby making many of Christ’s disciplines his cousins. The altarpiece focuses on these sainted, learned women with their books and babies. There were other, popular ways of thinking about Christ’s kinship in the Middle Ages, most notably the ancestral lineage depicted in the famous Tree of Jesse, which shows Christ arising from a long line of illustrious male forebears in the patriarchal world of the Old Testament.3 2 Further information on the altarpiece can be found on the website Danmarks Altertavler, www.altertavler.dk, inventoried under Ålborg Stift under the number Ål 05.06.01. 3 See Pamela Sheingorn, “The Holy Kinship: The Ascendancy of Matriliny in Sacred

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 206

04/01/2016 10:07



BABIES AND BOOKS: THE HOLY KINSHIP

207

The Holy Kinship advances a story about Christ’s kinship that differs from the patriarchal Tree of Jesse. It idealizes through sainthood learned, married women who are mothers, and it connects these women to one another in a social network of kinship based on maternal, cognate relationships. The Holy Kinship constructs a specific version of virtuous femininity (learned, pious, married, maternal) and the family that creates this kind of femininity as a site of power and influence that is passed through time by women to women. The cult of Saint Anne itself is ancient.4 Most of us are familiar with images of Saint Anne shown together with the Virgin Mary and the Christ child. Sometimes called in English “the Anna trinity,” this image is known in German as Anna Selbdritt (Anna Trifold). This term and the image are medieval. A fifteenth-­century German language prayer to Saint Anne cited by Virginia Nixon ends “and lead us trifold into the joy of eternal life, amen” (und für uns selbdritt in die freud des ewigen lebens amen).5 By the late Middle Ages, however, her popularity had grown exponentially, and the legends surrounding her had changed. The Rodsted altarpiece illustrates well Saint Anne’s late medieval attributes. She is imagined as affluent (note the modest yet fine clothing she is wearing), literate and preoccupied with knowledge (the book!), and youthfully middle-­aged. Above all, she has become the center of a large, prosperous, multi-­generational kin network. In images such as this one, and there are many, Saint Anne is the foundational figure in the Holy Kinship, which held that Saint Anne had been married three times and widowed twice, each marriage producing a daughter who in her turn gave birth to holy sons.6 Wherever we find images of the Holy Kinship, we find Anna Trifold images as well (the opposite Genealogy of the Fifteenth Century,” Thought: Fordham University Quarterly 64, no. 3 (1989), pp. 268–86, at p. 270. 4 See the first chapters of Beda J. Kleinschmidt, O.F.M, Die Heilige Anna: Ihre Verehrung in Geschichte, Kunst und Volkstum Forschungen zur Volkskunde, vols. 1–3. (Düsseldorf, L. Schwann, 1930). This massive study (450 pages long; image reproductions on nearly every page; twenty full-­page plates) was the fruit of decades of labor by Kleinschmidt (1867–1932). In terms of scholarship, the study is dated: its florid and sentimental language is very much of its time, and the image attributions cannot always be trusted. Above all, the notions of “folk” underlying the study’s approach are imbued with sentimentalist German nationalism.­Here this language and approach are not overtly political, yet it is not possible to read the forward and introduction without hearing their resonance with fundamental, ideological principles of German fascism. What constitutes this study’s value now is something that was characteristic of the progressive side of folklore studies in the early twentieth century: its aggressively eclectic approach to evidence. Die Heilige Anna is an encyclopedic compilation of everything Kleinschmidt could lay his hands on regarding Saint Anne from Europe, organized chronologically. 5 Virginia Nixon, Mary’s Mother: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Europe (University Park, The Pennsylvania University Press, 2004), at p. 47. 6 See Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, eds., Image and Ideology: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Drama and Narrative (Athens, University of Georgia Press, 1990); Angelika  Dierken-­Dörfler, Die Verehrung der heiligen Anna in Spätmittelalter und früher Neuzeit, Forschungen zur Kirchen-­und Dogmengeschichte, vol. 50 (Göttingen, Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992); Ton Brandenbarg, “Saint Anne: A Holy Grandmother and her Children,”

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 207

04/01/2016 10:07

208

ANN MARIE RASMUSSEN

is not true). The Holy Kinship frames the medieval Anna Trifold decisively, turning it into a selection from a larger group, making it, if a filmic metaphor may be allowed, a kind of zoom shot within a larger, determining context. A late medieval Anna Trifold from the Rheinland, Flanders, Northern Germany, or Scandinavia always implicitly alludes to the Holy Kinship. In her magisterial article on the Holy Kinship, Pamela Sheingorn sketched with clarity and vigor its intellectual landscape. Her basic findings remain foundational for the field and for this article. The Holy Kinship, which “presents a positive view of marriage, even of marrying more than once, and stresses the role of women not only in the nurturing but also in the education of children . . . claims for women a central role in the moral ordering of society.”7 Saint Anne was, to quote the title of Jennifer Lynn Welsh’s dissertation from 2009, mother, matron, and matriarch.8 The Holy Kinship flourished especially in Germanic-­language-­ speaking lands (Northern Germany, the Rhineland, Denmark, Sweden, Flanders and the Low Countries).9 The altarpiece in fig. 1 illustrates these points nicely. It was made of oak around the year 1500 in Northern Germany. At some point it traveled from there to Denmark, where it may have been set up in a church or chapel in the village of Rodsted, between Suldrup and Støvring, in Northern Jutland. Did you know that in his youth Martin Luther was a great devotee of Saint Anne, and that in rejecting the cult of the saints he had to, first of all, root her out of his heart?10 It is a historical irony of sorts that the geographical areas in which the cult of Saint Anne and the Holy Kinship flourished were precisely those territories in which the Reformation took permanent hold, displacing entirely Saint Anne, her family, and her cult, who have effectively disappeared from the cultural landscape by the mid-­1500s. Even the village and the church of Rodsted, which may have housed this altarpiece, vanished around the time of the Reformation. No traces of them remain; the altarpiece is housed in the Danish National Museum, in Copenhagen. The Rodsted altarpiece depicts seventeen people, all belonging to the Holy Kinship, organized around Saint Anne’s three marriages, or trinumbium. Saint Anne first married Joachim, who is the father of the Virgin Mary, who married Joseph, and gave birth to Jesus. After Joachim’s death, Saint Anne married Cleophas. Their daughter, Mary Cleophae, married Alphaeus, and gave birth to three sons (in some versions, four), who became Christ’s disciples: James the Lesser, Simon Juda, and Joseph the Just (sometimes called Barnabus). After in Sanctity and Motherhood: Essays on Holy Mothers in the Middle Ages, ed. Anneke B. Mulder-­Bakker (New York, Garland, 1995), pp. 31–68; Nixon, Mary’s Mother. 7 “Holy Kinship: Ascendency of Matriliny,” at p. 268. 8 Jennifer Lynn Welsh, “Mother, Matron, Matriarch: Sanctity and Social Change in the Cult of Saint Anne, 1450–1750”, Dissertation, History, Duke University, 2009. 9 See for example the maps showing cult sites in the Low Countries featuring Saint Anne in Heilige Anna, grote moeder: de cultus van de Heilige Moeder Anna en haar familie in de Nederlanden en anngrenzende streken (Nijmegen, SUN, 1992). 10 See Welsh, “Mother, Matron, Matriarch,” Chapter 3.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 208

04/01/2016 10:07



BABIES AND BOOKS: THE HOLY KINSHIP

209

Cleophas’ death, Saint Anne married Salomas. Their daughter, Mary Salome, married Zebedaeus (Zebadee), and became mother to two sons (one disciple and one apostle), James the Greater and John the Evangelist. This family is a large one, but in fact, the Holy Kinship shown on the Rodsted altarpiece is, as it were, a slightly contracted version of the Holy Kinship because it only focuses on Saint Anne. Some versions also include the offspring of Saint Anne’s sister, Esmeria. Married to Ephriam, her daughter, Elisabeth, married Zacharius, and gave birth to John the Baptist.11 Clearly one of the salient features of the Holy Kinship is that it makes a number of the men close to Christ his kin. Genealogy is a way of knowing the world. Insights advanced by historian Gabrielle M. Spiegel thirty years ago demonstrated both the significance and the malleability of genealogies for the noble and royal elites in the Middle Ages as political tools.12 Throughout the high and late Middle Ages, family networks and lineages mattered deeply for the ever widening class of social, political, cultural, and economic elites, who the evidence suggests kept track of both agnate and cognate genealogies (i.e., father’s kin and mother’s kin). Genealogies become arguments, tools through which claims to power, authority, and resources can be advanced. An interesting example of the use of genealogy as a way of thinking about the world comes in a fictional text written in Middle High German, Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival (c. 1210). In this epic-­length Arthurian romance, Wolfram invented for his protagonist, Parzival, a sprawling, bewildering, yet alarmingly coherent family tree of some one hundred people spanning seven or eight generations.13 In Parzival, Wolfram appears to have organized the welter of unrelated characters from his source texts into kin networks, populating the Arthurian world with many more people (usually only as a name or a placeholder) in the process. Further, Wolfram uses genealogy as a narrative first cause; the hero, Parzival, must discover and integrate both his paternal and maternal lineages in order to assume his rightful place in society. Kinship networks and relationships – agnatic, cognate, and multi-­generational – weave through the entire text. They are a foundational structure of the work’s thinking and its argument. Nevertheless, they are only rarely made completely explicit by the text. Somewhat like the hapless protagonist, Parzival, the reader 11 Anne and Esmeria’s parents are known either as Stollanus and Emerentiana or as Isachar and Susanna. Esmeria was also believed to have given birth to a son, Eliud. From his marriage to Emerentia came a son, Enim (married to Memelia), and from this marriage sprang Saint Servatius (died 385), the great bishop-­saint of Maastricht, who is thereby ­incorporated into the Holy Kinship. 12 Gabrielle M. Spiegel, “Genealogy: Form and Function in Medieval Historical Narrative,” History and Theory 22, no. 1 (1983), pp. 43–53. I analyze the politics of creating lineage in a medieval German fictional text in “Mother, Daughter, Foster Mother: The Politics of Lineage and the Socialization of Women in Kudrun,” Chapter 3 of Mothers and Daughters in Medieval German Literature (Syracuse, NY, Syracuse University Press, 1997), pp. 85–112. 13 Karl Bertau, Wolfram von Eschenbach: Neun Versuche über Subjektivität und Ursprünglichkeit in der Geschichte (Munich, C. H.Beck, 1983). This publication contains a spectacular diagram of Parzival’s family tree on pp. 236–7.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 209

04/01/2016 10:07

210

ANN MARIE RASMUSSEN

must remain alert and become active as the narrative challenges her or him to re-­construct the various kinship ties that bind different characters together and that explain in part the actions they take. Parzival assumes that its medieval readers care about genealogy and are experts in re-­constructing it. It presents its readers with what one might think of as a medieval brain-­twister, teasing them by stretching their ability to think and know genealogically to its limit. Parzival was composed at the beginning of the thirteenth century, more than two hundred years before the widespread popularity of the Holy Kinship, but it was copied and read well into the fifteenth century, as is attested by its manuscript transmission with the most surviving manuscripts of any medieval German romance. Parzival’s endurance as a text testifies in part to the endurance of genealogical thinking as a way of making sense of the world for medieval elites. Wolfram does for his fictional hero, Parzival, what medieval theologians and clerics were doing for Christ through both the Tree of Jesse and the Holy Kinship: organizing the people surrounding them into a network of kin. They did so because for medieval elites, family lineage was a way of knowing the world and of advancing claims to power, wealth, and prestige. (The lack of evidence makes it impossible for us to say whether this was true among the vast majority of people, peasants and the urban working classes.) The Holy Kinship, and for that matter Parzival, remind us that for these medieval elites, one’s relatives on one’s mother’s side – cognate relationships – mattered deeply. Saint Anne and the Holy Kinship set before our eyes a family that, while it clearly values agnatic relationships (after all God is Christ’s father), is held together, connected through maternal, cognate relationships. The family is conceptualized over time through both female and male ancestors and relations. The fifteenth-­century Holy Kinship seen here in the Rodsted altarpiece represents an imaginary, ideal, fifteenth-­century family that is modeling conventional ideals of sanctity, of domesticity, and of gender. These men and women great in holiness, these saints, are not imagined as majestic, aloof, distant, as awe-­fully (awe-­inspiringly) powerful. Rather, they look like the prosperous merchants from “next door,” or like the elite local gentry. The social and economic distance between these saints and the medieval onlooker could certainly be greater or smaller, depending on whether you were, say, a peasant girl or a middle-­aged merchant, but nevertheless these saints are comfortably settled in the experiential life world of most Northern European fifteenth-­century viewers. The historian Robert Scribner once wrote that medieval and early modern people tended to imagine their relationship to a holy person in terms of known social relationships.14 This altarpiece, and many others like it, strongly support that statement. Looking at this image, one is struck immediately by two things: how big the family is and how affluent they look. This is an image of prosperity at many levels: lots of professions among the men, lots of happy, healthy children, lots 14 See “Elements of Popular Belief,” in Thomas A. Brady, Heiko A. Obermann, and James Tracy, eds., Handbook of European History, 1400–1600, vol. 1 (Leiden, Brill, 1995), pp. 231–61.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 210

04/01/2016 10:07



BABIES AND BOOKS: THE HOLY KINSHIP

211

of nice clothes, lots of well fed, healthy-­looking people who are well disposed to one another. (In this clan, apparently, no child neglect, spousal abuse or unwelcome bastards, no aged, sickly parents abandoned by spiritually ambitious children, no quarrels over property decisions, inheritance preferments, acceptable marriage partners, or dowry shares, no squabbles over who ate the last piece of pie, or whose turn it is to sweep the stairs. A fantasy indeed.) Good health, material abundance, lots of children. This tableau certainly enshrines heterosexuality and fertility as positive values, and it suggests that material abundance is a sign of godly favor. It also suggests that the size of the family and their prosperity are causally connected. This sprawling clan shows us an ideal of family as a network that is rich in connections and influence. In this ideal notion of family, power lies less in the unique virtues of each individual than in the large size and diversity of the collective, their strong bonds with one another, and each individual’s ability to “leverage,” as it were, the clan’s power and authority. Saint Anne sits at the center of this powerful network, a matriarch wielding enormous power via her relations and her connections. Saint Anne’s connections include three husbands: one living and two dead. All three husbands are present in this tableau, all depicted in such life-­like ways that a modern viewer may be forgiven for wondering for a moment whether or not this tableau celebrates polyandry (the practice of having multiple husbands simultaneously). It does not. Rather, it celebrates a woman’s, Saint Anne’s, multiple, consecutive marriages. On the topic of widowhood, clerical pronouncement and late medieval reality were in deep discord.15 Much clerical writing long disapproved of women’s remarriage and strove to uphold an ideal of chaste widowhood rather than remarriage after the death of a spouse. Nevertheless, the work of social historians has shown us that for late medieval widows, remarriage was the norm. This altarpiece takes the discord between clerical ideals and secular norms to a new level. It attacks disapproval or discomfort with women’s remarriage by enshrining that remarriage as holy, as a sacred act. And let there be no doubt: none of these marriages is chaste; all produced children. Many of the reforming clerics who enthusiastically promoted the cult of Saint Anne dealt with this by approvingly noting that, while there were children, there was no sexual desire, no lust in these marriages, sex being solely for the purpose of procreation. Envisioned through the thrice-­married mother of three daughters, Saint Anne, women’s remarriage is powerful and virtuous because it makes generous, productive use of women’s unique ability to enlarge, through childbirth and through marriage, the size, scope, and reach of the clan, of the family. Saint Anne’s clan lovingly includes two deceased husbands, who look benevolently on their successors and their successors’ children. In this kinship, the dead and the living peacefully co-­exist in time and space. The family network negates the line between the living and the dead, or rather, it presents a system of belief in which a bright line between the living and the dead does not exist. The Virginia Nixon’s Mary’s Mother is especially illuminating in this regard.

15

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 211

04/01/2016 10:07

212

ANN MARIE RASMUSSEN

other key word in this paragraph is “peacefully.” My reading and research on the late Middle Ages lead me to believe that there was a near-­universal assumption that the living co-­existed with a spirit world that was invisible, omnipresent, capricious, and deeply malevolent towards human beings. (The toys are in fact conventional symbols of their martyrdoms.) The peaceful ­co-­existence of living and dead was rare, desirable, and desperately needed. This late medieval notion of kinship collapses the living and the dead into one great network of shared power. Indeed, the saints who died centuries ago are every bit as alive in this tableau as they were in their putative lifetimes. Saint Anne and her clan are not long gone and distant; they are immediate and present. And if Saint Anne’s kin includes the dead, then why not the living? Is it possible for a believer to become a family member, to join this big clan? The answer, as you doubtless know, is yes. Devotion to a saint means more than joining his or her cause. Here it is figured as becoming a member of the kin, being protected, furthered, nurtured, and cared for by these great people and in turn using one’s own resources for further holy works on their behalf. And who might seek adoption into the Holy Kinship? Modern people often look at the images of Saint Anne and of the Holy Kinship and imagine that they are aimed primarily at women. The altarpiece’s undeniable focus on childbirth and childrearing, on women’s work, makes this assumption understandable. But it is wrong. The promoters of Saint Anne’s cult were reforming clerics. And not only that. The late medieval world was replete with social organizations, called confraternities or religious guilds, which were, quoting Nicholas Orme, “a popular form of lay involvement in Church life . . . [whose] purpose was to support a saint or church and to provide social and religious benefits for their members.”16 Religious confraternities devoted to Saint Anne were especially plentiful in late medieval Northern Europe, another sign of her great popularity.17­The members of Saint Anne guilds were overwhelmingly men, especially prosperous merchants. In their devotion to Saint Anne as their patroness, these men appear to be wishing to share symbolically in the fecundity, prosperity, and security of the large household that Saint Anne was imagined to have founded and led. That Saint Anne is revered by men as well as women raises the issue of gender. How is gender present in this altarpiece? First of all, although men and women all appear on the tableau, they occupy separate or divided zones. The women occupy center stage; the adult men stand in the background and are separated from the women by a kind of wall. This separation is not absolute;­ the young children, all boys, frolic in the women’s zone and the men’s hands and arms reach into the female space – Alphaeus even touches his wife, Mary Cleophae’s neck – yet the demarcation between male and female realms is unmistakable. It is typical in depictions of the Holy Kinship. This is a deeply Medieval Children (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2001), p. 221. On the confraternies of Saint Anne see especially Dierken-­Dörflerr, Die Verehrung der heiligen Anna, and Welsh, “Mother, Matron, Matriarch.” 16 17

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 212

04/01/2016 10:07



BABIES AND BOOKS: THE HOLY KINSHIP

213

conventional, gendered notion of domesticity, which is used to represent female fecundity as a source of great power from which all benefit. I would like to explore the conventional, gender aspects of this late medieval notion of domesticity by dwelling for a moment on two main senses depicted in the altarpiece: sight and touch. Sight first. None of the adults looks any of the others in the eyes. This lack of direct gazing accords well with norms of appropriate female behavior. Across national and linguistic boundaries, medieval conduct literature stresses again and again that a modest, virtuous woman lowers her eyes. The thirteenth-­century German conduct book Der Welshe Gast (The Italian Visitor), by Thomasin von Zerclaere, sets out a clearly gendered double-­standard when it comes to an etiquette of looking: “A woman must not look fixedly at a strange man. That is best. . . . A young nobleman should look at both knights and ladies often and in modest way.”18 In the middle high German mother–daughter advice poem Die Winsbeckin, the mother tells her daughter, “Don’t cast wild glances about you.”19 This behavioral standard applies presumably in the first instance to men and women looking at one another, not to men looking at men, or women looking at women, yet within this altarpiece, all direct adult gazes are avoided. Instead, four men gaze down at the women and children, while two men gaze out at the viewer (one wonders if these are Saint Anne’s two dead husbands). In her recent study of Thomasin von Zerclaere’s Welscher Gast, Kathryn Starkey offers an incisive discussion of discourses of seeing in the Middle Ages.20 In the medieval world view, a direct gaze can be challenging and frightening, erotic, or even, at worst, malevolent (“the evil eye”). An arresting, frontal gaze is also associated with icons, with rituals and with ceremony. Here, however, most of the gazes are averted. The figures “look away, involved in their own worlds, their own narratives and realities.”21 The averted gaze “enables the viewer to identify with the figures, projecting on to them and imagining him/herself a part of them.” The direct gaze creates the 18 “Ein vrowe sol nit fast ansehen / einen vremden man das stet wol. / ein edel junchherr beidiu ritter unde vrowe / gezogenliche gerne schauwen”. Book One lines 398–404. For editions and another translation see Der Welshe Gast, trans. with introduction and notes by Marion Gibbs and Winder McConnell, Medieval Texts in Bilingual Translation, vol. 4 (Kalamazoo, MI, Medieval Institute Publications, 2009), p. 60. 19 “Schiez wilde blicke nicht zu vil.” “The Winsbecke Father–Son and Mother–Daughter Poems (Der Winsbecke and Die Winsbeckin), with a Medieval Parody,” ed., trans. and intro. by Ann Marie Rasmussen and Olga V. Trokhimenko, in Medieval Conduct Literature: An Anthology of Vernacular Guides to Behaviour for Youths, with English Translations, ed. Mark D. Johnston (Toronto, University of Toronto Press and the Medieval Academy of America, 2009), pp. 61–125, at page 89. 20 A Courtier’s Mirror: Cultivating Elite Identity in Thomasin von Zerclaere’s “Welscher Gast” (Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 2013)especially Chapter 2, “Vision, the Viewing Subject, and the Power of Narrative,” pp. 55–83. 21 Jas Elsner, “Between Mimesis and Divine Power: Visuality in the Graeco-­Roman World,” in Visuality before and beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw, ed Robert S. Nelson (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp 45–69, at p. 59–60, quoted by Starkey on p. 66.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 213

04/01/2016 10:07

214

ANN MARIE RASMUSSEN

potential for the kind of story that has no place in a tableau of sanctified family life; the averted gaze, on the other hand, “elicits a series of identifications or narratives from us as viewers. We can read our way into the picture, as it were.”22 Saint Anne looks at her book. Mary Salome and the Virgin Mary look in the direction of their children. Mary Cleophae has both a child and a book on her lap. The female gazes correspond to one another. The women all look at something or someone, at either babies or a book. The correspondence between babies and book is underscored by the touching highlighted in the image: Mary Salome nurses a baby, their hands joining at her breast; the Virgin Mary cradles the Christ child with large, outsized hands; Mary Cleophae and her two sons are joined in a veritable closed circle of touch via a book: her left hand resting on the larger child’s back, that child’s hands touching on a book at his little brother’s feet, the little brother’s left hand touching big brother’s head, the mother clasping the baby’s right hand in hers. Meanwhile, Saint Anne touches her book, her left hand turning the page and, practically dead-­center in the tableau, the now broken index finger of her right hand tracing a line of text. The depictions of sight and touch invite us to believe that babies and books are women’s work. The linkage between motherhood and books is intriguing on a number of levels. First of all, by the high Middle Ages it has become a commonplace in depictions of the Virgin Mary. Often in images of the annunciation, for example, the Virgin Mary is surprised in the act of reading. Countless medieval images show Saint Anne teaching the Virgin Mary how to read, here substituting a book for the Christ child.23 All of this symbolism – that Christ is the Word of God, that that word is incarnated in the Bible, that Christians are people of the Holy Book – is implied in our Holy Kinship tableau. But Saint Anne is not the Virgin Mary, and here the Christ child is present in the altarpiece. Whatever books can symbolize when they appear with Saint Anne, something more prosaic is also happening. Saint Anne is reading because, as the matriarch of a powerful family, she is imagined as being in charge of the socialization and religious education of the younger women and children in the household. By the late Middle Ages, it has become a commonplace that maternal duties include instruction in basic reading and basic religious practices and beliefs. Socialization of children now includes, for elite and well-­to-­do households at any rate, what we would call home schooling in vernacular languages, supplemented for boys in urban ­households with attending school or having a tutor. The ideal matriarch and matron of the late Middle Ages is religious, observant, and learned. To imagine such women as mere mouthpieces of conventional religious dogma in their own households simplifies and falsifies a dynamic and complex situation. First, to be a learned woman in the late medieval work can involve book learning, but it need not. The late medieval, Northern European Elsner, “Between Mimesis,” pp. 59–60, quoted by Starkey on p. 66. Pamela Sheingorn, “The ‘Wise Mother’: The Image of St. Anne Teaching the Virgin Mary,” in Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in the Middle Ages, ed. Mary C. Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski, (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press; 2003), pp. 105–34. 22 23

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 214

04/01/2016 10:07



BABIES AND BOOKS: THE HOLY KINSHIP

215

imaginary is replete with texts, still barely studied, depicting women besting churchmen in theological debate and observant practice. The vernacular-­ language Sister Katrei treatises depict a woman who follows a religious life trouncing her confessor in theological debate that is a curious mixture of orthodoxy and heterodoxy. Another short text, known under the title The Twenty-­One-­ Year-­Old Woman, varies this theme.24 A young woman approaches a learned theologian, called in the text a doctor of divinity, who interrogates her about her religious practices. His response to her descriptions of her mystical-­like experiences of closeness to the Godhead is as follows: When the theologian heard all this he began to weep bitterly and asked: “Lady, do you have a husband? Do you live together as man and wife? Do you have children? Do you have property? Do you have honor in the world?” And she answered, “Yes, Sir, I have all these things.” Then he said, “Tell me good lady, how is it possible to reconcile all this?” And the woman said very humbly, “Good Sir, how do these things harm me? Permit me to explain that I give my children what they need and raise them so that they are not proud, I do everything for them that is fitting, in praise of God. Also, I treat neither my houseboys nor my maids as if I were the mistress of the household. I live with them just as if we were all brothers and sisters. When I have done it all and go to church and can manage to find a little place to stand just wide enough for both my feet, then I sink so deeply into God that I find that no one exists in that moment but Christ and me alone.” Then the theologian said, “Lady, you are on a righteous path. Pray to God for me, poor friar, who has worn the cloth for fifty years and is called doctor of divine arts, and has not yet been able to attain such perfection of devotion.25

This twenty-­one-­year-­old woman, a paragon of piety and more perfect in her devotions than the learned friar, is a well-­off, married woman and mother managing a demanding household. There are at least thirty manuscripts containing this as yet virtually unstudied text. Why does the good doctor weep? Because a woman – a young married mother no less – has attained spirituality superior to his. This cautionary tale, if you will, that those less learned and more lowly can attain a closeness to God superior to that of the clerics and priests, is hardly new in medieval Catholicism. It could appear to be a two-­edged sword regarding the overall value and status of learning if we did not know that the learning it rebukes (for surely the good doctor also weeps because he has been chastised) is that of the world of the cleric, the world of higher learning as we would call it (philosophy, theology, and natural science) that was conducted in Latin and was virtually closed to women.26 24 “Schwester Katrei und Die Frau von ein-­und-­zwanzig Jahren / Sister Catherine and the Twenty-­One-­Year-­Old Woman,” Chapter 2 of Ladies, Whores, and Holy Women: A Sourcebook in Courtly, Religious, and Urban Cultures of Late Medieval Germany, with Introductory Essays, ed. and trans. Ann Marie Rasmussen and Sarah Westphal-­Wihl (Kalamazoo, MI, Medieval Institute Publications, 2010) pp. 47–97. 25 Rasmussen and Westphal-­Wihl, Ladies, Whores, and Holy Women, p. 95. 26 Latin was, in Walter J. Ong’s memorable phrase, “a sex-­ linked language” that

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 215

04/01/2016 10:07

216

ANN MARIE RASMUSSEN

In many households, however, the learned woman’s interest in and thirst for knowledge went beyond devotional practice and far beyond teaching the ABCs. The ideal mother represented by Saint Anne might well be knowledgeable about religious doctrine and church hierarchies, interested in current trends, debates, and practices in religion thought, and she might read, often extensively, in a vernacular language and even in Latin. A remarkable late fourteenth-­century book-­list or inventory of books owned by one Elisabeth von Volkenstorff, an Austrian noblewoman, which survives in a mid-­fifteenth-­century manuscript, gives us a glimpse of what such a learned woman might read.27 Although we cannot identify precisely which of the four Elisabeths in the Volkenstorff family this might be, there can be no doubt that this is her inventory, for it explicitly states: “Nota, here is a record of the books in the German language that I, Elisabeth von Volkenstorff, own.”28 Elisabeth von Volkenstorff owned at least forty-­seven books or manuscripts, a large library for her time, which may of course have contained a great many more works, since some of the books are doubtless compilation manuscripts. Intriguingly, she took such care with this list that there is no item on the list whose contents are fully undecipherable. The inventory shows that Elisabeth von Volkenstorff’s books represent nearly every area of writing in the German vernacular, both prose and rhymed discourse, at the beginning of the fifteenth century. (Two genres that appear to be missing, Minnesang (courtly love poetry) and heroic epic, could be hiding in one of the compilation manuscripts.) Twenty-­five titles pertain to religious experience, representing a wide variety of genres, from devotional aids such as prayer books to Bible-­related texts, saints’ lives, mystical texts, and books designed by their clerical authors to communicate Latin theology to lay people in their own language. She also owned compendia on conduct, history, and natural lore, medical books, law texts, Arthurian romance (including at least one, and maybe two, copies of Wolfram’s Parzival), didactic poetry, and rhymed couplet stories. I would argue, then, that we are best served by using a category of learned women that is expansive and elastic, that can contain both women whose access to book learning and books is limited, such as the imaginary pious r­epresented a collective identity, a prestigious, powerful, homosocial, and celibate world of learning. The vernacular languages, on the other hand, were used by men and women, and by clerics and laymen alike. “The cleavage between the vernacular world and the Latin world did not coincide with the division between literacy and illiteracy but it did coincide . . . with a division between a world in which woman had some say and an almost exclusively male world.” In such a world, the contrasting pair, Latin man and vernacular woman, made perfect symbolic sense. Walter J. Ong, “Latin Learning as a Renaissance Puberty Rite,” Studies in Philology LVI (April 1959), pp.106–9, at p. 108. 27 “Bücherverzeichnis der Elisabeth von Volkenstorff / Elisabeth of Volkentorff’s Booklist,” Chapter 3 of Rasmussen and Westphal-­Wihl, Ladies, Whores, and Holy Women, pp. 97–109. 28 “Nota, hie ist ze merchken, waz ich Elspeth Volchenstorfferin puecher hab deutscher,” Rasmussen and Westphal-­Wihl, Ladies, Whores, and Holy Women, p. 106.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 216

04/01/2016 10:07



BABIES AND BOOKS: THE HOLY KINSHIP

217

mother in The Twenty-­One-­Year-­Old Woman, and those, such as Elisabeth von Volkenstorff, who aspired to learning. Learned women in the late medieval ages includes women, and networks of women, who are literate, teach their children to read, value education, collect books, and are patrons of writers composing religious and secular texts in both Latin and the vernacular. It is, for me, impossible, to imagine such women as passive recipients of clerical knowledge. I see them in dialogue and exchange with others, engaged to the best of their abilities and resources in the intellectual debates of their time and place (which doubtless were not the same as those in the universities), and determining in decisive ways the shape of vernacular literacy through their patronage practices. The question for scholars becomes, were women such as Elisabeth von Volkenstorff the exception or the rule? I would argue that they are far more common than our current level of synthesized knowledge allows us to see. Saint Anne of the Holy Kinship is an image of this kind of learned woman. The scholarly narrative of the high and late Middle Ages has been captivated for too long by a basically clerical notion of the illiterati – namely, that women’s roles in the development of literacy were essentially complementary, supportive, passive, derivative, and imitative – or by the clerical anxieties of those who worriedly lumped learned women, pious women, heretical women, and doubting women into one group. Might the growing body of evidence on women’s roles show that these assumptions are often wrong, and that women played decisive roles in the rise and spread of vernacular literacy in the late Middle Ages? This happened through their communities, families, and “families of choice,” such as the beguinage or kinship networks such as the household of Saint Anne. The work of scholars such as D. H. Green pointed the way; the work of many others, including Sally Poor and Henrike Lähnemann, carry it forward; and there is much work still to be done.29 I conclude. I have used the figure of Saint Anne as a window to viewing late medieval mothers, matriarchs, and educated women. As Anna Trifold, she represents a trinity that is comprehensible and concrete. Her naturalistic portrayal in Holy Kinship tableaux such as the Rodsted altarpiece suggest that she was perceived as a holy woman and as a mother and a matriarch, a socially powerful and educated woman who played a dominant role in her extended family. She was created here as a familiar figure with whom viewers could identify, and who was believed to wield salvational power similar to that of her grandson. The Holy Kinship tableau vivant recognizes and honors the central status of women 29 To name just a few titles: D. H.Green, Women Readers in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007); Terese Martin, ed., Reassessing the Roles of Women as “Makers” of Medieval Art and Architecture, 2 vols (Leiden, Brill, 2012); Elizabeth A. Andersen, Henrike Lähnemann, and Anne Simons, eds., A Companion to Mysticism and Devotion in Northern Germany in the Late Middle Ages (Leiden, Brill, 2013); Sara S. Poor, “Stimmen schreibender Frauen in der Mystik des 15. Jahrhunderts: Der Fall Anna Eybins,” Zeitschrift für Literatur Wissenschaft und Linguistik 43, no. 171 (2013), pp. 104–21.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 217

04/01/2016 10:07

218

ANN MARIE RASMUSSEN

and family in late medieval society, while defining women’s role and status in society in much broader terms than we are accustomed to considering. It places an educated, thrice-­married mother at its center as the root and source of its conception of virtue and power. Most importantly of all, the Holy Kinship imagines through genealogy a structure of connection between women as a source of enduring, transmittable power.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 218

04/01/2016 10:07

Page Layout and Reading Practices in Christine de Pizan’s Epistre Othea: Reading with the Ladies in London, BL, MS Harley 4431 Nancy Freeman Regalado In two remarkable images in London, BL MS Harley 4431, the manuscript Christine de Pizan produced between 1410 and 1415 for Queen Isabeau of Bavaria, wife of the French king Charles VI, Christine depicts two circles of women readers: one real and one ideal. Although Christine de Pizan often describes herself as a solitary reader, in the frontispiece to Harley 4431, fol. 3r, we see her in the Queen’s bedchamber, kneeling in a deeply respectful attitude before her intended readers, Isabeau of France1 and her circle of six ladies, whose relative status is indicated by their position, size, coifs, and the degree of luxury of their clothing (fig. 1).2 The Queen’s chamber itself is fully depicted, from the red and green rafters that frame the gold barrel-­vaulted ceiling to the wall-­hangings of tapestries adorned with the royal fleur de lys, to the open windows where lattices show sunlight and suggest a breeze, to the heraldic bedcover and tester of the splendid bed to the right, and finally to the figured carpet that lies along the lower margin of the image. Reading has not yet begun in the frontispiece. In the center foreground, Christine is recognizable in her “uniform,” a blue houppelande [long gown]and white cornette [two-­horned headdress].3 She holds out her large, gilt-­edged book whose clasps hold a richly decorated velvet binding. Before her, the Queen, wearing 1 On women’s kneeling position in book presentations, see Erik S. Inglis, “A Book in the Hand: Some Late Medieval Accounts of Manuscript Presentations,” Journal of the Early Book Society 5 (2002), pp. 57–97. 2 See all illustrations of Harley 4431 on the website “Christine de Pizan: The Making of the Queen’s Manuscript (London, BL, Harley MS 4431),” dir. James Laidlaw, http://www. pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/index.html, accessed July 15, 2012. 3 On Christine’s “uniform” see Dhira B. Mahoney, “Courtly Presentation and Authorial Self-­Fashioning: Frontispiece Miniatures in Late Medieval French and English Manuscripts,” Mediaevalia 21 (1996), pp. 97–160, at p. 112, and Olivier Delsaux, Manuscrits et pratiques autographes chez les écrivains français de la fin du Moyen Age: l’exemple de Christine de Pizan (Geneva, Droz, 2013), p. 310. Sandra Hindman emphasizes the historical veracity of this frontispiece in “The Iconography of Queen Isabeau de Bavière (1410–1415): An Essay in Method,” Gazette des Beaux Arts 102 (October 1983), pp. 102–10.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 219

04/01/2016 10:07

220

NANCY FREEMAN REGALADO

Fig. 1.  London, British Library, MS Harley 4431, fol. 3r: Frontispiece: Christine presents her book to Queen Isabeau. © The British Library Board

a crown-­like bourrelet [a padded, heart-­shaped headdress] and an embroidered houppelande with flowing, ermine-­lined sleeves, is seated on a long couch, her little dog perched on its arm. A greyhound, lying to the lower right with his muzzle on his front paws, completes the atmosphere of quiet stillness. The moment is important. the ceremony of book presentation is fully realized, yet intimate. Reading has begun in the second image under consideration (fig. 2), an illustration of chapter 23 of Christine’s Epistre Othea copied in Harley 4431,4 a book-­length letter of moral advice and spiritual teachings for knights, addressed to the young prince Hector of Troy. Against the richly diapered background of a space that is both more abstract and even more exalted than that of the frontispiece, the goddess Diana leans comfortably over her cloud as she reads with seven women. This is a world without social distinctions of garb or position other than the wimples worn by the four older women and the flowing hair of the three younger readers and, of course, Diana’s cloud, which marks her d­ ivinity. There is no visual precedent for this image, which is (exceptionally) unrelated to the following texte, which identifies Diana as the moon and as a figure of Ed. Gabriella Parussa (Geneva, Droz, 1999).

4

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 220

04/01/2016 10:07



PAGE LAYOUT AND READING PRACTICES IN EPISTRE OTHEA

221

Fig. 2.  London, British Library, MS Harley 4431, fol. 107r: The goddess Diana presides over a group of women readers. © The British Library Board

chastity; it depicts Christine’s “conviction that moral and spiritual virtues can be learned from books.”5 The atmosphere is calm and receptive: books are open in Diana’s hands and on the women’s laps. While the frontispiece image legitimizes Christine as a writer and producer of books, this image of Diana and her readers gives extraordinary resonance to women’s reading in Christine’s Othea. I have chosen to focus on the page layout of Othea in Harley 4431, for it offers an important material witness to the reading practices of Christine and her women readers. Christine herself is visually present throughout Harley 4431, appearing more than a dozen times in illustrations of the thirty works collected there,6 confirming what Sarah Kay calls “the autobiographical tenor of her work.”7 The book itself brings readers wonderfully close to Christine for

5 Sandra Hindman, Christine de Pizan’s “Epistre Othea” (Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1986), at p. 93. 6 See Mahoney, “Courtly Presentation,” pp. 107–13. The 30 works by Chrostome copied in Harley 4431 are listed on the website Christine de Pizan: The Making of the Queen’s Manuscript,” http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/context.html, accessed December 14, 2014. 7 “Allegory and Melancholy in Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva and Christine de Pizan,”

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 221

04/01/2016 10:07

222

NANCY FREEMAN REGALADO

she surely held Harley 4431 in her own hands, whether she copied the pages herself or supervised their production.8 The unique layout of Othea in Harley 4431 has special value, for it shows Christine shaping the material pages of her book by means of illustration, compositional structure, and mise en page to teach her (women) readers how to find moral and spiritual lessons as they read. It also enables us to feel Christine’s speaking presence in the movement of passages of text. Moreover, the layout allows us to estimate the pace, duration, and intended impact of public reading sessions9 of this, Christine’s most popular work.10 In her letter to Jean de Montreuil, copied in Harley 4431, Christine evokes just such a public reading event for ladies at a court mealtime, although she imagines them shamed by listening to the Roman de la Rose: Que fait à louer lecture qui n’osera estre leue ne parlée en propre forme a la table des roynes, des princesses et des vaillans preudefemmes, a qui convendroit couvrir la face de honte rougie. [But who could praise a work which can be neither read nor quoted (literally, spoken) at the table of queens, of princesses, and of worthy women, who would surely, on hearing it, be constrained to cover their blushing faces.]11

Moreover, Christine deliberately repeats the layout of her materials in every chapter, instructing her audience to use layers of commentary to pursue high moral and spiritual purposes.12 Finally, although Othea is a book of advice addressed to knights, Christine shapes it in three ways to appeal to her women readers: by authorizing her woman speaker; by assertive rewriting and in Provocation and Negotiation, Essays in Comparative Criticism, ed. Gesche Ipsen et al., (Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2013), pp. 125–40, at p. 126. 8 Parussa (Parussa, ed., p. 103) and James Laidlaw (“Christine and the Manuscript Tradition,” in Christine de Pizan: A Casebook, ed. Barbara K. Altmann and Deborah L. McGrady (New York, Routledge, 2003), pp. 231–49) differ from Gilbert Ouy and Christine Reno, who argue that Christine copied the Harley MS herself, besides supervising its illustration (Scriptorium 34 (1980), pp. 221–38). Most recently, Delsaux counts Harley 4431 among Christine’s autographs (Manuscrits et pratiques autographes, at pp. 33–6 and p. 209). See also Hindman, Christine de Pizan’s “Epistre Othea,” pp. 13–16 and pp. 98–9. 9 The page layout of Othea adds evidence about reading practices to the descriptions of reading events in chronicles and romances gathered by Joyce Coleman, Public Reading and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England and France (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996). 10 The large number of manuscripts and early printed editions suggest that Othea was a popular choice among reading circles: forty-­nine extant manuscripts, four early print editions, and three early translations into English. 11 Christine de Pizan, Les Epistres sur le “Rommant de la rose,” Harley 3441, fol. 241r, ed. Eric Hicks, Le Débat sur le Roman de la Rose (Paris, Champion, 1977), p. 20; trans. Joseph L. Baird and John B. Kane, La Querelle de la Rose: Letters and Documents (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Department of Romance Languages, 1978), p. 54. 12 Rosamund Tuve rejoices: “The author tells us outright how she expects to be read,” in Allegorical Imagery: Some Medieval Books and their Posterity (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1966) p. 34.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 222

04/01/2016 10:07



PAGE LAYOUT AND READING PRACTICES IN EPISTRE OTHEA

223

Fig. 3.  London, British Library, MS Harley 4431, fol. 95r: Christine presents the Epistre Othea to Louis of Orleans. © The British Library Board

i­nterpretation of the stories she cites; and by subtle adjustments in the illustrations of the Queen’s manuscript. Let us imagine we can slip into the privileged circle of Christine and her readers and sit among the ladies as Christine opens the clasps of the red velvet binding of Harley 4431 and begins to read aloud.13 To our delight, Christine has chosen the heavily illustrated Othea, 101 images in all, one for the prologue and one for each of the 100 chapters of Othea, the only text so lavishly illustrated in Harley 4431.14 Othea begins with an initial image of Christine (fol. 95r) (fig. 3). She identifies herself firmly as the author, the work as her own, herself as speaker. In the illustrated prologue in Harley 4431, addressed to Louis of Orleans, brother of 13 It is a pleasure to thank two other circles of readers: the friends with whom I have had opportunities to discuss Othea: Joyce Coleman, Marilynn Desmond, Nadia Margolis, Pamela Sheingorn, Kathryn Smith – and Mark Cruse, who read this article in draft; and the wide circle of Christine scholars to whom I am deeply indebted at every point. 14 Of the thirty works copied in Harley 4431, eleven have only a prefatory miniature, the Cité des dames has three, the Livre du Duc des vrays amans six.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 223

04/01/2016 10:07

224

NANCY FREEMAN REGALADO

King Charles VI, Christine kneels before the sumptuously arrayed prince on his throne; she is dressed, as always, in her two-­horned white headdress and plain, unornamented gown (black here, to contrast with the Duke’s blue robe). She speaks modestly at first in her prologue, as befits her status as a woman: “povre creature / Femme ignorant” [poor creature, / Unschooled woman]. But as she speaks, she voices increasing authority: she has gleaned valuable crumbs of learning from the high table of her father, the royal astrologer, “qui sollempnel clerc estoit renommé” [who was renowned as a serious scholar]; the importance of her undertaking lends force to her voice: “Car petite clochette grant voix sonne” [Since the small bell often sounds a great voice]; and she is addressing a great lord, “tres noble prince excellant / D’Orlïens duc Loÿs” [most notable and excellent prince, / Duke of Orleans, Louis].15 Moreover, beginning in chapter 1, Christine assumes the thrilling voice of Othea, the female goddess of wisdom that she invented. Othea is the figure of supreme authority in this fictional letter addressed by the goddess to the young prince Hector. Male and female roles of power are immediately reversed in the illustration of chapter 1 on fol. 95v, the overleaf of the frontispiece presentation image (fig. 4).16 Here Hector, richly dressed and accompanied by three splendidly garbed courtiers, kneels to accept a letter from Othea, who leans down from her cloud. However, unlike other radiantly arrayed goddesses such as Venus (ch. 7, fol. 100r) and Minerva/Pallas (ch. 14. fol. 103r), but like Diana in chapter 23, Othea is dressed simply, in a curiously Christine-­like costume of blue gown and white (but unhorned) headdress. Thus cued, Christine voices Othea throughout from a superior position, through a goddess who compares herself in the final chapter, chapter 100, to the Cumean Sibyl, a Virgilian figure of transcendent authority, who shows the emperor Augustus a vision of the Virgin and Child (fol. 131r). Christine herself does not remain onstage as a character in Othea to dialogue with this supreme otherworldly creature as she does with the Virtues in the Cité des dames and the Livre des Trois Vertus, the Cumean Sibyl in the Chemin de Longue Etude, and Lady Philosophy in L’Avision Christine.17 Yet Christine’s 15 Prologue, ed. Parussa, pp. 195–6; trans. Jane Chance, Letter of Othea to Hector (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 1990, rpt. 1997), pp. 33–4. 16 The corresponding illustrations of Harley 4431, fols. 95r and 95v, and Paris, BnF MS Fr. 606, fols. 1r and 1v, are discussed in Hindman, Christine de Pizan’s “Epistre Othea,” pp. 42–55, and reproduced, Pls. A–D and Figs. 5–8. All illustrations of Fr. 606 can be seen online at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b60007552.r=Fr+606.langEN, accessed July 15, 2014. 17 See Andrea Tarnowski, “Autobiography and Advice in Le Livre des Trois Vertus,” in Une femme de lettres: études autour de Christine de Pizan, ed. L. Dulac and R. Ribémont (Orléans, Paradigme, 1995), pp. 151–60, and Deborah McGrady, “Reading for Authority: Portraits of Christine and her Readers,” in Author, Reader, Book: Medieval Authorship in Theory and Practice, ed. Stephen Partridge and Erik Kwakkel (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2012), pp. 154–77.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 224

04/01/2016 10:07



PAGE LAYOUT AND READING PRACTICES IN EPISTRE OTHEA

225

Fig. 4.  London, British Library MS Harley 4431, fol. 95v: Othea presents her epistle to Hector. © The British Library Board

own voice persists throughout Othea as a glossatrix18 who never says “je” [I] but always uses a first-­person plural “nous” [we] that links speaker to readers as she guides us through her gloses and allegories. Many subtle adjustments to both images and stories let us women readers understand that Othea is written for us as well as for that intended reader, the good knight. As she will later in her Cité des dames, Christine rewrites stories from the learned tradition throughout Othea in order to give women le beau rôle, passing often over the more unpleasant parts of women’s traditional tales.19 18 Rosalind Brown-­Grant, Christine de Pizan and the Moral Defence of Women: Reading beyond Gender (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 60. 19 Among many studies of Christine’s feminist rewriting of the pagan myths, see: Christine Reno, “Feminist Aspects of Christine de Pizan’s “Epistre d’Othea a Hector,” Studi Francesi 81 (1980), pp. 271–6; Jane Chance’s essay “Christine’s Minerva, the Mother Valorized,” in her trans., pp. 121–33; Brown-­Grant, Christine de Pizan and the Moral Defense of Women, pp. 52–88; Renate Blumenfeld-­Kosinski, Reading Myth: Classical Mythology and Its Interpretations in Medieval French Literature (Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 1997), pp. 187–93; and Marilynn Desmond and Pamela Sheingorn, Myth, Montage & Visuality in Late Medieval Manuscript Culture: Christine de Pizan (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2003), passim.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 225

04/01/2016 10:07

226

NANCY FREEMAN REGALADO

As in the Cité des dames, no mention is made of Medea’s slaughtered children in chapter 57, where Christine portrays her as a woman of great wisdom – “qui plus ot de science” [who had the most knowledge]20 – deceived by a faithless lover. In chapter 29, Christine explains away the sexual seduction of Io, who invented the alphabet, as a reflection of Jupiter’s love of learning. Moreover, as Rosalind Brown-­Grant notes, Christine does not merely change the content of stories, but sets up “mechanisms” by which those stories are made to signify as part of a program for moral edification.”21 We readers can learn from the difficult example of lustful Pasiphae in chapter 45 how to use any case to produce an outlook favorable to women and, at the same time, how to read with good interpretive practices.22 The interpretive “mechanism” Christine presents to us in her Othea is its complex, multilayered structure set into a page layout that invites a practice of thoughtful reading.23 She articulates Othea into 100 chapters of identical structure; each occupies approximately one page and each constitutes a complete reading session in the sense that each contains a fixed series of segments that lead the reader from a pictorial and verbal narrative to a moral and then a spiritual interpretation. Below each image in Othea, Christine sets three segmented units of text with numbered rubrics: texte, glose, allegorie [text, gloss, allegory]. The textes are verse quatrains that identify the subject matter of the illustrations not as sustained narrative but as what Rosamond Tuve calls “story-­moments,” allusions to a myth or an event in Trojan history.24 These are formulated in the imperative as admonitions to teach the bon chevalier, the good knight addressed in the glose, as in Texte 45 – “Pour tant se Phasiphé fu fole” [For all that Pasiphae was a fool] – reminds us (negatively) of her story. However, the advice that fills the next three verses of the quatrain shifts us to moral reflection favorable to women: “Ne vueilles lire en ton escole / Que teles soient toutes fames, / Car il est maintes vaillans dames” [Do not try to read in your school / That all women may be like her, / For there exists many a valiant lady].25 Each texte is followed by two levels of edifying commentary in prose: a glose that is a moral interpretation aimed at our conduct in this world, confirmed by two citations or exempla from classical antiquity, then an allegorie that is a spiritual, religious interpretation, confirmed by a quotation from a Church Parussa, ed., p. 282; Chance, trans., p. 86. Christine de Pizan and the Moral Defence of Women: Reading beyond Gender, at p. 55. 22 Ch. 45, Parussa, ed., 263–4; Chance, trans., pp. 74–5. 23 On the structure of Othea, see Mary Ann Ignatius, “Christine de Pizan’s Epistre Othea: An Experiment in Literary Form,” Medievalia et Humanistica 9 (1979), pp. 127–42; Desmond and Sheingorn, Myth, Montage, & Visuality, at pp. 3–5; Julie Singer, “Clockwork Genres: Temperance and the Articulated Text in Late Medieval France,” Exemplaria 21, no. 3 (2009), pp. 225–46. 24 Allegorical Imagery, p. 34. 25 Ch. 45, Parussa, ed., pp. 163–4; Chance, trans., pp. 74–5. 20 21

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 226

04/01/2016 10:07



PAGE LAYOUT AND READING PRACTICES IN EPISTRE OTHEA

227

Father and a Bible verse, copied in red ink, that marks the endpoint of each chapter.26 Each chapter of Othea thus models a complete public reading experience, for medieval public readings (prelections) are usually commented by readers and audience.27 In Othea, however, Christine herself supplies both text and ­commentary, directing an instructive sequence that moves us from lower to higher realms of thought while she controls our interpretations. In glose 45 Christine thus tells more of Pasiphae’s story but blunts its impact by calling it a fable: Pasiphé fu une royne, et dient aucunes fables que elle fu femme de grant dissolucion, et mesmement que elle ama un thorel. [Pasiphae was a queen and some fables say that she was a woman of great dissolution and especially that she loved a bull].

Both the Queen’s and the Duke’s MSS appear to mitigate Pasiphae’s case further by omitting one damning detail, the birth of the Minotaur, that is present in Fr. 848, the early version of Othea produced by Christine: “et que mere fu Minos Taurus, qui fu moitié homme, moitié torel” [and she was mother of Minos Taurus, who was half man, half bull].28 Christine further reduces the horror in glose 45 by euhemerizing the fable, retelling the myth as a story of social distinctions, not one of bestiality: – qui est a entendre que elle acointa un homme de vile condicion, dont elle conceut un filz de grant cruaulté et merveilleuse force – [ – which is to understand that she had relations with a man of vile ­condition, by whom she conceived a son of great cruelty and marvelous force – ].

She then returns to a rationalized version of the fable: et pour ce que il ot forme d’omme et nature de thorel, en ce que il fu fort et de grant aspreté et si mauvais que tout le pays exilliot, distrent les poetes par ficcion que il fu moitié homme moitié thorel. [And because he had the form of a man and nature of a bull, in that he was strong and of great sharpness and so evil that all the country exiled him, the poets say by fiction that he was half man, half bull.] 26 This model of levels of interpretation, derived from the tradition of biblical commentary, is recalled in the layout of the earliest known Othea manuscript, Paris, BnF Fr. 848 (also copied or supervised by Christine), where glose and allegorie are laid out around a texte and image centered on the page, a format adopted also in two other copies of Othea, Cambridge: Newnham College Library, MS 900 (5), and Beauvais, Bibl. Mun. MS 9 (see Ignatius, “An Experiment,” pp. 134–5; Desmond and Sheingorn, Myth, Montage and Visuality, at pp. 15–16; Parussa, ed., pp. 105–6). 27 Coleman, pp. 95–7. 28 Parussa, ed., p. 262; my translation.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 227

04/01/2016 10:07

228

NANCY FREEMAN REGALADO

Glose 45 finally counterbalances this degrading myth by declaring a moral favorable to women: “bon chevalier . . . ne doit dire ne soustenir que toutes femmes soient semblables, comme la verité soit manifeste au contraire” [the good knight . . . should not say or sustain that all women are like her, as the truth is manifested to the contrary], adding the confirming example of wise Cleopatra, who taught Galen the science of medicine. Medieval readers are quite accustomed to shift from moral teachings to spiritual­ allegories.29 This habit underlies the last stage – allegorie – in the instructive reading Christine offers in every chapter and previews in the prologue to chapter 1 of her Othea: “Pour ramener a allegorie le propos de nostre matiere, appliquerons la Sainte Escripture a noz dis, a l’edification de l’ame estant en cestui miserable monde” [To return the subject of our discussion to allegory, let us apply the Holy Scripture to our saying for the edification of the soul of this miserable world].30 Applying the tripartite model of biblical exegesis to the structure of her chapters in Othea, Christine draws on the medieval tradition of offering a Christian interpretation of pagan works. In most cases, the spiritual interpretation smoothly completes the secular moral of the glose. In glose 23, for example, the goddess Diana represents chastity; in allegorie 23, she is a figure of God in paradise, who is “sans tache aucune, ameur de toute netteté” [without any spot of unclean love].31 But occasionally with Christine, as with other medieval allegorizers, we find an astonishing, even willful, discrepancy between the topic of texte and glose and the interpretation proposed in the allegorie.32 In glose 45, Pasiphae shows no signs of penitence. However, allegorie 45 states baldly: “Pasiphé, qui fu fole, pouons prendre l’ame retournee a Dieu” [Pasiphae, who was a fool, we may take as the soul returned to God]. The thematic gap is astounding but traditional:­Christine takes this interpretation from Boccaccio.33 Yet her interpretation implies choice, a further gesture shaping the favorable view of women in Othea, for the Ovide moralisé, from which she takes Pasiphae’s story, sends her to Hell.34 Such interpretive leaps make the spiritual teaching memorable as did See Blumenfeld-­Kosinski, Reading Myth, pp. 7–8; Parussa, ed., pp. 13–14. Parussa, ed., ch. 1, Prologue a allegorie 1, p. 201; Chance, trans., p. 37. 31 Parussa, ed., p. 237; Chance, trans., p. 59. 32 As in Molinet’s audacious moralité of the end of his Romant de la Rose moralisé (c. 1499), which compares the Lover’s conquest of the Rose to the Crucifixion; see Nancy Freeman Regalado, “Le Romant de la Rose moralisé de Jean Molinet: alchimie d’une lecture méditative,” in Mouvances et jointures: du manuscrit au texte médiéval, ed. Milena Mikhailova (Orléans, Paradigme, 2005), pp. 95–116 at pp. 105–6. 33 Genealogie deorum gentilium libri, ed. V. Romano (Bari, Laterza, 1941), iv, 10, pp. 1–9, cited by Parussa, ed., p. 419. On Christine’s use of “a well-­known example of female dissolution as defense against too hasty condemnation of women generally,” see Judith L. Kellogg, “Christine de Pizan as Chivalric Mythographer,” in The Mythographic Art: Classical Fable and the Rise of the Vernacular in Early France and England, ed. Jane Chance (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1990), pp. 100–123 at p. 117. 34 Ovide moralisé, ed. C. de Boer (rpt. Wiesbaden, Martin Sandig oGH, 1966), VIII, pp. 617 ff., cited by Parussa, ed., p. 419. 29 30

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 228

04/01/2016 10:07



PAGE LAYOUT AND READING PRACTICES IN EPISTRE OTHEA

229

the extravagant images recommended to students of the Arts of Memory.35 Our readers’ reflection is stimulated by this imposed allegory; we find it reflected in the Gospel paradox expressed in the confirming citation from St. Gregory: “et dit saint Gregoires Omelies que plus grant joye est menee es cieulx de une ame retournee a Dieu, que de un juste qui a tous jours esté ainsi” [And St. Gregory says in his Homilies that in heaven they have greater joy for a soul returned to God than for a just man who all his days before has been (just)]. We readers thus learn from the difficult case of Pasiphae in chapter 45 how to produce an outlook favorable to women and, at the same time, how to read with good interpretive practices.36 The repeated order of the layout of each chapter, which moves from image to texte, glose, and allegorie, is intended to regulate our reading. We can also use the illustrations and the mise en page as a performative guide to imagine the actual experience of reading with Christine. Visuality is primary in our experience of Othea in Harley 4431, for in this manuscript, each chapter – such as chapters 44–45 on fols. 115v–116r37 (fig. 5) – begins with an image and fills approximately one page. The illustrations of Othea in Harley 4431 are large rectangles filling nearly half a column in this book of ample size, some 15 × 9 inches (380 × 380 mm). It is designed for us to see as well as hear and read.38 Our eyes are first drawn to the image painted at the head of each chapter: Christine has asked her artist(s) to adapt their repertory of stock images in order to set a vivid, provocative, even lurid image at the head of each of the 100 ­chapters to illustrate a crucial moment in the myth or story evoked in the texte that follows. The illustrations are filled with tension, mystery, and incongruous juxtapositions. On fol. 115v, we gaze at a strangely intimate scene: at daybreak, a peasant stands before his door, lacing his hose over his underwear and looking up at weeping Aurora, who carries a misty sun. The scene on facing fol. 116r draws our curious gaze next, but may make us uneasy, for it shows Queen Pasiphae embracing her bull in a tranquil pasture! Overall, the illustrations of Othea display a lively interest in physicality and sexuality, although the rhythmic layout of each chapter always sweeps us upward toward moral and spiritual interpretations. Queens and dukes alike, however, as well as our circle of women readers, are invited to enjoy the pleasures of love stories: “Et pour ce que la matiere d’amours est plus delitable a ouÿr que d’autre, firent communement leurs ficcions sus amours pour estre plus delitables mesmement aux rudes qui n’y prennent fors l’escorce, 35 Mary J. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990), p.156. 36 Ch. 45, Parussa, ed., pp. 263–4; Chance, trans., pp. 74–5. 37 Parussa, ed., pp. 261–4; Chance, trans., pp. 74–5. 38 On public performance at court of illuminated manuscripts, see Mark Cruse, Illuminating the Roman d’Alexandre, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 264: The Manuscript as Monument (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2011), p. 17.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 229

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 230

04/01/2016 10:07

Fig. 5.  London, British Library, MS Harley 4431, fols 115v-­116r: Epistre Othea, Chs. 44–45: Aurora; Pasiphae. © The British Library Board

PAGE LAYOUT AND READING PRACTICES IN EPISTRE OTHEA



231

et plus agreable aux soubtilz qui en succent la liqueur” [And because the matter of love is more delectable to hear than any other, their fictions were commonly about love affairs in order to be more delightful, especially to the rude, who take nothing except the peel, and the more agreeable, to the subtle who suck the liquor].39 Christine knows the value of mingling edification with pleasure.40 Occasional differences between the Queen’s MS, Harley 4431, and its “twin”, the Duke’s MS, Paris, BN, Fr. 606, made for John of Berry, may reflect some slight shading in what was deemed suitable to be set before the Queen’s eyes. Nakedness is sometimes veiled in the Queen’s MS, as in the illustration of chapter 4, where two prisoners are led unclothed before Minos in the Duke’s manuscript, while in the Queen’s manuscript they are outfitted with white underpants.41­However, in the illustration of chapter 20 in both manuscripts, four sturdy male peasants cavort butt naked, disturbing the water that the goddess Latona wishes to drink.42 The peasant in chapter 44 of Fr. 606 (fig. 6, left) buttons his coat, perhaps a more dignified gesture than in Harley 4431, where he laces his hose over his underpants. But the illustration of chapter 45 in Fr. 606 offers a startling contrast with Harley 4431, for in the Duke’s manuscript, Pasiphae kisses the bull full on the lips (fig. 6, right)! Christine has softened this transgressive act for the Queen’s eyes, depicting Pasiphae’s lust for the bull as an affectionate hug in a peaceful pastoral setting in Harley 4431.43 Will we now turn the page to the next chapter? How long will our reading session with Christine last? Othea’s carefully segmented chapters enable us to stop or continue our reading as we will and wherever we will. The chapters of Othea do not follow either a chronological or a narrative order that would impel us to continue reading.44 But we are assured by the page layout that we will Parussa, ed., p. 316; Chance, trans., p. 106. I thank Joyce Coleman for pointing out the passage in the Livre des Trois Vertus on the pleasurable yet instructive storytelling sessions led by a “sage dame,” the wise older lady attending a young princess: “Et de si bonne maniere les saura dire [les aventures] qu’elle mouvra le courage de sa maistresse et des aultres qui l’orront, et qui seront toutes entour elle atroupellees de volentiers escouter. [. . .] et aucunes fois par my, affin que son devis ne anuye, quelque truffe a rire; et ainsi vouldra que les autre dient, afin que chascune devise a son tour [She will learn how to tell stories so interestingly that she will move the hearts of her mistress and others who hear her, all gathered around her eagerly listening. (. . .) And sometimes, so that the conversation does not get tiresome, she will intersperse some humorous trifle, and likewise will want the others to speak so that each one tells a story in her turn] (Le Livre des Trois Vertus, ed. Charity Cannon Willard and Eric Hicks (Paris, Champion, 1989), p. 94; trans. Sarah Lawson, The Treasure of the City of Ladies (London, Penguin, 1984), p. 88). 41 Harley 4431, fol. 98r; Fr. 606, fol. 4r. It is a pleasure to record this detail in celebrating Jane Burns, author of “Ladies Don’t Wear Braies: Underwear and Outerwear in the French Prose Lancelot,” in The Lancelot-­Grail Cycle, ed. William W. Kibler (Austin, University of Texas Press, 1994), pp. 152–74. 42 Harley 4431, fol. 105v; Fr. 606, fol. 11v. 43 On Christine’s validation of female erotic desire in this image, see Desmond and Sheingorn, Myth, Montage, & Visuality in Late Medieval Manuscript Culture, pp. 137–42. 44 Although no didactic order is prominent throughout Othea, chs. 1–12 represent the 39 40

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 231

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 232

04/01/2016 10:07

Fig. 6.  Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Fr. 606, fols 21v-­22r: Epistre Othea, Chs. 44–45: Aurora; Pasiphae. Photo BnF.



PAGE LAYOUT AND READING PRACTICES IN EPISTRE OTHEA

233

have completed a full cycle of reading and commentary with each chapter. We will also have experienced many kinds of reading pleasure: visual, narrative, and interpretive. It is a pleasure also to celebrate Jane Burns, whose sassy scholarship, which links Heidegger to Mae West,45 delights us women readers just as Christine de Pizan’s Othea entertained and instructed the ladies reading together in Queen Isabeau’s bedchamber. Like Jane in her Bodytalk, Christine voices “an assertive challenge to ideology” in her Othea, capturing the presence and the significance of women as characters, as patrons, as authors, and as readers.

cardinal virtues and seven planets; while chs. 12–44 follow several series: vices, virtues, the Credo and the Ten Commandments (Parussa, ed., p. 20). 45 E. Jane Burns, Bodytalk: When Women Speak in Old French Literature (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), pp. xiv–xv.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 233

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 234

04/01/2016 10:07

Afterword: A Response to the Volume

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 235

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 236

04/01/2016 10:07

Feminism and Medieval Studies: Where Have We Been, Where Are We Now, and Where Are We Going? Or, What Has Happened to Women in Feminist Studies of the Middle Ages? Elizabeth Robertson On January 28, 2015, I attended a lecture on Sufi mysticism given by Dr. Lloyd Ridgeon of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow. Dr. Ridgeon began his lecture by describing an earlier lecture in which he had spoken about masculinity (javanmardi) in Sufi sources – a topic consistent with recent studies in masculinities – to a room that consisted primarily of Muslim women. The eagerness of that female audience to learn about the history of Islamic women prompted Dr. Ridgeon to ask: “Where are the women in Sufi mysticism?”1 Noting Islamic female mystics had “fallen through the manhole” of the road to knowledge of historical Islamic mysticism, he decided to explore the topic. His research led him first to the tenth-­century biographies of Abd al-­Rahman Sulami, whose book The Generation of Sufis discusses in some detail over a hundred male Sufis. Sulami wrote a second, much shorter, book, Worshipping Sufi Women, which provides a list of 82 women in very short entries.2 Subsequent biographers, such as Ibn Jawzi, included women in their collection of biographies, but many were without names.3 The search for Sufi women mystics and their work is complicated by the fact that gender distinctions in pronouns are not always clear in Persian. Attar, who wrote a book of Sufi biographies, including an entry on a female Sufi called Rabi’a, wrote, “When a woman is on the path of the lord most high, she cannot be called Woman,” a phrase familiar to those who study female mysticism in Europe from Jerome’s Commentary on Ephesians, III ch. 5, “As long as a woman is 1 All citations from Dr. Lloyd Ridgeon’s lecture are taken from a printed transcription of a talk he gave on “Women and Sufi Mysticism,” on January 28, 2015, for the Theology and Religious Studies Seminars, University of Glasgow. I am grateful to Dr. Ridgeon for sharing his talk with me. 2 For Sulami, see Early Sufi Women: A Bilingual Critical Edition of as Sulami’s Dikr An-­Niswa Al-­Muta ’abbitdat As-­Sufuyyat, trans. Rkia Cornell (Louisville, KY, Fons Vitae, 1999). 3 Ibn Jawzi’s Arabic work has not been translated into English. The Arabic source is Sifat al-­safwa (Beirut, Dar al-­kutub al-­’ilmiyya, 1999).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 237

04/01/2016 10:07

238

ELIZABETH ROBERTSON

for birth and children she is different from man as body is from soul. But when she wishes to serve Christ more than the world, then she will cease to be a woman, and will be called man.”4 Dr. Ridgeon warned that, while the presence of so many women Sufi mystics seems radical, the accounts of these women – Aymana al-­din Kirmani, for example – seem to reiterate the conservative complementarity and segregation of men and women that operated in most other Islamic spheres. Nonetheless, accounts of Sufi female mystics echo features that occur in writings of Julian of Norwich or Hildegard of Bingen in which God is cast as female or attributes associated with women, such as abjection and humility, shape what can be called a feminine mystical experience.5 This fascinating lecture opened up many opportunities not only for appreciating the significance of women in Islam in the past but also for fruitful comparative work about the place of the female and about the idea of the feminine in medieval mysticism globally. I begin my afterword with a summary of this talk because it reminded me of the papers we heard and gave as members of the Medieval Feminist Newsletter (founded in 1985) and then the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (founded in 1992). We were fueled by the excitement of discovery brought about by asking straightforward questions such as “Where are the women in this text, or image, or document, etc.?” The study of women in the European past has developed dramatically since then, but paradoxically the more we learned about women, the more difficult it has become to ask questions about them. To begin with, feminist medieval studies followed women’s studies, which evolved first into gender studies and then into the study of gender and sexuality, which in turn developed into the study of queer identities. These developments were reflected in the establishment of Society for the Study of Homosexuality in the Middle Ages and the establishment of the GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies, co-­founded by the prominent scholar of gender and sexuality in the Middle Ages, Carolyn Dinshaw. Early second-­wave feminism, rightly criticized for its blindness to race and class, gave way to a new movement dedicated to the study of intersectionalities of race, class, and gender. In the wake of these ­developments, the term “woman” has been effectively deconstructed and 4 For the quotation from Attar, see Farid ad-­Din Attar’s Memorial of God’s Friends: Lives and Sayings of Sufis, ed. Paul Losensky (New York, Paulist Press, 2009), p. 97. See Barbara Newman’s discussion of the significance of Jerome’s statement in her book From Virile Woman to WomanChrist: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995). She cites the Jerome passage on p. 4. 5 For Julian of Norwich see A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich, ed. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh (Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1978), especially Chapters 55–63, on the motherhood of God. For Hildegard see Hildegardis Bingensis, Opera minora. ed. H. Feiss, C. Evans, B. M. Kienzle, C. Muessig, B. Newman, and P. Dronke, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM 226 (Turnhout, Brepols, 2007). See also Caroline Bynum’s classic discussion of female religious in her Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1986).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 238

04/01/2016 10:07



FEMINISM AND MEDIEVAL STUDIES

239

replaced with many possible identities associated with various sexual orientations; feminism has been replaced with the term “feminisms”; and LGB organizations have now expanded their title to LGBQ+. Theoretical approaches to literature including feminist ones exploded, and medieval feminists have carried their interests into other theoretical studies, colonial such as those that have emerged from multiculturalism and post-­ theory, psychoanalytical theory, the study of material culture, changing perspectives on the West as seen from the East and indeed from the global perspectives afforded by other places in the post-­colonial Americas, North and South. Critical fascination has also been drawn to a consideration of other subalterns, including monsters, hybrid others, natural objects, and finally inanimate but historically eloquent others such as rocks. Some subfields have been developed, if not by medieval feminists, then at least alongside them, as is seen in the imaginative work of the BABEL Working Group, born partly in reaction to what was viewed as the complacency of SMFS. These developments suggest the capaciousness and the critical self-­consciousness – or perhaps even conscience – of gender studies as a category that continually questions and remakes its own identity and stays open to the insights gleaned from other areas of criticism. The danger of its capaciousness, however, is that women seem to have become obscured. In my own area of medieval English studies it seems that most recently manuscripts and form – at times from the perspective of theory – generate much more excitement than the study of women or even of gender more broadly conceived. Indeed, in two of the major conferences in my field, albeit focused on canonical authors only, the 2014 New Chaucer Society Meeting in Reykjavik and the 2015 International Piers Plowman Society meeting in Seattle, not a single panel concerned women or gender, even if questions of embodiment did at times enter the discussion. Given that members themselves generate the panels of both societies, the absence of topics explicitly focused on gender and sexuality reflects the members’ preference, even of those known for their feminist commitments, for other newer critical developments, many of which seemingly leave aside the study of women. Some might suggest that it was the feminist study of the Middle Ages that allowed these new fields to develop; others worry that the category of woman has been so thoroughly dismantled that women have become hermeneutically unfruitful if not meaningless topics of study. When Jane and I recently reflected on the state of feminism in medieval studies today, Jane was optimistic. She admitted the paucity of conference panels featuring the word “feminism” or even topics related to gender and sexuality, but she concluded the consideration of gender and sexuality now undergirds most practices of interpreting medieval texts. I am less sanguine and worry that critics, at least in my field, are more comfortable moving away from the topic of women and even the more general term “gender” altogether, and I feel some urgency to reassert the importance of bringing women back into the study of the past. Our different stances may be a reflection of the different developments in

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 239

04/01/2016 10:07

240

ELIZABETH ROBERTSON

criticism and theory in our respective fields. Since I have discussed the influence of these developments on medieval English feminist study elsewhere, I will only summarize it briefly here.6 Chaucer Studies dominated Middle English Studies at about the time of the foundation of the MFN and SMFS. Carolyn Dinshaw published Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics (1989) and Elaine Tuttle Hansen brought out Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender (1992), but only the former, over time, became canonical.7 In the meantime, historicism took hold in Middle English studies and, along with major historicist critics imported from the UK to the US such as David Aers, historicist Lee Patterson had an enormous influence on the field.8 Acknowledging D. W. Robertson’s call for critics to understand medieval literature within the context of the period itself and explaining how Robertson failed to follow his own advice by claiming that all writers of the period were guided by Augustinian exegetics, Patterson called for more precise historicism and especially, in keeping with the new historicism practiced by early modern critics, for a consideration of how the power of the court shaped literary production.9 At the same time that Patterson delineated a new historicism for medievalists, he famously proclaimed the uselessness of psychoanalytically informed approaches to the study of medieval past, a pronouncement that dampened the field’s ability to embrace new feminist work, especially from France.10 That historicism might also be feminist was not considered, despite the influence of Judith Bennett’s call to historians to pay attention to the recurrence of harms against women and notwithstanding apparent strides forward in their history.11 With the exception of a few, such as Sarah Stanbury, feminist voices seemed mute in the field, and scholars who focused specifically on psychoanalytically informed approaches to medieval literature were, for a time, marginalized.12 Since Lee Patterson’s death in 2012, medievalists in Middle English have 6 Elizabeth Robertson, “Medieval Feminism in Middle English Studies: A Retrospective,” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 26, no. 1 (2007), pp. 67–80. 7 See Carolyn Dinshaw, Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), and Elaine Tuttle Hansen, Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1992). 8 An early example of David Aers’s influential historicist work is Community, Gender, and Individual Identity: English Writing, 1360–1430 (London and New York, Routledge, 1988). Lee Patterson’s major historicist work on Chaucer is Chaucer and the Subject of History (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1991). 9 See Lee Patterson, Negotiating the Past: The Historical Understanding of Medieval Literature (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1977). 10 Lee Patterson presented his views in several conference talks and then published them in “Chaucer’s Pardoner on the Couch: Psyche and Clio in Medieval Literary Studies” Speculum 76 (2001), pp. 638–80. 11 See Judith Bennett’s influential History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006). 12 Sarah Stanbury with Linda Lomperis edited one of the earliest collections of essays dedicated to feminist approaches to the Middle Ages, Feminist Approaches to the Body in Medieval Literature (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), and continued to pursue feminist work in such works as The Visual Object of Desire in Late Medieval England (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 240

04/01/2016 10:07



FEMINISM AND MEDIEVAL STUDIES

241

wondered if we have entered a period of not only post-­feminism but also post-­ historicism. Most essays in Elizabeth Scala and Sylvia Federico’s 2009 collection of essays, The Post-­Historical Middle Ages, argue for the importance of history even as the field returns to more formalist analyses of texts.13 The two most popular threads followed at the New Chaucer Society Meeting in 2014 were those devoted to close study of the materiality of the text in manuscript contexts and those that offered a new engagement with form, including such highly technical aspects of form as meter. Ecocriticism also received attention from some members of the Society. Although theories of gender and sexuality undergird certain forms of ecocriticism, the place of feminism and more specifically of women, however defined, in some of these other recent developments in the field is obscure. Some feminists working in Middle English studies have told me they have strayed from research on women to a consideration of material culture and the study of objects. Such moves follow a trajectory set by Judith Butler as she shifted from a study of performative sexual identities in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) to explore the meaning of matter in Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (1993).14 I myself have shifted my interests from the body to the medieval understanding of the soul and from that to an in-­depth study of how medieval authors understood the nature of the senses, a topic that has taken me deep into the seemingly gender-­free fields of metaphysics and epistemology; nonetheless, gender considerations still shape my research into these areas.15 Since moving to the UK in 2009, I have been struck by how often scholars here, especially those involved in exploring the materiality of the text in manuscript studies, are eager to proclaim their status as feminists, but nonetheless often regularly eschew feminist scholarship. Is the often cited caricature of France’s love of theory and England’s love of empiricism the cause for the relative success of feminism in French rather than English literary study? Feminist medievalists in the UK have begun to make a mark through SMFS-­sponsored sessions at Leeds spearheaded by the energetic organizational work of Liz McAvoy and through the annual Gender and Medieval Studies c­onference. Nonetheless, however problematic the term “woman” has become, it may be 13 Elizabeth Scala and Sylvia Federico, The Post-­ Historical Middle Ages (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 14 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, Routledge, 1990), and Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (New York and Abingdon, Routledge, 1993). 15 See my essay commissioned by Jane Burns, “Kissing the Worm: Sex and Gender after Death in The Disputation between the Body and the Worms,” in From Beasts to Souls: Gender and Embodiment in Medieval Europe, ed. Jane Burns and Peggy McCracken (Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), pp. 121–56. And my study of gendered prohibitions against touch in “Noli me Tangere: The Enigma of Touch in Middle English Religious Writing,” in Reading Skin in Medieval Literature and Culture, ed. Katie Walter (New York, Palgrave, 2013), pp. 29–56.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 241

04/01/2016 10:07

242

ELIZABETH ROBERTSON

productive to bring the question of women – inflected, of course, by insights from studies of gender and sexuality – back into medieval English literary study. Perhaps more interaction between scholars of French literary texts and those who write about English ones can help us do that. This collection of essays, all inspired by critical questions Jane has asked, suggests that feminist study is indeed still alive and well at least in the study of French images and texts in the Middle Ages. The essays, written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including French and German medieval literary studies, history and art history, reflect to some degree the variety of theoretical developments that have taken place more broadly in the field of medieval studies, and indeed some set new critical agendas for the future; unlike many essays in Middle English studies, however, almost all of these essays, in following the many provocative leads offered in Jane’s work, keep, if not the topic of women, at least that of the subaltern, clearly in view. Fittingly, Matilda Bruckner’s analysis of Melusine, the hybrid half-­snake/ half-­woman, initiates the volume since aspects of Melusine, a contrary figure at once associated with the abject, unknown and unknowable, the grotesque and the monstrous as well as with power, mystery, and “wonder that surpasses human understanding,” recur in one form or another in many of the essays in the volume. Clothed in courtly dress one day and in a snaky covering the next, her figure, for example, raises questions about the relationship between identity and “coverings” of concern in so many of the essays in the volume. Melusine is an exceptionally productive figure, one whose meanings proliferate, and in the remarks that follow I shall suggest the ways in which the essays in the volume engage what we might call the Melusine effect. Kristin Burr’s study of Le Roman de Silence uncovers a host of contradictory attitudes about women as promoted by its notoriously unreliable narrator. Silence, like Melusine, fascinates those who feel drawn to decode her gender and yet find definitive decoding to be impossible. Daniel O’Sullivan, embracing manuscript variants, exposes the rhetorical prowess of women in debating men in the Old Occitan tradition in order to make their way out of the corners into which fin’amors paints them. Ruth Karras and Tom Linkinen further demonstrate the complexity of gender codes and the “hold that clothing as a signifier of gender binaries has on the imagination” in their study of Rykener’s choice to wear clothing coded either male or female that allowed “hir” to perform a variety of gendered identities. In the classroom, Jane was well known for helping students turn discourses on their ear, which is why Lisa Perfetti’s comments on teaching the seemingly demeaning representation of women in fabliaux are a perfect ending to the first cluster of essays. One major aspect of the performance of gender whose significance Jane has done so much to help us recognize is the sartorial. In addition to the considerations of Rykener’s clothing, readers can learn from Madeline Caviness’s essay about the regulations governing both medieval and modern uses of head coverings designed to cover the hair: hats or veils must cover “shame,” but those donning veils, somewhat paradoxically, must “not turn the covering into

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 242

04/01/2016 10:07



FEMINISM AND MEDIEVAL STUDIES

243

adornment and finery.” Hair, like Melusine’s snaky torso, has doubleness to it both as a natural covering of the female body and as a part of the body that must be c­overed. Since clothing shapes not only female but also male identity, Sarah- Grace Heller delineates the “vestimentary allegories” of the thirteenth- century poet Baudoin de Condé, a poet who in writing about the significance of military clothing explores the threshold between nature and culture so powerfully evoked in the accounts of Melusine and Silence. Melusine also flies outside of familiar borders and herself evokes the exoticism associated with foreign places. Laine Doggett shows how accounts of women’s healing bring together many of the critical questions also evoked by Melusine’s exotic hybrid character and by many of the other figures discussed in this book. That women who heal with herbs they have gathered have an especially close relationship to the natural world raises the question of the relationship between women and nature so often delineated in medieval texts. Wounds themselves, in their capacity to break through the boundaries that make the human and in their messy abjection, raise further gender issues. In its delineation of women’s role and abilities in natural medicine, this essay shows how fruitfully the category of gender can be brought to bear on yet another emergent field of study in literary criticism: medical humanities. Healing herbs and potions gathered in the East for use on wounds in the West blur the boundaries between East and West, a blurring of boundaries explored further in two essays that do not focus only on women, but which employ feminist critical practices concerning the subaltern. In her study of Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa’s Le Devisement du monde, in which silk acts as “a prominent point of convergence for cultures across Eurasia,” Sharon Kinoshita shows how the history of silk production and consumption across Persia and Mongolia including the appropriation of silk by the Mongols and then the institution of silk production in their own territories further complicates the East/West divide in silk production and consumption and hence unsettles orientalist binarisms. Like Melusine, silk itself is unstable in origin and identity. In her essay, Helen Solterer shows how Honorat Bovet, in his engagement with literature from the Islamic south, one that extends into the Sahara and the African interior, creates a “fruitful rapprochement with writing from the Muslim world instead of outright opposition to it.” While it takes us far from the fairy-­ tale world of Melusine and deep into the politics and history of the interaction between Christian and Muslim worlds at war in late medieval France, at the same time, the essay captures the allure the quest for knowledge brings in itself. In Solterer’s essay it is unexpected that the Muslim comes from a world of knowledge equal to or perhaps superior to that of the Christian West and that that vantage point affords a crucial view of Christian culture. Melusine, too, stimulates curiosity about knowledge possessed by the other – in her case, knowledge that is linked to her mysterious sexuality. Knowledge sought after and possessed by women informs the essays of the last cluster, Female Authority: Networks and Influence, and they show how much can be gleaned from considering paratextual elements from a feminist

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 243

04/01/2016 10:07

244

ELIZABETH ROBERTSON

p­ erspective. While the study of manuscripts may be fashionable, with the exception of the work of a few notable scholars, specifically feminist study of women and manuscripts in English sources has only just begun.16 Cynthia Brown examines extraordinary woodcuts of Anne of France and her daughter Suzanne de Bourbon in Symphorien Champier’s dedication of his Nef des dames vertueuses, demonstrating that paratext reveals information, however idealized, about reading practices among women and networks of powerful women readers, including female saints. Ann Marie Rasmussen expands the kind of female network discussed in the previous essay to include the holy family. Following the work of Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn and focusing on a variety of representations of Saint Anne, Rasmussen shows how representations of women and children all of whom hold books or are listening to books establish a matrilineal holy family governed by learned pious women.17 In turn, Roberta Krueger undertakes extensive analysis of relationships between text and images in Marguerite de Navarre’s La Coche to illustrate how the author stages “a textual and visual performance that valorizes her authority and subtly disrupts the male hegemony of the court.” Finally, Nancy Regalado not only reinforces the notion of female reading networks that the previous essays raise by providing examples of images of Christine de Pizan’s Epistre Othea holding a book in the company of other female readers including the goddess Diana, but also engages yet another topic that opens up new avenues for research: how literacy is conveyed through page layout. Much more work needs to be done on the physical layout of books, pages, and individual literary forms that are known to have been produced by or for female writers or readers. Despite the familiarity of these images of women as readers and writers in courtly settings or in a domestic setting surrounded by babies, the images of such groups of women consuming and creating knowledge of their own may not be quite so innocent as they might appear, and perhaps, when considered closely, they might recall the dangerous feminine knowledge that Melusine possesses. As these essays either fully embrace or make gestures toward the latest theoretical developments in medieval studies – ecofeminist criticism, text-­image 16 Carol Meale’s 1993 Women and Literature in Britain: 1150–1500, a fundamental study, goes hand in hand with Roberta Krueger’s Women Readers and the Ideology of Gender in Old French Verse Romance (1993). Margaret Ferguson’s deeply researched and theoretically challenging Dido’s Daughters: Literacy, Gender and Empire in Early Modern England and France (2003) provides further discussion on female literacy in the late medieval and early modern period. Today, more attention is put on fine-­grained topics such as mise-­en-­page, paratext and marginalia, punctuation practices, and the identification of scribes. Following Keith Busby’s call to look at texts in manuscript contexts, some scholars are beginning to consider the character of whole manuscripts, some of which, such as the Auchinleck manuscript or the Findern manuscript, may have either been compiled with female readers in mind or may over time have fallen into the hands of women. 17 See, for example, the interdisciplinary study by Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, Interpreting Cultural Symbols: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Society (Athens and London, University of Georgia Press, 1990).

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 244

04/01/2016 10:07



FEMINISM AND MEDIEVAL STUDIES

245

analysis, Persian and Arabic knowledge in Europe, manuscript contexts – they show how feminist criticism remains an ongoing concern, but we must recognize how much more research has yet to be done. Just in terms of archival work, feminist scholars can still bring to light material of major significance. Donald Foster, after spending three years in major libraries, has recently published a collection of works by late medieval and early modern women writers, his 2014 Women’s Works, vol. I, 900–1500, many of whom, to his great surprise,­have never been mentioned before.18 This book offers fruitful sources for feminists, just as does the recent comprehensive and specifically feminist collection of essays on earlier women writers The History of Women’s Writing in Britain: 700–1500, edited by Liz Herbert McAvoy and Diane Watt (2012).19 Andrew Prescott, who has helped me research documents associated with Cecily Chaumpaigne’s 1381 release of Geoffrey Chaucer from a charge of rape, has uncovered a astonishing cache of documents about Cecily Chaumpaigne’s family; in all the heated debate this release has generated, no one has bothered to ask what we might be able to find out about the victim in this case. The benefits of explicitly feminist analysis of such archival discoveries are only beginning to emerge. Suzanne Edwards, for example, like other recent feminist critics male and female, explored the archives in order to disentangle the blurred line between rape and abduction in records of sexual violence, but was careful to filter the documentary evidence she gathered through a specifically feminist lens.20 Although these records reveal at times occasions when women have chosen to be “raped,” – that is, abducted for the purpose of m ­ arriage – she was conscious throughout her analysis of maintaining a focus on the harms perpetrated against women in the past and of bringing her discussion back to a consideration of the ways in which law and rhetoric still continue to obscure the harms women and those who identify or are identified as “women” have suffered on account of their sexual difference. This is a dialectic that feminist medievalists regularly perform: first, they look for the feminist subject in the past and bring it to light within the contexts of the period within which it occurs; then they bring that feminist material forward into the present. In her essay in this collection, Lisa Perfetti admirably demonstrates the power of the practice of this dialectic in the classroom. We need to keep this dialectic in play even as we search through the archives and uncover yet more unexpected writings by and about women. Even though this book demonstrates that feminist scholarship is flourishing in medieval studies, and even though we now firmly know that the category of women is not easily defined, we still need to ask the question just 18 See Donald Foster, et al., eds., Women’s Works, vol. I, 900–1500 (New York, Wicked Good Works, 2013). Donald Foster expressed his surprise about what can be found in the archives at a discussion of his book at Vassar in February 2015. 19 Liz Herbert McAvoy and Diane Watt, The History of Women’s Writing in Britain: 700–1500 (New York and London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). 20 “The Rhetoric of Rape and the Politics of Gender in the Wife of Bath’s Tale and the 1382 Statute of Rapes,” Exemplaria 23, no. 1 (2011), pp. 3–26.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 245

04/01/2016 10:07

246

ELIZABETH ROBERTSON

as Lloyd Ridgeon has: where are the women in this story? – even though one might need to put quotation marks around the term. Although many boundaries have been crossed in this volume, especially disciplinary ones, it seems to me that one yet to be fully crossed is that between scholars working in departments of French and those working in departments of English. Ardis Butterfield in her 2009 book The Familiar Enemy; Chaucer, Language and Nation in the Hundred Years War has powerfully demonstrated the interpenetration of French and English cultures throughout the late Middle Ages. Simon Gaunt has also persuasively argued that it was French, not Latin, that was the lingua franca of the Europe of the late Middle Ages.21 The fluidities of geographical borders in France where territory was sometimes claimed by the English and then by the French and back again for over a hundred years should allow us to become more fluid in our own identities as scholars of medieval culture. I have had the privilege, however, of being not a familiar enemy but a familiar friend of a scholar of French medieval literature and the follower of a groundbreaking leader in feminist thinking, Jane Burns. In responding to this book, I have enjoyed entering into conversation with her powerful and effective feminist friends and participating in the production of a volume in her honor.22

21 See Simon Gaunt, “French Literature Abroad: Towards an Alternative History of French Literature,” Interfaces 1 (2015): 25–61. 22 Many thanks to Carol Meale, Andrew Prescott, Karen Robertson, Jeffrey Robinson, Sarah Stanbury, and Heather Walton for helpful conversations about this topic.

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 246

04/01/2016 10:07

INDEX Abelard  85, 88 Adam  22, 27–8, 29 Aers, David  240 Africa 156 Belamary 161 Guinea (Ginyia) 166 North Africa  155, 157, 166 Sub-Saharan Africa  166 West 10 agency, female  5 Al-Andalus  156, 161, 164 Algeria 157 Almuc (trobairitz)  47 altarpiece 11, see Holy Kinship Altmann, Barbara  197 Ambassador 165 Ambaxiator Brevilogus 165 ambiguity  34, 38, 43, 44 Ancrene Wisse  88, 90 Andersen, Elizabeth A.  217, n. 29 animal/human/divine divisions  23–4, 26, 28, 31 Anna, prostitute  112, 116 Anna Selbdritt, see Anna Trifold Anna Trifold  207–8, 214, 217 Anna trinity, see Anna Trifold Anne de Bretagne  11, 171, 182–6 Anne de France  11, 171–81, 183, 185–6, 244 Anne de Pisselieu, Duchesse d’Estampes  187, 192, 200–2 anominatio  58–9, 59 n.19 antifeminism 67 Apparacion Maistre Jean de Meun 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168 Arabic  156, 157, 160, 165, 166, 168, 244 Aragon, Kingdom of  161, 164, 167 Aristotle  21–2, 23 Armagnac  162, 168 Arnaut de Maroill  57 Arnaut Plagues  51–4

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 247

Arnoullet, Jacques  175 Arthurian texts  3 Ashley, Kathleen  207 n.6, 244 Attar, Farid, ad-Din  237 Aucassin et Nicolette  10, 136–8,161 audience, women in the  61, 64, 66–7 Augustine  28, 30 Aurora  229 figs.5, 6 Avarice 100–1 Avignon  157, 164 BABEL Working Group  239 Batany, Jean  162 Baudouin de Condé  9, 97–110, 243 “D’Amour” 100 “D’Amour fine”  100 “De la Rose”  100 “De Tunis”  100, 101 “Des Hérauts,”  97 “Du Bachelier”  99 “Du Gardecors,”  97, 99, 101–3, 104 “Du Manteau d’Honneur,”  97, 104–6 “Du Prud’homme”  99 “The Pelican”  100, 103–4 Bennett, Judith  112, 115, 240 Bernart Arnaut  54–9 Bernart de Ventadorn  45 Bertau, Karl  209 n.13 Bertran de Born  57 Bertran del Poget  48 bestiary 97 bestiary animals  23, 25–7 Biblical exegesis  23, 27–8, 29–30 binary divisions  5, 6, 10, 126, 242 Biu, Hélène  163–4, 168 Bloch, R. Howard  66 Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Renate  225 n.19, 228 n. 29 body  6, 241 bodytalk  62, 66 Boccaccio, Giovanni  68, 228 Book of Refutation and Proof on behalf of the Despised Religion 157

06/01/2016 07:50

248 INDEX Book of Religious and Philosophical Sects 157 Book of the Gentile and Three Wise Men (Le livre du Gentil et des trois sages)  156, 157, 158 book presentation  222–4 Bovet, Honorat  153, 155, 156, 157, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168, 243 Boyd, David  111, 115 Brandenbarg, Ton  207 n.6 Brittany 155 Brouderer, Elizabeth  112 Brown, Cynthia  11, 244 Brown, Katherine  65 n.13, 66 n.17, 69 n.26 Brown-Grant, Rosalind  225–6 n.18, n.19 Bruckner, Matilda  7, 242 Bücherverzeichnis der Elisabeth von Volkenstorff  216, 217 Burgwinkle, William E.  157 Burnable Book, A  111, 119–120 Burns, E. Jane  1, 3, 4, 15–18, 30, 45, 97–8, 104, 108–09, 110, 125, 156, 189, 231 n.41, 233, 239, 246 Burr, Kristin  7, 242 Butler, Judith  241 Butterfield, Ardis  246 Cador  35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 43 Califa, Pat  114 canso  8, 45–7, 49, 59, 60, Carruthers, Mary J.  229 n.35 Catalan Atlas  167 Caviness, Madeline  9, 242 Champier, Symphorien  171–7, 244 Chance, Jane  219–33 Charles V  166 Charles VI  160, 164, 219, 224 Charles VIII  171, 181 Charles d’Alençon  174 Charles de Bourbon  175, 181 Chartier, Alain Des quatre dames 196 La belle dame sans merci 196 Chartres Cathedral, stained glass windows  77–8, 76 fig.1, 78 fig. 3 Chaucer, Geoffrey  66, 239, 240, 241, 245 Chaumpaigne, Cecily  245 Chazaud, A.-M.  177–8 childhood  206, 212, 214 Chrétien de Troyes  3, 144 Erec et Enide 127–8

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 248

Lancelot  128–29, 133 Yvain 144 Christ see Jesus Christ Christine de Pizan  62 n.2, 164, 165, 168, 196–8, 219–33 passim, 220 fig. 1, 223 fig. 3 clothing  219, 224 Epistre Othea  12, 219–33, 244 L’Avision Christine 224 La Cité des dames  197–8, 223 n.13, 225, 226–6 Le Chemin de Longue Etude  224 Le Dit de Poissy 198 Le Livre du Duc des vrays amans 223 n.14 Christianity, Christian figures, see Religious Debate Literature Church 2 classroom 245 Claude de France  182–6 Cleopatra 228 clothing, 5, 6, 9, 242–3 and gender  112–13, 115, 120 freedom of choice  73–5, 95 Jewish men and women  79–81, 80 fig. 5, 82 fig. 6a, 83 fig. 6b, 84 fig. 7 male, military  9, 97–110, 243 men’s  78–9, 79 fig. 4 women’s chemise  76, 77, 90, 92, 76 fig. 1, 77 fig. 2, 85 fig. 8, 91 fig. 13, 92 fig. 14 hennin  81, 84 fig. 7 touret  76, 77, 76 fig. 1, 77 fig. 2, 85 fig. 8 clothing, regulation of Jewish men and women  79–81 married women  74, 76, 83, 85 fig. 8 Taliban 74 monastics  85, 88, 95, 89 figs. 11, 12, 91 fig. 13, 92 fig. 14 Muslim women  74–5, 94–5 prostitutes  75–7, 76 fig.1, 77 fig. 2 sumptuary laws  75, 81, 92–4 uniforms 73–4 Coleman, Joyce  222 n.9, 223 n.13. 227 n.27, 231 n.40 Comtessa de Dia  46 conduct manuals  2 contradictions  41, 43 cosmos 136 cote  97, 100 court  2, 97, 99, 103, 108 courtesy 101

06/01/2016 07:50

INDEX 249

courtly love, 5 see also fin’ amors Courtly Love Undressed 142 courtly poetry  100 courtly register  64 creation  135, 136, 138 Cresques, Abraham  166 cross, of Jesus  132 cross-dressing  41, 42, see also clothing crucifixion  133, 135 Crusades 161 cups, drinking  110 debate 12 debate literature, see Religious Debate Literature Delsaux, Olivier  219, n.3, 222 n.8 Der Welshe Gast 213 Deschamps, Eustache  165 desire  4, 100 Desmond, Marilynn  223 n.13, 225, n.19, 226, n.23, 227 n.26, 231 n.43 Diana (goddess)  220, 224, 228, fig. 2 Die Winsbeckin 213 Dierken-Dörfler, Angelika  207 n.6, 212 n.17 discourse, gendered  4 dishonor  38, 40, 41 dit (poetic form)  98 Doggett, Laine  10, 243 Dominican figures  159, 160 domna 7 dragon  6, 22, 23, 25–6, 27, 28–31 see also serpent(e), snake dress see clothing Duc de Clèves (Guillaume, of Jülich-Cleves-Berg) 202 Durmart le Galois 129–31 Ebain  34, 36, 37, 39, 40 ecocriticism 241 ecofeminism 244 Écouis (Normandy)  84, 86 fig. 9 Edwards, Suzanne  245 Elie de Saint-Gilles 134–6 Elijah  81, 84 fig. 7 Elinas  22, 31 Elisabeth von Volkenstorff, see Bücherverzeichnis der Elisabeth von Volkenstorff Elsner, Jas  213 n.21, 214 n.22 emotion standards  63 English  241, 246

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 249

Enseignements (of Anne de France)  171, 175, 177–182, 183 epic literature  160 Epstein, Marc  29 ethics 70 Eufeme  34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 Eufemie  35, 36, 37, 38, 39 Europe  153, 161, 162, 166, 168 Europe, Northern  208, 210, 212 Evans, Ruth  112 Eve  2, 21, 27, 29, 99 fabliaux  9, 61–70, 242 fairies  22, 23, 29, 31 Fauvelle-Aymar, Francois-Xavier  168 Federico, Sylvia  241 Felipa (trobairitz)  51–4 Feminism  1–2, 3, 12–13, 239, 241, 245 Ferguson, Margaret  244, n.16 feudal society  98 Fey, Tina  61, 69 Fez 165 fin’amors (courtly love)  8, 47, 47 n.7, 48, 50, 242 see also courtly love Foster, Donald  245 Foucault, Michel  164 France  11, 74–5, 76, 95, 240 François I  12, 187, 200–2 French  241, 242, 246 Froissart 161 fur (clothing)  109–10 Galen 227 garden 134 Garden of Eden  23, 27, 28, 29 Gaunt, Simon  65 n.13, 69 n.24, 246 gaze  110, 213–14 gender  2, 6, 12, 238, 239 gender studies  239 genealogy, see kinship generalizations  38, 43 Genesis  23, 27, 29 Genoese 150 genre 7 Geoffroi au Grand Dent  22, 24, 27 German 242 Gerson, Jean  165 gift  100, 109 Granada 161 Green, D.H.  217 Gui d’Ussel  47 Guillaume de Lorris  100 Guy de Dampierre  99

06/01/2016 07:50

250 INDEX Hafsid Kingdom of Ifriqiya  165 Haggadah, Washington DC, Library of Congress Hebr. Ms. 1  81, 84 fig. 7. hair 242 hair or beard length, regulated Jewish men’s  80–1 women’s  83–5, 90–2, 85 fig. 8, 86 fig. 9, 87 fig. 10 St. Paul on men’s and women’s hair  83–4, 85, 88, 90 Halevi, Judah  157 Hanly, Michael  153, 168 Hansen, Elaine Tuttle  240 healers 125–39 healing  10, 125–39, 243 Hector, prince of Troy  220, 224, 225, fig. 4 Heidegger, Martin  233 Heldris de Cornuälle  7, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43 Heller, Sarah-Grace  9, 243 Heloise  85, 88 herald  97, 99, 100, 106–10 herb  131, 135–36, 136, 137, 138, 243 Hicks, Eric  222 n.11 Hildegard of Bingen  90–2, 95, 91 fig. 13, 92 fig. 14, 238 Hindman, Sandra  219 n.2, 221 n.5, 222 n.8, 224 n.16 Hitchens, Christopher  61 historicism 240 Holy Kinship, Altarpiece from Rodsted Denmark  12, 205 fig. 1, 206, 207, 208, 210, 217 confraternities 212 definition  206–7, 208–9 gendered space  212–13 Holsinger, Bruce, see A Burnable Book honor  35, 36, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43 humor 61–70 Ibn Jawzi  237 Ignatius, Mary Ann  226 n.23, 227 n.29 Inglis, Erik  219 n.1 Isabeau of Bavaria, queen of France  219–20, fig. 1 Iseut (trobairitz)  47 Isis 226 Islam  134, 136, 238, 243 See Religious Debate Literature Islamic South  155, 156, 166, 168 Jaime I of Aragon  166 Jean d’Arras  7, 21, 22, 23, 30

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 250

Jean de Berry  23, 31 Jeanroy, Alfred  98 Jerome 237 Jesus Christ  133, 238 Jewish people  133 See also Religious Debate Literature Jewish poets  7 John of Berry, Duke  231 John of Plano Carpini  145 “John/Eleanor” (puppet drama)  111, 117–119 Judaism, see Religious Debate Literature Judith and Holofernes  93, 93 fig. 15 Julian of Eclanum  28 Julian of Norwich  238 Jupiter 226 Karras, Ruth  9, 242 Kay, Sarah  221 Kellogg, Judith L.  228 n.33 Khaldūn, Ibn  161, 165 Khotan 141 Khubilai Khan  145, 146, 149 Kinoshita, Sharon  10, 155, 161, 243 kinship  206–7, 209–10, 211 Kirmani, Aymana  238 Kleinschmidt, Beda J.  207 n.4 knight  97, 100, 108–9 Koran 163 Krueger, Roberta 3, 11, 244 Kuzari 157 La Mort Aymeri de Narbonne 132–4, 136 La Nef des dames vertueuses  171–7, 179 Laborde, Alexandre de  177 Lähnemann, Henrike  217 Laidlaw, James  219 n.2, 222 n.8 Largesse  9, 100–1, 110 Latin 246 Latin learning  215 Latona (goddess)  231 Le Roman de la rose  104, 110 Le Roman de Silence  4, 33, 34, 43, 44, 242 Le Romant de la Rose moralisé  228 n.31 leaves  137, 138 lesbianism 112 linen  106, 108 Linkinen, Tom  9, 242 Livres des comptes du Vieil Rentier 106 Lombarda (trobairitz)  54–9 Longinus 133 Louis XI  171, 181

06/01/2016 07:50

INDEX 251

Louis XII  171, 183 Louis of Orleans, Duke  154, 155, 168, 223–4, fig. 3 Low Countries  208, 208 n.9 Lucca 150 Lull, Ramon  156, 157, 159, 160, 165 Luther, Martin  208 Lyon  171, 181 Maghreb  157, 161, 164, 165, 166 magic 126 Mahaut, Countess of Artois  110 Mahoney, Dhira B.  219 n.3, 221 n.6 Majorca  157, 166 mantle 100 manuscripts 11 Aberdeen, University of Aberdeen, MS 25, fol.61r  89 fig. 12 Arsenal MS 4° B 4344  173 fig.3 Arsenal MS 2940  196 Arsenal MS 51121  188 n.51 Berne, Bibliothèque de la Bourgeoisie, COD A 65  188 n.51, 191 Beauvais, Bibliothèque municipale MS 9, 227 n.26 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 159  184 fig. 4, 185 fig. 5 Cambridge, Newnham College Library, MS 900 (5), 227 n.26 Chantilly MS 522  11, 187–203 Freiburg in Breisgau, Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, MS Cod. Tennenbach 8, fol. 75r  83 fig. 6b Kremünster, Kremünster Benedictine Abbey, Codex Cremifanensis 243, fol. 35v  93 fig. 15 London, British Library, MS Harley 4431  219–33, figs. 1–5 online at http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/ Lucca, Biblioteca Statale, MS 1942, fol. 132r  91 fig. 13 Oxford, Bodleian Library MS 21665 (Douce 91)  187 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS arabe 5837  163 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS espagnol  30, 166, 167, fig. 3 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS français  606, 224, n.16, 227, 231, 232 fig. 6 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS français  810, 154, fig. 1, 155

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 251

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS français  811, 155, 160 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS français 12485  188 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS français 22933  158, fig. 2 Vienna Österreischische Nationalbibliothek, MS Cod. 2759–2764, vol. III, f. 112v  82 fig. 6a Washington, D.C., Library of Congress Hebr. MS 1, f. 19v  84 fig. 7 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, MS Cod. Guelf. 3.1 Aug. 2o, fol. 48r, register 5  77 fig. 2, 85 fig. 8 Maqamat 163 margins  6, 10 Margolis, Nadia  223 n.13 Marguerite d’Angoulème, Queen of Navarre  11, 182, 187–202, 242 “Comédie des quatres femmes”  200 Heptaméron  188, 198 La Coche 187–202 Jean, son  195 Jeanne d’Albret, daughter  187, 202 Marguerite II of Constantinople, Countess of Flanders  99 Marichal, Robert  196 Marie de France  65, 66 Marinids  161, 164, 165 marriage 211 Martel, Adam  189 Martin, Terese  217 n.29 Mary (Virgin)  2, 99, 177, 182–5 Mary Magdalene  77–8, 84–5, 78 fig. 3, 86 fig. 9, 87 fig. 10 masculinity 237 Master of Antoine de Roche  182 Master of François de Rohan  188 McAvoy, Liz  241, 245 McGrady, Deborah  224 n.17 McSheffrey, Shannon  115 Meale, Carol  244 n.16 Medea 226 medicine  10, 125, 126, 243 Medieval Feminist Forum 4 Medieval Feminist Newsletter  4, 238 Mediterranean culture  156, 161 Melusine  6, 7, 12, 13, 21–31, 242, 243, 244, 245 Merlin  33, 42 Meun, Jean de  154, 159, 163, 164 Mezieres, Philipe de  165 Middle East  10

06/01/2016 07:50

252 INDEX minotaur 227 minstrel  99, 100, 106–10 misogyny  39, 40 Mohammed Shahrastani  157 Molinet, Jean  228 n.31 money 110 Mongolia 243 monster 239 Montaigu, Jean de  153,154, 159 Montesquieu 162 Montpellier  129, 164 Morocco-Algeria 161 Moulins Triptych  186 Muhammed 157 Mühlethaler, Jean-Claude  159 Muslims, see Religious Debate Literature Muss Melli  166 mysticism  237, 238 Na Castelloza  46 Narcissus  45 n.2, 57 narrator  7, 34, 37, 41, 42, 43 natural 21–31 nature  21–31, 243 Nature/Nurture  41, 42, 43, 44 Nicodemus 133 Nicopolis 153 Nixon, Virgina  207, 211, n.15 Novikoff, Alex J.  157 Nussbaum, Martha  70 Occitan  156, 163, 164 ointment  128, 129, 130–1, 133, 136, 138 Ong, Walter J.  215, n.26. Orme, Nicholas  212, n.16. orientalist 155 O’Sullivan, Daniel  7–8, 242 Othea (goddess)  224, fig. 4 Otinel 131–2 Ottoman  161, 162, 164, 165 Ouy, Gilbert  222 n.8 Ovide moralisé 228 Pacific Ocean  10 page layout (mise en page) 219–33 Pagels, Elaine  27–8, 30 Paris  153, 154, 155, 157, 158, 161, 162, 163, 166, 167, 168 Paris, Pauline  98, 99 parody 136–8 Parussa, Gabriella  219–33 Parzival  209–210, 216 Pasiphae  226–31, figs. 5, 6 Pastoureau, Michel  153

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 252

Patterson, Lee  240 Payen, Jean-Charles  98 pedagogical research  63, 68, 69 Pelagius 28 Perfetti, Lisa  9, 242, 245 Persia 243 Persian Letters 162 Phillips, Adam  24 philology 5 Piers Plowman 239 plants 125–39 Polo, Marco  10, 141, 147, 149, 150, 243 Poor, Sara S.  217 potion  130, 135–6, 138, 243 poultice 136–8 poverty 107–08 Presine  22, 24, 31 Prescott, Andrew  245 presentism 68 Primer of Claude de France 171, 182–6 prostitution  111, 120 Provence  163, 164 pun (paranomasia)  98 puppetry 10 see also “John/Eleanor” Queer identity  238 Queyroy, Armand  177 Rabi’a 237 Ramey, Lynn T.  153 rape  38, 39, 40, 77, 77 fig. 2, 245 Rasmussen, Ann Marie  12m 209 n.12, 213 n.19, 215 n.24, n.25, 216 n.27, n.28, 244 Raymond  24–7, 28, 30–1 reading  12, 214–215 reading practices  219–33 Regalado, Nancy  12, 244 religious debate literature  153–55, 156–57, 159, 160–66, 168 Reno, Christine  222 n. 8, 225 n.19 rhyme 98 Ridgeon, Lloyd  237, 238, 246 robe 110 of Christ  105 Robertson, D.W.  240 Robertson, Elizabeth  241 n.15 room, decorated (theme)  135 Rustichello of Pisa  141 Rykener, Eleanor  242 Rykener, John/Eleanor  9, 111–121 Rykener, Eleanor/Edgar  119–120

04/01/2016 10:07

INDEX 253

Sachsenspiegel (The Saxon Mirror)  77, 79, 83, 77 fig. 2, 85 fig. 8 Saint Anne  12, 183, 244 see also Anna Trifold or Holy Kinship. Saint Claude  183–5 Sainte Lucie, Pierre de  181–2 Scala, Elizabeth  241 Scribner, Robert  210 Sea of Silk 141 serpent(e)  6, 7, 22, 23, 25–6, 27, 28–31 see also dragon, snake sex 2 sexuality 239 Sheingorn, Pamela  206 n.3, 207 n.6, 208, 214 n.23, 223 n.13, 225 n.19, 226 n.23, 244 Silence   36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43 Simone de Beauvoir  1 Simons, Anne  217 n.29 Singer, Julie  226 n.23 Sister Katrei Treatise 215 shame  38, 41, 42, 242 silk  6, 10, 88, 90, 92, 93, 91 fig. 13, 243 see also Tartar cloth and diplomacy  144–45 jisün (Mongol robes of one color)  145–6, 149 nasij  143, 147 and women  141, 143, 144 zandaniji 148 Skemp, Mary  196 slandererer 97 snake  22, 23, 25–6, 27, 28–31, 242 see also dragon, serpent(e) Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship  4, 238, 239, 241 Solterer, Helen  243 Spiegel, Gabrielle M.  209 St. Petersburg  175, 177 Stanbury, Sarah  240 Starkey, Kathryn  213 subaltern  239, 242, 243 Sufism  237 Sulami, Abd al-Rahman  237 Suzanne de Bourbon  171–182, 183, 185–6 Tarnowski, Andrea  224 n.17 Tartar cloth (panni tartarici)  142, 151 Taylor, Jane H.M.  189 tenso  7, 8, 45–47, 48, 54, 59, 60 textiles  5, 6 Thomasin von Zerclaere, see Der Welshe Gast (The Italian Visitor)

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 253

Three Marys  129, 131, 133 touch 214 transgender 6 as concept  111, 113–14 people  116, 121 Tree of Jesse  206–207, 210 trigger warnings  9, 63 Trinity 132 trobar clus 104 trobairitz  7, 45–60 Trobairitz’s poem, sirventesca  92, 95 Trokhimenko, Olga V.  213 n.19 troubadour(s)  3, 7, 45 Tuve, Rosamund  222 n.12, 226 Twenty-One-Year-Old Woman 215, 217 unnatural 21–31 valet 106–8 Väntsi, Timo  117–19 veil  9, 74–5, 76, 77, 78, 81–5, 88, 90, 92–5, 77 fig. 2, 78 fig. 3, 82 fig. 6a, 89 figs. 11, 12, 91 fig. 13, 93 fig. 15, 94 fig. 16, 242 Vérard, Antoine  175 villein  97, 104, 105 virtues, of plants  125, 139 visuality 229 Wallace, David Foster  28–9 Watt, Diane  245 Welsh, Jennifer Lynn  208, 208 n.10, 212 n.17 West, Mae  233 Westphal-Wihl, Sarah  215 n.24, n.25, 216 n.27, n.28. widowhood 211 Wieck, Roger  183 William of Rubruck  145–6, 148–9 wimple (gorget) 88, 92, 82 fig. 6a, 89 fig. 12, 91 fig. 13 windows, stained glass  6 Wolfram von Eschenbach, see Parzival wound, battle  125–39 women  1–2, 7, 12, 237, 241, 245–46 and influence  6 and manuscripts  244 and work  112–113 as writers  245 learned 214–217 textile workers  6

04/01/2016 10:07

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 254

04/01/2016 10:07

Tabula Gratulatoria Kathleen Ashley

Sharon Kinoshita

Judith M. Bennett

Kathy M. Krause

Cynthia J. Brown

Roberta L. Krueger

Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner

Norris J. Lacy

Kristin L. Burr

Tom Linkinen

Ardis Butterfield

Nadia Margolis

Christopher Callahan

Peggy McCracken

Madeline H. Caviness

Deborah McGrady

Susan Crane

Daniel E. O’Sullivan

Marilynn Desmond

Lisa Perfetti

Carolyn Dinshaw

Wendy Pfeffer

Rebecca Dixon

Rupert T. Pickens

Laine E. Doggett

Laurie Postlewate

Eglal Doss-Quinby

Ann Marie Rasmussen

Elizabeth Emery

Nancy Freeman Regalado

Thelma Fenster

Christine Reno

Paula Gerson

Elizabeth Robertson

Sarah-Grace Heller

Helen Solterer

Ruth Mazo Karras

Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand

Sarah Kay

Jocelyn Wogan-Browne

Douglas Kelly

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 255

18/01/2016 17:24

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 256

18/01/2016 17:24

Already Published

1.  Postcolonial Fictions in the Roman de Perceforest: Cultural Identities and Hybridities, Sylvia Huot 2.  A Discourse for the Holy Grail in Old French Romance, Ben Ramm 3.  Fashion in Medieval France, Sarah-Grace Heller 4.  Christine de Pizan’s Changing Opinion: A Quest for Certainty in the Midst of Chaos, Douglas Kelly 5.  Cultural Performances in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Nancy Freeman Regalado, eds Eglal Doss-Quinby, Roberta L. Krueger, E. Jane Burns 6.  The Medieval Warrior Aristocracy: Gifts, Violence, Performance, and the Sacred, Andrew Cowell 7.  Logic and Humour in the Fabliaux: An Essay in Applied Narratology, Roy J. Pearcy 8.  Miraculous Rhymes: The Writing of Gautier de Coinci, Tony Hunt 9.  Philippe de Vigneulles and the Art of Prose Translation, Catherine M. Jones 10.  Desire by Gender and Genre in Trouvère Song, Helen Dell 11.  Chartier in Europe, eds Emma Cayley, Ashby Kinch 12.  Medieval Saints’ Lives: The Gift, Kinship and Community in Old French Hagiography, Emma Campbell 13.  Poetry, Knowledge and Community in Late Medieval France, eds Rebecca Dixon, Finn E. Sinclair with Adrian Armstrong, Sylvia Huot, Sarah Kay 14.  The Troubadour Tensos and Partimens: A Critical Edition, Ruth Harvey, Linda Paterson 15.  Old French Narrative Cycles: Heroism between Ethics and Morality, Luke Sunderland 16.  The Cultural and Political Legacy of Anne de Bretagne: Negotiating Convention in Books and Documents, ed. Cynthia J. Brown 17.  Lettering the Self in Medieval and Early Modern France, Katherine Kong 18.  The Old French Lays of Ignaure, Oiselet and Amours, eds Glyn S. Burgess, Leslie C. Brook 19.  Thinking Through Chrétien de Troyes, Zrinka Stahuljak, Virginie Greene, Sarah Kay, Sharon Kinoshita, Peggy McCracken 20.  Blindness and Therapy in Late Medieval French and Italian Poetry, Julie Singer 21.  Partonopeus de Blois: Romance in the Making, Penny Eley 22.  Illuminating the Roman d’Alexandre: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 264: The Manuscript as Monument, Mark Cruse 23.  The Conte du Graal Cycle: Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval, the Continuations, and French Arthurian Romance, Thomas Hinton

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 257

20/01/2016 17:04

24.  Marie de France: A Critical Companion, Sharon Kinoshita, Peggy McCracken 25.  Constantinople and the West in Medieval French Literature: Renewal and Utopia, Rima Devereaux 26.  Authorship and First-Person Allegory in Late Medieval France and England, Stephanie A. Viereck Gibbs Kamath 27.  Virgilian Identities in the French Renaissance, eds Philip John Usher, Isabelle Fernbach 28.  Shaping Courtliness in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, eds Daniel E. O’Sullivan, Laurie Shepard 29.  Violence and the Writing of History in the Medieval Francophone World, eds Noah D. Guynn, Zrinka Stahuljak 30.  The Refrain and the Rise of the Vernacular in Medieval French Music and Poetry, Jennifer Saltzstein 31.  Marco Polo’s Le Devisement du Monde: Narrative Voice, Language and Diversity, Simon Gaunt 32.  The Pèlerinage Allegories of Guillaume de Deguileville: Tradition, Authority and Influence, eds Marco Nievergelt, Stephanie A. Viereck Gibbs Kamath 33.  Rewriting Arthurian Romance in Renaissance France: From Manuscript to Printed Book, Jane H. M. Taylor 34.  Unsettling Montaigne: Poetics, Ethics and Affect in the Essais and Other Writings, Elizabeth Guild 35.  Machaut and the Medieval Apprenticeship Tradition: Truth, Fiction and Poetic Craft, Douglas Kelly 36.  Telling the Story in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of Evelyn Birge Vitz, eds Kathryn A. Duys, Elizabeth Emery, Laurie Postlewate 37.  The Anglo-Norman Lay of Haveloc: Text and Translation, eds Glyn S. Burgess, Leslie C. Brook 38. Sacred Fictions of Medieval France: Narrative Theology in the Lives of Christ and the Virgin, 1150–1500, Maureen Barry McCann Boulton

DOGGETT 9781843844273 PRINT (M3816).indd 258

20/01/2016 17:04

FoundingFeminisms_Romance 26/11/2015 14:16 Page 1

COntriButOrS: Cynthia J. Brown, matilda tomaryn Bruckner, Kristin L. Burr, madeline H. Caviness, Laine E. Doggett, Sarah-grace Heller, ruth mazo Karras, roberta L. Krueger, Sharon Kinoshita, tom Linkinen, Daniel E. O’Sullivan, Lisa Perfetti, ann marie rasmussen, nancy Freeman regalado, Elizabeth robertson, Helen Solterer

an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com

FOunDing FEminiSmS in mEDiEvaL StuDiES Essays in Honor of E.Jane Burns

Edited by

Laine E. Doggett and Daniel E. O’Sullivan

Doggett, O’Sullivan (eds)

LainE E. DOggEtt is associate Professor of French at St. mary’s College of maryland, St. mary’s City; DaniEL E. O’SuLLivan is Professor of French at the university of mississippi.

FOunDing FEminiSmS in mEDiEvaL StuDiES

Feminist discourses have called into question axiomatic world views and shown how gender and sexuality inevitably shape our perceptions, both historically and in the present moment. Founding Feminisms in Medieval Studies advances that critical endeavour with new questions and insights relating to gender and queer studies, sexualities, the subaltern, margins, and blurred boundaries. the volume’s contributions, from French literary studies as well as german, English, history and art history, evince a variety of modes of feminist analysis, primarily in medieval studies but with extensions into early modernism. Several interrogate the ethics of feminist hermeneutics, the function of women characters in various literary genres, and so-called ‘natural’ binaries – sex/gender, male/female, East/West, etc. – that undergird our vision of the world. Others investigate learned women and notions of female readership, authorship, and patronage in the production and reception of texts and manuscripts. Still others look at bodies – male, female, neither, and both – and how clothes cover and socially encode them. Founding Feminisms in Medieval Studies is a tribute to E. Jane Burns, whose important work has proven foundational to late twentieth- and early twenty-firstcentury Old French feminist studies. through her scholarship, teaching, and leadership in co-founding the Society for medieval Feminist Scholarship, Burns has inspired a new generation of feminist scholars.

Gallica