Gender, Poetry, and the Form of Thought in Later Medieval Literature: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth A. Robertson 9781611463323, 9781611463330, 1611463327

Citation preview

Gender, Poetry, and the Form of Thought in Later Medieval Literature

Gender, Poetry, and the Form of Thought in Later Medieval Literature Essays in Honor of Elizabeth A. Robertson

Edited by Jennifer Jahner and Ingrid Nelson

LEHIGH UNIVERSITY PRESS

Bethlehem

Published by Lehigh University Press Copublished by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom Copyright © 2022 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN 9781611463323 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781611463330 (epub) ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Illustrationsvii Introduction: The Form of Thought Jennifer Jahner and Ingrid Nelson

ix

PART I: FORM AND KNOWING

1

1 Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness in Late Medieval Dream Visions Jamie Taylor

3

2 Cloudy Thoughts: Cognition and Affect in Troilus and Criseyde Stephanie Trigg

25

3 Voluntarism and the Self in Piers Plowman Robert Pasnau

47

4 Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God Kate Crassons

67

PART II: MATERIAL POETICS

89

5 Both “Gostly Sense” and “Amerouse Sentensce”: The Nightingale’s Resurrection as Hybrid Text Amy N. Vines

91

6 Middle English Verse Acrostics: A Survey Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

113

7 The Landscapes of Pearl: Poetry and Theology Ad Putter

137

v

vi

Contents

PART III: HISTORICIZING GENDER 8 Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing: Clemence of Barking’s Life of Saint Catherine, Marie’s Life of Saint Audrey, and Marie de France’s Eliduc Roberta Krueger 9 Three Medieval Visitors to Rome and the Women They Found There C. David Benson and Pamela J. Benson 10 The Not Yet Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale James Simpson

159

161

183 201

Index 223 Contributors 229

Illustrations

Figure 7.1 London, British Library, Cotton Nero A.x, fol. 41r. Figure 7.2 Los Angeles, Getty Museum, MS 109, fol. 30r. Figure 7.3 London, British Library, Cotton Nero A.x, fol. 41v.

vii

142 144 146

Introduction The Form of Thought Jennifer Jahner and Ingrid Nelson

Faced with circumstances beyond their control, Chaucer’s tragic Trojan lovers, Troilus and Criseyde, contemplate the limits of their knowledge and agency. Part IV of Troilus and Criseyde finds both characters suspended in a moment of historical and personal uncertainty, with Criseyde’s future set to unfold beyond Troy and Troilus’s still circumscribed by the walls of the city. As their possibilities for action diminish, both turn to philosophy for consolation and metaphor. Criseyde analogizes her situation to natural philosophy, wondering how “a plaunte or lyues creature” should “Lyue withouten his kynde noriture?” (IV.767–8)1—that is, how she, a natural creature, could possibly flourish separated from her home, Troy, and the “ground” of her joy, Troilus. For his part, Troilus famously draws from scholastic philosophy, using the example of a man sitting in a chair as a vehicle for pondering the enduring Boethian dilemma of reconciling God’s divine providence with human free will (IV.1023–82). Though both lovers mirror each other in this section of the poem, framing their laments in philosophical and cosmological terms, their respective thoughts have not been considered equally “philosophical”: Criseyde contemplates the plants and creatures of the natural world, while Troilus turns to the heavens that he will eventually glimpse at the work’s end. As ever, it is Criseyde’s uncle, Pandarus, who makes clear the gendered nature of this divide, cutting short her contemplation with the urgent advice that she hide her sorrow and comfort her lover instead: “Beth rather to hym cause of flat than egge, / And with som wisdom ye his sorwe bete /. . . Wommen ben wise in short avysement; / And lat sen how youre wit shal now availle” (IV.927–28; 936–7). For Pandarus, women’s “wisdom” consists in quick deliberation, action, and physical healing, the “flat” of the sword rather than its edge. Indeed, in its binarism, this image of the “blunted sword” of ix

x

Introduction

Criseyde’s wit captures the double bind that she faces as a thinker and lover, her intellectual scope inextricably shaped by her simultaneous obligations to anticipate, care for, and soothe the pain of others. This section of the poem underscores the degree to which definitions of knowledge—of what counts as thought—are foundationally gendered, with women’s knowledge depicted as active, practical, and relational, and men’s as deliberative and suspensive—a man sitting in a chair, thinking. If Criseyde’s “wit,” or native and active intelligence, is meant here to resolve a practical and affective narrative crux, literary history proved quick to make Criseyde the foremost example of women’s supposed “short avysement,” of decision-making as sudden as it is opaque in its reasoning. In turn, decades of feminist scholars have sought to reinscribe Criseyde with an interiority that admits for moral reasoning, doubt, and choice, however hemmed in by exigency. At stake in the figure of Criseyde are larger questions for Middle English scholarship. How do the material, social, and experiential dimensions of gender shape philosophical conversations around consent and agency? How does poetry give form to the workings of wit? And how might literary criticism remain alive to the possibilities of medieval women’s reading, writing, and modes of internal avysement? The scholarship of Elizabeth A. Robertson has explored such questions for over four decades. This volume honors Robertson’s work and career, which has made an impact both profound and reaching on the fields of Middle English studies, medieval gender and feminist studies, and poetics and manuscript studies. Like the medieval texts to which she has devoted decades of work, Robertson approaches academic life as a fundamentally collaborative enterprise, an ever-present and always-evolving opportunity to teach, learn, write, and foster new insight. The chapters collected here pay tribute to her collaborative spirit as well as the interests that have guided her scholarship: medieval women’s lives and writings; the intersections of theology, philosophy, and poetics; material culture and the claims of the senses; and the continued presence of medieval forms in modern literary enterprises. Among her most important legacies to the field of medieval studies is the recognition that these fields of thought were, for medieval writers, inextricably intertwined. Conceptions of the relationship between body and soul, thought and poetry, were themselves collaboratively constructed, Robertson teaches us, developing dialogically and communally within cultures of literacy and devotion. So, too, does the ongoing project of reading and teaching these texts require a similar collective effort. Gender, Poetry, and the Form of Thought represents a collaboration in this spirit, drawing on Robertson’s long career of work to advance new work in medieval feminist, formal, and historicist criticism. Many of the themes that develop over the course of Robertson’s career are present in her first monograph, Early English Devotional Prose and the

Introduction

xi

Female Audience (1990). In this path-breaking study, Robertson concentrated on the thirteenth-century prose devotional corpus known as the Katherine Group, a collection of saints’ lives and devotional instructional texts intended for an audience of anchoresses living in the Welsh Marches. Texts such as the Ancrene Wisse, Sawles Warde, and the “Wooing Group” afforded Robertson the opportunity to examine the possibilities for women’s literacy in tandem with the question of both vernacular prose style and gendered models of spiritual informatio—the process by which the soul learns and grows toward God.2 Feminist criticism and mentorship have remained a through-line in Robertson’s career, from her founding of the Medieval Feminist Newsletter (with Roberta Krueger and E. Jane Burns) to her insistent focus on gender as a lens for historical and literary analysis. Chaucer’s female religious protagonists have been especially illuminated by Robertson’s scholarship, which reads them not as simply pious but as complex realizations of the cultural nexus of religion and gender they inhabited, viewed of course through a male writer’s lens. What Robertson has called “Christian strangeness” characterizes Constance in the Man of Law’s Tale and Chaucer’s Prioress.3 Similarly, Julian of Norwich’s expansive theological vision emerges in her essays as coextensive with a vernacular prose style, both “cinematic” and “modernist” in its gestures.4 Gender is, of course, a more capacious category than “woman,” bringing to critical attention the ways in which bodies encounter culture, and how literary representations of bodies shape and are shaped by such encounters. As such, gender becomes a category through which to address the affordances of embodied experience. As Robertson’s work has shown, embodied or immanent experience in medieval literature is always in contact with transcendence, from the concept of touch in literary and artistic representations of “Noli me tangere” to the “kissing the worm” topos in medieval contemptus mundi poetry.5 Allegory, in particular, offers a unique mode for considering the intersections of embodied experience and immaterial concepts rather than, like much literary narrative, presenting mimetic characters. Much of Robertson’s recent work has turned toward a consideration of how allegorical bodies contribute to “soul-making,” actualizing the capacities of the individual will as it encounters the world and changes in its affections and aims.6 Taking allegory’s generic conventions as a site of nuanced critical inquiry characterizes another theme in Robertson’s scholarship: her interest in literary form, style, and poetics. Early English Devotional Prose emphasized the use of concrete and quotidian imagery for rendering spiritual concepts for a female audience, a literary style Robertson later called “materialist immanence.”7 Even as texts written for medieval women tend to inscribe a dominant patriarchal ideology in their content, the form of these texts can subvert their agenda, encouraging women readers “to participate in an

xii

Introduction

incarnational mode of thought particularly available to them not only as advanced religious ascetics but as women.”8 Although prose, and especially devotional prose, is often overlooked in studies of literary style, Robertson’s scholarship demonstrates that English prose in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries permitted innovative stylistic development. And even as medieval poetics are theoretically distinct from modern poetics, certain affinities between literary style and audience reception cross the lines of periodization. Wordsworth’s “daisy” poems draw on “vivid” Chaucerian poetic diction to help the Romantic poet develop a language for expressing nature, and Julian of Norwich’s “modernist” style disorients and challenges its readers as much as James Joyce’s.9 Robertson’s ongoing commitments to adducing an embodied, materialist treatment of medieval gender, as well as a gendered, philosophical treatment of medieval poetics, combine in her capacious understanding of “form.” Form carries the traditional literary connotation of a set of poetic constraints guiding patterns of rhyme and meter, as in Robertson’s varied consideration of how the poetic form of rhyme royal inflects the genre of medieval romance.10 Form in this literary sense is always particular: it unfolds as a set of stylistic, tonal, and metrical choices that heighten sensory perception and direct the imagination. Beginning with Early English Devotional Prose, however, Robertson has emphatically demonstrated how form also entails modes of embodiment. Aristotle’s famous dictum, that the soul is a “form of the body,” has served as a touchstone for her work exploring the ways that literature shaped and evoked embodied spiritual experience for medieval readers and writers. A figure such as Anima in Piers Plowman thus works not only as a literary personification of the capacities of the human soul but as an exemplary instance of “formal thought”—that is, of an intellective process that can only take on form through literary techniques.11 The “form of thought” serves in this way as a useful means of linking together a wide-ranging set of scholarly interests, from forms of gendered embodiment to forms of verse-making. Robertson’s own precision with terminology prevents this concept from becoming meaninglessly vague. In her work, both “form” and “thought” are terms that demand the fullest possible investigation. Her recent discussions of Chaucerian will and consent, for instance, suggest that literary representation serves as a primary site for demonstrating the philosophical demands of choice, showing how processes of judging and acting are themselves “forms of thought.”12 So, too, is soulmaking both a philosophical and literary project, as it imagines a self that gives meaning to the body that “informs” it.13 As Robertson and Robert Pasnau emphasize in their jointly authored chapter, the claims of poets and philosophers remain distinct, as do their working techniques and vocabularies. But in their adjacent concerns—with moral life, salvation, intellection,

Introduction

xiii

and will—the two fields also prove mutually illuminating. What engaged philosophical study allows one to see, among other things, are the specific claims of the literary, its status as what Robertson calls “a ‘living’ thing.” “When viewed in this way,” she argues, the literary text can be understood to engage just those faculties that make up the soul, reason and will, but most importantly, through its engagement with the reader and in its materiality . . . can be understood as always already coming into being.14

It is this commitment to the specificities of literary thought, to the imaginative feats and ethical possibilities generated by turns of figure and meter, that most strongly marks Robertson’s scholarship. “[B]ig ideas . . . are hard to control,” Pasnau and Robertson quip, but such big ideas are also where the forms of literary and philosophical thought collide.15 Cross-disciplinary collaborations such as this volume are a defining marker of Robertson’s varied and vibrant career. From her early work co-founding the Medieval Feminist Newsletter to her co-edited volumes and co-taught seminars, she has strived to make space for scholars, artists, students, and community members to share in the intellectual worlds that she finds so engrossing. An enduring legacy of Robertson’s career lies in her mentorship of the many students who have gone from her seminars into careers as medievalists, as well as the many colleagues she has advised and supported. The chapters that comprise this volume reflect these many networks of support, mentorship, and collaboration. They are divided into four sections according to the themes that most prominently shaped Robertson’s own scholarship: poetic form, gender and history, material culture, and embodied cognition. Within these larger strands, each section incorporates different disciplinary and methodological approaches, with the aim of replicating the rich collaborative dialogues that Robertson herself cultivated over the course of her career. The first section, “Form and Knowing,” examines the intersection of medieval categories of knowledge, such as theology, ethics, and perception, with gender and literature. In “Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness in Late Medieval Dream Visions,” Jamie Taylor examines works of Middle English literature that represent insomnia as a literary and ethical crux. Focusing on Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess and Clanvowe’s Boke of Cupide, Taylor argues that these works present insomnia as a foundation for poetic making, challenging a model of spiritual vision that relies on sleep. Taylor further upends the common affiliation between classical, medieval, and modern dream theory that privileges dreams as a site of individual experience, turning instead to the theories of Emmanuel Levinas as a framework for understanding dreams as the ethical ground for encountering

xiv

Introduction

otherness. Stephanie Trigg’s chapter, “Cloudy Thoughts: Cognition and Affect in Troilus and Criseyde,” argues that in Chaucer’s writings the imagery of clouds—passing over a face or through a soul—offers a site to explore gendered modes of thinking and feeling. In particular, Trigg explores how the Boethian imagery of a cloud passing over Fortune’s face develops, in Troilus and Criseyde, into a gendered psychology of Criseyde, a subject at once of philosophical inquiry and of Fortune’s mutability. Next, the philosopher Robert Pasnau demonstrates how understanding the medieval philosophical debates on voluntarism, or the capacities of the human and divine wills, illuminate the medieval poem Piers Plowman, which in turn frames philosophical abstractions in the terms of embodied life. Pasnau’s chapter, “Voluntarism and the Self in Piers Plowman,” shows that the poem participates in a later medieval philosophical turn that associates the will with selfhood, rather than depicting it in subjugation to the intellect. Further, because this concept bears directly on practice, Piers Plowman uses its poetic resources of imagery and figuration to explore the implications of the philosophical debate to lived experience. Kate Crassons likewise explores the intersections and tensions of the embodied experience of faith in “Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God.” Resisting the common reading that the Book of Margery Kempe is ultimately a theological failure when measured against the discretio spirituum tradition, Crassons instead positions the Book as a “narrative inquiry” into the paradoxical role that doubt plays in affirming belief. The second section, “Material Poetics,” explores how intersections between the manuscript copies of medieval poetry and the poetic forms they record frequently encode embodied presence. In “Both ‘Gostly Sense’ and ‘Amerouse Sentensce’: The Nightingale’s Resurrection as Hybrid Text,” Amy N. Vines examines the verse proems of copies of the fifteenth-century poem The Nightingale to trace the influence of female patronage on the poem. Vines argues that the proem positions Anne Neville, its patron, at the intersection of the spiritual aspirations and secular exigencies of courtly life, presenting her as a figure to unite these apparently contradictory imperatives. Julia Boffey’s and A. S. G. Edwards’s contribution, “Middle English Verse Acrostics: A Survey,” traces a literary history of this understudied verse form by reviewing its manuscript witnesses, with a special focus on acrostics of abstract terms and proper names. Their survey suggests the importance of the acrostic form for encrypting identity and acting as a kind of “poetic highlighting.” In “The Landscapes of Pearl: Poetry and Theology,” Ad Putter examines the role of repetition in Pearl, arguing for a homology between the poet’s repetition of words and his repetition of a topos, the locus amoenus. These repetitions not only inscribe adjacencies of literal and figurative meanings, they also probe the relationship between

Introduction

xv

poetic and theological ideas of embodiment and gender that the topos figures. The third section, “Historicizing Gender,” considers the ways in which historically attested accounts of women inform our understanding of premodern gendered experience and the medieval and modern representations of that experience. Roberta Krueger examines the creation of space for female agency beyond aristocratic marriage in three French works written by women in England from the late twelfth to the early thirteenth century. “Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing: Clemence of Barking’s Life of Saint Catherine, Marie’s Life of Saint Audrey, and Marie de France’s Eliduc” demonstrates how these three texts articulate a common problematic about secular and spiritual life for women, wherein women’s spiritual autonomy and social agency disrupts social and narrative expectations of marriage for women. C. David Benson’s and Pamela J. Benson’s chapter, “Three Medieval Visitors to Rome and the Women They Found There,” depicts how historical and represented women encountered by pilgrims to Rome trace the significance of women to the secular and spiritual history of the city. Examining the antiquarian pilgrimage of Master Gregorius in his Latin Narracio de Mirabilibus Urbis Rome, the pastoral and exemplary aims of the Austin friar John Capgrave in his Solace of Pilgrims, and the spiritual transformation Rome effects on Margery Kempe in The Book of Margery Kempe, Benson and Benson offer a portrait of Rome in which women are central to the city’s historical resonances. The final chapter by James Simpson returns to that most vivid and complex of Chaucerian fictions, the Wife of Bath. Despite its neatly structured series of “quittings,” Simpson argues, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale constitutes one of the most temporally and textually unsettled segments of The Canterbury Tales. With a teller whose ironized self-disclosures only reduplicate the irony of her creator, Chaucer, and a set of narrative resolutions that leave their most vexing ethical questions unanswered, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale represents what Simpson calls a “not yet” text: “a text, that is, for which the resolution of its interpretative residues can only be attempted in the longer history of the text’s reception in history” (202). Tracing out that longer history, from The Canterbury Tales through to the seventeenth-century broadside ballad, The Wanton Wife of Bath, Simpson shows how the restless energies of this woman character and her texts compel their own anagogical, or future-looking, mode of reading, ensuring critical futures still yet unrealized. In their temporal and methodological range, these chapters pay fitting tribute to Elizabeth Robertson, whose own interests grew expansively over the course of her career while also remaining firmly rooted in feminist scholarship and the necessity of recognizing and interpreting women’s creative and intellectual work. To a scholar who has given so much to the field of Middle

xvi

Introduction

English studies—and to this assembled group, in particular—it is a special honor to be able to present an honorary volume in return.

NOTES 1. Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer. 2. Robertson, Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience, 32–43. 3. Robertson, “The ‘Elvyssh’ Power of Constance,” 147. 4. Robertson, “Julian of Norwich’s ‘Modernist Style’ and the Creation of Audience.” 5. Robertson, “Noli Me Tangere”; Robertson, “Kissing the Worm”; Robertson, “Skin Matters.” 6. Robertson, “‘Mede Overmaistreth Lawe’: Gendered Personification and the Imaginative Power of the Feminine in Piers Plowman”; Robertson, “Souls That Matter: Gender and the Soul in Piers Plowman”; Robertson, “Soul Making in Piers Plowman.” 7. Robertson, “This Living Hand.” 8. Ibid., 4. 9. Robertson, “Chaucer’s and Wordsworth’s Vivid Daisies”; Robertson, “Julian of Norwich’s ‘Modernist Style’ and the Creation of Audience.” 10. Robertson, “Rhyme Royal and Romance.” 11. Pasnau and Robertson, “A Sotyl Thinge Withouten Tonge and Teeth.” 12. Robertson, “Apprehending the Divine and Choosing To Believe.” 13. Robertson, “Soul Making in Piers Plowman.” 14. Pasnau and Robertson, “A Sotyl Thinge Withouten Tonge and Teeth,” 136. 15. Ibid.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer. Edited by Larry Dean Benson. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Pasnau, Robert, and Elizabeth Robertson. “A Sotyl Thinge Withouten Tonge and Teeth: Soul’s Dialogue with Body, and Literature’s Dialogue with Philosophy.” English Language Notes 47 (2009): 135–45. Robertson, Elizabeth. “Apprehending the Divine and Choosing to Believe: Voluntarist Free Will in Chaucer’s Second Nun’s Tale.” Chaucer Review 46 (2011): 111–30. ———. “Chaucer’s and Wordsworth’s Vivid Daisies.” In The Middle Ages in the Modern World: Twenty-First Century Perspectives, edited by Bettina Bildhauer and Chris Jones, 219–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. ———. Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990.

Introduction

xvii

———. “Julian of Norwich’s ‘Modernist Style’ and the Creation of Audience.” In A Companion to Julian of Norwich, edited by Liz Herbert McAvoy, 139–53. Woodbridge, England: Brewer, 2008. ———. “Kissing the Worm: Sex and Gender in the Afterlife and the Poetic Posthuman in the Late Middle English ‘A Disputacion Betwyx the Body and Wormes.’” In From Beasts to Souls: Gender and Embodiment in Medieval Europe, edited by E. Jane Burns and Peggy McCracken, 121–54. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013. ———. “‘Mede Overmaistreth Lawe’: Gendered Personification and the Imaginative Power of the Feminine in Piers Plowman.” In Approaches to Teaching Langland’s Piers Plowman, edited by Thomas A. Goodmann, 151–61. New York: MLA, 2019. ———. “Noli Me Tangere: The Enigma of Touch in Middle English Religious Literature and Art for and about Women.” In Reading Skin in Medieval Literature and Culture, edited by Katie L. Walter and Karl Steel, 29–55. New Middle Ages. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. ———. “Rhyme Royal and Romance.” In The Transmission of Medieval Romance: Metres, Manuscripts and Early Prints, edited by Ad Putter and Judith Anne Jefferson, 50–68. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2018. ———. “Skin Matters.” In Writing on Skin in the Age of Chaucer, edited by N. Nyffenegger and K. Rupp, 251–64. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018. ———. “Soul Making in Piers Plowman.” The Yearbook of Langland Studies 34 (2020): 11–56. ———. “Souls That Matter: Gender and the Soul in Piers Plowman.” In Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval Literature: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth D. Kirk., edited by Bonnie Wheeler, 165–86. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. ———. “The ‘Elvyssh’ Power of Constance: Christian Feminism in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Man of Law’s Tale.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 23 (2001): 143–80. ———. “‘This Living Hand’: Thirteenth-Century Female Literacy, Materialist Immanence, and the Reader of the Ancrene Wisse.” Speculum 78 (2003): 1–36.

Part I

FORM AND KNOWING

Chapter 1

Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness in Late Medieval Dream Visions Jamie Taylor

In the fifteenth century, English narrators struggled to fall asleep. Richard Roos begins his La Belle Dame sans Mercy “half in a dreme, nat fully wele awaked,” and John Lydgate’s Temple of Glas narrator spends his night “waloying to and fro” before collapsing into a “sodein dedeli slepe.”1 Likewise, in the Regiment of Princes, Thomas Hoccleve fixates on his nighttime anxiety, wrestling in bed with such “restelees bysynesse” that he remains “byrefte of sleep.”2 After a while, an allegorical (perhaps hallucinatory) “Wach” appears to keep the sleepless Hoccleve company, and he “admittid him in hevy wyse” (78). Hoccleve’s “guest” is, of course, only a figment of his sleepless mind, an externalized manifestation of his restless, watchful consciousness. Indeed, when Hoccleve describes his experience of insomnia, he emphasizes how it disrupts any healthy separation between self and world: Whan to the thoughtful wight is told a tale, He heerith it as thogh he thennes were; His hevy thoghtes him to plukke and hale Hidir and thidir, and him greeve and dere, That his eres availle him nat a pere; He undirstandith nothing what men seye, So been his wittes fer goon hem to pleye. (99–105)

Hoccleve here reveals the spatial and cognitive dissonances of a wakeful night, in which the insomniac mind is pulled “hidir and thider.” On the one hand, he “understandith nothing what men seye,” but on the other hand, he understands Wach’s tales “as thogh he thennes were” (104, 100).3 Unable 3

4

Jamie Taylor

to distinguish what is real and what is not, simultaneously dull-witted and observant, the sleepless Hoccleve strains for the peace of sleep. These insomniac subjects exemplify an increasingly common tradition in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century lyric poetry: extended prologues in which the narrator cannot fall asleep. Perhaps most prominently, the narrator of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess tosses and turns in his bed before giving up and flipping open Ovid’s tale of Ceyx and Alcyone. “I have gret wonder, by this lyght,” he states, How that I lyve, for day ne nyght I may nat slepe wel nigh noght; I have so many an ydel thought Purely for defaute of slep That, by my trouthe, I take no kep Of nothing, how hyt cometh or gooth, Ne me nys nothing leef nor looth.4

As he remains anxiously awake, he rails against nature, complaining that it is “ageynst kynde” to suffer such oppressive restlessness. Using Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess and John Clanvowe’s Boke of Cupide as case studies, this chapter argues that late medieval insomniac prologues frame sleeplessness as a poetic possibility rather than a bodily affliction, challenging the very foundations of sleep as a requirement for visio spiritualis. In doing so, they experiment with the ethical demands of a genre—dream vision—that ostensibly privileges individual experience. Reading The Book of the Duchess and the Boke of Cupide as ethical reformulations of dream-vision psychosomatics requires turning away from a long theoretical trajectory that connects the writings of Macrobius and Augustine to the psychoanalytic dream-typologies of Freud and Klein. Instead, to conceptualize insomnia as individually experienced but communally expressed, this chapter turns to phenomenology to understand the overlaps between ontology and ethics.5 As Emmanuel Levinas suggests, the self-alienation experienced by the insomniac can be understood as a release from the confines of the singular mind. In sleeplessness, he says, one is detached from any object, any content, yet there is presence. This presence which arises behind nothingness is neither a being, nor consciousness functioning in a voice, but the universal fact of the there is, which encompasses things and consciousness.6

In other words, the insomnia’s sense of self fades but does not disappear, and the insomniac remains suspended between subject and object in a kind

Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness

5

of out-of-body discomfort that is nonetheless radically bodily. This state of suspension, as uncomfortable as it might be, disrupts the subject’s individuated, inward sense of subjectivity to enable the subject to recognize itself also as an object. As such, even the solitary insomniac must confront another, and this confrontation invites the possibility of empathy.7 The insomniac narrators of The Book of the Duchess and the Boke of Cupide insist that we contend with the affective experiences of another, depicting their own sleepless discomfort as a signal of and impetus for an ethical dialectic rather than an inward-facing meditation. For Chaucer and Clanvowe, then, insomnia exposes the limits of dream vision as a lyric meditation. What does it mean to invite someone else into the disoriented world of the insomniac? How might such an invitation redraw the lyric boundaries of the dream vision to encapsulate something more expansive or communal? SLEEPING AND NOT SLEEPING IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES Steven F. Kruger has shown that medical and philosophical writing in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries increasingly associated dreams with somatic and psychological processes.8 This turn to the individual body and the mind as resources for dreams (distinct from the Macrobian explanation of divine prophecy) suggests that late medieval dream vision ought to be understood as a lyric genre, dedicated particularly to representing personal motivations and experiences.9 As A.C. Spearing explains, “The dream-framework inevitably brings the poet into his poem, not merely as the reteller of a story which has its origin elsewhere, but as the person who experiences the whole substance of the poem.”10 Dream visions always redound upon the dreamernarrator, and in the later Middle Ages, the genre was especially influenced by the understanding of the senses as “gateways” between the individual body and the outside world. Yet as Ingrid Nelson persuasively argues, late medieval lyric poetry must be conceptualized as “tactical,” offering flexible guidance regarding “desire, poetic making, and the ethics of self-Other relations.”11 Insofar as they might be broadly classified as lyric, late medieval dream visions are likewise tactical in their overt interest in the ethics of self-Other dialectic. Moreover, although dreaming was understood as individual and somatic in the later Middle Ages, sleep itself was not, or at least not entirely. Rather, sleep was key to social health, a point that was reiterated in a range of conduct manuals and penitential texts throughout the Middle Ages and into the early modern period.12 Healthy sleep (neither too much nor too little) is crucial to enabling a productive life during the day, since proper sleep allows effective

6

Jamie Taylor

engagement with the world while awake. Insomnia, on the other hand, prohibits such productive engagements with the waking world because it disrupts the bodily and cognitive health required for orderly, ethical behavior. In addition, the somatic and cognitive muting that sleep imposes on the human body permits new relationships between the individual self and the external world, including an ethical recognition of ecological interconnectedness. Although Aristotle insists that only humans and animals sleep (thus arguing that sleeping is a key to ontological distinctions between humans and plants), in sleep, other evidence of human exceptionalism, such as reason or erect movement, disappears, offering possibilities for seeing humans’ vital resemblances to animal and plant life.13 Like dreaming, insomnia is a self-centered experience. But unlike dreaming, in which the dreamer’s semi-departure from the sensate world permits a retreat to the subconscious operations of the mind, insomnia insists on an uncompromising engagement with the external world. As such, it offers fourteenth- and fifteenth-century writers the opportunity to conceptualize the dream vision outside its investments in individual psychosomatics and instead turn to ethics as a conceptual foundation. J. Allan Mitchell and Jessica Rosenfeld have shown that late medieval vernacular literature not only mined Aristotelian ethical vocabularies to articulate personal feelings such as love, grief, and despair, it also depicted these feelings as both ethical engine and challenge.14 But whereas Rosenfeld argues that “Chaucer raises the specter that insomnia is not only a physical malady, but an obstacle toward entering a state of consolation and ethical exploration,” here I suggest the opposite: that Chaucerian insomnia provides the conditions necessary for ethical, consolatory engagement with others.15 Although medieval philosophers dedicate quite a bit of space to sleep and dreams, they are not terribly interested in insomnia per se; any philosophical investigation of insomnia emerges in its literary portrayals. Michael Raby shows that late medieval poets were well versed in Aristotelian and Macrobian philosophies of sleeping and dreaming and that they were particularly attuned to the conceptual overlaps between sleeping and waking states. He argues, “For poets concerned with the nature of their ability to form and reform images, the allure of waking sleep is the promise of observing a corollary process of image-making.”16 Rather than shutting down sensory experiences, sleep redirects and amplifies those experiences in two ways: the sleeping body still takes in some sense impressions, such as sounds or smells, and the sleeping brain reassembles sensory input from its waking life into new images. Thus, in Raby’s words, “the closing of sense that occurs in sleep is also an opening.”17 Insomnia, too, is an opening, particularly for poets.18 Whereas sleepers enjoy softened or reimagined sensory intake as an opportunity for

Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness

7

reflection and invention, insomniacs experience sensory overload as restless, repetitive movements in which “the mind makes no progress while always progressing.”19 Yet it is useful to note that in Augustinian, Aristotelian, and Macrobian typology of dreams, insomnium did not signify a state of unwanted wakefulness but rather a dream that was empty of divine inspiration or prophetic content. With this in mind, we can recognize that although insomnia now more commonly refers to sleeplessness, it does not, then or now, describe a state fully opposed to sleeping. Rather, insomnia is akin to sleeping, a liminal state in which a body experiences a temporal suspension and confusion.20 Its conceptual proximity to sleeping means that dreamworld negotiations between self and world, inner and outer, can likewise attach to insomniac experiences. Aristotle says little about sleeplessness beyond the physiological conditions that might induce it. In De somno et vigilia, he defines sleep as the privation of perceptual cognition, in that the primary sense-organ (which controls all other sense-organs) is disabled. Thus, he clarifies, “sleep does not consist merely in the senses being inactive and unused, nor even in the incapacity to experience perception.”21 Rather, sleep momentarily disrupts perception by shutting down the main control mechanism. Aristotle admits that “waking acts” might be performed during sleep (such as sleepwalking) but that such acts are a result of dreams and itinerant sense-perception, not reason or will. Al-Kindi and Averroes build on Aristotle’s definition to suggest that sleep does not merely shut down sensory activities but rather activates internal perceptions, explicitly turning away from the external world to permit the imagination to supplement the perceptive intakes from waking life.22 Likewise, Albert the Great argues that sleep ought to be defined not by a closing of sense-perception faculties but by a shift in focus, from outward to inward.23 None of these treatises treats sleeplessness itself as a modality. But literature does. (We might note that late medieval literature is likewise interested in somnambulism to a degree neither medicine nor natural philosophy is.24) Strikingly, contemporary psychologists also understand insomnia through literary language, explaining that for insomniacs, the body animates its psychic detachment. In other words, the “experience of insomnia resembled a metaphor for the way they were conducting their life. In essence, they were asleep to their inner world.”25 Levinas likewise thinks of sleeplessness as a modality. As he explains, insomnia is “awakening without intentionality, the disinterested awakening,” such that the experience of the insomniac is one of inertia and selfalienation.26 The temporal and existential suspension that characterizes unwanted and fatigued wakefulness produces a consciousness in which subject and object only partially dissipate into one another. For Levinas, such reduced consciousness, or what he calls the “rustling of existence,” provides

8

Jamie Taylor

the necessary, if frustrating, self-distancing required for ethical response.27 Levinas also reminds us that sleep restricts place and position: The summoning of sleep occurs in the act of lying down. To lie down is exactly to limit existence to a place, to position. . . . In lying down, in curling up in a corner to sleep, we abandon ourselves to a place; qua base it becomes our refuge.28

In contrast, sleeplessness makes the insomniac’s location feel uncomfortable, even unsafe. The safety of sleep and its emplaced sense of refuge reveals the inextricable relationship between ontology and belonging. In other words, subjectivity and consciousness require an attachment to a place. This is why, as Hoccleve depicts, the simultaneity of subject and object experienced by the insomniac is profoundly disorienting, and insomniacs often experience sleeplessness in spatial terms, as a loss of safe refuge. Perhaps surprisingly, such detachment and loss enable a hospitable relationship to another, insofar as it requires the restless subject to contend with blurred distinctions between subject and object, between self and other. Thus, Ranjana Khanna explains, “Insomnia, then, becomes a means through which Levinas develops his philosophy of hospitality—the opening of oneself to the other with all the risk that is implied in that gesture.”29 Indeed, for both Chaucer and Clanvowe, the discomforts of insomnia are not mere preludes to the sleep required for a proper dream vision. Rather, they stage the hospitable challenges and opportunities dream-poetry affords, suggesting that the poetic enterprise itself is an ethical reach toward another, even when the situational impetus for poetry-making is individual and internal. Specifically, as I demonstrate in the next section, in The Book of the Duchess, Chaucer takes the disorientation of the insomniac to conceptualize what it might mean to try to access and soothe a stranger’s grief. WAKING SLEEP IN THE BOOK OF THE DUCHESS Although critics have long noted the lengthy insomniac meditation that starts The Book of the Duchess, few have examined it as hermeneutically central to the poem.30 Chaucer’s text is clearly dedicated to Froissart’s Le Paradis d’Amour, which begins with the insomniac suffering of its narrator, so perhaps critics have assumed that the Duchess’ depiction of insomnia is merely emulative.31 Moreover, as a dream vision, the poem has largely been read as a psychosomatic exploration of, as Peter Travis puts it, “the complex set of needs and drives, both conscious and unconscious, that are at the core of the human pursuit of signs.”32 Travis recognizes the narrator’s depressed yearnings as evidence of a riven “I” that only finds inadequate solace in l’objet

Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness

9

petit a encapsulated by White. But that riven “I” ought to be understood as an ethical gesture as much as a subjective or nominal one. Indeed, recognizing insomnia qua experience, rather than as mere counterpoint of sleep, helps us recognize The Book of the Duchess as a meditation on what it means to invite someone else into the experience of grief, a kind of emotional hospitality and search for refuge via the empathy of another. As Travis makes clear, The Book of the Duchess’ insomniac narrator lies suspended outside himself, distanced from his own somatic experiences: “I have feling in nothinge, / But as it were a mased thing,” he laments (11–12). He recognizes his insomnia as “ageynst kynde,” a denaturalization of himself to himself (16). It is particularly notable that the narrator repeatedly returns to the fact of his insomnia, overexplaining that he reaches for a “romance” to try to read himself to sleep but reiterating, “For I ne might for bote ne bale / Slepe er I had red this tale” (227–8). He also prays to Morpheus, offering expensive bed linens in exchange for a good night’s sleep. The romance and the prayer to Morpheus seem to work, albeit inexplicably, in that the narrator is “sodeynly” overcome by “a lust” to sleep, closing his eyes and starting to dream of the Black Knight. Yet even when the narrator finally falls asleep, he nonetheless remains suspended outside himself, surprised to find himself naked in his own bed.33 Indeed, it is not clear whether he sees himself in his dream as such or whether he is merely describing himself within his dream: Me thought thus: that it was May, And in the dawning I lay, Me met thus, in my bed al naked, And looked forth, for I was waked With smale foules a grete hepe That had affrayed me out of my slepe Thurgh noyse and swetnesse of hir songe. (291–7)

“Me thought thus” signals that the narrator is soporific but self-aware. Similar to what contemporary psychologists call “lucid dreaming,” Chaucer’s narrator knows he is dreaming and even, perhaps, shapes his dream actively.34 The phrase “Me met thus” two lines later rehearses “Me thought thus” and reemphasizes the narrator’s scrambled position between inside and outside his own dream, as he “comes upon” his sleeping body even as he “was waked.” So even with all the conventions of dream vision here—the May morning, the singing birds—the narrator’s waking and sleeping states are mutually imbricated, and it is unclear what is happening within the dream and what is happening without.

10

Jamie Taylor

Although the unexpectedness of the narrator’s naked body at first seems to be the reassertion of the Real in a disoriented Symbolic world, in fact his nakedness only emphasizes the troubling way insomnia dissolves the insomniac’s boundaries between self and other, particularly since his nakedness is framed by Alcyone’s nakedness in the book he reads to fall asleep, and, later, the Man in Black’s metaphorical nakedness. Notably, Alcyone is not naked in Ovid’s version, but here in The Book of the Duchess, after begging for a dream to reveal where her husband is, her servants “broughten hir to bed al naked” (125).35 Thus, when the narrator finds himself “al naked” in his own dream, his body does not function as a touchstone for real life or embodied subjectivity, but merely yet another signifier in an ongoing circle, in which textual character, dream-narrator, and dream-character overlap. Chaucer thus subtly but repeatedly tries to articulate the peculiar self-dissociation that characterizes insomnia, differentiating it from both the dreamworld and the waking world. Moreover, as Levinas might have predicted, The Book of the Duchess’ narrator focuses on his dream-bedroom as an encased site of disorientation: And, sooth to seyn, my chambre was Ful wel depeynted, and with glas Were al the windowes wel y-glased, Ful clere, and nat an hole y-crased, That to beholde it was gret joye. (321–5)

The story of Troy is etched into the stained glass, and scenes from the Romance of the Rose are painted “with colours fyne” on the walls. A fantasy space in which the now-sleeping narrator is enclosed within the text, this bedroom also echoes an earlier description of Morpheus’s cave: And I wol yive him al that falls To a chambre; and al his halles I wol do peynte with pure gold And tapite hem ful many folde Of oo sute; this shal he have, If I wiste wher were his cave, If he can make me slepe soone, As dide the goddesse Alcyone. (257–65)

The bed, bedroom, cave, and text are all nested; the narrator’s space consists of a dizzying overlap of the real and the imaginary. So for Chaucer’s insomniac, reading, dreaming, and experiencing are neither different activities nor do they take place in different arenas. In addition, if the insomniac’s

Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness

11

uncomfortable or unsafe bedroom creates the conditions for a hospitable reach toward another, then this fantasy bedroom space asserts that such hospitality can be enabled by books as much as dreams—indeed, that the two might not be all that different. This insomniac might have stayed suspended in the liminal space between waking and dreaming but for the birdsong that “affrayed” him into a dream proper, in which he discovers a newfound ability to appreciate the beauty of singing birds. Susan Crane has shown that Chaucerian examples of humanbird communications press us to examine how cross-species empathy might generate the ethical requirement to welcome the stranger with compassion and recognition.36 To take a prominent Chaucerian example, Canacee’s understanding of what the falcon “seyde” in The Squire’s Tale is only putatively funneled through the power of a magic ring. Rather, Crane argues, the shared feminine embodiment between the falcon and Canacee produces a “cross-kynde empathy” (37). With this in mind, we might revise the narrator’s description of his insomnia as merely “ageynst kynde,” understanding it not as a frustrated rejection of insomnia-as-symptom but rather as a gesture toward how insomniac self-alienation might offer new forms of communication and welcome. At the beginning of the dream, the dreamer hears a hunting horn and heads out of his bedroom to join the group, whereupon he comes upon a playful puppy. The little whelp takes him deep off the path, eventually bringing him to the Man in Black, who is sitting forlornly at the base of an oak tree. There, he quietly stands just behind him. “And ther I stood as stille as ought,” he tells us, “That, sooth to seye, he saw me nought” (459–60). The Man in Black murmurs a tuneless complaint to himself about his lost love, which the narrator “rehearses” (474). Chaucer makes clear that the Man in Black has not invited the narrator into his lament at all; the narrator simply eavesdrops. Still, as Sandra Pierson Prior argues, the narrator’s status as bystander shifts the Man in Black’s lament from purely internalized self-examination “to the shared pity of one heart for another.”37 And as a central motivation for empathetic, ethical interaction with another, pity “erases the distance between oneself and the Other.”38 Ultimately, the Man in Black notices the narrator, and he explains his sorrow in devastating terms, which ignite the narrator’s empathy: Lo, how goodly spak this knight, As it had been another wight; He made it nouther tough ne queynte, And I saw that, and gan m’aqueynte With him, and fond him so tretable, Right wonder skilful and reasonable, As me thoughte, for al his bale. (529–35)

12

Jamie Taylor

The narrator recognizes a kind of “opening” in the Man of Black’s grief, finding him so “tretable” that the narrator believes that if the Man would just “discure” his woe, he could soothe it. “‘For by my trouthe, to make yow hool,’” the narrator promises, “‘I wol do al my power hool’” (553–4). The “hool-hool” repetition here yokes the Man in Black’s suffering with the narrator’s empathetic response, such that the Man’s healing is inextricably bound up in the narrator’s recognition of it. The bodily terms of healing— “tretable,” “hool”—become ethical ideals. Chaucer also suggests that the narrator’s status as witness and bystander might itself offer some consolation. “‘[T]elleth me of your sorwes smerte, / Paraventure it may ese your herte, / That semeth ful seke under your syde,’” he offers the Man, who looks at the narrator “asyde” (555–8). The Man then tells the narrator his story at length, describing his courtship, love, and suffering. He cries, “‘I wrecche, that deeth hath maad al naked / Of al the blis that ever was maked, / Yworthe worste of alle wightes, / That hate my days and my nights’” (577–80). The Man’s claim that death has rendered him “naked” recalls the narrator waking up naked in his bed. Then, the narrator’s nakedness had reflected Alcyone’s, troubling any boundary between self and literary Other. Likewise, here nakedness not only reflects the Man’s vulnerability to suffering but also provides a point of empathetic connection with the narrator. As the Man continues, he emphasizes that his grief has alienated him from himself: “‘My lif, my lustes be me lothe, / For al welfare and I be wrothe’” (581–2). Experienced as persistent dying without the finality of death, the Man in Black’s grief is not unlike the narrator’s insomnia, a state of existence in which his health (“welfare”) and the self (“I”) are disengaged. Yet as lonely and disoriented as the Man in Black is, his self-alienation finds common vocabulary with the insomniac narrator. At the end of his story, the narrator pointedly asks where the Man’s beloved is. When the Man sobs that she is dead, the hunting horn blows, whereupon the narrator emerges from the depths of his dream (although he remains asleep): With that, me thoughte that this king Gan quikly hoomward for to ryde Unto a place was ther besyde, Which was from us but a lyte: A longe castel with walles whyte, By Seynte Johan, on a riche hille, As me mette; but thus it fille. (1314–20)

This crucial moment, when the narrator’s waking life and dream-world are explicitly woven together, homes in on the close-but-not-quite-there castle. Like the insomniac’s bedroom, the castle operates as a disorienting site that

Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness

13

stages hospitality as the narrator’s ethical challenge as he begins to wake up. Here, as a building that “was ther besyde,” the castle encapsulates what Glenn Burger, drawing on Eve Sedgwick, calls “an economy of the beside,” in which epistemological, social, or generic categories exist alongside rather than atop one another, such that multiple, even contradictory, identities might be simultaneously operative. Burger explains that an economy of the beside “is interested in rearticulating power relations . . . in more granular, less strictly hierarchized terms, but at the same time, doing so without depending upon a fantasy of metonymically egalitarian or even pacific relations.”39 This castle encapsulates the repeated economy of the beside throughout the text, in which the narrator’s status as bystander can function as a structural way of thinking about relationships that are not hierarchical but not necessarily horizontal, equal, or even kind. In addition, these “beside poetics” can more broadly describe the poem itself, which allusively gestures outside itself to topical figures without offering fully visible allegorical objects. Critics have assumed that the Black Knight refers to John of Gaunt, the Black Prince, and White to Blanche of Lancaster, who died in 1368, but they have also been pressed to “prove” such associations only from gestures within the text.40 Thus, as Julie Orlemanski articulates, It makes a series of speculative connections across its several layers of reality: the fictional world of pagan literature, the dreamscape of the narrator’s slumber, the narrator’s waking reality where he ostensibly writes the poem at hand, the extra-textual relations of Geoffrey Chaucer, John of Gaunt, and Blanche, and finally, the reader’s own experience of the text.41

Insomnia enables such “ontological nesting,” offering a poetics of beside in which the narrator is persistently aslant from, rather than fully immersed in, “real” life, waking poetry, dream vision, and another text. Chaucer, too, operated “beside” the court: his wife, Philippa, was King Edward’s lady in waiting, and Chaucer was appointed court valet in 1367, becoming close to John of Gaunt. Chaucer’s adjacent relationship to John emerges here as a series of possible experiences, “real,” dreamed, and allegorical. At the very end of the poem, the narrator dreams he hears a bell ring, and “therwith I awooke myselve, / And fonde me lying in my bed” (1324–5). He also discovers (“fond”) the book of Ceyx and Alcyone still in his hand, and he then ends the poem by recognizing that his dream should be translated into a more public text. “This is so queynte a sweven / That I wol, by processe of tyme, / Fonde to putte this sweven in ryme / As I can best, and that anoon” (1330–3). The repetition of the word “fonde” here denotes a range of activities, passive and active, and it suggests the discovery of himself and the

14

Jamie Taylor

attempt to write his dream are mutually supportive and equally surprising. In other words, writing dream-poetry itself is an act of hospitable invitation in two ways: it invites a reader into a dream experience, and it turns a subject’s consciousness into an object to be written. That invitation is always a matter of self-alienation, translating an inner imaginary into a textual object. Indeed, the discomfort felt by the insomniac is akin to the discomfort that can attend ethical engagement: that is, how one can invite someone into dialogue and affective empathy even as the other remains always unreachable or alien. The Book of the Duchess’ insomniac exploration of what it means to participate in another’s grief stretches the range of the dream vision to imagine it as a call for compassion and empathy. That compassion relies on the dreamer’s initial ability to fall asleep and his subsequent experience of a kind of waking sleep to dissolve the boundaries between self and other and to recognize desire not as an individuated relationship to a fantasy or an object but rather as a dialectical response to another’s loss. As I describe in the next section, for fifteenth-century Chaucerians like Clanvowe, dream vision becomes an opportunity not just to experiment with the ethics of pity, but to demand hospitality toward others. SWOONING AND DREAMING IN THE BOKE OF CUPIDE John Clanvowe’s debts to Chaucer are widely acknowledged.42 Clanvowe and Chaucer ran in the same social circles, and scholars have noted the similar depiction of the God of Love across the Legend of Good Women and the Boke of Cupide. More specifically, the first two lines of the Boke—“The God of Love, a benedicté! / How myghty and how grete a lorde is he!”—are the same as those spoken by Theseus in The Knight’s Tale.43 But Clanvowe’s portrayal of insomnia moves beyond Chaucer’s disorienting depictions toward something more communal, even hopeful.44 Whereas Levinas articulates the various disorientations that attach to insomnia, Jacques Derrida offers a reading of Levinasian insomnia that articulates its potential for hospitable invitations, a useful backdrop for Clanvowe’s portrayal of his insomniac narrator. In his obituary speech to Levinas, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, Derrida argues that insomnia can offer “the element of friendship or hospitality for the transcendence of the stranger, the infinite distance of the other.”45 In other words, the radical solitude of the insomniac might provide the conditions by which the space between being and nothingness (to use Levinas’s terms) might be traversed, such that one might reach toward the Other in grasping toward ethics or empathy. A year later, in A Word of Welcome, Derrida clarifies that such hospitality “would attempt to pass from one to another, from someone—him

Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness

15

or her—to another, letting itself be received but also heard and interpreted, listened to or questioned.”46 Clanvowe’s insomniac embodies such hospitable passing from one to another, enabling those typically unheard or ignored to be listened to and perhaps recognized and understood. Like Chaucer’s narrator in The Book of the Duchess, Clanvowe’s narrator in the Boke struggles with the loneliness of a sleepless night. His discomforts are so full of recognizable tropes that they hardly register as personal or individual; to take merely one example, his “white fever” draws directly upon Ovidian description of lovers’ pallor:47 I am so slayn with the feveres white, Of al this May yet slept I but a lyte; And also hit is unlike for to be That eny hert shulde slepy be, In whom that Love his fiery dart wol smyte. (41–5)

Despite claiming that he suffers from Ovidian tropes of love-sickness, however, this narrator proclaims himself too old and enfeebled to be ensnared by any frustrated desire. Rather, the narrator quickly moves from the insomnia of love-sickness to insomnia that accompanies narrating love-sickness, noting that he knows love only from the distant past. His insomnia results from a kind of theoretical empathy in which he can imagine the symptoms a lover might suffer although he does not experience love himself: But as I lay this other nyght waking, I thought how lovers had a tokenyng, And among hem hit was a comune tale, That hit wer good to her the nyghtyngale Rather then the leude cukkow syng. (46–50)

The narrator of the Boke of Cupide thus experiences a kind of adjacent illness, embodying a poetics of beside in which the old narrator might connect with a young lover via the agitation of sleeplessness. But unlike the Duchess narrator, this narrator accepts his insomniac fate and throws off the covers at the break of dawn to go on a walk. Predictably, he soon finds himself in a beautiful “launde of white and grene” in which birds are just beginning to awake and sing (61). There, upon the banks of a river, he finally falls asleep. “And for delyte—I note ner how,” he writes, I fel in such a slombre and a swowe— Not al on slepe, ne fully waking And in that swowe me thoght I herde singe

16

Jamie Taylor

That sory bride, the lewde cukkowe And that was on a tre right fast bye. (86–91)

The distinction between the narrator’s waking and sleeping state is quite thin: he listens to the birds sing while awake, and then once he falls asleep he continues listening. In addition, like the Duchess narrator, Clanvowe’s narrator falls asleep quickly, almost without warning. Significantly, however, he describes his fall into sleep as aswoon, a response to an overwhelming sensation that is similar to but not the same as sleep. For example, Troilus’s famous swoon in Troilus and Criseyde comes as a result of his sleepless night when he watches Criseyde weep at the thought of deceiving him. “The felyng of his sorwe, or of his fere, / Or of aught ells, fled was out of towne; / And down he fel al sodeynly a-swowne” (III.1090–2). This swoon comes from Troilus’s overidentification with Criseyde’s feelings and his shame that he might be their cause. As Jill Mann explains, The swoon is an expression of Troilus’ acceptance of—and indeed absolute identification with—the contradictory and destructive implications of the situation. . . . He is unable to find his real self in the external situation, and this loss of identity is mirrored in his loss of consciousness.48

Mann’s explanation is fundamentally individual and psychoanalytic, arguing that Troilus’s swoon registers here the subject’s momentary disassociation from the world as a result of a scrambled internal order. However, not all swoons register such a breach in consciousness (what Travis calls the riven “I” in The Book of the Duchess). Unlike Troilus’s swoon, the swoon in the Boke of Cupide does not result from overwhelming emotional or sensory stimuli, nor does it “shut down” the subject as a form of self-protection. Rather, the narrator is lulled to semiconsciousness by gentle nature sounds, and thus swooning here signifies a liminal state that remains alert to the outside world while also igniting the imaginary interior world of the narrator. In addition, unlike other swoons, this swoon does not “imply the cessation of utterance,” in which the subject remains both silent and unaware of any chatter that may continue over the slumped body.49 Quite the opposite, in fact: this swoon enables the narrator to transcend the limitations of human utterance to engage with the birds chirping around him. “As long as I lay in the swonynge, / Me thoght I wist al that the brides ment” (107–8). Key here is the narrator’s dream-like perception. So long as he remains aswoon, he can imagine that he understands the birds. In fact, he insists that not only that he can decipher bird-language, he can also access any avian subtext: “And what they seyde, and what was her entent,” he continues, “And of her speche I had good knouynge” (109–10). The “Me thoght” here might remind us of the

Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness

17

Duchess narrator’s discovery of himself naked in bed, but rather than articulate self-discovery, this “Me thoght” articulates the narrator’s reach beyond himself, and beyond the human, to newfound sites of recognition. Likewise, whereas in The Book of the Duchess birdsong is ancillary to the narrator’s experience of insomnia and his dream, in the Boke of Cupide, birdsong takes center stage. The Boke’s narrator theorizes that the liminal state between dreaming and waking is where ontological and linguistic lines can be traversed such that, in Derridean fashion, strangers can be heard and acknowledged. The narrator listens to a heated debate between the cuckoo and the nightingale about whether the cuckoo “belongs” in the locus amoenus. The cuckoo defends himself against charges that his song is “elynge,” arguing that although his voice does not trill like the nightingale’s, nonetheless “every wight may understond me” (115, 121). In contrast, he says, the nightingale’s song is mere noise: “For thou hast mony a nyse, queynt crie. / I have herd thee say ‘Ocy! Ocy!’ / Who might wete what that shuld be?” (123–5). The cuckoo and nightingale then engage in a debate about the nature and virtue of love: the cuckoo argues that love is a path to suffering and failure, whereas the nightingale argues love is an ennobling form of service. The narrator largely disappears during the discussion, only to be jarred out of his passivity when the nightingale starts to weep: “Me thoght then that I stert out anone, / And to the broke I ran and gatte a stone, / And at the cukkow hertly I cast” (216–18). Clanvowe again echoes Chaucer’s “Me thoght” to signal the lucidity of this dream and thus more broadly to signal the ways waking and sleeping lives work together to produce ethical, or at least affective, response. A debate between a nightingale and cuckoo would be familiar to readers of such texts as The Owl and the Nightingale or Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls. Clanvowe’s particular intervention into dreamed bird-debates is his narrator’s status as semi-sleeping witness to it, one who reemerges on the scene when his empathy is stirred by tears. Notably, when the cuckoo finally flies away, he mocks the narrator by calling him a “papyngay,” scorning both the narrator’s defense of the nightingale and Clanvowe’s imitation of Chaucer as mere mimicry. The insertion of the parrot into the traditional nightingale-cuckoo pair throws the narrator back into his dream, and it troubles any binary structure that conceptualizes the nightingale as the elegant defender of courtly love and the cuckoo as its obnoxious and pessimistic counterpart. More pointedly, with the narrator-as-parrot here, the ontological distinctions between human and bird likewise dissolve a bit, offering the kind of poetic, imaginative “opening” insomnia and dreams alike can provide. This aswoon narrator can more broadly use the opening between waking and sleeping to try to understand his relationship to the long history of dream-narrators, particularly Chaucerian insomniacs. Sarah Kay argues that the tradition of depicting parrots as thoughtless repeaters ought to be revised in light of a more capacious

18

Jamie Taylor

understanding of imitation and citation. It was (and is still) not known how much a parrot truly understands when it speaks, so a parrot “puts in doubt the dividing lines between speaking, quoting, repeating, and merely copying.”50 By calling his narrator a parrot, Clanvowe resists conceptualizing his poem either as a pure imitation of Chaucer or as a full departure. Rather, the Boke of Cupide itself works in the space between the two. For Clanvowe, writing his insomniac text means exposing that “copying” and “speaking” may not be all that different, just as waking and sleeping might not be opposed. Perhaps we can understand Clanvowe’s own relationship to Chaucer as an insomniac one: that is, one between imitation and invention, one which reaches for connection but nonetheless exists alone. The nightingale thanks the parrot-y narrator for defending her, telling him not to be afraid, because “Thogh thou have herde the cukkow er then me, / For, if I lyve, hit shal amended be / The next May, yf I be not affrayed” (233–5). Unlike the Duchess’ narrator, who is “affrayed” into a dream by birdsong, here that narratorial fear is soothed by the nightingale. The semi-sleeping narrator, the lyric dream-subject, and his dream-nightingale, all overlapping figures, can all share in the affective work of producing love poetry, including fear and uncertainty about the future. Thus, although the final line, “So loude that with that songe I awoke,” abruptly cuts off the poem in a way that echoes the end of The Book of the Duchess, it emerges from a more robust bird-narrator connection, an ontological connection enabled by the narrator’s stupor—neither sleeping nor waking—next to the river. CONCLUSION Unlike Chaucer’s and Clanvowe’s narrators, Hoccleve never falls asleep. In fact, he is so plagued with “dremes drempt al in wakynge” (238–40) that he wishes for death. Dazed with fatigue and hallucinations, he encounters an old man who tries to greet him. When a startled Hoccleve asks who is there, the man answers gently. “‘I,’ quod this olde greye, / ‘Am heer’” (295–6). Although Hoccleve grouches at the old man, he eventually confesses his struggles with poverty and his physical aches and pains, and in return, the old man offers Boethian advice on everything from Lollardy to lust. The insomniac prologue of the Regiment ends with the old man encouraging Hoccleve to write despite his insecurities and promising to see him soon at Mass. The sleepless Hoccleve finds in this old man an invitation to share his worries, and in so doing finds a way to move beyond his insomniac inertia and produce a text. The insomnia provides the crucial conditions for the old man’s affective generosity, and his simple reassurance—“I am here”—provides the place of refuge, of hospitality, that Hoccleve and other insomniac narrators in

Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness

19

the later Middle Ages so desperately seek. But that refuge only emerges when the mind and the world dissolve into one another, so that the Boethian sage and struggling writer (or the cuckoo and the nightingale, or the Man in Black and the dreamer) reach toward one another through the imaginative, ethical opening insomnia can afford. That imaginative, ethical opening might well depict authorial lines of influence, whether between Froissart and Chaucer or between Chaucer and Clanvowe. The anxiety of influence here takes shape in the phenomenological depiction of insomnia, which reroutes the dream vision away from psychosomatic processes of the individual and onto a more communal path. But the empathetic reach toward another that insomnia encourages does not erase its anxieties or disorientations. Instead, it makes those anxieties and disorientations central to the act of writing itself, and more specifically, it makes them central to the act of writing under the umbrella of the successes that have come before. Disorienting and imaginative at once, insomnia might be a way of expressing the complex negotiations between generic fidelity and invention. Such negotiations might also express the complicated relationship between mentor and student. I met Beth Robertson when I was brand-new to medieval studies, and she was a leading scholar in medieval feminist and religious thought. As I anxiously fumbled my way through new texts, new vocabularies, and new modes of reading, Beth kept open the possibility of mutual engagement. She founded her teaching and mentorship on the ethical practice of imaginative curiosity, taking her students seriously as scholars before we saw ourselves as such. That riven “I” between expert scholar and green student was, for Beth, a site of genuinely empathetic outreach, and she offered me the grace I needed to grasp toward my own research. Her lifetime of work more broadly understands medieval studies and gender studies as mutually reliant on communal thinking and openness. I am so grateful for her kindness and openness toward me when I was a fledgling, and I hope to emulate such empathetic hospitality with my own students and colleagues. NOTES 1. La Belle Dame sans Mercy, in Chaucerian Dream Visions and Complaints, 1–2; Lydgate, The Temple of Glas, 12, 14. 2. Hoccleve, The Regiment of Princes, 1, 7. Hereafter cited parenthetically by line number. 3. For a discussion of Hoccleve’s subjective disorientation as “responsive to the sovereign Other of monarchy,” see Hasler, “Hoccleve’s Unregimented Body,” 164–83. See also Sugito, “Reality as Dream: Hoccleve’ Daydreaming Mind,” 244–63.

20

Jamie Taylor

4. The Book of the Duchess, in The Norton Chaucer, 1–8. Hereafter cited parenthetically by line number. 5. For discussions and important reformulations of this trajectory, see Lynch, The High Medieval Dream Vision: Poetry, Philosophy, and Literary Form and Russell, The English Dream Vision: Anatomy of a Form. 6. Levinas, “In Praise of Insomnia,” in God, Death, and Time, 210. 7. Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, 21. 8. Kruger, Dreaming in the Middle Ages, 84–5. See also Peden, “Macrobius and Medieval Dream Literature,” 59–73. 9. Both Kruger and Raby importantly point out that the “Aristotelian” and the “Macrobian” models of dreaming did not operate separately nor were pitted against one another. “To be sure, the Aristotelian models did not replace established late antique and patristic theories,” Raby writes. “As Kruger notes, late medieval thinkers, even the most Aristotelian among them, tended to synthesize the ‘newer’ learning with ‘older’ theories that were better able to explain divinely inspired dreams.” See “Sleep and the Transformation of Sense in Late Medieval Literature,” 195. 10. Spearing, Medieval Dream-Poetry, 5. 11. Nelson, Lyric Tactics, 134. 12. Leitch, “Grete Luste to Slepe,” 110. See also Leitch, Sleep and its Spaces. 13. Sullivan, Sleep, Romance, and Human Embodiment, 17–19. 14. Mitchell, Ethics and Eventfulness in Middle English Literature; Rosenfeld, Ethics and Enjoyment in Late Medieval Poetry. 15. Rosenfeld, Ethics, 97. 16. Raby, “Sleep,” 224. 17. Raby, “Sleep,” 201. 18. Levinas explicitly says that insomnia is “an opening that is prior to intentionality, a primordial opening that is an impossibility of hiding.” Existence and Existents, 209. 19. Schwenger, At the Borders of Sleep, 53. 20. See Summers-Bremner, Insomnia. 21. Aristotle, De Somno et Vigilia, 7.455b2. 22. Donati, “Albert the Great as a Commentator of Aristotle’s De somno et vigilia: The Influence of the Arabic Tradition,” 203. See also Thomsen Thornquist, “Sleepwalking through the Thirteenth Century,” 286–310. 23. De somno et vigilia, 135b–136a, in B. Alberti Magni Opera omnia. Translated and discussed in Donati, 204. 24. See Huot, “Unruly Bodies, Unspeakable Acts,” 79–98. 25. Copen, “A Phenomenological Investigation of the Experience of Insomnia,” 364–9. 26. Levinas, “In Praise of Insomnia,” 210. 27. Levinas, Existence, 61. 28. Levinas, Existence, 66–7. 29. Khanna, “On the Right to Sleep, Perchance to Dream,” 358. 30. An important exception is Kiser, who argues that the narrator’s insomnia both establishes key thematic questions for the poem about the vexed relationship between idleness and poetry-writing and unites the poem’s three major parts. “Sleep, Dreams,

Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness

21

and Poetry in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess,” 3–12. For discussions of the narratorial prologue (but not of insomnia specifically), see Hill, “The Book of the Duchess, Melancholy, and that Eight-Year Sickness,” 35–50, and Cherniss, “The Narrator Asleep and Awake in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess,” 115–26. 31. See Wimsatt, Chaucer and the French Love Poets: The Literary Background of the Book of the Duchess. For a careful distinction between Froissart’s and Chaucer’s insomniac narrators, see Nolan, “The Art of Expropriation,” 203–22; and Bahr, “The Rhetorical Construction of Narrator and Narrative in Chaucer’s the Book of the Duchess,” 43–59. 32. Travis, “White,” 4. See also Hardaway, “A Fallen Language and the Consolation of Art in the Book of the Duchess,” 159–77. 33. Stanbury, “The Place of the Bedchamber in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess,” 133–61. 34. See LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming. 35. Liendo, “‘In hir bed al naked,’” 403–24. 36. Crane, “For the Birds,” 37. 37. Pierson Prior, “Routhe and Hert-Huntyng in the Book of the Duchess,” 15. 38. Nuyen, “Lévinas and the Ethics of Pity,” 417. For a discussion of Chaucerian ideals of pity, see Duprey, “Lo, pitee renneth soone in gentil herte,” 55–66. 39. Burger, Conduct Becoming, 111–12. 40. See Hardman, “Memorial Monument” and Palmer, “Historical Context.” 41. Orlemanski, “The Heaviness of Prosopopoeial Form in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess,” 128. 42. For discussions of Clanvowe’s debts to Chaucer, see Laird, “Chaucer, Clanvowe, and Cupid,” 344–50; Patterson, “Court Politics and the Invention of Literature: The Case of Sir John Clanvowe,” 7–41; Strohm, Social Chaucer, 78–82; Lenaghan, “Chaucer’s Circle of Gentlemen and Clerks,” 155–60; and Rutherford, “The Boke of Cupide Reopened,” 350–8. 43. Clanvowe, The Boke of Cupide, 1–2. Hereafter cited parenthetically by line number. 44. For a discussion of what is “Chaucerian” about Chaucerian apocrypha and fifteenth-century Chaucerian dream visions, see Putter, “Fifteenth-Century Chaucerian Visions,” 143–55. 45. Derrida, Adieu, 21. 46. Derrida, Welcome, 18. 47. Byrd, “Blanche Fever,” 56–64. 48. Mann, “Troilus’ Swoon,” 327. 49. See Windeatt, “The Art of Swooning in Middle English,” 211–40. 50. Kay, “The Monolingualism of the Parrot,” 24.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Albertus Magnus. B. Alberti Magni Opera omnia Vol. 9, De somno et vigilia. Edited by Augusti Borgnet. Paris: Ludovicum Vives, 1890.

22

Jamie Taylor

Aristotle. De Somno et Vigilia. Edited and translated by David Gallop. Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 1990. Bahr, Arthur. “The Rhetorical Construction of Narrator and Narrative in Chaucer’s the Book of the Duchess.” Chaucer Review 35, no. 1 (2000): 43–59. Burger, Glenn D. Conduct Becoming: Good Wives and Husbands in the Later Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. Byrd, David G. “Blanche Fever: The Grene Sekeness.” Ball State University Forum 19, no. 3 (1978): 56–64. Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Book of the Duchess.” In The Norton Chaucer, edited by David Lawton, 947–78. New York: Norton, 2019. Cherniss, Michael D. “The Narrator Asleep and Awake in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess.” Papers in Language and Literature 8, no. 2 (1972): 115–26. Clanvowe, John. “The Boke of Cupide, God of Love, or the Cuckoo and the Nightingale.” In Chaucerian Dream Visions and Complaints, edited by Dana M. Symons, 43–52. Kalamazoo, MI: TEAMS, 2004. Copen, Richard G. “A Phenomenological Investigation of the Experience of Insomnia.” The Humanistic Psychologist 21, no. 3 (1993): 364–9. Derrida, Jacques. Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas and A Word of Welcome. Translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Donati, Silvia. “Albert the Great as a Commentator of Aristotle’s De somno et vigilia: The Influence of the Arabic Tradition.” In The Parva Naturalia in Greek, Arabic, and Latin Aristotelianism, edited by Börgj Bydén and Filip Radovic, 169–209. Switzerland: Spring, 2018. Duprey, Annaleese. “‘Lo, pitee renneth soone in gentil herte’: Pity as Moral and Sexual Persuasion in Chaucer.” Essays in Medieval Studies 30 (2014): 55–66. Hardaway, Reid. “A Fallen Language and the Consolation of Art in the Book of the Duchess.” Chaucer Review 50, no. 1–2 (2015): 159–77. Hardman, Phillipa. “The Book of the Duchess as Memorial Monument.” Chaucer Review 28, no. 3 (1994): 205–15. Hasler, Antony J. “Hoccleve’s Unregimented Body.” Paragraph 13, no. 2 (1990): 164–83. Hill, John M. “The Book of the Duchess, Melancholy, and that Eight-Year Sickness.” Chaucer Review 9, no. 1 (1974): 35–50. Hoccleve, Thomas. The Regiment of Princes. Edited by Charles R. Blyth. Kalamazoo, MI: TEAMS, 1999. Huot, Sylvia. “Unruly Bodies, Unspeakable Acts: Pierre de Béarn, Camel de Camois, and Actaeon in the Writings of Jean Froissart.” Exemplaria 14, no. 1 (2002): 79–98. Kay, Sarah. “The Monolingualism of the Parrot, or the Prosthesis of Origins, in Las Novas del Papagay.” Romanic Review 101, no. 1/2 (2010): 23–35. Khanna, Ranjanna. “On the Right to Sleep, Perchance to Dream.” In A Concise Companion to Psychoanalysis, Literature, and Culture, edited by Laura Marcus and Ankhi Mukherjee, 351–66. Sussex: Wiley Blackwell, 2014. Kiser, Lisa J. “Sleep, Dreams, and Poetry in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess.” Papers on Language and Literature 19, no. 1 (1983): 3–12.

Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness

23

Kruger, Steven F. Dreaming in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. LaBerge, Stephen. Lucid Dreaming. New York: Ballantine, 1985. Laird, Edgar. “Chaucer, Clanvowe, and Cupid.” Chaucer Review 44, no. 3 (2010): 344–50. Leitch, Megan G. “‘Grete Luste to Slepe’: Somatic Ethics and the Sleep of Romance from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to Shakespeare.” Parergon 32, no. 1 (2015): 103–28. Leitch, Megan G. Sleep and its Spaces in Middle English Literature: Emotions, Ethics, Dreams. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021. Lenaghan, R. T. “Chaucer’s Circle of Gentlemen and Clerks.” Chaucer Review 18 (1983–4): 155–60. Levinas, Emmanuel. Existence and Existents. Translated by Alphonso Lingus. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1978. ———. “In Praise of Insomnia.” In God, Death, and Time, translated by Bettina Bergo, 207–12. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Liendo, Elizabeth. “‘In hir bed al naked’: Nakedness and Male Grief in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess.” Philological Quarterly 96, no. 4 (2017): 403–24. Lydgate, John. The Temple of Glas. Edited by J. Allan Mitchell. Kalamazoo, MI: TEAMS, 2007. Lynch, Kathryn L. The High Medieval Dream Vision: Poetry, Philosophy, and Literary Form. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. Mann, Jill. “Troilus’ Swoon.” Chaucer Review 14, no. 4 (1980): 319–35. Nelson, Ingrid. Lyric Tactics: Poetry, Genre, and Practice in Later Medieval England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. Nolan, Barbara. “The Art of Expropriation: Chaucer’s Narrator in the Book of the Duchess.” In New Perspectives in Chaucer Criticism, edited by Donald M. Rose, 203–22. Norman, OK: Pilgrim, 1981. Nuyen, A.T. “Lévinas and the Ethics of Pity.” International Philosophical Quarterly 40, no. 4 (2000): 411–21. Orlemanski, Julie. “The Heaviness of Prosopopoeial Form in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess.” In Chaucer and the Subversion of Form, edited by Thomas Prendergast and Jessica Rosenfeld, 125–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Palmer, John N. “The Historical Context of the Book of the Duchess: A Revision.” Chaucer Review 8, no. 4 (1974): 253–61. Patterson, Lee. “Court Politics and the Invention of Literature: The Case of Sir John Clanvowe.” In Culture and History, 1350–1600: Essays on English Communities, Identities, and Writing, edited by David Aers, 7–41. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1992. Peden, Alison M. “Macrobius and Medieval Dream Literature.” Medium Aevum 54, no. 1 (1985): 59–73. Prior, Sandra Pierson. “Routhe and Hert-Huntyng in the Book of the Duchess.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 85, no. 1 (1986): 3–19.

24

Jamie Taylor

Putter, Ad. “Fifteenth-Century Chaucerian Visions.” In A Companion to FifteenthCentury English Poetry, edited by Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, 143–55. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2013. Raby, Michael. “Sleep and the Transformation of Sense in Late Medieval Literature.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 39 (2017): 191–224. Roos, Richard. La Belle Dame sans Mercy, in Chaucerian Dream Visions and Complaints. Edited by Dana M. Symons. Kalamazoo, MI: TEAMS, 2004. Rosenfeld, Jessica. Ethics and Enjoyment in Late Medieval Poetry: Love after Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Russell, J. Stephen. The English Dream Vision: Anatomy of a Form. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1988. Rutherford, Charles S. “The Boke of Cupide Reopened.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 78, no. 4 (1977): 350–8. Schwenger, Peter. At the Borders of Sleep: On Liminal Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Spearing, A.C. Medieval Dream-Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Stanbury, Sarah. “The Place of the Bedchamber in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 37 (2015): 33–61. Strohm, Paul. Social Chaucer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Sugito, Hisashi. “Reality as Dream: Hoccleve’ Daydreaming Mind.” Chaucer Review 49, no. 2 (2014): 244–63. Sullivan, Garret A. Sleep, Romance, and Human Embodiment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Summers-Bremner, Eluned. Insomnia: A Cultural History. London: Reaktion, 2008. Thornquist, Christina Thomsen. “Sleepwalking through the Thirteenth Century: Some Medieval Latin Commentaries on Aristotle’s De somno et vigilia 2.456a24– 27.” Vivarium 54 (2016): 286–310. Travis, Peter W. “White.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22 (2000): 1–66. Wimsatt, James I. Chaucer and the French Love Poets: The Literary Background of the Book of the Duchess. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968. Windeatt, Barry. “The Art of Swooning in Middle English.” In Medieval Latin and Middle English Literature: Essays in Honour of Jill Mann, edited by Christopher Cannon and Maura Nolan, 211–40. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2011.

Chapter 2

Cloudy Thoughts Cognition and Affect in Troilus and Criseyde Stephanie Trigg

Criseyde is thinking. Pandarus has left her alone and she has been gazing down at Troilus as he passes by her window. She withdraws into her chamber to think through what she has seen and heard from her uncle about Troilus’s love for her, allowing herself to take pleasure in the possibility of love. She even dramatizes herself as a romance heroine—“Who yaf me drynke?”—as she detects herself falling in love (II.651).1 There is no reason why she should not take a lover. Provided the young prince is willing to protect her honor and her reputation, then she should suffer no shame by accepting his love. Chaucer will characterize these pleasant thoughts as “brighte.” But a darker possibility—“a cloudy thought”—crosses her mind that nearly makes her collapse: But right as when the sonne shyneth brighte In March, that chaungeth ofte tyme his face, And that a cloude is put with wynd to flighte, Which oversprat the sonne as for a space, A cloudy thought gan thorugh hire soule pace, That overspradde hire brighte thoughtes alle, So that for feere almost she gan to falle. (II.764–70)

That cloudy thought is the sudden and fearful recollection that love is both uncertain and painful. It is “the mooste stormy lyf, / Right of hymself, that evere was bigonne” (II.778–9). But what is a “cloudy thought”? And to what extent, and how, might it differ from Criseyde’s “brighte” thoughts? What do Chaucer’s readers—medieval and modern—see and feel when they hear 25

26

Stephanie Trigg

or read that simile of a thought passing through a soul, with such devastating effect on the body of this fearful woman? Chaucer develops this intriguing image of cognitive and affective process as part of a broader pattern of sun and cloud imagery in Troilus and Criseyde. This pattern finds its origins in Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, and has deep implications for the characterization of Criseyde, who is often shown, as she is here, as a responsive, thoughtful, even philosophical subject, but one who is also firmly associated with the mutability of Fortune. At times Chaucer evokes a detailed and empathetic interiority in this character that anticipates some of the conventions of realism; at other times—and most significantly, as the poem’s narrative of infidelity unfolds in Books IV and V—he draws on a much flatter set of iconographic associations that makes Criseyde start to resemble the fickle goddess. This chapter is offered as a slow and deep contextual reading of this passage and Chaucer’s language of perception, sensation, and emotion, with an eye to some of the larger questions it raises about the gendered representation of Criseyde. I will also suggest that Chaucer returns to this image cluster in a significant moment of self-critique at the end of The Monk’s Tale. I share with a number of other scholars the sense that Chaucer is offering us something new in his development of Criseyde as a female character; and that he is also doing so quite self-consciously. Peggy A. Knapp, for example, argues that Chaucer is “teaching his readers new tricks” in the reading and analysis of character, tricks “which demand altered structures of feeling, in the presence of texts and ultimately of real-world situations.” She remarks further, It seems to me that Chaucer found persons beautiful—not always agreeable, but beautiful—that in imagining and understanding his images of their inner lives and external actions he brought his own mental powers into play and challenged those of his audiences to think with him.2

This chimes closely with my own sense of what Chaucer is doing in his poetry and in this passage from Book II. I believe Chaucer is asking us to think with Criseyde, too; to feel the effect of this “cloudy thought” as it crosses her soul and dims the brightness of her happiness. This stanza’s combination of cognitive, affective, and metaphysical vocabulary has rich resonances that echo throughout the poem, and contribute powerfully to the sense that in Criseyde, Chaucer has found a new way to write about female sensibility, interiority, and emotion, while at the same time drawing on powerful and diverse literary models from Boethius to Petrarch, Boccaccio and Machaut. Here, and elsewhere in Books II and III, Chaucer opens up a new kind of conceptual space where we might

Cloudy Thoughts

27

contemplate sympathetically the movement of a woman’s thoughts and feelings. Nevertheless, it is hard to avoid the sense that as the poem draws to its sad conclusion, and the narrator must confront Criseyde’s failure to return to Troilus, Chaucer’s representation of this woman becomes less sympathetic, as she becomes more opaque, or as we may say, clouded, to our view. Here is the paradox. One of the features of the intense scrutiny of Criseyde and her “cloudy thought” is the rapidity with which her thoughts and feelings change. It is this internal drama that contributes to the sense of psychological realism, showing us a woman at an emotional crossroads. Yet, for all the sympathetic appeal of this portrayal, Chaucer is also drawing on patterns of imagery that are strongly associated with a far less attractive figure of female changeability: the fickle goddess Fortune. The conceptual space Chaucer opens up for contemplating female agency and feeling is rarely a clear, or untroubled one. I take several cues for this chapter from Beth Robertson’s work on feminist literary criticism and female agency, and some of her more recent and forthcoming work on sensory perception and “soul-making.”3 Beth’s has been one of the most important feminist voices in medieval scholarship of both religious and secular literature, and I have learned a great deal from her inspiring example, as I examine Chaucer’s attentive representation of the feminine mind. The final strand in the cluster of methodologies I draw on here is contemporary interest in the relation between cognition and affect: or, how we feel we know things; and how literature enacts, reflects, and produces feeling, in body, mind, and spirit. I am especially interested in the relation between individual sensibility and the larger cultural and historical forces that shape affect.4 If I may be permitted a broad-brush sketch here, this is one of the differences between literary studies’ and cultural studies’ interest in emotion and affect. The former is conventionally more interested in individual sensibility, exemplified in this instance by two ideas: first, that Chaucer’s Criseyde is unique in her expression of feeling; second, that Chaucer himself is equally unique in his capacity to dramatize such feeling. Culturally and socially informed studies of affect, on the other hand, are more interested in the changing structures and conventions that produce and shape collective or communal affect.5 These differences can be difficult to untangle. In the passage I focus on here, Chaucer draws attention to Criseyde’s characteristic fearfulness, her lively cognitive imagination and its embodied response. At a second-order level, Chaucer dramatizes this highly individualized affective drama through a metaphor that draws on a common phenomenon of the natural world. As we will see, this image also draws on the resonant medieval cultural imagery of the goddess Fortune. As a female character, Criseyde is both highly individualized and deeply indebted to medieval constructions of

28

Stephanie Trigg

femininity. But the balance between these two drives will shift as the poem proceeds to its damning conclusion. FEELING WITH CRISEYDE Criseyde’s “cloudy thought” comes to her when she is finally alone after her uncle’s momentous visit that fills the first half of Book II. Pandarus has delivered his astonishing news of Troilus’s love, in a long conversation that has undergone many twists and turns. As Knapp remarks, it takes place in real time: The audience finds out about Pandarus’s visit in so much detail that the scene takes as much time to read as for the events to occur, seeing every change in facial expression, hearing every cough. They are being asked to think and feel with Criseyde. This slow, detailed unfolding looks forward to the pictorial art of the following century and the verbal art often claimed to appear first in Hamlet or Pamela.6

As Knapp suggests, there is a close relationship between thinking and feeling with Criseyde, and also with watching her: “seeing every change in facial expression.” In the long conversation with Pandarus, Chaucer shows us Criseyde’s face repeatedly. We see her through Pandarus’s eyes as he watches her closely, especially when he is momentarily silent, taking a break from his fluent encomium of Troilus, his discussion of her business affairs, and his toying with her curiosity, to stare at her so attentively that she calls him out on it: “And loked on hire in a bysi wyse, / And she was war that he byheld hire so, / And seyde, ‘Lord! so faste ye m’avise! / Sey ye me nevere er now? What sey ye, no?’” (II.274–7). This fluid narrative movement between seeing Criseyde through Pandarus’s eyes and feeling what it might be like to be her (“she was war”) is quite remarkable in this long sequence, as the reader becomes well attuned to observing Criseyde’s face and her emotions. In the same way, we learned to see her through Troilus’s eyes in Book I, particularly “hire mevynge and hire chere” that he finds so attractive in his famous first sight of her in the temple (I.289). But this “cloudy thought” passage in Book II is introduced as an elaborate simile that asks us to look, not at Criseyde’s face, but at the natural world. Because we have been looking so much at Criseyde in Book II, perhaps our first impression is that her own bright face is shadowed like the sun’s. Certainly, Criseyde is often associated with the sun, and with brightness, throughout the poem, as we will see. We might also be tempted to anticipate our familiarity with the modern expression when we say a face “clouds over”

Cloudy Thoughts

29

with sadness or anxiety. But in this passage Chaucer is not making a direct visual comparison, and nor is he describing Criseyde’s face. We might imagine the bright sun’s face suddenly covered with a cloud; but we are invited to feel and sense the emotional force of this change in Criseyde not in visual terms, but in cognitive and affective ones, to track the dramatic effect of her own thought as fear, brought about by the activity of her mind, which nearly causes her to fall, or perhaps even lose consciousness. This “cloudy thought” does not cross over the surface of her face but passes through her soul, spreading over her “brighte thoughtes.” The repeated contrast between what is bright, then cloudy, and by implication, bright again, affirms the analogy between feeling, emotion, and the natural world, but it is actually Criseyde’s soul that is likened to the sun here. It is a striking image of rapid change that, while devastating, is only passing, just as the wind will keep driving the cloud across the face of the sun. At the same time, this conceptual mapping of Criseyde’s “soul” with a thought that passes through it, not across it, opens up an interior cognitive and affective space that is closer to the way we conceptualize the mind, rather than an exterior heavenly body.7 The substance, or content, of this new “cloudy” thought is expanded fully in the next five stanzas, as Chaucer introduces and explains Criseyde’s change of thought and mood with a firm declaration: “That thought was this” (II.771). It is the fear of love and its notorious uncertainties that has crossed Criseyde’s mind and interrupted her joyful anticipation of love’s delights. Like Troilus in Book I, she knows that love is full of doubt and uncertainty, as she recalls that she has seen other people fall into despair through love, into jealousy and pain. Love is “the mooste stormy lyf” (II.778) there is: “For evere som mystrust or nice strif / Ther is in love, som cloude is over that sonne” (II.780–81). Here is the third layer of comparison, then, as Chaucer uses the same meteorological imagery to describe lovers’ disagreements, and the intrusion of sorrow or anxiety into happiness: “som cloude is over that sonne.” Criseyde talks herself through those fears until the moment of fear passes in an echo of the earlier image: “And after that, hire thought gan for to clere” (II.806). Nevertheless, this “clearing” is itself only temporary. “An other thought” makes her heart afraid, and so she remains conflicted: “And with an other thought hire herte quaketh; / Than slepeth hope, and after drede awaketh; / Now hoot, now cold; but thus, bitwixen tweye, / She rist her up, and went hire for to pleye” (II.809–12). Criseyde now goes down into the garden and hears Antigone’s song in celebration of love. This elaborate staging of Criseyde’s thought process—a cloudy thought covering her bright thoughts in her soul as a cloud covers the bright sun—is a powerful example of what Guillemette Bolens might call “kinesic intelligence.” In her study, The Style of Gesture: Embodiment and Cognition in Literary Narrative, Bolens follows Ellen Spolsky’s use of this term to

30

Stephanie Trigg

describe our apprehension of “body movements, postures, gestures, and facial expressions in real situations as well as in our reception of visual art.”8 Bolens attends, in turn, to these phenomena as they are described in literary texts, commending “the value of kinesic intelligence in reading gesture in literary narrative.”9 While Bolens is principally concerned with our observation of “real” gestures (e.g., the movement of Gawain’s eyes as he pretends to wake up in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), Chaucer’s image here is doubly layered, or mediated. It depends first on our acknowledgment that we do indeed see the sun with a face analogous to a human face, and a face that we might also read as changing in mood and expression. For while the image asks us to see a cloud moving across the sun, we are also invited to find a degree of personalized agency in the facial gesture of the sun itself, that “chaungeth ofte tyme his face” (II.765), as if changing expression. This stanza thus offers a number of layers of signification. The reader is asked to see and experience the change in the sun as both clouded and changing in expression and perhaps indeed in feeling; and to translate that vision to the personalized experience of being struck by a thought that appears to come from outside the self. But given the strong associations between Criseyde and the sun, and the way we have been trained to observe this beautiful woman in Book II, it is an easy step to move beyond the narrator’s words and also imagine a change of expression registering on Criseyde’s face. The narrator has already marveled at the argumentative process in Criseyde’s mind: And, Lord! So she gan in hire thought argue In this matere of which I have yow told, And what to doone best were, and what eschue, That plited she ful ofte in many fold. Now was hire herte warm, now was it cold; (II.694–8)

Sashi Nair draws attention to this passage as part of her argument that the Boethian underpinnings of Criseyde’s agency are easily overlooked in readings of the poem’s philosophical elements, and in feminist or socialist readings of Criseyde, because it is Troilus who achieves transcendence, or because traditionally, a male character is more like to possess the power of philosophical reasoning than a female one.10

Nair shows that Criseyde is developed as a complex and self-conscious Boethian subject in the poem. In contrast to Troilus, who is driven entirely by desire, “Criseyde knows that happiness is transitory, so she constantly weighs up her options.”11 The complexity of her cognitive processes, as she argues

Cloudy Thoughts

31

with herself and folds and pleats the matter in her mind, is matched by the intensity of her contradictory emotions and their affinity with the embodied feelings so familiar from Petrarchan tradition (“Now was hire herte warm, now was it cold”). Another part of the conceptual architecture of this stanza deserves attention: the unusual concept of a thought passing through a soul.12 Certainly, Chaucer’s scribes found it difficult. The reading “soule” appears only in Corpus Christi MS 61, used as the base manuscript by both Stephen Barney for the Riverside edition and by Barry Windeatt in his edition of 1984. MS Digby 181 has the pleonastic reading “thought”; but all the others have “hert” or “herte,” which would be the substantially easier reading. This would be comparable to this line in The Monk’s Tale: “And in his herte anon ther fil a thoght,” (VII.2427).13 The use of “soule” to signify cognitive process is relatively rare in Chaucer, though in at least two instances it is linked to heightened erotic expectation or imagination. In The Merchant’s Tale, “Heigh fantasye and curious bisynesse / Fro day to day gan in the soule impresse / Of Januarie aboute his mariage” (IV.1577–9), suggesting a combination of delusion and an overactive imagination. In a similar mood of erotic anticipation, Troilus’s soul registers an overwhelming feeling of joy when he hears Pandarus promise to arrange an assignation with Criseyde: “Who myghte tellen half the joie or feste / Which that the soule of Troilus tho felte, / Heryng th’effect of Pandarus byheste?” (III.344–6). Finally, in Book V of Troilus and Criseyde, Criseyde’s soul is once more the site of rational thought, where she is again considering a man as a possible lover: Retornyng in hire soule ay up and down The wordes of this sodeyn Diomede, His grete estat, and perel of the town, And that she was allone and hadde nede Of frendes help; . . . (V.1023–7)

The use of the word “soule” in all these examples seems to evoke a heightened or deepened combination of cognition and affect (like her earlier pleating and folding, Criseyde is turning Diomede’s words over and over in her soul), but one that is firmly grounded in a narrative context of sexual desire. In the case of Criseyde, in these two examples from Book II and Book IV, the invocation of “soule” as a word of higher metaphysical register than “herte” certainly draws attention to the significance of her emotional and cognitive life. In this crucial scene, when we first see Criseyde thinking and feeling alone, we are encouraged to see her as an articulate reasoning subject, already painfully aware of the uncertainties that lie ahead.

32

Stephanie Trigg

“LADY BRIGHT” AND “CLOUDY FORTUNE” At the same time, however, Chaucer uses this same imagery of brightness and clouds to establish a different set of associations that will eventually associate his heroine with the changeability of Fortune herself. I turn now to explore these associations more fully. The first set of associations—of female beauty with brightness—is the most straightforward, but still deserves our attention. The use of the word “bright” to describe female heroines is familiar from medieval lyrics and romances such as King Horn and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Chaucer uses the adjective to describe Emily in The Knight’s Tale (lines 1427, 1737), May in The Merchant’s Tale (line 2328), and Griselda in The Clerk’s Tale (line 377). He also uses it over forty times in Troilus and Criseyde, describing Criseyde as “bright,” either directly or by association, no fewer than twenty times. The imagery of brightness in contrast to clouds even frames Troilus’s feelings as he falls in love, since among the company of “So many a lady fressh and mayden bright” (I.166), there was never seen “under cloude blak so bright a sterre” (I.175) as Criseyde. Even as he mourns her absence and realizes she will not be returning, and later, that she has betrayed him, he still describes her as “My lady bright, Criseyde” (V.1248); and he addresses her (in her absence) in the same way: “God wot, I wende, O lady bright, Criseyde, / That every word was gospel that ye seyde!” (V.1264–5). Strikingly, Diomede also uses the same phrase when he first declares his love to Criseyde: “And if ye vouchesauf, my lady bright, / I wol ben he to serven yow myselve, / Yee, lever than be kyng of Greces twelve!” (V.922–4). While the consistency of this imagery may suggest that Criseyde’s beauty has not changed, and that it is equally apparent to all who gaze on her, there is also something chillingly anonymous about the fact that both men address her in identical terms: the epithet affirms the conventionality and impersonality of the way beautiful women are perceived. In an intense emotional moment of a slightly more personal nature, Criseyde herself sheds “a fewe brighte teris newe,” as she swears she has been faithful to Troilus in Book III (1051). In a striking echo of the idea of the sun’s bright face being shadowed by a cloud, this vision of bright facial beauty is then obscured—literally covered—as Criseyde lays her head down in the bed and pulls the sheet up to cover her face and hide herself from view (III. 1055–6). In Book IV, the repetition of the unusual adjective “sonnyssh” to describe Criseyde’s hair (IV.736, 816) also has the effect of personalizing this conventional association between the sun and bright female beauty, even though this is part of the description of how her customary beauty has been destroyed by grief. Indeed, Chaucer often adopts this strategy of repeating and confirming

Cloudy Thoughts

33

this imagery, as he does in the stanza with which I began, where my key words “cloude,” “sonne,” and “brighte” are all used twice each. Chaucer also uses the word “bright” to describe the stars, Lucina the moon, and the sun itself, while his narrator addresses Venus as the muse of Book III, in the same phrase Troilus and Diomede both use for Criseyde: “lady bright.” And just before the account of Criseyde “Retornyng in hire soule ay up and down / The wordes of this sodeyn Diomede” (V.1023–4), the scene is set for this meditation in an exceptionally luminous stanza that mentions first “brighte Venus,” the evening star; then the other stars of the Zodiac shining “brighte” over Criseyde as she retires to bed: “Inwith hire fadres faire brighte tente” (V.1016, 1020, 1022). Criseyde’s bright beauty and fairness are established early in the poem through pointed contrast to her dark widow’s clothing; first, when she kneels before Hector in her “widewes habit large of samyt brown” (I.109) and he notices her fairness (I.115); and second when the Trojan crowd remark on her starbright beauty, despite her “widewes habit blak” and “blake wede” (I.170, 177). Most of these references to Criseyde’s bright beauty do not have a direct counterpart in Boccaccio’s text. When his Criseida appears in the temple, for example, she outdoes the other women as the rose overcomes the violet (quanta la rosa le viola di biltá vince),14 where Chaucer’s Criseyde is the brightest star ever seen in contrast to a dark cloud: “Nas nevere yet seyn thyng to ben preysed derre, / Nor under cloude blak so bright a sterre” (I.174–5). So, too, the image of a “cloudy thought” is a distinctive addition to Chaucer’s text. Boccaccio shows no interest in thought processes at this point in the Filostrato and does not use the sun and cloud image. The only reference to Criseida’s thought process at this point is her inability to “thrust from her chaste bosom the handsome face of Troilo” (ne si poteva giá dal casto petto il bel viso di Troiolo cacciare).15 One of the key sources for Chaucer’s use of the imagery of clouds here, and elsewhere in his poetry, is Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and its translators and commentators. Boethius uses this imagery in two ways: first, to describe the philosophical, cognitive and affective distractions that inhibit the clarity of philosophical insight; and second, to develop his influential representation of Fortune as a changeable woman whose face changes quickly from sunny and cheerful to cloudy and foreboding. Both strands play an important role in Chaucer’s representation of Criseyde. Boethius uses cloud imagery on a number of occasions in the first three books and is always associated with negativity. I quote here from Chaucer’s Boece, his translation of the Latin text. In Book III, Philosophy describes “the blake cloude of errour” (III.M11.10); translating atra . . . erroris nubes; “the cloude of ignoraunce” (V.P2.37, inscitiae nube); and describes “the cloudes

34

Stephanie Trigg

of erthly hevynesse” (III.M9.44, terrenae nebulas); and “the cloudes of sorwe” (I.P3.1, tristitiae nebulis).16 Boethius uses the cloud metaphor to suggest both cognitive and emotional negativity: the thoughts and feelings that block the sunlight of illumination, but that also weigh down the philosopher with transient and mortal preoccupations. Boethius also extends the metaphor to associate these clouds with the “wyndes” that buffet the man of sorrow. For example, in the beginning of Book I, Boethius’s head is cast down, but Philosophy laments in the second Metrum how her pupil’s thought has been overwhelmed: Allas! How the thought of this man, dreynt in overthrowynge depnesse, dulleth and forleteth his propre clernesse, myntynge to gon into foreyne dirknesses as ofte as his anoyos bysynes waxeth withoute mesure, that is dryven with werldly wyndes. (I.M2.1–5) [heu, quam praecipiti mersa profundo mens hebet et propria luce relicta tendit in externas ire tenebras terrenis quotiens flatibus aucta crescit in inmensum noxia cura.]17

“Thought” here again is subject to the weather, in this case, the winds. Where Boece used to be curious about the heavens, where he “saughe the lyghtnesse of the rede sonne, and saughe the sterres of the coolde mone” (I.M2.9–11) and was interested in the movement of winds and tides, stars and seasons, he is now downcast. Sadness and depression have impaired his curiosity about the natural world—the world that is consistently figured in the metaphorical structures that describe both mood and affect in the work.18 But the embodied relation between Boethius’s negative affect and his cognitive impairment is also visualized in terms drawn from the natural world. Having diagnosed his lethargy, Philosophy says: “I will wipe a litil his eien that ben dirked by the cloude of mortel thynges.” Thise woordes seide sche, and with the lappe of hir garnement yplited in a frownce sche dryede myn eien, that weren fulle of the wawes of my wepynges. (I.P2.25–30) [quod ut possit, paulisper lumina eius mortalium rerum nube caligantia tergamus. haec dixit oculosque meos fletibus undantes contracta in rugam ueste siccauit.]19

We note here that Chaucer uses the same word “yplited” of Philosophy’s garment as he uses of Criseyde’s thoughtful meditations about Troilus in II.697 (quoted above), another powerful metaphor for cognitive activity.

Cloudy Thoughts

35

The third Metrum expands the cloud imagery at great length, with an extended meteorological, geographical, and mythical metaphor that compares the movement of day and night with the sun chasing storm clouds away, all to illustrate the change in affect and feeling as the narrator comes to greater clarity of mind. And then in the next Prosa, Boece’s “cloudes of sorrow” are driven away: Ryght so, and noon other wise, the cloudes of sorwe dissolved and doon awey, I took hevene [saw the sky again—Riverside gloss], and resceyved mynde to knowe the face of my fisycien. (I.P3.1–4) [haud aliter tristitiae nebulis dissolutis hausi caelum et ad Cognoscendam medicantis faciem mentem recepi.]20

Thus, the ground is laid for the recuperation of philosophical illumination that is less weighed down by depression and occlusion. Despite this consistent pattern of imagery, there is no direct source in Boethius for the idea of a thought itself being described as cloudy, or indeed, for passing through a soul, in Chaucer’s expression. Yet as many scholars observe, Chaucer was not just using the Latin text of De Consolatione. He also drew on Jean de Meun’s translation, as well as other commentaries, especially the one by Nicholas Trevet.21 One of Trevet’s most substantial commentaries is on the ninth Metrum of Book III. Here, in Boethius’s text, Philosophy addresses the Father of all things: “dissice terrenae nebulas et pondera molis”22 and Chaucer translates this as “skatere thou and tobreke the weyghtes and the cloudes of erthly hevynesse” (III.M9.43–5). Trevet’s commentary is very detailed; I quote only the most relevant lines: So he says DISSIPATE, that is “disperse.” That word comes from dis and iaciocis; THE WEIGHTY OBJECTS, that is, things which distract the affections; AND THE CLOUDS, that is, which weighs down the soul, and drags it down to a lower level.23 [Unde dicit DISSICE id est disperde et dicitur a dis et iacio -cis PONDERA scilicet trahencia affectum ET NEBULAS scilicet obscuritates intelleccionum TERRENE MOLIS scilicet que aggrauat animam et ad inferiora detrahit.]24

It’s possible that Chaucer found this association between heavy, cloudy thoughts entering and weighing down the soul from this passage in Trevet’s commentary, leading to his unusual idea of the cloudy thought passing through Criseyde’s soul. Nevertheless, when Boethius writes about thoughts as clouds, he emphasizes their heavy sadness, rather than their capacity to move quickly if blown by the wind.

36

Stephanie Trigg

Boethius draws on a different set of cloud associations in his representation of the goddess Fortune as “cloudy,” or with a cloudy face: “nunc quia fallacem mutauit nubila uultum / protrahit ingratas impia uita moras.”25 Chaucer translates in this way: “But now, for Fortune cloudy hath chaunged hir deceyvable chere to meward, myn unpietous lif draweth along unagreable duellynges in me” (I.M1.26–9).26 As the Consolatio will make evident, it is in the nature of Fortune to change, and for her chere, or face, to be “deceivable.” Thus “cloudy” here signifies swift and unpredictable changeability, while Chaucer’s translation emphasizes the personal aspect of Fortune’s changeable face.27 It is already cloudy and deceptive, and she has changed it in his direction. Jean de Meun, whose French translation Chaucer seems also to have consulted, similarly writes, “Orendroit pour ce que ele, oscure, a mué son decevable voult, ma felonesse vie m’aloigne la desagreable demeure de mort.”28 This idea of Fortune’s changeable face, signifying sudden vicissitudes in one’s individual destiny, is a key component in a rich iconographic and metaphorical tradition that is taken up by many writers and artists in the Middle Ages, including Jean de Meun and other translators of Boethius’s Consolatio; Petrarch’s De Remediis Utriusque Fortune (Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul); Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, translated into French by Laurent de Premierfait and later adapted into English by John Lydgate in his Fall of Princes; and Guillaume de Machaut’s Remede de Fortune. This complex textual and visual tradition has been comprehensively explored by Howard R. Patch and others.29 This topos of changeable Fortune is somewhat paradoxical, because it asks us to conceptualize and represent the consistency of constant change. Writers and artists tackle this issue in a variety of ways, but most portray a single feminine goddess, accompanied by her constantly turning wheel. Fortune often appears blindfolded, but while her face is often portrayed as impassively neutral; there is another visual and textual tradition that describes her as having two heads, or a single head with two different faces, front and back, or a face with two sides, or a face that alternates quickly from smiling to laughing, summery to wintry, or even male to female in aspect.30 Or indeed, in the tradition that interests me most, with one side of her face as if in sunshine; and the other as if in shadow, clouded, or “clipsi” (eclipsed), as in the Middle English translation of The Romaunt de la Rose: [This] love cometh of dame Fortune, That litel while wol contune; For it shal chaungen wonder soone, And take eclips, right as the moone, Whanne she is from us lett

Cloudy Thoughts

37

Thurgh erthe, that bitwixe is sett The sonne and hir, as it may fall, Be it in partie, or in all. The shadowe maketh her bemys merke, And hir hornes to shewe derke, That part where she hath lost hir light Of Phebus fully, and the sight; Til, whanne the shadowe is overpast, She is enlumyned ageyn as fast, Thurgh the brightnesse of the sonne bemes, That yeveth to hir ageyn hir lemes. That love is right of sich nature; Now is faire, and now obscure, Now bright, now clipsi of manere, And whilom dym, and whilom clere. (The Romaunt of the Rose, 5331–50)31

In his Remede de Fortune, Guillaume de Machaut takes up the same trope, describing Fortune’s two-sided face: Son droit lés est dous, l’autre cuit; Le droit porte fleur, fueille et fruit, L’autre est desert, brehaingne et vuit Des biens terriens; Le droit moult clerement reluit, L’autre samble a l’oscure nuit, Et mi partie est par deduit D’or et de tiens.32 [Her right side is sweet, the other burnt; The right bears flower, leaf, and fruit, The other is desert, sterile and empty Of earthly goods; The right shines very clearly, The other resembles dark night And she is, as far as enjoyment goes, divided Into gold and dung.]

There are some striking visual images of Fortune with her face half covered by cloud, or eclipsed, in French manuscripts of Petrarch’s De remediis utriusque fortunae, translated as Les remèdes de l’une et l’autre fortune (e.g., Bnf MS français 224, fol.9r) or the heart-shaped manuscript of the Chansonnier de Jean de Montchenu (Bnf Rothschild MS 2973), where a thin and two-faced winged Fortune—one side dressed in red with ermine trim and holding a

38

Stephanie Trigg

mirror, the other side completely in dark shadow and holding a sword—balances precariously on a little wheel. These representations underline the difficulty, in a static visual image, of representing mutability. Nevertheless, they all ask us to observe Fortune as a visual spectacle, as a female oddity. These images postdate Chaucer’s work, but they give a strong indication of late medieval visual responses to the familiar icon of cloudy Fortune as a changeable woman. This mutability is a mixed blessing for the representation of female subjectivity in textual form. On the one hand, there is everything to celebrate about Chaucer’s close scrutiny of Criseyde’s interiority, her cognitive patterns and her changing moods; it offers compelling insight into the mind of a woman thinking, and to that extent I think Chaucer is showing us something new, rather than presenting her only as the idealized object of Troilus’s desire, or as driven only by her own desire. On the other hand, although Criseyde’s subtle changes of thought and mood are not equivalent to the larger moral issue of her changeability and instability in love, as early as the Proem to Book IV, even before the devastating news of the prisoner exchange is announced, Chaucer begins the process of associating Criseyde with the fickle mutability of Fortune herself: And whan a wight is from hire whiel ythrowe, Than laugheth she, and maketh hym the mowe. From Troilus she gan hire brighte face Awey to writhe, and tok of hym non heede, But caste hym clene out of his lady grace, And on hire whiel she sette up Diomede. (IV.6–11)

Although the narrative subject here is Fortune, the “bright face” epithet starts to suggest a strong semantic and affective association between Criseyde and Fortune. Chaucer has taken from Il Filostrato the idea of Fortune turning her face away from Boccaccio (“ella gli volse la facia crucciosa”),33 but he adds the word “bright” as part of what seems a consistent development of this imagery as it is associated with Criseyde. So, too, the movement of Fortune’s face away from Troilus, as an indication of an upturn or a downturn in a lover’s fortune, seems to go back at least as far as Boethius’s Consolatio, but again Chaucer seems to suggest strong affinities between the blessings of Fortune and the granting of eroticized favor from women. In The Knight’s Tale, for example, Emily casts a favorable eye on Arcite, the victor, and the narrator pauses to make a deliberate association between her love and “alle the favour of Fortune”: And she agayn hym caste a freendlich ye (For wommen, as to speken in comune,

Cloudy Thoughts

39

Thei folwen alle the favour of Fortune) And was al his cheire, as in his herte. (I. 2680–3)

Chaucer’s concession that women “in comune” are strongly identified with Fortune’s mutability is an important component of the cultural context that dominates the latter part of the poem, and that risks displacing Chaucer’s careful articulation, in Book II, of Criseyde’s own cognitive activity and affective interiority. “I NOOT NEVER WHAT . . .” There are other points where Chaucer invokes this problematic affinity between Criseyde and Fortune’s own changing bright and cloudy face, but in this final section, I want to return to my opening suggestion that Chaucer has constructed this program of imagery around the cloudy face of Fortune, and Criseyde’s “cloudy thought” with some care and self-consciousness, using some very careful representational language about emotions, affect, and agency. In a very pointed and self-conscious moment of The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer twice draws attention to a distinctive moment of face-changing: in a signature crux about representation, originality, and self-consciousness. The Monk’s Tale concludes with the sad tale of Croesus: Anhanged was Cresus, the proude kyng; His roial trone myghte hym nat availle. Tragediës noon oother maner thyng Ne kan in syngyng crie ne biwaille But that Fortune alwey wole assaille With unwar strook the regnes that been proude; For whan men trusteth hire, thanne wol she faille, And covere hire brighte face with a clowde. (VII.2759–66)

This image recalls the idea of “Fortune cloudy” turning her shadowed face toward the narrator in the first Metrum of Boece; and possibly also conjures up manuscript images of Fortune with her face partially or completely covered by a cloud or a shadow. The adjective “brighte” also affirms the gendered opposition between a face of attractive female beauty promising delight and the same face, cloudy and darkened, foreboding ill for the male subject. Distinctive here, though, is the idea of Fortune as agent of her own facial gesture, drawing the shadowy cloud across her face as an active image of the way Croesus’s life is about to change. It is strangely personalized. The line conjures a visual image of Fortune as a heavenly figure actively reaching out and pulling a cloud

40

Stephanie Trigg

across her face, just as the simile in Troilus shows us the sun with a cloud passing over its face (or indeed, as Criseyde pulls the sheet over her own teary face in Book III). This image from The Monk’s Tale does not have quite the same kinesic effect that the Troilus stanza has (in its capacity to show us how Criseyde might feel as that thought crosses her soul), but its suggestion that Fortune is more actively in control of her own affect is powerful. It is also reinforced by the meteorological details of Croesus’s story that the Monk has selected: the king is about to be burned, but a great rainstorm arises to save him. He then dreams he is on a tree, washed by Jupiter, and dried by Phoebus. His daughter interprets the dream, saying he will be hanged, washed again by rain, and dried by the sun. Thus, the associations of the natural world and its changeable weather set the scene for Fortune and her cloud. The chief source for The Monk’s Tale of Croesus is the rather longer version of the story and the king’s dialogue with his daughter in Le Roman de la Rose (6489–622), though Jean de Meun does not include the image of Fortune’s changing face in this story: this image is Chaucer’s very deliberate addition. This is a significant moment in The Monk’s Tale for a number of reasons. First, the story of Croesus is the last in the Monk’s sequence of tragic narratives, and this elaborate metaphor is the exact point where the narrative is halted dramatically. For after that striking image, “covere hire brighte face with a clowde,” the Knight interrupts the Monk, with his “Hoo! [. . .] good sire, namoore of this!” (VII.2766). The Knight has had enough of the repetition of sad stories of personal downfall and acts—a little capriciously, a little like Fortune—to interrupt the narrative good fortune of the Monk. He would prefer, he says, to hear stories that tend in the opposite direction, where men of poor estate “clymbeth up and wexeth fortunate, / And there abideth in prosperitee” (2776–7). Clearly the Knight has not been paying attention: it is a most un-Boethian response. But after the Knight has called for more cheery subject matter, the Host chimes in to agree, but his principal objections are on the grounds of literary competence and coherence: “‘Ye,’ quod oure Hooste, ‘by Seint Poules belle! / Ye seye right sooth; this Monk he clappeth lowde. / He spak how Fortune covered with a clowde / I noot nevere what; . . .’” (VII.2780–3). The Host mocks the Monk’s rhetorical flourish in a manner that echoes his interruption of Chaucer’s Tale of Sir Thopas, when he similarly interjects, “Namoore of this” (VII.919, using the same phrase the Knight uses to interrupt the Monk), and pours scorn on Chaucer’s “drasty rymyng” (VII.930). Like the Knight, the Host has not taken in the Boethian moral of the Monk’s recitations about the inevitability of Fortune. All he remembers is this unusual image, which he claims he does not understand: what did Fortune cover with a cloud? Of course, by drawing attention to this image, even in this mocking way, and just as the Host seizes on any detail in order to support the Knight’s critique,

Cloudy Thoughts

41

Chaucer makes it both memorable and affirms its status as a form of elevated poetics, beyond the comprehension of the Host, who thus appears as if clouded himself, in ignorance and confusion. With this simple throwaway misquotation of his own phrase, Chaucer summons up the long and influential cultural history of Fortune and her changing, moving, doubled, or clouded face. In one of the most powerful indications of the dominant apparent affinity between Fortune and Criseyde, Wynkyn de Worde adds a coda of several stanzas to his printed text of the poem in 1517, in which he describes Criseyde as acting like Fortune: “Dyomede on here whele she hathe set on hye / The Faythe of a woman by her now may you se.”34 De Worde’s response underscores the tensions I have tried to untangle between reading Criseyde as a powerful individual character while also paying attention to the dominant cultural and affective terms in which she is still framed. De Worde does not name Fortune in his four-stanza addition to the poem, but his sympathies clearly lie with “O parfyte Troylus,” who is the victim of women’s faithlessness like Aristotle, Virgil, Sampson and a thousand more. De Worde picks up Chaucer’s characteristic epithet for Criseyde as “bright” but ignores the complex interiority Chaucer has developed to flatten her into a simple avatar of Fortune with her own wheel to turn. His reading demonstrates the persistent force in the early modern period of Fortune’s wheel as an image of female changeability. The inner workings of Criseyde’s sensibility are of less interest to him than her effect on Troilus, who is the dominant affective core of de Worde’s reading of the poem. In this early sixteenth-century reading, Chaucer’s complex balance between Criseyde’s emerging sentience and the cultural associations of women’s changeability with Fortune is thinned out and flattened, replaced by a reductive and crude identification of Criseyde with Fortune herself that is displaced by Troilus as the prime target of readerly sympathy. CONCLUSION Returning to the “cloudy thought” in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, the rhetorical figure here is far more complex than the allusion in The Monk’s Tale. Simultaneously, it draws on two related Boethian image clusters: sorrows as heavy clouds, and Fortune’s changeable face as cloudy. But in the early part of the poem, at least, it harnesses these iconographic traditions as powerful similes for describing the cognitive, and affective changes in a woman’s mind as she deliberates her future. There is substantial debate, it must be acknowledged, about the extent of Criseyde’s cognitive and affective agency in Chaucer’s long poem, and in this passage. In her discussion of “the machinery of the rape plot,” Elizabeth

42

Stephanie Trigg

Robertson argues that Chaucer “grants Criseyde an autonomy that counters that plot as [Book II] follows the inner workings of Criseyde’s mind as she considers Pandarus’s and Troilus’s propositions.” Similarly, she argues, Criseyde’s “awareness of her vulnerable situation and her repeated articulation of her agency and subjectivity trouble the system that describes her as property.”35 Gretchen Mieszkowski offers a more bracing view, however: The most famous medieval English heroine and the most extravagantly admired woman in all of English literature has no strength, courage, determination, or selfhood. She agrees instead of deciding, submits instead of controlling, and is so insubstantial that at times she seems more nearly a mirage than a person.

And again, “She has no personal substance. . . . She responds to the men around her and mirrors them, but she is not someone herself.”36 It will be apparent that my own view is much closer to Robertson’s. Chaucer is experimenting with a new way of helping us see and feel the way a woman might think and feel, especially when caught in the twin vicissitudes of Petrarchan love and the twists of Boethian fortune. In this moment in Book II, Chaucer is offering a full, complicated, and layered picture of Criseyde’s cognitive, sentient, and affective inner life. He emphasizes her capacity to think, to feel, and to change, in terms that draw on the natural world, and that dramatize her own embodied response. Yet he is also aware that the idea of change in women comes with a heavy cultural burden, as his associations with the fickle goddess Fortune show. In this mixture of Criseyde’s individualized response and cultural tradition, Chaucer offers his readers a means of charting emotional interiority, even as they give way, both in the progress of the poem and its reception history, to the shaping forces and patterns of cultural affect and response. NOTES 1. All quotations from Troilus and Criseyde are from The Riverside Chaucer, gen. ed. Larry D. Benson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), and cited in text by book and line number. 2. Peggy A. Knapp, Chaucerian Aesthetics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 96–7. 3. Elizabeth Robertson, “Public Bodies and Psychic Domains: Rape, Consent, and Female Subjectivity in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde,” in Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, ed. Christine M. Rose and Elizabeth Robertson (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 281–310; “First Encounter: ‘Snail Horn Perception’ in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde,” in Contemporary Chaucer Across the Centuries, ed. Helen M. Hickey, Anne McKendry, and Melissa Raine (Manchester:

Cloudy Thoughts

43

Manchester University Press, 2018), 24–41; and “Soul-making in Piers Plowman,” Yearbook of Langland Studies 34 (2020), 11–56. 4. My approach chimes with that of a number of medieval scholars working to bring together the history of emotions with the study of affect and embodied cognition. For a powerful overview of the methodological issues involved and a summary of recent work, see Glenn D. Burger and Holly A. Crocker’s “Introduction” to Medieval Affect, Feeling, and Emotion, ed. Burger and Crocker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 1–24. See also Stephanie Trigg, “Introduction: Emotional Histories—Beyond the Personalization of the Past and the Abstractions of Affect Theory,” Introduction to special issue of Exemplaria 26, no. 1 (2014), 3–15. 5. One of the clearest articulations of this tension between individualism and affect theory is expressed by Stephen Ahern, in “Introduction: A Feel for the Text,” in Ahern, ed. Affect Theory and Literary Critical Practice: A Feel for the Text (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 1–21, esp. pp. 8–9. 6. Knapp, Chaucerian Aesthetics, 96. 7. My thinking here is influenced by a number of scholars who emphasize the role of literary fiction in capitalizing on and activating readers’ cognitive processes: the way we “read minds” in fiction. See especially Lisa Zunshine, Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2006) and Guillemette Bolens, The Style of Gestures: Embodiment and Cognition in Literary Narrative (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008). 8. Bolens, The Style of Gestures, 1. 9. Bolens, The Style of Gestures, 2. 10. Sashi Nair, “‘O brotel wele of mannes joie unstable!’: Gender and Philosophy in Troilus and Criseyde,” Parergon 23, no. 2 (2006): 44. 11. Nair, “O brotel wele,” 44. 12. Wan-Chuan Kao explores the complex architecture of the medieval soul as “an embodied entity and the source of emotions,” in “The Body in Wonder: Affective Suspension and Medieval Queer Futurity,” in Affect Theory and Literary Critical Practice, ed. Ahern, p. 28. 13. All quotations of The Canterbury Tales are from The Riverside Chaucer, gen. ed. Larry D. Benson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), and cited in text by fragment and line number. 14. Giovanni Boccaccio, Il Filostrato, ed. Vincenzo Pernicone, trans. and intro. Robert P. apRoberts and Anna Bruni Seldis (New York: Garland, 1986), I.19. 15. Boccaccio, Il Filostrato, II.78. 16. For the Latin text, see Boethius, Consolatio Philosophiae, ed. James J. O’Donnell, Perseus Digital Library, http://data​.perseus​.org​/citations​/urn​:cts:​​latin​​Lit​:s​​ toa00​​58​.st​​oa001​​.pers​​eus​-l​​at1​:1​​.M1. 17. Boethius, Consolatio, 1.M2. 18. See also Glynnis M. Cropp’s comparison of Jean de Meun’s translation of these and similar passages in “Boethius in Medieval France: Translations of the De Consolatione Philosophiae and Literary Influence,” in A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages, ed. Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr., and Philip Edward Phillips (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 319–55.

44

Stephanie Trigg

19. Boethius, Consolatio, 1.P2. 20. Boethius, Consolatio, 1.P3. 21. A. J. Minnis summarizes the scholarly history of discussion of Chaucer’s use of Trevet. He follows E. T. Silk in his doctoral dissertation of 1930, who observed that the CUL Ii.3.21 text of Boece is also attached to an abbreviated copy of Trevet’s commentary, as well as other Latin glosses, and suggested this manuscript may have been used by Chaucer: “Given the large amount of material from Trevet present in the Boece, and the sheer length of some of the interpolations which follow the Latin commentary, there seems to be no reason to doubt that Chaucer had most if not all of Trevet’s commentary at his disposal.” “Chaucer’s Commentator: Nicholas Trevet and the Boece,” in Chaucer’s Boece and the Medieval Tradition of Boethius, ed. Minnis (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993), 89. 22. Boethius, Consolatio, 3.M9. 23. Minnis, ed., Chaucer’s Boece, 76. 24. A. J. Minnis, ed. Chaucer’s Boece and the Medieval Tradition of Boethius (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993), 51. 25. Boethius, Consolatio, 1.M1. 26. Interestingly, Tim William Machan punctuates the text differently. Like the Riverside Chaucer edition, he uses Cambridge University Library MS I.i.3.21 as his base, but puts the adjective in apposition: “But now, for Fortune, cloudy, hath chaungyd hyre deceivable cheere to meward . . .” Tim William Machan, ed. Chaucer’s Boece: A Critical Edition Based on Cambridge University Library MS Ii.3.21, ff. 9r–18v (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2008), 3. 27. Anna Crabbe argues that in this imagery of light and shadow, and at the arrival of Philosophy, Boethius is drawing on Augustine’s Confessions at the moment of his conversion: “quasi luce securitatis infusa corde meo, omnes dubitationis Tenebrae diffugerunt,” “Literary Design in the De Consolatione Philosophiae,” in Boethius: His Life, Thought and Influence, ed. Margaret Gibson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), 237–74, 255. 28. Jean de Meun, Li Livres de confort de Philosophie (University of Oslo, Faculty of Humanities), https://www2​.hf​.uio​.no​/polyglotta​/index​.php​?page​=fulltext​&view​ =fulltext​&vid​=216. 29. R. Howard Patch, The Goddess Fortuna in Mediaeval Literature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927). 30. For two-headed fortune, see the illustration of Laurence Premierfait’s translation of Boccaccio, Des cas ne nobles hommes et femmes, BL MS Addit. 35321; and the French translation of Boèce, De Consolatione Philosophiae, BNF, MS N1, fol. 58v. 31. Text from Benson, The Riverside Chaucer. 32. Guillaume de Machaut, Le Jugement du Roy de Behaingne and Remede de Fortune, ed. and trans. James I. Wimsatt and William W. Kibler; music ed. Rebecca A. Baltzer, (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1988), 231, ll. 1121–8. 33. Boccaccio, Il Filostrato, III.94. 34. Quoted in Stephanie Trigg, Congenial Souls: Reading Chaucer from Medieval to Postmodern (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 119–20.

Cloudy Thoughts

45

35. Robertson, “Public Bodies and Psychic Domains,” 301. 36. Gretchen Mieszkowski, “Chaucer’s Much Loved Criseyde,” Chaucer Review 26, no. 2 (1991): 109.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ahern, Stephen, ed. Affect Theory and Literary Critical Practice: A Feel for the Text. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Boccaccio, Giovanni. Il Filostrato. Edited by Vincenzo Pernicone, translated and introduced by Robert P. apRoberts and Anna Bruni Seldis. New York: Garland, 1986. Boethius. Consolatio Philosophiae. Edited by James J. O’Donnell. Perseus Digital Library. http://data​.perseus​.org​/citations​/urn​:cts:​​latin​​Lit​:s​​toa00​​58​.st​​oa001​​.pers​​eus​ -l​​at1​:1​​.M1. Bolens, Guillemette. The Style of Gestures: Embodiment and Cognition in Literary Narrative. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Burger, Glenn D. and Holly A. Crocker. Medieval Affect, Feeling and Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer. Edited by Larry D. Benson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Crabbe, Anna. “Literary Design in the De Consolatione Philosophiae.” In Boethius: His Life, Thought and Influence, edited by Margaret Gibson, 237–74. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981. Cropp, Glynnis M. “Boethius in Medieval France: Translations of the De Consolatione Philosophiae and Literary Influence.” In A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages, edited by Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr., and Philip Edward Phillips, 319–55. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Jean de Meun. Li Livres de confort de Philosophie. University of Oslo, Faculty of Humanities. https://www2​.hf​.uio​.no​/polyglotta​/index​.php​?page​=fulltext​&vid​=216​ &view​=fulltext. Kao, Wan-Chuan. “The Body in Wonder: Affective Suspension and Medieval Queer Futurity.” In Affect Theory and Literary Critical Practice: A Feel for the Text, edited by Stephen Ahern, 25–43. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Knapp, Peggy A. Chaucerian Aesthetics. The New Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Machan, Tim William, ed. Chaucer’s Boece: A Critical Edition Based on Cambridge University Library MS Ii.3.21, ff. 9r–18v. Middle English Texts 38. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2008. Machaut, Guillaume de. Remede de Fortune. In Le Jugement du Roy de Behaingne and Remede de Fortune. Edited and translated by James I. Wimsatt and William W. Kibler; music edited by Rebecca A. Baltzer, 167–409. The Chaucer Library. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1988. Mieszkowski, Gretchen. “Chaucer’s Much Loved Criseyde.” Chaucer Review 26, no. 2 (1991): 109–32.

46

Stephanie Trigg

Minnis, A. J., ed. Chaucer’s Boece and the Medieval Tradition of Boethius. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993. Minnis, A. J. “Chaucer’s Commentator: Nicholas Trevet and the Boece.” In Chaucer’s Boece and the Medieval Tradition of Boethius, edited by Minnis, 83–166. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993. Nair, Sashi. “‘O brotel wele of mannes joie unstable!’: Gender and Philosophy in Troilus and Criseyde.” Parergon 23, no. 2 (2006): 35–56. Patch, R. Howard. The Goddess Fortuna in Mediaeval Literature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927. Robertson, Elizabeth. “First Encounter: ‘Snail Horn Perception’ in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.” In Contemporary Chaucer Across the Centuries, edited by Helen M. Hickey, Anne McKendry, and Melissa Raine, 24–41. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018. ———. “Public Bodies and Psychic Domains: Rape, Consent, and Female Subjectivity in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.” In Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, edited by Christine M. Rose and Elizabeth Robertson, 281–310. New York: Palgrave, 2001. ———. “Soul-making in Piers Plowman.” Yearbook of Langland Studies 34 (2020): 11–56. Trigg, Stephanie. Congenial Souls: Reading Chaucer from Medieval to Postmodern. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. ———. “Introduction: Emotional Histories—Beyond the Personalization of the Past and the Abstractions of Affect Theory.” Introduction to special issue of Exemplaria 26.1 (2014), 3–15. Zunshine, Lisa. Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2006.

Chapter 3

Voluntarism and the Self in Piers Plowman Robert Pasnau

It is often suspected, of various works of fourteenth-century English literature, that they show the influence of philosophical voluntarism in the heightened significance they give to the will and its affective operations. This is an especially tempting thought to have with regard to Piers Plowman, both because of the poem’s explicit engagement with philosophy and theology and because of the poem’s choice to make Will its central character. It is Will, in Nicolette Zeeman’s vivid phrase, who is the “single, holistic protagonist, the narrator and motive force of the whole text.”1 So although the extent of Langland’s familiarity with the philosophical ideas of his era is a matter of conjecture, it is hard to resist the thought that he is writing under the influence of the fourteenth-century voluntarist movement.2 An obstacle to such claims, however, is that no one has ever produced a clear and systematic account of what the voluntarist movement was. I hope to do that in detail elsewhere, but here I will attempt something more modest: to distinguish between a few claims that might be associated with voluntarism and to consider some signs of their presence within Piers Plowman. A clear understanding of the philosophical character of voluntarism, and its implications for human nature, makes for a compelling case that we should understand the poem as the supreme medieval attempt to imbue an abstract philosophical thesis about the primacy of will with concrete meaning, set within the context of ordinary life. The human search for Truth, as Langland conceives of it, is not chiefly an intellectual journey but rather a volitional one.

47

48

Robert Pasnau

SOME VARIETIES OF VOLUNTARISM A rough start at delimiting the scope of voluntarism might distinguish between claims made about the human will, the divine will, and the popular will. The last of these three concerns the grounds of political authority, and voluntarism is sometimes associated with fourteenth-century political theorists who stress the role of popular consent in establishing political legitimacy. Here the leading figures are Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham.3 The second of these three broad categories concerns various ways in which God’s will might impinge upon human affairs. Of course, the presence of God in our daily lives is taken for granted throughout the Middle Ages. But views that put great weight on the radical freedom of God’s will are often associated with voluntarism. An interesting feature of these views is that they are prone to have destabilizing implications, calling into question our ability to understand the world around us and our place within it. A wellknown example of this sort is John Duns Scotus’s claim that most of the laws of the Decalogue obtain only contingently—that God could have made it the case, for instance, that theft is not wrong.4 Here I will set aside these two broad categories, and focus on the first and most prominent form of voluntarism, concerning the human will. It would be very difficult to give an exhaustive account of the many distinct forms of voluntarism that might be identified here, but some rough distinctions can be drawn. First, and most generally, voluntarists are united by their opposition to any form of physical determinism of the will, of the sort that the Stoics championed, according to which our choices are necessitated by the course of past events.5 Inasmuch as it is hard to find any medieval Christian philosopher who embraces determinism in this sense, the denial that the will is naturally necessitated is hardly a distinctive tenet of voluntarism. A second and more distinctively voluntaristic view would be the rejection of divine necessitation. This kind of necessity is explicitly found among medieval authors, most prominently in Thomas Bradwardine, who argues that everything that happens, including every act of every human will, is necessitated by God’s eternal volition.6 On its face, this seems incompatible with human freedom and moral responsibility, and so a characteristic challenge faced by many voluntarists is to find a way of squaring God’s eternal foreknowledge and providence with robust human freedom.7 These issues interact with a third aspect of voluntarism, which is its sympathy for something in the vicinity of Pelagianism with respect to the doctrine of grace. Although it is settled doctrine that grace is both required for salvation and freely given by God, voluntarists tend to be broadly sympathetic to the idea that human beings have some capacity to do good independently of receiving grace.8

Voluntarism and the Self in Piers Plowman

49

In what follows I will set aside these large theological matters and concentrate on three further and quite distinct commitments associated with voluntarism. The first of these, which I will call anti-intellectualism, argues against yet another sort of determinism: the will’s being determined in its choices by the judgment of intellect. On views of this sort, which were widely held by scholastic authors, the will must choose that which the intellect judges to be the best course of action. Resistance to this sort of determinism takes various forms, as we will see, and is perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of medieval voluntarism. It leads, moreover, to a second sort of commitment, one that is less familiar but yet critical to an appreciation of voluntarism’s broader cultural influence. This is the idea of the will as the primary locus of selfhood, which is to say that who we are as individuals is defined, first and foremost, by the character of our wills. This is an idea that goes back, as we will see, to the origins of Christianity, but it takes on new prominence in the fourteenth century. And that idea in turn leads to a third member of this set, which is that the will is the primary locus of moral worth, in the sense that our being virtuous or vicious, praiseworthy or blameworthy, depends on the internal state of our will rather than on what we do in the world. One would hardly expect the first of these three, anti-intellectualism, to be defended explicitly and systematically in a literary text. More generally, it would seem to be the province of philosophy to address these sorts of technical questions about the causal relationship between the different aspects of the human mind, and between the mind and whatever outside forces impinge upon it, natural or supernatural. Indeed, to the extent that literary texts can be found to take up such properly philosophical (or scientific) questions, it is not clear why we should care about their answers. But in what follows I want to suggest that a commitment to anti-intellectualism leads very naturally to a commitment to the other theses just described, associating the will with both selfhood and moral worth. And inasmuch as these two commitments raise not just theoretical questions but also very practical questions about the nature of our lives and experiences, we should expect them to matter a great deal to anyone attempting any sort of narrative about the human condition. Here, then, I think, it makes good sense to look to literature for a nuanced development of these theses. In particular, I will argue, we should look to Piers Plowman. INTELLECTUALISM AND ITS RIVALS To understand the lines that run between the three forms of voluntarism just described—from anti-intellectualism to selfhood to moral worth—we might

50

Robert Pasnau

start with the most well-known version of intellectualism, that of Thomas Aquinas (1225–74). Aquinas’s contemporary critics, of whom there were many, often depicted his views in crude caricature, as if the will were simply a rubber stamp endorsing the judgments of intellect. In fact he offers a very complex and nuanced account of the relation between will and intellect, and scholars continue to dispute the extent to which it can aptly be regarded as intellectualist rather than voluntarist.9 But it is clear at a minimum that Aquinas believes the will has a determinate teleological orientation toward the good: in other words, that all its choices are made under the guise of the good: The will naturally tends towards its ultimate end: for every human being naturally wills happiness. And this natural willing is the cause of all other willings, since whatever a human being wills, he wills for the sake of an end.10

This quickly points in the direction of intellectualism, for several reasons. First, it is the intellect, through practical reasoning, that decides on the best course to pursue in order to obtain a certain end. This is indeed one of the paradigmatic tasks of intellect, and so it would be bizarre to suppose that the will would be responsible for reasoning about which means to take to achieve a certain end. Second, the role given to the will, in this passage, is to want the end, and not just any end, but our ultimate end, happiness. To be sure, it is important to human nature that the will gives us this fixed inclination toward happiness. Indeed, the passage just quoted says that it is in virtue of willing this that we will everything else we will. But although the will is undoubtedly important inasmuch as it supplies this inclination toward our own happiness, it is not clear that it plays an interesting agential role. For this tendency toward the good is something that it wills “naturally,” and so determinately. Hence the will’s role in our lives is surprisingly fixed, and tends to be overshadowed in Aquinas’s thinking by the role of the intellect in determining which courses of action will best promote our own happiness. To avoid falling into crude caricature, it should be said that Aquinas’s position becomes quickly more complex when one considers the story’s temporal dimension. For although the will must follow the ultimate judgment of intellect, it is not just the passive recipient of the intellect’s dictates. Instead, the lines of causal influence run in both directions. For what may seem best is for the intellect to continue deliberating, or to deliberate about something different, and it is the will that issues such commands. This does not ultimately mean that the will is in charge, however, because the will’s command is itself a product of a prior intellectual judgment, which may itself be the product of a voluntary choice to deliberate. The process runs back and forth, over the entire course of an agent’s life. Moreover, over the course of a life, both

Voluntarism and the Self in Piers Plowman

51

will and intellect acquire various dispositions—virtues and vices—and these shape the ways in which the two faculties behave. Inasmuch as two of the most important moral virtues, justice and charity, are virtues of the will,11 it can hardly be said that the will plays a secondary role in Aquinas’s thinking. But even if that makes it somewhat misleading to characterize his ultimate position as intellectualist, it is certainly not the case that his account of human nature privileges the will as opposed to intellect. And what’s distinctive of the voluntarist movement is precisely that it does in various ways privilege the will over and above other aspects of human nature. We can see this sort of privileging at work very clearly in William of Ockham’s (1287–1347) rejection of a view along the lines of Aquinas’s. Whereas Aquinas holds that the will’s teleological orientation toward its ultimate end is, as it were, hardwired, Ockham flatly denies this, writing that “the will is not naturally inclined to its ultimate end.”12 The implication of this claim is that the will has the capacity to reject that end, which is a claim that Ockham explicitly endorses, remarking elsewhere that “even with the intellect’s judging that this is the ultimate end, the will can nill that end.”13 This means that the will can not only choose not to will its own happiness but can also positively will against happiness. It can will to be unhappy. This in turn has ramifications for everything that the will chooses, because if it can reject its ultimate end then it can reject anything that the intellect might propose, given that the intellect’s practical judgments have force only on the assumption that the agent desires a certain end. This, too, is something that Ockham explicitly avows, saying that “the will can be moved against the judgment of reason.”14 We might say that, for Ockham, the will is a much more interesting faculty than it is for Aquinas. Although Aquinas’s will plays an ineliminable causal role in his theory of action, and serves as the subject for the most important moral virtues, its role is limited by its natural inclinations in a way that the will for Ockham is not. Whether or not this gives Ockham’s will greater freedom is a question that has been long debated and need not be taken up here. But his anti-intellectualism gives the will itself a more important role to play in human action, by making the will’s autonomous choice the critical deciding factor. The point has to be articulated with some care. After all, even for the most intellectualist of scholastic authors,15 it is the endorsement of will (voluntas) that defines the scope of voluntary action, and hence the scope of moral responsibility. What’s different for voluntarists like Ockham is that the explanation for why the will chooses one thing or another rests ultimately with the will itself. The will’s choices are, to be sure, influenced by the judgment of intellect and by the various virtues and vices we accumulate over time. But whereas Aquinas can write that “it is by virtue that we live well,”16 the voluntarists treat the will as an autonomous agent, which may or

52

Robert Pasnau

may not follow the advice of intellect or the dispositions ingrained through past action. THE WILL AS LOCUS OF THE SELF Given an anti-intellectualism that attributes a heightened role to the will, it becomes natural to give the will a larger share in what we think of as our self. After all, our conception of self is largely shaped by the voluntary choices we make. So if it is the will itself—not the intellect, nor our passions or dispositions—that ultimately explains what we do, then the will accordingly should become of larger importance to our conception of our self. This is not an idea that could have taken hold in classical antiquity, given that the concept of the will arguably does not even exist in antiquity, and certainly does not exist in anything like a voluntaristic form.17 But we can find associations between the will and the self in early Christian authors, even as early as St. Paul. Consider this famous passage from his Letter to the Romans: For that which I do, I do not understand. For I do not do the good that I will (θέλω; volo), but the evil that I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I will against, I consent to the law, that it is good. So then it is not I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me. For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is, within my flesh. For to will the good is present to me, but to achieve the good, that I do not find. For I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I will against, this I do. But if I do that which I will against, then it is not I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me. Therefore I find a law, that while I am willing to do good, evil is present to me. For, with respect to the interior person, I am delighted with the law of God. But I see another law in my limbs, fighting against the law of my mind and imprisoning me in the law of sin that is in my limbs.18

The passage concerns actions that are, in some sense, unwilled. Paul describes himself as doing things that he hates (odi) and wills against (nolo). In cases like this, it is natural to say that the act is beyond one’s control, or not one’s responsibility. But twice, in the italicized passages, Paul makes an inference that goes much farther: If I act unwillingly, he says, then “it is not I who does it, but the sin that dwells within me” (7:17, 7:20). This is to say not just that my unwilled actions are not voluntary, but further that they are not my actions at all. In turn, that suggests that Paul strongly associates the self with its acts of willing. To be sure, he also speaks here of the “interior person” and the “law of my mind,” expressions that also seem

Voluntarism and the Self in Piers Plowman

53

to be associated with the “I” that is the self. And in contrast he points to the “flesh” and the “limbs” that lie outside the interior person. But even if the self is not wholly determined by the will, he at any rate seems to think that acts of will are the primary determinant of what I do and so, accordingly, of who I am. From a philosophical point of view, this famous text is quite perplexing.19 At first glance, it might seem to subscribe to the sort of Platonic or Cartesian dualism that identifies the self with the soul, and so consequently treats the body as something outside of the self. But whether or not Paul might accept such a thesis, he is not strictly committed to it here. Instead, he wishes only to disassociate certain actions from himself: those actions that he has not willed. When we focus on this claim, the obvious question becomes what sort of actions he is referring to? The answer that immediately suggests itself is that Paul is describing what philosophers today call weakness of will, where, roughly, we know that it would be best to do one thing, and yet we find ourselves doing something else.20 Yet, on reflection, this is extremely problematic as a reading of the passage, for multiple reasons. For one thing, it seems that Saint Paul should not himself be subject to this rather grievous form of sin. For another, it seems that such acts are sins, and so ought not to be dismissed by Paul as acts that are not his own. And this is so because, finally, it seems that such actions are willed by the agent. When I stay up too late, streaming yet another hour of television, this is something that I will to do, which is precisely why I am aptly described as suffering from weakness of will. The commentary tradition on this passage, aware of these difficulties with the obvious reading, has proposed another possibility: that Paul is talking not about weakness of will but rather about purely sensual impulses that are not willed because they are not acted on at all.21 This would include the sort of fleeting yearnings, impulses, and mental images that even a saint cannot help but have, which arise in any human being, simply as a result of being human. (Or, in strict theological terms, they arise as a result of our living under the punishment of original sin.) These are the so-called venial sins, which one might well judge to be beyond one’s voluntary control, and so one’s responsibility only in a considerably diminished sense. Even on this interpretation, it remains somewhat startling that Paul wants to treat such “doings” (ὃ κατεργάζομαι; quod operor) not just as involuntary, but as not being his doings at all. But here we can see clearly in just what sense this passage subscribes to the will as the primary locus of selfhood. It is not that the passage is committed to a dualism on which Paul just is his will, or his mind. Rather, the scope of Paul’s will is what marks off the scope of activities that Paul is willing to endorse as his own. As his will goes, so he goes, and if it happens that his body goes in a different direction, then that is not

54

Robert Pasnau

something Paul takes himself to be responsible for, even granted that his body is a part of him.22 Once we associate the self so tightly with the will, it becomes natural to take one more step, and to see the will as the primary locus of moral worth. This is not to make the commonplace assertion that actions are morally evaluable only when they are endorsed by the will—that is, only when those actions are voluntary. It is to say, instead, that moral goodness applies, first and foremost, not to our external actions, nor to our rational deliberations or to our acquired habits, but rather to the will’s choices. This is not a claim that Paul shows any signs of commitment to, but it becomes explicit among various later moral theorists. Most famously, Immanuel Kant begins the Groundwork with these ringing words: “It is impossible to conceive of anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good will.”23 This sort of thought is completely alien to Aquinas, for whom everything that exists is good, just insofar as it has existence.24 And even with regard to the narrow domain of moral goodness, Aquinas locates it no more on the intellectual side than on the volitional side, and associates it more with the virtues than with the faculty of will itself. Among medieval philosophers, Peter Abelard (1079–1142) is very clear about locating moral worth at the place where we consent or form an intention to act, rather than at the action itself, or at our acquired dispositions toward action. As Abelard writes, “A person’s intention is called good in itself, but his deed is not called good from itself, but rather because it proceeds from a good intention.”25 This view gets taken up by the voluntarist movement of the fourteenth century. Ockham, for instance, holds that the only necessarily virtuous human act is an act of the will.26 The more one accentuates the autonomous role of the will in decision-making, and its preeminent place in moral agency, the more natural it becomes to think of the will as the primary locus of moral worth. Our various other features as human beings determine much of who we are: whether we are healthy and athletic, bold or shy, wise or witless. But on this voluntarist picture our goodness as moral agents is a product, first and foremost, of our will and the choices it makes. One finds this sort of position articulated very vividly in Peter John Olivi (1247/8–1298), one of the forerunners of the voluntarist movement, who writes that nothing beneath God is as beloved and as dear to us as the freedom and power of our own will. For this is a thing we value infinitely, we value it more than all the things that God could make, which are infinite, and more than anything that is in us.27

This is by no means the standard medieval philosophical conception of human nature, which tends to be far more intellectualist in its orientation.

Voluntarism and the Self in Piers Plowman

55

But this is the sort of voluntarism that informs Piers Plowman, as I will now begin to argue. HIGHER AND LOWER WILL The obvious indication that Piers Plowman is written from within a voluntaristic conception of the human self is its identification of the dreamer as Will. This choice of names—always “Will” and never “William”—centers the larger psychological frame of the poem, as we will see. But to appreciate the significance of Langland’s decision to build his poem around the journey of Will, it will be helpful to look briefly at how the terms “will” and “voluntas” are ordinarily deployed in medieval texts. For a modern reader, the voluntarist association of the will with the self and with moral worth looks perfectly natural. We commonly express judgments about personal agency in terms of our having “free will” or being “weak willed.” Our tendency to elevate the role of will in these ways is a mark of the modern influence of voluntarism, but in the Middle Ages this influence had not yet so thoroughly taken hold. Medieval authors writing philosophy in Latin speak ordinarily not of free will (libera voluntas) but of free choice (liberum arbitrium), and speak of incontinentia rather than weakness of will. Exactly how the will might be involved in these phenomena was an open question, and this was the very territory in dispute between intellectualists and voluntarists.28 For both parties to this philosophical dispute, voluntas refers uncontroversially to rational appetite, the soul’s higher desire for its ultimate good and for whatever means are judged conducive to that good. On this Aristotelian picture,29 the will is and must be involved in every deliberate human act, and so even if the will is not valorized as the principal part of the soul, it is at any rate a necessary part. In Middle English, in contrast, the will often does not rise even to this level of responsibility. Characteristically, instead, “will” refers to the lower human appetites that work against reason rather than in collaboration with it. This is most obviously apparent in the popular opposition between wit and will, a trope that appears over and over in Middle English literature. In Sawles Warde, for instance, from around the start of the thirteenth century, the allegory gets set out at the very beginning: This hus the ure Lauerd speketh of is seolf the mon. Inwith, the monnes wit i this hus is the huse lauerd, ant te fulitohe wif mei beon wil ihaten, thet, ga the hus efter hire, ha diht hit al to wundre bute Wit ase lauerd chasti hire the betere ant bineome hire muchel of thet ha walde. Ant tah walde al thet hird folhin hire overal yef Wit ne forbude ham, for alle hit beoth untohene ant rechelese hinen bute yef he ham rihte.

56

Robert Pasnau

[This house which our Lord speaks of is man himself. Inside, the man’s wit in this house is the lord of the house, and the unruly wife can be called Will who, if the house follows her, brings it all to ruin unless Wit as lord restrains her better and takes away from her much of what she wills. And yet still all that household would follow her in everything if Wit did not forbid them, because all are unruly and reckless servants unless he corrects them.]30

The terms of the allegory would not necessarily preclude the sort of collaborative relationship between intellect and will that one finds within Aristotelian philosophy, but as marriage is in fact understood here, the relationship is strictly hierarchical. It is Wit who should rule and restrain, and if Will were to get her way, the result would be ruin: “ha diht hit al to wundre.” This is not to say that Will plays a subsidiary role in Sawles Warde. The wife in many respects lies at the center of the dramatic narrative, and female readers might have been expected to identify particularly with her.31 Still, Will can scarcely be considered the protagonist, for when the narrative finally resolves itself, the outcome is a one-sided silencing of Will in favor of Wit’s authority: Nu is Wil thet husewif al stille—thet er wes so willesful—al ituht efter Wittes wissunge, thet is husebonde. Ant al thet hird halt him stille, thet wes iwunet to beon fulitohen ant don efter Wil, hare lefdi, ant nawt efter Wit. [Now Will that housewife is entirely silent—who before was so willful—fully guided according to the instruction of Wit, who is husband. And all that household holds itself still, that was accustomed to be unruly and follow Will, their lady, and not Wit.]32

Nearly two centuries later, John Gower offers much the same picture of the relationship between wit and will, in his account of Diogenes’ advice to Alexander: This is the sothe thing: Sith I ferst resoun understod, And knew what thing was evel and good, The will which of my bodi moeveth, Whos werkes that the god reproeveth, I have restreigned everemore, . . . Will is my man and my servant, And evere hath ben and evere schal. And thi will is thi principal, And hath the lordschipe of thi witt.33

Voluntarism and the Self in Piers Plowman

57

Here the will is so far from being associated with the self that it is properly cast in the role of Diogenes’ “man and my servant.” King Alexander’s fault is precisely that he allows his will to be the “principal” part within him, and to have “lordschipe” over his wit. That in Gower the will is now masculine perhaps implies that these lower appetites are not the privileged domain of either gender. But that the will is so readily gendered at all signals just how natural it is to think of the will as the locus of selfhood. Semantically, the noun “will” in Middle English is ambiguous between these two senses: will as higher appetite, allied to reason and responsible for all deliberate action, and will as lower desire, inevitably in conflict with reason and so appropriately restrained if not silenced altogether. We have seen instances of the latter usage, but it is also easy to find Middle English uses of “will” in the philosopher’s sense.34 When the will is so understood, it becomes possible to give it the sort of elevated status associated with the voluntarists. Walter Hilton (ca. 1343–1396), for instance, urges us to abandon our selfish “proper will” in favor of a “common will” that adheres to the will of God. þis comen wille is sothefastly called þe maste precious offerande & þe maste dere presande þat may be gyfen un-to-god; and þarefor it is callyd erthely heuen, for qwy it herbers god. It is goddis tempill, it is þe chosen chambyr of Ihesu, it is þe hamely howse of þe haly gaste.35

Evidently a will of this sort is not to be silenced or ruled over, but is instead the crowning achievement of a human life. In keeping with the ambiguous character of the Middle English word, one sometimes finds Langland referring to will as a lower desire meant to be suppressed. In Truth’s castle, for instance, as described by Piers, “all the wallis ben of witte to holden wille oute” (B.V.587).36 The poem’s hero, however, Will the dreamer, is not meant to be held out of the castle—and this not despite his name, but because of it, inasmuch as a will, for Langland, is precisely that within a human being that has a chance of meriting entrance within those walls. WILL’S JOURNEY If the identification of the dreamer as Will is more than mere authorial signature, if it has the sort of conceptual implications that I am claiming, then we would expect there to be consequences throughout the poem. Indeed, the voluntarist’s conception of human agency frames the entire narrative. A useful overview of Langland’s conception of the relationship between will and agency appears in a metaphor at B.VIII.41–56:

58

Robert Pasnau

The bote is likned to the body that brutel is of kynde [brittle That thorugh the fende and thi flesh and the false worlde [Fiend Synneth the sad man sevene sythes a day [steadfast . . . times Ac dedly synne doth he nought; for Do-Well hym helpeth, That is charité the champioun, chief help ayein synne. For he strengtheth the to stone and stereth thi soule [stand . . . steers That thowgh thi body bow as bote doth in the water, [turns about as a boat Ay is thi soule sauf but thiself wole [unless you will Folwe thi fleshes wille and the Fendes after, [as well And do a dedly synne and drenche so thiselve. God wole suffer wel thi sleuthe yif thiself lyketh, [sloth For he yaf the to Yeres-yyve to yeme wel thiselve, [New Year’s gift to guide Witte a fre wille, to every wyghte a porcioun, [Wit and To fleghyng foules, to fissches, and to bestes, [flying Ac man hath moste therof and moste is to blame, But if he worche wel therwith as Do-Wel hym techeth. [unless

This picture accords quite precisely with the standard medieval reading of Romans 7. Our brittle body sins constantly—“sevene sythes a day,” invoking Proverbs 24:16—but these are mere venial sins, consistent with a meritorious life, and so “thi soule saufe but thiself wole / Folwe thi fleshes wille . . .” Here from one line to the next we get the two senses of will described above: the higher will that controls the soul’s destiny, set in opposition to the lower will of the flesh that should be silenced as much as possible. The self is not identified with the will, or even with the soul, no more than it is in Romans 7. But the responsibility for the whole human self—boat and passenger—rests with the will’s choices, and whether it can escape the sort of “dedly synne” that threatens an eternal drenching. To be sure, this is the account of the friar, one of the less reliable voices in the poem. But the friar’s unreliability is a product of his volitional failings; he is wrong not in what he says, but in how he conducts himself. In general, indeed, the poem’s voluntaristic inclinations are signaled by the relative ease with which the various speakers are able to offer intellectually adequate responses to Will’s persistent questions. From the very first passus, Will receives perfectly correct answers, as when Holy Church tells him that “It is a kynde knowing that kenneth (teaches/guides) in thine herte / For to lovye thi Lorde lever (more dearly) than thiselve, / No dedly synne to do dey (die) though thow shodest” (B.I.142–4). There is nothing wrong with this advice; it is in fact the same advice on which the friar is elaborating. Will, however, makes the same response to both Holy Church and the friar, protesting that he has “no kynde knowing” of what they are saying (B.I.138,

Voluntarism and the Self in Piers Plowman

59

B.VIII.57). This pattern, repeated throughout the poem, is liable to produce in the reader the very response offered by Holy Church: “Thow doted daffe,” quod she, “dulle arne thi wittes” (B.I.140).37 But it is this mocking outburst that leads Holy Church to offer the three-line doctrinal summary just quoted, which provides its own answer to the charge of dull-wittedness: the problem is not with Will’s wits, but with the affective or volitional aspect of his character, inasmuch as the knowledge he lacks is something that “kenneth in thine herte.” It is, therefore, quite appropriate that Langland sets his Will on this journey to find Truth. Still, a will is not a whole soul, let alone a whole person, and in particular a will cannot function without an intellect to advise it. Hence the friar remarks that the gift we have been given is both wit and free will, both of which we must “worche wel therwith” (lines 53, 56). The journey Will takes is predicated on his very existence as a witless Will, a description that is no insult to him inasmuch as the will by its very nature relies on other faculties for its information. So it is that, over the course of the poem, we hear from Conscience, Reason, Thought, Wit, Ymaginatif, Anima, and more. Langland’s complex use of allegory makes these characters more than mere philosophical abstractions, or characters in costume, because the allegory allows the poem to work simultaneously on multiple levels, situating Will within a larger community even while locating the will within an individual psychology.38 That we can understand Will in both ways, as both a part of the soul and as a protagonist embarked on a journey in the world, is a consequence of the poem’s voluntarism, and more specifically its valorization of the will as the primary locus of selfhood and moral worth. Accordingly, Conscience reacts to the friar’s gluttonous behavior at dinner not by objecting to the content of anything the friar had said, but rather by affirming the matchless value of a true will: Ac the wille of the wye and the wille of folke here (that person, viz. Patience) Hath moeved my mode to mourne for my sinnes. The good wille of a wighte was nevre bought to the fulle, For there nys no tresore therto—to a trewe wille. (B.XIII.190–3)

This serves to reprimand the friar on one level, but on another level it simply reaffirms what the friar had earlier taught through the metaphor of the brittle boat: what is all-important in a human life is the quality of a person’s will. Given that a will requires information from outside—that his journey is an exercise in what Elizabeth Robertson refers to as “soul-making”—it should be no surprise that Will’s journey consists largely in consulting with various authorities, personified.39 For anyone seeking to make strict philosophical

60

Robert Pasnau

sense out of these dreams, it can look disconcerting that both Conscience and Holy Church are treated as personifications; that personification sometimes extends to parts of the self (part of Will?), whereas at other times it lies wholly outside Will. But the complex logic of Langland’s allegorical scheme indicates just how seriously Langland takes the voluntaristic conception of the will as the primary locus of personal agency. From that point of view, the teachings of the church and of Conscience are on a par, both effectively external sources of information between which the will must navigate as best it can. Accordingly, Conscience can aptly be described as a book, and indeed the only book one needs (B.XV.534). And when Conscience announces his intention at the end of the poem to “bicome a pilgryme” in search of Piers (B.XX.380), and so seemingly to leave Will behind, we should not be surprised. Even parts of our very soul may go silent for stretches of a time, leaving the will to make decisions as best it can.40 The multiplicity of levels on which the text works reflects the human epistemic situation, and the tangled mix of information we receive from within and without.41 Conceived of philosophically, a will needs guidance, and, within the literary context of a dream vision, one would expect Will to have a guide. Part of what makes Piers Plowman so disorienting, then, is Will’s difficulty in finding a guide who is adequate. I have already suggested that the failure of these would-be guides arises not from any intellectual failing. Where then does the problem lie? That is not at all an easy question to answer, because the poem is very far from explaining itself in this regard—as if not only Will but also William himself finds the question deeply inscrutable. Why indeed does any one of us find it so difficult to do well, let alone better or best? Just above, we saw Conscience suggest that truth lies in the will (B.XIII.193). Might it be, then, that Will’s search for Truth is at least in part an inward search? That would in turn explain why Will keeps failing to get from others the answer he is looking for. I say “in part” because the Truth, capitalized, is of course God. But Will’s lifelong journey to find God is mediated by the search for the proper sort of love of God, which is what his would-be guides keep telling him he requires, all the way to the end of the poem: “‘Conseille me, Kynde,’ quod I. ‘What crafte is best to lerne?’ / ‘Lerne to loue,’ quod Kynde, ‘and leue alle othre’” (B.XX.209–10). Love is an act of the will, and the search for the right sort of stable loving disposition is a search for charity, which is a virtue of the will. If this is what Will is after, then he scarcely needs to travel far, because what he requires is something only he can supply.42 Will’s quest for Do-Well likewise has this sort of inwardly directed aspect, once we understand it through the voluntaristic perspective identified above, according to which right action is first and foremost the action of the will itself, rather than any sort of physical activity in the world. Will himself is perhaps confused, as wills so often are, even about

Voluntarism and the Self in Piers Plowman

61

what kind of thing Do-Well is, but the poet’s way of handling analogous adverbial constructions is illuminating. Wit’s castle in Passus IX contains not just Do-Well, Do-Better, and Do-Best, but also the five fair sons of Sir Inwit: “Sire Se-Wel, and Say-Wel, and Here-Wel the hende, / Sire Worche-WelWyth-Thine Hande, a wighte man of strengthe, / And Sire Godfrey Go-Wel, gret lordes alle” (B.IX.20–2). This allegorical construction of a human person locates these various adverbial perfections within the castle, as faculties or virtues. But if seeing well, saying well, and hearing well are all perfections of a human being, then we should expect doing well to be understood in the same way, and of course we should expect it to be a virtue of the will. Will’s search for Do-Well, then, is a search for something he can find only within himself. To put the focus on will in this way, as the locus of selfhood and moral agency, is not to treat the will as alone in the world. Langland is of course not a solipsist, nor does he think that a human being is just a will. Hence it is quite proper for Will to set out on an intellectual journey, and to ask for help from everyone he meets. As I read the poem, we are not meant to conclude that Will’s quest for understanding is hopeless or even misguided.43 Although we are in a position to see that the answers Will is looking for lie within him, that does not make his task any easier. He is, indeed, going about his journey in the only way that a will in the world can: by attempting to make common cause with others, and by seeking in good faith to understand the things that are, for now, only dimly lit.

NOTES 1. Zeeman, Piers Plowman and the Medieval Discourse of Desire, 66. 2. Distinguished examples, with regard to Piers Plowman in particular, include Zeeman, Piers Plowman; Coleman, Piers Plowman and the Moderni; Simpson, “From Reason to Affective Knowledge”; and Robertson, “Soul-making in Piers Plowman.” For a skeptical response, see Aers, Salvation and Sin. 3. On Marsilius, see, e.g., Nederman, Community and Consent; for Ockham, see, e.g., McGrade, The Political Thought of William of Ockham. 4. See Ordinatio III.37, in John Duns Scotus, Selected Writings on Ethics, 248–58. 5. For an authoritative treatment, see Bobzien, Determinism and Freedom. 6. See especially Bradwardine, De causa Dei contra Pelagium, I.3, II.20, III.1–2, III.50. Unfortunately, this long and difficult work is available neither in translation nor even in a modern Latin edition. 7. There is of course a very large literature on these topics. For a brief and useful philosophical survey, see Normore, “Future Contingents.” 8. See Oberman, “Robert Holcot O. P.”

62

Robert Pasnau

9. I offer an intellectualist reading in Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, ch. 7. For a sophisticated recent attempt to understand his view in a more voluntaristic light, see Hoffmann and Michon, “Aquinas on Free Will and Intellectual Determinism.” 10. “Unde voluntas naturaliter tendit in suum finem ultimum, omnis enim homo naturaliter vult beatitudinem. Et ex hac naturali voluntate causantur omnes aliae voluntates, cum quidquid homo vult, velit propter finem” (Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1a 60.2c). 11. See Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1a2ae 56.6. 12. William of Ockham, Ordinatio I.1.6, in Opera, 1:507. Unless otherwise noted, the works of Ockham that I discuss are not currently available in English translation. For a more extensive discussion of his conception of will, see Adams, “Ockham on Will, Nature, and Morality.” 13. William of Ockham, Reportatio IV.16 in Opera, 7:350. 14. William of Ockham, Reportatio IV.16 in Opera, 7:354, 7:357–8. 15. The most comprehensive inventory of the intellectualist (and voluntarist) movement through the thirteenth century is the first volume of Lottin, Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles. 16. Aquinas, De regno I.16, in Opuscula. 17. Dihle, The Theory of the Will, locates the origins of will in early Christianity; Frede, A Free Will, points to late Stoic thought. 18. Romans, 7:15–23. The Vulgate text reads as follows: “Quod enim operor non intelligo: non enim quod volo (θέλω) bonum hoc ago, sed quod odi malum illud facio. Si autem quod nolo illud facio, consentio legi, quoniam bona (καλός) est. Nunc autem iam non ego operor illud, sed quod habitat in me peccatum. Scio enim quia non habitat in me, hoc est in carne mea, bonum. Nam velle adiacet mihi: perficere autem bonum non invenio. Non enim quod volo bonum, hoc facio: sed quod nolo malum, hoc ago. Si autem quod nolo illud facio, iam non ego operor illud, sed quod habitat in me peccatum. Invenio igitur legem volenti mihi facere bonum quoniam mihi malum adiacet. Condelector enim legi Dei secundum interiorem hominem. Video autem aliam legem in membris meis, repugnantem legi mentis meae, et captivantem me in lege peccati, quae est in membris meis.” 19. For a good example of the perplexity that has been generated, see Matthews, “It Is No Longer I That Do It . . .” For a response, see Kretzmann, “Aquinas on Romans 7.” Kretzmann in turn draws on Aquinas’s commentary on Romans 7 (Thomas Aquinas 1929). 20. The classic modern discussion of these cases is Davidson, “How is Weakness of the Will Possible.” 21. See, for example, Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 1a 83.1 ad 1, and, at greater length, his commentary on Romans. For Augustine, see Sermones ad populum 154.3 (PL 38). 22. It is a telling sign of Aquinas’s prevailing intellectualist orientation that he takes Paul’s “I” in this passage to refer to his intellect: “‘I’ is understood as the human being’s reason, which is principal within a human being, and thus it seems that each human being is his reason or his intellect” (Aquinas, In omnes S. Pauli, 7.3).

Voluntarism and the Self in Piers Plowman

63

23. Kant, Groundwork, 9. 24. See, for example, Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 1a 5.3. 25. Abelard, Ethical Writings, n. 91. See also n. 106. 26. William of Ockham, Quodlibet III.14, translated in Quodlibetal Questions. 27. Olivi, De perfectione evangelica q. 5, edited in Emmen, “La dottrina dell’Olivi sul valore religioso dei voti,” 98. 28. The appearance of Liberum Arbitrium in the poem as an interlocutor with Will (at B.XVI and, more extensively, C.XVII and C.XIX) suggests the gap Langland sees between will and the supposed freedom that resides in rational judgment. 29. Aristotelian, but perhaps not Aristotle’s. See the literature cited in note 16 for the broader question of the ancient status of will, and for Aristotle in particular see also Irwin, “Who Discovered the Will?” 30. Sawles Warde par. 3, following a revised version of the edition and translation in Huber and Robertson, Katherine Group. 31. See Robertson, Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience. 32. Sawles Warde par. 48, in Huber and Robertson, Katherine Group. For a discussion of other examples of the conflict between Wit and Will, see Dickins, The Conflict of Wit and Will. 33. Gower, Confessio amantis, 3:1270–83. 34. This is immediately apparent from the quotations offered in support of the first sense of “wil(le” offered in the online Middle English Dictionary . Of course, the noun “will” has more than two senses in Middle English, just as it does today. The Oxford English Dictionary offers twenty-three distinct senses, and the Middle English Dictionary offers twelve, and does not even separate out into different entries the senses I am distinguishing here, despite their fundamental difference. 35. Hilton, “Propyr Wille,” in Horstmann, Yorkshire Writers, 1:173. 36. See also B.XI.45: “That witte shal torne to wrecchednesse, for wille to have his lyking!” Ralph Hanna remarks, of B.V.587/C.VII.234, that “Piers’s language at this point deliberately excludes the dreamer” (Penn Commentary, 2:200). But this ignores the clear equivocity of “wille,” which here denotes a psychological feature set in essential opposition to wit, to be excluded from the castle as a matter of principle. This cannot be the sort of will with which the dreamer is identified. 37. See the nuanced discussion of Will as fool in Carruthers, The Search for St. Truth, 5, as well as David Aers’s sweeping account of the significance of locating Will among the fools, arrayed against the institutions of power (Beyond Reformation?, 126). 38. On the complexities of allegory in Langland, see Mann, “Langland and Allegory [1991].” For the case of the soul’s faculties in particular, see Raskolnikov, Body against Soul, ch. 5. 39. Robertson, “Soul-Making in Piers Plowman.” 40. Here I am indebted to conversation with Kate Crassons and Beth Robertson. 41. That we acquire information from the senses, and from intellectual abstraction therefrom, is a commonplace within the Aristotelian tradition. The role of external authority is stressed in particular by Augustine, famously at De trinitate XV.12.21:

64

Robert Pasnau

“Let it be far from us to deny that we know what we have learned from the testimony of others.” 42. My thoughts here have benefited substantially from remarks in Simpson, Piers Plowman: An Introduction, 163: “If Will has never seen charity . . ., this is surely because he is himself, as the will, the locus of charity; to look for charity ‘bifore’ or ‘bihynde’ is simply to miss the obvious by looking in front of one’s nose.” For a detailed discussion of the will as the locus of virtue, see Kent, Virtues of the Will. 43. Here I agree with Aers, Salvation and Sin, 56: “there is no warrant for those readings of Piers Plowman that assert a movement in the poem setting aside ratiocination and argument.” At the same time, the poem’s voluntarism creates a certain tension in this commitment to rational inquiry, as is beautifully captured in Simpson, “The Role of Scientia in Piers Plowman,” who speaks of “a deep uncertainty about the value of learning in the poem” (61).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Abelard, Peter. Ethical Writings. Translated by Paul Spade. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995. Adams, Marilyn McCord. “Ockham on Will, Nature and Morality.” In The Cambridge Companion to Ockham, edited by P. V. Spade, 245–72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Aers, David. Salvation and Sin: Augustine, Langland, and Fourteenth-Century Theology. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009. Aers, David. Beyond Reformation? An Essay on William Langland’s Piers Plowman and the End of Constantinian Christianity. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015. Aquinas, Thomas. In omnes S. Pauli Apostoli epistolas commentaria. Turin: Marietti, 1929. ———. Opuscula philosophica. Edited by R. M. Spiazzi. Rome: Marietti, 1954. ———. Summa theologiae. Edited by P. Caramello. Rome: Marietti, 1950–53. Augustine. De trinitate libri XV. In Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, edited by W. J. Mountain and F. Glorie, volume 50. Turnhout: Brepols, 1968. ———. “Sermones ad Populum.” In Patrologia Latina, edited by J. P. Migne, volume 38. Paris, 1844–55. Bobzien, Susanne. Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon, 2001. Bradwardine, Thomas. De causa Dei contra Pelagium et de virtute causarum ad suos Mertonenses, libri tres. Ed. H. Savile. London: apud I. Billium, 1618. Carruthers. Mary. The Search for St. Truth: A Study of Meaning in Piers Plowman. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973. Coleman, Janet. Piers Plowman and the Moderni. Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1981. Davidson, Donald. “How is Weakness of the Will Possible.” In Essays on Actions and Events, 21–42. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.

Voluntarism and the Self in Piers Plowman

65

Dickins, Bruce. The Conflict of Wit and Will: Fragments of a Middle English Alliterative Poem Now First Edited. Leeds: School of English Language in the University of Leeds, 1937. Dihle, Albrecht. The Theory of the Will in Classical Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Duns Scotus, John. Selected Writings on Ethics. Translated by T. Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Emmen, Aquilino. “La dottrina dell’Olivi sul valore religioso dei voti.” Studi Francescani 63 (1966): 88–108. Frede, Michael. A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought. Edited by A. A. Long. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. Gower, John. Confessio amantis. Edited by Russell A. Peck. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2013. Hanna, Ralph. The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman. Volume 2. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. Hoffmann, Tobias and Cyrille Michon. “Aquinas on Free Will and Intellectual Determinism.” Philosophers’ Imprint 17 (2017): 1–36. Horstmann, Carl. Yorkshire Writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole, an English Father of the Church, and His Followers. 2 volumes. London: S. Sonnenschein, 1895–96. Huber, Emily Rebekah and Elizabeth Robertson. The Katherine Group (MS Bodley 34). Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2016. Irwin, Terence. “Who Discovered the Will?” Philosophical Perspectives 6 (1992): 453–73. Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Kent, Bonnie. Virtues of the Will: The Transformation of Ethics in the Late Thirteenth Century. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995. Kretzmann, Norman. “Warring against the Law of My Mind: Aquinas on Romans 7.” In Philosophy and the Christian Faith, edited by T. V. Morris, 172–95. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988. Langland, William. Piers Plowman. Edited by Elizabeth Robertson and Stephen H. A. Shepherd. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. Lottin, Odon. Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles. 6 volumes. Louvain: Abbaye du Mont César, 1942–60. Mann, Jill. “Langland and Allegory [1991].” In The Morton W. Bloomfield Lectures, 1989–2005, edited by Daniel Donoghue, James Simpson, and Nicholas Watson, 20–41. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2010. Matthews, Gareth B. “It Is No Longer I That Do It . . .” Faith and Philosophy 1 (1984): 44–9. McGrade, A. S. The Political Thought of William of Ockham: Personal and Institutional Principles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Nederman, Cary J. Community and Consent: The Secular Political Theory of Marsiglio of Padua’s Defensor Pacis. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995.

66

Robert Pasnau

Normore, Calvin G. “Future Contingents.” In The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, edited by Norman Kretzmann et al., 358–81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Oberman, Heiko A. “Facientibus quod in se est Deus non denegat Gratiam: Robert Holcot, O.P. and the Beginnings of Luther’s Theology.” Harvard Theological Review 55 (1962): 317–42. Pasnau, Robert. Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature: A Philosophical Study of Summa theologiae 1a 75–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Raskolnikov, Masha. Body against Soul: Gender and Sowlehele in Middle English Allegory. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2009. Robertson, Elizabeth. Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990. ———. “Soulmaking in Piers Plowman.” Yearbook of Langland Studies 34 (2020): 11–56. Simpson, James. “From Reason to Affective Knowledge: Modes of Thought and Poetic Form in Piers Plowman.” Medium Aevum 55 (1986): 1–23. ———. Piers Plowman: An Introduction. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2007. ———. “The Role of Scientia in Piers Plowman.” In Medieval English Religious and Ethical Literature: Essays in Honour of G. H. Russell, edited by Gregory Kratzmann and James Simpson, 49–65. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1986. William of Ockham. Opera philosophica et theologica. St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1967–89. ———. Quodlibetal Questions. Translated by A. Freddoso and F. Kelley. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. Zeeman, Nicolette. Piers Plowman and the Medieval Discourse of Desire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Chapter 4

Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God Kate Crassons

The book created by Margery Kempe feels like a miracle unto itself. As the text’s introduction explains, when various clerics initially urge Kempe to record her revelations, she refuses the work of writing until she is commanded to do so in her soul. More than twenty years pass before she is finally ready to tell her story. But Kempe then struggles to retain a competent scribe; it takes another several years of false starts and urgent appeals before she finds a committed collaborator who can meet the spiritual and intellectual demands of translating her testimony into written words.1 Emerging from such precarious origins as a work nearly thirty years in the making, Kempe’s divinely mandated text has a special status. God himself insists on its importance, telling her, “ . . .ye [should] not plesyn me mor than ye don wyth yowr writyng, for dowtyr, be this boke many a man schal be turnyd to me and belevyn therin.”2 Kempe’s writing is ultimately more valuable than her prayers and tears, for her book, God says, will serve as a catalyst of conversion, with the story of Kempe’s faith inspiring the belief of others. But how might Kempe’s religious devotion, with all its attendant conflicts and eccentricities, serve as a model of faith? How can the Book function to promote other people’s belief when it also focuses so intently on the doubts that are provoked by Kempe’s unique experience of God? For all its efforts to portray Kempe as a saintly figure who receives God’s special favor, the Book also highlights her perpetual uncertainty about the nature of her revelations. Critics who have discussed Kempe’s anxieties in this regard tend to invoke the discretio spirituum tradition, and their analyses explore Kempe’s “felyngys” in light of clerical criteria that sought to distinguish divinely inspired visions from those with demonic origins. Rosalynn Voaden offers the most sustained engagement with this context in arguing that Kempe ultimately fails to conform with the requirements of discretio spirituum, which 67

68

Kate Crassons

insisted that women must show obedience to the church and serve as the passive instrument of God’s voice. Because Kempe is a woman who remains “unruly, uncontrolled, fleshly, noisy, indubitably present, persistent, lusty, [and] perverse,” Voaden concludes that her “credibility and effectiveness as a visionary is undermined.”3 Other scholars have been eager to explore Kempe’s religious life more capaciously, without measuring her spirituality against the exact standards of discretio spirituum,4 but the Book’s theological complexity has nonetheless remained elusive. For example, while Rebecca Krug’s Margery Kempe and Lonely Reader exposes how Kempe’s pursuit of “spiritual joy” is a highly fraught experience, Krug’s study ultimately argues that the Book’s portrayal of devotion is valuable for its consolatory powers, not its potential insights into more doctrinal concerns. For Krug, then, the Book proves to be “more therapeutic than theological.”5 In this chapter, however, I approach the Book as a serious theological enterprise, one where the interpretive difficulty of Kempe’s visions has meaning beyond the discretio spirituum framework and the literature of consolation. In my reading, the Book, as a record of Kempe’s insistent questioning, constitutes a larger narrative inquiry into the nature of faith as a virtue. While I draw on Krug’s insights about Kempe’s complex emotional experience, I show how Kempe’s vacillations between comfort and anxiety prove central to wider understandings of faith as a habit that is defined by “cognitive restlessness.”6 While faith often conjures ideals of blind and unwavering trust in God, the nature of the virtue, as articulated by medieval thinkers, is far more complicated because it leads believers to experience a sense of both firm commitment and hesitation. Though faith is an intellectual virtue, it differs from other acts of cognition because, as Aquinas explains, in the act of the belief, the “will’s command” makes the intellect “assent to what is not apparent.”7 On the one hand, faith promotes a sense of certitude since the will’s motions cause the intellect to “cleav[e] firmly to one side,” and in this way, faith has “something in common with science and understanding.”8 On the other hand, faith also “agrees with doubt, suspicion, and opinion,” for the intellect struggles to know what it cannot fully understand; it seeks but “does not attain the perfection of clear sight.”9 Emerging from this unusual dynamic between the powers of affect and reason, faith requires rational acceptance of unknowable things—a situation that necessarily creates spiritual disquiet and “provocations of resistance.”10 These tensions, which prove endemic to faith, come alive in the story of Kempe’s visionary experience, and the Book, I argue, dramatizes how mystical encounters with God magnify the difficulties, demands, and paradoxes of belief. Kempe’s revelations, as we shall see, lead to strikingly dichotomous spiritual experiences that ultimately convey the surprising reality of

Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God

69

doubt as a component of faith. One strain of the Book highlights God’s pervasive presence, foregrounding his intimacy with Kempe and offering proof of his efficacious interventions in virtually all facets of her life. Despite this “ubiquity of revelation,” however, the Book also reveals the equally pervasive presence of doubt as Kempe struggles to understand the “felyngys” she receives from God—feelings that are inherently opaque and that occur without her willed assent.11 As I shall suggest, Kempe responds to this fundamental tension by engaging in a process of near-constant selfexamination, an exercise that should not be taken as a sign of Kempe’s failures or limitations as a visionary. Rather, Kempe’s ongoing self-scrutiny works to confound common misconceptions and oversimplifications that characterize faith strictly in terms of steadfastness and stability. Her unceasing will to question, moreover, ultimately undermines the text’s attachment to an ideology of proof and exposes the impotence of the clergy’s authorizing systems. Even as the Book depicts how Kempe’s experience of belief provokes ongoing doubts and anxieties, the story of Kempe’s life does not, in the end, critique her faith as the failed performance of a perfect virtue.12 Rather, the Book remains committed to its portrayal of Kempe as an exemplary woman whose relationship with Christ rivals even the most intimate spiritual connections forged between God and the church’s canonized saints. The text’s account of Kempe’s challenges paradoxically testifies to her rigorous faith as a believer who feels, with particular acuteness, the unavoidable tensions between reason and will, creaturely limitation and divine inspiration. As it probes the theological intricacies of faith in its own idiom, the Book finally suggests that Kempe’s very anxiety is a marker of her resolute belief, that a sense of steadfastness characterizes her unceasing quest for assurance of God’s presence. In disclosing her doubts and worries, Kempe refuses spiritual complacency and commits herself to a life of virtuous restlessness. Before exploring how the Book affirms the rigors of Kempe’s doubt-ridden faith, I first want to examine the “strain” of the text that highlights how Kempe’s belief is shaped by the miraculous and assuring presence of Christ in her life. These affirmative aspects of Kempe’s spirituality are important to trace because they show how Kempe’s faith is, to a great extent, an experience of certitude—a reality that, as we shall see, ultimately makes her simultaneous feelings of doubt all the more striking and theologically significant. The Book stresses Kempe’s special grace by portraying her intimate connection with Christ, who makes his presence known and felt in miraculously obvious ways. Beginning with her first vision of Jesus when Kempe is incapacitated by despair, the Book stresses her intimacy with Christ. His gentleness and approachability offer a powerful contrast to the harshness of the confessor who provoked Kempe’s descent into anguish. Jesus appears

70

Kate Crassons

in lyknesse of a man, most semly, most bewtyuows, and most amyable that evyr mygth be seen wyth mannys eye, clad in a mantyl of purpyl sylke, syttyng upon hir beddys syde, lokyng upon hir wyth so blyssyd a chere that sche was strengthyd in alle hir spyritys. . . . (23)

Kempe is transformed by this encounter. Not only does she experience an unparalleled sense of comfort, but Jesus’s presence also restores Kempe’s intellectual faculties so that “the creature was stabelyd in hir wytts and in hir reson as wel as evyr sche was beforn. . .” (23). Though Kempe’s spiritual transformation is still a work in progress, her first encounter sets the tone for a lifelong relationship with Christ marked by his availability and “homeliness.”13 While Kempe’s special status, which comes with the unconventional gift of weeping, does make life difficult for her, Christ offers himself as a consistent source of support, and he stresses that his love for Kempe is, above all else, certain.14 “Dowtyr,” he says to her, I may not suffyr the to have peyne any while but that I must do remedy. And thefor, dowytr, I come to the and make the sekyr of my lofe and telle the wyth myn owyn mowth that thu art as sekyr of my lofe as God is God and that no thyng is so sekyr to the in erthe that thu maist se wyth thi bodily eye. (205)

God assures Kempe of his commitment to her in the strongest terms possible; repeating the word “sekyr” three times in three lines, he declares that his commitment to Kempe is more real than the visible things of the world. As the recipient of Christ’s “sekyr love,” Kempe often experiences “felyngys” that enable her to know God’s will with virtually the same certainty that comes from “bodily” sight. Her revelations, which prove to be highly flexible as a category, provide Kempe with information about an array of topics ranging from weighty theological matters to more mundane developments in local politics, the weather, and individual people’s lives. Emphasizing both the capaciousness of her revelations and their consistent prophetic accuracy, the Book presents a vision of faith seemingly marked by security and certitude. For example, when God directs Kempe to dress in the white robes worn by virgins, she does not immediately comply—an understandable response given her status as a mother of fourteen. Instead, she asks God to “grawnt [her] a tokne of levyn, thundyr, and reyn” so that she can be certain of her obligations in this regard and properly “fulfillyn [God’s] wil.” After God assures Kempe that she will receive her sign on the third day, the text affirms, “And so it was.” While lying in bed, Kempe hears a passing storm three days later, and “than sche purposyd hir fullych to weryn white clothis” (107). Even when Kempe finds that her “felyngys” are not immediately accessible or agreeable to her, the Book shows that God responds

Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God

71

to her appeals for clarity with swift and recognizable answers. While scripture traditionally defines faith as “the evidence of things that appear not,” Kempe’s mode of belief accommodates the visible and tangible world.15 Faith offers Kempe evidence of seeable things; a thunderstorm makes God’s will apparent. Kempe’s faith provides clarity and security in other ways as well, for when she suffers from feelings of vulnerability or fear, her visions often come with assurances of divine protection. In the revelations Kempe receives, especially while traveling, God responds to her worries about a host of potential dangers by vowing to keep her physically safe. For example, when Kempe sails with her fellow pilgrims toward Venice after leaving Jerusalem, she worries because “mych of hir felaschep was ryth seke.” But God initially assuages Kempe’s concern by telling her, “Drede the not, dowtyr,” a phrase that comes to function like a mantra throughout the entirety of the text. She should not be afraid, he says, because “ther schal no man deyin in the schip that thu art in.” The Book then explains that everyone survived the trip, and it explicitly calls attention to the credibility of Kempe’s prophetic vision when it remarks that Kempe “fond hir felyngys ryth trewe” (82). At another point when Kempe leaves Rome to journey back to England, she and her company feel frightened after hearing reports of “thevys be the wey whech wolde spoyl hem of her goodys and peraventur slen hem” (103). Kempe therefore asks Christ to grant that she and her “felawschep [proceed] wythowtyn hyndryng of body er of catel” (103). And Christ promises to extend his protection, saying, “Drede the not, dowtyr, for thu and alle that ben in thy cumpany schal gon as safe as yyf thei wer in Seynt Petrys Cherch” (104). A few lines later, the text explicitly affirms this outcome when it notes, “And thus sche and hir felaschep passyd forth into Inglondward” (104). In showing how God’s watchful presence is always operative in her life, the Book suggests that Kempe’s faith is marked by extraordinary gifts of assurance. Her “felyngys” affirm her special status, often functioning as divine promises that foreclose the likelihood of danger and limit the ominous unpredictability of human existence. In other instances, God’s interventions seem to have as much practical utility as providential force, for Kempe’s visions enable her safety by allowing her to avoid circumstances that remain threatening to her fellow Christians. For instance, one night when Kempe is in Rome, she learns from God that there will be storms the following day; and this divine foreknowledge proves valuable because it allows her to reschedule her planned activities.16 The Book explains that though she had intended to visit the “Stacyownys,” God “warnyd . . . that sche schulde not gon owte fer fro hir ostel, for he schulde sendyn gret tempestys that day of levenys and thunderys.”17 As the Book goes on to describe the onslaught of the storm, it shows how the gift of revelations distinguishes Kempe’s experience of faith from that of her fellow Christians,

72

Kate Crassons

who do not have the benefit of divine forewarning. Afraid that their houses will be struck by lightning and burn to the ground, they ask Kempe to petition God to spare them. She intercedes on their behalf, but God’s response focuses on the safety of Kempe alone. He tells her, “Dowtyr, be not aferd, for ther schal no wedyr ne tempest noyin the, and therefor mystrost me not, for I schal nevyr discevyen the. . .” While the chapter ends by declaring that God did “preservy[n] the pepyl fro alle myschevys,” this passing detail makes the community’s preservation feel like an extraneous byproduct of God’s singular devotion to Kempe (100).18 She enjoys an unparalleled sense of security as someone who avoids the possibility of harm while the people around her remain fearful that their homes and livelihoods will be destroyed. The Book, as we have seen, stresses the protective and practical benefits of Kempe’s visions, but it also, at times, focuses explicitly on the very fact of their authenticity. The text aims to leave no room for doubt about the truth of Kempe’s “felyngys,” for it self-consciously proves that her prophetic revelations have always come to pass. The text’s emphasis on the efficacy of worldly evidence is especially apparent when the Book describes a conflict in Lynn over the placement of baptismal fonts.19 While it looks like the town’s smaller chapels will each receive their own font, Kempe conveys her surprising “felynyg” that “thei schuld not have it” (68). In the end, Kempe’s prediction comes true, and the main church, St. Margaret’s, is able to retain its prominence as the only place of worship in Lynn where baptisms can occur. As critics have shown, this episode stands out for illustrating Kempe’s economic and political investments as a member of the urban elite.20 However, it also calls attention to the more straightforward point that Kempe’s prophecy turned out to be accurate. The entirety of the chapter builds to the announcement of this very idea. Its concluding sentence declares, “. . . the inspiracyon of owyr lord was be experiens prevyd for very sothfast and sekyr in the forseyd creatur” (68). This brief remark, with its dense and redundant terminology of experience, proof, “sothfastness,” and surety, seeks to show how Kempe’s divine inspiration excludes any possibility of doubt; the veracity of her vision becomes evident in the unfolding of worldly events.21 The Book consistently records other evidence confirming Kempe’s prophetic revelations, and in so doing, it reveals the text’s larger investment in an ideology of proof. Stressing her credibility as a visionary, the Book painstakingly shows how each of Kempe’s predictions is ultimately verified by the truth of experience. Chapter 23 is worth exploring in this regard because it is structured as a litany of affirmations that catalog the veracity of Kempe’s visions. That the chapter promotes a logic of proof becomes immediately evident in its narrative pattern, which proceeds by listing a highly specific instance of Kempe’s foreknowledge and then supplying a statement of evidence, beginning with the words “and so,” that explains how

Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God

73

the prophetic vision came true. The chapter first recounts, for example, how Christ warned Kempe that a recent widower would soon be dead, even though he appeared to be in good health. Immediately after reporting this vision, the text adds, “And so it befel as sche felt be revelacyon.” The chapter next reports how Christ told Kempe that a woman seemingly near death would live; the text then declares, “and so sche dede.” Christ, we find out, also told Kempe that one of her friends would survive an apparently fatal illness; the text then affirms, “And so he levyd many yerys aftyr.” While Kempe prayed for yet another man who was sick, the chapter notes that Christ told her he would soon be dead; the text then announces, “And so he was in schort tyme aftyr.” The chapter’s documentation of evidence concludes when it explains that Christ told Kempe that another one of her friends would survive an illness, with her life lasting for at least ten more years; the text then promptly declares, “And so it was in trewth” (63). In rehearsing these instances of Kempe’s foreknowledge about her fellow Christians, this chapter, in many ways, functions like a metonym of the larger Book itself. The entire work, to some extent, can be seen as a catalog that aims to prove the validity of Kempe’s visions. The sheer volume of examples in chapter 23, described in such consciously repetitive language, reinforces the overall impression we get of God’s presence in Kempe’s life as recorded in other parts of the Book. Not only does every person, topic, or circumstance seem worthy of God’s direct involvement and communication, but Kempe’s experience of God unfolds as an ongoing dialogue that both affirms her holiness and grants her accurate foreknowledge of an otherwise unruly and unpredictable world. For Kempe, faith brings an unparalleled intimacy with God that enables her to experience an extraordinary sense of security. God’s thoughts become seeable in the world; his benevolent protection is felt in every facet of her life. As chapter 23 draws to a close, however, its tone changes dramatically, and we discover that Kempe’s prescient visions—even in their authenticity— bring her no comfort or feelings of holiness. Turning now to investigate the other “strain” of Kempe’s spirituality, we can see that her revelations cause her to experience a profound sense of uncertainty and fear.22 At the same time that her “felyngys” transform uncertainties into clear vision and make the unknowable known, they also generate a profound sense of darkness and pain: Thes felyngys and swech other many mo than be wretyn, bothe of levyng and of deyng, of summe to be savyd, of summe to be dammyd, weryn to this creatur gret peyn and ponyschyng. Sche had levar a sufferyd any bodyly penawns than thes felyngys and sche mygth a put hem awey for the dred that sche had of illusyons and deceytys of hir gostly enmys. (63)

74

Kate Crassons

In providing Kempe with information about the fate of her fellow Christians, God causes her “gret peyn and ponyschyng.” Built into the special knowledge Kempe receives is the simultaneous lack of knowledge, for the origin of Kempe’s “felyngys” is unclear, and her visions, she thinks, could just as easily be “illuysons and deceytys” as they could be gifts from God. Even though the Book repeatedly confirms that Kempe’s revelations offer her both assurance and accurate foreknowledge of events, her visions nonetheless remain fundamentally opaque to her. When her revelations conflict with her given understanding of an issue or situation, Kempe feels acute anguish and hovers on the brink of despair. The end of chapter 23 continues, “Sche had sumtyme so gret trubbyl wyth swech felyngys whan it fel not trewe to hir undyrstandyng, that hir confessowr feryd that sche schuld a fallyn in dyspeyr therwyth.” The chapter concludes by suggesting that these feelings of uncertainty and dread eventually abate when Kempe finally sees “how the felyngys schuld ben undyrstondyn” (63–4).23 But the larger Book complicates this picture of resolution, for, as we shall see, it shows that Kempe’s faith remains entwined with similar experiences of doubt and fear. That Kempe’s visions are haunted by a near-constant sense of uncertainty is clear if we trace her many visits with clergy throughout the Book. Whether she makes the sacrament of confession or converses informally with spiritual authorities, Kempe repeatedly tells her life story, seeking the answer to a key question: “whether [her feelings] ben of the Holy Gost or ellys of [God’s] enmy the devyl” (32). While the text goes on to describe Kempe’s meetings with individual clerics in detail, it first offers a summary of her activities in this regard, explaining that she spokyn with Goddys servawntys, bothen ankrys and reclusys and many other of owyr Lordys loverys wyth many worthy clerkys, doctorys of dyvynyté, and bachelers also in many dyvers placys. And this creatur to dyvers of hem schewyd hir felyngys and hyr contemplacyons . . . to weytn if any dysseyt were in hir felyngys. (39)

From this brief account alone, we can begin to see how Kempe’s faith is characterized by restlessness and insistent questioning. The passage not only enumerates the long list of spiritual experts she seeks out but also calls attention to the geographical range of her searching which happens in “many divers placys.” Chapters 15–18 offer an especially concentrated account of Kempe’s consultations with individual religious leaders. This repetitive narration of her clerical encounters is important because it shows how Kempe approaches each new authority figure with the same fundamental questions, revealing the irresolvable nature of her inquiry. The series of clerical visitations listed in

Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God

75

this part of the Book begins with Philip Repingdon, the Bishop of Lincoln. Kempe “schewyd hym hyr medytacyons, and hy contemplacyons, and other secret thyngys both of qwyk and of ded as owyr Lord schewyd to hir sowle” (46). After listening to this account, the Bishop then “commendyd gretly hir felyngys and hir contemplacyons, seyyng thei wer hy maters and ful devowt maters and enspyred of the Holy Gost. . . .” (47). When she next visits Thomas Arundel, the archbishop of Canterbury, she wants “to wetyn what he wold sey therto yyf he fond any defawte eythyr in hyre contemplacyon er in hir wepyng” (49). He hears both “the cawse of hyr wepyng and the maner of dalyawns that owyr Lord dalyid to hyr sowle,” and we learn that “he fond no defawt therin but aprevyd hir maner of levyng and was rygth glad that owyr mercyful Lord Cryst Jhesu schewyd swech grace in owyr days. . . .” (49). Upon meeting next with Richard Caister, the vicar of St. Stephen’s in Norwich, Kempe finds out that he “trustly belevyd that sche was . . . indued wyth grace of the Holy Gost” after she explained to him her “maner of governawns and levyng” (51–2). When the Book goes on to describe yet another of Kempe’s clerical visits, this time with the Carmelite friar, William Southfield, the text emphasizes the efficacy of priestly guidance; however, as we shall see, any claims about the benefits of clerical expertise quickly lose their force when seen in the broader context of Kempe’s repetitive searching. Kempe, we find out, went to Southfield “to wetyn yf sche wer dysceyved be any illusyons or not.” After she declares to him “hir meditacyons and swech as God wrowt in hir sowle,” he, too, ultimately approves of Kempe’s spiritual life, telling her: “Dredyth ye not of yowr maner of levyng, for it is the Holy Gost werkyng plentyuowsly hys grace in yowr sowle. . . .” (52). Southfield ends his conversation with Kempe by urging her to “belevyth fully that owyr Lord lovyth yow and werkyth hys grace in yow.” And such affirmations are said to bring Kempe assurance, for she “was mech comfortyd bothe in body and in sowle be this good mannys wordys and gretly strengthyd in hir feyth” (53). But if such clerical assessments bring Kempe comfort and edify her faith, why does her search for validation always remain unfinished?24 Why, that is, if she has received the “stamp of approval” from one clergyman, does she turn again and again to other religious leaders, questioning the status of her “felyngys”? In discussing how Kempe’s visions come under the scrutiny of the clergy, Sarah Beckwith has helpfully called attention to the way that Kempe strategically diffuses concentrations of power by “drastically pluralizing the authorities she seeks.”25 Building on Beckwith’s point, it is possible to argue that Kempe calls into question the clergy’s very capacity for discernment; in appealing to a seemingly endless series of priests, friars, and bishops, Kempe dilutes their institutional authority and shows the limited influence of their professional judgments. In the Book, no priestly affirmation ever fully

76

Kate Crassons

remediates Kempe’s worries or satisfies her demands for assurance. The clergy’s authorizations, then, which are said to edify and strengthen Kempe’s faith, paradoxically reveal the trenchant nature of her doubt. As she continues seeking clerical guidance about her visions well into the later years of her life, Kempe only ever enjoys temporary respite from the anxieties that always accompany her experience of faith.26 In addition to exposing the limits of clerical authority, Kempe’s meetings with religious leaders are also significant because they externalize a key aspect of faith, showing how the virtue is lived out through an ongoing process of dialogue and debate.27 That Kempe’s visits to clergy have meaning beyond the discretio spirituum framework is evident in the complex dynamics of such meetings, which highlight her agency as a mutual interlocutor. In the very act of seeking approval from clerics, Kempe elicits the faith of these same clerics, who, in turn, affirm that Kempe should trust in her own visionary experiences.28 Kempe therefore potentially tests the clergy’s faith as much as they test hers; she prompts them to undergo a transformation as they come to profess belief in her sanctity.29 Because these exchanges are structured by mutual forms of relation, it is possible to see Kempe’s clerical visits as occasions that give visibility to the interior dialogue that inevitably occurs in the act of faith—an act that impels believers to question the very basis of their belief. In his discussion of the virtue, for example, Aquinas explains how the believer continuously “inquires about the things which [the intellect] believes, even though its assent to them is unwavering.”30 The urge to question, in combination with resolute commitment, pulls the believer’s mind in different directions.31 As he negotiates between competing poles of firm assent and resistance, the believer “thinks discursively” and engages in an unceasing dialogue within himself.32 Justice aptly describes this aspect of faith in practice: “the self is always potentially talking to itself, confronting assertion with doubt and doubt with assertion.”33 As a fundamental component of faith, this interior debate becomes manifest in Kempe’s clerical visits, which give structure and visible form to her continuous self-scrutiny. Marked by similar vacillations between doubt and affirmation, her ongoing dialogue with the clergy is, essentially, the public performance of her faith. After her exchanges with the sequence of clerics described in chapters 15–18, Kempe meets with Julian of Norwich, who stands out among the other spiritual authorities she consults for offering guidance that explicitly reflects on the nature of faith as a virtue. Julian’s advice to Kempe is worth exploring in some detail because it provides a potential solution to Kempe’s doubt by invoking the ideal of a thoroughly steadfast belief—a solution that the Book is drawn to but finally sees as foreign to the experience of faith. Seeking, once again, “to wetyn yf ther wer any deceyte” in her visions, Kempe turns to Julian for guidance because “the ankres was expert in swech thyngys and

Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God

77

good cownsel cowd gevyn” (53). This is not a surprising assessment given Julian’s own long-standing experience with the interpretive difficulties that arise from revelations.34 In her conversation with Kempe, Julian not only validates Kempe’s visions but also spells out broader criteria of discernment that could be applied to any of Kempe’s future “felyngys.” As she articulates this interpretive guide, Julian first tells Kempe that she should “obey” and “fulfill” any command in her soul that does not go “ageyn the worshep of God and profyte of hir evyn cristen” (53). If a vision does compromise one’s charitable relationship with God or neighbor, then that vision is surely “the mevyng of . . . an evyl spyrit” because “the Holy Gost mevyth nevyr a thing ageyn charité” (53). As the originator of trustworthy revelations, the Holy Spirit also has powers that operate in the service of faith, for the “Holy Gost,” she says, “makyth a sowle stabyl and stedfast in the rygth feyth and the rygth beleve” (53).35 Julian then contrasts this idea of steadfastness with a different model of belief drawn from the first epistle of James, which warns about the “doubleminded man,” who falls prey to the dangers of irresolute faith.36 Julian refers to this figure as the “dubbyl man in sowle,” and she defines him as someone who is “evyr unstabyl and unstedfast in al hys weys” (53). Following the cautionary lessons articulated in James, Julian goes on to portray doubt as a feeling of profound dislocation, one that opposes the secure faith inspired by the Holy Spirit. She tells Kempe, “He that is evyrmor dowtyng is lyke to the flood of the see, the whech is mevyd and born abowte wyth the wynd, and that man is not lyche to receyven the gyftys of God” (53–4). The doubtful Christian, Julian says, is blown about aimlessly in a sea of inconstant thoughts; and these insecurities make the soul inhospitable to the Holy Spirit’s continued presence. Therefore, as Julian goes on to explain, those who receive the Holy Spirit’s tokens or gifts must reject the instability that characterizes the “dubbyl man in sowle” and commit themselves fully to belief in God. She tells Kempe, “What creatur that hath thes tokenys he muste stedfastlych belevyn that the Holy Gost dwellyth in hys sowle” (54). The gift of tears, moreover, proves to be another specific sign that one “owyth to levyn that the Holy Gost is in hys sowle,” for Julian says, “ther may non evyl spyrit gevyn thes tokenys” (54). Julian’s conversation with Kempe ends with the anchoress affirming Kempe’s sanctity and exhorting her to believe with steadfastness. Julian prays for Kempe’s “perseverawns.” She directs Kempe, “Settyth al yowr trust in God” (54). Based on scripture and articulated in a spirit of encouragement, Julian’s discourse on resolute faith highlights those aspects of the virtue that stress the will’s firm assent. While the Book is drawn to this ideal of steadfast belief, it ultimately presents a more complete—and complex—portrait of the virtue, for it never shows how Julian’s version of faith becomes a practicable reality

78

Kate Crassons

for Kempe. The anchoress’s advice, that is, does not demonstrably help Kempe move past her doubt. Kempe’s uncertainty, for example, becomes especially acute later in the Book when Christ reveals to her that not everyone will attain salvation. He shows her “many sowlys, sum for to ben savyd, and sum for to ben dampnyd” (142).37 But the harshness of this spiritual reality is “a gret ponyschyng and a scharp chastisyng” to Kempe because it looks very much like a rejection of charity (142). And, as Julian has explained, “the Holy gost mevyth nevyr a thing ageyn charité” (53). From Kempe’s perspective, however, the reality of damnation does potentially go “ageyn the worshep of God and profyte of hir evyn cristen” (53). And this is precisely why she denies that the revelation could have been sent to her from God. While she rejoices in the vision of the souls who are saved, whenever she sees “any that schulde be dampynd, sche had gret peyn” (142). The text makes clear that Kempe therefore “wolde gevyn no credens to the cownsel of God but rathyr levyd it was sum evyl spiryt for to deceyvyn hir” (142). But God insists to Kempe that he is the author of this revelation, and he demands that she come to accept its truth. God then punishes Kempe for her doubt, and in this way, the Book seems to validate Julian’s warnings about the dangers of unsteadfast faith. Because Kempe has not trusted her vision, God disciplines her with “horybyl syghtys,” and she beholds a barrage of clerics exposing themselves while the devil stands by to make sure that she is “comown to hem alle” (142).38 That this sight is so “abominable” to Kempe confirms the severity of God’s penalty for refusing to believe his revelation (142). And lest Kempe misunderstand the reason for her punishment, an angel appears to explain it. God has inflicted this torment, he tells Kempe, because “thu belevyst not that it is the spiryt of God that . . . schewyth the hys prevy cownselys of summe that schul ben savyd and summe that schal ben dampnyd” (143). The angel adds that the punishment will last for twelve days until Kempe “wyl belevyn that it is God whech spekyth to [her] and no devyl” (143). And it is, ultimately, these horrific consequences that prompt Kempe’s “steadfast” belief; once the terrible visions end, Kempe promises God, “now wyl I lyn stille and be buxom to thi wille; I pray the, Lord, speke in me what that is most plesawns to the” (143). While Julian’s directives theoretically provide Kempe with a guide for discerning and trusting in divine visions, the anchoress’ model of confident belief does not readily take root in Kempe, who doubts and comes to faith only after being punished for her interpretive error. And yet the Book remains drawn to Julian’s ideal, and it goes on to suggest that Kempe possesses a steadfast faith that has recovered from moments of doubt to emerge as a resolute form of belief. While the Book acknowledges the negative effects of Kempe’s insecurities, it relegates such feelings to the past and suggests that she has triumphed over her uncertainty. The following

Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God

79

passage from chapter 83 is worth quoting in its entirety because it shows how the Book seeks to impose a trajectory on Kempe’s experience in receiving visions: [Kempe] lakkyd no grace but whan sche dowtyd er mistrostyd the goodnes of God, supposyng er dredyng that it was the wyle of hir gostly enmy to enformyn hir er techyn hir otherwyse than wer to hir gostly hele. Whan sche supposyd thus er consentyd to any swech thowtys thorw steryng of any man er thorw any evyl spiryt . . . had the myghty hand of owr Lordys mercy not withstande hys gret malyce, than lakkyd sche grace and devocyon and alle good thowtys . . . tyl sche was thorw the mercy of owr Lord Jhesu Crist compellyd to belevyn stedfastly wythowtyn any dowtyng that it was God spak in hir and wolde be magnyfiid in hir for hys owyn goodnes and hir profyte and for the profyte of many other. (191)

The Book here clearly expresses disapproval of doubt by suggesting that Kempe’s anxiety about her visions constitutes a loss of grace. Accordingly, the passage goes on to praise Kempe for eventually overcoming this weak faith and learning to “belevyn steadfastly wythowtyn any dowyting” that her “felyngys” originate with God. But what precipitates Kempe’s movement from wavering uncertainty to resolute faith? The passage offers a theologically strange answer to this question when it states that Christ “compellyd” Kempe to believe with steadfastness. To be sure, this compulsory faith is said to stem from God’s mercy, and perhaps the Book here seeks to offer a dramatic account of the will being moved by grace to assent firmly to belief. However, the language of compulsion complicates any idealized construct of faith, for it recalls the damnation episode when Kempe comes to obedient faithfulness only after God punishes her. This earlier scene and the above passage are aligned in imagining steadfast faith as an act of compliance, not as an affirmative assent to God’s benign gift of grace. The Book, then, in its idealization of resolute faith, generates a construct of coerced belief that—even if provoked by God—oddly eclipses the role of the human will. And the movement of the will, as Augustine explains, is, in many ways, the defining act of faith: “Man can do other things unwillingly, but he can believe only if he wills it.”39 When it comes to the Book’s version of steadfast faith, however, belief hardly looks like a willed act; assent becomes a desperate response to God’s forceful and fearsome command. Even as the text offers this unusual construct of resolute belief to claim that Kempe has triumphed over doubt, the Book continues to emphasize the challenges intrinsic to her encounters with God. Kempe’s anxieties become especially apparent in chapter 89, the final chapter of

80

Kate Crassons

Book I when Kempe and her scribe look back on their text as “a finished object.”40 At the height of this retrospective moment, the chapter reflects on the nature of Kempe’s revelations, and it articulates a new strategy for managing the fundamental ambiguity of her visionary experience and its emotional costs. The trigger for this reflection, oddly enough, is what Nicholas Watson calls an “inconsequential anecdote” about a sermon to be preached by Kempe’s friend and supporter, Master Alan.41 After recounting how Kempe received a series of divine signs showing approval of her work on the Book, the chapter describes how Kempe then prays that Master Alan will soon deliver a good sermon.42 God, we are told, replies by saying it will be done, and Kempe then goes off to tell the news about the sermon to her confessor and two other priests. But it is at this point, after the chapter (and the whole of Book I) has listed numerous examples of God’s affirmative presence, that Kempe regrets having mentioned God’s promise about the sermon to the other clerics. She fears that her confidence in this prophetic vision may derive from a false sense of assurance: “And, whan sche had telde hem hir felyng, sche was ful sory for dreed whethyr he schulde sey so wel as sche had felt er not, for revelacyons be hard sumtyme to undirstondyn.” The last phrase in this passage offers a succinct yet powerful statement that encapsulates the interpretive difficulties underlying the totality of Kempe’s mystical experience: revelations are hard to understand. After acknowledging this reality, the text reflects more deeply on the problem at hand, and, for all its approval of steadfast faith, the Book now points out that there are dangers in believing too readily, in eschewing doubt about the nature of revelations: “And sumtyme tho that men wenyn wer revelacyonis it arn deceytys and illusyons, and therefor it is not expedient to gevyn redily credens to every steryng but sadly abydyn and prevyn yf thei be sent of God” (206). Upon receiving a vision, it is best, the text suggests, not to believe straightaway, but to wait for proof that God is the source of the revelation. Here, yet again, the Book imagines that God’s intervention will always become evident through Kempe’s experience as the events of her life unfold. The passage goes on to explain that this path of waiting for proof and understanding is exactly what Kempe herself seems to follow. Kempe approaches the ambiguity of her visions not with the steadfast belief recommended by Julian and compelled by God; rather, she waits out her feelings of anxious uncertainty in the hope that she will see her visions come true: Sumtyme sche was in gret hevynes for hir felyngys, whan sche knew not how thei schulde ben undirstondyn many days togedyr, for drede that sche had of deceytys and illusyons, that hir thowt sche wolde that hir hed had be smet fro the body tyl God of hys goodnesse declaryd hem to hir mende. For sumtyme

Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God

81

that sche undirstod bodily it was to ben undirstondyn gostly, and the drede that sche had of hir felyngys was the grettest scorge that sche had in erde and specialy whan sche had hir fyrst felyngys, and that drede made hir ful meke for sche had no joye in the felyng tyl sche knew be experiens whethyr it was trewe er not. (206)

This passage, to be sure, offers detailed descriptions of Kempe’s suffering, which is born from the opacity of her revelations. Uncertain whether her visions are gifts from God, she does not always know how to understand them, sometimes applying “bodily” interpretation to “felyngys” that demand “ghostly” analysis. While the text calls this epistemological morass the “grettest scorge that sche had in erde,” it also calls attention to mitigating factors that ease Kempe’s pain and uncertainty. For example, the text notes that her suffering was at its worst back “whan sche had hir fyrst felyngys,” suggesting that Kempe becomes more skilled at dealing with their ambiguity over time.43 The passage also points out that Kempe’s anxieties are always temporary; her uncertainty eventually dissipates when the truth of experience yields verifiable information about her “felyngys.” However, even as the Book highlights such potential remedies to Kempe’s doubt, it also exposes their ultimate futility in resolving the challenges endemic to her faith. The above passage, as we have seen, highlights Kempe’s growing spiritual expertise, but any notion of progress or ascent is undercut by the narrative placement of this extended reflection on Kempe’s revelations. Recall that the above passage, which concludes chapter 89, originally emerges in response to the crisis of doubt that arises from Kempe’s worries about the seemingly minor issue of Master Alan’s sermon. This crisis, we are told, occurs during the period when Kempe is writing the Book, sometime in the twenty-plus years after she received her first vision, that is, after she has presumably become more skilled at understanding her “felyngys.” The above passage, as we have seen, also suggests that Kempe learns to wait so as to gain certainty about each of her visions once “experiens” tells her “whethyr it was trewe er not” (206). But if the misery of uncertainty is fleeting, then so too must be the assurance that comes with experience, for with every new “felyng” Kempe receives, she encounters another round of interpretive crisis.44 No matter how many times she sees that her revelations come true, Kempe cannot believe in the veracity of any new visions without some fresh evidence, without her experience proving, yet again, that God’s “inspiracyon” is “very sothfast and sekyr” (68). It is for this reason that the portrait of Kempe’s doubt persists throughout Book II and into the Book’s final pages.45 Perhaps the strongest testament to the complexity of Kempe’s faith comes with the text’s conclusion, which records the daily prayers that she “usyd many yerys.” These petitions to

82

Kate Crassons

God reveal once again how Kempe’s strong devotion unfolds through perpetual questioning and spiritual restlessness. Steadfast faith, as performed in Kempe’s prayers, accommodates and indeed demands doubt. Kempe first asks God to “illumynyn hir sowle . . . and induyn hir wyth the gyftys of the Holy Gost,” and she seeks “grace to undirstondyn hys wil and parformyn it in werkyng” (230). Kempe goes on to declare that she strives to follow God in right belief by consciously rejecting the motions and false counsel of the devil. She says, As wistly as it is not my wil ne myn entent to worschepyn no fals devyl for my God, ne no fals feith, ne fals beleve for to han, so wistly I defye the devyl, and al hys fals cownsel. . . . (230–1)

And while Kempe proclaims her defiance against God’s enemy and “fals faith,” she also renounces the sins she may have performed unwittingly, having mistaken an evil spirit for God. Kempe thus expresses her regret for “al that evyr I have don, seyd, er thowt, aftyr the cownsel of the devyl, wenyng it had be the cownsel of God and inspiracyon of the Holy Gost” (231). Here, Kempe’s prayer acknowledges that her revelations insistently frustrate the human capacity for right interpretation. And Kempe must turn to God, the “inseare and knowar of the prevyté of alle mennys hertys,” to ask mercy for the sins—or lapses in discernment—that she may have committed (231). Kempe’s experience of faith is also always the experience of uncertainty. As Kempe’s prayers and ongoing self-reflections show, the faith of the person who receives divine revelations is always riven by doubt. The Book finally offers its own theology of steadfast faith as a virtue defined by the unrelenting scrutiny of belief itself. While Kempe directly experiences God’s presence in her life and while she repeatedly sees that his revelations prove to be true, she persistently questions the origins, meanings, and validity of her spiritual experience. Such questioning, the Book suggests, is the essence of faith. The Book does not denigrate this searching or render it a lesser form of belief even as the text, at times, gestures approvingly toward a narrative of spiritual progress, suggesting that Kempe’s faith becomes firmer over the course of her life. Ultimately, the Book exposes the false appeal of such trajectories, showing how Kempe wrestles with her revelations right up through the final pages of her story. Her encounters with God, from beginning to end, are at once experiences of divine plentitude and deep insecurity. In the Book it is Kempe’s unceasing desire for knowledge and assurance that becomes the hallmark of steadfast belief—a faith that is never satisfied as long as the soul is separated from God.

Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God

83

NOTES 1. Here I follow Rebecca Krug, Margery Kempe and the Lonely Reader (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017), who views Kempe’s composition of the Book as a collaboration with her scribe. For other studies exploring the process of creating the Book, see Nicholas Watson, “The Making of the Book of Margery Kempe,” and Felicity Riddy, “Text and Self in the Book of Margery Kempe,” both in Voices in Dialogue: Reading Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Linda Olson and Kathryn KerbyFulton (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 395–434, 435–53; Lynn Staley, Margery Kempe’s Dissenting Fictions (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994); and John C. Hirsh, “Author and Scribe in the Book of Margery Kempe,” Medium Aevum 44 (1975): 145–50. 2. The Book of Margery Kempe, ed. Lynn Staley. TEAMS Edition (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996), 203. All references hereafter will be cited parenthetically by page number. 3. Rosalynn Voaden, God’s Words, Women’s Voices: The Discernment of Spirits in the Writings of Late-Medieval Woman Visionaries (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999), 146. For other studies of discretio spirituum in relationship to female mysticism and The Book of Margery Kempe, see Nancy Caciola, Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2003); Barbara Newman, “What Did it Mean to Say ‘I Saw’? The Clash Between Theory and Practice in Medieval Visionary Culture,” Speculum 80.1 (2005): 1–43; Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Books Under Suspicion: Censorship and Tolerance of Revelatory Writing in Late Medieval England (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), chapters 6–8; Naoë Kukita Yoshikawa, “The Making of the Book of Margery Kempe: The Issue of Discretio Spirituum Reconsidered,” English Studies 92.2 (2011): 119–37. 4. For studies that acknowledge the relevance of the discretio spirituum tradition without subjecting Kempe to its requirements, see, for example, Sarah Beckwith, Christ’s Body: Identity, Culture, and Society in Late Medieval Writings (London: Routledge, 1993); Watson, “The Making”; and Krug, Margery Kempe. 5. Krug, Margery Kempe, 19. 6. This phrase is from Steven Justice, “Did the Middle Ages Believe in their Miracles?” Representations 103.1 (2008), 13. My argument in this essay seeks not only to build on Justice’s insights about the complexities of faith, but to take up his call to engage seriously with the concept of belief as medieval people thought about it and experienced it. 7. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (hereafter ST), ed. Dominican Friars (London: Blackfriars, 1964–81), II IIae, Q.4, art. 1. In relying on Aquinas’s view of faith, my intent is not to suggest that he offers the “correct” or “authoritative” definition as articulated in scholastic theology. Rather, my invocation of Aquinas is in line with Justice’s view of the theologian “as a trenchant theorist of the language, institutions, and practices of what we might call medieval Christianity’s ‘normal science,’ whose analyses lay out their implicit logic, and show why belief was so routinely

84

Kate Crassons

taken to be a thing mobile and multiple”; “Did the Middle Ages Believe in Their Miracles,” 13. 8. ST, II,IIae, Q.2, art. 2. 9. ST, II,IIae, Q.2, art. 2. 10. Justice, “Did the Middle Ages Believe in Their Miracles,” 12. 11. Watson, “The Making,” 424. 12. Aquinas, Questiones Disputatae de Veritate (Chicago: H. Regnery, 1952–54), q.14, art.1, ad.5, notes that “in faith there is some perfection and some imperfection. The firmness which pertains to the assent is a perfection, but the lack of sight . . . is an imperfection.” 13. The Book consistently uses the term “homely” to describe Christ’s relationship with Kempe. The Middle English Dictionary provides three definitions of this word that are operative in the Book, revealing the intense closeness that Kempe shares with Christ. These meanings are as follows: “at home, in familiar surroundings” (2.b); “intimate, friendly” (2.d); and “sexually intimate” (3.d); Middle English Dictionary, online version, available at https://quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/m​/middle​-english​-dictionary​/ dictionary. 14. On Kempe’s spirituality and its resistance to social, cultural, and gender conventions, see, for example, Laura Varnam, “The Crucifix, the Pietà, and the Female Mystic: Devotional Objects and Performative Identity in The Book of Margery Kempe,” Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 41.2 (2015): 208–37; Liz Herbert McAvoy, Authority and the Female Body in the Writings of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 2004); Staley, Margery Kempe’s Dissenting Fictions; Karma Lochrie, Margery Kempe and Translations of the Flesh (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991); and David Aers, Community, Gender, and Individual Identity: English Writing 1360–1430 (London: Routledge, 1988), chapter 2. 15. The full quotation reads, “Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.” Hebrews 1:11 DRV. 16. This is not to deny the reality of Kempe’s fear about bad weather in other instances as discussed in Krug, Margery Kempe, 168–70. 17. For another example showing how God’s weather-related prophecies affect Kempe’s activities, see chapter 42. 18. Watson, “The Making,” 422, offers a relevant comment on Kempe’s singular status: “For all God promises [Kempe], he pledges nothing to humankind as a whole. . . .” 19. For a similar episode showing how Kempe’s visions are attuned to specific political and ecclesiological events, see chapter 71, which focuses exclusively on Kempe’s foreknowledge of changes to the prior’s position in Lynn. 20. For discussions of this event in the political and economic history of Lynn, see Beckwith, Christ’s Body, 100–1 and Diane Watt, “Political Prophecy in the Book of Margery Kempe,” in A Companion to the Book of Margery Kempe, ed. John H. Arnold and Katherine J. Lewis (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2004), 145–60. 21. Voaden, Women’s Voices, 136, says that “result” is the “chief criterion” Kempe relies on to judge the veracity of her visions.

Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God

85

22. The conflicted feelings that Kempe has a result of her revelations are somewhat similar to the tensions arising from her competitive desire for union with Christ as discussed in Jessica Rosenfeld, “Envy and Exemplarity in the Book of Margery Kempe,” Exemplaria 26.1 (2014), 105–21: “[Kempe] has unique visions, and is assured of the parity of Christ’s love for her, but appears to arrive often at a state of anxiety over having to share Christ’s body and love” (116). 23. Watson, “The Making,” 415, comments on the “sense of awkwardness” arising from the vacillating claims that Kempe has developed a steadfast faith and that she continues struggling to interpret her visions. He suggests that the warnings about demonic deception are imposed by the scribe, who offers “a professional caution about the spiritual realm that was no part of [Kempe’s] own thinking.” But it remains unclear how one can distinguish Kempe’s voice from that of her scribe, and, moreover, concerns about the opacity of her visions, I argue, are intrinsic to Kempe’s very experience of those visions, not strictly a clerical obsession attached to the discernment of spirits tradition. 24. As Krug, Margery Kempe, 126, notes, Southfield also goes on to offer Kempe warnings that qualify his initial approval of her visions. 25. Christ’s Body, 92. 26. See, for example, chapter 2 in Book II when Kempe meets with a friar in Norwich and tells him of the “gret drede and hevynes” she feels after being commanded in soul to travel to Germany with her daughter-in-law (213). Chapter 68 in Book I also features an example from later in Kempe’s life when she seeks clerical guidance regarding the nature and origins of her tears. 27. Justice, “Did the Middle Ages Believe in Their Miracles,” 13, explains that “dialogue” is the very term that Aquinas uses to describe how believers contend in their own minds with “the formal shape of doubt’s relation to assent.” 28. These varying power dynamics clearly complicate Voaden, God’s Words, 123, which concludes that Kempe’s pursuit of clerical approval is yet another sign of her “precariousness” as visionary who ultimately fails to meet the criteria of the discretio spirituum tradition. 29. Watson, “The Making,” 423, also discusses Kempe’s search for spiritual validity as a test for readers who inevitably make judgments about Kempe. 30. Aquinas, De veritate, q.14 a.1 resp. 31. Aquinas, De veritate, q.14 a.1 resp., explains the origins of this predicament as follows: “the understanding of the believer is said to be ‘held captive,’ since, in place of its own proper determinations, those of something else are imposed on it. . . . Due to this, also, a movement directly opposite to what the believer holds most firmly can arise in him.” 32. Aquinas, De veritate, q.14 a.1 resp. 33. Justice, “Did the Middle Ages Believe in Their Miracles,” 13. 34. Julian “reads” her own mystical visions through different hermeneutic lenses as she works to reconcile God’s overarching assertion that “al shal be wel” with the reality of sin as explained in Christian doctrine. See The Showings of Julian of Norwich, ed. Georgia R. Crampton, TEAMS Edition (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996), chapter 27. Chapter 51, on the parable of the Lord and

86

Kate Crassons

servant, offers a good example of Julian’s self-consciousness about her interpretive methods. 35. Watson, “The Making,” 405, refers to Julian as the “the strongest proponent of Kempe’s conviction that this attitude of doubt is the same as a lack of trust and must be done away with.” See Voaden, God’s Words, 126–8, for an account of Julian’s advice as an instance of discretio spirituum taught by a woman. 36. James, 1:8. 37. On the issue of “universal salvation” in relationship to this episode, see Nicholas Watson, “Visions of Inclusion: Universal Salvation and Vernacular Theology in Pre-Reformation England,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 27 (1997): 152–3. See also Watson, “The Making,” 423, for a brief discussion of this episode as it regards the difficulty of belief. 38. On the significance of the gendered and sexual nature of the punishment, see Carolyn Dinshaw, “Margery Kempe,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 235. For a different perspective, see Krug, Margery Kempe, 87–8, who discusses how Kempe’s difficulty in responding to the punitive vision—both in terms of her feelings and her actions—functions to elicit sympathy from readers. 39. Quoted in Aquinas, De veritate, q.14, a.1. 40. Krug, Margery Kempe, 202. 41. Watson, “The Making,” 414. 42. The divine signs Kempe experiences include plentiful weeping; visions wherein Jesus, his mother, and the saints praise her book; a “delectabyl” fire in her breast; the sound of birdsong and other pleasant melodies; and sudden recovery from any bouts of illness after resuming work on her text. On Kempe’s experiences of the divine in connection to Richard Rolle’s Incendium amoris, see Raymond Powell, “Margery Kempe: An Exemplar of Late Medieval English Piety,” The Catholic Historical Review 89.1 (2003): 1–23; R.N. Swanson, Religion and Devotion in Europe, c. 1215–1515 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), esp. 129–30, 132–3, 180; and Lochrie, Translations of the Flesh, 114–17. For a study of the ways that Kempe’s Book proves surprisingly resistant to Rolle’s experience of God, see David Lavinsky, “‘Speke to me be thowt:’ Affectivity, Incendium Amoris, and the Book of Margery Kempe,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 112.3 (2013): 340–64. 43. Here the Book may seek to emulate other religious writers cited in the text who present their spiritual encounters as a series of ascending stages or as a narrative of progress from carnal attachments to spiritual contemplation. See, for example, Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection, ed. Thomas Bestul, TEAMS edition (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000) and Richard Rolle, The Incendium Amoris of Richard Rolle of Hampole, ed. Margaret Deanesly (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1915). Watson, “The Making,” 43, sees Kempe’s Book as a means of resisting such models. 44. Krug, Margery Kempe, 171, finds a similar pattern regarding Kempe’s experience of fear: “. . . the Book illustrates the repetitive but necessary motions of feeling afraid, feeling secure, and starting all over again.”

Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God

87

45. For examples of Kempe’s continued doubt in Book II, see chapter 3, which recounts Kempe’s fear as she travels by sea to Germany. Describing how this scene is based on Peter’s near drowning in Matthew 14, Krug, Margery Kempe, 135–6, calls it a “disciple in crisis” episode and suggests that it works therapeutically with other similar moments in the text as “models for understanding and representing [Kempe’s] own experiences of fear.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aers, David. Community, Gender, and Individual Identity: English Writing 1360– 1430. London: Routledge, 1988. Aquinas, Thomas. Questiones Disputatae de Veritate. 3 vols. Chicago: H. Regnery, 1952–54. ———. Summa Theologiae. 61 vols. London: Blackfriars, 1964–81. Beckwith, Sarah. Christ’s Body: Identity, Culture, and Society in Late Medieval Writings. London: Routledge, 1993. Caciola, Nancy. Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. Dinshaw, Carolyn. “Margery Kempe.” In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing, edited by Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace, 222–39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Hilton, Walter. The Scale of Perfection. Edited by Thomas Bestul. TEAMS edition. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000. Hirsh, John C. “Author and Scribe in the Book of Margery Kempe.” Medium Aevum 44 (1975): 145–50. Julian of Norwich. The Showings of Julian of Norwich. Edited by Georgia R. Crampton. TEAMS Edition. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996. Justice, Steven. “Did the Middle Ages Believe in their Miracles?” Representations 103.1 (2008): 1–29. Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn. Books Under Suspicion: Censorship and Tolerance of Revelatory Writing in Late Medieval England. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. Krug, Rebecca. Margery Kempe and the Lonely Reader. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017. Lavinsky, David. “‘Speke to Me Be Thowt:’ Affectivity, Incendium Amoris, and the Book of Margery Kempe.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 112.3 (2013): 340–64. Lochrie, Karma. Margery Kempe and Translations of the Flesh. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. McAvoy, Liz Herbert. Authority and the Female Body in the Writings of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 2004. Newman, Barbara. “What Did it Mean to Say ‘I Saw’? The Clash Between Theory and Practice in Medieval Visionary Culture.” Speculum 80.1 (2005): 1–43.

88

Kate Crassons

Powell, Raymond. “Margery Kempe: An Exemplar of Late Medieval English Piety.” The Catholic Historical Review 89.1 (2003): 1–23. Riddy, Felicity. “Text and Self in the Book of Margery Kempe.” In Voices in Dialogue: Reading Women in the Middle Ages, edited by Linda Olson and Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, 435–53. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. Rolle, Richard. The Incendium Amoris of Richard Rolle of Hampole. Edited by Margaret Deanesly. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1915. Rosenfeld, Jessica. “Envy and Exemplarity in the Book of Margery Kempe.” Exemplaria 26.1 (2014): 105–21. Staley, Lynn. Margery Kempe’s Dissenting Fictions. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994. Staley, Lynn, ed. The Book of Margery Kempe. TEAMS Edition. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996. Swanson, R.N. Religion and Devotion in Europe, c. 1215–1515. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Varnam, Laura. “The Crucifix, the Pietà, and the Female Mystic: Devotional Objects and Performative Identity in The Book of Margery Kempe.” Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 41.2 (2015): 208–37. Voaden, Rosalynn. God’s Words, Women’s Voices: The Discernment of Spirits in the Writings of Late-Medieval Woman Visionaries. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999. Watson, Nicholas. “The Making of the Book of Margery Kempe.” In Voices in Dialogue: Reading Women in the Middle Ages, edited by Linda Olson and Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, 395–434. ———. “Visions of Inclusion: Universal Salvation and Vernacular Theology in Pre-Reformation England.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 27 (1997):145–87. Watt, Diane. “Political Prophecy in the Book of Margery Kempe.” In A Companion to the Book of Margery Kempe, edited by John H. Arnold and Katherine J. Lewis, 145–60. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2004. Yoshikawa, Naoë Kukita. “The Making of the Book of Margery Kempe: The Issue of Discretio Spirituum Reconsidered.” English Studies 92.2 (2011): 119–37.

Part II

MATERIAL POETICS

Chapter 5

Both “Gostly Sense” and “Amerouse Sentensce” The Nightingale’s Resurrection as Hybrid Text Amy N. Vines

Ainsinc va des contreres choses, Les unes sunt des autres gloses; Et qui l’une en veust defenir, De l’autre li doit souvenir[.] So it goes with contrary things: They are glosses of each other, And whoever wants to define one Must bear the other one in mind[.]1

The fifteenth-century poem The Nightingale2 is afforded little more than a footnote in most modern scholarship on the medieval nightingale tradition; it is often viewed as a substandard imitator of its more popular late thirteenthcentury Latin sources, John of Hoveden’s Philomena and John Peacham’s Philomena praevia temporis amoeni.3 The Nightingale appears in only three manuscripts: Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 203; London, British Library, MS Cotton Caligula A.ii; and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Latin misc. c.66 (known as the Capesthorne manuscript).4 All of these manuscripts date from the second half of the fifteenth century and contain almost identical versions of the fifty-nine-stanza rhyme royal poem. The only distinction between the three manuscript versions is a prose introduction and several introductory verse stanzas included only in the Corpus Christi manuscript.5 In this version, a dedication appears in the index of the manuscript, attributing ownership of the book to “the Duchesse of Buckingham i.e. Anne, daughter 91

92

Amy N. Vines

of Ralph Nevill first Earle of Westmerland, wife of Humfrey Stafford, created Duke of Buckingham 1444.”6 From the inclusion of the date and specific names we may conclude that the poem itself was probably written in the last months of 1444 (xxxvii). Unfortunately, this dedication is the only unique element about The Nightingale that has sparked the interest of contemporary scholars, who often mention it in passing as a noteworthy attribution to a powerful female member of the aristocracy. The focus of this chapter, however, is primarily on the first six stanzas of the piece, or the verse proem; this section places a traditional Christian allegorical depiction of the nightingale’s song within a worldly context that emphasizes the already implicitly erotic valence of the nightingale symbol. It is a textual act that engages the same concept of complementary yet “contrary things” referred to by Jean de Meun’s narrator in the headnote to this chapter. By examining the ways in which the secular and sacred incarnations of the nightingale function in tandem within the same work—what Barbara Newman terms the “interplay of sacred and profane”7—I argue for a reassessment of The Nightingale’s critical standing as a dry, solely religious piece. The Nightingale’s dedicatory verse proem indicates that the poem itself is meant to become a part of Anne Neville’s court and book collection; indeed, it is from this same text that she will attempt to encourage her courtiers to live a more pious life, to recall the religious message conveyed by the nightingale’s song even as they are falling under the spell of spring’s lustful influence. Indeed, the other contexts of the Caligula and Capesthorne manuscripts, miscellanies that mirror the poem’s own blend of secular and religious themes, provide a more detailed indication of how the poem was actually read in the late medieval period; the practice of reading The Nightingale suggested by the Caligula and Capesthorne codices seems to corroborate the charge given to Anne Neville by the Nightingale poet: to separate the grain of “gostely sensce” from the chaff of “loue vnlaufle.” But the separation of these two valences of the nightingale’s song does not necessitate the wholesale rejection of one for the other, either in Anne Neville’s court or for other readers of the poem. Anne Neville, the poem’s aristocratic patron, is given a challenging task by the Nightingale poet. Given the piece’s use of a powerful symbol of erotic love, we may ask how effective the poem’s Christian didactic goal is when it is preceded by the verse dedication and proem, which places it firmly within a secular milieu. But rather than speculate about the success or failure of Anne’s supposed attempts to transform her courtiers’ secular desire into spiritual desire with this poem,8 we may interpret the task itself as a testament to the patroness’s influence and persuasive intellect. Anne’s hoped-for devotional instruction positions her as an example of piety for her audience as well as a teacher. And yet the verse proem and dedication to her, with its celebration of springtime lustiness and physical love, seems to compromise

Both “Gostly Sense” and “Amerouse Sentensce”

93

good-naturedly the lady’s task before it is even begun. In the figure of Anne Neville, the Nightingale poet sees power and piety, but also experience and political savvy. If anyone can tame (even partially) the amorous bachelors and ladies of this substantial aristocratic court, it is she. The first stanza of The Nightingale’s verse proem in the Corpus Christi manuscript begins with a “go little book” envoy, in which the author addresses his fledgling text directly and sends the poem to its target patron: Go, lityll quayere, And swyft thy prynses dresse, Offringe thyselfe wyth humble reuerence Vn-to the ryght hyghe and myghty pryncesse, The Duches of Bokyngham, and of hur excellence Besechinge hyre, that, of hure pacyence Sche wold the take, of hure noble grace Amonge hyre bokys for the Asygne A place. (Glauning 1–7)

Anne Neville, Duchess of Buckingham (d. 1480), was the third daughter of Ralph Neville, first earl of Westmorland (c. 1364–1425) and Joan Beaufort (1379?–1440); by 1424, Anne had married Humphrey Stafford (d. 1460).9 Perhaps because the duchess came from powerful noble families such as the Nevilles and the Beauforts, Anne gained a reputation as a keen and successful administrator soon after her marriage. Even after the death of her second husband, Walter Blount, Lord Mountjoy, in 1474, Anne continued vigorously to help govern her two late husbands’ vast estates. Indeed, the Duchess Anne retained joint control of many of Humphrey Stafford’s most valuable properties until seven years after their grandson, Henry, second Duke of Buckingham, should have inherited all of his grandfather’s estates.10 Far from exploiting the properties she ran, however, Anne proved to be “zealous in the drive for administrative efficiency.”11 The dowager duchess kept a small, centralized household of about sixty persons, rather than maintaining an expensive, constantly moving court. Despite her frugality in domestic administration, Anne did indulge her passion for books, an interest she seems to have cultivated throughout her life. Often described as “something of a bibliophile” (96) in modern scholarship, Anne Neville occupied a central place in a large extended family of women readers and patrons.12 Her mother, Joan, was a patron of Thomas Hoccleve,13 and was known to have owned several histories and romances as well. In addition, Anne’s daughter-in-law was Lady Margaret Beaufort, who would eventually become the mother of Henry VII and an important patron of William Caxton. In Anne’s Neville’s will, proved October 31, 1480, she bequeaths to her daughter-in-law, Margaret, “a boke of English of Legenda Sanctorum, a Boke of ffrensch called lukan,14 an other

94

Amy N. Vines

boke of ffrensch of the pistell and Gaspells and a prymmer wt claspes of siluer and gilt couerd wt purpull veluett.”15 In addition to the texts she mentions in her will, Anne most likely commissioned the “Wingfield Hours,” one of the best-known Psalters produced in London in the fifteenth century.16 Thus, Anne Neville comprised her own impressive library and encouraged the literary interests of her female relatives, particularly Margaret Beaufort. The Nightingale, a poem dedicated to Anne Neville, incorporates elements of both the secular and devotional material she read. Whereas most medieval nightingale poems and literary references adhere to either the erotic and courtly nature of the legendary bird or the religious piety of the nightingale’s lament, The Nightingale most genuinely reflects the hybridity of the tradition as a whole, combining the two seemingly disparate elements in the verse proem and the poem’s main body. The main text of The Nightingale is an allegory of Christ’s Passion and its correspondence with Christian history; the nightingale begins its song at the top of a tree and sings through the liturgical hours, tracking both the stages of Christ’s suffering with each hour and the various ages of Christianity from the Creation and the Fall to Christ’s Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost. Although The Nightingale represents a traditional example of medieval devotional poetry, this unique piece is preceded by a dedicatory preface that accentuates the erotic and secular aspects of the nightingale motif. As Anne Neville must draw from this religious allegory to teach and convert her lusty courtiers, who are actually “Desyrous for to here the amerouse sentensce” (12) of a nightingale poem, to a more religious frame of mind, the task seems almost impossibly Herculean. Yet, as both Barbara Newman and Catherine Brown argue persuasively, “discord . . . and contradiction were valued in the Middle Ages as teaching tools and spurs to thought.”17 Thus, for Anne’s didactic project in this poem, invoking the secular and sacred aspects of the nightingale symbol is appropriate, and perhaps the most successful strategy. The nightingale myth is initially recorded in the classical writings of Homer and Ovid, whose Metamorphoses became the “locus classicus”18 of the tragic story of Philomena and the ultimate source for this story of rape and revenge throughout the medieval period. Although the nightingale myth appeared intermittently in the writings of the early Middle Ages, it is not until the late thirteenth century that Ovid’s work is recapitulated in its entirety in the Ovide Moralisé. This version, like all the medieval representations of Philomena’s story, omits all references to her rape, her subsequent mutilation, and her son’s murder. Rather, as the story becomes moralized, Tereus’s sexual desire is projected onto Philomena, who now “stand[s] for the impulse to sexual love.”19 Unlike the brutal representations of Philomena’s fate in its classical sources, the medieval nightingale’s song laments the uncertainty and danger of erotic desire and is linked with the theme of love for the duration of

Both “Gostly Sense” and “Amerouse Sentensce”

95

its influence on medieval and Renaissance literature. Thus, while the woman Philomena is associated with rape and bodily violation in the medieval period—we need only look as far as Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women—the nightingale bird is not. As well as symbolizing sexual desire and the inspiration to worldly love, the nightingale image is also seen as a harbinger of spring and the rebirth of nature after winter’s dormancy.20 Often used to establish the season, the twelfth- and thirteenth-century troubadour poets make use of both facets of the nightingale image in their love poetry. Bernart de Ventadorn, for example, begins one of his cansos, “can l’erba fresch’e•lh folha par / e la flors boton’ el verjan / e•l rossinhols autet e clar / leva sa votz e mou so chan / joi ai de lui” [when the new grass and the leaves come forth / and the flower burgeons on the branch, / and the nightingale lifts its high / pure voice and begins its song, / I have joy in it].21 This reference conjures the image of the bird to emphasize that it is springtime, a season that fills him with joy and the bittersweet pangs of love. Thus, the nightingale works as a representation of the springtime poet, as a means to facilitate illicit meetings between lovers,22 and even the masculine physical appendage needed to fulfill the erotic desire inspired by the bird’s song.23 It seems contradictory, perhaps, that this emblem of sexual desire should become simultaneously in the Middle Ages the allegorical symbol of caritas, Christian love directed toward God. However, while the nightingale in one context inspires sexual desire and secular love poetry, in another, the bird is removed from this symbolic function and incorporated into the tradition of religious devotion. The Middle English debate poem The Owl and the Nightingale associates the nightingale with the spiritual adoration of Christ. Warning against the instability of secular love, the bird that in other contexts is portrayed as encouraging and enabling worldly passion explains in his final speech that he “is not to blame for sin, because [his] brief song implies the brevity of love, and warns against it.”24 As the concept of courtly love, which is debated in The Owl and the Nightingale, depends on the jealousy and frustration implicit in unrequited worldly relationships, the nightingale’s song simultaneously harks back to the despairing secular love poems of the troubadours and attempts to extricate itself from these previous associations. The nightingale’s role in this poem thus bridges the gap between the two seemingly contradictory symbolic functions. This is also possibly why the transition between the two roles of the nightingale was not conceptually difficult for medieval readers; in both situations the bird experiences emotion and love corporeally, identifying with the throes of either one passion or another. In order to understand the difficult task Anne Neville is given in the proem, not only to be patron of the text, but to impart its devotional tenets to a group of lusty courtiers under the variable guise of a nightingale poem, it will help

96

Amy N. Vines

to understand the manuscript contexts in which the poem was read in the fifteenth century. The poet hopes that The Nightingale will be “Asygne[d] A place” among the Duchess Anne’s “bokys” (Glauning 7), but among which other “bokys” was this text read? The first manuscript, and the only one to contain the full verse proem, is Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 203, a small, modestly produced volume that dates from the second half of the fifteenth century, roughly contemporaneous with when The Nightingale was written. The manuscript begins with The Nightingale (ff. 1r–21v) and ends with two brief moral poems: the Proverbium Scogan (f. 22r)25 and the Proverbium R. Stokys (f. 23r).26 Both sets of proverbs provide guides to living well in a “worlde replett with variaunce” (MacCracken 4); for example, one should avoid “lewde langage” (5) and the “fals tonges” (8) of gossips that “clapp . . . lyke þe leffe of aspe, / Whos daly venym more bittar is then galle” (9–10). Thus, the contents of the Corpus Christi manuscript, though not as varied as the texts in the Caligula or Capesthorne codices, include two morally didactic—but not strictly religious—treatises on leading a profitable, happy life in addition to The Nightingale. Given the poet’s hope, that the “gostly sense” (16) or the less popular religious aspects of the nightingale tradition will move the group to eschew physical pleasure (at least temporarily) and, instead, remember their spiritual dedication to Christ, the practical conduct pieces in the Corpus manuscript offer a valuable resource for Anne to calm a lusty crowd that will be irritated at the author’s suggested bait and switch of one nightingale for another. Medieval audiences undoubtedly recognized the nightingale image primarily for its erotic valence. Yet The Nightingale poem combines the wellknown secular elements of the bird’s persona with the religious aspects of the nightingale symbol. Indeed, the apparatus added to the poem in the Corpus Christi manuscript—the prose introduction and the verse proem—alternates between religious allegory and a depiction of a secular court before the poem itself even begins. Though the nineteen-line prose introduction ostensibly gives a thumbnail synopsis of the religious allegory through which the main poem should be read, the following six-stanza verse proem—included as an appendix to this chapter—paints a highly eroticized, secular setting for the poem’s reading and Anne Neville’s lesson. Within the first few stanzas of the initial dedication to Anne in stanza one, the “lityll quayere” (1) is sent to the Duchess of Buckingham’s court in “freshe May” (25), a time of renewal and fecundity associated with the worldly aspect of the nightingale image. In further describing the secular setting, the poet highlights the courtiers’ “fleschly lust” (21) and the fact that they are “meued of corage be vertu of the seson [Spring]” (22). Thus, The Nightingale is to be read by Anne to “hyr peple” who are “in lystynesse / Fresschly encoragyt” (10–11) to indulge their sexual urges. Rebecca Krug comments briefly on The Nightingale and

Both “Gostly Sense” and “Amerouse Sentensce”

97

the poem’s use of chivalric conventions in her study of Margaret Beaufort’s “reading family,” suggesting that the poet uses romantic conventions, such as the springtime setting and the narrator whose troubled heart keeps him from sleeping, to promote the poet’s religious purpose.27 The “peple” to whom Anne Neville will read the poem, Krug continues, comprise an audience “familiar with the intricacies of romance and the subtleties of the love lyric” (79). Thus, Anne Neville’s audience of courtiers is “desyrous for to here the amerouse sentensce / Of the nyghtyngale” (12–13) because, traditionally, this is precisely what they expect to hear. In the opening lines of the poem itself, the narrator models the “correct” way of listening and responding to the nightingale’s song. He initially portrays himself as a sleepless narrator, who complains “on a nyght in Aprile, as y lay / Wery of sleep & of my bed all-so” (43–4). However, rather than lying awake thinking about love, the poet is “with this troblus worlde sore agreued” (48). Grieving, it seems, because of the secular world, the narrator’s suffering is finally relieved “as god wold” (49) by the song of a “blessed bird” (50).28 The nightingale’s song, however, “raueshed” (52) the narrator, and he imagines that she calls him personally, by his “propre name” (55), to come out of the solace of his bed into “this lusty seson” (58). Thus, the blessed nightingale awakens the poet as a lover, with personal endearments and a reminder that it is the season of worldly desire. The eager narrator “leep[s]” (59) out of bed and meets his bird as she “Ryght freshly sang vpon a laurer grene” (63). This rendezvous, which takes place at night in a secluded bower during the lusty spring season, recalls a meeting between lovers more than an encounter that will provide religious consolation. At this point in the poem, it seems as though the narrator’s worries about the “troblus worlde” will be relieved, but not by religion. Yet, once he enters the garden, the narrator becomes the kind of audience member he hopes the poem will have in Anne Neville’s court: an attentive, easily influenced listener. Dutifully “[e]ntendyng,” the narrator, “romed vp and doun, / Expelling clerly all wilfle negligence” (64–5). It is only at this moment, when the poet seems to have relinquished his “will” that the “clere entoned notes and hir soun” (66) bring about a revelation. He relates that “sodenly conceyued y this sentence” (68), the beginnings of a spiritual awareness that will somehow soothe his troubled mind. The poet writes that the nightingale sings of her own “mortall deth” (77), the process of which will correspond to the liturgical hours of the day; in the evening, “she expyred aboute the oure of none” (105). While the narrator instills the bird’s song with a kind of supernatural power that forces him from a restless night in bed and leads him into the garden to pay homage to his “hertis queene” (62), his relation of the nightingale’s death dirge is shown to be merely his own interpretation. Throughout

98

Amy N. Vines

his encounter with the bird, the narrator’s observations are qualified by the repeated phrases “me thoght” (73, 91) and the references to his “Ymagynyng” (55) and “Thenking in my conceyt” (60). Thus, the narrator hears the bird’s notes—“Ocy, ocy” (90)—and concludes that the song “signified, me thoght, that she shuld dye” (91; emphasis mine). As if the poet’s own interpretation of the nightingale’s song was not detached enough, we then learn that the “morall sense [the song] signifiede” (109) was found in a “latyn . . . boke” (108) that the narrator must translate in order to support his interpretation of the nightingale’s melody. It is, thus, a reading of a reading that will attempt to characterize the bird’s singing as a religious metaphor rather than an encouragement toward secular love, as it was more often meant to be. The dry allegory that follows must somehow pierce the “wilfle negligence” not of a world-weary individual like the narrator but an unremittingly lustful group of young courtiers. Although the poet models the right way to read the nightingale’s song— ostensibly making Anne Neville’s task easier—the lengthy Christian interpretation of the song quickly moves into the realm of preaching, replete with references to the infectious sins of Adam and Eve, threats of eternal damnation, reminders of the constant presence of Satan and Death, and warnings against “vnkyndly crime” (301), the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. Anne’s task, therefore, is made much more difficult by the heavy religious interpretation with which the poet supplies her. She must lure her audience to her own “laurer grene” (63) with promises of an amorous or romantic nightingale song; but once there, Anne is encouraged to sermonize to the courtiers, offering them sacred rather than secular solace. If Anne must bridge the gulf between the secular and religious spheres in her courtly instruction, perhaps it is most effective to call upon the tradition of the nightingale that does the same. Though Krug insists that the poet later substitutes “religious rhetoric for romance” (80), the fact that the devotional material is placed within an eroticized secular court calls into question the ultimate effectiveness of The Nightingale’s religious purpose. The trajectory of reading that Krug constructs for this poem is based upon a valued, hierarchical relationship between the worldly and the devotional. She suggests that readers, such as Anne Neville, “desire more from their reading than entertainment,” and that the members of Anne’s courtly audience “have grown beyond their taste for romance” (80; emphases mine). The duchess’s didactic project, according to Krug, is to “elevate” the literary tastes of her courtiers and show them that “religious writing (such as The Nightingale) was more profitable than romance” (81). Thus, the elements of secular romance in The Nightingale function only as bait to draw the readers in and lead them “to deeper spiritual understanding” (80); this, according to Krug, may only be accomplished once the secular has been rejected, moved beyond. I suggest,

Both “Gostly Sense” and “Amerouse Sentensce”

99

however, that the work of transforming desire from one domain to the other may never be accomplished through this poem and its challenging setting. Rather, Anne Neville will offer a poem to her court that will perhaps enable them to temper their amorous inclinations with religious thoughts, acting as an influential patron and guide who will help the courtiers navigate the richness of both valences of the nightingale image. Rather than asking the audience to move beyond the secular—and to eschew physical love completely—Anne’s devotional poem and its secular context underscore the fact that these two facets of the nightingale and the reading practices they suggest are not mutually exclusive. While The Nightingale poet hopes that his work will inspire the courtiers to religious rather than completely sexual fervor, his verse concentrates only on directing the gallants’ minds, not their bodies. The poem’s didactic project does not include advice to the audience on how to behave (although there is basic conduct material in all the manuscripts), but on what to “remember” or “think on.” For instance, in the midst of the poem’s religious allegory, the narrator interrupts the meditation to address Anne Neville’s court and admonishes them: “O lusty gaylauntes in youre adolescens . . . Restreyne your-self” (267–70). This instruction to “restreyne” themselves from bodily lust is reinforced only with exhortations such as, “in your herte thenk euer” (270), “enprinte that fall right myndely in thy hert” (128), and “call to your mynde for speciall remedie / Oure lordes passion” (327–8). Although mental meditation on Christ’s suffering is undoubtedly a necessary introduction to righteous living, it is questionable whether these intermittent suggestions within the highly complicated religious rhetoric are enough to counteract the erotic connotations of the nightingale image and calm the already “lusty gaylauntes” in Anne Neville’s court. The poet is partially successful in that he offers the gallants a bird symbol often used in religious poetry of the Middle Ages, but the more easily recognizable, lustful aspect of the nightingale’s identity cannot necessarily persuade the audience to abjure their secular revelry. Indeed the religious intention is put forth timidly by the poet: “All loue vnlawfle, y hope, hit will deface / And fleschly lust out of theyre hertis chace” (20–1, emphasis mine). This holy objective is quickly glossed over, and the poet continues to describe tantalizingly the “lusty seson thus newly reconciled” (28) and reminds the audience that, as the nightingale sings of Christ’s Passion, it does so ardently, with “mony a lusty note” (37).29 While the main part of the poem parallels the bird directly with Christ (“Be this nyghtingale . . . Is Crist hym-self ande euery Cristen-man” [113–15]), the text begins by employing a symbol of sexual love to admonish an audience of lustful young men and women toward a life that includes religious contemplation. During Anne’s lesson—and in the verse proem itself—the audience seems to phase between the worldly and religiously meditative aspects of the bird. This

100

Amy N. Vines

alternation illustrates the ease with which the image can occupy both registers at once in medieval texts. The Nightingale’s contexts in both the Caligula and Capesthorne manuscripts underscore how the poem lends itself to both secular and religious readings. Although the prose introduction, which outlines the religious allegory, and the first two stanzas of the verse proem to The Nightingale do not appear in the Caligula manuscript, the remaining four stanzas, in which the author describes much of the poem’s secular setting, are included exactly as they appear in the Corpus Christi manuscript and continue to emphasize the dual nature of the nightingale symbol.30 While this portion of the introductory material does not mention Anne Neville by name, the codex offers an indication of the kinds of texts among which The Nightingale was collected and read by a fifteenth-century audience; indeed, they mirror the secular and religious variety found in Anne Neville’s own book collection. The texts in the Caligula miscellany were compiled between 1446 and 1460;31 among the over forty pieces included in the codex are a Latin chronicle, and vernacular scientific, medical, astronomical, and historical texts, as well as several religious lyrics and didactic pieces. One of the most unique elements of this carefully produced, but well used, manuscript is that the codex is a main source of tail-rhyme romances, such as Sir Eglamour of Artois, Emaré, and Sir Isumbras. The order of the items in the manuscript was most likely planned, as there are several blank leaves throughout, which suggest that space was left for other selections to be included at a later date. Most importantly, there is a general separation between the more secular pieces at the beginning of the manuscript and the religious material collected at the end. For example, although most of the romances are located toward the beginning of MS Cotton Caligula A.ii, two selections, Emaré and Cheuelere Assigne, were probably deliberately placed in the final section due to the prominent devotional and homiletic elements in the two romances.32 Indeed, the romance of Emaré and many of the domestic lessons found in the latter section of the Caligula codex underscore the element of female didacticism represented in the Corpus Christi nightingale poem with its dedicatory preface mentioning Anne Neville by name.33 The last romance in the collection, Sir Isumbras, contains both sacred and secular elements from folklore and hagiographic tales. Unlike Emaré and Cheuelere Assigne, this romance does not place such an emphasis on religious didacticism; however, Sir Isumbras does draw heavily on the legend of St. Eustace. As the last text in the Caligula codex, Eustache, is a version of the life of St. Eustace found in the South English Legendary, the inclusion of Sir Isumbras in the more religious portion of the manuscript could reflect more its relation to the Eustace legend (which is undoubtedly the subject of

Both “Gostly Sense” and “Amerouse Sentensce”

101

the final piece) than its devotional nature. Therefore, even though several of the romances appear in the latter part of the Caligula collection, the primary separation between secular and religious texts is maintained. Appearing on f.57r, after a short poem on The Ten Commandments but before a medical treatise by the “gode fysycyan John the Burdoux for medycyne a gaynes þe euylle of pestylence” (Guddat-Figge 170), The Nightingale occupies a liminalized space amidst the secular and devotional works within this manuscript that corroborates the nature of the poem itself. Although Guddat-Figge emphasizes that “an absolute separation of secular and religious texts in . . . miscellanies [such as MS Cotton Caligula A.ii] is not to be expected” (23), The Nightingale is situated at a key point in the manuscript’s gradual evolution from a collection of primarily secular material, such as Lydgate’s The Chorle and the Bird and medical recipes for colic, to one that combines those secular pieces with a much larger number of religious texts, such as saints’ lives and a copy of The Long Charter of Christ. The sacred poem of The Nightingale with its secular introduction and setting seems to accord with the Caligula compiler’s interest in collecting secular and religious texts in a single book. Although to a lesser extent than the Caligula manuscript, the Capesthorne codex also places The Nightingale in a reading context combining secular and devotional material.34 This miscellaneous collection was compiled primarily by Humphrey Newton of Pownall Co. Cheshire (1466–1536).35 In addition to many genealogical and historical notations about the heirs of Newton, the contents of the manuscript range from the pragmatic (a treatise on urine; f. 75r) to the deeply personal (a “vision in a traunce of John Neuton” [ff. 21r– 22r]).36 Deborah Youngs notes that Newton’s commonplace book was an “important aid to devotion; and the literary prose and poetry [was included] for both moral and recreational purposes.”37 Indeed, the Capesthorne manuscript incorporates several religious and didactic texts, such as Latin prayers to be said before and after meals and a copy of the “ABC of Aristotle.” The Capesthorne codex offers the reader a little of everything: a portion of one of Æsop’s Fables, a short law tract in Latin, a brief verse prophecy on English politics, and even a few lines of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.38 Such fragments, Ralph Hanna suggests, “testify to Newton’s access to a substantial library of Middle English,”39 as well as to varied literary interests that included both religious and secular material, as did Anne Neville’s collection. The most prominent kind of work in the miscellany, however, is the love lyric; the Capesthorne manuscript contains no less than sixteen of these pieces written in large part by Humphrey Newton himself. These love poems, which offer a newly eroticized context for The Nightingale compared to the Corpus Christi or Caligula codices, seem to emerge from a figure very like one of Anne Neville’s own lusty “galantus” (Glauning 12). These pieces

102

Amy N. Vines

articulate something of the challenge facing Anne in her courtly reading session, and offer an indication of the young courtiers’ expectations. Yet, despite Newton’s own erotic predilections in the Capesthorne manuscript, he obviously felt that The Nightingale, with all its heavy religious imagery, was appropriate to place cheek by jowl with his own more worldly poetry. Indeed, the setting of at least one of Newton’s poems in the Capesthorne manuscript directly connects with that of The Nightingale.40 The short ten-stanza piece, which relates the narrator’s love affair with his “blissful blossom” (21), ultimately becomes a cautionary tale about the fickleness of Fortune toward happy lovers; in the end, their love “myȝte not long hold” (16). Despite their doomed love, however, the “Zephyrus” poem begins on f. 93r with a joyful, secular setting very similar to that outlined in The Nightingale (and The Canterbury Tales, as it so happens): “When ȝepheres eeke withe his fresshe tarage [character] / has concluded wentur in a breef space / Þen is mere both for youth and age / To here mirth, game and salace” (Robbins 1–4). As in the “Zephyrus” poem, the first lines of The Nightingale found in the Capesthorne manuscript a few pages later on f. 107r construct a very similar setting for the poem:41 “Meued by corage be vertu of the seson” and “Gladynge euery hært of veray resoun / When fresch may in kalendes can apere / Phebus ascendyng clere schynyng in his spere / By whom the colde of wyntyr is exylyd / And lusty sesone thus newly reconcyleded” (Glauning 22–8). In both poems, it is the “corage” or “tarage” of springtime (in the form of either Zephyrus, the mild west wind, or Phoebus, the sun) that will “conclude” or “exile” winter and enable the reader to enjoy the pastimes afforded by this season of renewal: the “mirth, game and salace” (Robbins 4) of the “Zephyrus” poem and the “lusty note” (Glauning 37) of the nightingale’s song. Indeed, a song is the outcome of the “Zephyrus” poem as well as The Nightingale. Newton ultimately chooses song as his personal expression of love lost, concluding the “Zephyrus” poem with the assurance that “With meloduous tunys I shall meyne [moan] with my mo[u]th” (Robbins 40). The sad, “meloduous” tunes in the “Zephyrus” poem recall the nightingale’s “melodiouse and mery . . . steuen [voice]” (Glauning 42) that so strongly captures The Nightingale narrator’s attention. Both Robbins and Horwood mention another poem written in both margins (f. 93r–v) of the “Zephyrus” piece.42 These verses begin slightly differently than the other love lyrics in the Capesthorne manuscript: with references to the “god of loue” (1) and “venus” (2); in addition, Newton depicts himself in this poem as intractable toward love, refusing to give his heart to any woman, “ffor I trustid hem not” (7). The “Venus” piece, tucked away in the margins of the “Zephyrus” poem, details an indulgence in sexual love without the emotional vulnerability that brought such pain to the “Zephyrus” lover when “false fortune” became “so frely [his] foe” (30). Although Newton assures the

Both “Gostly Sense” and “Amerouse Sentensce”

103

audience of the “Venus” poem that he has not asked his love to meet him in a “place / wher I myȝhte opyn my hert and say what I wel” (57–8), he indicates that they have already reached a level of physical intimacy: “then met I that may[den] that was bright & shen / & kest her & klepped her at my wele; / She said she loued me & that myȝt I se, / & I said she myȝt me [let] saue & spill” (49–52).43 The last phrase—“save & spill”—is a manipulation of a phrase used to describe theological options; “to save or spill” means either to accept religious salvation or to be “spilt” or damned to hell. In addition to “causing damnation,” the verb “to spill” also refers to “becoming morally corrupt or perverted”; one could, thus, “spill” one’s maidenhood. In the marginal poem, therefore, Newton does not propose one or the other theological possibility to his love, but rather asserts that she should let him “save and spill” (Robbins 52; emphasis mine). Thus, salvation (although perhaps only for Newton and not his love) lies through the indulgence in sexual intercourse, not in the rejection of it. He ardently seeks to be “saved” according to the tenets of the “god of love” (1) he supposedly rejected, not the Christian God. The references to such overt physical interaction between the author and his “bright” maiden suggest a more erotic definition of the “mirth” and “games” offered by Zephyrus’s sweet season. A reader contemplating the “Zephyrus” poem and its cautions against worldly love could not help but see the other, more sexually fulfilling piece framing the poem from its margins. Youngs speculates that the “cramm[ing]” of the “Venus” poem into the margins of the “Zephyrus” poem indicates a reduced significance of these pieces; she believes that the marginal poem “spoilt” the presentation of the main “Zephyrus” poem originally copied on f. 93.r.44 However, the messy conjoining of these pieces could just as equally mean that Newton felt that the two poems should be read together. Perhaps it was the fervid “tarage” of Zephyrus’s spring that encouraged Newton to write his more sexual “Venus” poem in the margins surrounding this particular selection rather than another entry in the Capesthorne manuscript. Whatever the reason, it is significant that the lusty author attempts to persuade his bright lady to prove her love by allowing him to approach a kind of salvation through fleshly corruption; it is a simultaneous invocation—however coarsely depicted—of the sacred and the secular themes included in The Nightingale. In the same way that the “Zephyrus” poem and its companion piece are yoked together by virtue of the space they share on the page in the Capesthorne manuscript, The Nightingale is similarly connected to these texts through shared space in the same codex, and their similar descriptions of the lusty seasons in which the amorous songs and personal interactions are set. Much as the marginal “Venus” poem assures the audience that Newton kissed and embraced his lover “at my wele” (Robbins 50) and the “Zephyrus” poem laments the loss of the “comly kysses” (20) he once enjoyed, The

104

Amy N. Vines

Nightingale’s narrator is “raueshed . . . and perced / Ryght with [the bird’s] longyng notes” (Glauning 52–3). Indeed, the narrator is roused out of his “slombre-bed” (57) in the midst of this lusty season by the female nightingale, his “hertis queene” (62). Although The Nightingale’s narrator ultimately depicts himself as a successful reader and interpreter of her song’s “gostly sense” (16), the possibility of its “amerouse sentensce” (12) still lingers. We are left to wonder whether Anne Neville’s lusty “galantus” (11), like the narrator of The Nightingale’s companion piece in the Capesthorne manuscript, will also seek to “save” themselves through “spilling.” In the Corpus Christi manuscript’s complete verse proem, The Nightingale poet portrays Anne Neville as powerfully as she appears in her life records; he commands the text of the poem to offer itself to the duchess in the hopes that she will accept the volume and “Amonge hyre bokys for the Asygne A place” (7). Thus, the poet’s book behaves much like an eager courtier who asks for the duchess’s patronage and to be incorporated into the “court” of her other books. However, not only does The Nightingale author desire for his work to be a part of Anne’s library, he wishes for it to operate in a specific way: to convert the earthly, sexual desire into a longing for spiritual fulfillment. The poet deliberately uses the symbol of the nightingale to enact that conversion project; the lusty courtiers will be drawn in by what they know of the bird’s erotic reputation and will instead find themselves the audience of a highly stylized religious allegory, a sermon imitating the scintillating song of the nightingale. This song, the author hopes, will call the lovers to God rather than to each other. However, it is, in part, the poet’s tentative hope about the viability of his project that leads me to conclude that the transformation from “amerouse sentensce” to “gostly sense” is not as neat a conversion as The Nightingale poet envisions. In choosing the nightingale symbol—an icon that was used to represent both secular and spiritual passion in the Middle Ages— to assert his indictment of earthly pleasures, the author ensured that The Nightingale would maintain both aspects of the bird’s song. The Nightingale poet depicts the circumstances of the poem’s reading within the first six stanzas: a gathering of lusty young courtiers during the spring season. In addition to setting the text in a time of year particularly suited to love poetry, the author also draws on other conventions of medieval courtly literature: the sleepless narrator and even the seductive quality of the nightingale’s song. Following this auspicious and erotic beginning with a proscriptive, sermonizing reading of the bird’s song, however, dooms the author’s solely religious purpose to failure. But it need not be a complete failure. The nightingale symbol does function successfully as a religious metaphor in medieval literature, and there is no need to assume that the lusty gallants will not draw some benefit from the author’s religious interpretation of the nightingale’s nocturnal warblings. Indeed, all three of the poem’s manuscript contexts suggest that the poem was

Both “Gostly Sense” and “Amerouse Sentensce”

105

read in conjunction with both secular and religious material. By dedicating the poem to the Duchess Anne, the poet (perhaps unknowingly) emphasizes the eclectic rather than strictly devotional nature of her literary interests and the hybrid nature of the poem itself. The Nightingale requires a reading public, such as Anne Neville and her courtiers or the compilers of the three manuscripts discussed in this chapter, which can appreciate and learn from both the erotic and devotional personas of the nightingale.

APPENDIX The Nightingale Verse Proem

(1) {Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 203} Go, lityll quayere and swyft thy prynses dresse Offringe thyselfe wyth humble reuerence Vnto the ryghte hyghe and myghty pryncesse The Duches of Bokingham and of hur excellence Besechinge hyr that of hure pacyence Sche wold the take of hure noble grace Amonge hyr that bokys for the Asygne A place

(2) Vn to the tyme hyr ladyly goodnesse Luste for to call vn to hyr high presence Suche of hyr peple that are in lustynesse Fresschly encoragyd as galantus in prime-tens Desyrous for to here the amerouse sentensce Of the nyghtyngale and in there mynde enbrace Who favoure moste schalte fynde in loues grace

(3) {BL Cotton Caligula MS A.ii begins} Commandynge them to here wt tendrenesse

106

Amy N. Vines

Of this youre nyghtingale the gostely sensce Whose songe and deth declaryd is expres In englyshe here ryght bare of eloquence But notheles consydred the sentence All loue vnlaufle y hope hit wyll deface And fleschly luste out of there herts chace

(4) {Bodl. MS Latin misc. c.66 begins} Meued of corage by vertu of the seson In prime-tens renoueled yere by yere Gladynge euery hært of veray resoun When fresch may in kalendes can apere Phebus ascendyng clere schynyng in his spere By whom the colde of wyntyr is exylyd And lusty sesone thus newly reconcyleded

(5) To speke of sclepe hyt nedys moste be had Vnto the noresyng of euery creature Wyth oute whych braynes moste be madd Outragesly wakynge oute of mesure Except thoo that kyndely nature Menethe to wache as the nyghtyngale Whych in hure seson by sclepe sett no tale

(6) So sche of kynde all the someres nyght Ne secyth not wyth mony a lusty note Whedere hit be dry wete derke or lyght Redyly rehersyng hure lessone ay by rote Gret mervell his is the endurynge of hyre throte That hyr to here hit is a secunde heauen So melodyouse and mery45 ys hure steuen.

Both “Gostly Sense” and “Amerouse Sentensce”

107

NOTES 1. Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Roman de la Rose, pp. 21, 543–46. Translation is from Brown, Contrary Things, pp. 2–3. 2. Within recent scholarship, there is a debate about whether or not John Lydgate is the author of this piece. In Otto Glauning’s 1900 edition, he attributes the authorship to Lydgate based on a later entry (c. 1500) in the MS Corpus Christi College 203’s table of contents, which reads: “Vera fabula quam Johannes Ludgate faciebat et in octavo versu” (Glauning xiii). The entry in the Corpus Christi codex is the only manuscript attribution to Lydgate. 3. Peacham’s Latin poem also exists in a medieval French translation titled Rossignol. See Pfeffer’s The Change of Philomel, p. 39. 4. Several scholars who have written on The Nightingale have failed to mention this third manuscript of the poem; Glauning lists only the Corpus Christi and Caligula manuscripts in his EETS edition as does The Idea of the Vernacular, pp. 186–90. It is possible that this neglect is the result of the poem’s listing in the table of contents (f. 91r) of the literary portion of the miscellany as Philomena rather than The Nightingale. By the same token, although several studies have been made of Humphrey Newton’s commonplace book, Bodl. MS Latin misc. c.66 (the Capesthorne manuscript), no thorough consideration has been made of The Nightingale’s inclusion in the codex. For further discussion of this manuscript in this volume, see also Boffey and Edwards, “Middle English Verse Acrostics.” 5. The Caligula manuscript does not include the first two introductory stanzas and the Capesthorne manuscript does not include the first three. For a transcription of The Nightingale’s six-stanza verse proem, please see the Appendix to this chapter; the beginning points of each manuscript are noted. 6. Glauning, ed., Lydgate’s Minor Poems, p. xiii. Further citations from this source will be quoted by either introduction page number or line number. 7. Newman, Medieval Crossover, p. 7. 8. Indeed, Newman suggests that “when sacred and secular meanings both present themselves in a text, yet cannot be harmoniously reconciled, it is not always necessary to choose between them” (Medieval Crossover, pp. 7–8). The representation of contrariness—the both/and hermeneutic—provokes profitable debate (8). 9. Rawcliffe, The Staffords, p. 20. 10. Anne and Humphrey’s son, Humphrey, Lord Stafford, died before his father in 1458, leaving his son, Henry, to become the second Duke of Buckingham. See Rawcliffe, The Staffords, pp. 104–5. 11. Rawcliffe, The Staffords, p. 105. 12. See Robertson’s “Women and Networks of Literary Production.” 13. A volume of Hoccleve’s poetry, known as the Series (Durham University Library, Cosin MS V.iii.9) is dedicated to Joan Beaufort. 14. The French “lukan” most likely refers to Lucan’s Pharsalia, a first century CE chronicle depiction of the Roman civil war. 15. See the Probate Court of Canterbury, Logge 2 for Anne Neville’s will.

108

Amy N. Vines

16. Evidence found in the manuscript to attribute its commission to Anne include the Stafford family coat of arms and some prayers that were written generally for female use and specifically for an “Anna.” See Meale, “. . .‘alle the bokes I haue,’” p. 136. 17. Newman, Medieval Crossover, p. 4. See also Brown’s Contrary Things. 18. Pfeffer, The Change of Philomel, p. 2. 19. Thomas Allan Shippey, “Listening to the Nightingale,” Comparative Literature 22 (1970): 46–60 (48). 20. Pfeffer, The Change of Philomel, p. 2. 21. Goldin, ed., Lyrics, pp. 136–9. For further examples of the troubadours’ use of the nightingale symbol in secular love poetry, see other lyrics by de Ventadorn in Goldin’s edition. 22. See “Rossignol, el seu repaire” by Peire d’Alvernhe in Goldi, ed., Lyrics, pp. 162–3. 23. See the story of Ricciardo Manardi and Caterina da Valbona in Boccaccio’s Decameron. 24. Shippey, “Listening,” 58. See also The Owl and the Nightingale, Grattan and Sykes, eds. 25. This moral ballad, although attributed to “Scogan” in the manuscript, is actually a copy of Chaucer’s short poem Truth or Balade de Bon Conseyl. “Scogan” is most likely a reference to the poet Henry Scogan (c. 1361–1407), tutor to the four sons of Henry IV and Chaucer’s friend to whom the Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan is addressed. For an edition of this poem, see The Riverside Chaucer, p. 653. 26. This set of proverbs, attributed to an unknown “R. Stokys” in the Corpus Christi manuscript, was written by Lydgate. The poem is published under the title “See Myche, Say Lytell and Lerne to Soffar in Tyme,” in The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, ed. MacCracken, pp. 800–1. 27. See Krug’s chapter on “Margaret Beaufort’s Literate Practice: Service and Self-Inscription” in her book Reading Families, pp. 65–113. 28. Compare this restless narrator with the narrator in Chaucer’s The Boke of the Duchesse, who falls asleep after reading the tragic love story of Alcyone and Ceyx. As in The Nightingale, it is a bird’s song that calls the narrator from his bed to go out into nature where he will meet the lamenting Black Knight. 29. Although the adjective “lusti” can mean something “fine” or “good” beginning in the late fourteenth century, it was most often used to signify something that is “tempting,” “voluptuary,” “ardent,” and “amorous” (Middle English Dictionary). 30. John Thompson notes that there is strong evidence for assuming a lacuna in the manuscript just before The Nightingale appears because the poem opens “abruptly” in the Caligula manuscript, and “may have lost some or all of the dedicatory lines” found in the Corpus Christi manuscript. Indeed, the first two lines of the Caligula version refer enigmatically to “theym” (15) and “your [nightyngale]” (16); these indefinite pronouns would only be correctly understood as the Duchess of Buckingham and her lusty “peple” (10) if the two previous stanzas were once included in the version or, perhaps, the exemplar. See Thompson’s “Looking Behind the Book,” p. 179. Thompson does admit that this is a “hypothesized textual loss” (179) and cannot be established concretely.

Both “Gostly Sense” and “Amerouse Sentensce”

109

31. Guddat-Figge, Catalogue, p. 67. For a complete list of the contents of MS Cotton Caligula A.ii, see ibid., pp. 169–72. 32. Mehl, The Middle English Romances, p. 260. 33. For a more detailed discussion of the didactic element present in the latter section of the Caligula codex, see also Vines, “Who-so wylle of nurtur lere.” 34. For an edition and discussion of Humphrey Newton’s poems in the Capesthorne manuscript, see Robbins, “The Poems of Humfrey Newton.” I will quote from Robbins’s edition for all of Newton’s poems. Also, see Horwood’s brief description of the manuscript while it was still in the possession of William Bromley-Davenport at Capesthorne, Cheshire, Second Report, p. 80. 35. Newton’s exact birthdate (October 3, 1466) is included in a set of entries documenting births, deaths, and marriages at the beginning of the manuscript. Among other information provided there is the date of Humphrey Newton’s marriage to Elena, daughter and heir of Thomas Fiton on April 7, 1490 (Robbins 250). 36. This vision of John Newton, a probable relative of Humphrey’s, was documented in 1492 after a visitation of the plague that killed John’s wife. It is a vision of the tortures of Purgatory and the afterlife. 37. Youngs, “The Late Medieval Commonplace Book,” 71. For more on the Capesthorne manuscript and its status as a commonplace book, see Youngs’s thesis (referenced under the name Deborah Marsh), “Humphrey Newton of Newton and Pownall,” and Marsh, “I see by siȝt of evidence.” 38. In addition to Youngs’s “The Late Medieval Commonplace Book,” see her article “The Parson’s Tale,” and Hanna, “Humphrey Newton.” 39. Hanna, “Humphrey Newton,” 285. 40. All but a few of the entries in the manuscript are untitled, making reference to them difficult. I will refer to the first untitled poem I will discuss as the “Zephyrus” poem. Robbins lists this poem as Poem V (263–4). 41. The Capesthorne version begins with the fourth stanza of the verse proem rather than the first or third stanzas, as in the other two versions; see the Appendix to this chapter. 42. Robbins lists this piece as Poem VI (264–6); for the sake of convenience, I will refer to this piece as the “Venus” poem. 43. Notice that the interactions of both sets of lovers in the poems include “kissing” and “clipping” (“Zephyrus” 14 and “Venus” 50); however, in the first poem, this affection leads to disillusionment, whereas the physical contact in the “Venus” poem promises sexual gratification, perhaps without the emotional connection that led to the “Zephyrus” lover’s broken heart. 44. Youngs, “The Commonplace Book,” 71. 45. The word “mery” appears only in the Caligula manuscript.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Brown, Catherine. Contrary Things: Exegesis, Dialectic, and the Poetics of Didacticism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.

110

Amy N. Vines

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer, edited by Larry D. Benson. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1987. Goldin, Frederick ed., Lyrics of the Troubadours and Trouvères: An Anthology and a History. Gloucester: Doubleday & Co., 1983. Guddat-Figge, Gisela. Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Middle English Romances. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1976. Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. Roman de la Rose, edited by Felix Lecoy. 3 vols. Classiques Français du Moyen-Âge. Paris: Champion, 1965–70. Hanna III, Ralph. “Humphrey Newton and Bodleian Library, MS Lat. misc. c.66.” Medium Ævum 69 (2000): 279–91. Horwood, Alfred J. Second Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission. London: George Edward Eyre & William Spottiswoode, 1874. Krug, Rebecca. Reading Families: Women’s Literate Practice in Late Medieval England. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002. Lydgate, John. Lydgate’s Minor Poems: The Two Nightingale Poems, edited by Otto Glauning. EETS e.s. 80. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1900. ———. The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, edited by Henry Noble MacCracken. EETS 192. London: Oxford University Press, 1934. Meale, Carole M. “. . .‘alle the bokes I haue of latyn, englisch, and frensch’: Laywomen and Their Books in Late Medieval England.” In Women and Literature in Britain, 1150–1500, edited by Carole M. Meale, 128–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Mehl, Dieter. The Middle English Romances of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. London: Routledge, 1968. Newman, Barbara. Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular Against the Sacred. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013. The Owl and the Nightingale. Edited by J. H. G. Grattan and G. F. H. Sykes. EETS e.s. 119. London: Oxford University Press, 1935. Pfeffer, Wendy. The Change of Philomel: The Nightingale in Medieval Literature. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1985. Rawcliffe, Carole. The Staffords, Earls of Stafford and Dukes of Buckingham: 1394– 1521. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978. Robbins, Rossell Hope. “The Poems of Humfrey Newton, Esquire, 1466–1536.” PMLA 65 (1950): 249–81. Robertson, Elizabeth. “Women and Networks of Literary Production.” In History of British Women’s Writing: Volume 1: 700–1500, edited by Diane Watt and Elizabeth A. McAvoy, 151–9. New York: Palgrave, 2012. Shippey, Thomas Allan. “Listening to the Nightingale.” Comparative Literature 22 (1970): 46–60. Thompson, John. “Looking Behind the Book: London, British Library, MS Cotton Caligula A.ii, Part 1, and the Experience of its Texts.” In Romance Reading on the Book: Essays on Medieval Narrative Presented to Maldwyn Mills, edited by Jennifer Fellows, et al., 171–87. Cardiff: Wales University Press, 1996. Vines, Amy N. “‘Who-so wylle of nurtur lere’: Domestic Capabilities in the Middle English Emaré.” The Chaucer Review 53 (2018): 82–101.

Both “Gostly Sense” and “Amerouse Sentensce”

111

Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn, Nicholas Watson, Andrew Taylor, and Ruth Evans, eds. The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280–1520. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. Youngs, Deborah. “The Late Medieval Commonplace Book of Humphrey Newton of Newton and Pownall, Cheshire (1466–1536).” Archives 25 (2000): 58–73. ———. “The Parson’s Tale: A Newly Discovered Fragment.” The Chaucer Review 34 (1999): 207–16. ———. [as Deborah Marsh]. “Humphrey Newton of Newton and Pownall (1466– 1536): A gentleman of Cheshire and His Commonplace Book.” Keele University: dissertation, 1995. ———. [as Deborah Marsh]. “‘I see by siȝt of evidence:’ Information Gathering in Late Medieval Cheshire.” In Courts, Counties and the Capital in the Later Middle Ages, edited by Diana Dunn, 71–92. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Chapter 6

Middle English Verse Acrostics A Survey Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

The tradition of the acrostic device, the patterned placing of initial or other letters in a piece of writing to form specific names or words, is a long one that goes back to Hebrew, Greek, and Latin writings.1 In the Middle Ages it appears in the literature of different European vernaculars, including Old and Middle English.2 The history of the acrostic in Middle English and on into the sixteenth century largely remains to be written, however.3 In what follows we will outline some aspects of this history, taking particular account of Middle English verse acrostics in tribute to Beth Robertson’s interests in the combined working of rhetorical and material features in poetic forms. Our argument will direct attention to the special appeal of acrostics as a form of poetic highlighting and will explore their potential for the encrypting of personal identity. In verse, acrostics are most often formed from the initial letters of successive lines, but they can also be contrived in other ways, sometimes made up of letters or syllables from the midpoint or the end of lines, for example. As formal devices relating to the ordering of written words and letters, they have some kinship with anagrams and other kinds of letter-based wordplay. The word “acrostic” itself did not appear in English until the late sixteenth century,4 at about the same time that George Puttenham offered the first discussion of shaped poems and anagrams in The Art of English Poesie (1589).5 But the form had some currency by the later Middle English period, and was exploited in the composition and copying of both prose and verse. Both the preservation and identification of acrostics in verse or prose is fraught with challenges.6 The letters or syllables from which an acrostic is constructed can become confused, misplaced, or absent as its host work is transmitted. An example of this is a curious poem in Oxford, Bodleian 113

114

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

Library, Rawlinson MS D. 375, p. 216, which concludes with what appears to be an acrostic beginning. For .E. ful wilsid is mi way Sin .T. gan fro me found Ane .O. me drethchis nith & day For .M. I sit vn sovnd Ane .E. has reft me part of play

But the meaning now seems unrecoverable.7 Similar problems exist in attempts to identify acrostics in Pearl, where the text’s transmission prior to the copy made in London, British Library, Cotton MS Nero A. X, the only surviving manuscript, and the evident corruption that the text has undergone, make such identifications dubious.8 Although sometimes passing unnoticed or misinterpreted, acrostics are a form of covert communication especially suitable for coterie or riddling verse, like the different versions of the fifteenth-century alliterative “Ireland prophecy” (NIMEV 366.5, 2834.3, 3557.55), an obscurely figurative poem on contemporary events in which the letters “IRLAND” are encoded over two lines.9 Our discussion here does not attempt to add more instances of acrostics to those already identified in the corpus of Middle English verse, but rather to explore their nature, their likely functions, and the evidence for their currency and appeal. Taxonomies of variously complex kinds would in theory be possible, but for present purposes our survey is organized around two broad categories of acrostic, those highlighting either abstract terms or proper names. As will become apparent, acrostics feature in poems both long and short, but those worked around abstract terms mostly appear in short lyrics. In these contexts, acrostics have summarizing and mnemonic possibilities, perhaps even occasionally talismanic or apotropaic ones.10 Their letters are designed to lodge in the mind’s eye, serving as a focus for meaning, as is apparent in a short lyric (NIMEV 2190) copied in the lower margin of the Fasciculus morum in Cambridge University Library MS Dd.10.15, f. 23: M – Merowre O – Orologe R – Robbowre ys deth S – Somenour

of gostly schewyng þat wyl wake fro slepyng of al erthely þyng to þe heye dom comyng.11

With similar emphasis on the visual, an acrostic on MORS SOLVIT OMNIA is made out of the initial letters of the fifteen lines making up a short fifteenthcentury lyric addressed in Death’s voice to a young lady who looks admiringly in a mirror at her reflected beauty (NIMEV 2136). Beginning with a

Middle English Verse Acrostics

115

compliment—“Maist thou now be glade, with all thi fresshe aray”—it ends with the threatening admonition that “I smyte, I sle, I woll graunte no mane grace / A-ryse! A-wake! Amend here while thou may.”12 Like death, love attracted acrostic formulations. In one very short poem, the letters making up “LOWE” begin significant words placed second or third in each of four successive lines (NIMEV 1634): “Hit is Lawe þat [f]ailleþ noth / Hit is Ouer al þat mai be wrou3th, / Hit Werkeþ wonderliche, / And Ernes 3eueþ sikerliche.”13 In some instances, acrostic devices are used with an element of wit to signal particular targets of satire. A fourteenth-century verse attack on friars (NIMEV 2777) includes a stanza in which the first letter of each of the four orders of friars is highlighted in an order that generates the name CAIM: Now se þe soþe whedre it be swa, þat frer carmes come of a k, þe frer austynes come of a, frer Iacobynes of an i, Of M comen þe frer menours. Þus grounded caym these four ordours, Þat fillen þe world ful of errours & of ypocrisy.14

A more complex satirical acrostic occurs in “The Treatise of a Galaunt,” a poem in thirty-two rhyme royal stanzas, which survives in several manuscripts and an early printed edition by Wynkyn de Worde (NIMEV 1874). It contains a series of acrostics on the Seven Deadly Sins, based on the word “galaunt”: “For in this name Galaunt ye maye expresse. / Seuen letters for some cause in especyall / That fygureth the vii. Deedly synnes & theyr wretchedness / By whome man is made to the deuyll thrall.”15 Part of the point of acrostics in these satirical contexts is that they serve as challenging puzzles whose solution both exercises the mind and fixes in the memory whatever is under attack. Such witty mental exercise can serve purposes other than the satirical, too. Henryson’s late fifteenth-century Testament of Cresseid includes an embedded, largely unremarked, acrostic on the word FICTIO in a stanza describing the narrator’s perusal of the story of Troilus: Of his distres me neidis nocht reheirs, For worthie Chauceir in the samin buik, In gudelie termis and in ioly veirs, Compylit hes his cairis, qhua will luik. To brek my sleip an vther quair I tuik, In quilk I fand the fatall destenie Of fair Cresseid, that endit wrechitlie.16

116

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

To stress the point, the stanza following this one opens with the question, “Quha wait gif all that Chauceir wrait was trew?” In acrostics constructed around the names of Jesus or Mary or of specific saints, mnemonic functions blend with devotional ones. Late medieval popular devotion to the cult of the Holy Name of Jesus is likely to have intensified interest in forms that drew attention to the letters of such names whether on the manuscript page or in the imagination.17 A lyric in John of Grimestone’s fourteenth-century preaching book (NIMEV 1274) works its acrostic on IESV into alternate lines: I am Iesu, þat cum to fith With-outen seld & spere Elles were þi det i-dith 3if mi fithing ne were. Siþen I am comen & haue þe broth A blissful bote of bale, Vndo þin herte, tel me þi þouth, þi sennes grete an smale.18

A complex puzzle that spells out the name of Jesus, in its contracted form of IHC, by means of reference to numbered letters of the alphabet (NIMEV 717) survives in several manuscripts: In 8 is alle my loue & 9 be y-sette byfore So 8 be y-closyd aboue Thane 3 is good therefore.19

IHC

Lydgate’s Testament, infused with fervent invocations of the name of Jesus, includes two separate acrostics on Jesus’s name, in consecutive stanzas, and follows them for good measure with a third stanza itemizing the significance of the letters IHC.20 As with the variety of experiments on the name of Jesus, acrostics on the name of Mary range from the straightforward to the highly intricate. The burden to a carol surviving in two fifteenth-century carol repertories (NIMEV 1650) simply proclaims: “Of M, A, R, I | Syng I wyll a new song,” and reiterates the letters of the name in the second line of each of the stanzas.21 A lyric in praise of the Virgin (NIMEV 456) embeds the constituents of MARIA in the initial letters of a sequence of rhyme royal stanzas. Here the acrostic is linked to a complex range of figural allusion. As Douglas Gray notes, “Each letter of the name Maria is associated with an Old Testament ‘figure’ of the Virgin and with a stone with symbolic properties.”22 Lydgate’s “Ave, Jesse

Middle English Verse Acrostics

117

Virgula” (NIMEV 1037) offers three different acrostics in consecutive stanzas interpreting the name of Mary. This is the first: M. in Maria was first token of mercy, A. of Aue, whan first our Ioye gan, R. was redresse of Adam-is greet Fooly, I. was Iesu, that overcam Sathan, A. was Altissimus, whan bothe God and man Took our manhood of the . . .23

Earlier in the poem Lydgate plays on the happy coincidence of letters in AVE and EVA: “Heyl, sterre of Iacob, glorie of Israel! / Eva transformyd, the lettrys wel out sought, / Into thy Closet whan that Gabryell / With this wourd Ave hath the tydynges brought.”24 This is a reversal noted in other poems, and explained somewhat pedantically in the final stanza of one religious lyric (NIMEV 2003.5): Þis world was lost þour lettres þre Þor3 fondynt of our fa Þey ben Iwriten as meni mon se Wit e and v and a þe laste letter maked þe furst To stonde on an a Tace v bitoux and sey aue Þat brou3t ous out of wa.25

Embedding acrostics within numerologically significant dramatic action, the N-Town play of “The Presentation of Mary” puts into the mouth of an angel a highly wrought exposition of the letters of Mary’s name: In 3oure name, Maria, fyve letterys we han: M: mayde most mercyfull and meekest in mende. A: auerter of þe anguysch þat Adam began. R: regina of region, reyneng withowtyn ende. I: innocent be influens of Jesses kende. A: aduocat most autentyk, 3oure anceter Anna. Hefne and helle here kneys down bende Whan þis holy name of 3ow is seyd, Maria.26

The spoken performance for which this stanza was conceived requires that the acrostic be announced and explained in a way not necessary if its effect is to be made visually, on a written page.

118

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

Some hymns and prayers use acrostics to unite a name of local significance with the name of the addressee. One such tour de force is a hymn to the Virgin in seven rhyme royal stanzas, by William Huchen (NIMEV 3228), in which the initial letter of each line in each stanza spells out the name “stanlei” (probably a reference to Thomas, Baron Stanley, who died in 1459): Swete and benygne moder and may, Turtill trew, flower of women alle, Aurora bryght, clere as the day, Noblest of hewe, þus we calle, Lyle fragrant eke of the walle; Ennewid wiþ bemys of blys, In whom neuer was founden mys.27

Just as this poem contrives a double compliment through its use of acrostics, so acrostics worked around saints’ names can have a double significance, making reference not only to a particular saint but also to an individual bearing the same name. A single rhyme royal stanza with an acrostic forming KATYRIN running down the initial letters of each line, added by an informal hand to the end of a Latin prayer to St Katherine in a fifteenth-century book of hours (NIMEV 588), looks at first sight to be a vernacular prayer to the saint. But its content and idiom (it asks “my hartes lady dere” to take the petitioner into her “servyce”) are strongly suggestive of the conventions of secular verse, and it may have been intended to refer to a real Katherine named in the saint’s honour.28 Another acrostic preserving the name of “katerina” occurs in the concluding sections of a 280-line alliterative hymn to St Katherine of Alexandria, in 14-line stanzas (NIMEV 1813), copied on a roll.29 The letters making up the name, individually rubricated, are copied in the manuscript’s left-hand margin. After the announcement of the name of “katerina,” further acrostics reveal the names “Ricardus” and “Spaldyng,” in combinations of individual letters and groups of letters, in the poem’s final two stanzas. The reference may invoke a Richard Spalding, or Richard of Spalding, responsible for the poem’s composition, or an ingenious redactor or scribe who attached to the poem some personalizing details. Another short poem copied on the roll (NIMEV 2171) contains acrostics of the same two kinds: one to an addressee, and another somehow relevant to the individual making or copying the address. The initial letters of the first five ballade stanzas, celebrating the Five Joys of the Virgin, spell out the name MARIA. Following this is a stanza of six monorhyming lines: pryncese, pray to thy sone, in worschyp of þi salutacyon, perpetually þat we may wone

Middle English Verse Acrostics

119

wyth hym yn hys hy domynacione, euyr lasting to lyue yn þat mancione. lady, graunt vs thys sayde supplycacione.30

The six initial letters here, spelling out the name “Pipwel,” are generally taken to refer to the Cistercian house of Pipewell in Northamptonshire. More specifically, the acrostic may indicate one of the granges of the abbey, located in Whaplode Pipwell near Spalding, and thus confirm the associations of both acrostic poems in this roll with South Lincolnshire.31 Like “Spaldyng” in the hymn to St. Katherine, “Pipwell” might be either a place name or a personal name. The embedding of personal names in acrostics and puzzles is a relatively common device, and one employed for a variety of purposes. In some instances acrostics are used to embellish dedicatory stanzas in works conceived or copied for specific individuals. An instance in a manuscript volume, with the first letter of each line rubricated, occurs at the start of a psalter and book of hours made for a royal dedicatee, probably Elizabeth Woodville, queen to Edward IV, and makes specific reference to the book: Everlastinge welthe withe owte disconfeture Lady souereyne princes moste fortunate In the cowrte of fame euermore to endure Surmountinge in glory regestirde youre astate After all lowly obeisauns ordinate By hauour of trowthe withe seruice vnfenyd Enterely I youre subiecte whiche promisid of late Theis boke of youre grace I troste not disdenyd Have me recommendid withe humbille subieccioun.32

A work undertaken for printed circulation, Alexander Barclay’s Ship of Fools (translating Sebastian Brandt’s Narrenschiff), includes a salutation to James IV of Scotland: I n prudence pereles is this moste comely kynge A nd as for his strength and magnanymyte C oncernynge his noble dedes in euery thynge O ne founde on grounde lyke to hym can nat be B y byrth borne to boldnes and audacyte U nder the bolde planet of Mars the champion S urely to subdue his ennemyes echone.33

Although these stanzas on Queen Elizabeth and James IV address specific individuals, they are nonetheless instances of “public” verse, designed to

120

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

compliment well-known figures. Verse of this kind may have had a life in public ceremonies, occasions at which the celebration of a personal name by means of the emphasis conferred by an acrostic would have been appropriate.34 In other social contexts, and in verse conceived for coterie circulation, acrostics perhaps assumed a more teasing function, communicating information about people and their relationships by wittily covert means. It is no surprise to find an acrostic poem in the personal manuscript of Charles of Orleans, for example, a collection recording verse conceived and circulated among such a coterie,35 or that a tantalizing acrostic graffito inscribed in St John’s Church, Duxford (NIMEV 4206), should preserve evidence of a wished-for local love relationship.36 Not all survivals can be so firmly attached to specific local contexts, however. A six-line stanza with acrostic on ALESON survives in two manuscripts (NIMEV 2479): Aurore of gladnesse, and day of lustynesse Lucerne anyght with heuenly influence Enlumyned rote of beaute and of goodenesse, Suspiries which I effunde in silence Of grace I beseche alegge let your writynge Now of al goode syth ye be best lyvynge,37

But neither manuscript supplies any information about the addressee. An acrostic puzzle inscribed at the end of John Lydgate’s “Amerous balade . . . made at the departing of Thomas Chauciers on þe kynges ambassade . . .” and headed “Devynayle per Pycard” (NIMEV 3256) has proved challenging: Take þe seventeþ in ordre sette Lyneal of þe ABC, First and last to-geder knette Middes e-ioyned with an E, And þer ye may beholde and se Hooly to-gidre al entiere Hir þat is, wher-so she be, Myn owen souerayne lady dere.38

Neither Pycard nor the “souerayne lady” has been identified. Among the densest cluster of acrostics involving personal names is a group in Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Lat. misc. c. 66, which contains the poems of Humfrey Newton, a Cheshire gentleman, writing in the early sixteenth century.39 Five of Newton’s poems are acrostics on names, three of them female. Some of these were either intended to serve some amatory purpose or constructed as experiments appropriate for such circumstances. Two, both

Middle English Verse Acrostics

121

directed to ELYN, and similar in form and substance (TM 390, TM 389), may represent variant forms of an attempt at a love letter (one is headed “Bilet”).40 Another, to MARGARET (TM 1020), has a heading that draws attention both to its status as a love letter and to its inclusion of an acrostic: “Littera amandi et nomen de illa est expressum hic.”41 The other two acrostics in Newton’s collection are worked on male Christian names. One is Newton’s own, HVMFREY (TM 576), the other seemingly a version of BRIAN (TM 245), although with some stray letters left over in the last three lines.42 Newton’s experiments are testimony to what by the early sixteenth century was evidently a vogue for acrostic forms. He seems to have been reasonably widely read in English verse, and to have had a developed sense of the formal and stylistic features characteristic of different poetic genres.43 Newton may well have had some sense that acrostics were a necessary element of the forms of coterie verse appropriate to a family or household manuscript. Semi-covert personal allusions of the kinds present in acrostic verse help to construct a sense of community among those who might read or contribute to such a compilation, and to intensify the impression that the contents emanate from a closely related group.44 Some of the manuscripts associated with early Tudor courtly circles include verse acrostics drawing attention to individual names. The letters SHELTUN, spelled out in the first letter of each stanza of a poem copied in both the Devonshire and Blage manuscripts (TM 1468), must refer to the Mary Shelton who was a member of the circle that included Anne Boleyn and Sir Thomas Wyatt.45 Also in the Blage manuscript is a poem beginning “Accusyd thoo I be without desert” (TM 59), in which the initial letters of each line spell out ANNESTANHOPE.46 Interestingly, when it appeared in print in the context of editions of Tottel’s Miscellany in the second half of the sixteenth century, this poem had lost its acrostic.47 Once coterie verse is transmitted beyond the social context which gave it life it seems quite likely that such allusions will lose their point and drop away. Nonetheless, the presence of acrostic poems in these early Tudor compilations, whether courtly or (like Newton’s) compiled some distance from court circles, demonstrates that the form retained its appeal. Early printed examples include a seven-stanza acrostic lyric on the name KATERYN (TP 1009) in the small collection of dyuers balettys and dyties solacyous by John Skelton, printed by Rastell in [1528?].48 And although Tottel may have failed to understand the Anne Stanhope acrostic, or have worked from an exemplar which effectively concealed it, his anthology included some other acrostic or anagrammatic poems: one foregrounding the name of Edward Somerset, Lord Protector from 1547 to 1549 during the minority of Edward VI, probably composed after his execution in 1552 (TP 384),49 and four which have been claimed to work around variant forms of the name of Thomas Wyatt (TP 2184, TP 2018, TP 784, TP 2258).50

122

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

It is all too possible to make out names and signatures in lines of verse if one wants hard enough to find them there, and some of the “Wyatt” signatures noted above in Tottel’s Miscellany are more convincing than others. But the vogue for somehow encrypting authorial identity in one’s work seems to have been a strong one, persisting through the late medieval period into the sixteenth century, in England and beyond.51 The attraction of this practice may have been in part its long history of use in classical and Anglo-Latin writing;52 another factor may have been that the encrypting of authorial identity within the body of a work was a way of preserving such information more securely than a heading or colophon which might easily be lost in processes of transmission. Among clearly demonstrable authorial signatures associated with verse is the name of I.HANNES CLERK DE WHALALE, John Clerk of Whalley, Lancashire, in the single manuscript of the alliterative Destruction of Troy (NIMEV 2129), Glasgow, Hunterian Library, MS 388; the opening letters of each of the first twenty-two chapters spell out the name.53 The single surviving copy of a verse treatise on the evils of the realm, composed by Edward North, first Baron North (c. 1504–1564; TM 2006), probably in the 1520s, concludes with some stanzas encoding his own name in an acrostic: The author Endles trewly for me yt were to wryte during my lyffe of the vicis all whyche dayly are vsed of them I endyte as plainly appere bothe to grete & smale Reherse them I cannot as they in ordyr felle divide them as you thynke best in your mynde euer as you do them in my bok fynde No more as now but this one worde I say o gracious god mooste full of clemency Remembyr this Realme now fallyng in decay towrnyng from welthe to extreme mysery here now my prayer cheff well of mercy.54

North does not seem to have seen any reason to conceal his identity, perhaps because his work was conceived for presentation to a specific individual (Sir Brian Tuke, treasurer of the chamber to Henry VIII), and he assumed it would not have a wider circulation. Acrostic authorial signatures located in lines or stanzas at the beginning or end of a work might of course function as optional extras, elements that could well disappear in transmission. The example of John Walton’s verse

Middle English Verse Acrostics

123

translation of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy (NIMEV 1597), probably completed in the first decade of the fifteenth century, bears this out. Walton is named in only two of the twenty-three surviving manuscripts, in scribal colophons. But it was very likely his intention to encode his name in the presentation copy to his patron, Elizabeth Berkeley. In the first (and only) printed edition of the work, made at Walton’s own Benedictine House at Tavistock in 1525, both patron and author are identified in acrostics included in some final stanzas.55 This edition seems to preserve acrostics that were present in the manuscript available to the printer, a presentation copy retained in the place of the work’s production. But once the translation went into wider circulation, beyond the milieu where the identities of its translator and dedicatee were known, the acrostic element with its encoded information must have dropped out. The alchemical poet, Thomas Norton (1433–1513/4) employed an intricate form of acrostic signature in his widely circulating poem in couplets, The Ordinal of Alchemy (NIMEV 3772), even though insisting in his Prologue “that I desire not worldly fame, / But your gode preyers vnknowe shalbe my name, / þat no man shuld þer-aftir serche ne looke” (13–15).56 His acrostic signature uses the opening syllables of the first seven divisions of his work to spell out his name and place of residence. Thus, the Prohemium begins “To,” Capitulum i “Mastrie,” Capitulum ii “Normandie,” Capitulum iii “Tonsile,” Capitulum iiii “Of,” Capitulum v “Bryse,” Capitulum vi “Towarde”: together the syllables generate “ToMas NorTon Of BrysTow.” A similar device using syllables rather than individual letters was adopted by Christopher Goodwyn in the concluding stanza of the short narrative poem The maiden’s dream (TP 232): “. . . To (Chryst) I commende you that sytteth on hye / Vnto whom my prayers I (Offre) shall . . . (Good) virgins to praye that I maye (wyn) / The eternall Glory in auoydynge syn”: the syllables generate “ChrystOffre Goodwyn.”57 This interest in authorial acrostics is marked in early printed verse works. In a prefatory poem supplied to Henry Bradshaw’s Lyfe of saynt Werburge (TP 2179), printed in 1521, the initial letters of each line in the opening stanzas spell out Bradshaw’s name, with extra emphasis marked by leaving a space after the initial: H onour / ioye / and glorie / the toynes organicall E ndeles myrthes with melodies / prayse ye all ye princes N ourisshed in vertue / intact / as pure as cristall R elefe to all synners / o Werburge lady maistres I n grace thou passed / all other and in goodnes Whan thou was present in this mundayne lyfe None was the lyke / wydowe / mayde / ne wyfe

124

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

B y diuyne grace / to vs a ryche present R eioyce we may / in Werburge one and all A gemme of vertue / a virgin resplendent D ilect of our lorde (in ioye and blis eternall S urely she is set) to intercede and call H er mouth nat cessyng / for them to call and crye A nd in her trust / of synne to haue mercy58

An acrostic on WERBURGA also appears in stanzas at the end of the work. Although Bradshaw himself may not have been responsible for the acrostics, which occur in stanzas probably appended to his work for the purposes of the printed edition, the encoding of his name testifies to an interest in authorship and a sense of the ways it can be made visible. This interest was shared by Robert Copland, a translator and author who worked closely with Wynkyn de Worde. In preparing his version of The Complaynt of Them That Ben to Late Maryed (TP 1524) for printing, Copland supplied an authorial acrostic on his own name, replacing one in the original French on the name of Pierre Gringore: ¶ The auctour. Rychenes in youth with good gouernaunce Often helpeth age whan youth is gone his gate Both yonge & olde must haue theyr sustenaunce Euer in this worlde soo fekyll and rethrograte Ryght as an ampte the whiche allgate Trusseth and caryeth for his lyues fode Eny thynge that whiche hym semeth to be good Crysten folke ought for to haue Open hertes vnto god almyght Puttynge in theyr mynde thyr soule to saue Lernynge to come vnto the eternall lyght And kepe well theyr maryage & trouth plyght Nothynge alwaye of theyr last ende Durynge theyr lyues how they ye tyme spende.59

His printed translation of a companion piece, the Complaynt of them that be soone maryed (TP 432), includes stanzas on a similar pattern: Ryght dere frendes louely I do you submite Of my fyrst werke into correccyon But myne owne wyll cannot as yet

Middle English Verse Acrostics

125

Endewe ony thynge of myne intencyon Rather I wyll abyde a lytell season Than to put my wytte afore intellygence Ventosyte must abyde dygestyon So I muste do or I come to eloquence Cunnynge must I haue fyrste of all Or that I come to perseueracyon Put forthe I wyll and than somwhat call Lernynge with good delyberacyon And than I wyll with good intencyon Note some werkes of god almyghty Desyrynge to come vnto his regyon Euer there for to dwell perdurably.60

In a variation on this scheme, William Walter, at the start of his Spectacle of Louers (TP 430), spells out his name “William Walterd” by breaking the rhyme royal stanza at the caesura and using the initial letter and the first letter after the caesura to create a “signature”: Wherefore good lady Into your hands Loue hath me brought Lose not his lyfe In thought and care Alas swete lady Mercy I aske

With pyte do entende to As a prysonere Lette loue my care amende That loueth you so dere Euer I stande in fere Remembre my greate payne Do not my loue dydayne.61

Such devices in print can hardly have been intended to conceal authorship. Rather they seem to serve as a somewhat ponderous way of emphasizing it, by forcing the reader to be conscious of the poet’s name. This clutch of examples of printed acrostics may not in itself demonstrate a trend, but it does at least suggest that the acrostic remained an attractive device, particularly for encoding the names of authors and translators. For English writers of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, some new precedents were available in the form of highly wrought French and Burgundian poems, and it may be that these were influential on their practice.62 The new stimulus offered by the possibility of disseminating verse in printed form may also have played a part in raising consciousness of the potential of acrostics: the paratextual material in printed editions often included prefatory or concluding verse in which coded reference to the name of an author or a translator could be included. As can be seen in the range of

126

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

examples considered in our discussion here, acrostics have a limited range of functions in a small number of texts in Middle English and early sixteenthcentury verse. They seem to have been deployed chiefly to provide a means of identifying subjects or authors, sometimes also to constitute summaries of meaning and visual mnemonics; and their use is largely confined to short poems or to introductory or concluding locations in longer ones. While in their totality they do not amount to much more than a long(ish) footnote to the literary history of the period, their forms and purposes nonetheless offer some pointers to understanding the functions and preoccupations of late medieval verse writing.

NOTES 1. The following abbreviations are used here: NIMEV: J. Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: British Library, 2005); STC: Alfred W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad 1475–1640, 2nd ed. revised and enlarged by W. A. Jackson, F. S. Ferguson, and Katharine F. Pantzer, 3 vols (London: The Bibliographical Society, 1986–91); TM: William A. Ringler, Jr., Bibliography and Index of English Verse in Manuscript 1501–1558, prepared and completed by Michael Rudick and Susan J. Ringler (London: Mansell Publishing Ltd, 1992); TP: William A. Ringler, Jr., Bibliography and Index of English Verse Printed 1476–1558 (London: Mansell Publishing Ltd, 1988); ODNB: The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition, www​ .odnb​.com; EETS: Early English Text Society. 2. Ulrich Ernst, Carmen Figuratum: Geschichte des Figurengedichts von den antiken Ursprüngen bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters (Cologne: Böhlau, 1991); David Noel Freedman, “Acrostic Poems in the Hebrew Bible, Alphabetic and Otherwise,” Catholic Bible Quarterly 48 no. 3 (1986): 408–31; Jan Kwapisz, David Petrain, Micolaj Szymaski, ed., The Muse at Play. Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013). Acrostics of various kinds were employed in Anglo-Latin verse: see A. G. Rigg, A History of Anglo-Latin Literature 1066–1422 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), for discussion of Robert Partes (22), William de Montibus (117), Henry of Avranches (372, n. 184), Thomas of Elmham (300–1); and see also Robert Gallagher, “Latin Acrostic Poetry in AngloSaxon England: Reassessing the Contribution of John the Old Saxon,” Medium Aevum 86 no. 2 (2017): 249–74. On Cynewulf, see Hugh Magennis, “Audience(s), Reception, Literacy,” in A Companion to Old English Literature, ed. Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine Treharne (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001), 84–101 (at 97). 3. For earlier attempts to review the form in Middle English verse see J. L. Cutler, “A Middle English Acrostic,” Modern Language Notes 70 (1955): 87–9, and R. H. Robbins, “Isabel: A Riddling Mistress,” English Language Notes 1 no. 1 (1963): 1–4.

Middle English Verse Acrostics

127

4. The earliest citation in OED is from 1585 in the Christian Directorie of Robert Parsons, with reference to an acrostic in the Sybilline Oracles; see OED s.v. acrostic, adj. 1 and n.: OED Online. March 2019. Oxford University Press. https://0​-www​-oed​ .com (accessed May 17, 2019). 5. See The Art of English Poesie by George Puttenham, ed. Frank Whigham and Wayne A. Rebhorn (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007), 179–200. 6. We do not discuss acrostics in Middle English prose works here. It is, however, worth noting the history of the late fourteenth-century prose Testament of Love, surviving only in William Thynne’s edition of Chaucer’s Workes (1532). In Thynne’s edition it was printed in a way that disarranged the acrostic petition that included Usk’s name, “MARGARETE OF VIRTW HAVE MERCI ON THIN USK.” The confusion was not resolved until the nineteenth century; see Henry Bradley, “Thomas Usk: The ‘Testament of Love’,” The Collected Papers of Henry Bradley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), 229–32. The work was first edited in the correct order in W. W. Skeat, ed., Chaucerian and Other Pieces (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897). For some other acrostics in Middle English prose works, see the following: Carl Horstmann, “Mappula Angliae von Osbern Bokenham,” Englische Studien 10 (1887): 1–34, on the authorial acrostic in Osbern Bokenham’s translation of Book I of the Polychronicon; Julia Boffey, “Some London Women Readers and a Text of The Three Kings of Cologne,” The Ricardian 10, no. 132 (March 1996): 387–96, on an acrostic encoding what are probably the names of the female religious for whom one manuscript was copied; M. A. Manzalaoui, ed., Secreta Secretorum: Nine English Versions, EETS, o.s. 276 (1977), xxxiii–xxxvi, on an Abecedarian acrostic in the text of this work in Oxford, Bodleian MS Ashmole 59; The book intytulyd the art of good lywyng & good deyng, printed in Rouen for Vérard in 1503 (STC 791), for an acrostic on the name of the translator, Thomas Lewyngton, discussed by Frank Stubbings, “The Art of Good Living (STC 791),” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 10 (1994): 535–8. More fanciful is the attempt by E. J. Dobson to identify Brian of Lingen as the author of Ancrene Wisse; see Dobson, The Origins of Ancrene Wisse (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976). 7. See M. Laing and A. Mcintosh, “Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS D. 375: An Historical Puzzle,” Notes & Queries n.s. 29 no. 4 (1982): 484–6. 8. See Katherine L. Adam, The Anomalous Stanza of Pearl: Does It Disclose a Six-Hundred-Year-Old Secret (Fayetteville, AR: Monograph Publishers, 1976); Barbara Nolan and D. Farley-Hills, “The Authorship of Pearl: Two Notes,” Review of English Studies n.s. 22 (1971): 297–302; and much more in C. Peterson, “Hoccleve, The Old Hall Manuscript, Cotton Nero A. x and the Pearl-Poet,” Review of English Studies n.s. 28 (1977): 49–55. 9. Eric Weiskott, “The Ireland Prophecy: Text and Metrical Context,” Studies in Philology 114 (2017): 245–77. We will not discuss here of the work of Ethel Seaton who in Sir Richard Roos, c. 1410–1482, Lancastrian Poet (London: Rupert HartDavis, 1961) sought to reattribute large portions of the corpora of various Middle English and later poets to Roos and his coterie. 10. See further Don C. Skemer, Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006).

128

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

11. Siegfried Wenzel, Verses in Sermons (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1978), 152; cf. the lyric itemizing the letters of DETH in Edinburgh, Advocates Library MS 18. 7. 21: Edward Wilson, ed., A Descriptive Index of the English Lyrics in John of Grimestone”s Preaching Book (1973), 23. 12. In London, British Library Harley MS 116, fol. 128 (where the acrostic is slightly mangled in the final stanza). Carleton Brown, ed., Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939), 241. 13. F. J. Furnivall, ed., Political, Religious and Love Poems, EETS, o.s. 15 (London: Kegan & Paul, 1866, re-edited, 1903), 260. Furnivall reads “[f]ailleþ” as “sailleþ.” 14. BL Cotton MS Cleopatra B II, fols 62v–64; Rossell Hope Robbins, ed., Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), 157–62, no. 65, lines 109–16. 15. de Worde, [1510?], STC 24241 etc.; F. J. Furnivall, ed., Ballads from Manuscripts (London: Ballad Society, 1868–74), i: 445–53, lines 57–60; and see Julia Boffey, “The Treatise of a Galaunt in Manuscript and Print,” The Library 6th series 15 (1993): 175–86. 16. Denton Fox, ed., The Poems of Robert Henryson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 111–31, lines 57–63. For identification and discussion of this acrostic see William Stephenson, “The Acrostic Fictio in Robert Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid,” Chaucer Review 29 (1994): 163–5. 17. Denis Renevey, “‘Name Above Names’: The Devotion to the Name of Jesus from Richard Rolle to Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection I,” in The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England, Ireland and Wales: Exeter Symposium VI, ed. Marion Glasscoe (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1999), 103–21, and Rob Lutton, “‘Love this Name that is IHC’: Vernacular Prayers, Hymns and Lyrics to the Holy Name of Jesus in Pre-Reformation England,” in Vernacularity in England and Wales c. 1350–1550, ed. Elisabeth Salter and Helen Wicker (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 115–41. 18. Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates’ Library, MS 18.7. 21, fol. 119v, listed in Wilson, Descriptive Index, 37, as no. 177; see John E. Hallwas, “I am Iesu, that cum to fith,” Explicator 32, no. 7 (1974), item 51. 19. This version is from Cambridge, Magdalene College, MS Pepys 1236, fol. 128. See R. H. Robbins, ed., Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), 80, no. 82, and his notes p. 253. 20. Henry Noble MacCracken, ed., The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, 2 vols., EETS, e.s. 107, o.s. 192 (1911, 1934), 1:329–62, lines 169–87. 21. R. L. Greene, ed., The Early English Carols, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 120 (quotation taken from version A, in Oxford, Bodleian Library MS eng. poet. e. 1). 22. Bodl. MS Rawlinson poet. 34, fols 18v–20; see Douglas Gray, ed., A Selection of Religious Lyrics (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), 58–62, no. 57, with the acrostic in lines 50, 57, 64, 71, 78. 23. MacCracken, ed., The Minor Poems, 1:303, lines 113–18; see also lines 121–5, 129–36 for other acrostics on Mary’s name. 24. “Ave, Jesse Virgula,” lines 73–6.

Middle English Verse Acrostics

129

25. A. H. Smith, “The Middle English Lyrics in Additional MS 45896,” London Medieval Studies 2 (1951): 47–8. 26. Stephen Spector, ed., The N-Town Play Cotton MS Vespasian D. 8, EETS, s.s. 11 (Oxford, 1991), 92–3, lines 262–9. For discussion see Peter Meredith, “The Mary Play and South Walsham Church,” Leeds Studies in English n.s. 32 (2001): 369–98 (especially 397–8, and n. 45). 27. Furnivall, ed., Political, Religious and Love Poems, 291, lines 1–7. 28. Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B. 11. 18, fol. 9v; see Robbins, ed., Secular Lyrics, 273. 29. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley Rolls 22; see further Ruth Kennedy, ed., Three Alliterative Saints’ Hymns, EETS, o.s. 321 (2003), 8–9. 30. Carleton Brown, ed., Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939), 55–6; and for brief discussion, Rosemary Woolf, English Religious Lyric in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 298. 31. Kennedy, ed., Three Alliterative Saints’ Hymns, lxiv. 32. Liverpool Cathedral Library MS Radcliffe 6, fols 2–3; Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, “The Cult of Angels in Late Fifteenth-Century England: An Hours of the Guardian Angel Presented to Queen Elizabeth Woodville,” in Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence, ed. Lesley Smith and Jane H. M. Taylor (London: British Library, 1996), 230–65, especially 234–9 and Fig. 96; our transcription above is taken verbatim from Fig. 96. 33. Printed in 1509 (STC 3545); see Beatrice White, ed., The Eclogues of Alexander Barclay, EETS, o.s. 125 (1928), iv. 34. Cf. also the macaronic tristich in Dublin, Trinity College, MS 432, fol. 69r, celebrating the virtues of an Earl of Warwick (NIMEV 3856.5): “W wisdome monstrat et adventus. A bene constat. / R rightwisnes legi. W willing prospera regi. / I iust antique. K kind est hic et ubique”; see Robbins, ed., Historical Poems, 380. 35. NIMEV 158, a roundel with acrostic on the name “Anne Molins,” in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale f. fr. 25458, fol. 311; see Mary-Jo Arn, ed., Fortunes Stabilnes: Charles of Orleans’s English Book of Love: A Critical Edition (Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies: State University of New York, Binghamton, 1994), 384. 36. Eight only partly legible lines, beginning “With wiel my herte is wa,” in which are embedded the letters “Lusi”; Robbins, ed., Secular Lyrics, 146 (no. 145). 37. Oxford, Bodleian Library MSS Tanner 346, fol. 101v and Fairfax 16, fol. 148. In both manuscripts the lines follow a courtly love lyric in three rhyme royal stanzas addressed to “my ladye,” and in Tanner 346 they are headed “The lenvoye” to this poem. The change in verse form from rhyme royal to a six-line stanza means that the relationship between the two pieces is unclear. See W. W. Skeat, ed., Chaucerian and Other Pieces (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897), 360; we transcribe the text from MS Fairfax 16. 38. BL Add. MS 16165, fol. 251v; MacCracken, ed., The Minor Poems, 2:424. John Stevens, Music and Poetry in the Early Tudor Court (London: Methuen, 1961), 161–2, tentatively suggests “A-L-E-Z” as the solution.

130

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

39. Deborah Youngs, Humphrey Newton 1466–1536: An Early Tudor Gentleman (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2008). 40. Fol. 92v; R. H. Robbins, “The Poems of Humfrey Newton, Esq, 1466–1536,” PMLA 65 (1950): 249–81 (262). 41. Fol. 93v; Robbins, “The Poems of Humfrey Newton,” 266–7. 42. Fols 92v, 93v; Robbins, “The Poems of Humfrey Newton,” 262, 267. 43. On his likely reading, see Youngs, Humphrey Newton, 177–200. 44. On these effects, see Deborah Youngs, “Entertainment Networks, Reading Communities, and the Early Tudor Anthology: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson C. 813,” in Insular Books: Vernacular Manuscript Miscellanies in Late Medieval Britain, ed. Margaret Connolly and Raluca Radulescu (London: British Academy, 2015), 231–46, and Seth Lerer, Courtly Letters in the Age of Henry VIII: Literary Culture and the Arts of Deceit (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). For further discussion of Humphrey Newton and this manuscript, see the chapter by Amy N. Vines, in this volume. 45. “Suffryng in sorrowe in hope to Attayne,” in BL Add. MS 17492, fols 6v–7, and Dublin, Trinity College MS 160, fol. 159. See Kenneth Muir and Patricia Thomson, ed., The Collected Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1969), 176–7; Elizabeth Heale, “Women and the Courtly Love Lyric: the Devonshire MS (BL, Additional 17492),”  Modern Language Review 90 (1995): 296–313; and Heale’s ODNB article on Mary Shelton (www​.odnb​.com, accessed June 13, 2019). 46. Fol. 70; see Muir and Thomson, ed., Collected Poems, 132, no. CXVI, and Kenneth Muir, The Life and Letters of Sir Thomas Wyatt (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1963), 223. On Anne Stanhope (c. 1510–87), duchess of Somerset and literary patron, see Retha M. Warnicke’s ODNB article (www​.odnb​.com, accessed June 13, 2019). 47. Songes and Sonettes, written by the ryght honourable Lorde Henry Haward late Earle of Surrey, and other (June 5, 1557, STC 13860 etc.); see Hyder Edward Rollins, ed., Tottel’s Miscellany (1557–87), 2 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928, revised 1966), 1:53. 48. STC 22604, sig. Aiiiv, beginning “Knolege, Aquayntance, Resort, Favour, with Grace”; see John Scattergood, ed., The Complete English Poems of John Skelton, revised ed. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015), 36–7. 49. “Experience now doth shew what God vs taught before,” in Rollins, ed., Tottel’s Miscellany, 1: 157, with notes, 2:276–7. 50. “When ragyng loue with extreme payne,” in Rollins, ed., Tottel’s Miscellany, 1:14–15, with notes, 2:142–3; “To my mishap alas I fynde,” in Rollins, ed., Tottel’s Miscellany, 1:175–6, with notes, 2:290–1; “I that Vlysses yeres haue spent,” in Rollins, ed., Tottel’s Miscellany, 1:230–1, with notes, 2:322–3; “Who so that wisely weyes the profite and the price,” in Rollins, ed., Tottel’s Miscellany, 1:244–5, with notes, 2:327. Of these instances, Rollins notes “What credence, if any . . ., should be given to this type of signaling is doubtful” (2:323). Cf. also Eleanor P. Hammond, “Poems ‘Signed’ by Sir Thomas Wyatt,” Modern Language Notes 37 (1922): 505–6.

Middle English Verse Acrostics

131

51. Laurence de Looze, “Signing Off in the Middle Ages: Medieval Textuality and Strategies of Self-Naming,” in Vox intertexta: Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages, ed. A. N. Doane and Carol B. Pasternak (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 162–78. 52. One important precedent was the inclusion of an authorial signature in Virgil’s Georgics, 1:428–33, where alternate lines beginning MA, VE, and PU produce elements of Publius Vergilius Maro in reverse; see Edwin L. Brown, Numeri Virgiliani: Studies in “Eclogues” and “Georgics” (Brussels, 1963), 106–7. Among medieval Anglo-Latin works there are authorial signatures in Ranulph Higden’s autograph manuscript of the Latin prose Polychronicon, San Marino, Huntington Library MS HM 132, on which see V. H. Galbraith, “An Autograph Manuscript of Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon,” Huntington Library Quarterly 33 (1959): 1–18; and an alphabetical acrostic in Sir Thomas Gray’s Anglo-Norman prose Scalacronica (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 133); see Andy King, ed. and trans., Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica, 1272–1363 (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2005), xvii, 2–3. 53. Thorlac Turville-Petre, “The Author of The Destruction of Troy,” Medium Aevum 57, no. 2 (1988): 264–9. As Turville-Petre notes, “Maister Iohne Clerk” is one of the poets named in William Dunbar’s “Lament for the Makars.” 54. BL MS Lansdowne 858, fols 25–30, in thirty-seven rhyme royal stanzas. The passage transcribed here is on fol. 29v. On North, see P. R. N. Carter’s ODNB article (www​.odnb​.com, accessed July 13, 2019). 55. Ian Johnston, “New Evidence for the Authorship of Walton’s Boethius,” Notes & Queries n.s. 43 (1996): 19–21. 56. See John Reidy, ed., Thomas Norton’s Ordinal of Alchemy, EETS, o.s. 272 (1975), xlii–iii; quotations are from this edition. D. R. Howlett, “The Date and Authorship of the Middle English Verse Translation of Palladius’ De Re Rustica,” Medium Aevum 46 (1977): 245–52, identifies an anagram (not acrostic) on the name of “Thomas Norton” (see 250–1). 57. Wyer, 1542 (probably reprinting an earlier edition), STC 12047, sig. [B4]v; the brackets are in the original. 58. Pynson, 1521; STC 3506, sig. ¶1v; Carl Horstmann, ed., The Life of St Werburge of Chester, EETS, o.s. 88 (1897). 59. de Worde, [1505?]; STC 5728, sig. B. iiiv. The quotation is from de Worde’s later [1518] edition, STC 5728.5; the first is fragmentary. See Mary Carpenter Erler, ed., Robert Copland: Poems (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 46–8. 60. de Worde, 1535; STC 5729; sig. Bivr-v; see Erler, Robert Copland, 43–5, who points out that there was probably also an edition of c. 1505, and notes that the French original from which Copland worked cannot be precisely identified. It is thus not possible to confirm whether or not an acrostic was present in the French. 61. de Worde [1533?]; STC 25008, sig. Aiiv. 62. Jane H. M. Taylor, The Making of Poetry: Late Medieval French Poetic Anthologies, Texts & Transitions 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 217; Adrian Armstrong, Technique and Technology: Script, Print and Poetics in France, 1470– 1550 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 64–6, 92, 173–4.

132

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adam, Katherine L. The Anomalous Stanza of Pearl: Does It Disclose a Six-HundredYear-Old Secret. Fayetteville, AR: Monograph Publishers, 1976. Armstrong, Adrian. Technique and Technology: Script, Print and Poetics in France, 1470–1550. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000. Barclay, Alexander. The Eclogues of Alexander Barclay. Edited by Beatrice White. EETS, o.s. 125. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928. Boffey, Julia. “Some London Women Readers and a Text of The Three Kings of Cologne.” The Ricardian 10, no. 132 (March 1996): 387–96. ———. “The Treatise of a Galaunt in Manuscript and Print.” The Library 6th series 15 (1993): 175–86. Bradley, Henry. “Thomas Usk: The ‘Testament of Love’.” In The Collected Papers of Henry Bradley, 229–32. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928. Bradshaw, Henry. The Life of St Werburge of Chester. Edited by Carl Horstmann. EETS, o.s. 88. London: Kegan & Paul, 1897. ———. Lyfe of saynt Werburge. London: Pynson, 1521. Brown, Carleton, ed. Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939. Brown, Edwin L. Numeri Virgiliani: Studies in “Eclogues” and “Georgics.” Brussels, 1963. Charles of Orleans. Fortunes Stabilnes: Charles of Orleans’s English Book of Love. A Critical Edition. Edited by Mary-Jo Arn. Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies: State University of New York, Binghamton, 1994. Copland, Robert. The Complaynt of Them That Ben to Late Maryed. London: de Worde, [1505?]. ———. Robert Copland: Poems. Edited by Mary Carpenter Erler. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Cutler, J. L. “A Middle English Acrostic.” Modern Language Notes 70 (1955): 87–9. de Looze, Laurence. “Signing Off in the Middle Ages: Medieval Textuality and Strategies of Self-Naming.” In Vox intertexta: Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages, edited by A. N. Doane and Carol B. Pasternak, 162–78. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991. Dobson, E. J. The Origins of Ancrene Wisse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976. Ernst, Ulrich. Carmen Figuratum: Geschichte des Figurengedichts von den antiken Ursprüngen bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters. Cologne: Böhlau, 1991. Freedman, David Noel. “Acrostic Poems in the Hebrew Bible, Alphabetic and Otherwise.” Catholic Bible Quarterly 48 no. 3 (1986): 408–31. Furnivall, F. J., ed. Ballads from Manuscripts. London: Ballad Society, 1868–74. ———, ed. Political, Religious and Love Poems. EETS, o.s. 15. London: Kegan & Paul, 1866, re-edited, 1903. Galbraith, V. H. “An Autograph Manuscript of Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon.” Huntington Library Quarterly 22 (1959): 1–18.

Middle English Verse Acrostics

133

Gallagher, Robert. “Latin Acrostic Poetry in Anglo-Saxon England: Reassessing the Contribution of John the Old Saxon.” Medium Aevum 86, no. 2 (2017): 249–74. Gray, Douglas, ed. A Selection of Religious Lyrics. Oxford: Clarendon, 1975. Gray, Sir Thomas. Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica, 1272–1363. Edited by Andy King. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2005. Greene, R. L., ed. The Early English Carols, 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977. Hallwas, John E. “I am Iesu, that cum to fith.” Explicator 32, no. 7 (1974): item 51. Hammond, Eleanor P. “Poems ‘Signed’ by Sir Thomas Wyatt.” Modern Language Notes 37 (1922): 505–6. Heale, Elizabeth. “Women and the Courtly Love Lyric: The Devonshire MS (BL, Additional 17492).” Modern Language Review 90 (1995): 296–313. Henryson, Robert. The Poems of Robert Henryson. Edited by Denton Fox. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Horstmann, C., ed. “Mappula Angliae von Osbern Bokenham.” Englische Studien 10 (1887): 6–34. Howard, Henry, Earl of Surrey. Poems. Edited by Emrys Jones. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964. Howlett, D. R. “The Date and Authorship of the Middle English Verse Translation of Palladius’ De Re Rustica.” Medium Aevum 46, no. 2 (1977): 245–52. Johnston, Ian. “New Evidence for the Authorship of Walton’s Boethius.” Notes & Queries n.s. 43, no. 1 (1996): 19–21. Kennedy, Ruth, ed. Three Alliterative Saints’ Hymns. EETS, o.s. 321. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Kwapisz, Jan, David Petrain, and Micolaj Szymaski, eds. The Muse at Play. Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013. Laing, M. and A. Mcintosh. “Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS D. 375: An Historical Puzzle.” Notes & Queries n.s. 29, no. 4 (1982): 484–6. Lerer, Seth. Courtly Letters in the Age of Henry VIII: Literary Culture and the Arts of Deceit. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Lutton, Rob. “‘Love this Name that is IHC’: Vernacular Prayers, Hymns and Lyrics to the Holy Name of Jesus in Pre-Reformation England.” In Vernacularity in England and Wales c. 1350–1550, edited by Elisabeth Salter and Helen Wicker, 115–41. Turnhout: Brepols, 2011. Lydgate, John. The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, Part I: Religious Poems. Edited by H. N. MacCracken. EETS, e.s. 107. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1912. ———. The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, Part II: Secular Poems. Edited by H. N. MacCracken. EETS, e.s. 192. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934. Magennis, Hugh. “Audience(s), Reception, Literacy.” In A Companion to Old English Literature, edited by Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine Treharne, 84–101. Oxford: WileyBlackwell, 2001. Meredith, P. “The Mary Play and South Walsham Church,” Leeds Studies in English n.s. 32 (2001): 369–98. Muir, Kenneth. The Life and Letters of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1963.

134

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

Nolan, Barbara and D. Farley-Hills. “The Authorship of Pearl: Two Notes.” Review of English Studies n.s. 22 (1971): 297–302. Norton, Thomas. Ordinal of Alchemy. Edited by John Reidy. EETS, o.s. 272. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. Peterson, C. “Hoccleve, The Old Hall Manuscript, Cotton Nero A. x and the PearlPoet.” Review of English Studies n.s. 28 (1977): 49–55. Puttenham, George. The Art of English Poesie by George Puttenham. Edited by Frank Whigham and Wayne A. Rebhorn. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007. Renevey, Denis. “‘Name Above Names’: The Devotion to the Name of Jesus from Richard Rolle to Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection I.” In The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England, Ireland and Wales: Exeter Symposium VI, edited by Marion Glasscoe, 103–21. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1999. Rigg, A. G. A History of Anglo-Latin Literature, 1066–1422. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Robbins, R. H., ed. Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959. ———. “Isabel: A Riddling Mistress.” English Language Notes 1, no. 1 (1963): 1–4. ———, ed. Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952. ———. “The Poems of Humfrey Newton, Esq, 1466–1536.” PMLA 65 (1950): 249–81. Seaton, Ethel. Sir Richard Roos, c. 1410–1482, Lancastrian Poet. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1961. Secreta Secretorum: Nine English Versions. Edited by M. A. Manzalaoui. EETS, o.s. 276 (1977). Skeat, W. W., ed. Chaucerian and Other Pieces. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897. Skelton, John. The Complete English Poems of John Skelton, revised ed. Edited by John Scattergood. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015. Skemer, Don C. Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. Smith, A. H. “The Middle English Lyrics in Additional MS 45896.” London Medieval Studies 2 (1951): 33–49. Spector, S., ed. The N-Town Play Cotton MS Vespasian D. 8. EETS, s.s. 11. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Stephenson, William. “The Acrostic Fictio in Robert Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid.” Chaucer Review 29 (1994): 163–5. Stevens, John. Music and Poetry in the Early Tudor Court. London: Methuen, 1961. Stubbings, Frank. “The Art of Good Living (STC 791).” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 10 (1994): 535–8. Sutton, Anne and Livia Visser-Fuchs. “The Cult of Angels in Late FifteenthCentury England: An Hours of the Guardian Angel Presented to Queen Elizabeth Woodville.” In Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence, edited by Lesley Smith and Jane H. M. Taylor, 230–65. London: British Library, 1996. Taylor, Jane H. M. The Making of Poetry: Late Medieval French Poetic Anthologies. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007.

Middle English Verse Acrostics

135

Tottel’s Miscellany (1557–87). Edited by Hyder Edward Rollins. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928, revised 1966. Turville-Petre, Thorlac. “The Author of The Destruction of Troy.” Medium Aevum 57, no. 2 (1988): 264–9. Usk, Thomas. The Testament of Love. Chaucerian and Other Pieces. Edited by W. W. Skeat. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897. Walter, William. Spectacle of Louers. London: [1533?]. Weiskott, Eric. “The Ireland Prophecy: Text and Metrical Context.” Studies in Philology 114 (2017): 245–77. Wenzel, Siegfried. Verses in Sermons. Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1978. Wilson, Edward. A Descriptive Index of the English Lyrics in John of Grimestone’s Preaching Book. Oxford: Blackwell, 1973. Wyatt, Thomas. Collected Poems. Edited by Kenneth Muir and Patricia Thomson. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1969. Youngs, Deborah. Humphrey Newton 1466–1536: An Early Tudor Gentleman. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2008. Youngs, Deborah. “Entertainment Networks, Reading Communities, and the Early Tudor Anthology: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson C. 813.” In Insular Books: Vernacular Manuscript Miscellanies in Late Medieval Britain, edited by Margaret Connolly and Raluca Radulescu, 231–46. London: British Academy, 2015. ———. Humphrey Newton 1466–1536: An Early Tudor Gentleman. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2008.

Chapter 7

The Landscapes of Pearl Poetry and Theology Ad Putter

Medieval poets liked to work with established commonplaces, and figuring out the point of such commonplaces offers a useful way of approaching medieval poetry. The poem I would like to discuss in this chapter is the late fourteenth-century Middle English Pearl by the anonymous author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and I would like to approach the poem by examining one of the well-worn conventions it deploys, the locus amoenus, the evocation of an idealized landscape.1 The peculiarity of Pearl is that it stages this topos twice in quick succession. The question I want to ask is why. Since the garden setting is far from the only thing to be repeated in the poem, answering this question involves thinking more broadly about what repetition in this poem accomplishes. Above all else, Pearl repeats words, and more often than not this repetition involves a permutation of senses. As we shall see, the poet’s play on repeated words and his play on the repeated locus amoenus is homologous, and understanding one can help us understand the other. It makes sense to begin with wordplay, which has received much attention already and is better understood.2 Punning is endemic in Pearl. Its rationale is that the repetitions inherent in wordplay convey and illuminate the poet’s concern with the theme of transformation. This theme he develops in complex and moving ways. The most obvious transformation is that of the Pearl maiden. She was a little toddler on earth before she died, but when the bereaved father sees her again in heaven she has been transformed into a formidable queen and bride of Christ.3 That transformation is in one sense quite unremarkable. It is a basic tenet of Christian belief that those who die in this world in a state of innocence are made perfect in the other world— and so it could be said that the Father’s vision of her in heaven merely confirms what he should always have known in the first place. But the poet 137

138

Ad Putter

acknowledges and communicates a vivid sense of the wonder of transformation. On the one hand, transformation implies discontinuity—this bride of Christ is no longer his little daughter; heaven is not like earth; the eternal is incompatible with the temporal. On the other hand, however, transformation implies continuity: the daughter may have changed but she is not another person; her life has been preserved as well as altered in heaven; the realms of heaven and earth are radically different, but the two realms nevertheless talk to each other. The resource the poet exploits in order to explore similarity in difference and difference in similarity is wordplay. The poet’s play on the word “pearl” offers a clear illustration of his verbal methods. Medieval poems did not usually have titles, but in the case of Pearl (as also in Cleanness and Patience) the poet gives the equivalent of a title to his poem by announcing his subject in the first word of the opening line: “Perle, plesaunt to princes pay.” The word “pearl” becomes freighted with meaning. It refers initially to a precious stone, but soon comes to refer to the daughter, not only because she was metaphorically a “jewel” to her father (see 277) but also because “pearl,” Latin margarita, puns on what was presumably her name, Margaret. In the rest of the poem, the meanings of “pearl” are enriched further. In the Parable of the Merchant from Matthew 13:45–6, the “pearl of great price” represents the reward of heavenly salvation. And, finally, when in the epilogue the Dreamer refers to her as a pearl set in the “garlande gay” (1186) that is heaven, “pearl” has become a way of referring to those who have achieved salvation in heaven.4 Now it might seem that what the poet highlights here is purely semantic difference and discontinuity, but since these very different meanings issue from the same word, what is ultimately foregrounded is a mysterious sense of unity within difference and a retrospective realization that the higher spiritual meanings were already latent in the literal ones. The repetition of line 1, “Perle, plesaunt to princes pay” at the end of the poem, “He gyve us to be His homly hyne / And precious perles unto His pay” (1211–12), illustrates the semiotic process. In the first line, the pearl is the singular precious stone that will please a secular prince; in the last line pearls are the joint members of God’s community in heaven, pleasing to the Prince of heaven with a capital P. The shift from singular (“my pearl”) to collective plural (“may we all be pearls”) acknowledges the force of a perspective radically different from the one that afflicted the Dreamer in his mourning for an individual that is no more. The change of reference in the first-person plural pronoun is part of this acknowledgement: “we” has until now only been used by the Dreamer to refer to the imagined partnership of “father and daughter” (e.g., “we meten so selden by stok or stone,” 380). Now, for the first time in the poem, the first-person plural lets go of her: in “He gyve us to be His homly hyne,” “us” means “us humans.”

The Landscapes of Pearl

139

However, even as the repetition of words points the way to a larger understanding of earthly realities, it should also alert us to the potential of these realities to prefigure spiritual truths. Line 1212, in other words, does not supersede line 1 of Pearl but completes it: the Pearl maiden is and was a “perle, plesaunt to princes pay,” and it is precisely because she was a “pearl” on earth, unblemished and spotless, that she is now a “pearl in heaven.” The numerological design of the poem with its 101 stanzas and line 1 repeated at line 1212 reinforces this sense of fulfillment. The beginning is not abandoned but regathered at a higher level of significance. We shall return to the complex interrelations between the literal and the figurative senses of repeated words in Pearl later, but enough has been said about wordplay to allow us to make a start with the main topic: the poet’s landscape descriptions. What makes it possible for the Pearl poet to use landscape, like wordplay, to explore the wonders of continuity and discontinuity is that he gives us two nature descriptions, first the description of the “erber” in which the Dreamer falls asleep, and then the description of the landscape surrounding the castle of heaven that he sees in the dream vision itself. As Myra Stokes has noted, both of these might be described as exercises in the locus amoenus (the “pleasant place”).5 Ernst Curtius described this literary topos of classical and medieval literature in his chapter on “The Ideal Landscape” in European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages.6 The locus amoenus, he writes, is a “beautiful, shaded natural site. Its minimum ingredients comprise a tree (or several trees), a meadow, and a spring or brook.”7 To these may be added other things that are pleasing to the senses, be it touch (for instance, a gentle breeze on a warm day), sound (e.g., the singing of birds, the gurgling of a stream), or smell (e.g., the perfume of flowers). The two descriptions of the locus amoenus in Pearl follow on from each other very quickly, and I take this to be deliberate: we are encouraged to compare and to contrast the two and thereby to discover in these nature descriptions the poet’s thematic interest in the theme of transformation, and the question of similarity and difference, continuity and discontinuity. Let us take up this invitation, beginning, as the poet does, with the “erber” in the first section of the poem. That spot of spyces mot nedes sprede Ther such rychess to rot is runne. Blomes blayke and blue and rede There schines ful schyr agayn the sunne. Flour and fruyt may not be fede There hit doun drof in moldes dunne. For uch gresse mot grow of graynes dede: No whete were elles to wones wonne.

140

Ad Putter

Of good uch good is aye begonne: So semely a sede myght fayle not That spryngande spyces up ne sponne Of that precious perle withouten spot. To that spot that I in speche expoun I entred in that erber grene, In Augoste in a high sesoun When corne is corven with crokes kene. On huyle there perle hit trendeled doun Shadowed these wortes ful schyre and schene, Gilofre, gyngure and gromyloun, And pyonys powdered aye bitwene. If hit was seemly on to sene, A fayr reflayr yet fro hit flot. . . . I fel upon that floury flaght, Such odour to my hernes schot; I slode upon a slepyng slaght On that precious perle withouten spot. (25–60) [That place where such richness has run to rot must surely teem with spicebearing plants; flowers white and blue and red shine there against the sun. Flower and fruit cannot be unflourishing where it went aground in the dark earth. For every plant must grow from dead seeds: otherwise no wheat would be brought to dwellings. Everything that is good has its source in another good thing. So beautiful a seed could not fail to the extent that growing spice-plants should not shoot forth from that precious pearl without spot. To that spot that I describe in words I entered in that green garden, in August on a major Church festival, when corn is cut down with sharp scythes. On the mound where the pearl rolled down, there these bright and beautiful plants cast their shade: gillyflower, ginger and gromwell, with peonies scattered in between. If it was beautiful to see, an even fairer perfume floated from it. . . . I fell down on that flowery turf, such was the odor that shot to my head. I slipped into a sudden fit of sleep, on that precious pearl without spot.]

On a strict reading of Curtius, this may not actually count as a locus amoenus. No mention is made of a tree, and there is no brook either. Even so, we are clearly dealing with an idealized landscape, not least because the landscape begins, quite literally, as an idea in the poet’s mind before he actually encounters it in the outside world. For what starts the poet off on his description is his idea of what this patch of nature should look like. Where his pearl

The Landscapes of Pearl

141

has gone to ground, fine flowers should grow, he reflects, and this ideal then becomes a reality when he visits the “erber grene.” It is clear from this passage that the poet’s wordplay and nature descriptions cannot really be separated. For example, the Dreamer’s idea that “spyces” must grow from his “pearl” conflates the pearl and the lost daughter represented by the pearl with botanical life in ways that draw on the associative possibilities of polysemy. Grain in medieval French could refer to the bead of a necklace,8 and so we find the word used, with specific reference to a pearl in the Harley lyric A wayle whyt ase whalles bon, where the lady is compared to a “A grein in golde that godly schon” (“a gem in gold that shone beautifully,” 24).9 If you put a “grain,” in the sense of “seed,” in the earth, a plant should grow from it, and so the poet’s “grain,” his pearl, should prove similarly fruitful. There is another latent pun on the word “spice,” which in Middle English was frequently used as a term of praise to a lady. The poet himself, for instance, refers to his daughter as that “specyal spyce” (235), and the Harley lyric Annot and John develops this conceit in a series of similes for the lady: Ase gromyl in greve grene is the grone . . . With gyngure ant sedewale ant the gylofre. (37–40)10 [As the gromwell in the woods, whose seed is green, with ginger and valerian and the gillyflower.]

The “spice” that is the lady here gets compared with various spices and spice-bearing plants, and it is surely no coincidence that the plants which the Dreamer in Pearl enumerates are similarly spice-bearing plants. The seeds of the peony were used to spice food. The crimson variety of the gillyflower, also known as the blood clove, was used to flavor wine, syrups, and sweet cakes, and was also used for pot-pourris.11 Gromwell was a variety of borage and was used in medicine as well as in cooking. Its seeds, specifically mentioned in Annot and John, were likened to pearls in the Middle Ages, and it is probably significant that the plant was known as the herbe aux perles in French and the margarita rusticorum in Latin.12 When a fine lady, a “spice” is buried into ground, it is right that spice-bearing plants should grow from it, and again it makes sense that many of the plants the Dreamer names (gromwell, ginger, gillyflower) are ones that also occur in the earlier alliterative poem in praise of a lady. The plants mentioned by the poet thus make sense, though “ginger” poses more of a problem than critics and editors of the poem (myself included) have been prepared to admit. Ginger was imported and was not grown in English gardens.13 Perhaps the poet was not much of a botanist and followed the lure

142

Ad Putter

of alliteration (cf. again Annot and John, “With gyngure . . . and gylofre.”) But the conclusion that the collection of flowers and spices is “divorced from season and geography”14 is not inevitable and seems to be counter-indicated by the poet’s inclusion of ginger in “these wortes,” where “these” is exophoric, referring to the external world known to the poet and his audience. “These wortes,” that is, means the garden plants familiar to you and me. Possibly the poet was referring to a different plant that was in fact commonly grown in medieval herb gardens, either “wild ginger” (asarum europaeum) or the aromatic herb dittany, which was also known as gingembre du jardin: “C’est une herbe dont la racine a non diptan, que aucuns appellent en ce pais gingembre de jardin, et croist hault, et a feuilles qui ressemblent assés a feules de fresne” (“It is a herb of which the root is called dittany, and which some people of this land call ‘garden ginger’ and it grows tall, and its leaves rather resemble those of the ash tree”).15 It is tempting to imagine that the “erber grene” is an “arbor,”16 and this is certainly what the illustrator of the Cotton Nero poems did in the fullpage illustration of the sleeping “Jeweller” (figure 7.1).​ But the poet’s description departs from convention. I have already mentioned the absence of any trees (erber means “herb garden,” not “arbor”) and water (brook or

Figure 7.1  London, British Library, Cotton Nero A.x, fol. 41r. Source: Reproduced with kind permission of The British Library Board. © The British Library Board. Downsized and reproduced for print in black and white.

The Landscapes of Pearl

143

fountain). The illustrator supplied these features from his cultural knowledge of the locus amoenus tradition, and not from his reading of the text. The absence of the staple features contributes to the claustrophobic earthiness of the poet’s description. The turf here is not just the scene of fine growth: it is also where things rot, and the “moldes dunne” (dark clods of earth) hark back to the “clot” (22), the soil that now encloses the jewel. The poet does not entirely avoid the motif of shade-casting vegetation, “On huyle there perle hit trendeled doun / Shadowed these wortes ful schyre and schene,” but the observation that it is small plants (and not trees) that cast shade already implies the earthbound position that he later occupies when he prostrates himself on the turf. Death and decay also come to the fore in the “huyle.” As noted by E.V. Gordon, this is not the word “hill,” but refers to a raised cluster of plants or mound of earth, and is perhaps related to the dialect word hile found in Lancashire (e.g., pisamoor-hile = “ant-hill”).17 Now an elevated stretch of turf overgrown with grass and flowers was a normal feature in medieval English gardens. It was a place where one could sit down and was therefore usually designated as “bench.” Claude Luttrell, who made this point, cites the fifteenth-century English poem Why I Can’t I Be a Nun as an analogue to Pearl. The poem features a daughter who wants to enter a convent but is advised against this by her father. Confused she goes into an erber, where she falls asleep and has a vision: And at that worde forfeynte I fylle Among the herbes fresche and fyne; Unto a benche of camomylle My wofulle hede I dyd inclyne, And so I lay in fulle grete pyne, And cowde not cese but alwey wepe, And sore I syghed many a tyme And prayed my lorde he wolde me kepe. And at the last a sclepe was ibrowght And alle alone in this gardyne. (112–21)18 [And in response to these words, exhausted, I fell down among the fresh and fine herbs. I put my sorrowful head down on a stretch of raised patch of camomile, and so I lay in great pain, and could not stop myself crying, and sorely I sighed many a time and prayed my Lord that He would look after me. And at last I was brought to sleep, all alone in this garden.]

In some respects, this offers an interesting parallel to Pearl. In both poems, it is not the sound of a running brook that sends the dreamer to sleep, but

144

Ad Putter

rather mental exhaustion coupled with the soothing aroma of herbal plants. “Camomylle,” mentioned in Why Can’t I be a Nun?, is still used in aromatherapy to treat insomnia, and in Pearl the odor of spice-plants similarly induces a perfectly plausible spell of sleep. But, of course, in the case of Pearl the “huyle” is not just the “bench of herbs” that we expect to see in medieval gardens but the grave of a little girl. Mortality is never far below the surface of this locus amoenus. The final point I want to make about this first locus amoenus description is its association not with springtime, which is the usual seasonal setting—cf. Why Can’t I Be a Nun, “hyt befelle in a mornyng of May” (55)—but with harvest time, “When corne is corven with crokes kene.” Again, this brings Death into the picture. The “crokes kene” remind us of the scythes with which Death personified harvests his crop, as in this illustration from the late fifteenth-century Poncher Hours,19 showing Denise Poncher facing death by prayer. Death carries four scythes; and with three victims already mowed down, Denise knows that one of these scythes is for her. The only defense is prayer (figure 7.2). ​ And the harvest season is also consistent with the “high season,” which probably alludes to the Lammas day,20 the first day of August when the first wheat of the new harvest was taken to church and there given as an

Figure 7.2  Los Angeles, Getty Museum, MS 109, fol. 30r. Source: Digital image courtesy of the Getty Museum’s Open Content Program. Downsized and reproduced for print in black and white.

The Landscapes of Pearl

145

offering to God. In the Sarum missal the feast is therefore referred to as the Benediction of the new fruits (Benedictio novorum fructuum).21 The poet’s reflection that “such gresse mot grow of graynes dede / No whet were elles to wones wonne” has special relevance on the day when wheat was ritually carried to church to be dedicated to God, usually in the form of a loaf of bread (Lammas < OE hlaf-mas) which then provided the bread of the Eucharist, the sacrament to which the poet returns in the last section of the poem. What the Dreamer, however, does not yet grasp is that the agricultural cycles of growth and harvest and the botanical cycle of new life springing up from old shadow forth the Christian message that from the death of the body springs new spiritual life for the soul. The use of the same agricultural imagery to make this point in the Gospels should alert us to this spiritual message. For example, Christ in St. John’s gospel prophesies his resurrection using botanical imagery— The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit (John 12:23–4)

—and Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians uses the same imagery: But some man will say, “How are the dead raised up?” [. . .] Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. (I Cor. 15:36–8)

The poet’s description of the herb garden presages this truth, but the Dreamer needs the vision to bring that truth home to him and needs the Pearl maiden’s commentary to fully comprehend it. How new life can spring up from a “grain” is to be made evident by his dream, and the Pearl maiden herself expounds the spiritual truth to be gleaned from this first nature description when she designates herself and her household as the “new fruit of the harvest”: For thay are broght fro the erthe aloynte As newe fruyt to God ful due . . . (894)

The image is that of the first fruit of the harvest, offered to God at Lammas, the Benedictio novorum fructuum and the “high season” mentioned in the first section—though that imagery has here acquired a fullness of meaning and optimism far beyond the Dreamer’s initial understanding.

146

Ad Putter

Figure 7.3  London, British Library, Cotton Nero A.x, fol. 41v. Source: Reproduced with kind permission of The British Library Board. © The British Library Board. Downsized and reproduced for print in black and white.

The poet’s second locus amoenus description is that of the natural landscape of heaven and follows on directly from the first. The sequencing is surely deliberate. Reading the poem in the original manuscript makes the sequence even more prominent. F. 41r of Cotton Nero A.x. has the image of the Dreamer asleep in the erber; turn the page in the manuscript and you find on the verso of the same folio the image that illustrates the description of the locus amoenus in heaven (figure 7.3).​ Admittedly, this design was probably not the poet’s. As Tony Edwards has noted, the illustrations of Pearl are on a separate bifolium that “could easily have been added at a later stage”; yet it remains the case that the illustrations draw “directly and closely on the subjects of the narrative” and respond to the topics of the poem.22 What the illuminator spotted is that the two sections that follow the first locus amoenus situate the Dreamer in yet another locus amoenus. We are thus invited to compare and contrast the two. So how does the second description differ from the first? There are various interesting differences, and I think I can illustrate them all with reference to the following four stanzas: Dubbed were all tho downes sides With cristall clyffes so clere of kynde;

The Landscapes of Pearl

Holtwodes bright about hem bides. Of boles as blue as ble of ynde; As burnist sylver the lef on slydes, That thik con trylle on uch a tynde: With glem of glodes agayns hem glydes, With schymeryng schene ful schrylle thay schinde; The gravayl that on grounde con grynde Were precious perles of orient: The sunnebemes bot blo and blynde In respecte of that adubbement. The adubbement of tho downes dere Garten my gost all gref forget. So freshe flavores of fruytes were, As fode hit con me fayr refete. Fowles there flowen in frith in fere, Of flaumbande hues, both small and grete; Bot sytole stryng and gyternere Her reken mirthe myght not retrete; For when those bryddes her wynges bete, Thay songen with a swete asent; So gracious gle couth no man gete As here and see her adubbement. So all was dubbed on dere asssyse That frith there fortune forth me feres: The derthe thereof for to devise Nis no wye worthy that tonge beres. I welk aye forth in wely wyse: No bonk so big that did me deres; The ferre in the frith, the fayrer con rise The playn, the plontest, the spyce, the peres, And rawes and randes and rich reveres, As fildore fyne her bonkes brent. I wan to a water by schore that scheres: Lord, dere was hit adubbement! The dubbement of tho derworthe depe Were bonkes bene of beryl bright. Swangeande swete the water con swepe, With a rounande rurd raykande aright. In the founs ther stonden stones stepe, As glent thurgh glasse that glowed and glycht,

147

148

Ad Putter

As stremande sternes, when strothe-men slepe, Staren in welkyn in wynter night; For uch a pobbel in pole there pyght Was emerad, saffer, or gemme gent, That all the logh lemed of lyght, So dere was hit adubbement. (73–120) [Adorned were all the slopes of those hills with the brightest kind of cliffs; bright forests lay around them, with trunks as blue as the color of indigo; the foliage slides thereon like burnished silver, moving to and fro densely on every twig; when the gleam from the clear patches of ground flashed against them they shone most piercingly. The gravel that scrunched on the ground consisted of precious pearls from the east. The sunbeams were nothing but dull and dim in comparison with that adornment. The adornment of those splendid hills made my spirit forget all grief. So fresh were the smells of fruits it nourished as well as food. Birds there flew together in the forest, of flaming colors, both great and small, but citole string nor gitternplayer could imitate their fine mirth. For when those birds beat their wings they sang in sweet harmony. No man could hear such gracious musical entertainment music as to hear and see their adornment. So everything was adorned in splendid fashion in that forest where fortune led me on; to tell of the magnificence of it no man is worthy that bears tongue. I continued to walk forth blissfully. No hill was so big that it caused me difficulties; and the further I went into the forest the more beautiful there rose up the valley, the plants, the spicery, the fruit-trees, the hedge-rows, the shores, and the fair rivers; their banks shone like fine gold thread. I reached a water that swerved along a slope: Lord, splendid was its adornment. The adornment of that sumptuous deep water were beautiful banks made of clear beryl. Flowing sweetly the water swept along, with a whispering sound, moving straight on. At the bottom bright stones stood, which glowed and flashed like a beam of light passing through glass, as luminous stars, when worldly creatures sleep, shine in the sky on a bright winter night. For every pebble that was set in the water was emerald, sapphire, or precious jewel, so that all the body of water shone with light, so splendid was its adornment.]

The immediate impression is that the second exercise in locus amoenus rhetoric is much more complete. As we have seen, when picturing the “erber grene,” the illustrator had to supply some of the ingredients one might

The Landscapes of Pearl

149

expect in a locus amoenus description (trees, running water). The second nature description remedies these lacks and gives us other established motifs besides, such as birdsong and ripe fruit. The second description thus instantly registers as a fulfillment of the first. The second thing I would like to draw attention to in this passage is the poet’s technique of defamiliarization. The similes the poet uses produce some very striking Verfremdungseffekten. The trees are as blue as indigo; their leaves are like burnished silver. The earlier garden was, as one might expect, an “erber grene” (38), with plants familiar from a medieval English herb garden. In this second nature description, by contrast, the color “green” is studiously avoided: what we get instead is flora and fauna (birds with “flaumbande hues”) that do not belong to the world as we know it—and that, of course, is because unbeknownst to the Dreamer this is not our world but the precinct of heaven. The shift from “green” to indigo, and from green leaves to “silver” ones, highlights a larger change of emphasis which marks a third important difference between the first and the second description. In the “erber” the emphasis falls on the natural cycle of growth and decay; in the second locus amoenus the emphasis is on permanence. That permanence is conveyed by the materials of the jeweller’s craft: gold, silver, beryl, crystal, emerald, sapphire. It is as if a jeweller had set to work to beautify not a ring or a casket but the natural world itself, which is here seen as “adubbed” (adorned) with every kind of precious stone and costly color. The emphasis on permanence could easily have seemed stifling and static, but the poet counteracts this by setting everything in lively motion: the leaves on the tree slide like burnished silver and “trylle”; the light “glides” against them; the water flows with a strong current; even the gravel, all of consisting of pearls, seems alive, “grinding on the earth.” What is avoided, then, in presenting nature in terms of the jeweller’s artifice is any sense of deadness. Despite the superabundance of precious stones, nothing here is petrified. The inorganic (gold, silver, stone) has been touched into life, as of course, so we later discover, has the “pearl” that was lost by the Dreamer. That connection between the vivification of what should be lifeless and the resurrection of the pearl is not, I think, far-fetched, because she too is later described as a natural being beautified by the jeweller’s art. The repetition of the refrain word “dubbed” in her description (“Dubbed with double perle,” 202) and the resumption of similes comparing the organic world with the materials of the jeweller (“As schorne gold schyr her fax then schon,” 213) seem too deliberate. Thinking of heaven and those who are in it as the exquisite artwork of the jeweller helped the poet to convey its eternal permanence, but the analogy would have been very misleading if he had not also reimagined it as the organic matter of a living and dynamic world, a world that naturally energizes the Dreamer and drives him forward.

150

Ad Putter

And then there is the light. The pervasive brightness is the leitmotif in all these lines: everywhere you look in this passage there are adjectives and adverbs that emphasize this radiance (“clere,” “bright,” “schrylle,” “schene,” “flaumbande,” “stepe,” “stremande”), as well as verbs and nouns (“glem,” “schymeryng,” “schinde,” “brent,” “glent,” “glowed,” “glyght,” “staren,” “lemed,” “light”). In the natural world this can only mean one thing, that the sun is shining brightly, but the poet is already here anticipating the revelation that the penetrating light in heaven is more radiant than anything earthly because its source is not the sun but God himself: Of sunne ne mone had thay no need: The self God was her lambe lyght, The Lamb her lantyern, withouten drede, Thugh Him blysned the burgh all bright. Thurgh wowe and won my lokyng yede: For sotyl clere, noght lette no lyght. . . . A rever of the throne ther ran out right, Was brighter then both the sunne and mone. (1045–56) [They had no need of sun nor moon. God himself was their bright luminary. The Lamb was their lantern, for certain, and through him the city shone resplendently. My vision penetrated wall and mansion: because of the pure clearness nothing impeded the passage of light.]

As Myra Stokes noted, “lambe light” is probably not the compound “lamplight”—not simply because that word did not exist in Middle English, but also because the poet avoids rhyming on the same word unless it is used in a different sense.23 Since the noun “light” is already in play in this stanza it is more likely to be the adjective (in the sense “bright”), modifying “lambe” (lamp). This is dazzling poetry. The rime equivoque on “light” (adjective) and “light” (noun) is accompanied by wordplay on “Lamb” and “lambe,” from Old French lampe, but in a spelling entirely legitimate in this dialect since the devoicing of the final consonants b, d, and g in the West Midland dialect resulted in an phonological equivalence between voiced and unvoiced consonants.24 And last but not least there is play on the senses of “lamp,” which in addition to its primary sense was often used figuratively to refer to the sun. Though he does not know this yet, the river that the Dreamer sees in the heavenly forests, the river that “lemed of lyght,” is in fact the river of life, flowing from the throne of God, which is “brighter than the sun and moon.”25 But something of the supernatural quality of light, a hint of dazzling claritas that medieval intellectuals attributed to heaven,26 is already sensed in the

The Landscapes of Pearl

151

second landscape description. Some of the finest lines from the poem are the ones in which the poet describes the light radiating from the precious stones at the bottom of the river, which shine “As stremande sternes, when strothemen slepe, / Staren in welkyn in wynter night” (115–16). The vertiginous effect produced by a simile that compares the light shining from below with starlight emanating from above is not unprecedented,27 but the poet makes the simile stranger still by putting the real-world analogue to the supernatural light beyond our cognitive reach: “when strothe-men slepe,” they cannot see how the stars “stare” from on high. The newly minted compound “strothemen” (where “strothe” means “marshland”28) compresses in a word what our exclusion from this beautiful world of heaven condemns us to: the “erber grene” may have looked like a locus amoenus, but compared with heaven it is scrubland. And while it is yet to be revealed to the Dreamer that the source of light in heaven is God himself, that knowledge is already implied by the Dreamer’s statement that the sunbeams are “bot blo and blynde” when compared with this glittering landscape. In the poet’s world the sun was the apex of brightness, and if he had wanted to say something was incredibly bright he would have said “bright as the sun.” But that simile is here turned on its head: the sunbeams are dim (“blynde”: the word was used of lack-luster stones) compared with this radiant land. This may look like hyperbole when the poet first says it, but it turns out to be the literal truth when it becomes clear that God himself illuminates this world. I have thus far described the relationship between the first and the second locus amoenus as analogous to that between the literal and figurative meanings of repeated words. As, for instance, the old Jerusalem stands in relation to the new Jerusalem, or a material “pearl” in relation to the “pearl of great price,” so the “erber” on earth stands in relation to the garden of heaven. But while this goes some way toward understanding what the poet accomplishes in his second landscape description, it does not tell the full story. The theological issue the poet grappled with is that while humans must inevitably conceptualize heaven in metaphorical terms, for those in heaven the “spiritual realm” is as solidly real as anything on earth. The poet’s ingenious way of making this theological point is to convert figures of speech into hard facts. Again, wordplay and landscape description follow the same trans-figurative pattern. For example, no sooner has the Pearl maiden introduced the “figurative” meaning of the “pearl of great price” (the reward of heaven) than it is transfigured into a visible object: This makeles perle, that boght is dere, The jueler gave for all his god, Is like the reme of hevens clere (So sayd the Fader of folde and flod):

152

Ad Putter

For hit is wemles, clene and clere, And endeles rounde, and blythe of mod, And commune to all that ryghtwys were, Lo, even in-myddes my brest hit stode. (733–40) [That peerless Pearl, which is purchased at great expense, for which the jeweller gave up all his goods, is like the bright realm of heaven (so said the Father of earth and sea): for it is spotless, pure and bright, and endlessly round, and happy in spirit, and the common property of all those who were righteous. Look, here it is in the midst of my breast.]

The meanings of pearl become impossibly involved at this point. The speaker has herself figured as a spotless pearl which her father had been trying to obtain. And this living “pearl” now refers to “this perle” as the reward of heaven for which “the jueler” sold all his goods. At first the figurative extension of the word “pearl” to refer to the “reme of hevens” proceeds logically enough, by enumeration of the various attributes shared by both the material pearl and the kingdom of heaven: both are perfect, flawless, matchless, and “endeles rounde,” symbolizing infinitude. Up to a point, then, this exposition delivers on the promise of the conjunction for, which implies a logical explanation of why the realm of heaven and the pearl are comparable. But what the Pearl maiden goes on to say short-circuits the distinction between what is “literal” and what is “figurative.” When poets use similes and metaphors (“love is like a rose,” “all the world is a stage”), we are supposed to be able to distinguish between the “tenor,” that is, the subject, typically an abstract noun the writer is trying to elucidate (“love,” “the world”); the “vehicle,” the object, typically a concrete noun, whose attributes help make the “tenor” more apprehensible; and finally the “ground,” the respect in which tenor and vehicle seem comparable.29 Seeing how similes normally work highlights the oddity of the Pearl maiden’s procedure. The first thing to notice is the curious reversal of “tenor” and “vehicle”: the simile she offers is not “heaven is like a pearl,” but “this pearl is like heaven”: the realm of heaven, abstract and inconceivable to us, is for the Pearl maiden the concrete reality that can clarify other things. The second thing is that the “ground” of the simile gradually slips away from us. For while “wemles, clene and clere, and endeles rounde” are all attributes that logically “ground” the simile, since both pearls and heaven have them, “blythe of mod” (“blissful in spirit”) is not a quality that can sensibly be ascribed to either: it belongs only to “pearls” in the figurative sense of those who have won eternal life. To make things even more confusing, if in the Parable of the Merchant the pearl is treated as a metaphor for the bliss of heaven, it is here given the most literal manifestation imaginable by being equated with the jewel that the girl and her peers wear on their breast. “Lo,”

The Landscapes of Pearl

153

says the maiden, pointing to the physical jewel that adorns her, this pearl, for which the “jeweler gave all is god,” is the same pearl that is set in the center of my breast. We associate the “deconstruction” of tenor and vehicle in metaphor with postmodernist thinkers who argue that there is no escape from the figurative dimension of language,30 but in this passage this deconstruction is taking place before our very eyes. Is the pearl here a “figure” or a “thing”? Is it a “symbol,” as modern readers of the poem like to say,31 or an object? Is it the abstract tenor or the concrete vehicle? In defiance of logic, it is both. Or to put it in another way, what the Dreamer witnesses in heaven is the literalization of ideas that only can be grasped and expressed as metaphors in human understanding and human language. In heaven we move, so to speak, beyond metaphor and simile, as all that is figurative becomes palpably real. To adapt Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s description of Jerusalem in Mandeville’s Travels, heaven is the “place where the literal and the metaphorical are indistinguishable, where sign is thing.”32 In the poet’s wordplay, then, the distinction between “literal” and “figurative” is lost, and a similar process of deconstruction is at work in the description of the heavenly gardens. A comparison with the locus amoenus of Dunbar’s Golden Targe, which closely resembles that of Pearl, will show what I mean. Dunbar, like the Pearl poet, celebrates the artifice of his description of the natural world, and as in Pearl it is the craft of jewellery that provides the basis for his similes and metaphors: there are “crystalline” sunbeams (5), “enamelled” fields (13), “pearly drops” (14), “silver” patches of cloud (26), a “ruby” sky (38), and so on. In Pearl, the similes “as burnist sylver,” “as fildore fyne,” may suggest that we are, as in Dunbar, in the realm of poetic similitude, but the ground shifts when the poet declares that the gravel really was “pearls” and the “bonkes bene” actually consisted of “beryl bryght.” The effect is that of hackneyed rhetorical trope, the figuration of the world as a bejewelled work of art, turning into reality. The process of “sign” becoming “thing” is discernible in microcosm in line 113, “In the founs ther stonden stones stepe.” At first there seems nothing abnormal in the fact that “stones” should “stonde” (be set) in a riverbed and appear “stepe” (“bright”), but when it is explained that every stone really was a precious gem the words of this line take on other relevant senses: “stones” can mean “precious stones”;33 “stonden” can mean “to shine, stand out”;34 and “founs” can refer not only to a riverbed but also to the base of a drinking vessel.35 These bases were often richly adorned, as in the case of the silver goblet owned by Edward III: “Item a meisme nostre seignur le roy un hanap d’argent et anaymelez ové berille en le fonce” (“Also belonging to our lord the king a goblet of silver and enamelled with beryl in its base”).36 The “crystal” cliffs undergo the same miraculous semantic transformation: we might initially think the word just means “shining, bright as crystal,”37 but since the landscape really is bejewelled we are obliged to take it very literally.

154

Ad Putter

There is thus a world of difference between the two locus amoenus descriptions in Pearl, and all that remains for me to say is that these differences are not just poetically but theologically motivated. For if the second locus amoenus feels more complete, giving us motifs missing in the first, this makes sense since the afterlife, in the poet’s mind and in Christian theology, is a fulfillment of life here on earth. If it seems at once permanent and more invigorating, that is again because that is what eternal life is. And if the landscape of heaven (with blue tree trunks and radiant birds) surprises us, that is because the afterlife, too, will surprise us: it will not be like any locus amoenus we have seen before. And if the light in heaven is brighter than the sun, that is because heaven is radiated by the Light itself. “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). Human beings can perhaps only understand that as a metaphor but in heaven the poet sees that it is literally true. The Pearl poet’s interplay between the literal and figurative axes of meaning can today be admired for many different reasons. It produces dazzling poetry, and philosophically it adumbrates the postmodernist position that there is no solid “ground” that can stabilize the tension between “tenor” and “vehicle.” But for the poet, I think it was above all a way of expressing a theological truth. This world, the poet believed, is a world of similitude, a world whose workings can only obliquely suggest the mysteries of the other world. In heaven, on the other hand, sign is thing. Literalizing the figurative, something the Pearl maiden does in her wordplay, and something the poet does in his description of the second locus amoenus, is heaven’s modus operandi. On “the threshold of heaven,” wrote Wallace Stevens, it is “as if the design of all [. . .] words takes form / and frame from thinking and is realized.”38 On that threshold, we stand with the Dreamer, seeing metaphors and similes crystallize into actuality and taking “form and frame from thinking.” NOTES 1. Quotations are from Putter and Stokes, eds, The Works of the Gawain Poet. 2. See, for example, Wilson, The Gawain-Poet, pp. 30–45; Tomasch, “A Pearl Punnology”; and Donner, “Word Play and Word Form in Pearl.” 3. Although it seems axiomatic to me that the poem is autobiographical and deals with a father’s loss of his daughter, it should be acknowledged that alternative interpretations (the Pearl is Anne of Bohemia, or a lover rather than a daughter) continue to seem plausible to others, for example Bowers, An Introduction to the Gawain Poet, and Jane Beal, The Signifying Power of “Pearl.” 4. Ian Bishop, “The Significance of the ‘Garlande Gay’ in the Allegory of Pearl.” 5. The Works of the Gawain Poet, ed. Putter and Stokes, p. 10. 6. Curtius, European Literature, pp. 183–202.

The Landscapes of Pearl

155

7. Curtius, European Literature, p. 195. 8. See Anglo-Norman Dictionary (http://www​.anglo​-norman​.net​/gate/), s.v. grain, sense 4, “bead, pearl.” 9. Fein, ed. and trans., The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript. 10. Annot and John, ed. Fein, in The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript. 11. McLean, Medieval English Gardens, pp. 150, 156. 12. Wilson, “‘Gromyloun” (gromwell) in Pearl,” and Kowalik, “Was She a Boy?” 13. See http://blog​.metmuseum​.org​/cloistersgardens​/2009​/09​/16​/far​-from​-home/. 14. Luttrell, “Pearl: Symbolism in a Garden Setting,” 170. 15. L’Opera salernitana “Circa instans,” p. 105. 16. Storm, “The Arbor and the Pearl,” 16. 17. Gordon, ed., Pearl, note to l. 41. 18. Dean, ed., Six Ecclesiastical Satires. 19. Los Angeles, Getty Museum, MS 109, f. 30r. Reproduced with kind permission of the Getty Research Institute. 20. See Gordon, ed., Pearl, note to 39. The alternative suggestion that the “high season” refers to the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin (August 15) has been resurrected by Petroff, “Landscape in Pearl,” who notes that on that day in medieval England people would bring medicinal plants and herbs from their garden in order that that their healing power might be sanctified. But there is no question in the poem of herbs being harvested. What is being gathered in is wheat (“No whete were elles to wones wonne,” 32). 21. Daniels, The Prayer Book, 68. 22. Edwards, “The Manuscript: British Library, MS Cotton Nero A.x,” pp. 201, 203. 23. Putter and Stokes, eds., Works of the Gawain Poet, n. to 1046. 24. Gordon, ed., Pearl, p. xlvi. 25. See Field, “The Heavenly Jerusalem in Pearl.” 26. Alastair Minnis, From Eden to Eternity, pp. 181–2. 27. Cf. William Dunbar, Golden Targe, where the pebbles (“stanneris”) in the “bruke” are as “clere as stern in frosty nycht” (36). 28. See Gordon, ed., Pearl, n. to 115. 29. The terms are due to Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, pp. 132–3. 30. See the discussion of Jacques Derrida by Touponce, “Literary Theory and the Notion of Difficulty,” pp. 63–5. 31. Robertson, “The Pearl as a Symbol.” M. 32. Cohen, “Pilgrimages, Travel Writing and the Medieval Exotic,” p. 615. 33. Middle English Dictionary (MED), s.v. ston n., sense 9. 34. MED s.v. standen v.1, sense 10(d). 35. MED s.v. founce n.(a). 36. Rotuli Parliamentorum, vol. IV, p. 222. 37. See MED s.v. crystal adj. 2(a). 38. Stevens, “To an Old Philosopher in Rome,” lines 1, 79–80, in The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, pp. 508–11.

156

Ad Putter

BIBLIOGRAPHY Beal, Jane. The Signifying Power of “Pearl”: Medieval Literary and Cultural Contexts for the Transformation of Genre. New York: Routledge, 2017. Bishop, Ian. “The Significance of the ‘Garlande Gay’ in the Allegory of Pearl.” Review of English Studies 8 (1954): 12–21. Bowers, John. An Introduction to the Gawain Poet. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012. Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. “Pilgrimages, Travel Writing and the Medieval Exotic.” In The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Literature in English, edited by Elaine Treharne and Greg Walker, 611–28. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Curtius, Ernst Robert. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Translated by Willard R. Trask. New York: Pantheon, 1953. Daniels, Evan. The Prayer Book: Its History, Language and Contents. London: Gardner, 1877. Dean, James, ed. Six Ecclesiastical Satires. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 1991. Donner, Morton. “Word Play and Word Form in Pearl.” Chaucer Review 24 (1989): 166–83. Dunbar, William. “Golden Targe.” In William Dunbar: Selected Poems, edited by Priscilla Bawcutt, 231–45. Harlow: Longman, 1996. Edwards, A. S. G. “The Manuscript: British Library, MS Cotton Nero A.x.” In A Companion to the Gawain Poet, edited by Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson, 197–220. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997. Fein, Susanna Greer, ed. and trans., with David Raybin and Jan Ziolkowski, trans. The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 2014. Field, Rosalind. “The Heavenly Jerusalem in Pearl.” Modern Language Review 81 (1986): 7–17. Gordon, E.V., ed. Pearl. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953. Kowalik, Barbara Janina. “Was She a Boy? The Queer Maiden of the Middle English Pearl.” English Studies 101 (2020): 112–33. Published online: DOI: 10.1080/0013838X.2019.1640049 L’Opera salernitana “Circa instans” ed il testo primitivo del “Grant herbier en françoys,” secondo due codici del secolo XV, conservati nella Regia Biblioteca Estense. In Memorie della Regia Accademia di scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Modena. 2nd series. Vol. 4, edited by Giulio Camus, 73–175. Modena: Società tipografica, 1886. Luttrell, Claude. “Pearl: Symbolism in a Garden Setting.” Neophilologus 49 (1965): 160–75. McLean, Teresa. Medieval English Gardens. New York: Dover, 2014. Minnis, Alastair. From Eden to Eternity: Creations of Paradise in the Later Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Petroff, Elizabeth. “Landscape in Pearl: The Transformation of Nature.” Chaucer Review 16 (1981): 181–93. Putter, Ad, and Myra Stokes, eds. The Works of the Gawain Poet. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2014.

The Landscapes of Pearl

157

Richards, I. A. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936. Robertson, D. W. “The Pearl as a Symbol.” Modern Language Notes 65 (1950): 151–61. Rotuli Parliamentorum. 4 vols. London: Record Commission, 1767–77. Stevens, Wallace. The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. New York: Knopf, 1954. Storm, William. “The Arbor and the Pearl: Encapsulating Meaning in ‘Spot.’” Glossator 9 (2015): 1–19. Tomasch, Sylvia. “A Pearl Punnology.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 88 (1989): 1–20. Touponce, William. “Literary Theory and the Notion of Difficulty.” In Literature and the Notion of Difficulty, edited by Alan Purves, 51–71. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. Wilson, Edward. The Gawain-Poet. Leiden: Brill, 1976. ———. “‘Gromyloun’ (gromwell) in Pearl.” Notes and Queries 216 (1971): 42–4.

Part III

HISTORICIZING GENDER

Chapter 8

Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing Clemence of Barking’s Life of Saint Catherine, Marie’s Life of Saint Audrey, and Marie de France’s Eliduc Roberta Krueger

This chapter examines the creation of a space for female agency beyond aristocratic marriage in three works written by women in England in AngloNorman French from the late twelfth to the early thirteenth century: Clemence of Barking’s Life of Saint Catherine;1 the Life of Saint Audrey, sometimes attributed to Marie de France;2 and Eliduc, one of Marie de France’s Lais.3 Examining closely the representation of marriage, economic autonomy, the bonds between women, and the establishment of spiritual and religious communities in these narratives, we can better understand the climate in which women readers were receptive to works such as the Ancrene Wisse, a foundational text in the scholarship of our esteemed colleague Elizabeth Robertson.4 These female-authored texts from the late twelfth to the early thirteenth century give voice to similar concerns. Whether or not the same author, Marie de France, composed two of these three works, they inhabit the same textual and spiritual community. Written in Anglo-Norman octosyllabic verse between c. 1160 and c. 1220, these narrative poems articulate common themes about secular and spiritual life for women. A comparative study of the Lives of Saint Catherine and Saint Audrey will examine how their authors represent female autonomy and spiritual communities as an alternative to marriage. Reading Eliduc against two nearly contemporary saints’ lives, we will see how Marie de France’s secular love story provides another perspective on women’s agency within constraining social networks, during a time when women’s monastic communities are enjoying a period of resurgence.5 161

162

Roberta Krueger

MARTYRDOM AND SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY IN THE LIFE OF SAINT CATHERINE At the end of her translation from a Latin text into 2,700 verses of octosyllabic couplets, the author of The Life of Saint Catherine identifies herself as “Clemence . . . a nun of Barking,” who undertakes the work in support of her religious community: Jo ki sa vie ai translatee Pur nun suis Clemence nommee De Berkinge suis nonnaim, Pur s’amor pris cest oevre en meine. (Catherine, 2689–92) [I who have translated her life am called Clemence by name. I am a nun of Barking, for love of which I took this work in hand.]

Barking, located in what is now East London, was one of the most prominent nunneries of the High Middle Ages.6 Founded c. 666 by Bishop Earconwald for his sister Ethelburga7 for men and women, it was destroyed by the invading Danes c. 870. The Flemish Benedictine cleric Goscelin recounts that the women of Barking fought “defiantly” during the Viking invasion, when many were killed.8 With the Benedictine reform of the tenth century, the abbey was reinstated and rebuilt as a house for women, becoming one of the three wealthiest English female religious communities, and eventually enjoying a reputation as one of the “Five Great” English nunneries, along with Wilton, Shaftesbury, Syon, and Amesbury.9 The house drew abbesses from “royal and elite baronial families,” and the abbey’s nuns are described as having been “well connected, educated and, more often than not, politically astute.”10 The abbesses of Barking were expected to manage the estate’s finances, to levy funds to provide knights for war, and to exercise rights of hunting, shipping, and fishing, responsibilities that required “careful cultivation and oversight.”11 Generations of nuns and abbesses shrewdly managed the property and facilities.12 Reading and performance were central to the life of the community; production of liturgy was also important. Fifteen literary items survive from Barking, including one printed book—the second-largest number of books owned by a women’s abbey in England.13 Clemence’s Life of Saint Catherine and an anonymous nun’s Life of Saint Edward the Confessor, both composed at Barking,14 are compiled together in a codex that also includes The Life of Saint Audrey; as we will see, there is strong evidence that this manuscript was copied for the nuns of Campsey Priory. As Duncan Robertson has shown, by inserting personal digressions into her translation, Clemence seeks to make connection with female readers, establishing

Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing

163

thereby a “textual community” that includes the nuns of Barking and other elite, literate women.15 In the Prologue, Clemence presents her translation of the Latin vita from the vernacular specifically so that the story may be more pleasing to listeners and that its occasional imperfections may be improved (1–50). She launches immediately into the story of the peace that the Roman emperor Constantine bestowed on the church and his defeat of the pagan emperor, Maxentius. Maxentius fled to Alexandria, where he caused great suffering to Christians; he decided to test his subjects’ obedience by ordering them all to pay tribute to his gods. Fearing for their lives, many Christians brought their animals to be sacrificed. Amidst such pagan hegemony and brutality, the lone figure of a young woman stood firm in opposition to Maxentius’ harsh rule. Clemence’s account of Catherine’s life emphasizes the maiden’s forceful deployment of her rhetorical skills, her financial autonomy, her courage in resisting Maxentius’ cruelty, her critique of earthly marriage, and her unwavering faith in a higher order of love. From the outset, Clemence presents Catherine as a young woman who has the self-confidence and selfrighteousness to voice her convictions to Maxentius and oppose his imperious commands; we meet her as a beautiful girl of high rank, eighteen years old, and her father’s sole heir (133–40). As soon as these identifying features are established, we learn that her father taught her to write and to debate, so that she could “oppose” others and “defend” herself. She surpassed all others in dialectic and was wise in worldly matters (“choses mundaines”), but her heart was set on higher things (“as [choses] suvereines”): Sun pere ert rei tant cume vesqui; Il 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. (139–146) [Her father was a king during his lifetime and he had no other son or daughter. He had taught her letters and how to argue a case and defend her position. There was no dialectician on earth who could defeat her in argument. She was very wise in the ways of the world, but her heart was set on higher things.]

Although Catherine inherits her father’s fortune after his death, she retains for herself only enough money to maintain the household (which includes the “gent,” the staff). All the rest, “tut son tresor” [all his wealth] (163) is shared out with the members of the household;16 God alone suffices as her support.

164

Roberta Krueger

As a wealthy heiress, an only child who has never been married, Catherine would be a prime candidate for a prestigious aristocratic or royal marriage, but the matter is never discussed. It is clear that Catherine thinks of no other “tresor,” for she has given her heart entirely to God (165–8). The central conflict of this virgin’s vita is not the struggle over her sexuality or her marriageability; it is rather her defense of Christian doctrine, which enrages the emperor. Catherine resolves to “reason” with the emperor, so that she may disprove his claims and condemn his faith. Confident of God’s support and of her own “sens,” she fears nothing (189–94). Maxentius convokes fifty “meistsre” (408) who are “de sutil sens” (409) and enjoins them to destroy (“vaintre”) her arguments (445–8). Catherine’s rhetorical battle with Maxentius and his fifty pagan “clercs” to debate the nature of God occupies the central portion of Clemence’s text, from the moment Catherine first addresses Maxentius (200), to the philosophers’ disparagement of her simple female status (477–98), to her prayer to Christ for help (526–54), to an angel’s intervention with the promise of victory (563–82), to Catherine’s lengthy speeches and refutations before the assembled clerks and emperor (626–924). The dispute ends with one converted clerk’s acceptance of her reasoning (1075–136), followed by the martyrdom of all the clerks who have been persuaded by her argumentation. As they abjure their pagan religion, the converted philosophers are thrown into the fire (1137–58). The rhetorical controversy unfolds in nearly a thousand verses in a 2,700-line narrative poem. Through Catherine’s expert debate, Clemence demonstrates the power of an intelligent woman’s rhetorical skills. At the midpoint of the Life, the narrator shifts to another troubled subject, that of earthly marriage. Maxentius, who is married, offers Catherine a place in his household and a share in his earthly powers if only she will abjure her faith; he offers to erect a statue in her image that all will honor. Catherine forcefully and wittily rejects the offer: the statue won’t be able to speak, nor will it be immune to abuse from birds and dogs (1302–70). Catherine readily accepts the pain Maxentius attempts to inflict on her, for the sake of Christ who suffered before her; she is beaten with iron rods and thrown into a dungeon without food or water. Catherine’s story could end here, with her martyrdom at Maxentius’ hands. But the emergence of a second female character and her servant, Lord Porphiry, allows Clemence to explore the disruption of an aristocratic marriage. The queen has heard of miracles and merveilles associated with Catherine (1505; 1565), and she has had a merveillus songe [strange or marvelous dream] about her. She deplores Catherine’s torment; she feels “pitié” for her suffering (1505) and “tendrur” [compassion] (1509) for her youth. She is dismayed that such a young woman should suffer: “La reine en est molt dolente / que perir deit tele jovente” (1513–4) [The queen was very disturbed that such youth should perish in that way], and she implores Porphiry to help

Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing

165

her gain access to the prison. They both witness angels healing Catherine’s wounds, and they are receptive to her arguments. Warning the queen that a carnal attachment will lead to disappointment, Catherine makes a case against secular marriage. She urges the queen to accept Christ as her bridegroom and to foreswear her husband’s “weak” and “deceptive” love: Reine, fait ele, bele amie, Mun Deu a ses noces t’envie. Seiez dame de fort curage, Ne dutez terrien ultrage, Car n’est pas digne ceste peine, Ne ceste grant dulur mundeine, De la joie de pareis, Que Deus pramet a ses amis. Ne dutez pas l’empereur. N’aiez mais desir de s’amur. S’amur est fraille et decevable E sa poesté trespassable. De sa vie est si nun certain, . . . (1633–45) [Queen, fair friend, my lord invites you to his nuptials. Be a lady of high courage and fear no earthly torment, for pain here and great worldly sorrow are as nothing compared with the joy of paradise, which God promises to those who love him. Do not fear the emperor; desire his love no longer. His love is weak and deceptive and his power ephemeral. He is so unsure about his own life . . .]

In response to Porphiry’s questions about the nature of God’s gifts to mankind (1661–96), Catherine reminds him of the mutability, brevity, and deprivations of temporal existence, which contrast with the perfect joys of eternal life, where “la bele reine” (Mary) reigns with her son and father. The Holy Family replaces the royal family as the source of all good, and heaven has throngs of good knights and churchmen (1763–76), as well as a chorus of maidens who have spurned mortal lovers for love of God. As Catherine explains to Porphiry: La coer i est des demeiseles, Des virges e des chastes puceles Ki les mortels amanz despistrent. E la chaste amur Deu elistrent. (1778–82) [There too is the choir of young women, virgins and chaste maidens who despised mortal lovers, choosing instead the chaste love of God.]

166

Roberta Krueger

Catherine proposes a heavenly community of faithful men and women bound together in the “chaste love” of God as an alternative to worldly networks; after she speaks, more than two hundred knights become martyrs (1829–32). As deaths of martyrs multiply, the cruelty of Maxentius and his men intensifies. An aide devises four wheels spiked with nails to torture the maiden, but an angel intercedes at the moment the punishment is inflicted: the spikes fly off the wheels and kill four thousand mocking, pagan bystanders (2110). Frustrated by his failure to punish Catherine, angered by the death of his own supporters, and distressed by his wife’s abandonment, Maxentius bemoans his fate in a lengthy, doleful plainte (2164–2256), lamenting like a forlorn courtly lover: “Reine, fait il, ço que deit, / Que si paroles encuntre dreit?” [Queen, how is it that you challenge what is right?] (2164–66); “Reine, u averai-ge confort / après ta doleruse mort?” [Queen, where shall I find comfort after your painful death?] (2171–2).17 Determined to punish her infidelity to his gods lest other wives follow her example, Maxentius mourns the loss he will feel: “En grant tristur demenrai ma vie / Quant je vus perdrai, bele amie” [I shall live out my life in great sadness, once I have lost you, my fair friend] (2185–6). As the queen is taken away to be tortured, she exchanges tender words with Catherine. While the queen appeals to Catherine for her prayers, Catherine promises her everlasting joy (2280) and a true friend, beautiful lover, and all-powerful lord to replace the mortal husband she has lost (2283–96). The queen’s cruel torture brings grief and sorrow throughout the castle and town, causing knights and squires and the young and old to weep. Maxentius laments that Porphiry, his dearest friend and confidant, has abandoned him, but Porphiry will not waiver from his faith; Maxentius commands that he be tortured along with two hundred other men who believe in Christ. When Catherine finally succumbs to her torture in the narrative’s final lines, her blood miraculously flows like white milk. Her body is conveyed miraculously to Mount Sinai to lie in rest, but her soul joins those of hundreds before her who have become brides and companions of Christ. (The substantive “miracle” is invoked three times on the penultimate folio, 73r, at lines 2620, 2624, and 2631.) Clemence’s narrative foregrounds the courage and eloquence of a remarkable young woman who asserts her autonomy and convinces the most powerful woman in the realm to forsake her marriage for the sake of her soul. Catherine’s example not only inspires two royal elders to seek Christ’s comfort, but it also moves hundreds of others to die for Him during the course of her story. In the end, Clemence appeals to her readers to join in the community who will be saved by Catherine’s intercession in their love and service to God:

Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing

167

Or li preum por sa bunté Qu’eles nus purchazt la volenté De Deu amer, de lui servir E en bone fin acumplir. Amen (2685–8) [Now let us pray that by her goodness she will obtain for us the will to love God and to serve him and come to a happy end. Amen.]

By appealing to readers as “nus” (we/us) through her text to join a spiritual community that transcends mortal ties and traditional female roles in marriage, Clemence establishes a paradigm for women’s creation of a space for spiritual autonomy in Anglo-Norman culture. CHASTITY, LAND, AND POWER: THE LIFE OF SAINT AUDREY Judging from the number of stories about her life, the many sculptural and pictorial images, and dedications of religious institutions and objects to her memory, Saint Aethelthryth of Ely (the Anglo-Norman Saint Audrée, or Saint Audrey) was “the most important female native saint in England and one of the most significant of all native English saints.”18 The late twelfth or early thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman Life of Saint Audrey, an octosyllabic poem of 4,625 lines, survives in one manuscript: London, British Library, MS Additional 70513. Two other lives composed by women are compiled within this codex (as we have seen, these are Clemence’s Saint Catherine and an anonymous nun’s Life of Saint Lawrence), as well as ten other saints’ lives. Compiled in the late thirteenth century, the volume once belonged to Campsey Ash Priory. According to a remark on f. 265v, it was used to provide instruction for the nuns as they dined in the refectory.19 The text’s most recent editors argue persuasively that Audrey was the last work of Marie de France, renowned author of the Lais, the Fables, and the Espurgatoire Seint Patriz.20 Whether or not Saint Audrey was composed by the same person who wrote the Lais, the female narrators of Saint Audrey and Eliduc, as well as Clemence of Barking in Saint Catherine, all create forceful heroines who in different ways break away from the confines of aristocratic marriage, speak forcefully, act autonomously, and express solidarity with other women. All three texts are written in octosyllabic couplets, ranging from 1,184 verses (Eliduc) to 4,625 verses (Audrey); in all three, a first-person narrator asserts her authorial presence in a prologue and/or an epilogue. Marie’s translation of Audrey’s life was drawn from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (c. 700) and the Liber Eliensis (c. 1131–71), both of which recount the

168

Roberta Krueger

saint’s life and her founding of Ely Abbey as part of their history of English religious institutions.21 Both Jocelyn Wogan-Browne and Virginia Blanton have described the ways Marie transforms her Latin sources to adapt her work for female aristocratic readers who, like Audrey, may have played multiple roles during their lives: as virgin, married woman, widow, divorcée, nun, and abbess.22 Bede’s brief account of Audrey’s legend in his lengthy Historia (where it comprises chapters 19 to 21 in Book IV) is the earliest written vita (c. 731); it focuses on Audrey’s “perfection,” her virginity (celebrated in a hymn), and her exemplarity as a spiritual leader. The post-Conquest Liber Eliensis deploys the themes of Audrey’s virginity, her uncorrupted body, and her vengeance against those who would destroy her consecrated property to argue for the continuity of the monks’ economic and political tenure and their freedom from Anglo-Norman rule after the Conquest.23 By contrast, Marie’s Audrey focuses on the female saint as a protagonist and tells the story of her two marriages and her founding of Ely and other churches from the perspective of her lived experience. If Bede’s audience and that of the Liber Eliensis were monks deploying the sign of female virginity to assert territorial rights and privileges, Marie’s audience was most likely other aristocratic women, cloistered or secular, who might find in Audrey an example of female patronage of religious spaces.24 As critics have noted, the central drama of Marie’s Saint Audrey is her struggle to maintain her virginity throughout her two marriages.25 In her first marriage to Torbert, she is tormented by her own physical desire for her husband (341–46); her martyrdom is self-inflicted: Ceste virge bon[e]üree De jur en jur fu tormente[e] Por danter sa char et destreindre La covint en martire maindre . . . (341–4) [This blessed virgin (Audrey) was tormented day after day, for in order to overcome and restrain the flesh she had to live as a martyr.]

Audrey’s struggle against her own corporeal temptations makes her an unusual figure in medieval hagiography: she is not tormented by male persecutors, as is the case for Catherine and other virgin martyrs; she confronts and controls her own carnal desires.26 Audrey and Torbert agree to live together chastely, which we are told is holier—“mut graindre sainteté”—than any other form of married life.27 When Torbert dies after only three years, Audrey believes that she can be free of the bonds of matrimony, but her family arranges her nuptials to King Egfrid, son of King Oswy (800–9). For twelve years, the two maintained a

Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing

169

chaste marriage, in which the Holy Spirit protected Audrey from carnal “corruption” (940) despite Egfrid’s increasing frustration and two attempts to possess her forcibly (955–8). After protracted dispute, Egfrid permitted her to enter the abbey of Coldingham, where his sister, Ebba, lived. But, still resenting her separation, he became so “anguisseus” [tormented] and “si plein d’ire” [so full of anger] (1275) that he plotted to remove her from the convent. Advised by Ebba of Egfrid’s schemes. Audrey fled to the island of Ely, her dower lands—“dont elle du primes doee” [which was part of her first dower] (1296). Miraculously, God caused the waters to rise and surround the island, protecting Audrey from her husband’s advances: Cil Deu ki bien garde sa gent En mer et en autre torment Fist ke la mer multiplia Et icel terra environa (1335–8) [God who takes care of his own both at sea and in any peril caused the sea to swell up and surround the hill.]

The narrator deems the act a “merveille” (1344), the second of four great miracles arising during Audrey’s lifetime (1409–1424). With God’s divine intervention, Audrey creates a refuge for herself and other Christians. As Jocelyn WoganBrowne has shown, she “reroutes” her dower lands to create a “major religious house” that will be sustained by the memory of her good deeds.28 Audrey’s virginity—her continually intact body (which remains whole even when her sarcophagus is opened some time after her death, 2237–2309)—becomes a corporeal condition of and symbol for her intact dower lands, where communities of the faithful remain strong. Aristocratic marriage, whose procreative purpose is thwarted, is “disrupted” to create a spiritual community.29 In addition to the tale of two marriages and Audrey’s refuge at Ely, Marie describes the creation of many other religious houses. Indeed, the foundation of churches and abbeys occupies an outsize place in this narrative. Very early in the Life, Marie describes how convents are formed when families give their daughters to God: En icel tens dont nos parlom Out en Bretaine meinte eglise Fundé et fait a Deu servise Ou plusors leurs fillies metoient, A Deus esposer les fesoient

170

Roberta Krueger

Si comé il ooent les lois Et les costomes de François. Filles et nieces et parentes Fesoeient noneines ou grant rentes: (204–12) [During this particular time there were a number of churches founded in Britain and built for the service of God in which many [parents] placed their daughters and had them married to God, thus they followed the laws and customs of the French. Daughters and nieces and female relatives Became nuns, bringing with them large endowments.]

As Marie traces Audrey’s genealogy, we learn that Audrey’s father, King Anna, had endowed a church at Burg castle (132–7), and built many other churches as well (513–15). We have seen that Audrey receives the island of Ely as her dower on the occasion of her first marriage, before her father’s death (304–6). Marie recounts the founding of even more churches and abbeys by Audrey and others throughout the early verses of the narrative, as does the Liber Eliensis. It is significant that Marie incorporates this institutional history into the saint’s story, as if Audrey’s virtuous chastity and English Church history were interdependent (275–846). Audrey is presented not only as Ely’s founder, but also as a shrewd administrator. As “maistresse” of Ely, she levies for and receives a tax exemption for the religious house: Sainte Audree par sa cointise A li porchaça grant franchise Des rois, de[s] ducs, de meint prudome Par le confermement de Rome. Cist iyle li estoit done Et par douaire confermee. Por ceo purchaça tel franchise Qu’el la torna a Deu servise Ne voloit mi en nul tens perdre Ne ke nul si peust aherdre. (1657–67) [Through her shrewdness Saint Audrey obtained for him important tax exemptions, approved by Rome, from kings, dukes, and many noblemen.

Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing

171

Since the island had been given to her And confirmed as her dower, She was able to procure this type of exemption, And she turned it over to the service of God. She never wanted to lose it Or have anyone take it away from her.]

Audrey’s skillful management of institutional affairs is matched by her power to attract distinguished noblemen and wealthy women—“Nobles barons de haut linage / Riches dames de grant parage” (1821–22)—to cohabit with her at Ely. As Marie tells stories of men and women who join Audrey’s community, she also recounts “signs and miracles” (1872) that occur under the saint’s stewardship and after her death in 679 ce (2004–6), either as punishment for vice or as rewards for faithful loyalty.30 Among the greatest miracles, as we have seen, is that Audrey’s body is revealed to be “uncorrupted” when her sarcophagus is opened during the translation of her body to the church at Ely (2237–2309). Many mourners found their maladies cured at the tomb (2315–16); others were cured by the fountain that sprang forth nearby (2329–34). Still more people suffering from paralysis, muteness, and blindness were healed; those seeking to desecrate the tomb were chastised by Audrey’s voice and brutally punished. The third last of the narrative recounts stories of numerous local figures, from kings and queens to monks and peasants, who were affected by Audrey’s active interventions. In one case associated with the saint’s intercession, a mute girl speaks again when a flower is placed in her mouth (3529–30)—an act that echoes or prefigures an episode in Eliduc, as we will see.31 In these and many other stories, Saint Audrey maintains her voice and asserts her power, even beyond the grave; she intercedes to restore the health of worthy Christians, to punish offenders, and to maintain the integrity of religious communities. If the virgin martyr Catherine assembles a spiritual community in heaven, Audrey’s intact, virginal body inspires communities of the faithful to form and maintain religious groups in the “real world” of medieval England. In The Life of Saint Audrey, the saint’s virginity and spiritual autonomy are integrally connected to her shrewd stewardship of church lands and her pastoral care for Christians of all ranks. MARIE DE FRANCE’S ELIDUC: THE MARRIAGE DEBT TRANSFORMED At first glance, the intertextual links between Eliduc, the last of twelve lais attributed to Marie de France in the Harley manuscript (London, British Library, MS Harley 978), the only manuscript to contain all of the Lais,32 and

172

Roberta Krueger

the Lives of Catherine and Audrey may seem remote. Marie de France presents her lais as courtly fictions whose sources are oral tales that the Bretons used to sing; these stories are “assembled” by a narrator who professes to seek to do something other than translate from the Latin. She wants to tell tales that bear remembering and that will keep the author from idleness. She intends to tell of “great deeds” whose obscurity makes them worthy of interpretation by future generations who will add their wisdom to their “sens” and cause them to flourish, to bear flowers and generate wisdom.33 Dedicated to a king with whom she hopes to find favor, Marie’s lais are both courtly and secular, and all of them concern unhappiness in worldly love. The collection’s poetic richness, the variety of its stories, and the poignancy of the relationships they describe, the criss-crossing of motifs and themes—good and bad lovers; humans and beasts; women as readers and writers; faithless wives and feckless husbands; devoted daughters and persistent paramours; women justly and unjustly punished; parents whose identity is hidden from their children: these striking features have given the Lais a justly deserved reputation as gems of medieval narrative.34 Although Marie turned to devotional works at the end of her life—the Espuragoire Seint Patriz (St Patrick’s Purgatory) has been attributed to her, along with The Life of Saint Audrey, as we’ve seen—the Lais, considered to be her first work, are resolutely secular as they tell stories that would appeal to a courtly audience of knights and ladies, whose tribulations in love are endlessly complicated.35 As a collection, the Lais feature both single women,36 unmarried maidens who often seek a love beyond their grasp, and mal mariées [badly married wives] whose marriages are loveless entrapments. Of these, before the concluding Eliduc, only the entrapped wife in Guigemar, the generous maiden in Fresne, and the compromised lady in Milon are able to find real-world happiness in a romantic union with their courtly ami. The knight in Lanval is carried by his fairy lover off to Avalon, in the “other world”; the maiden in Deux Amans dies of sorrow next to her lover’s corpse; the lady in Yonec expires at her lover’s grave; the little bird that provides the pretext for the lovers’ tryst is killed by the lady’s jealous husband in Laüstic; Iseut in Chevrefeuille will go on to die of love for Tristan; the lady who cannot make up her mind about the “best” of four knights among her suitors, loses them all, in Chativel; the deceptive, unfaithful wives of Equitan and Bisclavret are punished for their misdeeds by death or disfiguration. The lai Eliduc stands out not only for its complex portrayal of three characters—a knight who serves two lords, and two women, a maiden and a married woman, who love the same knight—but also for the satisfying “real-world” solution it finds for all three. Critical reception of Eliduc has been as multifaceted as the tale itself. Pierre-Eve Badel’s fine, comprehensive article on the lai reviews in detail three critical approaches, in chronological order:37 first, scholars like Gaston

Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing

173

Paris who examined the theme of the “man with two wives” and its sources; then, scholars who focused on the amorous relationship between Eliduc and the young Guilliadon, which leads to the Griselda-like patience and “sacrifice” of Guideluec; and finally, more recent scholarship, informed by gender and sexuality studies, that highlights the lai’s critique of heterosexual marriage and the nascent female friendship or homosexual attachment between the two women. Within this last group, Badel seems to concur with scholars who object to the notion that Guideluec has made a sacrifice in allowing Eliduc to marry Guilliadon, that her life in a nunnery signals defeat or loss of status, or that she inflicts pain on herself.38 He rightly points out that the convent chosen by Guildeluec and the monastery and convent that become Eliduc’s and Guilliadon’s final abode correspond to the historic resurgence of monasteries and convents in late twelfth-century Europe, as documented by Venarde and others.39 For Badel, Guildeluec’s discovery of Guilliadon’s beauty, luminous though apparently lifeless, transforms Eliduc’s first wife from an “épouse effacée” to a “femme passionnée”—from a subservient wife to a passionate woman who brings the impossible situation created by Eliduc to a satisfying conclusion.40 “L’épouse soumise fait place à une femme énergique qui prend son destin en main ainsi que celui de Guilidun et d’Eliduc.”41 Indeed, reading Eliduc in the context of the nearly contemporary Lives of Saint Catherine and Saint Audrey makes Guildeluec’s final actions seem more purposeful and assertive than some critics have acknowledged. Through Guildeluec’s agency, Marie asserts an authority that will create a final space for female autonomy and spiritual fulfillment in her collected stories. Let us place the final scenes in the context of the greater story. The first 1,000 verses of the lai concern Eliduc’s divided feudal and sentimental loyalties. Happily married but shunned by his principal seigneur, he leaves to serve another lord in need and fights to victory for him. Although he falls in love with the king’s young daughter, a beautiful maiden, he returns home when his primary lord recalls him. After spending some time with his wife in his native land, he goes back to his beloved Guilliadon as promised and arranges to take her home with him. When a tempest breaks out at sea as the two sail back, a sailor curses Eliduc for being married, and Eliduc hurls the accuser overboard. Learning about Eliduc’s marriage for the first time, Guilliadon falls into a coma. Upon his return home, believing that Guilliadon has died, Eliduc hides her body in a chapel on his property where the local hermit, a beloved mentor, has recently passed away. Eliduc intends to transport his amie to a chapel in the woods near his castle, with the idea of founding an abbey or convent of nuns and monks who will pray for her (899–909); Eliduc would become a

174

Roberta Krueger

monk there, restraining his grief next to Guilliadon’s tomb (946–9). This is the first religious institution whose creation is imagined in Eliduc. Although Eliduc is poised to take decisive action, he leaves the maiden unburied in a chapel no longer sanctified by the hermit’s presence. He returns home, “las et traveilliez” [lifeless and exhausted], showing no affection to his wife, who becomes suspicious and has her husband followed by a servant to the chapel where he retreats every day. Guideluec’s resourcefulness contrasts strikingly with Eliduc’s sorrowful passivity. When she learns about her husband’s visits to the chapel, she springs immediately into action. This section of the narrative shows her both physically and verbally in motion, as she precipitates the narrative to its conclusion in a series of present-tense declarations and commands. As soon as she hears the news, she vows to retrace Eliduc’s steps to the chapel one day while he is visiting the king; she doubts that the death of the hermit could upset him so much. La dame dist, “Sempres iruns! Tut l’hermitage chercherons! . . . . . .Li hermits fuz mors pieça: Jeo sais asez que il l’ama, Mes ja pur li ceo ni fereit Ne tel dolur ne demerreit.” (997–1004) [The lady said (to her servant), “Let’s go there right away! We will look throughout the hermitage. . . . The hermit died recently; I know that (Eliduc) loved him a good deal, but he would never be so sad for so long on his account.”]

When she discovers the body of the pucele, which the narrator deems a merveille (1020), she understands at once the source of Eliduc’s dolur (1024), and the wife laments that she will never know joy again (1026–7). Just as Maxentius’ queen empathized with Catherine’s pains, as Audrey miraculously and compassionately healed suffering Christians in her midst, Guildeluec acts with empathy and resolve to bring Guilliadon back to life. She orders her servant to retrieve a magical flower from a weasel who has placed it in her companion weasel’s mouth to revive the animal: “Ad vadlet crie: Retien la! / Getez, frans hum! Mar s’en ira!” [To the servant, she cried “Go get her (the weasel)! Throw (your stick at her), good man! Don’t let her get away!”] (1055–6).42 As Guilliadon recovers speech and awareness, a remarkable conversation ensues between the two women. Guilliadon explains that she has been betrayed and laments that a woman would be foolish to ever trust a man: “Mult est fole, qui home croit” [Any woman who believes a man is a fool] (1084) echoing Catherine’s words to the queen about the impermanence of secular marriage.

Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing

175

This critique of heterosexual love and aristocratic marriage (since Eliduc has broken his vows) constitutes as strong a denunciation of courtly love as any other moment in the lais.43 But Guildeluec, perhaps surprisingly, defends her husband and encourages Guilliadon to return the love he feels so desperately for the young woman (1085–99). Guildeluec proposes to reunite Guilliadon and Eliduc, and to free Eliduc from his marriage debt. She announces clearly that she intends, of her own volition, to reunite the two lovers and take the veil for herself: Ensemble od mei vus en merrai e a vostre ami vus rendrai. Del tut le vel quitte clamer e si ferai mon chef veler. (1099–103) [I will take you with me and I will return you to your friend. I want to release him from his [marriage] debt to me, and then I will veil my head / take the veil. Emphases mine.]

This remarkable scene has elicited much commentary. Whatever critics may feel about Guildeluec’s role as a sacrificial wife or as a proactive female friend, most agree that in the scene between the two women, something extraordinary has taken place. The story of the weasels and the corresponding relationship between Guildeluec and Guilliadon is “part miracle and part love,” as Karma Lochie has claimed.44 Usha Vishnuvajjala contrasts Eliduc’s response to feudal conflict, during which he acts “within the bounds of feudal expectations,” with Guildeluec’s more personal response, when she acts “outside of any social structures, motivated by sympathy and love.”45 Where Pam Whitfield sees Eliduc’s wife as “passive and apparently powerless,” wielding a “more passive spiritual power, one based on morality and selflessness,”46 Valerie A. Ross deems the women’s bond to be a “transgressive alliance,”47 and recognizes it as producing “a subversively transgressive brand of female authority.48 For Ross, Guildeluec’s transgressive gaze evokes “Marie’s own bold poetics” that “transcend[s] temporal boundaries.”49 Marie’s narrative presentation emphasizes Guildeluec’s agency in this moving scene: it is Guildeluec who proposes to “clamer quitte” Eliduc—to free him from marital obligations—and it is she who proposes to take the veil. Eliduc does not repudiate his wife (as could happen in aristocratic matrimony);50 it is she who frees herself of a loveless marriage by absolving Eliduc of his obligations to her, with no regrets, and by requesting his permission to become a nun: Quant la dame vit lur samblant Sun seigneur a a raisons mis; Cungié li a rové et quis

176

Roberta Krueger

Qu’elle puisse de lui partir Nune veult ester, Dieu servir . . . (1120–4) [When the lady observed how they were together, she turned to her husband: she sought out and asked for permission to separate from him; she wants to be a nun, to serve God.]

Furthermore, it is Guildeluec who dictates that Eliduc give some of his lands over to the foundation of an abbey that she will make: “. . . de sa terre li donne partie / u ele face une abeie” [(She asked him to . . .) give her part of his land where she would build an abbey.] (1125–6). Although some critics and historians portray this scene as Guildeluec’s sacrifice of happiness or abdication of her marital rights51 and characterize the abbey’s creation as Eliduc’s idea,52 Marie makes clear that Guildeluec is the rightful founder and first abbess of the institution. Eliduc does all that she asks, giving her his leave to found her abbey, bestowing upon her much land and wealth. But it is she who recruits thirty nuns and establishes the order that is to be followed. Eliduc gives her all that she wants, and she executes the plan. Eliduc li otrei E bonement done son congié: Tute sa volenté fera E de sa terre li durra. Prez del chastel enz el bocage a la chapel a l’ermitage la a fet faire son mostier et ses meisens edifier. Grant terre i met et grant aveir: Bien i avra son estuveir. Quant tut a feit bien aturner, La dame i fet son chef veler, Trente nuneins ensemble od li Sa vie et son ordre establi. (1131–44. Emphasis mine) [Elidic consents (to all) and gladly gives her permission; he will do everything she wants and will give her some of his land. There is a hermitage near the castle in the woods where she had the church and houses (of the convent) built. She will have all she needs, great wealth and extensive land. When she has completed the project, she takes the veil; she takes thirty nuns along with her, and establishes her order and her rule.]

Just as Catherine inspires the empress, Porphiry, the philosophers, and many others to give themselves to God; just as Audrey forcefully escapes

Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing

177

her marriage vows to found Ely, so Guildeluec establishes a religious community of her own volition. Read from the perspective of Guildeluec as an autonomous agent, within the cultural context of strong saints such as Catherine and Audrey, Guildeluec’s deeds in the closing verses of Eliduc seem a fitting, forceful conclusion to Marie’s assemblage of lais. Concluding a series of stories about entrapment in unhappy marriages, or about the difficulty of finding real-world marital happiness, the collections end with a tale about a woman who redefines the life cycle in her own terms, creating a spiritual community for thirty nuns who will live within walls whose construction she commands and whose order she establishes: “sa vie et son ordre establi” (1144).

BEYOND MARRIAGE: WOMEN’S AUTONOMY AND COMMUNITY IN MEDIEVAL NARRATIVE The female protagonists of The Life of Saint Catherine, The Life of Saint Audrey, and Eliduc eschew, in various ways, the narrow path to aristocratic marriage. St. Catherine remains chaste and unmarried. Although her virginity is never upheld as a model for others to follow, she convinces the empress of powerful Maxentius to attend to a spiritual bond that transcends worldly marriage. Saint Audrey marries twice, yet remains chaste; even after death, her body is incorruptible. She manages to elude the advances of her second husband, with God’s miraculous protection, she takes refuge in a holy place that will become an important spiritual community. Finally, Guildeluec’s aristocratic “good” marriage to Eliduc is superseded by a loving relationship between the wife and her husband’s lover which becomes the springboard for her foundation of a spiritual community for women and men. In these three Anglo-Norman narrative poems, a female narrator constructs a textual space in which her female protagonists can exert their autonomy and establish female friendships and spiritual communities. Within the fixed form of octosyllabic couplets, these texts all portray social constraints that inhibit a woman’s personal freedom even as they explore paths toward autonomy, spiritual discovery, and community. Each woman is associated with one or more merveilles that convey her extraordinary authority. The female narrators of Clemence of Barking’s Life of Saint Catherine, Marie’s Life of Saint Audrey, and Marie de France’s Eliduc provide testimony of the power of women’s voices to transform the moral landscape of Anglo-Norman culture; they set forth a paradigm for women’s literary expression that will endure, with incremental enhancements, throughout the English and European Middle Ages.

178

Roberta Krueger

NOTES 1. The Life of St Catherine by Clemence of Barking, ed. MacBain. English translation is provided by Virgin Lives and Holy Deaths, trans. Wogan-Browne and Burgess, pp. 3–43. 2. The Life of Saint Audrey, eds. and trans. McCash and Barban. 3. Marie de France, “Eliduc,” in the Lais of Marie de France, ed. Warnke and trans. Harf-Lancner. English translations of the Lais are my own. 4. Robertson’s scholarship focuses on Middle English literature, but the social conditions for women in post-Conquest England were arguably similar for readers of works in Latin, Anglo-Norman, and English during this multilingual period. Among her works on women readers, see Robertson, “‘This living hand,’” and Early English Devotional Prose. 5. For an overview of the foundation, destruction, and resurgence of spiritual communities from the sixth to the twelfth centuries, see Schulenberg, “Women’s Monastic Communities”; on the “great profusion of new women’s communities” in the twelfth century, see p. 291. Since the publication of Schulenberg’s article and Robertson’s book cited above, scholarship on Anglo-Norman women’s religious communities and hagiography of female saints in the British Middle Ages has proliferated, in particular in work by Virginia Blanton, Jocelyn Wogan-Brown, and others cited later in this chapter. This study aims to set Marie de France more centrally within networks of female spiritual communities and to broaden the context of Eliduc to include religious as well as courtly traditions. 6. For an overview of Barking Abbey’s history from its founding to its dissolution, see Bussell and Brown, “Introduction.” 7. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, p. 216. 8. As cited by Bussell and Brown, “Introduction,” p. 12. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., p. 7. 11. Ibid., p. 8. For more on the power and managerial responsibility of abbesses, see Wogan-Browne, “Barking and the Historiography of Female Community,” p. 285. 12. Bussell and Brown, “Introduction,” pp. 8–10. 13. Ibid., p. 12. 14. On the identity of the Nun of Barking who wrote the Life of Saint Edward the Confessor, see Bliss, “Who Wrote the Nun’s Life of Saint Edward?” 15. Robertson, “Textual Community.” 16. Wogan-Browne notes that widows were expected to share the wealth of their dowries with their estate, if they did not remarry, disposing of any surplus not needed for maintenance; this was “a reflection of the actual practice of Anglo-Norman noblewomen who entered the religious life.” See Virgin Lives, p. 64, n.34. 17. Robertson suggests that Clemence may be responding to (or anticipating?) Thomas’s exploration of “courtly” love in his Tristan, since both writers explore the theme of voleir and poeir. See Robertson, “Textual Community,” 19–20.

Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing

179

18. Blanton, Signs of Devotion, p. 3. On the substantial corpus of objects and images associated with Aethelthryth, see Blanton-Whetsell, “Imagines Aetheldredae.” 19. See McCash and Barban, “Introduction,” in Saint Audrey, trans. and ed. McCash and Barban, p. 4. 20. See McCash, “La vie seinte Audrée,” and McCash and Barban, “Introduction,” pp. 5–8. Blanton is “persuaded” by McCash’s argument that Audrée was composed by Marie de France; Blanton, Signs of Devotion, p. 180. Marie de France’s authorship is also endorsed by Whalen, Marie de France, pp. 159–73. 21. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, IV.19–20, pp. 23–40; and Liber Eliensis. 22. Wogan-Browne, “Rerouting the Dower”; Blanton, Signs of Devotion, pp. 132–71. 23. Wogan-Browne, “Rerouting the Dower,” 33–6; Blanton, Signs of Devotion, pp. 132–71. 24. Wogan-Browne, “Rerouting the Dower”; Blanton, Signs of Devotion, pp. 176–9. 25. Blanton, “Chaste Marriage.” 26. Audrey’s martyrdom was not externally wrought; rather it was self-inflicted, “the pain of self-torture.” See Blanton, “Chaste Marriage,” 105. 27. For more on chaste marriages, see Elliott, Spiritual Marriage. 28. Wogan-Browne, “Rerouting the Dower,” 40. 29. As Wogan-Browne explains: “in the peculiar radicalism of the virgin body, at once the denial and the perfection of human generation, the virgin foundress simultaneously disrupts direct biological lines of filiation and creates spiritual genealogies.” Wogan-Browne, “Rerouting the Dower,” 40. 30. Forms of “miracle” or “merveille” appear throughout Audrey’s story; for example, lines 1358, 2301, 2482, 2564, 2715. 31. Audrey does not directly place the flower herself; “une femme,” who appears to be an emissary representing Audrey does it. McCash notes the similarity with “Eliduc,” in Saint Audrey, p. 256, n.3530. 32. On the significance of the Lais as a collection in Harley 978, see Bruckner, “Textual Identity and the Name of a Collection” in her Shaping Romance, pp.152–206. 33. Marie de France, Lais, ed. Warnke, trans. Harf-Lancner, “Prologue,” lines 1–56. 34. Among recent works, see Kinoshita and McCracken, Marie de France; Whalen, Poetics of Memory and ibid., ed., A Companion to Marie de France; Bloch, The Anonymous Marie de France. For an overview, see my “Marie de France.” 35. On varieties of love in the Lais, see my “Wound.” 36. Bennett and Froide, eds., Singlewomen; on single women in Marie’s Lais, see my “Transforming Maidens.” 37. Badel, “Guildelüec et la merveille.” 38. “Il n’y a ni sacrifice ni héroïsme, mais tout au contraire une démarche qui lui rend ou plutôt lui donne une liberté qu’elle n’avait pas connue jusque-là”; Badel, “Guideluec,” p. 296. He cites an article by Cotille-Foley, “The Structure.” 39. Badel, “Guidelüec,” 301. On the resurgence of religious institutions postConquest, see Venarde, Women’s Monasticism, pp. 52–132. See also Schulenberg, “Women’s Monastic Communities,” 291: “For in the twelfth century, there occurred

180

Roberta Krueger

a heightened interest in women’s religious life and again a great proliferation of new women’s communities.” 40. Badel, “Guidelüec,” 305. 41. Badel, “Guidelüec,” 292. 42. This course of action mirrors one of Audrey’s miracles (Life of Saint Audrey 1529–30), but we cannot ascribe direct influence, in one direction or the other. See supra, p. 171. 43. On Marie’s critique of heteronormativity, see Burgwinkle, Sodomy, Masculinity, and the Law, pp. 138–69, and Simon Gaunt, Love and Death, pp. 153–5. 44. Lochrie, “Between Women,” 83. Lochrie notes that Guildeluec’s reunion with Guilliadon in the convent “supersedes the heterosexual union that signals the fulfillment of romance narrative” (84). 45. Vishnuvajjala, “Adventure,” 164. 46. Whitfield, “Power Plays,” 243. 47. Ross, “Transgressive Alliances.” 48. Ibid., 219. 49. Ibid., 225. 50. Duby in Le Chevalier, la femme, et le prêtre argued that there were two models of marriage in the twelfth century, a clerical model that emphasized consent and indissolubility and an aristocratic model in which wives could be repudiated. Scholars have taken issue with this binary model, arguing that marriage was a much more complex conjoining of local, familial, personal, and ecclesiastical and political forces. See the fine article by McDougal, “The Making of Marriage.” It is interesting that in Eliduc the marriage is dissolved at the initiative of the wife. 51. This view is expressed by Kinoshita in “Two for the Price of One”; she speaks of Guideluec’s “saint-like forebearance” (51). However, in a later work, coauthored with Peggy McCracken, the authors imply that Eliduc and Guildeluec’s have “devised” this “resolution” together, “in perfect consonance with their times”; Kinoshita and McCracken, eds. Marie de France, p. 89. 52. See Kinoshita, “Two for the Price of One”: “Though Eliduc does in fact establish an abbey, it is not for himself but for his wife” (47). For example, Venarde describes the action as Eliduc’s initiative: “At the end of Marie de France’s Eliduc, the eponymous hero founds two monasteries. First, he builds a nunnery on his own territory . . .” Vernarde, Women’s Monasticism, p. 89.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Badel, Pierre-Yves. “Guildeluec et la merveille.” Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 130 (2014): 269–315. Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price, revised by R. E. Latham. London: Penguin, 1990. Bennett, Judith M., and Amy M. Froide, eds. Singlewomen and the European Past 1250–1800. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.

Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing

181

Blanton, Virginia. “Chaste Marriage, Sexual Desire, and Christian Martyrdom in La Vie Seinte Audrée.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 19 (2010): 94–114. ———. Signs of Devotion: The Cult of Saint Aethelthryth in Medieval England, 695–1615. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. Blanton-Whetsell, Virginia. “‘Imagines Aetheldredae’: Mapping Hagiographic Representations of Abbatial Power and Religious Patronage.” Studies in Iconography 23 (2002): 55–107. Bliss, Jane. “Who Wrote the Nun’s Life of Saint Edward?” Reading Medieval Studies 38 (2012): 77–98. Bloch, R. Howard. The Anonymous Marie de France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Bruckner, Matilda. Shaping Romance: Interpretation, Truth, and Closure in TwelfthCentury French Fictions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993. Burgwinkle, William. Sodomy, Masculinity, and the Law in Medieval Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Bussell, Donna Alfano, with Jennifer N. Brown. “Introduction: Barking’s Lives, the Abbey and its Abbesses.” In Barking Abbey and Medieval Literary Culture: Authorship and Authority in a Female Community, edited by Jennifer N. Brown and Donna Alfano Bussell, 1–30. Woodridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2012. Clemence of Barking. The Life of St Catherine by Clemence of Barking. Edited by William MacBain. Oxford: Blackwell, 1964. Cotille-Foley, Nora. “The Structure of Feminine Empowerment. Gender and Triangular Relationships in Marie de France.” In Gender Transgressions: Crossing the Normative Barrier in Old French Literature, edited by Karen Taylor, 153–80. New York: Garland, 1998. Duby, George. Le Chevalier, la femme, et le prêtre. Paris: Fayard, 1982. Elliott, Dyan. Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Gaunt, Simon. Love and Death in Medieval French and Occitan Lyric. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Kinoshita, Sharon. “Two for the Price of One: Courtly Love and Serial Polygamy in the Lais of Marie de France.” Arthuriana 8 (1998): 33–55. ———, and Peggy McCracken, eds. Marie de France: A Critical Companion. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 2012. Krueger, Roberta. “Marie de France.” In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing, edited by Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace, 172–83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ———. “Transforming Maidens: Singlewomen’s Stories in Marie de France’s Lais and Later French Courtly Narratives.” In Singlewomen and the European Past 1250–1800, edited by Judith M. Bennett and Amy M. Froide, 146–91. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. ———. “The Wound, the Knot, and the Book: Marie de France and Literary Traditions of Love in the Lais.” In A Companion to Marie de France, edited by Logan Whalen, 55–88. Leiden: Brill, 2011.

182

Roberta Krueger

Liber Eliensis: A History of the Isle of Ely from the Seventh Century to the Twelfth, Compiled by a Monk of Ely in the Twelfth Century, translated by Janet Fairweather. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2005. The Life of Saint Audrey: A Text by Marie de France. Edited and translated by June Hall McCash and Judith Clark Barban. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland & Company, Inc., 2006. Lochrie, Karma. “Between Women.” In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing, edited by Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace, 70–88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Marie de France. “Eliduc.” In Lais of Marie de France, edited by Karl Warnke and translated by Laurence Harf-Lancner. Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1990. McCash, June Hall. “La vie seinte Audrée: A Fourth Text by Marie de France?” Speculum 77 (2002): 744–77. McDougal, Sara. “The Making of Marriage in Medieval France.” Journal of Family History 38 (2013): 103–21. Robertson, Duncan. “Writing in the Textual Community: Clemence of Barking’s Life of Saint Catherine.” French Forum 21 (1996): 5–28. Robertson, Elizabeth. Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1990. ———. “‘This living hand’: Thirteenth-Century Female Literacy, Materialist Immanence, and the Reader of the Ancrene Wisse.” Speculum 78 (2003): 1–36. Ross, Valerie A. “Transgressive Alliances: Marie de France and the Representation of Female Desire in Eliduc.” Mediaevalia 21 (1997): 209–30. Schulenberg, Jane Tibbetts. “Women’s Monastic Communities, 500–1100: Patterns of Expansion and Decline.” Signs 14 (1989): 262–92. Venarde, Bruce L. Women’s Monasticism and Medieval Society: Nunneries in France and England, 890–1215. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. Vishnuvajjala, Usha. “Adventure, Lealté and Sympathy in Marie de France’s Eliduc.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 59 (2017): 162–81. Whalen, Logan. Marie de France and the Poetics of Memory. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008. ———, ed. A Companion to Marie de France. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Whitfield, Pam. “Power Plays: Relationships in Marie de France’s Lanval and Eliduc.” Medieval Perspectives 14 (1999): 242–54. Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn, and Glyn S. Burgess. “Afterword: Barking and the Historiography of Female Community.” In Barking Abbey and Medieval Literary Culture: Authorship and Authority in a Female Community, edited by Jennifer N. Brown and Donna Alfano Bussell, 283–96. Woodridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2012. ———. “Rerouting the Dower: The Anglo-Norman Life of St. Audrey by Marie (of Chatteris?).” In Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women, edited by Jennifer Carpenter and Sally-Beth MacLean, 27–56. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1995. ———, trans. Virgin Lives and Holy Deaths: Two Exemplary Biographies for AngloNorman Women, The Life of St Catherine; The Life of St Lawrence. London: J. M. Dent, 1996.

Chapter 9

Three Medieval Visitors to Rome and the Women They Found There C. David Benson and Pamela J. Benson

Roman women, Christian and especially pagan, are prominent characters in the story collections by three major Middle English poets: Gower’s Confessio Amantis, Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women and Canterbury Tales, and Lydgate’s Fall of Princes.1 Roman women or women in Rome also have significant roles in less well-known prose works by three other medieval English writers, who, in contrast to the poets, had actually visited the city and wrote about what they discovered there: Master Gregorius’ Latin  Narracio de Mirabilibus Urbis Rome, John Capgrave’s Middle English Solace of Pilgrims, and Margery Kempe’s Middle English Book of Margery Kempe. The women of Rome who appear in these works, unlike those in the poems, do not usually meet violent ends and are more various in other ways. They are divine as well as human, one woman as well as many, contemporary as well as ancient. All, however, are important to each writer’s particular idea of the city. A single statue of the goddess Venus allows Gregorius his most promising encounter with the lost city; Capgrave uses the stories of Christian women associated with churches to show his readers the range of female spirituality; and Kempe tells us how the city allowed her to be recognized by others and by herself as the holy woman she had always sought to be. An exploration of the pivotal role of women in these three prose texts seems particularly appropriate for a volume in honor of Elizabeth Robertson, who has contributed so much to the study of women and their representation in Middle English literature.2

183

184

C. David Benson and Pamela J. Benson

MASTER GREGORIUS FINDS A GODDESS The earliest of our three English medieval visitors to Rome was a certain “Master Gregorius” who went to the city in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century and wrote a brief, personal Latin account of the marvels he interacted with there, the Narracio de Mirabilibus Urbis Rome.3 Although Gregorius says that he is writing at the request of his fellow clerics who are engaged in “sacred study” (11.8; trans. 17), he almost exclusively describes the city’s pagan rather than its Christian sites.4 The introductory rubric to the Narracio announces that what follows will be an antiquarian work, “concerning the marvels [mirabilibus] that once were or still are in Rome, of which the traces or the memory remain alive today” (11.1–3; trans. 17). As these words suggest, Gregorius is haunted by the contrast between what ancient Rome once was and what it now is. In the very first scene of the Narracio, Gregorius describes his initial sight of the distant city from the surrounding hills, which he says reminded him of Julius Caesar’s celebration of Rome, according to Lucan’s epic De Bello Civili, as the “home of the gods” and “the image of the highest divinity” [instar summi numinis] (12.30, 34–5; trans. 18). Gregorius found quite a different reality, however, when he descended into the city, whose ruined, if still impressive, state he characterizes with a quotation from the beginning of a famous medieval poem by Bishop Hildebert of Lavin: Nothing can equal you, Rome, although you are almost a total ruin, Shattered you can teach, whole how much you would speak. [Par tibi, Roma, nichil, cum sis prope tota ruina: Fracta docere potes, integra quanta fores.] (12.40–1; trans. 18)

From these lines, Gregorius draws the conventional lesson that all temporal things pass away (12.42–3; trans. 18–19), though the rest of the Narracio demonstrates his inability to accept passively such a loss. He describes himself as actively engaged with the various remains of ancient Rome as he tries to understand what the city was like when whole. In chapter 21, he carefully measures the diameter of the Pantheon, and in chapter 15 he declares that the columns at another site are so tall that one cannot throw a stone over them (he seems to have tried). An even more immersive experiment takes place at one of the city’s famous baths: “I dipped my hand into it, but, although I had paid the fee, I declined to bathe because of the foul stench of the sulfur” (19.264–6; trans. 25). John Osborne wonders whether any baths were still functioning in Rome during this time, but whatever it was Gregorius found, it does not give

Three Medieval Visitors to Rome and the Women They Found There

185

him the direct experience of the ancient city he seeks.5 The divine Rome of Caesar is not present; only its fragmented, sometimes foul, remains. Unlike architectural ruins that only reinforce Gregorius’ sense of what is no more, the many bronze and marble sculptures he encounters in Rome offer a more immediate sense of the ancient city, and he devotes more space to them than to any other single category of remains. Two of his longer chapters are about the large bronze statue of an ancient Roman horse and rider that was then in front of the pope’s palace and now, identified as Marcus Aurelius, is on the Capitoline (chapters 4 and 5). Gregorius praises the remarkable ancient artistry of these statues and especially the creative ingenuity that animates some of them. Thus, the first bronze mentioned in the Narracio, an image of a bull projecting from the fortifications of Castel Sant’Angelo, is said to be “so skillfully made that it appears to its viewers likely to bellow and move” [mugituro et moturo] (13.54–5; trans. 19), just as the head of the largest bronze he sees, the huge Colossus (from which the Colosseum took its name), which he is told is an image of the sun or Rome itself, “gives the appearance of being about to move and speak” [moturo et locuturo] (18.205; trans. 23). Such traces of the past evoke Rome’s once-vibrant life even better than ruins or foul baths, for they possess something of the city’s ancient liveliness, not in memory but right before Gregorius’s own eyes. The statue that most powerfully attracts Gregorius and gives the most promise of being able to bridge the gap between him and the ancient city is a full-length marble sculpture of a woman, one who literally represents Lucan’s “image of the highest divinity,” the goddess Venus. She is the only woman, human or divine, living or manufactured, that Gregorius discusses at any length in the Narracio and the only Roman object of any kind that so enchanted him that he was drawn back, as if by magic he says, to view it several times. One reason for Gregorius’ special appreciation of this statue is its rarity; he believes, erroneously, that most of such marble works had been “destroyed or toppled by blessed Gregory [the Great]” (20.277–8; trans. 26).6 Our Gregorius, however, has no wish that such statues be swept away to make way for a Christian future but cherishes them as messengers from the pagan Roman past. In a preface to his profound engagement with the statue of Venus, Gregorius displays his learning with a brief mention, citing Ovid, of the classical myth of the Judgment of Paris, in which Venus’s naked body wins her the beauty contest against Juno and Pallas (20.282–5; trans. 26). Gregorius then describes in uncharacteristic detail the statue as he saw it in Rome and his profound response to it: This image is made from Parian marble with such wonderful and intricate skill that she seems more like a living creature than a

186

C. David Benson and Pamela J. Benson

statue: indeed, she seems to blush in her nakedness, a reddish tinge coloring her face, and it appears to those who take a close look that blood flows in her snowy complexion. Because of this wonderful image, and I know not what magic charm, I was drawn back three times to look at it, although it was two stades distant from my hospice. [Hec autem imago ex Pario marmore tam miro et inexplicabili perfecta est artificio, ut magis viva creatura videatur quam statua: erubescenti etenim nuditatem suam similis, faciem purpureo colore perfusam gerit. Videturque comminus aspicientibus in niveo ore ymaginis sanguinem natare. Hanc autem propter mirandam speciem et nescio quam magicam persuasionem ter coactus sum revisere, cum ab hospicio meo duobus stadiis distaret.] (20.286–93; trans. 26)

While it may have been Venus’s feminine allure that caught Gregorius’ eye, it is not her sexuality he emphasizes in the Narracio but the way in which she so well represents Rome’s lost culture. His observation that the goddess seemed to blush in her nakedness (possibly the residue of ancient polychrome) is less an expression of erotic desire than awe at the “wonderful and intricate skill” of the ancient craftmanship that created her. Moreover, this statue is a completely intact representation of that artistry, unlike, say, a statue of Pallas mentioned later as lying among a heap of broken fragments without its head (22.327–31; trans. 27–8). The goddess is not a ruin, but a well-preserved image of a major pagan deity from the time when, in Hildebert’s terms, the city was whole, and, as such, it speaks powerfully to Gregorius. The statue of Venus is important to Gregorius because it is a full-length representation of both pagan religion and art, and also because it gives the appearance of being fully present before him. Those who look closely, Gregorius says, can see what looks like blood itself, the very stuff of life, as it “flows in her snowy complexion.” This survivor from the ancient past is no dead stone idol like those dismissed so contemptuously by Chaucer’s St. Cecilia in The Second Nun’s Tale, but, on the contrary, a lifelike being that promises Gregorius his most direct conduit to the reality of ancient Rome. But it is not to be. The statue of Venus does not have the powers of the statue of Galatea in the story of Pygmalion. She does not truly come to life and step down from her pedestal to live with Gregorius, nor is she able to lead him back into the ancient world and allow him to experience the pagan city in its original splendor.7 The statue is finally as frustrating to Gregorius’s antiquarian hopes as the sulfur bath, if more enticing. Once again in the Narracio, Gregorius learns that ancient Rome is available to him only in glimpses, though his engagement with a female goddess provides the most tantalizing hint of the lost city he so fervently craves.

Three Medieval Visitors to Rome and the Women They Found There

187

JOHN CAPGRAVE FINDS EXEMPLARY WOMEN Instead of describing a single marble pagan goddess, John Capgrave in his Solace of Pilgrims tells many stories about Christian women in Rome’s past to explore varieties of female spirituality. Capgrave (1393–1464), who was a prominent Augustian friar at Lynn and the author of works in both Latin and English, went to Rome in about 1449.8 While still resident in the city or shortly after returning to England, he wrote his Solace of Pilgrims, an extended vernacular compendium about the pagan and, especially, Christian sites in Rome.9 He based the Solace on popular Latin surveys of the city’s structures, which he greatly expanded with what he himself either saw or heard during his stay in Rome, further supplemented with material from his own reading. Whereas Gregorius in his Narracio reported on his personal experiences of the remains of pagan Rome for scholarly comrades, Capgrave used the information he had collected about both pagan and Christian Rome to instruct and inspire his vernacular readers, those “of my nacioun that schal rede this present work” (1).10 As Karen Winstead has demonstrated in her pioneering work on the author, a significant element in the Solace is its stories about Roman women.11 As a cleric, Capgrave undoubtedly knew about the most famous of these holy women before visiting the city, but he seems to have learned about many others while he was there, for the Christian heroines of the Solace vary from obscure, even nameless, laywomen to celebrated saints, each of whose story demonstrates the capacity of women to lead good Christian lives regardless of their sex, social position, marital status, or mode of life. These numerous stories of exemplary Christian women (along with those of exemplary Christian men) are found in the second and third parts of the Solace, whose subject is “the cherchis in Rome and of the spirituale tresour conteyned in hem” (60), whereas the first part of the Solace on pagan Rome mentions only a few women, without particular interest in them as women.12 The two Christian sections of the Solace are based on the standard Latin medieval guide for pilgrims to Rome, the Indulgentiae Ecclesiarum Urbis Romae, itself translated into a number of related Middle English versions early in the fifteenth century known as the Stacions of Rome.13 Capgrave expands this guide’s spare lists of the relics and pardons from sin with abundant new material about each church, including descriptions of its images, copies of its inscriptions, and much other lore. Among the most striking of his additions to the Indulgentiae tradition are human stories, many of which feature women. Capgrave’s accounts of Christian women are not limited to the legends of Rome’s famous virgin martyrs; he includes tales of secular wives and widows as well, as Winstead has shown us.14 Her valuable contribution can be

188

C. David Benson and Pamela J. Benson

extended even further by recognizing that Capgrave’s exploration of female spirituality goes beyond praising the performance of women in their traditional roles as virgins, wives, or widows in order to show them as autonomous and morally responsible human beings not defined solely by their marital status who find many different ways to achieve holiness. By explaining, sometimes in great detail, how each woman dealt with the circumstances of her life, Capgrave offers a range of homiletic models of pious Christians capable of teaching both his male and female readers. One unusual devotional path Capgrave shows a few of his exemplary Roman women taking was the acquisition of relics and the installation of them in appropriate churches. Two instances of this are famous women of high station: Helen, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, who unearthed the True Cross and other relics associated with the crucifixion, for which she had S. Croce built (124–5); and Eudosia, the daughter of the Emperor Theodosius, who acquired the chains that bound St. Peter for S. Pietro in Vincoli (97–8).15 Both sets of relics, which can still be seen in these churches today, are mentioned in the Stacions, the English version of the Indulgentiae, but in neither case does it say how they were obtained. Capgrave does explain in some detail that each was acquired after an elaborate, expensive journey to the Holy Land and by contrasting methods: Helen discovered where Christ’s Cross was buried only after issuing brutal threats of punishment and death against the locals, whereas Eudosia was given Peter’s chains as a gift in response to her generosity and friendship. Quite a different kind of narrative, however, tells how a more ordinary woman obtained a relic and thus demonstrates what sincere female piety, even without the aid of riches and power, can accomplish (130–1). A certain Plautille, who does not appear in the Stacions, having been taught the faith by St. Paul, met him by chance as he was being led out of the city to his martyrdom. In tears, she begged for his prayers, and he, in turn, requested her handkerchief so that he might hide his eyes when beheaded, spreading it then so that it might collect his blood. The handkerchief, now a dramatic relic of the apostle, was immediately and miraculously returned to Plautille, who also saw a vision of both Saints Peter and Paul in glory wearing clothes of gold and crowns. Capgrave’s story makes clear that Plautille was given this important relic as well as a powerful mystical experience because of her sincere faith, despite her lack of the resources and social prominence of Helen and Eudosia. Capgrave’s version of the legend of St. Cecilia further demonstrates the efforts he makes to show that exemplary spirituality is available to all women. A characteristically brief entry about the Church of St. Cecilia in the Stacions says nothing about the saint’s life. Here is the entire item: “At Seint Celcy [Cecilia] is an hundred yer [of pardon]. /A fot of Marie Magdaleyn is ther.”16 Given that the saint is held in “ful grete reverens both at Rome and here”

Three Medieval Visitors to Rome and the Women They Found There

189

[i.e., England] (110), Capgrave says he will include some additional information about Cecilia so that readers may quickly learn why she is revered: “Of this glorious martir Cecile many notabil thingis fynde we wrytyn of whech summe wil we reherse shortly that the comendacioun of the seynt schuld not slepe and the labour of the rederes schuld not be long” (110). The “notabil thingis” he reports are not, however, the remarkable and dramatic events of Cecilia’s life featured in medieval hagiographies like the Legenda Aurea, Capgrave’s apparent source here, or in Chaucer’s Second Nun’s Tale, including her chaste marriage presided over by an angel, her brave defiance of pagan authority, and her triumphant martyrdom. Perhaps assuming that at least some of his vernacular readers knew these highlights from Chaucer’s tale and that resisting pagan rulers or suffering death at their hands is not especially relevant to his English readers, Capgrave instead tells us that Cecilia “bar the gospel of our Lord evyr at hir breest” (110) and provides a long explication of her knowledge of holy scripture. While this passage may be a “discrete” challenge to English restrictions on lay access to the Bible, as Winstead argues, the more general homiletic lesson seems to be that one does not need to be either a virgin or a martyr, like Cecilia, to imitate her devotion to the Holy Bible.17 Any English woman (or man) can know at least the essence of what the holy book contains, what is referred to here as the “comaundmentis and councellis of Crist,” and, more importantly, anyone can put that knowledge into practice, which, as Capgrave notes, is something not always done by the learned (110). The story of St. Cecilia is typical of Capgrave’s presentation of the virgin martyrs of ancient Rome. He is more interested in how they led their lives than in how they met their deaths. As Winstead perceptively notes, the Solace has “surprisingly little to say about [virgin martyrs] as such.”18 They appear in Capgrave’s work as individuals rather than interchangeable members of a spiritual elite, each acting in her own particular fashion to maintain her sexual and religious integrity. Together they model a variety of modes of Christian behavior for others. The brief story of St. Prisca, for instance, emphasizes her strident public rejection of pagan norms and authority, the very kinds of heroic actions Capgrave largely omitted from his account of St. Cecilia (148–9). When Prisca was brought before the Emperor Claudius, he praised Apollo for having made “so fayre a creatur to the plesauns of man” (149) and ordered her to go to the god’s temple to make sacrifice. In the face of this threat to both her chastity and, especially, her faith, Prisca boldly denounced blood sacrifice to the emperor’s face and prayed to god for the destruction of Apollo’s temple because of its “onclennesse,” a plea that was soon answered and brought Prisca a martyr’s death (150). As Capgrave has already told us, Prisca was indeed “fayr of body” but “fayrer in soule” (149)—not to say fairly ferocious. By contrast, personal conversion rather than strident defiance

190

C. David Benson and Pamela J. Benson

is practiced in the immediately preceding story of the virgin Domicella. Beautiful like Prisca, Domicella was sought in marriage by a young Roman lord, but before she accepted, two of her Christian servants, for whom the church that prompts this story was named, praised virginity to her as a virtue that is rewarded in heaven and reminded her how husbands often mistreat their wives (something she already knew from the example of her parents’ marriage). At her servants’ urging, Domicella decided “both to receyve Cristendam and eke to kepe hir bodi clene,” which angered her suitor so much that he had Domicella and her servants exiled to an island where all were eventually put to death (149). While a modern reader might join Winstead in judging Domicella’s commitment to virginity to be “pragmatic” rather than “ideological,” caused by fear of how a husband would treat her, and “concerned with the quality of her life on earth rather than a hypothetical reward in the hereafter,” such a view ignores the sincerity with which Domicella’s faith is portrayed in the Solace, not to mention the stress put on her agency and physical courage.19 It is hard to believe that either Capgrave or his audience would have considered the promise of heaven to be only “hypothetical” or thought that Domicella was wise to avoid marriage only because doing so would enhance “the quality of her life on earth,” especially when she had every reason to believe that her faith would mean that her life would soon be brutally extinguished. A different sort of spiritual journey by a virgin martyr is that of Anastasia, who, instead of flatly rejecting the male pagan world, skillfully and tenaciously navigated through its multiple challenges.20 Anastasia was a rich woman who “levyd in grete perfeccion” (99), but it was a perfection not easily achieved. Having been converted by S. Chrysogonus, she was forced to marry an unbeliever of “evel condiciones” but feigned sickness to avoid sex. At the same time, Anastasia had been secretly visiting and supporting Christian prisoners, until discovered by her husband, who sent her to prison and starved her, where, undaunted, she wrote to S. Chrysogonus for spiritual counsel. Even when her husband died, Anastasia’s troubles were far from over: one judge before whom she appeared on the charge of being Christian attempted to defile her and another disingenuously recommended she follow Christ’s command and give away all her wealth (i.e., to him), whom she tartly answered, “Crist bad me gyve my good for his sake not to rich men but to pore men” (99). Anastasia eventually suffered the usual brutal death of a virgin martyr, but the emphasis of her story, which could have been an inspiration even to contemporary English readers, is on the ingenuity and resoluteness with which women are capable in defense of their faith. As Winstead argues, Capgrave also presents examples of married women’s holiness and these, too, take a variety of forms, as the contrasting lives of two wives aided by the Virgin Mary attest. The first, unnamed, lived with her

Three Medieval Visitors to Rome and the Women They Found There

191

husband in “holynesse, devocioun, rithwisnesse, and treuth,” and both prayed daily to Mary to be shown how they might spend their wealth on “sum werk whech wer plesauns onto hir son” (84). In response, the Virgin requested that a church be built in her honor (S. Maria Maggiore), whose location she indicated by the miracle of a snow shower in August, in which church the devout couple were eventually buried. Another story Capgrave tells about a married woman, ostensibly to explain the origin of a ring that is displayed in a special chapel at the Lateran (72), shows something quite different from this ideal of a pious, companiable marriage. The rich husband of a “good” Christian woman, also unnamed, has taken up with a mistress of “vicious condicionis.” The mistress, determined to win the husband by discrediting the virtue of his wife, gets a necromancer, by means of a damned spirit, to steal the woman’s wedding ring, which the spirit then flaunted publicly pretending to be a young man. Convinced of his wife’s unfaithfulness by seeing her ring on another man, the husband determined to kill her. In desperation, she prayed to the Virgin, who unleashing some (holy) magic of her own, miraculously returned the ring to the wife, exposing the mistress’s fraud and leading to the reformation of the husband. Two wives; two types of holiness. Capgrave further expands the variety of exemplary Roman women in the Solace with stories of those who led one of the two basic kinds of virtuous Christian lives: active or contemplative. Several Roman women exemplify the active life of doing beneficial works in the world. A certain Lucilla, for example, spent “hir good in coumforting of martires in her passiones and in byrying of her bodies aftir her deth” (67); what seems to be another woman, also named Lucilla or Lucina, rescued the bodies of Peter and Paul from the pit in which they had been thrown and moved them to their present tombs (70–1); and St. Balbine used her inheritance to purchase holy places and support “por men” (108). The wealthy sisters Prudentia and Prassede are credited with many such deeds of public charity: the latter, in addition to supporting the poor, collected the blood of martyrs (148), while the former turned her house into a church and freed any of her slaves who became Christian, earning god’s reward for her “many good dedis” (117). Capgrave balances these accounts of active holy women with those of contemplatives. For example, when St. Alexis left behind his wife, St. Susanna, to go on his holy adventures, without having consummating their marriage, she responded by taking up “a ful solitary lyf, plesing God with fastyng and prayer, and so endewred al hir lyf” (124). Likewise, Sabina, a widow, became friends with a worthy woman named Seraphina, who converted her to Christianity, both then living together in “holy conversacioun” (anticipating the lay female religious communities of Capgrave’s time) until their martyrdoms (86–7). Galla, an early Christian, and the last story in the Solace in its current, defective condition, represents both ways of life. Like many other active women, she gave away her inherited

192

C. David Benson and Pamela J. Benson

riches for the honor of God, but she also withdrew from the management of her household, devoting herself instead to “gret contemplacioun” (170). Capgrave’s underlying message in the Solace is that any woman has the potential to be holy. Although many of his exemplary Roman women were well-born or rich, as we have seen, Capgrave insists that wealth and position are no prerequisite for female godliness and may even be a hindrance, as seen in an anecdote about social pretention. A certain gentlewoman went to kiss a crucifix at the Lateran, but after seeing an “old por woman” do so first, she disdainfully attempted to wipe the object clean before venerating it herself, only to realize that the crucifix had flown away from her high up on the church wall, where, Capgrave testifies, it still remained in his day (72). A similar example of the sanctity to be found even in old, sick, and obscure women is in a story that Capgrave says he found in Gregory the Great’s Homilies. Romula, an old woman who lived in fellowship with two high-ranking younger women, became grievously ill only to gratefully give blessings to God for the patience her sickness had taught her (100). When Romula was on her deathbed, those around her experienced sweet melodies and odors until her soul finally departed. The lesson that Gregory draws from this story, says Capgrave, is that “thei that seme wrecchid” are sometimes most in God’s favor (101). None of Capgrave’s other stories of Roman women are followed by such an explicit moral, but all, implicitly and unmistakably in their aggregate, demonstrate that women possess the capacity to achieve holiness, no matter what their estate, mode of life, or age. In the course of his survey of Rome’s many churches, Capgrave offers a rich album of stories about the spiritual achievements of diverse women for his readers’ instruction. Such examples of female virtue should not come as a surprise, for Capgrave shows a special interest in women’s sanctity throughout his vernacular writings (notably in the verse Life of Saint Katherine), but his stories of Roman women in the Solace are worthy of particular attention as one of the most thorough explorations in Middle English of the scope and variety of female spirituality. MARGERY KEMPE FINDS HERSELF No woman pursued Christian holiness more persistently than Margery Kempe. After visits to Jerusalem and Assisi, she concluded her most extensive pilgrimage with a long stay in Rome, arriving at the city during August of 1414 and leaving after Easter 1415. Kempe’s visit to Rome took place significantly earlier than Capgrave’s at mid-century, but I conclude this chapter with her account in chapters 31 to 42 of The Book of Margery Kempe because it is a unique narrative of an English woman’s experiences in the city from

Three Medieval Visitors to Rome and the Women They Found There

193

her own perspective.21 Instead of a male cleric being impressed by Rome’s women, as in the Narracio and the Solace, a woman impresses Rome itself. And not only that. Gregorius and Capgrave find women in Rome whom they make into important elements of their works, but Margery Kempe writes about how she found herself there. Only in Rome, not in Jerusalem or Assisi and certainly not in England, did she become the kind of Christian holy woman she had always wanted to be. It was there, according to the Book, that she was loved by Christ as wife and daughter and married to God the Father, and it was there, at the very center of Christendom, that she was able to gather around her a supportive community of men and women who recognized her sanctity.22 Kempe’s Book shares some similarities with Master Gregorius’ Narracio. Both give intensely personal and highly selective depictions of Rome in contrast to Capgrave’s more objective and conscientious amplitude, but a fundamental difference between them is their attitude toward Rome’s pagan past. Gregorius is fascinated by the once great city he knows from his classical reading and eagerly explores what traces remain in order to imagine it when new, whereas Kempe has little interest in Roman antiquities and mentions none of the city’s classical ruins. Had she come upon a nude statue of Venus, it is hard to imagine her paying much attention, let alone making repeated visits. More surprising, however, is her similar indifference to the Christian past. The only past that Kempe wants to experience, which she does again and again, is episodes from the life of Christ. These moments of ecstasy for her in Rome are prompted not by art, as for Gregory, but by encounters with real people who stimulate her to holy thoughts and copious tears, such as a poor, sad mother and her child who evoke the Virgin and her son at the Passion (94.10–18). Kempe’s lack of interest in the pagan past is understandable. She is a religious pilgrim, not an antiquarian one like Gregorius. And yet she is almost equally indifferent to the devotional riches so abundantly available to Roman pilgrims. Unlike Capgrave in the Christian sections of the Solace, who includes extensive lists of Rome’s churches, relics, and pardons, what he calls the city’s “spiritual tresor” (60), Kempe mentions these sparingly and only as they directly relate to her own story. In her Rome episode, Kempe refers to only six of the city’s many churches; none is made important in itself, but each appears as a setting for significant moments in her personal search for sanctity. At two of the city’s churches, for example, she finds sympathetic foreign priests and at another she is married to God the Father.23 The many relics of Rome appear even less frequently, though we might have imagined that the emotional Kempe would have been one of those female pilgrims who Capgrave says are “passing desirous . . . to touch and kisse every holy relik” (77), as already cited in note 14. The one Roman saint’s tomb mentioned

194

C. David Benson and Pamela J. Benson

in the Book is that of St. Jerome (99.13–18), and nothing is said about any devotions she performed there.24 Instead, we are told that the saint appeared to her in a vision, greeting her as the angel greeted Mary at the Annunciation: “Blissed art thow, dowtyr” (99.19–20). Rather than showing us Kempe’s veneration of Jerome, he is seen almost venerating her. Kempe has no need to ask the saints of Rome for intercession because throughout the Book, and particularly in its Roman episode as we have seen, she is portrayed as in direct contact with the divine. Similarly, why should she seek out the generous pardons from the penalties of sin offered at Rome’s churches (though she had done so at Jerusalem and Assisi), when she is constantly being told by Christ himself not to fear the loss of heaven or the pains of Purgatory, reassurance that is expressed as though it were a plenary indulgence or full pardon: “I have clene forgove the alle thy synnes” (90.16–17). More sweepingly, Christ assures her that “I am alwey plesyd wyth the” (90.5–6) and insists that it is “unpossybyl” that a soul like hers “schuld be dampnyd” (91.278). With such a guarantee from the Lord’s own mouth, why would Kempe need an ordinary pardon? St. Jerome even goes so far as to suggest she has the power to cause others to be pardoned, declaring that because she has so devoutly wept “for the peplys synnes, . . . many shal be savyd therby” (99.20–1). In contrast to Capgrave, who tells about a variety of exemplary women from the city’s past, Kempe portrays only one such woman, and she is from the recent past: the newly canonized Bridgit of Sweden. There are good reasons for this choice. Like her near-contemporary Bridgit, Kempe is a visitor to the city from a northern country, a married woman, and one whose sanctity was not always recognized.25 Yet even when expressing her admiration for the saint, Kempe manages to say less about Bridgit than about herself. She describes the saint’s house in more detail than any other location in Rome, but her emphasis is on her own experience of going to the site rather than on the life Bridget led there. For Bridget is not only a pious model, but something of a rival. When offering her interpretation of violent storms on Bridgit’s feast day as a sign that the Lord wished it honored more than it had been in Rome up to then (95.34–7), Kempe cannot resist pointing out, at some length, that when Romans were frightened by other terrible storms while she was there, it was her prayer that they cease that Christ promptly answered (96.3–18).26 In fact, Kempe, unlike Capgrave, tells only one story of exemplary female piety in Rome—her own—a well-crafted narration of a scorned and socially isolated woman who becomes beloved. It is a story with many twists and turns, beginning with her sudden expulsion from the Hospital of St. Thomas (the usual residence of English pilgrims in Rome) because of the slanders of a visiting English priest (80.13–20). Plunged into despair because of this, Kempe worries that she will no longer be able to confess or receive

Three Medieval Visitors to Rome and the Women They Found There

195

communion, but help soon comes as the result of both human and divine intervention. A good priest at a nearby church who speaks no English agrees to give Kempe communion, and to prepare for this the Lord sends St. John the Evangelist himself to confess her, presumably in her native language (80.37–81.16). A permanent solution is provided by Wenslawe, a Germanspeaking priest at the Lateran, who is miraculously able to understand what she says as she is what he says. So great is Wenslawe’s trust in her mission that he gives up his high church position to order to help her (82.10–83.37). Greater divine favors then follow, including marriage to the Godhead in the presence of other celestial figures (87.13–26), various heavenly tokens of her blessed state (87.26–88.33), and Christ’s request that she embrace him in “the armys of thi sowle” and kiss his mouth, head, and feet (90.24–6). In telling the story of her life at Rome, Kempe creates a well-shaped narrative by such devices as contrasting the divine graces she receives with the new earthly trials she must undergo. Her spiritual advisor Wenslawe requests that, as a demonstration of obedience, she cease wearing the flamboyant white clothes she loves (84.37–8) and instead become the lowly servant of a wretched old woman (85.33–6). Christ causes her even greater distress by ordering her to give away all her money (92.13–18). After having proved herself with these tests of faith, Kempe is finally rewarded with both material and spiritual comforts as the episode moves to its triumphant conclusion. Several Romans, especially but not only women, are so moved by her plight and impressed by her holiness that they provide her with food, money, and fellowship (esp. 93.7–94.6). Then the very countrymen who had expelled her from the Hospital of St. Thomas, recognizing the esteem she has earned in the city, invite her to return (94.30–6). In a further narrative reversal, the nasty English priest at the beginning of the Rome episode is counter-balanced at the end by an admiring one who has traveled all the way from England just to speak with her, bringing with him the gold that allows her to return home (96.19–30). Before her departure, a dramatic scene of justification describes how she and Wenslawe easily confound some of Kempe’s detractors with a public demonstration that each can indeed understand what the other is saying (97.10–98.6), which is followed by the account of her approval by St. Jerome at his tomb, already mentioned. Throughout, the Book reminds us that Kempe is a woman, albeit an exceptional one. Her achievements are those appropriate to her sex, though she is not limited to any single female role. Taking Kempe as his wife, God the Father also claims to be a good son: “ther was nevyr childe so buxom to the modyr as I shal be to the bothe in wele & in wo” (87.21–2). Christ is described as if he were a lover when he asks Kempe to embrace and kiss him, but only a few lines before he compares their relationship to that of a husband and wife (90.10–21 and 23–4) and also to that of a son and mother (90.21–2),

196

C. David Benson and Pamela J. Benson

while here and elsewhere addressing her as “dowtyr” (90.23), as we saw Jerome do. Mother is her most common feminine title in the Rome episode. Not only do the first two persons of the Trinity call her that, but also two of her most loyal supporters. Just before promising to defend her against all enemies, Wenslawe “receyved hir ful mekely & reverently as for hys modyr” and also “for hys syster” (83.28–9), and at their first meeting, the good priest who has traveled from England just to speak with her, addresses her as “modyr, preying hir for charite to receyven hym as hir sone” (96.31–4). Two different Roman women ask Kempe to be their children’s godmother, though it may have been for the best for all concerned that she left for England before getting a chance to carry out such duties (94.2 and 26). Rebecca Krug astutely notes that the Rome episode shows Kempe both advancing herself spiritually and also gathering around her an ideal devotional community of men and women.27 It can further be said that her reputation as a holy woman is shown to grow until it includes not just a few devotees but the entire city: “God gaf hir grace to have gret lofe in Rome, bothyn of men & of women, & gret favowr among the pepyl” (94.28–30). The informal religious association Kempe creates with herself at the center almost seems to rival the efficacy of the papacy itself, though it is never presented as overtly hostile. We see this community in action in the many men and women who feed and support Kempe. Her tears appear to possess the power to consecrate secular sites, just as St. Jerome said many would be saved by them. During the scene with the poor woman and her child who suggest Mary and her son, Kempe “wept plentyvowsly” in their house (94.18), prompting Christ to declare, “Thys place is holy” (94.21). As Kempe prepares to return to England, the Book goes so far as to have the Roman clergy describe her as if she were a female apostle, one who has spiritually enriched the church’s capital city, no less: “This woman hath sowyn meche good seed in Rome sithyn sche cam hydir, that is to sey, schewyd good exampyl to the pepyl, wherthorw thei lovyn God mor than thei dede beforn” (99.10–13). Nowhere else but in Rome does Margery Kempe achieve so fully the sanctity she had sought for so long. The three prose accounts of medieval English visits to Rome discussed in this article, so different from each other in purpose and detail, are each energized by what their authors learned about women in the city. Gregorius was stimulated by an intact statue of a pagan goddess and Capgrave by the many stories he found about exemplary women associated with individual churches. These discoveries led them to report on aspects of Rome not dealt with in more conventional surveys of the city’s pagan and Christian past. Kempe, the woman who is always at the center of her Book, also found something new in Rome: recognition of her special kind of holiness by others, both human and divine, and perhaps especially by herself. The thematic uses of women by all three travelers in their Roman accounts suggest some of the

Three Medieval Visitors to Rome and the Women They Found There

197

richness of that city as a medieval literary topic and demonstrate once again the value of Elizabeth Robertson’s pioneering efforts in exploring Middle English writings by means of the women associated with them.

NOTES 1. See Benson, Imagined Romes. 2. Inspired by modern feminist theory, while always respecting historical and literary contexts, Robertson’s pioneering studies have illuminated works from anchoritic prose manuals to Chaucer’s most difficult poems. It is an honor to be part of a tribute to such a model of scholarly innovation and generosity. Her unquenchable curiosity, her intellectual originality, and her pleasure in sharing ideas with others on the page, in the classroom, or over a good meal show our discipline at its best. For so many, Beth has been an ideal of what a teacher, colleague, collaborator, mentor, inspiration, and friend ought to be. 3. We know nothing about Gregorius except what can be learned from the one surviving copy of the Narracio, whose opening rubric so names its author. That this manuscript is in a “good English hand,” includes other insular works by such as Henry of Huntington and Gerald of Wales, and is preserved in St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, strongly suggest that Gregorius was English, as does the fact that the only known medieval borrowing from the Narracio was by a later Englishman, Ralph Higden, in his massively influential fourteenth-century Polychronicon (see James, “Magister Gregorius de Mirabilibus Urbis Romae”). The English identity of Gregorius has been accepted by most modern scholars, such as Nardella, Il Fascino di Roma nel Medioevo: Le “Meraviglie di Roma” and John Osborne in the edition cited in the following note. I have previously written about Gregorius from a different perspective in “Statues, Bodies, and Souls.” 4. Quotations of Gregorius’ Narracio are from the Latin edition of Huygens, Magister Gregorius: Narracio de Mirabilibus Urbis Romae, and from the English translation, which I have slightly modified, by Osborne in Master Gregorius: The Marvels of Rome. All citations will be included in my text and will refer first to the page and line number of the Latin original and then to the page number of Osborne’s translation. 5. Osborne, Master Gregorius, 58. 6. According to Buddensieg, “Gregory the Great,” this famous pope did not engage in such rampant iconoclasm. 7. A possible allusion to the Pygmalion myth in the Narracio was noted in Minnis, “‘Figures of Olde Werk’: Chaucer’s Poetic Sculptures,” 134. 8. Capgrave was prior of the Augustinian priory in Lynn, the largest house of that order in England, for over a decade and was Prior Provincial of the entire English order for two terms. Capgrave’s Latin works include biblical commentaries, theological treatises, and praise of Lancastrian kings; his English works include saints’ lives, in verse and prose, and the Abbreviacion of Chronicles. See, for example, College,

198

C. David Benson and Pamela J. Benson

“John Capgrave’s Literary Vocation”; Fredeman, “The Life of John Capgrave”; Peter J. Lucas’s introduction to Capgrave’s Abbreuiacion of Cronicles. 9. All quotations are from Ye Solace of Pilgrimes, ed. Mills, cited by page number in our text. 10. Capgrave seems to have expected a wide, general audience for this encyclopedic work in English, but apparently this did not happen, as the Solace survives in a single, imperfect manuscript and two fragments. 11. See, especially, John Capgrave’s Fifteenth Century. 12. As opposed to major exemplary Roman pagan women, such as Lucretia, in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and John Gower’s Confessio Amantis, perhaps the most sympathetic pagan Roman woman in the first part of the Solace is the unnamed widow who asks for justice from the Emperor Trajan because his son wrongly killed her son, though her function in the story is to highlight the nobility of the male ruler (19–20). 13. For discussion of the Latin Indulgentiae and English Stacions, see chapter 1 of Benson, Imagined Romes. 14. See Winstead, John Capgrave’s, especially chapter 4, “Beyond Virginity.” Throughout the Solace, Capgrave demonstrates that his interest in women goes beyond Rome’s famous female saints to more ordinary members of the sex, such as contemporary pilgrims to the city. Noting that women are prohibited from a certain chapel in the Lateran, for instance, he reassures them that the same plenary indulgence offered to men within the chapel can be theirs by touching the outside door (71–2). He also addresses women’s exclusion, except for one day a year, from a chapel in S. Croce that contains many relics and indulgences, saying that in “myn opynyoun” the ban comes not from misogyny but from legitimate worries over female enthusiasm and health. Women pilgrims to Rome are known to be “passing desirous . . . to touch and kisse every holy relik” (77), he says, and the chapel is so small that, if a woman were sick or with child, she might suffer from the press of the crowd. Modern readers will note the male condescension here but perhaps also genuine concern. It may be that Capgrave believed that his pious English women readers would be wise to avoid the arduous pilgrimage to Rome, which was untaken by only relatively few secular English men or women, and instead learn about the city from the extensive information provided in the Solace, especially its many examples of female holiness. 15. We call Roman churches by their Italian names, except for St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s. 16. This is quoted from one of the earliest versions of the Stacions in the Vernon manuscript, as printed in The Stacions of Rome, ed. Furnivall, lines 663–4. 17. Winstead, John Capgrave’s, 56–60. 18. Ibid., 98, her emphasis. 19. Ibid., 99. 20. Contrary to other accounts, Capgrave insists that Anastasia was Roman. 21. All quotations are from The Book of Margery Kempe, ed. Meech and Allen, and will be cited in our text by page and line number. 22. Many critics in the last few years have written excellent studies of Kempe’s Rome episode. Although we have explicitly cited only a couple, our thinking has benefited much from the work of many others.

Three Medieval Visitors to Rome and the Women They Found There

199

23. Only three Roman churches are actually named in the Book: the Lateran (82.11), where Kempe met the German priest Wenslawe with whom, miraculously, she found she could converse; SS. Apostoli (86.9), where she was married to the Godhead; and S. Marcello (92.30), where Christ, having ordered her to give away all her money, reassured her that she would soon be receiving gold and support from others. The Book also refers to two churches it does not name: one near the Hospital of St. Thomas (80.29), identified in the notes to Meech’s edition as S. Maria in Catherina, where a foreign priest gave her communion after she was expelled from the English Hospital of St. Thomas, and another that contains the enshrined body of St. Jerome (99.4–25), which fact clearly identifies it as S. Maria Maggiore, where the saint appeared in a vision to praise her. Despite the importance of the Church of St. Peter in Rome, it appears only as a simile in one of Christ’s speeches of reassurance (100.18). 24. Sarah Salih, “Two Travellers’ Tales,” 326, notes that “Margery, however, barely mentions Rome’s great store-houses of holy objects.” Kempe mistakenly declares that the body of St. Lawrence is beside that of Jerome, when, in fact, it was then, and still is, in Lawrence’s own church beyond the city’s walls. 25. For example, a good man who told Kempe that although he knew the saint when she was alive, “he wend lityl that sche had ben so holy a woman as sche was” (95.19–20). 26. See the comment Christ makes much earlier in the Book that Bridgit, unlike Kempe, never saw him in the communion wafer as a fluttering dove (47.25–7). 27. Krug, Margery Kempe and the Lonely Reader, esp. 45, 185–9.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Benson, C. David. Imagined Romes: The Ancient City and Its Stories in Medieval English Poetry. University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. ———. “Statues, Bodies, and Souls: St. Cecilia and Some Medieval Attitudes toward Ancient Rome.” In Medieval Women and Their Objects, edited by Jenny Adams and Nancy Mason Bradbury, 267–87. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017. Buddensieg, Tilmann. “Gregory the Great, the Destroyer of Pagan Idols.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 28 (1965): 44–65. Capgrave, John. Abbreuiacion of Cronicles. Edited Peter J. Lucas. EETS OS 285. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. ———. Ye Solace of Pilgrimes. Edited by C. A. Mills. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911. College, E. “John Capgrave’s Literary Vocation.” Analecta Augustiniana 40 (1977): 187–95. Fredeman, J. C. “The Life of John Capgrave, O.E.S.A. (1393–1464).” Augustiniana 29 (1979): 197–237. Huygens, R. B. C., ed. Magister Gregorius: Narracio de Mirabilibus Urbis Romae. Leiden: Brill, 1970.

200

C. David Benson and Pamela J. Benson

James, M. R. “Magister Gregorius de Mirabilibus Urbis Romae.” English Historical Review 32 (1917): 531–54. Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe. Edited by Sanford Brown Meech and Hope Emily Allen. EETS OS 212. London: Oxford University Press, 1940. Krug, Rebecca. Margery Kempe and the Lonely Reader. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017. Minnis, A. J. “‘Figures of Olde Werk’: Chaucer’s Poetic Sculptures.” In Secular Sculpture: 1300–1500, edited by Phillip Lindley and Thomas Frangenberg, 124– 43. Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 2000. Nardella, Cristina. Il Fascino di Roma nel Medioevo: Le “Meraviglie di Roma”: di Maestro Gregorio. Rome: Viella, 1997. Osborne, John, trans., Master Gregorius: The Marvels of Rome. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1987. Salih, Sarah. “Two Travellers’ Tales.” In Medieval East Anglia, edited by Christopher Harper-Bill, 318–32. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2005. The Stacions of Rome. Edited by Frederick J. Furnivall, EETS OS 25. London: Trübner, 1867. Winstead, Karen. John Capgrave’s Fifteenth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.

Chapter 10

The Not Yet Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale James Simpson

Scholarship of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale (hereafter WBPT) was transformed by the arrival of feminist criticism in the late 1980s. No longer did criticism treat the Prologue and Tale as satire of the Wife; it began instead to treat them as satire by the Wife. The target of satire of the Wife had been the Wife herself—notably her “character,” and also her exegetical practice.1 The targets of satire by the Wife suddenly and refreshingly multiplied; they were, for example, the patriarchal system; its textuality; its hermeneutics; and, usually, all three at once.2 Read as satire of the Wife, much of WBPT criticism implicitly treated the WBPT as governed by the ethos of the fabliau. The criticism was, that is, governed by the ethos of getting even, or, to use Chaucer’s own favorite word for that ethos, “quitting.” This scholarship argued that Chaucer had got even with his invented female character. The WBPT is a completed unit: by the time it ends, it is over. The feminist criticism that appeared in the late 1980s, however, saw things differently. Part of its refreshing brilliance and the hermeneutic liberation it offered consisted in arguing that the WBPT left a great deal undone. The Wife might speak as if she closes both her husbands and the patriarchal system down (“For by my trouthe, I quitte hem word for word” [line 422]).3 She might astutely deploy masculinist textual weapons against men. For all that, the job was unfinished, since the overall effect of both Prologue and Tale was either to produce a reformist resolution that remained masculinist4 or to understand the following: that the Wife merely replicated the power structures that she ostensibly subverted, because she is in the first instance the product of the male imagination.5 The WBPT is not a completed unit: by the time it ends, it has just begun. 201

202

James Simpson

Accounts of the Prologue as grounded on the ethos of quitting are by no means askew to the world of bourgeois values from which the Wife’s Prologue, and many of the Canterbury tales themselves, are drawn. Quitting is a fundamental ethical and narrative model that runs powerfully through the entire Canterbury Tales, and which, after all, governs the tale-telling competition of the Canterbury pilgrimage itself. In this short chapter, however, I argue, with the feminist criticism I have cited, that the fabliau model of full debt reclamation, and more, does not match either the Prologue or the Tale, and certainly not their combination. Instead, I posit that each, and especially the whole, leave what one late medieval poet himself called a “residue,” an interpretative debt that cannot be paid from within the resources of the work itself.6 As I say, such arguments have been made by superb contributions to WBPT scholarship over the last century, and especially over the last thirty years. Those arguments, however, pointed to resolutions made within the very short time of the Wife’s own tale-telling;7 or within the still short time of the Canterbury tale-telling (i.e., across the “Marriage Group” of tales);8 or within the slightly longer-term imagined time of the marriage between the young knight and the now transformed old hag.9 My argument here extends and redefines the period in which the tale’s unresolved debts can be repaid. I will argue that WBPT can be understood as a “not yet” text, a text, that is, for which the resolution of its interpretative residues can only be attempted in the longer history of the text’s reception in history. The astonishingly compact and compelling textual grouping that is WBPT knowingly creates interpretative debts for each of its readers to pay, across the history that lies before it. It is, in the words of another “not yet” text written by a woman author exactly contemporary with the WBPT—Julian of Norwich in her Revelation of Love (?1393)—“begonne . . . but it is not yet performed.”10 It is, in short, somehow, painfully, unfinished, “a long preamble of a tale” (line 837); only the act of reading can contribute to a resolved ending. In addition to describing the WBPT as a “not yet” text in this chapter, I also contribute to the history of the WBPT’s “performance” with an account of one remarkable early modern anagogic reading of Chaucer’s work. I What do I mean by a “not yet” text? Premodern biblical interpretative practice supplies the answer, with the word “anagogy.” I have recently argued that Chaucer was, like many great late medieval authors, an anagogic writer.11 The word “anagogic” (Greek “leading up”) as used in hermeneutics derives from fourfold biblical exegesis; it designates the meaning of the text at the end of

The Not Yet Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

203

time. In Christian exegesis, from at least the second century,12 interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures, known by Christians as the Old Testament, was divisible by one principal division, between the literal sense and the mystical senses. The literal sense designated the historical actuality of an event; the mystical senses designated the unfolding of the meaning of that historical event through time. This primary division is of cardinal importance in recognizing the historical truth of a past event; allegory of this kind does not merely see through a past event to its true meaning and then discard the event. On the contrary, the event grows to different meanings through and beyond time, in three ways: in the first instance, the past event points forward to its historical fulfillment later in historical time, through Christ (the figural, or allegorical sense); secondly, the past historical event provides imitable ethical models (the tropological sense); and thirdly, the past event and its figural fulfillment also point forward to a future, eschatological fulfillment at the end of time (the anagogical sense). As the medieval mnemonic has it: “Litera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia” [The letter teaches events, allegory what you should believe, morality what you should do, anagogy what you should be aiming for].13 In its biblical instantiation, understanding of such texts happens in, and grows in, time. Another way of saying this would be to say that the anagogic text waits for its ideal reader, at the ideal moment of its reading. Thus Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141), for example, outlines the rich psychological and temporal modalities of anagogical reading: Anagoge enim, sicut dictum est, ascensio mentis, sive elevatio vocatur in contemplationem supernorum. Anagogice igitur circumvelatur, quia ad hoc velatur ut amplius clarescat; ob hoc tegitur ut magis appareat. Ejus igitur obumbratio nostri est illuminatio; et ejus circumvelatio nostri elevatio.14 [For the ascension or lifting up of the mind to the contemplation of things above is called anagoge. Such contemplation is anagogically veiled, in order that it shine all the more strongly; it is thus covered that it appear all the more clearly. The shadowing of this truth is our illumination; its wrapping our elevation.]

Hugh’s account of anagogy is psychological and processual: the mind is certainly illuminated and raised, but the illumination is deliberately gradual. It happens in time (“amplius clarescat . . . magis appareat”). So powerfully is the clouded mental beginning of the process related to its illumined end, that the dark beginning is itself transformed: “obumbratio nostri est illuminatio.”15 Such a mode of reading was still available, in the vernacular, to Thomas More in the early 1530s, in his Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer (1532–1533), just as the entire system of fourfold exegesis was about to undergo trashing

204

James Simpson

of a vigorous kind from Lutheran readers.16 Lutheran literalism has it that biblical meaning is complete and completely intelligible (to the elect at least) in its initial inscription.17 In contrast and explicit opposition to such a claim, More exhibits an apparently relaxed understanding of continuing, progressive scriptural revelation and understanding. He argues that Tyndale gains nothing by arguing that the doctors of the church disagreed among themselves: For God doth reveal his truths not always in one manner, but sometime he sheweth out at once. . . . Sometime he sheweth it leisurely, suffering his flock to come and dispute thereupon, and in their treating of the matter, suffereth them with good mind and scripture and natural wisdom, with invocation of his spiritual help, to search and seek for the truth, and to vary for the while in their opinions, till that he reward their virtuous diligence with leading them secretly in to the consent and concord and belief of the truth by his Holy Spirit. . . . So that in the mean while the variance is without sin.18

In the hands of Hugh of St. Victor, no less than Thomas More (not to speak of almost every Christian exegete across the first 1,500 years of Christianity),19 this scheme is obviously dependent on a divinely instituted temporal, eschatological scheme, whose resources are clearly beyond those of the secular author. That fact might incline us not to apply such a practice to the interpretation of humanly written texts. Or it might incline us at least to modify the stronger claims of divinely instituted anagogy, so as to render an anagogical disposition plausible for human productions. It might incline us to define a secular version of anagogy, what we might call a “not yet” text, a text that, in Dante’s words in the Divina Commedia (1308–1320), is written for those readers “che questo tempo chiameranno antico” (“who will call this time antique”).20 Even, however, in significantly modified, secularized form, the presuppositions of anagogic reading run directly counter to those of what might be called synchronic philology (the dominant practice of historicist interpretation in both old and “new” historicisms).21 For synchronic philology, both old and new, that is, the meaning of a text is most fully expressed within the moment of its own production, within a wholly distinctive period of history. And History is so deeply divided by periodic crevasses that it cannot in any case be treated as in any way a continuous whole; “History” is instead a series of epistemically divided periods, each significantly unintelligible to each other. Understanding texts from the past begins from the presupposition of neatly packaged alterity. Under protocols of that kind, the text does not lean into, and has no prophetic resonance for, the future; it must instead be understood “within its own terms,” being born and dying within a given period. By the protocols of

The Not Yet Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

205

synchronic historicism, reception history can and will be practiced, but only as a history of detecting interesting errors. Reception history is a history, that is, of later readers appropriating a text against the current of the original text’s meaning; the original text is thus understood to be appropriated within the pressures of the later reader’s own time and terms. Understanding the later reception of a text is itself an exercise in synchronic historicism, revealing the ways in which reception illuminates not so much the original text, but rather the moment of reception itself. The scholarly task of such reception history is, on the basis of expert knowledge of distinct periods, to measure the error of the reception with regard to the original text. That measurement of error is made from the condescension of History. There will be no acknowledgement of continuities across periods, since such continuities challenge the notion of periodization, and can be dismissed by the knock-out scholarly charge of anachronism. As a thought experiment, how might we think differently about interpretation in time, and about diachronic historicism? How might we render the grand, divine claims of anagogy plausible for humanly produced texts? And why might we want to? We are prompted to try this experiment as we confront texts that hang uneasily within time zones not fully their own. Anagogy classically expresses a profound desire for the future from a broken and wounded present, “yearn[ing],” in the words of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), “towards the unknown.”22 Many texts, I have argued elsewhere, could be described as “not yet” narratives, from (at least!) the “not yet” of Christ’s nondum at John 7:6 and 7:8 (first-century ce),23 to Forster’s “not yet” in A Passage to India (1924).24 Such narratives, that is, point to a utopian, or at least resolved, future from a wounded present;25 the shape of such texts, arising from a wounded present, simultaneously reflects the present’s woundedness, and points to future resolution. Not only that, but, more importantly, the reception of such “not yet” texts itself contributes to the realization of that future resolution. The not yet text will most likely exhibit some or all of the following characteristics: an extraliterary crisis surrounding it; explicit or implied prophecy; a pronounced sense of being but a beginning; different versions, and/or other forms of improvisation; crises of representation; unabsorbed narrative and/or formal features that cannot be accommodated in the here and now of the text (stylistically and structurally, such texts are characterized by both inconsistent temporal perspectives, and by generic and stylistic disjunctions); and a sense of its own woundedness. Within their own reception, not yet texts habitually provoke fiercely antagonistic responses: fiercely negative responses that focus on the woundedness on the one hand; and, on the other, fiercely positive responses that focus on the future promise (the three, possibly four versions of Piers Plowman,

206

James Simpson

[1360s–1380s], the versions of Wordsworth’s significantly named Prelude [1799, 1805, 1850], and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin are all good examples, each in almost every respect). Generically, such texts are habitually broken romances—texts that promise, aspire to, and yet are incapable of delivering a resolved, comedic ending. They are not, as I have argued elsewhere, tragic: they do not disallow a future (as does, for example, King Lear [performed by 1606]). And neither are they elegiac: they do not express the irredeemable victimhood of the narrator in someone else’s possibly triumphant history (as does, for example, the letter of Dido in Ovid’s Heroides [c. 16–2 bce]). They are, instead, comedic in aspiration. All these features of the “not yet” text distinguish the secular anagogic reading from reader-response theory. Of course, the two models overlap, insofar as both posit the reader as a visible, interpretable player in the production of meaning. Both understand meaning as a dialectical process of textual and readerly interaction: readers interpret texts within the horizons of their own needs and expectations. Certainly, secular anagogy will distinguish itself from the more brittle, tendentious, and potentially authoritarian examples of reader-response theory that posit readerly response as the only source of meaning, effacing the text altogether as a generator of meaning (e.g., those of Stanley Fish or Richard Rorty).26 But the larger, salient difference is as follows: reader-response theory applies to the response of any and every interpretative community, as it receives any and every text from the past; secular anagogy as I have defined it applies, by contrast, only to a subset of texts that emerge from painfully irresolvable, wounded presents (e.g., such as that of patriarchy); they both long for and contribute to the creation of an ideal future reader, who works self-consciously in a tradition. II The WBPT does not manifest each of these likely features of a “not yet” text. In fact, so many passages in WBPT would suggest that there is nothing whatsoever unresolved about the Wife’s two texts or their combination. I have, for example, already cited a claim by the Wife to have quit each of her first three husbands “word for word” (line 422). And there are other such claims: “I n’owe hem nat a word that it nis quit” (425); “But he [her fourth husband] was quit, by God and by Seint Joce!” (483). Such passages suggest that accounts are closed, and other passages suggest that they are closed with an especially neat and pleasing symmetry: the Wife uses the very words of her husbands, or of men generally, to punish them: she quit her fourth husband, for example, with a punishing cross made of the very wood with which he had pained her (484), just as she consistently uses texts drawn from anti-feminist satire itself to berate

The Not Yet Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

207

and exhaust all her husbands.27 So too she flirts with other men, while married to her fourth husband, “That in his owene grece I made him frye” (487). That fourth husband, indeed, suffered so much on earth as husband to the Wife, that his spiritual future is already absorbed and settled by earthly experience: “By God, in erthe I was his purgatorye, / For which I hope his soule be in glorie” (lines 489–90). His tomb, so far from leaning into a future as a chantry chapel might, is firmly closed, both literally and metaphorically, by the terms of earthly account settling: Al is his tombe noght so curious As was the sepulcre of him, Darius, Which that Appelles wroghte subtilly; It nis but wast to burye him preciously. Lat him far wel, God give his soule reste, He is now in the grave and in his cheste. (497–500)

The wholly pragmatic treatment of the fourth husband’s tomb, indeed, points to the Wife’s completely disenchanted and wholly untroubled exploitation of sacral forms for self-interested, material purposes. Thus, while still married to her fourth husband, she capitalizes on religious practices to search out another husband, just in case (which is why, we might fairly assume, she is on pilgrimage to Canterbury in The Canterbury Tales): Therfore I made my visitacions, To vigilies and to processions, To preching eek and to thise pilgrimages, To pleyes of miracles and mariages. (555–8)

The ostensibly sacral, in fact, is precisely what has disenchanted the world of the Wife. Thus, at the beginning of her Tale she describes a decidedly unmagical landscape, disenchanted not by Weberian Protestantism (obviously enough)28 but rather by, precisely, Catholic ecclesiastical institutions. The faeries of old and Arthurian England, from “many hundred yeres ago” (863), have vanished, to be wholly replaced by a thickly dispersed multitude of lowly and exploitative ecclesiastical officials: “This maketh that ther been no faieryes” (872). The only threat to women these days in the countryside comes from lowly, local churchmen, “And he ne wol doon hem but dishonour” (881). Generically, too, fabliau and romance would seem to conspire to suggest that both separate parts of the Wife’s presentation—both Prologue and

208

James Simpson

Tale—are neatly closed, no less than the WBPT itself as a unit. Thus both Prologue and Tale end in identical ways. The Prologue might express the world of what I have elsewhere called “prudential comedy” (i.e., happy endings whose neat final fit depends on the exercise of often amoral, cunning wit); and the Tale is definitely drawn from romance, the genre of “providential comedy,” where the ostensible happy ending expresses a world order of everything ending providentially back in its proper place, a place assigned by the order of the cosmos.29 Despite such radically different, not to say opposed generic commitments, both Prologue and Tale end with the Wife/wife on top, and with meek husbands who have fully accepted the sovereignty of their respective wives. The Prologue ends with the husband granting full “soverainetee” to the Wife, and “After that day we hadden nevere debaat” (819–22). The Tale, likewise, ends with the wife in possession of full “maistrye” (1236) over her husband, after which “thus they live, unto hir lives ende, / In parfit joye” (1257–58).30 Dead husbands safely locked in chests; two identically happy endings arrived at from very different generic materials; wives on top: where’s the unpaid debt?; where’s the interpretive residue?; where is the sense of the WBPT being a “not yet” text? Where, in short, is the problem? Answer: almost everywhere. In brief, taking the Prologue first. The Wife replaces male “maistrye” with its exact female counterpart.31 It is precisely the symmetry of oppressive power assertions that is the problem, leaving as it does a desire for mutual relations not dominated by symmetrical, relentless exercise of power. In the same Prologue, the Wife declares both “Winne whoso may, for al is for to selle” (414), and, with regard to her fifth husband, “Allas! allas! that evere love was sinne!” (614). The second statement, in both content and form, expresses the deep residue of melancholy in a world produced by the first. Furthermore, the Wife not only achieves her sovereignty by relentless exercise of violence, verbal and sometimes physical, but she is herself left wounded by that achievement, both forever sore on her ribs “unto min ending day” (507) and partially deaf (635). And the Tale? The young woman who is raped is never heard of more in the Tale. The rapist knight is, by contrast, eventually rewarded with everything he might have wanted: a young, beautiful, and faithful wife. The Tale that begins in a trenchantly disenchanted landscape ends with a story that claims to enchant the present, so precisely does the transformation of the old wife into the young woman suit the predicament of its teller, the Wife who laments her age. The Tale cannot help but present itself as a narrative of unfulfillable longing that ignores victims. And the relation of Prologue and Tale? In the Prologue the Wife delivers a coruscating critique of masculine textual control and its far-reaching,

The Not Yet Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

209

hugely damaging consequences. If only the women had written the stories, things would look very different (688–96). At the beginning of her Prologue, the Wife herself practices a brilliantly subversive hermeneutics on the biblical text with remarkable assurance, which underlines just how well read she is, and just how skillful she might be as a reader in preparation for authorship.32 In the fiction of The Canterbury Tales, however, the moment of authorship comes with the composed Tale (the Prologue is presented as “real life”), and when it comes, we get a tale that satisfies every dream of a patriarchal textual culture: a magical romance in which the rapist male is rewarded with a beautiful and faithful young wife. The romance Tale would apparently conform to the perennial critiques of romance writing of being escapist and sentimental. The Wife seems to cave into a genre, of escapist romance centered on the resolution of the anguish of the undeserving male, the genre that she might be expected most to assault.33 To be sure, for the romance resolution to occur, the narrative must recognize the seriousness of everything that would threaten it, in the manner of good romances: the young, rich, aristocratic male must recognize the force of age, poverty, and bourgeois ethics.34 He does that, grudgingly, before he reassumes his place as a young, rich, aristocratic male, now married as he would most want to be.35 In sum, the textually sophisticated Wife seems to collapse into textual naiveté. Whereas she tears pages out of the volume of anti-feminist satire, we are left at the end puzzling as to whether or not her own Prologue and Tale themselves belong in that very book about which the Wife had been so brilliantly and aggressively critical.36 In sum, the WBPT is not remotely settled. The economic resolution of fabliau (all debts paid through disenchanted debt reclamation) is no more persuasive here than the economic resolutions of romance (enchanted gift giving, resolving all debts) might be. Both fabliau and romance ideally end in such a way as to dissolve the textual status of the story itself: in a romance, for example, characters live “happily ever after,” beyond the text. The WBPT remains, by contrast, very much a text—a painfully torn text, indeed—after its ostensible end, an end that puzzles and pains us, where neither fabliau-like Prologue nor romance Tale ends with resolution. Of course, this may all be a question of a male author consciously or unconsciously unable to manage his feminine matter.37 We must bear in mind who painted the “lion” of the Wife. The Wife’s story of Midas and his asses’ ears shows indeed how women can reveal the embarrassing secrets of men, which is maybe what WBPT is doing to Chaucer as author—revealing his embarrassing persuasions about both women’s sexuality and textuality. The fact remains, however, that a text that aspires to settled resolution ends roiling with unsettled issues.

210

James Simpson

III One way of encapsulating this unsettledness is to think of WBPT as a “not yet” text, a text that evidently fails to absorb the world around it, and whose failure is part of its own magnetism. The long Prologue to the Tale is designed, like all the prologues, to create at least the illusion of a “real life” outside and prior to the Tale; the Wife, the Prologue implies, exists outside the bounds of fiction, just as the sudden, irruptive start of her Prologue suggests that the debate about the “experience” (the first word of her performance) of marriage has been going on before and outside the WBPT. And this Prologue, furthermore, is by far the longest, and by far the least absorbed by its subsequent Tale in the whole Canterbury Tales. That excess signals a “not yet” text, and there are many other such signals. We might enumerate those signals thus: the WBPT is a text surrounded by an extraliterary social crisis not of the author’s making (in this case the perennial crises of patriarchy); it contains explicit or implied prophecy (here the prophecy of women’s authorship); it exhibits a pronounced sense of being but a beginning (a “long preamble of a tale,” being by far the longest prologue in The Canterbury Tales); it has different versions, and/or other forms of improvisation (repeated marriages, each a retake of the others); it reveals crises of representation (here sharp consciousness of drawing on materials produced by men about women); it contains unabsorbed narrative (many examples, but especially the failure of the Tale to absorb the Prologue); it works within inconsistent temporal perspectives (a disenchanted present versus faerie time); it deploys material from disjunctive generic and stylistic traditions (satire juxtaposed with romance); and, finally, it exposes a sense of its own woundedness (e.g., the Wife’s sore ribs and deaf ear, not to speak of the outrage the Wife experiences at Jankyn’s complacent amusement as he reads his anti-feminist volume). IV A further key feature of a “not yet” text that applies to WBPT is its contested reception. “Not yet” texts habitually provoke fiercely antagonistic responses, both fiercely negative and positive.38 In fact, if “not yet” texts project themselves into the world with the expectation that their own reception will itself contribute to the resolution of the crisis that produces them, then reception is perhaps the text’s most important feature. The WBPT is unique both within The Canterbury Tales and in Chaucer’s oeuvre for the density and irregularity of its represented reception. The Wife, more than any other figure in the Tales, prompts interruption and citation, all

The Not Yet Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

211

by men. She is also, remarkably, the only figure who is referred to in such a way as to break the fiction of The Canterbury Tales, and she is the only figure to be referred to in a Chaucerian work from outside the Tales. Thus the Pardoner interrupts before the Wife has begun narrating her marriages (163–87), and the Friar interrupts her before she has begun her Tale (829–31). Anxiety about the Wife, uncontained by the story of patient Griselda, is resurgent again at the end of The Clerk’s Tale. However ironic his reference, the Clerk cannot help but betray well-founded certainty that the Wife won’t buy into the Griselda model: For which heere, for the wyves love of Bathe, Whos lyf and al hir secte god maintene In heigh maistrye, and elles were it scathe, I wol with lusty herte, fresshe and grene Seye yow a song to glade yow, I wene, And lat us stinte of ernestful matere. (1170–5)

The Merchant’s Tale produces another flurry of references to the Wife. Justinus, a character within that tale, should, by the terms of The Merchant’s Tale’s fiction, know strictly nothing about the Wife of Bath; nonetheless, he refers to her as the reason not to say anything much about the grief that is in marriage: The Wif of Bathe, if ye han understonde, Of mariage, which we have on honde, Declared hath ful wel in litel space. (1685–7)

The Host, likewise, at the end of The Merchant’s Tale, refers implicitly to the Wife when he declares that he won’t say anything about his own wife, lest “it sholde reported be” (2435). After a mere twenty-one lines, what might be called The Host’s Tale is over, curtailed for fear of what the Wife might report back to the Host’s wife: “wherfor,” the not otherwise timid Host says, “my tale is do” (2440). Readers of some of Chaucer’s early manuscripts were also faced by a flurry of marginal “interruption,” since, in the Ellesmere manuscript (San Marino, Huntington Library, MS EL 26 C 9), the WBP attracts forty-seven marginal glosses, by far the most of any Canterbury tale (The Clerk’s Tale, in second place, attracts thirty-three comments).39 And the possibly authorial comments are for the most part (27/47) derived from a hostile source, Jerome’s Against Jovinian.40

212

James Simpson

And, just as remarkably, a poem composed by Chaucer to a verifiable person in Chaucer’s world, one “Bukton” (probably Peter Bukton), seems to cite the Wife of Bath’s Prologue (19–20), and ends with explicit recommendation to read “the Wife of Bathe” as an auctoritas on marriage: The Wyf of Bathe I pray you that ye rede Of this matere that we have on honde. God graunte you your lyf frely to lede In fredom; for ful hard is to be bonde. (29–32)41

In sum, the Wife’s Prologue clearly prompts a deeply unsettled response in the male pilgrims within The Canterbury Tales and in the male readership of Chaucer’s nonfictional world.42 Unlike Troilus and Criseyde (another perfect example of a “not yet” text),43 WBPT does not prompt independent works of art,44 but it does certainly prompt frequent comment. That comment consists for the most part of anxious, male reference to the Wife’s understanding of marriage, right up until feminist criticism of the 1980s.45 I end this chapter, however, by highlighting an exception to such anxious male response, a refreshing early modern reading of the WBPT. This is an independent work of art, and it focuses not on the Wife’s views of marriage but rather on the perhaps deeper hermeneutic struggle that underlies WBPT. I refer to a song text, The Wanton Wife of Bath, Sung to the Tune of Flying Fame, published independently as a broadside ballad. It was certainly published as early as 1600, but the first surviving example dates from 1641 to 1681 (a date range suggested by the Wing catalogue).46 The broadside is embellished by woodcuts of a splendidly dressed man facing an extravagantly dressed woman (presumably the Wife seeking entrance to heaven); on the next page the reader is supplied with a crude map of Bath on the Avon River. The song had an ongoing history of being printed in the seventeenth century and beyond. This deceptively simple text is a perfect example of an anagogic reading, a reading underwritten by persuasion that a text will be finally resolved outside history, when texts themselves recede. I do not want to crush the small nut of this song with the sledge-hammer of exegesis, but I cite Augustine, who imagines this surpassing of reading in his commentary on the Gospel of John: Sed . . . fidei fructus intellectus, ut perveniamus ad vitam aeternam, ubi non nobis legatur Evangelium; sed ille qui nobis modo Evangelium dispensavit, remotis omnibus lectionis paginis, et voce lectoris et tractatoris, appareat.47

The Not Yet Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

213

[But the fruit of faith is understanding, so that we may arrive at eternal life, where the Gospel would not be read to us, but he who has given us the Gospel would now appear with all the pages of the reading and the voice of the reader and commentator removed.]

The song text consists of 164 lines of 41 quatrains in ballad meter. Its structure is very simple. The narrative relates that the Wife died and went to heaven. There is no doubt whatsoever that we are dealing with Chaucer’s Wife of Bath: In Bath a wanton wife did dwell   As Chaucer he doth write Who did in pleasure spend her days   In many a fond delight.48

The Wife dies and seeks entrance to paradise. At heaven’s gate she is, however, disallowed entrance by a series of censorious gatekeepers, from Adam to Saint Peter. To each of the figures, men and women, who deny her entrance, the Wife vigorously responds, by pointing out their own sins as recorded in Scripture.49 We might take Solomon as an example, whom the Wife, following her exact Chaucerian model (and, we might add, following Chaucer’s brilliant Proserpine)50 excoriates: “The woman’s mad,” said Solomon,   “That thus doth taunt a king.” “Not half so mad as you,” she said,   I know in many a thing. Thou hadst seven hundred wives at once,   For whom thou didst provide For all this three hundred whores   Thou didst maintain beside. And those made thee forsake thy God   And worship stocks and stones Besides the charge they put thee to   In breeding of young bones. Hadst thou not been besides thy wit,   Thou wouldst not have ventred. And therefore do I marvel much   How thou this place have entred.”

After fluent, ready critique of Adam, Jacob, Lot, Judith, David, Thomas, Mary Magdalene, Paul, and Peter, besides Solomon, Christ comes. And here the reader is in for a surprise:

214

James Simpson

When as our Saviour Christ heard this   With heavenly angels bright He comes unto this sinful soul   Who trembled at his sight Of him for mercy she did crave   Quoth he “Thou hast refused My proffer, grace and mercy both   And much my name abused” “Sore have I sinned, Oh Lord,” she said,   And spent my time in vain But bring me like a wandring sheep   Into thy flock again. “Oh Lord, my God, I will amend   My former wicked vice. The thief at these poor silly words   Passed into Paradise.” “My laws and my commandements   Saith Christ, were known to thee But of the same in any wise   Nor yet one word did ye.” “I grant the same, Oh Lord,” quoth she   “Most lewdly did I live But yet the loving father did   His prodigal son forgive.” “So I forgive thy soul,” he said,   “Through thy repenting cry, Come therefore into my joy   I will not thee deny.”

This final sequence preserves, to be sure, the patriarchal structures of the Christian imaginary. Christ chastises the Wife for her “wantonness” just as all those anxious men in The Canterbury Tales do, and just as each heavenly gatekeeper has done. But once again, as in Chaucer’s Prologue, the Wife deploys scriptural knowledge to remarkable effect. The lost sheep, the saved thief, the prodigal son: the sinner persuades Christ rhetorically through her fluent knowledge of Scripture. Text passes into song, and the Wife passes into heaven. For a moment, outside time, the WBPT is over.51 Or it would be over, were it not for the fact that it’s not. At least twice printers of the ballad incurred penalties for its publication. Thus, on June 25, 1600, the Stationers’ Register records that the printers Edward Aldee and William White were to be fined for having printed the text, and that “all the same ballates shall be brought in and burnt.” On June 24, 1632, the

The Not Yet Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

215

Court of High Commission summoned the printer Henry Goskin for having printed this same ballad “wherein the histories of the Bible are scurrilously abused.” Goskin was sent to Bridewell Prison. The WBPT, even in its most anagogic reading, is returned to the endless struggle of its textual existence on earth.52 Marion Turner has told the story of this ongoing struggle, right up to and including the twenty-first century, where, in the renaissance of creative WBTP readings, one Wife declares, rather as does Julian of Norwich, that she is “not bygone just bigonne.”53 NOTES 1. Thus, for example, for “character,” see Pratt, “The Development of the Wife of Bath”: “The narrative of Alice and her fourth and fifth husbands offers the portrayal not only of a whip-wielding wife, but also of an experienced, man-hungry, lustful widow, scheming for another mate” (60); and, for the Wife’s hermeneutics, see Robertson, A Preface to Chaucer: the Wife as exegete is “hopelessly carnal and literal” (317); “in short, the wife of Bath is a literary personification of rampant ‘femininity’ or carnality, and her exegesis is, as a consequence, rigorously carnal and literal” (321). For some other examples, see Leicester, The Disenchanted Self, p. 141, n1. 2. The outstanding examples of such criticism were Dinshaw, Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics; Hansen, Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender; Jill Mann, Geoffrey Chaucer (1992), revised as Feminizing Chaucer (2002); and Robertson, Early English Devotional Prose. 3. All citations from The Canterbury Tales are taken from Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, ed. Mann. I shall simply cite lines numbers; WBPT appears in Fragment 3 of The Canterbury Tales; The Merchant’s Tale and The Clerk’s Tale, also cited in this chapter, appear in Fragment 4. 4. Dinshaw, Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics, p. 116. 5. Hansen, Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender, pp. 32–40. Hansen supplies a sketch history of WBPT criticism, pp. 40–57. 6. See, for example, Skelton, The Bouge of Court, in Skelton, The Complete English Poems, ed. Scattergood: “Now constrewe ye what is the resydewe” (line 539). 7. See, for example, Leicester, Disenchanted Self: “We, like the Wife, must concern ourselves less with the plot she remembers than with the plot of her remembering in the now of the narration” (p. 83) [author’s emphasis]. 8. For the designation “Marriage Group,” first used by Eleanor Prescott Hammond in 1912, see Howard, The Idea of the Canterbury Tales, p. 247. For the classic instance of the attempted resolutions of WBPT within the scheme of The Canterbury Tales, see Kittredge, Chaucer’s Discussion of Marriage.” For a more recent example, see Dinshaw, Sexual Poetics, pp. 130–1. 9. Mann, Feminizing Chaucer, p. 75. See also the exceptionally acute chapters by both Edwards, The Afterlives of Rape, chapter 3, pp. 81–106, and Robertson, “Rape, Female Subjectivity and the Poetics of Married Love.” Both chapters focus

216

James Simpson

principally on the tale in the legal context of rape. Edwards offers no potential resolution, but instead analyzes why the interrelated definitions of both male and female desire remain impossibly overdetermined. Robertson, by contrast, argues lucidly for the tale as a “utopian vision” (309), in which “Chaucer creates a gender inversion that acknowledges the social construction of gender and the neglected subjectivity of women in medieval culture” (318). In this essay I see too many dissonances both within the Tale and between Prologue and Tale to describe either the Tale or its relation with the Prologue as “utopian.” 10. A Revelation of Love, in The Writings of Julian of Norwich, ed. Watson and Jenkins, ch. 86, p. 379. 11. Simpson, “Not Yet: Chaucer and Anagogy.” 12. This scheme had its roots in comments made by Paul about the relation of the Hebrew scriptures to the Christian dispensation, especially Galatians 4:22–6. 13. For the origin of this distich, see Henri de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale, 1:1, from which this translation is drawn. 14. Hugh of St. Victor, Commentariorum in hierarchiam coelestem, 175.923– 1154, Col. 0946B, my translation, discussed in de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, 2:183. De Lubac himself distinguishes between the ways in which anagogy prompts abstract theorization about final ends on the one hand, and the ways in which anagogy transports its subject into a contemplative state not reliant on signs on the other. See de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, 2:188–97. 15. I discuss the applicability of anagogic reading to Chaucer and Middle English texts more generally in Simpson, “Not Yet: Chaucer and Anagogy”; I cite this text at 38. 16. For the larger dispute between More and Tyndale, see Simpson, Burning to Read. For the Reformation attack on fourfold exegesis, see pp. 184–221. 17. Simpson, Burning to Read, pp. 116–17. 18. More, The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, ed. Schuster, Marius, Lusardi, and Schoeck, in The Complete Works of St Thomas More, 1:248/8–25. 19. Though exegetes did not feel bound to move through each of these steps routinely; see Dahan, L'Exégése Chrétienne, p. 436. 20. Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia, ed. Sapegno, Paradiso, 17.119–20. 21. Argued more fully in Simpson, “Diachronic History and the Shortcomings of Medieval Studies.” 22. For brief discussion of Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a “not yet” text, see Simpson, “Not Yet: Chaucer and Anagogy,” 31–3. 23. 7:6: “Tempus meum nondum advenit”; 7:8: “quia meum tempus nondum impletum est.” 24. Simpson, “Not Yet: Chaucer and Anagogy,” 33. 25. I draw the word “wounded” with reference to temporality from Strohm, “Chaucer’s Troilus as Temporal Archive,” in his Theory and the Premodern Text, pp. 80–96 (at 81). This illuminating essay informs my larger understanding of the “not yet” text. 26. For which see Simpson, “Faith and Hermeneutics” (at 230–1 especially, where I point out the uneasy relations of American literary critical and philosophical Pragmatism with authoritarian interpretative practice).

The Not Yet Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

217

27. Mann, Feminizing Chaucer, pp. 39–69. 28. For Weber’s thesis and its fortunes in Anglo-American cultural history, see Walsham, “The Reformation.” 29. For these categories of comedic narrative, see Simpson, Reform and Cultural Revolution, 1350–1547, being volume 2 of The Oxford English Literary History, chapter 6. 30. For Elizabeth Scala, as I understand her argument, this assertion of mastery is precisely the problem, but the WBPT can be seen nonetheless as properly finished, as an essay of sorts on the nature of subjectivity: “Gaining sovereignty, the power of self-determination, is a fiction of subjectivity, which demands far more mastery, as well as the others mastery necessitates. To become a ‘self’ one must also become a subject—and endure subjectification—which means recognizing and identifying with the Other. In fact, the misrecognition of the conditions of mastery as sovereignty is one of the primal fictions of the subject out of which desire, and the language that aims to fulfill it, emerges” (Desire in the Canterbury Tales, p. 151). 31. An argument cogently made by Aers, in his Chaucer, Langland and the Creative Imagination, pp. 147–51. 32. For the Wife as skillful interpreter, see Mann, Feminizing Chaucer, pp. 253–64. 33. For a trenchant argument about the very different premises of Prologue and Tale with regard to sexual relations, see Robertson, Chaucerian Consent, forthcoming, chapter 3. See also Robertson, “Marriage, Mutual Consent, and The Affirmation of the Female Subject,” 175–95. 34. For the impulse in romances to achieve balance, or what I call “cybernetic” structures, see Simpson, “Derek Brewer’s Romance,” 171. 35. For which fulfillment of masculine desire, see Patterson, “For the Wyves Love of Bathe,” 682–3. 36. A vigorous recent intervention by Emma Lipton would dispute this argument. Lipton argues that the WBT offers a model of distinctively feminist justice, in which retributive justice is replaced by an educative, activist, ongoing model of corrective justice. Illuminating as it is, Lipton’s case restricts itself to WBT, and does not at all address the “residue” from WBP. Neither does Lipton address the situation of the raped woman at the tale’s start, who needs and deserves retributive justice. See Lipton, “Contracts, Activist Feminism and the Wife of Bath’s Tale.” 37. For a brilliant reading of WBPT as a masculine textual fantasy, see Dinshaw, Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics, pp. 125–6, 129. 38. Simpson, “Not Yet: Chaucer and Anagogy,” 33. 39. Transcribed, translated, and sourced by Clarke, “The Hengwrt and Ellesmere Glosses,” Appendix 2. See 130–62 for discussion. 40. For the text of which, see Jankyn’s Book of Wikked Wyves, ed. Hanna and Lawler, vol. 1. 41. Cited from Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, pp. 655–6; see p. 1087 for the possible identification of Bukton. 42. For the density of nervous male reference to the Wife as an authority on marriage, see Minnis, Fallible Authors, p. 252 for comparable references by figures in

218

James Simpson

works by Hoccleve, Lydgate, and Skelton. For a broad survey of reception of WBPT, see Cooper, “The Shape-Shiftings of the Wife of Bath.” See also the brilliant argument of Turner, Alison’s Tale: A Biography of the Wife of Bath (forthcoming, chapter 6). 43. Strohm, “Chaucer’s Troilus as Temporal Archive.” 44. See Simpson, “The Formless Ruin of Oblivion.” 45. For a neat summation of the penalties for publishing The Wanton Wife of Bath in 1600 and 1632, see Spurgeon, Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion, Part IV, Appendix A, p. 54. 46. For which see Bowden, The Wife of Bath in Afterlife, Appendix A, prepared by Arn, 305–40. For illuminating discussion of this text, see Turner, Alison’s Tale, chapter 6. 47. Augustine, In Joannis evangelium, Tractatus 22, 35.1574–82, Col.1575, discussed and translated in Medieval Exegesis, 2:188–9. 48. Cited from The Wanton Wife of Bath (London, ?1641–81), with silent emendations, from The Wanton Wife of Bath (London, 1665). In addition to 1600, 1632 (traceable from a record of imprisonment for having published it, cited in Spurgeon, Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion, IV, Appendix A, p. 54), and to the texts from (?)1641–81, and 1666 already cited, there are printings in the following years, in many case estimates: (?)1692; 1695–1700; (?)1700–99; and (?)1775 (twice). This information is derived from early English books online. The text of The Wanton Wife of Bath was also published in Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, ed. Percy, 123–8. 49. Adam, Jacob, Lot, Judith, David, Solomon, Thomas, Mary Magdalene, Paul, and Peter. 50. Merchant’s Tale, lines 2281–302. 51. For an entirely convergent reading of the Wanton Wife of Bath, see Cooper, pp. 180–2, who summarizes thus: “Of all the various forms the Wife took down the centuries, the Wanton Wife represents the most attentive and responsive reading of Chaucer” (181). 52. For Goskin’s imprisonment, see Spurgeon, Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism, IV, Appendix A, p. 54. 53. Caroline Bergvall, Alisoun Sings, 120. Cited from Turner, Alison’s Tale, chapter 10.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aers, David. Chaucer, Langland and the Creative Imagination. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980. Alighieri, Dante. La Divina Commedia. Edited by Natalino Sapegno. Florence: Nuova Italia, 1979. Augustine, of Hippo. “In Joannis evangelium, Tractatus 22.” In Patrologia Latina, edited by J.-P. Migne, 221 vols. (Paris: Migne, 1844–), vol. 35, Col.1575–82.

The Not Yet Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

219

Bergvall, Caroline. Alisoun Sings. New York: Nightboat Books, 2019. Bowden, Betsy. The Wife of Bath in Afterlife: Ballads to Blake. Bethlehem, MD: Lehigh University Press, 2017. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Edited by Jill Mann. London: Penguin, 2005. Clarke, K. P. “The Hengwrt and Ellesmere Glosses to the Clerk’s Tale and the Wife of Bath’s Prologue.” In his Chaucer and Italian Textuality. Oxford: Oxford Scholarship online, 2011. Appendix 2. Cooper, Helen. “The Shape-Shiftings of the Wife of Bath, 1395–1670.” In Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer, edited by Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, 168–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Dahan, Gilbert. L’Exégése Chrétienne de la Bible en Occident Médiéval XII-XIV siècle. Paris: Cerf, 1999. de Lubac, Henri. Exégèse médiévale: les quatres sens de l’Écriture, vols. 41, 42, and 59 of Théologie, 2 vols. in 4 (Paris: Aubier, 1959–64), translated as Medieval Exegesis, trans. Marc Sebanc and E. M. Macierowski, 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998. Dinshaw, Carolyn. Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989. Edwards, Suzanne M. The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature. New York: Palgrave, 2016. Hansen, Elaine Tuttle. Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Howard, Donald R. The Idea of the Canterbury Tales. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1976. Hugh of St. Victor. Commentariorum in hierarchiam coelestem . . . libri x. In Patrologia Latina, edited by J.-P. Migne, 221 vols. (Paris: Migne, 1844–), vol. 175, Col.923–1154. Jerome. “Adversus Jovinianum.” In Jankyn’s Book of Wikked Wyves, edited by Ralph Hanna III and Traugott Lawler. 2 vols. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997. Julian of Norwich. “A Revelation of Love.” In The Writings of Julian of Norwich, edited by Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. Kittredge, George Lyman. “Chaucer’s Discussion of Marriage.” Modern Philology 9 (1912): 435–67. Leicester, Marshall. The Disenchanted Self: Representing the Subject in the Canterbury Tales. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. Lipton, Emma. “Contracts, Activist Feminism and the Wife of Bath’s Tale.” Chaucer Review 54 (2019): 335–51. Mann, Jill. Geoffrey Chaucer. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992. Revised as Feminizing Chaucer. Woodbridge, UK: Brewer, 2002. Minnis, Alastair. Fallible Authors: Chaucer’s Pardoner and the Wife of Bath. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. More, Thomas. “The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer.” In The Complete Works of St Thomas More, 8, 3 Parts, edited by Louis A. Schuster, Richard Marius, James P. Lusardi, and Richard J. Schoeck, 8–25. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973.

220

James Simpson

Patterson, Lee. “‘For the Wyves Love of Bathe’: Feminine Rhetoric and Poetic Resolution in the Roman de la Rose and the Canterbury Tales.” Speculum 58 (1983): 656–95. Percy, Thomas, ed. Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. 3 vols. Dublin, 1766. Pratt, Robert A. “The Development of the Wife of Bath.” In Studies in Medieval Literature in Honor of Professor Albert Croll Baugh, edited by MacEdward Leach, 45–79. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961. Robertson, Elizabeth. Chaucerian Consent: Women, Religion and Subjection in Late Medieval England, forthcoming. ———. Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990. ———. “Marriage, Mutual Consent, and The Affirmation of the Female Subject in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, and The Franklin’s Tale.” In Drama, Narrative, and Poetry in the Canterbury Tales, edited by Wendy Harding, 175–95. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2003. ———. “Rape, Female Subjectivity and the Poetics of Married Love in Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Tale and James I’s Kingis Quair.” In Reading Medieval Culture: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Hanning, edited by Robert Stein and Sandra Pierson Prior, 302–23. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. Scala, Elizabeth. Desire in the Canterbury Tales. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2015. Simpson, James. Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and its Reformation Opponents. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007. ———. “Derek Brewer’s Romance.” In A Modern Medievalist: Traditions and Innovations in the Study of Medieval Literature, edited by Charlotte Brewer and Barry Windeatt, 154–72. Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2013. ———. “Diachronic History and the Shortcomings of Medieval Studies.” In Reading the Medieval in Early Modern England, edited by David Matthews and Gordon McMullan, 17–30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. ———. “Faith and Hermeneutics: Pragmatism versus Pragmatism.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33 (2003): 215–39. ———. “‘The Formless Ruin of Oblivion’: Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida and Literary Defacement.” In Love, History and Emotion in Chaucer and Shakespeare: Troilus and Criseyde and Troilus and Cressida, edited by Andrew Johnston, Russell West Pavlov, and Elizabeth Kempf, 189–206. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016. ———. “Not Yet: Chaucer and Anagogy.” Biennial Lecture of the New Chaucer Society. Studies in the Age of Chaucer 37 (2015): 31–54. ———. Reform and Cultural Revolution, 1350–1547, being volume 2 of The Oxford English Literary History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Skelton, John. The Complete English Poems. Edited by John Scattergood. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983. Spurgeon, Caroline F. E. Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion. 7 vols. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Trübner, 1914–25.

The Not Yet Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

221

Strohm, Paul. Theory and the Premodern Text. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Turner, Marion. Alison’s Tale: A Biography of the Wife of Bath, forthcoming. Walsham, Alexandra. “The Reformation and the ‘Disenchantment of the World’ Reassessed.” The Historical Journal 51 (2008): 497–528. The Wanton Wife of Bath. London, 1641–81.

Index

“ABC of Aristotle”, 101 Abelard, Peter, 54 acrostics, 113–26 Aethelthryth of Ely. See Life of Saint Audrey affect, x, 5, 14, 17–18, 25–42, 47, 59, 68. See also women Albert the Great, 7 Aldee, Edward (printer), 214 Alighieri, Dante: Divine Comedy, 204 Al-Kindi, 7 allegory, xi, 59–61, 94–100, 104, 203 anagogy, 202–6 Anastasia, Saint, 190 Ancrene Wisse, xi, 161 Anglo-Norman, xv, 161–77 anti-feminist satire, 206–7 anti-fraternal satire, 115 Aquinas, Thomas, 50–51, 54, 67, 68, 76 Aristotle, xii, 6, 7, 41, 55–56 Augustians, 187 Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, 4, 79, 212 authorial signatures, 122–26 Averroes, 7

Barney, Stephen, 31 Beaufort, Joan, 93 Beaufort, Margaret, 93–94, 97 Beckwith, Sarah, 67, 75 Bede, Venerable: Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 167–68 Benedictine order, 123, 162 Berkeley, Elizabeth, 123 Bernart de Ventadorn, 95 birds, 9, 15–18, 94–95 Blanche of Lancaster, 13 Blanton, Virginia, 168 Boccaccio, 26, 33, 36, 38 Boethius: Consolation of Philosophy, 19, 26, 33–36, 38, 123 Bollens, Guillemette, 29–30 Book of Margery Kempe. See Kempe, Margery Bradshaw, Henry: Lyfe of saynt Werburge, 123–24 Bradwardine, Thomas, 48 Bridget, Saint, 194 Brown, Catherine, 94 Burger, Glenn, 13

Badel, Pierre-Eve, 172–73 ballads, xv, 212–15 Barclay, Alexander: Ship of Fools, 119 Barking Abbey, 162–63

Campsey Priory, 162, 167 Capgrave, John: Life of St. Katherine, 192; Solace of Pilgrims, xv, 183, 187–92 223

224

Index

Catherine, Saint. See Capgrave, John, Life of St. Katherine; Clemence of Barking, Life of St. Catherine Caxton, William, 93 Cecilia, Saint, 186–89 Charles d’Orleans, 120 Chaucer, Geoffrey: Boece, 33–35, 39; Book of the Duchess, xiii, 4–5, 8–18; Clerk’s Tale, 32, 211; Criseyde (character), ix–x, xiv, 16, 25–42; Knight’s Tale, 14, 32, 38; Legend of Good Women, 14, 95, 183; “Lenvoy to Bukton”, 212; Man of Law’s Tale, xi; Merchant’s Tale, 31–32, 211; Monk’s Tale, 26, 39–41; Pardoner (character), 211; Prioress (character), xi; Romaunt of the Rose, 36–37; Second Nun’s Tale, 186, 189; Tale of Sir Thopas, 40; Troilus and Criseyde, ix–x, xiv, 16, 25–42, 212; Wife of Bath (character), xv, 201–2, 206–15; Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, xv, 201–15; Cheuelere Assigne, 100 Clanvowe, John: Boke of Cupide, xiii, 4–5, 14–18 Clemence of Barking: Life of St. Catherine, xv, 161–67 clerics, 67, 74–76, 78, 80, 162, 184, 187, 193 Clerk, John of Whalley, 122 cognition, xiii, 7, 25–42, 68 Coldingham Abbey, 169 comedy, 208 Constantine, Emperor, 163, 188 Copland, Robert: Complaynt of them that ben to late maryed, 124; Complaynt of them that be soone maryed, 124–25 coterie poetry, 114, 120–21 courtiers, 92–105 Crane, Susan, 11 cultural studies, 27 Curtius, Ernst Robert, 139–40

Derrida, Jacques, 14 discretio spirituum, xiv, 67–68, 76 dower, 169–71 dream vision, xiii, 3–19, 40, 55, 57, 60, 138–51, 153, 164 Dunbar, William: Golden Targe, 153 Duns Scotus, John, 48 Earconwald, Bishop, 162 Edward III, 153 Edward IV, 119 Edward VI, 121 Elizabeth I, 119 Ely, 167–71 Emaré, 100 embodiment, xii, xv, 11 emotion. See affect empathy, 5, 9, 11, 14–15, 17, 174 estate management, 93, 162 Ethelburga, 162 ethics, xiii, 4–6, 14, 209 Eustace, Saint, 100 exegesis, 202–3 fabliau, 201–2, 207–9 faith, xiv, 67–71, 75–82. See also women, and faith Fasciculus morum, 114 feminist literary criticism, xi, xiii, 27, 201–2 Five Joys of the Virgin, 118 form, poetic. See poetic form Forster, E.M.: A Passage to India, 205 Fortune, xiv, 26–27, 32–42, 102 Freud, Sigmund, 4 Froissart, Jean: Le Paradis d’Amour, 8, 19 Galatea, 186 gender: and criticism, x–xi, 201–2; and experience, xi, 67–68, 76–78, 92–94, 187–96; and literature, xi–xii, 91–105, 161–77, 201–2, 206–14; and philosophy, ix, xiv, 26, 28–31. See also women

Index

God, ix, xi, 48, 52, 54, 57, 60, 67–75, 77–82 Goodwyn, Christopher: The maiden’s dream, 123 Goscelin, 162 Gower, John: Confessio Amantis, 56–57, 183 grace, 48, 69, 75, 79, 82, 124 Gray, Douglas, 116 Gregorius, Master: Narracio de Mirabilibus Urbis Rome, 183–87 hagiography, 100–101, 167–71, 188–92 Hanna III, Ralph, 101 Helen, Saint, 188 Henry VII, 93 Henry VIII, 122 Henryson, Robert: Testament of Cresseid, 115–16 Hilton, Walter, 57 historicism, 204–5 Hoccleve, Thomas: patrons of, 93; Regiment of Princes, 3–4, 8, 18 Holy Spirit, 77, 169, 204 Huchen, William, 118 Hugh of St. Victor, 203–4 Indulgentiae Ecclesiarum Urbis Romae. See Stacions of Rome insomnia, xiii, 3–19 intellect, x, xii, xiv, 59–60, 68, 70, 76, 92. See also cognition intellectualism, 49–52 “Ireland prophecy”, 114 James, first epistle of, 77 James IV of Scotland, 119 Jean de Meun, 35–36, 40, 92 Jerome, Saint, 194–96: Against Jovinian, 211 Jerusalem: city, 71, 151, 153, 192–94; heavenly, 151 Jesus Christ, 69–71, 73, 75, 78–79, 95, 99, 116, 137–38, 145, 164–66, 193–96

225

John of Gaunt, 13 John of Grimestone, 116 John of Hoveden: Philomena, 91 Julian of Norwich, xi, xii, 76–78, 80, 202, 215 Justice, Steven, 76 Kant, Immanuel, 54 Katherine Group, xi Kay, Sarah, 17 Kempe, Margery, xiv–xv, 67–82, 183, 192–96 Khanna, Ranjana, 8 King Horn, 32 Klein, Melanie, 4 Knapp, Peggy A., 26, 28 Krug, Rebecca, 68, 96–98, 196 Kruger, Steven F., 5 Lammas Day, 144–45 Langland, William: Piers Plowman, 47, 55–61, 205–6 Legenda Aurea, 189 Levinas, Emmanuel, xiii, 4, 7–8, 10, 14 Liber Eliensis, 167–68, 170 Life of Saint Audrey, xv, 161–62, 167–71 Life of Saint Lawrence, 167 liturgy, 162 locus amoenus, xiv, 17, 137, 139–51, 153–54 Long Charter of Christ, 101 Lydgate, John: “Amerous balade”, 120; “Ave, Jesse Virgula”, 116–17; Chorle and Bird, 101; Fall of Princes, 36, 183; Temple of Glas, 3; Testament, 116 lyric, 4–5, 18, 97, 101, 114–17, 121, 141 Machaut, Guillaume, 26; Remede de Fortune, 36–37 Macrobius, 4 Mann, Jill, 16

226

Index

manuscripts: Cambridge, Corpus Christi MS 61, 31; Cambridge, University Library MS Dd. 10.15, 114; Glasgow, Hunterian Library MS 388, 122; London, British Library, Cotton MS Nero A.X, 114, 142, 146; London, British Library, MS Additional 70513, 167; London, British Library, MS Cotton Caligula A. 91–92, 96, 100–101, 105; London, British Library, MS Harley 978, 171; Los Angeles, Getty Museum, MS 109 (Poncher Hours), 144; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS D. 375, 113–14; Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Lat. misc.c.66 (Capesthorne), 91–92, 96, 100–104, 120–21; Oxford, Bodleian MS Digby 181, 31; Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 203, 91, 96, 101, 104; Paris, Bnf MS français 224, 37; Paris, Bnf Rothschild MS 2973, 37 Marie de France: Bisclavret, 172; Chativel, 172; Chevrefeuille, 172; Deux Amans, 172; Eliduc, 171–77; Equitan, 172; Espuragoire Seint Patriz, 172; Fresne, 172; Guigemar, 172; Lais, 172; Lanval, 172; Laüstic, 172; Milon, 172; Yonec, 172. See also Life of Saint Audrey marriage, xv, 56, 93, 161–77, 189–91, 195, 202, 210–12 Marsilius of Padua, 48 martyrdom, 162–66, 168, 171, 187–91 marvels, 164, 184 Mary, 116–19, 165, 190–91, 194, 196 Maxentius, Emperor, 163–64, 166, 174, 177 medical writing, 5, 7, 100–1 Medieval Feminist Newsletter, xi, xiii metaphor, ix, 7, 27, 34–35, 40, 57, 59, 98, 104, 152–54 miracles, 67, 69, 153, 166, 174, 177, 191

miscellanies, 92, 100–1. See also manuscripts Mitchell, J. Allan, 6 mnemonics, 114, 116, 203 More, Thomas: Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, 203–4 mutability, xiv, 26, 38–39, 165 mysticism, 69–82, 203 nature, xii, 4, 16, 95, 139–46, 149–51 Nelson, Ingrid, 5 Neville, Anne, Duchess of Buckingham, xiv, 91–102, 104–5 Newman, Barbara, 92, 94 Newton, Humphrey, 101–3, 120–21 Nightingale (poem), 91–106 North, Baron Edward, 122 Norton, Thomas, 123 Olivi, Peter John, 54 ontology, 4, 8 Orlemanski, Julie, 13 Ovid, 4, 10, 13, 94, 185, 206 Ovide Moralisé, 94 The Owl and the Nightingale, 17, 95 pagans, 13, 163–64, 166, 183–90, 193, 196 pardons (ecclesiastical), 187–88, 193–94 Paris, Gaston, 172–73 patrons, xiv, 92–95, 99, 104, 123, 168 Paul, Saint, 52–54, 145, 188, 191, 213 Peacham, John: Philomena praevia temporis amoeni, 91 Pearl, xiv, 114, 137–54 Pelagianism, 48 Petrarch, 26, 36, 37 philosophy, ix–x, 6–8, 26, 30, 33–36, 47–61, 154 Piers Plowman. See Langland, William pilgrimage, xv, 71, 187, 192–95 poetic form, x, xii–xiv, 113–26 Poncher Hours. See manuscripts, Los Angeles, Getty Museum, MS 109

Index

prayer, 9, 82, 118, 122, 144, 164, 191, 194 “The Presentation of Mary”, 117 Prior, Sandra Pierson, 11 prophecy, 5, 72, 101, 114, 205, 210 Protestantism: and reading, 207 Proverbium R. Stokys, 96 Proverbium Scogan, 96 Proverbs (scripture), 58 Puttenham, George: The Art of English Poesie, 113 Pygmalion, 186 Raby, Michael, 6 rape, 41, 94–95, 208–9 reader response theory, 206 relics, 188 rhetoric, 98–99, 148 rhyme royal, xii, 91, 115–16, 118, 125 rime equivoque, 150 Robertson, Duncan, 162 Robertson, Elizabeth A., x–xiii, xv, 19, 27, 41–42, 59, 113, 161, 183, 197 romance (genre), xii, 9, 25, 97–98, 100, 207–10 Rome, xv, 71, 170, 183–97 Roos, Richard: La Belle Dame sans Mercy, 3 Rosenfeld, Jessica, 6 Ross, Valerie A., 175 satire, 115, 201, 206, 209–10 Sawles Warde, xi, 55 scripture, 71, 77, 189, 203–4, 213–14 Sedgwick, Eve, 13 self-alienation, 4, 7, 11–12, 14 sense perception, xii–xiii, 7, 16, 26–27 Shakespeare, William: King Lear, 206 Shelton, Mary, 121 sin, 52–53, 95, 98, 187, 194, 204 singlewomen, 172 Sir Eglamour of Artois, 100 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 30, 32, 137 Sir Isumbras, 100

227

Skelton, John, 121 sleep, xiii, 3–9, 14, 16, 97, 139–44, 148. See also insomnia Somerset, Edward, 121 soul, x–xiv, 67, 77, 82, 145, 166, 192, 194, 214: and cognition, 26–29, 31, 35, 40; and will, 53, 55–60 South English Legendary, 100 sovereignty, 208 Spearing, A. C., 5 Stacions of Rome, 187–88 Stowe, Harriet Beecher: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 205 subjectivity, 5, 8–10, 38, 42 swooning, 14–17 theology, x, xiii–xiv, 47, 82, 145, 150–54. See also intellectualism; voluntarism Thomas, Baron Stanley, 118 Tottel’s Miscellany, 121–22 Travis, Peter, 9 Trevet, Nicholas, 35 Tudor court, 121 Tuke, Brian, 122 Turner, Marion, 215 Venus, 33, 102–3, 183, 185–86, 193 Vikings, 162 virginity, 70, 123, 164–65, 168–71, 177, 187–90 Vishnuvajjala, Usha, 175 Voaden, Rosalynn, 67–68 voluntarism, 47–49, 55–61 Walter, William, 125 Walton, John, 122–23 The Wanton Wife of Bath, 212–15 Watson, Nicholas, 80 weather: in literary tropes, 32–41, 102; as sign from God, 71–72 Werburge, Saint. See Bradshaw, Henry White, William (printer), 214 Whitfield, Pam, 175 Why I Can’t Be a Nun, 143–44

228

Index

widowhood, 33, 168, 187–88, 191 will (faculty), ix, xi–xiv, 7, 47–61, 68–69, 77, 79, 97, 167 William of Ockham, 48, 51, 54 wills and testaments, 93–94 Windeatt, Barry, 31 Wingfield Hours, 94 Winstead, Karen, 187, 189–90 wit (faculty), ix–x, 55–59, 61 Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn, 168–69 women: and agency, ix–x, xv, 27, 30, 39, 41–42, 76, 161, 173–77, 190; and authorship, xv, 67–68, 161–77, 192– 96, 208–9; and beauty, 32–33, 39, 114, 173, 185; and book collecting, 91–94, 162–63; and cognition, ix–x, 25–31, 41–42; and emotion, 25–42,

68, 80; and faith, 67–82, 92–93, 95–100, 183, 192–96; and interiority, x, 26, 38–42; and patronage, xiv, 92– 94; and property, 162; and reading, xi, 92, 97, 161–63, 168, 172; and religious community, xi–xii, 161–68, 177, 193, 196; See also gender Woodville, Elizabeth, 119 “Wooing Group”, xi Wordsworth, William, xii; Prelude, 206 Wyatt, Thomas, 121–22 Wynkyn de Worde, 41, 115, 124 Youngs, Deborah, 101 Zeeman, Nicolette, 47

Contributors

C. David Benson is distinguished professor emeritus of English and Medieval Studies at the University of Connecticut and has taught English and Medieval Studies at Columbia, Colorado, Virginia, and Harvard. He has written or edited several books on Middle English literature, most recently Imagined Romes: The Ancient City and its Stories in Middle English Poetry (PSU Press, 2019). He is currently reading Dante and seventeenth-century English literature. Pamela J. Benson is professor emerita of English at Rhode Island College. She is the author of The Invention of the Renaissance Woman: The Challenge of Female Independence in the Literature and Thought of Italy and England (Penn State Press, 1992) and co-editor, with Victoria Kirkham, of Strong Voices, Weak History: Early Women Writers and Canons in England, France, and Italy (University of Michigan Press, 2005). Julia Boffey is professor of Medieval Studies in the Department of English at Queen Mary, University of London. Her interests include Middle English verse, especially lyrics and dream-poetry; London texts and readers; and the relationships between manuscript and print in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Kate Crassons is associate professor of English at Lehigh University. She is the author of The Claims of Poverty: Literature, Culture, and Ideology in Late Medieval England (University of Notre Dame, 2010). Her research interests include late medieval religious culture and critical autism studies. She is currently working on a book about the experience of faith in late medieval and early modern England. 229

230

Contributors

A. S. G. Edwards, FSA, FEA, has taught at various universities in North America and England. He is currently co-general editor (with Julia Boffey) of the forthcoming Cambridge University Press edition of the works of Chaucer. Jennifer Jahner is professor of English at Caltech. She is the author of Literature and Law in the Era of Magna Carta (Oxford, 2019) and co-editor, with Emily Steiner and Elizabeth Tyler, of Medieval Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500–1500 (Cambridge, 2019). Her research ranges across law, poetics, and history of science. Roberta Krueger is Burgess professor of French emerita at Hamilton College. She has recently translated, with Jane H. M. Taylor, Antoine de la Sale, Jean de Saintré: A Late Medieval Education in Love and Chivalry. She has published extensively on courtly romance, gender, and conduct literature in medieval France. Ingrid Nelson is an associate professor of English at Amherst College. She is the author of Lyric Tactics: Poetry, Genre, and Practice in Later Medieval England (University of Pennsylvania, 2017). Her latest book project is titled Premodern Media and the Canterbury Tales. Robert Pasnau is college professor of distinction at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is particularly interested in the history of ideas from the end of the Middle Ages and the beginnings of the modern era. His most recent book, After Certainty: A History of Our Epistemic Ideals and Illusions (OUP 2017), is based on his Isaiah Berlin Lectures at Oxford University. Ad Putter is professor of Medieval English Literature at the University of Bristol and Fellow of the British Academy. His most recent book is North Sea Crossings: The Literary Heritage of Anglo-Dutch Relations, co-authored with Sjoerd Levelt. James Simpson is Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker professor of English at Harvard University (2004–). His most recent books are Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and its Reformation Opponents (Harvard University Press, 2007); Under the Hammer: Iconoclasm in the Anglo-American Tradition (Harvard University Press, 2010); and Permanent Revolution: The Reformation and the Illiberal Roots of Liberalism (Harvard University Press, 2019). Jamie Taylor is associate professor in the Department of Literatures in English at Bryn Mawr College. Her work has appeared in Yearbook of

Contributors

231

Langland Studies, PMLA, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, and Speculum. She is currently drafting a monograph that explores the geopolitical and ideological roles of Iberia in the medieval English political imaginary. Stephanie Trigg, FAHA, is Redmond Barry distinguished professor of English Literature at the University of Melbourne. Her books include Congenial Souls: Reading Chaucer Medieval to Postmodern (2002), Shame and Honor: A Vulgar History of the Order of the Garter (2012); and with Thomas A. Prendergast, Affective Medievalism: Love, Abjection and Discontent (2019), and Thirty Myths about Chaucer (2020). She is currently working on a large research project on “Literature and the Face” with Joe Hughes and Guillemette Bolens, sponsored by the Australian Research Council. Amy N. Vines is an associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She has published widely on women’s literary culture in the Middle Ages and medieval romance. She is currently working on a monograph that considers alternate constructions of chivalric identity in medieval texts.