Gender and Genre in Medieval French Literature (Cambridge Studies in French)

This wide-ranging study explores the ideological framework of genre in Old French and Occitan literature by charting the relationship between ideology and gender in five key genres: the chansons de geste, courtly romance, the Occitan canso, hagiography and the fabliaux. Simon Gaunt offers new readings of canonical Old French and medieval Occitan texts such as the Chanson de Roland, Chretien de Troyes's Chevalier de la Charrete, and lyrics by Bernart de Ventadorn, and in addition he considers many less wellknown works and less familiar genres such as hagiography and the fabliaux. Drawing on contemporary feminist theory, he examines how masculinity, as well as femininity, is constructed in medieval French and Occitan texts, and he shows that gender is a crucial element in the formation of the ideologies that underpin medieval literary genres.

CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN FRENCH 53

GENDER AND GENRE IN MEDIEVAL FRENCH LITERATURE

CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN FRENCH General editor: Malcolm Bowie (All Souls College, Oxford) Editorial Board: R. Howard Bloch (University of California, Berkeley), Terence Cave (St John's College, Oxford), Ross Chambers (University of Michigan), Antoine Compagnon (Columbia University), Peter France (University of Edinburgh), Christie McDonald (Harvard University), Toril Moi (Duke University), Naomi Schor (Harvard University), Michael Sheringham (University of Kent)

Recent titles in the series include 43 ROBERTA L. KRUEGER

Women Readers and the Ideology of Gender in Old French Verse Romance 44 JAMES H. REID Narration and Description in the French Realist Novel: The Temporality of Lying and Forgetting 45 EUGENE W. HOLLAND

Baudelaire and Schizoanalysis: The Socio-poetics of Modernism 46 HUGH M. DAVIDSON Pascal and the Arts of the Mind 47 DAVID J. DENBY Sentimental Narrative and the Social Order in France, 1J60-1820: Politics of Tears 48 CLAIRE ADDISON

Where Flaubert Lies: Chronology, Mythology and History 49 JOHN GLAIBORNE ISBELL

The Birth of European Romanticism: Truth and Propaganda in Sta'eTs lDe VAllemagne' 50 MICHAEL SPRINKER

History and Ideology in Proust: (A la recherche du temps perdu' and the Third French Republic 51 DEE REYNOLDS

Symbolist Aesthetics and Early Abstract Art: Sites of Imaginary Space 52 DAVID B. ALLISON, MARK S. ROBERTS AND ALLEN S. WEISS Sade and the Narrative of Transgression A complete list of books in the series is given at the end of the volume

GENDER AND GENRE IN MEDIEVAL FRENCH LITERATURE SIMON GAUNT University of Cambridge

CAMBRIDGE

UNIVERSITY PRESS

Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY IOOI 1-4211, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1995 First published 1995 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data

Gaunt, Simon. Gender and genre / Simon Gaunt, p. cm. - (Cambridge studies in France; 53) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN o 521 46494 3 hardback 1. French literature-to 1500-History and criticism-Theory, etc. 2. Provencal literature-History and criticism-Theory, etc. 3. Feminism and literature-France-History. 4. Man-woman relationships in literature. 5. Sex (Psychology) in literature. 6. Sex role in literature. 7. Rhetoric, Medieval. 8. Literary form. I. Title. II. Series. PQJ51.G38 1995 84o.9 / ooi-dc2o 94-20627 CIP ISBN o 521 46494 3 hardback Transferred to digital printing 2004

Contents

Acknowledgements List of abbreviations

1

page viii x

Introduction

i

Monologic masculinity: the chanson de geste

22

2 The knight meets his match: romance

71

3

Troubadours, ladies and language: the canso

122

4

Saints, sex and community: hagiography

180

5

Genitals, gender and mobility: the fabliaux

234

Conclusion

286

Notes Bibliography Index

290 336 365

vn

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank the University of Cambridge and St Catharine's College for granting me the sabbatical leave that allowed me to write this book. The anonymous readers for Cambridge University Press offered incisive criticism which proved very helpful during the final stages of the project. I should also like to express my gratitude to Kate Brett and Malcolm Bowie at the Press for their encouragement throughout. A small section of chapter 2 is reprinted in a revised form by permission from the Romanic Review vol. 83 (1992). Copyright by the Trustees Columbia University in the City of New York. I am also grateful to the editors of the Modern Language Review for permission to use, in a revised form, material previously published in this journal in chapter 3. In chapter 3 the texts of Moshe Lazar's edition of Bernart de Ventadorn's 'Tant ai mo cor' and of Angelica Rieger's editions of 'No puesc mudar',' Ar em' and ' Fin ioi' are reproduced by kind permission of Librairie C. Klincksieck and of Max Niemeyer Verlag. I would also like to thank Professor William Paden J r for permission to reproduce his edition of Castelloza's 'Amies'. While I have been working on this book I have been fortunate to belong to a number of communities that have sustained and stimulated me. In St Catharine's College Chris Clark, Nick Harrison, Paul Hartle, Geoffrey Kantaris, Helen Small, Andrew Webber and Susan Wright have been friends as well as colleagues; I have learnt a good deal from working with them. Since 1987 members of the 'alternative' Cambridge medieval seminar have dazzled me with their brilliance and delighted me viii

Acknowledgements

ix

with their humour: I should like to thank Elizabeth Archibald, Ruth Bagnall, Ardis Butterfield, Mark Chinca, Chris Cannon, Elizabeth Edwards, Jane Gilbert, Tony Hasler, Gabby Lyons, Ad Putter, Jim Simpson and Nicky Zeeman, several of whom have been kind enough to comment on drafts of sections of this book. Similarly, in the UK fellow medievalists Ruth Harvey, Karen Pratt, Linda Paterson and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, and in the US Peter Allen, E.Jane Burns, Joan Haahr, Roberta Krueger and Peggy McCracken have been generous with advice, support and friendship. Outside these various communities, I have valued intellectual exchanges with Alison Finch, Joel Gouget, Liz Guild, Leslie Hill, Phil Levy, Andrew Powell, John Roberts, and Betty Talks, who have had the grace to show an interest in my interest in medieval literature despite its distance from their own work. Two people deserve special thanks for they have been closely involved with the writing of this book. Mark Treharne has lived with the project as long as I have. He has offered patient support and encouragement when it was needed and commented incisively on numerous drafts. My colleague and friend Sarah Kay's energy, learning, and intelligence have been a constant source of inspiration and instruction. My debts to her published work are evident in the bibliography, but she has also been an engaging, if inimitable, interlocutor at every stage. My love for medieval literature has been repeatedly rekindled by contact with students, by their enthusiasm and by their willingness to be persuaded of the pertinence of medieval texts to their lives. Unwise as it may be to single out former students, I should none the less like to mention a few whose insights have been particularly helpful and whose company I have particularly enjoyed: Nick Corbyn, Jo Frost, Catherine Keen, Tristan Langlois, Catherine Leglu, Nick Longhurst, Charlie Louth, Kate McGeever, Emmanuel Power, Peregrine Rand, Lucy Richardson and Maria Tang-Campon. They are familiar with many of the ideas in this book and it is dedicated to them.

Abbreviations

Godefroy MR NRCF TL

ABBREVIATIONS Godefroy, Frederic, Dictionnaire de Vancienne langue frangaise et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XIV siecles, iovols. (Paris, 1881-1902) Recueil general et complet des fabliaux, see bibliography for full details Nouveau Recueil Complet des Fabliaux, see bibliography for full details Tobler, Adolf and Lommatzsch, Erhard, Altfranzosisches Worterbuch, 10. vols. to date (Berlin, 1925-)

A B B R E V I A T I O N S USED IN B I B L I O G R A P H Y CCM CN FMLS LMA MA MH MLR MR JVM RLLO RMS RN RP RR

Cahiers de Civilisation Medievale Cultura Neolatina Forum for Modern Language Studies Le Moyen Age Medium Aevum Medievalia et Humanistica, new series Modern Language Review Medioevo Romanzo Neuphilologische Mitteilungen Revue de Langue et de Litterature di0c Reading Medieval Studies Romance Notes Romance Philology Romanic Review

Introduction

GENDER [ O F R . gendre... see GENUS] f i . Kind, sort (SOED, i, 840) GENRE [FR., = KIND; SEE GENDER] 1. Kind; sort; style {SOED, 1, 842) GENUS [L. genus birth, race, stock] 1. A class of things {SOED, 1, 844) My working hypothesis in this book is that in medieval French and Occitan literature gender and genre are inextricably linked. My intention in seeking to combine the study of gender and genre is not simply to map a trendy critical term onto one with a more venerable pedigree. I shall argue that genres in medieval French and Occitan literature inscribe competing ideologies, that the construction of gender is a crucial element in any ideology, and that the distinct ideologies of medieval genres are predicated in part at least upon distinct constructions of gender. This hypothesis regarding gender and genre is based upon two premises: firstly, that every genre is an ideological formation; secondly, that a crucial component of every ideology is its engagement with the sex/gender system of the society in which it is produced. By ideology I mean a discourse which is used (not necessarily consciously) by a society, culture or section of a society or culture to naturalize or undermine, for itself and/or others, power structures and inequalities within it; by sex/ gender system I mean the way in which power and authority are distributed according to 'genderic' criteria in any given historical context. 1 The first premise rests upon Marxist genre theory, the second upon feminist theory which suggests that of

2

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

all the hierarchies that operate within hierarchical cultures, gender is the most fundamental and affects not only relations between men and women, but relations between men and between women. I shall seek in this introduction to defend and elaborate the hypothesis I have just outlined. As my work is theoretically eclectic, and as I write for an undergraduate as well as a more specialized readership, some of the theoretical writing upon which I draw will inevitably be unfamiliar to some readers. I will consequently begin with fairly basic formulations of what I mean by terms like 'genre' and 'gender' before I go on to explore how I think they interact. The impetus for this study comes largely from the vibrant body of feminist scholarship on medieval French literature, of which there are perhaps a number of main trends. One strand seeks either to discern (and condemn) misogyny and patriarchal structures within medieval texts or to detect (and congratulate) writers who were critical of the oppression of women. 2 Secondly, various critics have written what they themselves call' images of women' criticism, which describes how women are portrayed (usually by men) in medieval texts, seeks to explain the different images and to evaluate the disparity between such images and what we know of the experience of medieval women. 3 Thirdly, medieval women writers have attracted a good deal of attention.4 Finally, and perhaps most excitingly, counter-readings of texts have been offered by positing the response of women readers - medieval and modern - to male-authored texts. 5 These different trends all focus on the experience of women and strive to counteract traditional criticism, which has been largely concerned with the experience of men (as characters, writers and as readers). 6 My approach in this book differs from the feminist criticism of medieval literature just outlined. I shall not focus exclusively on the experience of women, but on gender as a construct. Although feminist critics have written about femininity as a construct in male-authored medieval texts, attention has only recently been devoted explicitly to masculinity as a construct: innumerable studies of, for example, 'the hero', 'the indi-

Introduction

3

vidual', 'the knight', or 'kingship' in medieval texts, have treated these as universal and obvious entities rather than as gendered categories, produced by and in a specific discourse.7 Nor has the relationship between genders been adequately scrutinized. My purpose is not to shift attention away from women to men, but rather to show how masculinity and femininity in texts, or even different varieties of masculinity and femininity, must be seen in relation to each other, as discursively produced constructs, if they are to be properly understood. My position as a male critic with a feminist agenda requires comment. I cannot read ' as a woman' and I do not attempt to read 'like a woman'. 8 But gender is as much a concern of men as of women. Men have different (and in most cases, including my own, altogether more comfortable) experiences of sex/ gender systems, but their sexualities, their private and professional lives, their relations with other people, their subjectivities are as much shaped by gender as are those of women. My commitment to feminism is political, using political in its broadest sense to describe power relations and hierarchies of all kinds; I believe that gender is a powerful tool with which to analyse political structures and the way in which literary texts mediate and/or promote political structures. If this study dwells sometimes on masculinity, this is partly a reflection of my material: the vast majority of medieval texts were written by men and therefore partake of a ' masculinist' discourse of gender. My attention to constructions of masculinity is also, however, a consequence of my own gender. If at this stage of the feminist project, male academics working with feminist theory should be wary of appropriating authority, and speaking for women, they can perhaps turn their attention critically to men and to masculinity. GENRE,GENDER,IDEOLOGY

Genre is one of the principal critical tools of medieval French literary studies. Though genre was rarely addressed as a theoretical issue, nineteenth-century critics implicitly used formal and thematic criteria to group medieval texts into

4

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

categories that would make them easier to interpret: it seemed, and still seems, obvious that the Chevalier de la Charrete should be read in one way because it is a romance, and the Chanson de Roland in another because it is a chanson de geste. That genre received little explicit theoretical attention during the early days of the discipline is not a sign that it was not deemed a useful tool, but rather that it was considered so obvious it needed no discussion. Criticism was in practice generically orientated: witness monuments of turn-of-the-century scholarship like Gaston Paris's literary history, Alfred Jeanroy's work on the troubadours or Joseph Bedier's study of the chansons de geste? Like most critics, Paris, Jeanroy and Bedier were using genre to classify texts, to facilitate their own and their readers' responses to them, and to distinguish one type of text from another. It is assumed in their work that medieval writers and readers had an equally keen sense of genre. With the advent of structuralism some medievalists did question the usefulness of genre as a critical tool. Notably Paul Zumthor and Pierre Bee argued that medieval writers had no notion of genre as we would understand it. What modern critics think of as generic terms in early medieval texts, they suggest, are too vague, or used too confusingly, to merit being thought of as genres.10 To the medieval mind the principal categorization of literature would have been a division between Latin and vernacular texts. Zumthor and Bee are interested not in genres, but in a 'typology' of texts, and this they elaborate using methodologies derived from structuralist linguistics. Their aim, in other words, was to classify texts according to objectifiable linguistic structures. Such an approach begs a number of questions. Are generic terms necessary for genres to exist, or can generic filiations be signalled simply by formal and thematic similarities between texts? How do we account for the fact that most vernacular literary manuscripts appear to be organized according to generic criteria? 11 What of classical and medieval genre theory in Latin? 12 Surely this indicates that the medieval mind did have a concept of genre. Does the fact that a text is written in the vernacular mean that it should be denied the basic form of

Introduction

5

critical appreciation implicit in generic designations in Latin, designations which were presumably available to most literate people in the Middle Ages? Should we expect frequent use of generic terms or precision in the use of such terms from writers who were not professional critics? Are generic terms used frequently or precisely in literary texts of any period? Above all Zumthor and Bee's work begs questions in relation to genre theory because their resulting ' typologies', in Zumthor's case of twelfth-century French literature as a whole and in Bee's of the Old French and Occitan lyric, resemble traditional generic classification: witness Zumthor's categories - le grand chant courtois, le romany Vepopee - or Bee's - 1'aube, lapastourelle, la chanson

and so on. Moreover, though both critics stress formal structure, both resort to content in their classification, even though this is often masked by other terms such as registre; they thus stray from their own theoretical frameworks - grounded in linguistic structure - into the realm of more traditional genre criticism, which involves consideration of content as well as form. Subsequent criticism of medieval texts, though greatly enriched by many of their insights, has largely ignored Zumthor's and Bee's views on genre and Zumthor himself would appear to have abandoned his earlier position on genre. 13 Major contributions to French medieval literary studies over the last twenty years have been unable to do without an idea of genre and there seems to be an implicit consensus that it is an essential critical tool. Genre is still, as it always has been, one of the mainstays of criticism of French medieval literature. So what is meant by genre? Why is it important to make a distinction between genres and to classify literary texts in this way? Traditionally Plato and Aristotle are seen as the first theorists of genre in western culture, introducing broad categories for literary texts such as comedy, tragedy and epic. 14 Writers signal an affiliation to a group of earlier and contemporary texts through adopting or adapting generic conventions, but it is also the first basic tool every reader uses to interpret a text. Should the text be taken seriously or not? Is it tragic? Is it heroic? It is through the assignation of a text to a genre that a reader decides

6

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

how to approach it, even when the text escapes straightforward generic classification. From the outset there seem to have been two criteria for defining genre: form and content. The interplay between them is discussed by Mikhail Bakhtin and Tzvetan Todorov, 15 but it is Fredric Jameson who has treated their relation in greatest detail. In his essay 'Magical narratives' Jameson defines two strands of genre criticism, which he calls the syntactic and semantic, depending on whether genres are defined according to form or content. He sees Northrop Frye as the chief modern proponent of the semantic approach, and Vladimir Propp as the chief proponent of the syntactic approach. 16 In some senses Jameson's account is fair to neither critic, for neither defines genre exclusively in terms of form or content; it would be truer to say that each foregrounds one or the other, the other criterion being secondary, sometimes irrelevant. Jameson, on the other hand, suggests that both syntactic and semantic features serve to constitute a genre: genre is therefore ' that literary discourse which may be examined either in terms of a fixed form or in terms of mode, but which must be susceptible of study from both of these perspectives optionally'. 17 Obviously classifying texts into genres helps critics to deal with, or in Jonathon Culler's words to naturalize, 18 large bodies of texts that have semantic and syntactic similarities, but for Jameson the idea of genre is more purposeful than this. He draws on Claude Levi-Strauss's theories on the symbolic significance of cultural artefacts to elucidate his own view that texts embody ideology. In Jameson's Marxist critique of LeviStrauss art represents a symbolic act wherein contradictions, inequalities and injustices within societies are resolved and justified. Art does not 'represent' social reality by providing a 'realistic' image of it; on the contrary, it distorts it to explain and justify it through symbolic representations. Thus for Jameson ' the aesthetic act is itself ideological, and the production of an aesthetic or narrative form is to be seen as an ideological act in its own right, with the function of inventing imaginary or formal "solutions" to unresolvable social contradictions' (Political Unconscious, p. 79). A genre represents one

Introduction

7

way of offering imaginary resolutions to problematic contradictions and tensions. At different moments in history different genres will arise in response to different tensions; synchronically, different genres may operate at the same historical moment to offer different solutions to the same set of tensions or to address different contradictions that are problematic in a society at a given moment. If these contradictions are resolved in real life, the genre will evolve in response to new tensions or disappear. Genres are not stable constructs, but mutate and evolve according to the historical moment. Thus for Todorov a genre is ' not only an intersection of social and formal properties, but also a fragment of collective memory'. 19 In other words, since through genre every text is connected to a body of texts, the point of interest is less the view of the individual writer (though this is not without interest), but a text's participation in a larger discursive formation at a specific point in history. History, according to this view, has to be seen as what Jameson, following Louis Althusser, calls 'an absent cause'. Since all writing (including ' non-literary' writing) is informed by ideology and cannot therefore offer an unmediated representation of reality, history ' is inaccessible to us except in textual form' {Political Unconscious, p. 35), always behind a text, never in it. This does not mean that history is just' another text', but rather that we can only reconstruct it by placing texts in their dialogical relationship with the Real, which is only knowable mediated in textual form. The principal interest of literary texts from the historical viewpoint would thus not be their mimetic qualities, but their status as fragments of collective memory or, to push Todorov's formulation a little further, as fragments of collective fantasy. The question ' was the world really like that?' which medievalists, both historians and literary critics, have frequently asked of the texts they work on is largely redundant, and all too often non-literary evidence suggests that medieval literature does not accurately reflect contemporary social structures or practices. But rather than discard literature as having no historical value, we could perhaps ask more pertinent historicizing questions of texts. Why did writers choose to represent the world in this way? What was

8

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

the symbolic value of these representations and fantasies to contemporary readers? Putting the syntactic and semantic on an equal footing has important consequences for genre theory, for it shows that all genres inscribe an ideology and therefore that the adoption of a form in itself implies an engagement with ideology. In genre, therefore, content is given form, but more importantly there is a 'content of form', given that form signals an ideological parti pris (Political Unconscious, p. 99). It is the notion of'content of form' which distinguishes Marxist genre theory from general discourse theory, whereas the notion of ' content given form' allows us to distinguish genres which use the same form, for instance in the French Middle Ages romance and much hagiography, chansons de geste and some early hagiography, or fabliaux and other short narratives like lais. Jameson's is an uncompromisingly historical view of genre which exceeds both the formal view of genre as an aesthetic category and the notion that there are universal, ahistorical 'modes' in literary production. However, texts do not simply dialogue with history; they also dialogue with each other and intertextuality is thus crucial to the functioning of genres. The notion of intertextuality rests on the assumption that no writer writes in a vacuum; rather texts imitate, dialogue with, surpass and subsume other texts, which will have informed the writer's choice of form and subject matter, consciously and unconsciously.20 The implicit intertext for any text is therefore other texts of the same genre, since the writer signals a specific relationship to these other texts by adopting the form and engaging with the ideology of the genre, even if this is done parodically or with a view to transforming the genre in some way. A genre will evolve not just in response to historical circumstance, but as writers (albeit themselves conditioned by their historical moment) imitate and transform it syntactically and semantically. Generic boundaries are not defined in influential, but unwritten rule-books; they are constructed and transformed through textual production. The intertext may function across genres as well as within a genre. A writer may use the form of one genre, yet deploy

Introduction

9

themes and motifs which are ' marked' as belonging to another and this may signal the establishment of a conscious or unconscious dialectic between different ideologies. 21 It is axiomatic in an historical view of genre, a view which contends that genres are not ahistorical, universal modes, but rather that they mutate and evolve according to historical circumstance, that genres are not discrete and that there are no easily defined, impenetrable boundaries between them. Old genres give birth to new genres; synchronically as different genres respond to the same historical tensions, it is inevitable that they will dialogue with each other and that texts which appear to be generically hybrid are produced. Yet if intertextuality functions across genres, this does not mean that generic boundaries are thereby destroyed, for any implied dialogue between different generic positions - different ideologies - can only be inferred with reference to 'pure' generic paradigms, which writers expect their readers to recognize. If the creative act is determined by genre, so is the reader's or listener's response. As Hans Robert Jauss argues, a reader approaches every text with a' horizon of expectations... familiar to him from earlier texts, which as such can then be varied, extended, corrected, but also transformed, crossed out, or simply reproduced'. 22 For Jauss variation and correction determine both the boundaries of generic structure and the audience's aesthetic response to any one text. As the author will be influenced both by his or her audience's actual response and by the response he or she expects, the evolution of genres is determined by reception as well as by the writer's conscious and unconscious engagement with genre. An audience uses its sense of genre to situate a text and therefore to judge it. Because of the dialogue he perceives between a text and its public, Jauss too highlights the ideological content of genre, seeing ' the work of art... as a sign and carrier of meaning for a social reality' and suggesting that' the aesthetic is defined as a principal mediation and a mode of organization for extra-aesthetic meanings' (Toward an Aesthetic, p. 108).

A sense of genre then is essential both to literary creation and to the reception of literary texts. Genres are neither stable nor

io

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

discrete constructs: they evolve in response to historical events, situations, individual writers' texts and to audience reception. Theorists as diverse as Northrop Frye, Hans Robert Jauss, Fredric Jameson, Mikhail Bakhtin and Tzvetan Todorov all agree that genres are inherently ideological literary constructs. Since all but one of these theorists are writing from a perspective that is informed by Marxism, it is not surprising that they see the ideological basis of genres as grounded in class antagonism. Only Jameson mentions gender in his discussion of ideology, and then only to reiterate the tired Marxist truism that sexual oppression in western societies is a relic of a now defunct mode of production and that with the elimination of class, what he calls the 'false problem' of gender will disappear {Political Unconscious, pp. 99-100). But to subsume gender to class in this way is not only profoundly androcentric, it also grossly oversimplifies and misrepresents the problem, as feminist theory demonstrates. For instance, it is well known that men and women have a different relationship to class: whereas a man's class is usually determined by his relationship to an economic means of production, a woman's is usually determined by her relationship to a man, most often her father, husband or brother. 23 This implies that for gender inequalities to disappear, it is not class that needs to be dismantled, but male-dominated kinship structures which, although undoubtedly affected by class, operate at all levels of class hierarchies and within most, if not all, known cultures, whether or not they have class structures. Moreover, if gender hierarchies are a relic of a mode of production that preceded capitalism, it is not clear why they should disappear from subsequent modes of production when they have proved so tenacious within capitalism, nor why they are so common - universal according to some anthropologists in all cultures, capitalist and non-capitalist. I use gender here in a specifically feminist sense: that is I make the distinction between sex, which designates the differences between men and women which are anatomically or biologically determined, and gender which designates the meanings given these differences in culture. 24 Some theorists women working at the interface of feminist and gay theory -

Introduction

11

have recently questioned the simplicity and validity of this sex/gender opposition. Judith Butler, for example, argues convincingly that feminists have been too willing to assume that 'sex' is a prediscursive, 'natural' state upon which cultures construct arbitrary meanings thereby to impart 'gender'. 'Sex' for Butler, is itself inevitably a gendered category: since we talk about sex in language as a notion of what came before gender, it must also be a cultural construct, part of a discursive formation. Feminism, suggests Butler, replaces the 'biology is destiny' aphorism, with the equally oppressive 'culture is destiny'. 25 Approaching the nature/nurture debate from a different angle Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick makes a similar point. Gay-affirmative and feminist writers, she argues, assume that as long as a phenomenon is deemed 'only cultural' it can be manipulated and controlled, yet if the constructionist feminist analysis of the sex/gender opposition is correct, history indicates that culture rather than biology is the oppressor of women and gays: progressive theories of sex/gender systems thus offer no grounds for optimism. 'If I had ever', Sedgwick writes, 'in any medium, seen any researcher or popularizer refer even once to any supposed gay-producing circumstances as the proper hormone balance, or the conducive endocrine environment, for gay generation, I would be less chilled by the breezes of all this technological confidence. ' 26 Although entirely persuaded by these critiques of the premises of gender theory I would contend that they are grounded in a growing unease with the notion of ' sex' rather than that of 'gender' and in a realization that understanding how culture (or biology) shapes lives does not make an agenda for change more realizable. It may be, as Butler argues {Gender Trouble, p. 7), that the continued 'sexing' of bodies into the categories 'male' and 'female' is less a response to 'nature', than to scientific and other cultural discourses which privilege gender and sexuality as hierarchical markers. However, this need not prevent a constructionist approach to gender, by which I mean an approach grounded in an understanding that masculinity and femininity are meanings constructed and attributed within culture, rather than biological givens; nor need one abandon

12

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

altogether a minimalist use of the category 'sex'. The meanings imparted to ' male' and ' female' bodies are not uniform across cultures, but the ascription of meanings using these categories is universal. 27 ' Sex' could thus simply be understood to mean ' the body'. That we are unable to conceive of a non-gendered or unsexed body just shows to what extent we are unable to think outside of the limitations of culture: we cannot think the unthinkable. One corollary of a constructionist approach to gender is that terms like 'man', 'woman', 'masculine', 'feminine', 'male' and ' female' do not have stable meanings either diachronically or synchronically; as Joan Scott suggests they are ' at once empty and overflowing categories', requiring interpretation. 28 Although many cultures (including that of medieval France) often seek to place gendered terms within rigid binary oppositions, a binary axis like 'masculine' and 'feminine' is, like other binary oppositions, susceptible to deconstruction. Firstly, and most obviously, any simple opposition between masculine and feminine is not symmetrical, but asymmetrical since one pole in the opposition within patriarchy is privileged and given more value. Secondly, a culture can sustain two or more models of the masculine or the feminine concurrently, witness the dominant symbols of Eve and Mary throughout the Middle Ages, or in medieval vernacular texts the competing models of masculinity represented by chevalerie and clergie. Thirdly, some constructions of gender are produced through exclusion rather than opposition; for example in some texts the 'opposite' of the ideal man is not a woman, but another type of man. For the feminist, gender is best not understood as binary, but as multiple.29 To accept gender binarism is to accept the oppressive discourse of culture and we should be seeking to understand that discourse, rather than to perpetuate it. As Joan Scott says ' we need a refusal of the fixed and permanent quality of the binary opposition, a genuine historicization and deconstruction of the terms of sexual difference' (Gender, pp. 41-2). For some feminist theorists all hierarchies are predicated on gender hierarchies and incorporate a sex/gender system inasmuch as the prestige and position of men is determined in

Introduction

13

some way by their relationship to women, and vice versa. Gender would thus have a foundational role in the formation of ideologies. On the basis of empirical archaeological evidence and feminist anthropological theory Gerda Lerner suggests in The Creation of Patriarchy that rather than the subordination of women being a product of private property as Frederick Engels argues in The Origin of the Family', private property and the ensuing stratification of men in human societies were predicated on the control of women.30 Lerner locates the 'creation of patriarchy 5 in the transition from hunter/gatherer to agricultural modes of production, in which the supply of labour to work the fields becomes the prime concern. Archaeological evidence indicates that early agricultural communities began to take women as hostages, but killed conquered males. Treating women as slaves only served to highlight the value they had to agricultural communities: without children there was no labour force; without women there were no children. As Claude Meillassoux shows in relation to modern Africa, in agricultural communities it is more important to control the means of reproduction than the means of production. 31 With the appropriation of the sexuality and reproductive capacities of some women, Lerner argues, women slaves became the first private property, and, she assumes, men became the first proprietors. To 'possess' a woman indicated a man's importance to the community, it conferred status on a man and women were exchanged between men as a gesture of good will, as a means of conferring status. As this implies, Lerner's account of the origin of patriarchy is indebted to Levi-Strauss's work on the importance of the exchange of gifts in primitive societies and to his view that marriage is a form of gift exchange (see Les Structures elementaires). Men bind themselves to each other through bonds of kinship for which women are the conduits and thereby communities are formed. The exchange of women is a system that permeates many human societies in some form, including that of medieval France and, at least until recently, our own. The exchange of women and the concomitant incest taboo (which keeps women circulating) are the very foundation of culture as we know it.

14

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

This is not to say that without them there could be no culture, but rather that we have yet to discover what such a culture would be like. In her seminal and influential critique of Levi-Strauss's work Gayle Rubin argues that although he is correct to place the oppression of women within social systems he fails to see the consequence of such systems for women, for ' if women are for men to dispose of, they are in no position to give themselves away'. 32 In societies for which the exchange of women is a fundamental basis, men are the givers, women the gifts, men the subjects, women the objects. Rubin further suggests that psychoanalysis offers a different explanation for the same phenomenon: the phallus, taken in the Lacanian sense as a symbol of authority, is exchanged between men, transferred from father to son, from the giver of a woman to the receiver. It is axiomatic in Rubin's argument that gender has an intricate and complex relation with sexuality. In the wake of Rubin's work, feminist and gay theorists are showing with increasing clarity and sophistication how western patriarchy relies on the imposition of a coercive and narrowly defined model of compulsory heterosexuality which oppresses men as well as women: without it kinship systems predicated upon the exchange of women could not function. For some theorists, Judith Butler and Diana Fuss for instance, gender, sexuality and identity in western culture are inextricably entwined: subjects are constituted through repeated 'performance 5 as they imitate (unknowingly) absent models which prescribe behaviour, sexual object choice, modes of desire. 33 Gender and sexuality are not the same thing, but nor can they be theorized separately. Like gender, sexuality is not ahistorical ;34 the value and meaning given to sexual acts and desires evolve according to historical circumstance. Although the primary focus of this book is gender, the role of sexuality in the construction of gender and ideology in various genres will be addressed. The sex/gender systems produced by the exchange of women are not an ahistorical feature of human society; they evolved differently in different societies. Sex/gender systems are cultural constructs and therefore the symbolic value different cultures

Introduction

15

place on gender varies enormously. Furthermore, the representation of gendered individuals within cultural artefacts like texts need not reflect accurately the situation of gendered individuals within historical sex/gender systems; on the contrary such representations may distort social structures to justify and explain differences and hierarchies that are the product of culture rather than of biological differences.35 Like genres, gender distinctions are subject to and produced by discourse; the inscription of gender hierarchies in literary texts is therefore, like genres, a product as much of collective fantasy as of mimesis. Representations of gender may thus vary within the same culture - from genre to genre in literature for instance and this is hardly surprising since like the historical sex/gender systems such representations mediate and distort, they too have symbolic value. We need to ask whom the gendered models and images we contemplate in literary texts were for, what they meant to them as well of course as what they mean to us now. The preceding account prioritizes kinship systems as foundational in the construction of gender. This need not pose theoretical problems for the study of medieval French culture, in which kinship clearly is of paramount importance, but kinship is not the only constituent of gender. As Joan Scott suggests, other factors - education, the labour market, the polity and so on - need consideration in gender theory; but the two richest theoretical domains in modern western culture for theorizing gender - anthropology and psychoanalysis - both assume that for an individual subject to enter social structures like the education system, the labour market, the polity, she or he must already be gendered and that it is kinship which enacts the initial engendering process.36 Moreover if factors other than gender structure hierarchies - most notably today race, caste, education, class, and sexuality - all of these intersect with gender in some way. Why is the reaction to interracial sexual encounters different depending on the sex of the participants? Why are there proportionally fewer women scientists than male scientists and why are women graduates less successful at reaching senior positions than male graduates? Where are class distinctions without economic units (families) which are

16

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

composed of gendered individuals with gender-specific relations to production, and why do families which do not conform to normative models (because there is only one parent or because the parents are of the same sex) fall outside accepted behaviour patterns in some classes? What is homosexuality without a notion of normative masculinity or femininity? As Scott argues, 'gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power' even in areas where gender does not appear to be at issue [Gender, p. 44).

No ideology, nor its inscription in texts, can be disassociated from the sex/gender system of the culture in which it operates, even if superficially gender does not appear to be at issue. It will now be clear why I think gender is an important factor to bear in mind in genre criticism. It is not simply that different genres offer different representations of masculinity and femininity, as is obvious from even a cursory glance at medieval French and Occitan literature. If genres represent constructed symbolic resolutions to social tensions and contradictions and thereby inscribe ideologies, the construction and representation of gender within those ideologies is crucial to an understanding of how they function. This is not to say that gender is the only factor which will allow an adequate understanding of the differences between genres; other factors - race, class, economics - contribute to the formation of ideologies, while formal and aesthetic considerations also play a role. My point is simply that a genre cannot he fully understood without a consideration of gender. My view of the role of gender in genre theory is thus close to that of Joan Scott's on the role of gender in historical theory: ' I make no claim to total vision, nor to having found the category that will finally explain all inequality... My claim is more modest: that gender offers both a good way of thinking about history, about the ways in which hierarchies of difference - inclusions and exclusions - have been constituted and of theorizing (feminist) politics. ' 37 Gender and genre are likely to interact, both synchronically and diachronically, in a meaningful way.

Introduction

17

THE SCOPE OF THIS BOOK

My argument then is that the genres of medieval French (including Anglo-Norman) and Occitan literature I will study - the chanson de geste, romance, the canso, hagiography and the fabliaux - are predicated on distinct ideologies and that these ideologies may only be fully elucidated by studying the way in which each genre mediates the sex/gender system of its culture. For some of these genres, particularly those concerned with love, gender is the key to understanding the underlying ideology; for others it is perhaps less obviously central, but none of these genres can be properly understood without taking its representation of gender into account. The scope of this book is wide, and it is consequently selective both in the genres it treats and in the texts it examines within those genres. It would have been impossible to cover all literary texts written in the vernacular in France, Anglo-Norman England and Occitania during the Middle Ages; it is equally impossible to give a comprehensive account of the genres I have chosen. I have selected these five genres because of their importance, but also because they are representative of different aspects of vernacular literary culture. The chanson de geste exemplifies a literary tradition born of feudal society in crisis before the impact of'courtly culture', but which then has to deal with this impact and its own imploding ideology; romance and the canso are the two main genres of 'courtly' culture; vernacular hagiography provides a space in which secular cultures (including the 'courtly') meet a sacred, Latin tradition ; in thefabliaux' courtly' culture encounters a less ethically charged view of the world. Within a genre I have often selected a particular intertextual strand in order to highlight a particular diachronic development and, as with all processes of selection, exclusions are no doubt as significant as inclusions. Amongst genres I will not be examining, but which would have lent themselves to the same style of analysis are beast epic, estates satire, allegorical romance (like the Rose), non-courtly lyric genres and lais. The inclusion of Occitan material - particularly the Occitan canso - is intended to reflect the fact that despite

18

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

clear political and social differences between northern and southern France, there was constant contact and cultural exchange throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 38 Literary texts and genres certainly crossed the linguistic boundaries between Occitania, Northern France and AngloNorman England. Many studies of Old French literature suffer, in my view, from a neglect of Occitan material. I have confined my study primarily to the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, with just the occasional foray into earlier and later periods, because to extend the historical scope of the book would make it difficult to historicize the development of genres. This is a literary study, but I hope to set my readings of literary texts in an historical context, even though I will only be able to offer a sketchy presentation of this context within the confines of this book. I will suggest that the representation of gender and its symbolic value within a variety of genres evolves in relation to important socio-historic tensions: the changing position of the knight within feudal hierarchies and the increasing power of the monarchy; the conflict between church and secular models of marriage; the tension between the clerk and the court to which he both did and did not belong; the rise of a monetary economy and the impact of this on the ' high culture' of the aristocracy. That the chapters of this book are structured according to generic criteria is hardly surprising, but it should not be inferred from this that I am suggesting these genres to be discrete. Indeed I will frequently contend that texts invite comparison with other genres, to bring competing ideologies and gender systems into play. Many, though possibly not all, of the texts studied in this book were intended for readers of the same social world: the aristocracy of France, Occitania, and England and its entourage, that is to say the mixture of noble men, women and clerks who met at the courts of the feudal aristocracy and royal houses of France and England. Often different genres offer different responses to the same historical tensions for the same readers. It would therefore be absurd to disregard the thematic unity of much medieval literature, and not to read one genre against another. Genre is a powerful device for writers

Introduction

19

and readers to indicate an interpretative framework for a text, but the ideological and formal barriers it erects are fluid and permeable. If many medievalists have embraced the structuralist and post-structuralist critical revolution as liberating and empowering, others have rejected recent trends, clinging to methods of empirical scholarship and textual criticism established in the nineteenth century. No medievalist can be indifferent to the historical problems posed by examining texts from the distant past, and for some the application of modern critical theory to medieval texts is anachronistic. 39 It might, for instance, be objected that it is anachronistic to apply a constructionist concept like 'gender', a late twentieth-century theoretical term, to a culture and a period which apparently had an essentialist view of sex and consequently no concept of gender. My own position in the debate concerning the relevance of critical theory to medieval studies will already be clear and I see little point in elaborating in detail a view that must be obvious: each generation of medievalists must ask new questions, the point being not simply to find out about the past, but to dialogue with it. Who can conduct a dialogue with someone else's questions? But I would like to make a specific point about the 'modernity' (indeed the 'post-modernity') of many of the ideas of modern critical theory, of which a constructionist view of gender is just one. The Middle Ages has no metalanguage about vernacular texts which corresponds to the style of writing we call literary criticism and although there were a number of modes of writing (usually in Latin) about writing and texts, there is similarly no precise equivalent to 'literary theory'. It is thus not surprising that an idea like 'gender', produced by and in a variety of modern critical discourses has no exact equivalent in medieval texts. Yet it does not follow that medieval texts are unable to perform the same intellectual operations as modern texts. In her ground-breaking study of Chaucer's 'sexual poetics', Carolyn Dinshaw demonstrates Chaucer's constant exploratory engagement with gender politics in his writing. She comments 'Chaucer's literary concerns may sound quite modern... but I would prefer to say that our present-day critical

20

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

concerns turn out to be quite medieval 5 {Chaucer's Sexual Poetics, p. 17). Similarly, I have argued elsewhere that a remarkable thirteenth-century romance, known as the Roman de Silence, ' appears to engage deliberately with problems that interest modern theorists' ('Significance of Silence', p. 202): Silence theorizes the relationship between sex and gender, though it uses different terms to do so and seems to disturb deeply its author in the process. My point is that we should not assume all good ideas are the result of modern brain-waves. Modern thinkers, including many medievalists, have tended to invent for themselves a Middle Ages which they invest as the intellectual childhood of modern Europe in order to affirm their own maturity and sophistication. Medieval texts do not theorize gender in the same way as us, but this does not mean they do not theorize gender at all. As will be clear my work draws on a wide range of theoretical writers: marxist, structuralist, post-structuralist, feminist and gay literary theorists; structuralist and feminist anthropological theorists; feminist historical theorists; feminist and gay theorists in general. The use of anthropological theory perhaps requires some brief comment. I would suggest that it is apposite on two accounts. First, although medievalists cannot engage in fieldwork as anthropologists do since they study the past, they do need to cultivate a depaysement similar to that of the anthropologist before her/his object of study because of the chronological distance between medieval culture and our own. 40 Secondly, the nature of literacy and textuality in the Middle Ages means that surviving vernacular literary texts derive from and were addressed to a community. No autograph manuscripts survive from the period studied in this book and texts are thus always the product of at least two pens - the author's and the scribe's - usually many more, and some texts, notably chansons de geste, are clearly the work of more than one author. Furthermore, whatever the genre, reading vernacular texts usually meant reading aloud to a group of listeners, so texts were inviting a communal response in a manner unfamiliar to our post-Romantic, print culture, steeped as it is in an aesthetic of individual response to literary texts. Vernacular medieval texts

Introduction

21

had a symbolic value to the community qualitatively different from that of modern texts to their readership of individuals. Although they are written texts, they construct or contest values in the communal medium of the voice reading aloud, rather than in the more individualistic medium of the privately and silently read book.41 Since much anthropological theory particularly that influenced by Levi-Strauss's work on cultural artefacts upon which Jameson's theory of genre draws explicitly - stresses the importance of the ritual nature of cultural artefacts within a community, it is perhaps particularly pertinent to medieval vernacular texts. Of course, this is a different strand of anthropology from the feminist anthropologies of gender on which I have also drawn, but the two branches of the discipline can be fruitfully merged. What was the symbolic value of the gendered constructs of medieval texts to the communities for which they were destined? Were these constructs accepted and thereby naturalized or were they viewed as problematic and ideologically fraught? The readership and public of medieval vernacular literature certainly included women, but for the most part the texts were written and transmitted by men. To what extent are we dealing with ideologies produced by men for men and imposed upon women? Furthermore can we assume a unitary response from men and women respectively? I hope that this book will contribute towards answering these questions.

CHAPTER I

Monologic masculinity: the chanson de geste

Gender is a crucial element in the ideology of the chansons de geste since its ethical system is so exclusively masculine. This is not to say that there are no important women characters: for every poem in which women play only minor roles, there is another in which they play a significant part. But in the chansons de geste male characters are defined as individuals in relation to other men, whilst women are excluded from the genre's value system even, arguably, in poems where the influence of other genres is tangible. Many modern critics take this exclusion for granted: for instance it is revealing that in the text of an otherwise fascinating plenary address by Francois Suard on ' La chanson de geste comme systeme de representation du monde' delivered to the 1988 international conference of the Societe Rencesvals, I can locate no reference to women, even in the section entitled 'L'Organisation sociale' (pp. 259-68). Yet is not the exclusion of women from the systeme de representation du monde as worthy of

mention as the portrayal of the three (male) orders upon which Suard concentrates? The exclusion of women does not, of course, mean that chanson de geste heroes are somehow ungendered; on the contrary it genders them strongly and it has been suggested recently, notably by Sarah Kay, that women are deliberately excluded from the value system of the genre. 1 This strategy of exclusion invites investigation, particularly given the unrealistic image of society it produces, for as Micheline de Combarieu du Gres points out, in focusing on war, an activity in which only some men engaged for forty days of the year away from their domestic environment, chansons de geste give a curiously unrealistic picture of life in the Middle Ages.2 22

Monologic masculinity

23

It is not coincidental in relation to the exclusion of women from the value system of the chanson de geste that a number of texts derive their impetus from the relationship of a pair of men. The centrality of the idealization, or alternately of the disintegration, of male bonding in four twelfth-century chansons de geste which have clear intertextual connections and which are central to the tradition - the Oxford Roland, the Paris Roland, Ami et Amile, Raoul de Cambrai - will be the main focus of this

chapter. One consequence of the exclusion of women from the ethical system of the genre and of the foregrounding of male bonding (or its disintegration) is that ideals of the masculine gender are not constructed in relation to the feminine, but in relation to other models of masculinity. Yet because the texts also draw on a strong and pervasive myth of brotherhood, of the unity of the masculine, they attempt to produce what I shall call a ' monologic' construction of gender, a model which has difficulty in tolerating difference and which therefore engages in an obsessional, but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to repress and marginalize alterity. I shall argue that if the early chanson de geste predicates an ostensibly monologic ideology on this construction of masculinity, the predilection of later poets for exploring the success or failure of male bonding in a clearly signalled process of intertextual dialogue points implicitly to a recognition within the genre that its central ideal - male bonding and solidarity is inherently problematic and consequently open to question. Thus it is the genre's very quest for the monologic which produces dialogism as its ideology is debated and reworked. In conclusion, I shall examine briefly the role of women characters in two texts, the Chanson de Guillaume and Daurel et Beton. I will

suggest that the inclusion of women characters who support the genre's masculine ideology, whose role is to supplement ineffectual or unworthy male characters, and who diagnose what is wrong with the male order also points to an anxiety that the genre's ideology and its monologic construction of masculinity are flawed. This anxiety produces further dialogism. As Kimberlee Anne Campbell argues, the portrayal of women in the chanson de geste exemplifies how the genre succeeds in

24

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

questioning its values whilst appearing 'ideologically normative'. 3 SIMILARITY AND DIFFERENCE

Modern evaluations of the chansons de geste have been dominated by one of the earliest texts to have survived, the Oxford Roland. The genre's renown amongst modern readers rests almost exclusively on the spell-binding effect of this one text, which has so dominated critical writing and university curricula that other poems have tended to be ignored, or compared unfavourably with the originary work of genius. This tendency has been exacerbated by the untiring interest of some specialists in the origins of the texts we possess in a necessarily unknowable oral culture; theories about the oral composition and circulation of the chansons have led some scholars to view the surviving texts with the possible sacred exception of the Oxford Roland - as debased reflections of lost, living originals. Yet the chanson de geste as we know it is not an inherently decadent or petrified genre. On the contrary it is highly dynamic with large numbers of texts being produced and written down throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The survival of a hundred or so poems in over three hundred manuscripts is ample testimony to the dynamism of the chanson de geste as a written genre.4 However, quite apart from the necessity to position oneself in the interminable scholarly debate on origins, no consideration of the chansons de geste can afford to ignore the question of the circumstances of their composition and transmission, for much of the genre's dynamism is due to the high degree of intertextuality within the tradition, which derives in part from the circulation of some texts in an oral form before their preservation in manuscripts, and in part from the conditions in which many of the texts are preserved whether or not they circulated orally at an earlier stage. For example, possibly as a result of oral transmission many texts have survived in several distinct versions, which makes it possible to trace the development of a narrative, to discern reworkings of earlier texts (albeit not texts that have survived, but lost common sources) in later texts. Thus, if a few, often early chansons•, like the Oxford Roland or the

Monologic masculinity

25

Chanson de Guillaume, are preserved in so-called manuscrits de

jongleur, we often possess later versions of the same narrative, as we do with the Roland and the Guillaume; some of these may reflect oral traditions, others written remaniements.5 In contrast to poems in ' manuscrits de jongleur \ many others are preserved in cyclical manuscripts which sustain a narrative thread through a number of texts composed by different poets.6 In addition, some texts, possibly the Oxford Roland itself, may not be the work of one poet, but the result of the expansion of an earlier poem by a continuator. 7 The phenomena of remaniements, of cyclical manuscripts, and of continuations make the chanson de geste a highly dialogical genre. Texts dialogue with each other, as remanieurs, the compilers of manuscripts, or continuators seek to resolve, develop and rework problems and themes from earlier poems. One way of gauging the reception of a chanson de geste, of assessing how it redefines or transgresses the boundaries of the genre, is to study the intertext of remaniements, of poems associated with it in the manuscript tradition, or of continuations, which is what I shall do with the Oxford Roland. As I have suggested (p. 8), genres are shaped through textual production, not in rule-books. Should the Oxford Roland be taken, as it frequently has been, as a foundational text for the genre? The Oxford Roland is not a typical chanson de geste either stylistically or in terms of content. Composed around 1100, it is a good fifty years earlier than most of the texts to have survived, even though earlier versions of other texts may have existed. In addition, there is little evidence that the Roland as it survives in the Oxford manuscript was widely known in the Middle Ages. The modern obsession with the Oxford Roland has without doubt produced a misapprehension of the genre. The legend of Roncevaux, however, was immensely popular. Thus the early date of the Oxford Roland and the fact that later French Roland poems derive from a common source invite an approach wherein these are read against it, not as foundational or originary, but rather because it is the earliest inscription of an ideal which is then debated, reworked and transformed. 8 Furthermore, a substantial number of other texts, some outside

26

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

the Roland tradition, appear to respond to problems which are posed for the first time in the Oxford Roland, so that they can be read if not as direct responses, then certainly as responses to a text like it. A large number of later chansons de geste can be read against the Oxford Roland as attempts to deal with issues which we encounter for the first time in it and which are central to the evolution of the genre. The Oxford Roland is clearly a text which promotes an ideal and it has been used for ideological purposes in modern times as much as in the Middle Ages.9 With compelling lyricism and poetic grandeur it promotes an ideal of a seamless and harmonious community of fighting men, who will stand and fight as a group come what may: 10 no La bataille est merveilluse e pesant: Mult ben i fiert Oliver e Rollant, Li arcevesques plus de mil colps i rent, Li duze per ne s'en targent ni'ent, E li Franceis fierent cumunement.

1415

The battle is extraordinary and intense: Roland and Oliver strike boldly in it, the archbishop renders more than a thousand blows there, the twelve peers are not tardy in the least and all the French strike together. The battlefield is the space in which men are united, fight together and die together. There are no women there; it is a masculine space, in which the knight's duty is clear and apparently unproblematic. This absence and exclusion of women serves to underline the fact that the heroism of these men is heavily gendered and the audience, whether medieval or modern, which responds positively to Roland and Oliver as heroes colludes in the construction of this exclusive model of masculinity. Furthermore, the order in which the knights are mentioned here is important. Oliver and Roland appear, as they often do, as a pair and if Oliver (unusually) is mentioned first in this instance, this places Roland's name in an emphatic position at the end of the line. Perhaps significantly, the only other individual to be separated from the group is Turpin;

Monologic masculinity

27

otherwise the primacy of Roland and Oliver as a couple within the immediate community of the twelve peers and the larger community of li Franceis is evident. Much ink has been spilt over the nature of Roland as archetypal epic hero, usually to attribute to him timeless humanist values such as humility (ultimately), stoicism or bravery. Is he a good guy, worthy of our admiration? (The answer is unsurprisingly nearly always 'yes'.) Is he a Christian martyr or just a tough guy? Is he guilty ofdesmesure and if so does he repent of it? Is he patriotic? The answers to these questions are usually determined by reading Roland's character against Oliver's.11 It is assumed, because the poem's structure and brilliant rhetoric foreground Roland, that Roland is right and consequently that Oliver must be wrong. Oliver's marginalization is reinforced by the fact that Turpin takes his place at Roland's side before the hero's death; as Turpin says to Roland 'Cist camp est nostre, mercit Deu - vostre e mien' (2183: ' this field is ours, thank God, yours and mine'). But reading the positions of Roland and Oliver as mutually exclusive and assuming Oliver's view is simply discarded misrepresents the poem, which goes to some lengths to portray the pair as a couple, as sharing an outlook. Two studies of characterization in the Oxford Roland point to a different way of reading the confrontations between Roland and Oliver. Francois Suard sees the centrality of Roland and Oliver as a couple as paramount to the text's ethos: 'le poete, lui, ne choisit pas, se plaisant plutot a nous montrer qu'Olivier peut devenir Roland et Roland Olivier, tellement riche et complexe est l'ideal vassalique'; this leads him to conclude ' il n'y a pas de personnage epique veritable que celui-la qui, dans une chanson de geste, se situe a l'interieur d'un couple', meaning of course un coupletfhommes.12This would suggest that it is the couple's similarities not their differences which give Roland's heroism its impetus. Patricia Harris Stablein's reading of the character of Roland supports this view: she suggests that Roland and Oliver should be read less as characters than as competing elements of the same heroic force, which disperse but consistently ' reunite in a still denser heroic form \ 1 3 Reading the

28

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

couple as identical as well as different has interesting consequences for an analysis of Roland and Oliver as competing models of masculinity. The poem may invite us to consider the differences between the two heroes, yet at the same time it suggests they are, indeed must be, identical. Roland, as a gendered individual is not contrasted and compared to someone of the other sex in this text, nor to a man who is significantly different from him (I shall return to the role of Ganelon and to that of the Saracens), but to another man like himself. The significant alternative to Roland's model of masculinity is a man who is a reflection of himself. The 'other' is the 'same' despite any superficial appearance of difference. Masculinity in the Oxford Roland is constructed as monologic inasmuch as it seems to have no significant relational or differential opposite pole. Interpreting the characters of Roland and Oliver as specular will strike a chord with readers of modern feminist theorists like Luce Irigaray and Judith Butler who argue that identity (necessarily masculine within patriarchal discourse) is always constructed within a masculine economy in relation to another model of the masculine. The phallogocentric signifying system would have as its purpose what Butler calls a 'totalizing goal', a demonstration of the supremacy, unity and indestructibility of the masculine, which excludes the feminine. 14 Is this how the Oxford Roland functions and to what extent is it totalizing? Does the model of masculine unity it promotes sustain itself? If the Oxford Roland promotes an ideal, it none the less presents its material in a problematic and paradoxical manner. As Stephen Nichols has argued ' the interest of this work, its freshness, lies in its refusal to reveal its ultimate purpose immediately' and he amply demonstrates how the Oxford Roland may be read as a hermeneutical challenge. 15 To a large extent its ambiguity can be attributed to its unique style, which often makes it hard to deduce a clear view of events. This is probably why it has provoked such diverging interpretations in modern times and why, when other texts are read against it, they seem to answer questions it leaves open. At crucial points the celebrated lyric laisses similaires leave us uncertain as to

Mono logic masculinity

29

whether something happens three times slightly differently, or whether we are given three versions of the same event. In either case, how should we determine which version (or combination of different versions) of the action supplies the 'true 5 meaning? In some instances subsequent laisses blatantly contradict each other. For example when Roland hears Ganelon propose him as leader of the rearguard he has two contradictory responses. In laisse 59 he is frosty, but polite:' Sire parastre mult vos dei aveir cher' (753:'my lord stepfather, I must indeed hold you dear'). There is no hint of the invective to come in laisse 60: ' Ahi! culvert, malvais horn de put aire' (763: 'alas! you villain, you evil son of a bitch'). Roland's vituperative tone in laisse 60 is introduced with a hint of reprise (761), which is often suggestive of simultaneity in the Oxford Roland, but read in sequence laisse 59 only allows us to deduce Roland shows respect to Ganelon. Which laisse should we accept as offering the 'true' meaning? The answer is probably both and neither. Throughout the Oxford poem, Roland is pulled between hostility to Ganelon and a desire not to hear him criticized because of their family ties: laisses 59-60 are emblematic of Roland's equivocal relationship to Ganelon. 16 It is significant that subsequent versions of the Chanson de Roland resolve contradictions such as these. Ganelon becomes a completely despicable traitor (which he certainly is not in the Oxford poem); thus one of the Venice texts concludes its prologue 'Des or comenga li traiment de Gayne' (Venice 4, 6: 'at this point [the tale of] Ganelon's treachery began'), thereby inviting an interpretation of the whole poem as the narrative of Ganelon's treachery rather than of Roland's heroism, and all subsequent versions contain repetitive diatribes against Ganelon which are not in the Oxford text. 17 Tellingly laisse 60 in the Oxford Roland is unique to this version; in other versions Roland's response to Ganelon is entirely respectful at this stage. Where other versions seek to offer univocal interpretations of the narrative, the Oxford poem seeks to suspend judgement, supplying us with two alternative readings. Suspension of judgement is frequent in the Oxford Roland and it is usually generated by the poet's brilliant exploitation of the

30

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

laisse form, particularly of reprises and laisses similaires. Units of

narrative are juxtaposed which may be simultaneous or sequential; these may ' overlay' each other to produce meaning cumulatively, but they can also contradict each other without resolving contradictions. 18 The most striking instances of this are the two horn scenes in which Roland and Oliver confront each other, and it is this confrontation - and its implications which I believe to be the central 'problem' of the text. Why the confrontation between Roland and Oliver and not, for instance, that of Roland and Ganelon, or Roland and the Saracens? The Oxford Roland derives much of its power from confrontation. The two most important confrontations would initially appear to be between Roland and Ganelon and between Christians and Saracens. Depending on which confrontation is foregrounded one opts for a so-called Germanic or a so-called Catholic interpretation. According to the former the text inscribes an ideology which has its origins in Germanic clan warfare; according to the latter the Oxford Roland is primarily a text about Christian martyrdom. 19 However, though both Ganelon and the Saracens pose a serious threat to Roland's life, neither threatens his status as hero. The Christian/pagan opposition is not problematic: thus we are told in a peremptory yet deservedly famous line ' Paien unt tort e chrestiens unt dreit' (1015: 'pagans are wrong and Christians are right'). Even the Saracens realize they are predestined to be on the losing side; they may harm Roland's body, but they cannot prevent the ultimate victory of Christianity, as is amply demonstrated when Baligant refers to his own army as ' La meie gent averse' (3295: 'my wicked people'). Similarly, Ganelon may get Roland killed, but he cannot undermine his heroic status. The first thing we are told about him in the Oxford text is that he is ' Guenes ...ki la traisun fist' (178: 'Ganelon... who committed the treachery') and his position at the negative pole of an opposition with Roland is as predetermined as that of the Saracens. If a level of ambiguity in the Oxford text is generated by Roland's tendency to defend Ganelon, or at least not to hear him criticized (see 1026-7), this is suppressed in subsequent versions by Roland's repeated criticism of him. It is significant, however,

Monologic masculinity

31

that even in the Oxford text, since Ganelon is deemed to be the actual cause of Roland's death (3751-6), rather than the Saracens, the greatest threat to Roland comes from inside the Christian camp rather than from outside. The apparently seamless community has cracks. But if Ganelon successfully gets Roland killed there is no doubt that he is wrong to betray him: he poses no threat to Roland's value as a hero. The only serious challenge to Roland's heroic status comes from Oliver. That the oppositional voice should be his is significant, for the text privileges male bonding as the supreme emotional experience of the ideal knight: 151

Li quens Rollant, quant veit mort sun ami, Gesir adenz, a la tere sun vis, Mult dulcement a regreter le prist: 6 Sire cumpaign, tant mar fustes hardiz! Ensemble avum estet e anz e dis; Ne m' fesis mal, ne jo ne 1' te forsfis. Quant tu es morz, dulur est que jo vif!'

2025

2030

Count Roland, when he sees his friend is dead, lying facing the ground, starts to lament him softly: 'my lord companion, alas that you were so brave! We have been together many years and days; you never did me any wrong, nor did I act badly towards you. Since you are dead, it is painful for me to be alive!'

Yet the companions, who have lived together ' anz e dis' have a fundamental difference of opinion. As Peter Haidu suggests, the most significant oppositional voice to the ideal knight is his closest companion. 20 Like many others I think that in the two horn scenes from the point of view of a real, rather than a fictional military man, Oliver is right. In the first case he seeks to ensure victory rather than personal glory; in the second he is concerned to safeguard his honour once defeat is inevitable. 21 The gulf between the positions of Roland and Oliver is considerable and not resolved: 83

Dist Oliver: ' Paien unt grant esforz; De noz Franceis m'i semble aveir molt poi.

IO

5O

32

Gender and genre in medieval French literature Gumpaign Rollant, kar sunez vostre corn, Si Porrat Carles, si returnerat Tost.' Respunt Rollant: 'Jo fereie que fols! En dulce France en perdreie mun los. Sempres ferrai de Durendal granz colps; Sanglant en ert li branz entresqu'a Tor. Felun paien mar i vindrent as porz: Jo vos plevis, tuz sunt jugez a mort.' AOI

1055

8

* ' Cumpainz Rollant, l'olifan car sunez, Si l'orrat Carles, ferat Tost returner, Seccurrat nos li reis od sun barnet.' Respont Rollant: ' Ne placet Damnedeu Que mi parent pur mei seient blasmet Ne dulce France ja cheet en viltet! Einz i ferrai de Durendal asez, Ma bone espee que ai ceint al costet; Tut en verrez le brant ensanglentet. Felun paien mar i sunt asemblez: Jo vos plevis, tuz sunt a mort livrez.' 85

1060

1065

AOI

'Cumpainz Rollant, sunez vostre olifan, Si l'orrat Carles ki est as porz passant; Je vos plevis, ja returnerunt Franc.' 'Ne placet Deu', go li respunt Rollant, ' Que 90 seit dit pur nul hume vivant Ne pur paien que ja seie cornant! J a n'en avrunt reproece mi parent. Quant jo serai en la bataille grant E jo ferrai e mil colps e set cenz, De Durendal verrez Pacer sanglent. Franceis sunt bon, si ferrunt vassalment; Ja cil d'Espaigne n'avrunt de mort guarant.'

1070

1075

1080

Oliver says:' The pagans have a mighty army; there seems to me to be very few of us French. Roland, companion, blow your horn now: Charles will hear it and the army will turn back.' Roland replies: ' I would be foolish to do this! In sweet France I would lose face. I will strike great blows with Durendal at once; its blade will be bloody up to the gold [of its hilt]. The wicked pagans will rue the day they came to the mountain passes: I swear this to you, they are all condemned to die.'

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' Roland, companion, blow your horn now: Charles will hear it and turn the army back; the king will help us with his barons.' Roland replies:' May it not please God that my kin should be blamed because of me! Nor that sweet France should fall into disrepute. Rather I will strike hard with Durendal, my good sword, which I have girded at my side; you will see the blade entirely bloody. The pagans will rue the day they gathered here: I swear this to you, they are all awaiting death.' 'Roland, companion, blow your horn. Charles, who is travelling through the mountain passes, will hear it; I swear to you that the Franks will return.' Roland replies this to him:' May it not please God that it should be said of me that I blew my horn because of any man alive or a pagan. My kin will never be reproached with this. When I am in the thick of the great battle, I will strike one thousand seven hundred blows; you will see Durendal's bloody steel. The French are good and they will strike boldly. The men of Spain will have no protection from death.' As with other instances oflaisses similaires, these hisses 'overlay' three different values: Roland is concerned firstly with his own glory (1055-6), secondly with the possibility that his kin and France will be shamed (1063-4), thirdly with the confrontation between Christians and Saracens (1075). The priority of any one of these is not easy to determine on a local level. Are Roland's heroism and devotion to duke France subordinate to his service to God? Or are patriotism and devotion to Christianity spaces in which he can enact his quest for glory? If laisses such as these appear to suspend judgement, the foregrounding of Roland within the poem, the reckless hero who sacrifices everything for personal glory, who chooses action over words, suggests the primacy of the interests of the individual over that of the group, whether it be the kin-group or the fellowship of knights. Furthermore, given that Roland is virtually canonized, then transported to heaven before our eyes, action and military prowess are invested with quasi-ethical value. 22 It is in this respect that Oliver's opposition to Roland is potentially subversive, for in the first horn scene Oliver implicitly views the survival of the rearguard as more important than Roland's quest for glory (1059-61), and therefore the good of the community as more important than that of the individual.

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Gender and genre in medieval French literature

He reiterates this after the second horn scene, when he also suggests that Roland's desire for personal glory, as manifested in his decision not to blow his horn earlier, has shamed France, precisely what Roland ostensibly sought to avoid: Qo dist Rollant: 'Porquei me portez ire?' E il respont: ' Cumpainz, vos forsfeistes, Kar vasselage par sens nen est folie: Mielz valt mesure que ne fait estultie. Franceis sunt morz par vostre legerie; Jamais Karlon de nus n'avrat servise. Se m' crei'sez, venuz i fust mi sire; Cest bataille oiisum ja fenie, U pris u mort i fust li reis Marsilie. Vostre proecce Rollant, mar la veimes! Karles li magnes de nos n'avrat ai'e N'ert mais tel home entresqu'al Deu jui'se -. Vos i murrez, e France en ert hunie. Oi nus defalt la leial cumpaignie.' 1735 AOI Einz l'avesprer ert gref la departie. Roland says this: 'Why are you angry with me?' And he replies: 'Companion, you have done a terrible thing for bravery combined with wisdom is not folly: restraint is worth more than recklessness. Frenchmen have died because of your fickleness; Charles will no longer be served by us. If you had believed me, my lord would have come; we would already have finished this battle and King Marsilie would be captured or dead. Alas that we ever saw your bravery Roland. Charles the great - there will be no greater man until the last judgement - will no longer be helped by us. You will die here and France will be shamed by this. Today our loyal companionship ends.' Before vespers their separation will be painful. Oliver's objections to Roland blowing the horn in this scene are swept aside by Turpin, but the inclusion and subsequent marginalization of this oppositional voice are significant, as Oliver's position represents a viable - in every sense of the word - alternative to Roland's. The verb defalt in line 1735 is consequently ambivalent in this context. Is Oliver referring to their imminent death, or to the failure of their companionship? Yet the text attempts to suggest that despite any difference between the two heroes their outlooks are compatible in that

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they share the heroic warrior ethos. There is no suggestion that Oliver is a coward: 87

Rollant est proz e Oliver est sage; Ambedui unt merveillus vasselage: Puis que il sunt as chevals e as armes, Ja pur murir n'eschiverunt bataille. Bon sunt li cunte e lur paroles haltes. Felun paien par grant irur chevalchent.

1095

Roland is worthy and Oliver is wise; both are amazingly brave: since they are mounted and armed, they will never give up the battle through fear of death. The counts are good and their words heady. The wicked pagans ride forward menacingly. Both knights have vasselage, but Roland has worth (proz) in opposition to Oliver's wisdom, which suggests that his course of action is valued more than Oliver's. Impetuosity, combined with bravery, is valued more than reason combined with bravery, even though it leads here inevitably to death. 23 Yet any implied opposition between the companions only functions in language. When not engaged in paroles haltes (1097), both men fight bravely; in action the two are indistinguishable (1096). The text thus neatly sidesteps the problem of difference by subsuming one hero to the other if not in word, certainly in deed, and by killing both off without resolving the difference between their positions. But are Roland and Oliver as complementary to each other as the text would have us believe here? Can their differences be smoothed over as the poet tries to do once they are dead? The problem posed by their confrontation is acute. If Oliver is good, and brave (like Roland), but holds a different position, are not Roland's actions questionable? In this world of competitive fighting men which, at least on the level of fantasy, has a clear idea of right and wrong, and in which therefore moral defeat is inconceivable, it is clear that the real threat to the individual's value (as opposed to his life) comes not from Saracens or traitors, but from the person who is like himself, in other words brave, strong and on the right side, but of a slightly different persuasion.

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Gender and genre in medieval French literature

This problem is most eloquently and movingly portrayed in the Oxford Roland when towards the end of the battle a blinded and exhausted Oliver strikes Roland thinking he is a Saracen. Roland can hardly believe that Oliver has struck him deliberately, but the thought obviously crosses his mind :24 Sire cumpain, faites le vos de gred? Ja est 9' Rollant ki tant vos soelt amer! Par nule guise ne m'avez desfiet.

2000

My lord companion, do you do this on purpose? This is Roland, who has always loved you so much! You have in no way challenged me. It is as if in this scene we have a symbolic enactment of the verbal confrontation of the two heroes. Shortly after this Oliver dies and Roland is left with Turpin by his side, a man who has consistently shared his ethical outlook and supported him against Oliver. Significantly, a number of texts circulated in medieval France and Occitania which either locate the origin of Roland and Oliver's friendship in enmity, or which portray animosity between them. For instance Bertran de Bar-sur-Aube's Girart de Vienne, a popular chanson de geste from the late twelfth century, narrates at some length the single combat of Roland and Oliver in the context of a dispute between Girart de Vienne and Charlemagne. The ferocious battle is ended by a personal envoy from God: 25 Es vos un engre qui descent de la nue, qui doucement de par Deu les salue: « Franc chevalier, ennor vos est creiie! Ceste bataille ne soit plus meintenue; gardez que plus ne soit par vos feme, car Damedeu la vos a desfandue. Mes en Espangne, sor la gent mescrelie, soit vostre force provee et conneue; la sera bien vo proece vetie por Pamor Deu conquerre.»

5900

59°5

Behold, coming down from the cloud the angel, who sweetly greets them on God's behalf:' Noble knights, you are greatly honoured! This

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battle must not be continued; be careful to strike no further blows, for God has forbidden you to do this. Rather let your strength be tested and acknowledged in Spain, against the infidel; there your prowess will be seen to conquer for the love of God.' The aggression Roland and Oliver direct against each other is specifically redirected outside the epic community of Christian knights. In Girart God is the instigator of Roland and Oliver's companionship: this leads them to swear to share all their property and to the exchange of Aude, Oliver's sister, who cements the bond between them, thus anticipating Oliver's use of her when threatening to break the very same bond in the Oxford Roland (1719-21). In the late Occitan text Roland a Saragosse, tension between Roland and Oliver surfaces again when Roland falls in love with a Saracen princess and single combat ensues.26 Both these texts post-date the Oxford Roland, but they show that the Roland tradition after the Oxford manuscript seems to oscillate between portraying the companions as friends, on the one hand, and portraying them as potential enemies, on the other. It is as if Oliver is always a potential enemy to Roland, always a potential threat. Their companionship always contains its own potential disintegration. If the Oxford Roland creates an ideal masculine hero in a community of fighting men, the strength of which depends on similarity and solidarity, difference is a threat: when it emerges it has to be repressed. The other is consequently a mirror image of the hero, whether it be Oliver on the battle field, or - less significantly I would contend - Ganelon whose motivation is not very different from Roland's and who is frequently described in similar terms to Roland (for instance line 219), or even less significantly the Saracens who are admired for their bravery and who have social structures which mirror the Christians'. 27 Women barely feature in this masculine world. Aude and Bramimonde, the only two female characters in the text, mediate male relations: Aude represents the bond between Oliver and Roland and Oliver's threat not to allow Roland to marry her (1719-21) signals the tension between them, whilst the conversion of Bramimonde symbolizes Charlemagne's victory over Marsilie. The ideal is a gendered ideal, but if for the

38

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

myth of male unity to function all members of the community must be the same, the text seems also to recognize that this is an impossible ideal, containing as it does an oppositional voice in the place where it is least expected. That similarity and difference are central problems in the Oxford Roland is confirmed by the transformations the theme undergoes in the Paris Roland, which dates from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. There are four major differences between the two texts. Firstly, in the Paris text Ganelon's treachery is foregrounded to such an extent that it dominates the end, when he escapes and has to be pursued; secondly, as a result of this and other bungles, Charlemagne is portrayed as a weaker king; thirdly, Aude's death scene, though similar in impact to the brief scene in the Oxford Roland lasts for several hundred lines, which include extraordinary prophetic dreams; finally the differences between Roland and Oliver are systematically suppressed.28 These points of divergence between the Oxford and Paris texts corroborate readings of the narrative which are merely suggested in the earlier text, but the suppression of difference between Roland and Oliver is the most radical transformation. For example, at the point at which in the Oxford Roland the difference between Roland and Oliver is most marked, in the Paris text difference is suppressed and similarity is stressed. Compare: Rollant est proz e Oliver est sage; Ambedui unt merveillus vasselage: Puis que il sunt as chevals e as armes, Ja pur murir n'eschiverunt bataille.

1095 Oxford Roland

Rollans fu preus et Oliviers li bers, 396 Paringal furent et compaignon et per; Puis que ce vient (de lo) a lor armes porter, Mieus aimment mort que bataille eschiever. Paris Roland Roland was worthy and so was baron Oliver, they were both the same, and companions and equal; since they are armed they prefer to die rather than to give up battle.

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What exactly is the relation between these two texts? Cesare Segre's meticulous stemmatic studies of the Chanson de Roland suggest that all surviving versions of the Roland in French derive from a common source, there being most probably three stages of evolution: an assonanced version (represented by the Oxford and Venice 4 manuscripts); a first rhymed version which transposes fairly closely much of the assonanced text into rhyming laisses, but then expands the ending (represented by the Chateauroux and Venice 7 manuscripts, perhaps executed in the same scriptorium); and a subsequent rhymed version (represented by the Paris, Lyon and Cambridge manuscripts). Furthermore, Segre's analysis of the presence of assonanced laisses in all of the rhymed versions except Venice 7 lends overwhelming support to his hypothesis that two of the remanieurs of the rhymed versions (Chateauroux and Paris) were independently working directly from copies of two versions of their poem (one assonanced and one rhymed) and making conscious decisions to include or exclude certain elements, particular laisses, even lines, and also, of course, to compose their own additions. I am not suggesting that the Paris remanieur had access to the Oxford poem as we know it, but he certainly had access to an assonanced version like it, as well as to the rhymed version he reworked. This would suggest that he deliberately chose to present the confrontations of Roland and Oliver differently from the way they appear in the Oxford Roland and Venice 4, particularly given that difference between Roland and Oliver in the Paris text seems to be consistently suppressed.29 For instance the confrontational aspect of the two horn scenes virtually disappears in the Paris Roland. This is achieved through two differences between the Oxford and Paris texts, whereby the later remanieur introduces elements which are unique to his version. First, the scenes become linear accounts of an argument ; in other words it is made clear through lines like ' Que je vos ai hui autre fois rouvee' (Paris 349: 'for I have already asked you once today') in the first horn scene, that Oliver asks Roland to blow his horn three times in this scene and not to do so three times in the second.30 There is consequently no

40

Gender and genre in medieval French literature

lyric stasis, no uncertainty as to the status of each laisse within the narrative as part of a sequence or as simultaneous complementary versions of one event, no 'overlay' of information, merely a three-part argument which is rebutted. Secondly, each of the scenes has a conclusion to the exchange for which there is no equivalent in the Oxford Roland. In the first scene a sullen, though submissive Oliver concludes ' En cor corner n'eiist pas grant outraige' (389: 'blowing the horn would not have been wrong'; Chateauroux, 1931 and Venice 7); in the second scene, the two men weep 'par compaignie' over their dispute (1680; Chateauroux, 3015 and Venice 7), then (after Turpin's intervention) Oliver consents to Roland's sounding of the horn in a line for which there is no equivalent in any other manuscript, ' Dist Oliviers: « Bien fait a otroier.»' (1698:' Oliver says: " It is right to agree to this " ' ) . In other words, Oliver concedes that he has lost the argument in the Paris text and the 'problem' of difference as it emerged in the Oxford text is thereby resolved. Comparing the treatment of Oliver and Roland in the Paris and Oxford texts produces two further contrasts, which the Paris remanieur almost certainly introduced deliberately. Firstly, the qualities which at a key point in the narrative the Oxford Roland appears to associate with Roland and Oliver respectively — prouesse and sagesse — often occur together in the Paris text, but they seem to be associated randomly with one or the other of the pair. Thus Oliver is referred to as 'li preus et li senez' (for example 972, 1029 and so on) whilst Roland is 'li senez' when the blinded Oliver has just struck him (2125)! If Oliver is proz in the Oxford Roland, Roland is never sage.31 It is as if the poet responsible for these lines is aware that worth and wisdom are associated with the pair, but wishes to impart no sense that each should be associated with just one of the men. The final references to Roland in the Paris Roland are to ' Rollant le tres sene' (6821 and 6824 : ' Roland the most wise'; no equivalent in Chateauroux or Venice 7). Any distinction between Roland as preu and Oliver as sage is simply not present in the Paris text. Secondly, in the Paris Roland there is a degree of confusion about what happens to the bodies of Roland and Oliver after they die. In the Oxford Roland they are transported and buried

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with Turpin's body (3689-91), a significant point given that Turpin displaces Oliver at Roland's side before the hero's death. In the Paris Roland, it is made clear during the battle that Oliver is not displaced in the same manner as in the Oxford text: Quant voit Rollans Parcevesques morant 2 545 Lors ot tel duel, onques mais n'ot si grant, Fors d'Olivier que il parama tant. When Roland sees the archbishop dying his grief was so great that he had no greater sorrow, except for Oliver, whom he loved so much. Far more stress is then placed in the Paris text on Roland's insistence that if Oliver dies he will die with him (1297—8, 1601-4, 1622-3 and so on). When Charlemagne arrives at the battlefield in the Paris text, it is said twice that he buries all the dead except Roland and Oliver; no mention is made of Turpin: Quant Karles ot fait enterre son barnaige Fors que Rollant et Olivier le saige: Geuls voloit il porter tresques a Blaives.

3355

When Charles had buried his barons, except for Roland and Oliver the wise; these he wished to take off to Blaye. Les .XII. compaingnons enterrerent le jor. Mais que Rollant, le bon combateor, Et Olivier, le hardi fereor: Mener les volt le rois de grant valor Desci qu'a Blaivies, sa cite, par amor.

4570

They buried the twelve companions that day, except for Roland, the great warrior, and Oliver the bold fighter: the most worthy king wants to take them off to Blaye, his city, because he loved them so much. Lines 3353-5 occur towards the end of a sequence of assonanced laisses which are rhymed in the Chateauroux manuscript. They have no apparent source in the text of either of the assonanced manuscripts and would consequently appear to be an innovation of the Paris remanieur.32 Subsequently Turpin's body is said sometimes to be with Roland's and Oliver's (for example 4025, 4064, 4720, 6106), but elsewhere it is again stressed that Roland and Oliver are buried alone (4752-4, 5868, 5922,

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Gender and genre in medieval French literature

6061). This confusion may be the strongest evidence we have that the Paris remanieur was reworking a version of the rhymed Roland, but collating it with an assonanced Roland. In trying to highlight the similarity and inseparability of Roland and Oliver, he changed the detail of Turpin being buried with them but failed to do so consistently.33 If the Oxford Roland implies an irreconcilable difference between Roland and Oliver, which it then proceeds to suppress, the Paris Roland writes difference out altogether. Suard suggests that in the Oxford Roland Roland and Oliver are potentially interchangeable; in the Paris text they appear almost to have become so. Why this progression between 1100 and 1200? The Oxford Roland's paradoxical foregrounding and subsequent suppression of the differences between Oliver and Roland can perhaps be explained by considering the social group to which chansons degeste were addressed. What is the symbolic value of the hero to the poem's audience? Whether the texts have their origin in the oral culture ofjongleurs, or in the learned atmosphere of the cloister, in the twelfth century they appear to valorize the knight and to address the knightly class.34 This produces a highly gendered discourse, for even though women were no doubt present at the recitation or reading of chansons de geste, texts like the Roland narratives promote the interests of a community which is exclusively male, whose values the women in the audience must accept if they are to participate in the aesthetic power of the poems. The poets or jongleurs address a community united by a masculine value system and the specularity of the relation between poet and implied audience thus reflects that of the relation of Roland and Oliver. Drawing on the seminal work of Erich Kohler, many critics explain the impulse to valorize the knight in twelfth-century chansons de geste and romances as a response to the changing social position of the lesser nobility as the power of the monarchy increased.35 As is well known, at the beginning of the twelfth century the French monarchy was weak, the king of France being just one magnate amongst others, with several vassals who were more powerful than him, for example Guilhem IX of

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Aquitaine or a sequence of Dukes of Normandy. Charlemagne's inability in the Oxford Roland to impose his authority in his own camp, for instance during Ganelon's trial, is consequently in some respects a reflection of historical reality in about 1100. By 1200 the situation was entirely different: the French and English monarchies had both established and consolidated redoubtable power bases, in France mainly under PhilippeAuguste (king 1180-223), m England mainly under Henry II (king 1154-89). The use by these two kings in particular of paid administrators and military retainers eroded the position of knights. But, as kings became stronger in the real world, in literature they became weaker, in some cases simply bad. This is true of both romance and epic, but particularly of chansons de geste, witness the Paris Roland, the Couronnement de Louis, Girart de Roussillon, Raoul de Cambrai or Daurel et Beton. This equivocal

portrayal of the monarchy and the concomitant heroic status of knights in texts would therefore represent an attempt to invest with value a class whose power was declining. The portrayal of knights like Roland in the chanson de geste, or, more problematically of course, Lancelot in romance (see pp. 92-103), who profess undying loyalty to the monarchy suggests that knights and kings have a shared ideology, but in fact the stronger the monarchy, the more disempowered knights became. The chivalric heroism of chansons de geste is thus part of an escapist fantasy in which kings need knights, witness particularly the Couronnement de Louis, But the impossibility of the fantasy is constantly re-enacted in the death of heroes like Roland, or in the disintegration of epic order in texts like Raoul or Daurel (see below pp. 52-62 and 66-9). Such an analysis, grounded entirely in a theory of class, goes some way towards explaining the evolution of epic and romance, but it fails to account for the different, yet crucial, roles gender plays in the ideology of both genres. Whereas in romance - as we will see - women have a high-profile role in determining the value and identity of a knight, in the early chanson de geste the hero lives in a male world and his identity is defined in relation to another man. As the genre evolves women are as much the political unconscious in the chanson de geste as

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Gender and genre in medieval French literature

other classes, and whilst the position of a class is at stake, so is gender solidarity. The Paris Roland enhances the value of gender solidarity by playing down and suppressing the difference between Roland and Oliver. Aude's (dis) appearance may be expanded, but her function is the same as in the Oxford Roland. The unity and solidarity of men in the privileged group of knights is paramount, and not only must Roland and Oliver become more like each other than they are in the earlier text, but Ganelon must be more radically excluded. Within the closed circuit of the knightly class as represented in the chansons de geste, the masculine gender becomes more self-reflexive, more specular and more bounded, evincing a blindness to alterity. This is in part a response to a radical political repositioning of knights in the real world, but it is perhaps also in part a response to an equally radical cultural repositioning of knights in relation to women in courtly culture. The Paris Roland, moreover, should not be read in isolation since it is preserved in a manuscript which sets five texts in a narrative sequence. When it is read in conjunction with these other texts, an interpretation which sees it as a response to the threat posed by Oliver and Roland's differences in earlier versions seems all the more plausible. It is preserved in BNfonds frangais 860, which though not the work of a single scribe was probably executed in a single scriptorium. 36 It is a carefully executed manuscript, thought to date from the second half of the thirteenth century and consequently fairly close in date to the five chansons de geste it preserves. These are: Roland (fos. 1-36; the first eight folios are missing) Gaydon (fos. 37-92) Ami et Amile (fos. 93-111) Jourdain de Blaye (fos. 112-33) Auberi le Bourgignon (fos. 134-275)

A great deal of trouble has been taken to organize the texts into a coherent narrative sequence, though they were doubtlessly composed by different poets at different times. A number of details of the Paris Roland are unique to this version and specifically anticipate details of Gaydon.37 Gaydon itself is an

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attempt to tie up some of the loose ends of the Roland since it deals with a continued dispute between Ganelon's kin and Thierry (given the name Gaydon in the Paris Roland, 6358); in the Paris Roland, but not in other versions, Thierry (aka Gaydon) fights Pinabel with Hauteclere, Oliver's sword (6481), and he continues to use Hauteclere throughout Gaydon. Similarly, the traitor of Ami, who is also one of Ganelon's lignage, is the last of the traitors left alive at the end of Gaydon. Jourdain de Blaye deals with the attempt of yet another of Ganelon's kin to rid the world of Amile's grandson and we learn in Jourdain that Ami was of the lignage of Oliver and Roland (1431). A further thread is provided by Amile's acquisition in Ami of the town of Blaye, where Roland and Oliver are buried at the end of the Roland', the town becomes the seat of Amile's lineage but is disputed in Jourdain. In addition, there is a complex play on doubling in Auberi, providing an obvious thematic link with both the Roland and Ami, and several themes run throughout the manuscript: for example, there are traitors and judicial duels in all the texts.38 BN fonds frangais 860 is a book about male bonding and treachery, about the elevation of male bonding as an absolute ideal on the one hand, and the threat to it on the other. The central ideal of Ami et Amile, the central text in BN 860, is male bonding in the form of companionship. The comparison with Roland and Oliver is self-evident, but the analogy in this instance is particularly striking, given the connection between Ami and the Paris Roland m the manuscript, for if the characters of Ami and Amile have frequently been read intertextually against Roland and Oliver, 39 it seems to have escaped notice that they are far more like the pair as they appear in the Paris text than in the Oxford Roland. Thus Ami and Amile are consistently presented as identical: Li uns de l'autre oi sou vent parler. II s'entresamblent de venir et d'aler Et de la bouche et dou vis et dou nes, Dou chevauchier et des armes porter, Que nus plus biax ne puet on deviser. Dex les fist par miracle.

40

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One often heard of the other. They looked so alike in every respect their mouths, their faces, their noses, when they rode and bore arms - that no one could describe anyone fairer. God created them miraculously. Roland and Oliver are not, of course, identical, but if, as I have argued, there is a consistent attempt to make them more alike in the Paris text than they were in the Oxford Roland, the positioning of Ami et Amile in the same narrative sequence as the Paris Roland is significant. Ami et Amile represents a fantasy solution to the problem of potential enmity between companions, a solution in which difference is wilfully repressed. The complex plot, during the course of which Ami takes Amile's place in judicial combat, depends upon the identical appearance of the two men and as Sarah Kay has argued the women characters (one good, Belissant, who becomes Amile's wife; one bad, Lubias, who becomes Ami's) are ultimately marginalized so that male bonding can be foregrounded.40 Nothing should come between the two heroes and neither of the men's wives can tell them apart (for example see 3138-42). If, as Jane Gilbert argues, the desire of all the other characters, men and women, is to distinguish the two heroes, often in legal contexts, the text works hard to suppress and break down differences between them. 41 Nothing is allowed to intrude upon the unity of the two men so that if on one level the heroes are distinguished by their actions - they take different wives, through them acquire different properties and one becomes a leper - the text consistently resists their individuation. Thus Ami's sacrifice — perjuring himself and becoming a leper for his friend after taking his place in judicial combat - is mirrored by Amile's - killing his children by divine decree in order to save his companion from leprosy by washing him in their blood - thereby eradicating the leprosy which had distinguished them. This sense of the two as inseparable and indistinct is enhanced by the fact that although the narrator and the reader always know which is which, the other characters frequently confuse them. Ultimately any difference between the two is cast aside as the two ride off together into the sunset to become saints and at the end of the

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text the fact that the two have become identical again, after the distinguishing features of marriage to different women and leprosy have been suppressed, is stressed repeatedly (3100, 3119-20,3123-5). Above all difference is blurred by the heroes' names. In the crucial scene in which Amile kills his children to cure Ami of leprosy, the two characters enter into a poetic symbiosis whereby one becomes and is the other: Amiles fu et preudom et gentiz. Son compaingnon, qui ot a non Amis, Leve dou sane et la bouche et le vis. Moult puet bien croire que il est ses amis Quant ses douz fiuls a si por lui ocis. Oiez, seignor, com ouvra Jhesucris. Si com il touche le sane el front Amis, Li chiet la roiffe dont il estoit sozprins, Les mains garissent, li ventres et li pis. Quant or le voit Amiles ses amis, Deu en rent graces, le Roi de paradis Et ses sains et ses saintes.

3070

3°75

Amile was a worthy man and noble. He washes his companion, who was called Amis, with the blood on the mouth and face. He can indeed believe that he is his friend when he has thus killed his two sons for him. Listen, lords, to how Jesus Christ worked. As he wipes the blood on Amis's forehead, the scabs which had afflicted him fell from him. His hands are cured, his stomach and his chest. When Amile, his friend, sees this, he thanks God, the lord of Paradise, and all his saints, male and female. The first time the word amis occurs in this passage, it refers to the character called Ami (3069); the second time (3071), it is Amile who is referred to as ses amis. The word is then used as a proper noun again (3074), but the last time it is used in this laisse (3077) it qualifies Amile a second time. It is worth remembering that in this manuscript, as is usual for the period, capital letters are not used to distinguish names from other nouns. Thus both Ami and Amile are amis, an equivocation produced elsewhere in the text (2578 and 2857). On one level this could simply mean that Amile is Ami's true friend; on another it is as if Amile becomes him.

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One result of the strong impulse in Ami et Amile to make the heroes identical is that the consequences of the actions of both men must be borne by both men. Furthermore, because the bond of companionship transcends all other bonds, whatever they do is right simply because they remain loyal to each other. This means that the ethical framework of the text becomes extremely fluid in order to accommodate their actions. Thus, when Amile has sexual intercourse with Belissant, Charlemagne's daughter, he is aware who she may be: Et dist li cuens: «Qui iez tu, envoisie, Qui a tele hore iez delez moi couchie? 675 Se tu iez fame, espeuse nosoi'e, Ou fille Charle, qui France a en baillie, Je te conjur de Deu le fil Marie, Ma douce amie, retourne t'an arriere. Et se tu iez beasse ou chamberiere 680 De bas paraige, moult t'iez bien avancie: Remain huimais o moi a bele chiere, Demain avras cent sols en t'aumosniere.» And the count says: ' Who are you, wench, to come to me at this hour and lie beside me ? If you are a married woman, or the daughter of Charles who governs France, I beg you in the name of God the son of Mary, my sweet friend, to turn back. And if you are low-born or a chambermaid of poor family, you are being very forward: stay with me now and have a good time, tomorrow you will have a hundred sous in your purse.' Amile asks no further questions, though Belissant does not reply; he thereby acknowledges that he may be sleeping with a woman who is forbidden him, but he proceeds regardless. He then knowingly lies on oath when the traitor Hardre accuses him of dishonouring Charlemagne by sleeping with his daughter. Belissant is horrified by Amile's perjury and does not understand why he does not simply kill Hardre (718-22). Amile himself knows that what he has done is wrong: 'Horn qui tort a combatre ne se doit' (994: ' A man who is in the wrong should not fight'; see also 1016). Yet Ami is not perturbed by Amile's guilt. His response to Amile's plight is to condemn Hardre and reassure him that their identical appearance and companionship can save them:

Monologic masculinity « Sire compains, ne soiez esperdus, Ostez vos dras, aiez les miens vestus, Et je panrai eel bon destrier quernu, Toutes ces armes et eel pezant escu, Droit a Paris m'en irai a vertu. Se vient Hardrez li fel qu'il m'en encust, A la bataille serommez moi et lui, Coperai lui le chief desor le bu. Voir n'en estordra mie.» 60 « Sire compains, ce dist Amis li ber, Si m'ait Dex, vos iestez fox prouvez. Moi et voz fumez en une hore engendre Et en un jor et en une nuit ne Et enz un fons baptizie et leve. Et nos parrins, qui ot non Yzorez, (Ses parrinnaiges fait forment a loer) Or et argent noz donna a plente Et a chascun fist un hanap donner. Noz noz samblons de venir et d'aler Et de la bouche et dou vis et dou nes, Dou chevauchier et des armes porter. Dex ne fist home, qui de mere soit nes, Se l'uns de noz a en un lieu este, Se l'autre i vient, que ja soit avisez. Ostez vos dras et les miens vestirez. Droit a Paris m'en irai la cite.»

49 1030

1035

1040

1045

1050

1055

' My lord companion, do not despair; take off your clothes and put mine on, and I will take this fine warhorse, all your arms and your heavy shield; I will hasten straight to Paris. If Hardre - that c u r comes, let him challenge me, we will be there to fight he and I; I will cut his head from his trunk. In truth he will not stop me from doing this.' 'My lord companion', said Ami the brave, 'may God help me you are an undeniable fool. We were begat at the same moment, born on the same day and night, and baptized in and raised from a single font. And our godfather, whose name was Yzore - a model god-father gave us huge quantities of gold and silver and a goblet to each of us. We are so alike in every respect - our mouths, our faces, our noses, when we ride and bear arms. God made no man born of woman who can tell the difference if one of us has been somewhere and the other arrives in his place. Take off your clothes and put mine on. I'll go straight to the city of Paris.'

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Gender and genre in medieval French literature

There are specific verbal echoes here of the opening of the text: compare 1040-7 with 19-30, and 1048-50 with 39-41 (quoted above p. 45). The reiteration of the circumstances of Ami and Amile's conception and birth, and of their identical appearance may seem redundant here, disrupting the flow of the narrative. It is not, however, an insignificant deviation, for it serves to underline the fact that their similarity is the cause of their victory, and its moral justification, despite the fact that they are in the wrong. It recalls how divine authority interceded in their simultaneous conception and birth, how they continued under divine protection with the Pope as their godfather, and thus how their companionship is due to God's agency, like the bonding of Roland and Oliver in Girart de Vienne. That Ami and Amile are in the wrong is evident when it is considered that Hardre, the traitor of the text, has told the truth. Indeed, he cannot understand why he does not win at once in judicial combat given that he knows Amile did sleep with Belissant. Justice according to the letter of the law is safeguarded by means of an ambiguous oath. When accusing Amile, just before combat, unaware that the man before him is Ami and not Amile, Hardre specifies that his accusation refers to 'cest vassal, que par la main tieng ci' (1419: 'this vassal, whom I hold by the hand here'). Ami is then able to swear: «Glouz 3 dist li cuens, voz i avez menti. Si m'ai't Dex et li saint qui sont ci, Qu'o Belissant ne couchai ne dormi, Sa blanche char nu a nu ne send, Se Dex me laist de cest champ issir vif Et sain et sauf arriere revertir.»

1425

' Swine', said the count, 'you have lied. So help me God and the saints who are here, I never lay with or slept beside Belissant; I never felt her naked whitefleshnext to mine, so may God let me leave thisfieldalive and return safe and sound.' If the letter of the law is observed, the spirit is not. 42 In a genre which appears to promote a rigid moral code, it would appear that the hero is right because he is the hero and not that he is the hero because he is right. 43 The ethical goalposts of the text move all the time and Hardre, the traitor, is wrong even when he is

Monologic masculinity

51

right. Like Ganelon in the Roland he represents no real threat to the heroes' worth, and in any case, like Ganelon, he is suppressed. The fluidity of the text's attitude towards morality is apparent elsewhere. Ami is punished with leprosy not because he pretends to be Amile, thereby subverting justice, but because he perjures himself after the judicial combat by promising to marry Belissant when he is already married to Lubias. 44 Even this, however, is ultimately condoned, for Ami is cured by divine intervention and a miracle ensues when Amile's slaughtered children are restored to life. He is saved because he is prepared to sacrifice everything for his friend and double (his ami), and Amile in turn sacrifices his children for his friend and double (his Ami). Ami et Amile is often read as a moving illustration of male friendship, which, according to the critic you read, stands for the ' absolute', the love of God, or the path to sanctity. 45 To the feminist critic, such readings smack of insidious sentimentality, yet there is no denying the text's power to glorify the elevation of two identical men to the rank of saints and, like other chansons de geste, for instance the Roland or Girart de Roussillon, Ami et Amile

plays on the generic conventions of hagiography to enhance the status of the hero, only in this case there are two of them. The value of this central bond is so paramount that all other bonds are subordinate to it, including that of father to son, or husband to wife.46 To the modern reader the scene in which Amile's son sweetly encourages his father to murder him in order to safeguard his companion and offers to pray that he can be forgiven this sin, can seem grotesque (3000-23). But there is no hint of irony in this passage. The ideal such an incident is written to promote and protect was obviously thought to be worth a great deal of sacrifice. Ami et Amile is a fantastic narrative. Like many fantasies it attempts to reassure its implied audience, since it suggests that the values it promotes guarantee order and the triumph of right; yet it simultaneously has to turn a blind eye to a good deal of slippery logic and dubious morality. The potential threat of schism within the male community is suppressed, and a model

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of masculinity is constructed which is entirely unitary, attempting to be entirely monologic, but which is also entirely implausible. In its efforts to minimize the flaws in the ideology it promotes, Ami paradoxically makes them all the more evident. Moreover, it is not typical of all contemporary chansons de geste: in poems like Daurel et Beton and Raoul de Cambrai one companion kills another; in Orson de Beauvais one betrays the other; in Girart de Roussillon two powerful men who are not companions, but who are none the less very similar, feud for decades. If Ami represents the epic dream, an attempt to contain the disintegration of the genre's ideology and its idealized image of masculinity, other texts represent the epic nightmare and indicate that despite the best endeavours of some poets, the genre fails to become monologic. Of the poems mentioned, the scale of destruction is greatest in Raoul, for here it is not simply individuals who are destroyed, but the entire epic community; nothing is salvaged at the end of Raoul since all the male characters are eliminated. In some senses then Raoul narrates the death of the epic ideal, for it systematically unpicks all the male bonds which underpin the ethical system of the chansons de geste: the bonds of king and vassal, of kinsmen and particularly of companions. Furthermore, the king's gift to Raoul early in the text (298) of a helmet which belonged to a Saracen killed by Roland, invests the poem with an ambiguous Roland intertext. 47 The poet seems to be inviting us to read the poem against the central Roland narrative and perhaps therefore as a commentary on the genre as a whole, yet Raoul, his hero, is implicitly aligned with an enemy of the great epic hero. Later this may be attenuated when Raoul's mother compares him to Roland and Oliver: 48 'Signors', dist ele, 'a celer nel vos qier, mon fil maudis par maltalent l'autrier, Mieudres ne fu Rolans ne Oliviers qe fustes, fix, por vos amis aidier! Quant moi remenbre del traitor B[ernier] qi vos a mort, j'en qit vive erragier!'

3370

3375

'Lords', she said, 'I won't conceal from you that the other day my anger made me curse my son; [and yet] Roland and Oliver were no

Monologic masculinity

53

better than you, my son, when it came to helping your friends. When I think of the traitor Bernier who killed you, I could almost die of rage!' But this renewed affirmation of a Roland intertext, which mentions the companions Roland and Oliver in the same breath as the tragic end to Raoul's companionship with Bernier, draws attention to the text's portrayal of enmity between companions and consequently on its departure from the epic ideal. What role do male bonding and companionship play in Raoul? How is masculinity constructed in this text? And how should the poem be read against the overt intertext of the Roland?

The plot is complex. Raoul, whose father is dead, has been disinherited by his uncle, king Louis, who has given the Cambresis to another vassal, Giboin le Mancel. When Raoul comes of age, encouraged by his uncle Guerri le Sor, he demands the restoration of his land, but Louis is reluctant to take the Cambresis away from Giboin, and so promises Raoul the next vacant fief. A year later Herbert de Vermandois dies and Raoul immediately asks for his land. Despite the fact that Herbert has four adult sons, one of whom is the natural father of Bernier, Raoul's boyhood friend and companion, Louis grants Raoul the Vermandois, though in fact he must win it by force. Raoul is jubilant, but Bernier, Raoul's mother Aalais and Guerri are all furious, particularly since Raoul's father and Herbert were on excellent terms; Louis simply washes his hands of the affair. Raoul gathers an army and marches off to seize the Vermandois. He burns a convent at Origni, where Bernier's mother Marsent is abbess and Bernier sees her burn to death before his eyes. Bernier and Raoul quarrel and Bernier joins his father and uncles in the enemy camp. There then follows a terrible war, in which Raoul is killed by Bernier. Gautier, Raoul's nephew then continues the war which is indecisive but waged with a good deal of vigour. After the loss of many lives the two sides decide that Louis is to blame, attack Paris and raze it to the ground. During the ensuing period of peace, Bernier marries Guerri's daughter Beatrix. Later he goes on a pilgrimage which leads to adventures in Saracen lands, including

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the rediscovery of a long lost son. Eventually, however, Bernier is killed by Guerri, who cannot forget Raoul; Bernier's sons then kill Gautier and drive Guerri into exile. As this plot summary indicates, Raoul is by no means just the story of two companions. Yet whatever other themes and subplots emerge, the relationship of Raoul and his one-time companion Bernier stands at the centre of the narrative as a matrix for the entire poem; their relationship is emblematic of the conflict which motivates the narrative. As it is transmitted in the only complete manuscript, Raoul probably dates from the late twelfth century. 8542 lines long, the poem is composed of a reworked version of an earlier, shorter chanson which ends with RaouPs death at the hands of Bernier {Raoul 1: lines 1-3541), and two continuations, the first ending with the burning of Paris {Gautier: 3542-5374), the second comprising the rest of the text {Raoul 11) .49 The first two parts of the poem are written in rhymed laisses, though there is evidence that Raoul 1 was originally written in assonance and recast into rhyme by the poet of the Gautier section; Raoul 11, unusually for the time at which it was composed, was written in assonanced laisses, though of a highly narrative nature. It has been suggested that the two continuations can be read as responses to and readings of the earlier poem. 50 It is therefore significant that however much the two later sections (particularly Raoul 11 with its tales of Bernier's adventures in Saracen lands) digress from the conflict between Raoul and Bernier, they consistently refocus the poem on this issue. Thus it is Bernier's slaying of Raoul which seems to motivate Gautier's blood feud against him: Gautiers Poi, qi molt fu ai'rez. ' Cuivers bastars, con ies desmesures! Mon oncle as mort qi fu preus et senez, ton droit signor, con traitres provez. Ce est mervelle comment vos le soufrez.'

499°

Gautier heard this and flew into a rage. 'You low-born bastard, you exceed all bounds! You have killed my uncle who was valiant and wise, and your lawful overlord, like a proven traitor. It is a wonder how you can bear it.'

Mono logic masculinity

55

Indeed, it is as if Gautier becomes Raoul once he is dead, and so the matrix of Raoul against Bernier is kept alive throughout the Gautier section: Dame A[alais] commence a larmoier 3645 tout por son fil qe ele avoit tant chier: en liu de lui ont restore Gautier. The lady Alice begins to weep in memory of her dearly loved son: they have made up for his loss by putting Gautier in his place. Similarly, in Raoul 11, it is the inability of Raoul's kin to forget Raoul's death at Bernier's hands which leads to the tragic denouement. There are complex subplots in Raoul 11, during the course of which the memory of Raoul seems to fade. Ultimately, however, although Bernier is able to make peace with Guerri le Sor, now his father-in-law, after he has delivered Beatrix Bernier's wife and Guerri's daughter- to another man (661545), conflict between the two resurfaces when they are reminded of Raoul: Si con il vinrent es pres sos Origni, en celle place ou Raous fu ocis, li cuens Bferniers] fist un pesant sospir. 8190 Li sor G[uerris] molt bien garde s'en prist; il li demande por quoi sospira il. 'Ne vos chaut, sire', Bferniers] li respondi, 'que maintenant me tient il au cuer si.' 'Jel vue[l] savoir' - ce dist li sor Gfuerris]. 8195 'Jel vos dirai', Bferniers] li respondi; ' ce poise moi quant il vos plait ainsis. II me remenbre de Raooil le marchis qui desor lui avoit tefl] orguel pris qu'a .mi. contes vaut lor terre tolirr. 8200 Vees ci le leu tot droit ou je l'ocis.' Gfuerris] Pentent, por poi n'anraige vis mais a sa chiere point de sanblant n'an fit et neporquant a Bfernier] respondi, ' Par Dieu, vassal, n'estes pas bien apris, 8205 qui me remenbres la mort de mes amis.' As they reached the meadows below Origny, Bernier heaved a great sigh by the spot where Raoul was killed. Guerri the Red took good note of it and asks him the reason. ' It is no concern of yours, my lord',

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Gender and genre in medieval French literature

said Bernier,' [to know] what it is that so oppresses my heart just now'. '1 insist on knowing', came the reply.' I '11 tell you', said Bernier, 'but I am sorry that you should wish it. I am reminded of Marquis Raoul who was consumed with such pride that he resolved to take the land of four counts for himself. This is the very place where I killed him.' Guerri is almost beside himself with rage when he hears this, but his face betrayed nothing of it at all, though he did say to Bernier in reply, ' My God, vassal, you are unwise to remind me of the death of my relatives.' It is immediately after this that Guerri kills Bernier (8227-63). Raoul can seem like a swirling mass of competing narratives. For instance, in the first part of the poem the issue of Louis' abysmally weak and misguided kingship, as well as the feud between the Vermandois and Raoul's faction are at least as important as the more personal conflict between Raoul and Bernier.51 Yet just as the first part of the poem ultimately focuses exclusively on Raoul and Bernier, so the later parts of the poem refocus our attention on this. The continuators read the enmity between the two companions as the central theme of the chanson and, as Sarah Kay argues, the motif of the two companions provides one key to the process of rereading evinced in the continuations (Raoul, p. lxix). For Kay the failure of the ideal of companionship is emblematic of the text's portrayal of the disintegration of epic ideology: 'the relationship between Raoul and Bernier is at once the illustration of the deficiencies of the political order and, as the story advances, a commentary upon them' (Raoul, p.lxx). In Raoul, behind the disintegration of the political order of the chanson de geste lies the disintegration of male bonds and consequently of the genre's construction of masculinity. Moreover, since the text explicitly invites its readers to interpret what it portrays against the immensely popular Roland narratives, it is no accident that a central issue in the text is the similarity and difference of the two companions. From the moment Bernier is introduced, it is predicted that he will kill Raoul (lines 11 and 274) and if the poet stresses the affection between the two men, he nevertheless tells us that Raoul 'en lui ot estrange compaignon' (284). Yet Bernier is no traitor. In fact, it is suggested repeatedly, by the narrator and

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57

by other characters, that Raoul is in the wrong: wrong to have burned the monastery at Origni (1278-9, 1293-6), wrong to have accepted Louis's bestowal of the Vermandois (855-6) and wrong to renounce God in his relentless pursuit of the war against Herbert de Vermandois's sons (2836-52). Conversely, Bernier's integrity and virtue are praised by the narrator: ' En B[erne£on] ot molt bon chevalier, / fort et hardi et nobile guerier' (2869-70: 'young Bernier made a very fine knight, strong and fearless, and a noble warrior'). What is so striking about the poem, given Raoul's dubious behaviour, is his retention of heroic status throughout. Despite his wanton violence, Raoul's bravery and fighting skills are consistently admired: biax fu R[aous] et de gente faiture. S'en lui n'eiist un poi de desmesure 320 mieudres vasals ne tint onqes droiture. Raoul... was handsome and nobly built. If he had not had in him an immoderate streak, there could not have been a better vassal occupying his rightful place. The poet's attribution of 'un poi de desmesure' to Raoul is ironic, given Raoul's unbridled behaviour throughout much of the poem. This tongue-in-cheek touch is typical of the poet, who announces in line 1 that he will sing a 'chanson de joie et de baudor'! 52 The implication of his irony here is that all of Raoul's desmesure is as nothing when his heroic qualities are considered and this interpretation is amply borne out by the lengthy laments Aalais, Gautier and others intone over his body (3378-515). When Raoul dies his body is placed beside a giant of a man he had killed earlier. Their hearts are cut out and Raoul's is found to be as large as that of an ox, much larger than the man he has killed (3058-67). This is a clear symbol of his bravery which then becomes the focus of the following laments. In other words, even though Raoul is associated with wrong (like Roland), he is valued and admired as a hero. The value placed upon Raoul's heroism regardless of the fact that he is in the wrong is part of a broader web of moral ambiguity in the poem. Raoul is a rebel baron, but he is clearly right to rebel against the weak and vacillating Louis, who

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Gender and genre in medieval French literature

makes no attempt to protect fatherless children. 53 Indeed Louis is repeatedly and explicitly blamed for the chaos the feud between the two factions causes (for example lines 602-5, 648-50, 721-3 and so on). Giboin, who accepts the Cambresis from Louis, is similarly considered reprehensible: Rois Loeys fist le jor grant folaige qe son neveu toli son eritaige; et Giboin refist molt grant outraige qant autrui terre vost avoir par barna[ige].

135

King Louis committed an act of great folly that day, for he deprived his nephew of his inheritance; and Giboin for his part acted outrageously in wanting someone else's land in return for his services as a warrior. To a certain extent then, Raoul's rebellion is legitimized. Yet how can his behaviour be justified when his taking of the Vermandois will disinherit other men in exactly the manner of which he has complained ? Furthermore, Raoul is not the only rebel in the poem: Bernier too is a rebel. Before Raoul burns the monastery at Origni, Bernier, who has declared himself to be Raoul's horn liges (454), is clear that to rebel against one's lord is wrong. He continually reiterates the fact that he is Raoul's vassal (for instance see 1466) and when his mother asks him why he is not fighting for his kin, he protests: ' Par le cors Saint Toumas, je nel feroie por l'onnor de Baudas! R[aous] mesires est plus fel qe Judas; il est mesires, chevals me done et dras, et garnemens et pailes de Baudas. Ne li fauroie por l'onnor de Damas tant qe tuit dient: B[erniers], droit en as!' 'Fix', dist la mere, 'par ma foi, droit en as; ser ton signor, Dieu en gaaingneras'.

1205

1210

' By St Thomas... I would rather not do it for all the wealth of Baghdad. Raoul my overlord is more villainous than Judas: [yet] he is my overlord, he gives me horses and clothing and arms and oriental silks. I wouldn't fail him, not [even] for thefiefof Damascus, until such a time as all can declare: "Bernier, you are in the right!"''Son', said his mother ' by my faith, you are right: serve your overlord, and God be your reward'.

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Bernier's plight here demonstrates that the different bonding systems of the chansons de geste are not compatible. Should he be loyal to his family or to his lord and companion? Is one's first allegiance to one's feudal overlord or to one's kin-group? The use of the word droit in this passage epitomizes the moral ambiguity of Raoul. Bernier says he will not fight Raoul until everybody says to him 'droit en as' (1208) in other words meaning 'you are right to rebel', yet Marsent, his mother says exactly these words to him in the very next line with the opposite meaning, 'you are right not to rebel'. Droit is perhaps the most semantically charged and ambivalent word of the poem. It is used frequently as a noun and as an adjective with at least four distinct meanings: 'right' (as in this passage), 'compensation' or 'reparation' (as in 1567 when Raoul offers to make reparation to Bernier for killing his mother), ' rightful estates' (as in 5339), and 'rightful' (for instance as when Louis is consistently addressed as drois empereres^ see 178 and so on). It is hard, ultimately, to tell what is droit' right' and what is wrong, as the narrator himself admits (2202). The repetition of drois empereres at moments when Louis is at his most reprehensible and Bernier's claim that he killed Raoul 'a mon droit' (2985), when Gautier insists that he killed 'a tort son signor droiturier' (4898, see also 4989), blur any distinction between right and wrong. Can Raoul be condemned without Bernier and conversely can Bernier be condoned without Raoul also being condoned? Both are victims but both have faults and if Bernier is right, he nevertheless kills his liege lord. It is also paradoxical that although he kills Raoul, his companion and liege lord, in the defence of his family, Bernier is illegitimate, so hardly an unequivocal symbol of the priority of family loyalties over feudal bonds or the bonds of companionship. 54 Raoul is frequently analysed in terms of the conflict between Cambresiens and Vermandois with Cambrai representing aggression and the Vermandois representing appeasement, reason and mesure. Some critics consequently read the text as if it were a kind of allegory.55 However, if the narrative seems on the one hand to signal and invite such a reading, on the other the characters are a lot less clear cut than this might imply. It is

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not just that there is a level of moral ambiguity about their positions, for the positions the characters occupy are in fact far from stable: at times it is Raoul who seeks to appease Bernier, Raoul who seems a model of mesure, of reasonable behaviour and of tenderness, as if he and Bernier had swapped characteristics : Li q[u]ens R[aous] belement Ten apele; il s'agenoille - vestue ot sa gonnele; par grant amor li a dit raison bele.

^So

Count Raoul speaks him fair. He kneels down, dressed in simple tunic; in great friendship, he made this generous speech. Raous parole par grant humeliance. ' Bernegon, frere, molt ies de grant vaillance pren ceste acorde si lai la malvoillance.'

1602

Raoul speaks with great humility. 'Bernier, my brother, your bravery is outstanding - accept this settlement and put animosity aside.' Throughout this sequence, which follows the burning of the convent at Origni, it is Bernier who is unreasonably truculent, Bernier who is violent: 'Voir', dist B[erniers], 'or oi je plait d'enfance Je nel feroie, por tot Tor d'Aquilance, dusqe li sans dont ci voi la sanblance remontera en mon chief sans doutance; dusq'a cele eure n'en iert fait acordance ou je verrai s'avoir en porrai venjance.'

1605

1610

'Indeed, this is childish talk I hear', said Bernier. 'I wouldn't accept it, not for all the gold of Aquilance, until there is no shadow of a doubt that the blood which I can see here willflowback up into my head; no settlement can be made until such time as I can see my way to getting revenge.' Similarly, when acting as an envoy of peace, Bernier later defies a conciliatory Raoul (2063-4 and 2127-41), and it is Bernier's truculence (not RaouPs) that leads to an escalation in the conflict. Such passages operate a reversal of the positions the two men occupy in earlier scenes where Raoul refuses to compromise and Bernier - like Oliver - represents moderation (751-70). Commenting on the fundamental similarity of Raoul

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and Bernier, and on the manner in which they apparently exchange roles, Sarah Kay argues that the poet is not interested in characterization, but in the emplotment of confrontation, and consequently that the coherent presentation of character is subordinated to the presentation of conflict.56 Yet the role reversals of Raoul and Bernier may also be read intertextually. Read alongside the presentation of companionship in the near contemporary Paris Roland and Ami, it is striking that Raoul shares their impulse to repress difference, though it does so differently: rather than taking on simultaneously the same characteristics, the two heroes do so alternately. If Raoul and Bernier exchange roles, the symmetry with which this happens and the moral ambivalence of each position, makes them interchangeable. Raoul becomes Bernier, Bernier becomes Raoul. The fundamental difference between Raoul and these other texts is that whereas the Paris Roland and Ami would appear to suppress the threat of difference, in Raoul despite the similarity of Raoul and Bernier the two companions destroy each other. The potential threat of difference as represented by Oliver's opposition to Roland in the Oxford Roland is realized in Raoul. The symmetry of their confrontations has all the poetic grandeur of the verbal confrontations of Roland and Oliver in the Oxford Roland and when Bernier kills Raoul, it is the epic ideal that Roland and Oliver represent which dies, for through this act - perpetrated significantly by a good knight - it is made clear that the fantasy of the seamless male community is destined to fall apart. Furthermore, the inevitability of this disintegration is due to Raoul's (and many other characters') acceptance of the cornerstone of epic values, the investment of action (which always leads to violence) with ethical worth. As a meditation on the consequences of violence Raoul is an impressive and moving poem. The stark horror of the laisse in which the burning of Origni is described is one of the high points of medieval French literature (1299-342) and few could fail to be moved by the poignant spectacle of the nuns burning to death, whilst the appalled Bernier looks on, unable to go to his mother's aid. As an indictment of violence like this, Raoul is also

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an indictment of the construction of masculinity within the chansons de geste which produces such devastation. It shows that the ideal of masculine unity as inscribed in the Oxford Roland is programmed for its own destruction, for it cannot contain the aggression it glorifies, nor the potential threat of difference. If some poems get round the problem by killing their heroes in the battle against the infidel, Raoul demonstrates that away from the Holy War, the epic heroes themselves will do the Saracen's job for them. Like the Paris Roland and Ami, Raoul can be read as a commentary on earlier texts. It shows not just the impossibility of the epic ideal, the threat inherent in its construction of masculinity, but also that writers within the genre are aware of the limitations and potential dangers of its ideology. The chanson de geste is not a monologic or an unquestioning, static genre as some criticism has implied; on the contrary if some texts (like Ami) attempt to paper over the cracks in its ideology, others (like Raoul) offer a critique from within. However, what both strands of the genre share is a nostalgia for a formerly heroic world and an impulse backwards: a yearning for a lost perfect world is manifested in virtually all chansons de geste.57 This too can be read as an impulse to deny difference and to create a myth of masculine unity, a myth of a past when men were men, unproblematically. However, in locating this perfect world in the past, and in endlessly narrating the demise of its greatest heroes, chansons de geste recognize its impossibility. WOMEN IN THE MEN'S ROOM

The preceding analysis of four chansons de geste suggests not only that what I have called the genre's monologic construction of masculinity is a fragile edifice, but more importantly that some writers within the genre are aware of this. However, perhaps the most powerful signal that all is not well in the epic's all-male club is the inclusion of women characters in many texts as protagonists who partake in and sometimes direct the action, despite the fact that they are excluded from the genre's value system, unable as they are to participate in the privileged male

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bonds which represent the pinnacle of human emotional and ethical experience. Thus in texts like the Paris Roland or Ami, good women characters like Aude and Belissant may support the heroes' heroic endeavours and endorse their value, but Aude is a mere prop in the glorification of the two heroes, whilst Belissant is left behind by her husband when he goes off with his companion. In many chansons de geste, women are objects of exchange between men, symbolic of pacts or mediating aggression between men.58 As we have seen, in texts like the Roland poems or Girart de Vienne, Aude is a symbol of the bond between Roland and Oliver; in Ami, Lubias is given to Ami by Hardre as a symbol of friendship, and Belissant is bestowed upon Amile as a sign of Charlemagne's favour; in Raoul, when Louis gives the Cambresis to Giboin he would like Aalais (his sister) to be part of the package, and Beatrix is given to Bernier by Guerri as a sign of their peace; in the Prise d'Orange, Guillaume's marriage to Orable is emblematic of his victory over the Saracens and of his conquest of Orange; in Girart de Roussillon, the two main women characters mediate the rivalry between Girart and Charles Martel in a manner which may indicate the influence of the courtly lyric and therefore inscribe competing ideologies in this powerful poem.59 The role of women as objects of exchange is taken for granted in such texts; it is not symbolically central, as it is in many romances, even in texts like the Prise, with its parodic love story, or Girart de Roussillon with its more serious treatment of the hero's romantic involvements. In some chansons de geste, however, women are more than passive vehicles for men to conduct relations with each other. In a series of recent articles Sarah Kay has argued that women characters in texts like Daurel et Beton, the Siege de Barbastre and

Orson de Beauvais, supply a counter-narrative from which a critique of the disfunctional dominant masculine ideology, and therefore of its construction of masculinity, is offered.60 The feminine in these texts would therefore be the source of a fundamental dialogism and thus, potentially at least, constructed as radically other. However, as Kay shows, women characters who highlight the shortcomings of the male order are

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either ignored, treated with wanton violence, or sometimes suppressed altogether, as if the male characters, and possibly the poets, did not wish to recognize dissenting voices. This treatment of women characters points again to a wilful desire to repress difference, yet at the same time the difference they represent (both sexual and ethical) is paradoxically inscribed in the text. In many chansons de geste, therefore, women play a diagnostic role which underlines the inadequacies of the genre's construction of masculinity. This diagnostic role is not reserved for women who denounce the dominant male ideology when it is disfunctional: some women characters energetically support the hero even when he is hopelessly ineffectual. Possibly the best known example of this is Guibourc in the early twelfth-century Chanson de Guillaume*1 Whenever her husband Guillaume declares himself unwilling or unable to continue the fight against the Saracens, Guibourc supports him, and encourages him to return to battle. The first time this happens we are told that Guillaume merely pretends to be faint hearted in order to test her courage (1011-13). The second time, however, Guillaume seems genuinely to have given up the struggle, berating himself for his cowardice and collapsing in tears (1303-18). Guibourc chastizes him and reminds him of his glorious ancestry: « Marchis Willame, merci, pur amur De; II est grant doel que home deit plorer, E fort damage k'il se deit dementer. II fu custume a tun riche parente, Quant altres terres alerent purchacer, Tuz tens morurent en bataille chanpel. Mielz voil que moergez en Larchamp sur mer Que tun lignage seit per tei avile Ne apres ta mort a tes heirs reprove.» Quant Tot Willame, prist son chef a croller, Plurad dels oilz tendrement e suef.

1320

1325

' Marquis Guillaume, for pity's sake, by God it is a great shame when a man is reduced to tears and a terrible crime that he should break his word. It was the custom of your glorious ancestors when they went off to foreign lands, always to die in pitched battle. I would rather you died at Archamp-by-the-sea, than that your lineage were reviled

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65

because of you or your heirs reproached after your death.' When Guillaume heard this his head rolled forwards, he wept tenderly and softly from his eyes. Guibourc-a converted Saracen princess-has to remind Guillaume of the values which he is supposed to represent. The ideology she passionately advocates here is more than a little reminiscent of Roland's position in the first horn scene in the Oxford Roland (1049-81): Guillaume should stand and fight since if he does not, this will shame both his ancestors and his heirs. In the scene immediately following this Guibourc has to gather an army for Guillaume since he is still unwilling to fight; she then propels him back to battle. Guibourc identifies totally with the epic ideal here, particularly when she says she would rather Guillaume were dead than shamed; yet at the same time the very fact that she shows herself to be more catholic than the Pope, as it were, by sustaining the epic ideal more vigorously than Guillaume, points to its inadequacy, for she is, of course, excluded from the battlefield, the space in which the ideal she supports is tested. Guibourc's diagnostic role is reinforced later, when Guillaume returns from the Archamp having again lost all his men. He stands alone at the gates of Orange: Guibourc refuses to recognize him because, she claims, Guillaume would have returned victorious (2207-306). She only accepts that he is who he says he is when some Saracens fortuitously appear and he is able to prove his identity in battle (2307-28). 62 In the Chanson de Guillaume Guibourc is a supplement to the masculinity of the hero. 63 She acts as its guarantor and restores Guillaume to his rightful place on the battlefield with his male companions, yet at the same time the fact that she has to do this highlights the weakness of Guillaume's masculinity and subverts it. On one level, the feminine/masculine opposition implicit in Guibourc and Guillaume's relation to space appears to valorize the masculine; on another level, the opposition collapses as Guibourc emerges as more effective than Guillaume. However, the text does not constitute an overt challenge to the male order. Guibourc meekly defers to masculine ideology and herself affirms the priority of male bonding again and again (for example 1030-2, 1054-8).

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In other texts the challenge women represent to the male order is more striking. In the Occitan Daurel et Beton, for instance, in which wicked Gui murders his good companion Bovis in order to usurp his wife and his position, Bovis's wife Ermenjart continually warns him of Gui's perfidious intentions:64 «Ay! sire due, aiso vos vuelh mostrier Que lo fel Guis, cui Jhesus desampar, Venc non a gaire, no saup alres trobar, Mes m'a razo, que-m cujet anta far; 265 Mai li respozi, pres mi a menassar C'ausira vos, no*lh podes escapar, La nostr' amor el fara desebrar.» Alas, my lord Duke, I want to prove to you that felonious Gui, may Jesus confound him, came here a short while ago and found nothing better to do than to address me a speech with which he thought to shame me; I rebuffed him and he began to threaten me that he would kill you, that you could not escape, that he would destroy our love. Bovis refuses to believe his wife (269-72). Later when he goes hunting with Gui, he again fails to heed Ermenjart's warning (327—35) and he is duly murdered. However, Ermenjart's diagnostic role is not limited to revealing Gui's murderous intentions. She also criticizes overtly her brother Charlemagne's failure to punish Gui and his complicity in allowing the traitor to marry her: Don' Esmenjart dissen per los degras, Venc al rey Karlo, los uelhs li a baiatz; E-l tracher Guis es apres [desjmontat, Vi lo la dona, .iiii. motz a cridat: «Senher», ditz ela, »bem petit mi amatz, C'aquel trachor e vostra cort menatz C'ausis lo due can fo ab lui cassar, Que son espieut li fiquet pels costat.» «Senher», ditz Guis, «mai no la*n crezatz: Ela es dona e ditz sas volontatz; S'om m'o dises, be • m fora adobatz De l'escondieire cant mi fora armat. Mos companhs era e plevit e juratz, No m'o pessera per .lx. cieutatz.» «Reis emperaire, so que ieu die es vertatz,

595

600

605

Monologic masculinity Que el Fa mort, et er be esproat: La fors el pla sia • 1 fuoc adobatz, leu passar n'ai, veia o tos barnatz; Se ja .i. pels es sobre mi cremat, Qu'eu sia asa, ja merse no*m agatz! Se • m salve Dieus ni la mia verdat, Aquel tracer sia totz rossegatz!» So ditz lo rey: « Cest contendre laissas: Per tot aiso non er lo due cobrat; El loc del due Guis vos sia donat.» Au lo la dona, .iiii. motz a cridatz: «Ai! senher reis, leu vos es acossellatz Que pel ric due .i. trachor mi donatz! Ben grans aver ere que vo-nh sia donatz. Aital ric rey si fo en bon ponh natz. Que per aver de sa sor fai mercatz!»

67

610

615

620

Lady Ermenjart goes down the steps, came towards Charles and kissed him on the eyes; and the traitor Gui dismounted after him. The lady saw him and spoke briefly:' My lord', she said,' you clearly don't love me very much, for in your court you bring this traitor, who killed the Duke when he was hunting with him, for he struck him in the ribs with his spear'. 'My lord', said Gui, 'do not believe her. She is a woman and can say whatever she likes. If a man said this to me, I would take up my weapons and acquit myself once armed. He was my sworn and pledged companion, I would not think of it for fifteen cities.' 'King, lord emperor, what I say is the truth, for he did kill him, and this will be proved: let a fire be prepared out there on the plain, I will pass through it before all of your barons; if just one of my hairs is burnt, may I be consumed by the flames, and may you have no mercy upon me. So help me God and in truth, let this traitor be quartered!' The king said: ' Stop talking like this: none of this will bring the Duke back; instead of the Duke I will give you Gui.' The lady heard this and spoke briefly:' Ah, my lord king, you decide too hastily when you give me a traitor in exchange for the powerful Duke. I think you must have been given a great deal of money. Such a powerful king must have been born on a fateful day when he barters his sister for money.'

Charlemagne is obviously reprehensible here for he aligns himself with the traitor Gui, and in some respects the portrayal of kingship in Daurel is close to that in Raoul. What interests me here, however, is that the source of truth is a woman's voice. Ermenjart twice stresses the truth of what she is saying, vertatz

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(607) and verdat (613) being in an emphatic position at the rhyme. Gui discounts the veracity of what she says precisely because she is a woman and (he claims) can say what she likes without having to defend herself in combat (601-6). This in itself is paradoxical: her words are disregarded because she is excluded from one form of judicial procedure that determines truth, yet her offer to prove her allegations in another form of judicium dei is ignored.65 The system itself is manifestly corrupt. The text's listeners and readers know full well Ermenjart speaks the truth and it is also striking that she intuits the truth in assuming that Gui has given Charlemagne money to persuade him to consent to the marriage. The result is a crushing indictment of Charlemagne's kingship, exacerbated in the rest of this laisse by the fact that Ermenjart stresses three times that she is being forcibly married (626, 627 and 639) when it is the king's duty to protect women from being married against their wishes. Shortly after this Ermenjart is the victim of a brutal assault from Gui when she defends her son Beton (664—8). Elsewhere in the text violence is inflicted on women: Beton's wetnurse, Aicelina, who shelters him from Gui, has her breasts beaten with brambles so severely that 'sane e lah mescladamen ragar' (922: 'blood and milk run together'). The narrator may implicitly align himself with what women say and do in Daurel, but they are none the less victims of horrific violence which seeks to suppress them. As Sarah Kay has argued, Beton, the hero of this chanson, is repeatedly rescued by a series of characters who are excluded from the genre's ethical system, and who therefore belong to a counter-narrative ('Compagnonnage', pp. 364-6): Daurel, Bovis's faithful jongleur, Saracens, but also a series of women. It is noteworthy then that Daurel's initial rescue of Beton is made possible by his wife Beatrix, who suggests that they give up their son Daurelet to Gui instead of Beton: Gui promptly smashes Daurelet's brains out against a pillar and Beatrix dies of grief whilst Daurel escapes to Saracen lands with Beton (ggS" 1 *^)- 6 6 In some respects the disintegration of companionship in Daurel is comparable to the idealization of male bonding in Ami

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69

and to the way in which male characters become interchangeable in Raoul, since Gui's action is motivated by a (mimetic) desire to take Bovis's place, and thereby to be like him: as he says 'serai el loc del due qu'es trespasatz' (577: 'I will take the dead Duke's place'). As in Ami women are viewed as disruptive of the privileged homosocial bond. It is only when Charlemagne gives Bovis Ermenjart in marriage that Gui becomes jealous and decides to murder him (115-55) 5 before this they had lived 'en bon acordamen' for ten years (34), despite Bovis's wealth and property. Women disturb the chanson degeste's male community. In this they play a role similar to that played by land in some poems (for instance Raoul or Girart de Roussillori); like land they affect the male individual's worth in the present, and the integrity of future incarnations of himself. But as Daurel suggests, women constitute a threat which is greater than that posed by other men usurping one's property or simply being richer: the dislocation of male bonding. Consequently they are frequently excluded, assaulted, or suppressed. Yet since they also support and rescue masculinity when it is in crisis, pointing to its flaws, they become surrogate voices for critical impulses within the genre. The paradox of this position is perhaps what leads to the violence which is often perpetrated against them. For many critics chansons de geste in which women play an important role bear the mark of romance. 67 Without doubt women frequently play a more significant part in romance than in epic, but although some women in some romances represent positions which oppose the dominant ideology of the text, the role of women in romance is in fact quite different from their role in the chanson de geste, and in some respects less appealing. The chanson de geste remains a robust genre well into the thirteenth century, indicating it still had an enthusiastic public interested in chivalric warrior bonding well after the emergence of romance. Even texts which critics seem unanimously to think have romance elements (for instance the Prise (T Orange or Girart de Roussillon) are recognizably chansons de geste,

both in form and content, and such texts contest as well as endorse romance values. Whilst the chanson de geste was no doubt

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influenced by romance, notably in the inclusion of ever more fantastic adventures in foreign lands which resemble quests (for example in the second parts ofRaoul and Daurel), influence may in fact have been stronger in the other direction, in that romance's construction of masculinity is first articulated as a direct response to the chanson degeste's; this will be the subject of the next chapter.

CHAPTER 3

The knight meets his match: romance

It has been a commonplace in medieval studies since the last century that courtly literature simultaneously 'discovers' the individual, woman and love. These discoveries were viewed as a positive departure in western civilization, particularly for women. To quote Rita Lejeune, one of the foremost medievalists of the post-war period: 'on tombera d'accord, je suppose, pour confirmer le role essentiel de la femme dans le developpement de la litterature franchise des XII e et X I I P siecles'; thus she writes of women 'Pamour courtois, cette grande valeur spirituelle, n'est pas leur creation, mais il a ete con^u pour elles'. 1 In this vein of criticism, romance's ostensibly progressive, 'courtly' treatment of women is compared favourably with that of the epic. But is romance good for women? Is 'courtly love' a spiritual value and was it conceived for women as Lejeune suggests? The traditional reading of romance's apparent idealization of women has not gone unchallenged in recent years. Jean-Charles Huchet, for instance, offers a sophisticated re-evaluation of romance: through love and women, he argues, romance articulates a new, more complex model of subjectivity (see Le Roman medieval). Huchet's work situates an engagement with femininity at the core of romance, but in so doing (though he does not make the point himself), it paradoxically focuses attention on masculinity. This is because since all surviving romances from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are as far as we know male authored, 'women', or more accurately femininity in these texts, is a metaphor men use to construct their own subjectivity. Female characters in romance are not real

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women, but figures within a male discourse. Huchet acknowledges this, but often fails to see the implications. If in romance men evolve and assume new identities through love and their relations with women, it follows that what this engagement with femininity articulates is the construction within a male discourse of masculinity through its relationship with femininity construed as the other. 2 Underpinning the apparent concern of critics like Huchet with women is an androcentric bias which, as Roberta Krueger says, operates a double displacement of women, whose response to the use by men of their gender as metaphor receives no consideration. 3 Krueger's work suggests that 'women' in romance are signs in a male discourse. The notion that romances were written primarily for women proves to be a myth when one considers that there is little evidence for non-fictional female patronage in the texts. But Krueger shows that romance is equivocal about the gender models it constructs and one crucial element in this equivocation is romance's engagement with and anxiety about the responses of female readers. If on the one hand romance offers repressive and misogynistic models of femininity, on the other the equivocation with which these are presented can make reading romance a rewarding experience for the resistant woman reader, whether medieval or modern. On the one hand the texts seem to endorse the sex/gender system they mediate, on the other they appear to deconstruct it. 4 This points to a further objection to Huchet's work: like his less sophisticated predecessors he assumes that central terms in romance criticism such as 'love', 'woman', and the 'individual' are ahistorical, immutable categories waiting to be 'discovered'. But notions such as these are generated within historically specific social practices. Romance does not 'discover' women, or femininity, or the individual, it constructs models of them, which need evaluating in their historical context. The earliest surviving romances date from around 1150. In some respects the notion of a genre called ' romance' may seem like a modern imposition on a group of texts which are heterogeneous. However, a degree of thematic and stylistic unity is supplied by the treatment of love, by a particular model

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of the male individual which is associated with an ethical vision of chivalry, and by a highly stylized form of rhetoric and love casuistry. In addition, clear intertextual connections between the different strands of romance, point to a conscious generic and discursive formation.5 The genre is vast and in some respects less homogeneous than other vernacular genres, but from its earliest manifestations writers of romance are aware of its generic singularity. In this chapter I shall concentrate primarily on relatively early verse romances, which are marked by formal as well as thematic unity and I shall attempt to elucidate the crucial role of romance's construction of gender in the formation of the genre.6 Traditional criticism is right that in relation to the epic, the role of women in romance is striking, but it should be remembered that few chansons de geste survive from before 1150 and that the two genres represent simultaneous not sequential developments after this. Penny Schine Gold makes this point specifically in relation to 'images of women': 'the difference in the expressed attitude towards women in the two genres does not primarily arise from change over time; rather chanson de geste and romance embody two contrasting models or paradigms employed by or for the male nobility of twelfth-century France to resolve in the imagination the conflicts arising from their troublesome social circumstances' (Lady, p. 3). Destined primarily for the same audience, but offering different imaginary resolutions to cultural and social tensions, it is not surprising that early romance and the chansons de geste engage in a dialectic with each other. Gender is a key issue in this dialectic. One important difference between the two genres lies in their treatment of the differentiation of the male individual and the concomitant problem of otherness. As I have argued, the epic hero's identity is constructed - albeit problematically - in relation to other men. Chansons de geste thus do not represent as symbolically central the role of women within the kinship structures and hierarchies around which the society which produced them was organized. Romance, on the other hand, consciously makes the role of the exchange of women in the formation of masculine hierarchies within feudal society a

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central theme. It thereby offers a new model of masculine identity, constructed in relation to the feminine, but which proves to be no less problematic than the epic model. The emergence of romance is associated with the appearance, initially in Occitania, of a poetics of fin' amor; often termed 'courtly love' by modern critics. I have argued elsewhere that fin'amor in early troubadour poetry should be seen in the context of the Church's concerted attempt in the early twelfth century to gain control of aristocratic marriage practices (Gaunt, 'Marginal men'). Michel Foucault and Gayle Rubin argue that sexuality is a phenomenon which is constantly renegotiated and which must be historicized; Rubin further suggests that at certain historical flashpoints, sexuality undergoes rapid transformation in relation to social upheavals. 7 The twelfth century is just such a flashpoint. The role of women, the individual, and 'love' in courtly literature is part of a renegotiation of sexuality amongst the French aristocracy which may well be related to the impact of the Church's attempt to control the adjudication of marriage. As is well known the three main elements of the ' feudal' model of marriage were: endogamy (allowing marriage within a kin-group), repudiation at will on the part of men, and family control of the choice of marriage partner. The key features of the Church's model were: strict exogamy (forbidding the marriage of people who were related, often to a high degree), indissolubility, and the need for the consent of both partners for the marriage to be valid. The transition between the two models takes centuries to complete, for the Church was willing to turn a blind eye to practices which contravened its rules when it suited, though the key periods are probably the first half of the twelfth century and the pontificate of Alexander III (1159-81). The model of marriage the Church promoted must have appealed to the feudal aristocracy in some ways, since it became so widely accepted, but the transition had profound effects on European politics: it gave the Church power to interfere in procedures that determined the consolidation or disintegration of secular economic and political power bases. In addition, various elements in the Church's theoretical model of marriage may well contribute to the

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evolution of courtly culture and to the apparent value placed upon women in courtly texts. For instance, in foregrounding the importance of consent on the part of both partners in a marriage, whether consciously or not, the Church promoted the interest of the male individual against that of the group and raised the spectre of women's choice (and thereby desire). Furthermore, the Church's attempts to challenge the rights of secular men to regulate their marital affairs drew attention to the value placed upon women as objects of exchange in the formation of feudal alliances, a value which hitherto had been taken for granted, in that women's desires were not considered problematic. 8 The importance of sexuality ('love'?) in romance has crucial ramifications for gender. In contradistinction to the chansons de geste, romance constructs masculinity in relation to femininity, developing a strong sense of alterity. It is therefore significant that at a formative stage in the genre's development early romances enact the marginalization of what I have called the epic's monologic construction of masculinity. The first section of this chapter will look at this process in two early texts, the Roman d'Eneas and Floire et Blancheflor, to argue that early romances seek to replace the chansons de geste's construction of gender with models grounded in compulsory heterosexuality and homosocial desire. I will then examine the problematic nature of romance's construction of masculine identity in Chretien de Troyes's Le Chevalier de la Charrete and Renaut de Beaujeu's Le Bel Inconnu; and finally how misogyny in romance, apparently directed at women, can also be read as undermining masculine prowess, and how this may reveal an anxiety on the part of male writers about the attribution in romance of power and choice to women.

MARGINALIZING MONOLOGIG MASCULINITY

T h e Roman cTEneas is one of the so-called romans antiques,

adaptations of Latin texts into French octosyllabic rhyming couplets, the standard form of romance throughout the

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twelfth century. The group formed by the Eneas, the Roman de Troie and the Roman de Thebes was probably composed between 1150 and 1165. They may have been composed for Henry II of England; they certainly circulated in his continental territories under the patronage of someone wishing to promote Plantagenet interests, for with Wace's Roman de Ron and Brut they form a sequence of narratives which shows how the new royal house of England could trace a direct line of descent back to the royal house of Troy, through Arthur and Julius Caesar. Amongst the earliest surviving romances, the romans antiques are precursors both in terms of form and content of Chretien de Troyes and Arthurian romance. Indeed in one manuscript (BN fonds frangais 1450) all of Chretien's Arthurian romances are interpolated into the Brut, which follows the Eneas and the Roman de Troie, suggesting a high degree of continuity and cohesion between the romans antiques and Chretien. The Eneas itself, for which the source is Virgil's Aeneid, was probably composed around 1156.9 In an earlier study, I examined the most significant innovation the Eneas poet makes to Virgil's narrative: the addition of a 2000-line sequence about Eneas falling in love with Lavine. This addition makes up one fifth of the French poem and is one of the key early narrative manifestations of what modern critics call 'courtly love'. The effect of the expansion of Lavine's role in the narrative is to displace Eneas's relationship with Pallas, his male companion, and war, as the central points of interest. I argued that the text is structured around the three main female characters (Dido, Camille the Amazon warrior, and Lavine), the point being to direct Eneas towards the 'correct' sexual object choice, Lavine, and to oppose her to Dido, the evil temptress. I contended that there was a consistent attempt to undermine maternal authority (represented by Venus, who engineers Dido's love for Eneas, and Lavine's mother, who opposes her marriage to Eneas), and to extol the value of paternal authority (particularly that of Anchise, Eneas's father, but also that of Lavine's father, Latin). Furthermore, Eneas's marriage to Lavine (supported by Anchise and Latin) is presented as an exogamous marriage, involving an exchange

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between men, whereas Lavine's proposed marriage to Turnus (supported by Lavine's mother) is presented as an endogamous marriage. Eneas is primarily therefore an exemplary iuvenis, a landless young knight made good through an advantageous marriage, there being parallels between Eneas and Henry II since both establish kingdoms and dynasties in foreign lands, and since the identity of both is radically altered through a marriage. 10 If the most significant innovation of the Eneas poet is the addition of the Lavine episode, the most striking is the inclusion early in this final section of two homophobic diatribes directed against Eneas. Whilst trying to persuade Lavine not to love Eneas, her mother asserts he is a sodomite: N'as tu oi comfaitemant il mena Dido malement? Unques feme n'ot bien de lui, n'en avras tu, si com ge cui, d'un traitor, d'un sodomite. Toz tens te clamera il quite; se il avoit alcun godel, ce li seroit et bon et bel quel laissasses a ses druz faire; s'il lo pooit par toi atraire, nel troveroit ja si estrange qu'il ne feist asez tel change, que il feist son bon de toi por ce qu'il lo sofrist de soi; bien lo lairoit sor toi monter, s'il repueit sor lui troter; il n'aime pas poil de conin.

8580

8585

8590

8595

Have you not heard how badly he treated Dido? No woman has ever got anything good from him and nor will you as far as I can see from this traitor and sodomite. He will always leave you alone; if he has some fancy man, he will be quite happy for you to let him do it with his companions/lovers;11 if he could procure him through you, he would not find it so strange to do a deal, whereby he [the lover] would have his way with you because he [Eneas] was allowed to have him; he would let him mount you if he could ride behind: he does not like rabbit hair/a bit of pussy.

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And so on for a further twenty-five lines. Lavine then matches her mother's crudity and virulence, when she thinks that Eneas does not love her: «Ce est», fait ele, «verite, que ma mere m'a de lui dit; de feme lui est molt petit, il voldroit deduit de gargon, n'aime se males putains non. Son Ganimede a avec soi, asez li est or po de moi; il est molt longuement an ruit, a gar$on moine son deduit; quant a mene o als son gait, de nule feme ne li chalt.»

9J35

'So', she said, 'what my mother told me about him is true; he cares little for women and prefers the pleasure of boys; he only loves male whores. He has his Ganymede with him and so cares nothing for me; he is a long time rutting and he has his pleasure with a boy; when he has had his way with them he cares not for a woman.' And so on for forty lines. These speeches are not taken from Virgil, though it has been suggested that what they say is inferred from a few lines in the Aeneid taken out of context.12 Until recently most critics ignored these passages. Those who did comment echoed Edmond Faral's view that they reflect a contemporary concern with homosexuality in monastic and scholastic milieux. Alfred Adler, for instance, comments that the Eneas can inspire us with confidence in the ' healthy' attitudes of the twelfth-century humanists. 13 The assumption underlying this argument is that the homophobic diatribes have no role in the economy of the narrative and that the poet's feelings on this subject were so healthily robust that he produces this crude invective automatically, however incongruous the context, given the right catalyst. Given the careful architecture of the Eneas, these passages need to be examined in the context of the entire romance. Thus, Jean-Charles Huchet argues they reaffirm Eneas's masculinity by highlighting his avoidance ofpassivite and an egarement du cote

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de lafeminite. He suggests that Eneas, then Lavine, achieve just the right balance of masculinity and femininity in their characters {Roman medieval, pp. 143-4), which leads him to conclude that Lavine ' constitue une indeniable reussite, une creation ou se reflete et se reve une certaine psychologie feminine largement mise a profit par les lecteurs courtois de VEneas' (p. 145). Huchet presumably subsumes lectrices courtoises to lecteurs courtois here. Some women readers may well have internalized the model of femininity the text promotes, but Huchet's view of Lavine as a reussite, as a representation of une certaine psychologie

feminine assumes 'femininity' is what men say it is. It is also hard to reconcile Huchet's explanation of the homophobic diatribe with his subsequent argument that love in the Eneas serves to efface sexual difference (p. 171). If anything, the diatribes reinforce a rigid notion of sexual difference, predicated to a large extent on sexuality. Feminist writers like Gayle Rubin and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick argue that homophobia is an integral part of patriarchy. It is in the light of their work that the Eneas has been viewed by recent critics such as William Burgwinkle, Susan Crane and myself.14 For Sedgwick since patriarchy's power structures depend on the exchange of women, homosexuality can subvert patriarchy, which will depend on 'obligatory heterosexuality'. 15 In other words homophobia is a necessary component of patriarchy. Like Sedgwick I am not arguing for a direct and automatic relation between radical gay and feminist theory: gay sub-cultures and relationships can marginalize women, promote misogyny and the interests of men at the expense of women within patriarchy as effectively as what Sedgwick calls homosocial male bonding, and they frequently have done. The point is that homophobia, like misogyny is an inevitable product of patriarchy. Homophobia is thus misogynistic not because it represses the feminine in men, but because it contributes towards the oppression of women. The beauty of Sedgwick's analysis lies in the distinction she makes between the homosocial and the homosexual: the homosocial refers to any male/male bonding and may therefore be non-sexual (for example the homosocial bonding of the chansons de geste); the homosexual to

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sexual relations between men. Drawing on the work of LeviStrauss, Rene Girard and Gayle Rubin, Sedgwick then uses the term 'homosocial desire', which brings the homosocial into the realm of the erotic, to designate men's use of relationships with women (sexual and emotional), and texts about these relationships, to contract relationships with each other. A few words are necessary about the problems of applying Sedgwick's theories to the Middle Ages, since they were elaborated in relation to nineteenth-century culture and depend upon a homo/hetero opposition. It has been argued that the category 'homosexual' is a modern invention and that pre-modern cultures defined sexual deviants by their acts, not according to what they were. Thus, for some scholars, pre-modern cultures did not accord individuals who engaged in homo-erotic activities ('homosexuals') an identity in the way that modern culture has done, and it has further been suggested that the medieval word 'sodomite' designated indiscriminately a man who committed heterosexual as well as homosexual sodomy. 16 However, numerous homophobic passages in vernacular literature suggest that some medieval writers at least had an essentialist view of homosexuality, for they imply some men were viewed as having an irrevocable and immanent sexual orientation towards their own sex, whether or not they acted on their inclinations, which is the implication of Lavine's mother's taunt. 17 This is not to say that the Middle Ages had a category 'homosexual' which corresponds to ours; nor that 'homosexual ' is a universal category even though the word was coined in the nineteenth century. But as John Boswell has demonstrated a wide variety of theories regarding sexuality - ranging from the essentialist, to the constructionist, to the normative - were current throughout the Middle Ages (as they are today), and people with a sexual orientation towards their own sex were widely held to be identifiable.18 The two most substantial accounts of homosexuality in the Middle Ages, those of John Boswell and David Greenberg, chart the existence of gay sub-cultures in monastic institutions, which implies a gay identity, using 'gay' in Boswell's sense to designate people conscious of their sexual orientation towards

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their own sex. However, Boswell and Greenberg's work is not feminist and it is in relation to feminist theory that I take issue with them: they fail to comment on the virulent misogyny of medieval gay sub-cultures and the role they surely played in maintaining the status quo in patriarchal and repressive institutions like the Church. Furthermore, they view the bonding between men in many chansons degeste and romances - if only by implication - as indicative of homosexuality in chivalric society, yet they fail to substantiate this with other evidence or to distinguish between the homosocial and homosexual. 19 Boswell and Greenberg take homophobia in vernacular texts as evidence of gay activity and their comments on the Eneas (Boswell, Christianity, p. 228; Greenberg, Construction, p. 268) thus echo (in this respect only) those of scholars like Faral and Adler. But in the light of Sedgwick's fruitful fusion of gay and feminist theory, the homophobia of the Eneas is subject to a different interpretation. A discourse of homophobia is less repressive than it is coercive; for Sedgwick it is ' a mechanism for regulating the behavior of the many by the specific oppression of the few'.20 Homophobia is thus more than an attack on homosexuals; it is a means of regulating male homosocial bonds, of imposing normative models of heterosexuality and gender on all men. Every man will regulate carefully his homosocial bonds if he is concerned they may be perceived as homosexual, and thereby transgressional. Homophobia in the Eneas may reflect anxieties about homosexuality, but its effect is to mark Eneas's conformity to a prescribed norm. It is significant that the homophobic diatribes are put into the mouths of female characters and that they are placed immediately before Eneas and Lavine's love develops. The female characters within this male discourse endorse heterosexuality and are responsible for making sure that the hero stays on the straight and narrow. That women support the structure which oppresses them could either be seen as part of the male fantasy, or as a sign of their enculturation. Within the narrative economy the homophobic diatribes make it necessary for Eneas to fall in love with Lavine, since the best way to refute a charge of homosexuality is to proclaim one's heterosexuality publicly,

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and so Lavine becomes a necessary adjunct to Eneas's identity. The homophobia thus marks the heterosexuality of Eneas's subjectivity, since his subsequent actions prove so resoundingly that he is not a sodomite (as if the Dido episode had not already sufficed!). But as well as imposing a certain model of sexuality on the hero, the homophobia contributes to the disintegration of a type of male bonding which is closely associated with the chanson degeste. The middle section of the romance ends with the death of Pallas, Eneas's companion, and his place by Eneas's side is then taken by Lavine. Furthermore, the middle of the middle section, indeed the exact centre of the text, is devoted to the death of two men who die together on the battlefield, and who are archetypal chanson de geste companions: Eurialus and Nisus. Eurialus and Nisus are drawn from the Aeneid where they appear together twice: first in book v during the funeral games, then in book ix when they are killed during a sortie they plan and execute; Nisus dies trying to rescue Eurialus, who is slain before his eyes. In the Eneas they appear only once, when they die, and they are treated differently. Virgil's pair are different ages: Eurialus is younger than Nisus and this is an example of transgenerational Greek warrior bonding (which in Greek culture was probably homoerotic). In the French poem, no mention is made of their ages. They are called compaignons (4911, 5053), and are heroes out of the Old French, rather than the classical epic mould. When Eurialus hears Nisus planning a raid on the enemy, he protests: «comant remandrai ge sanz toi, ne tu comant irras sanz moi? Dune n'ies tu gie et ge sui tu? Ge quit tu as lo sens perdu; [une ame somes et un cors; l'une moitie ira la fors;] com puet Tun sanz l'autre remaindre? Des or me puis ge de toi plaindre, tu me boises, ne me tiens mie amor ne droite compaignie, ne tu iras an Tost sanz moi, ne ge ne remandrai sanz toi.»

4945

495°

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' How will I stay without you and how will you go without me ? Am I not you, and you me ? I think you have lost your mind; we are one soul and one body; only one half will go out there; how can one remain without the other. I think I can now complain about you; you betray me, you do not love me or feel true companionship for me; you will not go to the army without me, nor will I remain without you.' This passage is a mise en abime both of the middle section and of the entire text. The death of Eurialus and Nisus, with their bond of companionship, their lack of differentiation, so reminiscent of the chanson de geste (particularly, of course, Ami et Amile), prefigures the death of Pallas and Eneas's friendship through Pallas's own death, which paves the way for Eneas's relationship with Lavine.21 Read in relation to Eneas's love for Pallas, and the companionship of Eurialus and Nisus, the two homophobic diatribes serve not to imply that Eneas is homosexual — tellingly the accusation has a discredited source, Lavine's mother - nor simply to affirm his heterosexuality, but rather to enhance the repudiation of the type of male bonding exemplified by Pallas and Eneas, and Nisus and Eurialus, who appropriately enough stand at the centre of the text, only to be displaced by Lavine, the real focus of Eneas's quest. It is as if Eneas is initially an epic hero, defined in relation to other men; he then emerges as a romance hero, defined (along with his masculinity) through his relationship with a woman. I would suggest that the homophobia of the Eneas stems from this dialectic between epic and romance ideology. But although women are more important in romance than in epic, romance merely replaces one type of male bonding with another, for Eneas's relationship with Lavine is part of a broader web of homosocial ties, between Eneas and her father, and Eneas and his own father. The difference is that male bonds are now mediated by women. Significantly this early romance seeks to marginalize the close male bonding of the dominant genre of its literary world. In the new genre it helps to establish the close homosocial bonds of epic, which frequently exclude women altogether, are a threat to a new ideology which foregrounds the individual at the expense of the group. In his incisive study of

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the Eneas, Stephen Nichols argues that Lavine's desire is portrayed as threatening. This is because she first communicates with Eneas by firing an arrow with a letter attached to it into the Trojan camp; the arrow is thought to come from Turnus's army and the final conflict begins ('Amorous imitation', pp. 69-72). I agree with Nichols that Lavine's desire is threatening, but only to a certain type of male bonding. R. Howard Bloch has charted the effect upon literature of the birth in the twelfth century of an ideology which paves the way for the modern state.22 A society structured around feudal clans is displaced by a monarchy which acts as a cohesive symbol for a society of self-governing individuals. This displacement takes centuries to complete, but the foregrounding of the individual in romance, stressed frequently in romance criticism,23 is symptomatic of this transition. The Church's policy on marriage no doubt contributed to the shift since it fostered agnatic lineage (as opposed to the cognatic lineage of feudal society), and consequently the disruption of horizontal male bonds in favour of vertical male bonds. It is here that 'obligatory heterosexuality' has a part to play. The eroticism of romance sets potential heroes against each other as rivals, rather than binding them as companions or implacable enemies as epic does. If romance charts the regulation of heterosexual desire, desire is nevertheless essential to its structures since without it the comradeship of the battlefield might well prevail once again. For desire to be regulated, its object as well as its mode needs to be controlled. Dido is an unacceptable object of desire because she controls her own sexuality, and is not therefore part of an exchange between men; Lavine, the heiress who is given to Eneas by her father, receives the ultimate endorsement of the paternal blessing. Two interesting points in relation to recent gender theory emerge from this account of the Eneas. Firstly, the heterosexual matrix in the poem makes gender and sexuality highly performative for Eneas has to conform to a rigid model of acceptable behaviour in order to become a fully formed (masculine) subject at the end of the text. Heterosexual desire is not in itself sufficient, as the Dido episode shows, but it must be

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directed towards a specific object to enhance the communal good. Hand in hand with this strict regulation of heterosexual desire comes a good deal of stylized Ovidian love rhetoric, enhancing and naturalizing the performance, producing the subject Eneas becomes. Secondly, it is striking in the Eneas that the heterosexual is produced in opposition to the homosexual. Homosexuality is within culture as well as excluded from it, because it is a crucial element in the definition of the dominant model of sexuality.24 The consequences of romance's privileging of sexuality are enormous: femininity is given enhanced value within romance discourse and gender is constructed dialogically rather than monologically. But this is complicated by the fact that the writers of romance, usually clerks steeped both in the Church Fathers' misogyny and the intense patriarchy of feudalism, do not like women, even if the Church's policy on marriage seems in some respects sympathetic to them. For every Lavine there is a Dido, and the value accorded female characters does not signal a respect for women. The position of women is not at issue, but power within patriarchal structures. Romance's 'obligatory heterosexuality' is thus nearly always inscribed within a structure of homosocial desire, witness the erotic interest in Eneas and Turnus's conflict. The Eneas is not the only early romance which seeks to marginalize an epic model of masculinity. Floire et Blancheflor enacts a similar process though its strategies for doing so are different. Composed around n 50, and therefore also before romance's generic paradigms are clearly established, Floire has many features which seem typical of romance and is preserved in manuscripts which are romance compilations, yet it sends conflicting generic signals, a ploy I will suggest is deliberate. 25 Floire is the story of two children who resemble each other strikingly and who fall in love. They are not related; indeed Floire is the son of a pagan king, Blanchefleur the daughter of a captive Christian woman. They are separated, then reunited; they become the parents of Berthe, Charlemagne's mother, which constitutes a clear invitation to link this narrative to the matiere of the geste du roi. Indeed the text opens with a prologue

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which in some respects is reminiscent of chanson de geste prologues: Signor, oiies, tot li amant, cil qui d'amors se vont penant, li chevalier et les puceles, li damoisel, les damoiseles! Se mon conte voles entendre, molt i porres d'amors aprendre: 90U est du roi Flore l'enfant et de Blanceflor le vaillant, de cui Berte as grans pies fu nee; puis fu en France mariee. Berte fu mere Charlemaine, qui puis tint France et tot le Maine. Flores ses amis que vos di uns rois paiiens l'engenui, et Blanceflor que tant ama uns cuens crestiiens l'engenra.

5

10

15

My lords, listen, and all those who suffer in love, knights and maidens, young men and damsels! If you want to hear my tale, you will learn a great deal about love: it is about King Floire as a child, and worthy Blanchefleur, who gave birth to Berthe aux grands pieds; afterwards she was married in France. Berthe was mother to Charlemagne, who held France and all the Maine. Her lover Floire, whom I am telling you about, was the son of a pagan king, and Blanchefleur, whom he loved so much was the daughter of a Christian count.

Announcing the subject matter as love, the octosyllabic form and the designation of the text as a conte distinguish the poem from the chanson de geste; yet the epic genealogy and the typically epic technique of pre-empting the story in a prologue simultaneously signal a generic affiliation to the chanson de geste. Further generic confusion may be intended by the reversal of a common epic paradigm: the amorous liaison with a Saracen princess. Here it is the hero who is a pagan and who is converted through his love for a Christian woman. At such an early stage in the development of the genre these conflicting signals might be insignificant, were it not for a second prologue, more typical of romance, which immediately follows. The narrator claims to have heard his tale in a luxurious chamber in which two noble

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sisters were talking of love: the elder told the tale which she had heard from a boins clers who had read it in a book (32-55). As Roberta Krueger argues the second prologue raises the issue of the female reader [Women Readers, pp. 7—11). The text is represented as something given to two women by a man, and we are told that the text has been transmitted by women. But the two prologues also need considering together. They juxtapose conflicting notions of textual authority: the first (epic) prologue evokes a predetermined, well-known narrative; the second (romance) prologue announces a narrative which will be revealed from a concealed, written source. I would suggest that these conflicting generic signals are part of a concerted attempt to displace an ideology reminiscent of the chansons de geste and to replace it with new generic paradigms. Moreover, as in the Eneas, the ideology of the new genre is predicated on a new construction of gender. Jocelyn Price has argued that a nostalgia for a pre-symbolic, unitary and imaginary order figured by the children pervades Floire. Adult characters seek access to ' that sense of prelapsarian wholeness which Floire and Blanchefleur experience and emblematize and which is registered not only in their indifference to death, but in their androgyny and their constant association with ideal enclaves. They do not know, as adults know, time and mortality, sexual difference or any division of will.?26 At the end of the poem, Price suggests, this wholeness is maintained by the marriage of East and West, of pagan and Christian. For Price, sexual difference is one of the differentiating markers that the pair escapes, but as Jane Gilbert argues, at the end of the poem they are heavily gendered ('Comparing like with like', pp. 70-1). Furthermore, as I will argue, the initial equivocation surrounding sexual difference, and its subsequent demarcation, need to be set against the conflicting generic signals of the opening. Floire and Blanchefleur were conceived and born on the same y' Bautisier se fist en sa vie Flores por Blanceflor s'amie, 20 car en un biau jor furent ne et en une nuit engenre.

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Floire had himself baptized in his lifetime because of Blanchefleur his lover, for they were born on the same fair day and conceived in the same night. There is an obvious parallel here with Ami et Amile, where similar formulae are used ('en un biau jor', 'en une nuit engenre'). The chanson de geste dates from the end of the twelfth century and is consequently later than Floire, but the idealized presentation of their companionship and similarity is quintessentially epic, and there is evidence that an earlier version of the narrative circulated in the mid-twelfth century.27 Given the epic qualities of the first prologue, there are echoes here of chanson de geste companionship, which has been deliberately transformed by making the pair of opposite sexes. As with Ami and Amile, the names of Floire and Blanchefleur bind them together as similar, and as in Ami the plot hinges on their physical similarity. When Floire is following Blanchefleur after she has been sold into slavery by his parents to keep them apart, he is continually told that he reminds people of Blanchefleur and that they must be brother and sister: - Sire, fait Licoris, par foi, gou m'est avis, quant jou le voi, que gou soit Blanceflor la bele. Jou cuit qu'ele est sa suer jumele: tel vis, tel cors et tel sanlant com ele avoit a cest enfant. Jou cuit qu'il sont progain parant, car a merveille sont sanlant.

1725

1730

'My lord', said Licoris, 'by my faith, it seems to me, when I look at him, that he is Blanchefleur, the fair. I think she must be his twin sister: this child has a face, a body and looks just like she had. I think they must be closely related for they are uncannily similar.' Like Ami and Amile they are not related. However, unlike Ami and Amile, who have a good deal in common apart from their names and appearance, Floire and Blanchefleur represent two of the most profound differences of medieval culture: that of pagan and Christian and that of man and woman. It is

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extraordinary not so much that Floire and Blanchefleur should be taken for brother and sister, but that one can be mistaken for the other (1726-7). The suppression of difference here is potentially more radical than in the series of chansons de geste examined in the previous chapter. As Price suggests, Floire and Blanchefleur partake in a mythical wholeness. In psychoanalytic terms they appear to belong to a pre-symbolic, imaginary order of mirror images in which there is no sense of self and other, no individuation, and no sense of sexual difference.28 If some chansons de geste suggest men who are like each other can achieve absolute unity, this text calls upon that model to enact a more extreme symbiosis, for here the characters are on one level polar opposites. For Price, it is significant that Floire and Blanchefleur are children, still in a pre-pubescent innocence. However, their sexuality is affirmed early in the text, long before they become distinguishable and emerge from their unitary idyll. Thus at an early age they write each other love letters (259-60). Their similarity is perhaps at its most equivocal when they are discovered in bed together in the Emir's 'tower of maidens', where Blanchefleur is imprisoned, awaiting her turn to be the Emir's bride. The Emir sends a servant to get her: vis li est qu'il i a veii Blanceflor et bele Gloris. Por coi ne li fust il avis? 2 5^5 K'a face n'a menton n'avoit barbe, ne grenons n'i paroit: en la tor n'avoit damoisele qui de visage fust plus bele. He thought he saw Blanchefleur in bed with fair Gloris. Why did he not realize what he in fact saw? Because he [Floire] had no beard on his face or chin, nor was there a moustache there: in the tower there was no damsel with a fairer face. Floire's lack of masculine characteristics is remarked upon at some length by the narrator, who, like the characters in the romance, equates the lack of masculinity with femininity. Because Gloris is with the Emir, he realizes at once when his servant returns that Blanchefleur is in bed with someone else.

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He is jealous (of a woman?), and he too thinks Floire is a girl when he first sees him (2647-8). It is the revelation that the 'maiden' has no breasts - paradoxically his 'lack'-which 'sexes' Floire. He is then assigned a place in the symbolic order: 'Cil les descoevre, s'aparut / que cil est horn que illuec jut' (2651—2: 'he uncovers them, and it was apparent that the one lying there was a man'). Floire's apparent androgyny is significant. Initially a symbol of a flawed order without differentiation (an androgynous pagan), he becomes the symbol of a sharply defined hierarchy (a Christian king). The text ostensibly posits an idyll in which there is no alienation, no other, proposing an initially attractive fantasy in which difference is suppressed, only to displace it with an order in which sexual difference is heavily marked: Floire is no longer a pagan, but a Christian and a man. The suppression of his femininity leads to his integration into a recognizable and better order (from the dominant culture's point of view, if not from ours). He becomes sharply differentiated from Blanchefleur. Sexuality plays a key role in this since in order to be 'revealed' a man, Floire needs to be apprehended in a sexual relation with a woman. The dangerous hints of lesbianism in the scene, when the Emir and his servant think that Blanchefleur is in bed with Gloris, perhaps serve to underscore the reassuring heterosexuality of the situation. The text has a number of romance qualities, apart from its form, which distinguish it from a chanson de geste: firstly the hero's partner is a woman, not a man; secondly, the characters use engin ('cunning') to achieve their ends, which is a typical, though equivocal, feature of romance; 29 thirdly, as in many romances, desire is presented as a product of language rather than language as a means of expressing desire, since Floire and Blanchefleur's love is specifically attributed to their having read about love.30 Floire seems to evoke epic paradigms, yet at the same time to mark a transition to a new literary order in which masculinity is constructed in relation to the feminine. The establishment in early romances like the Eneas and Floire of a new order in which sexuality, particularly in the guise of compulsory heterosexuality, plays a key role, focuses attention

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sharply on difference and on the construction of the heterosexual masculine subject through his relation with a woman. Toril Moi has recently read yet another early romance, Thomas's Tristan (c.1160), as largely concerned with the problem of difference. She suggests that Tristan and Iseult try, but inevitably fail to erase the difference between themselves, and between themselves and their doubles (Iseult as Blances Mains and Tristan le Nain). For Moi 'the difference which annihilates the lovers is the enabling condition of narrativity' ('She died...', p. 133). Difference is certainly the enabling condition of romance narrativity, and the genre consequently becomes obsessively preoccupied with the construction of the individual and identity, crucial building blocks in romance ideology, even if texts like Floire evince a vestigial nostalgia for a fictional world without difference. The next section will look more closely at individuality and identity as gendered constructs in romance. IDENTITY ENGENDERED

The role of the individual and identity in romance have received a good deal of critical attention. It is argued that whereas chansons de geste are concerned with group solidarity, romance promotes a new construction of identity and an ideology predicated upon individuation. It is commonplace to set this development, which is coterminous with a new view of love, fine amour or 'courtly love', in the cultural context of the twelfth-century renaissance or in the socio-historic context of the crisis in the feudal nobility as the power of the Plantagenet and Capetian monarchies increased. 31 Class and individuality have thus been key concepts in romance criticism. With the notable exceptions of Roberta Krueger and Sarah Kay, 32 critics have not sought to examine the role of gender in romance ideology: they either accept the idealized image of courtly literature's treatment of women propagated by scholars like Rita Lejeune, which assumes a certain model of relations between the sexes is 'natural'; or they subsume women to men by assuming romance's treatment of the masculine 'individual' will be read in the same way by men and women as emblematic of the

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experience of 'mankind'. As Susan Crane and Peter Haidu have pointed out, one problem with the concentration on the 'individual' in romance criticism is that he is all too often confused with the post-enlightenment 'self-determining agent'. As Crane suggests, the idea of the subject is more useful.33 The masculine subject in romance - as we have seen - acquires his identity through a relationship with a woman. Furthermore, romance portrays and problematizes constantly the exchange of women between men, which, as Gayle Rubin and others have shown, imposes different models of subjectivity on men and women (see 'Traffic in women'). Gender is as significant an element in the ideology of romance as class; one could go even further and say that both class and individuality in romance are predicated on a certain construction of gender. For romance critics Chretien de Troyes is a central figure. One recent critic virtually attributes the invention of romance's ' horizon of expectations' to him and this is a tacit assumption in much scholarship.34 Chretien is a key figure, as the myriad of intertextual references to his work in contemporary and subsequent romances demonstrate. But, though he reshaped romance profoundly, he did not invent it. Making his work originary or foundational in the romance tradition is as misleading as taking the Oxford Roland to be the archetypal chanson de geste. In many respects his work continues an engagement with issues already of concern in texts like the Eneas and he is just part of a new trend towards Arthurian material, not necessarily its initiator, as the work of Wace and Thomas of Britain indicates. Chretien is part of a process of textual production, not its originator. All of Chretien's romances engage with the issue of masculine identity in some way and three of them (Tvain, the Charrete and Perceval) play specifically on the name of the hero in relation to identity. I have chosen to examine his Charrete as much for its importance in modern reception as for its undoubted influence on the tradition. Since Gaston Paris invented the term amour courtois in an article on the Charrete in 1883, the text has been central to evaluations of romance and 'courtly love'. It has a privileged place in modern criticism as if it provided the key to

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the meaning of love in French medieval literature. The virulence of recent controversies on the Chartete shows that, as a site of scholarly debate the text is loaded with a significance which far exceeds its dissemination in the Middle Ages.35 Criticism of the Charrete may be divided into two strands. Some scholars interpret the text as a eulogy of chivalry and love. For others the text equivocally promotes an ideal which it simultaneously undermines through an ironic subtext. The epilogue, which indicates that Chretien did not finish the text himself, receives different interpretations according to which view is taken.36 Why has this text received such divergent readings? Norris Lacy and Matilda Bruckner argue that the Charrete deliberately invites contradictory interpretations, but even Bruckner is unwilling to discard entirely a serious reading of the text and ultimately endorses the view that, for Chretien, Lancelot is a positive hero, even though he enjoys mocking him.37 Scholars are reluctant to deny Lancelot's heroic status altogether because without it romance would appear to be empty at its centre. Irony is endemic in courtly culture; indeed it could be argued that the courtly penchant for debate and dialectic means that without irony there is no courtliness.38 One contributing factor to the important role irony plays in romance is the constant tension between chevalerie and clergie: courtly literature may be about the chivalric classes, but the majority of narrative texts at least were written and transmitted by clerks. As Wace writes:' si escripture ne fust feite / e puis par clers litte e retraite, / mult fussent choses ubliees' ('if writing were not done, and then read aloud and copied by clerks, many things would be forgotten') ,39 Much of the irony of romance may be attributed to a tongue-incheek clerical perspective on the chivalric nobility, carefully calculated to amuse rather than offend. However, clerks are not feminists by any stretch of the imagination, and as Krueger has argued, ' if professional differences distance the clerk from the chivalric ideals of male nobles, his gender separates him more acutely from the feminine culture of noblewomen' ('Desire', p. 34). Chevalerie and clergie represent two male positions, but it is perhaps too simple to assume the masculine gender in romance

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is unitary. I would contend that irony, in a romance like the Charrete, represents the questioning of one construction of masculinity from the viewpoint of a different masculine subject position, the inscription of competing masculine discourses. The treatment of identity in romance is crucial to this clerical problematization of chivalric masculinity and nowhere more so than in the Charrete. As Krueger has shown, a powerful counterreading of the Charrete can be produced by the resistant female reader. For Krueger, Lancelot's encounters with a series of damsels who make unpredictable demands on him and Guenevere's apparent oscillation between haughty indifference and passionate love problematize female desire as erratic (Women Readers, pp. 51-66). Donald Maddox's recent reexamination of the text also makes gender potentially a key issue, though this is not a line of enquiry he himself pursues {Arthurian Romances, pp. 35-53). Maddox foregrounds the importance of customs in Chretien's romances and one of the two key customs described in the Charrete is the custom of Logre, according to which a solitary woman should be protected by knights, whereas a woman accompanied by a knight is fair game and may be taken by force (1302-21; see Maddox, Arthurian Romances, pp. 36-8). As Maddox shows, this is significant given that the text opens with Guenevere's kidnapping by Maleagant, has a contrived rape scene (1058-194), and ends with Guenevere's return to Arthur by Lancelot. Maddox comments on the legalistic frame of the 'custom', but fails to remark on just how bizarre it is, for by implication it defines a good knight in negative terms, as one who does not kidnap or rape unprotected women, and makes the policing of the exchange of women, one of the building blocks of the construction of gender in western culture, the touchstone of chivalric worth and a structuring device of this text. This implies, as Kathryn Gravdal has argued, that courtly romance can be read as a mystification of sexual violence. 40 Gender is on the agenda in this text in a variety of guises, and particularly in relation to Lancelot's identity. The Charrete has two intertwined narrative threads: one chivalric, relating Lancelot's confrontation with Maleagant

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and his rescue of the people of Logres from the land of Gorre; the other amorous, recounting his affair with Guenevere. Lancelot is not named until a key central episode which brings the two threads together: here he finally fights Maleagant (who has kidnapped Guenevere) at a tournament in Logres, where Guenevere, along with a host of Arthur's subjects, is retained by another custom according to which they must all remain in captivity until one escapes, at which point they can all leave. They all know Lancelot is the man who will save them, but they do not know who he is. He has declined to give his name on several occasions (for example 1922-3) and has been designated simply as li chevaliers or 'the knight of the cart' following his humiliating ride on the cart. (It will be remembered that the dwarf driving the cart, a mobile pillory, offered to help him in his quest to find Guenevere if he would ride on it.) At the tournament a damsel asks Guenevere his name: - Tel chose requise m'avez, dameisele, fet la rei'ne, ou ge n'antant nule hai'ne, ne felenie, se bien non: Lanceloz del Lac a a non 3660 li chevaliers, mien esciant. 'Damsel, you have asked me something', said the queen, 'in which I see no malice or evil, rather only good intentions: I know that the knight's name is Lancelot of the Lake.' The naming of Lancelot occurs at the centre of the romance as it is preserved in the manuscripts. I shall return to the question of the integrity of the text and to the problems raised by the epilogue; here I just wish to make the point that the text divides into two halves, one in which the hero is li chevaliers or li chevaliers de la charrete, and another in which he is Lancelot. Once Lancelot has been named by the queen, he is named repeatedly by the narrator and by other characters. The naming of Lancelot is structurally placed for maximum effect,41 and within the economy of the romance Lancelot therefore acquires the signifier which produces his identity from a woman. Femininity is the source of the hero's identity, and a relationship with a woman thereby becomes a prerequisite of masculine

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individuation. Lancelot's initial anonymity is all the more startling given that he is a knight of Arthur's court. Why does no one recognize him (particularly Gauvain) until Guenevere has named him? Lancelot is already in love with Guenevere when the text opens: he is already searching for her when Gauvain first meets him and the fact that she knows his name indicates their love predates the text, even if it is not consummated until the famous love scene in Logres. According to some readings of the Charrete, and of courtly literature generally, fine amour is ennobling. Lancelot's ride on the cart is taken as an act of abasement, which makes him more worthy, and the characters who mock him for it thus fail to understand the spiritual values of the text.42 But paradoxically Lancelot's love for Guenevere repeatedly makes him appear comic. For instance, at an early point in the narrative he almost falls out of a window when he sees her in the distance: he leans forward for a better view and is only saved by Gauvain (560-73). Similarly, when he finds Guenevere's comb with several of her hairs entwined in it, he worships it in ecstasy, touching it 100,000 times (1460-5). This scene recalls the episode in Clige's in which Alexandre writhes around in rapture when he realizes the shirt he has been given has one of his beloved Soredamor's hairs woven into it. To an initiated reader, the scene with the comb in the Charrete is overdetermined by the narrator's comment on the incident in Clige's: 'Bien fet Amors d'un sage fol, / Quant cil fet joie d'un chevol' (1621-2: 'Love indeed makes the wise man foolish when he is so enraptured by a hair'). 43 Lancelot's worship of the comb also anticipates the love scene later in the Charrete: An son lit trueve Kex dormant 4650 et puis vint au lit la reine, si l'aore et se li ancline, car an nul cors saint ne croit tant. HefindsKay asleep in his bed, and then he came to the queen's bed, where he worships and bows down before her, for he does not believe in any holy body/relic as much. The intensity of Lancelot's ecstasy is emphasized by religious overtones, yet at the same time the Cliges intertext and the hints

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of blasphemy produce a profoundly equivocal portrayal of Lancelot's fine amour.** How fine ('pure', 'refined') is it? If Lancelot is ridiculous or immoral to what extent is the construction of his identity through and by his relation with a woman endorsed? The burlesque window and comb scenes contribute to a broader web of equivocation about the hero's ethical position. For instance, immediately after the love scene, Maleagant accuses Guenevere of adultery with Kay because he finds blood in her bed; Lancelot's wounded hands have stained the sheet, but Kay, whose bed is nearby, has also been bleeding in the night (4748-74). She swears her innocence, as does Kay whose escondit (4859: 'si m'escondirai') is defended by Lancelot with an oath which is a prelude to judicial combat (4901-86). A number of elements create an ambiguous Tristan intertext. The blood on the sheet is referred to by Maleagant as 'ansaignes bien veraies' (4774); in Beroul's Tristan (which is later than the Charrete), the blood Frocin finds on Yseult's sheets and on the flour he has spread between Tristan and Yseult's beds is referred to as a ' veraie enseigne' (778).45 The similarity between the two situations and the 'true signs' formulations is striking: either Chretien is alluding to an earlier version of the Tristan story similar to Beroul's (he himself tells us he wrote a Tristan, see Clige's, 5), or Beroul is playing on knowledge of the Charrete or a text like it. Either way a strong Tristan parallel is suggested, particularly since an escondit follows, which recalls of course the various occasions when Yseult 'proves' her innocence. If Chretien transforms the scenario, since the escondit here is Kay's, not Guenevere's, the oath which Lancelot takes after Kay's escondit is equivocal and recalls Yseult's famous escondit: he swears specifically that Guenevere never slept with Kay, but not that she has never committed adultery (4971-84). The ethical problem here is that Lancelot, who has been Guenevere's partner in adultery, defends her against the charge of adultery. If the 'true signs' are true in that Guenevere did commit adultery, technically Maleagant's accusation is incorrect since he names the wrong man. But what is 'truth' in such circumstances?

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The dialogue leading up to the Maleagant and Lancelot's formal oaths merits close scrutiny. Kay, presented elsewhere by Chretien as a sharp-tongued and unpleasant courtier, is the object of a surprising eulogy from Guenevere: 46 Je cuit que Kex li seneschax est si cortois et si leax qu'il n'an fet mie a mescroire; et je ne regiet mie an foire mon cors, ne n'an faz livreison. Certes Kex n'est mie tex horn qu'il me requeist tel outrage, ne je n'en oi onques corage del faire, ne ja ne l'avrai.

4840

4845

I believe Kay the seneschal is so courtly and loyal that there are no grounds to mistrust him; and I don't put my body up for sale or give it to just anyone. Indeed Kay is not the kind of man to ask me such an outrageous thing, nor have I desired or will I ever desire such a thing. This praise of Kay jars with Guenevere's obvious discontent when 'given' to him at the beginning of the text (209-11). But the most telling irony here is that Guenevere describes adultery as an outrage (4845). This is reinforced immediately afterwards by Maleagant and then by Kay himself: Le roi Artus a Kex trai son seignor, qui tant le creoit que comandee li avoit la rien que plus ainme an cest monde. - Sire, or sofrez que je responde, fet Kex, et si m'escondirai. Ja Dex, quant de cest siegle irai, ne me face pardon a l'ame, se onques jui avoec ma dame. Certes mialz voldroie estre morz que tex leidure ne tiex torz fist par moi quis vers mon seignor; et ja mes Dex sante graignor que j'ai or androit ne me doint, enz me praigne morz an cest point, se je onques le me pansai.

4855

4860

4865

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'Kay has betrayed King Arthur, his lord, who believed in him and entrusted to him the thing he most loves in this world.' 'Sire', said Kay, 'let me reply and I will exonerate myself. Never, when I leave this world, may God pardon my soul if I have lain with my lady. Indeed I would rather be dead than perpetrate such vileness or wrong against my lord; and may God never let me enjoy the good health I have now, rather may he strike me dead at once, if I ever even thought of it.' This exchange has interesting implications for Lancelot. Firstly, the control of women as a commodity - Guenevere is referred to as the rien Arthur most loves (4857) - is recognized as central to the negotiation of male honour. Lancelot's love for Guenevere thereby has important social consequences; it is a clear instance of homosocial desire. Secondly, sleeping with Guenevere is such a heinous crime that even Kay, not the most exemplary of Arthurian heroes, is outraged by the suggestion he might have even considered it. Typically, a different perspective on the hero is supplied here not by the narrator, but by other characters and then only by implication.47 As is stressed twice here, adultery with Guenevere constitutes a profound betrayal of Arthur. Just before this passage Chretien makes a specific allusion to hidden meanings in the Charrete: mes toz jorz iert par moi tetie, qu'an conte ne doit estre dite. Des joies fu la plus eslite et la plus delitable cele que li contes nos test et cele. Molt ot de joie et de deduit Lanceloz tote cele nuit.

4680

4685

But I will always keep quiet about what ought not to be said in a tale. Of all joys, the one the tale is silent about and conceals is the most refined and delectable. Lancelot had intense joy and pleasure all that night. These celebrated lines, which refer to Lancelot and Guenevere's night of passion, initially seem merely to be a humorous gesture to the proprieties of courtly literature, but they are more complex than this. Taire (4680 and 4684) may indicate

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suppression ('to silence'), but can also mean to mute', 'to make less noise about'; celer (4684) means' to conceal'. Chretien may not be saying that some matters ought to be excluded from narrative; on the contrary he may be implying they are present in a muted form if you know how to detect them. Further ambiguity is generated by delitable: delit means 'pleasure', but also 'crime' (see TL, 2, 1333). Chretien seems to suggest here that language both reveals and conceals different meanings simultaneously. Lancelot is presented simultaneously as a hero and as a traitor to his lord: his crime is both revealed and concealed by the occultatio (saying what you are not going to say) which actually draws attention to this process. Passages such as these reveal the real (concealed) hero of Chretien's romances: the clerical narrator. It is he who is in control of the knight's destiny and of the reader's perception of the ostensible hero. In the Charrete, of course, narrative point of view is a particularly vexed question, since there are two narrators. Having been told in the prologue that Chretien's subject matter was determined by his patroness, Marie de Champagne, we are told in the epilogue that the text was left unfinished by Chretien, and completed, with his consent, by a clerk called Godefroy de Lagny: Seignor, se j'avant an disoie, ce seroit oltre la matire, por ce au definer m'atire: ci faut li romanz an travers. Godefroiz de Leigni li clers,

7100

a parfinee LA CHARRETE ;

mes nus horn blasme ne Tan mete se sor Crestien a ovre, car 9'a il fet par le boen gre Cresti'en, qui le coman^a: tant en a fet des lors an 9a ou Lanceloz fu anmurez, tant con li contes est durez.

7105

7110

My lord, if I said any more, I would be exceeding the subject matter, and so I draw to a close: the romance finishes here unresolved. Godefroy de Lagny, a clerk, finished/perfected the Charrete; but let no

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man blame him if he worked after Chretien, for he did this with the consent of Chretien, who started it: he [Godefroy] wrote it from the point when Lancelot was imprisoned, through to the end of the tale. Scholars are divided in their assessment of the epilogue's implications. It has generally been assumed that the Charrete is the work of two authors. Some critics argue that Godefroy finished the romance in accordance with Chretien's instructions and that the whole text can therefore be read as if it were by Chretien; others that Chretien gave up writing because he felt uncomfortable with the subject matter that his patroness had imposed upon him. For critics in the latter camp, Chretien's romances taken as a whole imply a disapproval of adultery and a belief in love in marriage. 48 David Hult has recently offered a different interpretation. Since the information regarding the switch in authors is derived from inside the text, he suggests it should be treated with a degree of scepticism; since the Charrete has such a high degree of thematic and stylistic uniformity, he argues it should be treated as a text with its own integrity and unity. It is therefore possible that both 'Chretien' and 'Godefroy' are competing narrative voices within the work of a single author. 49 There are a number of features of the text which indicate that the work as we know it, if not the work of a single writer, has been fashioned into a unified text by a single writer. There are several instances in parts of the text everyone agrees are by ' Chretien' which prefigure explicitly a part of the text everyone agrees is in the 'Godefroy' section (for example 2934-5). As Hult points out ('Author', pp. 89-92) certain key words of the prologue are echoed in the epilogue and it cannot be coincidental that the naming of Lancelot is so close to the centre of the text as it survives in the manuscripts. If the Charrete is the work of two writers, either 'Godefroy' did indeed finish it according to 'Chretien"s model, or 'Godefroy' (or 'Godefroy' and 'Chretien' together?) revised the whole text to make it consistent with his conclusion. Like Roberta Krueger, I am inclined to agree with Hult that 'Godefroy' is a fiction of 'Chretien', the author of the other romances attributed to Chretien de Troyes, and that 'Chretien' and 'Godefroy' are

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competing narrative voices within this one text. Whether this text is the work of one writer or two, as Krueger argues {Women Readers, p. 53), a narrative which has as its starting point a contract between a patroness and a clerk, concludes with the evocation of a bond between two clerks. It has been suggested that Chretien's deferential tone to Marie in the prologue invites parallels between their relationship and that of Lancelot and Guenevere; 50 if this is so it is striking that just as Marie disappears, Guenevere fades from the end as the text concentrates on single combat between two men. Krueger suggests this enacts within the narrative the marginalization of women, whose desire has been so troublesome and problematic, as if 'Chretien' were disassociating himself from Marie {Women Readers, p. 65). But if the absence of both Marie and Guenevere from the epilogue is striking, it is also noteworthy that Lancelot is pushed aside and displaced by two clerks, who seem to want to leave his tale in suspension, without closure, 'an travers' (7101). A man whose identity is guaranteed by a woman is pushed aside by a man whose identity is guaranteed by another man, the 'author' or 'authority' behind the narrative. The epilogue concludes the text, which is ostensibly about love, with a prime example of male bonding, apparently reversing the movement of the Eneas which marginalizes male bonding in favour of love. But the male-male bond inscribed is different from that of epic companions. The end of the Charrete does not celebrate a bond between knights, but a bond between two clerks, and their ability to determine the fate of fictional knights. The epilogue is suggestive of choice, control, design and craft: clergie in fact. Given the significance of naming in this text, the naming of Chretien by himself in the prologue and then (ostensibly) by Godefroy in the epilogue is striking. Chretien's identity is affirmed at the end of the text not by a woman as it was in the prologue, or as Lancelot's is in the text, but by another clerk. The equivocation surrounding Lancelot in the text has to be set alongside a conclusion which allows another man (Chretien) to survive the text with an unsullied reputation. Unlike Lancelot this man has renounced his connection with a woman and distanced himself from adulterous^/m* amour. He has

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chosen a different model of masculinity, marked by reason, learning and writerly skill rather than by an ethical model of chivalric prowess and love service. He has shown that the chivalric enterprise and construction of masculine identity exemplified by Lancelot is flawed and in the process he implicitly endorses a different, clerical model of masculinity. As I have said, the Charreteh lack of closure and its ambiguous treatment of Lancelot are attributed to Chretien's distaste for adultery; it has further been suggested (see Noble, Love) that Chretien's Arthurian romances reflect a belief in marital love. However, although the Charrete is the most ambiguous of Chretien's surviving romances, Erec, Cliges and Tvain, which seem to depict happy marriages, have been shown to be as ironic and ambivalent as the Charrete.51 Irony at the expense of the chivalric hero (whatever his marital status) is a constant feature of Chretien's writing, and one which was to be taken up by later writers. Chretien's attitude to adultery does not supply the key to reading his heroes. Masculinity in romance is problematic from the outset because it is constructed in relation to femininity, an unpredictable, unreliable ingredient from the clerical writer's point of view; it remains problematic because clerical writers systematically undermine chivalric heroic models within the genre. One text which echoes Chretien's corpus, particularly in its treatment of identity and gender is Le Bel Inconnu, a late twelfthcentury romance signed by one Renaut de Beaujeu. The Chretien intertext in Le Bel Inconnu is very marked: 52 like Perceval in Chretien's Le Conte du Graal the hero does not initially know his name, there is a sparrowhawk contest as in Erec and an enchanted castle as in Tvain. Structurally, however, Le Bel Inconnu is most like the Charrete: in both texts the hero is named at the exact middle of the romance and both texts lack closure. Le Bel Inconnu is an intriguing text in its own right, but it is a particularly appropriate text for any consideration of generic norms since it is an exemplary romance in terms of structure and content. When the hero arrives at Arthur's court he does not know his name and Arthur names him li Biaus Descouneus (the Fair

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Unknown). A damsel arrives seeking help for her mistress in the adventure of the Fier Baiser and the young hero secures the task by dint of a don contraignant Arthur has just granted him. The damsel, Helie, is none too pleased with her inexperienced knight in shining armour, but on the way to help her mistress he proves his worth in a series of encounters with wicked knights, giants and bandit barons. In between adventures he falls in love with a fee, the Pucele as Blances Mains, but he continues his quest to help Helie's mistress. He arrives at the Gaste Cite, the site of the adventure, fights two supernatural opponents, encounters ghostly jongleurs, and finally comes upon a terrifying serpent, which snatches the Fier Baiser from him. A mysterious voice then announces his identity as Guinglain, son of Gauvain. A rich queen, Blonde Esmeree appears: she had had a spell cast upon her, was in fact the serpent and has been released by Guinglain's kiss. She is now intent on marrying him. He suggests he must seek Arthur's advice and returns alone to the Pucele, leaving Blonde Esmeree to go to Arthur's court. It now transpires that it was the Pucele's voice that announced his name in the Gaste Cite. Guinglain is happy with the Pucele, but he is deliberately lured back to court (by Arthur and Blonde Esmeree) when a tournament is announced. The Pucele asks him not to go, but he insists he will. When he wakes the next day the Pucele's realm - the He d'Or - has magically disappeared. Guinglain wins the tournament and marries Blonde Esmeree, but he is now separated from his true love. The narrator, who names himself as Renaut de Beaujeu, promises to return Guinglain to the Pucele if his lady will just give him a kindly glance. Le Bel Inconnu is an exemplary romance inasmuch as it plots the self-discovery of an individual. The hero discovers his identity at the text's mid-point: the first part of the text thus relates his quest for self-knowledge, the second his integration into society, culminating in his return to Arthur's court. The poem's structure and the text's rubric in the manuscript {Bel Descouneu) indicate naming is crucial to this process, and, as in the Charrete, the hero is named by a woman. But Guinglain's discovery of his identity is not unproblematic: he begins to make errors of judgement once he knows who he is and the romance

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ends with him married to the wrong woman. He has been integrated into the Arthurian social order, acquiring the identity he lacks at the beginning of the text, but he is alienated from his own private desires. In the Charrete, Lancelot's heroism is called into question, and along with it the way in which his identity is constructed in relation to a woman; here the value of identity itself is questionable. The conflict between public identity and private desire is emblematized by two women, the Pucele and Blonde Esmeree. Once again identity, chivalric heroism and gender are closely enmeshed. When the Bel Inconnu arrives at Arthur's court he wanders into a world where all men have a name: Li rois Aguillars i estoit, Cui li rois Artus molt amoit, Ses freres Los et Urfens, Li rois Horels et Floriens, Bries de Gonefort et Tristrans, 35 Gerins de Gartre et Eriaans. King Aguillar was there, whom King Arthur held so dear, his brother Los and Urien, King Horel and Florien, Bries de Gonefort and Tristan, Gerin de Cartre and Eriaan. And so on for another twenty-two names. Significantly, the narrator says he does not know the names of the women present: 'Tant en i ot nes puis conter, / Ne les dames ne puis nommer' (55-6: 'there were so many [men] there I cannot (re)count them, nor can I name the ladies'). Names are essential markers of identity for men, but women are not worthy of similar individuation. 53 Strictly speaking the hero is not exactly nameless when he arrives at court. When Arthur sends Beduier to ask his name he says his mother called him Biel Fil, 'Fair Son', but this is deemed an unacceptable name by Arthur, who decides he will be called ' Li Biaus Descounetis' (131). This passage recalls the scene at the beginning of Chretien's Graal when Perceval does not know his name and also says his mother called him Fair Son; he is duly mocked by the knights he has encountered (344-8). Perceval and Guinglain have one thing in common: they have both been brought up by their mothers away from

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civilization. Paradoxically, in the same breath Beduier says the newly arrived knight has no name, but that his mother called him Bel Fil (121-4). Arthur concurs with Beduier that this is an unacceptable name, but it is no less ridiculous than the name he gives him, or one in the list of knights' names which has just preceded: Biaus Coars (48:' Fair Coward'). The name given by the mother is rejected and maternal authority is thereby challenged (as in the Eneas). It is striking here that neither Arthur nor Beduier shows any surprise at the knight's lack of a name, as if it were quite normal for a knight not to know his name, to be, as it were, without an identity. Furthermore the name Arthur gives the knight is a non-name in that it signifies the lack of a name. When the hero sets forth he is thus as much in quest of an identity as anything else. Since the name used by his mother is rejected here, he is also in quest of a father. 54 When the hero is told his name in the Gaste Cite several features of the passage specifically recall the scene where Arthur names him Fair Unknown: A tant a une vois oie Qui bien li dist apertement Dont il estoit et de quel gent. En haut crie, non pas en vain: « Li fius a mon signor Gavain, Tres bien le savoie de voir Que chevalier n'aroit pooir; Nus ne peiist pas delivrer; Nus ne peust tant endurer Ne le baisier, ne Paventure Qui tant est perilleuse et dure; El monde n'a un chevalier Tant preu, ne tant fort ne tant fier, Qui osast enprendre sor soi, Fors ton pere Gavain et toi. Autres nel pooit delivrer Ne de son grant peril jeter. Estorsse as, par grant vaselage, La dame qui preus est et sage. Li rois Artus mal te nonma: Bel Descouneii t'apiela, Guinglains as non en batestire.»

32I5

3220

3225

3230

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Then he heard a voice which told him openly where he came from and about his family. It cries aloud, but not in vain: 'I indeed knew well that the son of my lord Gauvain would not be afraid as a knight. No man could deliver, no man could endure so much, either the kiss or the adventure which is so perilous and dangerous; in all the world there is not a single knight so worthy, so strong, so bold, that he would take all this on, except for your father Gauvain and yourself. No one else could deliver or release her from the great danger. You have rescued, through your great courage, the lady who is so worthy and wise. King Arthur misnamed you: he called you the Fair Unknown, but you were baptized Guinglain.' Guinglain learns his father's name before he learns his own. As Kate Westoby argues ('Naming the father'), the voice, which we later learn belongs to the Pucele as Blances Mains, gives him a place in society by revealing his father's identity first. It also tells him his mother's name (3236-7: Blancemal lefe'e), but the narrator indicates the father's is the more crucial. Indeed it is not clear whose name is the more important, Gauvain's or Guinglain's: 55 Bien li a dit en sa raisson Qui ses peres est et le non. D'ore en avant vos vel traitier De Guinglain le bon chevalier L'istoire, qui mais ne faurra Tant con li siecles duerra.

325°

[The voice] told him in its speech who his father is and the name. From now on I want to tell you the story of Guinglain the good knight, which will never end as long as the world lasts. In line 3248 le non is indeterminate and could refer to Guinglain's father's name or his own. The naming scene in Le Bel Inconnu stresses the importance of lineage and displaces identity grounded in maternal authority with identity grounded in paternal authority, yet it does not instate masculine authority unequivocally. In fact, the voice articulates a challenge to another kind of masculine authority, Arthur's (3231). If Guinglain's new name gives him a legitimate place in the Arthurian social order, the desirability of this order is undermined by the fact that Arthur, its symbol and guarantor,

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misnamed him. The social order is unable to give Guinglain his correct identity. On the contrary, his name is revealed to him by the woman he loves. In Le Bel Inconnu masculine identity derives from the feminine, and this invites comparison with the Charrete, but there are differences between the two texts. In the Charrete, the hero's identity is revealed to the reader by Guenevere, but Lancelot presumably knows what he is called. When asked his name, he never says he does not know it, merely that he does not wish to disclose it. Lancelot thus chooses to place knowledge of his identity in Guenevere's power. Guinglain, on the other hand, does not know who he is before the Pucele reveals his name. Knowledge of his identity is dependent entirely upon a woman who is particularly other, a fee like his mother.56 The Pucele allows Guinglain to discover himself and through her, in the lie d'Or, he becomes fulfilled: 'Or a Guinglains 50 que il volt5 (4821: 'Now Guinglain has what he wants'). Male subjectivity is constructed through a relationship with a woman, but Guinglain's relationship with the Pucele is incompatible with the social role his new-found identity requires of him. As the son of Gauvain, the successful knight of the adventure of the Fier Baiser, and as Blonde Esmeree's chosen consort, Guinglain is expected to return to court, but the Pucele makes it clear she does not want him to go: she belongs in a different world and she thinks (rightly) that Arthur will marry him to another (5344-51). The supernatural//^ figures here a world outside the social, or from Guinglain's point of view what the social fails to accommodate: his private desire. In yet another formulation one might say that the supernatural and private are coterminous with the feminine, which is excluded from the masculine social.57 Blonde Esmeree is of course integrated into the social, but she integrates herself as an object of exchange between men by securing Arthur as a donor for herself to Guinglain. Arthur not only gives Blonde Esmeree to Guinglain, he legitimates his conquest of her (6168-90). But this too points to flaws in the social order. Arthur is no good at giving names, why should he be any better at giving wives? The schism between the public and private is absolute by the end of

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the romance. 58 In the first half, the hero sends his vanquished foes to Arthur's court to announce his progress: he wants recognition from Arthur's court (for example 481-5). His conquests help construct his identity and it is in Arthur's court that he wishes to have his identity affirmed. In the second half of the romance Arthur's court is the place where his happiness is destroyed, where he is alienated from the women he loves. The masculine individual in romance is necessarily alienated. The feminine is the agent of his self-discovery, but also potentially the cause of his alienation. Many texts read as warnings against the dangers of uxoriousness, for instance the knightly prowess of both Erec and Yvain is threatened by their liking their wives too much; alternatively the two most famous romance narratives (Lancelot's and Tristan's) tell of an impossible love story where the hero's desire is antisocial. Sexuality is a powerful regulating force in romance, but it has the potential to destroy social cohesion. The paradox of romance is that if heroes frequently opt for social integration, more often than not - like Guinglain, Lancelot, or Tristan (in Beroul and Thomas) - they cannot suppress antisocial private desires. The hero of romance is a divided self, split between an impulse towards social integration and a counter-impulse towards socially alienating, but privately fulfilling desires. The concomitant ambivalence surrounding the male individual's construction of his identity is frequently reflected in equivocal public perception of his worth. Thus Guinglain, who in the first half of the romance appears to do no wrong, is mocked for his youth and inexperience (for example 290-300) up until the central Fier Baiser episode; whereas he is then treated as a hero wherever he goes even though he begins to commit errors of judgement and to appear a fool in several comic episodes (for example 4537-690). 59 A countertext is suggested in which the structure of the romance is the reverse of that suggested superficially by the narrative: the hero loses more than he gains in his successful quest for identity; he starts off worthy, but nameless; he ends up slightly ridiculous and alienated. Le Bel Inconnu, like many romances, balances two alternative narratives, one in which the hero is heroic, another in which the

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ideal the text ostensibly promotes is undermined through irony. It is no accident that the narrative is left unresolved, but Renaut de Beaujeu adds a further twist to this lack of closure. He opens the romance claiming the text has been inspired by a woman: Cele qui m'a en sa baillie, Cui ja d'amors sans trecerie M'a done sens de cannon faire, Por li veul roumant estraire D'un molt biel conte d'aventure.

5

For the one who has me in her power, who once moved me to compose songs of true love, I wish to write a romance about a charming tale of adventure. Renaut's prologue, like Chretien's in the Charrete, subordinates the narrator to a woman. However, the woman here is not a patroness, but the poet's lady. Renaut thus evokes generic paradigms of the courtly lyric in that as a first person subject he addresses a woman he desires directly, and he claims to have composed chansons for his lady in the past.60 Periodically the narrative is interrupted by fulsome digressions addressed to the poet's lady which are also reminiscent of the lyric. In such passages, misogyny is frequently evoked and rebutted: Et eels qui sont maldisseor Des dames et de fine amor Maudie Dius et sa vertus Et de parler les face mus! Car a cele ouvre que il font Demostrent bien de coi il sont, Qui tant se painnent de mentir. Ha! Dius, arai ja mon plaissir De celi que je ainme tant?

4855

4860

And may God, and all his power, cast down those who malign ladies and jine amour and make them keep silent. For through this work they show what kind of people they are since they put so much effort into lying. Ah, God, will I have pleasure of the one I love so much? This passage posits a dialectic between misogynistic writers (commonplace in romance as in other genres, as will be clear from the next section) and writers who praise women. Renaut's

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praise of women knows no bounds. Men were created to honour them and he attributes supreme powers to them (4835-41). There are obvious parallels here between the narrator and Guinglain, whose destiny is also ostensibly in the hands of a woman. This implicit comparison is reinforced in the epilogue which, taken in conjuction with the prologue, sets the whole romance within a lyric frame, containing it within an act of supplication: Ci faut li roumans et define. Bele, vers cui mes cuers s'acline, RENALS DE BIAUJU m o l t VOS prie

Por Diu que ne Poblies mie. De cuer vos veut tos jors amer, Ce ne li poes vos veer. Quant vos plaira, dira avant, U il se taira ore a tant. Mais por un biau sanblant mostrer Vos feroit Guinglain retrover S'amie, que il a perdue, Qu'entre ses bras le tenroit nue. Se de 90U li faites delai, Si ert Guinglains en tel esmai Que ja mais n'avera s'amie. D'autre vengeance n'a il mie, Mais por la soie grant grevance Ert sor Guinglain ceste vengance, Que ja mais jor n'en parlerai Tant que le bel sanblant avrai.

6250

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6260

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Here the romance ends and concludes. Fair one, before whom my heart bows, Renaut de Beaujeu begs you not to forget him. He wants always to love you sincerely. Can you not see this? When it pleases you, say so, or he will ever more be silent. But if you give him a fair glance, for you he will reunite Guinglain with his lady-love, whom he has lost, so that he can hold her naked in his arms. If you delay, Guinglain will be so unhappy for he will never see his lady again. He [Renaut] has no other revenge except that for his great grievance this vengeance be wreaked on Guinglain, so I will speak no more of this until I have the fair glance. The narrator likens himself to Guinglain here and in two ways. Firstly, like Guinglain's his love is not requited; secondly,

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through a series of pronominal shifts, from first, to third, then back to first person, he mimics the alienation from which Guinglain suffers, naming himself (for the first and only time in the text) as a grammatically third-person subject, as if a name, and the social identity which goes with it inevitably involved a degree of alienation. 61 But the deliberate parallels between Guinglain and the narrator also make the differences between them more obvious. As in earlier digressions about ladies, his lady and love, the narrator attributes power to his beloved in the epilogue. However, he then reappropriates control by blaming his lady (and thereby all women) for the unsatisfactory ending of the romance and by implying he would change it if his lady were kinder to him. If the narrator's powerlessness in the face of his lady is asserted at several stages during the romance, his power is asserted here. The value of woman as a sign in romance has the dangerous potential consequence of giving women power. The narrator of Le Bel Inconnu shows the disastrous outcome of allowing women (in the form of Blonde Esmeree) power in fiction, whilst asserting his control over language and indirectly, therefore, over real women readers. The two narratives of Le Bel Inconnu (that of Guinglain and that of the narrator) are none the less left in suspension. It is interesting, in relation to the text's lack of closure, to consider the narrator's statement in the epilogue that' Ci faut li roumans et define' (6247) alongside his conclusion to the naming episode in the middle of the romance: ' D'ore en avant vos vel traitier / De Guinglain le bon chevalier / L'istoire, qui mais ne faurra / Tant con li siecles duerra' (3249-52). This text {li roumans) may be over, but Guinglain's story, ristoire, can never end. 62 His problematic existence and paradoxical identity are too riven with contradictions to lead to a resolution. As with the epilogue to the Charrete, the epilogue of Le Bel Inconnu creates a distance between the narrator and a hero with whom the reader had been invited to compare him. But the effect in the two romances is quite different. We do not know if we are dealing with a clerical narrator in Le Bel Inconnu: Renaut de Beaujeu has been identified by one scholar as a high-ranking noble (Guerreau, 'Renaud', pp. 30-4). However, this identifi-

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cation depends on reading the name Biauju in the manuscript as a scribal error or graphy for Bage, which is somewhat implausible if a relatively well-known noble family were in question. Perhaps the name is a pseudonym: 'beaujeu' is, after all, an accurate description of this text. But whether a noble or a clerk, Renaud does not differentiate himself from his hero by opposing his clergie to the latter's chevalerie, by displacing one model of masculinity with another. Rather he inscribes himself within the same model of masculinity by portraying himself with a lady, but shows himself in control, by punishing and blackmailing his lady in order to get what he wants. He attributes power to women, but blames them for abuse of power. He constructs his identity as one who loves, and therefore as one whose identity depends upon women, but he does not allow women any control over his identity, over the language in which it is expressed. The end of Le Bel Inconnu is emblematic both of the profound ambivalence of identity as a masculine gendered construct in romance, and of the equally profound ambivalence romanciers have towards women. The two go hand in hand. Romances often appear to exalt women, to assert that a relationship with a woman is a necessary component in masculinity, and yet they are also profoundly misogynistic. The last section of this chapter will briefly examine misogyny and the treatment of female power in romance more closely. MISOGYNISTIC MODELS OF THE FEMININE AND MASCULINITY

Romance elevates women as signs of value within a masculine exchange economy, but this poses problems for writers of romance. It is not simply that many writers of romance are misogynistic: women are not ordinary signs in that they are producers of signs themselves and decoders of signs both as readers and as characters within texts. If the possession of a woman is a sign of male prestige and status, women should be drawn inexorably towards the right man, the hero. The heroine must read the signs he produces correctly so that she can

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become one of them. But if women are fickle, voraciously sensual and lacking in judgement, as the misogynistic tradition of the Church fathers suggests, or passive objects of exchange, as in the feudal model of marriage, how can they be relied upon to behave properly? The ideal woman is an uneasy fiction in romance. Lavine, in the Eneas, is a well behaved sign, but Dido shows that women are not to be relied upon. Guenevere and Iseult are drawn to the hero, but only to the detriment of the social order and each is portrayed as haughty, fickle, at times cruel. Amongst Chretien's heroines, Enide is punished gratuitously for trying to help her husband and in effect blamed by him for his own faults, Fenice (in Clige's) replicates the very adulterous scenario she tries to avoid, and Laudine (in Yvain) has to be coerced twice into marriage with the hero while the narrator maintains a fiction that she has some choice in the matter. 63 In Le Bel Inconnu Blonde Esmeree appears well behaved, but is the cause of alienation between the hero's private and public self and the ideal woman is clearly the unreal, ultimately unobtainable and otherworldly Pucele as Blances Mains. The attitude of romanciers to women is a perfect example of aporia. Women are made into signs of such immense value that masculine identity is defined through women and this leads to apparently fulsome praise of them; yet at the same time romanciers do not like women. The ideal woman is represented as a fiction, and this fiction is underscored by a misogynistic model of femininity, according to which women are bad readers and consequently unworthy signs in a masculine discourse. The fiction of the ideal woman is underscored by the notion that real women cannot live up to the ideal. Romances can be profoundly misogynistic, but, as with homophobia, I would contend that misogynistic discourse tells us far less about its object than about the men that produce it. Misogyny reveals far more about masculinity and male views of the feminine than about real women. This would appear to be the case in a number of other romances, for instance Hue de Rotelande's Ipomedon and Le Chevalier a Vepee, thought by some to be by Chretien de Troyes.64

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Roberta Krueger has offered an extensive reading oflpomedon as a satire of female pride (Women Readers, pp. 73-82). Women fall in love with the hero in a variety of disguises, some of which are less than glamorous or heroic. They are shown to be fickle, undiscerning and unreliable. They are relentlessly mocked and punished for this, sometimes deftly, sometimes in a more heavyhanded manner, as for instance when Ipomedon bites Ismene, the heroine's maid when she tries to seduce him when he is disguised as an idiot (8841-55). 65 It would be superfluous to reiterate in detail Krueger's interpretation, but I should like to make the point that the romance's length (over 10,000 lines) and its repetitive structure, which endlessly re-enacts the heroine's humiliation at the hands of the hero, are symptomatic of obsession and of Hue's compulsion to denigrate women. Why does he need to humiliate women so obsessively? Is his fear justified, or is it a symptom of his own inadequacy? Misogyny undermines masculinity and the author of Le Chevalier a Vepe'e seems uneasily aware of this. He narrates an episode in the peregrinations of Gauvain, always an equivocal hero with the reputation of a philanderer. 66 Gauvain meets a knight who offers him hospitality. This includes a bed which contains his daughter, but over which hangs a magic sword which has already disposed of some twenty knights when they tried to touch the maiden. Gauvain's desire is understandably tempered, but not for long and he spends the night dodging the sword whilst trying to have sex (unsuccessfully) with the girl. In the morning Gauvain is a little the worse for wear, but his wounds are superficial and his host, in recognition of his prowess, offers him his daughter's hand in marriage. After the wedding night, Gauvain decides to take his bride to Arthur's court, but on the way he is challenged by a knight for custody of his wife (evoking the custom of Logres). Insufficiently armed for combat, Gauvain says it is up to her; if she wants to go with the knight she can. She hesitates, but chooses the assailant. Before long she remembers her dogs, which have stayed with Gauvain, and sends her new partner back for them. Gauvain proposes the same deal: the dogs should choose. They prove more discerning than the woman. Gauvain then kills the

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assailant for trying to take them, abandoning his wife when she asks if she can stay with him. This text is eloquent about three romance paradigms. Firstly, the girl is an object of exchange between men, not once but twice. Secondly, because possession of the girl is a sign of prestige, failure to possess her is a catastrophic blow to a knight's reputation. Consequently Gauvain is terrified of failure in the sword-bed when the maiden explains to him how it works: Or ne set Gauvains que il face. 575 Onques mais de si grant manace N'oi parler jor de sa vie, Et si dote qu'ele lou die Por sei meismes garantir, Qu'il n'en face son plaisir. 580 D'autre part si s'est porpensez Qu'il n'en porroit estre celez, Que il ne fust partot seii, Que il avroit o li geii Tot sol, nu a nu, en son lit, 585 Et si avoit por sol son dit Laissie a faire son pleisir. Miaus vient il a anor morir Qu'a honte vivre longuement. Now Gauvain doesn't know what to do. He has never heard of such a danger before and he fears she will tell people, to protect her reputation, that he is not having his way with her. On the other hand, he realized that it could not be concealed, that everyone could not be prevented from knowing, that he would have lain with her, all alone and naked in her bed, and had refrained from taking his pleasure just because of what she said. He would rather die in honour than live a long time in shame. Initially the manace (576) would seem to be the sword, but it soon transpires that Gauvain is more frightened of being shamed — the public disgrace of his virility being mocked — than of being killed.67 There is an hilarious reversal here of the meanings of honour and shame within Christian discourse. Gauvain will be shamed if he refrains from sex, not for fornicating. Moreover anor (588) is doubly ambiguous. Since onor can mean both 'honour' and 'fief in Old French (TL, 6, 1128-35; Burgess, Contribution, pp. 68—90), it can have material as well as spiritual

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overtones; here sex constitutes 'anor', both spiritual and material advancement, since Gauvain's reputation is ensured and he marries an heiress. The third romance paradigm Le Chevalier a Ve'pe'e exemplifies is misogyny.68 The girl is revealed to be an unworthy sign of Gauvain's honour. After the night in the bed of the sword, it is her father who recognizes Gauvain's worth and gives her to him (746-73). The father bestows the sign of Gauvain's prowess and the woman as a sign is therefore simply transmitted between two men. When Gauvain offers his new wife a free choice between his assailant and himself, she ponders the relative merits of the two: Mes la pucele, qui bien sot Conment Gauvains se puet aidier, 985 Revialt savoir do chevalier Conment il est preu et vaillant. Sachiez trestuit, petit et grant, Qui qu'en rie ne qui qu'en gronde, N'a gaires nule feme o monde, 990 S'ele estoit drue et moillier A tot lo mellor chevalier Qui soit jusqu'en Inde Major, Ja par lui n'avroit tele amor Que, s'il n'estoit preuz en Postel, 995 Qu'el lou prisast un dor de sel Vos savez bien de quel proece. Or oez de si grant laidece Que cele damoisele fist. But the maiden, who knew how well Gauvain could perform, wanted to know how worthy and valiant the knight is. Know this, all of you, great and small, whether you laugh or cry about it, there is hardly a single woman in the world, be she lover and wife to the best knight in the world from here to India, who would not love him so much as a grain of salt if he could not prove his prowess indoors - and you know what kind of prowess I mean. Now hear about the damsel's great iniquity. The damsel initially appears to examine the assailant knight to check his chivalric credentials: she wants to see if he is preu and vaillant (987), how he measures up in this respect to Gauvain. A few lines later however {995),preuz is used with an overtly sexual

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sense, a point hammered home by the ironic interjection of line 997. 69 The damsel is not, after all, interested in the knight's chivalric prowess, only in his sexual prowess. This, together with the dogs' decision to stay with Gauvain, leads to virulent misogyny from Gauvain: ' Une chose sachiez de voir, Et sel poez par moi veoir: Se vos volez tot son plaisir A cele pucele aconplir, Vos avroiz de li corte joie Je voil mout bien que ele m'oie! Que sachiez, tant el fu moie, Que ses bons li aconplisoie. Or voiez con el m'a servi! II ne va pas de chien issi Con de feme, ce sachiez bien. Une chose sachiez de chien: Ja son mestre qui norri Pa Por estrange ne changera. Feme a mout tost guerpi lo suen S'i[l] ne li conplist tot son buen; Si est mervelle de tel change Qui lou suen laisse por estrange. Li levrier ne m'ont pas gerpi, Dont puis je bien prover issi Ja n'en sere desdiz de rien Que nature et amor de chien Valt miauz que de feme ne fait.'

1090

1095

1100

1105

Know one thing truthfully, and you can see this through me: if you want to give this maiden pleasure, you will have but brief joy of her - and I want her to hear this. And know that when she was with me I did what she wanted. Now see how she treats me. A dog is not like a woman, mark my words. Let me tell you this about a dog: he will never change the master who has fed him for a stranger. A woman quickly abandons hers if she does not get everything she wants. It is incredible that a woman should give up her man for a stranger. The dogs did not leave me, so I can thus prove - and I cannot be contradicted in any way in this - that the nature and love of a dog is worth more than a woman's. Gauvain's denunciation oi nature defeme is both misogynistic and deeply essentialist, but he shoots himself (and masculinity) in

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the foot. When the girl is deciding whether or not to go with the assailant knight, it is implied she wants to leave Gauvain because he failed to satisfy her sexually. He claims to have satisfied her in his misogynistic tirade, but clearly he has not (1102): maybe the corte joie he refers to (1091) designates the satisfaction he is capable of supplying, rather than the joy he received. In the prologue Gauvain is introduced as an exemplary knight (1-11), yet he ends up losing the principal sign of his prestige to another knight and is revealed to be a bad lover.70 Once it becomes clear that the assailant knight cannot protect her and that the dogs are staying with Gauvain, the girl asks if she can stay with him, pleading that she abandoned him because she thought the other knight was stronger. This produces further misogyny from Gauvain: 'Bele', fet il, 'ce est neiant. Pou vos vaut vostre covrement; Rien ne valt ceste coverture. Tel foi, tel amor, tel nature Puet Ten sovent trover en feme: Qui autre blef que il n'i same Voudroit recoillir en sa terre Et cil qui en feme vialt querre Fors sa nature n'est pas sage Toz jorz Font eii en usage Puis que Dieus fist la premerainne.'

1165

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'Fair one', he said, 'nothing you say can help. Your deceit is worth nothing; it is useless to lie. One can always find such faith, such love, such nature in a woman: the man who wants to harvest from his land a crop he has not sown, or who seeks in a woman something which is contrary to her nature, is a fool - they have always been the same since God created the first one.' Le Chevalier a Vepee, like many romances seems to invite two interpretations. There is a strong misogynistic seam, according to which women's nature makes them less trustworthy than dogs. On the other hand, it is implied that Gauvain's new wife leaves him because he is no good in bed. The image of the hero flouncing off at the end with his dogs is frankly comic and his dignity is further undermined by the narrator's gleeful epilogue,

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which tells us that Gauvain's less than flattering aventure was told and listened to mout volentiers once he returned to court (1198-206). Gauvain is often a comic figure in Arthurian romances, a side-kick to the hero, but humour at his expense is nearly always expressed in an ironic subtext and romance narrators never tire of telling us what a great knight and lover he was. Le Chevalier a Vepee is typical of the Gauvain tradition, but it also points to problems inherent in the presence of figures like Gauvain at the round table. The ideal knight is mocked. Love and sexuality are presented as central to his chivalric identity, yet he fails to make the grade and his misogyny blames women for his own shortcomings. The conclusion of Le Chevalier a Pepee, indicating that dogs are more trustworthy than women, is staggering in its misogyny, but it also backfires on the hero's masculinity. The twist of Le Chevalier a Vepee depends on the power of women to choose and therefore on their capacity as readers of signs. But as a reader of signs the damsel is in a no-win situation. She is blamed for choosing Gauvain's challenger - even the dogs know better than that! Yet who can blame her for leaving Gauvain? It is significant, however, that she is given the choice. The importance of women's consent in romance is probably related indirectly to the Church's insistence after the Gregorian reforms that both partners in a marriage consent freely to the transaction. In practice the Church turned a blind eye to a good deal of coercion, but the disparity between theory and practice opens up fertile territory for literary debate. Either directly or indirectly many romances focus on the issue of women's choice (or their coercion) and their consent (or opposition) to marriage, love affairs, and so on. For instance, it is made clear in Flamenca that the heroine realizes she has no say in her marriage and that she is being coerced into consenting to it.71 The text imparts a great sense of delight at the games she subsequently plays when she takes a lover and one possible implication is that one should expect no less if a marriage is a result of coercion. Similar equivocation regarding the coercion of women is to be found in Chretien's Tvain. It is possible to give the account of the hero's two marriages to Laudine two

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diametrically opposed readings. According to one she twice falls in love with him, and therefore consents to marry him each time; according to the other reading which is produced by an ironic subtext she is coerced on each occasion and her consent is forced.72 I suggested at the end of the last chapter that in some respects the role of women in the chansons de geste is more appealing than in romance. This is because there is less attempt in the epic to mystify attitudes towards women. Romance ostensibly elevates the feminine whilst underscoring its courtoisie with profound misogyny and a pervasive concern with masculinity. If one cause of misogyny in romance is fear of female power, this points to common ground between romance and the courtly lyric. The interaction between the two genres is in many respects evident and the influence of the love casuistry of the troubadour and trouvere lyric on romance is well documented.73 But the treatment of female power in Le Bel Inconnu for instance, which deliberately juxtaposes romance and lyric paradigms, none the less points to tension between the two genres. The lyric insistently reiterates male subordination to women, even if, as I will argue in the next chapter, this is double-edged; in romance female power is subverted more openly. It is as if the transposition of certain metaphors, images and topoi from lyric to narrative poses problems which can be kept under wraps in the lyric, but not in romance. The stasis of the lyric means lyric poetry can fantasize about specific moments, whereas romance needs to sustain sequential action. Lyric poetry elevates women within discourse and turns a blind eye to the consequences; romance has to portray the reactions of women to courtly rhetoric. The next chapter will look more closely at the construction of gender inscribed in the rhetoric of the courtly lyric, initially through the lens of romances which interact openly with the lyric. It will also assess the reactions to courtly discourse of some real women, the trobairitz, as opposed to the fictional women of romance.

CHAPTER 3

Troubadours, ladies and language: the canso

Critics agree that' courtly love' has its origin in the troubadour canso. Yet the traditional literary historical narrative according to which romanciers like Chretien de Troyes draw on an earlier Occitan lyric tradition is dubious. We know of few troubadours active before 1150 and it is unwise to generalize on the basis of the small number of songs by Guilhem IX and Jaufre Rudel or the large, but idiosyncratic corpus of the satirist Marcabru. If a new style of love poetry was emerging in some Occitan courts between 1100 and 1150, recent research suggests these courts were few and far between: in all likelihood few songs from the period survive because there were few poets. 1 Bernart de Ventadorn, the first troubadour in whose work the conventions of the courtly canso seem fully formed, was a contemporary of early romance writers. He worked in France and England, as well as Occitania, and he probably knew Chretien. 2 The classic period of troubadour poetry (c.i 160-C.1210), from which the majority of surviving songs date, is the same as the period in which the first important spate of romances was produced. Modern criticism has been so obsessed with origins that it has been more than a little blind to the contemporaneity of the Northern French romance and Occitan lyric traditions. If early romance draws on the embryonic canso for its portrayal of love, it is at least as much indebted to Ovid and, as I suggested in the last chapter, the genre with which it has an actively dialogic relationship is the chanson de geste.3 I have chosen to examine the canso after romance because I find the traditional view that love in early romance derives from the troubadour lyric unhelpful. If Chretien, for instance in the scene 122

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in which Yvain first sees Laudine or in his treatment of Lancelot's abasement before Guenevere, is indebted to the rhetoric of the troubadours, his debt is to contemporary poets like Bernart de Ventadorn, not to earlier figures like Guilhem IX or Jaufre Rudel: to all intents and purposes the canso and romance are simultaneous developments in the courts of Northern France and Occitania, even if there are a few early courtly poets in the South. Moreover, Chretien's ironic treatment of Yvain's falling in love with Laudine, or of Lancelot's love for Guenevere, indicates he is not drawing unquestioningly on the courtly canso, but that he is bringing lyric and romance discourses into conflict with each other. In slightly later romances, for instance Le Bel Inconnu, Guillaume de Dole, Le Chastelain de Coucy and later still Le Roman de la Rose and Flamenca,

the dialectic between lyric and romance discourses is yet more marked. There is a continuum, but also a dissonance between the two genres. The myth of the love-sick troubadour wandering from castle to castle singing, with his hand on his heart, of his unrequited love for his haughty, but irresistible lady has little currency now in scholarly circles.4 Criticism over the last thirty years or so has examined the formal dexterity, the textuality and intertextuality, the eroticism, the theatricality and the humour of the canso.5 A further strand of criticism has followed in the wake of Erich Kohler's influential work: according to his socio-historic reading, the troubadour's love of a high-ranking lady sublimates the frustration of the lesser nobility or the landless iuvenes, whilst binding them to the more successful higher nobility through a shared ideology. For Kohler and his disciples the troubadourlover is primarily a spokesman for his class.6 Kohler's work effectively politicized criticism of troubadour poetry, but three recent books, by Jean-Charles Huchet, Rouben Cholakian and Sarah Kay, break new ground in this respect by examining the construction of gender in the canso.7 Huchet's LAmour discourtois is a Lacanian reading of the troubadour lyric: he focuses on desire in language, arguing that the troubadours inaugurate a cult of femininity and a new way of talking about love. For Huchet, femininity in the troubadour

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lyric is a figure within a masculine discourse, the troubadour's domna being a masculine projection, and in this respect his work on the troubadours pre-empts the criticism I levelled in the last chapter at his earlier work on romance (see above p. 72). Huchet suggests that profound anxiety is provoked by the disparity between the domna and real women as the troubadours see them, and by the impossibility of the love of which they sing. Cholakian's The Troubadour Lyric: a Psychocritical Reading is also

anchored in psychoanalytic theory, though unlike Huchet, he takes on board feminist criticism of Freud and Lacan: for Cholakian troubadour poetry plays upon erotic triangles and is profoundly androcentric, foregrounding relations between men and displacing masculine anxieties onto women. Kay's work draws on more politically orientated feminist theory: her chapter 'Gender and Status' in Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry (pp. 84-131) offers an extended critique of Kohler's work on the troubadours and argues that subjectivity in the lyric is constructed as masculine, that status too is a masculine preserve, and that the rhetoric of the canso, imbued as it is with feudal and other socially loaded metaphors from the masculine symbolic, is a medium in which men negotiate status. This brief account of the treatment of gender in these three books is schematic in that none of the three critics limits her or his analysis to the points I have highlighted, and all three touch in some way on each of the issues I have associated with just one of them. For instance Kay and Huchet are perfectly aware of the economy of the love triangle in the troubadour lyric; Huchet and Cholakian acknowledge the implications of hierarchically marked feudal metaphors; and Kay and Cholakian stress the relationship between desire and language. But it is fair to say that each privileges a certain mode of analysis. I shall use the issues foregrounded by these three books to structure the first three sections of this chapter. I shall begin by examining the relationship between desire and language in the troubadour lyric as masculine discourse and the construction of femininity within this discourse; secondly, I shall look at the mechanisms of homosocial desire in the tradition and particularly at how this inscribes masculine competition and excludes women;

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thirdly, I shall address the role of rhetoric and linguistic dexterity in the troubadour's negotiation of his status. I shall draw on the work of Huchet, Cholakian and Kay in each of the sections, but I shall also suggest how I think their views could be revised. I shall focus mainly on the work of just a few courtly troubadours whose work is contemporary to twelfth-century romance writers.8 In each section, the canso will be approached initially through the lens of romances which respond to lyric paradigms because it may thereby be possible to assess contemporary responses to these texts and to examine the dialectic between romance and lyric discourses. The last section of this chapter will be devoted to the trobairitz: I shall suggest that their poetry offers a fascinating insight into how the canso was viewed by some women and points to ways in which the modern reader can deconstruct the gender system of the maleauthored tradition. DESIRE IN LANGUAGE

The witty pun in the title of Huchet's UAmour discourtois encapsulates his argument that in the canso language and desire are indistinguishable, that the troubadours' Jin'amor is a discursive formation rather than a ' real-life' practice, and that it is 'discourteous' in the sense that the 'discursive' worship of women in some lyrics does not represent respect or consideration for real women. He makes the distinction early in his book between real women and the ' ladies' about whom the troubadours sing: 'II n'est pas inexact de dire, meme si la formule demeure un truisme, qu'avec les troubadours l'Occident decouvre la femme. Plus juste serait de dire que la femme devint alors un objet litteraire, l'occasion d'un discours masculin porte par le desir se sou tenant de l'enigme de la feminite' {L Amour discourtois, p. 13). By glossing the truism that troubadour poetry ' discovers' women with the more nuanced view that women are the object which occasions a masculine discourse, Huchet opens up a new and fruitful way of thinking about the courtly canso. In Huchet's critical vocabulary the 'enigma of femininity' figures the Other in the Lacanian sense: ' au titre de 1'Autre, la

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dame est avant tout un lieu vers lequel tend le desir et le chant qui le supporte' (LAmour discourtois, p. 35). Discours becomes synonymous with desire and always inscribes lack: 'L' «ecriture» des troubadours... nait de l'impasse sexuelle et son deploiement superbe et sophistique en constitue un magistral desaveu' [UAmour discourtois, p. 103). My own use of the term discourse is grounded in a more politically orientated theory of linguistic production and of how subjects are constituted in it (see above pp. 1-16). If femininity is a figure within a masculine symbolic, Huchet makes no attempt to assess where female subjects stand in relation to this symbolic. Indeed it is not clear that he views the ' enigma of femininity' as a construction; rather the Lacanian model of the psyche and language is presented in his work as a universal feature of human experience and he fails to address the historical specificity of psychoanalytic thinking or of the troubadour canso. Huchet's consistent elision of 'femininity' with la Femme or la Dame throughout UAmour discourtois suggests that despite his initial theoretical distinction between the feminine and real women he then conflates the two, for women, in his account of the canso, do not exist otherwise. However, Huchet's work is a useful corrective to the traditional view of the canso as a reflection of a real love story between a man and a woman: L'oeuvre de Bernard de Ventadorn est plus un affrontement sans cesse reitere avec la feminite que le chant de la rencontre de femmes reelles dont les identites viendraient rassurer en enfermant toutes questions dans une biographie singuliere ou un «roman familial». Le secret de la reussite et du succes de Bernard de Ventadorn reside sans doute dans la reprise incessante de la question de «La Femme », au-dela de femmes singulieres. VAmour discourtois, p . 182 Huchet passes no comment on the androcentric mechanism whereby the only place for la Femme within courtly linguistic structures is as a cypher to the masculine subject whilst real femmes singulieres fall out of the frame. But filtered through a feminist critique his work helps focus attention sharply on the masculine nature of the canso's discourse and on the relationship between language and desire in the genre. In some romances which play on the conventions of the canso,

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language precedes desire and is far more than simply a means of expressing it. In Flamenca (c. 1270) and Guillaume de Dole (c. 1228) Guilhem and Conrad fall in love with Flamenca and Lienor respectively without seeing them, on the basis of descriptions. Desire is produced in and by language and in Guillaume de Dole the flames of desire are fanned by a single signifier, Lienor's name: 9 Fet l'empereres: «Ce fet mon. Et sa suer, coment a a on, qui si a bel et gent le cors? 790 - Sire, el a non Lienors, ce dit li nons de la pucele.» Amors l'a cuit d'une estencele de eel biau non mout pres del cuer. The emperor said: 'This is true. And his sister, she of the fair and comely body, what is she called ?'' Sire, her name is Lienor; thus is the maiden's name.' Love kindled a spark with this fair name near his heart. This romance inaugurates the fashion for interpolated lyrics in romance. It quotes well-known songs by trouveres and troubadours throughout, often integrating them as direct speech or as performances in court scenes. It can thus be read as a contemporary gloss to lyric discourse. There are no lyric quotations in the passage in which Conrad learns Lienor's name, but the scenario of a man falling in love with the description of a woman without having seen her is a marked lyric paradigm. I think less ofJaufre Rudel's famous amor de lonh poems themselves (one of which is sung by Guillaume in Guillaume de Dole, see 1301—7) as of the thirteenth-century reading of them in the famous vida :10 'Jaufres Rudels de Blaia si fo mout gentils horn, princes de Blaia. Et enamoret se de la comtessa de Tripol, ses vezer, per lo ben qu'el n'auzi dire als pelerins que venguen d'Antiocha. Et fez de leis mains vers ab bons sons, ab paubres motz.' ('Jaufre Rudel of Blaye was a very noble man and Prince of Blaye. And he fell in love with the Countess of Tripoli, without seeing her, because of the good things he heard the pilgrims who came from Antioch say of her. And he composed many poems about her, with good tunes and poor words.') This vida draws upon Jaufre's cansos, not an

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account of a real incident. It indicates that in the thirteenth century a compelling way of reading Jaufre's songs was as the expression of love for a woman the poet had never seen, but had heard described. The phenomenon of the amor de lonh and the concomitant 'desire in language' produces a dislocation between the object of the poet's love (a linguistic figure) and real women. In Guillaume de Dole, Lienor is doubly displaced as an object of Conrad's desire for the description he falls in love with is not in fact of her, but of a fictional woman in a story, whom he is subsequently told Lienor resembles. This play in Guillaume de Dole is indicative of a questioning attitude in romance towards this lyric paradigm. How is it treated in the lyric itself? Some lyrics make it clear the domna of whom the troubadour sings is an image distinct from any real woman: 11 Anc non agui de me poder ni no fui meus de Tor' en sai que • m laisset en sos olhs vezer en un miralh que mout me plai. 20 Miralhs, pus me mirei en te, m'an mort li sospir de preon, c'aissi • m perdei com perdet se lo bels Narcisus en la fon. Bernart de Ventadorn, 31 I never had control over myself, nor was I mine own from the moment she let me see into her eyes, into a mirror which pleases me greatly. Mirror, since I gazed intently upon you, deep sighs have killed me, for I lost myself just as fair Narcissus lost himself in the fountain. In this central stanza from perhaps the most famous canso of all, Bernart de Ventadorn's 'Can vei la lauzeta' (also cited in Guillaume de Dole, 5212-27), the image upon which the firstperson subject gazes is not a lady, since her eyes are the mirror in which he sees it. Despite the Narcissus simile and the reflexive me mirei in line 21, he is not necessarily looking at himself, for in the Middle Ages Narcissus was an exemplum of unrequited love because he fell in love with an image (rather than with himself), whilst the reflexive may simply intensify the force of the verb, giving the sense 'gaze intently'. Moreover, in medieval poetry, the mirror often shows an image of perfection or some revelation of truth, not necessarily the reflection of the person gazing upon

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it.12 Bernart is rendered powerless by what he sees in the mirror, losing himself like Narcissus loses himself in the fountain, falling like the lark of the opening stanza, but the lady of whom he sings is not a real woman; rather she is his own creation within the poem, a sign within his discourse. Yet this stanza does imply the involvement of a real woman (or at least of a part of her, her eyes). The ambivalent attitude of many troubadours to women, alternating between worship and misogyny, is due to the disparity between the image of the ideal domna the troubadour creates and real women as he sees them. As in romance the attribution of value to women in texts is problematic. But troubadours frequently go further than romanciers and imply that domnas, 'ladies' andfemnas, 'women' are two different categories.13 This is the case in 'Can vei': D'aisso's fa be femna parer ma domna, per qu'e • lh o retrai, car no vol so c'om deu voler, e so c'om li deveda fai.

35

In this my lady seems just like a woman, which is why I speak of it, for she does not want what a man must want, and she does what a man forbids her.

The real woman Bernart implies he uses as the embodiment of his aspirations and desires can never be a domna and is doomed to be eternally scapegoated for this. The poem ends with a powerful image of alienation and self-imposed silence which is blamed on the lady: Pus ab midons no • m pot valer precs ni merces ni*l dreihz qu'eu ai, ni a leis no ven a plazer qu'eu l'am, ja mais no*lh o dirai. Aissi • m part de leis e • m recre; mort m'a, et per mort li respon, e vau m'en, pus ilh no • m rete, chaitius, en issilh, no sai on. Tristan, ges no • n auretz de me, qu'eu m'en vau, chaitius, no sai on. De chantar me gic e • m recre, e de joi e d'amor m'escon.

50

55

60

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Since pleading nor mercy nor my being in the right are of no use to me with my lady, and since it does not please her that I love her, I will not say this to her any more. So I leave her and give up knightly pursuits; she has killed me, and I reply to her as if dead, and I go away, since she does not retain me, wretched, in exile, I know not where. Tristan, you will have nothing from me, for I go away, wretched, I know not where. I abandon singing and knightly service and remove myself from joy and love. Huchet is right to see this poem as an inscription of the troubadour'sperte, his delicieuse defaillance and la blessure du manque

(L Amour discourtois, p. 209) and he is also surely right that the object of Bernart's love eludes him, just as the lark in the opening metaphor is unable to reach the sun. In relation to this impasse it is striking that the poem insistently reiterates the centrality of desire to Bernart's poetic enterprise: ai! tan grans enveya m'en ve de cui qu'eu veya jauzion, meravilhas ai, car desse lo cor de dezirer no • m fon.

5

Ah, I so envy anyone I see rejoicing that I am amazed that my heart does not at once melt from desire. Tout m'a mo cor, e tout m'a me, e se mezeis e tot lo mon; e can se • m tolc, no • m laisset re mas dezirer e cor volon.

15

She has taken my heart from me and taken myself from me, and herself and every one; and when she took herself from me, she left me nothing but desire and a longing heart. Yet, if Bernart sings of desire, at the end of the song he removes himself both from the object of his desire and language (the realm of desire) altogether. Declaring his intention to fall silent at the end of the poem is a rhetorical strategy, since in performance the singer of every canso falls silent at the end of the text. But Bernart's articulation of his effacement from the discourse which embodies his desire is a powerful emblem of the poem's success at making desire and language coterminous.

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Once the song is over, desire is no longer audible. Bernart's exile is total since the end of the poem enacts his removal from the symbolic order. Silence is equivalent to death; desire and language are essential to Bernart's continued existence. This is a moving poem about alienation and the need to speak in order to register subjectivity. Paradoxically Bernart speaks in 'Can vei' in order to declare his intention to fall silent. His eloquence in doing so has ensured the continued survival of his trace in discourse. The song, though a love song, is less about a relationship between a man and a woman than a man's attempt to elaborate his own subjectivity through his relation to a construction of femininity within a fiction of his own creation. The central problem for Bernart de Ventadorn, and many other troubadours, is their association of their image of the domna with real women, femnas. The contempt in which troubadours hold women means the distinction between the domna and femnas must be kept clear. This is apparent in the concluding stanzas of'Us jois d'amor', by Arnaut de Maruelh (late twelfth century) :14 Domna genser que anz al mon nasques, tant m'es de vos l'aspre doutz e suaus, per qu'ieu no puesc mon cor virar alhor; a! s'er ja temps qu'a dreit vos apelh domna, qu'icus sia horns, mans juntas lialmen, 40 e atressi cum bons senher acuelh son lige ser, mi denhetz aculhir ...! Domna, Amors m'a dat tan d'ardimen, quar sap qu'ieu fis vos sui e no • m destuelh, qu'el cor m'a fag miral ab que-us remir. 45 Domna, de Pretz sui en l'aussor capduelh, mas per semblan mon cor no vos aus dir. Domn', el semblan podetz mon cor chauzir. Arnaut de Maruelh, 4 Lady, sweetest creature ever born, the bitterness you make me feel is so sweet and smooth that I cannot turn my heart elsewhere; ah! if only a time comes when I can rightfully call you my lady, and be your vassal, with my hands joined together loyally, and you might then greet me as a good lord greets his liege servant.

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Lady, Love has made me so bold, for it knows that I am true to you and not inconstant in this, that in my heart it has made me a mirror with which I can gaze upon you. Lady I am at the highest pinnacle of Worth, but I dare not reveal my heart to you^ther than through my facial expression. Lady, in my expression you can see my heart. Arnaut's lady undergoes a metamorphosis, like so many domnas, into a senher in line 41. To a certain extent the domna represents an attempt to fantasize a woman with masculine qualities who can be relied upon to defend masculine values. The image of the poet standing before her with his hands joined together plays upon this posture in feudal homage ceremonies and further serves to assimilate the domna into the masculine symbolic.15 This metaphor is common (for instance in the cansos of Bernart de Ventadorn, Arnaut de Maruelh, Raimon Jordan) and I shall return to it in the next section. What interests me here is the curiously opaque image of the mirror in the three tornadas. Arnaut announces that he keeps an image of his lady in his heart and then states that he cannot reveal his heart to her, she must guess what it conceals from his expression. Within the fiction of the song, the lady thus finds herself appropriated by her admirer, yet confronted by a far from transparent barrier through which she must see if she is to understand how he perceives her. Arnaut is not concerned at all with any real women here, but only with an image he has created for himself and which he guards jealously. The moment Arnaut privileges above all others in his songs is the moment when the lover's desire is at its most intense, but as yet unrequited. Rarely does he envisage shared love or allude to amorous encounters which are not fantasized. Poignant as this representation of desire may be, it is striking that this love poetry concentrates on the moment that precedes any possible union, the moment when the male lover is turned inwards, yet must articulate his desire. Arnaut's poetry, and the canso generally, is primarily concerned with its own utterance: 16 Era t'envei, franc messagier, si • 1 plai que • m prend' en chausimen, e parla bels ditz a sobrier,

45

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e si t'acuoill, torna coren, c'ab te pois meillz chai devesir so qu'eu non pose lai ademplir tro per altrui ne sapcha * 1 ver. E si • 1 plai que • m deign' acoillir, 50 chai torna • 1 joi qu'eu tant desir tost ab que • m get de nocaler. Mas s'ilh no • m deigna acuillir, lo desconort no tornetz dir, 55 qu'eu no • 1 voill audir ni saber. Arnaut de Maruelh, 14 Now I send you forth, fair messenger, if it pleases her to have mercy upon me, and speak manyfinewords, and if she welcomes you, hurry back, for I am better able to explain to you here what I cannot accomplish there until I know the truth from someone else. And if it pleases her to deign to welcome me, bring back at once the joy that I desire most ardently to release me from indolence. But if she does not deign to welcome me, do not come back to tell me the bad news, for I wish neither to hear it nor to know it. Arnaut's song leaves no room for negotiation; either the lady replies positively or she should not reply at all. In some respects the poem invites no reply and posits no exchange. What matters to Arnaut is the articulation of his own desire, his bels ditz a so brier (45).

Often Arnaut seems more interested in fantasies, and talking about them, than in real life (see 9, 29-35 an<^ I0> I 5~ 2 1 )- I n m s fantasies Arnaut's lady is everything he wants her to be. His preference for fantasy over reality is paralleled by his preference for talking about love rather than acting: Dompna, si • us plagues sofrir, per vostre chausimen, c'ab doutz precs cars, humilmen, merceian cum fis amaire, vos auses mon cor retraire, 15 en luoc d'autre gauzir, vos non costera re e mi feira gran be; que • 1 malautes, quan si plaing, Arnaut de Maruelh, 25 si no * il val, si s'en refraing.

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Lady, if it pleased you to allow, through your mercy, that with sweet rich pleas, begging mercy like a true lover, I should dare to tell you my heart, instead of any other pleasure, this would cost you nothing, and it would do me a lot of good; for the sick man, when he groans, gains some relief from it even though it does not make him feel better. As Arnaut implies here, talking about love only coincidentally has anything to do with women. Indeed it is not of any concern to anyone but himself, since it is something he does to make himself feel better. The dislocation between the troubadour's lady and real women enables much of the misogyny to which the canso is so prone, for example: Una fausa deschauzida 25 trairitz de mal linhatge m'a trait e es traida, e colh lo ram ab que*s fer; e can autre l'arazona, d'eus lo seu tort m'ochaizona; 30 et an ne mais li derrer qu'eu, qui n'ai faih lone badatge. Bernart de Ventadorn, 34 A false, vulgar, treacherous, common woman has betrayed me and is herself betrayed, and she gathers the rod with which she beats herself; and when another addresses her she accuses me of her own wrong, and the last to arrive have more than I who have waited a long time in vain. This stanza, reminiscent of the style of the satirist Marcabru, 17 displays standard misogynistic tropes not normally associated with courtliness, but examples of misogynistic diatribes in apparently ' courtly' troubadours are too numerous and tedious to list exhaustively. It is not simply that misogyny and worship of women are a binary opposition which structures the lyric and that one is the inevitable consequence and reversal of the other, as R. Howard Bloch suggests when he concludes his reading of Bernart de Ventadorn's 'Can vei' with the assertion that 'the deprecation of the feminine lurks just below the surface of the courtly idealization of women' (Misogyny, p. 148). Bloch's view of' the feminine' in the canso as unitary is perhaps misguided

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and the troubadours' idealization of domnas should not be opposed to misogyny: it is misogynistic in itself since it is part of a process of exclusion of real women from the elevated domna category, and of their relegation to the category offemnas. I have argued in this section that the canso is a masculine discourse, concerned with the articulation of masculine desire and that troubadours construct two models of femininity, represented by domnas and femnas. In the next section I shall explore the construct of masculinity this discourse produces by taking a closer look at the ideology upon which the canso is predicated. HOMOSOGIAL DESIRE

Throughout his psychocritical reading of the troubadour lyric Rouben Cholakian stresses there are always three actants in the canso: c an enunciating lover', 'an unnamed woman' and 'a third male party who is by turns a slandering eavesdropper (lausengier), a jealous rival (gilos) or a neutral companion' (Troubadour Lyric, p. 1). He highlights how troubadours, though they appear to address women, in fact address other men: for instance Guilhem IX ' communicates about the desired women to men, who can participate vicariously in his amorous enterprise' (Troubadour Lyric, p. 18). As Cholakian shows, in many songs the third point of the amorous triangle, the woman, is marginalized as the relation between two men is privileged. Whilst fully agreeing with Cholakian's placing of Jin'amor within an economy of homosocial desire, I cannot accept his assertion that 'the psychoanalytic reading of the courtly discourse provides explanations which supersede its sociohistorical framework' (Troubadour Lyric, p. 188). Like Huchet, Cholakian apparently considers psychoanalytical paradigms to be ahistorical givens: ' Every man is born of some woman. That is a biological given and therefore a socio-psychic one as well. The father of modern psychoanalysis simply gave "scientific" attention to a biological fact. Freud did not write the Oedipal drama; he simply used it to corroborate his assumptions' (Troubadour Lyric, p. 183). Cholakian attributes the troubadours' equivocal attitude towards women to their unconscious view of

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the mother as 'not only the source of pleasure, but the cause of displeasure' (p. 183). But if every man is born of some woman, what 'man' and 'woman' mean is different in different historical and social circumstances. Freud may not have written the Oedipal drama, but he interpreted it in a certain way, quite differently from Ancient Greek or medieval writers. Unlike Huchet, Cholakian is well aware of the phallocentric nature of Lacanian theory and the thrust of his argument is that the troubadours' fin'amor is as androcentric and antifeminist as Lacan's psychoanalytic paradigms. However, although he nods occasionally in the direction of historical or sociological context, he assumes the troubadour lyric is a record of the attempts of a group of individuals to negotiate their way through a universal human experience provoked by the universal 'family romance', as elaborated by Freud whom Cholakian aptly calls the 'father' of modern psychoanalysis. In seeing poetic discourse as ' the translatable sign' of ' a psychological reality' (Troubadour Lyric, p. 29), Cholakian's belief in the universal subject, and in literature's power to express it, becomes apparent. The last sentence of the book alludes to ' the broader subtext which finally governs all gender relations' (p. 188) and on the back cover this becomes 'the universal subtext'. Did medieval culture have the same notion as us of the subject, or of the 'family romance' so crucial to Cholakian's analysis? One striking difference between modern and medieval discourses of the family is that whereas we privilege the subject position of the child and seek to understand how the subject emerges from her or his relations to her or his parents, medieval texts pay more attention to the parents' position, and to the value the child has to the parents, particularly to the father and to his kin-group. Cholakian's psycho-critical reading posits the centrality of the male subject's relationship with his mother [Troubadour Lyric, p. 183). In medieval narratives — chansons de geste, romances, saints lives — a son's relationship with his father is more important than any he may have with his mother, whilst maternal feelings and bonding with girls are ignored or marginalized (see Paterson, World, pp. 293-5). Furthermore, other ties often take precedence over filial affection, for women

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as well as men. Linda Paterson identifies vasselage, the Church, male companionship and marriage as structures and institutions that might affect parent/children relations {World, p. 289). Thus in Daurel et Beton and Jourdain de Blaye a woman sacrifices her son to save her husband's overlord; in Ami Amile kills his children to save his companion; in one version of the Guillaume d'Orange cycle Orable (soon to become Guibourc) kills her children by her first (Saracen) husband before marrying the hero (see ed. Regnier, Prise d'Orange, p. 88); in countless saints' lives - as we will see - men and women eschew family ties for God; and in Floire the hero leaves his family for love. There is no shortage of examples in medieval literature of parents showing affection for children, or vice versa: in Raoul de Cambrai Aalais weeps over her son's body and Bernier weeps over his mother's; in Ami Amile laments the necessity to kill his children, and they pity him. Yet what Linda Paterson has shown of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Occitan literature is true generally of the literature of the period: 'children take their place in the interplay of hierarchies' {World, p. 295). A child in many medieval texts is frequently a future incarnation of his father and a prime concern is therefore legitimacy, which guarantees the integrity of the kin-group, lineage and the family estates. In the troubadour lyric this concern with legitimacy and integrity is best reflected in the songs of the satirist Marcabru, who repeatedly warns against the dire consequences of the unlawful unions of courtly domnas with men of lesser rank. Significantly, the offspring of a courtly domna's illicit liaison is for Marcabru primarily a reflection on her husband's worth, a sign of his betrayal and loss of value.18 Not only is the parent—child matrix of medieval culture different from that produced in and by psychoanalytic discourse, but the conditions under which children interacted with their parents were different. Even in noble households privacy for individuals or for families was rare, while noble boys may not have been brought up by their mothers, but rather initially by wet nurses and subsequently at the courts of overlords.19 In medieval narratives individuals are rarely situated in anything that resembles a modern nuclear family, but rather within a broader

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kin-group, dominated by men. I am not suggesting that some of the premises of psychoanalysis are not pertinent to the study of medieval literature; on the contrary I have used them in my analyses of both chansons de geste and romance (see above pp. 28 and 89-90). But the family (and the gendered subject as constituted within the family) is an historically unstable, discursively produced phenomenon. No ahistorical 'sociopsychic given' can rest upon an ahistoric view of the family. Despite my critique of the premises of Cholakian's methodology, his central point about the androcentric nature of the canso is compelling. 'Love', in his account is negotiated as much between men as between a man and a woman, whilst the inadequacies of the masculine are displaced onto women. However, rather than placing the homosocial desire of the canso within an Oedipal frame, I would prefer to set it in a feudal context. This is not to say that the Oedipal father figure and the overlord, or the mother and the domna are not analogous. But whereas Cholakian subsumes the feudal to family structures to produce a ' universal' psychology, I would prefer to foreground feudal structures, since they are the discursive framework in and by which the subject in the canso is constituted, not the 'family romance'. The domna is less a mother figure through whom the poet negotiates his position with a father figure within an Oedipal narrative, than a feminine figure whose value is determined by her association with a man within a feudal hierarchy. Romances which draw on lyric paradigms indicate the homosocial nature of the canso was recognized in the thirteenth century. In Guillaume de Dole, for instance, Lienor is introduced by Conrad's jongleur Jouglet as Guillaume's sister. Ostensibly Conrad summons his vassal Guillaume to his court as a means of getting to know her (817-36), but the romance is dominated by Conrad and Guillaume's friendship. Over 2000 lines are devoted to the narration of their becoming acquainted during glamorous court festivals and tournaments. Conrad sings love songs (as do Guillaume and Jouglet), but Lienor, the ostensible object of Conrad's love, has yet to appear. When Conrad finally speaks openly of Lienor, it is made clear once again that the

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catalyst to his passionate love is her name (2994—3005) and he declares his intention to marry her (3010-19). For Conrad this marriage is an a/ere, a 'deal' (3015), negotiated with Guillaume. One possible reading would be that Conrad needs to secure Guillaume's goodwill if he is to procure Lienor for himself. Another, made more likely by subsequent developments in the plot, is that Lienor is a sign of Guillaume's worth and that the relationship between Conrad and Guillaume is more important than that between Conrad and Lienor. Immediately after Guillaume has agreed to let Conrad marry Lienor (still absent from the narrative), Conrad's seneschal conceives a violent hatred of Guillaume because he has been displaced in his master's affections; he is jealous then not of Conrad's love of a woman, but of his bond with another man. He overhears Conrad singing a chanson while he is with Guillaume (a fine image of the canso as homosocial discourse) and significantly the song is about lauzengiers (3180-95), which is what the seneschal is on the point of becoming, a point to which the narrator draws our attention (3196—9). The seneschal goes to Lienor's house and obtains (from her mother) the compromising information that she has a rose coloured birthmark on her thigh. He returns to court and his knowledge convinces both Conrad and Guillaume that he has slept with Lienor. They believe what the man says about Lienor without asking her whether what he says is true and her alleged misconduct is presented primarily as shaming for Guillaume (37J5> 3 8io > 3837> 3855> 3959 a n d so on), so much so that he leaves Conrad's court. Fortunately Lienor makes a happy ending possible with a cunning ruse, motivated largely by a desire to avenge Guillaume's honour. After planting some jewels on the seneschal (who like Conrad has never seen her), she arrives at court, artfully dishevelled, and accuses him of rape and robbery. As he has the jewels on him, things look bleak for the seneschal, but he proves his innocence in a judicial ordeal. Lienor now reveals her identity: since the seneschal has just proved that he has never seen her before, she is innocent of his earlier charges. This enables the union of Lienor and Conrad, but also the reunion of Conrad and Guillaume who is ' mout

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amez et mout segnoriz5 by his friend (5637), a formulation which articulates a feudal bond between them. Such a schematic account cannot do justice to this witty text. As Michel Zink has shown, there is complex and sophisticated play on the meaning of the rose on Li'enor's thigh, which seems to oscillate between a metaphorical and a metonymical function throughout the text. Sarah Kay and Roberta Krueger have shown how deftly the text portrays a female character coming to the rescue of the malfunctioning male order, re-inscribing herself within it as a sign of masculine prestige after she has been ejected from it as valueless.20 The interpolated lyrics and the series of scenarios which are associated with the canso make Guillaume de Dole a transposition of lyric models into narrative, but as I have suggested this is by no means unquestioning and the narrative sections gloss and demystify the lyric interpolations. In Sarah Kay's words ' the lyric subject can get what he desires, because it is what women want. The lyric object is returned to the lyric subject, after a tour deforce of demystification' (Subjectivity, pp. 197-8). In her reading of the text Kay concentrates on the demystification of lyric models of subjectivity and femininity, but the manner in which Conrad falls in love with Lienor from a description, and the text's concentration on the relationship of Conrad and Guillaume, indicate that it demystifies lyric paradigms of desire in language and homosocial desire thoroughly as well.21 In even the most courtly and moving love poetry it is not always clear whether the poet is talking about his relations with his lady or other men. Consider, for example, another lyric by Bernart de Ventadorn: Non es meravelha s'eu chan melhs de nul autre chantador, que plus me tra • 1 cors vas amor e melhs sui faihz a so coman. Cor e cors e saber e sen e fors' e poder i ai mes. Si * m tira vas amor lo fres que vas autra part no • m aten.

5

Bernart de Ventadorn, 1

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It is not surprising that I sing better than any other singer, for my heart draws me more towards love and I am better fashioned to do its bidding. Heart and body, knowledge and wisdom, strength and ability have I put into it. The rein so draws me towards love that I pay attention to nothing else. The lady is absent. Bernart's feelings are portrayed as a matter concerning himself and love; the only third person mentioned at this stage is the nul autre chantador (2) in other words, another man. The equation love = singing is ubiquitous in the troubadour lyric, but Bernart's singing is not explicitly directed at his lady. It is compared instead to the singing of other men, as a means of proving his own superiority. 22 Centring on what Toril Moi calls the lover's ' own discursive performance' ('Desire', pp. 24—5), Bernart's opening stanza compares his singing to that of his rivals, but his self display is not narcissistic. He is concerned with his own feelings (which so far do not include a woman), but he wants the articulation of his desire to be compared to similar articulations by other men. In Bernart's 'Non es meravelha' the lady is not mentioned until the third stanza, and even then she is referred to in the third person. She is, however, at once marginalized as in the fourth line of the stanza Bernart returns to his relationship with the abstract Amors. She reappears in the fifth stanza, not as a lover, but as a supreme judge of Bernart and his rivals: Ai Dieus! car se fosson trian d'entrels faus li fin amador, e • lh lauzengier e • lh trichador portesson corns el fron denan! Tot l'aur del mon e tot l'argen i volg' aver dat, s'eu l'agues, sol que ma domna conogues aissi com eu l'am finamen.

35

40

Ah, God! If only it were possible to distinguish the false and true lovers and if only the slanderers and the cheaters had horns on their foreheads! If I had it I would like to have given all the gold and silver in the world, if only my lady knew how I loved her truly. Bernart is asking his lady to recognize that he is better than the men with whom he is competing, the lauzengier and the trichador.

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When he finally does address his lady directly, in the last stanza, their relationship is conveyed in feudal terms which are so masculine that as in Arnaut de Maruelh's 'Us jois d'amor', the lady ceases to be a domna and becomes a senhor: Bona domna, re no • us deman 50 mas que • m prendatz per servidor, qu'e • us servirai com bo senhor, cossi que del gazardo m'an. Good lady, I ask nothing from you except that you accept me as your servant, for I will serve you as I would a good lord, whatever my reward. Bernart, generally considered one of the greatest love poets of all time, seems then in this song to be initially interested more in himself and his relationship with other men than in his domna. When he does turn to his lady, he can conceive of their relationship only as a simulacrum of a male one. Bernart's transformation of his lady into a lord here may be usefully considered in the light of Kohler's view of the canso as a sublimation of the frustration of subordinates within the feudal nobility. Bernart's desire is directed less at his domna, than at a position she represents, that of a senhor, to whose position the poet aspires. The vassal's subordinate position within a masculine hierarchy is valorized (by his loyalty and 'sincerity') and the lady is elevated because she is thought of in masculine terms. Bernart's desire is homosocial in that he is using his putative relationship with a woman to negotiate his position in relation to a masculine hierarchy. 23 His poetry may appear to be addressed to his domna, but just as Conrad in Guillaume de Dole sings love songs when he is with his male companions and does not address any songs personally to Lienor, so Bernart's singing is primarily intended for the ears of other men. Although in tensos and partimens (dialogue poems) male and female voices dialogue about courtly matters, in the canso dialogue with the lady is rarely envisaged and the text is (inevitably) a monologue.24 This points to an important generic difference between lyric and romance. As I suggested at the end of the last chapter, by adopting the temporal plane of narrative, romance has to deal with the consequences of amorous

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utterances and so has to posit dialogue between lover and lady; lyric does not. The absence of dialogue between poet and lady underscores the phallocentric nature of the masculine discourse of the lyric. Moreover, some cansos specifically rule out dialogue between poet and lady. This is the case in Arnaut de Maruelh's ' La grans beutatz': Qu'ieu vos am tan, domna, celadamens que res no*l sap mas quant ieu et Amors 10 ni vos eyssa, tan grans sobretemors m'o tol ades que no-us aus far parvens; tal paor ai qu'ira e malsabensa m'aiatz, domna, quar vos port benvolensa 15 e pus no • us aus ren dire a rescos, dirai vos o sevals e ma chansos. Arnaut de Maruelh, 1 For I love you, lady, so secretly, that nobody knows about it except myself and love, not even you, so great is the fear which stops me from being open with you; I am so afraid, lady, that you might be angry and annoyed with me because I wish you well, and since I dare not say anything privately, at least I will tell you about it in my songs. Arnaut's use of the love = poetry / desire = language metaphor here is absolute: only in his song can his love have any kind of expression at all, but as he himself says, his love is so secret that only he and love know about it. He explicitly excludes his lady from being an intimate party to this knowledge. As Frederick Goldin says of Arnaut and his lady: 'His real object in speaking of his love, even in addressing her directly, is... to make visible to the audience the presence of his desire' {Mirror, p. 83). The next stanza of 'La grans beutatz' is composed of hyperbolic praise of the lady and (ostensibly) a request for some token of kindness. Yet if we take the song at face value, how can the domna show kindness if she has been denied knowledge of her suitor's love and does not know who he is? How is the lady to know the poem is about her and not about some other woman in the audience? Significantly Arnaut concludes praising not just his lady, but also his own song: Mon Bel Esgart, saber e conoissensa 41 e totz bos ayps vos fan aver valensa, per qu'ieu retrac vostre pretz cabalos al mielhs qu'ieu sai en mas humils chansos.

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My Bel Esgart, knowledge and discernment and all your good qualities make you worthy, wherefore 1 speak of your perfect reputation as best I can in my humble song. On one level, the quality of Arnaut's poetry is presented as a reflection of the lady's worth; on another the exclusion of the lady earlier in the song indicates she is but a pretext here for Arnaut's singing, and possibly even that there is no specific referent. Love is so completely internalized, that Arnaut's feelings concern only himself, an abstraction he calls Amors, and his song, which he presents to a broader public than his lady. If she has a role at the end of the poem, it is as a judge of Arnaut's qualities, for her worth stems above all from her discernment (line 41). The final insistence on the relationship between the quality of the lady and Arnaut's song, reinforced by the rhyming of the lady's pretz cabalos with his humils chansos, almost reverses the metaphorical relationship it appears to propose: perhaps the lady is only worthy because she has good songs composed about her, or perhaps the function of the canso is to create a better image of a perfect domna than the poet's rivals. The domna is produced in the text so that she can function as a reflection of the poet's worth for other men outside it. Real women are excluded. The canso is a vehicle for masculine competition within a feudal hierarchy, yet Kohler's view of the troubadour tradition as inscribing class conflict offers only a partial account of the dynamics at work in the genre. A number of critiques of Kohler's thesis have drawn attention to the gender-blindness of his approach. 25 Most notably Sarah Kay has suggested that his account ignores the distinction between rank and status: c rank is (for the most part) mechanically conferred by heredity or marriage whereas status is a cultural construct which admits of negotiation' [Subjectivity, p. 112). An individual of high rank may have high status, but so may an individual of low rank. It is status, not rank which is at issue in the canso. If the canso mediates tensions between different strata of the feudal nobility, their rank remains unchanged, but the troubadours can use love and poetry to negotiate their status in relation to each other. For Kohler courtly poetry offers all members of the feudal aristocracy (of higher and lower rank) a shared ideology which

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dissipates tension between them. As Kay argues 'Kohler's theorization is political, but remains entirely in the domain of the masculine, looking exclusively to class dynamics for its diagnosis and explanation' (Subjectivity, p. 130). Kohler therefore replicates the troubadours' own assumptions that the social and the masculine are coterminous and that women play no part in the social. But the exclusion of women - and of the feminine - contributes heavily to the construction of gender and subjectivity in the troubadour canso and requires close scrutiny. The exclusion of women is nowhere more evident than in the use of the feudal metaphor. Consider the opening to this canso by the Monk of Montaudon: 26 Aissi cum eel q'a estat ses seignor en son alo, francament et en patz, c'anc ren non det ni*n mes mas per amor ni fo destregs mas per sas voluntatz, et eras es par mal seignor forssatz 5 atressi • m fui mieus mezeis longamen: qu'anc re no fi per autrui mandamen ar ai senhor ab cui no • m val merces: Amor — que a mon cor en tal luoc mes on non aus dir ni mostrar mon talen 10 ni per nuill plag, partir no m'en puesc ges. Monk, 1 Like the man who has been alone in his allod without a lord, free and in peace, who has neither given nor pledged anything other than through affection, who has never been forced to act against his will, and who then is constrained by an evil overlord, so have I been for a long time: for never did I do anything at anyone else's behest - but now I have a lord with whom mercy is worth nothing for me: Love for it has placed my heart in such a place where I do not dare to either show or speak of my desire, and I am not able to leave this place in exchange for any pledge. Once again a love song opens with the lady absent, even excluded, and the Monk's metaphors locate his feelings entirely in relation to a feudal hierarchy. Furthermore, the feudal metaphor does not subjugate him to his lady (who is not mentioned until the end of stanza 11), but to Amor (9), which has been used in line 3 at the rhyme to designate affection between

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men. The Monk initially evokes a condition without feudal ties, in which he is free, holding land without feudal obligation (alo). Love draws the poet into the world of feudal bonds. The world without feudal bonds is presented in positive terms - the poet lived ' francament et en patz' — but entry into the feudal hierarchy is none the less presented as desirable. The poet is torn between the 'peace' of living outside the world of feudal bonds (and the canso), and the desire to prove himself and be recognized within it. Composing and performing cansos takes place within the hierarchical social world of the court, a space riven with rivalries between men and governed by rituals designed to differentiate men within a carefully gradated hierarchy. 27 If the canso enhances a man's status within this environment, the feudal metaphor may be read on more than one level.28 On the one hand it appears to mediate the poet's feelings towards his lady; on the other it gives the subject a place within a system which is predominantly (if not exclusively) masculine. Thus in the Monk's 'Aissi cum eel' the feudal metaphor is used in a love poem, but not in relation to a woman. In many poems the feudal metaphor is of course used for relations between a man and a woman, but the overtones may well be humorous. There is evidence that Occitan nobles disliked paying feudal homage, preferring pacts of nonagression, while homage to women in the real world was exceptional, if not unknown. 29 Was it considered unmanly to pay homage to a woman? Fulsome declarations of feudal subservience to domnas may not have been taken entirely seriously. For example, the feudal metaphor is often deployed to reinforce erotic overtones: 30 Domna, • 1 genzer c'anc nasques e la melher qu'eu anc vis, mas jonchas estau aclis, a genolhos et en pes, 40 el vostre franc senhoratge; encar me detz per prezen franchamen un cortes gatge - mas no • us aus dire cal fo c'adoutz me vostra preizo. 45 Bernart de Ventadorn, 37

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Lady, noblest ever to be born, and the best I have ever seen, I bow down humbly in your service, kneeling or standing up, with my hands together; may you generously bestow upon me a courtly token - but I dare not say what - that would sweeten your prison for me. The homage ceremony evoked here culminated with the lord kissing his vassal, surely the point of Bernart's coyness in line 44. As Linda Paterson comments ' metaphorical homage... is a strategy for claiming as a right the object of desire' (World, p. 36). Within the fiction of the canso, the poet is forcing an erotic response from his lady, who must kiss him if she is a ' good lord'. Feudal metaphors like this cannot be emptied of their social value, which brings me back to my main objection to Cholakian's psychocritical reading of the lyric. In positing the universal human subject, he also posits a private world for the psyche which is abstracted from the social. The male bonding and homosocial desire of the lyric are not simply part of the private world of a 'family romance', but elaborated in relation to a broader web of hierarchical masculine structures. The troubadour lyric was originally performed at court in public and it uses a discourse which partakes of the political, the public and the social. The construction of the masculine subject within the canso belongs as much in this world, as in the domain of the psychological. The fiction of a man addressing a woman in the troubadour lyric is frequently belied by signs that the real destinataires of the songs were other men: for example Bernart de Ventadorn's 'Can vei' is addressed to his friend 'Tristan'. Masculinity is constructed in relation to metaphors of power, and to a large extent the masculine subject seeks to position himself within a hierarchy in relation to other men. But no man acquires power simply by affirming his status in textual form, and it is important to remember that feudal metaphors are metaphors. The next section will seek to determine exactly what kind of masculine status is being negotiated in the canso.

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At the end of the last chapter I suggested that romance and lyric dealt differently with the attribution of power to women in literary texts. One of the chief mechanisms for expressing male subordination to women within courtly discourse is the feudal metaphor I have just briefly examined. Its frequency in the canso, together with the 'lyric' qualities of the passages in which it occurs in romance, indicate it is marked, like the amor de lonh, as a generic paradigm of the canso. If the reading I have proposed of the feudal metaphor as inscribing the lyric in the realm of masculine hierarchy is accepted, on one level it would seem that a romance like Le Bel Inconnu takes the metaphor too literally since the narrator portrays himself as completely in thrall to his lady. On another level, however, the end of the Le Bel Inconnu turns the tables on its ostensible addressee (the narrator's lady) by showing the narrator to be in control of the text and by blaming her for its unsatisfactory ending. Le Bel Inconnu ends with a fiction of moral blackmail which is comparable to the use to which the feudal metaphor is often put in the lyric. If the lady in the romance is kind, the story can have a happy ending; if the lady in the canso is a ' good lord' she will reward her vassal. The attribution of an empowered position to a woman serves to make her subject to a masculine value system, which dictates how she should behave. The homosocial economy ofcansos and their inscription in the masculine hierarchy of feudalism indicate they do not empower women as much as their speakers, just as it is not the narrator's lady who is empowered at the end of Le Bel Inconnu, but the narrator himself. But if the canso empowers its singer, this does not mean he acquires material power (remuneration, higher rank) through it, but rather that his prestige and sense of control (over other men and over women) are enhanced. The canso is above all a competitive linguistic performance. The troubadour demonstrates his control over language and thereby his superiority over other poets. Formalist critics of troubadour poetry have highlighted this, but as Kay points out (in my view correctly), they underplay the importance of subjectivity by

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considering meaning to be overdetermined entirely by the tradition in which the poet places his song. {Subjectivity, pp. 4-6). For Zumthor, the first-person pronoun of the medieval lyric has no referent other than the song itself. In his view the medieval courtly chanson has no specific first-person subject, since its subject position may be occupied by anyone who performs the song. The poem derives its meaning then not from any relation to its author, but from its relation to other texts, that is to say convention (Essai, pp. 189—243). This may be true when lyrics circulate and become detached from their authors, but troubadours strove continually to distinguish themselves and their texts from each other. We no longer know how troubadours made their performances distinct, though we have strong evidence they did so. We can, on the other hand, still see how they sought to differentiate their texts through distinctive style, tone, themes, motifs, intertextual dialogue, signature and so on.31 The masculine subject in the troubadour lyric is first and foremost a linguistic performer whose subjectivity is produced through his use of rhetoric and who seeks to individuate his own linguistic production. That the troubadours were successful in their attempts to individuate their production is attested by the author-centred organization of the chansonniers, regardless of whether their attributions are correct. Kay suggests that the troubadours' 'courtliness' in their cansos veils competition between individuals (Subjectivity, p. 131). One could perhaps go even further: the troubadours use their poems as signs of their status and masculinity so that the songs are brandished at other men much as chanson de geste heroes brandish swords. Linguistic performance, skill in rhetoric and dexterity within the formal constraints of the canso are signs of masculine prowess. Troubadours seek to demonstrate control in language, just as the narrator in Le Bel Inconnu wants to make it clear he keeps control over the narrative. The poem is a symbol of virility which enables the poet to assert his masculinity. That linguistic performance was deemed a desirable masculine quality in courtly culture is evident in a number of romances and it would also appear that linguistic prowess as a

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sign of masculinity is associated particularly with the lyric. In Flamenca (c.1270), for instance, Guilhem's knowledge of poetry is stressed from the start when he is described in hyperbolic terms which make him desirable (1706—1 o). The central sections of Flamenca are dominated by one of the most elaborate chat-up strategies in courtly literature. Flamenca is kept under guard by her jealous husband Archimbaut. Guilhem (who has never seen her) decides that his only opportunity to talk to her will be when she takes communion in church, so he bribes the priest of the church she attends to allow him to become his clerk. But the time she spends at the altar only allows him to utter two syllables during each service. His first words are Hai las, to which Flamenca, the following week, replies Que plans? ('What is wrong?'). Week by week, helped along by religious festivals, they build up a dialogue and eventually use this tortuous (but delightfully funny) method to agree a plan to meet. It is well known that the dialogue they produce resembles a dialogue poem by the twelfth-century troubadour Peire Rogier.32 The episode is thus underscored by a lyric intertext and each new contribution is carefully considered and weighed, as if the two protagonists were aware that they are not simply talking to each other, but producing a text (for example 4562-77). It is therefore not surprising that one of the qualities Flamenca admires in Guilhem is his dexterity with language. Thus, he is 'miels legens e meilz cantans' (4210: 'the best at reading and singing') which is ambiguous, since he is at this point playing the part of a priest, who reads and sings the mass. However, given the courtly context of their falling in love and given that Guilhem and Flamenca are in the process of rewriting a wellknown canso, this ambiguity further points to the fact that Guilhem's desirability stems from his linguistic dexterity, and particularly from his ability to perform within the realm of the courtly lyric. Linguistic performance in the canso is what makes a masculine subject desirable and it is frequently made clear by the troubadours that they regard their poetic activities as competitive whether they are vaunting its superior embellishment, simplicity or sincerity. In one of the cleverest attempts to

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undermine the competition Arnaut de Maruelh adopts a modest stance to deflate the performance of his rivals: D'aisso sai grat als autres trobadors, 15 qu'en sas chansos pliu chascus et afia que sa domna es la genser que sia, si tot s'es fals, lor digz lau e mercei, qu'entre lurs gaps passa segurs mos vers, qu'uns non conois ni no so ten a mal 20 c'atressi ere chascus, sia plazers. Arnaut de Maruelh, 12 For this I thank the other troubadours: in his songs each one swears and affirms that his lady is the most gracious there is; even if it is false I praise and thank their words, for my truth finds a safe passage between their boasting, for not one of them realizes this or thinks anything of it, for in this fashion each one thinks it a pleasing trifle.

This stanza is a sardonic comment on unbridled use of hyperbole. Arnaut claims his poetry is superior precisely because it lacks the embellishments other troubadours lavish on their work. He makes the performance of other men's masculinity enhance his own and he situates his poetry not in relation to a lady, but in relation to the language of other troubadours, that is to say other men. Singing is part of a masculine competition and it is perhaps this competitive nature of the canso which explains much of the formal experimentation and preciosity in the tradition. 33 But it is not redundant and futile (dis)play. It is a crucial element in the poet's negotiation of his status and masculinity. He must be different and superior to distinguish himself from others, to foreground himself not as a man, but as the man who stands out as exercising greatest control over language. It would be easy to demonstrate the competitive nature of poetic virtuosity in troubadour poetry in relation to masters of formal experimentation like Arnaut Daniel or Giraut de Borneil. I prefer, however, to examine a poem by Bernart de Ventadorn because of the apparent ' artlessness' of his poetry, because of his reputation as a ' sincere' love poet, and because his poetry is thought to exemplify the trobar leu, the 'easy' style of poetry.34 I want to show that the importance of control in language to the poet's status is not simply a feature of the more

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obviously showy poets. The question I want to ask of this poem is: what is the relation in it between poetic artifice and the poet's construction of his gender? I

II

in

iv

Tant ai mo cor pie de joy a, tot me desnatura. Flor blancha, vermelh' e groya me par la frejura, c'ab lo ven et ab la ploya me creis l'aventura, per que mos charts mont' e poya e mos pretz melhura. Tan ai al cor d'amor, de joi e de doussor, per que • 1 gels me sembla flor e la neus verdura. Anar pose ses vestidura, nutz en ma chamiza car fin' amors m'asegura de la freja biza. Mas es fols qui • s desmezura, e no • s te de guiza Per qu'eu ai pres de me cura deis c'agui enquiza la plus bela d'amor don aten tan d'onor, car en loc de sa ricor no volh aver Piza. De s'amistat me reciza! Mas be n'ai fiansa, que sivals eu n'ai conquiza la bela semblansa. Et ai ne a ma deviza tan de benanansa, que ja*l jorn que l'aurai viza, non aurai pezansa. Mo cor ai pres d'Amor que l'esperitz lai cor, mas lo cors es sai alhor, lonh de leis, en Fransa. Eu n'ai la bon' esperansa. Mas petit m'aonda,

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

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v

vi

VII

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c'atressrm ten en balansa com la naus en Fonda. 40 Del mal pes que • m desenansa, no sai on m'esconda. Tota noih me vir' e • m lansa desobre Pesponda. Plus trac pena d'amor 45 de Tristan l'amador, que • n sofri manhta dolor per Izeut la blonda. Ai! Deus! car no sui ironda, que voles per Paire 50 e vengues de noih prionda lai dins so repaire? Bona domna jauzionda, mor se • 1 vostr' amaire! Paor ai que • 1 cors me fonda, 55 s'aissi-m dura gaire. Domna, per vostre' amor jonh las mas et ador! Gens cors ab frescha color, gran mal me faitz traire! 60 Qu'el mon non a nul afaire don eu tan cossire, can de leis au re retraire, que mo cor no i vire e mo semblan no*m n'esclaire. 65 Que que-m n'aujatz dire, si c'ades vos er veyaire c'ai talan de rire. Tan l'am de bon' amor que manhtas vetz en plor 70 per o que melhor sabor m'en an li sospire. Messatgers, vai e cor, e di • m a la gensor la pena e la dolor 75 que • n trac, e • 1 martire. Bernart de Ventadorn, 4

My heart is so full of joy that everything is made unnatural for me. Cold weather seems like a white, red and yellow flower to me for with the wind and rain my good fortune increases, wherefore

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Gender and genre in medieval French literature my song rises and soars and my worth improves. I have so much love in my heart, so much joy and sweetness, that frost seems like a flower to me and the snow like greenery.

II

I can go around naked under my shirt for JirCamor protects me from the cold wind. But the one who lacks restraint and behaves in an unseemly manner, is foolish. Wherefore I have watched myself since I started courting the most beautiful woman, from whom I expect great honour, for in place of her riches I would not wish to have Pisa.

in

Let her send me away from her love! But I am indeed sure of it, for I have nevertheless conquered a fair glance. And I have from my separation so much happiness, that the day when I see her again, I will not be unhappy. I have my heart close to love, so that my spirit runs there, even though my body is elsewhere, far from her, here in France.

iv

I am very hopeful, but this helps me little, for it rocks me back and forth like a ship on the wave. I do not know where to hide from the dark thoughts that drive me mad. Every night I toss and turn on my bed. I have more pain in love than Tristan the lover, who suffered greatly for Iseult la Blonde.

v

Oh God, why am I not a swallow so that I might fly through the air and land in the deep night in her house? Oh joyful, good lady, your lover is dying! I am afraid my heart will break if this goes on much longer. Lady, for your love I join my hands and worship. Oh sweet, fair person, you make me suffer greatly.

vi

For in the world there is no matter that preoccupies me so much that when I hear her spoken of, my heart does not go there and my face light up. Whatever you hear me saying, it will look to you at once as if I want to laugh. I love her so much with good love that I weep often because sighs seem to have such savour to me.

VII

Messenger, run and tell the sweetest one from me about the pain and anguish and martyrdom which I suffer because of her.

The formal structure of this poem is complex, however ' artless' and 'sincere' it may appear. The song is structured around a series of antitheses. In the first stanza Bernart makes an opposition between the coldness of winter and the springlike

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warmth love engenders in his heart. In stanza 11 this opposition is continued and madness is contrasted to restraint. Stanza in evokes the perennial troubadour spatial opposition between sai (where the lover-poet is) and lai (where the lady is). The fourth stanza contains a simile which produces a metaphor of antithesis: the poet is rocked back and forth (ten en balansa, 39) like a ship on the waves. Throughout the rest of the poem love is either contrasted to, or associated with, pain or sorrow. The poem thus revolves around a central image or metaphor (the ship on the waves) which is emblematic of the content of the poem. This central image/metaphor offers the key to understanding the poem in that the back and forth movement of the ship figures the antitheses used throughout. It also marks a shift in the poem from an accumulation of different antitheses to the predominance of one opposition, so that the structure of the poem may be schematized as follows: different antitheses —• metaphor of antithesis —• one central antithesis.35 The central image/metaphor is locked firmly into place since the coblas capcaudadas form prohibits any other stanza order and binds the poem tightly together.36 In coblas capcaudadas the last rhyme-sound of one stanza becomes the first of the next. Thus in the poem's rhyme-scheme (ababababcccb) b becomes a in sequential stanzas and each new b introduces a new rhymesound ; c is a constant rhyme-sound with ci as a constant rhymeword, a type of refrain, amor. This elaborate and sophisticated rhyme-scheme weaves antithesis into the form of the poem in two ways. First, although there is no simple semantic opposition between a and b rhymes, the insistent and repetitive oscillation between a and b rhyme-sounds, both of which are stressed by virtue of being feminine rhymes, is suggestive of a binary pattern so that the sounds become embroiled as a differentiated pair, as if they were in opposition to each other. Secondly, the oscillation between a and b rhymes draws attention all the more sharply to the constant c rhyme, and perhaps above all to the refrain word amor, which plays an important role in the antitheses which structure the poems. The clusters of c rhymesounds give: amor, doussor,flor / amor, onor, ricor / Amor, cor, alhor I amor, amador, dolor / amor, ador, color / amor, plor, sabor and in

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the tornada, where the refrain word is dropped, cor, gensor, dolor. Roman Jakobson suggests that contiguous rhymes, or words associated through rhyme-sound, may signify by virtue of their association in a manner which exceeds semantics, grammar or syntax.37 Linked by the form of a poem, rhyme-words with the same rhyme-sound may qualify each other, modify or complement each other's meaning. Here we see a sequence of associations with the word amor, but if the use of amor as a constant rhyme suggests amor is a constant concept in the poem, its association with words of different value as the poem progresses implies a shift in its meaning. In the first two stanzas amor rhymes only with words which have positive connotations (doussor,flor, onor, ricor); stanza m suggests a shift by associating Amor with alhor (implying love is absent) and this is further reinforced in stanza iv where amor and amador rhyme with dolor. The c rhymes in stanza v initially appear to revert to the positive connotations of earlier stanzas, but the negative content of line 60 ('gran mal me faitz traire') underscores the previous three lines and color in troubadour poetry is often suggestive of ambiguous meaning. Stanza vi and the tornada again offer an antithesis (though also, of course, a connection) between amor and negative words: plor (70) and dolor (75). The evolution of the signification produced by the constant c rhymes and the refrain word suggest that an unproblematic, positive view of love is gradually displaced by a highly anguished account and that the meaning of amor, initially simple and unitary, becomes increasingly complex and fragmented. Bernart's formal virtuosity in this song is a peacock-like display of poetic skill that succeeds in destabilizing the meaning of amor, which is not just the bedrock of this canso, but of the whole tradition. Equivocal presentations offin'amor as alternately divine or diabolical are, of course, conventional, but Bernart seems here to be more interested in demonstrating his power to undermine stable meaning than in simply reiterating the bitter/sweet love topos. This is certainly the implication of the first stanza if we choose to read it metalinguistically as about the poem, a strategy which is justified given that Bernart vaunts the quality of his song (7-8).

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What does the opening stanza tell us about the poem? Firstly, that Bernart thinks his poem is good (' mos chans mont' e poya', 7); secondly that the quality of his poetry is associated with the enhancement of his own value ('e mos pretz melhura', 8); thirdly it is implicit in the last lines of the stanza that both the quality of his poetry and his increased worth are associated with his love which has given him the ability to destabilize binary oppositions, to make things seem what they are not. The rhyme word of line 2, desnatura, indicates Bernart is aware of the artificiality of poetic language.38 On one level, this figures the turmoil to which love has reduced him; on another it signals that within his poem ' unnatural' or artificial things will occur. But it is not the world which is made unnatural, nor Bernart himself: we do not really believe in a miraculous inversion of the seasons nor that he can run around half-naked because love keeps him warm. It is language which Bernart makes 'unnatural': in his poem the cold becomes a flower, the snow greenery and he collapses conventional opposites. The opening stanza uses the tried and trusted sincerity topos ('I sing well because I love well'), but read metalinguistically it is a powerful assertion of Bernart's control over language, which is then confirmed by his masterful command of rhetoric and form throughout the poem. As with so many of Bernart's songs 'Tant ai mo cor' invites the audience to make a comparison between Bernart and other men, present here in the form of'Tristan Pamador' (46). The metaphoric thread linking love to poetry is once again twitched here. If the quality of Bernart's pain in love reflects the quality of his poetry and vice versa, and if his love is like Tristan's, then his poem must be extraordinarily good. Bernart's worth, the pretz he vaunts in line 8, is not represented by his lady, but by the poem. The quality of the poem is the outward sign of his status and the means he uses to demonstrate his superiority to other men. The troubadours use their songs to negotiate their masculinity in as much as they construct and perform a gender system in it, articulate homosocial desire through it, and determine their status in relation to other men by it. Cansos were performed within the intensely political environment of the

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court, where men of lower rank jostled for positions, whilst men of higher rank sought admiration and loyalty. It is no wonder they are a currency in the process whereby men form hierarchies.39 But women too lived at court and the canso is unusual in the corpus of texts studied in this book in that the genre offers the opportunity for comparing male-authored texts with texts written by women. The last section of this chapter will assess the response of the trobairitz to the paradigms of the male-authored canso. Do they react critically to the masculine discourse of the canso ? Or do the songs of the trobairitz indicate that women internalized male views of their gender? WOMEN'S VOICES

Reading the trobairitz poses the modern reader a series of problems which have been attenuated, but not obviated by the appearance recently of a new critical edition. The most salient of these are perhaps: the definition of the corpus; its relationship to the dominant discourse (which necessarily raises the question of authorship); finally reception. According to one survey, we know of 16 named trobairitz and 324 named troubadours. 40 Named trobairitz consequently make up just five per cent of named poets. This meagre proportion is not surprising: substantially fewer women could read and write than men; the canso is a genre in which usually a man addresses a woman; and it may have been indecorous for women to compose and perform songs. However, the existence of some trobairitz texts makes it probable more were composed, but have not survived. Obviously some texts will have been lost accidentally as manuscripts disintegrated, were destroyed or neglected, but female-authored texts have more to contend with than the vagaries of history. Feminist scholarship on the formation of literary canons charts the strategies men use to suppress women's writing.41 The first, and most obvious strategy, is to argue that texts were not written by women, but by men: this is a strategy which has been applied to the trobairitz^ both in medieval times and still today with some vigour.42 Furthermore, the small number of chansonniers which

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transmit trobairitz songs may suggest they were deliberately excluded from some collections: without the one manuscript which seems to have been particularly interested in them (//), the corpus would comprise just a handful of poems. When authorship is not disputed other strategies may be used for marginalizing women in the canon: for example what they wrote is explicitly down-graded. Thus Alfred Jeanroy considered the poetry of the trobairitz to be 'des exercices litteraires' and commented: ' il me parait... naturel de preter a ces femmes ...une certaine paresse d'esprit, une evidente faute de gout' (Poesie lyrique, 1, p. 317). No doubt some trobairitz poetry is disappointing, but Jeanroy's criticism seems to derive entirely from his unease that these women dared to speak of love at all. The implication of Jeanroy's view of the trobairitz is that the only fitting position for women within literary discourse is silence and thus he is in many respects, rather like a troubadour. Jeanroy asserts that the trobairitz's songs manifest a 'choquant oubli de toute pudeur et de toute convenance' (Poesie lyrique, 1, p. 317). This raises (no doubt unwittingly) the question of the relationship of poetry by women to the dominant (maleauthored) canon and of the relationship between women and language more generally. Determining the extent to which a female writer is (or is not) constrained by literary convention into suppressing or denying her feminine subjectivity, assessing the extent to which her subjectivity may (or may not) be annexed by the dominant masculine discourse, are not easy.43 During the period when most of the trobairitz we know were active, the canso is formally elaborate and the conventions governing content were firmly fixed. If a poet departed too markedly from the norm in terms of form or content, the lyric would no longer be a canso. Because the trobairitz adopted the form and lexis of the courtly canso, some critics have argued they merely supply a feminine voice to the troubadours' domna, and thus that they play a role written for them by men. Jean-Charles Huchet, for instance, suggests that the trobairitz are a fiction litteraire, while Pierre Bee parallels this by insisting that we are dealing less with authentic women poets than with what he calls textualite feminine}* Huchet and Bee's articles on the trobairitz

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highlight a serious theoretical problem for the reader of the corpus, but in some ways (unintentionally one must assume) they offer a more sophisticated basis for denying that the songs attributed to the trobairitz were written by women. The implication of their approach is that it is irrelevant whether the songs were written by women or not because the first-person position the female voices occupy is constructed by the dominant discourse. Thus, for a genuine 'woman's view' you would need to look outside the tradition, outside the chansonniers in which troubadour poetry is preserved, possibly outside literary texts altogether, since female subjectivity within the tradition is always subject to the dominant masculine literary discourse. A genuine feminine voice, following this line of argument, would by definition be inaudible in the canso. The two critics have different theoretical frameworks: for Huchet feminite is once again the Lacanian Other; Bee is aware of a more politically orientated theory of sexual difference. Yet in Bee's article on the trobairitz they are doubly criticized: their poetry is conventional which for Bee makes it like that of the troubadours, part of a single systeme socio-poetique ('«Trobairitz »', p. 239); at the same time he comments that they do not attack the patriarchal structures of the canso as if it were incumbent upon them to do so. Recently Huchet and Bee's views have been challenged by scholars working from a feminist perspective. Matilda Bruckner and Kathryn Gravdal, for instance, have argued that the trobairitz challenge the gender system of the troubadours as they inscribe themselves in it, enacting a subversion from within, but both none the less agree that it is in relation to the dominant tradition of the male-authored canso that the trobairitz canso functions.45 The third major problem confronting the modern reader of the trobairitz is the question of the reception of their poetry. Whether or not the songs of the trobairitz are by women, a question to which I will return, it is clear that the first-person subject is feminine. Who would have performed these songs? Were they performed by women? If noble women lived at their husbands', fathers' and brothers' courts, occasionally even presided over their own courts, was it permissible for them to

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participate in public entertainment? If so, did they perform in private or in public? I have argued that cansos are frequently part of a homosocial exchange, that even the songs of highly ' courtly' poets represent men talking to each other, and that it is an implicit prerequisite of the genre that dialogue with the lady is not envisaged. A woman singing within this tradition disrupts the homosocial discourse of the canso: giving women a voice, even as fictional domnas, constitutes a major intrusion. If the form and lexis of the love songs of the trobairitz make them recognizably cansos, the gender of the speaker constitutes a radical transformation of the genre. It has been suggested that particular historical circumstances in twelfth-century Occitania created an environment which made the songs of the trobairitz possible. Although the legal rights of women (for instance in relation to property) underwent a steady decline from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, it is thought that between 1180 and 1230 there was a brief'golden age' during which the condition of women improved. However, any improvement was relative and slight. If a minority of noble women exercised real power in Occitania during this period, they were the exceptions.46 Literary sources indicate women were expected to engage in witty dialogue at court (Paterson, World, p. 260). But they did so within an environment devoted primarily to the regulation of a male hierarchy and to the distribution of power within a man's world. Just as we need to ask how women might have responded to male-authored literary texts, so the songs of the trobairitzforceus to ask how men responded to the spectacle of women speaking within the genre of the canso. In some respects the marginal position of the trobairitz in the tradition may supply us with an answer. I would like to look at one song to illustrate the problems I have raised. It is a sirventes rather than a canso, but as a commentary on the discourse of the canso it is appropriate to look at in this context:47 1

No puesc mudar no digua mon vejaire d'aisso dont ai al cor molt gran error et er me molt mal e greu a retraire, quar aquist antic trobador

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Gender and genre in medieval French literature que • n son passat, die que son fort peccaire, qu'ilh an mes lo segP en error que an dig mal de domnas a prezen e trastug cilh qu'o auzon crezo • Is en et autreyon tug que ben es semblansa, et aissi an mes lo segP en erransa. 11

in

iv

1

E tug aquist que eron bon trobaire, tug se fenhon per leal amador, mas ieu sai be que non es fis amaire nuls horn que digua mal d'amor; enans vos die qu'es ves amor bauzaire e fai uzatge al traitor aicel que de so, on plus fort s'aten, plus en ditz mal aissi tot a prezen, quar negus horn, s'avia tota Fransa, no pot ses don' aver gran benestansa. E ja nuls horn que sia de bon aire no sufrira qu'om en digua folhor, mas silh que son vas amor trie e vaire ho auzon (?) e s'en tenon ab lor; qu'en Marcabrus, a ley de predicaire quant es en glezia ho orador que di gran mal de la gen mescrezen, et el ditz mal de donas eyssamen; e die vos be que non Fes gran honransa eel que ditz mal d'aisso don nays enfansa. la no sia negus meraveillaire s'ieu aisso die ni vuelh mostrar alhor que quascus horn deu razonar son fraire e queia domna sa seror, quar Adams fo lo nostre premier paire e avem Damnidieu ad auctor; e s'ieu per so velh far razonamen a las domnas, no m'o reptes nien, quar dona deu az autra far orcransa e per aisso ai • n ieu dig ma semblansa.

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40 Rieger, 45

I cannot stop myself giving my opinion on what grieves me in my heart, and it will be very painful for me to talk about it, for I say that the troubadours of former times, who are now dead, are absolutely in the wrong, for they have created turmoil in the

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world by openly slandering ladies, and everyone who hears them believes them and agrees with them, and thus have they deceived the world. 11 And all those who were good troubadours feign to be loyal lovers, but I know full well that no man who slanders love can be a true lover, rather I say to you that he cheats love and that the one who speaks ill of it openly when one expects better of him, behaves like a traitor, for no man, even if he owned all of France can be good without a lady. in And let no noble man permit anyone to speak ill of them, rather let those who cheat and are fickle in love listen to this and join them: for sir Marcabru, behaving like a preacher when he is in a church or an oratory, attacked infidels and women alike; and I say to you that it is no honour to speak ill of the creature that gives birth to children. iv Let no one be surprised if I say this and want to speak thus elsewhere, for every man should talk about this to his brother, and every lady to her sister. For Adam was thefirstfather to us all, and we have God as our creator, and if I for this reason wish to speak to ladies, do not reproach me. For a lady must honour another and because of this I say my piece. The only manuscript to preserve this poem (C) attributes it to Raimon Jordan, author of a small but relatively well-known corpus of cansos, whose attested poetic career spans the period 1178-95. The standard edition of Raimon's songs for many years included the poem; in de Riquer's seminal anthology of troubadour poetry, the song is attributed to him even though de Riquer acknowledges in a note that the poem is probably the work of a trobairitz. Stefano Asperti's 1990 edition of Raimon Jordan does not include the song, whilst Angelica Rieger edits the poem as a trobairitz song.48 Line 39 makes it clear that the first-person subject of this poem is a woman. Yet until very recently modern scholarship has colluded with the medieval scribe in attributing the song to a man. If the first-person subject is feminine, does this mean the poem is by a woman? Are we dealing with a fiction litteraire or with textualite feminine? And does it matter?

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If the poem is by a man, it would initially seem to be a riposte to misogynistic satirists like Marcabru, named here (25). The poem would then be aligning itself with a poet like Cercamon who attacks troubadours who speak ill of love and women. 49 But this does not account for stanza 11, which attacks courtly troubadours as well. The rhymes establish a chain of association which berates all antic trobador (4) who style themselves courtly: trobaire / amaire / bauzaire

and

amador / amor / traitor.

The

author of the song is attacking two branches of the male tradition: the 'courtly' (in stanza 11) and the satirical (in stanza in). The precise nature of the accusation against courtly troubadours is that they assume they are loyal lovers because they are good poets (11-12). This reads like a direct attack on poets like Bernart de Ventadorn, who constantly equates the quality of poetry with the quality of love. But as the poet says, courtly posturing jars with the misogyny of many cansos (14-20), unless, of course, courtliness and misogyny are understood to be similar. The poem mounts a scathing attack on the two main strands of the male tradition from a proto-feminist position and makes a strong case in the last stanza for female solidarity and equality. It does matter whether this poem is by a man or a woman. If it is by a man it attacks one male discourse (Marcabru's), while showing an uneasy awareness that his misogyny was not unusual. If the song is by a woman, then she is attempting to show that two different masculine discourses are in fact similar in their misogyny. Why was this song preserved under Raimon Jordan's name? The only manuscript in which it survives contains a large number of satiric poems and has an extensive Marcabru corpus, so it may be that the compiler included the poem because the subject matter interested him. 50 If the song was not already attributed to Raimon in his source, perhaps he misread the poem as simply an attack on Marcabru; failing to see the implications of stanza 11, perhaps he attributed it to a 'courtly' poet at random. Whatever the reason for the attribution, the woman who composed this song has her voice ascribed to a man. Perhaps this is not surprising given the audacity of her utterance, for she is not simply asserting the right of women to

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speak and to gloss masculine poetry, thereby disrupting the male homosocial, she also posits a female exchange in which women speak directly to each other (39). This poem is typical of many trobairitz poems in that it makes a conscious attempt to comment on masculine discourse: both stanzas 11 and m are about decoding male language from a woman's point of view. It is also typical in that it acknowledges that speaking about this is difficult (3). It is the preoccupation of many of the trobairitz with their difficult relationship to language, and above all to the language of the dominant tradition, which I think offers the most compelling reason for accepting these poems are by women. The trobairitz constantly express anxiety about the language of men and about their own language, aware that they are intruders. I am going to assume that the cansos attributed to trobairitz are by women. Even if there can be no absolute proof of female authorship, such an assumption is a useful corrective to years of uncritical marginalization of women within the tradition. I wish to argue that the cansos of the trobairitz enable the modern reader to deconstruct the gender-based ideology of male-authored troubadour poetry and that this suggests that modern feminist readings of the troubadours and of their construction of gender are supported by contemporary reception amongst some women. I shall also attempt to account for the view of female subjectivity which emerges from the poems and argue that we are dealing with something more than textualite feminine or &fictionlitteraire here. As with the male poets I shall concentrate on one lyric genre: the canso.51

In her study of the trobairitz (which forms part of her chapter on 'Gender and Status' in troubadour poetry), Sarah Kay argues that in the cansos of the trobairitz ' their subjectivity when it is not annexed, is silenced or oppressed' (Subjectivity, p. i n ) ; she sees this as a result of women's negative experience of the repressive gender system of the male-authored canso. My own view is different on one crucial point. I do not think women's subjectivity is silenced or repressed in the poetry of the trobairitz; rather I think that they deliberately represent it as inexpressible.52

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As Kay argues (Subjectivity, pp. 103-11), the trobairitz frequently express anxiety about the domna position to which male troubadours ostensibly assign women. This anxiety often focuses on the power that the canso (largely through the feudal metaphor) apparently bestows upon them. Consider the first five stanzas of the only surviving canso by Azalais de Porcairagues: I

II

in

iv

v

Ar em al freg terns vengut que • 1 gels e • 1 neus e la faingna e • 1 aufellet estan mut c'us de chantar non s'afraingna; e son sec li ram pels plais que flors ni foilla no • i nais ni rossignols non i crida, que am j'en mai me reissida. Tant ai lo cor deseubut per qu'eu soi a toz estraingna, e sai que Tom a perdut molt plus tost que non gasaingna; e s'ieu faill ab motz verais: d'Aurenga me moc l'esglais per qu'eu m'estauc esbazda e • n pert solatz en partida. Dompna met mot mal s'amor qu£ ab ric ome plaideia, ab plus aut de vavasor, E s'il/o fai il(/) folleia; car so diz om en Veillai que ges per ricor non vai, e dompna que n'es chau^ida en tenc per envilanida. Amic ai de gran valor que sobre toz seignoreia, e non a cor trichador vas me, que s'amor m'autreia. Exa die que m'amors l'eschai, e eel que dis que non fai Dieus li don mal' escarida qu'eu m'en teing fort per guerida. Bels amics de bon talan son be vos toz iorz en gatge

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cortez' e de bel semblan, 35 sol no • m demandes outratge; tost en vez'rem a Passai qu'en vostra merce-m metrai; vos m'avej la fe plevida que no • m demandes faillida. 40 Rieger, 27 {CDIKd version) I

Now we have come to the cold season and the frost and the snow and the mud, and the little birds are mute, for not one of them tries to sing; and the branches are dry along the hedgerow, for no flower or leaf buds there, nor does the nightingale, whom I love if he awakens me in May, sing there.

II

My heart is so deceived, wherefore I am estranged from everyone and I know that a man loses much more frequently than he wins; and if I fail with true words, my trouble stems from Orange, wherefore I am saddened, and lose part of my comfort.

in

A lady places her love badly when she deals with too rich a man, too powerful a knight, and if she does this she is mad; for this reason they say in Vellay that one should not go there because of riches; and I consider vile a lady who follows this path.

iv

I have a very worthy lover who lords it over all the others, and he does not have a fickle heart towards me, for he grants me his love. I say that my love falls to him and may God confound anyone who says it does not, for I consider myself cured.

v

Fair friend, with true desire I am eternally pledged to you, in a courtly and worthy manner, only do not ask me to behave indecently; we will soon come to the test, when I will place myself at your mercy; you have pledged me faith, so do not demand a fault of me.

Azalais has been identified as the woman Raimbaut d'Aurenga addresses as Joglar and her own poetic activities may explain the senhal}* Line 14 may be a direct reference to Raimbaut, and if so, the poem was probably composed in his lifetime, before 1173. This song is consequently early in the trobairitz corpus, though a second version (in JV) implies Raimbaut is dead and may well be a later reworking. This is an accomplished poem,

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and it is therefore unlikely that it was the only one Azalais wrote, though it is the only one to have survived. The poem opens with an image of silence. The silence of winter is a common topos in the troubadour lyric, but is it more charged in a poem by a woman, particularly here where her song is positioned over the silence of the nightingale, which often symbolizes courtly song?54 It is as if Azalais can only make herself heard when other courtly singers are muted. The evocation of the silent birds in stanza i introduces language as a theme. It is taken up in the second stanza where anxiety about language is linked to anxiety about power. Stanzas m-v evoke insistently the feudal metaphor of the masculine lyric. Azalais talks of loving a ric ome, who is an aut vavasor (18—19); she uses the verb seignoreiar (26) and evokes feudal loyalty {en gatge, 34). She operates an inversion of the conventions of the male-authored canso in that here it is a woman who is in love with a man of high social rank and singing about it, not vice versa. She is disempowered not just by the rank of her lover and the position she attributes to him in the metaphor, but also by her gender (see Gravdal, 'Metaphor', p. 415). She uses the feudal metaphor as if she were a man, putting herself in the subordinate position, but she none the less questions its value in stanza v by suggesting she does not trust the man she addresses not to take advantage of her (33-40) .Just as the feudal metaphor can lead a troubadour to ask his domna to behave like a' good lord', so here Azalais evokes the metaphor to say she expects trustworthiness from someone so high in the feudal hierarchy. This in effect points to anxiety about the value of the feudal language she is using, which makes her explicit comments on language in stanza 11 all the more interesting. Azalais implies in the second stanza that she is alienated and deceived by her lover. She contrasts her motz verais, which fail her, to the esglais ('trouble') which comes from Orange. By this she presumably implies a direct reference to Raimbaut d'Aurenga, who was indeed a ric ome (see Kay, Subjectivity, pp. 104—6). But ric is ambivalent here. It could mean 'rich' or 'powerful', but it can also have the sense of'exaggerated', even

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'funny' (close to the Modern English 'that's rich'). Raimbaut was a powerful man, but also a composer of hysterical gap (boasting) poems, rics gaps in fact.55 This makes two interpretations of stanza 11 possible: first, do not trust a rich man because a powerful man will not abide by the rules implicit in the rhetoric of love;56 secondly, do not trust a man's language since he will always counter your motz verais with esglais. Azalais seems to imply that men cannot be trusted to use language honestly or that the language they use is not meaningful; she further implies that a woman's language will not help her to express her position.57 The same bewilderment about the failure of male language to deliver is present throughout the corpus of the Comtessa de Dia: 1

v

vi

A chantar m'er de so q'ieu no volria, tant me rancur de lui cui sui amia car eu Tain mais que nuilla ren que sia; vas lui no * m val merces ni cortesia, ni ma beltatz ni mos pretz ni mos sens, c'atressi • m sui enganad' e trahia cum degr' esser, s'ieu fos desavinens. Valer mi deu mos pretz e mos paratges e ma beutatz e plus mos fis coratges, per q'ieu vos mand lai on es vostr' estatges esta chansson que me sia messatges; e vwoill saber, lo mieus bels amics gens, per que vos m'etz tant fers ni tant salvatges, non sai si s'es orguoills o mals talens.

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Mas aitan plus vuoill li digas, messatges, q'en trop d'orguoill ant gran dan maintas gens. Rieger, 35

I will have to sing about what I did not wish to sing of, so annoyed am I with the man whose lady friend I am, for I love him more than anything; my mercy and courtliness are worth nothing with him, nor my beauty, worth or wisdom, so I am thus deceived and betrayed, as I ought to be if I were unseemly.

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My worth and rank, my beauty and my noble heart ought to help me, wherefore I send this song to you as a message for me. And I want to know, my fair, noble friend, why you are so cruel and unkind to me, [as] I do not know whether it is pride or bad faith.

vi And I want you to tell him this as well, messenger, that pride has harmed many people. The Comtessa does not adopt the role of the haughty and imperious domna as prescribed by male troubadours here. On the contrary she claims dissatisfaction and frustration in love, as many troubadours do. But the feminine voice gives the plaint different value, particularly given that she cites the virtues many male troubadours attribute to or require of their domnas. When, in lines 4-5, she affirms her merces, cortesia, beltatz, pretz and sens, it is as if she is saying she has attempted to conform to the model of the ideal domna, but that it has not done her any good. Put more abstractly, she implies she has attempted to construct herself according to the requirements of the rhetoric of the canso, subsumed her subjectivity to its masculine discourse, and now she cannot understand why she is enganad! e trahia, why the discourse fails to deliver what it promises, in terms of loyalty and feudal submission. She thereby highlights a gap between the symbolic and real value of troubadour rhetoric. As she says in the last stanza of the poem her pretz and paratges ought to make her bels amics gens loyal and loving, but they do not. The Comtessa's song is an effective demystification of the canso. She evokes the qualities the genre ostensibly requires of the domna, but shows that when a woman has them, she is not necessarily treated with respect. In the light of her criticism of her lover, one wonders if her description of him as bel and gens is ironic. 'A chantar' clearly engages in a dialectic with the maleauthored canso. The Comtessa's use of the lexis of the canso and her dissatisfaction at the untrustworthiness of its rhetoric signal an anxiety about language, but whereas Azalais de Porcairagues explicitly compares her 'true' words to the treacherous language of her male lover, the Comtessa does so implicitly by calling male rhetoric to account obliquely. The comparison with Azalais also works on another level, for like Azalais the

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Comtessa's anxiety about language is bound up with anxiety about power, as is clear in another of her songs. The first two stanzas of 'Estat ai' (Rieger 36) make it clear that the Comtessa's lover demands sex and that she is happy to give it to him: it is perhaps this manque de pudeur which so offended Jeanroy. After the erotic tone of the first two stanzas, the eruption of the word poder in the third startles: Bels amics, avinens e bos, cora • us tenrai en mon poder e que iagues ab vos un ser, e qe • us des un bais amoros? Sapchatz, gran talan n'auria qe • us tengues en luoc del marit, ab so que m'aguessetz plevit de far tot so qu'eu volria.

20

Fair, comely and good friend, when can I hold you in my power and lie with you a whole night and give you a sweet kiss ? Let me tell you I would really like to hold you instead of my husband as long as you swore to do everything I wanted. The effect of the word poder is reinforced by the judicial overtones of plevit (23) and by the last line. The Comtessa seeks to control her lover. The last line echoes the first line of 'A chantar' (or vice versa) suggesting the two songs gloss each other. The last line also draws attention to a disparity between male and female positions. The male poet subordinating himself to his domna appeals to her sense of decency and assumes she will reward his loyal service if she is a ' good lord'; the masculine value system of the masculine hierarchy in which the poet inscribes his domna is presumed to function. The Comtessa, on the other hand, articulates a deep mistrust of her lover and seeks to bind him to the letter of his rhetoric in as many ways as possible. This suggests that the poetry of the trobairitz is more than a fiction litteraire or an example of textualite feminine. The trobairitz do not simply internalize male views of their gender; they do not simply adopt the role of the domna. It is interesting in relation to the Comtessa's challenging attitude towards masculine rhetoric that in one poem, which

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admittedly may be a fragment, she seeks to enact her removal as an object from male discourse: I

II

in

Fin ioi me don' alegransa per qu'eu chan plus gaiamen, e no m'o teing a pensanssa ni a negun penssamen car sai que son a mon dan li fals lausengier truan e lor mals diz no m'esglaia anz en son dos tanz plus gaia. En mi non an ges fianssa li lauzengier mal dizen c'om non pot aver honranssa qu'a ab els acordamen qu'ist son d'altrestal semblan com la nivo/ que s'espan qe • 1 solels en pert sa raia per qu'eu non am gent savaia. E vos, gelos mal parlan, no*s cuges quVw m'an tartan que iois e iovenz no • m plaia, per tal que dols vos deschaia.

5

10

15

20 Rieger, 37

1

Pure joy makes me happy, and so I sing more gaily, and this does not worry or bother me for I know false treacherous slanderers are working to harm me, and their evil words do not scare me, rather I am twice as joyful.

n

The ill-spoken slanderers have no faith in me, for no man has honour who has truck with them, for they are just like the cloud which spreads so that the sun's ray is lost, wherefore I do not like wicked people.

in

And you, false tongued jealous men, do not think that I am put off, for I do not like joy and youth in order to induce pain in you.

The Comtessa makes no mention of her amic. The only men mentioned are the lauzengiers addressed in lines 6 and 10, who are stock characters in the canso. Their identity has been debated by sociohistoric critics, but it is not clear that the term

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lauzengiers designates a well-defined group; rather it is more likely that lauzengiers are simply other men whom troubadours wish to denigrate in order to enhance their own worth. They may well be other poets, given that lauzengiers are criticized for their indiscreet use of language. From the male troubadour's point of view, lauzengier is a term of abuse for his rivals.58 From the trobairitz's point of view, the lauzengiers are men who talk about her, who use her as a sign within their discourse. In the last lines the Comtessa effectively withdraws herself as a sign from their discourse by announcing that her actions are not motivated by a desire to please or displease them. In each stanza she stresses the lauzengiers' bad use of language: lor mals diz (7), mal dizen (10), mal parlan (17). The metaphor of lines 14-15 suggests that the lauzengiers' words obscure true joy and the final lines that the Comtessa's iois and iovenz cannot be reflected in the discourse used by the slanderous men. The poem may be a fragment, but it is also possible that it breaks off deliberately. The Comtessa falls silent rather than speak further. She is not frightened of the lauzengiers (7) because her fulfilment lies outside the boundaries of their language, even though she recognizes its power (19-20). The fragmentary state of this poem in effect represents the Comtessa's fin ioi as having no space within the language of men, and one might go a step further and say within the generic frame of the canso. If women as speaking subjects (as opposed to the domnas and femnas the male discourse constructs) are placed outside the linguistic frame of the canso, this raises the problem of their access to language within the genre. Can they express themselves in cansos and if they do will anyone listen? Access to language is a constant preoccupation of by far the most interesting trobairitz, Castelloza. She is frequently portrayed by critics as a masochist; alternatively it has been argued that she deliberately seeks to adopt the role of the domna.59 However, as Sarah Kay has pointed out (Subjectivity, p. 108), she does not express pleasure at the pain she feels in love, whilst she expresses a good deal of anxiety about the domna role. Castelloza's small corpus of four songs indicates she was a sophisticated and gifted poet, who sought to express all the complexity of the first-

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person, female, subject position within a poetic discourse shaped by men. For example: 60 i

Amies s'ie • us trobes avinen, Humil e franc e de bona merce, Be • us amera — cant era m'en sove Qu'ie • us trob ves mi mal e sebenc e ric, E • n fatz chansons per tal que fass' ausir Vostre bon prez; don eu nom puesc sofrir Qu'eu no • us fasa lausar a tota gen, On plus mi faitz mal ez asiramen.

11 Ja mais no • us tenrai per valen, Ni • us amarai de bon cor ni per fe: Per ver veirei si ja • m valria re, S'ie • us mostrava cor felon ni enic. - Non farei ja, qu'eu non vueill puscaz dir Qu'eu anc vas vos agues cor de faillir: C'auriaz i qualque razonamen, S'ieu avia ves vos fait faillimen. in Eu sai ben qu'a mi esta gen, Si ben dison tuig que mout descove Que dompna prec ja cavalier de se, Ni que • 1 tenga totz temps tarn lone pressic; Mas cil c'o diz non sap gez ben chausir Qu'ieu vueil preiar ennanz que • m lais morir, Qu'el preiar ai maing douz revenimen, Can prec sellui don ai gran pessamen. iv Asatz es fols qui m'en repren De vos amar, pos tan gen me conve: E eel c'o diz no sap co s'es de me, Ni no • us vi ges a • Is uels ab qu'ieu vos vie Quan me dissez que non agues consir, Que calc' ora poir' endevenir Que n'auria enquera jausimen, De sol lo dig n'ai eu lo cor jausen. v Tot' autr' amor teing a ni'en E sapchaz ben que mais jois no • m soste Mas lo vostre que m'alegr' e*m reve, On mais m'en ven d'afan e de destric, E • m cug ades per plain e lais jausir De vos, amics, qu'eu no*m puesc convertir: Ni joi non ai, ni socors non aten,

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25

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Mas sol aitan can n'aurai en durmen. 40 Oimais non sai qe • us me presen Que saiat ai ez a mal ez a be Vostre dur cor-don lo mieus no • s recre, E no • us o man, qu'eu meseisa • us o die: 45 E morai me si no • m volez jausir De qualque joi: e si*m laissatz morir Farez pecat, e serez n'en turmen E serai mos quesid'a-1 jutjamen. Paden et al. 1 Friend, if I found you charming, humble, open and compassionate, I would love you indeed - since I now realize that I find you wicked, despicable and haughty towards me, yet I compose songs to enhance your reputation; which is why I cannot keep from making everyone praise you when most you cause me harm and anger. vi

I

II

in

iv

Never shall I consider you worthy, nor shall I love you from the heart or with trust; indeed I'll see if ever it would do me any good to show you a cruel and hateful heart. I will never do it, for I do not want you to be able to say that I had the heart to harm you; for you would be in the right if I had ever been negligent towards you. I know well that it pleases me, even though everyone says it's very improper for a lady to plead her own cause with a knight, and make him so long a sermon all the time. But whoever says this is not discerning, for I want to plead my cause before I let myself die, since in beseeching I find such sweet succour when I beseech the man who causes me such anguish.

He who reproaches me for loving you is quite a fool, since I find it so fitting, and he who says this does not know how it is with me, nor has he seen you as I saw you when you told me not to worry, for at any time I could have joy again: from just saying this I have a rejoicing heart. v I consider all other love to be nothing, and let me tell you that no joy sustains me any more, except for yours, which delights me and heals me even though it gives me so much pain and distress. By my lamentation and lays I always hope to enjoy you, friend, because I cannot change; I have no joy, nor do I expect help, except only as much as I'll get when sleeping. vi I no longer know why I present myself to you, for I've tested with evil and good your hard heart, which mine does not renounce. And I do not send you this, since I say it to you myself; I shall die

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if you don't want to give me pleasure with a little joy; and if you let me die you will sin, and you'll be in hell for it, and I'll be more sought after on Judgement day. The opening stanza appears to operate a reversal of the conventional positions of the lover and his lady in the maleauthored canso. The man is portrayed as haughty and cruel (4), thereby cast in the role of the conventional domna, and Castelloza sings about him (5) to enhance his worth (6). The stanza has the effect of making her amic into a literary construct, into the object of a literary discourse, rather like the domna in the maleauthored canso. In stanza 11 Castelloza steps back from this bold subject position and flirts with the idea of adopting the conventional domna role herself (11—12), only to distance herself from this and recognize it as a potentially flawed and untenable position, since she could be accused of unkind behaviour. It is as if she recognizes the trap male troubadours set for their domnas when they describe them as haughty and imperious, only then to reproach them with this. It is not clear whether the first line of stanza m refers to the previous stanza or to what follows and the ambiguity is important. Is Castelloza saying that she would like to be imperious and haughty? Or is it something else she wants? What follows is a passionate defence of a woman's right to speak within the love-plot of the canso. Language is tellingly designated with the verbpreiar, 'to beg', 'to beseech', indicating that the speaker is always to a certain extent in a supplicatory position as one who articulates desire. Castelloza implies speaking is literally vital (22), in the sense that it is necessary to live, echoing Bernart de Ventadorn's association of language with existence at the end of'Can vei'. It is significant, in relation to this vital role she attributes to speech, that a shift from an object to a subject position underscores stanzas m and iv. This is apparent in the stressed rhyme-words of the second and third line of each stanza: descove / me conve and de se / de me. Castelloza moves the argument from a consideration of the constricting nature of male convention (18-19) in which the domna is referred to in the third person, to an affirmation of what she wants and of her own private desires (26-7). She is separating

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her own subjectivity from the construct of the domna which men generally (csi ben dison tuig', 18) would impose upon her. She associates the adoption of her subject position with speech. Indeed she reiterates that only through speech is satisfaction possible. Through speech she will attain maing douz revenimen (23) and jausimen (31), whilst the last line of stanza iv may be ambivalent. Does Castelloza say that only in speech can she attain joy, or that she attains joy from speaking of her desire now, without precluding other forms of satisfaction? The ambiguity is surely intentional, and serves to highlight the importance of speaking to the female subject position and to female desire. Castelloza highlights the centrality of access to language and speech to her subjectivity, but her affirmation of her right (and need) to speak is undercut by her awareness that according to male convention she should be silent: ' mout descove / Que dompna prec ja cavalier de se' (18-19). 61 The verbpreiar is of course associated with the activity of male troubadours, who constantly beseech their domnas in the canso, and Castelloza's poem may be read to a large extent as a comment on the genre from the point of view of the female poet. How is a woman to write cansos when the conventions of the genre require that she be silent? But how can she affirm her subjectivity without speaking? Are the conventions of the canso as set out by Castelloza so rigidly androcentric that women cannot express themselves within the genre? Castelloza both affirms and denies the possibility of female subjectivity within the canso. She denies it by showing that her act of singing runs counter to convention and also by setting her own desires outside the sphere of male speech and understanding (27); on the other hand her poem itself affirms the possibility of a female subject position. She ends the poem by presenting us with bewilderment at her own dislocated subject: ' non sai qe * us me presen' (41). This is not normally a reflexive or pronominal verb; on the contrary it is usually used transitively. Castelloza presents herself as both subject and object of a transitive verb, as ieu and me, and she thereby inscribes the paradox of her position within the canso genre. She

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also shares a strategy with the Comtessa de Dia, which is that she tries to shortcircuit the homosocial exchange of the lyric by addressing her amic directly (44).62 'Amies s'ie-us trobes avinen' constitutes a wise en cause of the female subject position within the canso. By occupying and then vacating the domna position within a canso, Castelloza constructs and then deconstructs herself as within masculine discourse, claiming a space within it at the same time as she shows herself to be outside it (or perhaps one should say above it). 63 By defending her right to language, she defends her right to desire (jausimen). She shows herself to be aware of the inextricable relationship the troubadours predicate between desire and language and she seeks to affirm her right of access to the same empowering speaking position as men occupy in poetry. Access to language and the need to articulate desire are constant preoccupations within Castelloza's corpus.64 She and other trobairitz are perfectly aware of what the male-authored canso attempts to do to them as women. They are critical of the canso's construction of their gender, of the male monopoly on desire and language and they are aware of the importance of language to subjectivity and to empowerment. In a sense they anticipate the readings of troubadour poems offered in the first three sections of this chapter, which suggests not all women were uncritical victims of patriarchy in the Middle Ages. The trobairitz seek empowerment through language and yet their constant anxiety about the right to speak means the female subject position they attempt to occupy is always uneasy, as if feminine subjectivity were inexpressible within the generic framework in which the trobairitz have chosen to express themselves. This is certainly the implication of the conclusion of the only surviving canso by Clara d'Anduza: Amicx, tan ai d'ira e de feunia 25 quar no vos vey, que quant yeu cug chantar planh e sospir, per qu'ieu no puesc so far a mas coblas que • 1 cors complir volria. Rieger, 33 My friend, I have so much anger and resentment because I do not see you that when I think I sing, I lament and sigh, wherefore I cannot make my verses do what I would like them to do.

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Clara, like the other trobairitz I have examined, highlights the difficulty facing women if they choose to write in a maledominated genre. Yet in drawing attention to this, trobairitz like the Comtessa de Dia, Castelloza and Clara d'Anduza do assert themselves. They show that women cannot be contained by masculine structures and when they paradoxically assert the difficulty women have in expressing themselves in the canso, they draw attention to its inadequacies and demystify its strategies of containment. They draw our gaze outside the frame of the male-authored canso and yet help us to apprehend its ideology and its construction of gender more clearly. The trobairitz^ corpus is small, yet it is a haunting and moving record of how trapped and constrained some women felt when faced with the rhetoric of the canso. In some senses the slightness of the corpus is eloquent: women were silenced by the canso or rendered virtually inaudible in the androcentric space of the chansonniers. But the surviving cansos of the trobairitz are testimony to the fact that if more women's voices from the Middle Ages have not survived, this does not mean women did not articulate their desires. The veneration of the domna in troubadour poetry is a cultural phenomenon which is contemporary to an upsurge in Mariology and an increase in the proportion of female saints and texts composed about female saints. Although much sacred material devoted to women was written in Latin, vernacular hagiography offers a privileged space in which sacred and secular cultures may meet. What is the relation between the ostensible veneration of women in vernacular traditions like the canso and romance, and the veneration of women in sacred contexts? To what extent is vernacular hagiography influenced by the 'courtly' culture examined in the last two chapters? These questions will be addressed in the next chapter with a view to moving into a completely different realm of medieval French and Occitan culture.

CHAPTER 4

Saints, sex and community: hagiography

Hagiography is good for medievalists. I do not thereby mean that the texts are necessarily good for their souls (though they may be), but rather that saints' lives offer a useful corrective to the reading experience of most modern readers of vernacular medieval literature, which is often grounded almost entirely in profane texts. The understandable preference of modern readers for genres which their own aesthetic and ideological predilections render accessible distorts their view of medieval culture. As every art historian, historian or medieval Latinist knows, the Middle Ages were deeply Christian, yet all too often students and critics of vernacular literature focus on the chivalric and courtly margins, thereby failing to appreciate the centrality of the dominant Catholic culture. The profane texts students of Old French and Occitan mostly read represent a tiny proportion of the texts produced in medieval France and Occitania. Even in the vernacular the quantity of religious texts which has survived is far greater than their availability in modern editions suggests and vernacular hagiography was at least as popular as other literary genres, if not more so. Modern views of medieval vernacular writing are skewed by the marginalization of hagiography. Saints' lives are frequently presented as tedious and repetitive, as unsophisticated as they are heavy-handed in their ideology. Hagiography may indeed be an acquired taste for the modern reader, but the genre offers some fine, uncannily moving texts. It also offers students of vernacular literature a privileged space in which to observe the interface between the profane culture in which they are primarily interested and the dominant culture which tolerated and enjoyed it on the margins. 180

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Latin hagiography (produced over a period of over iooo years) offers unprecedented generic continuity, but the construction of sanctity in texts changes over time according to historic and cultural context. Given the generic continuity between the early, high and late Middle Ages, hagiography constitutes an ideal body of material for monitoring the evolution of certain ideological and literary constructs. But, it should not be assumed that Latin and vernacular hagiography can be treated as the same phenomenon. Scholars working on the Latin tradition have argued that much early hagiography articulates popular religious values and sensibilities. It is suggested that because saints' lives were often based on local legends and sometimes produced as propaganda in favour of a local figure's canonization, the hagiographer could not depart from popular belief if her or his (usually his) text was to have any currency. In the late eleventh century, in the wake of the Gregorian reforms, the Church began to adopt a stricter view of what did or did not constitute sainthood and it is thought that the control of hagiographical texts by the papacy was consolidated during the pontificate of Alexander III (i 159-81). It is thus common to view hagiography produced before this period as a privileged expression of popular consciousness and hagiography produced subsequently as an articulation of orthodox Church views.1 However, this account of Latin hagiography is questionable. If Latin hagiographers drew upon oral legends, were they then bound by the views of the tellers of' popular' stories about saints? Such stories would have been transmitted orally in the vernacular by people who were unlikely to have been able to read, let alone understand Latin. Latin hagiography was written by the clergy for the clergy and may therefore tell us a great deal about the culture of religious communities, but its view of popular religious beliefs is filtered through the consciousness of clerical writers. On the other hand, vernacular hagiography is likely to reflect a mixture of clerical and popular values, since the texts were written by clerks in a language everyone understood, and since they were obviously intended for dissemination to a public which did not necessarily know Latin. Some vernacular texts seem to have been intended

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for monks and nuns, but some were clearly intended for a lay public. Vernacular hagiography, unlike Latin hagiography, is not exclusive to the clerisy. Vernacular hagiographical texts are not, however, simply the expression of popular culture. Individual writers working within a generic framework grounded in traditional legends can have an influence on the way their particular version of the story evolves, so that each new version represents a new, 'individual' reading of it. The narrator's role as an individual is sometimes crucial in vernacular hagiography, but this is not to say that vernacular hagiographers have a licence to make free with their religious subject matter: they were clerks, men of the church, and saints' lives need to be set in their spiritual and social contexts as well as being viewed as autonomous literary texts. Religious symbols are complex. As Clifford Geertz argues they simultaneously offer models of and models for ideal behaviour.2 In vernacular hagiography this tension between the prescriptive and symbolic functions of the texts is complicated by a further tension between the clerical narrator's didactic framework (whether it be his own or derived from Church teaching) and his need to have his text endorsed by his audience. Many writers of vernacular hagiography used Latin sources as well as popular legends: this makes it likely that they were clergy of some kind and therefore that the texts they wrote attempted to blend orthodox Church views with popular legends. It is consequently no accident that vernacular hagiographical texts work hard to create an apparently united 'textual community'. 3 Old French and Occitan saints' lives are frequently punctuated by first-person plural addresses to God or to the saint (usually to ask him or her to intercede with God). Defining the subject alternately as the character whose desires are considered paramount or as the character to whom all the other potential subjects are subjected, Evelyn Birge Vitz identifies four potential subjects in hagiography: God, the saint, the narrator, and the audience (Medieval Narrative, pp. 132-44). These four subjects represent a chain of connection crucial to the way vernacular saints' lives function as an aesthetic

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experience: the narrator gives the audience access to the saint, who in turn gives the narrator and the audience access to God. The frequent use of the first-person plural creates the illusion that the writer/narrator and the audience can on one level not be differentiated or at the very least that they belong to the same community and share the same values. But this is an illusion in that the narrative functions of the narrator and the audience are quite different, quite apart from the fact that the position of the clergy within society is different from that of the nobility or the peasantry. I am suggesting that hagiography, perhaps more so than any other vernacular genre, inscribes a particularly complex configuration of communal (genuinely popular), institutional (Church) and individual positions. Within this configuration gender plays an important role. It goes without saying that Church models of ideal behaviour for men and women, heavily grounded as they are in patristic writing and the contemporary ' masculinist' orthodoxy of the Church, are patriarchal, but consideration needs to be given to how models of ideal behaviour for men and women differ and evolve as well as to how contemporary lay men and women in the audience may have responded to these models. Hagiography creates the illusion of a united textual community, unchanging over time, for whom differences of gender (or class for that matter) are entirely naturalized, but the reader's or listener's response is bound to be affected by her or his position within contemporary social structures. Religious texts cannot be abstracted from the social context in which they were produced and the apparent continuity of Christian symbols should not blind us to historical shifts in emphasis and reception. Gender cannot be ignored in this process. Consider a common symbol within Christian discourses like ' God the father'. For a male believer this symbol subordinates him to the deity within a hierarchical structure, yet since he can become a father he can also identify with the deity as a figure of authority in a way that no female believer can, unless she denies her own subjectivity as constructed in and by contemporary social and psychological structures. But the idea of'God the father' is also subject to historic shifts. It surely

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takes on different meanings when deployed, for example, in a society predicated upon feudal families, or in a late nineteenthcentury bourgeois Europe with its nuclear families, or in contemporary Britain where the nuclear family is breaking down, where absent fathers are pursued by government agencies and where a father's authority may be viewed as potentially abusive. As this implies, religious texts, particularly those in the vernacular, mediate social structures and tensions as much as other literary genres. This is hardly surprising and, given the adoption of the vernacular, it is also only to be expected that Old French and Occitan saints' lives dialogue with other literary genres, often to contest their secular values. Many vernacular saints' lives were probably intended for the same audiences as texts belonging to other vernacular genres: the chanson de geste, courtly romance, the canso, even the fabliaux.* The subject matter and themes of saints' lives need to be viewed in their doctrinal context, but it is striking that an increase in the number of hagiographical texts devoted to female saints, and a preoccupation in saints' lives with matters of concern in other vernacular genres, are roughly coterminous with the emergence of courtly culture. Furthermore, when compared to other vernacular narrative genres, saints' lives emerge as the most consistently obsessed with sexuality: thus sexuality is taken for granted in many romances or chansons de geste, but in vernacular hagiography it emerges as a central problem. The first two sections of this chapter will examine two important sexual themes in vernacular hagiography: virginity and kinship. I will attempt to outline their role in the construction of gender in saints' lives, but I shall also argue that although anchored in orthodox church positions, the importance of the themes of virginity and kinship in the genre needs to be seen in relation to other vernacular genres and in relation to contemporary social structures. The last section of this chapter will return to the complex problem of the relation between the implied textual community of hagiographical texts and the texts' mediation of contemporary sex/gender systems.

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VIRGINITY OVERDETERMINED

Critics have commented on the increase in the number of texts devoted to female saints from the twelfth century on, but statistics should be treated with caution. It has been estimated that 9.8 per cent of new saints in the eleventh century were women; this rises to 14.6 per cent in the twelfth century and 29 per cent in the fifteenth. In Old French only five of the twentyfour surviving twelfth-century saints' lives are about women. 5 Critics have been concerned to demonstrate an increase in the veneration of female saints and to link this to other cultural trends like courtliness and Mariology, but there were more male saints and more texts devoted to male saints throughout the medieval period. Thus we need to remember that hagiography is an androcentric genre, but there is none the less a perceptible increase in the number of saints' lives devoted to women and it is coterminous both with the emergence of courtly culture and with a marked escalation in Mariology. 6 A vital ingredient of female sanctity is chastity and the majority of women saints emulate Mary and are virgins. Sexuality is thus a crucial element in the construction of female sainthood and medieval depictions of female saints indicate that medieval culture was obsessed with virginity. It is impossible to over-emphasize the symbolic value of female virginity in Christian discourses and consequently in medieval hagiography. I shall return to male virgins later in this section, but some female virgin martyrs in hagiographical texts die to protect their virginity, while other women live as saints simply because they are virgins. In medieval theology virginity is as much a state of mind, or more accurately a state of grace, as a state of the body. Though grounded in the body, virginity is also a moral attribute. 7 Significantly, the earliest literary text in French to have survived is the story of a virgin saint: the Sequence of Saint Eulalia. Brief though it may be this text shows a woman submitting to torture and willing to die for her virginity. 8 In patristic writing, women were associated with the flesh, men with the spirit. Women had to transcend the body in a way men did not. Reproduction was often viewed as the only

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justification for sex and virginity was seen as the highest ideal for women.9 To obtain spiritual perfection women had to deny their flesh, abstain from sex, better still never have sex, best of all never even think about it. Some modern commentators on medieval views of virginity suggest that the cult of virginity indicates women were encouraged to renounce or disavow their sexuality,10 but such formulations mask an important feature of the phenomenon. Virginity is a form of sexuality as much as monogamy or promiscuity. Classifying a woman as a virgin constructs her primarily in relation to her sexuality as much as classifying her as a married woman or a whore. Medieval narratives of virgin saints do not deny the female saint's sexuality; on the contrary they define her exclusively in relation to it, which, I shall argue, is not the case for male saints. The difference between virgin martyrs and women saints who live as virgins corresponds roughly to that between the two 'deep structures' some critics discern in hagiography: Xhtpassio and the vita}1 Thtpassio recounts the martyrdom of a saint and the narrative's dynamic is produced by a binary opposition between good and evil, between martyr and tyrant. The subject of a vita, on the other hand, simply lives differently from other members of society, often as a hermit or in a religious order, and vitae consequently privilege difference and gradation rather than opposition. For some critics this distinction between the vita and the passio parallels that between epic and romance. However, this fails to account for the obvious generic unity in hagiography. It is also misleading to label saints' lives as 'epic' or 'romance' for despite parallels, saints' lives contest rather than emulate the values of the profane genres they recall.12 Thus if a martyr confronts a tyrant, this may recall Roland's confrontation with the Saracens, but whereas the saint confronts non-Christians with passive inaction, Roland confronts them with violent action. Similarly, the saint is transported to heaven for submitting to the pagan tyrant, whereas Roland is transported to heaven for his resistance. Roland may appear to be elevated as a quasi-saint, but the values he represents are secular. Scholars rightly discern stylistic and ideological similarities between early chansons de geste and early vernacular

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hagiography,13 but the concentration on parallels has the effect of masking what distinguishes the two genres, and even more importantly the manner in which the two genres engage in a contestation of each other's values. Certain features of chansons de geste, like the Oxford Roland or the Chanson de Guillaume, may

recall hagiography, but these texts offer a secular path to sainthood which involves being a warrior. The path to sainthood taken by contemporary male saints is quite different: they turn the other cheek in a manner no self-respecting epic hero would contemplate. Similarly heroes and heroines of vernacular vitae may invite parallels with romance characters, but differences are as marked as similarities. One obvious difference between hagiography and epic or romance is that saints' lives can be devoted to women as subjects (using the term in Vitz's sense as a character whose desires are paramount), which is true of neither epic nor romance, both of which require a hero. A typical example of a vernacular passio with a female subject is the early Occitan Chanson de Sainte Foi cFAgen (c. 1070), in which Foi is martyred by the tyrant Dacien. 14 Binary oppositions abound. Foi comes from a rich family, but gives up her wealth to help the poor (92-100). It is consequently a young woman with none of the material trappings of power who confronts the Roman empire in all its might, represented by a man. This confrontation is portrayed as a confrontation between God and the devil (89-91). Just over a hundred lines in the middle of this short text are devoted to a dialogue between Foi and Dacien. Alison Goddard Elliot likens these exchanges to confrontational verbal exchanges in chansons de geste.15 Foi's gender and her submission to torture and execution mark an important difference between her confrontation with Dacien and epic confrontations between hero and Saracen, but as Elliot suggests the confrontation between Foi and Dacien does inscribe an irreducible binary opposition reminiscent of such encounters in chansons de geste. Thus Foi does not seek to convert her opponent and their positions are not reconcilable: Now pregarei vostra Diana, Ja now o facza rwmtiana, Qe czo • s per ver, traciuns plana!

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Unqeg dia de la setmana Diables manbes la • us apana. Si • 1 proferz quegs una rana E • 1 faiz encens de fum de lana, Mostrar vos a enfern; czcrs vana.

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I will not pray to your Diana. Let no Christian woman do this for in truth it is pure treason. The devil nourishes you every day of the week. If you each sacrifice a toad to him and burn incense wicks of wool for him, he will show you hell: this is patently true. However, if discourse like this resembles the insults heroes and Saracens trade in chansons de geste, Foi's words do not lead to extended physical confrontation, nor to any modification of the tyrant's attitudes. Her discourse is pure ideology and the confrontation to which it contributes is iconic in that it is potentially static, ended only by Foi's death. Foi's gender is an important element in the representation of the confrontation which structures the narrative of her death, for it underscores the rigidity of the opposition which separates her from Dacien. Her femaleness assigns her to the weaker sex and her femininity has metaphorical as well as political value. Matthew's Gospel tells us that the meek will inherit the earth (v.5) and who could be more meek than a young woman? Foi's femininity and her willingness to take on Dacien demonstrate God's power. The Chanson imparts no sense of a political agenda in which the poet seeks to depict the overthrow of masculine hegemony by a feminine figure; the poet uses femininity, rather, as a means of figuring physical and political frailty. What role does Foi's virginity play in the structuring opposition of this text? Most saints' lives were written by men and although in twelfth-century England some texts were composed and gathered into compilations for and by women, most hagiography seems to have been written primarily for men.16 How did female virgin saints function as signs within masculine discourse? A further matter for investigation is martyrdom. By the twelfth century the historical circumstances which produced martyrs were long gone. Martyrdom, once so central to Christian identity, had become part of Christian

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mythology rather than of Christian life. Yet the continued production of narratives about martyred saints indicates martyrdom still had powerful symbolic value. Saints' lives about martyrs were not offering models that medieval men and women could easily imitate, so what did they mean for contemporary audiences? 17 Possibly the meaning was different for men and women, but the virginity of female martyrs was evidently central to their value for both sexes. When the poet of the Chanson de Sainte Foi first evokes her virginity, it is in the context of his presentation of her father: Lo seinner d'aqesta ciutad Ag granz honors ab ampledad. Parti • ss qant pog, d'aquel peccad Et amed Deu fort, a celad. Audirez qo • 11 a Deus honrad E quan car aver l'a donad: Filla • 1 doned de tan bon grad, FIDES a nom per Deu mandad. E fo nuirid' ab castitad E teg salva virginitad. Fort d'elP a Deus est segP onrad.

65

70

75

The lord of this town was immensely wealthy. He did his best to avoid this sin and loved God a good deal in secret. Just listen to how God honoured him and to what great wealth He gave him: He gave him a most comely daughter who was called FIDES at God's command. And she was brought up in chastity and safeguarded her virginity. God greatly honoured this earth with her. Foi is assimilated to her father's wealth here: God's gift of a daughter is denoted by the noun aver (70) and described with the verb honrar (69), which recalls the use of the noun honor (66) to denote his wealth. In this context Foi's virginity enhances her value within a masculine prestige system. She is the sign that God has honoured her father, a mediator between a male relation and a male deity, just as later when the narrator addresses her (453) she is a mediator between a male narrator and his male God. Foi's virginity makes her a sign of great value which males transmit between each other and in this respect her role for the narrator and for men in the audience parallels the

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way in which women are exchanged between men in contemporary kinship structures and in other contemporary vernacular narrative genres.18 In other passiones devoted to women the importance of virginity is even more marked. For instance, in the Occitan Vida de Sancta Margarida (early thirteenth century) the saint dies explicitly to safeguard her virginity: 19 Mas, seyner Deus, com o po$ far, Per ta merce vien m'ajudar: Gardam dels cans e dels leons Conforta me com seyner bons; Tramet me quim faga guardar Ma virginitat sens peccar.

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But, my lord God, since you are able to do this, come to help me in your mercy: save me from the dogs and the lions, comfort me like a good lord; send me something to safeguard my virginity without sin. Margarita is repeatedly referred to simply as 'the virgin 5 throughout this text and both the narrator and the saint recognize that the most valuable thing about her is her virginity. This is also true of the mid-twelfth-century Vie de Sainte Marguerite by Wace.20 In this text we are told that 'Dex ama sa castee' (79: 'God loved her chastity') and in Marguerite's confrontation with the devil it is her virginity that he comes to steal from her (370). When asked to account for the miracles which surround her she attributes her powers to the fact that 'virge sui et monde et pure' (623: 'I am a pure and unsullied virgin'). Comparisons between the virginity of male and female saints are instructive and throw light on the symbolic value of female virginity in hagiography. Most male saints are chaste, but this attracts little comment. In the Occitan Vida de Sant Honorat (thirteenth century), for example, Honorat rejects marriage, but the narrator says nothing about his chastity. 21 The rejection of marriage is paradigmatic for male and female saints, a betterknown male example being the Vie de Saint Alexis.22 Alexis abandons his wife on their wedding night, encouraging her to take Jesus as her spouse (66-7). He serves God by living as a

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pauper for seventeen years and then, at God's command, returns to his father's house. He is not recognized and lives as an ascetic recluse under the stairs for thirty-four years. His identity is not discovered until after his death: on realizing Alexis was a saint his parents and bride finish their days in pious devotion. As far as we can tell Alexis is a virgin when he leaves his bride on their wedding night for higher pursuits, but this is not symbolically central: his humility and piety make him a saint. 23 This is in marked contrast to the importance put upon female virginity in so many texts. Alexis's father regrets his son's neglect of family obligations (396-405), but he does not challenge his right to do as he pleases. This points obliquely to the difference between male and female virginity: men are conceded the right to dispose of their own bodies as they see fit; women are not. For a woman to remain a virgin represents an implicit challenge to contemporary social structures in which a woman's sexuality was at the disposition of her male kin. In some texts, virginity is explicitly portrayed as a challenge to the authority of a woman's family and to her father's right to dispose of her in marriage. In the thirteenth-century Occitan text La Vie de Sainte Enimie by Bertran de Marseille, for instance, Enimie, daughter of King Clovis of France, sets out on her road to sainthood when she confronts her father with her refusal to marry and her desire to remain a virgin: 24 « Payre senhor, per re del mon non auray marit ni espos, mas Jhesu Crist lo glorios, al cal ay promes castetat tener e ma virginitat.»

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Lord, my father, for nothing in this world will I take a husband or spouse, except for Jesus Christ the glorious, to whom I have promised my chastity and virginity. Knowing that her father will insist upon her marriage, Enimie begs her 'spouse who created her' (174) to save her virginity. He obliges and she becomes a leper so that no man will want her. After a period of suffering, an angel announces in a vision that she must go to a fountain in the Gevaudan, the water of

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which can cure her. She goes to bathe and is duly cured. She is as joyful as her entourage and thanks Jesus 'her spouse' (512). When she tries to return to her father, her leprosy returns, only to be cured when she bathes again. Enimie understands God's will and founds a convent on the edge of the Tarn. The text recounts at length the miracles which then surround her life: she confronts the devil in person and from beyond the grave prevents her brother Dagobert from removing her remains and taking them to Paris. In many respects Sainte Enimie is typical of hagiographical narratives. It invests a place with holy significance and guarantees the authenticity of the relics to be found there. It presents a female saint as the Bride of Christ, a theme to which I will return shortly, and uses a common hagiographical motif: rebellion against the family. In his study of kinship in Occitan saints' lives Gerard Gouiran shows how all the saints to whom texts are devoted reject their family in some form, lending truth to Jesus' claim to have come to cause strife between son and father, between daughter and mother (Matthew X. 35); Nancy Vine Durling makes a similar point about Alexis in the Vie de Saint Alexis.25 Enimie's defiance of her family comes in two waves: she resists her father's wish to marry her; then she confounds her brother's attempt to take her holy remains back to Paris. Enimie's virginity is repeatedly stressed (see 1-2, 77-9, 173-6, 237-40 and so on). Indeed, given that she suffers no martyrdom and becomes a saint simply because she announces her intention to remain a virgin, virginity is the main, possibly the only ingredient of her sainthood. It is, of course, possible to be a saint without being a virgin, but in narratives like those devoted to Foi, Marguerite and Enimie, virginity is symbolically central in the construction of female saints' femininity. However, it is overdetermined by having social as well as spiritual connotations. The Gregorian reforms mark not simply the Church's attempt to put its own house in order, but also a concerted effort to extend influence on lay society. As already indicated, an important feature of this process was the Church's legislation on

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marriage and its interference from the beginning of the twelfth century in the regulation of aristocratic marriage. The effect in hagiography of the Church's assault on one of the cornerstones of lay marriage practice and aristocratic society generally kinship — will be examined in the next section. But another key feature of the Church's view of marriage was that marriage required the consent of both partners, whereas in lay practice a woman had to marry whomsoever her male kin chose for her. In fact the Church had always in theory insisted on the necessity of consent and it continued to ignore coercion when it suited, but from the mid-twelfth century onwards there is evidence of a growing awareness of the theoretical importance of consent. 26 La Vie de Sainte Enimie, like many saints' lives, portrays a woman exercising her right to choose whether to marry, and her right to regulate her own sexuality. It constitutes a challenge to social discourses from the position of the Church as it undermines the family's right to dispose of women as it chooses. Virginity obviously has spiritual value in vernacular saints' lives, but various elements indicate that the writers of these texts were engaging with social as much as spiritual concerns and that their spiritual view of virginity is bounded by contemporary social and cultural structures. For instance, one striking feature of the texts is the eroticism with which the sponsa Christi metaphor is presented. This motif serves to define the female protagonist in relation to her marital status and has an ancient pedigree in commentaries on the Song of Songs}1 However, when transposed into the vernacular the lexis through which it is expressed makes it resonate with erotic courtly overtones: Dieus no volia que s'en anes, ni que la soa amor perdes, ni per las honors terrenals perdes los gauchs celestials.

560

Enimie

God did not want her to leave, nor did he want to lose her love, nor for earthly concerns did he want her to lose celestial joy. Of course the Latin cognates of amor and gauch would not be out of place in a Latin religious text, but in a vernacular saint's life

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in which the central figure is referred to as midons (19), or dompna (331, 637, 864 and so on), key terms for the lady within the courtly lyric, they contribute towards an appropriation of the object of veneration of courtly poets, or more precisely towards her removal from their sphere of influence. The appropriation of secular discourse is evident elsewhere. Enimie wants to meet her maker intact, just as a bride wants to be a virgin on her wedding night: « Senher Dieus, plen de gran dolsor, garda mon cors de dissonor, que no • m puescha penre talen d'aquest deliech lait e puden, per so que tu • m pueschas aver casta, munda al tieu plazer.»

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Lord God, full of sweetness, protect my body from dishonour, so that I do not take a liking for that vile and stinking pleasure, and so that you can have me as you want me, chaste and pure. In another context the collocation aver al tieu plazer would have strong erotic overtones. If it is important for aristocratic families to be able to dispose of their daughters in the marriage market - we should remember that Enimie is a king's daughter - many saints' lives challenge this practice and they do so in terms that recall the language of lay eroticism. There is a dialectic here between religious and secular discourses, and it seeks to undermine lay discourses of sexuality. If texts like the Vie de Sainte Enimie appear to endorse a woman's right to choose, to what extent are they good for women? From the late twelfth century onwards there is evidence of an increase in female monasticism:28 more and more women preferred religious orders to marriage or remarriage. This could be seen as part of the same phenomenon as the kind of discourse apparent in saints' lives. In hagiography women's preference for virginity and their resistance to their families' attempts to marry them off are presented as legitimate and admirable on a symbolic level, even if they are coupled with physical punishment and mutilation. In real life women may have felt their lives were less constrained and less subject to the control of men

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if they entered religious communities and lived chastely, than if they remained in lay society. Women who entered religious communities - whether as unmarried women, or as widows were refusing to be objects of exchange between men, were avoiding the dangers of childbirth, and escaping from subjection to the sexual demands of men. Of course, some women were no doubt forced to enter religious communities either literally or by circumstance, but for others it was arguably an empowering decision and hagiography provided symbolic models in the form of virgin saints who devoted their sexuality to God which such women could use to justify and naturalize their chosen way of life.29 That virginity and chastity were seen as having social as well as spiritual benefits is evident from a number of texts. For instance a useful point of comparison to French and Occitan saints' lives is the contemporary Middle English Hali Meibhad (1180-1220), which is addressed to young women.30 It exalts at length the spiritual merits of virginity and the advantages of becoming the Bride of Christ, but it also engages with more earthly matters. The addressees are explicitly told that for a young woman the alternative to virginity is the prospect of being ' a serf to a man and his slave, to do and suffer all that he pleases, however little she likes it' (p. 5). The unremitting sexual demands of men are portrayed as singularly unattractive, but the text also works hard to allay the fears young women may have about renouncing marriage and childbearing. Virgins are reassured that they do not need a man to provide for their maintenance and food and they are told that the joys of spiritual parenting far outweigh those of physical parenthood. Hali Meibhad is highly suggestive of what the symbolic value of virginity might have been to real women and helps to explain why some women enjoyed hagiography. However, any benefits for women the Church's post-Gregorian policies and doctrines may have produced, were probably not an intentional effect of Church actions. If, from the late twelfth century, increasing numbers of women were flocking to religious communities, so were increasing numbers of men and there is some evidence of hostility from the Church hierarchy to

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the establishment of new foundations for women. This suggests that the enthusiasm for female monasticism came from the women themselves, not from the men who ran the Church. 31 The stress in some texts on the spiritual advantages which freedom from the sexual demands of men brought women is probably not a consequence of proto-feminist tendencies within the Church, but rather an obvious strategy for writers who wished to undermine the interests of lay men. If some women profited from the Church's view of virginity and chastity, this is because of the way they used religious symbols and read the texts and images which contained them, not because the Church was actively trying to help them. The stress the Church placed upon consent was not a policy designed to liberate women, but a strategy for undermining the authority of lay men, hence the blind eye which the Church turned in practice to forced marriages. It has been argued that the view of virginity which emerges from hagiography is subversive of the norms of medieval society, but no aspect of official Church policy in the Middle Ages can really be considered subversive and such a contention betrays a misapprehension of the Church's power and position in medieval society and culture.32 If the treatment of virginity in hagiography subverts lay social structures, this is done from the position of an alternative, but equally powerful and patriarchal establishment. Hagiography which elevates virginity inscribes competing masculine discourses, not the contestation of patriarchy by women, even though some women may have been able to use the texts to their own ends. That hagiographical texts about female virgins were written primarily in the interests of men, and not of women, is also evident from the overt denigration of female sexuality and femininity inherent in the view of virginity they perpetrate and from the rampant violence and brutality inflicted on women's bodies in so many saints' lives. Virginity is elevated precisely because it represents a negation of what the clerical writers think women are: sexual objects with uncontrollable libidos which make them unworthy and dangerous subjects. The female body is viewed as a source of sin for men as well as women and the virgin is elevated precisely because she denies the innate

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vileness of her body. Women who used saints' lives as a source of empowering models in their own lives surely also had to internalize an extremely negative view of women's bodies, which may help to explain the mortification of the flesh some devout medieval women inflicted on themselves. Women may have been liberated from the sexual demands of men by entering religious communities, but they were also implicitly accepting a doctrine that encouraged them to think of their own bodies with disgust and horror. Caroline Walker Bynum is surely right to argue that some women in the late Middle Ages even managed to use this extremely negative view of the female body as an empowering discourse, revelling in the potential it afforded for the atonement which would bring them close to Christ (see for a brief summary the epilogue to Holy Feast, pp. 297-302), but at what cost to themselves? There is a further aspect to the denigration and brutalization of the female body in hagiography. As Jocelyn Wogan-Browne remarks 'Though the virgin may desire and choose her preferred bridegroom, Christ, she is shown stripped, whipped, beaten and dismembered for maintaining her choice.' 33 Kathryn Gravdal makes the same point, but takes the argument a step further. Noting that hagiographical texts frequently portray and to a large extent legitimate violence against women she speculates that ' part of the attraction of these stories lay in the contemplation of violence against the female body' {Ravishing Maidens, pp. 24-5). As Gravdal argues this violence is often of a sexual nature, whether explicitly (the removal of breasts) or obliquely (the penetration of the female body with spears or other sharp objects). The universal subtext of saints' lives about women is forced sex, in other words rape, as is evident when virgin martyrs like Foi or Marguerite, or more fortunate virgins like Enimie, pray to God to save their virginity. Hagiographical texts about women are deeply voyeuristic, dressing up in a pious framework the most horrific attacks on women, which the women in question are portrayed as welcoming. Certain scenes, when abstracted from their context, have much in common with modern pornography depicting bondage and mutilation. The value of martyrdom as a sign

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of faith and self-sacrifice was no doubt clear to medieval audiences, but is there not also an element of pleasure implicit in the numerous descriptions of the violation of nubile female bodies? The centrality of female virginity is just one manifestation of hagiography's obsession with sex and its engagement with social as well as spiritual matters. The next section will broaden the exploration of some of the issues raised in relation to virginity by investigating further the importance of kinship in vernacular saints' lives and by setting the genre's treatment of this theme in relation to other vernacular literary genres. KINSHIP: SAINTS, SIN AND ROMANCE

The theoretical importance of consent in the Church model of marriage may have had an important influence on the portrayal of female saints as virgins; I suggested earlier in this book that it may have also affected the treatment of women in courtly texts. However, consent is just one aspect of the doctrine on marriage which the Church was striving to impose on lay society in the twelfth century. Another important, though not unrelated, feature of the Church's policy on marriage, was its attack on lay kinship structures, which encouraged endogamy. 34 Throughout the twelfth century the Church sought to impose ever more stringent rules regarding prohibited degrees of consanguinity. It is no coincidence that kinship is an important theme in twelfth-century hagiography. How do treatments of kinship and virginity interact in the genre? As I have suggested, a saint's decision to remain a virgin represents a challenge to the authority of her or his father and therefore to the authority of the entire kin-group, who in medieval French aristocratic society would expect to be able to dispose of young men and all women in marriage as they saw fit. That this challenge is a deliberate strategy is evident from other elements of hagiography, such as the metaphoric use of words designating kinship to denote the saint's religion. For example, Dacien asks Foi about her faith in the terms:' Ara donzella, voill audir/dequalparatgevolsservir' (228-9: 'nowdamsel, I want to hear which lineage you will serve'). Similarly, in the Vida

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de Sant Honorat, the hero's initial encounter with Christianity is formulated in terms of kinship: Jesus is a ' rey que es de gran paraie' (223: 'a king of very noble lineage'). Later Honorat's conversion is deemed by his father to be a betrayal of his lineage (797-800). The notion that the saint betrays his family for God is also an important theme in the Vie de Saint Alexis: 'plus aimet Deu que [tresjtut sun linage' (250: 'he loved God more than all his lineage'). But as the lines just quoted from the Chanson de Sainte Foi suggest, hagiography does not undermine or discard kinship; it subordinates physical, afinal kinship to the spiritual kinship of which all people may partake through God. 35 The virgin's metaphorical marriage to Jesus is more worthy than any earthly marriage she can make; the bonds individuals form with their brothers and sisters in Christ are richer than their biological bonds with real brothers and sisters. Similarly, the spiritual paternity of an abbot or bishop, the spiritual maternity of an abbess, provide more succour than real parents. Once again, the Church's discourse is bounded by the social structures of the culture in which it operates. 36 Hagiography does not reject kinship as valueless, it supplies an alternative model of kinship which displaces the deeply rooted model propagated by lay practices, one which may have been more attractive to individuals who did not want their lives regulated by their earthly families. Georges Duby's seminal work on the two medieval models of marriage and the Church's success in imposing its views on lay society is clearly influenced by the work of Claude Levi-Strauss on kinship, even though he rarely cites him directly. I have argued elsewhere that the distinction Duby draws between the lay model of kinship which encourages endogamy and the Church's which seeks to impose exogamy corresponds to LeviStrauss's distinction between elementary and complex structures of kinship (Gaunt, 'Si les anges', pp. 901-2). Aristocrats often preferred to keep marriage in the family if possible because this avoided the fragmentation of estates and power bases. If the Church's insistence on exogamy was probably not conceived as a deliberate strategy for undermining secular power bases, the effect benefited the Church. The power which complex rules

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on consanguinity gave the Church to interfere in lay marriages was frequently exploited, particularly once the Church's authority to adjudicate and legislate on marriage was recognized. And a discourse which encourages individuals to renounce ties of kinship, possibly to give their wealth to the Church, obviously has a material basis.37 For Levi-Strauss a key element in all kinship structures, whether elementary or complex, is the prohibition of incest. Kinship structures depend upon the exchange of women between men, which means that for order to be maintained women must circulate between men in an orderly and regulated fashion. When a man sleeps with a woman to whom he is related and whom he ought to be putting into circulation, he contravenes what Levi-Strauss calls ' la regie de la reciprocity' {Structures, pp. 72-3). In blocking the circulation of women, incest leads to anarchy. The inference of the Church's constant insistence on the importance of observing prohibited degrees of consanguinity is that without the watchful eye of the Church on them, lay marriages are always potentially incestuous. Considered in relation to ' la regie de la reciprocity' virginity has two meanings, one of which makes it comparable to incest as an obstacle to the correct functioning of kinship structures. When she marries, a woman's virginity is a guarantee of the value of the sign which is transmitted between two men, or two kin-groups: in other words when a virgin marries, her virginity carries meaning for the men who exchange her as well as for her. On the other hand, a woman who chooses to remain a virgin causes the system to malfunction as dramatically as the incestuous man: both withdraw the prestigious sign from circulation. Virginity when guaranteed by a man determines the value of a woman; when chosen by a woman it constitutes a threat to social order. The Church's elevation of female virginity and its attack on lay kinship structures represent a dual-pronged assault on lay social structures. It comes therefore as no surprise that one of the most explicit medieval texts about incest is a popular saint's life, La Vie de Saint Gregoire, which may be read as an attempt to portray lay marriage practices as potentially incestuous and lay notions of kinship as trans-

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gressive. This text also seems to imply that the shadow of incest underscores the portrayal of chivalric marriage in romance and once again shows how hagiography contests the values of other vernacular genres. La Vie de Saint Gregoire relates the legend of Pope Gregory ' le bon pecheur'. The child of an incestuous union between a brother and a sister whose parents have died, Gregory is abandoned as a baby and is brought up by a kindly abbot who finds him together with some money and some tablets which tell the shameful secret of his birth. As an adolescent Gregory discovers first that he is a foundling, then that his parents were brother and sister. His foster-father wants him to become a monk, but Gregory insists he must leave to become a knight. Covered in shame he departs to discover who his parents were, taking with him the tablets upon which his guilty secret is written. Meanwhile his father has died and his mother is left alone to defend her realm, besieged by men who want to marry her and take control of her land. Not knowing who she is, Gregory fetches up in her land, comes to her rescue and marries her. After the marriage Gregory takes to retiring to a chamber every night to read repeatedly and weep over the tablets which contain the secret of his birth. Eventually the truth comes out and Gregory departs to live as a penitent recluse, chained to a rock by the sea. Some years pass and when the incumbent Pope dies divine revelation indicates to the legates that they should elect a penitent who has been sitting on a rock for seventeen years. Being the obvious candidate, Gregory duly becomes Pope and in some versions his mother, ignorant once again of his identity, comes to Rome to confess her sins to the new Pope and is briefly reunited with her son before taking the veil. This was a popular narrative in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. There are numerous manuscripts of the Old French poem and well-known Middle English and Middle High German versions.38 Anita Guerreau-Jalabert rightly sees the Old French poem as a mise en scene, written from the Church's point of view, of tensions regarding marriage practices and she attributes the text's wide dissemination to its attention to matters which preoccupied contemporary thinkers as well as

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the contemporary popular imagination ('Inceste', p. 1307). As she suggests, seeking to place the story in a continuous or ahistorical mythology of incest, in a tradition going back to classical narratives such as the Oedipus story, will only mask the extent to which the success of this story is due to and overdetermined by its historical context. My argument regarding the historical framework in which I think La Vie de Saint Gregoire should be read is similar to Guerreau-Jalabert's, but I shall also try to put the text in a literary framework with a view to showing how it contests the values of other vernacular literary genres. I shall argue that the text's treatment of kinship and the intergeneric dialogic process that this inscribes contribute towards a specific construction of masculinity within hagiography. It is made apparent in the prologue that the narrator will speak of an horrific sin and that his tale should be an example to us all (1—16). He does not initially say what the sin is, only that it is terrible to speak of it. This has the effect of increasing the horror of the sin whilst whetting our appetite to find out more. The narrator's insistence that this is an exemplary text about a sin we should all avoid implies that we may all be susceptible to it. After an exaltation of the merits of penitence, the revelation of the identity of the sinner and of his sin has considerable impact not just because the sin is so terrible, but because the sinner turns out to be a pope: Grans fu la colpe del crestien; Mais de ce li avint molt bien Que ne cheit en desesperance, Ains s'amenda par penitence, Ci que puis fu sains apostoiles: Ce fu mi sires saint Gregoires. Tant fu mesfait icist bons sire Dont je vos vueil la vie dire Que un suens uncles Pengendra, Une soe ante le porta. Encore fist li enemis Icel saint ome faire pis, Quar serorges devint son pere, E maris fu sa charnel mere!

45

50

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The guilt of the Christian was great, but great good came of it, for he did not despair, rather his atonement through penitence was such that he became Pope: he was my lord Saint Gregory. This good lord, whose life I wish to tell you, sinned to such an extent that he was fathered by his uncle and born by his aunt. The devil made this holy man do even worse, for he became his father's brother-in-law and his mother's husband. The poet has used suspense to good effect here. Gregory's 'sin' is spectacularly horrific in the eyes of the implied audience, but it is also very rare, so the strategy of implying anyone in the audience may be guilty of it is a clever ploy to involve the listeners. If brother-sister incest is not unknown, how many children of such unions marry one of their parents? That Gregory becomes Pope is, of course, a measure of the power of repentance, atonement and of God's mercy. No sin is so great that God will not forgive it. But however important the themes of repentance and of God's mercy are in this narrative, the text is not simply an exemplary tale of a penitent sinner. To what extent has Gregory actually sinned? Can he be held accountable for his parents' incest? His own sin of incest is attributed to the devil's influence (51) and it will become clear later in the narrative that he does not know who his mother is when he marries her. Is he responsible then for his own incest? The text is not explicit about what constitutes sin from a doctrinal point of view, but it may be significant that in the twelfth century, influential, if controversial, thinkers began to argue that for an action to constitute a sin it must entail intent.39 I would suggest that the obfuscation of the notion of sin in Gregoire - the implication that one can sin without intent - is a deliberate strategy. As the narrator's revelations in the prologue make clear Gregory is held accountable for the sins of his fathers and for' sins' he did not intend to commit, even though this runs counter to contemporary ideas on the role of intention in sin. Perhaps anyone in the audience may after all be guilty of the dreadful sin which is the subject of the text. Since no one remembers his or her own birth, or more importantly his or her conception, how can anyone be sure who his or her parents are? The implications of the prologue become even more loaded as

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the narrative advances, for it gradually emerges that Gregory's predicament is the result less of an unfortunate configuration of events, than of the shortcomings of society's marriage practices, kinship structures and customs. Gregory's penitence does not atone for his own sins, but for the sins of the world in which he lives. His reward for this is the papacy, but his penitence also entails his rejection of lay social structures and of the lay aristocratic model of masculinity. The roots of the brother-sister incest which leads to Gregory's conception are specifically located in a failure of feudal marriage practices. Gregory's grandfather (being a child of brother-sister incest his maternal and paternal grandfathers are one and the same person) dies without having arranged his daughter's marriage. This is dwelt upon by the narrator and seen as a fault. On his deathbed, Gregory's grandfather laments that he has been negligent in leaving his daughter defenceless and he consigns her to her brother (81-98). His dying moments are completely taken up with thoughts for his daughter and he asks Gregory's father to look after her ' en tel enor / Com freres deit faire seror' (127-8: 'in an honourable manner, as a brother does a sister'). The subsequent incest is certainly not what their father had in mind and as Guerreau-Jalabert also suggests ('Inceste', p. 1300) the implication of his last words and gestures is that he is responsible for what happens, that if he had properly discharged his duties as a father and arranged his daughter's marriage she would have been protected from the abuse which follows. The legend of Saint Gregory explores the consequences of a father failing to fulfil his duty to marry his daughter, and his responsibilities then passing to someone unworthy. The implications are that the system is liable to abuse and this is presented specifically as an indictment of masculinity rather than femininity for Gregory's mother is explicitly exonerated from any blame regarding the incest. As with Gregory's own incest in the prologue, Gregory's father's desire for his mother is attributed to the devil working in and through him (159). But whereas Gregory is unaware that he is committing incest, his father is conscious of what he does. Gregory's conception is the result of a rape, and this serves to

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exculpate his mother. In many medieval texts, as in many modern rape trials, rape victims are implicitly or overtly held responsible for the crime perpetrated against them, 40 but here the blame is laid fairly and squarely at the man's door. Whereas Gregory's father is presented as possessed by the devil and dies atoning for his sin, Gregory's mother is a virtuous maiden who falls victim to her brother's sexual violence. She also shows touching (and in the narrator's eyes) exemplary loyalty to her rapist: La pucele est forment hontose, E trespencive e angoicose. Car s'ele concent le peche, 195 En fin sont dampne e juge; Se ele fet noise ne cri, De tot a son frere honi. Ne dist one mot, anceis se tot: Ge fu del pis que faire pot. 200 Car, vueile ou non, l'a violee41 Sis freres, e despucelee. The maiden is extremely ashamed, struck with horror and anxiety. For if she consents to the sin they will both be damned and judged in the end; if she cries out and screams, she brings dreadful shame upon her brother. She says nothing, rather she keeps quiet: this was the worst thing she could do. For, whether she likes it or not, her brother has raped her and taken her virginity. Gregory's mother's response seems to anticipate the way in which some modern-day victims of child abuse, domestic violence or marital rape are known to protect their abusers or rapists. Here her reaction enhances the sympathy with which she is treated by the narrator, for unlike her brother she protects and loves her kin. When it becomes clear she is pregnant, her brother's first reaction is to suggest they have the child killed, but she vociferously rejects this (276-300). In one way or another, the men in Gregory's family are presented as at fault, and the only woman as a paragon of virtue and loyalty. The incest at the origin of Gregory's life represents an attack on the abuse of lay marriage practices by men. Given men control the system, the inference is that the system is unable to prevent such abuses. But the text's position on what would now

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be termed child abuse is not proto-feminist in that the point is not a denunciation of the power of men within patriarchal kinship structures. The incest story interlocks with the rest of the narrative which portrays Gregory, before he embarks on this life of atonement, as torn between a chivalric and a clerical model of masculinity and presents his own incest as the result of his behaving like a romance hero. The text may lend itself to a proto-feminist reading for the modern reader, but considered in its literary context, it seems likely that its contemporary impact was quite different. When Gregory learns he is a foundling, his decision to leave the abbot who has become his adoptive father is a bid to avoid public disgrace: ' Sire, fait il, por amor De, Dones me conge de bon gre: En autre pai's vueil aler 1045 Ou ge puisse ma honte celer, Ou Ton ne sache qui ge sui; Quar grant duel ai e grant ennui Que Ton m'apele ici trove, E ge ne sai dont ge fu ne, 1050 Si vodrei en fin miaus morir Que itiel reproche sofrir.' ' Sire', he says, 'for the love of God, give me leave to depart: I want to go to another land where I can conceal my shame, where no one will know who I am; for I am greatly pained and deeply upset to be called a foundling here, and I do not know who my parents are and would rather die than be faced with such taunts.' Public disgrace (honte) is a central theme of a number of romances, for example the Charrete and Ipomedon, but the richest resonance of marked romance paradigms here is in the issue of Gregory's identity. His initial impulse to depart is motivated by a desire to conceal his identity, but paradoxically, Gregory's departure is quickly transformed into a quest to discover his lineage: ' Por eel Seignor qui fist le mont, Ja mais nul jor joie n'avrai Deci a tant que je savrai De quel lignage fu mis pere 1155 E quel feme fu ma mere.'

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By the Lord who created the world, I will never be happy again until I know what lineage my father belonged to and who my mother was. The abbot shows Gregory the tablets on which are written the story of his conception, birth and abandonment, urging him not to depart, but Gregory insists that he must set out in search of his identity (1211-13). The voyage Gregory undertakes becomes a quest for his identity, a quest to discover his lineage, a quest for his father. The ' quest for the father' is, of course, at the core of a number of romance plots, notably Le Bel Inconnu and the Conte du Graal. When Gregory arrives in the land where he was born his profile as a romance hero and as an archetypal landless iuvenis is further enhanced by his coming to the rescue of a helpless woman, who is unable to defend her land from a predatory male who is seeking to marry her and thereby to seize her land. It is ironic that in this text a ' romance' hero's quest for his father leads him to marry his mother! From the outset, Gregory's abortive career as a romance hero is underscored by an opposition between chevalerie and clergie. But this is not simply the opposition between clerical learning and chivalric prowess which supplies an ironic counterpoint in many romances (see pp. 93-4). Here the opposition is overtly presented as an opposition between the attractions of being a man of the cloth or a knight. When begging him not to leave, Gregory's adopted father condemns knighthood out of hand not just as unworthy of a man with Gregory's learning (his clergie in this sense has been vaunted earlier, see 955-60), but as sinful in itself: Li abes dist: 'Je te dirai. Si tu maintiens chevalerie, L'arme sera en fin perie. Mais remain ci, en cest mostier, Et si ser Deu de ton mestier.' 1210 The abbot says: ' I will tell you. If you become a knight, your soul will ultimately perish. Stay here, rather, in this church and serve God with your learning.' The abbot is not opposing Gregory's desire to become a knight because of his particular circumstances; his condemnation of chevalerie is a blanket condemnation of the ethics of being a

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knight. This has been made clear earlier in the discussion, when the abbot has praised the life of the monk: ' - Amis, dist il, gramaire ses E des letres es doctrines. Si te lou je en verite Que tu guerpisses cest pense, Moines seies a cest mostier; Se ne te chaut a foleier, Ne prendre or chevalerie, Que molt est mauvaise lor vie.'

1125

'My friend', he says, 'you know grammar and are well educated. I beg you in truth to give up this idea and to be a monk in this church. It is not fitting for you to be foolish and to be a knight now, for they lead most evil lives.' There are no good and bad knights here, as there are in profane texts. Chevalerie itself is presented as evil. Just as the implication of the episode at Gregory's grandfather's deathbed is that his failure to arrange a marriage for his daughter is responsible for the ensuing incest, so the implication here is that Gregory's own incest is a consequence of his decision to become a knight. It is thus intimated that the romance hero who sets out in search of his identity, on the quest for his father, and who seeks love in unknown lands runs the risk of incest in that without being sure of his own parentage, he cannot be sure that any match he makes is legitimate. Gregory's incestuous marriage to his mother proves the abbot, his adoptive and spiritual father, right. The risk of adopting chevalerie rather than clergie as a way of life was enormous. As Guerreau-Jalabert argues ('Inceste', p. 1311), the narrative seeks to prove that lay people must obey the Church's precepts on marriage and it is noteworthy in this respect that the incestuous marriage is portrayed as an entirely secular affair with no clergy present (1607-22). In some versions (for example all the texts in the B family of manuscripts) the composition of the council is listed specifically as comprising ladies, knights, bourgeois, villains and courtiers (see Bi 1261-3, B2 1459-61 and B<$ 1410-11). No priest or bishop sanctions the marriage in any version, and this at a time when the Church

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was increasingly demanding that marriage become a religious affair, requiring the presence of a priest or bishop. 42 As Guerreau-Jalabert argues the text amounts to an outright condemnation of lay practices and implies that in any case the life-style of the clerc is infinitely more worthy than that of the chevalier. She further suggests that the Vie de Saint Gregoire thereby reverses the impulse of much Old French literature which exhalts the chevalier over the clerc (' Inceste', p. 1312), but she does not recognize or account for the specific assault on romance generic paradigms. Once the romance themes of the iuvenis and the quest for the father have been introduced, this may modify the way in which the prologue should be read. The text's 'horizon of expectations ' is initially that of hagiography, but the central section of the text makes little sense without a knowledge of romance. Given the adoption of the vernacular it is probable that the text was intended for readers and listeners who knew romance and therefore that the message of the prologue, which initially appeared to be simply 'anyone of you can commit this sin, but then be forgiven' may subsequently be glossed as ' anyone who is taken in by the fictions of romance may commit this sin'. It is instructive in relation to this intergeneric dialectic to consider La Vie de Saint Gregoire briefly in relation to a wellknown romance which plays on the opposition between chevalerie and clergie while also invoking the theme of incest: Chretien's Cliges. The romance's prologue famously introduces the chevalerie/clergie dialectic as a structuring device for the whole text (28-33). In the second half of Cliges, the hero falls in love with his uncle's wife. Although Fenice's marriage to Cliges's uncle is never consummated, there is no doubt that the legitimacy of her subsequent marriage to Cliges according to Church rules on consanguinity is suspect. The couple employ deceit in order to run away together, they live in sin in a secret hiding place while her first husband is still alive and are not married at this stage of the romance. Recent critics have highlighted Chretien's constant underscoring of their relationship as of dubious morality.43 As Jocelyn Wogan-Browne has pointed out, the scene in which Fenice is tortured by the doctors from Salerno

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after she feigns death in order to escape her marriage to Cliges's uncle is reminiscent of the torture of female virgins in hagiography ('Saints' lives', p. 324). But Fenice's motives are far from holy and the spouse with whom she seeks to be united is not Jesus, but a knight: the play on hagiography in this scene may well contribute to Chretien's ironic treatment of Fenice throughout the text. Michelle Freeman's work on Clige's suggests that the romance demonstrates the superiority of clergie over the incompetence of chevalerie in that characters who can mobilize learning and craft are constantly coming to the rescue of the plot as surrogates of the clerical narrator ('Cliges\ pp. 96-8). Chretien is playing on a variety of literary paradigms in Clige's with his tongue firmly in his cheek. My point in invoking the text here is simply that the Vie de Saint Gregoireh assault on the values of romance is picking on issues which are clearly of concern to the clerical writers of romance, which were viewed as problematic by them, perhaps because of their clerical background. Guerreau-Jalabert's contention that the Gregoire reverses the impulse of secular Old French literature by privileging clergie over chevalerie fails to show the specific dialectic with romance in this text and also oversimplifies secular Old French literature, particularly romance. As I suggested in chapter 2 the clerical writers of romance are far from unequivocal about the values of chevalerie and may sometimes be more concerned to promote a model of masculinity constructed in relation to clergie. However, clergie in the Vie de Saint Gregoire is not identical to the clergie invoked in many romances. In romance clergie implies learning which is obviously grounded in an education received from the Church, either directly or indirectly, but this does not necessarily mean that the writer vaunting his clergie is a man of the cloth. On the other hand, the clergie of which Gregory's foster father speaks is specifically associated with being a monk, a priest or some other member of the clergy. The Vie de Saint Gregoire reinforces the opposition between chevalerie and clergie found in many romances, but makes it even more rigid. Gregory's attempts to be a knight involve him in a host of activities associated with war which are unfitting for a man of

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the cloth. The humility and penitence Gregory displays as a hermit, both of which pave his way to becoming Pope, are in some ways comparable to the humility some knights display in romance, but his inactivity makes his seventeen-year sojourn on a rock qualitatively different from the humility or contrition of a knight. The clerc and the chevalier in this text represent radically different models of masculinity as they do in romance, but the opposition here is not the same as in romance. In romance clergie often represents the superiority learning affords the clerk in the secular world, but as a word for learning it is associated with a knight in some texts;44 in the Vie de Saint Gregoire on the other hand clergie represents the abandonment of the secular world altogether for a better and ultimately more reliable way to salvation.45 As if to emphasize this, when Gregory is finally reunited with his mother in Rome their physical kinship is subordinated to their spiritual kinship in God. Spiritual kinship, such as that between Gregory and his adoptive father, has throughout the text proved more reliable than real kinship (see GuerreauJalabert, 'Inceste', pp. 1302-3, 1309), and it now serves to eliminate the problems which have been posed by secular kinship structures and above all the taint of incest: 'Dame, dist il, n'avez mais dote! Des vos a mise en bone rote, Des vos a mise en bone veie, Qui ici endreit vos enveit. Vostre fiz sui et vos me mere. Bien sai que Des, li nostre pere, Nos volst a bone fin mener, Que nos a fait entretrover.'

2630

'Lady', he said, 'do not be afraid any more. God put you on a good road and showed you the right path for he sent you straight here. I am your son and you are my mother. I indeed know that God, our Father, wants to save us for he has made us find each other.' Beside their joint relationship to God the Father, their biological relationship to each other pales into insignificance. Only through abandoning secular notions of kinship and taking refuge in spiritual kinship can Gregory and his mother be saved.

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For both this implies an adoption of a different notion of gender. Gregory must become a clerk, rather than a knight; his mother must cease to be an object of exchange between men or of value to men (a role she had always played against her will) and become a chaste Bride of God. The treatment of incest, kinship and romance themes in the Vie de Saint Gregoire is symptomatic of the engagement of vernacular hagiography with secular matters and with other vernacular genres. But the texts also have considerable spiritual value and impact. Gregory's story is edifying to the devout reader in that it demonstrates the value of repentance and humility, which the Church was increasingly using as mechanisms of control.46 That it should do so whilst reinforcing the Church's position in a politically charged conflict with some echelons of secular society does not detract from its spiritual impact, rather it may well enhance it. Significantly, as with many hagiographical texts, the Vie de Saint Gregoire concludes with a direct appeal to God and to the saint, on behalf of the narrator and of the audience (2729—40). The saint is a mediator between the audience and God in hagiography, but to what extent is this a gendered phenomenon? This question will be addressed in the next section. CLERGIE, COMMUNITY AND GENDER

The establishment of a saint as a mediator between the audience, with the narrator as their spokesman, and God is a common feature of vernacular hagiography from the outset. Consider, for example, the conclusion of the Vie de Saint Alexis, which is altogether typical of the genre: Aiuns, seignors, eel saint home en memorie, Si li preiuns que de toz mals nos tolget. En icest siecle nus acat pais e goie, Ed en eel autra la plus durable glorie! En ipse verbe sin dimes: Pater noster. Amen.

625

Lords, let us remember this saintly man, and let us pray to him that he rescue us from evil. In this world he bought us peace and joy and in the next everlasting glory. On this note, let us say: Pater Noster. Amen.

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These lines conflate two of the possible subject positions Evelyn Birge Vitz discerns in hagiography, that of the narrator and that of the audience. But this symbiosis of the implied audience with the narrator is by no means innocent. On the contrary it is a highly manipulative rhetorical strategy used to create the fiction of a united textual community. It also proves to be another means of enhancing the value of clergie, since it is the clerkly narrator who gives the community access to the saint and to the sacred story.47 To what extent is this community gendered ? Are women as well as men drawn into the fold ? Is it likely to make a difference if the saint is male or female? I shall argue that the implied textual community of some vernacular saints' lives devoted to female saints is heavily gendered and that in many texts it encompasses the male narrator and the men in the audience, but makes no appeal to women. I shall examine different versions of La Vie de Sainte Marie VEgyptienne to show the extent to which female saints are used by men in some texts as gendered symbols for their own ends and how the presentation of female saints is often overdetermined by eroticism. This is not to say that women did not read saints' lives. On the contrary there is evidence that some texts were popular amongst women, but their responses are likely to have been different from those of men. With a view to analysing a contemporary counterreading of these trends from a woman-centred position, I shall then discuss Clemence of Barking's Vie de Sainte Catherine, a text written by a woman, about a woman, and probably for women.48 Marie l'Egyptienne is one of the most popular female saints of the Middle Ages. The earliest trace of the written legend is in Greek and attributed to Sophronios, patriarch of Jerusalem, who died in 638. In addition to numerous manuscripts of different versions of her life in Latin, if the famous version of her life by Rutebeuf is included there are fourteen distinct redactions of the Vie de Sainte Marie l'Egyptienne in Old and Middle French (some of which survive in as many as eight manuscripts). There are surviving texts in Old and Middle English, Middle Dutch, Norse, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, with evidence

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of a lost Occitan version.49 Like Mary Magdalene, Marie is a repentant whore and the two are sometimes confused. After an exceptionally dissipated early life in Alexandria and Jerusalem, she is miraculously prevented one day from entering Church and prays to a nearby statue of the Virgin Mary for forgiveness. She then repents of her past life and takes herself off into the desert, where she lives virtually without food as a wild woman for thirty-seven years. As an old and hideous naked woman she is found by a monk called Zozimas who realizes she is holy. She levitates before him and in some versions walks on water. When she dies various miracles occur and Zozimas brings news of the new saint to the world. If Rutebeuf's poem is put on one side, the Old French texts devoted to Marie can be assigned to one of two traditions of the narrative, one in which Marie herself is the central character, and one in which the main protagonist is Zozimas.50 Before examining the effect of the foregrounding of one of the characters at the expense of the other I should like first to ask: what is the appeal of this story and to whom? The Old French poets who wrote lives of Marie l'Egyptienne go to some lengths to invoke a comparison between the Virgin Mary and the Mary of whom they write, using the name as a starting point. For instance in the most widely diffused Old French version (late twelfth century), Marie prays to the Virgin: 51 Un non avons, ce est Marie, 465 Molt est diverse nostre vie. Tu amas tous tans caaste, Et jou luxure et ordee. Deable eiis a anemi, Etje li ai tous tans servi. 470 Version T We have one name, which is Mary, but our lives are completely different. You always loved chastity and I luxury and filth. You were the devil's enemy, while I always served him. This invites a contrast between the two women and of course at this stage they are polar opposites. But as Duncan Robertson argues ('Poem and spirit', pp. 318-20), the holier Marie becomes, the more she becomes implicitly like the Blessed

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Virgin, expiating her sins to achieve a purity normally associated with virgins. Thus when Zozimas thanks God for bringing him to Marie, he talks of her in terms he could have used to talk of the Blessed Virgin: A le tere est agenoullies, La ou avoit tenu ses pies Baisa le tere molt souvent E loa Dieu omnipotent: «Dex, dist il, loes soies tu Qui en feme as mis tel vertu; Sire, ti puisse je amer Qui le me donnas encontrer.»

1090

1095 Version T

He knelt on the ground; where she had stood he kissed the ground frequently and praised almighty God: 'God', he said, 'may You be praised for putting so much goodness into a woman. Lord, I can indeed love You for allowing me to meet her.' Just as prayers to the Virgin Mary treat her as an intermediary between God and mortals, as mediatrix nostra?2 so this text concludes with the narrator asking Marie to intercede with God on behalf of himself and his audience: Nos meismes nos amendon Qui plus grant mestier en avon, Et deprions ceste Marie Dont nos avons oi le vie Qu'ele deprit Nostre Seignor A cui il ot tant grant amor Que il nos pardoinst nos pechies Tos les noviax et tos los vies; Que les puissons faire present De nos ames au Jugement. Amen.

1525

l

b$°

Version T

We ourselves repent, for we need to even more [than Zozimas], and we pray to the Mary whose life we have just heard, that she pray to Our Lord whom He loved so much, that he pardon us our sins, all the new ones and the old, so that we can give them our souls on Judgement day. Amen. As with so many hagiographical texts the emphasis here is on penitence. T h e audience is drawn into the fold since the saint is

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addressed directly to intercede with God on its behalf. The address to Marie here assimilates her on one level to the Virgin Mary and indicates she has achieved the same status, both in her purity and in her role as mediatrix. The whore has achieved the status of a virgin and no doubt part of Marie PEgyptienne's popularity is due to the fact that ostensibly she gives us all hope, not unlike Gregory. If you can sin as radically as she has sinned and yet be forgiven, it is not too late for anyone to repent. However, on another level Marie 1'Egyptienne is completely different from the Blessed Virgin. Her body is not 'monde et pure' like a virgin's (Wace, Marguerite, 623). On the contrary, its integrity is compromised by her sexual depravity and it is ravaged by the physical hardship of years of penance. Yet if the body of the wild woman Marie becomes is unlike the smooth bodies of the nubile virgin martyrs, she achieves sanctity like them through her body. As Wogan-Browne suggests, the mortification of the flesh of the repentant whore is aesthetically comparable to the violation of the bodies of virgin martyrs. 53 To achieve sanctity these women have to subject their bodies to torture while men watch. The attention paid to the female body in hagiography is a striking feature of the genre and comparison between Marie and Gregory is again instructive. If texts about the lives of both saints display a prurient interest in their sexual misdemeanours (or in Gregory's case in those of his parents), in the various Vies de Sainte Marie I'Egyptienne this is enhanced by an eroticism which is often far from restrained and which is absent from La Vie de Saint Gregoire. This is clearly because Marie is a woman. Her life before her encounter with the Virgin Mary is described in lurid detail in many of the texts, for example: Legiere devint en s'enfance, Honte perdi et amaanche, Molt fu esprise de luxure, De nule autre rien n'avoit cure. Por che qu'ele iert bele et gente, Se fioit tant en sa jovente Que tout fesoit le sien plaisir. Ne li membroit pas de morir.

65

Saints, sex and community De deus parans ne se gardoit, A tous homes s'abandonoit. Ne quit que fust en ceste vie Feme de plus grant legerie.

217 70 Version T

She became fickle during her childhood, lost all sense of shame and decency, became inflamed with luxury and cared for nothing else. Because she was beautiful and comely, she trusted in her youth so that she did only what gave her pleasure. She did not remember that she had to die. She did not listen to her two parents and gave herself freely to all men. I do not think there has been a more wanton woman alive. Marie sleeps her way around the men of Alexandria, wreaking havoc as she corrupts all the men she encounters. On board ship from Alexandria to the Holy Land she has sex with every man on board. She is indiscriminate, accepting all-comers, whether married or single (302). The narrator comments sardonically: 'Merveille iert d'une feme seule / Ki pooit souffrir si grant foule' (323-4: c it is a miracle that a woman could take on such a large crowd of men single-handed'). Marie's appearance and desirability at this stage of her life are described in some detail, in terms heavily reminiscent of courtly texts : 54 De se biaute, de se figure, Se com ele est en escriture, Voil un peu dire le samblant, Anchois que je trespas avant, Car a eel tens, en icel regne Ne vit nus horn plus bele feme; Ne one contesse ne roi'ne Nen ot el front plus bele crine. Reondes avoit les oreilles, Mais blanches erent a merveilles, Les iex cler et sosrians, Les sorchix noirs et avenans, Bouche petite par mesure Et pie le regardelire, Le face tenre et coloree, Com le rose qui sempre est nee. Ja el nes ne el menton N'aperceiissies mesfaichon. En som le col blanc com ermine

160

165

170

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Gender and genre in medieval French literature Li undoit le bloie crine. Les mameles de cele dame N'estoit pas menrres d'une pome. Desous le goule, en le poitrine Ert blanche conme flor d'espine. Blans bras avoit et blances mains, Les dois reons, grailles et plains. Gent cors avoit et bien molle, Sous l'aissele lone le coste. El n'iert trop grant ne trop petite, Ja sa faichon n'en iert escrite; Ja le biaute de ceste dame Nen iert escrit par nul home. Tant iert cortoise de parler, Riens n'i avoit que amender. A plaindre fait tel criaature Quant del Creator n'avoit cure.

180

185

190 Version T

Before I go any further, I want to say a little about how she looked, about her beauty and figure, just as it is written in the story, for in those days and in that land no man had ever seen such a beautiful woman; no countess or queen had such a beautiful head of hair. Her ears were round, but they were wonderfully white, her eyes were bright and smiling, her eyebrows black and comely, her mouth perfectly small, her gaze sweet, her complexion tender and perfect just like a blooming rosebud. You could see no blemish on her nose or cheek. Down her neck, which was as white as ermine, flowed her blonde locks. This lady's breasts were not smaller than apples. Her chest, above her bosom, was as white as hawthorn. She had white arms and white hands, with rounded, smooth and shapely fingers. She had a beautiful soft body along her flanks and belly. She was neither too large, nor too small, so that never has her likeness been written about; never has the beauty of this lady been written about by any man. She was so courtly in her speech that there was nothing to improve. Such a creature who cared not for her Creator is indeed to be pitied. This description follows the model adopted by many courtly romances, starting at the head and working its way down, whilst Marie's appearance (her white skin, dark eyes and blonde hair) is that of the archetypal courtly dame. This is suggestive of an intertext with courtly romance, as is the reference to other written descriptions of beauty (188) and to

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Marie's courtly speech (189). The last two lines of this passage discard Marie's physical beauty as an outward sign of her sinfulness because she abuses the looks God gave her, but this does not efface the lasciviousness of the preceding description. The textual space devoted to this description of Marie's appearance and body indicates it is of considerable interest to the narrator and to his readers. Marie is being held up as a spectacle and as an object of desire; particular attention is paid to her breasts, which are often passed over discreetly in courtly descriptions. If the martyrdom of innocent (and desirable) virgins in many saints' lives is voyeuristic, smacking of sadism, the eroticism of this passage is equally blatant, while tone and content suggest this description is written to please men, not women. Moreover, the text offers these men the double pleasure of enjoying the spectacle of Marie's beautiful body and her sexual adventures, then witnessing the disintegration of her beauty, the just reward for her debauchery. Later descriptions of Marie as a hideous wild woman counterpoint this description of her charms (for example 837-48). Her appearance in the desert figures her atonement and ultimately her state of grace. 55 Thus Marie falls through her body and she is saved through it. The men reading this text can enjoy both the titillating spectacle of the adventures of the comely and sexy harlot, and then the physical degradation of that very same body as it is punished, largely for the desire it aroused in them. The text appeals to the libido of the men in the audience by playing on the desire of the male characters for Marie and by offering an erotic description of her body, but it then enables them to feel morally uplifted by the tale and in so doing it parallels the sadism of virgin-martyr narratives. The implied male audience has its cake and eats it: it watches a holy strip show in which the stripper is first allowed to do her act, and is then punished for her lack of shame, allowing the male audience to enjoy the show, then to feel righteous. The popularity of the legend of Marie l'Egyptienne is no doubt due to more than the medieval reader's taste for narratives about repentance. If the version of Marie VEgyptienne I have just examined was primarily addressed to men, is this true of all versions and

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particularly of those redactions in which Zozimas, not Marie, is the main character? In the Tversion, the narrative begins with Marie in Egypt, moves with her to Palestine and introduces Zozimas after Marie has lived in the desert for thirty-seven years. Another textual tradition, best represented by the midthirteenth-century prose text 0, follows the Latin translation of Sophronios more closely than T and related texts. In 0 the narrative opens with Zozimas leaving his own monastery and going to one near the desert to seek greater perfection. This is because he has been chastized in a vision for complacency in his vocation as an ascetic. He has become too proud of his piety, thinking he is 'parfez en toutes choses' (3.4: 'perfect in everything'), and his departure is motivated by a desire to rectify this lack of humility. All the monks who live in his new monastery spend Lent without food in the desert and it is thus that Zozimas encounters Marie. The tale of her past sins comes from her own mouth and is considerably more restrained than in the other tradition. At the end of this version of the legend it is made clear that the narrative is the tale of Zozimas's struggle for perfection, rather than of Marie's path to sainthood: 75. Qant Zozimas vint au mostier, si reconta aus moinnes quant qu'il avoit veil et 01 que riens n'en cela. Quant ce oirent li moinne, si gloirefierent Nostre Seignor qui fet si granz miracles; et en l'aneur de Dieu celebrerent l'anguel de la deposicion a la sainte feme. Li abes Jehans avoit en son moustier aucuns freres qui voient mestier d'amendement et qui li prierent qe la memoire de la sainte feme fust leanz escripte. 76. Zozimas demora en eel moustier demenant sa vie l'espace de cent anz gloirefiant et loant Nostre Seigneur qui daingne ouvrir la porte a ceus qui le requierent de cuer verai. Et il, reampliz de bonte, trespassa de cest siecle a la loange de Nostre Seingor qui vit et reigne sanz fin. Amen. When Zozimas came to the church he told the monks about everything he had seen and heard without hiding anything. When the monks heard this they praised Our Lord who had done these miracles; and in honour of God they celebrated the angel of the saintly woman's deposition. Abbot John had in his church some brothers who saw a means to do some penance and they begged him to let them write the tale of the saintly woman down there.

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Zozimas remained in the church for the rest of his life, spending a hundred years glorifying and praising Our Lord, who deigns to open the door to all who ask him sincerely. And he, full again with goodness, passed away from this world worshipping Our Lord who lives and reigns forever. Amen. This version of the legend begins and ends with Zozimas. Marie is but an episode in his life and their encounter enables him to return to the holy state he had lost through pride. At the end of the text he is reampliz, 'filled again', with goodness and it is Marie who has made this possible. Similarly the monks who need to do penance see writing Marie's story as an opportunity for their amendement. If the T version of Marie VEgyptienne and versions related to it create a textual community of men who use Marie as an intermediary between themselves and God, the 0 version and versions related to it represent within the text a community of men using Marie as an intermediary between themselves and God. One version enacts through representation what the other enacts through performance.56 The 0 version sticks closely to its source, which is a much earlier text and therefore belongs to an earlier cultural context, but the popularity of 0 and cognate versions indicates this version of the legend still had much to say to thirteenth-century readers. However, since 0 represents an earlier tradition it may be inferred that in the twelfth century the legend was rewritten to become more charged with erotic and courtly overtones. The best-known Old French Vie de Sainte Marie VEgyptienne today is Rutebeuf's (c. 1262) and his text is also the version of the legend in which the use of the saint by a male narrator is most interesting. Rutebeuf's achievement is somewhat unusual in the genre, but altogether typical of his own work, for he is less concerned to create a united textual community, than to foreground his own poetic persona and achievements. He clearly knew texts from both branches of the tradition, but he chooses to follow the broad outline of the T version, starting out with Marie in Egypt and introducing Zozimas only when she has already become a hermit in the desert.57 It has been suggested that Rutebeuf is less prurient than the poet of the T version in his account of Marie's early life,58 but although he

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does not offer an elaborate physical description of the young harlot, he does give a detailed account of her life in Egypt and of her exploits on board ship (41-66 and 133-60). His main innovation to the traditional narrative in the early part of his text is in the prologue: Ne puet venir trop tart a euvre Boenz ovriers qui sans laisseir euvre, Car boenz ovriers, sachiez, regarde, Quant il vient tart, se il se tarde. Et lors n'i a ne plus ne mains, Ainz met en euvre les .II. mainz, Que il ataint toz les premiers: C'est li droiz de toz boens ovriers. D'une ovriere vos wel retraire Qui en la fin de son afaire Ouvra si bien qu'il i parut, Que la joie li aparut De paradix a porte overte Por s'ouvraigne et por sa deserte. D'Egypte fu la crestienne: Por ce ot non l'Egyptienne. C'est droiz nons si fu de Marie. Malade fu, puis fu garie. Malade fu voire de l'arme: Ainz n'oi'stes parleir de fame Qui tant fust a s'arme vilainne, Nes Marie la Magdelainne. Fole vie mena et orde. La Dame de Misericorde La rapela, puis vint ariere Et fut a Dieu bone et entiere.

5

10

15

20

25

The labourer who labours without respite cannot take up his labours too late. For you should know that a go$& labourer, when he starts late, is careful not to tarry. And then he really does get down to it, pushing up his shirt sleeves, so that he works as well as the very best: this is what good labourers do. I want to tell you about a woman who really laboured, who in the end worked so well that this was quite apparent, for the joy of the open door of paradise appeared to her for her labours and as her reward. The Christian woman was from Egypt and because of this she was called l'Egyptienne. Her real name was Marie. She was sick, then she was healed. Her soul was truly sick: you

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have never heard tell of such a woman, so wicked was her soul, even Mary Magdalene. She led a foolish and wicked life. The Lady of Mercy called her, and she came back to belong entirely and virtuously to God. Rutebeuf's introduction of Marie as the subject of his text is similar to her introduction in T (55-72, quoted p. 216), except that unlike the poet of T he makes an explicit comparison between the two repentant Maries and evokes the Blessed Virgin. But whereas in T Marie's introduction is prefaced by a homily on the value of repentance, the first eight lines of Rutebeuf's text are devoted to his own poetic enterprise. These lines are about repentance, but Rutebeuf's, rather than his audience's or Marie's. Elsewhere Rutebeuf talks about poetry as labour using the verb oevrer and he puns on his name as being made up from the components of rude and oevre.59 Rutebeuf does not name himself as the author of this poem until the end of the text, but an informed medieval reader would recognize these self-references. When he implies that he is starting work late, he is repenting (as he does in several other poems) of earlier profane works.60 But he suggests that having turned to sacred subject-matter, he will excel in this as he has excelled in other types of poetry. Karl D. Uitti argues that Rutebeuf's 'clerkly narrator' seeks to identify himself with Zozimas as the clerical witness to Marie's sanctity ('Clerkly narrator', p. 396). This is true of later parts of the text, but here Rutebeuf is inviting us to compare him with Marie herself. This is largely achieved through his initial reference to her as an ovriere (9). She is a labourer just as he has referred to himself as an ovrier. Just as he has laboured badly (composing profane texts verging on the sacrilegious), so she has laboured badly by being a harlot; just as he is now redeeming himself labouring over a sacred text, so she redeems herself through her life in the desert. Later in the narrative this analogy is reinforced several times when her activities as a whore are referred to using the verb ovreir (112), or the nouns laborage (188) and oeuvre (913). The poet uses the act of writing less as a means of offering his audience a path to God through the saint, than as a mise en abime of his own act of penitence (much like the clerks in 0).

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The Rutebeuf of Sainte Marie PEgyptienne has a good deal in common with the Rutebeuf of his profane works. Rampant punning and annominatio on the word oevre dominate the opening lines and these techniques are altogether typical of Rutebeuf's poetry.61 Throughout his corpus punning and annominatio allow him to explore the limits of polysemy and linguistic indeterminacy. Here oevre is used to designate both good and bad works, whilst in Marie's case certainly, and in Rutebeuf's probably, its cognates have sexual overtones of being ' on the job'. Throughout this text Rutebeuf shows a marked interest in polysemy. One element he takes from the 0 version, which is not in the T version, is the brief introduction of a second (evil) Zozimas from whom the first Zozimas must be distinguished (535-42). This has been taken simply as evidence that Rutebeuf knew the 0 tradition, but in fact it is not a redundant detail in that the doubling of Zozimas counterpoints Rutebeuf's interest in the doubling of Marie l'Egyptienne with the Virgin Mary, a theme which is more developed in Rutebeuf's text than in any other Old French version of her life. In Twhen Marie prays to the Virgin she simply comments that they have the same name but have led different lives (see above p. 214). In Rutebeuf's text this prayer is similar, but is transformed into a meditation on how one signifier can have two such radically different signifieds: Dame tu amas ton ami, Et j'ai ame mon anemi. 280 Ghastei amas, et je luxure. Bien sons de diverse nature Je et tu qui avons un non. Le tien est de si grant renon Que nuns ne Poit ne s'i deduie. 285 Li miens est plus amers que suie. Lady, you loved your friend and I loved my enemy. You loved chastity and I luxury. We are indeed of different natures you and I who have the same name. Yours is of such great renown that no one hears it without rejoicing. Mine is more bitter than soot. In themselves the minor changes to this prayer may seem insignificant, but later in the text (when the saint dies) Rutebeuf

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returns to the issue of the name Marie in a passage which has no analogue in other Old French versions: Dedens la joie pardurable Sens avoir paor dou deable Ala Marie avec Marie. Li mariz qui la se marie N'est pas maris a Marion: Bien est sauveiz par Marie horn [Qu'a Marie s'est mariez, Qu'il n'est pas un mesmariez.]

1140

1145

In eternal joy and without being afraid of the devil Marie goes with Marie. The husband {mariz) who gets married (se marie) there is not the husband (maris) of any old Marion: a man is truly saved by Marie [for if he is married to Marie he is not badly married.] Rutebeuf's opaque punning on marrying Marie here has been frowned upon by editors as inappropriate both because of its levity and because it would more obviously be applicable to a male saint.62 Read in relation to the other instances in the text where a single word has two apparently opposing meanings (oevre in 1-9, Marie in 279-86 and Zozimas in 535-42), this passage makes more sense. Rutebeuf is attempting to reconcile opposing meanings (Marie = a good woman vs. Marie = a bad woman) and thereby to enmesh his spiritual with his poetic undertaking. This, of course, also reinforces the symbiosis of Marie l'Egyptienne to the Virgin Mary in a more powerful manner than in the other Old French texts. Furthermore, editors may be trying to read this passage too literally. If Rutebeuf is comparing his sinful but repentant self to Marie in the prologue, then the switch to a male maris is not at all surprising and as an account of his own spiritual marriage to Marie the text once again becomes a material sign of the poet's penitence.63 T h e annominatio of Rutebeuf's Vie de Sainte Marie VEgyptienne is

far from gratuitous, but it may signify through form as well as content. In his prologue Rutebeuf boasts of the quality of his work. He then demonstrates that he can control language and produce morally correct meanings out of dubious and disorderly

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wordplay. His epilogue initially seems to follow a pattern typical of hagiography and to invite the audience to join with him in prayer to Marie, who will mediate between them and God, but it then has a rather different twist: Or prions tuit a ceste sainte, Qui por Dieu soffri paine mainte, Qu'ele prit a celui Seigneur Qu'en la fin li fist teile honeur Qu'il nos doint joie pardurable Avec le Peire esperitable. Por moi, qui ai non Rutebeuf (Qui est dit de rude e de buef), Qui ceste vie ai mis en rime, Que iceste dame saintime Prit Celui cui ele est amie Que il Rutebeuf n'oblist mie.

1295

1300

1305

Now let us all pray to this saint who for God suffered so much pain, that she pray to that Lord, who in the end honoured her so much, that He might give us eternal joy with the spiritual Father. As for me, who am called Rutebeuf (which is made up of rude and buef), and who put this life into rhyme, may that very holy lady pray the One whose friend she is that he not forget Rutebeuf. Rutebeuf concludes as he started, with himself. In the prologue he evoked a pun on his name from elsewhere in his work; here he introduces another pun on his name which readers familiar with his work would have known. But if the pun evoked in the prologue implied his previous work was crude whilst vaunting the quality of this text, here his purpose is to identify himself as the author of the vie. Where other hagiographers seem to imply their text can help save a community, Rutebeuf's conclusion, whilst not forgetting the community, is more concerned with a more personal mode of intercession. At the end of the text he has aligned himself with Zozimas more totally than Uitti suggests by foregrounding himself as the subject who asks to be saved by Marie's mediation. The text is offered as an act of personal devotion. Rutebeuf's text is individual in another sense. In drawing attention to his control of language in the prologue, in

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demonstrating such command of poetic techniques and in naming himself in this manner in his epilogue, he highlights his clergie and poetic craft in a somewhat unusual manner for a hagiographical text. The contention which underscores much of R. Howard Bloch's Medieval Misogyny is that discourses of gender and sexuality are really about representation and poetics (p. 37); for instance he argues that the difficulty men have in representing female virginity ultimately reveals little about gender, since it figures the impossibility of representation (pp. 93-112). Rutebeuf's wordplay on mari / Marie in Marie VEgyptienne could perhaps be read as supporting Bloch's view that gender figures the impasse of representation in that his genderbending punning reveals language to be ill-equipped in its instability to render moral truths. However, I do not agree with Bloch that discourses of gender and sexuality can be emptied of political content in this way, and I would also like to suggest that his contention can perhaps be reversed: discourses of poetics should perhaps be understood as being about gender as much as about texts. The clergie and poetic craft which Rutebeuf manipulates with such control and to such good effect in La Vie de Sainte Marie VEgyptienne is a crucial element in a certain construction of masculinity. Although in a different context and although he is a very different type of poet, Rutebeuf is comparable to the clerical authors of many romances and to many troubadours in that he uses control of language as a tool in a masculine competition with a view to foregrounding himself as a subject within a hierarchy. He is also comparable to these other male writers in that he uses women, in this case a female saint, as mediators in his relations with other men, or in this case with his male God. In examining various versions of Sainte Marie VEgyptienne I have taken an extreme example in order to illustrate my view that some saints' lives are intended primarily for men and make no direct appeal to women. However, I suggested earlier in this chapter not only that hagiography was read by women, but also that one could speculate as to how it might have been received and used by some women. I see no reason why women should not have wanted to read narratives about repentant whores, but

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as with narratives about virgin martyrs, I would argue that if to a certain extent such narratives were empowering for some women, this would entail the internalization of an extremely contemptuous and negative view of the female body. Whereas the male poet and the men in the audience can displace sinful desires and anxieties onto women's bodies in the Marie VEgyptienne narratives, women readers are implicitly enjoined to contemplate their own bodies as the incarnation of sin and as a threat not only to their own spiritual well-being, but to that of all the men they encounter. Paradoxically they are also invited to view their bodies as the source of their salvation if they are prepared to submit them to extreme punishment. Religious symbols are indeed complex. In one remarkable text, we are offered an insight into a woman's response to the gender paradigms of hagiography. Clemence of Barking, in her Vie de Sainte Catherine is not overtly critical of the conventional treatment of women's bodies in hagiography. But significantly, as Wogan-Browne has shown, the account she gives of her heroine's martyrdom is less violent and less erotic than other accounts of the martyrdom of virgins. Furthermore, Clemence pays close attention to Catherine's emotional and intellectual life and frequently draws on the rhetoric of courtly literature. 64 However, where her work differs most radically from women saints' lives by men is in her treatment ofclergie and I would suggest that this has an effect on the engendering of the community addressed by the text. Catherine was a popular saint in the Middle Ages. Her story as told by Clemence, a nun of Barking in the second half of the twelfth century, in Anglo-Norman octosyllabic rhyming couplets, is that she was martyred by Maxence in Alexandria; a mideleventh-century Latin text would appear to be her main source. According to Clemence, Catherine was the only daughter of a Christian king and she was much troubled by Maxence's brutal persecution of Christians. She confronts Maxence, who is amazed by her command of argumentation and language. At the suggestion of one of his clerks, Maxence organizes a public dispute between Catherine and the fifty best clerks of the realm. But Catherine's arguments convert the

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clerks along with thousands of other witnesses including Maxence's queen. Ultimately Maxence has Catherine executed along with his queen and thousands of other converts. A good deal of textual space is devoted to Catherine's verbal confrontations first with Maxence, then with the fifty clerks and ultimately with Maxence again. The text's editor, William Macbain, comments that' the lengthy disputation on matters of doctrine, which Catherine pursues with such enthusiasm, might rather be expected to weigh against her in the popular mind' {Life of St. Catherine, p. xi), but he does not consider the possibility that some members of the text's public might have enjoyed seeing a woman get the better of a series of learned men in these arguments. Like Rutebeuf in Marie VEgyptienne, Clemence opens her text obliquely vaunting the quality of her work: Cil ki le bien seit e entent Demustrer le deit sagement, Que par le fruit de sa bunte Seient li altre amoneste De bien faire e de bien voleir Sulunc 90 qu'en unt le poeir.

5

The person who knows and understands virtue should display this wisely, so that through the fruit of his [or her?] goodness, others may be encouraged to do good and to want virtue, according to their ability. ' Cil k i . . . ' in line 1 is of course a masculine construction, but later in the prologue Clemence identifies herself as a woman with a feminine adjective {preisie, 48) and the opening pronoun may therefore be understood as neuter. Clemence again explicitly identifies herself as female in the epilogue: 'Jo ki sa vie ai translatee, / Par nun sui Clemence numee. / De Berkinge sui nunain' (2689-91: ' I , who translated her life, am called Clemence. I am a nun from Barking'). The deliberate marking of the author/narrator as female makes the dynamics of the relationship between the narrator and the saint radically different from the relationship between narrator and saint in male-authored texts, for the gender hierarchy and eroticism

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which overdetermine the male narrator's use of a female saint as an intermediary with God, does not function here. Catherine herself addresses gentils pulceles and nobles harnesses beles, suggest-

ing an inscribed female audience (2537-8). The language of erotic love is not used in a metaphoric manner and neither the saint nor the text is inscribed in a masculine homosocial exchange. Clemence seems to identify with Catherine as a learned, intellectual woman. For instance, it is implicit in her opening sentence that she sees herself working sagement (2) and the adjective sage is one she frequently uses to describe Catherine (145, 168, 188 and so on). Her work, she implies, is better than that of' les humes ... al tens ki est ore' (38-9:' men today'), who are debauched and corrupt. Clemence's foregrounding of herself as a learned woman is brief, but it needs to be read with the treatment of Catherine's learning and the clergie she confronts in the narrative. Catherine's intellect and learning are praised from the outset alongside her beauty and virginity: Dis e oit anz out la meschine; Sis nuns esteit Katerine. Sun pere ert rei tant cume vesqui; II n'out fille ne fiz fors li. D'escripture la fait aprendre, Opposer altre e sei defendre. El munt n'out dialeticien Ki veintre la poust de rien. Sages ert mult de choses mundaines, Mais sun desir ert as suvereines.

140

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The maid was seventeen years old. Her name was Catherine. Her father was king as long as he was alive and he had no other son or daughter. He made her learn scripture and how to oppose others and defend herself in arguments. There was no dialectician in the world who could beat her in anything. She was very wise about worldly matters, but fixed her desires on more spiritual things. When waiting in Maxence's prison for the fifty clerks to arrive, she prays to God to help her. He sends an angel who tells her

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that He will guarantee her power to speak well in the contest with the clerks (563-82), but her learning is already well established from her initial encounter with the tyrant: Li tyrant Tot, si s'esmerveille, De bien respundre s'apareille: 'Bele, fait il, si cum entent Tu ies de mult grant escient.'

305

The tyrant heard her, is amazed and prepares a good reply: 'Fair one', he says, 'I see you are indeed very learned.' Catherine's learning is not simply a result of divine intervention. Only her courage comes from God and her education makes her a figure with whom all learned women could identify. The men who arrive to confront Catherine are, of course, pagan clerks, but the disciplines in which they are said to excel - philosophy, grammar, rhetoric and dialectics (489-92) - are the very disciplines in which twelfth-century clerks would have been trained. Catherine's opponents are repeatedly referred to simply as clercs (488, 505 and so on), whilst the confrontation is overtly portrayed as a formal contest in dialectic and rhetoric. Despite the fact that the fifty clercs are pagans, summoned to a pagan court by a pagan tyrant, they are remarkably similar to contemporary Christian clerks. Clemence plays on this in two ways. On one level, the contest is a confrontation between a woman's faith and men's clergie, demonstrating that clergie is worth nothing without faith. On another level, Catherine beats her opponents at their own game for they all ultimately admit that she has won the argument. Whilst they initially complain that they cannot counter the Christian fables Catherine offers them with sen (737-62), in the end they concede her superior intellect: Un des clers li respunt a tant 1075 Ki sages iert e mult vaillant. ' Certes, fait il, dreit emperere, Unques puis que nus porta mere, N'oimes femme si parler, Ne si sagement desputer. 1080 Ne nus mostre pas choses vaines, Ainz sunt de verte tutes pleines.'

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On this one of the clerks, who was wise and worthy replies. ' Indeed.' he says. 'Rightful emperor, never since a mother carried us have we heard a woman speak like this, or argue so wisely. Nor is she revealing worthless things to us, rather they are full of truth.' Clemence chastises clerks who rely on what Catherine calls their falses arz (690:' false arts'), when faith is clearly more important, but at the same time she portrays the superiority of a woman in these very same arz. Of course the lengthy disputes in Clemence's Vie de Sainte Catherine between Catherine and the clerks should also be considered in their scholastic context. Twelfth- and thirteenthcentury theologians were paradoxically adept at using logic, philosophy, rhetoric and dialectic to ' prove' that the existence of God is a matter of faith and Clemence is in many ways in line with contemporary thinking. Yet the gender of the protagonists and of the narrative voice cannot be disregarded in any consideration of the dynamics of this text. Unlike many maleauthored saints' lives Clemence's text does not create an implicitly masculine textual community which ignores the responses or spiritual needs of women in the audience. She may even be seeking to construct an implicitly feminine textual community and to inscribe her text as part of a female homosocial exchange. We may have here an unusual, though not unique example, of a woman writing for other women.65 If so it is no accident that this text overtly attacks an idea oiclergie prevalent in so much Old French literature and which appears to contribute towards the construction of masculinity in a variety of genres (including hagiography). Hagiography in many ways treats gender metaphorically. Tales of virgin martyrs derive much of their impact from the spectacle of a powerless woman ultimately getting the better of a powerful man by going to heaven. The opposition between the weak virgin and the strong man figures a host of other oppositions: humility / pride, faith / lack of faith, the spiritual / the material, the sacred / the profane, and so on. For contemporary readers these oppositions are over-determined by social structures and by the value of gendered categories within these

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structures, but the metaphoric value of gender never disappears. Femininity for hagiographers is never straightforward; it can connote virtue, purity, weakness, passivity or carnality depending on the situation. Masculinity then represents the opposite of whatever feminine trait is being foregrounded. Hagiography seems implicitly to recognize that gender is a hierarchical construct and that meaning should be distinguished from biology: thus virgin martyrs could be revered as feminine in a culture that was deeply misogynistic and worshipping virgins could be reconciled with enjoying the spectacle of their being cut to pieces. Although in many respects hagiography and the fabliaux are worlds apart as genres, their mobile view of gender as a construct and their clear sense of gender as a hierarchy are comparable and provide an interesting bridge between the sacred and profane cultures of medieval France. The fabliaux will be the subject of my final chapter.

CHAPTER 5

Genitals, gender and mobility: the fabliaux

Fabliau criticism has always had an overt preoccupation with the idea of genre. Critics have had an interest verging on obsession in defining both the morphology of their object of study and the corpus of texts they wish to ascribe to the genre. Intrinsic to this uncertainty about what is or is not a. fabliau are deep-rooted diverging opinions on the ideology of the genre. Thus, for example, Joseph Bedier, Per Nykrog and R. Howard Bloch propose incompatible interpretations of the fabliaux: for Bedier they emanate from and reflect bourgeois culture, and are consequently 'uncourtly'; for Nykrog they are inherently 'courtly' in that they are written, he claims, for the aristocracy and parody the conventions of courtly texts; for Bloch they have as their 'real' subject 'the nature of poetry itself'.1 Yet despite this uncertainty about what the genre is, its existence and homogeneity are widely accepted. Bloch claims to doubt the coherence of the genre [Scandal, p. 19), but his devotion of a book to the 'scandal' of the fabliaux as a body of texts belies this. Here we have a type of text which clearly constitutes a genre, but modern critics have been spectacularly unable to agree on what the genre is. A major cause of disagreement in this scholarly debate has been gender, particularly the role women play in the genre. Are the fabliaux misogynistic, or do they, on the contrary, admire and promote the interests of women, offering scenarios in which clever women use their intelligence to get what they want? 2 I shall make no attempt to define the limits of thefabliaux: the absurdity of this activity is clear when scholars invent definitions and then exclude texts which do not conform.3 Nor will I 234

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engage with the question of the origins of the fabliaux: where they came from is considerably less interesting than where they are going. My own approach to the fabliaux has been influenced by the work of three critics who eschew the pitfall of so much criticism of the genre: Peter Dronke, Charles Muscatine and Gabrielle Lyons. Dronke argues that courtly and non-courtly literature are not discrete, self-contained spheres of activity and he explores how a number of courtly romances draw on the fabliaux. His point is that we need to consider how genres like the fabliaux interact with other genres. He concentrates primarily on the deployment offabliau scenarios in romance, but his approach can be usefully turned on the fabliaux themselves. Instead of labelling the fabliaux 'courtly' or 'uncourtly', it is more interesting to explore how they gloss other ideologies to produce a dialogue between different discourses.4 Arriving on the Old French literary scene (at least as far as we can tell) late in the twelfth century, the fabliaux frequently parody other genres, creating a dialectic between their own irreverent ideology and world-views promoted in and by other types of vernacular literature, and other discourses generally. But what is the fabliau ideology this dialectic brings into play? Muscatine, in his elegant general study of the fabliaux, makes a suggestion that Lyons develops in more detail in her recent thesis: the prime motivation of the fabliaux is an interest in mutability, coupled with a mistrust of fixed hierarchies. Lyons uses two key terms to develop her argument: avoir and savoir. Successful characters in the fabliaux, she suggests, constantly use savoir, their wit and ingenuity, to undermine the position of other characters who believe that their avoir, their place in a fixed social hierarchy, whether it be as a noble, a clerk or a husband, is god-given and unassailable.5 I am going to argue - using Lyons's work as a starting point - that any position the fabliaux take up in relation to women is to a certain extent incidental in that sexual difference in itself is not a central concern of the writers of these texts. 6 The principal preoccupation of the genre is, rather, an impulse to overturn perceived hierarchical structures of all kinds, to reveal them as artificial and susceptible to manipulation. Thus, in a text like Le

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Vilain mire (JVRCF, 11, 13, pp. 309-47),7 a king is the dupe of a peasant, who in turn has been the dupe of his wife, the whole offering an ironic gloss on the value oiclergie. Hierarchies, in the fabliaux, are shown to be constructs, to derive from convention, not nature, but it is precisely here that the genre is of interest to the feminist reader. In showing gender to be a construct, a category like class which clever men and women can manipulate, the fabliaux unwittingly anticipate modern theories of gender and create a space in which female characters are empowered. In particular, I will argue, the fabliaux have a good deal to say about female desire and male inadequacy. But a caveat must be set alongside this reading. The fabliaux pay lip service to the prevailing misogynistic discourse, particularly in the morals which are so frequently (and often inappropriately), tacked on to the narratives. The juxtaposition of the morals with narratives which do not appear to support them may destabilize the discourse of the morals, but their content is none the less not effaced. My argument will be in four stages; throughout I will attempt to highlight the genre's predilection for parody. Firstly, I shall show that the fabliaux are interested in destabilizing hierarchical structures of all kinds and attempt to place gender within this purview. Secondly, I will look more closely at how gender is constructed within the genre, particularly at how the fabliaux both offer and undermine an essentialist theory of gender which is grounded in the body and in genital sexual difference. Thirdly, I will expand upon my contention that the fabliaux'* irreverent attitude towards any biological theory of gender can empower female characters, but I will set this alongside the prevailing misogyny of many texts. Finally, I will consider the fabliaux's treatment of gender within the context of the genre's broader ideology and in relation to the fundamental instability of the fabliau text itself. Gender may not offer the key to understanding the fabliaux, but, as I will suggest in this last section, the blindness of many modern critics to gender has led to a misapprehension both of individual texts and of the genre as a whole.

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GENDER AS A CONSTRUCT

Thefabliaux like nothing better than destabilizing the categories medieval culture used to rationalize its social order and the internal hierarchies upon which it rested. Possibly the most striking example of this is Les Putains et les lecheors (JVRCF, vi, 64,

pp. 145-53). The text opens with an account of how, in the beginning, God created three orders: clerks, knights and peasants (1-13). The text thus partakes ironically of two common medieval discourses of social order. Firstly, and in direct contradiction to both Genesis and equally common myths of a Golden Age, contemporary theories of the divinely ordained three orders are assumed to be ahistorical, existing since time immemorial.8 Secondly, it is ostensibly taken for granted that human beings can be divided up into a limited range of ' natural' categories into which everyone fits unproblematically. However, the Lord's peace is soon shattered by a rabble of putains and lecheors (whores and degenerate minstrels) who arrive to demand a place in His scheme: St Michael reminds Him that He had created them on an off day, then forgotten about them (27-31). In His wisdom, God entrusts the minstrels to the knights and the whores to the clerks. The poet's point is that clerks will go to heaven and knights to hell (80-2) because the former have obeyed God's command better than the latter. Minstrels go about barefoot and hungry whilst whores wear furs and are well fed, despite the 'fair speech' (60) of the chivalric classes. Like many fabliaux, this satire on the meanness of the aristocracy cuts at least two ways since it also obliquely vaunts the sexual prowess of clerks, while undermining fixed notions of virtue and sin. Linguistic order also comes under fire as words which are usually deployed in spiritual discourses take on sexual connotations: thus clerks are described as large and obediant (72) because of their behaviour with the whores. This text rises above and mocks the common dichotomy between chevalerie and clergie so central to the dynamics of romance, but, even more fundamental than this irony, is the doubt cast upon the very existence of such categories. God creates the world according to

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a rigid model, assigning individuals to fixed categories, only to discover that there is excess baggage which cannot be contained in these categories, which are consequently revealed as unstable. Les Putains is a joke, but it makes a mockery of medieval society's principal way of naturalizing its own structure. 9 The fabliaux do not limit their games to hierarchical social categories since, as Les Putains demonstrates, social categories often coincide with or overlay moral categories. Like social categories, moral and spiritual categories were conceived as rigid, though here simple binary oppositions seem to have sufficed: good / evil, Christian / pagan, heaven / hell. In Rutebeuf's Le Pet au vilain (NRCF, v, 55, pp. 359-70) these moral distinctions are humorously undercut and thereby dismantled when the moral and spatial categories ' heaven' and 'hell' fail to contain one group of souls, those oivilains. Initially this fabliau proposes a binary logic according to which anyone who does not go to heaven must go to hell (1-5). However, we soon learn that peasants who, excluded from heaven as a group, are also prevented from going to hell (8): the purpose of the fabliau is to explain why (21—2). The narrative plays upon the belief, popular in the Middle Ages, that upon death the soul leaves the body through the anus (see NRCF, v, p. 446, note). One day a demon waits beside a dying peasant, holding a bag underneath his posterior to capture his soul. Unbeknown to the demon, the peasant had thought to restore his strength by eating large quantities of an exceptionally greasy beef and garlic stew. The demon thinks the peasant is writhing in his death throes, but he is in fact struggling with excessive flatulence and it is a huge peasant fart that the demon captures in his sack, not a peasant soul. The demon hurries back to hell, but when he opens the bag his colleagues are so disgusted they decide never to let another peasant into hell. As a result peasants can enter neither heaven nor hell; consequently 'Rutebuez ne seit entremetre / Ou horn puisse arme a vilain metre' (67—8: ' Rutebeuf does not know where the soul of a peasant can be Put')This fabliau is in many respects typical of the genre in that through a misperception (21: mesprison) - not in this case

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deliberately staged - an individual evades a hierarchy or structure which should contain him: the peasant enables his kind literally to escape the prison (22) of the hell to which they were destined and he thereby also liberates them from the binary ' prison' of heaven/hell: they are able to float freely for eternity without the fixed meaning this rigid binary seeks to impose. In eluding the spatial categories of heaven and hell, the smelly peasants also elude moral categories: they are neither saved nor damned. That the peasant's fart becomes the site of the deconstruction of moral order and the ultimate free-floating signifier is an index of Rutebeuf's wicked humour, but even to formulate the effect of this text in such terms is to overlay levity with pomposity.10 Texts like Les Putains and Le Pet show how writers of fabliaux revel in the dismantling of the discourses, structures and hierarchies through which the culture in which they lived made sense of its world and sought to justify its inequalities with morally ordered, divinely ordained schemes of human life and death. Where the dominant culture, and in this I include other vernacular genres, aspires to static and discrete categories, the fabliaux offer mobile and fluid boundaries which are transgressed, eluded or shown to be inadequate. The genre's treatment of gender needs to be seen in this context. If gender is a fluid structure in the fabliaux it is none the less just one such structure amongst others, these structures constituting the forum in which successful fabliau characters pit their wit and savoir against the smug reliance other characters have on these very same structures. Men who think they can succeed just because of their masculinity are doomed to fail, in much the same way as priests who think they can succeed because they are priests. But my point here is less that hierarchies are overturned, than that the categories on which they are based are unstable and open to manipulation. The meaning of categories like masculine and feminine is open to reformulation and up for grabs. Nowhere is this clearer than in Le Jugement des cons (JVRCF, iv, 23, pp. 23-33). In Le Jugement a family is riven with strife because three sisters love the same man. In despair, their father turns to his brother

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for advice. He proposes a competition in which he will ask each sister the same question; the one whose answer is judged by him to be the best will win. His question, though unpredictable, comes as no surprise to habitual readers offabliaux: 'Niece, n'i a mestier celee, / Qui est ainsnez, vous ou voz cons?3 (118-19: 'Niece, there is no need to be coy, who is older, you or your cunt?'). The answers the women give in effect offer three competing models of femininity. The first sister claims her vagina is older as it has a beard, whereas she does not (120-5). The second feels she is younger than her vagina, since it has not yet grown teeth, whereas she has all hers (132—7). The third sister then steps forward: - Oncles, dist ele, por nului Ne lerai que ne le vous die 145 Qui veut, si le tiengne a folie: Mes cons est plus jones de moi; Si vous dirai reson por qoi: De la mamele sui sevree, Mes cons a la goule baee: 150 Jeiins est, si veut aletier. Or m'ose je bien afichier Que j'ai bone reson trovee. L'ame de lui soit honoree Qui jugera ces moz a droit! 155 'Uncle', she said, 'I will not hesitate to tell you and anyone who did so I would consider a fool: my cunt is younger than me and I will tell you why; I am weaned from the breast, whereas my cunt has a gaping mouth: it is young and wants to suckle. Now I dare to flatter myself that I have found the best answer. May the soul of the one who judges these words correctly be honoured.' The first sister gives a forbidding image of a masculine vagina with a beard. The second implies a castrating vagina dentata: her con, she suggests, will grow teeth. The third sister, whilst sticking to the same metaphor of the vagina as a mouth, none the less offers a more user-friendly model, with a comforting image of a suckling baby. Unsurprisingly she wins the competition. Gender and sexuality are portrayed here as coterminous with genitalia, which seems to imply a biological, essentialist notion of sex (a strategy to which I will return in the next section). But the fact

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that three competing models of femininity are offered is symptomatic of a constructionist, rather than an essentialist view of gender. Femininity, in this text, is a meaning which is constructed on biological difference, an interpretation of the female body and particularly of its genitalia. Theoretically this has extraordinarily revisionist potential, even if the text is in practice deeply misogynistic in its view of the female genitalia as a forbidding, threatening, or insatiable mouth. 11 For all three sisters the vagina is grammatically masculine, since it is a con, but the winner interestingly operates a further gender inversion by referring metaphorically to the male organ as a mamele (149). She thereby produces a binary model of sexual difference, but her conversion of the penis into a breast further underscores the ambiguity created by incorrectly gendered sexual organs. Moreover, in suggesting a theoretical notion of gender, as opposed to sex, by showing that the meaning of femininity is open to interpretation, the text raises more problems than it resolves even if ultimately it seems to choose the meaning most reassuring to men. The uncle chooses the sister who offers the model of femininity he finds easiest to live with, but has he chosen the right one in terms of truth and meaning? The replies of the first two sisters indicate that the con is threatening; female desire is thus only acceptable if it is orientated towards satisfying the male, otherwise it is castrating. Yet the playfulness of the text in its portrayal of gender is such that the resolution fails to efface what has gone before. An epilogue raises the possibility that the debate could be reopened, and consequently that the uncle's judgement might have been wrong: Or vois querant par la contree Se li jugemenz est bien fez. Que Dieus vous pardoinst voz mesfez, Se vous i savez qu'amander: 165 Je le vieng a vous demander. Now I go about the land asking if the judgement is right. May God forgive your sins if you can do better. I come here to ask you this. Not only does the text inscribe alternative models of femininity, it questions its own resolution, inviting debate on the issue. That

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the choice is between three equally misogynistic models need not deflect our attention from the fact that gender here is portrayed neither as stable nor as an obvious given. There is more than one model of femininity and if men can choose the version that suits them best, the narrative shows that women can manipulate how it is perceived and offer a fundamental redefinition of what women are. That gender is recognized in the fabliaux as a question of interpretation and a structure which can be manipulated is particularly evident in texts which involve cross-dressing. For example in Rutebeuf's Frere Denise (NRCF, vi, 56, pp. 1-23) an apparently pious girl called Denise is persuaded by a friar (Simon) that the only way she can devote herself to God is by entering his order. So she cuts off her hair, disguises herself as a man and runs away with him. Brother Simon has her admitted to his order and he is then able to have his way with her whenever he wants. As Denise in Old French is an androgynous name she is able to become 'Frere Denise'. One day Denise and Simon are eating at a knight's house when his wife realizes Denise is a woman. She insists on being confessed by Denise, but as soon as they are on their own forces her to confess what has happened and to abandon her sinful life. The knight and his wife threaten to expose them unless Simon provides a suitable dowry for Denise, which he readily contrives to do in order to avoid a scandal. The wife dresses Denise in her own fine clothes and takes her back to her mother, telling her she has been in a convent. Denise is then found an eligible husband and marries. This narrative is susceptible to two readings, one in which Simon is a ruthless trickster; and one in which Denise is an adept and willing participant in their acts of deception. The text opens with an ostensibly serious prologue: Li abiz ne fait pas Termite: S'uns horn en hermitage habite, S'il est de povres draz vestuz, Je ne pris mie deus festuz Son habit ne sa vesteiire S'il ne mainne vie ausi pure Coume ses habiz nos demoustre.

5

Genitals, gender and mobility Mais mainte gens font bele moustre Et mervilleuz semblant qu'il vaillent; II semblent les aubres qui faillent, Qui furent trop bel au florir: Bien dovroient teil gent morir Vilainnement et a grant honte! Uns proverbes dit et raconte Que tout n'est pas ors c'on voit luire.

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15

The habit does not make the monk: if a man lives in a hermitage and is dressed in poor clothes, I do not care twofigsabout his habit or his clothes if he does not live as pure a life as his clothes suggest to us he should. But many people put on a fine display and extravagant show of being worthy; they are like trees which bear no fruit after abundant flowering: such people should die ignominiously and in great shame! A proverb tells us and relates that all that glitters is not gold. The two proverbs that open this text are, as others have pointed out, ambiguous.12 Initially the opening proverb seems applicable only to Simon: he is a central character, he is a hypocrite and he wears a habit. The narrative would therefore appear to offer a literal exposition of the sense of the proverb and Denise, according to this reading, would be the victim of a wicked monk, unworthy of his habit. In the early part of the text the narrator's comments support this reading. Denise is described as a noble and virtuous maiden (28-9) and we are told how she rejects marriage in order to pledge her virginity to God and to the Virgin (24-7). Simon's argument for making her leave home and adopt a man's clothing is that she will be better able to defend her virginity in his religious order than at home with her family (58-65). The echoes of hagiography here are obvious, and as Roy J. Pearcey has argued, Frere Denise may well have a direct source in the story of Saint Euphrosina, whose Latin vita and Old French life, either of which Rutebeuf could have known, relate how she disguised herself as a monk in order to escape her family and devote herself to God.13 As Simon's plan advances, he is criticized for his wickedness (82-108) and we are consequently invited to read the text as the story of an innocent victim of a man's lust, rescued by a clever woman.

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However, Denise's position is not ultimately this clear-cut and a counterreading is possible from the outset. Rutebeuf concludes his prologue: Por ce m'estuet, ainz que je muire, Faire un flabel d'une aventure De la plus bele criature Que horn puisse troveir ne querre De Paris jusqu'en Aingleterre.

20

For this reason it is fitting that before I die I compose a. fabliau about what happened to the fairest creature one could find or seek out from Paris to England. Simon has not yet been mentioned, so the proverb 'all that glitters is not gold' is implicitly, indeed syntactically (16: Por ce) applicable to Denise. Denise, not Simon, is the one who is not as good as she looks, and the language used to describe her gathers in ambivalence as the narrative progresses. It is never entirely unequivocal. For example, when she is still at home we are told: Frere meneur laianz hantoient, Tuit cil qui par illec passoient. Or avint c'uns en i hanta 35 Qui la damoizele enchanta, Si vos dirai en queil maniere. La pucele li fist proiere Que il sa mere requeist Qu'en religion la meist. 40 All the mendicant friars who passed by there hung around inside. It came to pass that one came by who enchanted the girl and I will tell you how. The maiden begged him to ask her mother to put her in a convent. Enchanta (36) could mean that Simon cast a spell on Denise, or, it could mean that she found him attractive. Immediately after this Denise herself takes the initiative of asking him to intercede on her behalf with her mother so that she might enter religious orders. Simon vaunts his virtuous way of life, and instantly Denise is described as conquise, mate and vaincue (47), adjectives which all have an obvious sexual sense. So how virtuous is she?

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There is a good deal of ambiguity about this once she is in the monastery: Par sa contenance desut Touz ses freres frere Denize: Courtoiz fu et de grant servize. Frere Denize mout amerent Tuit li frere qui laians erent, Mais plus l'amoit frere Symons! Sovent se metoit es limons Com cil qui n'en ert pas retraiz, Et il s'i amoit mieulz qu'es traiz: Mout ot en li boen limonier. Vie menoit de pautonier Et ot guerpi vie d'apostre; Et cele aprist sa pater nostre, Que volentiers la recevoit.

170

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Brother Denise deceived all his brothers by his countenance. And he was courtly and very obliging. All the brothers who were in there loved brother Denise, but brother Simon loved him the most! He often put himself' in harness' like one who is not a real monk and he liked it here better than at his prayer book: he was a really good cart-horse. He lived a rascal's life and had abandoned his vocation. And she learnt her pater noster and received it willingly. Wordplay creates ambivalence here regarding the virtue of both characters. Thus in line 173 retraiz can mean a monk (one who is withdrawn from the world), but retraiz is also attested meaning the male organ after intercourse (that which is withdrawn), or as signifying a lapsed monk (one who has withdrawn from Holy Orders). 14 In line 174 traiz (the Old French cognate of Latin tractus) most obviously means a type of liturgical song, but it can also be a strap which is part of a carthorse's harness, thereby reinforcing the preceding sexual metaphor (172).15 The passage is so charged with sexual innuendo that pater nostre becomes a metaphor for the sexual act, but this then casts doubt on Denise's virtue. The subject of the verb in line 179 is not clear: who is receiving what willingly from whom? But given the subject of the previous line is Denise, the implication is that she willingly has sex with Simon. If this can plausibly be inferred from the apparently deliberate ambiguity

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of this line, further ambiguity emerges from the preceding lines. Do lines 166, 169 and 178 impute intention to deceive on her part? In line 169 are we dealing with spiritual or sexual love? ' Love' is certainly sexual in line 171. So in what sense is Denise 'courtly' and 'obliging' (168) to all her brothers? The tale becomes even more elaborately ambiguous when the knight's wife blows the whistle on Simon and Denise's fun. This kindly lady comforts Denise: mout doucement li pria 290 Qu'ele fust trestoute setire Que ja de nule creature Ne sera ses secreiz seiiz, Ne qu'ele ait a home geii, Ainz sera mout bien mariee: 295 Choisisse en toute la contree Gelui que mieulz avoir vodroit, Ne mais qu'il soit de son endroit. Tant fist la dame envers Denize Qu'elle la en boen penceir mise. 300 Ne la servi mies de lobes: Une de ses plus beles robes Devant son lit li aporta; A son pooir la conforta Con cele qui ne s'en faint mie, 305 Et li at dit: 'Ma douce amie, Ceste vestireiz vos demain.' She begged her gently to be entirely certain that never by any creature would her secret be known, nor that she had lain with a man, rather she will make a good marriage: let her choose from the whole county the man she prefers, provided he is of the same rank as her. The lady behaves thus towards Denise until she has picked her spirits up. These were not empty promises: she brought one of her finest dresses to her bed; she comforted her as best she could with a good deal of sincerity and said to her: 'my sweet friend, tomorrow you will wear this'. The lady plans (like Simon) to present Denise as something she is not, a virgin, and Denise colludes in the deception. The crucial element in the lady's presentation of Denise as a marriageable maiden is the new dress (302). This, of course, recalls the opening proverb. Does the first line then apply to Simon or to Denise? Simon is not a good monk despite his habit,

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but the line could also mean that Denise is not able to become a monk because she is a woman. And yet, Denise's clothing is twice able to make her appear something she is not, and if the monk's abiz did not make her a man, her friend's dress enables her to succeed in passing as a virgin. The letter of the proverb may be observed, but the spirit is not: it should mean you will be found out, but Denise and her new friend get away with their subterfuge. Frere Denise is one of a number of fabliaux R. Howard Bloch cites as evidence for his thesis that the ability of clothing to mask, or to throw a cloak over the truth figures the power of language to shift and mask meaning; that there is a correlation in the genre between gender ambiguity (figured particularly by transvestism) and linguistic indeterminacy (see Scandal, pp. 44-5 on Frere Denise). Language is certainly important in this fabliau and the connection between sexual and linguistic ambiguity is encapsulated in Denise's androgynous name, which suspends her between two genders, just as the text suspends itself between two readings. But if linguistic and sexual difference are related in a number offabliaux, does this mean (as Bloch suggests) that gender indeterminacy is a metaphor for linguistic indeterminacy? Frere Denise portrays the ability of two women to manipulate the perception of others: they show that gender (like language) is a matter of perception, not of essence, of performance, rather than biology. The knight's wife has a keener perception than the other characters who fail to see that Denise is a woman: 'Aparseiie s'est la dame / Que frere Denise estoit fame' (189-90: ' The lady perceived that brother Denise was a woman'). Sympathizing with Denise, she shows that truth is relative, not absolute when she convinces Denise's mother par droite veritei (320) that Denise's honour remains intact. Judith Butler cogently argues that all gender roles are performative, a copy of a model which nowhere exists. There are no essences only attempts to replicate an absent, mythical original: thus gender is produced through iteration.16 Frere Denise shows that being a woman is as much a performance for a biological female as being a man is for her: Denise needs to dress up to be a woman just as she did to be a man. To read

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Denise's story as an allegory of language's inability to have inherent meaning is to miss what the tale's cross-dressing performs in terms of gender ambiguity. Women cannot be men, but they can put on a pretty convincing show and make other people think they are, thereby creating considerable 'gender trouble'. We cannot know absolutely what a man or a woman is for if a woman can pass as a man (or as a virgin when she is not one), how do we know anything, and what exactly is 'a woman' if she can be taken for a man? More than language is at stake here, even if language is the medium in which this game is enacted.17 Leslie Johnson has shown that women frequently get the better of men in fabliaux and that this phenomenon deserves attention in a genre which many critics think misogynistic ('Women on top'). The ability of Denise and the knight's wife to manipulate the perception of Denise's gender is a typical instance of a woman coming out 'on top', to use Johnson's formulation. But it is characteristic of the genre's resistance to any stable hierarchical configuration that it is not just women who successfully cross-dress. Perhaps the most outrageous instance of cross-dressing in the fabliaux is Trubert (JVRCF, 124), where the hero's cross-dressing, as with Denise's cross-dressing, is presented in conjunction with a good deal of linguistic play.18 This text, which runs to almost 3000 lines, is much longer than other fabliaux, but the author none the less calls it a fabliau (5). In some respects it is more like a sequence offabliau plots involving the same characters than a single fabliau. The hero — Trubert — relentlessly tricks the same pathetic aristocrat, a Duke. He sleeps with his wife, then engineers a situation in which he is able to perform painful operations on the Duke's behind with tweezers and to give him a sound beating. Trubert's tricks enable him to get the Duke's men to murder his own nephew, and to wreak havoc on the battlefield when the Duke is at war. In the war episode Trubert cuts the genitals and anus off a woman and convinces the Duke and his court that they are the facial features of his enemy, king Golias. In exasperation the Duke sends his men to Trubert's house to kill him. There they find him disguised as his sister, and he is taken to court to be a

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lady-in-waiting, assuming the ridiculous name Couillebaude, 'happy balls'. From this privileged position, he is able to deflower the Duke's innocent daughter using in his seduction erotic metaphors similar to those found in other fabliaux. Then, having made her parents believe that the resulting pregnancy is due to a miraculous immaculate conception involving an angel, Trubert has himself substituted for her in the marriage which has been arranged between her and king Golias. On the wedding day Trubert exposes himself to the priest who comes to confess the bride and then has the priest killed for attempted rape. In the wedding bed Trubert gets the king to insert his penis into a purse he has prepared for the purpose. When the king has penetrated the purse, Trubert pulls its strings tight and screams in mock pain. The king, thinking his bride is in agony, faints from the pain. Trubert then deflowers the maid of honour, tells her the whole story and persuades her to take his place in the king's bed. She becomes the new queen. This rich narrative is exemplary of the anarchic flavour of many fabliaux. It parodies romance, epic and hagiography as it romps through all these zany episodes,19 constantly destabilizing the discourses on which it preys. The concluding episode, in which Trubert, dressed as woman, is deflowered by king Golias, highlights linguistic and sexual indeterminacy together: Trubert adreice sa voie a l'esponde, la borse a prise ou sa pucelle l'avoit mise. Entre ses jambes Pa boutee. «Sire, fet il, quant vos agree, feites de moi voz volontez!» Seur le ventre li est montez li rois, c'autre chose ne quiert; son vit en la borse li fiert si que tot li embat dedanz. Trubert a tire les pendanz, et li rois tire et cil restraint quanque il peut, riens ne s'en faint, et li rois sache de rechief, mes de 1' avoir ne vient a chief. Et Trubert durement le tient;

2830

2

^35

2840

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desouz le roi s'afiche et gient ausi com fame c'on esforce. « Sire, vos m'ociez a force, dit Trubert, et car vos soufrez!» 2845 De destreice est li rois pasmez. Quant il revint de pasmoison: « Par foi, ainz mes ne vi tel con, fait li rois, ne sai dont ce vient.» Trubert moves towards the edge of the bed and has taken the purse from where his maid had put it. Hefixedit between his legs.' Sire', he said,' when you are ready, you may do as you will with me'. The king, who wishes for nothing else, got onto his stomach; he thrusts his cock into the purse violently so that it is all the way inside. Trubert pulled the strings tight and the king pulled and he held him as tight as he could, sparing no effort, and the king tries again, but he does not succeed in freeing himself. And Trubert holds him fast; underneath the king he holds on and groans, like a woman who is being raped. 'My lord, your violence is killing me', said Trubert, 'and how you suffer too!' The king has fainted from the pain. When he has come round: 'By my faith, I have never seen such a cunt', said the king, 'and I can't imagine where it comes from'. In Old French horse is slang for 'scrotum' as well as having its primary sense 'purse'. This word-play suggests that inverted male genitalia are metamorphosed into a vagina; the irony is heightened by the use of the word pendans, which can be the strings of a purse, but also the male genitals as a whole, or testicles.20 The king fails to perceive the difference between a con, even a crooked one (2851: un con de biais), and a horse, and this can be read as a failure to perceive the value of sexual difference, as well as a failure to read signs correctly, as if the two were coterminous. Any hole can become a con, provided it is being manipulated by someone clever enough for someone stupid enough. That Trubert's success is due primarily to the failure of the king to perceive the obvious is highlighted by his being told that the con is crooked and that he will never see another one like it: the king ought to realize that something is wrong, but he does not discover his bride was a man. The text aligns its own word-play on horse with the hero's manipulation of the perception of gender, exploiting linguistic indeterminacy and making it analogous to gender indeter-

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minacy. This view of gender is, of course, at odds with prevailing, essentialist views within medieval culture. For R. Howard Bloch, this text again shows how fabliaux obsessively figure the inability of language to signify straightforwardly [Scandal, p. 100). But I would suggest that it shows, rather, how gender and language are both arbitrary sign systems, producing meaning through convention, not any natural, immanent properties of words or of sexed beings. Gender cannot be taken simply as a metaphor for language in this text, since the text is about the slippery nature of both. Trubert, like many fabliaux, plays on the notion that gender can be determined by genitals, thereby evoking a highly essentialist view of sex: the king thinks his bride has a con, therefore she must be a woman. Yet it simultaneously suggests that perception of gender is susceptible to manipulation through signifiers (clothes/language) and that objects can be successfully substituted for genitals. Trubert manipulates the perception of one of the most important markers of hierarchy, and makes a nonsense of it. If any hole or receptacle can be a vagina, how do we know what a woman is? What this ambivalence seems to produce is a literary space in which gender is constructed rather than given, since apparently natural essences can be successfully imitated. And yet a biological view of gender, and particularly a genitally defined view of gender, is constantly invoked. The next section will look more closely at genitals in the fabliaux, and at how characters play with them. GENDER, GENITALS AND THE BODY

Fabliau characters often make the body - particularly the genitals - the site of gendered identity in that individuals are sexed by their genitals. They are not unique in this: in the Roman de Silence and Floire et Blancheflor the uncovering of the bodies of Silence and Floire lead to their being sexed as a woman and as a man respectively.21 But the fabliaux are exceptionally graphic in their insistence on the importance of genitals as markers of sexual difference. This is nowhere more apparent than in De la Dame escoliee (MR, vi, pp. 95-116, JVRCF, 83), where a woman

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who behaves in a masculine way is symbolically castrated in order to make her subordinate to a man. De la Dame escoliee appears to have two plots and the surviving text may result from the fusion of two fabliaux. The first plot concerns a man's attempts to assert his authority over his unruly wife; in the end he resorts to violence. The second plot is the story of their daughter and her husband. She has inherited her mother's disrespect for men; her husband resolves to do something about this and in the process to help his father-in-law re-establish his masculine authority over his mother-in-law, who has failed to be subdued by the beating administered in the first section of the narrative. He has his servants bring him the testicles of a bull, mutilates his mother-in-law's thighs, and announces that he has extracted the coilles de tor from her body. ' Vos avez de nostre orgueil. / Vos avez coilles comme nos' (p. 112: 'You have our pride. You have balls like us'), he tells his mother-in-law. He then threatens to castrate his wife if she does not obey him: understandably she becomes a dutiful and submissive wife, as does her mother. Of course the perpetrator of the trick, the narrator and the readers know that the irascible woman did not really have testicles concealed in her body. However, the two women and the castrated woman's husband do believe the bull's testicles are hers (see p. 115). Because she behaves in a masculine way, exhibiting nostre orgueil, the trickster is able to suggest (plausibly for at least two women and one man) that she must have the physical markers of this concealed inside her body. Sex/gender signification is made to work backwards here: instead of a person exercising authority because he has testicles, here it is implied a person must have testicles because she seeks to exercise authority. 22 Ironically, the younger of the two wives presumably still believes she has testicles at the end of the text, but the point is that we should laugh at anyone stupid enough to believe that a woman can have balls. We are implicitly invited to admire the trickster's savoir, though it is not clear whether it is his savoir or his violence that has subdued the woman. 23 The text is deeply misogynistic. Yet as it appeals to a biological notion of gender (in that a person's authority is determined by his/her genitals),

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its deployment of this theoretical position is represented as absurd, and as the basis of a ridiculous illusion. If a woman can 'lord it over' (seignorir, p. 95) her husband without testicles, what do testicles actually mean? What are the implications of a man and two women being made to believe that a woman has testicles? The text appeals to a belief in a direct relation between testicles and masculine power, yet the possession (or not) of male genitals is shown to be a question of perception, susceptible to manipulation and their meaning therefore open to interpretation. If any conclusion about this fableor's attitude to gender can be drawn, it is that masculinity and femininity are meanings given to body parts, not irreducible essences emanating from these parts. In Trubert and De la Dame characters who believe a person's genitals determine his or her gender are made to believe that an individual possesses the genitals of the opposite sex. In Trubert the king has no idea his bride is a man, but in De la Dame characters are convinced that a woman has balls. In other fabliaux, characters see the genitals of another character, but fail to ' read' them correctly. This can have a variety of consequences : in some fabliaux it allows a man or a woman to procure sex (see below pp. 258 and 271), but in one instance it leads to an individual mistaking his wife for a man. Berengier au lone cul (NRCF, iv, 34, pp. 245-77) survives in two distinct versions in three manuscripts. I shall return to the differences between these redactions in the last section of this chapter, but the basis of the plot is the same in all three manuscripts. In the version most critics prefer {BD), a knight marries his daughter to a vilain who has aspirations to gentility. Berated by his wife for his evident lack of knightly prowess, the vilain goes off into the forest every day, dressed as a knight, and returns each evening, apparently battle-scarred, with tales of derring-do. But his wife smells a rat when she realizes that although his sword and shield are dented, his helmet is untouched, while his horse is as frisky on his return each evening as when he left in the morning. One day the vilain's wife disguises herself as a knight and follows him into the forest. She finds him beating his shield, which he has tied to a tree, with his

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sword. In a passage which may well parody Esclados's challenges to Calogrenant and Yvain in Yvain, the peasant's wife challenges him, offering the choice of combat, or kissing his arse. Showing no surprise at this unusual form of submission, possibly a parody of the kiss of peace, he instantly agrees to abase himself, rather than fight. But the peasant is taken aback when the knight bends over and raises his tunic: ' Et cil esgarde la crevace / Do cul et del con: ce li sanble / Que trestot tienent ensamble' (242-4: 'And he looks up the crevice of the arse and cunt: they look to him like they run into each other'). Intuiting her husband's doubts about what he sees, the noble-woman tells him that her name is 'Berangier au lone cul' (258: 'long-arsed Berengier'). Having forced her husband unwittingly into analingus, she hurries home to jump into bed with her lover. Upon his return her husband finds them, but his angry protests subside when his wife threatens to summon 'long-arsed Berengier'. Henceforth, 'cele fait sa volante' (294: 'she always does what she wants'). Berengier has elicited a number of detailed analyses from modern critics, most recently from E. Jane Burns in her stimulating study of women's bodies and voices in Old French literature, Bodytalk. Burns argues that what we witness in this fabliau is a conflict between man-centred and woman-centred knowledge. The husband fails to recognize the female genitalia he has thrust in his face and this lack of knowledge of his wife's body leads to his downfall. His view of the female body, for Burns, is inherently phallocentric in that he misperceives the vagina as a male anus, erasing female genitals, constructing them as a mirror image of a male body-part. In Burns's reading the husband's phallogocentric logic anticipates the logic of Irigaray's one-eyed penis, which fails to see anything except itself and therefore radically misreads women's bodies, their plurality and difference. The concluding scene of Berengier, in which his wife is having sex with her lover in front of him, is another way of rubbing her genitals in his face, of proclaiming her difference and his inability to recognize it.24 Burns's argument works well if Berengier is read in isolation from other fabliaux, demonstrating that the text can be

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appropriated by a feminist reader as offering an example of the importance of what she calls 'knowing women', a deliberately ambivalent expression she uses to designate simultaneously the power of women who have knowledge and the (in) ability of men to £ know' women (Bodytalk, pp. 27-30). But read in the context of the genre, the tale Berengier has to tell about gender in the fabliaux is perhaps different from that elaborated by Burns. A woman's manipulation of a man's perception is common in thefabliaux, but it is not just female bodies and genitals that men fail' to know'. Thus in De la Borgoise d'Orliens (JVRCF, m, 19, pp. 337-74) a woman contrives a situation in which her husband's (male) servants believe he is an unwanted suitor and give him a sound thrashing. In Les Trois Bogus (JVRCF, v, 47, pp. 191-207) a young wife is being entertained one day by three hunchback jongleurs when her jealous husband returns home unexpectedly: she hides the jongleurs in a chest and on discovering later that they have inexplicably died, she gets a (male) servant to dispose of their bodies one by one, making him believe each time that he is carrying off the same body which has miraculously returned from the river in which he threw it; coming back from the river the third time, he sees his mistress's husband, thinks it is the same recalcitrant body risen from the dead yet again, and murders him. The young wife is not displeased by this outcome. In Les Tresces (JVRCF, vi, 69, pp. 207-58), a woman leaves her husband holding a mule's ear in the dark when he thinks he is holding on to a robber (who is in fact her lover); he then mistakes his neighbour for his wife, beats her up and cuts off her hair; his wife then makes him believe that he cut off the tail of his horse, rather than her hair. These examples demonstrate that the question of knowledge and perception is central in the fabliaux, but that it is not confined to men's knowledge of women's bodies and female genitalia. Women manipulate the perception by men of women's bodies, men's bodies and animals' bodies. This would seem to suggest that gender is only at issue tangentially in that sexual difference, along with other differentiating categories, such as animal/human in a text like Les Tresces, is recognized as susceptible to manipulation. Moreover many fabliaux show men manipulating the perception

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of women, or women and men manipulating the perception of things other than genitals and bodies.25 What motivates these narratives is the demonstration of the power some characters derive from their skill at manipulating the perception of others, and from their victims' credulity. The point of the joke in Berengier is that the husband ought to know the difference between a vagina and an arsehole. The text does not show the inability of men to 'know' women's bodies, but the inability of just one stupid man to do so. He privileges discourse over visual evidence and men in general - the narrator, male readers, the woman's lover - share the joke with the clever wife. This surely makes the text, and the knowledge it aspires to, less woman-centred than Burns argues. For Burns, Berengier plays on the way men confuse a woman's anus and vagina, and consequently fail to 'know' women's bodies [Bodytalk, pp. 39-43 and 58); yet Berengier implies on the contrary that the distinction between anus and vagina is as crucial for men as for women. This is also the case in the other fabliaux Burns cites as examples of confusion between the anus and the vagina, which is perhaps not a confusion at all. To my knowledge, there are three fabliaux, apart from Berengier, which dwell on the vagina and the anus together: Le Sot Chevalier (JVRCF, v, 53, pp. 313-35), Le Chevalier qui fist parler les cons

(NRCF, HI, 15, pp. 45-173) and Le Debat du C. et du C. (MR, 11, 133-6, no NRCF number). Each of thesefabliaux plays upon the contiguity of the vagina and anus, but relies upon a distinction between them. In Le Sot Chevalier, a knight who is so stupid and lacking in knowledge that he does not know how to consummate his marriage, has his wife's anatomy explained to him by his mother-in-law: chaos ensues when some visiting knights think he is talking about them (rather than his wife's orifices) when he repeats aloud his mother-in-law's injunction to 'Le plus lone foutre et le cort batre' (212: 'fuck the long one and beat the short one'). The improbable Le Chevalier relates how a knight is given the magic gift of being able to make vaginas speak to him; if a vagina is impeded in any way, the anus will answer his question. Here there is no confusion between vagina and anus, rather one may substitute for the other. Le Debat does not have

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much of a plot, but offers instead a dialogue between the anus (C. = cul) and the vagina (C.=con) in which the vagina complains that it is debased by its proximity to the anus. These fabliaux show not that men confuse female genitalia with male body-parts as Burns suggests, but rather that some men do 'know' women's bodies, in the sense Burns uses the term, to the extent that they make a clear distinction between the vagina and the anus. Thus if the plot of Le Sot Chevalier depends on the confusion one character is at risk of making between the vagina and the anus, 26 its joke relies on its audience knowing the difference between the two orifices and thereby understanding the confusion made by the knights; similarly, the hero of Le Chevalier and the narrator in Le Debat exploit the distinction, the former because one has to substitute for the other, the latter by creating a dialectic between the two. Moreover, if the authors of these tales were men (as they almost certainly were), they show that men can offer elaborate interpretations of women's bodies even if we do not agree with them. Knowledge derived from anatomy is less at stake here, than the power of discourse to control the perception of anatomy. In some fabliaux it is women who do not 'know' their own or other women's bodies. Thus in Le Maignien qui foti la dame (NRCF, vi, 73, pp. 301-11) a servant woman sees her mistress's genitals from behind as she climbs into a bath and thinks her innards are falling out; a passing pedlar masquerades as a doctor and takes advantage of the situation, poking her organs back inside with his enormous penis. The woman knows full well what is happening to her once the pedlar has penetrated her, and proceeds to make the most of the situation, but her servant has simply failed to recognize another woman's genitals. Some fabliau women appear not to know their own genitals. In a number offabliaux men use elaborate erotic metaphors to seduce women. In some the women appear to be willing participants and initiate both the sexual activity and the metaphors, as for example in La Damoisele qui nepooit oirparler de

foutre (JVRCF, iv, 26, pp. 57-89), where a prudish girl faints when she hears rude words, but proves more than willing when spoken to with the right euphemisms (see below pp. 280-4).

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But in other texts of this ilk, it is less clear that the woman is aware of what is going on. In Cele quifufoutue et desfoutue (NRCF, iv, 30, pp. 151-87), for instance, an innocent girl asks a young man to give her a crane he has captured; he agrees to give it to her in exchange for afoutre (a fuck), but she does not know what this is and says she does not have one. The young man insists she must have one - under her skirt - and proceeds to search vigorously for it. Later, on being asked where she got the crane, the maiden recounts the incident to her nurse, who realizes what has happened and scolds her. Thinking only to please her nurse, when the young man reappears she makes him give her the joutre back so that she can proudly announce that she has now been desfoutue (unfucked). This is, of course, a case of exploited innocence, but set alongside Le Sot chevalier, it shows that it is not only innocent men who do not 'know' women's genitals in the fabliaux. Elsewhere in the fabliaux the scenario of Berengier is reversed and men manipulate the perception of women's genitals. In Trubert, for instance, the hero makes the Duke's court believe that the vagina and anus of a woman are the facial features of king Golias (1965-80) and, as we have seen, he later makes Golias believe a leather purse is a vagina. In Trubert, we also see that the perception of the male organ is as subject to manipulation as that of the vagina when the Duke's innocent daughter is made to believe that Trubert's penis is a baby rabbit, which will enjoy playing in her vagina, and which can be revived once tired (and apparently dead) if she strokes it (2484-570). Here a woman fails to 'know' a man's body. Indeed, at the time she is in bed with Trubert, who is crossdressed as a woman and she fails to realize that the connetiaus is attached to her companion's body.27 If the perception and meaning of genitals are open to manipulation, and people can be made to believe that other things are genitals, they are not the absolute markers of sexual difference that an essentialist approach to gender would suggest. The fabliaux therefore play with and subvert the very theory of gender they constantly invoke. But their play is even more far reaching than this. A biological theory of sexual difference

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requires that the phallus should be singular, that only men be endowed with its unique physical signifier, the penis. Feminist theories of gender which play on anatomical differences between men and women, for example Luce Irigaray's, are equally insistent upon the singularity of the penis. For Irigaray whereas the penis is monolithic with a single eye, the labia are plural, multivocal, constantly in touch with each other: thus, in the famous title of one of her books, Ce Sexe qui rten est pas un, the female sex is literally not one, not only because the penis eye only recognizes one sex, the male sex, but also because the female sex is always multiple, never just one. 28 The attention the fabliaux give to the size, shape and quality of the penis indicates a constant engagement with what one might call phallic thought, and yet at their most surreal they have two striking ways of subverting the phallus as transcendental signifier, and consequently of suggesting a radical theory of sexual difference: firstly genitals proliferate, either on just one body, or independently of any body; secondly genitals are portrayed as detachable from the body. Indeed in a number of texts genitals belong to someone quite distinct from the body on which they originated, or, even more disconcertingly, they do not appear to originate on a body at all. The most striking instance of genitals proliferating is Les Quatre Sohais Saint Martin (JVRCF, iv, 31, pp. 189-216), which narrates how an oafish peasant develops an assiduous devotion to Saint Martin and consequently invokes his name with great frequency. One day, in a scene which parodies the miracle sequences found in some saints' lives, Saint Martin appears to him and grants him four wishes. On his return home his wife, who wears the pants (35: 'qui chaucjoit les braies'), becomes aware that he is looking unusually pleased with himself and drags the truth from him. Reluctantly he gives her one of the wishes, but she is by this time so exasperated with his diffidence that she inexplicably wishes that he be covered in penises; in revenge he wishes that she be covered in vaginas. Dismayed by how they look, they then wish that all the cons and vits disappear, only to find themselves without genitals, like a pair of dolls. The last wish is used to retrieve their original genitals.

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The account of the two bodies covered in genitals revels in its excess: ' - Je di, fait ele, de par Deu, Que tot soiez chargiez de viz: Ne remaigne oil ne nariz, Ne teste ne braz ne coste, Qui ne soient de viz plante. Et si ait chascuns viz sa coille, Si ne soient baien ne doille; Tot jorz soient li vit tandu: Si sanbleroiz vilain cornu!' Et sitost con ele Tot dit, Si saillent do vilain li vit, Li vit li saillent par lo nes Et par la boche de delez. Or poez oi'r granz mervoilles: Li vit li saillent des oroilles, Darriere, aval et amont, Et par devant en mi lo front; Tot contreval, desi q'as piez, Fu li vilains de viz chargiez. Li vilains fu de viz cornuz, De totes parz mout bien vestuz.

95

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' I wish', she says,' that by God, you should be covered in pricks; that neither ear nor nostril, nor head, nor arm, nor rib be without a prick growing on it. Let every prick have balls and let them not be limp or soft: let the pricks be perpetually stiff; you will look like a behorned peasant.' And as soon as she had said this, the pricks spring forth from the peasant; the pricks spring from his nose and from inside his mouth. Now you can hear about this wondrous miracle: the pricks spring from his ears, from behind, below and above, in front and on his forehead. All the way down to his feet the peasant was covered in pricks. The peasant was completely decked out in horny pricks. Lors fu la fame bien connue: Ele ot un con en la veiie, Quatre en ot el front, coste a coste, Et con detres et con encoste, Et con devant et con darriere. Si ot con de mainte meniere: Con droit, con tort et con chenu, Et con sanz poil et con velu, Et con joene et con bien fait,

150

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Et con pucel et con retrait, Et con parfont et con a croce, Et con bellonc et con sanz boce, Con ot au chief, con ot as piez! Now the woman was easy to recognize / ' well-cunted': she had a cunt on her eyes, four on her forehead side by side, and a cunt behind and a cunt beside it, and a cunt on her front and a cunt on her rear. She had many different kinds of cunt: a tight cunt, a twisted cunt and a withered cunt, a hairless cunt and a hairy cunt, a young cunt and a sturdy cunt, a virgin cunt and a used cunt, a deep cunt and a curved cunt, a gaping cunt and a cunt without a mouth, she has a cunt on her head and a cunt on her feet. As E. Jane Burns points out 'in saying " I want more pricks", this fabliau wife says in essence, " I want more than one prick, more than the monolithic phallus, more than this phallocentric world view.'" (Bodytalk, p. 65). The multiplicity of penises on the peasant's body undermines the singularity of the phallus as transcendental signifier and opens the way for a new mode of signification. Thus the penis, sign of male authority, in this text becomes the sign of subverted male authority as the erect penis on the peasant's forehead is implicitly likened to the cuckold's horn (102 and 113). At first glance, it would look as if the woman's multiplicity of vaginas are simply a counterpart to the peasant's penises, but the variety of the woman's organs, more particularly the variety in what they signify, reveal just how monolithic the phallus is within phallic thought. Whatever, the size, shape or position of the man's penises, a penis is always a penis. The same cannot be said of the woman's vaginas, which are adorned with an impressive array of adjectives that give each one a different quality. Each vagina, were it alone on a woman's body, would construct her identity within a phallocentric discourse. Each vagina would make the woman whose body it was part of young, old, desirable, very desirable, a virgin, a whore and so on. But what of this woman? Is she a whore, young, old, beautiful, hideous, comely and so on, all at once, because her body has all these vaginas? If the peasant's abundance of penises undermines the phallogocentric power of the penis, his wife's abundance of vaginas shatters the way in

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which women are constructed, contained and circumscribed in phallocentric discourse by the way men describe their genitals. To what extent is the woman in this text 'known', connue (147) ? Of course, connue is a pun, suggesting 'covered in cunts', and as Burns argues the question of knowledge is crucial to this text (Bodytalk, p. 51). The implication is that the woman is 'known', in the sense of both 'understood' and 'recognized' because of the proliferation of genitals on her body. Yet the diversity in what the vaginas can signify means we in fact know nothing about this woman: any significance attached to one of the vaginas may be contradicted by that of another. The discourse which seeks to define women through their genitals is exceeded. The results of the third and fourth wishes may seem to suggest that genitals are necessary markers, but does the reassuring image of the peasant and his wife with just one set of genitals each, and in the right place, efface what has gone before? We are in fact left with the troubling knowledge that the return to the status quo entails loss and lack: of the four wishes, of the wealth they might have brought, of the abundance of genitals, of the pleasure these might have afforded. Normality is now patently unsatisfactory. Significantly, in addition to the excessive and unintelligible visual images suggested by this text, its language constantly exceeds the bounds of intelligibility. As in Trubert, language, through puns and the use of homonyms, operates startling reversals in this text: -Jel te dirai, fait li bons hons, 165 Or sui je riche de bons cons, Si con tu iez riche de viz. Or est li jeus a droit partiz, Car or a chascuns viz sa borse! Cele fu iriee et reborse, 170 Et dit: ' Male avanture aiez! - Suer, fait il, ne vos esmaiez, Que ja mais n'anteroiz en rue Que ne soiez bien coneiie! 'I will tell you', says the good man, 'now I am rich with good cunts, just as you are rich with pricks. Now the game is well matched, for every prick has its "purse"!' She was very angry and upset, and said:

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'A curse on you!' 'Sister', he said, 'don't be upset, for now you will never be able to go out into the street without being recognized'. These lines repeat the pun on coneile, but other punning is also rampant. There is a semantic connection between the' richness' of each character in the genitals of the opposite sex, and the peasant's claim that each of his penises now has a ' purse \ 2 9 This challenges our visual understanding, of course, in that we are implicitly invited to imagine how the peasant would insert simultaneously each of his penises into one of his wife's vaginas, but the language used also stretches intelligibility to its limits and beyond. The obvious meaning of borse here is that each penis has a receptacle into which it can be inserted and as each one is an example of wealth,' purse' is an appropriate metaphor. But borse, as we have already seen, is also a slang word for the scrotum, so as in Trubert the inverse of the genitals of one sex becomes those of the other through a play on words. Is the wife now covered in scroturns rather than vaginas? Rather than being meaningful, the words for the genitals (and thereby by implication the genitals themselves) become meaningless. This is emphasized here by the use of the word reborse 'upset' at the rhyme with borse (169-70): this word contains the word borse, but means something different. Or is it a nonce word punning on borse? Either way the text evinces a lack of respect for the usual meaning of genitals and the words that designate them. Normality may be restored, but the linguistic game has so altered our perception of it that normality can never be the same again. When the peasant in Les Quatre Sohais tells his wife she is ' rich in pricks', he implies they no longer belong to him, that they are her property even though they are on his body. She owns the penises and the financial metaphor implies they are a form of wealth, hence the need for a borse. Sarah Melhado White has commented upon the frequency with which genitals in the fabliaux are treated as a commodity, to be bought and sold, given a value; as a commodity, desirable genitals, like other objects of value in the fabliaux, can be acquired, and White links the way in which thefabliaux figure sex and the body in financial terms as a reflection of the contemporary development of a

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market economy ('Sexual language', pp. 185-8). There are a number offabliaux either in which genitals are treated as objects which can be bought and sold separately from the body, or in which characters are made to believe that genitals can be detached from the body. In the most striking instance of genitals treated as a commodity, we also see a proliferation of genitals comparable to that in Les Quatre Sohais, though in Le Sohait des vez (JVRCF, vi, 70, pp. 259-72) they are entirely disembodied. In Le Sohait a merchant and his wife are delighted to see each other on his return from several months' travelling, but because he drinks too much at dinner, she is denied the sex she had hoped for on his first night home. Frustrated she falls asleep and dreams of a market in which penises of all shapes, sizes and prices are for sale. A good housewife, she hunts assiduously round the market until she finds a particularly choice specimen: Tant s'est traveilliee et penee C'a un estal est asenee, Qu'ele en vit un gros, un lone. Si s'est apoiee selonc: Gros fu darriere et gros par tot, Lo musel ot gros et estot; Se lo voir dire vos en voil, L'an li poi'st giter en Toil Une cerise de plain vol: N'arestast, si venist au fol De la coille, que il ot tele Com lo paleron d'une pele, C'onques nus horn tele ne vit. La dame bargigna lo vit.

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no

She laboured and searched around until she came to a stall where she saw a fat long one. She came up close to it: it was big from behind and big everywhere, the shaft was big and sturdy; if I tell you the truth, one could have thrown a cherry right down its eye: and to come right to the balls, they were as big as the head of a spade, so that no man had ever seen the like. The lady started to barter for the prick. As she is about to agree a price for the humungous member, thinking in her dream she is striking the stall-holder's hand, she hits her husband and wakes him. She recounts her dream, which he takes in good spirit, despite the less than flattering

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comparison she makes between his penis and the one in the market (192-8). Indeed he has sobered up enough to give her the home-coming present she had hoped for. The humorous spectacle of the housewife scouring the market for the best bargain, and her then bartering as if the organ were a spectacularly large vegetable, should not deflect our attention from the connotations of her dream. The penises, being disembodied, can be taken away from the market for a price, without men attached. Men, in this woman's dream, are appendages to dildoes; a penis is not the symbol of man's authority over women and therefore the material sign of the phallus, but rather it is a more or less satisfactory tool with which women can satisfy their sexual needs. The text seems to ask: who needs men if you can have a penis without one? Or even more subversively: whose penis is this anyway? In her dream the woman can buy a penis and take it home with her. If the penis is the phallus, is she buying the phallus and taking it home with her, appropriating the symbol of authority for two marks (117), a considerable, but none the less affordable sum of money for a member of the merchant classes?30 The proliferation of penises in this text, as in Les Quatre Sohais, again undermines the singularity of what the phallus represents and devalues, with the help of the implausible dimensions of the dream model, the penis to which most men can lay claim. Even worse (or better, depending on your point of view), the implication of the woman's dream is that the penis belongs to her. This might make the text sound like a fantasy grounded in women's ostensible penis envy, but such a reading underplays the subversive potential of the text. In the dream of Le Sohait, the woman can have as many penises as she wants, provided she has the money. This fabliau, in fantasizing that penises may be disembodied and bought for a price, either singly or in bulk, challenges the entire edifice of phallic thought. Le Sohait des vez is not unique in its portrayal of women as owners of disembodied male genitals.31 Des .Hi. Dames (MR, iv, pp. 128-32, JVRCF, 96) tells the story of three women who find and squabble over a penis. They go to an abbess for arbitration, but her quick thinking enables her to keep it for herself and the

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three women are thus all frustrated. The implication of this text (as with Le Sohait) might seem to be that all women want is a penis to satisfy their lust, but once again men are portrayed as expendable, unnecessary to women if they can get a penis from another source. Indeed, no man appears as a character in this text, merely the disembodied penis. Conversely a man without a penis is useless: thus in Le Pescheor de Pont seur Saine (NRCF, iv,

28, pp. 107-29), a man tests his wife by showing his wife a penis he has cut off a body he found floating in the Seine and telling her it is his; she instantly walks out on him and is only lured back when offered tangible evidence that his genitals are intact.32 The misogynistic overtones of this narrative are exploited to the full: not only are women so undiscerning that all penises are interchangeable, but also it is clear they are only after one thing. Yet the misogynistic moral of this fabliau (197-214, see below p. 268) can be turned back against men if the text is read alongside other texts in which penises proliferate or are disembodied. If penises are ten a penny (or two marks each for that matter), why stay with a man without one ? The ultimate affront to male dignity comes, however, not in a text in which penises are detached from bodies, but in a fabliau in which a man is made to believe that his wife's con is detachable from her body and has a life of its own. In the hilarious La Sorisete des Estopes (NRCF, vi, 66, pp. 171-91), a woman tells her husband on her wedding day that she has left her vagina at home with her mother, and sends him off to get it so she can sleep with her lover, the priest. Frustrated, but excited, he rushes off to her mother's house, whose quick thinking inspires her to give him a basket which, she says, contains her daughter's vagina. The husband is wondering whether he can copulate with the vagina without his wife actually being there, when a mouse, whose presence in the basket is quite fortuitous, jumps out. The man naturally thinks the mouse is his wife's vagina: given he believes it is in the basket, what else could a small furry objectjumping out possibly be? Dismayed, he runs off in pursuit of the mouse, wondering whether his erect penis has scared his wife's con. Believing himself to be condemned to a married life without sex, he

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returns in despair to his wife. When she has heard his tale, she reassures him that her vagina has run home to her. Much relieved, he agrees that it needs to rest after its exertions. The husband in La Sorisete is woefully ignorant of female anatomy, but one might also say that he is simply woefully ignorant. As with Berengier the point seems to be that one man's stupidity and credulity allows a clever woman to get the better of him, not that men as a group do not understand women's bodies, and other men laugh at this oaf.33 La Sorisete does not have an overt political agenda, but as with all the texts discussed in this section, it shows that genitals are slippery, unstable, their meaning difficult to catch: the husband's chase of his wife's elusive con aptly figures the manner in which her sexuality escapes his control, whilst his belief that her vagina can run about separated from her body once again makes a nonsense of any anatomically defined theory of gender. The phenomena described in this and the first section can be read as theoretically liberating for women. The number of texts in which vaginas are likened to mouths, and therefore become producers of verbal signs, or in which wordplay is coterminous with ambiguity surrounding gender, is eloquent testimony to the extent that gender is in effect bound up with meaning.34 Gender is continually shown to be an unstable construct, not a fixed ' natural' hierarchy grounded in the body. The power and authority of the penis is undermined and men are portrayed as replaceable, expendable, or unnecessary, only useful when their bodies are whole. Phallocentric notions are frequently evoked only to be undermined, and some fabliaux seem to reverse the ' man is spirit, woman is matter' paradigm in portraying clever women who only want men for their bodies, or more accurately for a particular body-part. Frequently these bodies or bodyparts fail to satisfy and men are shown to be inadequate, undersexed, and pathetic. However, I suggested earlier that however progressive the fabliaux'§ attitude to gender appears, this needs to be set in the context of a broader theory of social mobility. Any apparently feminist undertone to the genre is incidental, not central, however we choose to appropriate or apprehend it. This is all the more striking given that many of the

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texts discussed so far end with virulently misogynistic morals. Women are voracious, ruled by rampant desire and untrustworthy. A few examples will suffice: Qui plus croit sa fame que lui Sovant en a au cuer anui!

200 Les Quatre Sohais

The man who trusts his wife more than himself will often have a sorry heart. Enseignier voil por ceste fable Que fame set plus que deiable. Et certeinement lo sachiez: Les iauz enbedeus me sachiez Se n'e a esciant dit voir! Qant ele viaut om decevoir, Plus Ten de^oit et plus Pafole Tot solemant par sa parole Que om ne feroit par angin.

215

220 La Sorisete

I want to teach in this fable that women are wilier than the devil. And bear this in mind: you can pluck both my eyes out if I am not telling the truth! When she wants to deceive a man she can deceive and confound him better with her words than a man could with cunning. Gil fablel nos raconte et dit Que por la coille et por le vit Tient la fame Tome plus chier: C'est veritee, par seint Richier!

200 Le Pescheor

This fabliau recounts and tells us that a woman only cherishes her husband because of his balls and cock: this is the truth by saint Richard.

As has been frequently pointed out there is often a patent mismatch between moral and narrative in the fabliaux;35 In the case of the first two morals, the texts are tales of the stupidity of men as much as of the wickedness of women; in the case of Le Pescheor•, the narrative may bear out the moral, but as we have seen, this is as unflattering to men as to women. The morals are thus not unproblematic, but the fact remains that the fabliaux evoke and use a deeply misogynistic discourse, often to condemn, as in Le Pescheor, women's sexual desire. In the next

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section I examine the relationship in the fabliaux between misogyny and the portrayal of female desire. WOMEN S DESIRE AND MISOGYNY

Many fabliaux offer the spectacle of women's insatiable desire and the image which emerges is unsurprisingly uniform. A text such as La Damoisele qui sonjoit (NRCF, iv, 25, pp. 45-55) is paradigmatic in its representation of women's desire. This fabliau relates how one day a young maiden dreams of a handsome man. As she sleeps an intruder enters her bedroom and has sex with her three times. When she wakes she realizes what has happened and laments the loss of her virginity. Deciding, none the less, to make the best of things, she asks the man to have sex with her again, so she can enjoy the experience properly. Exhausted, he is reluctant to comply, but she strikes him and prevents him from leaving. There is no real denouement: the narrative concludes with a speech in which the woman harangues her assailant, followed by the narrator hoping that the women in his audience will have dreams like hers. There is an obvious misogynistic sub-text to La Damoisele. The girl is portrayed as voracious, her lamentations for her virtue therefore as a sham. It is suggested that once desire has been awakened in her body, it cannot be controlled. The implication of the narrator's parting shot is that he believes real women to be like this and he hopes to profit from their inability to resist an available man. But the text is susceptible to a different reading. Consider the woman's speech to her assailant when he tries to escape: ' Par cui passastes vos l'esponde, Qant je me dormoie en mon lit? Guidiez vos por vostre grant vit Avoir moi si estoutoiee? Je sui encore saine et haitiee 60 Plus que vos, au mien escient! Se je de vos ne me deffant Don sui je pire que ribaude: Vos en avroiz ja une chaude! Or faites tost, si alez jus, 65 Car je revoil aler desus:

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Ce n'est pas, ce m'est avis, honte, Qant home faut, se fame monte!' Why did you climb in while I was asleep in my bed ? Did you think you had exhausted me with your big cock? I am still healthy and more energetic than you as far as I can see! If I don't get the better of you then I'm really cheap: you're going to get a good hiding! Now quickly get down because I want to be on top: it's no shame, in my view, if a woman gets up when a man fails. The word-play in this passage is untranslatable. For example, in line 64 chaude most obviously means ' a thick ear' (see JVRCF, iv, p. 372), but if it is taken as an adjective referring to the woman, the implication is that her sexual appetite is greater than the man had bargained for: she, not the man's beaten face, is 'hot'. According to the editors of the NRCF (iv, p. 372), the implication of lines 65-8 is ' reconnaissez que vous etes vaincu', but as well as having a metaphorical sense, the image of the woman on top with the man underneath describes the position she wishes to adopt in sex. She comes out 'on top' in the situation, but also she has to be on top because otherwise he cannot satisfy her. We do not learn whether the new position enables her to help him rise to the occasion, and affords her more pleasure, but we are told that it is potentially shameful for the man. 36 The woman is in control here andsYie comes off best. She demands to be satisfied and points out that he is not equipped to satisfy her. Despite the admirable size of his member (10: 'Gros avoit et carre lo vit' and 58), her desire exceeds his capacity to meet it. Rather than reading La Damoisele simply as an illustration of the sexual voracity of women, we may also read it as an account of the sexual inadequacy of men. The text tells us twice that the intruder's penis is large, and the fabliaux as a genre frequently stress penis size: the point seems to be that the larger the penis, the more satisfaction it can give. But any confidence the man has in his ability to satisfy, whether or not this is derived from the size of his penis, is crushed here. The woman's taunt 'Cuidiez vos por vostre grant vit / Avoir moi si estoutoiee' (58-9) suggests less that his penis is not big enough, than that he is thinking about sex in the wrong terms. His 'wham-bang-

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thank-you-mam' approach is not what the woman wants, nor is his large penis: one thing she does want is clearly articulated: 'je revoil aler desus' (66). Numerous fabliaux narrate the inability of men to satisfy women. In Le Sohait des vez, the woman tells her husband that the cheapest penis on the market in her dream would fetch twice as much as his (192-201). She makes do with what she has to hand, but the implications are clear. The wife's wish in Les Quatre Sohais derives from her lack of satisfaction with her husband's meagre endowment (132-3), and in a number of fabliaux men are unable to keep up with women's desire. Thus, in UEsquiriel (NRCF, vi, 58, pp. 33-49), a girl who has been forbidden the use of obscene words is persuaded by a man to let his 'squirrel' feed in her stomach; when it has fed once she wants it to continue, but it can't (179-83). Some fabliaux seem to tread a fine and ambiguous line between a misogynist view of women as insatiable, and a less than complimentary portrayal of the virility of the men they encounter. 37 Le Vallet aus douze fames (NRCF, iv, 29, pp. 131-50) and Cele qui sefistfoutre sur la fosse de son mari (NRCF, m, 20, pp. 375-403) are notable in this respect. The hero of Le Vallet boasts to his father that he will never be satisfied with just one wife and that he will need at least eight, nine or ten. His father is sure one wife will suffice, but suggests he should try just one for a year, and then take another eleven wives if she does not meet all his needs. Having heard of his boasting, the young man's wife resolves to test him. She so exhausts him sexually that he becomes ill: Ains que passast le demi ans, Fu il si las, si recreans, Si ot megres les meiseles Que ce semble deus viez asteles, S'est plus jaune que pie d'escoufle; Son cors ne vaut une viez moufle, Si a les euz si enfossez Et si parfont el chief plantez Que ce samble qu'il eit langui.

45

50

Before half a year had passed, he was so tired and exhausted, his cheeks were so thin that he looks like two old pieces of wood, yellower than a

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kite's foot; his body is not worth an old mitten since his eyes are so sunken and deep in his face that he looks as if he had been ill. The young man's wife literally depletes his body through her sexual demands, but when he admits defeat she nurses him back to health. At the end of the year he declines his father's invitation to marry eleven more women, and then causes much hilarity in the village: the community is looking for the cruellest way to punish a captured wolf, so he suggests they marry it to a woman. The fabliau ends with an altogether typical misogynist twist * Cist fableaus dit au definer: Qui croit sa fame plus que lui, 155 Sovent avra duel et anui, Por ce ne doit nul aastir De chose qu'il ne puet fornir. Por ce est droiz qui mal porchace, Qu'a la fiee mau li face! 160 This fabliau teaches at the end that a man who believes his wife more than himself will often have pain and suffering. For this reason no man should promise something he cannot deliver. Thus it is right that he should reap what he sows. Here we have not one, but three morals in the form of proverbs. If the second and third proverbs seem appropriate, the first is blatantly mismatched with the narrative. The editors of the JVRCF comment that the first proverb 'doit sans doute etre interpete, dans le contexte du fabliau, comme "Celui qui continue a repondre aux instances de sa femme plutot que faire selon sa propre i d e e . . . ' " (p. 394), but this is to supply an appropriate moral to the tale, and does not help determine the effect of the gap between the text and the ostensible meaning proclaimed by the moral. In one way the text demonstrates the opposite of the first moral's apparent meaning in that this man suffers because his own words are taken too seriously. Male boasting is satirized in this text, masculinity undermined, rather than women's language or femininity as the first moral suggests. Women's ingenuity is vaunted. In didactic literature, a moral offers an interpretative key to a narrative, 38 but here it is deliberately at odds with the material it should help the reader to decode. Misogynist discourse is used, but only so it can be held

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up for ridicule. Misogyny is the object of critical representation at the end of this fabliau and the discourse is quoted ironically rather than reproduced unquestioningly. 39 The text derives its impetus from this tension between a narrative and an ideological frame into which it does not quite fit. A similar mismatch between narrative and frame is found in Cele qui se fist foutre, where a squire and the knight he serves happen upon a woman who is apparently so grief-stricken that she cannot be persuaded to leave the grave in which her husband has recently been buried. The squire bets the knight that the widow's grief will not prevent him from having consenting sex with her on her husband's grave, while the knight watches. Superficially things seem to go according to plan. The squire approaches the woman and claims to be more grief-stricken than she. When she asks why, he explains that he killed his only true love ' en fotant' (88:' fucking'). Instantly the widow throws herself on her back, begging the squire to kill her as well, since she wants to die. If the woman's fickleness and sexual appetite appear incontrovertible, the narrative nonetheless has a sting in its tail for the squire: Si li enbat el con lo vit, Si que ses sires bien lo vit: De rire se pasme a bien poi! ' De quoi me viaus tuer, de coi, Fait la dame, qui si me foz ? Envois i moroies tu toz Que tu m'aiisses ensi morte!'

100

105

He thrusts his cock into her cunt in such a way that his master got a good view: he nearly faints from laughing!' How do you intend to kill me, how', says the lady, 'fucking me like that? I think you'll die before you kill me exerting yourself like that.' This fabliau may well be a parody of the scene in Chretien's Tvain where the hero marries a recently widowed and grieving woman, who then appears to fall in love with him. 40 The text concludes with twenty lines of intense misogynistic diatribe against the faithlessness and weakness of women. But to read the text as an unequivocal satire against women is to ignore how the squire's virility is undermined, possibly turning the whole

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narrative against him as the primary target of the joke. He produces his preposterous story and the lady challenges him to prove he is speaking the truth. His failure to 'kill' her is also, of course, a failure to satisfy her. The criticism of the woman at the end is hollow given that she had the last laugh on the squire. Who is tricking whom? Female desire certainly has a place in this text, and through it femininity becomes the source of a critique of masculine prowess. The woman gets sex at a point when it is thought not to be appropriate and this may make her look faithless, but in the process the squire's virility is openly mocked. Female desire is given ample narrative space in the fabliaux; frequently this goes hand in hand with a less than complimentary view of masculinity. If female desire in the fabliaux is covered with an ill-fitting misogynist cloak, this only furthers the game the writers of the fabliaux are playing. As Lyons has suggested ('Avoir', pp. 195-6), misogynist discourse has the same status as other apparently stable ' common sense' views of the world, which aim to prop up a 'natural' hierarchy: it is fair game for the anarchic spirit of the genre and its foundation must be revealed as slippery, unstable and subsiding. But does this mean that the fabliaux are not misogynist, or proto-feminist? I would suggest that despite the anarchic and subversive spirit of the fabliaux, and despite their radical view of gender, they remain misogynistic and this for two reasons. Firstly, in making misogyny the object of representation, the fabliaux do not eliminate it; they place it rather in a dialectic, not with its opposite, but merely with the implicit contention that its premises might be flawed. The fabliaux do not therefore categorically deny the premises of misogyny: in endlessly quoting misogynistic discourse in the form of aphorisms and proverbs, they also perpetuate it, running the risk that some readers will take their misogyny literally, as many modern critics have done. Secondly, if some fabliaux are double-edged, can be turned against foolish men, or shown to be paradoxical in their condemnation of women, others are less susceptible to this kind of analysis: some fabliaux are undoubtedly the work of men who

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hate women, who want to portray their humiliation and in some cases pain. The implicit misogyny of texts like Le Jugement des cons or La Dame escoliee is hard to ignore, however interesting the theoretical avenues which are implicitly opened up. In one fabliau, Cest de la Dame qui aveine demandoitpour Morel (MR, 1, pp.

318-29, JVRCF, 108), the husband of a woman who constantly demands sex defecates on her; in another with a similar plot, Porcelet (JVRCF, vi, 67, pp. 185-91), the man farts, though this may be a euphemism since there is visible evidence of excretion. Female desire in these last two texts is frightening, like the vagina dentata of Le Jugement des cons, or threatening, in need of

punishment, like the woman with testicles in La Dame escolliee. It is as if some writers of fabliaux find the game they are playing a little rough: they need to cling to the reassuring vision of their sex that the misogynistic discourses of the real world give them. These texts suggest, contrary to Bloch's view of misogyny as merely a metaphor for linguistic deferral (see pp. 290-1, note 2), that misogyny has real and violent consequences for women. MOBILITY

The underlying contention of this chapter has been that the view of gender which emerges from the fabliaux, though interestingly constructionist in its theoretical underpinning, is not part of a conscious political agenda seeking the liberation of women. It needs, rather, to be teased out of the genre's political unconscious, and to be viewed in the context of a far-reaching interest in mobility. The final section of this chapter will seek to support this contention by exploring how the fabliaux'*s construction of gender intersects with the mobility the fabliaux impute to other hierarchical structures, and how both must be viewed in the context of the instability of the fabliau text itself. Throughout this chapter I have examined versions offabliaux made canonical by editions, principally the Nouveau Recueil Complet des Fabliaux. However, even a cursory glance at this major new edition shows that the texts often exist in a myriad of different redactions and that fabliau texts are fundamentally unstable and mobile. The policy of the Nouveau Recueil has been

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to make all different versions available, but the editors none the less produce a texte critique for each fabliau after their textes diplomatiques, thereby implicitly privileging just one redaction, the redaction they themselves produce as the 'best' text. 41 The only major study of the textual variants and transmission of the fabliaux prior to the JVRCF, that of Jean Rychner, also works from the premise that one version should be privileged as closest to the original.42 For Rychner, writing in i960, the 'original' was invariably the version he judged to have most aesthetic unity; thus throughout his study versions with a particular kind of textual coherence or wit are judged to be 'original' creations, other versions mere copies, or derivative. Although he concedes that a remanieur could be a good writer, for Rychner a remaniement is usually inferior to the ' original':' avant les metamorphoses ... nous avons trouve des oeuvres aux contours fermes, mieux ecrites et mieux composees que les versions en lesquelles elles se sont transformers, et procedant a coup sur d'un effort createur individuel, localise dans le temps et dans l'espace' (Contribution, 1, p. 131). For Rychner then, thefabliaux are quite different from the chansons de geste. Whereas the chansons de geste owe textual

transformation to oral transmission and their traditional nature, the fabliaux are subject to deformations (Contribution, 1, p. 131). If

there is no such thing as an original authorial redaction of a chanson de geste, for the fabliaux Rychner is convinced that ' le point de depart existe' (Contribution, 1, p. 131).43 If some versions of some fabliaux are evidently the result of faulty transmission, or the work of a less-than-gifted remanieur, often when Rychner makes a case for the authenticity of one version of a fabliau, or the derived, corrupt state of another, this amounts to special pleading for the version he finds most aesthetically pleasing, which he then labels the 'original'. As Charmaine Lee argues 'il faut eviter l'erreur que Rychner commet souvent, de penser que la meilleure version est la plus proche de l'originale'. 44 However, one striking feature of the fabliaux which emerges from Rychner's work is that the social classes of the protagonists in a given narrative can change or lose significance from version to version. The same cannot be said of gender roles; indeed the plot of most fabliaux means that any

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given role must always be played by a character of the same sex. Thus, in the transmission of a text class may be unstable, but gender will be stable, and the relationship between class and gender may consequently vary from version to version. A case in point is Berengier (NRCF, iv, 34, pp. 245-77). As Rychner argues (Contribution, 1, pp. 63-7) the multiple redactions of Berengier highlight the dangers of aligning the fabliaux categorically with the interests of a single class, an approach best evinced by the work of Nykrog, who considers this text to be indubitablement written to flatter a noble audience (Les Fabliaux, p. 123). Three manuscripts offer two distinct versions of this text: the A and BD versions. But, as Rychner demonstrates, only one of these bears out Nykrog's reading. In BD (edited by the NRCF'for their texte critique, examined above, pp. 253-6) the social class of the two protagonists is dwelt upon at length before the narrative proper begins, as are the consequences of such a marriage: - Ce m'est vis une gentis dame, Fille d'un riche chastelain. Et cil estoit fiz d'un vilain, D'un usurier riche et comble, Qui mout avoit et vin et ble; Brebiz et vaches et deniers Ot a monciaus et a setiers. Et li chastelains li devoit Tant que paier ne le pooit, Ainz dona a son fil sa fille. Ensi lo bon lignage aville, Et dechiet tot et va a honte, Que li chastelain et li conte Se marient bas por avoir; Si doivent grant honte avoir Et grant domage, si ont il: Li chevalier mauvais et vil Et coart issent de tel gent, Que miauz aiment or et argent Que il ne font chevalerie.

15

20

25

30

She [was], I think, a noble lady, daughter of a powerful castelan. And he was the son of a peasant, of a rich and wealthy usurer who had plenty of wine and wheat; he had heaps and masses of sheep, cows and

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money. And the castelan owed him such a lot of money that he could not pay him, rather he gave his daughter to his son. Thus is a good lineage made vile, declines and is shamed, when castelans and counts marry beneath themselves for money; they should be most ashamed of themselves and suffer because of this, as they do: vile and bad knights are born of such people for they love gold and silver more than they do chivalry. The argument that the union of nobles with non-nobles has led to a decline in chivalry, as peasants ape unsuccessfully the nobility, is common in satirical literature and provides a moral frame against which the narrative is set.45 The peasant-knight's forays into the forest are motivated by his wife's dissatisfaction with his lack of chivalry, which he himself understands as a criticism of his low birth: li remantoit son paraje O tant a vaillanz chevaliers, Et as armes et as destriers: 60 'A sejorner ne pris je rien.' Done entandi li vilains bien Q'ele nel dist se por lui non. 'Dame, dist il, j ' e tel renon, N'avez nul si hardi parant 65 Que je n'aie plus hardemant Et plus valor et plus proece. Je sui chevaliers sanz perece, Lo meillor de toz, par ma main.' She remembered her own ancestors, amongst whom there are many knights worthy at arms and good horsemen: ' I care nothing for idle rest', [she said]. And the peasant well understood that she only said this for his benefit. 'Lady', he said,' I have such a reputation that you have no relation whose boldness, valour and prowess can measure up to mine. I am a knight without peer, the best of all, I swear.' This version of Berengier thus becomes a satire on the peasant classes who are unable to behave in a noble manner. The peasant-knight can only parody the hero of a questing romance,46 and Nykrog's contention that this text was written for the enjoyment of the noble classes seems true of this version. This reading fails, however, to elucidate the woman's position as a woman who gets the better of her husband. The text ends with her having sex with another man - a real knight - in front

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of her husband. She is instrumental in making a peasant look ridiculous, but she also gets the better of a man in that most fundamental of ways, making him kiss her arse! If noblemen laughed at this text because it made fun of a peasant, were they then blind to any conflict between genders? This text may endorse one hierarchy (class), but it upsets another (gender). In contrast to the BD version, in the A redaction practically no stress is placed upon class. The knight is introduced as a vilain, but lines 17-33 of the BD version (quoted above) are absent from this text. Instead of a diatribe against the dangers of peasants trying to be noble, we are treated to a short homily on the evils of boasting :47 N'ot el pais plus bele dame, Ne plus cortoise ne plus sage, Et si estoit de haut parage Mes son mari ert de vilains 1o Et si ert pereceus et vains Et vanterres apres mangzVr; Mout se fesoit bon cheualier.

There was no fairer lady in the land, nor more courtly, nor wiser, and she was of high rank, but her husband was of peasant stock, and he was lazy and vain, boastful after a meal; he would often claim to be a good knight. In A no further mention is made of the husband's origins and his wife does not taunt him with his lack of chivalric prowess: he decides on his own account to ride forth into the forest each day. At the end of the text, the narrator returns to the question of boasting, providing a moral conclusion which is absent from the BD version: Por ce desfewt a toute gent Qui se vantent de maiwt afere 275 Dorct il ne seuewt a chief trere Qu'il lesse/zt ester lor vantance, Et ie vows di bien sanz faillance Quawt il s'en vantent e'est folie. Jci est ma reson fenie. 280 And for this reason I exhort everyone who boasts excessively, when they do not know how to fulfil their boasts, to stop boasting and I tell you truly that when people boast it is folly. Here my speech ends.

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For Rychner this version lacks coherence and is without proper motivation since the theme of class has been played down (Contribution, i, p. 65). He therefore concludes that BD represents the original text and that A is a poor remaniement. And yet the author of A went to some lengths to supply a coherent moral frame to his plot, as his epilogue, which explicity takes us back to his introduction of the husband, shows. Without the theme of class conflict, the fabliau becomes an attack on male boasting, and gender the dominant theme. Rychner's blindness to the role of gender in both versions is telling. Class conflict between a man and a woman gives a text coherence; a more direct conflict between a man and a woman does not. Gender is a strong feature of both versions, but Rychner, in common with Nykrog, sees only class. They therefore miss the way in which this fabliau in BD plays off one hierarchy against another, which is suggestive of a sophisticated theory of oppression: the wife may be oppressed as a woman, but as a noble dealing with a peasant she can exploit the situation.48 Since the fabliaux do not endorse the interests of any one class and seem primarily interested in mobility, it is entirely fitting that the texts themselves should be unstable. Rychner's search for an original means he fails to grasp how the textual mobility of the fabliaux enhances the genre's depiction of a fluid social order for the modern reader. 49 It is not clear which version of Berengier represents the earlier redaction, nor that contemporary audiences and readers would have recognized anything like a point de depart for such a text. The social fluidity the texts portray is mirrored in their own adaptability, for the composers and transmitters of these texts recognize no stable textual or authorial authority. If the class of characters in different versions of fabliaux is mutable whereas their gender is not, does this mean that a fabliau is pro- or anti-women in all its manifestations? A number of fabliaux indicate that this is not the case, but what once again emerges from a case study is the blindness of modern critics to gender in their analyses of the relationship of different versions of a text. For example, La Damoisele qui ne pooit oir parler defoutre

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(NRCF, iv, 26, pp. 57-89) survives in five manuscripts which preserve three versions: AEC, B and D. The differences between the versions are so marked that, unusually, the Nouveau Recueil produces two critical texts. The basic plot of the fabliau is as follows. A young woman faints when she hears a dirty word, particularly joutre', 'fuck', and a young man latches on to this to seduce her through a series of metaphors that describe their genitals: thus his ' pony' goes to graze in her 'meadow' and to drink in her 'fountain'. Across the three versions the class of the protagonists varies: in AEC (JVRCF, texte critique, 1) the woman is noble and the man a vallet; in B (JVRCF, texte critique, 2) she is the daughter of a rich peasant and he a young man of indeterminate class, going about the land to seek avanture (42), which may suggest nobility;50 finally in D (JVRCF version 3, no texte critique) she is a peasant and the young man a clerk. The editors of the NRCF agree with Rychner that the best version is B and like him they are disdainful of D\ unlike him they content themselves with an edition diplomatique and make no attempt to edit this text.51 On what basis are these value judgements made? Rychner's main reason for rejecting AEC seems to be that in this version it is the damsel who initiates sexual contact. The young man, who knows of the woman's peculiar disposition, pretends to faint when he hears the word 'foutre' in her presence: thrilled to have found a soul-mate, she begs her father to let her marry him. As soon as they are in bed, she touches him and asks him to name his body parts. When she puts her hand on his penis, which is described in prurient detail (54-8), he tells her it is his pony. For Rychner this scenario is implausible. Decency prevents him from explaining exactly why ('sans que la decence me permette d'exposer mes raisons', Contribution, 1, p. 90), but his point seems to be that the psychological motivation of the fabliau would be weak: such a prudish young woman would apparently not take the sexual initiative with a young man. For Rychner, La Damoisele is a satire of the use by women of prudish euphemisms, and therefore obliquely of courtliness. According to this reading, the damsel must become a victim of her own stupidity. Consequently, B is more plausible because

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the young man takes the sexual initiative, placing his hands on her breasts (128-32). But Rychner's reasons for preferring the narrative organization of B to AEC make little sense when it is considered that in B the damsel invites the young man into her bed (112-17). Both texts are open to a different reading. Nowhere in either text are we told that the damsel does not want sex. Her reaction is to the word foutre, not to the act. In both texts she makes sexual contact possible and enjoys it. In AEC she suggests marrying the young man and touches him first; in B she invites him into her bed. Prudery is not condemned in either text. What the damsel appears to be seeking is either a means of having sex without talking about it explicitly, or training a lover to talk in a way which she finds arousing.52 Her response to her lover's initial verbal and sexual advances in AEC are revealing: « Sire, por Dieu, le roi celestre, Dites moi que ce puet ci estre? 60 - Bele, fet il, c'est mes poulains, Qui mout par est de grant bien plains.' Plus taste avant, si a sentues Unes grandes coilles velues. 'Et qu'est ce ci, por saint Elaine? 65 - Douce, c'est li sas a Pavaine: Ne vueil mie estre desgarnis. - Sire, mout estes bien apris.» 1 Sire, by God the king of heaven, tell me what can this be?'' Fair one', he said, 'this is my pony, which is full of goodness'. She feels a little further down and came across his big hairy balls. ' And by saint Helen, what is this?' ' Sweetheart, this is my sack of oats; I do not want to be without supplies.' 'Sir, you are very learned.' The damsel is testing her lover to find out if he can use the codes which turn her on correctly. As his linguistic performance is satisfactory, he can proceed to a sexual performance, and the damsel's comment that he is bien apris (68) acts as a signal that he has accessed the right code. The damsel is in control here: she is not the unwitting victim of a cunning man. This fabliau need not be read as the tale of an aristocratic woman suffering at the hands of a ruthless man because of her prudery, but rather as a text in which a young woman has sex on her own terms. The

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same is also true of B, though perhaps less explicitly so, given the absence of AECs line 68. Ironically the version which best conforms to Rychner's interpretation of the narrative is that of Z), the version he so roundly condemns as inferior. Here the damsel's proposal that the clerk should sleep with her is presented as artless, since she reassures him that her intentions are entirely honourable and since he initiates sexual contact, burning as he is for her body (112-43, Rychner's edition, Contribution, 11, pp. 120-35). In D the damsel is not at all in control of the discourse she is using, and this has the hilarious effect of her using a metaphor which is more vulgar than what she wishes to avoid naming: Sor ses mameles mist sa mein. «Qu'est ce, fist il, por seint Germain?» La pucele sanz contredit Li dist: «Frere, se Deus m'ai'st, Ce sont .II. coilles de mouton, Neant certes ne vos me [n] ton, Fait ele, qui pendent iqui.»

145

He placed his hand upon her breast. 'By saint Germain', he said, 'what is this?' Without hesitation the maiden said: 'Brother, may God help me, these are two ram's balls which hang here and I'm not kidding you'. The euphemism here is hardly euphemistic; it is also less than flattering, suggesting pendulous, yet small breasts. Whereas AEC and B conclude without a moral, D offers a patently misogynistic frame: Par cest essanple monstrer vueil Que femes n'aient point d'orgueil De foutre paller hautement, Qant il foutent tot igalement: Mieldres raison est que se haucent. Teus en parolent qui Pessaucent, Quar molt a entre faire et dire! Mais li cus plus que corde tire; Por sa fille au vilain le di, Qui tantost si se converti Que le poulain au bacheler Fist a sa fontaine abrever.

225

230

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Through this example I wish to show that women should not be ashamed to speak openly of fucking when they are fucking: it is more reasonable for them to boast. People talk about it to increase its importance for there is a huge difference between doing it and talking about it. But the arse holds one tighter than a rope; and I say this to the peasant on account of his daughter, who changed her tune so quickly that she let the young man's pony drink at her fountain. Women are governed by their libido (li cus, 230), whatever their apparent prudery, and they ought to learn to call a spade a spade. The damsel here is portrayed as the victim of her own scruples. Hoisted by her own petard, she loses control of the body she wishes to describe through metaphors. Whereas in AEC and B the damsel exploits discourse to her own ends, here the clerk exploits discourse and the woman. Critics who have sought to explore the differences between these versions of La Damoisele have (as with Berengier), been so concerned with class that they have not seen how the treatment of gender mutates across redactions. For Rychner it was so implausible that a woman, particularly a young aristocratic woman, could take the initiative sexually, that he found AEC invraisemblable and aesthetically flawed. In effect he read AEC and B using the moral frame of Z>, even though it is entirely absent from these versions of the text, condemning D because of the coarse humour of the author! His readings of these texts are perhaps more revealing of twentieth-century rather than medieval assumptions about gender. La Damoisele shows that the same narrative can be deployed to make opposing points about relations between men and women, even though the roles they play appear superficially unchanged. This is not inherently a tale about men exploiting women, offering a constant portrait of women's attitude to language, just as it cannot be read unequivocally as a satire of a particular social class, either the courtly class's euphemistic language or the peasant class's failure to use it properly. The fabliaux have no consistent attitude towards women or men. They are interested, rather, in how relations between the sexes may be manipulated by an individual's understanding of

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social order. Whether 'inventors' of stories or remanieursjrableors accept nothing as given. As Gabrielle Lyons has argued the contemporaneity of their interest in mobility with the rise of a monetary economy in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries may be significant.53 They continually undermine discourses which posit stable social hierarchies, parodying other genres which sustain such discourses (as I have frequently noted in passing), poking fun at conventional morality, and overturning received views of social order. The rising market economy encouraged people to think in terms of relative, rather than absolute values, producing a conflict in many ways parallel to the debate between nominalist and realist philosophers which was taking place at the same time (see Lyons,' Avoir ', pp. 159-86 and 261-72). Increasingly boundaries between social classes were being shown to be fluid as wealth enabled nonnoble families to penetrate the ranks of the feudal aristocracy, and conversely formerly aristocratic families lost their rank or turned to non-noble methods of making money.54 That gender, like class, is represented as a relative (and constructed), rather than as an absolute (and immanent) value has far-reaching implications, even if some writers of fabliaux retreat from this abyss to a more reassuring misogynist discourse. Gender may not be the lynch-pin of fabliau ideology, but as I have shown in the last section of this chapter, blindness to the role it plays provokes serious misunderstandings or partial readings.

Conclusion

The texts examined in this book do not in practice treat gender as a rigid, immutable, or 'natural' phenomenon. The roles ascribed to men and women, the meanings attached to categories like 'masculine' and 'feminine' are not stable in Old French and medieval Occitan literature. On the contrary, they are constantly renegotiated. This fluid and dynamic picture of gender is largely the result of a process modern criticism calls intertextuality: the impulse to reproduce, reshape or contest models of masculinity and femininity drawn from earlier or contemporary texts ensures transformation, not stasis or stability. Even where the intention appears to be to reproduce, recover, or maintain an earlier paradigm, the production of a new text in itself leads to mobility. Thus, for example, Ami et Amile registers nostalgia for a model of male bonding predicated on the similarity and unity of men, which the single manuscript invites us to read in relation to the Roland tradition; yet in making Ami and Amile more like each other than were Roland and Oliver, in suppressing the differences between a pair of heroes who obviously recall their illustrious predecessors, textual difference is produced. The model of masculinity represented by the Roland tradition and Ami et Amile is thereby shown to be subject to reshaping and reinterpretation from within the tradition which produces it, even without overt contestation. There is, however, plenty of overt contestation. This can happen within a genre, for example as when the disastrous consequences of the adoption of the epic model of masculinity are explored in Raoul de Cambrai; or when the romance hero Gauvain is so openly held up for ridicule in the Chevalier a Pe'pe'e; 286

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or when the trobairitz appropriate the ' masculine' form of the canso. But the contestation of models of masculinity and femininity also takes place across genres: thus early romances like the Eneas and Floire et Blancheflor displace epic values through contesting epic constructions of masculinity; romances like Le Bel Inconnu and Guillaume de Dole create a tension between lyric and romance paradigms; or, most strikingly, hagiographical texts like the Vie de Saint Gregoire contest secular values as inscribed by the construction of gender in romance. Gender is hotly debated in Old French and Occitan texts within and across genres. The use of gender to create a dialectic between genres points to a close relationship between genre, ideology and gender. A distinct ideology underscores each of the Old French and Occitan genres examined in this book and in each of these ideologies gender emerges as a crucial element. The masculine hero or subject of epic, romance, the canso, or a saint's life is an incarnation of the values of the genre in which he appears. These values are constituted in large part through the construction and inscription of a particular model of masculinity. Roland, Lancelot, Bernart de Ventadorn, Gregory offer different ways of being men, different ideals to which (male) readers can aspire. Each model competes with other models as a means of mediating medieval culture's sex/gender system and each, of course, has to negotiate its relation to femininity, which like masculinity is constructed differently in different genres. There is often, within a genre, a close correlation between the values of the hero and the ostensible values of the author/ narrator and his audience, but this need not be so: thus in romance there are at least two models of masculinity evinced by the tradition, the clerical and the chivalric, one offering an ironic gloss on the other. Tensions such as these are not purely textual, but reflect and mediate tensions in the real world. The preceding remarks make no allusion to one of the genres examined in this book: the fabliaux. If my contention that medieval French and Occitan texts do not in practice treat gender as a stable or natural phenomenon is correct, thefabliaux are a body of texts of particular interest to the feminist reader for through a variety of means they articulate (even where they

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seek to repress) a constructionist theory of gender. Gender as a theoretical idea is firmly lodged in the political unconscious of medieval culture in that a desire to negotiate and to renegotiate what masculinity and femininity are underscores many texts. Without having a theory of gender, the texts themselves theorize gender through their own practice; in the fabliaux this is brought to the surface more than in any other genre. The fabliaux recognize that gender is a construct, that bodies require interpretation, and they show women as well as men exploiting this knowledge. As most medieval texts were written by men, women characters are all too often part of a masculine symbolic which privileges men as subjects and denigrates women. Women are 'tools to think with', scapegoats or impossible fantasies. Some texts are deeply misogynistic and occasionally unmitigated violence is inflicted upon women in Old French and Occitan texts. Positive models of femininity with which modern women might wish to identify, or women who are not the victims of coercion or violence, are scarce in medieval literature (as are positive models of people who are neither nobles nor clerks, gay people or people of colour), but the overwhelmingly negative models of the feminine with which medieval texts abound do not go uncontested. In male-authored texts the violence men inflict upon women is occasionally implicity condemned, misogyny can be more revealing of male inadequacy than of women's fickleness and wickedness, or women emerge as the guardians of masculine values. One genre - the fabliaux - revels in the spectacle of clever women outwitting stupid men, and another - hagiography - portrays women escaping the authority of their male kin. If the male voices in and behind the majority of medieval texts often seem only to address other men, the questioning attitude of so many texts to gender offers a means for other readers to secure a purchase on medieval literature, readers who perhaps do not identify with the male, heterosexual, white European, frequently chivalric and feudal, often deeply Christian, perspective of dominant medieval culture. This is, of course, a plea in favour of the perspective of modern readers, but not entirely. It is worth bearing in mind

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that resistent readings of the paradigms of medieval literary genres are to be found in medieval texts, not just in modern criticism. The most far-reaching contestations of constructions of femininity in the body of texts studied in this book are to be found in the work of the women writers examined. 1 The trobairitz reject the image of themselves the troubadours hold up to them in their cansos, and they problematize their own subjectivity within a literary discourse they recognize as serving the interests of men, not women. Clemence of Barking produces a virgin-martyr narrative which focusses upon a woman's mind and eschews the prurient attention to the dismemberment of her heroine's body so common in the genre; she also implicitly addresses other women in her text, thereby opening up the possibility of a literary language women use with each other, in which men are perhaps the interlopers and eavesdroppers. As we approach the twenty-first century the Middle Ages seem distant. Much has changed, but patriarchy survives and few would dispute that gender is still an oppressive rather than a liberating structure in western culture. We have nothing to feel smug about when contemplating medieval texts. We may have something to learn.

Notes

All references to secondary sources in the text and in the notes are given in the following form: surname of the author, short title, page number (s). Full references to all works cited are given in the bibliography. When a primary text is first cited the edition used will be specified (either in the text or in the notes) using the editor's name; again full references are given in the bibliography. First references to texts can be located using the index. INTRODUCTION

1 O n ' ideology' see Jameson, Political Unconscious, p. 30:' we take the term ideology... as a representational structure which allows the individual subject to conceive or imagine his or her lived relationship to transpersonal realities such as the social structure or the collective logic of History'. In the classic Marxist formulation ideology is therefore 'false consciousness'. For stimulating applications of Jameson's notion of ideology to medieval culture see Camille, Gothic Idol, Haidu, Subject and Kellogg, Medieval Artistry. On 'discourse' see Foucault, VOrdre du discours and for an account of the usefulness of Foucault's idea of discourse to feminism, see Scott, 'Deconstructing equality', particularly, pp. 134-6. The term 'sex/gender system' is Gayle Rubin's. See 'Traffic in women', p. 159. 2 For an example of what might be termed the negative hermeneutics of uncovering patriarchal structures in medieval texts see Gaunt,' Poetry of exclusion'; for instances of congratulating an apparently proto-feminist writer see Brahney, ' When Silence' and Lasry, 'Ideal heroine'. Bloch, Medieval Misogyny,fitsbroadly into this category, but perhaps requires special comment. Bloch is concerned with the detection and deconstruction of patriarchal discourses, but he sees misogyny as ' a way of speaking about, as distinct from doing something to, women' (p. 4). He does not consider the relationship between misogyny and violence to real 290

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women: on which see pp. 197-8 and 274-5. Furthermore, despite passages on Marie de France, his book is devoted largely to representations of femininity for men. Femininity, in his account, is subject to interpretation and shifting meaning, but he does not seem to exploit this as a means of examining masculinity. 3 For example see the seminal Ferrante, Woman as Image and Gold, Lady. 4 For example, see Voice of the Trobairitz, ed. Paden and In Quest of Marie de France, ed. Marechal. 5 See notably Krueger, Women Readers and Burns, Bodytalk. See also, however, Dinshaw, Chaucer's Sexual Poetics, p. 29, on how the position of the female reader is constructed. 6 ' Experience' is of course a key element in feminism and in identity politics. But for a cautionary note on the political dangers of assuming that ' experience' itself can be divorced from ideology and discursive practices, see Scott, '"Experience"', particularly pp. 25-6: 'it is not individuals who have experience, but subjects who are constituted through experience'. 7 A notable exception is Sarah Kay's work on the chansons de geste. 8 On 'reading as' and 'reading like' a woman, see Culler, On Deconstruction, pp. 43-64 and Showalter, 'Critical cross-dressing', pp. 123-7. On the distinction between 'reading like' and 'reading as' see Dinshaw, Chaucer's Sexual Poetics, p. 51. The terms in themselves are inadequate; they appear to subordinate all the positions from which one might read to gender:' reading as a man' may in fact be shorthand for' reading as a western, straight, white, middle class, educated man'. 9 Paris, La Litterature frangaise; Jeanroy, La Poesie lyrique; Bedier, Les Legendes epiques. 10 Zumthor, Essai, on genre see pp. 157-69; Bee, La Lyrique frangaise, on genre see pp. 35-7; also Bee, 'Le Probleme des genres'. 11 For example BNfondsfrangais 860, discussed pp. 44-5, or ENfonds frangais 1450, see p. 76. Numerous manuscripts contain only romances or only chansons de geste. A number of manuscripts contain only fabliaux or only saints' lives (for example Oxford Bodleian, Canon. Misc. 74). A number of troubadour chansonniers are organized by genres. 12 On medieval genre theory see Fowler, Kinds of Literature, pp. 42-7 and Dubrow, Genre, pp. 52-5. Fowler and Dubrow comment, however, on the relative paucity of medieval genre theory compared to that of the classical or modern period. 13 This is certainly the implication of Zumthor, La Lettre, pp. 299-3O314 On early genre theory see Dubrow, Genre, pp. 45-52.

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15 See Bakhtin/Medvedev, Formal Method, pp. 131-3; Bakhtin, Dialogical Imagination, pp. 288-9; Todorov, 'Origin of genre' and Mikhail Bakhtin, pp. 80-4. 16 Frye, Anatomy of Criticism; Propp, Morphology of the Folktale. Jameson's essay 'Magical narratives: romance as genre' was originally published in New Literary History, 7 (1975), 135—63, but references here will be to the version printed in Political Unconscious. 17 Political Unconscious, p. 109. Jameson uses 'mode' in Frye's sense to designate a way of classifying texts according to content, for example 'tragedy', 'comedy' and so on. 18 Culler, Structuralist Poetics, pp. 134-5. 19 Mikhail Bakhtin, p. 84; see also ' Origins of genre', p. 163, where he discusses what he calls the 'anthropological interest' of genre. As Joan Scott argues 'since discourse is by definition shared, experience is collective as well as individual' ('"Experience"', P-34)20 See Kristeva, Revolution, pp. 337-40 for an early exposition of her theory of intertextuality, which she derived from Bakhtin; for a recent overview see Still and Worton, 'Introduction'. 21 For examples of such dialectics see my 'Le Pouvoir d'achat' or pp. 75-91, 138-40 and 198-212.1 borrow the idea o f markedness' from linguistic theory where' marked' and ' unmarked' can denote presence versus absence or usual versus unusual. Thus in conventional French narrative the preterite is unmarked, the perfect 'marked' and in contemporary spoken French the perfect 'unm-arked', the preterite 'marked'. 22 Jauss, Toward an Aesthetic, p. 88. 23 Lerner, Creation, p. 9; Ortner and Whitehead, 'Accounting for sexual meaning', p. 8; Moore, Feminism, p. 109. 24 Simone de Beauvoir was, of course, the first to formulate explicitly a constructionist theory of gender, see Le Deuxieme Sexe; most writing on the subject bears the mark of her influence. Ortner and Whitehead, ibid., offer an overview. 25 Butler, Gender Trouble, pp. 7-9. See also Fuss, Essentially Speaking, pp. 1-22. Butler's disquiet with the idea of'sex' is explored further in Bodies That Matter; see for example pp. 4-12. 26 Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet, p. 43. 27 Lerner, Creation, p. 6; Moore, Feminism, p. 13. 28 Scott, Gender, p. 49. 29 Butler, Gender Trouble, pp. 13-25. Gadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, pp. 201-4 and 212 notes how medieval medical treatises underscore the problematic nature of gender binarism as they try to impose binary models on everything and everyone. It is implicit in the medical texts that Cadden examines that medieval writers

Notes to pages 12-ig

30 31 32

33

34 35 36 37 38

39

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(like modern theorists) recognized ' troublesome' phenomena such as 'masculine' women, 'feminine' men, hermaphrodites, crossdressing, homosexuality. If 'masculinity' and 'femininity' are constructs, then it follows that men can play feminine roles and women masculine roles. On the whole I have chosen not to examine explicit' gender-bending' in the Old French and Occitan corpus. This is partly because I have addressed some of the texts one might use elsewhere (see Gaunt, 'Significance of Silence' and 'Straight minds'), and partly because I want here to address dominant constructions of gender. A resume of her hypothesis is given in Creation, pp. 36-53 and of her conclusions on pp. 212-29. Meillassoux, Maidens, p. 38. Rubin, 'Traffic in women', p. 175. For a different formulation of the same point see Butler, Gender Trouble, p. 39: 'As the site of a patronymic exchange, women are and are not the patronymic sign, excluded from the signifier, the very patronym they bear.' Butler, ibid., pp. 128-41, and Fuss, Essentially Speaking, pp. 97-112. Rubin coined the term 'obligatory heterosexuality' in her essay ' Traffic in women', see pp. 182-3; however the term ' compulsory heterosexuality' was popularized by Rich, see 'Compulsory heterosexuality'. On 'compulsory heterosexuality' see pp. 77-91. Foucault, Histoire de la sexualite; Rubin, 'Thinking sex'. Ortner/Whitehead, 'Accounting for sexual meanings', p. 10; Moore, Feminism, p. 35. Scott, Gender, pp. 43-4; see also Butler's extensive critique of psychoanalysis and anthropology Butler, Gender Trouble, pp. 35-78. Gender, p. 10. See Pirot, Recherches and Gingolani, 'Sirventes-ensenhamen'. Pirot's thesis is devoted to the study of two Occitan ensenhamen addressed to joglars, in which all the texts ajoglar ought to know, but does not are listed: these offer strong evidence for the circulation of texts of Old French provenance in Occitania. Pirot dates the earlier of the two ensenhamens to joglars, 'Gabrajoglar', c. 1155-60, but Cingolani plausibly proposes that the poem was composed c. 1194. This does not, however, affect my contention. There is ample evidence of knowledge of Occitan texts in France and England. See Ghinca, 'Introduction', pp. 103-4: 'For generations of medievalists it has been an article of faith that medieval texts demand to be read "in their own terms", and the endeavours of historicist and positivist philology have been directed at reconstructing these terms... The aim of a positivist reading a medieval text "in its own terms" has always been to avoid anachronism, to

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preserve and objectify the historical otherness of medieval culture, like an exhibit in a museum.' See also Zumthor's comments on the alterity of medieval culture and the role of the historical difference of the medievalist: Parler du Moyen Age, p. 82. 40 Chinca, 'Introduction', pp. 103-4. 41 On the collective authority in medieval texts see Masters, 'Distribution'. I

MONOLOGIG MASCULINITY! THE CHANSON DE GESTE

1 Kay, 'Seduction and suppression', pp. 129-30; 'Compagnonnage' 'La Representation de la feminite', pp. 223-4. 2 UIdeal humain, 1, p. 246; and more generally her chapter ' Amitie et compagnonnage', 1, pp. 245-350. 3 'Fighting back', p. 251. I do not cite Campbell's excellent article more extensively in the second part of this chapter, simply because she uses different texts. My own comments are limited to twelfthcentury chansons de geste; on the rather different view of gender which emerges from thirteenth-century texts, see Kay's Political Fictions, forthcoming. 4 The classic exposition of the so-called traditionnaliste view is Menendez Pidal, La Chanson de Roland; more recent criticism has been influenced by Rychner's brilliant analysis of formulaic style in La Chanson de geste and by Duggan, Song ofRoland. On the chansons de geste as written texts see most recently Tyssens,' Typologie' and Taylor, 'Myth', pp. 46-9. For a detailed refutation of Rychner, see Delbouille, 'Les Chansons de geste'. For middle views see de Riquer, 'Epopee jongleresque' and Le Gentil, 'Reflexions'. 5 On 'manuscrits de jongleur' see most recently Tyssens, ibid., pp. 438-43 and Taylor, ibid., pp. 43-53; Taylor argues that 'manuscrits de jongleur' were not produced by jongleurs and almost certainly not produced for them, their most likely provenance being clerical milieux', their most likely public being educated nobles. There are several remaniements of the Roland, some of which are the result of written remaniement, see pp. 38—9. Aliscans, though not a close remaniement, is a later version of the Guillaume narrative. On the transformation of chansons into written poems see Short, 'An early French epic manuscript', pp. 174-5. 6 See Tyssens, ibid., pp. 444-6 and her study of the William cycle, La Geste; BN 860 may be viewed as a cyclical manuscript, see pp. 44"57 The Baligant episode is thought to be an addition to a primitive chanson; see Horrent, Chanson de Roland, pp. 242-60 and Rychner,

Notes to pages 25-j

295

Chanson de geste, pp. 38-9. Other poems which appear to be composed of residues of early texts and continuations or expansions are the Chanson de Guillaume, Raoul de Cambrai and Girart de Roussillon.

8

9

10 11

On the dialogical function of continuations see Kay, ' La Composition'. On the manuscript tradition of the Roland see Segre, Tradizione (p. xi for his stemma) and Horrent, Chanson de Roland, pp. 156-233 and 343-76. Segre suggests the different Roland poems may be read intertextually to gauge reception (p. 162), but this is not the point of his work, which is to confirm or correct the Oxford manuscript (see his edition of the Oxford Roland). Segre's stemma, which he uses to confirm the privileged status of the Oxford manuscript, is also, as he admits, an indication of its marginal status in the tradition: it has no 'progeny' and no close relatives. Horrent is disparaging about the rhymed Roland and like Segre his purpose is to demonstrate the excellence of the Oxford Roland, see pp. 156-206. The rhymed Roland would appear to have been a good deal more widely disseminated than the Oxford Roland. The latest, and most sophisticated, expression of the view that the Oxford Roland is a foundational text is Haidu, Subject of Violence. For Haidu ' it is in and by the Song of Roland that a specific form of subjection is performed, perhaps for the first time in European history, in a manner that is constitutive of later European subjectivity and history' (p. 15). Haidu views the text as a precocious and prescient articulation of the idea of the state and he locates within it the origins of modern European subjectivity. Although he admits that the Roland is an 'ongoing project', of which the Oxford text is but 'one moment' (p. 190), he makes no reference to other Roland poems. The apparent prescience of the Oxford Rolandhas led some scholars to challenge the conventional dating of 1100, for example see Keller, 'Song of Roland', for whom the poem was composed around 1150, but most scholars accept the earlier dating. Keller's dating is not compatible with the widely held view that the manuscript was written before 1150, see Parkes, ' Date of the Oxford manuscript', p. 174. See Benton,' Nostre Franceis n'unt talent de fuir' and Haidu, ibid., particularly pp. 44-65 on the ideological uses to which the Oxford Roland may have been put in the Middle Ages and since the last century. Quotations are from Short's edition; all translations of quotations are my own unless otherwise indicated. The body of criticism devoted to these questions and to Roland and Oliver's relationship is awesome. The following list is selective,

296

12 13

14

15

16

Notes to pages 2J-9

but aims to pick out the more significant contributions: Battaglia, 'II " compagnonaggio"'; Bedier, Legendes epiques, m, pp. 444-8; Brault, 'Sapientia'; Cook, Sense, pp. 244-6; Crist, 'A propos de la desmesure\ pp. 19-20; Enders, 'Logic of the debates', pp. 92-3; Foulet, 'Is Roland guilty of desmesure?'; Haidu, Subject of Violence, pp. 31-3 and 80-1; Harman, 'Why does Oliver die'; Hunt, ' Tragedy of Roland', pp. 796-7; Jones, Ethos, pp. 40-1; Le Gentil, 'A propos de la demesure'; Nichols, Romanesque Signs, pp. 169-71 and 179-80; Owen, 'Secular inspiration' and 'Aspects of desmesure', pp. 143-50; Payen, Le Motif du repentir, pp. 108-11; Renoir, 'Roland's lament'; Uitti, Story, pp. 107-12; van Emden, ' Argumentum ex Silentio\ p. 194. There is also a good deal of work on the naming of brothers after Roland and Oliver and there has been a lively debate on the hypothesis that an earlier Roland circulated in which Oliver was the central character. See: Aebischer, Rolandiana et Oliveriana; Lejeune, 'La Naissance du couple'; Siciliano, Les Chansons degeste, pp. 35-46; van Emden,' Rolandiana et Oliveriana'. Suard, 'Le Personnage epique', pp. 174-5. Stablein, 'The structure of the hero', p. 105; for Stablein Charlemagne is a third element in the heroic matrix; I am therefore using her method rather than her conclusions. My approach to character in the chansons degeste has been influenced by Kay, 'Character of character'. Haidu, Subject of Violence, p. 155, is also critical of traditional approaches to character in the Roland. Irigaray, Ce Sexe, pp. 23-32 and 167-85; Butler, Gender Trouble, pp. 9-10. On 'mythic unity' in the Roland, see also Oilier, 'Demande sociale', pp. 209-10. Haidu, ibid., pp. 36-7, comments acutely on the Oxford Roland's blindness to alterity, but his remarks are themselves gender-blind: he concentrates exclusively on Saracens, or on the similarity of the hero with other male characters like Ganelon (pp. 66-84). At no point does he qualify 'subject', a key term in his analysis, with an adjective denoting gender. Nichols, Romanesque Signs, p. 164. For Nichols the 'correct' decoding of the Oxford Roland reveals a Christian meaning; the hermeneutical challenge of the text therefore inscribes it in a tradition of Dyonisian rhetorical theory. See also Haidu's chapter 'The semiotization of death: open or closed text?', in Subject of Violence, pp. 17-35: Haidu suggests that the text is not monologic, but has been subjected to monologic readings. For stimulating readings of laisses 60-1 see Haidu, ibid., pp. 17-18 and Vinaver, 'La Mort de Roland', pp. 142-3. On the apparent contradiction in the laisses, and the problems they have posed modern scholars, see Horrent, Chanson de Roland, pp. 161-4.

Notes to pages 2g-jj

297

17 References to other versions will use Mortier's edition. Mortier does not transcribe and edit Venice 7, but prints a photographic reproduction of the manuscript with a concordance of the laisses with Chateauroux; neither the pages of the reproduction, nor the folios are numbered, so references to Venice 7 give no line or page numbers. For examples of diatribes against Ganelon see Paris Roland, 955-69, 1285-9, 1797-2003 and so on. On Ganelon in the rhymed Roland see Brook, ' Ganelon's path to treachery' and ' La Traitrise et la vengeance'; Kibler, 'The Roland after Oxford', pp. 282-4; and Mickel, 'Ganelon after Oxford'. On the equivocal portrayal of Ganelon in the Oxford Roland see Gerard, ' L'Axe Roland-Ganelon'; Hall, 'Ganelon and Roland'; Kellogg, Medieval Artistry, pp. 22-38; Mickel, Ganelon. 18 On the notion of' overlay' in laisses similaires see Fleischman, ' A linguistic perspective'; see also Vinaver's analysis of laisses similaires and laisses juxtaposees, 'La Mort de Roland', pp. 138-43. Ambiguity in the Oxford Roland is also generated by the poem's parataxis, which is found frequently in narrative passages, though not in direct speech. The classic study of parataxis in the Roland is Auerbach, Mimesis, pp. 96-122. 19 For the 'Germanic' interpretation see Jones, Ethos, pp. 192-4 and Owen,' Secular inspiration'; for the ' Catholic' view see Le Gen til, Chanson de Roland and (the more sophisticated) Nichols, Romanesque Signs, pp. 148-203. 20 Haidu, Subject of Violence, pp. 30-3. 21 See Benton, 'Nostre franceis', p. 245 on the madness of Roland's military strategy. As Haidu remarks of the Battle Roncevaux 'militarily, this "victory" looks more like an unmitigated disaster' (ibid., p. 30). I find it hard to agree with critics like Berg who argues that Roland shows correct military judgement ('Les deux scenes du cor'), or Enders who suggests that 'in both horn scenes, Roland makes correct deductions and Oliver, imperfect inductions' ('Logic of the debates', p. 99). 22 See Kay,' Ethics and heroics'; see also Haidu, ibid., pp. 25-6, who shows how Roland is invested with value within a fundamentally secular system. On the interaction of different values in the horn scenes see Benton, 'Nostre franceis', pp. 240-2. 23 On proz 'worthy', seeBrault,' Song ofRoland 778-1978', p. 207 and Burgess, Contribution, pp. 91-103. For Burgess (p. 93) proz means both courageux and utile. Elsewhere in the poem proz is used of Oliver (see 176, 546, 559, 576, 3186, 3755); this enhances Roland and Oliver's similarity at these points, but need not preclude a functional opposition between prouesse and sagesse in laisse 87; Roland is never sage in the Oxford Roland, though he is in other

298

24 25 26 27

28

Notes to pages 35-8

versions, see p. 40. On the opposition produced here between the cognitive and the pragmatic, see Haidu, Subject of Violence, pp. 80-1. For a different interpretation see Murray, Reason and Society, pp. 125-7, who argues that Oliver's position in the Oxford Roland demonstrates the respect in which reason was held. I would agree with him that reason is becoming increasingly valued in this period, but not that the Oxford Rolandis trying to promote reason over prowess. On the contrary, it should be read as a reaction to the privileging of reason. On the importance of this scene see Haidu, ibid., pp. 32-4; Haidu comments that the term degre'd in line 2000 raises the issue of intent and suggests that the scene has 'powerful semantic effects' (p. 33). Quotation from van Emden's edition. Edition in Gouiran and Lafont's Le Roland Occitan; see particularly lines 1341-410 and on Roland and Oliver in the text, Keller, ' Roland a Saragosse'. On Ganelon and Roland's fundamental similarity see Haidu, Subject of Violence, pp. 66-7 and Gerard, 'L'Axe Roland-Ganelon', p. 452. For Kay, 'La Representation de la feminite', p. 224, traitors are gendered feminine in the chansons de geste, but the description of Ganelon in terms similar to those used of Roland suggests this is not the case in the Oxford Roland. The presentation of Saracens as like Christians in the Oxford Roland contributes strongly to the suppression of difference in the text, see Haidu, ibid., pp. 36-7. See also Camille, Gothic Idol, pp. 129-64, particularly pp. 146-50 on the Roland. Camille shows how ironic it is that medieval Christian culture persistently represents the Saracens as idolators: images proliferated in medieval Christendom, but of course Muslims were forbidden images. He suggests this reflects Christianity's own concern and preoccupation with images:' one way in which propaganda functions is by naturalizing the Other, dressing him in deviations of our own convention to form a travesty we can understand' (p. 142). On Saracens in the chansons de geste generally see Daniel's useful study, Heroes and Saracens. The portrayal of Ganelon, Aude's death (including the dream sequences) and the portrayal of Charlemagne are similar in the other rhymed texts. On Aude in the rhymed Roland see Duggan, 'L'Episode d'Aude' and Horrent, Chanson de Roland, pp. 354-5. Horrent argues the Aude episode makes the rhymed Roland more like romance, but although her role as a mediator of Roland and Oliver's relation is given more textual space, it is not functionally different from her role in the Oxford Roland. The elimination of

Notes to pages 38-g

299

difference between Roland and Oliver is more marked in the Paris text (and the manuscripts related to it) than in Chateauroux or Venice 7. All the rhymed versions have long prayers inserted into the narrative. 29 For a resume of Segre's account of the relationship of the manuscripts see Tradizione, pp. vii-xii. For his analysis of what the assonanced laisses in the rhymed version signify see Tradizione, pp. 148-65 and 'La Premiere «scene du cor»\ On the complexity of the tradition see also Brook, 'Alexandrine sequence' and 'The concluding laisses9. Segre's assessment of the tradition is contested by van Emden, 'Some remarks'. On the Paris Roland see also Horrent, ibid., pp. 369-73; Horrent criticizes the Paris remanieur for his 'lourde mediocrite' (p. 370), but as already noted his purpose is to demonstrate the superiority of the Oxford Roland. One possible objection to my hypothesis regarding the Paris remanieur's rewriting of the relationship between Roland and Oliver is that the beginning of the text in the Paris manuscript is missing and that in the section of the Chateauroux text which corresponds to the missing section, there is an earlier, assonanced horn scene, taken more or less verbatim from an assonanced version of the Roland and concluding with 1093-7 °f t n e Oxford Roland; see 1465-8, no equivalent in Venice 7. Chateauroux consequently has three horn scenes, 1889-1960 being a second (rhymed) version of the first horn scene in the Oxford Roland, corresponding to the first horn scene in Paris and Venice 7. This raises the possibility that the Paris text in its complete version may also have had three horn scenes, the first being more like the assonanced version of the first scene. This would weaken my argument. However, the missing folios from the Paris manuscript indicate that the opening was shorter than that of the Ghateauroux text (which could imply only two horn scenes); more importantly, there is abundant evidence that if both the Ghateauroux and Paris remanieurs were using a copy of an assonanced text they were doing so quite independently, for the assonanced laisses in the two manuscripts do not coincide. Segre thinks that whereas the Ghateauroux remanieur happily copied two versions of the same scene if he liked them (as he did later in 3168-216), the Paris remanieur was more concerned to produce a linear narrative and to avoid repetition, see Tradizione, pp. 150-2. Of course it is not possible to tell whether the scribes or their sources are responsible for innovations and I do not intend to prejudge the issue by using the term remanieur. 30 For a comparison of the horn scenes in different versions see Paquette, 'Le Texte en metamorphe', though Segre, Tradizione,

300

31

32

33

34

Notes to pages 39-45

pp. 166-83 a n d 'La Premiere «scene du cor»' 5 explores the problems more fully for Paquette does not seem to have grasped the significance of the fact that the first horn scene in Chateauroux is assonanced and the second rhymed. In the Oxford Roland Oliver is proz in 176, 546, 559, 576, 3186, 3755, but as already suggested in note 23, this does not preclude a functional opposition in laisse 87. On Oliver as proz see Crist, 'A propos', p. 19. The Paris text omits laisse 213 of the Oxford text (231 in Venice 4), which talks of the preparation of the bodies of Roland, Oliver and Turpin for transportation; the lines are added to the beginning of what would be laisse 214 in the Oxford Roland. Lines 4566-70 are similarly unique to Paris. Segre, Tradizione, pp. 156-7 comments on the confusion, the source of which would appear to be an episode unique to the Paris Roland in which Maleprimes attempts to steal the bodies of the heroes as trophies, see 3995~4°32For Rychner chansons de geste belonged initially to the oral culture of jongleurs {Chanson de geste); Bedier (Legendes epiques) locates their

origin in eleventh-century monastic culture; recent studies have suggested that the audience for chansons de geste manuscripts was educated nobles (Taylor, 'Myth', p. 51). On the audience of twelfth-century texts, see the compelling anthropological argument of Benton, ' Nostre franceis'; he suggests that the Oxford Roland and texts like it are instruments of' enculturation' for the warrior class, in other words that they give this class a sense of its value. 35 See Kohler, 'Quelques observations'. Apart from Kohler's essay my schematic account of the power and status of the twelfthcentury monarchy in relation to the nobility, and of the mediation of these historical shifts in literary texts draws upon the following: Bloch, Medieval French Literature and Etymologies; Boutet, 'Les

36 37 38 39

Chansons de geste'; Duby, Three Orders, particularly pp. 293307; Gerard,' L'Axe Roland-Ganelon', pp. 452-65; Haidu, Subject of Violence, particularly, pp. 101-19; Hunt, 'Emergence of the knight'; Kellogg, Medieval Artistry, particularly pp. 88-91; Kohler, UAventure chevaleresque. See the comments on BN 860 in Dembowski's editions of Ami, p. vii and Jourdain, p. vii. Quotations are from Dembowski's edition of Ami. See Subrenat, Etudes, pp. 66-7. Kay also reads Ami in the context of BN 860 in 'Seduction'; pp. 130-1. On doubling in Auberi see Adler, 'Auberi le Bourgignon\ For example Ribard, 'Ami et Amile', p. 157.

Notes to pages 46-58

301

40 For a persuasive reading of the women characters, see Kay, 'Seduction'. For other views see Rosenberg, 'Lire "Ami et Amile'" and Zink, 'Lubias et Belissent'. Calm, 'Women' is a response to Kay; for Calin (p. 89) ' the greatness of Ami et Amile lies in its Christian message; also in its magnificent human depth'. 41 See particularly Gilbert, 'Comparing like with like', pp. 11—13. 42 On the trial see Rossi, 'Le Duel judiciaire'; Mickel, 'Question of guilt'; Subrenat, 'Un duel judiciaire'. 43 See Calin, Epic Quest, pp. 86-7; Kay, 'Ethics and heroics', p. 488 makes the same point about Roland in the Oxford Roland. 44 On leprosy in Ami see Pichon,' La Lepre' and Gilbert,' Comparing like with like', pp. 14-15. 45 Calin's chapter on Ami in Epic Quest is called 'The quest for the absolute' (pp. 57-117); de Combarieu du Gres, 'Une extreme amitie'; Madika, 'La Religion'. 46 Belissant realizes this; Lubias does not. Hence their respective roles as good and bad women; see Kay, 'Seduction'. Ami's son Girart, like Amile's two sons, is willing to sacrifice everything for his father. 47 On the Roland intertext in Raoul see Leupin, 'Raoul de Cambrai\ P-9448 Quotations and translations are from Kay's edition. On the importance of companionship in Raoul see Kay, Raoul, pp. lxix-lxx and de Combarieu du Gres, Ideal, p. 260. Matarasso, Recherches, pp. 182-6 argues that Raoul offers a conscious transformation of the companionship of Roland and Oliver. 49 See Kay, 'La Composition', and Raoul, p. lvii for a resume of her arguments. 50 See Kay,' La Composition', pp. 490-2 and Stablein,' Catastrophe theory', p. 8. Denis also suggests the second part responds to the earlier chanson, though her argument is that there is a transformation of the matiere as it is shifted into a new historical context: 'Raoul II recupere, transpose et traduit les valeurs epiques de Raoul I en termes plus conformes a la mentalite aristocratique nouvelle' (Barons et chevaliers, p. 191). On the structure of Raoul see also Calin, Old French Epic of Revolt, pp. 19-20. 51 On inheritance disputes in Raoul, see Matarasso, Recherches, pp. 105-27; Koss, 'Raoul de Cambrai'; and Kellogg, Medieval Artistry, pp. 47-61. 52 On the irony of line 1 see Leupin, 'Raoul de Cambrai\ p. 93; on desmesure in Raoul see Owen, 'Aspects of desmesure\ pp. 150-60. 53 The protection of orphans is prominent in the list of an ideal king's duties given in the Couronnement de Louis, see Lepage's edition, AB text, 65-7.

302

Notes to pages jg-66

54 On legitimacy and bdtardise in Raoul see Leupin,'Raoul de Cambrai\ See also Kay on narrative and counter-narrative in Raoul {Raoul, pp. lxx-xxii): Bernier, the illegitimate lesser noble, displaces his royal-blooded companion and overlord. 55 Calin, ( Un univers', pp. 429-30; Baumgartner, 'Quelques remarques'. 56 Kay, 'Character of character', pp. 479-83; see also Stablein, ' Catastrophe theory', p. 10 on the emplotment of confrontation in Raoul. 57 Bloch, Etymologies, pp. 107-8; Nichols, 'Spirit of truth', p. 373. 58 On the exchange of women and sex/gender systems see pp. 12-15, 73-5 and 198-201. 59 See Regnier's edition of the Prise and on Girart my 'Le Pouvoir d'achat'. 60 See Kay, 'Compagnonnage'; 'Investing the wild'; and Raoul, p. lxxi. 61 I refer to Suard's edition. On the character of Guibourc see Gold, Lady, pp. 5-10, who shows how the Guillaume delineates different spaces for male and female activity and privileges the male arena of the battlefield. In her section on the chanson de geste (pp. 4-18), she studies the Guillaume and Raoul, concluding women play the role of nurturers and advisers in the genre. This does not conflict with my interpretation, though Gold's reading of the texts is more literal than mine. Guillaume consists of an early poem (1-1980) with a later continuation; the continuation is written in a comic mode. 62 Guibourc's diagnostic role is a lot less marked in Aliscans, a late twelfth-century remaniement of the Guillaume narrative. She does not have to encourage Guillaume into battle, but the recognition scene at the gates of Orange is none the less retained, see 1983-2116, Regnier's edition. 63 On the notion of the supplement see Norris, Derrida, pp. 66-7; and Culler, On Deconstruction, pp. 102-6 and 166-7: 'Like writing, woman is treated as a supplement... Celebrations of woman or the identification of woman with some powerful force or idea - truth as a woman, liberty as a woman, the muses as women - identify actual woman as marginal. Woman can be a symbol of truth only if she is denied an effective relation to truth, only if one presumes that those seeking truth are men' (pp. 166-7). 64 I refer to Lee's edition. On companionship in Daurel see Kay, 'Compagnonnage'; de Caluwe, 'Les Liens feodaux'; KimmePs edition of Daurel, pp. 104-7. My argument does not differ substantially from Kay's.

Notes to pages 68-73

3°3

65 See also Kay 'Compagnonnage', p. 355: 'le langage des femmes est pour lui [Gui] vide de sens'. 66 The scenario of a woman sacrificing her child to save the son of her husband's overlord occurs also in Jourdain de Blaye, 562-708. A woman who speaks the truth is similarly the victim of wanton violence in Orson de Beauvais, 762-860, on which see Kay, 'Investing the wild', pp. 156-62. On children in Daurel see Paterson, World, pp. 292-4. 67 Critics seem to have considered particularly the love stories of the Prise (F Orange and Girart de Roussillon as evidence of romance

influence. See: Grunmann-Gaudet, 'From epic to romance'; Lachet, La Prise d*Orange; Maclnnes, 'Gloriette'. For references to critics who have discerned courtly influence in Girart, see the notes to my 'Le Pouvoir d'achat'. Such critics fail, however, to consider the differences between these texts and romance. In no romance, to my knowledge, does a hero fall in love with a Saracen princess as in the Prise and numerous other chansons de geste; in no romance are there two interlocking erotic triangles as in Girart de Roussillon. Both texts are formally, stylistically and semantically chansons de geste. 2

THE KNIGHT MEETS HIS MATCH*. ROMANCE

1 Lejeune, 'La Femme', p. 215. This attitude is clearly reflected in the work of critics like Jean Frappier or Leslie Topsfield. 2 For an excellent recent examination of the dangers of accepting that femininity is that which is construed as other within male discourse see Cornell, Beyond Accommodation, pp. 36-41. 3 'Double jeopardy', pp. 21-2; Women Readers, pp. 130-1. 4 Women Readers, see particularly the chapter on Chretien, pp. 33-67; see also Burns's account of how women characters can subvert the dominant ideology of a number of romances in Body talk, pp. 115-240. 5 On the evolution of Old French and Occitan romance as a genre see Le Roman jus qu' a lafindu XIIF siecle, ed. Frappier and Grimm. 6 Prose romance would require separate consideration, though I do believe the prose texts inscribe themselves in the same generic tradition, or rather that they represent an attempt to re-orientate it. 7 Foucault, Histoire de la sexualite; Rubin, 'Thinking sex'. 8 On the two models of marriage see Duby, Medieval Marriage and Le Chevalier', Goody, Development, pp. 103-56. For a more detailed synopsis of Duby's work see my 'Marginal men', pp. 56-9. Goody takes issue with Duby's view that the Church's policy was not a

304

9

Io

I1 12 13 14

Notes to pages 75-g

deliberate strategy to enhance its wealth (pp. 154-6). However, see Brundage, Law, pp. 606-7, w n o ar gues that even if the Church's policy on marriage was part of an economic strategy, it was not effective. On the relationship between the Church's policy on marriage and romance, see Baldwin, 'Five discourses', pp. 814-15; on the theoretical importance of consent, and the Church's indifference to it in practice, see L'Hermite-Leclerq, 'L'Ordre feodal', pp. 231-9 and Sheehan, 'Choice of marriage partner'. I shall refer to Salverda de Grave's edition of the Eneas and for Virgil to Mynors' edition of the complete works. On the dating of the Eneas, its relation to the other romans antiques, and its origin in the Plantagenet realms see Huchet, Roman medieval, pp. 9-15 and Zink, 'Chretien et ses contemporains', pp. 6-13; see also Crane, Insular Romance, pp. 135-46, who argues that the Plantagenets' patronage of courtly literature was confined to their continental territories. See my ' From epic to romance'. My argument about homophobia in the Eneas is taken from this article, see pp. 18-27. O*1 t n e significance of the addition of the Lavine episode, see Gold, Lady, pp. 34-5 and Hanning, Individual, pp. 58-9. On Dido in the Eneas, see Shirt, 'The Dido episode' and 'Metaphor as a structuring device'. On Camille, see Huchet, 'h* Eneas' and Petit, 'La Reine Camille'. On endogamy and exogamy in the Eneas, see Huchet, ibid., pp. 36-8. On Eneas and the Plantagenets see Poirion, 'De l'«Eneide»', pp. 213-14 and Patterson, Negotiating the Past, pp. 179-80. On iuvenes generally see Duby, 'Au XII e siecle', and on courtly literature as an inscription of their interests, see Kohler, UAventure chevaleresque and his 'Sens et fonction'; for further important sociological readings of romance see Oilier, ' Demande sociale' and Haidu, 'Romance'. The word druz produces an interesting equivocation. In chansons de geste it is used simply to mean a male companion; in courtly romance or lyric, it often means a woman's lover. Namely Aeneid, iv, 215; ix, 617; xn, 52-3 and 99; see Jones, Theme of Love, p. 40. Faral, Recherches, pp. 131-2; Adler,' Eneas and Lavine', p. 91. For similar views see Herman, 'Sin against Nature', pp. 80-3 and Levy, 'L'Allusion a la sodomie'. Crane, Gender and Romance, pp. 39-45; Burgwinkle,' Knighting the classical hero'; Gaunt, 'From epic to romance'. I am grateful to Professor Crane for allowing me to read her work while it was in press. These three studies were written quite independently of each

Notes to pages yg-8j

15 16 17

18 19

20

21

305

other at virtually the same time and offer similar interpretations. Burgwinkle, however, argues that male bonding, as exemplified by the pairs Pallas/Eneas and Eurialus/Nisus, is valorized in the Eneas, whereas I argue that it is marginalized. Between Men, p. 3; Rubin, 'Traffic', pp. 182-3. O*1 'obligatory heterosexuality' see also p. 14. Halperin, 'Sex before sexuality', Padgug, 'Sexual matters'. On the meaning of sodomia see, amongst others: Kuster and Cormier, 'Old views and new trends', pp. 590-1. Apart from the diatribes in the Eneas see Guilhem de Bergueda, ed. de Riquer, poems vn, vm and vi; Le Roman de Silence, ed. Thorpe, 3929-49; Marie de France: Lais, ed. Ewert: Lanval, 276-86; Hue de Rotelande: Ipomedon, ed. Holden, 2350-75; and, of course, Le Roman de la Rose, ed. Poirion, 19543-60, though the emphasis here is on attacking celibacy and non-reproductive sexual acts rather than on homophobia as such. For some additional references to homophobia in Old French see Herman, 'Sin against Nature'. Homophobia was common in Latin texts, but see notably Alan of Lille: The Plaint of Nature, trans. Sheridan and Peter Damian: The Book of Gomorrah, trans. Payer. Burgwinkle ('Knighting the classical hero', pp. 8-10), following Boswell (Christianity, pp. 221-6) argues that the Anglo-Norman environment in which it is assumed the Eneas was written was preoccupied with same-sex eroticism. See Boswell, ' Revolutions, universals and sexual categories'; see also my 'Gay studies' and 'Straight minds'. Boswell, Christianity, Greenberg, Construction, pp. 242-98. For their comments on Old French literature see Boswell, pp. 239-40 (whose views are the more nuanced of the two) and Greenberg, pp. 260-1. For a further exposition of the view that vernacular literature of the period is homoerotic and frequently masks homosexuality see Marchello-Nizia, 'Amour courtois'. Despite my disagreement with Boswell on this point, I regard his work as a milestone in gay studies. Between Men, p. 88; see also her important opening remarks in Epistemology, pp. 1-3, where she discusses what she calls minoritizing and universalizing theories of sexuality. The point is that just as feminism concerns men because like women men have a gender, so gay theory concerns heterosexuals because like gay people they have a sexuality. See also Butler, Gender Trouble, pp. 64-5 on how 'the repressive law effectively produces heterosexuality'. For a different reading of the Eurialus and Nisus episode see

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22 23 24 25

26 27 28

29 30

31

Notes to pages 83-gi

Huchet, 'L'Eneas', pp. 73-6 and for a reading similar to mine see Burgwinkle, 'Knighting the classical hero', pp. 23-35. Compare also Eurialus's pledge not to be separated from Nisus, even in death, with Roland's lament in the Oxford Roland, 2024-34, particularly 2030:' Quant tu es morz, dulur est que jo vif'. See also the analogous, more insistent laments in the Paris Roland, cited above p. 41. Medieval French Literature and Law and Etymologies', see also Haidu, Subject of Violence. For example Hanning, Individual and Kohler, UAventure, p. 3. On the influence of Ovid on the Eneas poet see Faral, Recherches, pp. 73-157. On homosexuality preceding heterosexuality see Butler, Gender Trouble, pp. 64-5; see also my 'Straight minds'. I shall refer to Leclanche's edition; on the manuscripts see pp. 5—7. Leclanche's text is in all likelihood a thirteenth-century remaniement of a shorter, earlier version preserved in fragmentary form by just one manuscript (Leclanche's V, Vatican Palatinus, lat 1971). None of the sections I discuss belong to the more recent version. Price,'Floire et Blancheflor', p. 25; see p. 29 for her comments on the end of the text. See above pp. 45-51 for quotations. For evidence of earlier versions of Ami see Pirot, Recherches, pp. 412-13 and Dembowski, Ami, pp. x-xi. For an account of the imaginary and symbolic orders see Bowie, Lacan, pp. 88-108. There appears to have been a vogue in the mid twelfth century for identical child-lovers. Compare Piramus et Tisbe, ed. de Boer, line 6, where the children are described as 'd'unes biautez et d'uns samblans'. See Hanning, Individual, pp. 105-38 on engin in romance generally; on engin in Floire specifically see Price, 'Floire et Blancheflor', p. 27. Men falling in love on the strength of a description and men being predisposed towards love having read about it are common in romance. See Flamenca, ed. Huchet, 1774-81 and Jean Renart's Guillaume de Dole, ed. Lecoy, 637-838. On 'desire in language' in courtly literature see Moi, 'Desire in language': 'desire does not necessarily precede language... on the contrary if the man's linguistic performance establishes him as a lover, his desire is produced by language and seeks satisfaction in it' (p. 24). On the literary nature of Floire and Blanchefleur's love see Krueger, 'Floire'. See, for instance, Hanning, Individual on the individual in romance in relation to the twelfth-century renaissance. For socio-historic approaches see Bloch, Medieval French Literature and Etymologies;

Kohler, UAventure; Oilier, 'Demande sociale'; Haidu, 'Ro-

Notes to pages 91-3

32 33 34

35

36

307

mance'; and most recently Maddox, Arthurian Romances, pp. 133-40. Krueger, Women Readers', Kay, Subjectivity, particularly pp. 183-98 on gender and sexuality in Guillaume de Dole. Haidu, 'Romance', p. 31; Crane, Gender and Romance, pp. 31-2. Busby, 'The characters and the setting', pp. 65 and 88-9. On the Chretien intertext in later romance generally, see SchmolkeHasselmann, Der arthurische Versroman and Bruckner, ' Intertextuality'. For the first use of the term amour courtois see Paris, 'Etudes', p. 519. For the editions of Chretien's romances used see the bibliography. For the recent controversy on the Charrete see the series of articles by Hult: 'Lancelot's two steps'; 'Lancelot's shame'; 'Steps forward and steps backwards'. For responses to Hult see: Uitti and Foulet (f), 'On editing Chretien de Troyes' and Speer, 'Editing Old French', pp. 10-24. Significantly, this controversy is very much polarized into a 'theoretical' and 'antitheoretical' approach. For idealizing readings of the Charrete see inter alia: Ferrante, ' The conflict', pp. 152-6 and Woman as Image, pp. 81-2; Frappier, Chretien, pp. 124-46; Kelly, Sens and Conjointure, particularly pp. 39-54, 206 and 211; Kohler, UAventure, pp. 193-5; Payen, 'Les Valeurs humaines'; Topsfield, Chretien, pp. 105-74; Uitti, Story, pp. 181-2; Zaddy, 'Le Chevalier de la Charrete' and Chretien Studies,

pp. 110-58. Ferrante, Frappier and Kelly think Chretien had reservations about adultery, but none the less elevated love in the Charrete. For ' ironic' readings of the Charrete as an indictment of adultery and 'courtly love' see: Baumgartner, Chretien, pp. 80-1; Benton, 'The court of Champagne' and 'Clio and Venus', p. 28; Bogdanow, 'Love theme'; Diverres, 'Some thoughts'; Hanning, Individual, pp. 228-33; Haidu, Aesthetic Distance, pp. 10 and 160 n. 119; Noble, Love and Marriage, pp. 65-9; Owen, 'Profanity and its purpose'; Shirt, 'Chretien and the cart'; Thompson, 'The prison of the senses'. On the epilogue see pp. 100-3 an<^ n o t e s 48, 49 and 50 below. 37 Lacy, Craft, pp. 54-60; Bruckner, 'An interpreter's dilemma' and 'Le Chevalier de la Charrette\ For Bruckner's view that Lancelot remains a positive hero see 'An interpreter's dilemma', p. 172 and 'Le Chevalier', pp. 156-7. 38 See my Troubadours, pp. 183-5; Kay, Subjectivity, pp. 18-37; and for irony in romance Haidu, Aesthetic Distance, Green, Irony and Hunt, 'Irony'. 39 See Wace's Roman de Rou, ed. Holden, part 11, pp. 7-9, and on these lines Uitti, Story, pp. 150-1. Chretien is generally thought to have

308

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41 42 43

44 45

46

Notes to pages gj-8

been a clerk, see Frappier, Chretien, p. 9, although this view has been challenged recently by Vitz, 'Chretien', who argues that his romances show evidence of oral composition and that Chretien was not a clerk. Much of the evidence Vitz adduces to demonstrate the orality of Chretien's romances seems to me to point to written textuality, which is not to say that the written texts were not intended for reading aloud. For a stimulating analysis of the tensions between chevalerie and clergie in a romance by Chretien see Freeman,' Cliges', particularly pp. 96-8. On clerical culture in the twelfth century see Murray, Reason and Society. See Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, pp. 42-71 on the centrality of the mystification of rape and the protection of women to the ethics of chivalry in romance. See also Owen, 'Theme and variations', who argues Chretien is sympathetic to the plight of women, and that in the Charrete he uses rape as a structuring device (p. 285); and Rieger, 'Le Motif du viol', who also argues for the centrality of representations of rape in romance, suggesting that the knight's obligation to protect women stems from a crise dupatriarcat and (less plausibly) that courtly literature can therefore be read as an act of reparation to women (pp. 247-8). See Bruckner, 'Le Chevalier', p. 147; Kelly, Sens and Conjointure, pp. 152-3 and Uitti, Story, pp. 179-80. For example see particularly Topsfield, Chretien, pp. 115-20. The comb episode in the Charrete is read seriously as a portrayal of love as a religion by: Bruckner, 'Le Chevalier', pp. 155-6; Kelly, Sens and Conjointure, p. 119 (though he later notes the ironic Cliges intertext and relates both episodes to the opposition in the troubadour lyric between sen and foudatz, see pp. 212-13); Stevens, Medieval Romance, pp. 136-7; Topsfield, Chretien, p. 133; Zaddy, 'Le Chevalier', pp. 388-9. It is read as humorous by Lacy, Craft, p. 56; Noble, Love, pp. 67-72 (who also thinks there are hints of blasphemy here); Uitti, Story, p. 181 (though this does not concord with his overall reading of the text). See Cazelles, Lady as Saint, pp. 45-6, for a discussion of the religious overtones of this passage. For comments on the Tristan intertext see also: Bruckner, 'Le Chevalier', p. 157; Diverres,' Some thoughts', p. 32; Kelly, Sens and Conjointure, p. 136; Spearing, Medieval Poet, pp. 79-85; Topsfield, Chretien, p. 155. I cite Beroul from Ewert's edition. On the character of Kay see Noble, 'Kay' (pp. 61-3 on this episode) and Gowans, Cei (pp. 62-4 on this episode), though in my view both miss the irony here. Chretien's treatment of Kay is often imitated by later writers, see for example Limentani, L'eccezione narrativa, pp. 94-100 on parallels between the character in Jaufre

Notes to pages 98-105

47

48

49

50

51 52 53

309

and Perceval. Although Kay is consistently criticized for his sharp tongue, he invariably tells the truth. On Chretien's technique of suggesting different perspectives through direct speech see Kelly, Sens and Conjointure, pp. 224-7. To my knowledge the only critic to note the implications of Kay's speech for Lancelot is Shirt, 'Chretien', p. 298. The following argue the text was finished according to Chretien's instructions: Diverres, 'Some thoughts', p. 24; Kelly, ibid., pp. 95-7; Maddox, Arthurian Romances, pp. 48-9; Zaddy, Chretien Studies, pp. 145-6. Diverres, however, thinks Chretien intended the text as a satire against love and that Godefroy's conclusion continues in this vein. The following think Chretien gave up writing the text because he felt uneasy about adultery: Baumgartner, Chretien, pp. 38-9 (though she acknowledges other views); Benton, 'Clio', p. 28; Ferrante, 'Conflict', p. 145; Frappier, Chretien, pp. 125 and 141; Noble, Love, p. 65; Thompson, 'Prison', p. 252. Shirt, 'Godefroy de Lagny', argues for an elaborate collaboration between Chretien and Godefroy, suggesting Chretien wrote the Noauz episode after Godefroy had written the conclusion. Shirt believes there is a perceptible difference between the rhyming techniques used in the two parts of the romance (pp. 37-9) and that Godefroy's intention was to play down the theme of adultery. A more sophisticated reading of Godefroy as a continuator of and commentator on Chretien is offered by Brownlee, 'Transformations'. For yet further views on Godefroy as a continuator see Adams, 'Godefroy de Leigni's continuation' and Kliippelholz, 'Continuation'. Kohler, UAventure, pp. 187-8 suggests the whole issue is irrelevant to the interpretation of the text. 'Author/narrator/speaker', pp. 87-94; Krueger, Women Readers, p. 274 note 44, agrees with Hult. Interestingly one manuscript (BN 1450), which interpolates Chretien's Arthurian romances into Wace's Brut, does not transmit the epilogue; without the epilogue the question of joint authorship might never have arisen. See Bruckner, 'Le Chevalier', p. 141; Krueger, Women Readers, p. 54. Compare particularly lines 4 (about Chretien and Marie) and 5656 (about Lancelot and Guenevere) which both read ' come cil qui est suens antiers'. For instance see Buckbee, 'Erec et Enide'; Freeman, 'CligeY; Haidu, Aesthetic Distance; Hunt, Tvain; Polak, Cliges. I shall refer to Perrie Williams' edition. On the Chretien intertext see Guerreau, 'Renaud de Bage', p. 35 and Haidu, 'Realism', pp. 45-6. I take this point from the late Kate Westoby's stimulating' Naming

31 o

54

55

56

57 58

59 60

61 62 63 64

Notes to pages 105-14

the father, naming the bride: woman as object in the Bel Inconnu of Renaut de Beaujeu', unpublished paper. On maternal and paternal authority in the text see Westoby, 'Naming the father' and Maddox, 'Specular stories', pp. 307-8; on the quest for identity in romance see Kennedy, 'Quest', particularly pp. 70-2. Busby, Gauvain, pp. 246-8, argues Gauvain is used here as an exemplary, ideal knight, but in the light of the equivocal portrayal of Gauvain in the tradition I would suggest Guinglain's lineage contributes to the ironic undercurrent which underscores his identity; see also note 66. On the significance of her being afee see Colby Hall,' Frustration', pp. 133-4 and Haidu, 'Realism', p. 56. Compare Sturm, 'The "Bel Inconnu'"s enchantress', and 'Magic in Le Bel Inconnu': she argues the Pucele's supernatural qualities are consistently played down and that she is a fee only because of the romance's Celtic source. On these terms see Kay, 'Investing the wild', pp. 149-52. Hanning, Individual, pp. 222-3 and Boiron and Payen, 'Structure et sens du Bel Inconnu\ pp. 25-6 also make this point. See also Westoby, 'A new look', p. 377, who argues that Blonde Esmeree represents feudal society and the Pucele a kind of love which is outside society. Compare the Charrete where Lancelot is mocked because of his ride on the cart and is then made to look a fool because of his lovesickness. On the lack of closure and the lyric/romance dialectic in Le Bel Inconnu see Colby Hall, 'Frustration', pp. 123-5; Guthrie, 'JE (£/)', pp. 148-9; Haidu, 'Realism', p. 57. Haidu thinks the text juxtaposes three generic paradigms: lyric, romance and lai, which is also the view of Sara Sturm, 'The love interest', pp. 247-8; however this hypothesis rests upon the assumption that the presence of a fee is an automatic signal of the laVs horizon of expectations. Compare Westoby, 'A new look', who examines numerous fees in romance. On pronominal shift in the epilogue see Guthrie, ibid., pp. 149-59. Colby Hall, ibid., pp. 124-5, makes the same point. On Laudine see Krueger, Women Readers, pp. 39-51; on Fenice see McCracken, 'The queen's adulterous body', pp. 40-56. I refer to Holden's edition of Ipomedon and Owen and Johnston's edition of Le Chevalier a Vepee. On the authorship of Le Chevalier, see Owen, 'Two more romances'. On misogyny and masculinity see my 'Significance of Silence', pp. 210-11.

Notes to pages 115-22

311

65 On the humour of Ipomedon see also Calin, 'The exaltation'; Crane, Insular Romance, pp. 158-73; Hanning, Individual, pp. 123-3566 Pace Busby, Gauvain, p. 387: 'since Gauvain's excellent qualities are established de facto... his excellence in certain fields of chivalry and courtesy remains largely constant'. Gauvain's excellence is always asserted, but it is consistently undermined. He always fails to live up to expectations, as, for example, in Tvain, on which see Hunt, Tvain, pp. 48-50. 67 On the meaning of honte in the twelfth century as public disgrace rather than private shame see Hult, 'Lancelot's shame', pp. 32-9. 68 On which see also Krueger, Women Readers, pp. 83-9. My reading mirrors hers in some respects. 69 Busby, Gauvain, p. 255 and Krueger, ibid., p. 87 also make this point. 70 On Gauvain's equivocal heroism in Le Chevalier see also Krueger, ibid., pp. 88-9 and Busby, ibid., pp. 255-7. 71 See lines 277-80; on which see Paterson, World, p. 232. 72 For readings which assume Laudine falls in love see Frappier, Chretien, pp. 160-1 and 169; Kohler, UAventure, p. 198; Noble, Love, pp. 48-61; Topsfield, Chretien, pp. 175-206; Uitti, Story, pp. 183-95. Frappier and Noble, however, note humour in the first love scene. The following suggest Laudine is forced to marry and that the love scenes are ironic: Hunt, Tvain, pp. 33-4; Krueger, ibid., pp. 39-51; Gold, Lady, pp. 25-6. 73 See particularly Topsfield, Chretien and Troubadours. There is considerable evidence that Chretien knew several troubadours personally see Roncaglia, ' Carestia' and di Girolamo, / trovatori, pp. 120-41. 3

TROUBADOURS, LADIES AND LANGUAGE! THE CAJVSO

1 See Meneghetti, Ilpubblico, pp. 60-6; Paterson, World, pp. 91-100 confirms Meneghetti's findings in that she shows there were few courts in which troubadours can be shown to have been active before 1150. 2 On Bernart and Chretien see Roncaglia, 'Carestia'; di Girolamo, Trovatori, pp. 120-41; Meneghetti, ibid., pp. 138-44. The canso as a genre emerged some time after 1150, before which all troubadour songs were known as vers. See Marshall, 'Le Vers9 and Bee, 'Le Probleme des genres'. Paden, 'Bernart', identifies Bernart de Ventadorn with the man of the same name who became abbot of Tulle in 121 o. This would make Bernart's poetic activity later than

312

Notes to pages 122-3

has been thought (p. 412), but would not conflict with his being a contemporary of Chretien. Intertextual relations between Bernart's cansos and those of other troubadours (for example Raimbaut d'Aurenga) suggest Bernart was already active in the 1160s.

3 On Ovid in the Middle Ages see Allen, Art, pp. 38-58; for a case study of how one romancier drew on Ovid see Faral, Recherches, pp. 73-1574 But the myth is by no means dead. In one of the standard textbooks on Old French literature, still widely disseminated, Le Gentil writes: 'l'amant courtois s'adresse a une femme mariee, de condition superieure; seduit par sa beaute et ses merites exceptionnels, il s'efforce de la meriter; fidele et soumis, il se plaint que tarde la recompense a laquelle il aspire. En situant ainsi Tun par rapport a l'autre les deux etres qu'il rapproche, l'amour courtois inaugure le culte de la Femme, dans laquelle il voit l'image ideale et vivante a la fois de tout ce que l'homme peut concevoir et connaitre de plus precieux.' See La Litterature frangaise, p. 56. 5 Formalist readings of the troubadours have been influenced by Guiette, 'D'une poesie formelle', Dragonetti, La Technique poetique and by Zumthor, Essai, all of which concentrate on the trouveres; for applications of the approach to the troubadours see ThiolierMejean, Les Poesies satiriques and Van Vleck, Memory. The formalist approach, elaborated in relation to the trouveres, is challenged by Paterson, Troubadours, pp. 1-2 and Kay, Subjectivity, pp. 5-16. On the textuality of troubadour poetry see Pickens, 'Jaufre Rudel', Kendrick, Game, pp. 24-52 and Van Vleck, ibid. On intertextuality see Meneghetti, Pubblico, pp. 99-163; Gaunt, Troubadours, pp. 2-3, 72-8, 99-106, 127-33, 158-66; Gruber, Dialektik. On eroticism see Nelli, LErotique and Lazar, Amour courtois, pp. 21-148. On theatricality see Sutherland, 'L'Element theatral' and Kay, Subjectivity, pp. 138-45. On humour see Gaunt, ibid.; Kay, ibid., pp. 18-37; Kendrick, ibid. 6 For Kohler's most notable work on the troubadours see his Trobadorlyrik, 'Observations', and Sociologia. Kohler's views are revised by: Gaunt, 'Marginal men', pp. 65-8; Kasten, Frauendiest, pp. 25-201; Kay, ibid., pp. 128-31; and by Liebertz-Grtin, Zur Soziologie. His views are rejected by Roncaglia, ' Trobar clus9 and 'Rifflessi'. 7 Huchet, LAmour discourtois (1987); Gholakian, Troubadour Lyric (1990); Kay, ibid. (1990), pp. 84-131. Gholakian's views on the exclusion of women are similar to mine in Gaunt, 'Poetry of exclusion'.

Notes to pages 125-31

313

8 I have chosen to concentrate on the canso as other lyric genres (for instance the sirventes, the tenso, the pastorela or the alba) entail different generic paradigms and because it is primarily the canso with which romance interacts. My analysis could be extended to the trouvere chanson, but I have chosen only to examine troubadour cansos because on the whole the Northern poets are imitative of the Occitan tradition, though with a few notable exceptions (Gace Brule and Chretien de Troyes?). Why Northern French culture should have imported the canso as a genre more or less intact is an interesting question, but not one I can address here. 9 Quotations from Lecoy's edition; on the date see p. viii. 10 Text from // canzioniere di Jaufre Rudel, ed. Ghiarini, p. 52. On the vida as a reading of Jaufre's songs see Meneghetti, ' Une vida pericolosa' and Monson, 'Jaufre Rudel'. On the lyrics in Guillaume de Dole see Baumgartner, 'Les citations'; Huot, Song, pp. 108-16; and Kay, Subjectivity, pp. 183-4. I a m particularly indebted to Huot's study of the text. 11 Quotations are from Bernard de Ventadour ed. Lazar. 12 See Goldin, Mirror, pp. 4-15 and Kay, 'Love in a mirror', particularly p. 275 on the use of the reflexive here. 13 My thinking here is influenced by Kay, Subjectivity, p. 86, who argues there are three genders in the canso:' the masculine gender to which the troubadours belong; the feminine, to which most women belong; and the gender of the domna, which is mixed, partaking of both masculine and feminine'. Kay shows how domnas may be masculinized by the use of masculine senhals (code names) and grammatically masculine euphemisms. For Kay 'the sexual world of the male-authored canso is therefore ordered in terms of a masculine—feminine hierarchy, and its supplementation by the domna' (p. 86). However, I do not see the 'mixed-gender' in quite the same way. The masculine attributes of the domna serve less to assign her to a 'mixed-gender' than to recuperate her into the positively marked masculine gender. In other words, I think the troubadours think about gender in binary terms, but highlight the impossibility of women performing as men. Two analogies come to mind: firstly the way in which medieval medical texts push ambiguously sexed or gendered people into binary models, on which see Cadden, Meanings, p. 204; secondly, the treatment of Silence in the Roman de Silence, who is always either a man or a woman and whose performance as a man has to be stopped, see Gaunt,' Significance of Silence'. On the terms domna and femna see Cropp, Le Vocabulaire, pp. 26-7. 14 Cited from ed. Johnston. Some of the points I make here and in the

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15 16 17 18 19

20

21 22

23

Notes to pages 131-42

next section about Arnaut and Bernart are from my 'Poetry of exclusion'. On the type of feudal imagery deployed here see Cropp, ' Les Expressions'; on the masculinization of the domna through feudal imagery see Kay, Subjectivity, p. 86. See also above note 13. I have made modifications to Johnston's punctuation in lines 43, 48 and 51. Compare particularly Marcabru (ed. Dejeanne), Les Poesies completes•, 24, 19-21 and 11, 52. See Marcabru, Poesies, 34, 22-6 and 38, 32-5; on which see Gaunt, 'Marginal men', pp. 62-4 and Harvey, Marcabru, p. 79. On the lack of privacy in twelfth-century noble households see Spearing, Medieval Poet, pp. 16-18 and Duby, 'Communal living', pp. 75-7. On wet nurses see Paterson, World, pp. 277 and 304-6. On noble young men at the courts of their overlords, see Kohler, 'Observations', pp. 39-40 and Duby, ibid.; a literary example of this would be Bernier (who meets his mother for the first time as an adult) in Raoul de Cambrai, while in romance Guinglain in Le Bel Inconnu and Perceval in Le Conte du Graal are considered unusual because they have been brought up by their mothers. See Zink, Roman rose, pp. 70-6; Kay, Subjectivity, pp. 194-7; Krueger, Women Readers, pp. 143-53. Other useful studies are Baumgartner, 'Les Citations'; Huot, Song, pp. 108-16 and Solterer, 'At the bottom of mirage'. Solterer, ibid., p. 220 also comments on the homosocial desire evinced in Guillaume and Conrad's relationship. Compare the commentary on this stanza by Monson, 'Lyrisme', pp. 152-3. For Monson the comparison between Bernart's singing and that of other men is a deliberate ploy to emphasize his sincerity. Although Monson notes the absence of the lady in the poem (pp. 148-9), he concludes his study:' meme si la chanson n'a jamais servi a seduire des dames, meme si ce n'est pas du tout dans cette intention qu'elle a ete creee, on a pourtant Pimpression qu'elle aurait tres bien pu etre utilisee a cette fin' (pp. 157-8). See also Hurley, 'Justifying the male', pp. 27-32 on this poem; for Hurley although it 'presents itself as textually seductive' (p. 28), it 'functions not only as an instrument of seduction, but also implicitly as an instrument of upward social mobility' (p. 32). For an excellent reading of this poem see also Van Vleck, Memory, pp. 109-17. Homosocial rather than homosexual. A number of scholars have argued that courtly discourse is a thin veil for the homosexual tendencies of men in the chivalric class. See Marchello-Nizia,

Notes to pages 142-51

24

25

26 27 28

29

30 31

32 33

34

315

'Amour courtois', pp. 979-80 and Duby, Male Moyen Age, pp. 47-8; this may also be the implication of Huchet, U Amour, discourtois, pp. 19-27. But on the distinction between the homosexual and the homosocial see above, pp. 79-80. See Monson, 'L'Amour pur', pp. 85-6. Blakeslee, 'Apostrophe', p. 51, regards the absence of dialogue between the troubadour and his lady as a crucial element in the construction of the canso as a genre. Compare Earnshaw, Female Voice, p. 154, who suggests a reply is always implicit. See Gaunt, 'Marginal men', pp. 65-8 and the incisive study of Burns, 'Man behind', particularly pp. 268-9; Burns shows how the troubadour attempts to appropriate the lady as a symbol of prestige. Quotation from Routledge's edition. On court life and court personnel see Paterson, World, pp. 100-10 and Harvey, 'The troubadour Marcabru', pp. 57-61. Gravdal, 'Metaphor', pp. 412-13, argues that because the troubadours represent themselves as disempowered they feminize themselves. However, although subordinate, the position of the vassal is within a masculine hierarchy. Subordination does not necessarily connote femininity. On the dislike of paying homage in Occitania see Paterson, World, pp. 10-36. On paying homage to women see Kasten, Frauendienst, pp. 64-9; Kasten argues that the metaphorical homage paid to women in cansos is a reflection of the real power some women in Occitania enjoyed and she suggests that more women exercised power in Occitania than elsewhere. However, women who received homage were a small minority, see Paterson, ibid., pp. 221-8 and L'Hermite-Leclerq, 'L'Ordre feodal', pp. 247-8. On the feudal metaphor here see also Kay, Subjectivity, pp. 116-19. Peire d'Alvernhe's satire on twelve troubadours makes reference to the manner in which they performed (ed. del Monte, poem 12) as do the vidas. On performance see Kay, ibid., pp. 132-70. On the individuality of troubadours' style see Paterson, Troubadours, pp. 207-12 and Gaunt, Troubadours, p. 184; on intertextuality as a means of individuation see Gruber, Dialektik, pp. 3-4. On signature see Kay, ibid., pp. 145-6. See Peire Rogier, ed. Nicholson, poem 6; Kay, ibid., pp. 207-10. On linguistic competition see Kendrick, Game, p. 184. Although some troubadours imitate the rhyme schemes of other poets, many seek unique forms; on the range of forms see Paterson, Troubadours, pp. 221-8. Topsfield, Troubadours, p. 135 remarks that Bernart's poetry

316

Notes to pages 151-9

exemplified the trobar leu. Compare Paterson, ibid., pp. 4-5, who rightly observes that Bernart never comments on his own style. On Bernart's 'artlessness' and 'sincerity' see Topsfield, ibid., p. 113: 'To situations which demand mannered elegance he reacts with impassioned poetic feeling and the seeming artlessness of direct and largely monosyllabic poetic language'. 35 On antithesis in Bernart generally see Bee,' L'Antithese poetique'; and in 'Tant ai' Monson, 'Bernart', pp. 388-9. 36 On the use of complex rhyme schemes to prohibit mouvance and fix formal structure in the canso, see Van Vleck, Memory, pp. 102-26 and on 'Tant ai', pp. 119-21. On the relationship between form and content in ' Tant ai' see Lazar's comments in his edition, pp. 31-2. 37 Jakobson,'Linguistics and poetics', pp. 47-8. 38 On the semantics of desnaturar see Kaehne, Studien, 1, pp. 115-17. 39 The claim I am making here is a limited one. Since the canso is a leisure activity the role it may have played in the negotiations of status is not as great as that of homage, wealth, marriage or violence. However, as a cultural activity which lent itself to repetition, the symbolic value of the performance of cansos may have been considerable. 40 See Paden, 'Introduction', pp. 24-5. The number of trobairitz recognized as authentic varies from scholar to scholar: compare Zufferey, 'Towards a delimitation'; Chambers, 'Las trobairitz soiseubudas'; and Paden, 'Checklist'. The most exhaustive survey, however, is Rieger's in her edition, see Trobairitz, pp. 68-91; Rieger defines a corpus of 46 tensos, partimens, coblas, cansos and sirventes. 41 See, for example, Russ, How to Suppress Women's Writing. 42 De Riquer, Los trovadores, 1, p. 506 and Pattison in his edition of Raimbaut a" Orange, p. 157, argue tensos with a female voice were written entirely by men. The point seems to be that the stanzas attributed to women are too witty or clever to have been written by a woman. Chambers, 'Las trobairitz soiseubudas\ pp. 48-53, defers to their authority; Nappholz, ' (Re)locating', p. 128, criticizes Chambers's methods for discarding female authorship. Most recently Poe, 'A dispassionate look' argues a number of trobairitz poems were written by men. 43 For Butler, Gender Trouble, pp. 1-6,' woman' is a category feminists have needed to appropriate, but which is constructed in and by dominant culture; one's identity is always determined more by the culture in which one participates than by oneself. For some ecriture feminine represents a way of stepping outside phallogocentric

Notes to pages 159-64

44

45 46

47 48

49

317

discourse, but ecriture feminine is not necessarily the preserve of women. On ecriture feminine see Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics, pp. 151—73 and Cornell, Beyond Accommodation, pp. 165-96. Huchet, 'Les Femmes troubadours'; Bee, '« Trobairitz »'. Earnshaw, Female Voice, p. 155, is perhaps close to Huchet and Bee when she argues that the trobairitz songs reflect fictional female voices within the Occitan tradition (such as that of Marcabru's pastorela, ed. Dejeanne, poem 30). A contrary view is represented by Ferrante, 'Notes towards the study', who seeks to distinguish the rhetoric of the trobairitz from that of the troubadours and therefore to suggest that the women have a distinctive use of language in the canso; Ferrante shows (in my view rightly) that the trobairitz^ language is more tentative, with more negatives and subjunctives, than that of the troubadours and that they address the love object directly more often. On the subject position of the trobairitz see also Kay, Subjectivity, pp. 101-2. Bruckner, 'Fictions', pp. 867 and 890-1; Gravdal, 'Metaphor', p. 413. The need to consider the trobairitz in relation to the troubadours is also stressed by Hurley, 'Justifying the male', p. 26. On the notion of a ' golden age' for women in Occitania see Aurell I Cardona, 'La Deterioration du statut', pp. 19-23, whose views are taken up by Paden, 'Introduction', p. 11 and Bruckner, 'Fictions', p. 868. This view is analogous to Kasten's that the elevation of women in the troubadours reflects the comparative power of women in Occitania (Frauendienst, pp. 64-70), though for Kasten the canso is a game in which reward for literary rather than amorous service is elicited (pp. 188-201). Bloch, Medieval Misogyny, pp. 165-97, suggests a connection between Jin9 amor in the troubadours' cansos and women's rights in property in Occitania, which he argues were better than elsewhere in Europe. However, Paterson, World, p. 228, offers a cautionary note about such generalizations; women's rights in property may see slight improvements in some periods, but only a minority ever exercised real power. See also note 29 above. Quotations are from Rieger's Trobairitz except for Castelloza's cansos. Poems are identified using Rieger's numbering, except for Castelloza's songs where references to Rieger will be given in notes. See Raimon Jordan, ed. Kjellman, pp. 61-3; de Riquer, Los trovadores, 1, p. 576. Asperti rejects the attribution to Raimon on the grounds that it is clearly the work of a trobairitz, see Raimon Jordan, ed. Asperti, pp. 118-19. The poem is probably late twelfth century. See Cercamon, ed. Tortoreto, poem 6, 19-24; on these lines as an

318

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51

52

53

54

55 56

Motes to pages 164-g

attack on Marcabrunian misogyny see my 'Marginal men', p. 64. On the trobairitz's attack on Marcabru's misogyny see Harvey, Marcabru, p. 19. On Cs interest in satiric songs see Picchio Simonelli, Lirica moralistica, p. 20; C contains a large number of unicae, many of which are satirical. I do not agree with Kendrick's view of C as a particularly playful manuscript, see Troubadour Wordplay, pp. 51-2. The tensos between men and women are none the less interesting in relation to the issues raised in this chapter. In some poems (often those initiated by men), a relatively misogynistic view of women emerges and it is hard not to suspect that the female parts are the work of male poets (see Kay, Subjectivity, p. 102); in others, notably those initiated by trobairitz, women seem concerned to demystify men's use of language in the canso, see particularly the tensos involving Maria de Ventadorn and Isabella (9 and 10 respectively in Rieger). In two exchanges initiated by women, the female voice adopts a deconstructive strategy towards male language: the tenso between Raimbaut de Vaqueiras and a Genoesa (Rieger, 21) and the exchange of coblas between Lombarda and Bernart Arnaut d'Armagnac (Rieger, 8). On the former see my 'Sexual difference'; on the latter see Kay, 'Derivation', pp. 169-72, Sankovitch, 'Lombarda's reluctant mirror', and Rieger, Trobairitz, pp. 247-54. Gravdal, 'Metaphor', p. 420 also comments on the issue of a woman's right to speak (in relation to Castelloza); her views complement mine. See also Hurley, 'Justifying the male', p. 37, on Castelloza and self-expression. See Sakari, 'Azalais de Porcairagues: \tjoglar\ The relationship between Azalais's canso and Raimbaut's corpus is generally accepted, see Rieger, Trobairitz, pp. 495-502 and Kay, Subjectivity, pp. 104-6; Kay draws convincing parallels between Azalais's canso and specific poems by Raimbaut. The nightingale is particularly frequent in Bernart de Ventadorn, see my Troubadours, p. 214 note 35; see also Peire d'Alvernhe's 'Rossinhol el seu repaire', ed. del Monte, poem 1. Gravdal, 'Metaphor', p. 418, also comments on the significance of the muteness of nature in the opening stanza of Azalais's canso. Kay takes ric as only a marker of rank and status, but compare Marcabru, 2Obis, 27, where the expression rics gaps is used. On Raimbaut's gaps see Gaunt, Troubadours, pp. 138-43. Whether it is better for a lady to love a poor or a rich man is the subject of a tenso between Alfonso II of Aragon and Giraut de Borneil, see Giraut de Borneil, ed. Sharman, poem 58; to a certain

Notes to pages 169-jj

57

58 59

60

61

319

extent Azalais's mistrust of rich men echoes Giraut's views in this poem. Raimbaut d'Aurenga is attacked in similar vein by the anonymous trobairitz with whom he dialogues in the tenso 'Amies en gran cossirier' (Rieger, 20). Earlier scholars had taken the trobairitz in the tenso to be the Comtessa de Dia, but this view has been discredited. Sakari, 'Azalais de Porcairagues: interlocutrice', see particularly p. 436, wonders whether the trobairitz in this tenso and Azalais are not one and the same woman; Rieger, Trobairitz, pp. 410-17 discusses the problem of the identification of the female voice in 'Amies' at some length. On lauzengiers see Cocco, Lauzengier and Baumgartner, 'Trouveres'. On Castelloza's poetry see Bruckner 'Na Castelloza' and 'Fictions', pp. 883-90; Dronke, 'The Provencal trobairitz Castelloza'; Gravdal, 'Metaphor', pp. 416-20; and Van Vleck, 'Tost me trobaretz fenida'. On Castelloza as a masochist see Siskin and Storme,' Suffering love' and Paden et aL,' The poems', pp. 166-7; Siskin and Storme also put the view that Castelloza constructs and deconstructs a female subject position. I refer to Paden et al.'s edition of this poem and in many respects follow their translation ('The poems', pp. 170-3). Paden et aL edit Castelloza's songs from manuscript JV, whereas Rieger bases her texts on A. For 'Amic s'ie-us trobes' at least, JV offers a more interesting text, particularly in line 37, a key line for my reading. In Rieger this line reads: 'em cuig ades alegrar e gauzir'. The poem is number 29 in Rieger. Bruckner, 'Fictions', p. 885, note 61, is critical of Paden et al.'s use of JVin their edition and prefers the readings of A for this poem (p. 888, note 69); for Bruckner JV gives a more sombre note to the song, but she does not examine the implications of this. Compare the tenso between Bernart de Ventadorn and Peire (possibly Peire d'Alvernhe), in Bernard de Ventadour, ed. Lazar, 28, 29-34. Bernart playfully renounces his usual position and suggests women should court men, using the verb prejar (28). Peire replies that it is unfitting for women to beseech men: ' Bernartz, so non es d'avinen / que domnas preyon; ans cove / c'om las prec e lor clam merce' (29-31: 'Bernart, it is not becoming for women to beseech men; rather it is fitting that a man beseeches them and begs mercy of them'). On this tenso see Gaunt, Troubadours, pp. 118-19. Shapiro, 'The Provencal trobairitz', p. 563, also draws attention to the parallel between this tenso and Castelloza's poetry. Bruckner, ibid., p. 886 comments on lines 18-19 of Castelloza's poem, but

320

Notes to pages 177-85

seems to relate them to action rather than discourse; Gravdal, 'Metaphor', p. 420 comments on Castelloza's anxiety about language. 62 On this point see also Shapiro, ibid., p. 570. Shapiro's essay is an excellent introduction to the trobairitz from a feminist perspective. 63 On this point see also Siskin and Storme, 'Suffering love', p. 116. 64 Compare Poems 11 1—19 and 37-54 (Rieger, 30), in 21-30 (Rieger

30-

4

SAINTS, SEX AND COMMUNITY: HAGIOGRAPHY

1 See, for example, Heffernan, Sacred Biography, p. 22 and pp. 39-67; compare, however, his comments on p. 257 regarding vernacular hagiography as a church counter-attack on the ideals of profane literature. On Latin hagiography see also Goodich, Vita perfecta, pp. 1-47 and Vauchez, La Saintete en Occident, pp. 39-67. On medieval saints (as opposed to texts about them) see Vauchez, 'Le Saint'. 2 Geertz, 'Religion'; see also Bynum, 'Complexity of symbols'. 3 See Uitti, Story, p. 26 and 'The clerkly narrator', p. 396; also Cazelles, Lady, pp. 13-14. On the notion of'textual community' see also Stock, Implications of Literacy, pp. 88-240 and pp. 68-73 o n hagiography. On collective mentalities in hagiography, see Schulenberg, 'Saints' lives', p. 309 and de Certeau, Writing, p. 272. Also of interest is Vitz, 'From the oral to the written', pp. 100-1 on the 'voice' behind the hagiographical text. 4 The relationship between hagiography and romance is stressed by a number of critics, for example: Cazelles, ibid., pp. 16-18; Hurley, 'Saints' legends'; Wogan-Browne, 'Saints' lives', pp. 324-5. On hagiography and the chansons de geste see Zaal, A lei francesca; Cingolani, 'Wace agiografo', pp. 122-4 and 'Agiografia'. On hagiography and the canso see Gaunt, 'Si les anges'. Leupin, Barbarolexis, p. 40 suggests hagiography has no generic specificity and should be classified as a 'non-genre', but it is hard to see how this view could be sustained given clear thematic (and in the twelfth century formal) similarities between hagiographical texts. 5 Herlihy, 'Did women have a renaissance?' and Medieval Households, pp. 113-14 offers a positive interpretation of the figures regarding the increase in female saints; following Vauchez, La Saintete, p. 243, he talks of the ' feminization' of sainthood. But for more measured analyses see Schulenberg, 'Sexism' and 'Female sanctity', and Bynum, Jesus as Mother, p. 137 (the source of my figures). On the proportion of Old French texts about women see

Notes to pages 185-6

6 7

8

9

10

11 12

321

Gazelles and Johnson, Le Vain Siecle, p. 38, note 19 and appendix; also Cazelles, ibid., p. 30. Uitti, 'Women saints', pp. 263-4 argues for a positive representation of women through virgin martyrs in vernacular hagiography. On Mariology see Gold, Lady, pp. 43-75. The seminal account of virginity and sexual renunciation in early Christianity is Brown, Body and Society, it emerges from Brown's account that in the early Church the sexual renunciation of men was as symbolically central as that of women. On the Middle Ages see pp. 428-47. Bloch, Medieval Misogyny, pp. 93-112, offers a lucid account of the idea of female virginity. For women saints who are not virgins, see pp. 213-28 on Marie l'Egyptienne. Amongst extant Old French lives there are only two texts devoted to married women, both thirteenth century: Elizabeth and Paula, see Cazelles, Lady, pp. 151—71 and 274-88. As Wogan-Browne notes, 'Clerc u lai', p. 63, married women do not appear as saints until the late thirteenth century. Cazelles, ibid., p. 36, argues they are clearly less popular than virgin martyrs. For the text see Historical French Reader, ed. Studer and Waters, pp. 26-7. On the lengths to which women in texts (and in real life) would go to protect their virginity see Schulenberg,' The heroics of virginity'. On the spirit / flesh dichotomy see Bynum, '... And woman his humanity'. As Robertson, 'The corporeality', argues a woman's sanctity could only be realized through her body. On reproduction as the only justification for sex see Brown, Body and Society, p. 438 and Brundage, Law, p. 240. This view of sexual activity was not, however, universally held in the Middle Ages. Brundage, Law, p. 203, notes that a number of writers (including Abelard) in the twelfth century argued sexual desire was natural, and not sinful. Cadden, Meanings, pp. 260-71 shows how medical texts enter into a dialectic with religious and secular discourses of virginity by suggesting it is unhealthy to abstain from sex. Bloch, Medieval Misogyny, p. 93; Heffernan, Sacred Biography, pp. 242 and 276. But as Brown demonstrates throughout Body and Society privileging sexual renunciation as a means to salvation draws attention to sexuality and makes for profoundly sexual individuals. See Altman, 'Two types of opposition'; Elliot, Roads, pp. 16-18. For the use of terms 'epic' and 'romance' in relation to hagiography see the critics cited in the previous note. On vernacular hagiography as a contestation of other vernacular genres see Aston, 'The saint in medieval literature', p. xxxix;

322

Notes to pages 186-gi

Dembowksi, 'Literary problems', pp. 119-22; Cazelles and Johnson, Le Vain Siecle, p. 192; Heffernan, Sacred Biography, p. 257. Cazelles, Lady, pp. 16—18 argues vernacular hagiography disparages epic paradigms and aligns itself with romance. 13 The most comprehensive study on the relationship between early chansons de geste and hagiography remains Zaal, A leifrancesca; but see also Gingolani,' Wace agiografo', pp. 122-4 an<^ ' Agiografia'. From the early twelfth century vernacular hagiographers used the octosyllabic rhyming couplet, the form of romance. A notable exception is La Vie de Sainte Euphrosine (c. 1200), which uses a form reminiscent of the epic laisse. On the relationship between this text and the chanson de geste and on its treatment of sexuality, see my 'Straight minds'. 14 I refer to Hoepffner and Alfaric's edition. 15 'The power of discourse', p. 53 and Roads to Paradise, pp. 186-7. 16 On insular hagiography written for women, see Wogan-Browne, 'Saints' lives', p. 314 and 'Clerc u lai', pp. 61-2. Legge, AngloNorman in the Cloisters, p. 51 comments on the lack of continental counterparts. 17 Giving up one's life on a crusade may have been viewed as analogous to martyrdom, whilst public executions (including for heresy) must have been commonplace in towns. Wogan-Browne, 'Saints' lives', pp. 316-17, makes useful analogies between virgin martyr narratives and the experience of Christina of Markyate, who was forcibly betrothed by her parents. 18 On the female saint as part of an ' exchange' see Cazelles, Lady, p. 80. See also Bloch, Medieval Misogyny, p. 90, where he argues, borrowing a formulation from Levi-Strauss that woman as a category is used 'as a tool to think with'. In a note to this Bloch cites Rubin, 'Traffic in women' (p. 234 note 92), but he does not appear to have taken on board Rubin's critique of Levi-Strauss, on which see above p. 14. 19 I refer to Jeanroy's edition in 'La Vie provengale de Sainte Marguerite'. 20 I refer to Francis's edition. For a stimulating commentary on the text see Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, pp. 38-41. The story of Margaret was extraordinarily popular in France. One version (Cazelles' G) has survived in over one hundred manuscripts (see Cazelles, Lady, p. 217). 21 I refer to Suwe's edition (only one volume published of two announced). 22 I refer to Storey's edition. 23 On this point see Vitz, Medieval Narrative, pp. 132-3; she argues Alexis subjects his desires to God's, making Him the ultimate

Motes to pages igi-6

24 25 26

27

28 29

30 31

323

subject of the text. See also Cazelles and Johnson, Le Vain Siecle, p. 42 who suggest chastity is not symbolically central to the text. On the role of the bride in Alexis, see the important comments of Uitti, Story, pp. 41-54; on marriage generally in hagiography see Glasser, 'Marriage in medieval hagiography'. Glasser suggests that marriage is viewed more positively in hagiography after about 1150, but that the rejection of marriage by virgin martyrs is none the less constant (pp. 6-7). As Glasser (pp. 16-17) argues, Alexis's first act of saintliness is his rejection of marriage, but it is not his most memorable act. As Robertson, 'Corporeality', p. 272 observes, sexual temptation is one temptation amongst many for male saints, but it is the only one for female saints. In Alexis's case other temptations would be wealth and pride. I refer to Brunei's edition. See Gouiran, 'Les Saints' and Durling, 'Hagiography'. On the subversion of the biological family in Christian discourses, see also Goody, Development, p. 94. See Gaunt, 'Marginal men', pp. 56-9; Duby, Medieval Marriage, p. 17 and Male Moyen Age, pp. 16-17; Goody, ibid., p. 159; L'Hermite-Leclerq, 'L'Ordre feodal', pp. 231-9; Sheehan, 'Choice of marriage partner'. On the interpretation of the Song of Songs in the Middle Ages see Matter, Voice; on the sponsa Christi motif as a means of defining women in relation to their marital status see Wogan-Browne, 'Clerc u lai', p. 65. Paterson, World, pp. 241-9; Shahar, Fourth Estate, pp. 29-30 and 42-3. Shahar, pp. 22-64 is an excellent account of female monasticism. As Wogan-Browne points out ('Queens', p. 17 and 'Clerc u lai', p. 65), nunneries were populated by widows, repudiated wives and otherwise unwanted women as well as virgins. Shahar, ibid., p. 42 makes the same point and notes that some women were forced to enter nunneries. As both scholars point out some nuns had been extremely high ranking married noble women before taking the veil. I cite the text as translated in Medieval English Prose for Women, ed. Millett and Wogan-Browne, pp. 2-43. This is certainly the implication of the evidence marshalled by Paterson in World, pp. 241-9. See also Smith 'Robert of Abrissel'. Smith suggests that contrary to popular belief Robert d'Abrissel was probably rather indifferent to the whole question of female monasticism; the implication of this is that the impetus for the expansion of Fontevraud came from women. On the attitude of male orders to nuns see Shahar, ibid., pp. 34-7.

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Notes to pages ig6-20j

32 Compare Heffernan, Sacred Biography, pp. 231-99, particularly p. 265, where it is implied that hagiographical texts, and particularly narratives of virgin martyrs, are subversive. See also Uitti, 'Women saints', p. 265, who argues women saints testify to a 'new optimism' and a 'vernacular hope'. 33 'The virgin's tale', p. 174. On the dismemberment of virgins and particularly the significance of severed breasts, see Heffernan, ibid., pp. 281-3; Heffernan raises the possibility that 'a segment of the audience took conscious pleasure in these scenes' (p. 276), but then retreats from it. 34 See Brundage, Law, pp. 227-8; Duby, Medieval Marriage, p. 17; Gaunt, 'Marginal men', pp. 56-9; Goody, Development, pp. 134-46; Herlihy, Medieval Households, p. 61; see also the comments above, pp. 76-7 on exogamy and endogamy in romance. 35 See Guerreau-Jalabert, 'Sur les structures de la parente' and 'Inceste et saintete', pp. 1302-3; Durling, 'Hagiography and lineage', pp. 458-66; and particularly in relation to maternal imagery, Bynum, Jesus as Mother, pp. 110-69. For a critique of Bynum's reading of maternal imagery, however, see Biddick, 'Genders', pp. 397-8. 36 On the way in which spiritual kinship might offer an emotional substitute for biological kinship see Herlihy, Medieval Households, p. 115; on spiritual kinship generally see Goody, Development, pp. 94 and 194-204. 37 This is the view of Goody throughout Development, but see in particular pp. 154-6. For Goody the Church is engaged in a conscious strategy of acquiring property through the subversion of lay kinship structures, see particularly pp. 103-56. Brundage, Law, pp. 506-7, questions Goody's interpretation of the evidence. But even if the Church's strategy was not deliberate, the relationship between hagiographical discourses of sexual renunciation, spiritual kinship and property are clear. See my 'Straight minds' and Wogan-Browne, 'Clerc u lai', p. 65: 'hagiography is less important in providing models of domestic comportment for women, than in its contribution to the politics of genealogical and property transactions'. 38 I refer to Sol's edition; Sol gives diplomatic texts of all the manuscripts and critical editions of two versions. I quote from his critical edition of Av On other versions see Sol, Saint Gregoire, p. xi. In addition to Sol's work on the Old French texts see Prey, ' L'Archetype' and Payen, Repentir, pp. 104-7. O n t n e Gregorius legend in the Middle Ages see Boswell, Kindness, pp. 373-5. On incest generally in medieval literature see Archibald, 'Incest'. 39 For example see Abelard's Ethics (ed. Luscombe), pp. 28-33 and

Notes to pages 203-14

40 41

42 43 44 45

46 47

48 49

50

325

40-7. Interestingly one of Abelard's examples is brother-sister incest when the two parties are unaware who his/her partner is (pp. 26-7): he argues they are not sinning even though they are transgressing. Abelard's views are reflected by Heloise in her letters on a number of occasions, for example see trans. Radice, p. 115:' Wholly guilty though I am, I am also, as you know, wholly innocent. It is not the deed but the intention of the doer which makes the crime, and justice should weigh not what was done but the spirit in which it was done.' The scholastic debate about the role of intention in sin has a demonstrable influence on some vernacular texts, for example BerouPs Tristan, on which see Hunt, ' Abelardian ethics'. This is particularly true of the rapes in the Roman de Renart, on which see Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, pp. 72-103; on rape in medieval law see pp. 122-40. The use ofviolee here is apparently unusual for the period (Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, p. 2), the usual verb being esforder, but the meaning here is clear. Godefroy, 10,860 defines violer as 'porter atteinte a' with examples of violer, 'to rape' from Middle French. In La Vie de Sainte Euphrosine (ed. Hill), 96 violee is equivocal and could denote rape. See Brundage, Law, pp. 189-90; Duby, Medieval Marriage, pp. 91-2; Goody, Development, pp. 146-51. Polak, Cliges, pp. 50-60; McCracken, 'Body politic', pp. 45-56, who considers the implications of Fenice's behaviour for succession. For example see Flamenca, 1416-21 and 1795-1800. It is important to note, however, that as social categories chevalerie and clergie were not discrete since individuals passed back and forth between them (like Gregory) and individuals in religious orders inevitably began their lives in secular society. Witness the penitentials, on which see Brundage, Law, pp. 152-69. See Vitz, Medieval Narrative, pp. 130-1 and Uitti, 'Clerkly narrator', p. 396. An excellent example of the conflation of the audience's with the hagiographer's subject position is the prologue to the Chanson de Sainte Foi, on which see Work,' Song of Saint Fides', PP- 37O-3Women no doubt also read lives of male saints, see WoganBrowne,' Clerc u lai', pp. 68-70. It is hard, however, to locate any erotic interest for them; see my 'Straight minds'. All the Old French versions except Rutebeuf's are in La Vie de Sainte Marie, ed. Dembowski. On texts in other languages see pp. 9-10; on the Greek and Latin traditions see Ward, Harlots of the Desert. See Dembowski (ed.) ibid., pp. 21-4; Gazelles, 'Modele ou

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55 56

57

58 59 60 61

62

Notes to pages 214-25

mirage'; Gazelles and Johnson, Le Vain Siecle, pp. 277-83; Cazelles, Lady, p. 250; Nash, 'Rutebeuf's contribution', pp. 696-7; Robertson, 'Poem and spirit', p. 312. All quotations are from Dembowski; I am taking T and 0 as representative of the two traditions on the basis of his assessment of the texts. On the Virgin as mediatrix see Leclercq, Women, pp. 90-5. On saints as mediators see Cazelles and Johnson, Le Vain Siecle, pp. 166-91. Wogan-Browne, 'Clerc u lai', p. 64. This view is consistent with Robertson's view of the corporeality of woman saints, see 'Corporeality'. On Marie's career as a harlot see Karras, ' Holy harlots'; Karras shows how Marie is blameworthy because she has sex for enjoyment, not for money (pp. 8-9). For Karras the eroticism of Marie VEgyptienne is not positive (p. 31), but I would suggest that the response to the opening passages of the narrative would have been more complex than outright condemnation. Compare Robertson, 'Poem and spirit', pp. 314-15, who argues that the poet of T delights in his descriptions of Marie's debauchery. On courtly language in Marie VEgyptienne, see Cazelles, Lady, p. 32 and Swanberg, 'Oraisons\ p. 66. This point is made particularly well by Robertson, 'Poem and spirit', pp. 320-1; he highlights specific rhetorical reversals in the descriptions of Marie before and after her redemption. By implication Zozimas and the monks become analogues to the 'clerkly narrator' as witnesses to Marie's sanctity, even providing a written text; see Uitti, 'Clerkly narrator', p. 393. It is not uncommon in hagiography to have a clerical witness as a character within the text. Most famously, in La Vie de Saint Alexis, Alexis becomes his own clerical witness through the charte he leaves for his family explaining who he was; again see Uitti, ibid., p. 396. I shall refer to Rutebeuf: Oeuvres completes, ed. Zink, 1; on Rutebeuf's use of sources from both traditions of the legend of Marie l'Egyptienne see Zink, 1, pp. 397-9; Cazelles, 'Modele ou mirage', pp. 19-22; Nash, 'Rutebeuf's contribution', pp. 697-8. See Cazelles, ibid., p. 21; Regalado, Poetic Patterns, pp. 62-3. See La Griesche anEte, 9-14 and Du Sacristain, 755-60. For example see La Repentance Rutebeuf and Du Sacristain, 760. The best study of Rutebeuf's style remains Regalado, Poetic Patterns, particularly pp. 190-254; but see also Zink, La Subjectivite', pp. 106-25, w n o makes many incisive comments on Rutebeuf's style in his analysis of subjectivity in Rutebeuf's work. Zink, Rutebeuf, 1, p. 497 note 17; Oeuvres completes de Rutebeuf, ed. Faral and Bastin, 11, p. 54 note. Faral and Bastin quote an

Notes to pages 225-34

327

analogous passage from Gautier de Coinci. Cazelles, 'Modele', p. 21 comments that Rutebeuf s annomatio' assure, de fait, le serieux du poeme'. 63 An alternative explanation is that Rutebeuf is operating a gender reversal not uncommon in devotional texts: Marie is able to become the Virgin's bridegroom, just as men would describe themselves or other men as ' Brides of Christ' or Jesus himself as mother. See Bynum, Jesus as Mother, pp. 110-69 a n d Holy Feast, pp. 283-4. 64 Wogan-Browne, 'Saints' lives', pp. 327-9 and 'Clerc u lai', pp. 67-8.1 refer to Macbain's edition. There is little critical writing on Clemence, but apart from Wogan-Browne see Cazelles and Johnson, Le Vain Siecle, pp. 130-3 and 218-23; Legge, AngloNorman Literature, p p . 66—72 and Anglo-Norman in the Cloisters,

pp. 48-51. 65 A number of texts by trobairitz are addressed to other women, see Rieger, Trobairitz, poems 28 and 43. Consider also the two other saints' lives by English nuns, on which see Wogan-Browne's ' Clerc ulai', pp. 65-73. 5

GENITALS, GENDER AND MOBILITY! THE FABLIAUX

1 Bedier, Les Fabliaux', Nykrog, Les Fabliaux', Bloch, Scandal, p . 19.

Since the publication of Nykrog's study in 1957, fabliau criticism has been dominated by reactions to his thesis, which is devoted to a relentless refutation of Bedier's. As others have pointed out, Bedier's views are far more nuanced than Nykrog suggests, whilst Nykrog himself is over-systematic and insensitive to the pleasures afforded by reading fabliaux. It is ironic that a book so out of sympathy with the texts it studies should have gained such an influential position in modern criticism. For illustrations of Nykrog's negative views of the texts see p. 141 ('le lettre non medieviste qui s'y serait fourvoye une fois dans sa recherche de beautes litteraires, n'y reviendrait probablement pas') and p. 241 (where the fabliaux are said to be an unfortunate residue of the primitivisme de la veille, standing in the way of the delicatesse a venir).

Although many fabliaux parody courtly culture, Nykrog's monolithic reading of the genre in these terms fails to deal with many of the complexities of the texts. For cogent critiques of Nykrog see Boutet, Les Fabliaux, pp. 39-46; Cooke, Fabliaux, pp. 142-6; Lyons, 'Avoir', pp. 56-66; Muscatine, Fabliaux, pp. 24-39. Bedier and Nykrog, amongst others, produce tables of fabliaux, but no two lists are identical. 2 Nykrog finds the fabliaux profoundly misogynistic:' le fabliau nous

328

Notes to pages 234-5

decrit la femme comme fille d'Eve a la difference du conte noble qui aime a la faire figurer comme consoeur de la Vierge' (Les Fabliaux, pp. 227-8). Other critics take a more nuanced view, recognizing that women often get the better of men and have skills the writers of fabliaux admire. See notably Cooke, ibid., p. 120; Lacy, 'Fabliau women'; Lorcin, Fagons de sentir, p. 180; Muscatine, ibid., p. 104; Pearcey, 'Sentence', p. 268. For an excellent feminist account see Johnson, 'Women on top'. 3 For instance see Schenck, Fabliaux, who argues a fabliau must contain a misdeed and then discards texts which do not, even if such texts are contained in fabliau manuscripts or called fabliaux within the text (see particularly p. 63). Schenck seems to see no value in exploring why the boundaries around the fabliaux might be fluid, or in investigating how they might dialogue with other genres. On the other hand the working definition she offers of a fabliau is useful, even if it fails to account for some texts: 'a fabliau is a brief narrative poem with a tripartite macrostructure whose narrative is a humorous, even ribald, story arranged to teach a lesson. The narratives appear to be specifically about trickery and changes in fortune; the moral reflections in the conclusions contain warnings about deception and a secular system of punishments' ( P . 36). 4 Dronke, 'Rise of the medieval fabliau', particularly pp. 61-5. Dronke is interested in origins, relating the fabliaux to Latin texts, but his approach to the relationship between different discourses in the vernacular is none the less useful. 5 Muscatine, Fabliaux, pp. 24-46 and Lyons, 'Avoir', but see particularly pp. 62-71; for Lyons the narrative dynamic of the fabliaux stems from the depiction of competing strategies. This approach is suggested but not developed by a number of other critics, see Boutet, Fabliaux, pp. 90-1 and Lorcin, Fagons de sentir, p. i n . Of particular interest in this respect is Kasprzyk's astute article, 'Pour la sociologie', which shows how fabliau plots can be adapted to suit different social contexts, on which see pp. 276-84. See also Charmaine Lee's intelligent study, ' I fabliaux', particularly pp. 30-41, which relates thefabliaux's use of parody to their representation of class, arguing the texts are a manifestation of carnival. Muscatine {ibid., pp. 165-6) and Lyons, {ibid., pp. 213-39), however, advocate caution in any application of Bakhtin's idea of carnival to the fabliaux. 6 See Lyons, ibid., p. 210: 'the fabliaux's interest in gender conflict and power relations is not founded in a desire to improve women's position... the inequalities between men and women are simply

Notes to pages 235-g

329

another area in which choice of strategy can make itself felt'. Thus ' fabliaux are not really interested in groups of people, or even individuals. What concerns them is the constant capacity for change which undermines all stable power structures'. Lyons concludes 'regardless of whether anything we could call feminism ever crosses the fableors' minds, the texts' potential for some kind of feminist reading is considerable'. 7 Wherever possible I shall quote from and refer to the critical texts in the new complete edition of the fabliaux, of which seven volumes have been published: the Nouveau Recueil Complet des Fabliaux, full details of which are in the bibliography. I shall refer to this edition as NRCF; references will give the volume, followed by the number of the text in the NRCF's 'inventaire des fabliaux' (1, pp. xv-xviii, and other volumes), followed by the page numbers of the complete critical edition. (The NRCF offers diplomatic texts, as well as a critical text, and an introduction to each fabliau; notes to the texts are at the end of each volume and will be referred to separately when relevant.) Where an edition of a text has not yet appeared in the NRCF, I shall refer where possible to the Recueil general et complet des fabliaux des XIIF et XIVe siecles, using the abbreviation ' M R ' and giving volume and page numbers only, since line numbers are only given at the head of each page. Where a fabliau is only available in MR, I will also give the NRCF number from the 'inventaire'. In the rare instances where a text is available neither in the NRCF nor in MR, references to the edition used will be given separately in notes; I will also indicate when a text other than the critical text of the NRCF is used. 8 On the three orders see Duby, Three Orders. A similarly ahistorical view of social organization is apparent in Le Mystere d? Adam, ed. Studer, where feudal structures are represented as preceding the Fall, see lines 105-12. 9 On the fabliaux's lack of respect for the three orders see Lorcin, Faxons de sentir, p. 160 and for a commentary on Les Putains, Muscatine, Fabliaux, p. 37. Schenck {Fabliaux, p. 62) argues this text is not a fabliau though it is so designated in the text (80) and survives in a fabliau anthology (the NRCF's manuscript B: Berne, Bibliotheque de la Bourgeoisie, 354). 1 o Rutebeuf has not generally been considered a giftedfableor. Nykrog (Fabliaux, pp. 169-70), for instance, thinks his fabliaux are fdcheux and insipides, because 'au moment oil Rutebeuf composait ses fabliaux, il etait en train de manquer sa vie'! For a more balanced, though still less than enthusiastic appreciation, see Limentani, ' I fabliaux di Rutebeuf, and on Le Pet in particular, pp. 94-7.

330

Notes to pages 241-52

11 On this text see Bloch, Scandal, p. 65; Burns, Bodytalk, pp. 57-8; Lyons, 'Avoir', pp. 113-14; and particularly White, 'Sexual language', pp. 204-5. 12 Bloch, ibid., p. 44; Cooke, Fabliaux, p. 88; Limentani, * I fabliaux di RutebeuP, pp. 91-2; Lyons, ibid., pp. 46-50. However, these critics do not read the proverbs in relation to the text's denouement. 13 Pearcey, 'Source'. Pearcey points out that the vernacular life is preserved in the same manuscript as one of the Old French versions of Marie VEgyptienne Rutebeuf probably used as a source for his own Marie rEgyptienne, (version T, examined above pp. 214-19). On Sainte Euphrosine see my 'Straight minds'. 14 See Zink's edition, Rutebeuf, 1, p. 495, note 9. 15 On the pun on traiz see NRCF, vi, p. 315, note to line. 16 See Gender Trouble, pp. 31 and 134-9, and above p. 14; see also Butler, Bodies, pp. 12-16 and 105-9. 17 Compare the similar ambiguity produced in the Roman de Silence and La Vie de Sainte Euphrosine, on which see my 'Straight minds'. This is what Garber calls 'the transvestite effect', see Vested Interests, pp. 36-7. As Garber writes: 'transvestism is a space of possibility structuring and confounding culture: the disruptive element

that intervenes, not just a category crisis of male and female, but the crisis of category itself (p. 17). Following Butler {Gender Trouble, pp. 1-7, I would understand the categories 'male' and 'female' here as discursive, but unlike Bloch I would seek to retain a sense of their materiality. 18 I refer to the edition in Fabliaux erotiques, ed. Rossi and Straub, pp. 19 The themes of disguise and mistaken identity are reminiscent of the Tristan romances; the battle scene is reminiscent of the chanson degeste; the 'miracle' of the immaculate conception is a humorous and scurrilous play on the belief in miracles evinced in religious texts like hagiographical narratives. The scene in which the king copulates with Trubert's purse may recall the scene in Chretien's Cliges in which Alix is made to believe he has consummated his marriage, when he has not. On parody in Trubert, see Gravdal, Vilain and Courtois, pp. 113-40. 20 On borse see Godefroy, vm, 343 and TL, 1, 1079; on pendans see Godefroy, vi, 76 and TL, vm, 614. 21 On Floire see above p. 90; on Silence, see Gaunt, 'Significance', p. 208. 22 This is perhaps also the implication of Bloch's analysis, see Scandal, pp. 122-3:' what remains significant is neither the cleverness of the knight's ruse, nor the phenomenon of female castration nor even

Notes to pages 252-g

331

the fact that its victim believes the bull's testicles to be her own, but that castration presented as a ruse engenders submission' (p. 123). Similarly, Leupin, Barbarolexis, pp. 101-3, argues that the text reveals the extent to which power in the tale derives from a symbolic, rather than a natural order. (For Leupin, as for Bloch, sexual difference is ultimately a textual rather than a political matter, see ibid., p. 166). Neither Bloch, nor Leupin exploit their insights on De la Dame in relation to gender politics. Compare White,'Sexual language', pp. 200-2, who offers a reading similar, in some respects, to my own. 23 On this point see Lyons, 'Avoir', p. 205. 24 Burns, Body talk, pp. 39-43. On sexual difference in Berengier see also Bloch, Scandal, pp. 104-5 an<^ Lyons, ibid., pp. 207-8. 25 Examples are legion. Consider Trubert, UEnfant quifu remis au soleil (NRCF, v, 48, pp. 209-21), Estula (NRCF, iv, 38, pp. 345-61), Les Perdris (JVRCF, iv, 21, pp. 1-12) and so on. The distinction between animal and human is constantly problematized in the fabliaux's use of erotic metaphors involving animals, on which see Lyons, ibid., pp. 110-15. 26 Unlike the peasant-knight of Berengier, the stupid knight of Le Sot Chevalier does not actually confuse the anus and the vagina, but he needs to keep repeating to himself that one is long and needs fucking, while the other is short and should be beaten, presumably so as not to forget the distinction he has been taught by his motherin-law. The knight's apprehension of his wife's gender depends on iteration. 27 This episode has obvious parallels with UEsquiriel (NRCF, vi, 58, PP- 33-49)> on which see p. 271. 28 See particularly Irigaray's essay 'Ce sexe qui n'en est pas un', Ce Sexe, pp. 21-32; Burns draws upon Irigaray's theory of women's bodies in her reading of Berengier in Bodytalk. The extent to which Irigaray does (or does not) ground her theory of sexual difference in the body, and consequently the extent to which she is (or is not) essentialist, is of course contested. I myself am persuaded by Patricia Elliot's critique of Irigaray (see From Mastery to Analysis, pp. 147-89, particularly pp. 175-89). Elliot suggests that attempts to read Irigaray's account of the female body metaphorically are recuperative, and that her work should be read, rather, a la lettre, with all the problems this entails, ' not as oppressive or as a theory of oppression, but as a discourse of the oppressed' (p. 184). See also Fuss, Essentially Speaking, pp. 55-72, who argues that responses to Irigaray's work are conditioned by a fear of her essentialism and a failure to realize its political usefulness.

332

Notes to pages 263-jo

29 On the economic metaphor here see White, 'Sexual language', pp. 195-6. 30 On the value of the sum see NRCF, vi, p. 355. Of course, the penis is not the phallus, though patriarchal and heterosexist discourses elide the two; see Rubin, 'Traffic in women5, pp. 190-2. Rubin shows that if men ' have' the phallus, women ' are' the phallus, since the phallus is exchanged through them. The question of who ' has' the phallus in the fabliaux is interesting. As Butler has shown in her essay 'The lesbian phallus' {Bodies that Matter, pp. 57-91): 'if the phallus is an imaginary effect (which is reified as the privileged signifier in the structural order), then its structural place is no longer determined by the logical relation of mutual exclusion entailed by a heterosexist version of sexual difference in which men are said to "have" the phallus and women to " b e " the phallus' (p. 88). In a number of fabliaux women 'have', rather than ' are' the phallus. 31 There is a 'sister' fabliau in which a man fantasizes a market in which vaginas are for sale: Le Moigne, NCRF, 125; see Langfors's edition. 32 Compare the episode in branche ib of the Roman de Renart in which Hersent rejects Isengrin as completely worthless because he has been emasculated. See ed. Dufournet, branche ib, 2702-22. 33 Compare Burns's reading, Bodytalk, p. 57; on gender in this text see also Bloch, Scandal, pp. 75-6; Leupin, Barbarolexis, pp. 100-1; and White, 'Sexual language', pp. 205-6. On the woman's ingenuity see Lyons, 'Avoir', pp. 110-13. 34 On vaginas as mouths in the fabliaux see Burns, ibid., pp. 54-8; she argues throughout her book (rightly in my view) that when women's mouths are silenced in Old French literature, they find ways of communicating with their bodies. However, although I agree with Burns that it is significant that vaginas are frequently figured as mouths in the fabliaux, I find no evidence for her contention that women's mouths become vaginas (p. 55). 35 Lyons, 'Avoir', pp. 41-52, Muscatine, Fabliaux, pp. 101-4 and Nykrog, Fabliaux, pp. 102-3. For Nykrog this is becausefableors are unskilled. 36 Despite their preoccupation with sex, the fabliaux invariably portray straight sex, usually in the missionary position. Contrary to Bloch's assertion that part of the ' scandal' of the fabliaux is a grounding in sodomy (Scandal, p. 50), the texts restrict themselves to orthodox heterosexual practices. (The only text which even hints at sodomy is Le Sot Chevalier, although Trubert gets an eyeful of the Duke's anus and penetrates it with a pair of tweezers.) As Bloch in a later essay writes ('Postface', p. 536): 'il n'y a dans les

Notes to pages 2J0-8

333

fabliaux aucune trace d'homosexualite, de sodomie, de sadisme, de masochisme, de fellation, d'inceste ou de travestisme'. Nykrog reveals more about his own ideas on sex than those of the fableors when he writes 'les indecences que le conteur sait vraiment dangereuses sont absentes de ses contes; il n'aborde ni perversites heterosexuelles, ni homosexuality, ni aucune autre deviation erotique contre nature' (ibid., p. 215), but it is striking that the fabliaux's view of what constitutes acceptable sexual practices seems to coincide with that of penitential literature. 37 This calls to mind Le Chevalier a Vepee, on which see above, pp. 114-20. The fabliaux-like qualities of this text have been noted by a number of critics, for example Nykrog, ibid., pp. 96-7. 38 It is generally accepted that the most likely explanation of the presence of the morals is a parodic generic affiliation with the fable or exemplum, see Nykrog, ibid., p. 102. However, Nykrog's view that this makes the morals redundant or insipid is reductive and disregards the games many poets play by deploying a moral which is inappropriate to the narrative; see Lyons, 'Avoir', pp. 41-52 and Pearcey, 'Sentence'. 39 On discourse as the object, rather than the medium of representation, and the ironic distance this enables see Bakhtin, Esthetique, pp. 99-151. 40 On specific textual similarities between Cele qui sefistfoutre and Tvain, suggestive of direct parody, see NRCF, in, pp. 467-8. 41 See 'Avant propos', NRCF, pp. ix-xiv. For a very few texts the NRCF produces more than one texte critique, for example La Damoisele qui ne pooit oir parler defoutre, see pp. 280-4. Lyons briefly

considers the fabliaux^ textual mobility in relation to their interest in mutability, but she does not develop the argument and offers no sustained comparative readings of different versions of fabliaux, 'Avoir', pp. 24-6. 42 Rychner, Contribution. Volume 1 is a study; volume 11 contains editions of all the texts studied in volume 1 in all their different versions. 43 See pp. 24-5 for my view of Rychner's work on the chanson de geste. Although Rychner has different views of the textuality of chansons de geste and fabliaux, he appears to believe that most manuscript redactions of texts in both genres are corrupt and degradations. 44 Remaniements, p. 39. This is an excellent study of mouvance in one fabliau. 45 Compare particularly the troubadour Marcabru's insistent use of the theme, on which see Gaunt, 'Marginal men', pp. 63-4. 46 Pearcey has argued that Berengier is a parody of the chanson de geste

334

Notes to pages 278-85

rather than courtly romance, see: 'Chansons de geste' and 'An instance of heroic parody'. However, the daily excursions into the forest are strongly reminiscent of romance. In 'Relations between the D and the A versions of Berenger au long cuV, Pearcey offers a critique of Rychner's account of the relations between the manuscript redactions of Berengier, arguing (rightly in my view) that both are remaniements, rather than one representing a version closer to the original than the other. 47 I quote from the NRCF's diplomatic text, adding minimal punctuation; a more critical edition of A is in Rychner, Contribution, 11, pp. 100-9.

48 See Sedgwick, Epistemology, pp. 32-4 on the importance of understanding how different modes of oppression may overlay or counteract each other. The woman is subordinate to her husband until she undermines his position as a man within a certain ethical framework; she then asserts her position as a noble dealing with a vilain. 49 Textual mobility might have been less apparent to the medieval reader since s/he may only have had access to one version of the text, even though s/he would have realized other versions were permissible. 50 Knights in romance seek avantures, even if they do not always find them; for example see Chretien's Tvain, 177. 51 See NRCF, iv, pp. 59-60 and Rychner, Contribution, 1, pp. 84-91; Rychner's edition of D can be found in Contribution, 11, pp. 120-35. For a stimulating reading of La Damoisele, see Lyons, Avoir', pp. 74-752 As Bloch argues {Scandal, p. 90) fabliau characters seem to find it arousing when sex is transformed into a metaphorical narrative. He therefore concludes that narrative itself is the object of desire. 53 Lyons, 'Avoir', pp. 250-1 and 254-5. See also Muscatine, Fabliaux, pp. 35-6, Schenck, Fabliaux, pp. 119-20 and White, 'Sexual language', pp. 185-8. On the rise of a monetary economy, see Murray, Reason, pp. 26-58 on the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and on the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Le Goff, La Civilisation, pp. 222-33. 54 See Murray, ibid., pp. 81-109. Murray illustrates the trajectories of 'social climbers'. He suggests that the growing theoretical rigidity of the Three Orders was in fact a reaction to the way in which class boundaries were being penetrated; the feudal nobility felt threatened by the growth in wealth and power of towns, by the mercantile classes, and by their ennoblement. On the tension between the feudal nobility and towns, see Le Goff, ibid., pp. 269-74.

Note to page 289

335

CONCLUSION

1 The Lais attributed to Marie de France are perhaps the most significant gap in the tour through the canon of Old French and Occitan literature I have undertaken in this book. They raise an array of problems on which modern scholars have been surprisingly reticent, given the daunting body of criticism devoted to them. What is a lai? Are all the lais attributed to 'Marie' in the Harley manuscript, which is used as the basis for modern editions, by the same person? On what grounds is it assumed that the 'Marie' mentioned in the prologue to Guigemar in the Harley manuscript (but in no other Old French source) is the same Marie to whom two other works, the Fables and the Espurgatoire Saint Patrice, are attributed? The Lais appear together in the form modern readers know (that of the Harley manuscript) and with the attribution to 'Marie' in no other Old French source and they are remarkably diverse in structure, style and ethos. Some modern scholars have contested 'Marie de France"s authorship of the Harley Lais; they have shown that the manuscript evidence for such an author is tenuous, arguing that 'Marie de France' is largely a nineteenth-century construct (one scholar calls her a fantome) and that the Lais are better viewed as a scribal compilation. (See Baum, Recherches and Masters, Esthetique, pp. 99-113 and 141-56.) Critics on the whole have preferred to ignore problems of attribution and authorship, and who can blame them ? Why question the existence of one of the very few vernacular women writers we have from the period? But the question of attribution is perhaps less fraught than the question of authorship, and I hope to return in a later study to the significance of the attribution of the Harley Lais to a woman writer and to the treatment of gender in the Lais as a collection.

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(Barcelona, 1990), 11, pp. 433-46 Uitti, Karl D., Story, Myth and Celebration in Old French Narrative Poetry 1050-1200 (Princeton, 1973) 'The clerkly narrator figure in Old French hagiography and romance', MR, 2 (1975), 394~4°8 'Women saints, the vernacular and history in early medieval France', in Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell (Ithaca and London, 1991), pp. 247-67 Uitti, Karl D., and Foulet, Alfred (f), 'On editing Chretien de Troyes: Lancelot's two steps and their context', Speculum, 63 (1988), 271-92 van Emden, Wolfgang G., 'Rolandiana et Oliveriana: faits et hypotheses', Romania, 92 (1971), 507-31 ' Argumentum ex Silentio: an aspect of dramatic technique in the Chanson de Roland', RP, 43 (1989-90), 181-96 ' Some remarks on the Cambridge manuscript of the Rhymed Roland', in The Editor and the Text: In Honour of Anthony J. Holden, ed. Philip E. Bennett and Graham A. Runnalls (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 58-69 Van Vleck, Amelia E., '"Tost me trobaretz fenida": reciprocating composition in the songs of Castelloza', in The Voice of the Trobairitz: Perspectives on the Women Troubadours, ed. William D. Padenjr (Philadelphia, 1989), pp. 95-111 Memory and Re-creation in Troubadour Lyric (Berkeley, 1991)

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(Rome, 1981) 'Le Saint', in LHomme medieval, ed. Jacques le Goff (Paris, 1989), pp.345-80 Vinaver, Eugene, 'La Mort de Roland', CCM, 7 (1964), 133-43 Vitz, Evelyn Birge, Medieval Narrative and Modern Narratology: Subjects

and Objects of Desire (New York and London, 1989) 'Chretien de Troyes: clerc ou menestrel? Problemes des traditions orale et litteraire dans les cours de France au XI I e siecle', Poetique, 81 (1990), 21-42 'From the oral to the written in medieval and renaissance saints' lives', in Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Renate

Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell (Ithaca and London, i990> PP- 9 7 - " 4

W a r d S. L. G., Benedicta, Harlots of the Desert: A Study of Repentance in Early Monastic Sources (Kalamazoo, 1987)

Westoby, Kathryn S., 'Naming the father, naming the bride: woman as object in the Bel Inconnu of Renaut de Beaujeu', unpublished paper 'A new look at the fee in Arthurian romance', in The Spirit of the Court, ed. Glyn S. Burgess and Robert A. Taylor (Cambridge and Woodbridge, 1985), pp. 373-85 White, Sarah Melhado, ' Sexual language and human conflict in Old French Fabliaux', Comparative Studies in Society and History, 24

(1982), 185-210 Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn (olim Jocelyn Price), 'Saints' lives and the female reader', FMLS, 27 (1991), 314-32 ' Queens, virgins and mothers: hagiographic representations of the abbess and her powers in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Britain', in Women and Sovereignty, ed. Louise Fradenburg (Edinburgh, 1992), pp. 14-35 '"Clerc u lai, muine u dame": women and Anglo-Norman hagiography in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries', in Women and Literature in Britain 1150-1500, ed. Carol M . Meale (Cam-

bridge, 1993), pp. 61-85 ' T h e virgin's tale', in Femininst Readings in Middle English Literature: The Wife of Bath and all her Sect, ed. R u t h Evans and Lesley

Johnson, (London and New York, 1994), pp. 165-94 Work, Elizabeth P., 'The eleventh-century Song of Saint Fides: an experiment in vernacular eloquence', RP, 36 (1982-3), 366-85 Zaal, J . B. W., A leifrancesca: Etude sur les chansons de saint gallo-romanes du XIe siecle (Leiden, 1962) Zaddy, Zara P . , ' L e Chevalier de la Charrete and the De Amore\ in Studies

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' Lubias et Belissent dans la chanson d'"Ami et Amile\ in VIIICongresso de la Societe Rencesvals (Pamplona, 1981), pp. 567-74 La Subjectivite litteraire: Autour du siecle de saint Louis (Paris, 1985)

'Chre'tien et ses contemporains', in The Legacy of Chretien de Troyes, ed. Norris J. Lacy, Douglas Kelly and Keith Busby, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1987-8), 1, pp. 5-32 Zufferey, Francois,' Towards a delimitation of the trobairitz corpus', in The Voice of the Trobairitz: Perspectives on the Women Troubadours, ed.

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Index

Abelard, Peter 321 n. 9, 324 n. 39 Alan of Lille 305 n. 17 Alexander III, pope 74, 181 Alfonso II of Aragon 318-19 n. 56 Aliscans 294 n. 5, 302 n. 62 Ami et Amile 44-52, 61-2, 63, 68—9, 83, 88, 137, 286, 306 n. 27 Arnaut Daniel 151 Arnaut de Maruelh 131-4, 143-5, I 5 I Auberi le Bourgignon 44-5 Azalais de Porcairagues 166—9, I7°~I>

Cest de la Dame qui aveine demandoit pour Morel 275 Chanson de Guillaume 25, 64-5, 187, 295 n. 7, 302 n. 61 Chanson de Roland (Chateauroux) 39-40, 299 n. 29 Chanson de Roland (Oxford) 4, 24-38, 51, 61-2, 186-7, 2 86, 295 n. 8, 298 n. 27, 299 n. 29, 305-6 n. 21 Chanson de Roland (Paris) 38-42, 44-5, 61-2, 63, 299 n. 29, 300 n. 32, 305—6 n. 21 Chanson de Roland (Venice 4) 29, 39 Bel Inconnu 103-13, 114, 121, 123, 148—9, Chanson de Sainte Foi ctAgen 187-90, 198, 207, 287, 314 n. 19 325 n. 47 Berengier au lone cul 253-6, 277—80, 333 n. chansons de geste 4, 8, 17, 22-70, 75, 82-3, 46

Bernart Arnaut d'Armagnac 318 n. 51 Bernart de Ventadorn 122-3, I 2 6 , 128—31, 132, 134, 140-2, 146-7, 151-7, 164, 176, 287, 311-12 n. 2, 318 n. 54, 319 n. 61 Beroul, see Tristan Bertran de Bar-sur-Aube, see Girart de Vienne Bertran de Marseille, see Vie de Sainte Enimie Borgoise d'Orliens, De la 255 canso 17, n o , 121, 122-79, *84, J94> 287, 289, 311-12 n. 2, 313 n. 8, 316 n. 39, 320 n. 4 Castelloza 173-9, 319 n. 60 Cele quifufoutue et desfoutue 258 Cele qui sefistfoutre sur la fosse de son mari 2 I

7 » 273-4, 333 n - 4° Cercamon 164, 317-18 n. 49

85-8, 136-7, 149, 184, 186-8, 276, 287, 320 n. 4, 321—2 n. 12, 322 n. 13, 330 n. 19, 333 n. 43, 333-4 n. 46

Chastelain de Coucy 123 Chaucer, Geoffrey 19—20 chevalerie 12, 93—4, 113, 207-12, 237, 278-9, 287, 325 n. 45 Chevalier a Vepee 115-20, 286, 333 n. 37 Chevalier de la Charrete 4, 92-103, 105, 108, 110, 123, 206, 310 n. 59 Chevalier quifistparler les cons, Le 256-7 Chretien de Troyes 76, 92-103, 114, 122, 309 n. 48, 311-12 n. 2 see also Erec et Enide; Clige's; Yvain; Chevalier de la Charrete; Conte du Graal (Perceval) Church, see gender and the Church Clara d'Anduza 178-9 class 10, 15-16, 42-3, 91, 123, i44~5> 237-9. 277-84, 328 n. 5

365

366

Index

Clemence of Barking, see Vie de Sainte Catherine clergie 12, 18, 93-4, 102-3, IJ3> 207-12, 213, 227, 228-32, 236, 237, 287, 325 n. 45 Clige's 96-7, 103, 114, 209-10, 330 n. 19 Comtessa de Dia 169-73, J7^5 J 79 consent (to marriage) 68, 74-5, 120, 193-7 Conte du Graal (Perceval) 92, 103, 105, 207, 314 n. 19 continuation 25, 54-6, 100-103, 302 n. 61, 309 n. 48 Couronnement de Louis 43, 301 n. 53 Dame escoliee, De la 251-3, 275, 330-1 n. 22 Damoisele qui ne pooit oi'r parler defoutre, La

257, 280-4 Damoisele qui sonjoit, La 269—71

Daurel et Beton 43, 52, 63, 66—9, 137 De'bat du C. et du C, Le 256-7 Des .Hi. dames 265-6 Eneas, see Roman d'Eneas Enfant quifu remis an soleil, V 331 n. 25 Erec et Enide 103, 109, 114 Esquiriel, V 271, 331 n. 27 Estula 331 n. 25 fabliaux 8, 17, 184, 234-85, 287-8 femininity 63-9, 71-2, 78-9, 89-90, 95, 103, 108-9, 113-21, 123-4, I2 5~6, 128-32, 134-5, J 59-6o, 170, 188, 196-7, 228-32, 233, 239-42, 273-4, 287-9 feudalism 18, 58-9, 84, 85, 91, 124, 132, 138, 142-7, 168-9, 170 Flamenca 120, 123, 127, 150, 306 n. 30, 311 n. 71, 325 n. 44 Floire et Blancheflor 85-90, 137, 251, 287 Frere Denise 242-8 Gaydon 44-5 Gender, theory of 1-2, 10-16, 28, 79—81, 84-5, 236, 240-1, 251, 252—3, 267, 287-8, 292-3 n. 29, 331 n. 28 Gender and the Church 74-5, 84, 120, 180-233 Gender and the community 42-4, 212-32 Genre, theory of 1-2, 3-10, 16

Girart de Roussillon 43, 51, 52, 63, 69, 295 n.7, 303 n. 67 Girart de Vienne 36-7, 50, 63 Giraut de Borneil 151, 318-19 n. 56 Godefroy de Lagny 100-2, 309 n. 48 Guerau de Cabrera 293 n. 38 Guilhem IX 42, 122-3, J 35 Guilhem de Bergueda 305 n. 17 Guillaume de Dole 123, 127-8, 138-40, 142, 287, 306 n. 30 hagiography 8, 17, 51, 136, 137, 180-233, 243, 287, 288, 330 n. 19 Hali Meidhad 195 Heldris de Cornualle, see Roman de Silence

Heloise 324-5 n. 39 Henry II of England 43, 76-7 heterosexuality 14, 79—85, 90-1, 332-3 n. 36 homophobia 77-85, 305 n. 17 homosexuality 16, 78—81, 90-1, 305 n. !9> 3 H - 5 n - 23> 332-3 n - 3 6 homosocial desire 80, 83-4, 85, 99, 135, 138-47 Hue de Rotelande, see Ipomedon identity 14, 28, 43-4, 47, 61, 73-4, 91-113, 206-7 ideology 1-2, 6-8, 10, 16, 17, 22-3, 26-7, 42-4, 50-2, 62, 65, 83-4, 102-3, 123, 135, 144-5, 179, 184, 188, 194-6, 199-201, 234-5, 273> 285, 287, 290 n.i incest 13, 200-12, 325 n. 39 intertextuality 8-9, 23, 24-5, 38-9, 45-6, 52-3, 61, 82-3, 86-90, 96-7, 103, 123, 149, 168—9, I7°? J ^4J 186-7, 193-4, 202, 206-12, 218-19, 235, 243, 249, 254, 274, 286-7 Ipomedon 114-15, 206, 305 n. 17 Isabella (trobairitz) 318 n. 51 iuvenes 77, 123, 207, 209 Jaufre 309 n. 46 Jaufre Rudel 122—3, 127—8 Jean Renart, see Guillaume de Dole

Jourdain de Blaye 44-5, 137, 303 n. 66 Jugement des cons, Le 239—42, 275

kinship 13-15, 136-8, 189-90, 191-4, 198-212, 324 n. 37

Index Lombarda 318 n. 51 Maignien quifoti la dame, Le 257 manuscript compilations 25, 44-5, 76, 85, 149, 291 n. 11, 309 n. 49 Marcabru 134, 137, 164, 314 n. 17 and n. 18, 317 n. 44, 318 n. 55, 333 n. 45 Maria de Ventadorn 318 n. 51 Marie de France 305 n. 17, 335 n. 1 marriage 13, 18, 63, 74-5, 76-7, 84, 120, 192—6, 199-200, 204-6, 208-9, 303-4 n. 8, 322-3 n. 23 masculinity 2-3, 23-62, 71-2, 78-9, 90, 93~4> 95> 102-3, 108-9, IJ3> 114-20, 123-4, J49~58, 190-1, 202-12, 227, 232-3, 259, 265, 270-4, 287, 288, 313 n. 13 misogyny 2, 79, 85, 110-11, 113-21, 129, 134, 164, 236, 241-2, 268-75, 283—4, 290—1 n. 2, 318 n. 51 Moigne, Le 332 n. 31 Monk of Montaudon 145-6 Mystere d'Adam 329 n. 8 Orson de Beauvais 52, 63, 303 n. 66 Ovid 122, 306 n. 24, 312 n. 3 Peire d'Alvernhe 315 n. 31, 318 n. 54, 319-20 n. 61 Peire Rogier 150 Perceval, see Conte du Graal Perdris, Les 331 n. 25 performance, gender as 14, 84-5, 247-8, 3*3 n - *3 Pescheor de Pont seur Saine, Le 266, 268 Pet au vilain, Le 238—9 Peter Damian 305 n. 17 Philippe-Auguste 43 Piramus et Tisbe 306 n. 28 Porcelet 275 Prise d?Orange 63, 69, 137, 303 n. 67 property 13, 69, 116-17, ^ i , 189, 200, 317 n. 46, 324 n. 37 Putains et les lecheors, Les 237—8, 329 n. 9 Quatre Sohais Saint Martin, Les 259—64, 268, 271 Raimbaut d'Aurenga 167-9, 311-12 n. 2, 319 n. 57 Raimbaut de Vaqueiras 318 n. 51

367

Raimon Jordan 132, 163-4 Raoul de Cambrai 43, 52-62, 63, 69, 137, 286, 294-5 n. 7, 314 n. 19 rape 94, 197, 204-5, 308 n. 40, 325 n. 40 and n. 41 remaniement 25, 38-42, 54, 213-28, 275-845 3°2 n. 62, 333-4 n. 46 Renaut de Beaujeu, see Bel Inconnu Roland a Saragosse 37 Roman £ Eneas 75-85, 92, 114, 287 Roman de la Rose 123, 305 n. 17 Roman de Renart 325 n. 40, 332 n. 32 Roman de Silence 20, 251, 305 n. 17, 313 n. 13, 330 n, 17 romance 8, 17, 71-121, 122-3, I27> J 3^J 138-40, 142-3, 148, 150, 184, 186, 206-12, 235, 278, 287, 320 n. 4, 321—2 n. 12, 330 n. 19 romans antiques 75—6 Rutebeuf 221-7, 238-9, 242-8, 326 n. 59 and n. 60, 329 n. 10, 330 n. 13; see also Frere Denise; Pet au vilain; Vie de Sainte Marie VEgyptienne Sequence of Saint Eulalia 185 sexuality 14, 74-5, 77-85, 90, 109, 185-98, 219, 267,321 n. 10, 332-3 n.36 sexual violence 94, 196-7, 205, 216, 275, 288 Siege de Barbastre 63 Sohait des vez, Le 264-5, 271 Sorisete des Estopes, La 266-7, 268 Sot Chevalier, Le 256-7, 331 n. 26, 332—3 n. 36 subjectivity 14, 71-2, 90-1, 92, 108, 124, 131, 136-8, 148-9, 159-60, 165, I 7°» J 73~9J 182-3, J87> 213, 223, 226, 288-9, 295 n. 8 Thomas of Britain, see Tristan Tresces, Les 255 Tristan (Beroul) 97, 109, 324-5 n. 39, 330 n. 19 Tristan (Thomas) 91, 92, 109 trobairitz 125, 158-79, 287, 289, 317 n. 44, 327 n. 65 Trois Bofus, Les 255 Trubert 248-51, 253, 258, 331 n. 25 Vallet aus douze fames, Le 271— 3 Vida de Sancta Margarida, La 190

368

Index

Vida de Sant Honorat, La 190, 198-9 Vie de Saint Alexis, La 190-1, 192, 199, 212—13, 322-3 n. 23, 326 n. 56 Vie de Saint Gre'goire, La 200-12, 216, 287 Vie de Sainte Catherine, La 213, 228—32, 289 Vie de Sainte Enimie, La 191—4 Vie de Sainte Euphrosine, La 243, 322 n.

Vie de Sainte Marie VEgyptienne, La (T)

214-21, 33011. 13 Vilain Mire, Le 236 Virgil 76, 78, 82 virginity 185—98, 200, 215—16, 243, 321 n. 7

Wace 76, 92, 93, 190, 216, 309 n. 49 see also Vie de Sainte Marguerite 13, 325 n. 41, 330 n. 13 and n. 17 Vie de Sainte Marguerite, La 190, 216, 322 women readers 2, 72, 87, 94, 112, 165, n. 20 213, 227-32, 288-9 Vie de Sainte Marie VEgyptienne, La (0)

220-1 Vie de Sainte Marie VEgyptienne, La

(Rutebeuf) 221-7

Yvain 92, 103, 109, 114, 120-1, 123, 254, 273, 311 n. 66, 333 n. 40, 334 n. 50

CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN FRENCH

General editor Malcolm Bowie (All Souls College, Oxford)

Editorial board

R. Howard Bloch (University of California, Berkeley) Terence Cave (St John's College, Oxford) Ross Chambers (University of Michigan) Antoine Compagnon (Columbia University) Peter France (University of Edinburgh) Christie McDonald (Harvard University) Toril Moi (Duke University) Naomi Schor (Harvard University) Also in the series (* denotes titles now out of print) I J. M. COCKING

Proust: Collected Essays on the Writer and his Art *2 LEO BERSANI

The Death of Stephane Mallarme *3 MARIAN HOBSON

The Object of Art: The Theory of Illusion in Eighteenth-Century France *4 LEO SPITZER, TRANSLATED & EDITED BY DAVID BELLOS

Essays on Seventeenth-Century French Literature 5 NORMAN BRYSON

Tradition and Desire: From David to Delacroix *6 ANN MOSS

Poetry and Fable: Studies in Mythological Narrative in SixteenthCentury France *7 RHIANNON GOLDTHORPE

Sartre: Literature and Theory *8 DIANA KNIGHT

Flaubert's Characters: The Language of Illusion *9 ANDREW MARTIN

The Knowledge of Ignorance: From Genesis to Jules Verne 10 GEOFFREY BENNINGTON

Sententiousness and the Novel: Laying Down the Law in EighteenthCentury French Fiction 369

370 *II

PENNY FLORENCE

Mallarme, Manet and Redon: Visual and Aural Signs and the Generation of Meaning 12 CHRISTOPHER PRENDERGAST

The Order of Mimesis: Balzac, Stendhal, Nerval, and Flaubert * I 3 NAOMI SEGAL

The Unintended Reader: Feminism and Manon Lescaut 14 CLIVE SCOTT

A Question of Syllables: Essays in Nineteenth-Century French Verse * I 5 STIRLING HAIG

Flaubert and the Gift of Speech: Dialogue and Discourse in Four 'Modern3 Novels * l 6 NATHANIEL WING

The Limits of Narrative: Essays on Baudelaire, Flaubert, Rimbaud and Mallarme * I 7 MITCHELL GREENBERG

Corneille, Classicism and the Ruses of Symmetry * l 8 HOWARD DAVIES

Sartre and ' Les Temps Modernes' * i g ROBERT GREER COHN

Mallarme3s Prose Poems: A Critical Study

*20 CELIA BRITTON

Claude Simon: Writing the Visible 21 DAVID SCOTT

Pictorialist Poetics: Poetry and the Visual Arts in Nineteenth-Century France *22 ANN JEFFERSON

Reading Realism in Stendhal *23 DALIA JUDOVITZ

Subjectivity and Representation in Descartes: The Origins of Modernity *24 RICHARD D. E. BURTON

Baudelaire in 1859 25 MICHAEL MORIARTY

Taste and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century France

26 JOHN FORRESTER

The Seductions of Psychoanalysis: Freud, Lacan and Derrida 27 JEROME SCHWARTZ

Irony and Ideology in Rabelais: Structures of Subversion 28 DAVID BAGULEY

Naturalist Fiction: The Entropic Vision 29 LESLIE HILL

Beckett's Fiction: In Different Words 30 F. W. LEAKEY

Baudelaire: Collected Essays,

igjj-ig88

31 SARAH KAY

Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry 32 GILLIAN JONDORF

French Renaissance Tragedy: The Dramatic Word 33 LAWRENCE D. KRITZMAN

The Rhetoric of Sexuality and the Literature of the French Renaissance 34 JERRY C. NASH

The Love Aesthetics of Maurice Sceve: Poetry and Struggle 35 PETER FRANCE

Politeness and its Discontents: Problems in French Classical Culture 36 MITCHELL GREENBERG

Subjectivity and Subjugation in Seventeenth-Century Drama and Prose : The Family Romance of French Classicism 37 TOM CONLEY

The Graphic Unconscious in Early Modern Writing 38 MARGERY EVANS

Baudelaire and Intertextuality: Poetry at the Crossroads 39 JUDITH STILL

Justice and Difference in the Works of Rousseau: bienfaisance and

pudeur

40 CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

System and Writing in the Philosophy of Jacques Derrida 41 CAROL A. MOSSMAN

Politics and Narratives of Birth: Gynocolonization from Rousseau to Zola

372 42 DANIEL BREWER

The Discourse of Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century France: Diderot and the art of philosophizing 43 ROBERTA L. KRUEGER

Women Readers and the Ideology of Gender in Old French Verse Romance 44 JAMES H. REID Narration and Description in the French Realist Novel: The temporality of lying and forgetting 45 EUGENE W. HOLLAND

Baudelaire and Schizoanalysis: The sociopoetics of modernism 46 HUGH M. DAVIDSON

Pascal and the Arts of the Mind 47 DAVID J. DENBY Sentimental Narrative and the social order in France, 1760-1820: A politics of tears 48 CLAIRE ADDISON

Where Flaubert Lies: Chronologyi, Mythology and History 49 JOHN CLAIBORNE ISBELL

The Birth of European Romanticism: StaeTs De l'Allemagne 50 MICHAEL SPRINKER

History and Ideology in Proust: A la recherche du temps perdu and the Third French Republic 51 DEE REYNOLDS

Symbolist Aesthetics and Early Abstract Art: Sites of imaginary space 52 DAVID B. ALLISON, MARK S. ROBERTS AND ALLEN S. WEISS

Sade and the Narrative of Transgression