XANTHlPPE'S SISTERS: ORALITYAND FEMININITY IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES

by

Christine Marie Neufeld Department ofEnglish McGill University, Montreal April 2001

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty ofGraduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements ofthe degree ofDoctor ofPhilosophy

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Canada TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table ofContents Acknowledgements U Abstract tU Résumé v

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER ONE: THE GOSSIP 13 i. The Gossips' Circ1e as a Counter-Discursive Sphere 23 ii. The Gossip and the Scribe 32 iii. Gendering Orality and Literacy 55 iv. Who has the Last Laugh? 62

CHAPTER TWO: THE SHREW 73 i. Gendering the Historical Scold 75 ii. The Gossip as Shrew in the Deluge Mystery Plays 80 iii. Silencing the Shrew lOI iv. The Shrew and the Philosopher 118 Conc1usion: The Unruly Tongue ofMargery Kempe 128

CHAPTER THREE: THE WITCH 140 i. At the Crossroads ofFiction and History 142 ii. Constructing the Witch as Shrew 150 iii. Constructing the Witch as Gossip 163 iv. The Diabolical Gossips' Circ1e 178

CHAPTER FOUR: THE CRITIC 212 i. Bakhtin, Medieval Literature and Gender Analysis 215 ii. Building on Bakhtin 228 ii. Gossip as Critic/Critic as Gossip 240

CONCLUSION 266

BIBLIOGRAPHY 275 Il

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The completion ofthis project was made possible by a number ofinstitutional and individual forms ofsupport. 1would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council ofCanada for its financial support and the McGill Department of English for the research grant that enabled me to gain sorne archivaI experience. My supervisors, Prof. Sarah Westphal and Prof. Dorothy Bray, 1would like to thank for not only helping me to refine my skills, but also helping me to discover the kind ofacademic 1want to be. The well-timed words ofwisdom and encouragement ofDr. Abby Lippman and Dr. Bill Guenter have been a source ofstrength for me. For their understanding and ongoing expressions ofsupport, 1would like to thank Ivana Djordjevic, Cassandra Szklarski, Natasha Sawatsky, Sally Chivers, Pam Nicholls, Tracie Gemmel and Monica Guenter. 1would especially like to thank Melanie Hunter for being my very own fairy godmother. Chris Hand deserves a page ofacknowledgements aIl to himself for his Olympian generosity, for making me laugh and for having shoulders to rival Atlas. Lastly, 1want to thank Rhonda Wiebe and Melanie Mortensen, my refuge and my rock, respectively, for sustaining me throughout this process. In the years during which 1 ascended the steps ofthe proverbial academic Ivory Tower my parents chose to descend into the world's trenches to care for the human casualties ofwar. This dissertation is dedicated to them, for their love, their support, and for leading by example. III

ABSTRACT

This dissertation contributes to medieval feminist scholarship by forging new insights into the relationship between gender theory and developing notions oforality and textuality in late medieval Europe. 1examine three conventional satirical depictions of women as deviant speakers in medievalliterature-as loquacious gossips, scolding shrews and cursing witches-to reveal how medieval perceptions oforal and textual discursive modes influenced literary representations ofwomen. The dissertation demonstrates that our comprehension ofthe literary battle between the sexes requires a recognition and understanding ofhow discursive modes were gendered in a culture increasingly defining itselfin terms oftextuality. My work pursues the juxtaposition of the rational, literate male and the irrational, oral female across a wide range oftexts, from

Dunbar and Chaucer's courtly literature, to more socially diffused works, such as carols,

sermon exempla and the Deluge mystery plays, as weIl as texts, like Margery Kempe's

autobiographyand witchcraft documents, that pertain to historical women. 1demonstrate the social impact ofthis convention by anchoring these literary texts in their socio­ historical context. The significance ofmy identification ofthis nexus oforality and

femininity is that 1am able to delineate an ideology profoundly affecting the way women's speech and writings have been received and perceived for centuries. This notion ofgendered discourse can also redefine how we perceive medievalliterature.

Mikhail Bakhtin's discursive principles-ideas that stem from his application ofthe dynamics oforal communication and performance to the literary text-help to liberate new meanings from old texts by allowing us to read against the grain ofconvention. Both

Bakhtin's theory ofdialogism and Walter Ong's summary ofthe psychodynamics of IV orality suggest that orally influenced discourse is less interested in monolithic truth than in the art oftelling, where meaning is applied locally within the context ofexperience.

Recognizing the socio-linguistic standpoint ofan oral mode reveals the potential value of oral discourse for those groups, both fictional and historical, excluded from culturally privileged forms ofdiscourse and provides a new critical perspective for scholars who set out to hear these voices. v

RÉSUMÉ

Cette thèse ajoute aux études féministes médiévales par un regard neufsur la relation entre la théorie des genres et les notions émergentes d'oralité et de textualité en Europe médiévale du ISe siècle. l'introduis trois satires conventionnelles d'interlocutrices aberrantes de la littérature du Moyen Âge, soit celles de la commère, de la mégère et de la sorcière, afin d'exposer les façons dont les perceptions médiévales de discours tant oraux que textuels ont pu influencer les représentations littéraires de la femme. Ma thèse démontre que la guerre littéraire des sexes exige une reconnaissance et une compréhension de la sexualisation des modes discursifs d'une culture qui, de plus en plus, se définit textuellement. Je trace donc la juxtaposition du mâle rationnel lettré et de la femme irrationnelle de culture orale au travers de textes divers: littérature courtoise de

Dunbar et de Chaucer, chansons, sermons, théâtre du Déluge, autobiographie de Margery

Kempe et documents relatifs à la sorcellerie portant sur des femmes réelles. Le fait d'ancrer ces textes littéraires dans un contexte socio-économique souligne l'impact social de cette convention. Le lien entre oralité et féminité permet de délinéer une idéologie qui affecte profondément la façon dont paroles et écrits féminins sont reçus et perçus pendant des siècles. Bien entendu, cette notion de discours sexué peut aussi redéfinir notre façon de percevoir la littérature médiévale. Les principes discursifs de Mikhail Bakhtin, qui découlent de l'application au texte littéraire des dynamiques de la communication orale et de la performance, libèrent de nouvelles significations de vieux textes par une lecture à rebours des conventions. La notion de dialogisme propre à Bakhtin, ainsi que le résumé de Walter Ong sur la psychodynamique de l'oralité, suggèrent de plus que les discours influencés par l'oralité sont moins axés sur des vérités monolithiques que sur l'art de VI raconter; la signification surgit alors localement du vécu. Une lecture socio-linguistique du mode oral révèle la valeur possible de l'oralité pour ces groupes à la fois fictifs et historiques exclus de formes culturellement privilégiées. Une telle position offre donc une nouvelle perspective critique pour les chercheurs qui se décident à écouter ces voix. INTRODUCTION

When Chaucer's Wife ofBath performs her most outrageous act ofliterary criticism, her partial destruction ofJankyn's book of"wykked wyves," she throws down the gage in the battle between female "experience" and male "auctoritee," a feud she extends long after her personal marital strife has apparently been resolved. Given the stridency ofthis most colourful ofChaucer's pilgrims, our attention is drawn to how

Alisoun singly contends against the tradition ofliterary antifeminism. However,

Chaucer's characterisation ofthe Wife ofBath constructs her as the most vocal ofa more silent sisterhood, the "wise wyves" which she both refers to and, regardless ofthe constituency ofher pilgrim audience, occasionally addresses in her Prologue. Critical scholarship preoccupied with the Wife's virtuosic "glossynge" ofthe patristic literary legacy effectively neglects to note that Alisoun acknowledges the authority ofanother body ofknowledge apart from her own marital "scoleiyng" by her references to the

"loore" ofher "dame." Alisoun's allusions to her mother, along with her relationships with her niece and gossip, suggest that she articulates the views ofa form ofwomen's society. Consequently, the battle between "experience" and "auctoritee," as articulated in the Wife ofBath 's Prologue, is waged by two competing, distinctly gendered, interpreting communities. That ofmasculine "auctoritee" finds its most succinct definition in Brian

Stock's notion oftextual communities, discursive spheres oflisteners, readers and interpreters that form around the various texts pertaining to, in this case, the literary antifeminist tradition. In opposition to "auctoritee" stands a counter-discursive sphere of women, a speech community united only occasionally by texts, but most often by the oral lore passed from mother to daughter, aunt to niece, and between intimate female friends, or "gossips." 2

The purpose ofthis dissertation is to examine the nature ofthis feminine counter- discursive sphere as it is represented in late medievalliterature in order to define the threat attributed to women's speech. 1will argue that the threat offemale utterances is to a large degree determined by late medieval and early modern perceptions oforality. As

Western culture increasingly defined itselfthrough textuality, the social authority attributed to oral forms ofdiscourse dec1ined even as oral modes ofcommunication continued to coexist alongside textual modalities. 1 The representational authority of orality was replaced by a characterisation oforal discourse as irrational, deceptive and transient, qualities long attributed to women's speech. This dissertation delineates the gendered dimensions ofcommunicative modes in the late medieval and early modern periods by examining three interrelated popular images ofdeviant women notable for their unruly speech: the gossip, the shrew and the witch. My analysis reveals that there is a linguistic ideology implicit in both comic and serious depictions ofunruly speaking women that represents orality and textuality as a gendered dichotomy. My dissertation title alludes to this juxtaposition ofliterate masculine rationality and feminine verbal deviance by invoking St. Jerome's anecdote ofSocrates and his scolding wife, Xanthippe.

This topos ofthe philosopher and the shrew informs each medieval image ofthe unruly speaking woman in variations that assert and maintain a discursive binary: the gossip contrasts with the eavesdropping scribe, the shrew with the patriarch, the witch with the ecc1esiastic.

1 Literacy can allude to a wide range ofreading/writing practices and varying levels ofcomprehension. The term textuality can be defined as result ofliteracy where the increased use oftexts in a given society brings about a transformation in the ontological sphere ofhow experience is actually processed. 3

Yet, even as 1expose this consistent linguistic hierarchy in depictions ofwomen's verbal unruliness, a fundamental paradox becomes increasingly apparent: the attempt to undermine the speaking woman's discursive authority through an association with debased orality renders her more powerful in the minds ofher creators. This paradox stems from the tension between a binary linguistic ideology and the actual bimodality of late medieval society, in conjunction with an anxiety about the homosocial bonds forged between marginalized women, commonly represented by the pervasive image ofthe gossips' circle. In the popular imagination the shrew is always already a gossip; the witch is always already a shrew. Consequently, the image ofan alterior female community informs representations ofindividual deviant women, like shrews and witches. Although the most innocuous ofthe three images offeminine verbal aggression, it is the gossip that proves the most threatening, because the quest for discursive authority that informs each unruly figure finds its potential fuI filment in the rejection ofheterosexual bonds for homosocial community. The social orientation towards living speech evident in this period ofliterary history (and beyond) lends power to the "living hermeneutics" ofthe gossips' circle and invests the spoken word with affective power. Bakhtin's dialogism shows us that while individual rebellious women may be contained, the unruly speaking woman, understood as a member ofa counter-discursive sphere, poses an epistemological threat to the discursive categories that uphold social authority both in her various fictional contexts and as a critical principle for contemporary scholars.

Gender has generally been omitted as a category ofanalysis in scholarship discussing orality and literacy in the Middle Ages. Walter Ong, the foremost theorist of the impact ofwriting and print in European culture, notes the "great gap in our understanding" due to our ignorance ofthe place ofwomen in the "orality-literacy-print 4 shift," but does not take measures to redress this lack (Technologizing 159). While the body ofscholarship on medievallanguage theory that followed in the wake ofAlfred

Lord has contributed to a progressively more nuanced understanding ofthe interplay between oral and literate cultures in the Middle Ages, the issue ofgender, even in the works ofJesse GeIlrich and Brian Stock, remains submerged. Similarly, discussions of verbal deviance in medieval treatises on sin, such as Edwin Craun's Lies, Slander and

Obscenity in the Middle Ages, do not consider the gender-specific dimensions ofspeech.

Nevertheless, a character like the Wife ofBath clearly embodies an image of transgressive speech considered typical, ifnot exactly exclusively, feminine behaviour.

Alisoun's heretical misuse oftextual authorities, her dramatisation ofwomen's inability to keep men's secrets, her generalloquaciousness, not to mention her scolding, aIl vividly illustrate antifeminist evaluations ofwomen's speech reaching back to the Pauline epistles and beyond to classical Greek civilisation.2 The discussion ofconventionaIly feminine unruly utterances in my dissertation redresses this omission in medieval scholarship while examining representations ofdeviant speaking women in terms of medievallinguistic ideology. 1propose that the attention paid to women's transgressive speech is due in part to the changing status oforality at a time when textual modes were used to consolidate social authority. My thesis complements and builds on Eric Jager's argument in The Tempter's Voice: Language and the FaU in Medieval Literature. The notable exception among scholars dealing with medieval theories ofcommunication, Eric

Jager's examination ofhow literary treatments ofthe Fall help to construct a medieval

2 The image ofAlisoun expounding on Scripture and exegetical works to her fellow pilgrims inevitably evokes Paul's declaration in 1 Corinthians 14:34-36: "As in ail the churches ofthe saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. Ifthere is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home." 5 myth about language which associates women with the threatening "seductive" and

"bodily" discursive practices ofan oral past lays the groundwork for my examination of the system ofdiscursive relations that resulted from these attitudes. 3

It has been the bodily, or rather fleshly, nature ofwomen's speech that has received attention from feminist scholars examining medieval treatments ofwomen's speech and speaking women.4 As the Wife ofBath's self-revelatory discourse aptly demonstrates, the speaking woman is synonymous with the lascivious woman in medieval thought.

This conflation offeminine utterances with other appetitive faculties, in particular sexual desire, and its effective devaluation ofwomen's speech, have been subjects ofvigorous investigation in medieval feminist scholarship. Karma Lochrie, for example, describes the way in which Margery Kempe exploited gendered ideologies about the body and the text.5 E. Jane Burns demonstrates how contemporary readers can manipulate this traditional construct in order to read against the grain ofa text to hear the "bodytalk" long presumed to be mute. Helen Solterer's The Master and Minerva, on the other hand, moves beyond criticism centring on women's bodies towards examining how Iiterate

3 Eric Jager's work on the way medieval writers related women to a dangerous falsifying oral culture demonstrates one way in which women's speech was dismissed. My own work does not seek to replicate his argument but rather to illustrate further implications in medieval conceptions ofwomen and orality. Jager demonstrates how representations ofthe qualities ofEve's speech linked women's speech with other groups antithetical to religious authorities at the time. My own discussion focuses on the power of women's speech, not so much in terms ofpersuasion or deception, but as embodying an earlier oral ontology which maintained a fundamental connection between the word and deed. Thus my dissertation focuses on invective and cursing in addition to the issue ofseduction which has recently received such a great deal ofscholarly attention. Moreover, when the question ofseduction arises in my dissertation it is in a context not often addressed by medieval scholarship: the recurring accusation by medieval religious authorities that women seduce each other.

4 In Margery Kempe and the Translation ofthe Flesh Karma Lochrie points out the distinction between body and tlesh made by medieval theologians. She suggests that women, as the tleshly, occupy "the border between body and soul, the fissure through which a constant assault on the body may be conducted" (21).

5 The kind ofwork done by Lochrie and other feminist literary scholars owes a great debt to the work of historian Caroline Walker Bynum on the figuration ofthe female body in late medieval mysticism. 6 clerical culture deployed the image ofthe intellectual speaking women in arder to establish its own mastery. My dissertation fol1ows Solterer's lead, focusing on a detail she notes in passing: the problematic image ofthe close-knit women's circle, the gossips' circle, that is considered both morally and discursively corrupt. 6

A dissertation focusing on images ofdiscursive communities created by social circles ofwomen in the Middle Ages offers a new perspective in that it foregrounds the issue ofwomen speaking with women, placing the locus offeminine power not so much in the individual speaking woman, but in women speaking together. Although the verbal battle ofthe sexes is a part ofthe ensuing discussion, my work on the feminine counter- discursive sphere destabilizes the notion that heterosexual conflict is the only concem of antifeminist writing by demonstrating its status as a result ofwomen's homosocial discourse. Thus, the only threat considered greater than women's verbal assaults on men is verbal exchange among women. The nature ofthis threat will be determined by my analysis ofvarious representations ofwomen's speech in terms oforal theory and then in terms ofBakhtin's discursive theory. 1will demonstrate that the perceived danger of women's utterances lies in their association with the creative and affective aspects of living speech.

The evidence that women's speech was viewed as dangerous is provided not only by literary critics, but also by social historians, such as Ruth Karras and Christina Lamer, who demonstrate that women's speech is related to social deviance. Disorderly speech- the loquaciousness, scolding, and cursing that characterises the female characters in the

6 1refer here to Solterer's description ofhow three historical women who indicted Chartier for defamation in his poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" were attacked by means ofa counter-accusation that they were, in fact, defaming women. This was done primarily by identifying them with the damoiselles d'honneur, "a close knit circle ofwomen ofthe court with a clichéd reputation for gossip and slander" (178). 7 texts 1examine-becomes the defining characteristic ofthe female criminal in social and legal history. By tracing the briefprogression in antifeminist satire from the innocuousness ofgossip to the virulence ofa witch's curse my dissertation calls attention to the way in which literary representations reflect, perhaps even influence, social history.

In order to fully explore the social consequences ofmedieval theories ofwomen's deviant speech the socio-historical scope ofmy dissertation includes the early modern period.

The escalation ofmisogynistic literature with the birth ofprint culture in the fifteenth century continued well into the sixteenth, antifeminist satire being a popular subject in the broadsides and ballad sheets ofearly modern Europe. Paralle1 to the increase in literary attacks on women, the sixteenth century witnessed the expansion and intensification of the witchhunts. My examination ofhow medieval attitudes towards women's deviant speech were adopted and expanded in the early modern social context supports the growing body ofmedievalists and early modernists who are interested in the continuity of the two periods.

The structure ofmy dissertation reflects my interest in both literary theory and women's social history. The following three chapters each studyone literary characterisation ofthe unruly speaking woman: the gossip, the shrew and the witch.

These representations oforality and femininity will be analyzed within their late medieval social context where anxiety about changing gender roIes produced legislative, in addition to literary, responses to women's behaviour. 1ground these literary constructs in social history in order to illustrate how philosophies oflanguage and communication have helped construct a cultural image of"Woman" that has consequently affected historical women. My final chapter offers a theoretical conclusion as to why the type ofdiscourse considered characteristic ofwomen garnered the responses that it did in medieval and 8 early modem European society. The work ofMikhail Bakhtin, particularly the principle ofdialogism derived from his interest in spoken communication, proves instrumental in assessing the implications oforality in a culture increasingly defined in terms of textuality, in particular its significance for those groups excluded from culturally privileged modes ofdiscourse.

The first chapter ofmy dissertation investigates the image ofthe gossip in order to outline how medieval women were ideologically excluded from the literary and theological discourse privileged in late medieval society by their relegation to an increasingly devalued realm oforal culture. The gossips' gathering was a popular subject treated by fifteenth- and sixteenth-century antifeminist satirists. After establishing the common image ofthe gossips' circle in the "Gossips' Gathering" carol and an early print text, The Gospelle ofDystaves, my major conclusions are drawn from an in depth analysis ofa late fifteenth-century court poem by William Dunbar, The Tretis ofthe Tua Mariit

Wemen and the Wedo. l will argue that the Tretis's generic elusiveness is due, in part, to its ironic courtly treatment ofsubject matter more common in the realm ofcarols and broadsides. The figure ofthe eavesdropping male narrator is, according to Joy

Wiltenburg's work on disorderly women in street literature, a common device in the popular literature ofEngland (48). l examine how the definitions oforality and textuality in literary treatments ofthe gossips' gathering are deployed through the conventional device ofthe eavesdropping scribe. Consequently, this section describes how satirists used the concept ofa gossips' gathering to imagine an oral, feminine, counter-discursive sphere. The depiction ofthe gossips' discourse as oral in contrast to the literary stance of the eavesdropping poet-scribe effects an aesthetic devaluation ofthe women's speech.

By characterising the gossips as loquacious and their speech as scurrility, medieval 9 writers qualified not only medieval views ofwomen, but also the oral culture with which they were increasingly associated. Yet Patricia Spacks's work on gossip suggests that it can be a valuable resource for the powerless. 1use the oral origins ofsatire in magic identified by Robert Elliot to explain, in terms ofthe work on orality by Ong, Stock and

Bauml, why women's gossip continued to get attention from the very writers who treated it with such disdain. The cultural currency still implicitly attributed to oral tradition by medieval satirists suggests that attempts to devalue women's speech paradoxically invested it with a form ofcounter-discursive power, the power ofinvective.

My second chapter deals with the issue ofwomen's invective by examining the popular comic figure ofthe shrew as another manifestation offeminized orality. After delineating the etymological and juridical gendering ofscolding in late medieval and early modem England, this chapter examines the Uxor Noah character in a variety of

English Deluge mystery plays performed in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in order to determine how this influential comic figure participates in a linguistic hierarchy.

The York and Chester plays establish the nature ofthe shrew, in particular the link between the shrew and the gossip that contributes to the discursive juxtaposition ofthe shrew and the patriarch in this marital drama. An in depth examination ofthe Towneley play illustrates the degree to which the battle for the breeches is a battle for discursive authority, a conflict in which the shrew struggles to define the world in her own terms.

The archetypal nature ofthis discursive contest is evident in the popular medieval stories ofEve and Xanthippe, two female characters whose improper and uncontrolled utterances make them foils for their masculine counterparts. Yet the image ofthe garrulous shrew as the marital burden ofthe rhetorically-refined, textual male is complicated by the fact that the medieval drama and homily that disseminated such polarized images were themselves 10 immersed in a more complex discursive economy that lent power to the affective and persuasive aspects ofliving speech. Thus, as my concluding examination ofMargery

Kempe reveals, the attempt to exorcise orality from authoritative discourse invests the speaking woman with the potential for discursive power.

The ultimate manifestation offears about women's verbal power, the figure ofthe witch, is the subject ofmy third chapter. Here 1examine literary representations ofthe witch during a time when the Circean female figure stepped offthe literary page into the annals oflegal history. This chapter takes up the challenge extended by the editors of

Witchcraft in early modern Europe to explore the assumptions that the verbal unruliness attributed to witches was typically "feminine" behaviour by examining the witch's connections to the shrew and the gossip. The Newcastle Deluge play fragment communicates the suspicion that there is a magical power inherent in women's invective most explicitly through its characterization ofUxor Noah not only as a scold, but also as a sorceress in league with the Devi!. Stories that depict the relationship between the shrew and the witch appear not only in literature and sermons, but also in material ofmore concrete social consequence, such as the infamous medieval treatise, the Mal/eus

Maleficarum. 1explore popular narratives, such as "The Dld Woman and Devil" and

Dame Sirith, tales about witches interfering with marriages, to demonstrate the two primary feminine qualities which, according to witch-hunting experts, like Kramer and

Sprenger, and intellectuals, like Johannes Nider, predisposed women to witchcraft: their loquaciousness and the seductive nature oftheir speech. These stories demonstrate that the threat ofa witch's verbal aggression is only surpassed by the danger ofher persuasive power. This raises the issue ofwomen seducing each other, a concem that takes precedence over heterosexual seduction in medieval treatises on witchcraft and in ) ) historical accounts ofwitches, such as the Chelmsford confessions and the account of

"The Witch ofRheims." My analysis ofSkelton's Tunnyng ofElynour Rummynge brings the dissertation back to a discussion ofthe gossips' circle as a counter-discursive sphere, this time with diabolical implications. The interlangage féminin identified by witchcraft historian Muchembled as a concem ofwitch-hunters is, in fact, the discourse ofgossips.

Moreover, from this discourse the witch draws not only the power ofinvective for her raIe as scold, she gains the power ofthe ultimate performative utterance, the curse. Thus, as Robert Mannyng's sermon exemplum "The Witch and the Cow-Sucking Bag" demonstrates, the witch's oral powers compete with the textuaI mastery ofher ecclesiastical antagonist. Given that the curse was considered basically a female prerogative, 1 suggest that medieval texts which negotiate the boundaries between oral and textuaI discourse attempt to exorcise the irrational, oral past by attributing those characteristics and the power associated with them to the cultural image of 'Woman'.

The final section ofmy dissertation will use contemporary theory to assess the implications ofthe paradox ofthe unruly speaking woman in the Middle Ages. Since the historical persecution ofverbally unruly women was perpetuated, ifnot partly instigated, by the gendered nature ofmedieval theories oflanguage and communication it seems fitting to tum to literary theory in an effort to grasp the possibilities inherent in these

"feminine" modes ofdiscourse which still remain outside the domain ofsocially valued culture. In order to understand why female deviant speech received the responses it did in the late medieval and early modem periods, one must assess the implications oforality in a society that valorizes textuality. In this chapter 1will explore how Mikhail Bakhtin's discursive principles apply to medievalliterature and gender analysis in order to reveal the theoretical and political potential oforality. Bakhtin's concept ofdialogic discourse 12 echoes with remarkable precision Ong's work on the psycho-dynamics oforality. The understanding oforal narrative as a performance which requires a synchronie engagement with the audience and speech circumstances, as weIl as a diachronie involvement with prior utterances, one's own memory and imagination, produces an aesthetic which posits a situational, fluid notion oftruth-telling. Thus orally influenced discourse is less interested in monolithic truth than in the art oftelling, where meaning is applied locally within the context ofexperience. By using Bakhtin to place scholarly discussions of orality into a political context we can understand why, after the centuries-long exclusion of"feminine genres" from the domain ofhigh culture, there are writers like Patricia

Spacks asserting that gossip is a vital resource for the socially powerless. Dialogism

explains how gossip, as an "oral artefact," can remake the world. The deviant speaking woman in literary and social history reminds those in positions ofprivilege ofthe possibility that "the unruly tongue may master the unruly phallus by telling stories about

it" (Spacks 137). No character demonstrates this principle better than Chaucer's Wife of

Bath does. Consequently, her Prologue will be the site for my culminating investigation

into how Bakhtin's theories can help make the tensions between oral and textual

discursive modes in medievalliterature productive for the contemporary critic interested

in gender analysis. My work on the theoretical implications ofthe oral female

communities that confront masculine textuaI communities in medieval and early modem representations ofdeviant women helps to explain why the image ofthe unruly speaking

woman haunted, and continues to haunt, a culture (still) identifying itselfin terms of masculine textuality. 13

CHAPTER ONE: THE GOSSIP

Introduction

When, in 1984, a group ofwomen protesters set up an encampment outside the entrance to the Cruise Missile Base near Newbury they unwittingly became participants in a conflict far more ancient than the Cold War. In an article in the Times Literary

Supplement Malise Ruthven registers the social shock waves produced by this gathering ofwomen, independent oftheir political agenda:

AIl the women arouse a degree ofhostility far in excess ofany

inconvenience they may cause to soldiers, policemen or residents living

near the base. Shopkeepers and publicans refuse to serve them; hooligans

unexpectedly join forces with the establishment and actualize verbal

insults by smearing the benders [homemade tents] with excrement and

pig's blood [...]. This spontaneous and voluntary association offemales,

without formai leadership or hierarchy, seems to threaten the soldiers, the

local gentry, the bourgeoisie in Newbury and even its hooligans far more

than the missiles, although the latter would be a prime target in the event

ofnuclear war. (Ruthven 1984: 1048)

The insults leveled at the protesters by enraged residents eerily invoke ancient literary

images, images that help to explain the curiously aggressive response that the women's

encampment elicits from the residents ofNewbury. Describing the women as "screaming

destructive witches," "sex-starved harpies," and a "bunch oflesbians," the detractors

identify the protesters as the historical offspring ofmore mythical manifestations of

feminine power and danger (l048). 14

Each ofthe insults, one will note, locates the women in a specifically feminine nexus. The destructive potential ofwitches or harpies relies in part on the fact that in the popular imagination theirs is a collective power; each individual is merely an agent ofthe larger community. Moreover, the sexual nature ofthe insults demonstrates that the threat these collectives pose is not so much due to the force ofincreased numbers but to the homosocial implications ofsuch a community. The abusive definition intended in the term "lesbian" within this context identifies the women as 'unnatural' sexual specimens who have opted out ofthe 'natural' heterosexual order. Their identification as "sex­

starved" (referring, ofcourse, exclusively to heterosexual congress) suggests that the

solution to their outrageous behavior is a matter oftheir recontainment in the heterosexual matrix ofsociety. The insults themselves illustrate this attitude in that they address the women not as political agents (there was an arsenal ofpolitical insults available to use

against such protesters during the Cold War) but as sexualized objects, effectively

removing them from the political arena and inserting them back into the private sphere

not merely ofthe home, but ofits inner sanctum, the bedroom. These insu1ts work to

silence the women by redefining their collective action as a manifestation ofsexual maladjustment, rather than as the intentional expression ofa political point. Indeed, the

women's very voices are metamorphosed through these insu1ts from the reasoned speech

ofsocial protest to the feraI, inarticulate scream ofthe witch, the shriek ofthe harpy. The

focus ofthis study is to examine one ofthe seminal moments in the history behind these

contemporary attitudes in the hopes that it will explain how fear ofthe woman who is

empowered to speak, not by her heterosexual relationships, but through her homosocial

connections, contributed to a gendering oflanguage which still affects women today. 15

Be they Amazons or Muses, communities ofwomen have haunted the Western literary imagination since its inception. When such societies are relegated to the mythical

Otherworld alongside other legendary monstrosities, authors have occasionally felt free to fantasize about them positively, using the fantastical context to entertain visions of alternate social or political possibilities. Nevertheless Nina Auerbach points out that many literary depictions offemale communities more often use nightmarish imagery of hybrid monstrosity or mutilation in order to suggest the threat posed by such an unnatural

society (2). Regardless ofthe positive or negative evaluations ofsuch mythic communities in individual tales, the threat inherent in this recurrent literary image remains the same. The communities ofwomen, whether sirens or Diana's troop of nyrnphs, are emblems offemale self-sufficiency. As the angry citizens ofNewbury

demonstrate, these communities act as a "rebuke to the conventional ideal ofa solitary woman living for and through men, attaining citizenship in the community ofadulthood through masculine approval alone" (Auerbach 3).

Whatever ambivalence authors show in evaluating the literary image ofa

community ofwomen in mythology and legend disappears when the community under

discussion is translated out ofmyth into more contemporary historical realms. Social

anxiety about female communities manifests itselfmost virulently in more mimetic, historically engaged works, such as the antifeminist satire ofthe later Middle Ages.

Many medieval works abandon aIl pretense ofutopia in favour ofan elaboration ofthe

antisocial threat inherent in a presumably resentful female community. The increase of

visual and literary depictions ofwomen's gatherings in the fifteenth and sixteenth

centuries ref1ects a growing preoccupation with a battle ofthe sexes which is fought by

arrnies, rather than individuals. As the many engravings depicting feminine "Tittle- 16

Tattle" or "Le Caquet des Femmes" illustrate, the social realities ofsecular life in late medieval and early modem Europe contributed to a sense ofa separate women's world. 1

Regardless ofc1ass, medieval and early modem secular women's lives often did reflect forms offeminine subcultures. In A History ofPrivate Life Ariès and Duby discuss the ways in which aristocratie women's spatial, emotional and ritual sec1usion from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries paradoxically fostered paranoia regarding their activities while in isolation. Ariès and Duby elaborate on how the gynaceum, which they define as "a group ofwomen living together in an area set aside for that purpose," figures in literary genres such as chansons de toile, chansons de geste, romances and veillées (344). These depictions ofthe goings on in women's chambers and gatherings attempt to answer the questions raised by a world to which men had little access. "What, men asked, do women do together when they are alone, locked up in the chamber? The answer was: Nothing good" (Ariès and Duby 78). While the economic realities and demands ofmedieval middle and lower c1ass life prohibited the extreme isolation ofthe gynaceum, the nature ofwomen's labour resulted in similar concems. Sara Matthews

Grieco identifies the sites ofwomen's work, such the mill, washing by the river, and the

Iying in, as consistent targets in broadside denunciations offemale c1iques (318-25). The collective nature ofwomen's domestic tasks, in addition to the fact that much ofwomen's work was not considered skilled, produced social anxiety about the nature ofwomen's daily interactions with one another. Lyndal Roper's discussion ofthe sewing bee illustrates how ambiguous conceptions ofwomen's work, particularly when it is done

1 Sara Matthews Grieco's Ange ou Diablesse and Diane Wolfthal's "Women's Community and Male Spies: Erhard Schôn's How Seven Women Complain about Their Worthless Husbands" offer comprehensive treatments ofthe women's community in late medieval and early modem visual art. 17 collectively, raised the same questions as the gynaceum: "[At] once housework, in that it involved the work ofgarment repair and the sewing ofobjects for household or people's uses, the sewing bee could also constitute a women's social circle; [...] it became a site for male fantasies about what women did together" (179).2

The threatening connotation ofconspiracy that haunts women's gatherings is thus born out ofthe ideological repercussions ofa gender-segregated society. Sara Matthews

Grieco explains:

This vertical division ofthe population then transforms each sex into an

independent entity, equipped with an internaI organization specifie to the

group. Consequently, each group develops a certain esprit de corps and,

in the end, a sense ofopposition to the other [...]. Fora society that

divides the world into 'us' and 'them' it is inevitable that the collective

opposition ofthe sexes brings with it incomprehension and mistrust.

(my translation 327)

The danger inherent in opposed gender communities becomes even more apparent when viewed in light ofmedieval notions ofcommunity. My use ofthe concept ofcommunity is, as David Shaw points out, an invocation ofa particularly "popular and emotive" term in contemporary culture (2). Especially given the modern feminist interest in collectivity, the nature ofmedieval communities can become obscured by modern utopianism.3

2 Even a cursory gIance at actuaI history reveaIs the irony in such male fantasies. First, the social circumstances that produced these images ofwomen's communal solidarity did not necessarily reflect the social cohesion described in literary portrayals. Legal evidence suggests that women's social networks were not immune to accusations and counter-accusations ofsexual immorality or witchcraft. Laura Gowing's work on slander litigation highlights the disparity between literary depictions ofwomen's solidarity and the complex social reality.

3 See Diane Watt's introduction to Medieval Women in their Communities (Toronto: U ofToronto P, 1997) for a discussion ofthis issue. 18

Shaw's work on the civic burgesses' gild in Wells offers the most concise definition ofa medieval understanding of"community" for my discussion ofthe literary battle ofthe sexes. Shaw argues that "community" is not merely the result ofcommon location, interests, needs or characteristics. "Community implies," he states, "that there are people who are understood in the public domain to be part ofa group [...]. Unlike socio- economic groups, a community must have sorne sort ofarticulation: traditions, a group mentality or institutions" (2). Shaw's definition of"community" as necessarily public has sorne weighty implications for the notion ofan imagined women's community. The public nature ofcommunities, according to Shaw, means that they necessarily act. It is by their "banding together and engaging in protest or convivial pleasure" that we know that a group ofindividuals has taken upon themselves to become a community (Shaw 2).

The convivial pleasures and social protests that constitute the primary activities in literary depictions ofwomen's gatherings thus reveal that women were considered a concrete community in the eyes oftheir detractors.

The primary characteristic that conventionally defines both visual and literary images ofwomen's communities is the women's speech. A briefexamination ofthe term

"gossip" demonstrates the ways in which particular forms ofspeech and women's communities have long been related ideologically.4 Until the sixteenth century the term

"gossip" did not primarily denote a speech act, but a particular form ofrelationship. In

4 An English term related to gossip,janglen, merits a briefexamination as corroborating evidence for the gendering ofthe concept ofgossip. Karma Lochrie notes that a jangleresse is a talkative, nagging or lying woman, while ajanglere could refer to an e10quent man, as well as someone who gossips or tells ribald tales (Covert 68). Like the term gossip,jangelen can be applied to both genders, yet its application varies subtly. Gossip in a man is not essentialized; it is not articulated as a function ofhis gender. Consequently, the implications ofthe term are context dependent. For example, in Piers Plowman Gluttony's confession shows that menjangle (B 2.93-95). And yet Wrath daims male monastics are hostile to him; while he manages to wreak havoc in a nunnery through the stew ofjanglyng that he cooks up for the nuns (B 5.157­ 65). As Lochrie points out, this scene implies an essential affinity between women and gossip (Covert 71). 19 the Middle Ages a gossip, fonued from the roots god and sib, was a godparent ofeither sex.5 "By extension ofthat relationship, an intimate friend or any person with whom one has a special bond is one's gossip" (Anderson 24). Nevertheless, the original connection ofthe tenu to the birth ofa child already contributes to the gendered connotation of gossip. The tenu was often applied to the women who ritually gather at the birth ofa child and during the lying in (Anderson 24). In fact, Lochrie asserts that by the time of

Chaucer the tenu had already acquired a second gendered meaning as a woman companion (Covert 68). Thus, it is the anxiety surrounding what happens during

"gossipings" involving exc1usively women which contributes to the derogatory connotations that the word, both as noun and verb, carries in the succeeding centuries.

Patricia Anderson demonstrates this development in her observations ofa seventeenth century EnglishiFrench dictionary:

This dictionary entry c1early shows the specific use ofthe word gossip

for exc1usively female activities and those activities have to do with

stereotypical vices assigned to women. As gossips' lore develops into the

seventeenth century, any exc1usively female activity-brewing, weaving,

childbearing-falls under the heading ofgossipings and all ofthe

traditionally female vices are assumed to be practiced by the attending

gossips. (Anderson 28)6

5 The Scots word for gossip used frequently in Dunbar's poem is cummer. It derives from the French word for godmother, commere. Anderson points out that the French term shares the same etymological history as the term gossip. Moreover, the Scots term includes local applications such as lass, witch, wise-woman, midwife (Anderson 24).

6 Considering the social ambiguity surrounding women's work, one should note the way in which the term "gossip" denigrates the nature ofwomen's communications with one another. Gossip, as applied to women's activities, undermines the value ofthe knowledge circulated among women. The essential practical knowledge about parenting, not to mention domestic and trade skills, which would be passed 20

Therefore, while the term gossip is not gender specifie in its early denotative sense-not to mention the fact that gossip is not, nor ever has been, a gender specifie activity-there is evidence to suggest that what Ulinka Rublack terms the "persistent cliché offemale gossip" exists early on (26).7 According to Karma Lochrie, even in the Middle Ages "the moral opprobrium attached to gossip was not neutral because this particular vice was usually associated with women, particularly their loquaciousness, bodiliness, secrecy, and their susceptibility to deception" (Caver! 56).

Whatever the derogatory and gendered implications of"gossip" in current usage, the medieval understanding ofthe feminine gossip suggests a far more dangerous interpretation. Gossip, as a verb, is not merely the idle chatter ofa busybody but "a kind ofinsurrectionary discourse" (Lochrie, Caver! 57). Women's gossip poses a threat to moral and social arder. In a culture that conflated excessive speech with sexual promiscuity, gossip alluded to a physical breach ofwomen's chastity. The traditional claim that women were unable to keep secrets results from concern over gossip's ability to revise and re-narrate private, domestic experience in the public sphere. The danger

orally from one generation ofwomen to the next is obscured by this vision ofgossiping femininity. It is, for example, a sign ofpatriarchal narcissism that a satirist depicting a lying in believes that women attending a new mother and infant at a time when infant mortality was high would have nothing better to talk about than their husbands' erotic inadequacies. Ironically, men, too, worked together in shops or fields, where trade skills and secrets would be modeled and passed on orally. They, too, would have, as Natalie Zemon Davis points out, opportunities to tell stories while "mending tools [or] at work, when slack moments or the noise ofthe shop permitted it" (Fictions 18). Yet on the whole men's interactions remain unscathed by accusations ofgossip. Furthermore, even when the information passed on by men and women is the same, the gender ofthe speaker and the makeup ofthe audience influence the perceived value ofthe information. For example, Pseudo-Albertus Magnus' De Secretis Mulierum and its commentaries provides sorne advice, such as how to leam the sex ofa child still in the womb, which is similar to the counsel offered by a gossip in The Gospelle ofDystaves. Yet the author ofthe Gospelle mocks women by representing their "gospels" as old wives' tales while, in the same historical period, the publishers ofDe Secretis can present this information as serious medicine based on natural philosophy.

7 It seems almost too obvious to point out that the visual imagery surrounding the vice ofgossip manifests its gender specificity. English and French broadsides depicting "tittle-tattle" (in French inevitably qualified as "le caquet des femmes") represent this activity as exclusively feminine. See Matthews Grieco and Wolfthal. 21 implied by women's loquaciousness lies not only in the lack of"authorial control" husbands have over depictions ofprivate life; there is also the social threat inherent in the fact that gossip ruptures women's domestic containment. According to Rosemary

Horrox, examples like Noah's wife in the mystery plays "illustrate that the dominant culture equated desire for'gossip' with an unwillingness on the part ofwomen to be confined within the private sphere ofthe home" (117).8 Consequently, depictions of gossips' gatherings are preoccupied with breaches ofthe mouth, cunt and threshold, with each transgression working metonymically for the others and aIl signaling a moral failure that threatens to precipitate social chaos.9

The image ofa secret female community, the gathering ofgossips, occurs frequently in the continuing debates surrounding women in the later Middle Ages. The old debate about women, popularized by the French polemicists and poets participating in the Querelle de la Rose, is increasing dealt with by English and Scottish poets in the fifteenth century in their efforts to emulate literary role models (such as Chaucer) who dealt with the issue. While the Scholehouse ofWomen controversy is, according to

Frances Utley, the only English debate which meets the criteria for a literary querelle des

8 While the distinction between public and private remains a useful division in a discussion ofmedieval and early modem society, one should not confuse contemporary notions ofprivacy with the more permeable boundaries ofa medieval home. For a definition ofprivacy in light ofissues such as slander, gossip and sexual conduct see Laura Gowing's Domestic Dangers: women, words and power in early modern London.

9 Patricia McLure's work on fifth century Attic drama, in Spoken like a Woman: Speech and Gender in Athenian Drama, demonstrates the remarkable consistency ofmisogynistic attitudes towards speaking women. McLure's analysis identifies the same concems regarding containment and conspiracy that preoccupy later writers. Ofparticular note is Aristophanes's contribution to the corpus ofworks conceming eavesdropping that are the central texts in this chapter. In Thesmophoriazusae the tragic poet Euripides instructs his kinsman to disguise himself as a woman in order to spy on the female participants ofa women­ only religious festival where the poet is to be put on trial for slandering women. The eavesdropping male, the secret women's gathering, even the issue ofslander to which the women respond, aIl these elements resurface as constituents ofmedieval antifeminist satire. 22 femmes, fifteenth-century England and Scotland saw a radical increase in texts dealing with defenses ofand satires on women (Utley 60). Utley attributes the escalating number ofworks dealing with the issue in the late fifteenth century to two factors: the advent of print culture and the rise ofthe Scottish school (62). If, as Utley asserts, one can make a direct link between the rapid spread ofthe debate and nascent print culture, it seems likely that changing attitudes toward textual culture would be reflected in these late medieval texts. Ifthe evolution ofwritten culture affected the public scope ofthe querelle des femmes then one must question how it affected the terms ofthe querelle itself. 1propose that late medieval satiric representations ofwomen's gatherings depict a common image ofthe battle ofthe sexes, a fight characterized, then as now, in terms ofdramatic skirmishes over language and representation.

The purpose ofthis chapter is to delineate how literary images ofthe gossips' circle draw on attitudes towards orality and textuality in late medieval culture. 1will explore the implications ofthis gendered linguistic differentiation in four sections. First,

1examine the late medieval carol "The Gossips' Gathering" to show that women were conceived as participants in what can be termed a counter-discursive sphere. 1coin the term "counter-discursive" to identify the gossips' gathering as a form of(semi-)public forum, an interpretive community extending beyond household ties, in which women were thought to respond to another public discourse, the textual discourse, shaH we say, ofJankyn's "book ofwykked wyves." Women's gossip is often characterized in fiction as a response to men's slander ofthem. In the gossips' forum women reinterpret what has been said about and to them, and retaliate with their own accusations.

My second section iHustrates how these competing interpreting communities are identified and evaluated linguistically, juxtaposing the oral gossip with the textual scribe. 23

The Gospelle ofDystaves is one example ofhow the feminine counter-discursive sphere

is undermined through the women's explicit association with orality. As my analysis of

Dunbar's Tretis ofthe Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo will demonstrate, women's

access to representational authority was limited by the gendering oforal and textuai modes ofcommunication and the privileging oftextuality. Having identified the idea ofa

feminine oral counter-discursive sphere in the image ofthe gossips' circle, 1examine, in my third section, how an understanding ofthe feminization oforal culture in the later

Middle Ages contributes to CUITent scholarship on medieval orality and literacy. Finally, having charted this confluence ofgender and linguistic ideologies, in my fourth section 1

reconsider the conflict between the gossip and the scribe in light ofthe discursive realities

ofthe late medieval context. Dunbar's Tretis, for example, reveals the persistence oforal

modes in the later Middle Ages, even as the cultural authority oforality is on the wane.

The result is the conventional paradox of, to use Jody Enders's term, the "powerful

disempowered woman" (217). The satire used to demean women's speech paradoxically

invests their discourse with the very power it sought to deny them.

Section One: The Gossips' Circle as a Counter-Discursive Sphere

The colourful history ofliterary injunctions against gatherings ofwomen contains

one common preoccupation: women's propensity for garrulousness. Katherine Rogers's

survey ofantifeminist texts-from Hermione's claim in Euripides's Andromache that

"men ofsense" should never allow their wives to visit each other to eighteenth-century

condemnations ofgirls being raised together lest, even in the words ofMary

Wollstonecraft, they inspire each other to grossness through their "bodily wit" and

"intimacies"-suggests that the threat posed by communities ofwomen was perceived to

be a linguistic one (34). The notion offeminine verbal transgression articulated in 24 medieval texts satirizing women's gatherings is based on a wealth ofmaterial condemning women's speech. Ironically, the general devaluation ofwomen's speech as transitory and false did not prevent women from being conceived ofas linguistic threats.

Medievalliterature depicted women as dangerous and subversive precisely because of their uses ofspeech as gossips, scolds and tellers ofimmoral tales. "The notion that women are more talkative than men is, ofcourse, a staple ofantifeminist prejudice, 'one ofour culture's deepest roots in medieval culture,' in the phrase ofEleanor McLaughlin"

(Bloch 15). The Precepts ofAlfred, an ancient Anglo-Saxon collection ofproverbial wisdom, declares that women are "word-mad" (292). The central claim ofantifeminist texts, such as the infamous Lamentations ofMatheolus, was often that women were garrulous (Solterer 131). In fact, Bloch exclaims that "one cannot help but notice the extent to which the pains ofmarriage involve verbal transgression, so that the reproach against women is a form ofreproach against language itself-'that which is said by mouth'[...]" (14). Felicity Riddy indicates that even the realm ofthe religious women's talk-their oral discussion ofsermons or religious texts read to them-could be denigrated by aIl too familiar terms: "Devout women's talk, like women's talk in general, is frequently represented in the mIes for recluses as merely trivial gossip, to be avoided at aIl costs as an occasion for sin" (113). In his De Institutione Inclusarum Ae1red of

Rievaulx caricaturizes the recluse:

[Her] tunge is occupied alday, either aboute tidynges, curiously enquering

and serching after hem, or elles ofher neighbores yuel name, by way of

bakbityng, so that vnnethes now-a-dayes shaltow finde a solitary

recluse, that either tofore the wyndowe shal sitte an olde womman fedyge

hir with tales, or elles a new iangler and teller oftidynges ofthat monke 25

[...] or ofmaidens wantownes, ofthe whiche arisith lawghyng, scornynge

and vnclene / thoughtes [...] so that atte last the recluse is fulfilled with lust

and likynge, bakbitynge, sclaundre and hatrede [.. .]. (26-35)10

Upon examining the plethora ofantifeminist texts and their delineation of women's verbal transgressions it becomes increasingly evident that women's speech poses a threat to men in terms ofpersuasion and abuse. Citing numerous medieval theologians Sharon Farmer elaborates on the perceived persuasiveness ofwomen's

speech in the Middle Ages:

In their use ofspeech and sexual enticements to manipulate men, [...]

wives ofthe eleventh-, twelfth- and early-thirteenth-century sources

resemble contemporary depictions ofEve, who compelled Adam 'to

obey her voice rather than the word ofGod' [Rupert ofDeutz]. Indeed,

writers ofthis period make a persistent association between women and

spoken language. Woman is 'garrulous' and 'induces crime with her [...]

voice and hand' [Orderic Vitalis]. Moreover, her tongue is more

'flexible'-'more mobile and given to words' [Hildebert ofLavardin]-

than is that ofthe male and it 'can be seen to be the seedbed ofaIl evil

[Peter Abelard]. (539)

When persuasion fails, the siren turned harpy continues to have recourse to words in

order to gain her end. In medievalliterary depictions ofbattles ofthe sexes speech acts are women's favorite weapons. There were, ofcourse, a multitude ofXanthippe's sisters,

10 The source ofthis quotation is the MS Bodley 423 as reproduced in Ayto and Barrett's EETS edition, Aelred ofRievaulx 's De Institutione Inclusarum (Toronto: Oxford UP, 1984). 26 shrews whose scolding and nagging were, according to plays like The Mumming of

Heriford, supposed to make their husbands' lives an earthly purgatory.

Other medieval works depicted women as more subtle. In her examination of women's "public postures and private maneuvers" Joan Ferrante suggests that medieval literature often depicts women secretly subverting the very social roles they outwardly play primarily through their "devious use ofwords: fictions, lies, false oaths, hidden promises, or magic" (213). As Sharon Farmer notes, medieval writers tended to focus on how women affected men rather than on how men affected women (533). Less obvious and concrete are the accusations writers like Aelred make about the evils and effects of gossip, since men are not necessarily directly affected by this act. What Farmer does not note is that medieval writers concemed with transgressive speech also show concem for how women affect other women. The implication in the medieval injunctions against gossips gathering together is that women will verbally seduce other women to disobedience. The medieval preoccupation with women's interpersonal communication demonstrates the ways in which speech was seen to unite women into a form of community:

One form ofthe struggle was the traditionally feminine love oftalk which,

especially when indulged with female cronies in the alehouse, was often

an expression ofindependence ofhome and husband. Wives were

constantly shown chattering in church, gossiping in the alehouse, babbling

out aIl their husbands secrets, pressing fatal advice on him and in general,

in the contemporary phrase, clattering like a mill. (Rogers 93)

According to Solterer, the widespread medieval fascination with women's secrets-a fact confirmed by Lochrie's recent book on the medieval uses ofsecrecy- 27 results in the rise ofliterary texts purporting to present typical sessions ofwomen's gossiping and consultation (Solterer 32). This social anxiety about what happens when women meet alone in the spinning room or at the bedside ofa confined woman produces a notion ofthe women's community as a counter-discursive sphere. This sphere is defined not only by its constituents, but also by its subject matter. The fifteenth-century convivial carol "The Gossips' Gathering" exemplifies the ideas surrounding women's gatherings. In the Balliol College MS 354 version (Greene's version A.a) the narrator's voice in the first two stanzas indicates the secret nature ofthe subject matter addressed by the women, stating, "But 1dare not, for their dissplesauns,l Tell ofthes maters halfthe substance" (Greene 249). In the Cotton Titus A.xxvi manuscript (Version B) the narrator-who could be Franklin, the harper who performs for the gossips' amusement­ exclaims warily: "Offthis proses 1make an end/ Becawse 1wil haue women to be my frend" (Greene 253). In fact, in each version ofthe carol the secrecy ofthe gossips' gathering is paramount. The women arrive two by two in order to escape the notice of their husbands. Stanza eight ofVersion A.a lays out the transgression and risks inherent in the gathering:

'A strype or ii God myght send me

y f my husbond myght here seen me. '

'She that is aferede, lett her flee,'

Quod Alis than;

'1 dred no man,

Good gossippis myn-a. (Greene 250)

The main subject discussed at this particular function, besides the details ofthe gathering, is the condemnation ofwife-beating brought on by one gossip's complaint about the 28 abuse she has suffered at the hands ofher husband. Given the embattled stance ofthe women throughout the carol, the defensive reference to men's misunderstanding ofthe gossips' gathering highlights the fact that the women are aware ofmen's anxieties and the

"misreadings" they produce: "Whatsoever any man thynk,! We corn for nought but for good drynk" (Version A.a; Greene 251).

Another fifteenth-century poem, "A Talk ofTen Wives on their Husbands'

Ware," is perhaps the best example ofthe secrets projected by anxious minds onto the conversations ofgossips. Found in the Porkington MS (1460), this poem opens with one wife's proposaI that the gossips tell tales oftheir husbands' sexual wares. Each wife then reveals the sexual inadequacies ofher husband in graphie detail. The content ofthe women's gossip poems suggests that the gathering ofwomen occurs in defiance ofmen and becomes a site for further verbal transgression. One ofthe most significant transgressions perceived in such gatherings would be the women's intention to counter the slanderous stories told about them, even ifit is in the form ofa "below the belt" counter-attack. Thus these poems express the war between the sexes as a battle over the right to represent oneselfand the other, a struggle most pointedly articulated by the intrepid Wife ofBath: "By God, ifwommen hadde writen stories,! As clerkes han withinne hire oratories,l They wolde han writen ofmen more wikkednessel Than al the mark ofAdam may redresse" (WBP 693-696). In the case ofthe "Gossips" carol, for example, while the gossips assert their innocent desire for drink, the pleasure ofthe text lies in the exposure ofthe gossips, the revelation oftheir deceit and debauchery. In both ofthe most complete versions ofthe text, the carol ends with the narrator's account ofthe gossips' excesses. Version B spends three stanzas describing the domestic disorder produced by the gossip: she deceives her husband, neglects her housework and abuses the 29 servants. Version A.a emphasizes the frequency ofthe gossips' drinking, incrementally inflating the number ofconvivial gatherings from once a week, to three times a week, to every day. The narrator then throws out a challenge: "Who sey yow, women, is it not soo?/ Yes, surely, and that ye wyll know" (251). The power ofrepresentation, as the narrator's c10sing framing stance reveals, lies entirely in those exc1uded from the gathering:

Now fyll the cupe, and drynk to me,

And than shal we good felows be,

And offthys talkyng leve will we

And speak then

Good offwomen,

[Good gossippis myn-a.] (251)

Thus, the depiction ofthe gossips' circ1e situates itself in an ongoing conflict over representation, a conflict that necessarily acknowledges the slander ofwomen in which the text itselfis implicated.

The danger posed by gossip as a response to slander is precisely its potential as a counter-narrative in a socially unregulated realm. Deborah Jones argues that gossip, as "a language offemale secrets," has been both discounted and attacked (245). The insubordination ofgossip lies not only in its flouting ofPauline injunctions: this feminine loquacity presents the possibility ofa realignrnent ofloyalties. Part ofthe literary tradition surrounding gossips is that women are more attached to their gossips than to their families. Rogers describes the convention: "With these gossips, who were much dearer to them than husbands or children, [women] exchanged every secret they knew, as weIl as hints for getting the better ofmen" (94). Joan Ferrante's work mentioned earlier 30 demonstrates the medieval suspicion that "not aIl women will accept the passive role imposed on them; [and] ifthey are denied a direct and open role, they will find a way to assert their will, and the secret hidden way can be dangerous" (227). But even ifwomen were not sharing guerilla warfare secrets for deployrnent in the battle ofthe sexes, the sharing ofsecrets alone-an implicit element ofgossip-posed a threat. As Patricia

Spacks explains, serious gossip is the "function ofintimacy," it can be a "crucial means ofself-expression" and a "crucial forrn ofsolidarity" (5). Spacks presents gossip as a legitimate cultural forrn that builds on and implicitly articulates shared values often left unspoken. "The value ofgossip at its highest level involves its capacity to create and intensify human connection and to enlarge self-knowledge predicated more on emotion than on thought" (18-19).

Above aIl, gossip is a weapon available to the otherwise powerless since private or, more concisely, unofficial talk provides the most socially acceptable expression of anger or resentment:

Malicious gossip becomes an increasingly vital resource as other

avenues ofaggression are closed; and gossip as a means ofsolidarity

also has special importance for the subordinated [...]. The ferocity of

several centuries' attack on derogatory conversation about others

probably reflects a justifiable anxiety ofthe dominant about the

aggressive impulses ofthe submissive. (30)

Spacks cites the "Gossips" carol as an example ofthis literary construction ofgossips as a

"female alliance antipathetic to men" (36). She also points out that in the moralistic castigation ofgossip over the centuries the social threats most often associated with it are 31 lust (25) and backbiting (30)-both ofwhich we have already seen in Aelred's mocking description ofthe gossiping recluse. 11

Significantly, Spacks defines the realm ofgossip as a specifically oral mode of discourse. This quality, she posits, makes it a particularly valuable resource to the oppressed (15). Gossip uses narrative materials from the world in order to construct an

"oral artifact," one which can remake the world (Spacks 15). Arguably, the discredited nature oforality is also why gossip often implies the "credulity, betrayal and exaggeration that [supposedly] flourished in intimate female associations" (Spacks 44). Regardless of the content ofgossip, the medieval obsession with what women said when they got together and the hypothetical answers offered by poems like ale-wife dialogues and carols suggest a medieval conception ofthe gossips' gathering as a feminine counter-discursive sphere:

[Gossip] embodies an alternative discourse to that ofpublic life, and

a discourse potentially challenging to public assumptions; it provides

a language for an alternative culture. Gossip's way oftelling can

project a different understanding ofreality from that ofsociety at

large, even though gossip may claim to articulate the voice ofthe

community. (Spacks 46)

Jones emphasizes the threat ofthis counter-discursive sphere: "Gossip may be derogated by men as trivial (what could be more trivial than women's concerns?), but it is also seen as a threat. Women have been prevented from talking together by ridicule, interruption,

Il Interestingly, while men are also castigated for verbal transgressions, their linguistic improprieties tend ta be more on the political side, such as tattling (Spacks 30). 32 physical constraint, and even by statute, and the fear ofgossip and its subversive power has been associated with witchcraft" (244-45).

Section Two: The Gossip and the Scribe

One specifically literary response to the possible counter-narratives offered by women is the denigration oftheir speech. Such an accusation moves beyond the general charges against women's speech as deceitful and illogical to define it aesthetically as unauthoritative. One late medieval example ofsuch a maneuver is Les Evangiles des

Quenouilles, a work written collaboratively by Fouquart de Cambrai, Antoine du Val and

Jean Arras. 12 Enjoying a widespread circulation in its English print translation, The

Gospelle ofDystaves presents a series ofgossips' gatherings complete with the practical, erotic and magico-superstitious subject matter considered typical oftheir conversations.

The purpose ofthe gathering, as stated by the first matron, is to counter the "dispraise" currently heaped on their sex by men (Bornstein 6).13 However, the underlying motive of the women's speech is made explicit by another "crooked matron" who proposes a feast for the wise women who have "instructed and admonished" them so that: "paraventure we shal come to haue domynynacyon ouer the men" (42).

The most striking aspect ofthis text is that it contains a frame-narrative that presents a male secretary recording the gospels ofsix lusty old women. Through the device ofthe narrating scribe the text negatively compares the women's discourse to that

12 The foIlowing summary ofinformation about the history ofthis text is drawn from Bornstein's introduction to the facsimile in Distaves and Dames: Renaissance Treatises For and About Women. The editor ofthe French text, P. Jannet, concludes that it was composed in Belgium. The style ofthis sophisticated parody suggests that the authors could weIl have been clerks. While the work circulated in manuscript form, it was printed at Bruges by Colard Mansion around 1475. The manuscript Mansion most likely used was owned by Marie ofLuxembourg. The piece was very popular. The French version was reprinted at least eight times in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It was translated into English by Henry Watson, an apprentice ofWynkyn de Worde, between 1507-1515. 33 ofmen. The c1erk, at first naively enthusiastic to record the "holy mysteryes" passed down among women since the time ofChrist and the women who followed him, becomes progressively more disenchanted with the matrons' lessons. The significant literary endeavor ofthe scribe, his intention to record new gospels-"to put in scrypture a lytel volume"-is mocked by the subject matter and raucous manner ofthe women's conversations. Their discussion ranges from practical to potentially dangerous folklore: remedies for impotence, wife-beating, unwanted babies, advice on handling animaIs, weather portents, omens, interpretations ofdreams, love potions, and the divination ofthe future (Warner 36). While the c1erk reticently continues to record the women's wisdom in scholarly verses and glosses, he frequently comments on the women's lack of rhetorical discipline. On Tuesday he notes that his departure goes unnoticed by the women who had begun to "babyll [...] myghtely" (26). His conc1uding comments on

Friday's event condemn both the matter and the manner ofthe women's discourse:

For this last glose sounded grete tumulte amonge the wyves that were

there assembledlalso weIl oflaughynge as ofspekynge aIl togyder and it

semed none other thynge but a market [...] without ony ordenauncel and

without ony herkenynge ofone ofthe otherl nor abydynge the ende of

theyr reasons [...] And after l had taken my leue gracyously ofthem l went

unto my chambre for to take my rest. For my heed was gretely empty

bycause ofthe folysshe reasons that they babeled unto me. (55-56)

The narrator's own alienation from the gossips' circ1e is articulated in terms of gender conf1ict:

13 Bomstein does not paginate the facsimile. Consequently, 1have calculated the page numbers myself. 34

It dyspleased me moche that 1myght not haue the company ofony man

for to laughe and passe the tyme/ for certaynly the countenaunce and

manere ofthem was ryght sauage and straunge/ and to my thynkynge it

semed them that aIl the worlde sholde be gouemed by theyr

constytytyons and wordes. (45)

According to this text, the threat that the world could be govemed by women's words lies not only in the way words are wielded by women against men, but in the way women use words amongst themselves. In her introduction to the text, Diane Bomstein indicates that the Gospelle is satiric ridicule intended to keep "boisterous, sexually independent women" in their place (vi). What she does not note is that in the Epilogue the authors direct their satiric work specifically at women's participation in a counter-discursive sphere. They say that they wrote the work "to shewe and declare the fragylyte oftheym that soo deuyse right oft whan they he togyder" (my emphasis 57).

The counter-discursive sphere, as depicted by the authors ofThe Gospelle of

Dystaves, iIIustrates a development in the querelle des femmes which has been left virtually uncommented on by scholars. The battle ofthe sexes has become, with the construction ofthe gendered discursive spheres, a battle over truth-telling authority.14

Furthermore, in the search for discursive authority, for the power to represent, this battle ofthe sexes engages with the increasingly complex relationship between orality and literacy in late medieval culture. The image in the Gospelle ofa leamed secretary

14 1would like to point out at this early stage my awareness that the battle ofthe sexes was waged-or shaH 1 say staged-almost entirely by and for men. Consequently, 1 want to emphasize that my own discussion centers on images ofwomen constructed by medieval men as puppets for the fight. It is not my goal in this dissertation to propose in any concrete way that individual medieval women conceived ofthemselves as part ofa counter-discursive sphere or that they even conceived ofthemselves as participating in a battle of the sexes. What is important for my discussion is the literary construction ofsuch a sphere as a part ofthe battle. 35 recording the chatter ofa group ofbawds and beldames attributes literate, scholarly culture to men and the superstitious realm ofpopular, oral culture to women. Feminists, such as Karma Lochrie in her work on Margery Kempe, have occasionally recognized the link between orality and femininity. This connection has been based primarily on assumptions about women's limited access to education. However, the relationship between orality and femininity demands further examination, both in terms ofits theoretical implications for the debate on the authoritative claims oforality and literacy in late medieval culture and for our understanding ofthe history ofwomen's aesthetic productions and reception. 15

Howard Bloch presents a history ofwomen's reception in the realm ofaesthetics that illustrates the continuous association ofwomen with a debased oral culture. In the debate over the Roman de la Rose Bloch concludes that women were equated with lies, false logic, empty words and sophistical rhetoric, while men were assumed to represent the propriety ofthe grammatical and logical sciences (53). He contrasts Andreas

Capellanus's depiction ofwomen talking together without listening to one another (an image also present in The Gospelle ofDystaves) to Walter Map's reference to "the honesty ofthe written page" in communication among men (Bloch 54, 56). The outcome ofsuch attitudes, Bloch proposes, is women's association with inferior art, with decadent, decorative genres accorded less cultural prestige than more philosophically-inclined literature:

We have seen, for example, that within the realm ofphilosophy, a woman

(as abstraction) is excluded from abstraction because her essence is

15 The exceptions, such as Eric Jager and Patricia Anderson, will be addressed in the following discussion. 36

located in the partial and particular, which takes on the valence ofthe

oral, conceived as contingent or fleeting-an instance ofparole as

opposed to the more enduring langue. Ifhowever, woman writes, her

writing again faIls on the side ofthe transitory. (61)

Women's reputed forms ofexpression, beyond being devalued as gilded loquacity, are viewed as vaguely threatening. According to Bloch's translation ofSt. Jerome:

"whatever enters the ear by the songs ofpoets and comediens, by the pleasantries and verses ofpantomimic actors, weakens the manly fibre ofthe mind" (my emphasis 63).

The association ofwomen with orality demands a closer examination ofthe oral culture constructed around femininity. The relationship between women and oral culture receives a mere sidelong glance from Walter Ong: "A great gap in our understanding of the influence ofwomen on literary genre and style could be bridged or closed through attention to the orality-literacy-print shift" (Technologizing 159). Ong postulates a different relationship between gender and oral genres from the one proposed by Bloch.

He insists that due to girls' exclusion from the oral-based Latin education boys received, women's works were less oral. He goes on to hypothesize: "non-rhetorical styles congenial to women-writers helped make the novel what it is: more like a conversation"

(160). However, 1believe that here Ong has stumbled on a terminological problem. 16

David Buchan's differentiation between two forms oforality is crucial in order to understand representations ofwomen's oral culture. A general form oforality present in both non-textual and textual cultures is the "word-of-mouth tradition." This form is a realm oforality already associated with women. The orality debated by theorists

16 Irvine's discussion ofthe notion ofvox in medieval grammatica also contradicts Ong's assumption that the oral exercises necessarily indicate a lack oftextuality in Latin education. 37 nonnally addresses a fonnal culture which produces compositions based on methods

"derived from the exigencies ofthe non-literate state" (Buchan 56). Buchan clarifies for us the subsequent conflation ofthe two realms with the growth ofliteracy. Written culture produces a new literatary genre, popular literature, made up primarily offorms like the ballads, songs and stories that had flourished in oral tradition (68). Through the development ofsuch a "popular" culture fonnal oral conventions become equated with the infonnal word-of-mouth tradition related to women. The conventional conception of women as the guardians oforal, folk culture, while men are considered the purveyors of textual tradition, is symptomatic ofthe fact that the discursive binary in Western culture becomes hierarchical and gendered. 17

This understanding ofwomen's association with a debased oral tradition evinces the generic limitations mentioned by Bloch since women are confined to the realm of superstitions, fairytales and, to state the obvious, old wives' tales. Thus, the literati constructed a concept ofthe superiority ofliteracy and officialliterate culture (which included a distinction between literary and non-literary genres) by gendering oral culture feminine. According to Stock's article on medievalliteracy, our contemporary understanding ofthe intenningling between orality and literacy in the Middle Ages need not hinder an examination oftheir differences:

[W]hether or not there is a real difference between the oral and the

written word, a good deal ofthe medieval and early modem

perception ofcultural differences was based on the assumption that

17 For a biographical book on the Grimm brothers with a fascinating revelation ofthe way these immensely influential men fabricated the psycho-social origins ofthe tales see Jack Zipes, The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World (New York: Routledge, 1988). 38

there is; and that perception, in the final analysis, is what the literary

and social historian seeks to record, to discuss, and to comment upon. (17)

The gendering ofthe discursive spheres is an example ofwhat Fisher and Halley term the "homotextual" activities ofmedieval writers: "[F]or a male author to write about women in these periods was to refer not to women, but to men-to desire not relationship

[with women], but relationship to the traditions ofmale textual activity, and, by extension, ofmale social and political privilege" (4). In her discussion ofthe role of representations ofwomen in French medieval disputations, Helen Solterer lays out the ways in which women were used to construct masculine textual authority. Women's perceived verbal power caused considerable anxiety since it called into question men's sovereignty (Solterer 54). In an attempt to impose man's authority on "female linguistic independence" medieval clerics developed a notion ofwriting as a masterly craft: "the clerk's written medium affords him [power] in creating the guise ofhis own mastery"

(Solterer 74). Consequently, clerks began to define themselves against the speaking woman, privileging their words by virtue oftheir writtenness. Eric Jager's work on medieval treatments ofthe Fall as a language myth is one ofa few works which also directly addresses this gendering ofdiscourse. 18 Jager's analysis ofstories ofthe Fall suggests that as books become more exalted in monastic culture, oral tradition is increasingly identified with the "seductive, fallible, bodily" speech ofpagans, heretics and women (188). In the fourteenth century Richard de Bury goes so far as to argue that women by their nature revile books, "condemn them as superfluous and wish to exchange them for expensive clothes" (Rogers 83). Male textual activity is notjust about an

18 Although Matthews Grieco's work deals with sixteenth and seventeenth engravings, her analysis ofthe speaking woman in visual art supports the notion ofgendered discourse. 39 expression ofsocial privilege. It is an attempt at maintaining a seemingly threatened social hierarchy. Thus, writing as a masculine activity tautologically justifies male social authority. Ultimately, textuality, the literate expression ofthe rational male, is set to stand in contradistinction to contentious, incessant, feminine chatter, the voice ofthe

Other.

The Scottish school, the second factor responsible for the increase oflate medieval antifeminist satire in Utley's view, produced one ofthe most complex examples oflate medieval "homotextual" activities. William Dunbar's Tretis ofthe Tua Mariit

Wemen and the Wedo evidences the increasing privilege accorded literacy and the accompanying devaluation oforal forms, as weIl as the consequences such linguistic developments had for the creation ofa system ofdiscursive relations in the late Middle

Ages. The Tretis has been hailed as a unique poem both in terms ofstyle and content. Its anachronistic unrhymed, four-stress, alliterative verse makes it distinctive not only among other Middle English and French poetry ofthe time, but also distinguishes it from the rest ofDunbar's oeuvre. Moreover, its extraordinary play with genres and audience expectations has made the Tretis a puzzle for centuries ofreaders. Both ofthese characteristics ofthe Tretis contribute to our understanding ofthe medieval construction ofan oral female counter-discursive sphere in relation to male textual authority.

The poem also symbolizes in an unlikely manner the transitional culture from which it springs. Dunbar's poem was produced at a time in Scottish literary history when oral and literate modes coexisted uneasily and print was just being introduced. The history ofthe Tretis provides ample evidence ofthe interaction between the various discursive modalities oflate medieval culture. The poem, set on Midsummer's Eve, is likely to have been one ofDunbar's many occasional poems produced and orally 40 performed at the court ofKing James IV ofScotland. Nevertheless, the poem first surfaces in literary history as part ofa 1508 Chepman and Myllar print. Gnly later in the sixteenth century do we find the poem in manuscript form: the Maitland Folio MS (1570­

82) (Roth 57). Consequently, the poem reflects both the oral tradition still very much present in the Scottish court ofJames IV and the privileging ofwritten texts begun by manuscript culture but intensified and consolidated by the rise ofprint. Such a distinctive history suggests that the poem, set at a point in literary history when orality contrasted with textuality in both manuscript and print forms, can provide a provocative commentary on the conceptions ofliteracy that late medieval culture passed on to early modemity.

As with The Gospelle ofDystaves, Dunbar's poem presents a frame narrative ofa scribe recording a private conversation among women. The distinction between the

scribe and his subjects is exacerbated in the Tretis by the fact that the poet-scribe is an eavesdropper. This device ofthe eavesdropping scribe exemplifies the ways in which textuality was used in the quest for social mastery in the battle ofthe sexes. An expression ofthe medieval preoccupation with secrets and disc1osure, the "rhetorical device ofthe eavesdropping male narrator creates a gendered discourse ofsecrecy, it creates an oral discourse ofwomen's secrets-subversive knowledge that women share with other women (or in privileged conversation) and conceal from men" (Rasmussen,

"Gender" 8). The secret dialogues often reveal, according to Rasmussen's assessment of late medieval German literature, women bending or breaking "normative social conventions regarding proper female conduct in order to get what they want­ economically, socially and sexually" ("Gender" 9). Yet while such texts present a vision ofsubversive female agency, they work to recontain this social threat through the imposition ofa power structure based on the textual authority ofthe narrator. 41

The literary image ofthe scribe recording women's oral conversations makes explicit a medieval vision ofgendered discourse. Rasmussen points out that the two spheres, the realm ofthe eavesdropper and the realm ofthose speaking, relate to one another in terms ofa power structure, a hierarchy ofknowledge based on gender

("Dichter" 2). The potential power offeminine secrets is undermined by the eavesdropping male's access to them. Moreover, the concept ofan eavesdropping narrator suggests the truth-telling authority inherent in the two spheres. By virtue of overhearing a conversation that is by its nature based on privacy and the trust of intimates, the narrator's account is presumed to be truthful. The framework ofan eavesdropping narrator presents the narrative text as a form of"evidentiary documentation" (Rasmussen, "Gender" 8). The text stands as evidence offered up by a narrator who, by virtue ofhis stance as eavesdropper, purports to be an objective reporter of"facts" about women, facts which women normally attempt to obscure. As textual proofofwomen's secrets, their Iinguistic deceitfulness, the eavesdropping narrative presents itselfas an attempt to stabilize meaning that is constantly linguistically obscured and destabilized by women in their daily interactions with men. Rasmussen remarks on the insidious power ofa Iiterary convention that makes women characters condemn themselves ("Dichter" 10). This effect can be exaggerated by the use ofa naive narrator, as is the case in The Gospelle ofDystaves, which presents the male as trusting and well­ intentioned. With such an elision ofmale antagonism, the battle ofthe sexes is reconfigured as a war waged by women on unsuspecting and innocent men.

In addition to the truth-telling stance ofthe narrator cum reporter, we have the representation ofthe women's gossip as a form ofconfession. The relationship between the formaI sacrament and the informaI and transgressive nature ofgossip is greater than 42 the modern reader may assume. In fact, Karma Lochrie suggests that medieval criticism ofgossip was most likely due to its affinity with act ofconfession (Covert 60). The clerical preoccupation with the codification ofconfessional practices demonstrates that confession, as a narrative act, perches precariously between aggravating and diminishing the sinner's transgression. Clerical writers are painfully aware that a discussion ofthe circumstances ofsin is "ambiguous rhetorical terrain" which resembles the act of storytelling (Root 71). In the Middle Ages Jean Gerson attempts to redress this fault: "lt is good to make a briefconfession without making it a long process and telling it like a tale" (Root 71). Brother John Benedict in the sixteenth century expresses similar concerns about the number ofpenitents who confess as ifthey are telling a story including "chatty details" which suggest that the narration oftheir sins is a pleasurable rather than humbling act for penitents (Davis, Fictions 18). Jeremy Root expresses the danger eloquently: "The confessional word, sacred and authorized, threatens to overextend itself, to wander outside ofthe church and beyond the realm ofsin, to become a dizzying spiral for the pious and an easy target ofabuse for the irreverent" (71).

When confession does in fact venture out ofthe institutional confines ofthe

Church into the public arena, the act becomes even more problematic. The act of confession augments and teaches the power ofself-presentation (Root 78). The confessional word is invested with a truth-telling authority which places the power of self-fashioning into the hands ofthe penitent; confession aids in the fictionalization ofthe self. "By the fourteenth century, the discourse ofconfession has become the privileged language ofthe subject, a viable technology ofthe self[...]. The literary subject now speaks a confessionallanguage and the confessional subject threatens to become more and more literary" (Root 92-93). The power attributed to confessional discourse is 43 acceptable when contained by the sacred context and the hierarchical relationships implicit in the institution. The confessor necessarily sanctions the truth status ofthe confessional murmur. Once removed from the confessional booth, confessional discourse goes unchecked. Discussing the Wife ofBath's preference ofher gossip over her parish priest as the privileged audience for her secrets Root demonstrates the new distribution of power:

This confession does not move vertically into the space controlled by the

priest and the Church but horizontally into a social space [...). Within this

community of 'godsyblings,' blood relations, intimate friends, women,

the space to speak the selfis unencumbered, unhaunted by the antifeminist

specter ofthe wicked wife. (117)

The powerful status ofsocially accepted, "objective" truth conferred upon confessional discourse by its sacramental origins becomes menacing when wielded in the wrong contexts by the wrong social clements, such as gossips.

The eavesdropping poem is perhaps the best example ofways in which women's gossip, which also presents accounts ofpersonal intention and experience, is associated with the abuse ofconfessional discourse. The confessional stance is a popular device in medieval antifeminist literature, as those familiar with La Vieille in La Roman de la Rose will recognize. Eavesdropping poems depicting women speaking privately to one another reflect a similar confessional stance and subject matter. Obviously, the literary image ofthe eavesdropping narrator is not limited to poems about women; it is a common feature in medieval débat poems, such as conventional bird-debate poetry. However, as

Rasmussen points out, the eavesdropping poems representing women's conversation suggest a parallel not with other intellectual debates so much as with the "confessional 44 practices" where "private and secret states ofmind are revealed" ("Dichter" 13).

Eavesdropping poems about women depict not debate, but gossip. Consequently, they deal with the most common subject matter found in confessional situations, both sacred and secular: sexual secrets and social transgressions. Leigh Gilmore's discussion of sacred confession highlights the commonalities ofthe two realms. She defines confession as a self-representational discourse where the preferred topic is sexuality (106).

Gilmore's assessment ofthe significance ofsexuality in confession applies equally weIl to its role in gossip. She states: "Sexuality as what is confessed, or the topos oftruth, is represented through a nexus ofgender, identity, and authority" (106). The implications of the use ofsexuality in representations ofgossip are manifold. Obviously, the anatomizing preoccupation with the impotent male that characterizes the gossips' talk in poems like the "The Talk ofthe Ten Wives" and, as we shall see, Dunbar's Tretis signifies an attack on masculine identity and authority. Furthermore, the implication of sexuality as a truth topos, reinforced by centuries ofusage, is that women have discursive authority only with regard to their own experiences.

Working within the paradigm ofconfessional discourse, eavesdropping poems are uniquely designed to invoke the evaluative aspect ofconfession with its accompanying issue ofsocial power. Medieval confessional situations were designed to maintain the male priest's authority. Gilmore proposes, in fact, that confessional practices acted to defend the authority ofthe male-dominated church by functioning to regulate the increasing number ofwomen mystics who sought to speak (113). The confessional aspect ofgossip in the eavesdropping poem begs the same question ofauthorization and offers the same response. Constructed as a form ofconfessional situation, the eavesdropping poem has an "evaluative effect" (Rasmussen, "Gender" 9). The narratorial 45 strategy demands a judgment ofthe gossip by virtue ofthe confessional modes employed by the women and the implied transgression oftheir speech. As Hermina Joldersma points out, the eavesdropping narrator ofa poem, and the audience he implicates by retelling the conversation for their vicarious enj0Yment, has a psychological advantage

(217). It is an advantage not even present in official confessional situations because here the confession is not voluntary. The victims cannot choose their judge(s) or, for that matter, whether or not to be judged.

The nature ofthe male eavesdropper is perhaps most clearly illustrated by the medieval folkloric image ofthe demon Tutivillus, whose function it was to write down on his scroll what women chattered about in church. 19 In Robert Mannyng's Handlynge

Synne a deacon explains that he burst into laughter while reading the gospel because of the antics ofthis little devil:

As y redde pat ychë tyde,

Twey wYmmen Iangled pere besyde;

Betwyx hem to, y say a fende

with penne and parchëmen yn honde,

And, wrote aIle pat euer pey spake,

Pryuyly be-hynde here bake. (291)

Tutivillus highlights one significant aspect ofthe eavesdropper: his role as scribe. What is most important to remember about the Weltanschauung presented by such eavesdropping poems is that the advantage ofthe eavesdropper is directly related to his

19 According to Utley the devil with the scroU has been associated with Gregory the Great, St. Augustine of England and with St. Martin ofTours. Stories ofsuch a devil have been recorded in poems and folk tales in France, England, Germany, Sweden, Finland and Estonia (Utley 279). 46 masculinity and reinforced by his use oftextuality. "The texts that use the eavesdropping male narrator align femininity with speech and orality, with oral persuasiveness [... ].

They align masculinity with the written work, the textualized language" (Rasmussen,

"Gender" 10).

Rasmussen outlines another significant way in which truth-telling authority is gendered masculine and identifies itselfas textua1. She points out that the eavesdropping narrator is invisible in that he remains undescribed; yet the women he overhears and observes are often described in rich detail ("Gender" 9). Consequently, "the woman's voice is sited, located and visualized as issuing from a desirable, female body" while the

"male narrator is a disembodied, narrating and moralizing voice, a textualized voice that issues omnisciently from an apparently genderless text" ("Gender" 9). The juxtaposition ofthe embodied female voice expressing desire with the disembodied, rational, textuaI male voice reflects a society which views women as aligned with the "fleshly" and which tends to collapse female speech and sexuality.20 Jean Gerson articulates this view quite vehemently in 1415:

There is hardIy any other calamity more apt to do harm or that is more

incurable [than the unbridled speech ofwomen]. Ifits only consequence

were the immense loss oftime, this would already be sufficient for the

devi1. But you must know that there is something else to it: the insatiable

itch to see and to speak, not to mention...the itch to touch.

(Lochrie, Translations 1)

20 Karma Lochrie and E. Jane Burns have extensively investigated the ways in which women's speech and sexuality were conflated in medieval culture. This presumed connection between speech and wanton behavior is most eloquently expressed by Theodora Jankowski in Women in Power in Early Modern Drama: "The mouth's openness, especially when accompanied by an excess ofspeech, mimicked a (presumed) openness ofthe vagina" (38). 47

The collapse ofspeech and sexuality seeks to effectively empty women's speech of meaning. The narrator ofThe Gospelle ofDystaves makes such a suggestion explicit when he daims that his head was "gretely empty" because ofthe "folysshe reasons" the women had "babeled" (56). Moreover, Gerson's anxious description ofa voice which is inevitably accompanied by a touch highlights the element ofseductiveness that makes otherwise empty speech dangerous. The alignment offeminine speech with sensuality has further advantages for male textuai authority. Feminine sexuality ensures the gendered identification ofthe voice. We never forget that those speaking in the poem are women. The narrator's voice, although it manages to define textual authority as masculine, poses as a genderless, omniscient text whose representation holds no bias.

Like the demon scribe, textuality assumes a subject position as an observer documenting for his audience the phenomenon ofwomen's discourse. In doing so, textuality constructs orality as a character in its account.

The generic play in Dunbar's poem suggests that it intends for the members ofits audience to identify themselves as literate. The humour ofthe poem relies often on undermining the expectations ofan audience familiar with literary conventions. The

Tretis ofthe Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo opens with the conventional mannerisms of a chanson d'aventure. The narrator sets offinto a pastorallandscape, complete with the typical hawthorn and garden ofthe French chansons (Smith 39), only to come upon an event, which he secretly observes, and later records. The opening lines set the stage in gilded romance terms. Dunbar engages his audience on various sensory levels in this 48 opening scene: visually, with the "gudlie grein garth, full ofgay flouris" (3);21 aurally, with the "sugarat sound" ofthe birds (5); and olfactorily, with "the savour sanative ofthe

sueit flouris" (6). The conventional setting contains, predictably, three exquisitely beautiful women. The narrator's attention is first caught by their elevated speech, their

"hautand wourdis" (12). Upon discovering their idyllic bower he is confronted with a vision ofalmost unearthly beauty,22 which he proceeds to describe in detail to his

audience. In accordance with Rasmussen's discussion ofthe eavesdropping scribe, the narrator elaborates on the physical beauty ofhis heroines, detailing their "glorious gilt tressis" (19), the arrangements oftheir hair, headdresses and cloaks (21-25), and the beauty oftheir "quhyt, seimlie, and soft" faces (28). Before them, the festive table

covered with "ryalle cowpis apon rawis full ofryche wynis" (35) further substantiates the

courtly setting ofthe poem.

Given such courtly generic uses the audience is taken completely unawares when the stately chanson d'aventure transforms into what most critics agree is a racy chanson

de mal mariée. The genre shift itselfis not the most significant element. Pearcy and

Smith point out that the chanson de mal mariée can remain courtly since it often involves

an aristocratie young woman lamenting an unhappy marriage to a man below her class

(Pearcy 59). What is most shocking in the Tretis is the tone. The change in tone

indicates a paradigm shift from the serious, idealistic realm ofcourtly ladies, to base,

21 AIl citations in Middle Scots are from Dunbar's Tretis ofthe Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo edited by W. Mackay MacKenzie (London: Faber, 1932). A parenthetical reference to the line number will follow each citation ofthe text.

22 There has been sorne titillating speculation about the hints provided by the text that the women are actually Faery. Reiss points out the ambiguities ofthe green colour oftheir dresses (thought to symbolize bad luck, inconstancy and also to be the colour ofthe fairies) and also the curious detail that the women wear their hair in a style associated with unmarried girls or (as Hope suggests) fairies (l18). A.D. Hope's work, A Midsummer Eve's Dream, rhapsodizes about the potential magical and anthropological 49 medieval comedy about wives struggling for sexual autonomy. The effect ofthe moment ofmetamorphosis has dimensions only expected, perhaps, in a fairytale. The beautiful woman opens her mouth to speak and, instead ofthe promised "hautand wourdis," the

audience is appalled to hear the cackling,fabliau voice ofthe Other, another incarnation ofOvid's Dipsas, La Vieille and Alisoun.

The Wedo's proposaI ofa debate on the value ofmarriage launches both wives

into vicious and graphie descriptions oftheir respective husbands' moral and, more

importantly for these women, sexual inadequacies. Each monologue is punctuated by a

curious chorus ofuproarious laughter and an unladylike quaffing ofmuch wine. The

Wedo responds by assuming the conventional widow's role as a moral teacher. She

undercuts the ideal ofthe reclusive, contemplative widow by giving a sermon on the art

ofdeception in the manner ofher literary predecessors, using scriptural and mythologieal

learning to support her personal doctrines ofexploitation and promiscuity (Ross 227).

The poem then closes with a retreat back into the romance stance ofthe narrative frame

and a mocking demande d'amour: "Ofthir thre wantoun wiffis, that l haifwritten heir,l

Quhilk wald ye waill to wif, gifye suld wed one?" (530). Kinsley's much-quoted

comment expresses the nature ofthe transformation confronting the audience in the

Tretis: "Ideal beauty is revealed as the whited sepulchre oflust, and what seems to be of

the bower is seen to belong to the street, and, at the same time, three drinking, jesting,

gossips cynically pretend, as part oftheir festive joke, sorne allegiance to courtly love"

(35). The diction ofromance present in the poem-terms such as "schalk, sege, leid,

wlonk" (Kinsley 33)-descends to burlesque and serves only to highlight the disparity

implications ofa poem about Faery. But, as even the author admits, the theory does not stand as a piece of literary criticism. 50 between the audience's initial expectations and the real women encountered. The concepts ofcourtly love, such as the "pity" practiced by the Wedo in response to her numerous amorous houseguests, serve as parodic imitations ofthe sentiments common to romance.

While the women in the Tretis do employ sorne romance terms and concepts, their language generally matches the content oftheir speech. Marilyn Fries notes the linguistic contrast that marks the male- and female-voiced lyrics ofthis poem: while the masculine

I-narrator speaks in chivalric high-style, the "coarse and unlearned rhetoric" ofthe women "reeks offabliau" (168). She concludes:

Dunbar's individual talent, bounded first by a long, "learned"

tradition ofpervasive misogyny and second by a long literary

tradition ofthe female speech as the heterodox, the 'Other' voice

to the male, cannot move beyond the received "auctoritee." The

only contrastive rhetoric he has available for the female voice is

the coarse speech offabliau. (171)

Indeed, the wives display an impressive arsenal ofgraphic descriptive terms and insults unheard ofin romance. Drawing on the strengths ofthe alliterative tradition, these women use 80 different words and images for "man" or "husband" (Bitterling 340).

Needless to say, most ofthese are quite derogatory. The first wife's description ofher husband resonates with the flyting tradition McKenna claims was at the height ofits popularity in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Scotland (136). It sets the tone for the rest ofthepoem:

1have ane wallidrag, ane worme, ane auld wobat carle,

Ane waistet wolroun, na worth bot wourdis to clatter; 51

Ane bumbart, ane drone bee, ane bag full offlewme,

Ane skabbit skarth, ane scorpioun, ane scutarde behind;

To see him scart his awin skyn grit scunner 1think.

Quhen kisses me that carybald, than kyndillis aIl my sorow;

As birs ofane brym bair, his berd is aIs stif,

Bot soft and soupill as the silk is his sary lume[.] (89-96)

The wife's invective reveals the nature ofthe discussion to follow. Reiss c1aims, with the majority ofscholars sharing his interpretation, that the three speeches ofthe women provide not a love débat so much as parodie confessions often found in antifeminist literature (Dunbar 119). Notably, the Wedo invokes pseudo-religious confessional terms in her demands for self-revelation: "bewrie," "reveill" and "confese"

(Bitterling 344). For example, she invites the second wife to "confese [...] the treuth" in order that the Wedo may "exeme" her (153). The wife's response oudines the conditions required for her revelation: "That ofyour toungis ye be traist" and that "there is no spy neir" (159, 160). Her naive comment, deliciously ironie for the audience, serves to draw attention back to the frame and to savour the fact that there is, in truth, another judge examining this confession, one far less approving than the Wedo.

The debate form is deliberately abandoned since aIl three speeches present the same subjective view drawn from "experience, though noon auctoritee," to bOITOW the expression ofanother loquacious wife. The wives display what Ong considers an oral habit ofaddressing abstractions (such as the value ofthe social custom ofmarriage) in terms ofa situational, experiential frame ofreference (Technologizing 49). Bloch makes a similar observation: "a woman [...] is exc1uded from [philosophical] abstraction because her essence is located in the partial and particular, which takes on the valence ofthe oral 52

[...]" (61). As the three gossips confess their private experiences ofsexual frustration and desire, reveal their husbands' most personal details and share their subversive acts, the audience is constantly aware that these monologues are personal subjective accounts which serve to reveal the characters' true natures.

The evident irrational nature and emotional motivation ofthese speeches become

linked with the body not only in terms ofthe specificaIly sexual nature oftheir frustration, their husbands' lamentable lack of"curage." The second wife represents her anger and her invective explicitly in terms ofbodily iIlness:

1salI a ragment reveil fra rute ofmy hert,

A roust that is sa rankild quhill risis my stomok;

Now salI the byle aIl out brist, then beild has so lang;

For it to beir one my brist wers berdin our hevy:

1salI venome devoid with a vent large,

And me assuage ofthe swalme, that sueIlit so gret. (158-167)

The women's physicality is exacerbated even more by the drinking and laughter that mark the moments between their speeches. Arthur Moore's analysis ofthe Midsummer

setting ofthe poem suggests that these activities were part ofthe celebratory setting (57).

However, Edwina Bumess points out the fact that drinking was a conventional form of

social transgression, a sign ofwomanly excess distilled in the poem by crude verbs, such

as "wauchtit" (39) and "swapit" (243) (Bumess 362). Rogers's research presents

drinking as another typicaIly female vice, one often associated with gossiping: "Not only

did the idea persist that women love drinking, but they were supposed to spend their days

in the local tavem swilling the best ale or wine with their female cronies, 'gossips'" (94).

This same oral excess, with its sexual reverberations, applies to the gossips' loud 53 laughter. Although Parkinson points out the purgative, medicinal function attributed to laughter in the Middle Ages, E. Jane Burns reveals the inevitable gendered double standard, reminding us ofthe connection between female laughter and sexuality. She indicates that La Vieille's advice on the unseemliness oflaughing with one's mouth open alludes to the metonymic relationship between the two orifices (240).23 This perception oflaughter seems not to be limited to medieval writers, Tom Scott remarks in the latter halfofthe twentieth century that "laughter is the worst feature of[the women's] depravity" (186).

The "ryatus speche" (149) ofthe women contrasts markedly with the voice ofthe narrator. Remaining undescribed, the narrator adopts the stance outlined by Rasmussen and Joldersma. He poses as an omniscient voice reporting what he hears, a cool contrast to the vicious, furious words poured out by the frustrated wives. The effectiveness ofthis stance is evinced by critical receptions ofthe narrator as "entirely neutral" (Henderson

169). Katherine Singh echoes Henderson's Victorian perspective in the twentieth century when she states that the poet-narrator is amoral (30). Nicolaisen's description of

Dunbar's I-narrator is particularly telling: "Similarly, in the satirical mood, his testimony is that ofa lucid third person, often amused, yet uncompromised, wishing to accredit the thesis ofhis good faith and impartiality" (75). Nicolaisen's use ofterms such as

"testimony," "lucid third person" and "impartiality" demonstrate the truth-telling authority ascribed to the poet-as-narrator, an authority related to the rationality attributed to textual mindsets. The narrator is explicit in his identification with a masculine textuaI realm. In the end ofthe poem he makes sure his listening audience, the "auditoris" that

23 The advice can be found in lines 13326-36 ofthe Roman de la Rose. 54

"eris has gevin" (527), acknowledges that there is a text behind his account. The implication is that orality, even in the context ofan auraI performance, is less authoritative. He points out that he "did report" aIl that had passed between the women with his "pen" (526). Finally his second last hne once again refers to his textual activities: "Ofthir thre wantoun wiffis, that l haifwrittin heir" (529).

The audience will note, ofcourse, that the Wedo, a self-proclaimed "shrewe"

(251) and the rhetorical ringleader ofthis female counter-discursive sphere, sets herself up in opposition to textuality. She finds books very useful-as accessories. Reminiscent ofRichard de Bury's comments about women's materialistic, unappreciative approach to books, the Wedo seems to value her book as a prop and sign ofher wealth and good taste.

She uses it as a pretense while she scans the church: "FuI oft l blenk by my buke [...] to se qyhat berne is est brand or bredest in schulderis" (428-29). Her description ofher "bright buke" focuses not on its content but on its beautified surface "with mony lusty letter ellummynit with gold" (425). It is an emblem not ofspirituality, but ofwealth.

Even more striking is the Wedo's closing assertion: "This is the legeand ofmy lif, thought Latyne it be nane" (504). The Wedo's use ofthe term "legeand" here may give the reader pause. However, this reference follows the humour ofthe rest ofthe text by highlighting the disparity between conventional generic expectations and the actual speech ofthe women. The literary term "legend" leads the reader to contrast the Wedo's outrageous narrative with conventionallegends ofsaints' lives. Such a contrast offers numerous insights. Coming on the heels ofthe Wedo's description ofher extraordinary ability to comfort aIl her faithfullovers simultaneously and her selfless willingness to accept aIl men, regardless ofsocial degree, in her embrace, the allusion to legends highhghts the Wedo's high estimation ofherself. It also indicates to the audience that 55 just as the Wedo is no saint, her story is no legend. Furthermore, the Wedo's closing comment overtly juxtaposes the literary narratives created by men about women with the oral accounts given by women themselves through her identification ofthe legends with

Latin. As a mainly textualized language, Latin was a powerful function ofmasculine textual mastery. The majority ofwomen was prevented from receiving a formaI education and consequently could not access the textual authority inherent in the Latin language. Therefore, the reference to Latin serves to emphasize the textuality that the

Wedo challenges with her own oral account ofherself. With the Wedo's closing self- description as oral, followed by the narrator's self-representation as a writing author, the

Tretis conclusively polarizes the gendered spheres, aligning the masculine with the authority oftextuality and the feminine with impudent orality. Furthermore, the audience is not innocent or impervious to this battle ofthe sexes. Shaun McCarthy suggests that the poet "ensures a measure ofidentification ofthe author, not with his characters, but with the larger audience" based on their shared eavesdropping experience and the narrator's "direct mode ofaddress to the auditors," omitting interlocutory rhetoric to produce a living, "theatrical" bond between speaker and hearer (144),24 Moreover, based on the assumption inherent in the final demande to choose a wife, the audience is defined not only as literate, but also as male.

Section Three: Gendering Orality and Literacy

Dunbar's delineation ofdiscursive spheres according to gender supports scholarship which suggests that literacy created a "cultural division between the leamed community, for whom written texts constituted a base ofauthority, and a popular

24 While 1 disagree with various aspects of McCarthy's article, his reading ofthe poem as both situated in and critiquing oral culture is original and has critical potential. 56 tradition, for which a progressively discredited orality remained the touchstone for construing reality" (Nichols 209). Franz Bâuml remarks:

[The] two types oftransmission, oral and written, are social functions,

and as such are associated with social values. Ofcourse allliterary

functions are inevitably social functions, but in reference to the

oral and written forms oftransmission, this identity is emphasized

by the social distinctions between those who required access to

the written word for the exercise oftheir social roles and those

who did not. The former [...] were exposed to the written word

and became increasingly aware ofthe differences between its functions

and those oforality. (43)

Since Alfred Lord's seminal work, The Singer afTa/es, scholars interested in classical and medieval cultures have sought to document the relationship between oral and literary traditions in the European past. Many, like Zumthor, indicate that the original primacy of the spoken word was constantly challenged as the art ofwriting developed, particularly when the book moved into the realm ofthe vemacular (20). Paul Saenger observes changes in artistic depictions ofGod, which signal a shift from oral to textual authority.

Before the thirteenth century God is depicted as speaking to humans. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, angels communicate God's messages by bearing open codices and pointing to passages (Saenger 400). Scholars such as Ong, Kittayand Hindman suggest that the beliefinherited from Judaism that God's message was given to the world in the

form ofa sacred text contributed to the truth-telling authority attributed by medieval 57 scholars to the written word.25 "The Jews made [a] contribution by transmitting to

Christianity the idea ofthe Book's hallowed nature, Scripture and writing being one.

What is written becomes an object ofrespect, engendering a constant preoccupation with textual reference" (Zumthor 25).

However, the truth-telling authority ofwritten discourse lies not only in its relation to the Bible, but also in the increasing association ofliteracy with rationality and objectivity. Martin Irvine's study of the cultural impact ofgrammatica, the central discipline concemed with literacy, literature and interpretation that constructs the textuaI culture ofthe Middle Ages, reveals how, as texts become the valued vehic1es ofcultural memory, orality is undermined: "The proofofrational discourse is writing. Speech bears the imprint ofwriting, indeed, articulate speech is considered a special manifestation of writing. Speech is considered meaningful onlyas it manifests the distinctive features of writing" (96).26 The implications ofthis system ofdiscursive relations constructed by medieval philosophies oflanguage are ofprofound consequence. Ong, among many other scholars studying cultural communication, insists that communication restructures consciousness (Technologizing 78). Thus, writing does not just change how we

25 Sandra Hindman's work provides a concrete example ofthe way in which the Bible influenced the development ofprivileged literary forms. She documents how the Capetian monarchy used prose romance-a non-performative, hence specifically non-oral mode-to validate itself. "For the centralized Capetian monarchy [...] written language itselfbecame the very basis for constructing power that was divinely sanctioned, romance like history became linked with truth and had to be recast to reflect its derivation, the Bible, mostly written in prose" (Hindman 198).

26 Irvine's work documents the orientation towards textuality in medieval considerations oflanguage, literature and interpretation, along with their c1assical models. JeffKittay also focuses on the cultural influence ofwriting in "Utterance unmoored: The changing interpretation ofthe act ofwriting in the European Middle Ages." Kittay's discussion oftwelfth- and thirteenth-century developments in writing, in particular the severance ofwriting from "an identification with a constatable acts," is a useful intertext for those scholars dealing with the association oftextuality with rationality. 58 communicate experience; it changes how we experience life.27 Eric Havelock examines this transformative process in the way in which Greek literacy replaced Greek orality. He asserts that with the shift away from orality cornes a shift towards investigation and

"intellectualism" (115). This shift is attributable, according to Havelock, to the replacement ofcommunal memory with the "artificial memory" ofwritten records (71).28

Havelock bases his argument on Jack Goody and Ian Watt's discussion ofthe

consequences ofliteracy. Both scholarly works suggest that skepticism developed when people had the leisure to peruse various written documents and discover discrepancies rarely encountered in the local, personal dialogues oforal culture (Goody 48). Goody

and Watt propose that literacy produces a culture oflogic, a conclusion confirmed by

Irvine's work on medieval textual culture: "writing establishes a different relationship

between the world and its referent, a relationship more general and more abstract and less

closely connected to the particularities ofperson, place and time, than obtains in oral

communication" (Goody 44). Writing thus becomes defined as "an immutable and

impersonal mode ofdiscourse" tied to "a notion ofobjectivity" (44). This is precisely the

pose struck by the eavesdropping narrator in the Tretis, as well as by the scribe in The

27 Stock argues that the Middle Ages present a world making ever-increasing use oftext not only in the sphere ofsocial interchange but also in the ontological sphere ofhow experience is interpreted ("Medieval Literacy" 16).

28 ln The Book ofMemory: A Study ofMemory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990), Mary Carruthers challenges in significant ways the assertions made about the changes brought about to memorization techniques due to literacy. Her work further complicates the already complex relationship between orality and literacy, but it does not effectively change our discussion ofthe cultural prestige accorded to literacy. Michael Clanchy's From Memory to Written Record, England J066-1307, although the title suggests its affinity with Havelock's ideas, also complicates and occasionally challenges Havelock's theory by emphasizing the ways in which orality was privileged in post-conquest England. My own conclusions, as 1 hope this dissertation will show, share Clanchy's impetus to note the exceptions to the general mIes offered by scholars like Havelock and Goody. 59

Gospelle ofDystaves. Given its "inherent" qualities, textuality becomes the ultimate observer.

While poems such as Dunbar's Tretis and The Gospelle ofDystaves support the theory ofliteracy's graduaI ascendancy in the Middle Ages, they also identify a new element in the equation. Scholars dealing with orality have overlooked the fact that orality was discredited at least partially by its feminization. Given that the evaluative definitions ofliteracy and illiteracy were created by the literate, it cornes as no surprise that orality becomes associated with cultures conceived as the antithesis ofwhat Stock terms the "beneficent rationality" ofscholasticism ("Medieval Literacy" 16).

Consequentlyone finds a growing association oforality with popular culture: the realm of

superstition and tall-tales. Stock's account ofthe Abbot Guibert ofNogent's work documents this metamorphosis oforality. Guibert's quest for the verification ofChurch customs in textually "authenticated reason" posed a challenge to the word-of-mouth transmission ofcustoms and beliefs common in medieval Europe. In his search for

"textual rectitude" Guibert "gradually forms a picture which equates the oral, the popular, the inauthentic, and the disreputable" (Implications 250). The relationship ofpopular

culture to orality-an equivalence not made in the early Middle Ages (Implications 19}-

extends yet further to women, a point mentioned but left unexamined by Stock.29 We

find, for example, that Guibert's attack on the reliability oflocal eyewitness accounts

accuses specifically "old maids and simple-minded women" ofspinning out contrived

accounts ofevents (Implications 247). The Wedo's description ofherselfat the centre of

29 My reading of The Implications ofLiteracy leads me to conclude with Vance that Stock views the "advent ofliteracy as a threshhold to cultural maturity" in the West. My work builds on Stock's foundations. However, my own reading ofthe advent ofliteracy in light ofits implications for women qualifies sorne ofhis enthusiasm. 60 a rather orgiastic crowd of"baronis and knychtis,/ And othir bachiUeris" (476-77) can be easily classified as such a taU tale. In her assessment ofStock's discussion ofthe epistemological shifts surrounding quests for authentication such as Guibert's, Kathleen

Biddick indicates the effects that the shifting status ofthe real and the imaginary had for women. The discursive realignments which related visibility with mere physicality while attributing an invisible inner life to texts, also gendered the oral, popular realm-which dealt more with the physicality ofrelics than the ephemerality oftexts-as feminine

(110). Dunbar's poem offers a unique substantiation ofBiddick's argument in its description ofthe Wedo's approach to her book. The Wedo shows interest not in the inner life offered by her book, but in its physical appearance. Moreover, she (mis)uses an object aligned with the invisible, spiritual aspects ofhuman existence in her own animalistic (to the medieval mind) quest for physical pleasure.

Once the written discursive mode is privileged as a more truthful representational device, orality becomes vulnerable to manipulation in battles over representational authority. Franz Bâuml's theoretical examination oftexts exhibiting oral characteristics provides a starting point for understanding the ways in which orality can be wielded by the written discursive mode. Bâuml proposes that textual and oral modalities may have not only unconsciously influenced one another, but also consciously manipulated literary and spoken modes-and the genres associated with them-as guides for audience reception. He argues, therefore, that written texts can use metrics, rhythm, lexical and thematic stereotypes as stylistic references to orality (43). The growing social (and gendered) distinctions that lie behind such stylistic references are attributable in part to the fictionalization oforality:

In referring to the oral tradition, a written tradition fictionalizes it. 61

Since the one is given a role to play within the other, since oral

fonnulae in the garb ofwriting refer to 'orality' within the

written tradition, the oral tradition becomes an implicit fictional

'character' ofthe literary. (44)

Bâuml's theory goes far in explaining the presence oforal fonns in the later

Middle Ages long after textuality became socially privileged. Various scholars have documented that the rise ofliteracy did not put an end to oral tradition in the Middle

Ages. Numerous participants in the orality/literacy debate follow Walter Ong's example in examining how orality existed in metamorphosed fonns in literate culture. Sorne, like

Michael Clanchy in his work on eleventh- and twelfth-century England, state that the

spoken word had, in fact, a greater daim to truth-telling authority than the written. Joyce

Coleman, in particular, argues against what she daims is a Eurocentric, evolutionary approach to the history oforality and literacy. Coleman proposes the idea ofa bimodal medieval culture, where orality and literacy coexisted and interacted to produce various hybrid reception modalities, such as the auraI culture surrounding public reading.

According to Coleman we need a model which acknowledges oral material as a

substantial, continuous e1ement ofculture. Writing a history ofliteracy that refuses to acknowledge the longevity oforal reception modes as anything other than "residue" or evidence ofa transitional phase reflects the bias ofa modem culture that privileges literary skills.

Nevertheless, the bias in modem scholarship on the history oforality and literacy only serves to emphasize that while textual culture did not eliminate oral culture, it did, however, change people's attitudes toward orality and, consequently, the nature oforal tradition itself. On occasion written tradition did refer to oral tradition in order to 62 authorize itself, as in the Klage often accompanying the Niebelungenlied (Bauml 44).

However, Jesse Gellrich's Discourse and Dominion in the Fourteenth Century neatly outlines the effects ofsuch a masquerade. Gellrich's primary point in this work is to demonstrate how written culture invokes the dominance ofthe voice in order to eventually displace it, essentially making the source disappear in the copy. Stock presents a similar view ofthe process ofthe acculturation ofthe written into the oral:

"writing maintains explanatory links with the 'said,' the 'performed,' adds rationes scriptae, first as afterthoughts, then official record, then as a partial displacement ofthe aboriginal orality" ("Medieval Literacy" 20). Gellrich's work illustrates "how contingent writing remained in the oral customs still holding sway over how people thought and behaved" in the fourteenth century (189). It also indicates that there was nevertheless a movement afoot that brought increasing social power to the culture ofthe Book, a culture that was defined as inherently masculine.

Section Four: Who has the Last Laugh?

While the gendered division ofdiscursive modes in the Tretis manifests the increasing social power accorded to textuality, the poem also demonstrates Gellrich's idea that later medieval written culture invokes oral culture. This less obvious point becomes more evident when one examines the history ofcritical responses to the poem. Scholarly reception ofthe enigmatic poem has been divided. One group ofreaders, exemplified by

Kinghom, following a long tradition ofbiographical interpretation ofDunbar's oeuvre, read his conventional attack as factual evidence ofa "type" ofwoman "common to

James's materialistic court" (Kinghom 79). Moore's reading shares a similar biographical motivation in its assessment ofthe poem as the expression ofthe "mind ofa celibate, warped by repeated fits ofhystericallonging for forbidden expression" (62). 63

Others view the poem not as a revelation ofDunbar's psychology, but as a psychological characterization ofwomen generally. The slippage between the literary shrew and actual women in Scott's praise ofDunbar as a "subtle psychologist" presents a logic made more insidious by its ubiquity:

She [the Wedo] is saved from complete monstrousness by that

give-away[eminine naivety about hating him [her husband] the more

he gave in to her: this self-destructiveness reflects one ofDunbar's

insights into the nature ofthe shrew. This goes down to the primitive

[read: historical, biological] depths ofthe female fighting the male to

prove his superiority, lest she father her young with a weakling.

(myemphasis 193)

The Victorian critics ofthe poem shared Scott's "shudder" (201) at the images they encountered in the poem. However, their disgust was more a repulsion at the poem's graphie language and social inappropriateness (Roth 59), than at a discovery of"primaI woman" (Scott 201). Early twentieth-century critics have vacillated between viewing the poem as a monotonous, failed debate and a vital, masterfully wrought parody ofvarious genres (Roth 59). Denton Fox's perception ofthe poem as a parody ofthe chanson d'aventure, chanson de mal mariée, demande d'amour forms is representative ofmany scholarly views. Most brilliant, favorable critics agree, is Dunbar's virtuosic "yoking of dissimilarities" (Ridley 177). However, critics have debated the intended effect ofthe irony produced by such incongruities for decades (Reiss, "Ironie Art" 322). Audience reactions have swung between moralistic interpretations and the school oflaughter (Roth

61). Sorne critics, like Speirs, move from espousing the moralistic, satiric approach (in

1954) to a more festive, comic interpretation (in 1962) in the course oftheir careers. 64

The Tretis ofthe Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo is indisputably humourous.

What is less clear is whether the humour is intended to be abusive or comedie.

Conclusions that the poem is comical are not unsubstantiated. The 1508 Chepman and

Myllar print, in which the Tretis first appears, contains six Dunbar poems, five ofwhich

are humourous (Roth 57). As Newlyn points out, the theme ofwomen, particularly

wives, using their sexuality as "an avenue for self-determination" was a comedic staple of medievalliterature ("Political Dimensions" 83). Moreover, the poem's alliterative technique, asserts Denton Fox, lends itselfwell to comic, burlesque effects and was used by Scots poets for that purpose. However, as Frances Utley's analytical index ofthe querelle des femmes in English and Scottish literature more than adequately demonstrates, the antifeminist tradition finds the slanderous abuse ofwomen hilariously funny. Given the tradition ofantifeminist literature in which the poem is located by writers like Utley, one is forced to concede that this joke is less than good-natured. Abandoning the

comedic as too innocent an interpretation, one must consider the poem as a form ofsatire.

Yet this is not the satiric mode with which the readers ofSwift would be familiar. C. S.

Lewis identifies the disparity. He desires to remove the label ofsatire from such a poem and replace it with the term "abusive," for there is no reform intended (93). Indeed,

Evelyn Newlyn points out that antifeminist satire is generally not corrective, as is social or political satire, since there is no positive alternative offered ("Evill Women" 285).

Such denunciations ofwomen are, in effect, "homotextual activities" in that they are more about the speaker than the purported subject. The Tretis, with its eavesdropping narrator, makes painfully clear the underlying agenda Newlyn identifies in this form of satire, a mode which "speaks unequivocally about literary production, assuming the male 65 as subject and creator ofart, the controller ofresources, and the speaker oftruth about the female object" ("Evill Women" 288).

The ad hominem approach ofsatire against women is hardIy anomalous in medieval culture. In order to understand the implications ofthis satiric form, particularly in relation the Tretis, one needs to situate the satiric mode in the paradigm ofritualized invective forms stemming from oral tradition. In her analysis of "disputing women" in

French medieval culture, Helen Solterer outlines medieval conceptions ofinjurious language. The punishability ofspeech acts in the Middle Ages resulted from an understanding that "injurious language: words in and ofthemselves can cause harm to the public" (11). This perception stems not only from definitions oftransgressions such as slander, but more so from an understanding that there was a fundamental connection between words and actions. Such attitudes are what Ong would term "residual" beliefs from a more purely oral Weltanschauung which held that "language is a mode ofaction and not simply a countersign ofthought" (Technologizing 32).30 "The echo of verba/verbera gets at the heart ofthe analogy between words and physical blows"

(Solterer Il). The concept ofthe curse c1early communicates the way in which language can be perceived as an action with concrete effects.

Robert Elliott's work, The Power ofSatire: Magic, Ritual, Art, elaborates on the magical effects oflanguage specifically in terms ofsatire. Elliott documents the belief that "magical power inheres in the denunciation and derisive words ofthe poet" (47).

30 While 1 share Coleman's vision ofa medieval bimodal culture, 1 find Ong's notion ofresidual beliefs useful in a discussion ofthe relationship between modes ofcommunication and the worldviews they encode. Both modes still exist, but the weight ofcultural privilege has shifted between them over time, with irrefutable results. It is undeniable that the authority granted to textuality fundamentally affected how people perceived their world. The inevitable link between oral culture and superstition, as the contemporary Western consensus on the effectiveness ofmagical cursing attests, is a result oftextuality's ascendancy. 66

The pretematural power ofsatire, according to Elliott's examination ofearly Greek,

Arabic and Celtic traditions, is not the magic ofesoteric incantations or even sympathetic magic. The power lies in the extemporaneous utterance. It is the result ofa poet's command over words as weapons. Elliott's detailing ofthe ancient Irish tradition of satire reveals the ritual origins ofthe poetic craft. Ancient Irish laws, states Elliott, "pay a remarkable amount ofattention to satirists, both male and female; the injurious effects oftheir poetry constituted a serious social problem" (24).31 Thejilidh 's magical satire posed a threat not just to one's honour. The satirist's art could do anything from blistering the skin to causing premature death, or even blighting the whole land (Elliott

33). Obviously the destructive element ofsuch satire suggests that ridicule and shame function here as weapons to conquer rather than reform the intended objects. Elliott asserts that although satirists in later ages no longer wield such overt magical power, "the old tradition remains vital" in later literary manifestations ofsatire because ofits

"strenuous attraction on our imagination" (13).32 Regardless ofour contemporary understanding ofsatire, there is substantial evidence that medieval perceptions ofsatire retained sorne magical valences. In Chaucer's time, the Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym wrote a satire on a rival poet, Rhys Meigen, who, it is said, promptly fell dead upon hearing it recited (Elliott 34). In the early fifteenth century the Englishman John Stanley, the Lord Lieutenant ofIreland, is said to have died "on account oflampoons," having

31 Elliott also states that women satirists were treated with particular harshness by the law. Sometimes these women were equated with common scolds (25).

32 Interestingly, Elliott does brief1y mention the satiric tradition against women extending from ancient Greek texts to medieval and early modem literature. However, he dismisses the possibility ofany magical overtones in their "conventional" themes, tone and attitude (941). Personally, 1find it fascinating that an author committed to discovering the magical residue in more innocuous-seeming literary satiric modes-his stated objective-can transhistorically remove any harmful intent or content from the huge corpus of antifeminist satire on the grounds ofconventionality. 67 incurred the hatred ofthe O'Higgins family (Elliott 34). Sarah Westphal's analysis of cursing in late medieval German poetry further substantiates the beliefin and perpetrations of"linguistic magic" in late medieval society.

Elliott relates his definition ofsatire to a more familiar element oforal culture still common in the Middle Ages: flyting. Ong specifically mentions flyting as an example of oral residue in the Middle Ages ("Orality" 3). As a patterned form ofinteractive insult or ridicule, flyting has its origin in ancient beliefs about the power ofrhetoric unfamiliar to most contemporary Western readers. Elliott argues that flyting is a function ofa shame culture, a society which uses ridicule as a deterrent (69). As such, the victory in a flyting contest does not go (as one might expect) to the one on the side ofjustice, but to the

"greater master ofridicule" (73). Flyting can be used, in fact, as a ludic way ofresolving otherwise martial communal conflicts (74). Elliott cites numerous cross-culture examples ofsocieties that institutionalize ridicule for the "health" oftheir communities (80_81).33

Dunbar's poem offers a microcosmic example ofEl1iott's observation in its description, discussed above, ofthe second wife "purging her rancour" with her words (Parkinson 29).

Parkinson suggests that the metaphor illustrates the medicinal virtues attributed to abusive language (30).

Dunbar's poetry, as part ofa larger Scottish tradition, demonstrates a remarkable familiarity with oral culture. Evidence indicates that late medieval Scotland, despite its close connections with Continentalliterary traditions, maintained a strong poetic tradition related to ancient oral forms. Denton Fox points out that al1iterative poetry-springing

33 As Elliott makes abundantly c1ear, socially legitimated forms ofinsult should not be confused with freedom ofspeech. Tt is the difference between a "roast" ofthe boss and being able to speak your mind at any time in your office. 1would argue, in fact, that occasional ritualized insult acts in a camivalesque way to maintain power structures dependent on the lack offreedom ofspeech. 68 from oral-forrnulaic ancestors-died in England by the fifteenth century, but remained influential in Scotland at the beginning ofthe sixteenth century (166). Significantly, the

Tretis is an example ofan unrhyrned alliterative poem, what Morgan terrns "a Iate- flowering growth ofa very oid tradition" (153). The Iyricallilt ofalliteration and internaI rhyrne account for much ofthe "musicality" so highly praised in Dunbar's poems (Fox

180). Reiss notes the dominance ofthe human voice in Dunbar's poetry, the oral nature ofthe verse which makes us aware of"speaking" more than the speaker; this in itselfis unsurprising given the fact that Dunbar wrote many poems for an auraI court audience

(Dunbar 126). However, the chief Scots development ofalliterative habit-and ofwhich

Dunbar was a master-was satirical invective and flyting (Morgan 146). Catherine Singh distinguishes between two forrns ofalliteration in Dunbar's time: the serious older forrn found in the familiar romances ofthe "alliterative revival" and the contemporary forrn used in flytings (33). Morgan claims that the Scots alliterative tradition inclined more toward the vitupertive (143). Certainly, the Scots exposure to Gaelic traditions helped to produce a more pronounced emphasis on the satiric mode ofalliterative poetry. Dunbar, a Saxon Lowlander, would have had the opportunity to experience Gaelic culture through the extraordinary court ofJames IV (Lindsay 50). Both Lindsay and Wittig conclude, based on an analysis ofDunbar's use ofmetrical characteristics, rhyrne schemes and stanza-construction, that the poet incorporated certain characteristically Gaelic techniques in his poetry (Lindsay 50; Wittig 61). Both continue on to identify the Celtic concept of

"savage satire," the magical threat ofinvective used by the Celtic filidh, as another poetic element Scottish poets, such as Dunbar, would have leamed from the Gaels (Wittig 71).34

34 Wittig notes that the invective part ofCeltic poetic tradition carried on weIl in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and beyond (71). 69

Dunbar's familiarity with and skill at flyting is demonstrated by his poem "The

Flyting ofDunbar and Kennedie." The technique surfaces in less categorical ways in other poems, such as the Tretis. Readers will recognize the excessive strings of defamatory variants in the first wife's description ofher husband (quoted above). Roy

Pearcy's original reading ofthe poem as ajugement, a competition ofrhetorical skill and ingenuity among the three women, also gestures towards a form ofverbal invective game.

Similarly, C. S. Lewis deems the entire poem "almost a flyting" (94). Lewis refers here not to form but to the author's abusive intention.35 John Leyerle's discussion ofDunbar's

"two voices" lends sorne technical evidence for such a suggestion. Leyerle distinguishes two voices in Dunbar's art. The one is "aureate," following Lydgate's latinate gilded diction (318); the other is the wild, exuberant and frightful "eldritch" voice (320).

Leyerle locates the eldritch voice in the Germanie, alliterative tradition, the tradition that lends itselfto abuse and invective (320). Lyall points out that in the period up to the end ofJames IV's reign "the satirical portrayal ofcertain types and social groups can be seen to be shading offinto complaint on the one hand and into invective on the other" (54).

He also indicates that Dunbar's work in particular balances between satire and invective

(53). Ross considers the choice ofthe type ofalliterative stanzaic poetry for the Tretis a

"de1iberate archaism allowing certain freedoms in deve10ping the poem in the direction of sustained invective" (215). In the case ofthe Tretis, Dunbar's use ofhis eldritch voice, the voice hailing from oral-formulaic tradition, transforms his poem technically from social complaint to invective because it invokes a more ancient understanding ofthe power ofsatire.

35 It should be noted that Lewis finds this abuse to be a "practical joke" (94). 70

Naturally, Dunbar's use ofancient satiric invective is more ludic, as Parks asserts, than earlier agonistic approaches to satire would have been (441). Dunbar's text is, however, an example ofBâuml's "pseudo-oral work": a literary work that uses oral­ formulaic conventions to invoke a generic horizon ofexpectations associated with orality

(44). Bâuml suggests that at a time when the fictional narrator played a central role in numerous literary genres, written texts employing oral devices suppress this fictionality and transform the narrator back into the oral "singer" (44). As an eyewitness-especially one performing the text for the court-Dunbar utilizes this maneuver, the narrator as singer, in order to establish his authority. Dunbar does moderate this stance, as 1 mentioned earlier, with his concluding reminders about the text behind the voice.

However, his invocation ofancient beliefs in the power oflanguage with his eldritch voice unequivocally establishes his authority in terms oforal culture.

Jeremy Downes states that in oral societies the argumentum ad hominem shows verbal prowess and knowledge; thus it establishes "a greater right to truthful narrative"

(130). While Dunbar attempts to denigrate women by aligning them with orality, he nevertheless seeks to establish his own authority in terms ofan oral tradition. Ifverbal prowess is the measure truth-telling, then the garrulous women ofmedievalliterature are formidable foes. By assuming the power ofhis own invective the author acknowledges the latent power oflanguage, thereby conferring this advantage upon the very objects he seeks to disempower. Thus, the reader ofsuch satire is inevitably confronted by two fundamental paradoxes prevalent in medieval culture. Jody Enders identifies one paradox in the image ofthe "powerfu1 disempowered woman" (217). Antifeminist texts are preoccupied with the power sought out by women precisely because oftheir marginal social positions. Eric Jager suggests a second paradox that relates to medieval views on 71 language. Jager points out that clerics striving against pagan oral tradition nevertheless employed native oral styles to communicate their views (149). Both ofthese paradoxes contribute to the dimensions ofthe threat posed by the notion ofwomen as constituents of a counter-discursive sphere. EventuaIly, according to GeIlrich's argument, the power of the spoken word will be displaced entirely by the written one, just as satire transforrns in literary history from invective games to social criticism. Yet, Dunbar's poem, with its invocation ofthe power ofthe spoken word against itself, presents late fifteenth-century evidence that this was not the case at the cusp ofthe early modem era. The spoken word, like the unruly woman, refuses to be contained, retuming to haunt the imaginations of those who sought to secure their positions ofsocial privilege.

Conclusion

The alignment between unruly speech and femininity is perhaps best illustrated by an early modem anecdote supplied Bonaventure des Périers. Drawing on the comic tradition ofthe man ofletters defeated by the vulgar market-woman, the story relates how

"le régent du collège de Montaigu" prepared for a verbal duel with a local fishwife.

Arrned with two scrolls ofinvective, the first ofwhich he had memorized, the régent loses the battle when the fishwife, having caused the man to exhaust his arsenal of memorized terrns, discovers her opponent needed to bring "crib notes" to the duel. The man is mocked as a pedant (and an inadequate one at that since he has not leamed his lessons properly) who is defeated by a vulgar woman's natural vituperative ability. The lesson ofthe story, according to Sara Matthews Grieco, is that the knowledge ofa man of letters is worth nothing in the face offeminine verbal ability. The verbal prowess attributed to the weaker sex suggests that aIl men, no matter how knowledgeable, must eventually succumb to a woman's verbal attack (311). Predictably, the notion of 72 feminine verbal power only serves to define the woman as vulgar and further justify the need to silence and confine women. The fishwife's victory, for example, does not elevate, or even validate, her speech or character for the audience. Her triumph only serves to confirm her essential vulgarity. The need to confine such unruly women becomes especially pressing when one considers that in the opinion ofmedieval and early modem society, the danger ofthe individual speaking woman is only surpassed by the threat ofwomen speaking collectively.

My analysis oflate medieval satirical portrayals ofgossips' circles revises the account ofthe social fate oforal culture in the West. The literary construction ofwomen as participants in a counter-discursive sphere led late medieval antifeminist satirists to utilize a growing gendered distinction between orality and textuality in order to denigrate women's speech aesthetically. This battle over representational authority highlights the feminization oforality. However, even as (and perhaps because) orality becomes a fictional character ofthe literary mode, it continues to be strategically invoked, illustrating the persistence oforal modes at the cusp ofthe early modem era and beyond.

Antifeminist satire in particular, with its grounding in oral notions ofinvective, paradoxically invokes the power ofthe spoken word to malign women's presumed association with orality. Consequently, culturally devalued forms oforal communication, such as gossip, are invested with a form ofdiscursive authority within the very context of their denigration. What gossip and late medieval oral composition have in common is the realm ofinsult. Thus, one legacy oforal culture's transformation into a discredited word­ of-mouth tradition is the inherited suspicion that words, like sticks and stones, have the power to harm-a representational power primarily attributed, through the feminization oforality, to the unruly mouths ofwomen. 73

CHAPTER TWO: THE SHREW

Introduction

One ofthe most significant, ifpatently obvious, features of late medievalliterary depictions of gossips is the fact that they are usually also rebellious wives. The conversational subject matter we see attributed to gossips suggests that their solidarity is largely due to their experiences ofmarriage, their common discontentment in marriage, to be exact. My analyses ofpoems like Dunbar's Tretis and "The Gossips' Gathering" demonstrate that the battle over representational authority is often linked to and illustrated by the proverbial 'battle over the breeches' ofa conjugal relationship. While the gossips' slander oftheir husbands and their revelations ofdomestic secrets, including evaluations oftheir husbands' "wares," are in themselves considered manifestations ofverbal transgression and aggression, their accounts ofmarital strife reveal a further female capacity for verbal deviance. The gossip who slanders her husband behind his back is in many cases also the scolding shrew who assaults him verbally to his face. The popular comic depictions ofmartial maneuvers in the marital arena clearly treat women's words as weapons against men. However, in the case ofscolds this attitude is not limited to the world ofliterature. While the gossip remains first and foremost a literary construct, legal history indicates that the figure ofthe scold straddles the worlds offiction and reality.

The female verbal unruliness that produces the comic action in many fifteenth- and sixteenth-century works, such as the Deluge plays in the late medieval mystery cycles, has far more tragic results on the contemporary civic stage where legislation was becoming increasingly gendered and punishment ofverbally unruly women increasingly severe. 74

This chapter is devoted to examining the literary figure ofthe scolding shrew as another manifestation ofan increasingly feminized conception oforality, one that had concrete historical and legal ramifications. Consequently, after laying the etymological and historical groundwork for a discussion ofthis literary image in section one, this chapter maps the public discursive conflict between the gossips and the scribe onto the private marital domain, figured as a conflict between the philosopher and the shrew. In section two, 1examine the Uxor Noah figure in the York and Chester plays to establish the terms that define the shrew and link her to the gossip. As women are associated with specifie oral utterances, the concept oforality becomes gradually severed from its former status as a compositional mode and is instead rendered primarily an example ofimproper and uncontrolled expression. Section three's analysis ofthe Towneley play demonstrates how this battle for the breeches on the medieval stage manifests a battle for specifically discursive authority. Section four explores the stories ofEve and Xanthippe, two popular archetypal narratives that inform the figure ofUxor in their construction ofwomen's speech as an expression ofthe fleshly, the irrational, while associating men's utterances with an authority ultimately derived from texts. The image ofthe garrulous shrew as the marital burden ofthe rhetorically refined, textual male takes on particular significance given the generic contexts in which it is most frequently found. Thus, section five examines how the circumstances ofreception influence the message communicated by this common image ofgendered discourse. Medieval drama and homily are cultural sites that attempt to assert masculine authority in terms ofa gendered binary definition of orality and textuality, while at the same time participating in a linguistically more complex reality. 1conclude that the author who constructs the shrew finds himself in the same position as the satirist ofgossips. The attempt to exorcise orality from authoritative 75

discourse invests the spectre ofthe speaking woman with the potential for discursive power. To illustrate this point, this chapter concludes with a briefexamination of

Margery Kempe, an historical woman whose desire for representational authority forces

her to confront society's attitudes regarding gender and discourse, and whose negotiations

occasionally find her taking advantage ofthe image ofthe garrulous woman.

Section One: Gendering the Historical Scold

The ludic and aesthetic history ofsatiric invective associated with gossips takes on

particular significance ifone considers the etymological history ofthe term "scold."

"Scold" invokes the same ancient image ofthe satiric poet that lends power to the

gossips' speech. In the Oxford Dictionary ofEnglish Etymology, C. T. Onions traces the

term from the Old Norse word for poet: "skaId." The traditional poet's function as

praise-singer or satirist inevitably is reduced to the more memorable ofthe two tasks, as

the term ultimately cornes to mean "a ribald or abusive person (esp. a woman)." This

gendering ofthe scold character is evident in the legal documents and Latin dictionaries

ofthe fifteenth century that use feminine forms, such as garrulatrix or litigatrix, to denote

a scold (Bardsley 143). In legal terms the scold's abuse is directed at more individuals

than merely her husband.\ However, it is the scold's attack on her husband, her role as

shrew, which engages the literary imaginations ofsatirists from classical to early modem

times. Like the parenthetically gender-qualified term "scold," in the thirteenth century

"shrew" was, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, not exclusively gender

specifie. Throughout the Middle Ages it could describe a "wicked, evil-disposed, or

1 Historians disagree about whether single or married women formed the majority ofprosecuted scolds (see McIntosh, Ingram and Bardsley). For the purposes ofthis dissertation, what is most important is that literature is most preoccupied with the verbal trangressions ofwives. 76 malignant" person ofeither sex. But over time "shrew" in usage becomes increasingly identified as a feminine characteristic, referring "frequently to a scolding or turbulent wife." Universal and gender-specific uses ofthese terms could coexist in the Middle

Ages, indeed, even in the same work. Chaucer's Wife ofBath, the most memorable termagant ofthem aIl, applies the term "shrew" to her three aged husbands in her exemplary speech (WBP 284), while Harry Bailey invokes more conventionally gendered implications in his statement in the Epilogue ofthe Merchant's Tale, a proclamation that also identifies scolding as the defining feature ofthe shrew: "1 have a wyf, though that she povre be,! But ofhir tonge, a labbyng shrewe is she" (MerT 2427-2428). The reason why two understandings ofterms like "scold" and "shrew" could be coherently applied is due to a classical notion inherited by the Middle Ages. While aIl individuals were capable ofscolding or shrewish behavior, only women were seen as constitutionally predisposed to transgress in this way. Goldberg explains that scolding is a vice which,

"according to Aristotle, women were by nature given to" (119). Such attitudes find practical confirmation in legal statistics gathered by historians like Marjorie McIntosh and Sandy Bardsley that attest to the fact that, while scolding was a common crime theoretically attributable to both sexes in the fifteenth century, the majority ofthose actually presented before the English courts for scolding were women.2

The graduaI ascendancy ofthe gendered definitions of"scold" and "shrew" produced by this notion of 'feminine nature' in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is

2 McIntosh's data indicates that men form only a tenth to a fifth ofthe total number ofscolds presented before English courts (91). Bardsley daims that 75 to 95 percent ofthe individuals prosecuted for scolding in medieval England were women (9). Ingram and Bardsley both build strong cases for the fact that there were distinctions between masculine and feminine forms ofverbal deviance. Bardsley also points out that men punished for scolding were punished as much for inadequate masculinity as for inappropriate public utterances (4). 77 paralleled by a growing tendency to gender crime and punishment that begins in the late

Middle Ages and finds its most virulent manifestations in the sixteenth century. Sandy

Bardsley documents the emergence ofthe English scold as a literary and legal concept as

"a constituent and product ofpost-plague anxieties about social status and gender" in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (4). Similarly, early modem historians identify these legal developments as the results ofwhat critics like David Underdown and Lynda Boose term a "period ofstrained gender relations" (Underdown 136).3 The crimes attributed to women attest to the threatening implications that lie behind much ofthe antifeminist satire many contemporary critics so blithely dismiss as comical:

The particular impact ofthis crisis in gender speaks through records that

document a sudden upsurge in witchcraft trials and other court accusations

against women, the "gendering" ofvarious available forms ofpunishment,

and the invention in these years ofadditional punishments specifically

designated for women. As the forms ofpunishment and the assumptions

about what officially constituted "crime" became progressively polarized

by gender, there emerged a corresponding significant increase in instances

ofcrime defined as exclusively female: "scolding," "witchcraft," and

"whoring." But what is striking is that the punishments meted out to

women are much more frequently targeted at suppressing women's speech

than they are at controlling their sexual transgressions. (Boose 184)

3 Underdown uses this term in his analysis ofscolding in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. He himselfacknowledges that the gendering ofpunishment began in the fifteenth century. He identifies a cucking stool built in 1401, at Coleme, Wiltshire, which, he asserts, "was soon put to use against scolds" (123). 78

The ordinance conceming scolds established by Hereford in 1486 is one example ofhow women's words against family and neighbours were taken seriously as moral and social threats. Hereford women convicted of scolding were exhibited with bare feet and unbound hair in the ducking or "cucking" stool and, after being dunked several times in the local river or pond, were imprisoned until their fine was paid, "a form ofpunishment designed to shame and humiliate" (Goldberg 119).4

The cucking stool developed from the tumbrel, a chair or stationary cart that, like the pillory, was used to publicly display offenders, particularly transgressive bakers and brewers. According to Marjorie McIntosh, by the fifteenth century this chair was used solely for female scolds (114). Other common shaming rituals for scolds in England included being dragged through the streets in a scold's collar or scold's cart (Wayne 159).

Finally there is the fabled "scold's bridle" or "branks," an instrument which can only be described as a torture device. Designed as a metal hamess for a woman's head, the branks had a "bit" or, more aptly stated, a gag which entered the mouth to restrain (and, depending on the sadistic ingenuity ofthe designer, lacerate) the tongue. Women fitted with this device would also be dragged through the streets and publicly displayed. Since records referring to the use ofthe branks as a punishment are scarce, scholars cannot establish for certain the date ofits origin or the degree to which it was applied in England.

Although scholars seem certain that this containment device was first adapted as a corporal punishment particularly for female offenders in the early modem era, it is

4 The history ofthe cucking stoo1 mirrors the etymo10gica1 histories ofthe terms discussed ear1ier. According to Lynda Boose, the stoo1 originated as a punishment for crimes "most often 1inked to marketp1ace cheating" and was a punishment for both men and women (185). 79

obvious that the branks is the result ofa long legacy ofliterary and legal attacks on

women's speech.5

Striking in all ofthese punishments is the significance ofshame as the social

strategy wielded against unruly women. Scholars familiar with Michel Foucault's

discussion ofthe ritualistic, spectacular nature ofpremodem punishment will comment

that shaming is hardIy unique to female offenders in a culture and period remarkable to us

for its theatrics ofpunishment. However, Lynda Boose avers that the rituals of

punishment inflicted upon female scolds differ from those devised for male offenders:

The cucking ofscolds was tumed into a camival experience, one that

literally placed the woman's body at the center ofa mocking parade.

Whenever local practicalities made it possible, her experience seems to

have involved being ridden or carted through town, often to the

accompaniment ofmusical instruments ofthe distinctly "Dionysian"

variety, making sounds such as those that imitated flatulence or made

sorne degrading association with her body. By contrast, the male ritual of

being pilloried in the town square, while a more protracted and in sorne

respects physically harsher ritual ofpublic exposure, did not spectacularize

or camivalize the male body so as to degrade it to nearly the same extent.

(189-190)

The lengths to which authorities were willing to go in order to address scolding, an

activity which was never declared illegal by parliamentary legislation (McIntosh 91),

5 Lynda Boose builds on the evidence gathered by Mr. T. N. Brushfield in nineteenth-century Cheshire. Boose suggests that pictorial allusions, the "raft" oflate sixteenth-century, literary "bridling" metaphors, not to mention the records ofthe punishment in five English counties and various areas in Scotland, prove that the scold's bridle was prevalent enough to have become "an agent in the historical production of women's silence" (197). 80 attest to the ways in which women's private, relatively inconsequential, actions were considered attacks that could throw the larger social body into chaos. A woman's verbal challenge to marital or communal order was always also an assault on social, political and divine order.

Section Two: The Gossip as Shrew in the Deluge Mystery Plays

Gnly when one recognizes the significance ofscolding in medieval popular life, and realizes the degree to which this preoccupation manifests an intensified resentment of women's oral power in late medieval culture, can one properly appreciate and assess M.

C. Bradbrook's claim that the shrew is "the oldest and indeed the only native comic rôle for women" in literary tradition (134). The earliest popular manifestation ofthe shrew character invoked by most scholars is the nameless wife ofNoah in the Corpus Christi cycle plays that took place in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. This section will demonstrate the significance ofthe gossips that hover behind the proverbial shrew, an alignment that enables a delineation ofgendered discourse on the medieval stage. Uxor

Noah is an appropriate starting point for this particular examination ofthe shrew, especially since the history ofdramatic performances portraying Uxor Noah's rebellion and containment coincides precisely with the historieal process ofgendering crime and the development ofa theatrics ofpunishment in relation to women's verbal transgressions. Considering this confluence ofsocial and literary responses to speaking women, not to mention the importance ofthe shrew in medieval and early modem comedie literature, remarkably few feminist critics have attended to the figure ofUxor 81

Noah. 6 My discussion ofNoah's outspoken wife responds in part to calls by Theresa

Coletti and Ruth Evans for more feminist analysis ofmedieval drama.

Furthermore, the medieval mystery cycle play is an obvious choice for a project such as mine in that the performance history ofmedieval drama challenges traditional perceptions ofthe ideological chasm dividing the Middle Ages from the Renaissance.

Ruth Evans observes: "Medieval cycle drama continues to be cuIturally vital well into the

16th century; it therefore causes us to rethink the divide which exists between the Middle

Ages and the Shakespearean period-a divide which has been both critically and institutionally constructed" (143). Linked in scholarly discourse both to Chaucer's Wife ofBath and Shakespeare's Kate, Uxor Noah helps to establish continuity between the social attitudes that produced the various literary harridans ofboth periods. The preoccupations with female outspokenness enacted on the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century stages ofYork, Chester, and Towneley both perpetuate a very ancient theme and construct a particular version ofantifeminism that was ofincreasing legal consequence to historical women.7

6 1 do not intend to imply that critics have not discussed the figure ofUxor Noah. Indeed the investigation into the "problem" ofUxor Noah and the comedie aspects ofmany ofthe Deluge plays spans two thirds of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, criticism that addresses this dramatic tradition and the scholarly discussion surrounding it from a specifically feminist perspective remains limited. Two exceptions are Theresa Coletti and Ruth Evans, who both call for and offer feminist analyses ofmedieval drama, including the Uxor Noah figure. Kathleen Ashley's "Medieval Courtesy Literature and Dramatic Mirrors ofFemale Conduct" is another groundbreaking assessment ofmedieval drama, although its focus is on the Virgin.

7 Documenting the dates ofthe dramatic texts presents a scholarly dilemma. As Richard Beadle explains in his discussion ofthe York cycle: "The fact, [...] that it was a public work ofart, a social product that renewed its form annually, renders it a text more radically 'unstable' or dynamic in its nature than other oeuvres mouvantes ofthe time, such as the Canterbury Tales or Piers Plowman" (90). The dates ofthe extant manuscripts do not coincide with the origins or performance history ofthe cycles themselves. My discussion accepts the assumption that these plays were performed in (and thus, constituted by) the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. 82

The enigmatic comic sequence inserted into the majority ofthe extant mystery cycle Deluge plays has attracted the attentions ofnumerous scholars. The dramatic material surrounding Uxor Noah in aIl the Deluge mystery plays, save the N-Town play, is enigmatic because it is a direct departure from the biblical account ofNoah's pious, and one might add, rather unobtrusive, wife. Anna J. Mill's definitive article mapping the vast European and Middle Eastern folkloric, apocryphal and artistic terrain that parallels the uniquely English dramatic tradition ofNoah's stubborn (and, in the case ofthe

Newcastle fragment, malevolent) wife accounts for the question ofhow such a subplot came to be appended to the popular legend ofNoah's ark. 8 However, scholarly opinion varies somewhat on the question ofwhy fifteenth-century dramatists chose to use this apocryphal, "low-brow," material in a play which, otherwise, relies on exegetical tradition for its allegorical coherence. Most critics attempt to reconcile the play's "sacred and secular currents" by interpreting the battle for the breeches allegorically, as a "comic descant," to borrow Howard Schless's phrase, on the main theme ofthe play (233).

Uxor's rebellion against her husband functions as an allegory for sinful, rebellious humanity, whose belated entry into the Ark, a symbol ofthe Church, signaIs an ultimate reconciliation with God. Whether identifying Uxor as a "paradigm ofhuman character"

(Kolve 146), a biblical "scoffer" (Sutherland), a materialist (Campbell, Holton), or a spokesperson for postlapsarian humanity (Hirschberg, Daniels), critics chart the battle for mastery in marriage as a parallel to the theme of"disorder, chastisement, and re- established harmony" in the relationship between God and humanity (Schless 233).

Indeed, the allegorical function ofUxor Noah as the recalcitrant sinner helps to explain

8 Mill's article is inspired by the Newcastle Deluge fragment. The unique content ofthe Newcastle fragment will be dealt with in my next chapter. 83 how we can have a character that rebels without retribution and, even more significant, that avoids the polarized fates ofmost female characters: to be either condemned or canonized aceording to their deeds. Yet, to the consternation ofcritics such as Rosemary

Woolf, the dramatic impact ofthe Uxor passages (particularly in the Towneley play) exceeds their allegorieal function (Woolf 142). As Ruth Evans asserts, Noah's irascible wife eannot "simply be explained away as part ofthe play's allegorical fabric" (150).

Allegorical readings ofthe Deluge plays containing the comie sequence are forced to gloss over discrepancies that complicate such categorical analysis. Woolfs discussion ofthe Chester play is a case in point. Woolfs application ofallegory in order to interpret

Noah's wife does not extend to her analysis ofNoah's metatheatrical comments constructing Uxor as a representative ofher "crabbed" sex. She notes that Noah's commentary is directed not just at his wife, but at women generaIly, acknowledging the learned antifeminist tradition that informs the play (141-142). Yet she does not attempt to reconcile these antifeminist generalizations-offered as interpretive commentary in the only metatheatrical moment ofthe entire play-with her previous allegorieal analysis which identifies Uxor's behavior as a representation ofaIl reca1citrant humanity (141).9

The question ofallegorieal interpretation becomes even more eonfounded when we are confronted with the virtuosic sequences that dominate the Towneley play. The battle for the breeches receives such attention from the Wakefield master that, in a formaI parallel to the vituperative wife's assaults on her saintly husband, the comie CUITent manages to overwhelm and dominate the more dignified, sacred, didactic aspects ofthe play.

9 This is not to say that it cannot be done. As a type offallen Eve, as other scholars have suggested, Uxor Noah, with her feminine foibIes, can come to stand for the postlapsarian human condition. Woolfs refusaI to reason through this, however, demonstrates how gender issues are pushed aside in much allegorical analysis conceming Uxor. 84

Moreover, the final encounter between Noah and his wife, the fight to the draw that ends their marital discord, cannot be entirely satisfactorily explained by the allegorical framework set up by critics suggesting that the spousal strife reflects the conflict between

God and humanity. Helterman identifies the problem:

Ifwe provisionally accept Kolve's [typological] analysis [...] it follows

that Noah's boisterous and inconclusive attempts to subdue his wife

represent God's punishment ofmankind. Although this is true in a

qualified way, reading Noah's beating ofhis wife only as a prefiguration

would upset the motifofdisobedience by portraying God's anger in the

wrong light. (52)

Clearly there is another frame ofreference operating alongside, and occasionally in opposition to, the allegorical interpretive mode in this play. The discourse surrounding the shrewish Uxor Noah invokes the terms ofsocial debate regarding gender relations, even as it lays out biblical principles regarding disobedience and salvation.

Gender can become a category ofanalysis when the medieval drama is understood as a ritual designed to address social, as well as spiritual, concems. The social significance ofthe feast ofCorpus Christi, the occasion at which the mystery cycles were performed, as an interpretive context cannot be overlooked. Mervyn James's influential article, "Ritual, Drama and the Social Drama," posits that the Corpus Christi event, a feast celebrating the body ofChrist, was a ritual concemed with the social body, "by means of which social wholeness and social differentiation could be conceived and experienced at many different levels" (8). The play cycle's function as a "mechanism [...] by which the tensions implicit in the diachronie rise and fall ofoccupational communities could be confronted and worked out" is James's primary focus (15). His thesis functions just as 85 weIl for relationships other than the guild fraternities that constitute the late medieval urban social body. Commenting on the late medieval conditions which produced deliberate efforts to decrease women's political agency as citizens or guild members, even as women remained active participants in the public realm and the growing market economy, Ruth Evans suggests that the Corpus Christi rituai addresses gender confiict in the social body, as weIl as the occupational divisions among men (154).

While Evans's claim that the distaff-bearing Uxor ofthe Towneley play embodies women's "economic threat to the received sex-gender system" is arguable, her expansion ofJames's theory provides the starting point for my investigation ofthe York, Chester and Towneley plays as visual, affective rituals addressing and defining gender relations and discourse. While the Wakefield master's skill draws most scholarly attention to the

Towneley Deluge play, it is the York and Chester incarnations ofUxor Noah that most obviously locate Noah's belligerent wife within the broader discourse surrounding women. What is most distinctive and, for the critics, most puzzling about Uxor Noah in both these plays is her attachment to her gossips. Uxor's identityas a gossip has led sorne critics to challenge the stock vilification ofUxor as a shrewish troublemaker. Howard

Schless states, "Mrs. Noah is like her gossips, and her dignity consists in knowing this to be so" (263). Likewise Sutherland notes a "ring ofpathos" which lends the York version ofUxor a more "dignified grief' (186). Uxor's concem for and identification with the dissolute members ofa corrupt world, qualifies her in the eyes ofcritics as an appealing, ifambivalent, character. According to Sutherland, "Uxor's desire to save those who loved her full weIl is a plea on behalfofa humankind that includes members ofthe audience" (184). 86

The sympathetic appeal ofUxor Noah is most evident in the York play.lo ln the this play Uxor initially attempts to forestall what she considers a mad plan by attempting to go back to town (79-81), wanting to pack (l09-110), not to mention picking a fight with Noah about being kept in the dark about his mission (113-130).11 Her behavior, if troublesome, is nevertheless made understandable by cues about her motivation. Faced with what she views as the "toure deraye" (78), the utter confusion, surrounding the final moments ofboarding the ark, she exclaims, "Now Noye, in faythe pe fonnes full faste,!

[...] I>ou arte nere wood, 1am agaste" (89, 91).12 After being physically forced onto the ark and seeing the water rise, her skepticism regarding her husband's mission transforms into a lack ofunderstanding ofthe nature ofhis mission in that she cannot accept that she must leave her gossips and relatives behind:

Uxor Nowe certis, and we shulde skape fro skathe

And so be saffyd as ye saye here,

My commodrys and my cosynes bathe,

I>am wolde 1wente with vs in feere.

10 The documentary evidence suggests that the York cycle was in existence already in 1376 and continued through the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, although the surviving copy ofthe cycle text was assembled somewhere between 1463 and 1477 (Beadle 85-92).

Il Uxor's desire to pack may be an indication ofmaterialism. This is illustrated more directly by an analogous passage in the Cornish G11ryans an Eys, The Creation ofthe World. In response to Noah's command to come into the ark she protests: 1must save what there is: 1ought not to throw away [...] It is good for us to save them

They cost a shower ofmoney, These particular items here, Noah dear, you know that. (2443-2448)

12 These citations are drawn from The York Plays edited by Richard Beadle (London: Edward Arnold, 1982). Ali citations ofthe York Flood Play are from this edition and are identified by line number in the body ofthe text. 87

Noe To wende in pe watir it were wathe,

Loke in and loke withouten were.

Uxor Allas, my lyffme is fulllath,

1lyffe ouere-Iange pis lare to lere.

1 Filia Dere modir, mende youre moode,

For we sall wende you with.

Uxor My frendis pat 1fra yoode

Are ouere flowen with floode.

II Filia Nowe thanke we God al goode

That vs has grauntid grith. (141-154)

Uxor's grief at her friends' fate contrasts with the blithe and pious statements respectively

made by her two daughters-in-Iaw. The younger women's loyalty to primary familial

bonds (those that bind medieval women to their husbands and the husbands' immediate

families) that leads them to celebrate the family's rescue in the face ofothers' misfortune

contrasts to Uxor's lament for her extended circle offriends.

Further on, however, the potential pathos inherent in the York Uxor character is

redefined as ultimately bathetic. In response to Uxor's question, "But Noye, wher are nowe all oure kynne/ And companye we knwe before," Noah brusquely retorts, "Dame,

all ar drowned, late be thy dyne" (269-271). By identifying Uxor's speech as noise,

Noah's response justifies the silencing ofhis wife by framing her utterance within the

context offemale irrationalloquacity. What defines Uxor's question as noise, however,

is its content, not its actual expression. The question is one ofonly two brief

contributions made by Uxor in the final third ofthe play. Moreover, her plaintive

question obviously does not invite such a harsh response. Rer question precipitates such 88 a stinging remonstration because it indicates her refusaI to subordinate her interpretation ofthe cataclysmic events to Noah's sense ofthe divine scheme and her insistence on making extra-familial bonds a priority.13 In the York play Uxor's identity as a gossip prevents her from fully participating spiritually in the divine plot which saves her physicallife. Thus it is appropriate that Uxor's final words in the play express the telling concem that "myscheffe mon be more" (305).

Overlooking the medieval satire ofgossips prevents critics like Gash and

Sutherland, to name only a few, from recognizing the potential indictment inherent in

Uxor's identification as a gossip. The reconciliatory role both critics assume Uxor plays on behalfofdoomed humanity is complicated when one grasps the disruptive significance ofUxor's attachment to her gossips. The social discourse surrounding the gossips' circle invoked for a medieval audience complicates the sentimental effects noted by sorne contemporary scholars. 14 Indeed, according to medievalliterary and legal authorities the relationship between the gossip and the shrew is built through common offenses, rather than a positive sense offemale community. Frances Dolan's assessment ofthe offenses committed by shrews according to ballad tradition aligns remarkably with the concems, activities and claims ofgossips like those ofDunbar's Tretis, not to mention the Wife of

Bath:

13 Since there is no God character in this play, ail our (and the characters') knowledge ofGod's intentions cornes through the figure ofNoah. Therefore 1 speak here ofNoah's sense ofthe divine scheme. Such a distinction seems especially pertinent given that in the beginning ofthe play, Uxor's refusaI to accommodate her husband's wishes is due to the fact that she thinks her husband has gone mad (see lines 89-92).

14 See, in particular, Gash, who goes so far as to daim that the Chester Uxor "mediates between the damned and the saved by singing a touching and jovial tavem-song with the doomed wives" (79). 89

According to [...] baIlads, shrews force men to do 'women's work'; they

beat and humiliate their husbands; they take loyers; they refuse to have sex

with their husbands or blame their husbands for being sexuaIly useless;

they drink and frequent alehouses; and they scold. But most ofaIl, they

strive for mastery. (l0)

Marjorie McIntosh's juridical delineation ofthe precise nature ofscolding further suggests a relationship between the scold and the gossip. McIntosh cites two varieties of scolding: "In the first usage, a scold was quarrelsome, casting insu1ts or engaging in heated arguments with others. [...] The second meaning ofscolding was termed

'backbiting' in fifteenth-century England, an apt phrase for the deliberate spreading of false or malicious gossip" (92). In literature the connection between these two definitions and the characters that represent them is obvious. Clearly, whether we consider the

subject matter ofA Talk ofTen Wives on Their Husbands' Ware or recall the Wedo's daim, "1 schaw yow, sisteris in schrift, 1wes a schrew evir" (251), substantiated by her account ofher verbal assau1ts on her second husband, the gossip is always also a shrew; the shrew, a gossip.

The relationship between the convivial world ofthe gossips and the farcical world ofthe domestic battle for the breeches locates the figure ofthe disorderly, speaking woman within another ritual context, the world ofcamival. 15 ln her speech detailing her domination ofher second husband the Wedo speaks ofriding her husband to Rome (331) as part ofan extended metaphorical discussion ofmarriage in terms ofhorse and rider

15 The definitive work which stands behind all discussions ofthe camiva1 fema1e figure ofMisru1e is Natalie Zemon Davis's Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1975). 90 imagery.16 The characterization ofthe power dynamics ofa heterosexual relationship in terms ofriding imagery was a popular concept, exemplified by the many depictions of

Aristotle and Phyllis. The Wedo's depiction ofthe battle for mastery in marriage as an act oftaming finds many high literary and folkloric parallels, not the least ofwhich are

Shakespeare's The Taming ofthe Shrew and the popular folktale (Folktale Type 901) that inspired the play. The image ofthe woman riding the man is also a part ofthe topsy- turvy world ofcamival; a world which scholars like Gash and Coletti insist appears on the medieval stage in the form ofunruly women like Uxor Noah:

These dramatic figurations offemale disorder are informed by festive

traditions [...] that foregrounded the unruly woman, the vigorous,

outrageous, garrulous creature featured in literary, pictorial and social

manifestations ofmisrule directed at marriage and the hierarchies of

sex and gender. (Coletti 81-82)

Characterizing Uxor Noah as the quintessential riotous woman, a gossip and a shrew, identifies the comic dramatic material surrounding Uxor Noah as part ofthe ancient folk traditions designed to address gender tensions, such as traditional folk plays and the customary festive combats between husbands and wives that took place at

Hocktide (Evans 146). If, as James suggests, one purpose ofthe Corpus Christi mystery cycle was to formally present and construct the social body ofthe community, then it is hardly surprising that a ritual comic tradition also concemed with promoting communal cohesion is included in the dramatic materia1. Moreover, as Gash states: "The

16 While Dunbar's intentions seem innocent ofany intentions other than metaphorical animal imagery, the Wedo's references to bridling, "1 wald na langar beir on bridill, bot braid up my heid;/ Thar myght na molet mak me moy, na hald my mouth in" (348-349), nevertheless resonate eerily when one considers that the scold's bridle, according to most historians, was brought to England by Scotland. 91 counterpoint ofhieratic formality and energetic c10wning that pervades medieval drama finds its analogue in the cyc1ical alternation throughout the year ofceremonies which formalised group relations and idealised social distinctions with ones which symbolically inverted norms" (81). Having established the carnivalesque function that explains the presence ofa comic tradition in an otherwise strictly theological narrative, it is now possible to look more carefully at the social commentary provided by the Chester play. 17

The account ofthe Deluge offered in the Chester play presents a version ofthe story that attributes Uxor's rebellion directly to her identity as a gossip. Critics have been confounded in the past by the seemingly contradictory behavior ofNoah's wife in this play.18 Alternately helping Noah with building and filling the ark and then resisting his commands to enter the vessel, the Uxor figure poses an interpretive dilemma both for the critic and the performer. However, Uxor's behavior is less inconsistent than it may at first glance appear. As Norman Simms points out, Mrs. Noah does not refuse to board, she makes her boarding conditional (19). Her initial resistance, especially when considered as a performance with access to the extra-textual world ofgesture, does demonstrate a degree ofmotivation. 19 Responding to her husband's demand to enter the ark, but (significantly) preceding God's command to do so, Uxor's statement suggests

17 Most ofthe Chester cycle manuscripts postdate 1575 (the year ofChester's final performance), with the two late fifteenth-century exceptions only confirming that this cycle text was primarily a product of sixteenth century, regardless ofthe cycle's performance history (Mills 109-114).

18 See, for example, Howard Schless for a comparison ofUxor's motivation in the Chester and Towneley plays.

19 1 agree with William Marx's claim that much criticism ofmedieval drama fails to take into account that these texts are the "starting point in a complex creative process through which abstract ideas about human experience and conflict must necessarily become concrete events" (191). Nevertheless, 1must add a caveat that Marx's own directorial solutions to the interpretive challenges posed by the Chester Uxor Noah overextend the boundaries ofcreative interpretation, remaking the play in the image ofhis favorite criticism. 92 doubt, rather than rebellion for the sake ofbeing contrary: "Not or 1see more need"

(l03).20 Her subsequent act ofdisobedience (after she has helped to fill the ark at God's command) demonstrates the resolution ofthose doubts. She recognizes not only her own need, but also the needs ofothers, specifically her gossips.

While Uxor Noah's refusaI to enter the ark has merit as a typological representation ofscoffing or recalcitrant humanity, what is most remarkable in Uxor

Noah's behavior is not her conditional attitude towards the ark/Church, but rather her outright rejection ofher husband. A close analysis ofthe dialogue surrounding Uxor's refusaI reveals how Uxor's attachment to her gossips is constructed as a rejection ofher roles as wife and mother. Most obviously, in her response to Noah's second command to enter the ark she prioritizes her relationship to her gossips over her marital bond:

But 1have my gossips every one,

One foot further 1will not gone;

They shall not drown, by St. John,

And 1may save their life.

They loved me full well, by Christ;

But thou wilt let them in thy chest,

Else row forth, Noah, whither thou list,

And get thee a new wife. (201-209)

With the exception ofRosemary Woolf, numerous critics are struck by the poignancy of

Uxor's expression ofaffection for her gossips, even as it cornes in the face ofher willingness to divorce her husband. The elegiac pathos ofUxor's desire to save her

20 AlI quotations ofthe Chester Deluge play are drawn from A.C. Cawley' edition ofNoah 's Flood in the Everyman and Medieval Mystery Plays (N.p.: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1974). 93 gossips has been typically interpreted, as in Sutherland's and Kolve's perceptions of

Uxor's speech, as a plea on behalfon doomed humanity, an interpretation which obscures, to a degree, the impact ofUxor's repudiation ofher husband (Sutherland 184;

Kolve 263). Whether Uxor's speech condemns her as part ofthe corrupt world or mitigates that condemnation somewhat with her demonstration ofempathy and selflessness is entirely dependent on whether or not the audience identifies with the gossips. If, as Anthony Gash asserts, the play's lower class audience was largely doctrinally ignorant (80), it is possible that the audience's interpretive framework would be in terms ofthe popular discourse on gossips, rather than theology. The discourse surrounding gossips prevents a simplistic allegorical identification ofthe gossips in the drama by its emphasis on a gendered and condemning vision ofgossips.

The fact that the Chester play draws directly on a local discourse about gossips is demonstrated by the presence ofthe gossips' song in the play. The unique appearance of the gossips, along with the insertion ofa gossips' drinking song, has been considered a frustrating anomaly by editors ofthe Chester play (Wack 34). Even ifone accepts the consensus that the material dealing with Mrs. Noah and the gossips is a sixteenth-century addition, the gossips' song participates in and responds to, rather than disrupts, the play's narrative flow; it is a sixteenth-century elaboration on the tendencies we witness already in its fifteenth-century analogues. The gossips' song articulates the sentiments expressed by the "Gossips' Gathering" carol. In fact, the carol's provenance in the neighborhood of

Chester provides evidence ofa living tradition surrounding gossips, a frame ofreference upon which playgoers could draw. Like the carol, the gossips' song constitutes a women's community through convivial drinking, and, most importantly, united resistance to masculine authority: 94

Gossip [to WifeJ The flood cornes fleeting in full fast,

On every side it spreads full far;

For fear ofdrowning 1am aghast;

Good gossip, let us draw near.

And let us drink ere we depart,

For oft-times we have done so;

For at a draught thou drink'st a quart,

And so will 1do ere 1go.

N's Wife: Here is a pottle ofMalmsey, good and strong;

It will rejoice both heart and tongue;

Though Noah thinks us never so long,

Yet we will drink a while. (225-236)

The gossips' habituaI conviviality around a pot of"good and strong" wine, not to mention the intentional rebellion against a husband's wishes, is rendered ridiculous in the face of the impending disaster. Uxor's attitude reduces a crisis ofcosmic proportions, acknowledged by the other gossips, to merely another conventional gossip's rebeIIious plot to keep her husband waiting while she satiates her physical desires. The gossips' song thus works to qualify the emotional appeal ofUxor's desire to save her gossips by containing any universal interpretations ofUxor's altruism through its invocation ofa singularly feminine realm oftransgression familiar to its late medieval and early modem audiences. 95

Uxor's identification with her gossips is further negatively qualified by a verbal link to Noah's earlier antifeminist statements. Her exclamation, "They shaB not drown, by St. John" (my italics 203), recaBs Noah's speech when they first spar verbally:

Lord, that women be crabbed ay,

And never are meek, that dare 1say.

This is weB seen by me to-day,

ln witness ofyou each one.

Good wife, let be aB this bere

That thou makes in this place here;

For aB they ween thou art master-

And so thou art, by St John! (my italics 105-112)

The verbal echo in Uxor's second rebeBious speech locates her attachment to other women within the paradigm ofthe batt1e for mastery in marriage Noah set up earlier. The

fact that Noah's speech is the only metatheatrical moment in the play draws attention to

the gender conflict as a significant element in the play. By having Noah caB the audience members as witnesses to his wife's insubordination, the dramatist blurs the line between

the theatrical drama ofNoah the patriarch with the social drama ofdomestic conflict

which often involved communal responses, such as shaming rituals. Noah's speech caBs

for a correction ofthe inversion that has taken place in his relationship. The perversity

and pride that, according to Noah, characterize aB women evident1y apply also to the

gossips whose convivial, materialistic response to the cataclysm ofdivine wrath signaIs

their perverse lack ofinsight. Uxor's own perversity is only corrected when she has been

separated from the other women and they are, as Mary Wack eloquent1y states, "swept

away by the waters ofthe Flood and the onward course ofpatriarchal history" (45). 96

The perverse inclination that makes Uxor privilege homosocial, horizontal bonds over those heterosexual ones which subordinate her hierarchicaIly to her husband also leads her to reject other sociaIly appropriate roles, as weIl. While critics note her rejection ofher husband, no scholar has commented on how the play emphasizes other

familial relationships undermined in the course ofUxor's rebeIlion. Directly after having

suggested that Noah get himselfa new wife, Uxor is confronted by the demands ofher children. Shem's speech to Uxor highlights the parental bonds that link Noah and Uxor:

"Mother, my father after thee sent" (212). Uxor acknowledges her son but sends him back to Noah with her refusaI. After the gossips' song, the play presents Uxor's refusaI ofher maternaI obligations even more explicitly. The sons coIlectively plead through

Japhet with their mother to save herselffor their sakes, eliminating Noah as a consideration: "Mother, we pray you altogether-/ For we are here your own childer"

(237-238). Uxor's refusaI indicates her rejection not merely ofher role as wife, but also her role as mother: "That will 1not, for aIl your calI" (241). The anachronistic reference to Christ in the children's appeal further emphasizes the dire significance, typologicaIly speaking, ofher rebeIlion: "Corne into the ship for fear ofthe weather,! For his love that you bought" (239-240). The reference to Christ has the effect ofaligning Uxor's familial obligations with her spiritual weIl-being. This weIl-being ultimately is ensured not by a personal transformation, nor by her husband's assertion ofhis authority, but by her children's imposition ofthe communal will upon their recalcitrant mother. The audience is not the only witness to the gender conflict. The children's response to their mother's insistence that she shaIl not board the ark is definitive: "In faith, mother, yet you shaIl,!

Whether you will or nought" (243-244). Similarly, the audience members who have been identified as witnesses in the conflict and, through the metatheatrical commentary and 97 gossips' song, reminded ofthe problem's immanence in contemporary life are called to impose arder on that which, according to the postdiluvian covenant, God can no longer sweep away.

Critics do not comment on the degree to which the desire for order informs the

Chester Deluge play. Ofthe four complete English plays, the Chester play ofNoah is by far the most preoccupied with the ardering ofa chaotic world. In contrast to the

"realistic" dialogue that comprises the sections dealing with the familial conflict, much of the rest ofthe play is characterized by sections ofdivine instructions, as weIl as catalogues listed in ritualistic order by the members ofNoah's family. While the first familiallist (lines 53-80) consists ofa descriptive commentary on the tasks and tools involved in the construction ofthe ark, the second list (lines 161-192) is remarkable in that it is simply a catalogue ofaIl the animaIs on board the ark. The desire for order inherent in the naming and cataloguing oftasks, tools, and animaIs, contrasts with the chaotic rebellions ofUxor Noah that follow immediately after each list. This disparity is particularly striking in that Uxor Noah is a participant in both, taking a central place in the ceremonial speaking arder (Noah, Shem, Ham, Japhet, Uxor Noah, Uxor Shem, Uxor

Ham, Uxor Japhet) and then disrupting the formality with her cantankerousness.

The most explicit expression ofthe theme oforder in the Chester play, however, is the figure ofGod. The character ofGod plays a far more significant role in the Chester play than in any ofthe other English Deluge plays. In addition to God's initial explanatory speech also found in other plays, the Chester play includes substantial speeches for God both at the middle and end ofits story. These speeches characterize God not only as judge, but further expand on the related function ofGod as law-giver. The relative immanence and accessibility ofthe Chester God suggest that this function is an 98

ongomg process. Situated between the two parallel episodes ofceremonial cataloguing

and spousal conflict, God's speech at the play's centre is instructive, focusing on the number ofclean and unclean animaIs, provisions for the journey and details regarding the

duration ofthe flood (lines 113-144). God's lengthy final speech moves beyond the

middle section's specifie, personal instructions to a more universal context. These last

seven stanzas ofthe play characterize God not only as the conventional mercifuI deity

whose covenant sustains humanity, but also as a juridical entity, whose codes maintain

social order. The invocation ofMosaic ceremoniallaw concerning clean and unclean

flesh is particularly indicative ofthe Chester play's vision ofGod as an ordering force:

And fish in sea that may fleet

Shall sustain you, 1you beheet;

To eat ofthem you ne let

That clean be you may know.

Thereas you have eaten before

Grass and roots, since you were bore,

Ofclean beasts now, less and more,

1give you leave to eat,

Save b100d and flesh, both in fere,

Ofwrong-dead carrion that is here;

Eat not ofthat in no manner,

For that ay you shalliet. (3328-339)

Even more than the ordinance against manslaughter that follows, this concern for

discrimination (foreshadowed in lines 117-125 ofthe middle section by God's references 99 to the numbers ofclean and unclean animaIs needed on the ark) draws attention to the need for order in the postdiluvian world. While the humans attempt to impose order through naming and listing the earth's animaIs, God further refines this order but categorizing that which was catalogued. Thus, the conclusion's interest in codification qualifies the play's closing consideration ofthe covenant and its apocalyptic implications to suggest that the key to humanity's physical and spiritual survivallies in its ability to accept its rightful place in the divine order.

While critics have noted that Uxor's quest for mastery, her refusaI to accept what medieval society deemed her rightful place, upsets social and divine order, none have examined how the treatment ofNoah's and Uxor's language comments on the nature of order. 21 Uxor's disruption oforder is signaled not only by the fact that she speaks, but also by how she speaks. Uxor's very first speech in the Chester play characterizes Noah in terms ofhow he speaks rather than what he says, thereby inviting us to contrast the pair's linguistic techniques alongside the content oftheir utterances: "For aIl thy frankish fare,! l will not do after thy rede (l00-1 01). Uxor's comment has, according to Norman

Simms, usually been taken as a "metaphoric put-down ofNoah's latinate and rhetorical speech" (26). The anachronistic reference in this antediluvian context draws attention to a contemporary divide within the play's audience between those who did or did not have access to "frankish fare." Significantly, while this actual division ofthe audience would sooner be along class or occupationallines, the play sets up the distinction in terms of gender. Noah, in tum, offers a corresponding analysis ofhis wife's manner ofspeaking

21 The social disruption caused by Uxor's shrewishness is an obvious observation for any critic dealing with the comic sequences. For one critic who deals with this idea specifically in relation to the theme oforder in the Noah story see Josie CampbeII's "The Idea ofOrder in the Wakefield Noah." 100 in the same short exchange: "Good wife, let be aIl this bere" (l09). Juxtaposed to Noah's eloquence we find the clamor ofhis wife. Moreover, the comments that follow Noah's request for silence identify his wife's clamor-rather than her choice not to act according to his demand-as the primary signal ofan inversion ofsocial order: "For aIl they ween thou art master" (lll).

The other utterance specifically associated with Uxor is the gossips' song.

Regardless ofthe fact that her own part ofthe song is not included in aIl versions ofthe play, Uxor's identification with her gossips also aligns her with the convivial carol, a form which stands in contrast to the reverential tone that characterizes Noah's many addresses to God. The prayerful opening lines ofmany ofNoah's speeches to God, variations on lines such as "Ah, Lord, blessed be thou ay" (276), and his role as interpreter ofsigns-the weather, the raven, the dove and, implicitly, the rainbow- identify him as the man in linguistic control. Uxor's utterances, on the other hand, move from clamor to drinking song and eventually degenerate into base physicality. Uxor's final emphatic statement is a box in the ear. Reduced to crude gesture, Uxor's final scripted act22 suggests itselfas a commentary on the type ofverbal assault she has waged up until now. Noah's response, "Aha! marry, this is hot!! It is good to be still" (247-248), either as a prescriptive command to his wife or as an explanation ofhis own refusaI to engage in further verbal combat, emphasizes the contrasting ideal and introduces the final part ofthe play, a section where aIl ofNoah's family lapses into silence while the

22 As William Marx indicates in his article, "The Problem ofMrs. Noah: The Search for Performance Credibility in the Chester Noah 's Flood Play," the final section ofthe Chester play forces literary critics to confront the text's dramatic identity. "Literary scholars may presume that an absence ofwords on paper means an absence ofmeaningful action on the stage, but such an assumption would be far removed from the reality ofperformance" (l15). The ultimate interpretive onus for the final scenes, and hence for the play as a whole, lies primarily in the performance context, with directors, actors and audiences. lOI patriarch communes with God. The obvious shift in focus at the end ofthe play prevents

one from making much ofUxor's silence as a containment specifical1y ofher character.

What can be said, however, is that by highlighting the issue oflanguage in the context of

gender conflict the Chester play suggests that Noah's authority as a mediator for humanity and as an interpreter ofsigns, derives in part from his masculine facility for

"frankish fare."

Section Three: Silencing the Shrew

The Towneley Processus Noe Cum Filiis offers the most extensive and perhaps

the most enigmatic treatment ofgender conflict in the context ofthe Flood. 23 The degree

to which the Wakefield master prioritizes the domestic squabbles ofthe patriarch and his

shrewish wife in the drama has puzzled various critics. Rosemary Woolfcomments:

"The Wakefield Master is weIl aware ofthe character pattern ofthe shrewish wife, and as

so often, develops a traditional element with such inventiveness and verve that the

harmonious distribution ofthe parts becomes unbalanced" (142). Woolfs frustration

stems mainly from the fact that the comic sequences, particularly the way in which the

marital strife characterizes Noah, problematizes her allegorical reading ofNoah as a

Christ figure. However, a doser examination ofthe text indicates that, as Woolfs own

work inadvertently suggests and Hirschberg explicitly argues, the Towneley Noah figure

functions best aIlegoricaIly as a type ofAdam. That the account ofthe Deluge was read

on one level as a story ofthe second Adam and Eve is confirmed in the N-Town play of

the Deluge where Noah informs the audience: "After Adam with-outen langage/ The

23 The recent scholarly opinion ofthe Towneley manuscript is that it is a late fifteenth-century (or early sixteenth-century) compilation (Meredith 136-137). 102

secunde fadyr am l, in fay" (16_17).24 This section will delineate how the Wakefield master constructs the patriarch's marital relationship as an archetypal struggle for

discursive authority between the biblical second parents endowed with language in a postlapsarian world.

According to Hirschberg the Towneley play offers both visual and textual clues to

encourage an allegorical reading ofNoah and his wife as types ofthe biblical first parents. 25 Scholars have long pointed out Uxor's identification with Eve, the first

disobedient wife. In the Towneley play, Uxor's spinning suggests her association with the archetype for fallen femininity. The distaff and spinning activities mentioned throughout the play (236-238; 336-338; 363-366) are emblematic ofEve's punishment

after the Fall in medieval iconographie tradition (Hirschberg 30). Coletti comments that the unruly woman was often represented armed with a distaff: the symbol ofwomen's labour and women's fallen morals (82). This relationship between Eve and Uxor is made

further explicit in the play by Noah's reference to her at the climax oftheir final battle as

"the begynnar ofblunder" (406).26 Noah's identification with the postlapsarian Adam, observes Hirschberg, stems from the playwright's emphasis on Noah's hard physical labour (32). Noah's suffering while building the ark (at 600 years ofage, one might add) illustrates the burden ofearthly toil to which Adam's original sin condemned him and his heirs: "Now my gowne will l cast, and wyrk in my cote;/ [...] A! my bak, l traw, will

24 This citation was taken from Ten Miracle Plays edited by R. George Thomas (London: Edward Arnold, 1966). The parenthetical insertion identifies the appropriate \ine numbers in the Noah play.

25 For example, both MiIIicent Carey and A.I. Mill note this connection, particularly in relation to the Newcastle fragment.

26 This citation and aIl citations from the Towneley play that follow are taken from A. C. Cawley's edition, The Wakefield Pageants in the Towneley Cycle (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1958), and will be identified by \ine number in the body ofthe text. 103 brast! This is a sory note" (262, 264). Finally, the "initial mistake in marital 'maistrye,''' to use Kolve's expression, that, in medieval exegetical opinion, precipitated the Fall, is reflected in the domestic infelicity ofthe second parents ofhumanity, as weIl (Kolve

148). Thus, by reminding the audience ofthe relationship between the first and second parents ofhumanity the Wakefield master raises gender conflict to the level ofarchetype in this play. The mythic characterization ofdomestic strife and the nature ofits resolution function most obviously as a social ritual and didactic drama for audience members who considered themselves the unfortunate descendants ofthese unhappy ancestors.

While Uxor's spinning takes the place ofher role as gossip, the discourse surrounding gossips informs her characterization in the Towneley play, as weIl. A text like The Gospelle ofDystaves alone confirms the link between the image ofthe spinning woman and the gosSip.27 Nevertheless, the content ofUxor Noah's speeches most clearly associates her with the literary figure ofthe gossip. Indeed, Uxor Noah perhaps best embodies the Wife ofBath's claim that "[d]eceite, wepyng, spynnyng God hath yive/ To wommen kyndely, while that they may lyve" (WBP 401-402).28 Uxor's initial speeches contain the complaints typical ofa self-proclaimed shrew and gossip like the Wife of

Bath. They also set up aurally a contrast between the brief, innocuous statements made by Noah and the vitriolic loquacity ofhis wife. In response to Noah's simple greeting,

"God spede, dere wife! Row fayre ye" (190), Uxor spews eight lines ofaccusations. Rer suggestion that the family lacks "ofmete and ofdrynk" (197), that they suffer "for want"

27 One ofthe most common forms oflow and middle class women's labour in medieval and early modern times, spinning was an activity that, like the sewing bee discussed in chapter one, could be done in the company ofother women.

28 Melvin Storm's article on the influence ofthe Uxor Noah figure on Chaucer's Wife ofBath lays out the relationship between these two characters in more detail. 104

(194) because ofNoah's neg1ect echoes other unhappy or conniving wives. The Wife of

Bath begins her demonstration ofhow women can use their speech as a weapon against men with a simi1ar accusation ofneg1ect: "Sire olde kaynard, is this thyn array?! Why is my neighebores wyfso gay?! [...] 1 sitte at hoome; 1have no thrifty clooth" (WBP 235-6,

238).29 Uxor's second 1engthy response to Noah's claim that he has bad news begins by insulting him and characterizing him as paranoid and gullib1e: "Bot thou were worthi be cled in Stafford b1ew,l For thou are always adred, be it faIs or trew" (200-201). While her mistrust ofNoah's re1iability may echo the York Uxor's skepticism regarding her husband's mental stabi1ity, her complaint, "From euen vnto morow! Thou spekys ever of sorow" (205-206), a1so reflects the tactics ofthe Wife ofBath who uses her husbands' reputed words against them.

The second stanza ofUxor's second speech reveals her proclivity for the schemes that characterize the most notorious shrewish gossips. Directing this speech to the audience, Uxor offers up a comp1aint a mal mariée and revea1s a familiar approach to her predicament:

We women may wary all ill husbandys;

1have oone, bi Mary that lowsyd me ofmy bandys!

Ifhe teyn, 1must tary, howsoeuer it standys,

With seymland full sory, wrygand both my handys

For drede;

Bot yit otherwhile,

29 An even more apt analogy can be found in Hans Sachs's "Die 7 Klagenden Frauen," an early sixteenth­ century German poem set in a pastoral context simi1ar to Dunbar's Tretis. The eavesdropping scribe records the comp1aints ofthe seven women ofvarious ages and c1ass backgrounds. The third woman comp1ains how her husband neglects his duties to his family (lines 61-80). 105

What with gam and with gyle,

1shall smyte and smyle,

And qwite hym his mede. ((208-216)

Uxor's confession undermines her earlier accusations, suggesting that perhaps her verbal assault relies on the Wife ofBath's strategy to "pleyn[e] first" (WBP 390) knowing that

"[whoso] that first to mille comth, first grynt" (WBP 389). Moreover, her use of"gam and gy1e" mirrors the Wife's use of"sleighte, or force" (WBP 405). Dunbar's Wedo depicts this wife1y technique ofboth "smyting" and "smy1ing" most e10quently: "Be dragonis baith and dowis ay in double forme" (266). More dragon than dove in this account ofher marriage, Uxor Noah further enacts the battle ofthe sexes when, like her

Chester parallel, she rejects her husband's fellowship; this time in favour ofspinning:

Noe. Now is this twyys corn in, dame, on my frenship.

Uxor. Wheder 1lose or 1wyn, in fayth, thi fe10wship,

Set 1not at a pyn. This spyndyll will 1slip

Apon this hill

Or 1styr oone fote. (363-366)

While this rejection does not clearly indicate a preference for the company ofother women-she also rejects the invitations ofher daughters-in-1aw-Uxor's final1ines in the play do invite us to remember the concems ofher dramatic analogues. Like the York

Uxor's penultimate statement, the Towneley Uxor's final utterance is an inquiry into the fate ofthose who could not board the ark: "From then agayn/ May thai never wyn" (545)?

Thus the Towne1ey Uxor, although not explicitly a gossip, participates in the same discourse that surrounds the unruly women ofthe gossips' circle. 106

What is most remarkable about the Wakefield master's treatment ofNoah and his unruly wife is the series ofmetatheatrical moments that comment on the domestic strife.

Like the Chester play, metatheatricality in the Towneley play is reserved only for the comic, domestic sequences rather than for the more mythic Flood narrative line. As with the Chester Noah's comment, the speeches directed to the audience define the conventional terms ofthe battle for the breeches. The battle ofthe sexes, according to the playwright, is not so much a skirmish to subordinate the woman's will to the man's, as a battle for linguistic control. More specifically, it is a battle for control ofwomen's speech.

Within this context we find the two sexes endowed with conventional weaponry: man is the physical, woman the verbal, aggressor. Noah responds to his wife's second insulting speech and confession to the audience with the exclamation: "We! hold thi tong, ram-skyt, or 1 shall the still" (217). Noah's threat in their final fight highlights the juxtaposition ofwomen's verbal aggression with men's physical responses: "1 shall make

}Je still as stone, begynnar ofblunder!/ 1shall bete the bak and bone, and breke aIl in sonder" (406-407). When he physically attacks his wife for the second time Noah demonstrates that containing a woman's speech goes beyond silencing her. His disturbing command, "Speke! Cry me mercy, 1say" (384), attempts to place his words in her mouth. Finally, his last direct comments to the audience articulate that at issue here is not Uxor's contrary attitude, but rather its verbal expression. Control ofthe tongue metonymically cornes to represent control offemale behavior:

Yee men that has wifys, whyls thay ar yong,

Ifye lufyoure lifys, chastice thare tong.

Me thynk my hert ryfes, both levyr and long, 107

To se sich stryfys, wedmen emong.

Bot l,

As haue 1blys,

Shall chastyse this. (397-403) lronically, while Noah manifests such anxiety about the danger inherent in women's vicious tongues, Uxor displays a mocking disregard for her husband's words. "Thise grete wordys shall not flay me," she exclaims, in response to her husband's threat ofa whipping for her "long taryyng" (377).

Uxor's dismissive assessment ofNoah's power ofspeech draws attention to the types ofutterances attributed to the two figures as they compete both verbally and physically. There is a marked difference between the ways in which the characters refer to their actions in this conflict. Uxor expresses her intentions in a primarily metaphorical manner. She wishes Noah were "cled in Stafford blew" (200). She speaks ofthe blow she deals him as a "a langett [to] tye vp [his] hose" (224-225). Her desire for her husband's death is articulated as a wish for "a measse ofwedows coyll" (389).

Moreover, Uxor frames her actions by her announcement that she will "qwite" Noah "his mede" (216). Thus her husband's blow becomes a "det" she must repay with interest

(223). Uxor's most explicit threats ofphysical violence are her command that her sons help her "for drede ofa skelp" (323) and her order that no one attempt to remove her from the hill "for drede ofa knok" (342). Both these phrases imply and at the same time remove Uxor as the agent performing the blows.

ln contrast to his wife's euphemisms, Noah's words focus on the effects ofhis actions. No critic has noted the remarkably graphic descriptions ofphysical violence attributed exclusive1y to Noah in these comic sequences. A careful assessment ofNoah's 108 verbal violence renders Howard Schless's description ofthe abuse as "Noah's human, realistic chastisement ofhis wife" even more outrageous than it is at first glance to a contemporary reader (237-238). Referring only once to the conventional notion of quiting (228), Noah's dialogue in these passages instead anatomizes his wife's broken body. "Apon the bone shal it byte," he announces as he first strikes her (220). In their second encounter he threatens: "Bot thou do, bi this day,! Thi hede shall 1breke" (387).

He also announces his intention to "bete the bak and bone, and breke all in sonder"

(407). Whether or not one finds such a Punch and Judy routine amusing, the nature of

Noah's discourse more clearly manifests the threat he poses to his wife, than vice versa.3D

The consequences ofNoah's language can only be realized fully when one considers the way in which the metatheatrical speeches implicate the audience in this battle for mastery. The collapse ofbiblical and local time effected by the speeches addressed directly at the audience maps the archetypal marital conflict onto the audience itself, pitting male against female. A. C. Cawley's edition illustrates the ease with which one assumes the gendered nature ofthe metatheatrical speeches by supplying stage directions indicating that Uxor's lines 208-216 and 388-396 are addressed to the women ofthe audience, and Noah's lines 397-403 are addressed to the men in the audience. As one can note in the two metatheatrical speeches already quoted, the opening address encourages a gendered identification. Uxor begins her speech with "We women," while

Noah addresses himselfto "Yee men that has wifys." Uxor's final statement to the

30 One interesting possible qualification ofthe above discussion arises from the medieval performance context where one needs to take into consideration that female roles were played by cross-dressed male actors. One could have a cast, for example, in which the actor playing Uxor is naturally larger than the one playing Noah, rendering Noah's words more comical or ridiculous. Meg Twycross's article "'Transvestism' in the Mystery Plays" offers a fascinating account ofthe various contemporary audience responses to the cross-dressed actor in a number ofmystery plays, including the Flood play. Twycross 109 audience takes this identification even further by suggesting that she knows and articulates the secret desires ofwomen she actually sees in the audience:

Lord, 1were at ese, and hertely full hoylle,

Might 1onys haue a measse ofwedows coyll.

For thi saulI, without lese, shuld 1dele penny doyll;

So wold mo, no frese, that 1se on this sole

Ofwyfis that are here,

For the life that thay leyd,

Wold thare husbandys were dede;

For, as euer ete 1brede,

So wold loure syre were! (388-396)

The invitation to assess which wives in the audience share Uxor's desire for release from their spousal bonds insists on the contemporary relevance ofthe ancient situation depicted on stage.

What remains to be seen is how these speeches characterize the speakers and their corresponding gendered publics. Uxor Noah's two metatheatrical monologues are confessional. Like the Wife ofBath and the Wedo, Uxor confides her desires and secret strategies to the audience. In this case, there are no pilgrims or gossips and no eavesdroppers to mediate between the character and the audience. The women ofthe audience are incorporated as actors in the battle for the breeches, becoming, essentially,

Uxor Noah's gossips. One might note that Uxor's second monologue does not indicate that the author intended the speech to be directed at female audience members.

c1aims that because she was played by a man, the medieval Uxor "presumably came over as an admitted caricature, an incarnation ofMisrule, entertaining and theatrically attractive because she is a rebel" (162). 110

Nevertheless, Cawley's stage direction assumes that the confession is directed at women, those audience members presumably potentially sympathetic to Uxor's admission.

In contrast to Uxor's confession, Noah's response functions on a more didactic, prescriptive level. While he also daims to have witnessed "stryfys, wedmen emong," he does not go so far as to implicate the members ofhis audience. Most importantly, the patriarch offers what Rosemary Woolfcalls "typical homiletic advice" to the married men in the audience (143). Taking the stance ofthe preacher, Noah offers a moral for the preceding tale ofmarital infelicity that invokes scriptural and patristic sources, in other words, textuaI authority. Noah's reference to his wife as "begynnar ofblunder" that

follows on the heels ofhis marital advice to silence wives appears hardly incidental in

light ofPaul's justification ofthe need for women's silence and submission in 1 Timothy

2:11-14: "Let a women leam in silence with full submission. 1permit no women to teach

or have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve;

and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor."

Thus, the playwright invokes textual tradition to highlight and justify Noah's ultimate

authority over his unruly, gossiping wife, thereby outlining a similar distribution ofpower

among the audience members.

The vexed question ofthe curiously ambiguous climax in this marital sparring

serves as a reminder to literary scholars ofthe ultimately theatrical nature ofthis text.

Scholarly responses to what amounts essentially to a draw in the fight have been varied.

Campbell's comment that the issue ofmarital mastery is hardly resolved accurately

refiects the abrupt dissipation ofthe physica1 and ideological confiict between Noah and

Uxor (82). Yet, her observation that the scene eliminates the idea ofmastery altogether,

suggesting that the combatants achieve sorne "innate recognition" that rivalry for III

dominance is "hardly worth winning" (81), pushes the limits ofviable inductive

interpretation. Only staging can resolve the question ofwho dominates whom in this

fight when Noah exclaims, "Se how she can grone, and 1lig vnder" (409).

Noah's comment refers the audience back to his earlier metatheatrical depiction of

Uxor's utterances:

Thou can both byte and whyne

With a rerd;

For aIl ifshe stryke,

Yit fast will she skryke;

ln fayth, 1hold none slyke

ln aIl medill-erd. (230-234)

Noah's description ofUxor's utterances not only reduces them to animal noises, but also directly reflects the strategies ofthe Wife ofBath: "For as a hors 1koude byte and whyne" (WBP 386). Noah's comment, then, serves as a final denigration ofwomen's

speech as deceptive. Nevertheless, Howard Schless suggests the possibility that it is in

fact Noah who administers the real "drubbing" in this scene by insisting that his sore back cornes not so much from the blows he receives as those he is dealing out (243). Schless reminds us that physical exertion similarly affected Noah when he built the ark: "A! my bak, 1traw, will brast! This is a sory note!/ Hit is wonder that 1last, sich an old dote"

(264-266).

While the question ofwho could be considered the victor in this skirmish must remain open-particularly given the children's chastisement ofboth parents-Schless's allusion to Noah's earlier labour offers a new perspective on the dimensions ofthis climax. One notable aspect ofthis conflict is the emphasis placed on both Noah and 112

Uxor's physicality, their physical fragility, to be exact. While the physical exhaustion of the couple does not bring the enlightenment suggested by Campbell, it serves as yet another reminder that Noah and Uxor are the offspring ofAdam and Eve, condemned to labour and bicker in a postlapsarian world. Whether he wins the fight or not, the play thus suggests that Noah's chastisement ofhis wife's speech, justified in his earlier monologue, is part ofhis postlapsarian labour. His lack ofdefinitive success in this matter may also be a reflection ofhis postlapsarian circumstances. Nevertheless, the conflict is ultimately resolved by their fear ofa more imminent danger, as his sons point out: "Ye shuld not be so spitus, standyng in sich a woth" (416). The Flood proves to be the answer to the chaotic ambiguity ofNoah's domestic affairs, washing away not only unredeemable sinners, but also the sins ofthose on board the ark. The new world that emerges through this syrnbolic apocalypse presents a vision ofthe cleansed marital relationship which retrospectively judges and resolves the earlier domestic tensions by effectively recontaining the garrulous Uxor and reaffirming Noah's discursive authority.

IfNoah's assertions ofauthority early on in the play were qualified somewhat by the audience's perception ofhim as hen-pecked and short-tempered, the postdiluvian

scenes in the play reestablish Noah as the authoritative patriarch not so much by changing his character, but rather by transforming his wife. The Wakefield master, unlike the authors ofthe York and Chester plays, devotes considerable attention to the figure of

Uxor after her entry into the ark. Instead ofthe virtual silence ofthe other plays, Uxor continues to share the stage with Noah, with 43 lines to Noah's 92 out ofthe total 138 lines in the concluding section. Yet, Uxor's speech and actions serve to condemn her earlier verbal insolence as effectively as the silences ofher dramatic sisters. Her transformation signaIs a shift from negative to positive exemplum. This shift is effected 113

on a formallevel by a change in dramatic mode. In terms ofRobert Weimann's

discussion ofmedieval theatre, the Towneley Deluge play moves from an irreverent, non­ representational mode characterized by an awareness oftheatrical artifice in the

antediluvian scenes to a more reverent representational mode which, drawn from a more mimetic liturgical context, rituaUy presents a mythical ideal. Significantly, this

transformation is effected solely by Uxor's metamorphosis from a shrew to the pious wife

ofthe biblicallegend. For while Noah's initial speech and conversation with God

establish a continuity in his representational role, Uxor's postdiluvian speech marks a

definitive change in her character.

The transformation ofUxor into the biblical ideal is presented by a conversion of

her speech. Jeffrey Hirschberg outlines the "marked change in her diction" which

manifests this metamorphosis:

The dramatic reversaI ofher character, the ostensible discarding ofher

"rok," is signaUed [sic] by her awareness ofher own perilous condition

and her consequent caU for the help ofGod (431-431). Rather than taking

the Lord's name in vain, as she has done earlier in the play (e.g., 202,

207), Uxor now cornes to the recognition that the hills to which she has

been delivered "ar ofmercy tokyns fuU right" (471). Her mode of

articulation has changed from the blasphemous to the soteriological, and

her earlier shaUow references to faith (330,359) are replaced by a

developing awareness ofwhat faith is aU about. (36)

What Hirschberg does not note is that Uxor's antediluvian blasphemous speech stands in

contrast to that ofher husband. While Uxor swears by "Mary that lowsyd [her] of [her]

bandys" (209) and by "Godys pyne" (227), Noah's speech, even at the height his ) 14 frustration, remains virtually free ofblasphemous exclamations, with only one exclamation of"Peter!" (367) against him. This observation further confirms the notion that Noah's character, despite his domestic infelicity, functions more consistently in a representational mode throughout the play.

While Noah portrays the homiletic ideal at various points throughout the story,

Uxor's utterances and actions are dramatically polarized before and after the Flood. It is her presence that introduces, perhaps even necessitates, the irreverent non­ representational aspects ofthe first halfofthe play. After she boards the ark, however,

Uxor loses her farcical dimensions and emerges as a figure more fit to represent homiletic principles. This shift from a non-representational to a representational mode is signaled not only by the absence ofverbal deviance, such as garrulity and blasphemy, but also by the nature ofher utterances. The transformed Uxor's participation in the new order is evidenced by her function as the herald ofthe new world. As Howard Schless points out, the new Uxor describes and announces almost every major dramatic event that occurs after the Flood (239). Her first words after the final battle with Noah demonstrate her metamorphosis and the restoration ofcosmic order by announcing the reappearance ofthe

"seven stames" (423) whose absence Noah had noted in the meteorological and moral chaos that preceded Uxor's entry into the ark (345). Uxor also sights the new dawn after the storm: "The son shynes in the eest. Lo, is not yond if' (453)? She is the one who recognizes the significance ofthe emergent hills as "mercy tokyns full right" (471). She also excitedly announces the retum ofthe dove with the olive branch, "Hence bot a litill she commys, lew, lew" (507), and interprets the olive branch as a "trew tokyn" that the family shall be saved (517). 115

Beyond the fact that her function as herald signaIs her acceptance ofthe new order, her speech indicates a change in Uxor's focus. The old Uxor represented a fundamentally subjective stance towards reality, characterized by her insistence on articulating her own inner reality and personal perception ofNoah and the crisis. The new Uxor focuses on objective reality in her observation ofconcrete external facts and articulates homiletic commonplaces in her interpretations ofthese events. Thus, the

Towneley play contains its unruly shrew by representing the ideal wife as a woman robbed ofsubjectivity. Just as the discourse surrounding gossips centres on a battle over truth-telling authority, the Towneley play suggests that the shrew is dangerous precisely because she insists on representing the world according to her terms. 31 Her containment lies in reducing her to a mouthpiece for masculine authorities.

The playwright does not, however, remain content with reducing Uxor to a mouthpiece, a position, one could argue, that grants her a degree oftheological authority similar to Noah's. The raven episode further qualifies Uxor's status by undermining her ability to articulate and comprehend divine truths and by asserting a gendered hierarchy ofdiscursive authority. As Hirschberg points out, in the Towneley play it is Uxor and not

Noah who requires the education associated with the raven. The reworking ofthe raven episode reemphasizes Noah and Uxor's connection to Adam and Eve and enacts a resolution to Noah's problems with his formerly garrulous wife. As both Don Cameron

Allen and Jeffrey Hirschberg observe, Noah's raven has received a great deal of

31 Shakespeare's The Taming afthe Shrew offers perhaps the best example ofmy definition ofa shrew. Petruchio's strategy for taming Katherine consists ofbecoming, as Curtis the servant states, "more shrew than she" (4.1.75). His most dramatic and outrageous act as a shrew is his insistence that Kate accept his false claims about objective reality in the fifth scene ofAct four, where he insists that the sun is the moon; and an old man, a young maiden. It is significant that this is the act that wrings from Kate the first sign of her submission. 116 exegetical and literary attention from Augustine and Jerome onward.32 While many of these allegorical interpretations are viable, for the purposes ofthis analysis it is most useful to examine the bird's significance within the matrix ofmeaning set up by the play itself. Uxor's choice ofthe raven as the messenger bird suggests her affinity for the very sins that originally condemned the world. In the speech which introduces the play, Noah expresses a homiletic commonplace, that the Devil "entysyd man to glotony, styrd him to syn in pride" (37). While the postdiluvian Uxor may have shed the "lack ofhumility" which earlier rendered her, according to Hirschberg, a "dramatic foil to Noah's humble obedience to God" (32), her choice ofthe raven raises the spectre ofthe other "original" sin, that ofgluttony. Noah's assessment ofthe raven defines it as a glutton:

The ravyn is a-hungrye

Allway.

He is without any reson;

And he fynd any caryon,

As peraventure may be fon,

He will not away.

The dowfe is more gentill: her trust 1vntew,

Like vnto the turtill, for she is ay trew. (500-506)

The bird Uxor chooses is characterized as irrational and unreliable because it follows its own desires, rather than adhering to the principle offellowship. In contrast, Noah's dove demonstrates the essential quality offaithfulloyalty. The audience, ofcourse, witnesses

32 See Don Cameron Allen, The Legend ofNoah: Renaissance Rationalism in Art, Science and Letters and Hischberg's summary ofmedieva1 exegetica1 opinions on page 33 ofhis article. 117

Uxor's raven-like behavior when she rejects Noah's invitation to enter the ark on his

"frenship," exclaiming, "thi felowship/ Set l not at a pyn" (363-364). Moreover, the implicit connection between gluttony and garrulity exemplified by the image ofconvivial gossips makes Uxor's relationship to the raven even more self-evident. Whether or not one views her call for a "good feest" (454) in this condemning light as well, Uxor's choice ofthe raven is meant to reveal her flawed nature even in this ideal new world.

Uxor's flaw justifies a hierarchy ofauthority by recalling Paul's epistolary commands that wives be denied the authority to teach because ofthe hierarchy offault inherent in his vision ofthe original Fall. Like Eve, Uxor offers the wrong advice to her husband, making him the victim ofher flawed nature. However, in the Wakefield master's ingenious version ofthe events following the Flood, Noah is able to recuperate what medieval exegetes considered Adam's sin ofuxoriousness, the weakness that forced him to share Eve's fate. The fact that Noah second-guesses his wife's advice by sending doves, as weIl as the raven, undermines her authority. Her evident failure to make the right choice further substantiates Noah's theological and moral superiority. Uxor's continued identification with the fallen Eve through her choice ofthe raven justifies the play's enactment ofthe Pauline directive that women silently absorb what men are authorized to teach. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the closing scene ofthe play reveals precisely such a dramatic moment between Noah and his wife. Her final words of the play are phrased as a plaintive question, " From thens agayn/ May thai neuer wyn"

(548-549), to which her husband offers his insight into the divine plan and then delivers the closing prayer. Thus, the Towneley play progressively diminishes the Uxor figure, beginning with an unruly shrew who deals with the world on her own terms and ending with a figure ofobedient femininity who meekly accepts, rather than offers, explanations. 118

Section Four: The Shrew and the Philosopher

Noah's discursive struggle and eventual triumph over his shrewish wife is a variation on a larger theme in medieval theological, literary and folkloric discourse that provides the principal image ofgendered discourse. 1identify this theme as the topos of the Philosopher and the Shrew. Noah's authority in the Towneley play derives not so much from an explicit identification with textuality, but rather, as William Marx claims about the Chester Noah, from the fact that Noah hears the voice ofGod, while Uxor does not (112). However, from the perspective ofthe mundane world the link to textuality is implicit. From a medieval standpoint, access to the voice ofGod is vouchsafed to most of ordinary humanity not through the personal encounters experienced by the legendary patriarchs, prophets, apostles and saints, but rather through the vehicle ofGod's word, as it had been bestowed in scriptural form to their medieval descendants. Access to

Scripture and patristic texts had long been limited to a primarily male audience founded not only on the Pauline imperative considered above, but also based on a particular medieval exegetical tradition that constructed the Christian legend oforigins into a myth about language. Beginning with examinations oftexts as early as Genesis B, Eric Jager traces the graduaI denigration oforal tradition and exaltation ofwriting in medieval monastic culture. One aspect ofthis linguistic development is the gendering ofthe two traditions: "In the Fallliterature written by men for women in the later Middle Ages [...] writing and speech themselves becomes markedly gendered as 'male' and female' discourse, respectively" (189). As this late medieval homiletic rebuke by Dr. William

Lichfield to verbally unruly wives illustrates, the gendering ofdiscourse is effected in part byexegetical interpretations ofEve's original sin as a result ofher verbal incontinence:

Eve, oure oldest moder in paradise, held long tale with the eddre, and IJ9

told hym qwhat god had seyd to hire and to hire husband ofetyng of

the apple; and bi hire talkyng the fend understod hire febylnes and hire

unstabilness, and fond therby a way to bryng her confusioun. Our lady

seynt Mary did on an othere wyse. Sche tolde the aungel no tale, bot

asked hym discretly thing that she knew not hir-self. Ffolow therefore our

lady in discret spekyng and heryng, and not cakeling Eve that both spake

and herd unwisely. (quoted in Owst 387)

The juxtaposition ofan active, informative Eve with the passive, discreetly inquisitive Mary mirrors the moral progress ofthe Towneley Uxor. One might say that the shrewish Uxor Noah ofthe mystery cycles can be most clearly associated with her ancestor, Eve, not through her identification with the sin ofshrewish pride and an ale- wife's gluttony, but through her verbal transgressions. Ber subsequent transformation anticipates the "second mother ofmankind," presenting an image ofpassive femininity receiving divine directives through male mediators, such as Noah and Gabriel. 33 The contrast between the two most significant female figures in Christian beliefevoked by

Uxor's transformation reflects a similar linguistic juxtaposition ofmasculine "leamed

(Latin) and active (writerly) spheres" with a more "passively receptive" feminine sphere oflisteners (along with sorne female readers) outlined by Jager (194). Thus, Uxor Noah's association with the garrulous Eve effectively substantiates the medieval beliefabout

"Woman's" proclivity for orality, as weIl as justifies her containment within a gendered hierarchy ofdiscourse.

33 My discussion here admittedly circumvents any consideration ofangelic gender (or Jack thereof) by invoking popular tradition in visual art and literature which inevitably masculinizes God's messenger. 120

The gendered polarization ofdiscourse suggested in representations ofmarital infelicity, such as Eve and Adam, or Uxor and Noah, finds its most explicit manifestation in medieval treatments ofSocrates and Xanthippe. The marriage ofthe shrew and the philosopher eloquently encapsulates the juxtaposition oforal and literate discourse in terms ofthe battle ofthe sexes. Since St. Jerome's fourth-century letter Adversus

Jovinianum, Socrates's second wife was known as a proverbial shrew:

Socrates had two wives, Xanthippe and Myron, granddaughter of

Arsitides. They frequently quarreled, and he used to mock them for

disagreeing over a man so ugly as himself. [...] At last they planned an

attack on him, and having punished him severely and put him to flight,

plagued him for a long time. On one occasion when he opposed

Xanthippe, who was heaping abuse on him from above; she doused him

with dirty water, but he only wiped his head and said, '1 knew thunder like

that was bound to be followed by a shower.' (quoted in Blamires 73)

The appeal ofJerome's tale for medieval writers and preachers satirizing women and marriage-illustrated by Chaucer's inclusion ofthe tale in Jankyn's book---ensured that

even up to the present day the name Xanthippe is synonymous with shrewishness. The

Oxford English Dictionary indicates that the name ofSocrates's wife "allusively"

suggests "an ill-tempered woman or wife, a shrew, a scold." The relationship between

the philosopher and the shrew is used in medievalliterary tradition as an exemplum about

masculine forbearance and patience in the face ofunruly femininity. Seen in light ofthis

dissertation, however, the tale ofSocrates and Xanthippe becomes a parable about

gendered discourse. The shrew, a representation ofirrational, feminine speech,

encounters the philosopher, the representation ofrational, masculine authority. For a 121 medieval audience Socrates embodies a philosophical tradition manifested entirely through its literary legacy. Therefore, the philosopher cornes to represent not only rationality, but also textuality.

The result can be most clearly witnessed in John Gower's Confessio Amantis where Xanthippe, the proverbial shrew, is specifically "condemned for her stupid

indifference to books" (Coleman 185). Gower's modification ofthe context of

Xanthippe's assault more clearly reflects the linguistic disparity between husband and wife. While Xanthippe's attack is provoked by conventional marital strife, Gower's

description ofthe encounter sets up a juxtaposition ofmasculine textuality and rhetorical

self-control against feminine verbal incontinence:

In wynter, whan the dai is cold,

This wifwas fro the welle come,

Wher that a pot with water nome

Sche hath, and broghte it into house,

And sih how that hire seli spouse

Was sett and liked on a bok

Nyh to the fyr, as he which tok

His ese for a man ofage.

And sche began the wode rage,

And axeth him what devel he thoghte,

And bar on hond that him ne roghte

What labour that sche toke on honde,

And seith that such an Housebonde 122

Was to wifnoght worth aStre.

He seide nowther nay ne ye,

Bot hield him stille and let hire chyde;

[...] The waterpot sche hente alofte

And bad him speke, and he al softe

Sat stille and noght a word ansuerde;

And sche was wroth that he so ferde,

And axeth him ifhe be ded;

And al the water on his hed

Sche pourede oute and bad awake. (3.654-669; 673-679)

The late fifteenth-century illustrator ofGower's text in the Pierpont Morgan MS 126

(f.54v) elaborates further on this association with textuality, transforming Socrates from a reader to a producer oftexts by depicting him writing at a table full ofbooks.34

The parallels between the patient philosopher and his shrewish wife and the hen- pecked patriarch and his termagant require little elaboration. The familiar exemplum of

Socrates's patience makes explicit the assumptions informing the depiction ofNoah and

Uxor. In the Chester and York plays, and even in the first part ofthe Towneley play, the patriarch renowned for his wise virtue is cast as the forbearing husband. One could argue that even in the problematic Towneley play, Noah's temporary lack ofself-restraint is qualified by his initial meekness in his confession that his wife is "full tethee" (186) and by her aggressive response to his good-natured approach. The Chester play, which participates most explicitly in a consideration ofgendered discourse, also presents Noah

34 See Coleman (pages 7-8, 181-182, 192) for the medieval association ofSocrates with the scholarly­ professional private reader. 123 as particularly patient. Lacking Socrates's wit, Noah's response to his wife's physical assault, "Aha! marry, this is hot!/ It is good for to be still" (247-248), nevertheless shares the philosopher's restraint. Seen alongside these classical and biblical examples, Uxor and Noah represent another example ofthe linguistic dimensions implicit in late medieval depictions ofgender conflict.35 Implicit in such literary and dramatic representations of the battle for the breeches is the contrast between a masculinity empowered by textual authorities and through access to textuality, and a femininity characterized by unruly oral utterances. Thus, attributed with the transgressions ofEve and the spirit ofXanthippe,

Uxor's enactment offeminine verbal deviance also makes her the scapegoat for a presumably dangerous orality.

Given the linguistic terms frequently applied in the conventional marital struggle for mastery, one can conclude that the social ritual performed by such plays addresses not only the conflict between competing individuals, but also, as in the case ofthe satirist's attack on gossips, two competing discursive modes. Naturally, the impetus to continually address the question ofliterary and oral discursive power stems precisely from the fact that the two modes are in practice nebulously intertwined. Such bimodality helps to explain, at least partly, why historians like Bardsley insist that anxieties about women's oral power intensified during the late medieval period (40). Just as the poet satirist paradoxically employs an oral epistemology to attack gossips denigrated as the

35 One can also make a retrospective argument since the dramatic appeal ofthe textuallrational male paired with the verballirrational female has lasted for centuries. Canal Condren's article, "Dame Alice More and Xanthippe: Sisters to Mistress Quickly" notes Erasmus's epistolary references to Dame Alice playing Xanthippe to Thomas More's Socrates. Erasmus's depiction ofDame Alice as Xanthippe castigates her not only as a "sharp-tongued" shrew, but also condemns her as "ill-educated" and intellectually inferior. A striking twentieth-century example can be found in James Joyces's Ulysses when Stephen states: "We have shrew-ridden Shakespeare and hen-pecked Socrates" (427). The marital alliance between yet another male paragon oftextuality and a shrew, explicitly identified as a parallel ofSocrates and Xanthippe, informs Stephen Daedelus's theory ofShakespeare, especially in the "Scylla and Charybdis" section. 124 representatives ofa diminished orality, so the dramatist relies on the ancient oral form of popular mimetic activity to present a sacred text and emphasize the sacredness oftext.

No literary works better illustrate this bimodality than the Deluge plays, for here the legacy ofpopular tradition functions as a discrete, rather than integrated, part ofthe mystery play. The combination ofsacred and comic currents in the Deluge plays has long fascinated scholars. Ifthe longevity and vigor ofscholarly interest can be considered any reflection ofa more general audience reaction, one might hazard that the "comic descant" conceming Uxor Noah is the most engaging aspect ofthese medieval dramatic accounts ofthe Noah legend.

This "descant," however, creates its effect through the ancient topsy-turvydom of folk ceremonials, such as secular dramatic and processional activities: "[Such] dramatic figurations offemale disorder are informed by the festive traditions [...] that foregrounded the unruly woman, the vigorous, outrageous, garrulous creature featured in literary, pictorial and social manifestations ofmisrule directed at marriage and the hierarchies ofsex and gender" (Coletti 81-82). IronicaIly, according to Weimann, it is the

"legacy ofpopular ceremonies" that made Uxor Noah (like Herod or Pilate) dramatically most flexible and effective (65). Standing between biblical history and contemporary reality, "such figures were capable ofexploiting the dramatic potential ofanachronism because they established a broad range oflinks with, and realized the most affective tensions between, the world ofbiblical myth and the world and time ofcontemporary

England" (Weimann 65). Thus, the dramatist must confront the paradox that the most effective aspect ofa dramatic text which draws its authority from its scriptural origins and which seeks to establish a discursive, as weIl as gendered, hierarchy, cornes from elements most clearly linked to an earlier oral tradition. 125

Weimann's suggestion ofUxor's affective function draws attention to another level ofthis paradox: the nature ofdrama itself. The goal ofdrama is to remake the world with words, much like the shrew; that is, in terms ofmedieval drama, to create another believable world for its audience, or, to apply Weimann's insights, to make another world-the vision ofChristian history-immanent in contemporary times. Inherent in such an endeavor is the understanding ofthe power ofspeech to transport the mind. The persuasive power ofspeech, as Jacqueline de Romilly's work on magic and rhetoric in ancient Greece demonstrates, has long been a concern for philosophers. Jacqueline de

Romilly describes the graduaI transformation ofthe Greek understanding ofrhetoric. At first associated with the emotionally persuasive magic ofpoetry and tragedy by Gorgias, the concept ofrhetoric eventually cornes to represent a training ofthe mind for rational, scientific argument in Isocrates and Aristotle. By the Middle Ages, this contrast between the deceptive power ofwords to persuade through emotive appeal and the rational pursuit oftruth applies also to the issue oforality and literacy. Alcuin, for example, expressed a distrust oforality due to its susceptibility to corruption by false teaching, insisting instead that writing was better able to preserve truths and prevent errors (Jager 152). The concern about oral tradition, as in the Greek philosophers' problems with the idea ofrhetoric, is not that one cannot speak truth, but that the medium itselfcan be manipulated and is, therefore, prone to abuses.

The dilemma ofthe dramatist is one aspect ofthe challenge facing those clerics designated to teach and preach to the general populace. While the Deluge play is part ofa larger ritual concerned perhaps more with social order than theology, it is also a performance designed to spiritually edify and entertain its audience. Thus, while the liturgical influence on the play cycles may be disputed, G. R. Owst's work quite 126 reasonably suggests that the Church's influence on dramatic tradition lies in the relationship between medieval drama and the popular pulpit: "every variety ofexpression to be found in the plays-eanonical and uncanonical, serious and humorous, satiric and tragic-is the very stuffand essence ofthe medieval English sermon" (474).36

Consequently, popular preachers, such as the Dominican and Franciscan orators, confront the same problem facing the playwrights. "The preachers with their merry satire and exempla interlarding the sermon, were themselves sometimes guilty ofeven worse profanities than the pranks ofa rascally sheep-stealer, or Noah's troublesome wife"

(Owst 478-479). The homilist gains his authority by virtue ofhis access to Scripture and exegetical textuaI tradition. As the Lollard controversy demonstrates, unsanctioned incursions into the elite group to whom Scripture and textuaI tradition were accessible met with hostility and force. Yet, while clerical authority rested to sorne degree on maintaining a distinction between textuaI and oral culture, the homilist inevitably tumed to oral tradition for his most affective, and hence effective, techniques.37 While the long literary history ofsermon exempla collections must be acknowledged, one must grasp that the homilist's illustrative tale existed in an atmosphere oforal and literary cross-

36 While many scholars, such as Eleanor Prosser and Glynne Wickham, accept and build on Owst's seminal work, there are also those reviewers, such as A.G. Little and Leonard E. Boyle, who express serious reservations about Owst's work. Marianne Briscoe's reevaluation and qualification ofOwst's work demonstrates that Owst's main thesis stands, even though his text is handicapped by a rather expansive and uncritical, rather than selective, approach to his evidence. Briscoe's article supports my use ofOwst by acknowledging and substantiating Owst's primary point that medieval drama and preaching share the same goal ofreligious instruction, as weil as "serve one another as technical and artistic resources" (Briscoe 151).

37 Interestingly, Owst's comments on the waning ofthe English pulpit in the fifteenth century indicate that the homilists were also engaged with the ancient Greek question regarding rhetoric and the nature ofits persuasive power. "Orthodox 'great c1erks' ofthe day themselves set no high example ofnoble and courageous thought to the man in the pulpit. Too often, like Plato's 'boorish debaters', 'they strive only for victory. For they, when they debate about anything, are not concemed where the truth ofthe matter lies, but their anxiety is merely for the impression which their arguments make upon their audience'" (Owst 54). The audiate context seems highly relevant to this issue from a medieval perspective. Orthodox thinkers such as Alcuin would attribute this subjugation oftruth to the desire for persuasive power to the corruptible oral context in which the debates occurred. 127 fertilization. Joan Y. Gregg comments on the "active storytelling" rhetoric, containing elements easily identifiable with oral tradition, that marks the vemacular pulpit story as distinct from written Latin sources: the introduction ofdialogue; engaging details; a colloquiallexicon; proverbs and folk phraseology; alliterative and rhythmical collocations, verb, noun and adjective doublets to lend emphasis to certain pieces of information; simpler syntactic structures; even versification (15). While the jongleurs and minstrels so reviled by medieval preachers, not to mention authors like William

Langland, had long ceased to be representatives ofa primary oral culture, their techniques and content remain related to oral modes, maintaining their exophoricity, to borrow

Coleman's term. Therefore, in spite ofhomiletic denunciations ofthe blasphemous, lewd and trifling nature ofthe jongleur's art, the minstrel's entertainment, as Owst indicates, finds its way into the medieval sermon (13).

The homilist's use oforal and popular culture places him in the same paradoxical position as the satirist poet and the dramatist. As a matter offact, the split personality of the Noah character in the Deluge plays is perhaps best understood as a manifestation of the conflicted stance ofthe male authority figure. Both prophet and irate husband, conveying divine truths and spewing scathing colloquial invective, Noah stands for the ambivalence ofthe cleric confronted with a discursive reality that confounds the ideological binary upon which he has based his authority. The solution to this ideological quandary, as the Uxor Noah episodes suggest, is to produce a scapegoat. The late medieval and early modem literary fixation on female verbal deviance is an attempt, in part, to exorcise an oral past perceived as morally ambiguous by an increasingly text­ identified society by creating "Woman" as a scapegoat for a devalued oral culture. The shrew who verbally makes the world over in her own image, so to speak, becomes this 128 scapegoat role best ofaIl. Thus, it is hardly surprising that shrew-taming is a traditional medieval pulpit theme which subsequently finds its way, through tales like "A Merry lest ofa Shrewde and Curste Wyfe Lapped in MoreIle's Skin, for her Good Behavyour," into secular culture and eventually into the hands ofShakespeare (Owst 390).

Conclusion: The Unruly Tongue ofMargery Kempe

The ideological function of"Woman" as a linguistic scapegoat had sorne very real consequences for women living in the later Middle Ages. Carla Casagrande's examination ofthe "protected woman" in the Middle Ages shows how it was in fact the social authorities that tried to protect themselves from the establishment ofa "realm of female discourse" (100):

The unconcealed and resigned scom with which garrulous women were

treated in pastoral and pedagogical texts, the proliferation ofirritated

anecdotes and vexed invectives against the evils ofthe tongue, turned into

real concem when it came to the problem ofwhen, where, and how

women should speak. After aIl, to control women's words was to maintain

custody ofthe authority and privileges ofmen's words. (99)

One historical woman whose experiences reflect precisely this power struggle is Margery

Kempe. The enigma ofMargery's character, not to mention that ofthe document she produced, lends her, in the words ofDavid Lawton, "an almost exclusively fictional force, a character midway between the Wife ofBath and Moll Flanders" (95). The critical appeal ofthe Wife ofBath as Margery's fictional analogue lies in the fact that both controversial female figures exhibit the qualities ofthe camivalesque unruly woman.

"Only fifty years earlier Chaucer's most famous creation, the Wife ofBath, anticipated

Kempe's dramatic self-presentation and the ambivalent challenges to religious and social 129 orthodoxies which insured her notoriety" (Wilson 224).38 This perceived relationship between the fictional character and the historical woman suggests that Margery's notoriety stemmed not merely from her inability to play the mystic convincingly for sorne observers, but from the fact that her behavior cast her as an unruly shrew for many ofher contemporaries. However, this briefexploration ofher book will reveal that while the stereotype ofthe unruly speaking woman was used against her, Margery occasionally appropriates this imagery and uses it to her advantage.

The challenge Margery's behavior posed to social authorities aligns her with the stereotypical unruly garrulous woman found in antifeminist texts. Margery's account of her wide-ranging, independent travels suggests that, like the gossip, she refuses to be contained by social norms governing virtuous feminine behavior. As Kathleen Ashley notes, "Margery refuses to model her conduct either on anchorite behavior (enclosed in a sacred space) or on that ofthe urban goodwife (enclosed in the domestic space)"

("Historicizing" 374). Margery's refusaI to be contained, her disruption ofsocial order and social signs symbolized most profoundly by her donning ofwhite clothing, caused people to question her vocation and spiritual insight. Thus, the ambivalent public reception ofMargery's words stands in marked contrast to the response garnered by the lettered and cloistered Julian ofNorwich. While she remains outside ofthe protected realm ofcloistered female mystics, Margery's resistance to enclosure also manifests itself in her ostensible flouting ofher secular familial responsibilities. The virago's "assertion

38 Sheila Delany's Marxist-feminist analysis ofMargery's Book, "Sexual Economies, Chaucer's Wife of Bath, and The Book ofMargery Kempe," is perhaps the most well-known work to make use ofthe similarities between the two figures. Jennifer M. Huth's dissertation, '''For 1Have Tools to Truss': Women, Work, and Professionalism in Late Medieval Literature," (Diss. U ofTexas, 1996), is in a similar vein. Huth's dissertation, as the quote in the title indicates, goes on to link these figures with the women of medieval drama in the York, Chester and Wakefield cycles. 130 offemale domestic superiority," according to Wilson, "differs in degree but not in kind from Kempe, whose greater vocation in Christ [...] forced her to take the reins of marriage into her hands and make her husband agree to a relationship ofcelibacy" (225).

Indeed, the remarkable scarcity ofdomestic and familial details (given her long marriage and fourteen children) is emphasized by Margery's invocation ofspousal and maternaI imagery primarily in terms ofher relationship with Christ (31 )39 and with the numerous supportive strangers she claims as spiritual children.4o Margery's self-representation as a mystic, ifone accepts her text as an attempt at authentication, relies to sorne degree on extricating herselffrom the matrix ofsocial responsibilities defining secular women of her time. Consequently, regardless ofher pious motives, Margery's behavior reflects the same rejection ofher socially ordained raIe conventionally attributed to the shrew.

While the various responses to her mystical claims remain ambivalent, the public perception ofher social deviance is more consistent. In fact, the types ofresponses

Margery documents in her text suggest that the figure ofthe shrew had become a main point ofreference for social definitions ofunmly women in medieval England. Her husband meets her request for continued sexual abstinence with the exclamation: "Ye am no good wyfe" (23). His ultimate acceptance ofher will in aIl matters is suggestively cast as shrewish domination by Margery's irate fellow pilgrims: "& perfor schamfully pei

39 AlI references to The Book ofMargery Kempe will be to EETS no. 212, edited by Meech and Allen (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1940, rpt. 1982). Throughout the citations ofthis text square brackets indicate where 1 have substituted modem orthographie symbols for the medieval yogh.

40 Naturally, her husband does figure as a character in her story, as do her one son, his wife and child in Book Two. However, these figures are used to define her as a mystic, rather than as a goodwife. Notably, though, Margery does wield her secular social identity when it is necessary. During Margery's imprisonment recounted in chapter 54, among other similar situations, Margery uses her marriage to defend herselfagainst potential rape. "The sayd creatur preyde hym ofhys lordschip pat sche xulde not be putte a­ mongs men, for sche was a mannys wyfe" (132-133). The marriage bond that links her to a mortal man spares her the potential sexual threat inherent in incarceration, although, according to her personal beliefs, her chastity is sacred not because she belongs to a husband, but to Christ. 131 repreuyd hir & alto-chedyn hir & seyden pei wold not suffren hir as hir husbond dede whan sche was at hom & in Inglond" (61). Finally, there is Margery's adventure in

Beverly:

pan pei browt hir a-[gen] in-to Hesyl, & per men callyd hir 1011er, &

women cam rennyng owt ofher howsys wyth her rokkys, crying to pe

pepil, "Brennyth pis faIs heretyk." So, as sche went Forth to-Beuerleward

wyth pe [yemen] & pe frerys be-fom-seyd, pei mettyn many tYmes wyth

men ofpe cuntre, whech seyd vn-to hir, "Damsel, forsake Pis lyfe pat pu

hast, & go spynne & carde as oper women don, & suffyr not so meche

schame & so meche wo." (129)

The artful narrative flourish depicting women armed with distaffs rushing out oftheir homes to condemn Margery intensifies the indictment in the men's request that she confine herselfto the archetypal housewifely activity ofspinning. The rhetorical effect is fascinating in that it indicates that Margery herselfis aware ofthe townspeople's perception ofher as a shrew, a woman who refuses what society had deemed women's tasks and women's place.

Like the literary shrew, Margery's disinterest in spinning, or even in caring for her ill and senile husband, stems from her desire to be active in the wider world and, in particular, her desire to be heard. As Wilson states, "Kempe's refusaI to be silenced is the most enduring feature ofher extraordinary personality" (224). Margery's attempts to make herseIfheard replicate the discursive split in medieval culture. On the one hand, her visions are accompanied by the kind ofinarticulate noise, weeping and howling, that represents the ultimate expression ofemotionaI, Feminine orality. On the other hand, after twenty years ofhesitation, Margery dictates her story to a number ofclerics, 132 acknowledging the need to create a literary document that attests to her authenticity. This text functions as a vehicle for authentication not only because it aligns Margery with the larger literary tradition ofsaints' lives so that posterity may judge her by the company she keeps. Christ's command that she become a part ofthis literary tradition attests to

Margery's understanding that the production ofa text with the collaboration ofmale textuaI authorities validates her experience, allowing her to be heard long after she can no longer witness in person.41

Margery's most significant actions as a shrew, however, appear in the more mundane encounters she has during her travels, experiences that are related to, but not directly dependent on, her mystical and literary goals. Between the hysterical woman and the author-the two extremes one also sees reflected in contemporary scholarly responses to her text-lies Margery the teacher. Margery's candid proclamation ofher visions, her willingness to instruct those who accepted her authority, posed a challenge to the

Church's authority by flouting its condemnation ofwomen who presumed to teach.

Similarly, Wilson suggests that the Wife ofBath's "very raison d'etre begins as a comic travesty ofthe clerical belief, sanctioned by St. Paul, that women should not teach and preach" (229). Margery Kempe shares with the Wife ofBath a shrewish insistence on representing the world, not to mention doctrinal truths, in her own terms.

While the Wife ofBath's relevance for examining Margery in a literary context is obvious, fewer scholars have pursued the interpretive potential ofthe other infamous female rebel in medieval English tradition, Uxor Noah. Nevertheless, as David Aers

41 While my discussion ofMargery Kempe is intended to highlight the ideological dimensions oforality and Iiteracy in Margery's experience, the question ofhow our developing understanding oflate medieval orality and literacy affects how we perceive the book itselfrequires a separate monograph. In fact, the importance oftaking into account the combination oforal and literate modes that produced this text is already being addressed by scholars like Lynn Staley, Diana Uhlman and Robert Ross. 133 explains, the threat Margery Kempe poses is the same fear explored in the Uxor Noah character ofthe Towneley play (101). Most obviously, whatever their motivations, both figures desire to be released from their marital bonds. Margery's desires align more closely with Uxor's than merely a wish for freedom, achieved in her case through celibacy and travel. Margery, too, indicates that she desires a "measse ofwedows coyll."

When her husband falls ill and public opinion forces her to take on the burden ofcaring for him, Margery's wish is that he might live one year so that she can be delivered from slanderous accusations ofspousal neglect, and even then she is reticent to take him into her own home (180). As in Uxor's confession, Margery's text also alludes to the ubiquity ofthis desire for release from wifely servitude. Remarkably, it is Jesus who reminds her:

"Dowtyr, [yt] pu knew how many wifys per am in pis worlde pat wolde louyn me & seruyn me ryth weI and dewly, [yt] pei myght be as frely fro her husbondys as pu art fro thyn" (212). The Mayor ofLeicester's attacks on Margery also stem from his threatened sense ofthe general appeal Margery's autonomy has for wives: "1 wil wetyn why pow gost in white clothys, for 1trowe pow art comyn hedyr to han a-wey owr wyuys fro us & ledyn hem wyth pe" (116). David Aers insightfully notes that Margery's accounts ofthe sympathy and support offered by the Beverly wives after her incarceration "entails just the female autonomy and mutual collusion against male authority that the men [...] so feared" (103):

pan stode sche lokyng owt at a wyndown, tellyng many good talys to hem

pat wolde heryn hir, in so meche pat women wept sor & seyde wyth gret

heuynes ofher hertys, 'Alas woman, why xalt pu be brent?' Than sche

preyid pe good wyfe ofpe hows to [geuyn] hir drynke, for sche was euyl

for thyrste. And pe good wife seyde hir husbond had born a-wey pe key, 134

wherfor sche myth not comyn to hir ne [geuyn] hir drinke. And }Jan }Je

women tokyn a leddyr & set up to }Je wyndown & [gouyn] hor a pynte of

wyn in a potte & toke hir a pece, besechyng hor to settyn a-wey}Je potte

preuyly &}Je pece }Jat whan}Je good man come he myth not aspye it. (130­

131)

In this scene Margery depicts her conversion ofthe very women who condemned her

earlier by telling them good tales. Thus, conversation and understanding among women,

an evocation ofthe image offemale gossips, sets the women ofBeverly against their husbands and other male authority figures. The women previously associated with their homes and their spinning are now depicted in the public sphere, attempting to breach the boundaries that confine one oftheir own.

Even when contained physically, the indefatigable Margery Kempe cannot be

contained verbally. The essence ofthe threat she poses leads us back to the Towneley

Noah's imperative that husbands should chastise the tongues oftheir wives. Throughout her story Margery encounters people who attempt to contain her speech both metaphorically and literally. The travelling companions in chapter 26 who force Margery to dress in fool's c10thes attempt to control her by contextualizing her speech in terms of madness. The desire to contain Margery's utterances is also dramatically expressed in a monk's wish that Margery be immured: "1 wold }Jow wer c10syd in an hows ofston }Jat

}Jer schuld no man speke wyth }Je" (27). Thus Margery's "talys," her endless

"dalyawnce" and "communycacion" put her at odds not only with social but also with religious authorities. In this historical example, the battle for the breeches, so to speak, happens not between a husband (backed by social and religious authorities) and wife, but rather exp1icit1y between a wife and the institutional authorities. As a living parallel of 135 the conventional shrew-philosopher conflict, Margery must confront and negotiate the

discursive divide that marginalizes her.

In her numerous encounters with clerical antagonists Margery must deal with a

social reality which confers textual power on men while actively working to exclude

women from such authority. Margery attempts to gain access to texts through various

supportive clerics, such as the priest who reads to her privately in order to satisfy

Margery's soul, which she describes as "euyr a-lich hungry" (142). Through this man

Margery gains auraI access to the Bible with doctoral commentaries on it, St. Bride's

book, Hilton's book, Bonaventura's Stimulus Amoris, Incendium Amoris, among others

(143). Thus, she claims, did God compensate for her "defawte ofredyng" (143). Yet, her

incursions into the realm ofclerical textuality provoke public resentment and outcry. In

chapter 69 the White Friar is specifically admonished not to "enformyn hir in no textys of

Scriptur" (168). The social advantages ofexcluding women from clerical textuaI

knowledge can be seen no where more clearly than the Steward ofLeicester's attempt to

intimidate Margery by addressing her in Latin (112), wielding his access to leamed,

textual culture to remind her ofher inadequate access to discursive authority.42

Margery's discursive battle with clerical culture finds its most brilliant illustration

in her trial by the Archbishop ofYork, a crucial act in Margery's drama and one which

she explicitly offers as a parable ofGod's championing ofthe "not letteryd" woman

against "so many lemyd men" (128). The Archbishop's desire to get Margery out ofhis

diocese has less to do with her heretical self-presentation as a virgin, and more to do with

42 It is interesting to note that the Steward's subsequent sexual assault on Margery is combined with dialogue addressing the divine or diabolical origins ofMargery's speech. While the assault is, in any case, a brutal act ofintimidation, Margery's narrative suggests a link between herselfas unruly speaking woman and the Steward's assumption ofher sexual accessibility-an assumption often made in antifeminist satire. 136 the fact that he wants to prevent her from "techyn" and "chalengyn" people ofhis diocese. Significantly, since Margery's successful repetition ofthe Articles of Faith proves the orthodoxy ofher beliefs, her threat lies not in what she tells the people, but in her potential as a role model: "We knowyn weI pat sche can pe Articles ofpe Feith, but we wil not suffyr hir to dwellyn a-mong us, for pe pepil hath fret feyth in hir dalyawnce, and perauentur sche myth peruertyn summe ofhem" (125). The perversion so feared is that she will encourage others to follow her shrewish example by attempting to overcome the limits placed on them by society. Margery's refusaI to stop teaching, not to mention her quotation ofScripture in her defense, provokes extreme reactions from the men involved. In what can only be a considered, symbolic act ofintimidation, "a gret c1erke browt forth a boke & leyd Seynt Paul for hys party a-geyns hir pat no woman xulde prechyn" (126). The performance ofreading at this juncture in the trial emphasizes the tautological import ofPaul's words for medieval women such as Margery: a woman forbidden to teach is a woman excluded from textual culture.

Margery's response to this challenge, however, tums her confinement in a marginalized oral culture, and more specifically her social identity as a gossip, to her advantage. Perhaps picking up on definitions ofher speech as "dalyawnce," her strategy is to redefine her utterances not as teaching or preaching, but as conversation: "1 preche not, ser, 1come in no pulpytt. 1vse but comownycacyon & good wordys, & pat will do whil lIeue" (126). Her daim that she has a right "to spekyn ofGod" (126), as distinguished from the didactic stance ofpreaching, evades the issue ofher evangelical persuasiveness by contextualizing her utterances in a realm ofmundane conversation independent oftextuaI knowledge. With this rhetorical maneuver Margery evades the accusation ofusurping discursive authority by invoking the image ofherselfas a gossip. 137

Such a move that blurs the line between "female garrulity, or gossip," and '''busy teIling', or the Gospel" can also be seen in Wycliffite exegesis ofthe Mary Magdalene figure

(Staley 126). Having invoked the image ofthe conversational woman, Margery is then attacked in these conventional terms for her deviant speech. "Syr, sche telde me pe werst talys ofprestys pat euyr 1herde," complains a long-time enemy ofMargery's (126). The seemingly inevitable image ofthe slanderous gossip indicates an attempt to render

Margery as yet another woman wielding a maliciously deceptive feminine tongue, rendering aIl her utterances meaningless. Yet here, Margery finds a loophole in the paradoxical nature ofsermon rhetoric. "Sir, wyth [yowr] reuerence, 1spak but of 0 preste be pe maner ofexampyl" (126). What is considered personal slander in the mouth ofa woman is in the mouth ofthe preacher a standard exemplum. Thus, Margery defensively takes advantage ofthe fact that the amusing satirical and anecdotal materials that fumish the medieval preacher's sermon, taken out ofthe context ofhis textual authority, descend to the level ofthe "massed array ofjesters, jugglers, minstrels, heralds, revellers, witches," not to mention gossips and heretical self-procIaimed mystics (Owst 12-13).

In her encounter with the Archbishop ofYork, Margery Kempe strategically takes advantage ofthe fact that as a woman largely excIuded from textual culture she can speak as a gossip from "experience, though noon auctoritee." And, like the fictional shrews that precede and follow her, Margery absolutely insists upon relating her experience, on defining the world in her terms. Indeed, her Bookpresents an enigmatic historical addendum to the Wife ofBath's assessment ofthe battle for representational control between male cIerics and women:

By God, ifwommen hadde writen stories,

As cIerkes han withinne hire oratories, 138

They wolde han writen ofmen more wikkednesse

Than al the mark ofAdam may redresse. (WBP 692-696)

While the battle for discursive authority between the sexes invokes a hierarchical and gendered discursive binary oforality and literacy, the interaction ofthe two modes in reality allows individuals like Margery to manipulate the contradictions to their advantage. Thus a confounded Archbishop ofYork both asks Margery "to preye for hym" and in almost the same breath demands that she be led "faste owt ofpis cuntre"

(128). It is Margery's persuasive power that both imperils and defends her in the face of hostile authorities. Contemporary readers can easily forget the seriousness ofthe accusations leveled against this irrepressible woman in her tumultuous era. In the wake ofthe Oldcastle Rebellion, images circulated ofliterate women as heretics (Shklar).

Therefore, as the threats ofburning at the stake recurring throughout her text indicate,

Margery's desire for textual knowledge, as weIl as her condemnation ofswearing, could have doomed her to a heretic's execution. Moreover, her access to persuasive authority,

"hir cunnyng" without the benefits ofan education observed by Lincoln's men oflaw

(135), similarly endangered her, since Margery's source ofinspiration, as the Steward of

Leicester suggests (113), could have easily been perceived as diabolical, rather than divine. Thus, The Book ofMargery Kempe documents that almost a century prior to the definitive rise ofthe European witchhunts, the unruly speaking woman needed to be discursive1y resourceful for she already lived in the shadow ofthe stake. 139

CHAPTER THREE: THE WITCH

Introduction

The question ofwhat inspired the unruly utterances ofrebellious women that haunted an early fifteenth-century Steward confronted by a self-promoting woman mystic also found expression later on in that century in the legal and literary discourse surrounding witches. The figure ofthe witch completes the unholy trinity of linguistically deviant femininity that so preoccupied late medieval and early modem

European society. While European legal and theological attitudes towards and definitions ofwitches differed according to region and changed over time, the composite cultural image ofthe dangerous, socially-marginal female witch eventually produced during those tumultuous times, and that lingers even in contemporary popular culture-neo-paganism notwithstanding-represents the extreme outcome ofthe antifeminist satire examined in the last two chapters. The witch's attack on society, whether through petty domestic maleficium or a diabolical conspiracy against Christendom, takes as its primary weapon the by now seemingly inalienable property offemininity, the power ofthe spoken ward.

Unlike the siren ar the harpy, the witch is a legendary creature that occasionally defies fictionality, incamating in historical moments when cultural anxieties were literalized and mapped onto actual women. Therefore, in order to fully delineate the cultural image ofthe witch one must examine the historical events that simultaneously inforrned and resulted from the fictions. Accordingly, this chapter will begin with a surnmary ofhistorical evidence surrounding the gender ofthe witch and the significance ofthe witch's utterances. The importance offemale speech in the depiction ofthe witch is confirrned to a remarkable degree by historical scholarship examining the terrns surrounding the accusations and indictments ofactual women. Having established the 140 predominant role ofverbal aggression in the characterization ofhistorical witches, the discussion can then turn to an analysis ofthe witch as an image offemininity's dangerous orality in literary texts.

When one reads the most infamous ofthe witchhunting treatises, Malleus

Malificarum, one soon discovers that the discourse surrounding the witch treads the same terrain as that ofthe gossip and the shrew, and also relies heavily on popular narrative.

The Malleus provides the framework within which to explore a series ofdiverse texts illustrating how the popular images ofthe gossip and the shrew form the scaffolding upon

which the late medieval witch is constructed. The second section ofthis chapter

delineates the relationship between the images ofthe shrew and the witch, beginning with the unique representation ofthe archetypal shrewish Uxor Noah in the Newcastle

fragment. In the Newcastle fragment the shrew becomes, in essence, a witch. This relationship between the speaking woman and the Devil operates sometimes blatantly, as

in the sermon exemplum "The üld Woman and the Devil," sometimes more implicitly, as

in Dame Sirith, as a subtext in the late medieval cultural construction ofdeviant

femininity. Section three demonstrates that while the witch is frequently depicted as

verbally aggressive, she is also depicted as verbally seductive, spreading her knowledge

as a gossip. Examinations ofthe Malieus, the early modern Chelmesford witch

confessions and a medieval account of"The Witch ofRheims" lay the groundwork for

section four's extensive discussion ofthe witch as gossip, and the concomitant invocation

ofgendered discursive spheres, evident in Skelton's incomparable Tunnyng ofElynour

Rummynge. My analysis ofthis ubiquitous preoccupation with the witch's speech

suggests that like Adam's recalcitrant first wife ofJudaic legend, feminized orality, cast

out ofofficially-sanctioned literary culture for its potential insurrections, lurks 141

demonized, like Lilith outside the walls ofParadise, in the minds ofits antagonists. 1 The latent power that informs the satirical images ofthe slandering gossip and the scolding wife finds its culmination in the cursing witch, the ultimate purveyor ofthe performative utterance, a notion alluded to in a sermon exemplum found in Robert Mannyng's

Handlynge Synne, "The Witch and the Cow-Sucking Bag." The consequences ofthis intersection between linguistics and gender ideology affected both the course ofliterary history and the lives ofactual women unfortunate enough to find themselves caught up in the nexus ofthese ideologies.

Section One: At the Crossroads ofFiction and History

There are few better examples ofthe fruitful collaboration possible between literary and historical scholarship than the history ofwitchcraft. As Barry comments in the introductory essay to Witchcrafi in early modern Europe, the construction ofthe witch in treatises on witchcraft, the questions posed by prosecutors, testimonies offered by witnesses, and confessions wrung from the victims invite narrative analysis as much as do the literary texts that responded to these events (43). My investigation into the construction ofthe witch in terms ofthe ideologicallink between cultural notions of orality and femininity does not presume to offer yet another causal explanation for the

European witchhunts, but rather examines one particular plot device applied in many of the various narratives about witchcraft. There is no shortage ofcausal theories on this enigmatic travesty in late medieval and early modem European history. Yet, as wave

1 The story ofLilith is a fascinating intertext for the triadic image ofthe unruly speaking woman. Cast out ofParadise for her shrewish behaviour, Adam's first wife Lilith, according to cabbalistic legend, was the cause ofEve's fall, taking on the form ofa serpent to tempt Eve (de Bruyn 131). The medieval Christian image ofthe serpent with the head ofa woman, although not directly related to Lilith, relies on a similar notion ofwomen tempting one another. The Venerable Bede conc1udes that Lucifer tempted Eve with this creature because "Iike is attracted to like" (de Bruyn 131). The homoerotic implications ofthis image become more apparent when viewed in light ofmedieval conceptions ofwitches. 142 upon qualifying wave breaks on the ocean ofhistorical scholarship surrounding this issue, it is becoming increasingly apparent that 'the witchcraze' was not one single phenomenon but "a mosaic ofsmall overlapping narratives" that resist monolithic categorical definitions (Briggs 63). Consequently, it is hardly surprising that in recent witchcraft scholarship there has been, as Stuart Clark comments, a "shift from explanation to interpretation" (7). Naturally, within these local narratives there appear recurring elements. The recurring elements constitute the features ofthe witch as a cultural concept, an image that could exist generally in the minds ofindividuals even as they demonstrated practical skepticism in the face oflocal events.2 This chapter explores from

a literary perspective the persistent feature ofdeviant female speech so frequently noted by scholars examining the social drama surrounding a witch-hunt: "First and most

commonly, witches were often described as bad-tongued, bad-tempered and quarrelsome"

(Levack 152).3

Historians dealing with English and Scottish witch trials consistently comment on

the prominence accorded to unruly speech in witchcraft accusations and indictments. As

one recent author on English witchcraft, James Sharpe, states, "Most frequently [...] the malevolent power ofthe witch was thought to operate on the victim primarily or solely through the power ofthe spoken word. The general issue ofhow the power ofwords and

speech was regarded in early modem England awaits further investigation" (153). Keith

2 Similarly, the significant minority ofmen accused ofwitchcraft does not change the cultural tradition that defines the witch as female. 1 use the feminine article for the witch in my work because 1deal specifically with the image ofthe witch in the cultural imagination, rather than the witch as an historical agent.

3 Although Malcolm Gaskill and Jim Sharpe have done much to dismantle the dichotomy between Continental and Insular witchcraft traditions set up earlier by Thomas and Macfarlane, my historical material will be delimited by the geographical situatedness ofmy literary texts. 1 will offer Scottish material in so far as it is applicable, but given the significant difference between Scottish and English 143

Thomas, whose magisterial Religion and the Decline ofMagic set the standard for witchcraft scholarship for years to come, dedicates a subsection to the subject offormaI and informaI cursing, defining it (much like Spacks's evaluation ofgossip) as a weapon wielded by the weak against the strong (509). Thomas claims that the witch's "curses and

imprecations thus symbolised the accused witch's relationship to society" (524). The witch's abusive utterances inevitably align her with the figure ofthe scold. This

observation is not limited to historians with the benefit ofhindsight. The famous

sixteenth-century skeptic, Reginald Scot states that the "chieffault" ofwitches "is that theyare scolds" (quoted in Thomas 530). Thomas concludes: "The old woman who had recourse to malignant threats in her extremity was therefore liable to paya high price for the consolation they afforded her. She might be punished as a scold or a curser, as weIl as running the risk ofthe more serious charge ofwitchcraft" (530).

As Barry points out, Thomas's discussion ofcursing as a symptom ofcommunal

conflict overlooks the gender factor obviously present in his evidence:

What is not explored [by Thomas], despite its appearance in several key

quotations [...] is the contemporary assumption that such cursing was a

basically female prerogative, and that, however justifiable a curse might

be, the tongue that uttered it was a female tongue, that unruly member on

which so much evil was blamed and which was so much distrusted. (38)

Sharpe confinus Barry's assessment ofthe significance ofgender in this area, placing

attitudes towards cursing into a larger literary context: "Indeed, it seems possible that

verbal aggression was thought to have been something peculiar to women, and the ballad

witchcraft experiences, along with the fact that, with the exception ofDunhar, this dissertation deals primarily with English material, the Scottish evidence will he applied sparingly and carefully. 144 and joke books ofthe period indicate a widespread cultural beliefthat physical violence is a male attribute, while verbal aggression is a female one" (153).

What Barry and Sharpe suggest and Jody Enders's examination ofthe scold's bridle confirms is that "it was around the figure ofthe tongue (together with images of

sexuality, ofcourse) that the paradox offemale power/powerlessness revolved" (Barry

38). As Christina Lamer's examination ofScottish witches indicates, a witch is

dangerous because ofa female quality known in Scottish as "smeddum": "spirit, a refusaI to be put down, quarrelsomeness" (97). The considerable "richness oflanguage attributed to witches" becomes a threatening sign when one grasps what Lamer identifies as the

Scottish beliefin the power oflanguage (139-140). Identifying the persistence oforal modes, such as flyting and competitive performative utterances, as late as the seventeenth

century in Scotland, Lamer is one ofthe few historians who has realized the significance

oflinguistic ideology in the discourse surrounding witchcraft. This perception ofthe performative power offemale imprecations during the time ofthe witchhunts in both

Scotland and England is perhaps best demonstrated by a seventeenth-century English

scholar who records how, in living memory, two women had literally scolded a third to

death (Sharpe 153).

The only work, to my knowledge, that analyzes a witch-hunt specifically in terms

ofwomen's disorderly speech is Jane Kamensky's scholarship on seventeenth-century

New England. While a beliefin the power ofa performative utterance, either a blessing

or a curse, may perhaps have been deemed "papist" magic and superstition by many

Puritans, female speech nevertheless presented a significant social threat in the New

World, as in the üld. An article by Kamensky delves into the ways in which women's unruly speech was "read" as a sign ofdiabolical possession. The juxtaposition ofthe 145 insolent and abusive witch with the Puritan's vision ofthe decorous daughter ofZion sets up an equation whereby a woman's speech, even without any accompanying maleficium, seems almost enough to indict her as diabolically contaminated. According to

Kamensky's reading ofNew England documents the cIues to demonic influence lay partly in the content ofa woman's speech: a witch's "hectoring, threatening, scolding, muttering, mocking, cursing, railing, slandering" or the demoniac's animalistic "roaring, screaming, bleating or barking" (287,293). As Kamensky points out, tone and context were also factors. "[The] 'where' and the 'what' of [a woman's] speech combined to transform a 'heated' exchange into a diabolic one" (295).

Kamensky's work establishes the conventional perception ofthe witch as a scold and gossip in the eyes ofher neighbours (300-301), as weIl as pointing out that in the witch's defiant words, the "minister heard a version offemale authorship that threatened social hierarchy and Puritan male mIe" (304). What is most significant about

Kamensky's analysis ofthe New England witch-hunting context is that it identifies a gender-specific preoccupation that informs both elite and popular conceptions of witchcraft, one predicated on a notion ofthe danger offemale "linguistic authority"

(299). Kamensky's argument suggests the influence that gendered notions ofliteracy and orality had on perceptions ofthe danger ofwomen's disorderly speech:

She [the witch] was, in the fullest seventeenth-century sense, an author, an

inventor and teller ofher own story, a creator and founder ofothers'

misery. Ifthe New England cIergy was beginning to advance a version of

femininity that incIuded sorne verbal authority-the right to read and

discourse modestly on Biblical texts-the witch showed the need to

limit that authority. (299) 146

What Kamensky calls verbal authority is, when one examines her inserted definition, more specifically, textuaI authority. Thus, the New England witch, Iike the shrew and the gossip, is perceived as battling for discursive authority in a society whose order is premised in part on a notion ofa gendered Iinguistic hierarchy.

An underlying assumption, evident in Kamensky's article, and informing my own argument is, as Christina Lamer famously asserts, that "witch-hunting involves women- hunting" (197). Despite statistical evidence that clearly establishes that women constituted the majority oftried witches in Europe-more specifically, British records establish only one fifth ofScottish witches were men (Lamer 91) and the numbers in

Essex indicate 93% ofwitches were women (Levack 134)-this fact eluded many historians prior to the upsurge offeminist analysis in the seventies (Barstow 14). A survey ofscholarship since the initial feminist contribution on the subject suggests sorne continued, ifmuted, reticence to analyze the witchhunts in terms ofgender due, in part, to the initial grossly inflated statistics and concomitant polemical rhetoric in the early texts championing the feminist approach. In his influential study, produced as feminists were making forays into the field, Thomas argues that women's involvement in trials as accusers, witnesses and body searchers weakens feminist claims.4 In the interest of scholarly accuracy one must attempt to find a middle ground between making history reflect an ideological claim and remaining insensitive to the larger implications of historical events, thereby missing the forest for the trees. It is crucial to acknowledge that the witch-hunts were part of"ongoing mechanisms for social control ofwomen" (Hester

4 Gaskill, Purkiss and Sharpe have ail made a point that serves as a crucial addendum to the consideration of the women involved in witchcraft trials by suggesting that scholars should move from perceiving women and witches simplistically as passive victims to examining them as social agents whose individual strategies for social power merit consideration. 147

288-289). Nevertheless, the exceptions should not be ignored for the insights they offer into this variegated phenomenon. Therefore, since arguments for witch-hunting as synonYffious with woman-hunting, such as those proposed by Barstow and Hester, fail to adequately account for the male victims, Christina Larner's daim that witchcraft was

"sex-related" rather than "sex-specific" seems the most judicious position to take (92).

An examination ofthe way ideology about language functions as an element in witch-hunting presents further evidence ofthe degree to which gender must be factored into the scholarly equation defining European witchcraft. It is hardly surprising that the increase in antifeminist satire witnessed by the fifteenth century should be accompanied by a similar proliferation oftreatises on witchcraft which, according to Levack, proved to be the catalysts for the events ofthe next two centuries (185). Stereotypes ofthe malevolent old woman and the scold existed long before the early modern witch-hunts.

Yet the infrequent legal records addressing witchcraft up until the fifteenth century deal primary with "rituaI sorcery" and "political machinations" rather than with maleficium or diabolism (Levack 185). Only in the fifteenth century did the misogynistic concepts inherent in theology, medicine and natural philosophy, not to mention literature, congeal to create a definitively feminine form for the contemporary witch in the cultural imagination.5 The most obvious evidence to this effect is the gendered title ofthe infamous and frequently cited Continental treatise, the Malleus Maleficarum, first published in 1487.

5 It is important to keep in mind that 1refer here to a general cultural, rather than legal, perspective. As Gaskill points out, "neither statute nor canon law specified who a witch should be, or how they should be known" in England ("Witchcraft in Kent" 262). Furthermore, people who believed in witches and witchcraft could nevertheless in practical situations demonstrate judicious skepticism towards a tendency to judge a suspicious person guilty on the basis ofher or his adherence to stereotypes (262). 148

The history ofEnglish witch-hunting reveals sorne differences from Continental, and even Scottish, hunts. Beyond the fact that the English legal system largely precluded the kind oflarge-scale panics and executions witnessed elsewhere, Thomas and

Macfarlane have also pointed out the limited circulation ofContinental ideas regarding the witches' Sabbat, the English focus on maleficium rather than heretical diaboIism, as weIl as the uniquely English concept ofthe witch's familiar. Nevertheless, while many

English reputed witches fit the description ofthe decrepit, solitary crone invoked by

English treatises and still current today, the English vision ofthe witch shares with the

Continent and Scotland a gendered vision ofwitchcraft.6 Moreover, the English preoccupation with witches' maleficia, focusing on the local, domestic drama of interpersonal aggression, rather than the Continental construction ofa diabolic conspiracy, places attention even more firmly on the witch's speech, her verbal trouble- making and her powerful curse.

The transformation ofthe notion ofa sorceress into the image ofa local scold at a time when antifeminist literature was proliferating draws attention to the ways in which literary images circulated and could be applied in historical settings. Yet, as Anderson laments, literary and institutional attacks on women have frequently been assigned separate categories by scholarship (159). There are sorne scholars who do present an

6 Sharpe offers sorne intriguing evidence that the accusations that brought men and women before a court as witches differed. While men were accused ofmalefic witchcraft, many ofthem frequently disadvantaged by a familiallink to a female witch, a substantial minority, Sharpe suggests, "were accused ofpractices for which women were rarely indicted, like cozenage through witchcraft or the use ofspirits to discover sums ofmoney" (114). Similarly, in chapter 16 ofPart Two (150-155), the authors ofthe Mal/eus Maleficarum suggest that the men who are attracted to witchcraft do so for reasons different from those ofwomen. Their discussion ofarcher-wizards and men who make self-protective spells or charm weapons diverges significantly from their vision ofmalevolent female witches. While the men are also condemned as heretics, the martial context imputes the possibility ofpositive defensive magic, while feminine magic is necessarily an offensive assault. This notion ofdefensiveness is extended in this same context by the authors' references to magic-wielding men as those who use charms to heal the sick, as, essentially, "white magicians" (154). 149 analysis ofhistory that provides literature as evidence ofsocial attitudes. What Sigrid

Brauner does in her analysis ofwitches as shrews in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century

Gennan texts, Deborah Willis, Gareth Roberts and Diane Purkiss offer in terms of

English witchcraft and its treatment in Renaissance and Jacobean drama. Such scholars continuously remind us ofthe influence fiction, from classical mythology to local folklore, could and did have on the narratives developed by both accuser and accused in the drama ofthe trial, as weIl as in the treatises, sennons and pamphlets instigating and resulting from these events. In fact, Roberts challenges his readers by questioning the possibility ofever finding a reality beneath aIl these fictions. He suggests that scholars invoke the "dual categories ofRenaissance 'history' and 'fiction'" but that "in the particular case ofwriting on witchcraft" one only discovers "the uncertainty oftheir distinction from each other" (185). While the scope ofthis dissertation demands that, perforee, the finest examples ofwitchcraft literature, the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramas and the treatises by Reginald Scot and James l, must be left for another monograph, an examination ofsorne medieval material, both documents treating

"historical" witchcraft and literary texts, confinns that anxieties about women and their speech were already nascent in the medieval vision ofthe witch. This constellation of medieval texts also offers new insight into how the gossips and shrews ofmedieval antifeminist satire infonn, indeed even produce, the early modem witch.

Section Two: Constructing the Witch as Shrew

The relationship between the literature that invokes the witch as a character and the texts that use literature to characterize the witch becomes increasingly more complex in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. While the Circean female only steps offthe literary page into legal annals and theological tracts in the fifteenth century, her image has 150 haunted the imaginations ofEuropean writers for centuries. Although authors from

Augustine to the writers ofthe Renaissance treatises on witchcraft have long grappled with the nature ofancient poetic and biblical references to witches-such as Circe, Medea or the Witch ofEndor-as evidence ofthe existence and nature ofwitchcraft, it is the anecdotal evidence drawn from folk narrative, appearing as sermon exempla andfabliaux, that constructed the unique qualities ofthe late medieval and early modem witch. This is particularly evident when one examines the rhetorical strategies ofthe Dominicans,

Kramer and Sprenger, in their popular treatise, the Malleus Maleficarum. Despite its

Continental origins, the Malleus is crucial to this investigation ofthe witch figure because it marks, as Brauner states, a particular watershed in the history ofaIl the witch hunts: these authors were the first to articulate a definitively gendered view ofwitchcraft (31).

Although one must heed Sharpe's waming regarding a wholesale acceptance ofthe uncontested influence and universality ofaIl the beliefs expressed by the Dominicans

(170), and must also recognize the text as a situated document, the work nevertheless provides a lens through which one can see refracted the English, as weIl as Continental, witch as the unruly speaking woman.

Given the emphasis both Continental and Insular historians place on scolding and cursing as the primary indicators ofa woman's diabolical predisposition, it is hardly surprising that polemical characterizations ofthe witch draw on literary depictions of shrews. In her consideration ofthe construction ofthe witch in late medieval and early modem Germany, Sigrid Brauner argues that Kramer and Sprenger use the "bad wife" topos ofmedievallore in order to define witches as creatures govemed by their emotions and camality (36). Reciting a familiar litany ofbiblical, classical and patristic sources, the authors appropriate the proverbial battle ofthe sexes as evidence ofa feminine 151 proclivity for witchcraft. While Medea's violent response to her marital frustrations provides striking proofoffeminine evil, other more innocuous examples, such as

Jerome's tale ofSocrates and Xanthippe and a medieval anecdote (Folktale Type 1365a)

about a man who searches for his drowned wife upstream (in case her contrariness in life persists in death), are also used to establish the danger associated with what the authors term "domination by women" (45).7 Brauner summarizes the Dominicans' view ofthe

link between shrewishness and witchcraft:

Govemed as they are by their emotions, women naturally seek to dominate

their husbands, thereby reversing the divinely ordained hierarchy. If

resisted, they will resort to any means necessary to get their way,

including witchcraft. "Wherefore, it is no wonder that so great a number

ofwitches exist in this sex," concludes the Malleus. (36)

The connection between the shrew and the witch posited by the Malleus finds

sorne remarkable substantiation in the most unique account ofNoah's flood in English

drama, the Newcastle fragment. We retum briefly to the figure ofUxor Noah here,

because the exceptional content ofthis Deluge account throws the diabolical dimensions

ofshrewishness into stark relief. The Newcastle fragment offers a glimpse ofa variant

Deluge story that, as A. J. Mill has authoritatively demonstrated, is a "persistent legend,"

widespread in European art, folklore and literary sources (615).8 Contrary to the

7 Ail the examples listed are found on page 45 ofSummers's edition ofthe Mal/eus. The popular tale ofthe contrary wife strikes me as particularly telling in the context ofa witchcraft manual. Like the traditional swimming ofthe witch, whose floating indicates guilt, the body ofthe shrew demonstrates her innate perversion of"nature" by resisting natural forces.

8 The Newcastle Corpus Christi pageant is tirst mentioned in 1427. The Noah play fragment is the only extant text, pasted on to posterity in a badly corrupted eighteenth-century reprint ofwhat appears to be a sixteenth-century text (Tydeman 28-29). 152 orthodox, biblical view ofNoah's meek wife, there existed from the fourth century onwards a version in which Noah's wife is not only a scoffing unbeliever, but also a dangerous individual who allies herselfwith the forces ofevil to thwart her husband's plans. In this version she first gives her husband a truth-telling potion in order to force him to reveal his secret plans, a plot device commonly called the Devil-Uxor pact.

Furthermore, her reca1citrance is linked to the Devil's attempts to get into the ark in order to sink it. Uxor refuses to enter the ark until her husband curses her out offrustration.

The invocation ofthe Devil, according to the folkloric convention ofdevil-naming, allows the Devil to enter the ark along with Uxor. As Mill indicates, these apocryphal motives appear not only in the Newcastle fragment, but also in a fourteenth-century illustration ofQueen Mary's Psalter considered to be the work ofan English illustrator

(620).9 Mill suggests, noting Noah's cursing demand that Uxor enter the ark in the

Chester play and the element ofsecrecy highlighted by the York play, that the English tradition conceming the stubbornness ofNoah's wife must be viewed in light ofthe folkloric and apocryphal influences presented by the Newcastle fragment (625-626).

Although the degree to which this folkloric background informed the other depictions of

Uxor's rebellion cannot be definitively established, nevertheless, the very existence ofthe

Newcastle fragment presents a vision in which a shrew takes on the dimensions ofa witch and, at the very least, suggests a diabolical subtext in other tales ofshrewishness.

The parallel between Uxor Noah and Eve was introduced long aga when Millicent

Carey suggested that the Devil's role in the Newcastle fragment was analogous to the

9 While not necessarily related to the apocryphal material, Katharine Garvin's "A Note on Noah's Wife" points to the illustration found on p. 66 ofthe Caedmonian manuscript Junius XI as evidence ofa tradition ofUxor's stubbomness that predates the Norman Conquest. 153

Adam and Eve story (77). In the Newcastle fragment the Devil once again plots humanity's destruction through his collaboration with a woman:

Yet trow 1they shall dee-

Thereto 1make a vow:

Ifthey be never so sIee,

To taynt them yet 1 trow.

To Noah's wife will 1wynd,

Gare her believe in me;

ln faith she is my friend,

She is both whunt and sIee. (105-112)10

The susceptibility ofthe ark, like the vuinerability ofEden, lies in the woman's innate openness to the Devil. Traditionai analysis ofEve's role in the Fall identifies her first offense as the folly ofspeaking to the Serpent (Jager 221). Consequently, the contamination ofEden, indeed ofthe postlapsarian world, derives from Eve's permeability, a permeability linked directly to her willingness and desire to speak. The

Newcastle fragment similarly depicts Uxor as open to the Devil's advances and preoccupied by the desire for knowledge.

The two moments ofannunciation in the Newcastle fragment present two very different supematural encounters, a disparity produced as much by the couple's responses as by the contrasting natures ofthe spirits theyencounter. In this version, God sends word ofthe impending flood and instructions to build an ark through an angel. The

10 Ail citations ofthe Newcastle fragment will be drawn from Non-Cycle Plays and Fragments (London: Oxford UP, 1970). Ail quotations shall be identified parenthetically by line number in the text. 154

Devil, intent on foiling those plans, approaches Noah's wife. The opening words ofeach annunciation immediately suggest a study in contrasts. The angel calls Noah to attention:

"Waken, Noah, to me take tent" (39). Whereas the Devillulls the object ofhis attentions in order to insinuate himself: "Rest well, rest well, my own dere dame" (113). The angel 's warning is one that focuses first and foremost on the long-term spiritual significance ofthe impending flood: "Noah, but ifthou hear this thing/ Ever whilst thou live thou shaH repent" (40-41). The Devil instead warns Uxor that her immediate physical life is endangered ifshe obeys her husband:

1come to warn thee ofthy skaith:

1tell thee secretly,

And thou do after thy husband read

Thou and thy children will all be dead,

And that right hastily. (117-121)

The successes ofboth these supernatural agents, 1would posit, rest not only on the convincing delivery oftheir messages, but also on the receptive states ofthe recipients.

Noah and Uxor's initial words contrast as starklyas do their messengers' speeches. Upon being woken Noah reacts defensive1y: "What art thou, for Heaven's King,/--Away,

[awayJ Iwould thou went--/That wakens Noah ofJhis sleeping" (42-44). Uxor, on the other hand, instinctively responds invitingly to her diabolical visitor, "Welcome, bewschere; what is thy name?/ Tyte that thou tell me" (114-115). Linked to this contrast in attitudes is the difference in their initial questions. Noah's question is essentially ontological, inquiring into the nature ofthe being before him. Uxor does not express the same wariness. She identifies her visitor superficially as a "fair sir" (bewschere), requests a formaI introduction and appears unconcerned at his subsequent refusaI to reveal his 155 name (116). Her superficial judgment and consequent blindness to the nature ofthe being before her, is emphasized by the suggestion that even her vision deceives her; the Devil's reference to his "crooked snout" (125) conflicts with Uxor's earlier identification ofher visitor as a "bewschere." With these annunciation sequences the playwright implies that

Uxor is inherently the Devil 's "own dere dame," as he repeatedly calls her (lines 113,

136). The conflict this alliance produces in Uxor's marital relationship is highlighted by

Noah's first words to his wife, echoing the Devil 's greeting: "Rest well, dame, what chear with thee" (148)? Thus, the receptivity ofthe woman, related to her betrayal ofher husband's trust in the pursuit ofher own interest, once again leaves the world vulnerable to the Devil's work.

Given her predisposition, Uxor acts upon the Devil's advice despite her initial reaction to his waming, "Go, devil, how say, for shame" (122). Like Eve, she offers her husband an object for consumption, in this case a drink:, which proves to be his downfall.

Her initial welcoming words to Noah (149-155) are soon revealed to be intentionally seductive as her shrewish antagonism towards her spouse becomes progressively more evident. She demands to know his secret at the cost oftheir friendship:

Noah, bot thou tell me [now]

Whereabout thou wends,

l give God [in Heaven] a vow

We two shall nere be friends. (160-163)

The events sUITounding Noah's revelation ofhis secret plan evoke a staple ofantifeminist thought related to the feminine preoccupation with speech-witness the Wife ofBath's tale ofMidas-that men should keep their secrets from their verbally incontinent wives.

Having obtained the information Uxor further reveals her disregard for her husband. She 156 scoms his ship-building: "Who devil made thee a wright? God give him evil to fayre"

(172). Her final words in this dramatic fragment are, tellingly, a curse on her husband:

By my faith, 1no rake

Whether thou be friend or foe.

The devil ofhell thee take

To ship when thou shaH go. (182-185)

Ironically, given the Devil's promise to Uxor, "To ship when thow shallfayre/ 1shall be

[by] thy side" (138-139), she is the one who will bring the diabolical threat to the ship. A few lines later the playwright once again draws attention to the fundamental differences between husband and wife by making Noah's last words a blessing which could be delivered metatheatrically: "Have good day, both less and mair;/ My blessing with you be" (200-201). Yet, the final words ofthis fragment belong to the Devi!. His closing curse echoes and augments Uxor's apparent instinctive malevolence:

AlI that is gathered in this stead

That will not believe in me,

1pray to Dolphin, prince ofdead,

Scald you all in his lead,

That never a one ofyou thrive nor thee. (202-206)

The curses that frame Noah's blessing consolidate not only a moral and intentional, but also a linguistic, affinity between Uxor and the Devil, one which threats not only a marriage, but, by extension, the whole ofhumankind.

The notion ofa marriage's vulnerability to diabolical contamination through the feminine proclivity for speech also appears as a preoccupation with witches' interferences in other marriages. While the shrewish witch threatens social order with her own 157 rebellion, Kramer and Sprenger suggest that witches also attack the marriages ofothers:

"And truly the most powerful cause which contributes to the increase ofwitches is the woeful rivalry between married folk and unmarried women and men" (45). While the

Dominicans focus on love magic-and the related magical causes ofimpotence, barrenness and miscarriage-as the common instrument ofa witch's malevolence, numerous popular literary examples identify the witch's primary weapon as the insidious power ofspeech. Brauner c1aims, "The witch threatens the divinely ordained social order not only by interrupting procreation, but also by projecting a world tumed upside down in which the prescribed social and gender hierarchies ofthe medieval order are reversed"

(40). Medieval tales treating the theme ofan old witch threatening a happy marriage represent the unnatural woman, depicted significantly as a solitary and post-menopausal woman, perverting a marriage, and the social order this domestic ideal represents, through her speech. 11 The woman permeable to diabolical influences thus also contaminates the world around her.

"The ûld Woman and the Devil" (Folktale Type 1353; Exemplum Type 5361) is a popular medieval folk-narrative used in sermon exempla across Europe, inc1uding

England. 12 A Latin version found in the BL Harley MS 2851 recounts how the Devil, frustrated in his attempts to cause a holy young couple to sin, sends a crafty old woman as his agent. The woman approaches first the young wife, solicitously informing her ofher husband's infidelity and offering to aid the grief-stricken woman with a love potion to

Il Brauner suggests that beyond the hag's repulsiveness as a ref1ection of"moral ugliness" and the "uselessness" implied in her post-menopausal state, the aging ofwitches and bad wives in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries may be due to "the frequent association in texts ofantiquity and the Middle Ages ofold women with magic" (63).

12 Tubach's index identifies this exemplum (Type 5361) in manuscripts ofFrench, Spanish, German, Swedish, Hungarian and British origins. 158 restore her husband's affections. For this potion the woman must provide sorne hair from her husband's beard, a task she must perform that night. Next the crone regales the husband with a similar tale ofhis wife's adultery and warns him that she plans to kill him that night. The husband and wife accept her stories, dissimulate with one another ail evening and, that night, as the wife attempts to cut his beard, the husband kills her using the very scissors with which he thinks she is making an attempt on his life. Her mission accomplished, the old woman goes to collect her reward from the Devil, only to find him terrified to approach her:

When she entreated him to come c1oser, he replied that he wouldn't dare,

fearing that she might perhaps kill him, just as she had killed the good

wife, and added that, not even ifhe had ten years and a legion of

accomplices could he have accomplished what she had brought to

completion in the space ofonly one night. (Brewer 174)

Brauner's work on the early modern polemical and dramatic uses ofthis tale by Luther,

Paul Rebhun and Hans Sachs demonstrates just how the image ofthe recalcitrant wife combines with the figure ofthe malicious hag to portray a feminine susceptibility to diabolical evil in German Protestant thought. 13 With "family unity" as the symbolic microcosm of"social and spiritual stability" the devil-and-old-woman tale type addresses the threatened sanctity of"family, Christian community, and state" (64). Most importantly, the moral ofthis story against credulity towards slander and lies highlights

13 Brauner's chapter on Paul Rebhun presents a fascinating dramatic variation ofthe devil-and-old-woman tale that influences Rebhun's play, Wedding at Cana. A late fifteenth-century anonymous Shrovetide play (Hie hebt an ain guot vasnachtspil, 1494) depicts the hag trying to tum the saintly young lady into a bad wife. (One must recall that Shrovetide was a feast that featured the subject ofthe battle ofthe sexes in its public spectacles.) Thus the witch also sets out to create shrews. 159 that the assault on this symbolic social institution is not waged by magical weapons, but rather by the dangerous speech ofa woman.

Another example ofthe danger posed by an old woman's words is the English version ofa popular Frenchfabliau and Latin exemplum ofOriental arigins (Folktale

Type 1515), Dame Sirith. Preserved in the late thirteenth-century Bodleian MS Digby 86,

Dame Sirith depicts the aged woman as a bawd, a tradition easily incorporated into theories regarding witchcraft, although worthy ofindependent consideration, as weIl. 14

The title ofthe story derives from the character Dame Sirith, an old woman who helps a young cleric seduce a virtuous wife by telling her the tale ofthe weeping bitch. Dame

Sirith suggests that the young wife will share the fate ofher own unfortunate metamorphosed daughter, in reality a dog whose eyes weep from being fed mustard, should the wife resist the advances ofher illicit suitor. This bawd who panders other women, like the trouble-making witch, represents a malevolent, post-menopausal woman, antithetical to the social arder constituted by marriage, who engenders chaos by encouraging wifely rebellion and also by potentially confounding any secure knowledge ofthe patemity ofa woman's offspring. Once again, the bawd achieves her evil goal simply by speaking to the young wife, telling, so to speak, an "old wives' tale."

While the bawd or panderer, regardless ofgender, is commonly depicted as verbally seducing an individual, Dame Sirith merits consideration in relation to the feminine face ofwitchcraft through its invocation ofand play with notions ofwitchcraft and magic. In response to the Cleric's request that, through her "crafftes" and "dedes"

(190), she help him win Margery's consent to an affair, Dame Sirith exclaims:

14 Such an investigation must needs start with Rojas's play, The Celestina, a fifteenth-century Spanish masterpiece in which the character ofCelestina, a witch and bawd, is the focal point ofthe play. 160

Blesse pe, blesse pe, leue knaue!

Leste pou mesauenter haue,

For pis lesing pat is founden

Oppon me, pat am harde ibonden.

!ch am on holi wimon;

On wicchecrafft nout 1ne con,

[...] And bidde mi patemoster and mi crede,

pat Goed hem helpe at hore nede

pat helpen me mi Iifto lede,

[...] (His life and his soule worpe ishend

pat pe to me pis hemde hauep send!) (201-206,209-211,213-214)15

Darne Sirith's insistence on being a holy woman, as opposed to a witch, who relies on reIigious speech-virtuously reciting her patemoster and creed and praying in order to humbly effect changes in the world for those who support her in her impoverished circumstances-is contradicted already by her curse calling down destruction upon the life and soul ofthe man who sent Wilekin to her. Her subsequent agreement to help

Wilekin, on the condition ofhis keeping her actions a secret (237-242), reveals her not only as the bawd she really is, but impIies the potentially diabolical underpinnings ofher activities that she herselfsuggested through her earlier protests:

For al pe world ne wold 1nout

pat Ich were to chapitre ibrout

For none selke werkes.

15 AIl quotations ofDame Sirith are drawn from Bennett and Smithers's Early Middle English Verse and Prose (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968) and will be identified parentheticaIly by line number in the text. 161

Mi iugement were sone igiuen

To ben wip shome somer-driuen

Wip prestes and wip clarkes. (243-248)

Bennett and Smithers's editorial note indicates that both the crimes ofwitchcraft and bauderye (the activities ofpimps and procuresses) were brought before the ecclesiastical court for judgment by an archdeacon or the archbishop ofthe diocese (309-310). They conclude, however, that Dame Sirith's apprehension, "notwithstanding her reference to witchcraft," relates to her role as bawd (310). 1would argue that precisely because of

Dame Sirith's self-defining speech, in which the dichotomy ofthe holy woman and the witch is carefully established, the nature ofthe crime she fears condemnation for remains titillatingly ambiguous.

Given her concem about being accused ofwitchcraft, the tale takes pains to disabuse the audience ofDame Sirith's magical powers. Her address to the dog (279­

281) explicates for the audience the mystery ofthe weeping dog that later convinces the naïve Margery ofher potential fate. In her own words, Dame Sirith uses "a lesing" (a lying tale) and a "gin" (trick) to change the young wife's mind (283,289). Even in her tale to Margery, Dame Sirith, in a defensive move, directs suspicious attention away from herselfby projecting witchcraft onto the amourous cleric: "penne bigon pe clerc to wiche,l And shop mi douter til a biche" (353-354). Therefore it is not fear ofDame

Sirith's magic, but the supematural power imputed by the tale to Wilekin that motivates

Margery to succumb to the seducer's wishes. Dame Sirith has successfully hidden from the audience-including, it would seem, contemporary editors-any evidence of diabolical powers. Her power lies primarily in her use and abuse ofspeech. Accepted into the good wife's home, she spins a tale, over "fies," "bred" and "drinke" (327,329) 162 about her sorrows and offers her advice to the terrified Margery (371-378). Essentially, it

is gossip between women that creates the fissure through which the sacred domestic space

can be penetrated and contaminated. And while Dame Sirith's supernatural powers remain hidden behind her more innocuous verbal strategy, her diabolical intent is luridly revealed in her final command to Wilekin:

And loke pat pou hire tille

And strek out hire peso

God [geue] pe muchel kare

[If] pat pou hire spare,

I>e wile pou mid hire bes. (439-444)

This second last stanza qualifies her final stance as a procuress working for profit by

indicating the malicious pleasure she takes in the act ofviolation she has facilitated.

Appearing in a cultural context which frequently symbolically equates women's bodies

with domestic, even national spaces, the bawd's command that Wilekin "stretch out"

Margery's thighs highlights the way gossip has ruptured both physical and social

boundaries. Margery's verbal openness produces a breach ofher body and the household

it represents. Thus, in her use ofspeech, Dame Sirith reveals herselfto be the willing

agent ofthose forces that delight in perverting the proper order ofthe medieval world.

Revealed in the end as the antithesis ofthe holy woman, Dame Sirith's character takes on

the very diabolical dimensions against which she has protested.

Section Three: Constructing the Witch as Gossip

Another moral, beyond that regarding slander, implicitly communicated by the

Dame Sirith and the devil-and-old-woman tale is a lesson also taught, as Anderson points

out, by Kramer and Sprenger: the company ofother women is dangerous (Anderson 188). 163

Claiming that "where there are women, there are many witches," the Dominicans suggest the threat inherent in a women's gathering:

There was a most notorious witch, who could at aIl times and by a

mere touch bewitch women and cause an abortion. Now the wife of

a certain nobleman in that place had become pregnant and had

engaged a midwife to take care ofher, and had been wamed by the

midwife not to go out ofthe cast1e, and about aIl to be careful not

to hold any speech or conversation with that witch. After sorne

weeks, unmindful ofthat waming, she went out ofthe cast1e to

visit sorne women who were met together on sorne festive occasion;

and when she had sat down for a litt1e, the witch came, and, as iffor

the purpose ofsaluting her, placed both her hands on her stomach;

and suddenly she felt the child moving in pain. Frightened by this,

she retumed home and told the midwife what had happened. Then

the midwife exclaimed: "Alas! you have already lost your child."

And so it proved when her time came; for she gave birth, not to an

entire abortion, but litt1e by litt1e to separate fragments ofits head

and feet and hands. (118)

The danger in women's companionship portrayed in this account ofone witch's malice towards another woman is not merely physical. Although the witch's silent salutation constitutes a physical attack on the pregnant noblewoman, the midwife wams not against physical, but rather against verbal contact with the witch. This narrative incongruity highlights the authors' preoccupation with women's speech. 164

More pressing than the danger ofwitches attacking other women, however, is the threat ofwitches seducing other women to witchcraft. Speech between women, already an object ofsuspicion in medievalliterature and art about gossips, becomes an even greater danger in the context ofwitchcraft beliefs. The degree to which women's speech is emphasized in the section ofthe Malleus dedicated specifically to explaining the link between femininity and witchcraft indicates the danger perceived even in women's casual communications with one another. The authors begin by c1aiming that "there are three things in nature, the Tongue, the Ecc1esiastic, and a Woman, which know no moderation in goodness or vice" (42). Their discussion then proceeds to link the Woman and the

Tongue in order to produce a gendered conception ofwitchcraft, focusing, predictably, only on extreme vice and not on virtue. 16 At one point Sprenger and Kramer explore three feminine qualities believed to make women susceptible to the appeal ofwitchcraft: credulity, impressionability and talkativeness (43-44). The misogynistic appraisal of

Woman's mental qualities, her credulity and mental feebleness (44), relies on a perception ofwomen as irrational, a notion implicitly aligned at this point in Western intellectual history with a sense ofmasculine superiority based tautologically on men's access to the "intellectual refinement" offered by texts. In support oftheir denigration of women's intellectual faculties, the authors invoke Terence, "Women are intellectually

like children;' and Lactantius, "No woman understood philosophy except Temeste" (44).

Both ofthese references are prefaced by a comment that the "logic ofthe authorities"

substantiates their c1aims about women's intellectual inferiority (44). Thus, logic is

explicitly aligned with masculine textual authorities against the devious speaking

16 1continue to use the capitalized term "Woman" to denote Kramer and Sprenger's construction ofa monolithic, unified notion of"womanhood." 165

Woman. In spite ofthis, in the minds ofthese authors the balance ofpower rests not in the authority ofmen with access to privileged texts, but rather in the occult secrets passed orally between women:

The third reason [women are naturally inclined to practice witchcraft] is

that they have slippery tongues, and are unable to conceal from their

fellow-women those things which by evil arts they know; and, since they

are weak, they find an easy and secret manner ofvindicating themselves

by witchcraft. (44)

Working within a cultural tradition that perceives words as the women's primary

weapons, the authors ofthe Malleus inflate the threat posed by female talk commonly

dismissed as the chatter ofgossips. Paradoxically, it is because Woman has been stripped

oflogic and intellectual rigour, essentially relegated to the sphere ofcarnality, that her

speech becomes a threat. Hers is the voice ofpersuasion, appealing viscerally to the

emotions and desires that men, regardless oftheir logical abilities, must struggle to

contain:

Let us consider another property ofhers, the voice. For as she is a

liar by nature, so in her speech she stings while she delights us.

Wherefore her voice is like the song ofthe Sirens, who with their

sweet melody entice the passers-by and kill them. For they kill them

by emptying their purses, consuming their strength, and causing them

to forsake God. Again Valerius says to Rufinus: When she speaks it is

a delight which flavours the sin; the flower oflove is arase, because

under its blossom there are hidden many thorns. See Proverbs V, 3-4:

Her mouth is smoother than oil; that is her speech is afterwards as 166

bitter as absinthium. (46)

While this quotation highlights the peril women's utterances pose to men, little has been made ofKramer and Sprenger's depiction ofwhat they dearly define as women's seductions ofeach other. 17

The Malleus offers numerous examples ofwitches seducing other women.

According to the authors a bath-woman confessed that she "was ordered to seduce" a

"certain devout virgin" by "inviting her to her house on sorne Feast Day, in order that the devil himself, in the forro ofa young man, might speak with her" (97). Later, the authors note that the same bath-woman also confessed that she, too, "had been seduced by sorne old woman" (97). Another young Strasburg virgin tells how an old woman ofher town came to visit her and, "among other scurrilous words," invited her to come meet sorne young men. Crossing herself secretly, the devout virgin thwarts the witch's plans: "At the top ofthe stairs, when we were both standing outside the room, the hag tumed angrily upon me with a horrible countenance, and looking at me said, 'Curse you! Why did you cross yourself? Go away from here. Depart in the name ofthe Devil" (97). Another young girl in Basel daims her aunt attempted to seduce her to the craft by suggesting that she take one offifteen men offered to her as a husband. Upon her refusaI she daims to have been beaten into submission, undergoing a "ceremony" ofmarriage and initiation, the elements ofwhich are left to our imagination (100).

While these accounts play with the folkloric image ofthe bawd, by making the witch the Devil's procuress Kramer and Sprenger also depict witchcraft as a currency

17 Trusting Summers's accurate translation ofthe original Latin, 1 find the frequent employment ofthe tenn "seduction" with reference to activities between women particularly evocative. While the Mal/eus Iimits this female seduction to the homosocial realm, book three ofWeyer's De praestigiis daemonum (1583) plays out more literaI implications by categorically denouncing female homoerotic activity among witches. 167 passed willingly from one woman to another. The Dominicans argue that witches

"increase their numbers" when women call on other women for assistance in redressing a wrong or gaining a desire (98). Moreover, they also posit witchcraft as a matrilineal inheritance:

Finally, we know from experience that the daughters ofwitches are always

suspected ofsimilar practices, as imitators oftheir mothers' crimes; and

that indeed the whole ofa witch's progeny is infected. [...] For how else

could it happen, as it has very often been found, that tender girls ofeight

or ten years have raised up tempests and hailstorms [...]. (144)

While the Mal/eus explains this familial predisposition to witchcraft in terms ofa witch's pact with the Devil, the conceptual use of"infection" suggests a biological, along with a contractual, imperative. Such imagery is hardly surprising since, as Sandy Bardsley indicates, in the face oflate medieval experiences ofthe plague, dangerous speech itself was typically described as "infectious" or "polluting" (40). Thus, situating women's motivations for becoming witches along the same axis ofconcems defined as feminine by other antifeminist literature, such as representations ofthe gossips' libidinal and domestic conversational topics, witchcraft becomes an infection cultured and passed on from mouth to ear in the realm offemale relatives and gossips.

The Mal/eus establishes that the language ofwitchcraft is not only the curse, but also gossip. Robert Muchembled in his examination ofLancre and the witchhunts in southem France terms this an "interlangageféminin," a language ofwoman to woman

(61). Gerhild Scholz Williams's c10sing discussion ofLancre's experience and theory of witchcraft demonstrates just how easily the gossips' circ1e takes on diabolical dimensions, a process facilitated primarily by the cultural ideology conceming women's oral 168 discourse and exclusion from the textual institutions of"preaching, academic writing, the language oflaw and, ironically but significantly, leamed, licit magic" (145):

Hers [the witch's] was a different language [...] a language either

stigmatizing or consoling to those in her care. She passed on to other

women and to female children-Lancre found this to be most horrifying­

the secrets ofthe spinning room and ofthe grottos by the sea, secrets that

in their entirety were never known to men. (145)

Such preoccupations with women's secrets construct women's gatherings in domestic and festive contexts, such as the Feast days that proved to be the undoing ofthe pregnant noblewoman and the young virgin ofStrasburg, as occasions where witchcraft is practiced or passed on to new recruits.

English sources indicate that this notion ofthe witch as gossip established in

Continental witchcraft literature applies equally, ifsomewhat differently, in an Insular context. While English witchcraft trials rarely treated the camivalesque sabbat ascribed to Continental witches-the sabbat being in many ways the grotesque extreme ofthe gossips' or alewives' gathering-English renderings ofwitches nevertheless invoke the notion ofan interlangageféminin. Divorced from the Continental notion ofwitches' covens, historians frequently depict the English witch as the solitary practitioner of maleficium. Yet paradoxically in both literary and legal contexts, this solitary witch, emblem ofaH that is "anti-social, anti-church, anti-nurture and anti-family" (Anderson

172), is repeatedly defined in relation to other women. James Sharpe draws attention to the English legal evidence establishing collaboration among witches:

On a very basic level, we should not be surprised that villagers suffering

from witchcraft should think that their tormentors might act together; 169

indeed despite the notion that the English witch was essentially an

individualistic agent ofevil, early pamphlet accounts often describe three

or so witches cooperating in working evil, while it is not uncommon for

indictments reaching the criminaI courts in the Elizabethan period to

accuse two or three women from the same parish. (76)

In his discussion ofthe interplay between learned and popular culture in early modern

English witch-hunting, Clive Holmes qualifies the historians' claims about the English concept ofthe solitary witch:

The second element ofEnglish popular beliefis to be found in the

assumption that kinship ties often existed among witches. The

divines explained such ties in terms ofsimple propinquity.

Witchcraft, wrote Perkins, was "an art that may be learned" and

therefore those close to the convicted witch-servants, neighbors,

and friends-might also have been seduced. The popular belief

was ofblood relationship, oflineage. (96)

Recalling the Malleus's construction ofan infection passed from the mother to her progeny, English popular beliefs reflect a notion ofpotentially collective witchcraft grounded in familial relationships, but potentially expanding to include other social ties through the verbal dissemination ofthe craft. 18

18 Lucy de Bruyn gives a number ofhistorical and literary examples ofcollective action among English witches. One Scottish example provided by Agnes Tompson's confession depicts a coven celebrating AII­ Hallows Eve with drinking, merry-making and a gossips' carol: "Commer go ye before, commer goe ye,l Gifye will not goe before, commer let me" (de Bruyn 119). De Bruyn's examples also demonstrate the bonds between women witches in literature. In Ane Exclamation maid in England upone the devlyverance ofthe Earle ofNorthumberland Mary Douglas inherits her supematural gifts from her mother (de Bruyn 121). Moreover, de Bruyn's comments also highlight the number ofShakespearean references to women's diabolical collaborations, supplementing Macbeth's Weird Sisters with Queen Elizabeth and Mistress Shore in Richard III and Henry VFs Margery Jourdain and Eleanor Cobham, Duchess ofGloucester (122). 170

The Confessions ofthe Chelmsford Witches (1566) is one piece oflegal evidence depicting witchcraft passing between women through both familial and communal bonds.

Elizabeth Francis, the first woman to be examined, deposed:

First she leamed this art ofwitchcraft at the age oftwelve years ofher

grandmother, whose name was Mother Eve ofHatfield Peverell, deceased.

Item, when she taught it her, she counselled her to renounce God and his

word and to give her blood to Satan (as she termed it), which she

delivered her in the likeness ofa white spotted cat, and taught her to feed

the said cat, with bread and milk, and she did so, also she taught her to

call it by the name Satan and to keep it in a basket. (231)

Beyond supplying Elizabeth with sheep, her diabolical familiar also acts as an agent of

Elizabeth's sexual and marital desires. Significantly, Satan does not always act to

Elizabeth's advantage. The familiar promises her the rich Andrew Byles as a husband if she consents that "he abuse her" prior to marriage (231). Having had his way with her,

Andrew Byles refuses to marry her. Elizabeth tums to her familiar to avenge her by taking the life ofAndrew and to save her from the scandaI ofan illegitimate pregnancy by recommending herbs that help to abort the child. Satan plays panderer once again when he insists that Elizabeth's next potential husband also be able to fomicate with her prior to marriage. While the strategy does result in marriage this time, Elizabeth resorts to witchcraft once again when she finds wedlock unhappy, killing her infant and laming her husband.

After keeping the feline familiar for fifteen or sixteen years, Elizabeth offers Satan to Agnes Waterhouse, a poor neighbour: "whereupon she brought her this cat in her apron and taught her as she was instructed before by her grandmother Eve" (232). Agnes 171

Waterhouse shares the familiar with her daughter, Joan. While never delivering the financial security Elizabeth promised, Satan plays the avenging demon for the two women, working the maleficia typically attributed to village conflict, destroying property and mysteriously harrning neighbours. 19 Agnes Waterhouse supplies one rather unique qualifying characteristic ofwitchcraft:

[Being] required what she did there [in church] she said she did as other

women do, and prayed right heartily there, and when she was demanded

what prayer she said, she answered the Lord's prayer, the Ave Maria, and

the Belief, and then they demanded whether in Latin or in English, and she

said in Latin, and they demanded why she said it not in English but in

Latin, seeing that it was set out by public authority and according to God's

word that all men should pray in the English and mother tongue that they

knew best, and she said that Satan would at no time suffer her to say it in

English, but at all times in Latin [...]. (235)

The art ofwitchcraft passed among women thus results not only in domestic rebellion and the disruption ofthe local community, it also reflects a broader spiritual "perversity" exemplified by Agnes's doctrinal deviance.

The issue at stake in Agnes's confession ofher use ofLatin reflects concerns regarding Catholicism in the newly reforrned Church ofEngland. The association of

Latin and Catholicism in general with witchcraft in England can be seen c1early in John

Bale's play, Three Laws, written only a few years earlier in 1548. In the play BaIe

19 One fascinating aspect ofthis particular trial is that the accused witches do not deny the charges, even insisting on correcting details ofthe accusations brought against them by the twelve year-old, Agnes Brown. Such a development illustrates the point made recently by scholars like Purkiss and Gaskill that we need to examine how accused persons sometimes accepted and used the idea ofthemselves as witches to pursue their own social ends regardless oftheir ultimate successes or failures. 172 depicts Catholicism as an old witch named Idololatria who can, "by sayeinge her Ave

Marye/ And by other charmes of sorcerye" cure toothaches and summon the Devil (413-

414).20 English, along with Continental, Protestants attempted to establish their doctrinal superiority by depicting the language and sacramental mysteries ofthe Catholic Church as idolatrous. Bale's depiction conflates the sacramental power ofthe Catholic Church

(once seen as protection against witchcraft) with the occult power offeminine speech.

His witch works her magic with "whysperynges and whysshynges,l With crossynges and kyssynges,l With blasynges and blessynges" (429-431). Nevertheless, while acknowledging this as the primary context in which to view Agnes's words, one might also consider that her application ofa language still authoritative in secular spheres might participate in a notion articulated by Continental witchhunters who claimed witches further violated social order by gaining knowledge ofprivileged languages, such as Latin and Greek, and leamed traditions.

Knowing without reading, which was thought characteristic ofwitches,

was tantamount to knowing beyond authoritative control and orthodox

hermeneutics. The struggle over access to knowledge-the prohibition

oftexts designated as unsuitable to an uninitiated reading public-was

always a struggle for control over woman and was part ofher

persecution as witch. (Williams 69)

Williams's comment oudines another way in which literacy and orality informed the discourse ofwitchcraft through the juxtaposition ofthe leamed, licit, Renaissance mage

20 AlI quotations ofBale's Three Laws are drawn from Peter Happé's edition, The Complete Works ofJohn Baie vol. 2 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1986) and will be identified parenthetically by line number. 173 whose power rested in his access to philosophical and cabbalistic traditions found in arcane texts and the primitive power ofthe uneducated, ignorant female witch.

Long before the emergence ofJohn Dee with his English and Continental colleagues, however, the spectre ofthe mysteriously textually-empowered woman had been attributed to diabolical agency and thematically related to alliances among women.

The Cistercian abbot, Ralph ofCoggeshall, wrote a chronic1e of"The Witch ofRheims" in the late twelfth century that offers a glimpse ofa female alliance whose power stems from demonic sources. "The Witch ofRheims" reveals the similarity between popular images ofwitches and heretics, a common observation by historians, even ifone must reject J. B. Russell's proposaI ofwitchcraft as one form ofmedieval heresy. This chronic1e offers a provocative example ofhow the struggle over texts and textual authority could have profound consequences for the lives ofwomen.

The chronic1e account starts offin the manner ofa pastourelle: a young c1erk,

Master Gervais ofTilbury, sees a beautiful young woman alone in a vineyard. He approaches her and "in courtly fashion [makes] her a proposaI ofwanton love" (45).

Abashed, she virtuously refuses: "Good youth, the Lord does not desire me ever to be your friend or the friend ofany man, for iflever forsook my virginity and my body had once been defiled, l should most assuredly fall under etemal damnation without hope of recall" (45). Literally "damned ifshe does and damned ifshe doesn't," the young girl's desire to maintain the virtue most prized in women, now "reveals" to the enraged Master

Gervais "that she was one ofthat most impious sect ofPublicans" that the Archbishop was pursuing throughout France with "righteous cruelty" (45).21 The girl's refusaI to

21 While 1 realize that it is the girl's insistence on her etemal damnation that suggests her heresy, one only requires the most superficial familiarity with the lives ofthe female saints and their heroic defenses oftheir 174 consent to what is, at best, illicit sexual congress and, at worst, rape results in her being tried by the Archbishop who, in the presence ofhis clergy, "advanced many scriptural passages and reasonable arguments to confute her error" (45). Admitting that she has

"not yet been weIl enough taught" to refute their leamed accusations (45), the maiden's confession that she has a mistress who could address their objections emphasizes the relationship between the two women as teacher and pupil, a relationship that, as Peters points out elsewhere, is not accounted for in Ralph's conventional summary ofheretical beliefs (Peters 38).

In a scene foreshadowing the plight ofMargery Kempe the second woman's encounter with the Archbishop and his clergy evokes many ofthe issues conceming women's speech:

So, when the girl had disclosed the woman's name and abode, she was

was immediately sought out, found, and haled before the archbishop by

his officiaIs. When she was assailed from aIl sides by the archbishop

himse1f and the clergy with many questions and with texts ofthe Holy

Scriptures which might destroy such error, by perverse interpretation she

so altered aH the texts advanced that it became obvious to everyone that

the spirit of aH error spoke out ofher mouth. Indeed, to the texts and

narratives ofboth the üld and New Testaments which they put to her, she

answered as easily, as much by memory, as though she had mastered a

knowledge ofaH the Scriptures and had been weH trained in this kind

ofresponse, mixing the false with the true and mocking the true

virginity to see enactments, sanctioned by the Church, ofa simi1ar extreme sense ofvirginity as essentia1 to salvation. 175

interpretation ofour faith with a kind ofperverted insight. (45)

Before plunging into an examination ofthe ideological aspects ofthis fascinating passage, it is crucial to emphasize again the stakes ofthis theological debate. Regardless oftheological questions conceming venial and mortal sin, or the nature ofDivine Grace, these women are arguing essentially for the right to their own bodies. They pose not only a spiritual threat by their heresy, but also a social threat in their refusaI to participate in society's sexual economy. This insistence on sexual autonomy, the right to self­ determination in the pursuit oftheir desires, be they camaI or saintly, is the constant preoccupation ofgossips and shrews. In this instance, as weIl, a woman's challenge to sexual norms is uniquely depicted as a collaboration among women. Regardless ofthe sexual constituency ofthe sect ofPublicans to which these women allegedly belong, this tale oftwo women who challenge men's sexual and textual authority evokes for an audience familiar with antifeminist tradition a world in which a feminine counter­ discursive sphere, defined as ignorant, successfully challenges the masculine, distinctly textual, tradition that seeks to impose itself, in this case both literally and figuratively, on women. Consider the outcome ifthe women acquiesce to the Archbishop's "orthodox" position. Conceding that illicit sex does not etemally damn their souls, leaves these women little defense against the sexual demands ofmen in a society where, precisely because ofthe social and theological value placed on virginity, such acquiescence damns them socially, ifnot spiritually.

The description ofthe woman's defense in the debate applies many ofthe principles ofa gendered linguistic ideology that finds its most dramatic examples in the historical person ofMargery and Chaucer's fictional creature, the Wife ofBath. Like

Margery, the woman confounds her interrogators with her unwarranted ability to operate 176 within their textual realm, by participating in arguments which presuppose a familiarity with Scripture and the use ofreasoning uncommon to most laypersons, not to mention most women, in the Catholic Middle Ages. The image ofthe woman "assailed on aIl sides" by texts and academic argumentation, is transformed as the clerics recognize in this

(presumably) laywoman traits uncharacteristic (to their minds) ofthe female sex:

"mastery" over texts and "training" in textual discourse.22 The danger she poses, however, is a hazard long associated, as Jager has shown, with orality. Her "perverted insight," her mixture offalsity and truth suggests the doctrinal contamination Alcuin feared accompanied oral tradition, a corrupting force associated early on in English monastic culture with pagans, heretics and women (Jager 148-149). The clerics' evaluation ofher "perverse interpretation" foreshadows the interpretive strategies

Chaucer uses to characterize his Wife ofBath.

The clergy's reaction casts a new, ifpartly familiar, light on this articulate woman.

In the face ofher effective arguments and convictions, as in the case ofMargery, the clerics question the nature ofher inspiration. In this case, the conclusion is definitive.

The persuasive woman is considered a diabolical version ofa mystic, acting as a channel for the "spirit oferror" to speak out ofher mouth. This conclusion literalizes the conventional image ofEve and her female offspring as the mouthpieces ofthe Devil that we see so frequently in misogynistic literature, as in the Malleus Maleficarum. Her diabolical aid is "proven" by her remarkable escape from prison. Keeping one end of thread in her hands, the woman throws a baIl ofthread out a large window, crying loudly,

22 The comment on the woman's remarkable memory, an attribute long associated with oral tradition, makes more sense in Iight ofMary Carruthers' work on mnemonics in medieval scribal culture. Moreover, the role ofmemory as part of"masculine" tradition is highlighted in a statement made in the Mal/eus that "women also have weak memories and it is a natural vice in them not to be disciplined," a claim only too similar to the attitudes ofthe cleric writing this chronicle episode centuries earlier (45). 177

"Catch" (47). The witnesses conc1ude: "At the word, she was lifted from the earth before everyone's eyes and followed the baIl out the window in rapid flight, sustained we believe, by the ministry ofthe evil spirits who once caught Simon Magus up into the air

(47). Her student, on the other hand, dies unrepentant, enduring "the agony ofthe conflagration steadfastly and eagerly" in a perverse imitation ofChristian martyrs (47).

Even the virginity this young woman so adamantly defended is not vouchsafed her in the end. In the chronic1e's c10sing description ofthe Publicans, the litany ofaccusations, charges that, as Richards and others argue, have been leveled at marginal social groups from the Early Church ofRoman times, to the heretics, Jews and lepers ofthe Middle

Ages, hastens to inc1ude that this sect preaches virginity, "as a coyer for their lasciviousness" (Rheims 47). These abominations, the chronic1er conc1udes in spite, or perhaps because, ofthe account he has just given, are due to the fact that these sectarians are "countryfolk and so cannot be overcome by rational argument, corrected by scriptural texts, or swayed by persuasions" (47). In this story, as in the ones that follow in the age ofthe witchhunts, women are perceived to nurture between themselves the irrational, oral, lascivious aspects ofthe human character, the aspects that act, to draw on the imagery ofthe witch's escape, as the portholes for diabolical evil.

Section Four: The Diabolical Gossips' Circ1e

The references to communal and collaborative activity that frequently inform even the conventionally solitary witch ofEnglish tradition suggest that her solitude stems not from an absolute social isolation, but from her extrication from the patriarchal network of alliances that traditionally defined women. The witch's attack on society makes her a logical participant in the female sphere, the gossips' circ1e, antithetical to social order, whose interlangageféminin counters the textuaI discourse directed against women and 178 their alleged aims. In fact, the witch, as a demonized gossip, becomes the ultimate opponent ofthe satirist narrator, countering his textual maneuvers with her powers of speech. This incorporation ofwitches into the broad literary framework ofa battle between the sexes for social control finds its most extreme expression in the Malleus's apocalyptic image ofan invading army offemale witches, constituted primarily by domineering wives and concubines, whose primary aim is to destroy Christianity

(Brauner 42). As Dresen-Coenders states in her examination ofimages ofwomen in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century visual art, the threat ofthe gossips' circle carried with it a potentially diabolical undercurrent:

There is also the fear ofthe whole "women's network" which excludes

men as it does. This does not only hold with regard to midwives, women

who run brothels and marriage-brokers, but also when it cornes to the

covert information and gossip network ofwomen among themselves.

Women's talkativeness, which makes them incapable ofkeeping secrets, is

frequently cited in connection with their predisposition to witchcraft. (63)

Citing the images in medieval English art and architecture, Bardsley comments that the frequent grouping ofwomen and devils underscored the association in medieval culture of"things female and things evil or diabolical," making women's space a potentially dangerous space (122). In commenting on the dearth ofsabbats in the English witchcraft tradition Patricia Anderson observes that the English gossips' circle replaces the

Continental and Scottish witches' sabbat by representing "domesticity as diabolic" (44).

Sabbats did appear in later and more large-scale English witchhunts. Regardless ofwhether these English accounts are an aberration due to Continental influences or not, what is remarkable about them, as with the Scottish tradition ofwitches' sabbats, is that 179 they resemble gossips' convivial gatherings more than the orgiastic debauchery depicted in Continental testimonies. Sharpe's descriptions ofseventeenth-century English sabbats delineate gatherings for feasting and discussion more frequently than cannibalistic and erotic rites ofdevil-worship. The first approximation to a sabbat in England was a description in the 1612 Lancashire trials ofa meeting ofaccused witches to "discuss the best defensive tactics" against official accusations-a common preoccupation of gossips-on a "great festivall day" solemnized by "great cheare, merry company and much conference" (Sharpe 76-77). Other testimonies describe witches feasting on meat and bread, butter and milk (Sharpe 78). Moreover, although many Scottish witch-beliefs tended to align with Continental ideology, Christina Lamer points out that in one aspect, the sabbat, Scottish beliefs had more in common with English than with Continental witchcraft traditions:

The witches' communal occasions were relatively non-horrific. On the

whole Scottish witches' meetings were similar to the very few English

ones which were reported. They were jollifications ofeating, drinking,

and dancing ofwhich in Scotland at least peasants were in real life

deprived. (200)

On the one hand, such an Insular tradition tempers the obscenities ofContinental witchcraft accusations. On the other hand, such a modification imbues, as Anderson has pointed out, the mundane scenes ofgossips' gatherings with diabolical implications.

John Skelton's poem, The Tunnyng ofElynour Rummynge, is another example of satire about a women's gathering which invokes gendered discursive distinctions and levels conventional moral accusations against the gossips. What makes Skelton's poem remarkable, aside from the extraordinary viciousness ofhis descriptions ofaging 180 wornen's bodies, is the way he insinuates a diabolical elernent into this domestic setting.

Skelton's poem manifests the continuum between the gossip, the shrew, and the witch in its descriptions ofElynour Rummynge and the women who gather around her. These

"clatterynge" women, with their excessive physicality, are then set up in contrast not to other more refined women, but to the poet laureate, Skelton.

Although not explicitly an eavesdropping poem, Skelton's Tunnyng ofElynour

Rummynge, participates in the tradition both formal1y and ideologically. Most editors have noted the verbal parallels between Skelton's satire and the "Gossips' Gathering" carol (Greene 467). The summoning ofthe women by name in Skelton's poem echoes a similar invocation offemale names introducing the earlier carol:

Come who so wyl1

To Elynour on the hyl1,

With, 'Fyll the cup, fyll!'

And syt there by styl1,

Erly and late,

Thyther cometh Kate,

Cyslyand Sare (114-119i3

Moreover, while it is not my intention to suggest the carol as a source, its influence is nevertheless obvious in one other passage.24 The lines dealing with sorne ofthe wornen's atternpts to keep their destination secret evoke sentiments expressed in the carol.

23 AIl citations ofthis poem are drawn from John Skelton: The Complete English Poems edited by John Scattergood (New Haven: Yale UP, 1983) and will be identified by line number in the body ofthe text. Citations ofSkelton's colophon (translated by Scattergood) and Scattergood's notes to the text will be identified by page number.

24 In John Skelton, Poet ofTudor England, Maurice Pollet argues for the "Gossips' Gathering" carol as a source. 181

Sorne go streyght thyder,

Be it slaty or slyder;

They holde the hye waye,

They care not what men saye!

Be that as be maye;

Sorne lothe to be espyde,

Sorne start in at the backe syde,

Over the hedge and pale,

And aIl for good ale. (257-265)

In this stanza we find a juxtaposition ofwomen who fear detection and those who flaunt their transgressions. The "Gossips' Gathering" similarly describes the routes the women take to avoid discovery. Likewise the carol features women like Alis, who "dred[s] no man" (Greene 250). Just as Skelton's more brazen women "care not what men say," the gossips also do not concem themselves with male opinion. They state: "Whatsoever any man thynk,l We corn for nought but good drynk (Greene 251). The emphasis on "good ale" as the women's objective in this particular stanza further consolidates the similarity between the two texts.

Like eavesdropping poems and gossips' lore like the Gospelle ofDystaves, which include scribal witnesses, The Tunnyng ofElynour Rummynge presents a situation in which a disembodied male narrator gives an account ofspeaking, embodied women. This poem is perhaps the most extreme example ofthis juxtaposition. We find evidence that the narrator is male even before Skelton identifies himselfin the colophon. In two instances the narrative signaIs the gender ofthe narrator by the perspective offered on the women. In the opening stanza the narrator claims that Elynour's "vysage/ [...] woldt 182 aswage/ A mannes courage (9-11). More convincing still is the contemplation ofMaude

Ruggy as a "bedfellaw" and the c1aim that she "[w]old make one cast his craw" (489).

The consideration ofthe women as sexual objects and potential sexual partners signaIs the gender ofboth the narrator and the intended audience despite Skelton's c1aim in the colophon that he writes the satire for the edification ofdeviant women. There are also sorne suggestions that Skelton's narrator is a conventional male witness, as in gossips' lore. Near the end ofthe satire, an anomalous pronoun places the narrator as a character in the festivities. When the "prycke-me-denty" rises and calls for Elynour the narrator states, "We supposed, iwys,lthat she rose to pys" (my emphasis 594-595). This inclusion ofthe narrator as a participant ofsorts is reiterated in Skelton's colophon in which he c1aims with reference to the gathering ofwomen: "1 recall it well" (452). Yet, with no other references to the narrator to locate him as an agent in the dramatic action (as a physical presence in the role ofeavesdropper or scribe) this narrator is an example ofthe most disembodied voice possible. Significantly, the only reference to the narrator's body is a comment that draws attention to his alignment with textuality: "God gyve it yU hayle,l For my fyngers ytche./ 1have wrytten so mytche" (617-19). In a strategy that parallels Dunbar's final references to his pen, the poet ends the satire with a juxtaposition ofmale textuality with the feminine qualities that are the subject ofthe poem.

Ifthe narrator represents an exaggerated example ofthe disembodied male narrator, the female characters are represented as little more than grotesque bodies. The degree to which the female body, and more specifically the aging female body, remains a primary focus in a poem reputedly about the social transgressions oflower c1ass women demonstrates the ways in which the female body is conflated with the social body.

Skelton conveys his disgust at the permeability ofsocial boundaries suggested by these 183 rebellious women with his portrayal oftheir leaking, decaying bodies. The pursuit of pleasure that leads these women to resist containment in their households is linked to both ideological and physiological rupture. Their desire for conviviality constitutes an attack on the institution ofmarriage and the household. At a time when a woman's primary responsibility was household management the gossips' offerings ofhousehold items

(dishes, platters, thread, honey, a good brass pan, clothes, hatchets, lace, pillows, spinning wheels, to name just a few) signity an attack on the financial solvency oftheir respective homes. Moreover, the gossips are represented as working for their own private gain, rather than that ofthe household:

Sorne fyll theyr pot full

Ofgood Lemster woll.

An huswyfe oftrust

Whan she is athrust,

Suche a webbe can spyn

Her thryfte is full thyn. (251-256)

The poem does not hesitate to remind its audience that other people, namely husbands, are hurt by the gossips' gluttony. The women go so far as to dispose oftheir husbands' personal goods (hood, cap, hat and gown) in exchange for ale. The attack on marriage that their actions represent, the implicit challenge to the institution which is supposed to define these women, is best conveyed by the fact that one woman offers her "weddynge rynge" as payment for her "scot" (280-281).

The refusaI to be contained signaled by the gossips' gathering is further illustrated by the extreme physicality ofthe women. Their very bodies defy constriction and concealment by their clothing: 184

Sorne wenches come unlaced,

Sorne huswyves come unbrased,

Wyth theyr naked pappes,

That flyppes and flappes,

It wygges and it wagges

Lyke tawny saffron bagges;

[...] Sorne have no herelace,

Theyr lockes aboute theyr face,

Theyr tresses untrust,

AlI full ofunlust [repulsiveness] (133-138; 145-148)

This passage redefines conventional symbols offeminine sexual appeal, breasts and flowing hair, as repugnant. Even more disturbing than the ridiculing and constant anatomizing gaze directed at aging women's exposed bodies is the poem's preoccupation with bodily excretions. Elynour's "lewde lyppes twayne [...] slaver, men sayne,/ Lyke a ropy rayne" (22-24). Her crooked nose is "ever droppynge" (30). The women who gather are "scurvy with scabbes" (140). Sorne women run "tyll they swete" (266). One foams at the mouth (341). Like the hens whose dung falls into the ale, the women also defile the tavem with their excrement. Ales, one ofthe drunks, "pyst where she stood"

(373). Her subsequent weeping (374) adds another bodily fluid to the list. In his description ofthe pigs mingling with the women, Skelton hints at further taboo acts. The narrative shifts from a description ofa boar rubbing his rump against a bench (177-179) to an exclamation: "'Fo, ther is a stenche!l Gather up, thou wenche.l Seest thou not what is faIl?'" (180-182). Havingjust paralleled the women who want ale for free and the swine which have consumed Elynour's "draffe" (171) and the contents ofher "swyllyng 185 tubbe" (173), Skelton's omission ofthe dung's source suggests that the originator could have been the wench as easily as the hog. In another metonymic maneuver, Skelton describes Margery Mylkeducke pulling a pungent "cantell ofEssex cheese [...] [f]ull of magottes quycke" out from between her legs under her skirt (429; 431). The polluting and polluted bodies presented in this satire suggest that these gossips soil not only their immediate environment, but, in fact, contaminate the whole social body.

As the examples ofthe dung and the stinking cheese illustrate, Skelton effectively uses the sense ofsmell to further disgust his audience. The horrid smells that exude from the women's bodies not only confirm their external filth, but also allude to further internaI decay. Early in the poem Skelton describes the women as "rotten eggs" (152). This idea ofinner rot returns in the repeated allusions to the women's bad breath. In the fourth passus the "testy" Jone insults another woman, described as a "foule slut" (340), by asserting that "she had eten a fyest [fouI smell]" (343). "By Chryst," she responds, "thou lyest./ 1have as swete a breth/ As thou" (344-46). Another woman, who brings "rank" meat as her offering is also described as having breath that "strongely stanke" (541).

Most effective, however, is Skelton's description ofMaude Ruggy:

Her brethe was soure and stale

And smelled aIl ofale.

Such a bedfellaw

Wold make one cast his craw. (486-489)

By forcing his audience members to envision such an intimate proximity, Skelton ensures their revulsion. The ill winds that issue from these women's mouths suggest their rottenness both literally and metaphorically. 186

There is something else that issues from the mouths ofthese women that confirms their degenerate natures: their speech. As Skelton's colophon explicitly states, the women are defined not only by their moral and physical sordidness, but also by their speech habits: "AlI women who are either very fond ofdrinking, or who bear the dirty stain offilth, or who have the sordid blemish ofsqualor, or who are marked out by garrulous loquacity, the poet invites to listen to this little satire" (452). While this statement purports to address specific types ofwomen, Skelton's next line reiterates precisely the same sentiment but omits the coordinating conjunction, uniting the four qualities and applying them to a singular, universal womanhood: "Drunken, filthy, sordid, gossiping woman [...] this little satire will willingly record her deeds" (my emphasis

452). In a poem so preoccupied with the expression ofbodily fluids, the women's utterances can be characterized as another form ofexcremental filth.

The women's speech acts are instances ofnonsense and deviance. Just as the women are identified and interchanged with bamyard animaIs in terms oftheir gluttony, their speech is conflated with inarticulate animal noises. The old woman who falls and exposes her "token [...] yelled lyke a calfe" (497,500). Skelton's inteIjection of"'quake, quake,' sayd the duck" into the middle ofElynour's subsequent chiding acts as a bamyard commentary on her speech (505). The notion ofinarticulateness is carried beyond the animal references to suggest a verbal incontinence through speech impediments:

Another brought a spycke

Ofa bacon flycke;

Her tonge was very quycke

But she spake somewhat thycke,

Her felowe dyd stammer and stut, 187

But she was a foule slut,

For her mouth fomyd (335-341)

The first woman's quick tongue is rendered ridiculous by her inability to articulate her words. The second woman's foaming mouth physically parallels her stuttering and relates, in the opinion ofthe satirist, to her moral nature. Along with incomprehensible speech, we find plenty ofnonsense traditionally associated with women's gatherings.

Skelton presents the women's conversation in conventionally derogatory terms: "Nowe in cometh another rabell;/ [...] And there began a fabell,l A clatterynge and a babell"

(382; 386-387). Deborah Wyrick notes the coarse proverbial expressions sprinkled throughout the poem echoing traditional English alewife lore (244). Naturally, the women are also depicted singing drinking songs:

With, 'Hey,' and with, "Howe,

Syt we downe arowe

And drynke tyll we blowe,

And pype tyrly-tirlowe!' (289-292)

Inevitably they are also depicted gossiping. Drunken Ales is "full oftales" and

"tydynges" (352,353). Moreover, among these innocuous offenses are speech acts that count definitively as social and moral transgressions. The argument that erupts between

Jone and the stuttering woman quoted earlier (343-350) is an example ofthe quarrelling considered common among women. In addition, on two occasions the women swear.

One guest swears "by the Rode ofRest" (271). Genet swears by "Saint Benet" (393).

Thus, the noise, nonsense and verbal deviance aIl work to define these women as the raucous participants in a degenerate oral realm. 188

This familiar gendering ofdiscursive realms, where the literate male narrator records the antics oforal femininity, plays out explicitly in Skelton's colophon. In his colophon Skelton outlines the dimensions ofthe discursive battlefield. In his opening sentence he introduces himselfas "Skelton the laureate poet" (452). His concluding sentence presents him as the god ofpoetry, Apollo (452). The confrontation between a male symbol ofpoetry and dangerous, irrational, cacophonous femininity finds a classical prototype in the story ofOrpheus and the Maenads. This, then, is to be a similar battle between Apollo and bacchantic gossips. The terms ofthe skirmish are clearly delineated.

"Jealous man" requires a champion to quite the verbal offenses committed by rebellious womanhood. Skelton adopts the voice ofthe woman to portray this convivial challenge:

"Jealous man, however mad you are and however you waste away in your vanity, we sing; these places are full ofjests" (452). In response to the singing and jesting among the women, "Apollo, sounding his lyre, will sing the theme oflaughter in a hoarse song"

(452). The Apollonian 'high art' response to the gossips adopts the same terms, song and laughter, as the gossips' illiterate conviviality.

The similar tactics help to illuminate why the ludicrous juxtaposition ofmasculine godhead and squalid, lower class womanhood would be deemed an acceptable match in this competition. Just as in the Dunbar poem, although the poet seeks to gain the advantage by claiming textuaI superiority, the satire itselfrelies on oral terms. The poet depicts himselfas Apollo, the god oflyric poetry, singing his accusations. Moreover, the formaI characteristics ofthe poem invoke oral compositional techniques. In his notes to the poem, John Scattergood points out that the opening lines ofthe text, "Tell you 1 chyll,l Ifthat ye wylll A whyle be styll" (1-3), along with various transitions and the conclusion "make mocking imitation ofthe minstrel intrusions ofmedieval oral verse" 189

(449). The transitions demand the audience's attention, "Abyde, Abyde,l And to you shall be tolde" (156-157), or draw attention to a redirection ofthe narrative:

To cease me it semeth best,

And ofthis tale to rest,

And for to leve this letter,

Bicause it is no better;

And bicause it is no swetter,

We wyll no farther ryme

Ofit at this tyme.

But we wyll turne playne

Where we left agayne. (235-243)

These minstrel intrusions work on three levels. First, they continually remind the audience ofthe narrator's presence and consequently ofhis stance towards his subject matter, a useful satirical device. Second, given the verbal incontinence attributed to the women, the minstrel intrusions refusing to discuss certain sexual details signal his verbal self-control. His overt refusaIs to indulge in a gratuitous consideration ofElynour and her husband in bed (quoted above) or a doser examination ofthe "old rybybe's" exposed

"token" (495-499) draw attention to the narrator's verbal and moral restraint. Third, the minstrel style satirizes the women and their communication by invoking oral techniques.

Scattergood's assumption that Skelton's use ofmedieval oral verse is necessarily mocking certainly demonstrates how oral composition has fallen in the estimation of much ofcontemporary scholarship. Scattergood's implication that a poet ofSkelton's stature could only use oral techniques in jest overlooks the heuristic and ritualistic functions oforality in satire 1established in chapter one. Skelton's mockery oforal 190 composition is not demonstrated merely by the presence oforal formulas. It is established by the intertexual reference to the women's convivial song: "Hey [...] Howe/

Syt we downe arowe/ And drynke tyll we blowe,l and pype tyrly-tylowe" (289-293). The similarities between the poet's song and the songs ofcreatures whose utterances are consistently denigrated suggest Skelton's mocking intent. Like the pedant who engages in a flyting with a fishwife, the poet uses a genre associated with alewives to compete with them and attack them. Yet, while the pedant or poet can use such material and still identify with scholasticism or the god oflyric poetry, the women are inevitably defined by the language and forms they use. The paradoxical stance ofa text that uses orality to attack a femininity associated with orality thus defines these women as dangerous.

The Tunnyng ofElynour Rummynge introduces a new element in the conventional character ofthe dangerous speaking woman: the association ofthe gossip with the witch.

R. L. Greene's introductory comments in A Selection ofEnglish Carols maintain that few writers treating the carol genre have recognized its association with witchcraft, although most acknowledge its connection to the wanton singing and dancing condemned by churchmen (17). The link between the "wanton" convivial activities ofgossips and those ofwitches becomes most apparent when one considers that caroling was often among the activities confessed by Scottish persons accused ofwitchcraft in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Selection 18). The similar behavior ofthe gossip and the witch should alert readers to the supematural elements present in poems such as Skelton's satire.

There are several passages in the Tunnyng which suggest the diabolical undertones ofthe gossips' gathering. After ninety lines describing her repulsive appearance, the narrator finally identifies Elynour Rummynge by name and location 191 before moving onto the details ofhis tale. However, a couplet that follows her identification and precedes the action presents an intriguing addendum to the earlier description: "She is a tonnysh gyb;/ the devil and she be syb" (98-99). Had this comment been located in the opening ninety descriptive lines ofthe poem which use both bestial and racial imagery to identify Elynour as Other, the reference to the devil might pass as another metaphorical elaboration. While Elynour may look like a "Sarasyn" (74) and an

"Egypcyan" (78) the audience understands that she is neither. Outside ofthis allusive context, however, the statement that she is the "syb" ofthe devil takes on an eerily factual connotation.

Elynour's account ofher brewing provides further evidence to substantiate the diabolical implication. The image ofthe hideous, aged Elynour stirring chicken dung into her brewing pot is indistinguishable from the image ofthe witch leaning over her cauldron. Moreover, Elynour also applies a principle conventionally attributed to maleficium: the use oftaboo materials, such as bodily excretions, for magical ends.

Elynour extols her liquor's ability to make a woman appear younger and attract loyers.

On the surface this is an amusing reference to the lascivious effects ofliquor.

Nevertheless, framed in the context Elynour's character and personal history the reference to magic gains more significance. Essentially, Elynour daims she uses excrement for love magic to ostensibly prevent aging, thereby securing her husband's continued attention:

'Gossyp, come hyder,

This ale shal be thycker, [...]

For 1may tell you,

1lemed it ofa Jew, 192

Whan 1began to brewe, [...]

It shal make you loke

y onger than ye be

Yeres two or thre,

For ye may praye it by me.'

'Behold,' she sayd, 'and se

How bright 1am ofble!

Ich am not cast away,

That can my husband say [...] (204-205, 207-209, 213-219)

The reason behind the ambivalence ofElynour's magical potion is that her source for this recipe confirms the more serious, occult and unchristian nature ofher action. Medieval anti-Semitism conceived ofJews as an alien community within Christendom and antagonistic to it. The occult practices and malevolence attributed to medieval and early modem Jews not only parallels the accusations leveled at other historical heretical groups during these times, but also contributed to the construction ofimaginary enemies within, such as witches. Medieval drama and literature often identified the Jews with the devil.

In addition, Jews held an international reputation for the practice ofmagic (NewellI08).

The allegations ofritual rnurder, child sacrifice, and cannibalism that are part ofthe

Continental witchcraft trials were also leveled at Jews. Additionally, the application of

Jewish concepts such as "sabbat" and "synagogue" to witches' gatherings demonstrates the ideological kinship attributed to these two alleged social threats.

Venetia Newell's discussion ofthe folkloric links between Jews and witches highlights sorne striking similarities to the characters depicted in Skelton's poem: "In medieval folk tradition, and later, the Jews, rnuch like the witches, were held to be ugly, 193 malodorous, blind, defonned or mal-functioning in sorne respect" (l 05). Furthennore, the qualities that link Elynour to the Jew stereotype also link her directly to the ultimate

Other, the Devil. The Devil in folkloric tradition is often identified by the stench that accompanies him and occasionally appears in the guise ofthe dark-skinned Other, such as the Oriental appearance attributed to Elynour. 25 Elynour's hideous and pungent companions, her casual reference to her tutelage under a Jew, the implied nature ofher brewing-Iessons and the allusions relating her to the Devil, thus represent a dangerous fissure in her otherwise ridiculous, and therefore unthreatening, appearance. This crack makes explicit momentarily the diabolical undercurrents in the gathering ofthe gossips.

Recognizing the demonic implications in a poem long hailed as a display ofverbal comic virtuosity devoid ofmoral or intellectual intentions (recalling similar critical assessments ofDunbar's antifeminist masterpiece) allows readers to explore the undersides ofthe conventions that infonn the poem and that typically have lulled critics into complacency. Deborah Wyrick's article on Skelton's poem suggests how conventional depictions offemale vices combine, creating the outline ofwitchcraft.

According to Wyrick:

In the slippery schemata ofmedieval allegorization, the vielle ofthe

querelle des femmes-the unsavory descendant ofEve-was classified

within a spectrum ofinterlocking figures including Eve herself, the

female-headed Satanic serpent, Synagoga, and Luxuria. [...] The bad

woman was an active force ofevil, capable ofbringing ruin and damnation

25 These characteristics are among the many others identified by Joan Young Gregg in her exploration of the Other in sermon exempta. See page 187 for a reference to the stench that marked the devil. References to the devils' dark or black skin can be found in the following exempta: DIS, D19, D22, D26, and Wl (where they are referred to as "little black men ofIndia"). On page 240, notes 18 and 20 offer examples of the conflation ofdevils with Moorish, Ethiopian, and Indian men. 194

to others. One can see this deepening ofmoral implication in the visual

arts, too. Both Bosch's Bruja and Brueghel's DulIe Oriet, attended by

humorous folkloric figures and by openly Satanic minions, personify a

diabolical tribe ofwomen who have come to terms with the devil.

(245-246)

Like Uxor Noah, the way in which these daughters ofEve come to terms with the Devil is through the vices ofpride and gluttony.

In the first halfofthe twentieth century, William Nelson set himself apart from the majority's opinion on Skelton by hinting that Elynour's description exemplifies the effects ofgluttony. Wyrick's exploration ofthe poem suggests that the poet incorporates the complete tradition ofthe cardinal vices in this text. Nevertheless, she admits that

"gluttony and pride are the warp and woofofthe moralizing pattern" in Skelton's "poetic fabric" (251). Oluttony is easily discernable in this poem. Rather than replicate Wyrick's analysis, a briefsummary ofher observations (found on pages 247-248) will serve to highlight the most pertinent points. Who better to personify the vice ofthe flesh but an alewife? The emphasis on physicality, along with the physiognomic indicators ofthis sin in the descriptions ofthe women's bodies, not to mention the reference to the pig, a common symbol ofgluttony, aIl combine to highlight the vice inherent in the general atmosphere ofexcess and consumption. One need not rely only on Elynour's self­ advertisement in the second passus (205-218) to recognize the vice ofpride in her character. The last halfofthe prologue is devoted to a description ofElynour's garb: her

"furred flocket, / And graye russet rocket" (53), "Her huke ofLyncole grene" (56), "her gytes / Stytched and pranked with pIetes; / Her kyrtle Brystow-red" (68-700, her turban

"Wrythen in wonder wyse" (73) and her "payre ofheles / As brode as two wheles" (83- 195

84). Like the Wife ofBath, Elynour takes pleasure in the ostentatiousness ofher apparel:

"She thynketh her selfe gaye / Upon the holy daye, / What she doth her array" (65-67).

She leaves her domestic realm "[her] selfe for to shewe" (81). According to Wyrick such

"poetic concentrations illuminate Elynour's intimate connection with the sin ofpride," because by the fifteenth century "pride's most common attribute was the inordinate love ofelaborate dress" (248).

Wyrick's attempt to unravel the relationship that these vices have to witchcraft falters somewhat in that her references to witchcraft apply Continental witch beliefs, particularly the link between witchcraft and heresy, whose influence on Skelton, an

English poet, have yet to be proven. While casting Elynour as a "heretical celebrant ofan inverted religious rite" (249-250) exceeds the interpretive frame required by the poem's historical and geographical contexts, the camivalesque treatment ofreligion in the text c1early does highlight the topsy-turvy world ofthe gossips. In addition to folkloric references to sorcery-Wyrick indicates that "Lyncole green" is associated with the Devil and Elynour's gypsy apparel hints at sorcery (249)-there are signs that demonstrate that the wives reject not only their domestic roles, but also the institution that has established them, the Catholic Church. The blasphemous communion Elynour offers "dronken Ales" when she "blessed her with a cup" (377), a cup ofale in which the poet specifies that Ales finds no "thornes" (379), appears in medieval camival tradition long before the invention ofthe witches' Black Mass. The camivalesque conflation ofthe earthly and the divine is also illustrated by the women's offerings:

Another brought her garlyke hedes;

Another brought her bedes

Ofiet or ofcole, 196

To offer to the ale pole. (522-525)

The "quick switch from homely garlic buds to rosary beads" remarked by Wyrick (250) demonstrates the inversion ofpriorities enacted by these women.

The perceived danger ofthis particular camival moment is that the participants in

Elynour's gathering, as in aIl treatments ofgossips, threaten to extend the festive inversion beyond its socially prescribed limits. The witch is the figure who tums the catharsis ofa momentary ridiculing inversion that mocks religious and social values into a contaminating permanent state ofsocial disgrace and spiritual damnation. The women's sacrifice ofspiritual tools for the sake ofmaterial pleasures, invoking medieval views ofEve's initial sinful act and the consequent "nature" ofaIl women who succeed her, plots the line on the slippery slope that descends from the gluttonous gossip and rebellious shrew to the witch. Claire Fanger's analysis ofGower's Confessio Amantis for its treatment ofmagic indicates that the notion ofgluttony, a vice we already know to be related to incontinent speech, was also associated with magic, as both were manifestations ofan intemperate preoccupation with the material world. In fact, centuries earlier, we already find an association ofwitches with gluttony. William ofMalmesbury's description ofthe Witch ofBerkeley in his Chronicles ofthe King ofEngland establishes a precedent already in 1140: "There resided at Berkeley a woman addicted to witchcraft, as it afterwards appeared, and skilled in ancient augury; she was excessively gluttonous, perfectly lascivious, setting no bounds to her debaucheries, as she was not old though declining in life" (33). This witch whose soul the demons ofhell come to retrieve in

William's account displays the qualities Skelton attributes some four centuries later to

Elynour and her companions. 197

While critics have recognized that the extreme physicality ofthese "drunken, filthy, sordid, gossiping" women links them to the vice ofgluttony, none have acknowledged that the grotesque portrait ofthe alewives implicates the women as potential witches not only through their actions, but also by their very physical constitutions. Medieval natural philosophy and medicine dealing with gynecological and reproductive topics elucidate the misogynist dimensions ofSkelton's satire. The influential and popular De Secretis Mulierum by Pseudo-Albertus Magnus demonstrates how ancient medical and natural-philosophical opinions on women's inferiority were elaborated into condemnations ofwomen's inherently evil natures by medieval writers.

These medieval claims-often fabricated authoritative references-about the contaminating, poisonous and filthy nature ofthe female body are the scientific correlatives for Skelton's grotesque characters:

Thus Commentator A [ofDe Secretis Mulierum] tells us that Hippocrates

stated in his book On the Nature ofMan that a menstruating woman

corrupts the air and fouIs the insides ofa man. Commentator B asserts

that Avicenna held that the female womb is like a sewer situated in the

middle ofa town where aIl the waste materials run together and are sent

forth. (Lemay 18)

Scientific authority came to support the theologians' claim that "Woman, the temptress, the follower ofEve" was the "devil's gateway" (Lemay 51). Focusing on one ofthe taboo fluids not expressed by the women in Skelton's poem, Pseudo-Albertus and his commentators insist on the poisonous and infectious nature ofa woman's menses to establish that women are not only morally, but also physically, dangerous. Contact with menstrual blood could, according to the author and commentators ofDe Secretis 198

Mulierum, blight plants, harm the male member or cause leprosy or epilepsy in a fetus

(Lemay 53). The menstruating woman whose miasmic womb makes her an agent ofevil, regardless ofher moral character, whose very glance or breathe can infect those around her with its evil humors, is not far removed from Skelton's contaminating women.

Furthermore, one should note that, although the gossips presumably range in age,

Skelton devotes his attention to the aging body ofthe gossips' ringleader, Elynour

Rummynge, along with a number ofher companions, such as the palsied Maude Ruggy and the stumbling old rybibe. In his parody ofmedieval descriptions ofbeautifulladies, the poet elaborates his claim that Elynour is "weIl worne in age" (8) with an account of her wrinkled and hairy face (17-21), her "lose and slacke" skin (31), her "gowndy" and

"blered" eyes (34,36), and "grey-hered" appearance (37). Yet, the fact that, as the poet explains, "her youth is faITe past" (48) does not diminish the threat Elynour poses. In fact, the post-menopausal woman posed an even greater danger in the eyes ofthe scientific authors:

It should be noted that old woman who still have their monthly flow,

and sorne who do not menstruate, poison the eyes ofchildren lying in

their cradles with a glance, as Albert says in his book On Menses. This

is caused in menstruating women by the flow itse1f, the humors first infect

the eyes, then the eyes infect the air, which infects the child. [...] What

happens in women who do not menstruate is that the retention ofthe

menses results in an abundance ofevil humors, and old women no longer

have enough natural heat to digest such matter. This is especially true of

poor women who are nourished by coarse food, which contributes to the

poisonous matter. Therefore non-menstruating women are even more 199

seriously infected, because the menstrual flow has a purgative function.

(129)

Thus, from a late medieval perspective, Elynour, a contaminating social presence as a gossiping alewife and physically sordid inhabitant ofa filthy environment, implicitly also presents a potent biological threat.

An understanding ofpopular natural-philosophical ideas that could easily inform the ideology ofa eleric-poet like Skelton produces a more profound sense ofthe diabolical dimensions ofhis characters' repulsive physicality. In the thirteenth century

Albertus Magnus used "Woman's" defective nature to connect her to the Devil, suggesting that "woman is nothing other than a devil represented in human form" (Lemay

49). His suggestion that women use lies and deception to gain power informs the very paradigm ofDe Secretis Mulierum, written in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. In this case the preoccupation with women's secrets relates to their biological, rather than domestic and sexual, secrets. As in the poems depicting men's penetration into the gossips' gathering to gain access to the truths hidden from them by dissembling wives, so the medical practitioner is cast by Pseudo-Albertus and his commentators in the role ofa detective contending with women intent on deceiving him, intentionally concealing the truth-regarding their virginity or pregnancy, for example-by manipulating their bodies to be misread. Throughout this text the secrets ofwomen are defined not merely as knowledge which is hidden, but essentially as knowledge which is fought over by the sexes. The medical practitioner must counter female dissimulation with science, and occasionally must employ trickery himself in order to outwit the uncooperative subject into revealing her true nature, as a virgin or corrupted woman, as a 200 mother or barren wife. 26 Women's secrets range from gynecological facts, to the "fact" ofthe malicious attacks waged by women with arcane knowledge, such as placing iron in the vulva prior to coitus in order to wound and poison the male penis (87-90). One can only assume that Pseudo-Albertus attributes the "instruction" ofwomen in acts of aggression against men, to the work ofother women (88). Commentator B makes precisely such a c1aim in his elaboration on Pseudo-Albertus's comment regarding women's attempts to end pregnancies:

There are sorne evil women who are aware ofthis [that excessive work can

induce a miscarriage] and counsel young girls who have become pregnant

and wish to hide their sin that they should jump around, run, walk, and

briskly move about in order to corrupt the fetus. Sometimes they produce

an abortion by boiling down certain herbs which they know weIl. (103)

Thus, women's secret knowledge, much ofwhich recalls the domestic advice advanced by the gossips in the Gospelle ofDystaves, is put to evil ends, threatening men's health, sexual prowess, and their rights as progenitors.

These medical accounts ofwomen's malicious attacks on the various aspects of human reproduction not only recaIl, but also, in fact, inform the images ofthe castrating witches and fatal witch-midwives ofthe witchhunt treatises. In her introduction to De

Secretis Mulierum Helen Lemay argues that "pseudo-Albertus's accomplishment of exaggerating and popularizing the ideas about women developed by Albertus Magnus and other thirteenth-century natural philosophers directly influenced the fifteenth-century

26 See, for example, the Hydromel trick for discovering pregnancy in chapter eight (125-126) and the signs ofchastity in chapter ten (128-129). Both ofthese instances suggest science as the way out ofthe labyrinth ofheterosexual games. As Pseudo-Albertus so eloquently states on the subject ofdetermining a woman's chastity: "Sorne women are so c1ever, however, that they know how to resist detection by these signs [such 201 inquisitorial treatise on witches, Malleus Maleficarum" (50). The influence ofnatural philosophy on other aspects ofmedieval thought can be grasped only when one considers the intimate connection between science, medicine and theology in a medieval society where philosophers, medical practitioners and poets, among others, shared a similar inteIlectual training and were often clergy (Lemay 50-51). Lemay demonstrates that the

Dominican authors incorporate "both the spirit and the letter" ofDe Secretis Mulierum into their attack on women as witches by citing directly from Pseudo-Albertus and using his definition ofwomen's essentiaIly evil constitutions as the ideological basis for their construction ofwitchcraft. While Skelton's poem can claim no direct relation to either

De Secretis Mulierum or Malleus Maleficarum, this early sixteenth-century poem is immersed in this same nexus ofideas surrounding women, the secrets hidden in their interlangageféminin and their diabolical proclivities.

In the fifth passus of The Tunnyng ofElynour Rummynge aIl ofthese demonic implications are literalized as Skelton directly considers the witch as a gossip. Among the throng ofwomen who arrive at the tavem there appears a woman who confirrns the suspicions Skelton has planted:

But ofaIl this thronge

One carne them amonge,

She semed halfa leche,

And began to preche

Ofthe Tewsday in the weke

Whan the mare doth keke;

as shame, modesty, fear, a faultless gait and speech, lowered eyes), and in this case a man should tum to their urine" (128). 202

Ofthe vertue ofan unset leke;

And ofher husbandes breke.

With the feders ofa quale

She could to Burdeou sayle;

And with good ale barme

She could make a charme

To helpe withall a stytch;

She semed to be a wytch. (445-458)

This passage is the only instance in the poem where the narrator qualifies his assertions: she seems to be a physician and a witch. The subjective qualification ofthe narrator's authority suggests at least two interpretations. Given the existence ofan Alianora

Romyng in Leatherhead in 1525 and the consequent possibility that this satire had historical people as its subjects, Skelton may have been hesitant to level such a serious accusation in his poem. On the other hand, Skelton may have been a skeptic who wanted to deploy the allusive potential ofwitch imagery without being implicated in superstition.

Either way the hesitation to engage directly with the subject shifts the balance ofpower established in the poem. The faltering ofthe narrator's omniscience, the woman's resistance to being authoritatively defined by the male commentator, along with her reputed abilities, invests her with a power greater than that ofher companions and perhaps even that ofthe narrator.

The potential authority in this character is most dramatically illustrated by her activities at the gossips' gathering. This knowledgeable woman preaches to her gossips.

The reference to preaching in this passage is the only speech act attributed to a female character in the poem which is not definitively negative. It remains ambivalent; its 203 serious allusion is qualified by a mocking tone, just as the babble ofthe women is ridiculed as religious teaching in The Go~pelle ofDystaves. The cryptic quatrain that follows also suggests the kind offolk wisdom recounted by those spinning women. This conventional domestic magic is followed by more overt daims about unnatural powers of travel and the ability to make charms. Significantly, the narrator leaves these daims uncommented on, deducing only that she seemed to be a witch before moving on to his next subject. The presence ofthis witch among a group ofwomen remarkable for their appearances and for the extremes to which they take the conventional gossips' gathering suggests the diabolical potential in aIl women who refuse to remain circumscribed by established social boundaries. The witch's uncontested presence among the gossips signaIs their acceptance ofher supematural nature and practices. This passage cannot unproblematically intend to define the women as credulous and superstitious, since this would implicate the otherwise urbane narrator as weIl. Leamed and articulate to a degree, described by her abilities and words, not, as aIl the other women, by her degenerate body or shameful actions, the witch stands out as a remarkable anomaly in this poem.

Skelton's treatment ofthe witch in his poem reveals that the image ofthe witch at the cusp ofthe early modem era represents the culmination ofthe paradoxes inherent in the gossip and the shrew, for her power over language makes her the author's most effective rival. Suspended amidst a plethora ofimages notable for their obscene misogyny, Skelton's witch represents one image offemininity that the narrator will not openly challenge in his poetic attack. Ironically, she represents the real danger against which he ultimately battles. It is not the slovenly inebriate that poses sorne bacchantic threat to social order, but rather the articulate woman, knowledgeable in the realm of experience, and whose primary loyalty is to her gossips, a woman like the witch of 204

Rheims, who constitutes the most potent threat. The witch functions as a literary symbol ofan uncontainable, secret feminine power passed between women, the repository ofail the paranoid suspicions which fuel the satiric fîres buming in the fîfteenth and sixteenth centuries. Thus, the gossip and the shrew, ridiculed as scapegoats for orality, come back to haunt the poet, as weil as the cleric, in the more daunting spectre ofthe witch. This laden image in Skelton's poem serves as an indictment ofgossips which reaches beyond satiric ridicule to suggest that the exclusion ofan inherently dangerous femininity from the halls oflegitimate power potentially invests her, in the minds ofthe contemporary authorities, with an illegitimate and therefore uncontrollable supematural force. As the poem demonstrates, this force lies entirely in the witch's power ofspeech.

The most powerful manifestation ofa witch's aggression and unnatural power is her curse. The witch's linguistic power makes her the most compelling representation of the threat inherent in women's speech because her curse literalizes the assault assumed to be implicit in women's words and represents a discursive force that textuality cannot conquer. The curse is the ultimate manifestation of1. L. Austin's concept ofthe performative utterance, a statement that moves beyond mere description to actually perform an action. We have encountered this principle already in the discussion ofthe ancient origins ofsatire and its very physical consequences in chapter one. As Jeanne

Favret-Saada, an ethnographer who has studied contemporary witchcraft beliefs in the

Bocage ofFrance, explains, "witchcraft is spoken words; but these spoken words are power, and not knowledge or information. [...] In short, there is no neutral position with spoken words: in witchcraft, words wage war" (9-10). From a medieval perspective, this war ofwords can be incorporated into the battle for the breeches. The distance between

Uxor Noah's cursing, her profane or obscene expressions ofanger, and the witch's curse, 205 a malediction invoking supematural powers in arder to harm someone, is minimal.

Thomas and Macfarlane long aga established that the oaths uttered by frustrated beggars were interpreted as the maledictions that brought disaster upon those who had refused their requests. The case ofLady Alice Kyteler, accused ofwitchcraft in fourteenth­ century Ireland, demonstrates that husbands were vulnerable not only to their wives' oaths, but potentially also to their maledictions. Lady Alice and her accomplices

"fulminated excommunications against individuals, cursing each part ofthe body from the sole ofthe feet to the crown ofthe head. In particular, the women anathematized their own husbands" (Cohn 199). The aggression that was attributed to women as scolds, could easily transform in the minds ofauthors, as we have seen in the Malieus, into another form ofverbal assault with mare threatening implications.

While Favret-Saada's discussion ofhow the inhabitants ofthe Bocage wield language in their strategies ofdisavowal, detection and destruction is more complex than merely acknowledging the inherent power ofa curse, her wark highlights an important characteristic ofthe magical curse. Linguistic sorcery relies on a beliefin the inherent power ofwords, just as Austin's performative utterance rests on a social contract.27 The continued potency ofspeech in the Middle Ages and beyond depends on the acceptance ofthe beliefin words as actions, a principle, as l have suggested earlier, common in primary oral cultures. "Science" and "Rationality" have long been the monolithic terms applied and debated in many explanations ofthe decline ofEuropean witchcraft be1iefs.

A look at the literature dealing with witches suggests that the person ofthe witch was an ideological battleground not only for theological, philosophical and scientific principles,

27 See, for example, Favret-Saada's account of 'the man/rom Quelaines' in Part Two, pages 31-63. 206 but also for linguistics. Given the gendered vision oforality and textuality, the witch, as the female inhabitant ofthe irrational, superstitious world, is juxtaposed with the educated, rational male, each a powerful representative ofthe gendered discursive spheres ofantifeminist satire. 28

A sermon exemplum (Type 5327), "The Witch and the Cow-Sucking Bag," conveys this potential confrontation between the two spheres in an interesting variation on the topos ofthe philosopher and the shrew. This homiletic anecdote, like the tale of the pedant and the fishwife, confirms the medieval perception ofthe specifically oral power ofwomen by rendering a witch's words more powerful than those ofan educated archbishop. The tale tells ofa witch brought before the local archbishop because ofher cow-sucking bag, a device enabling her to steal the milk from her neighbors' cows. She shows the archbishop, upon his request, her ability to get milk through the bag. Yet the bishop, who has carefully written down everything she has said and done, is unable to produce any results. The witch claims the fault lies in the bishop's lack ofbelief. The version presented by Robert Mannyng in Handlyng Synne concludes:

I>e bysshop seyd }Je wurdys echoun,

28 This is not to say that the textual realm is devoid ofmagical practices. Indeed, the history and literary implications ofwritten magic merits its own monograph. One scholar whose dissertation and later articles focus more on this subject is Claire Fanger. Fanger's discussion oflinguistic magic and medieval distinctions between magic and miracles presents an excellent survey ofmedieval thought on the power of signs. Fanger's interest in the high magical traditions leads her to address textual and intellectual angles on magic more in depth. As 1 am unable to address this question due to the limits oftime and space, let me raise only a few points to address the concem that the existence ofwritten magic undermines my argument. First and foremost, one must remember that values that are gendered are not in actuality sex-specific. Textual and oral modes were and are used by both sexes. Thus, we can acknowledge that in the Middle Ages the magic attributed to clergy, either oral, such as excommunication, or literary, such as the closing maledictions ofscribes, depended on an ancient oral principle that women came to represent. One must also not forget that much medievalliterature was written to be read aloud. This audiate mode privileges the voice in unique ways compared to the literature produced intentionally for the silent reader. Similarly, the textual, reputedly scientific, exclusively masculine magical tradition ofalchemy, nevertheless involves an oral invocation in order to summon daemonic powers. 207

But, belue peryn hadde he noun.

Nomore shaH hyt auaylë

pat beluest not pere belue shulde be. (559-562)29

While this closing moral redefines the story in terms ofthe presence or lack ofreligious beliefs, the tale itselfdeals with the beliefin the power ofwords and places this belief within the context ofa clash oflinguistic modes. The witch, who is introduced in a derogatory manner, living "no better pan a bycche" (500)), operates the cow-sucking bag by virtue ofthe charms she speaks. The bishop, on the other hand, is identified in terms ofhis use oftext, recording in writing what the witch has spoken:

pe bysshop made a clerk pan wryte

Al pat she seyd, mochel and lyte,

And aHë how she made here went;

pe bysshop parto [g]af gode entent. (527-530))

The bishop's own attempt to replicate the witch's results is explicitly identified in terms ofhis literacy:

"pan," seyde pe bysshop, "now shal y,

As pou hast do, do py maystry."

pe bysshop bygan pe charme to rede,

And as she dyde, he dyde yn dede. (531-535)

However, his efforts are in vain. The witch explains his failure despite his meticulous replication ofher words and deeds in terms ofhis lack offaith in the words themselves:

"Wlde [y]e beleue mywrdys as y / Hyt shylde a go and sokun ky [cows]" (545-546). The

29 AlI citations are identified parenthetically by line number in the text and are taken from FumivalI's edition ofRobert ofBrunne 's Handlynge Synne, EETS 119, 123 (1901, 1903), reprint, 1978. 208 elaboration that follows this statement defines beliefas a beliefin the power ofthe words, rather than a particular religious faith:

She seyd, "pat helpep al my pyng;

And so hyt ys for ourë lawe,

Beleue ys morë pan pe sawe;

For pou mayst sey what pou wylt,

But pou beleue hyt, ellys ys aIle spylt;

Alle pat y seyd, y beleue hyt weyl,

My beleue hap do pe dede euery deyl." (548-554)

The beliefthat the witch refers to is not a beliefin the power ofGod; nor is a diabolical source for her power suggested. While this may serve as an exemplum about the power of faith and the danger ofempty words, the application oflinguistic distinctions adds another interpretive dimension to the story. The practice ofwitches-one must not overlook the tantalizingly plural "our" in the witch's statement that makes this a confrontation between her community and that ofthe bishop and his scribe-is a belief, as the witch explicitly asserts, in the words themselves. The bishop uses literacy as a tool in his attempt to master the witch's magic. The continuaI emphasis on his technique serves to highlight the social and intellectual differences between these two figures. His failure, like the pedant's failure in the face ofthe fishwife's barrage ofinvective, suggests that it is in part his removal from the realm oforal culture, no matter how superstitious and denigrated, that disadvantages him in the confrontation. Therefore, the exemplum imputes that the witch's power rests precisely in her participation in a discursive realm devoid oftextuality. 209

Conclusion

In 1621, Henry Goodcole, a minister who interrogated Elizabeth Sawyer, the condemned woman whose trial inspired The Witch ofEdmonton, expressed the opinion that Elizabeth's tongue was "the means to her own destruction." Goodcole's statement is the refrain that summarizes the intentions ofsatirists whose depictions ofunruly speaking women effectively create situations wherein women condemn themselves with their own words, whether through the confession ofa gossip's guilt, the vulgar words ofa shrew or the curses and confessions ofa witch. In this chapter we have pursued the image ofthe witch through drama, sermon exempla, satirie poetry, natural philosophy, and chronicle accounts ofwitchcraft. The literary image ofthe witch, along with the composite image ofthe early modem European witch constructed by historians, suggests that the witch, like her sisters, the medieval gossips and shrews, became an emblem offeminine orality in the ongoing mythologization oflanguage and communicative modes. As the demonized unruly speaking woman, the witch represents the persistent power attributed to the oral principles, functioning essentially as the Other against which textual authority continually needed to define itself. Two key points become evident when one eonsiders the figure ofthe witch. First, this archetypal image offeminine evil is defined not merely in terms ofher camality, but also in terms ofher linguistic permeability, both listening to and uttering that which disrupts social order and morally eontaminates. Second, because ofthe alignrnent ofthe witch with the oral traditions that preserve the principle of performative speech, the witch's primary power, her ability to charm and curse, stems from her ridieuled position on the margins ofa society increasingly defined in terms of textual culture. Ironically, in the actual witchhunts, the linguistic ability that empowers and oceasionally liberates fietional witehes, enabling them to fly out windows, eonfound 210 and astound bishops, and frighten the Devil himself, becomes the rope, so to speak, by which historical women are hung.

The confrontation between the leamed man and the witch in an historical rather than fictional context redistributes the balance ofpower, even as it continues to apply linguistic ideology. The witch, as the ultimate representative oforal deviance, both through the virulence ofher speech and the danger posed by her words, is perceived according to conventions that define such deviance as quintessentially feminine, ifnot exclusively attributable to women. Once oral modes are defined as potentially deviant by a society that increasingly valorizes textuality as the source ofestablished masculine values like Truth and Rationality, these oral modes are then also feminized. Thus, the witch becomes, among other things, an emblem ofthat demon ofunruly speech, the archaic weapon ofthe socially marginalized, which must continually be exorcised by those holding the instruments ofpower. Tragically, since the witch was both a symbol and a social fact, this exorcism was not merely a wish-fulfillment enacted in the imaginary realm ofliterature, but also a terrifying reality where women could be exterminated essentially for their unruly speech. 211

CHAPTER FOUR: THE CRITIC

Introduction

The literalization oflate medieval and early modem literary assaults on speaking women addressed in the previous two chapters is but an extreme manifestation ofa more general silencing ofwomen's voices that feminists claim continued long after the flames ofthe witchhunts had died down. Literary treatments ofgossips, shrews and witches illustrate that even without measures ofphysical intimidation and assault, women's mouths have often been stopped by the categorization and denigration oftheir utterances as deception, as nonsense, as, in effect, old wives' tales. The intersection oflate medieval theories about language, in particular the cultural evaluation ofgendered literacy and orality, affected the way women's utterances were conceived by both female and male authors and received by the literary establishment.

Ironically, while we assume that many real women's voices were silenced throughout Western literary history, the relentless voice ofthe imaginary garrulous woman remained a mainstay ofantifeminist tradition. Thomas Hahn comments on this longstanding misogynist convention: "As feminist theoretical arguments and the Wife of

Bath 's Prologue equally make clear, the entire misogynist tradition articulates itself through its active, incessant contest with discursive femininity" (433). My first three chapters have established that part ofthe reason women's position as the oral outcasts of textual culture had to be continually declared is that the valorization oftextuality conflicted with the realities ofa European culture which was at the very least bimodal.

This bimodality could be conveniently illustrated in terms ofthe conventional dichotomy ofmasculinity and femininity. Since the historical persecution ofverbally unruly women was perpetuated, ifnot even partly instigated by the gendered nature ofmedieval theories 212 oflanguage and communication, it is fitting to tum back to literary theory in an effort to grasp the possibilities inherent in these "feminine" modes ofdiscourse which to a large degree still remain outside the domain ofsocially-valued culture. This chapter moves beyond illustrating why women's verbal assertiveness was denigrated in order to explore how our understanding ofthe orality attributed to women can influence the way we read the speaking women ofmedievalliterature. Ifwe understand the paradox that empowers even as it seeks to devalue women's speech, we may be able to read resistance into words once considered indicting.

This final section in my investigation uses the ideas ofMikhail Bakhtin, whose work on discourse theory is profoundly influenced by his interest in oral communication and whose combination oflinguistic theory with cultural analysis lends itselfreadily to the social goals ofgender analysis. Bakhtin's discourse theory reveals the reason why the image ofa women's counter-discursive sphere occupied the imaginations ofso many authors and artists. When applied to texts conceming speaking women, Bakhtin's ideas disc10se that to be a gossip is to recognize the power ofdiaIogism that is the legacy of orality. Therefore, reading resistantly means taking control ofthe interpretive context; becoming the gossip, so to speak, as opposed to the eavesdropping scribe. After illustrating how Bakhtin's discursive principles apply both to the medievalliterature 1 study and to the gender analysis 1perform, this chapter explores how the link between orality and dialogism offers new insights into the medieval preoccupation with women's deviant speech. Bakhtin's incorporation ofliving speech in his thinking about literary production and reception makes his theories uniquely appropriate for a consideration of medieval representations ofthe imaginary speaking woman in contexts where communication modes are gendered. 213

Considering Bakhtin's thought in terms ofthe conventional unruly speaking woman also offers insight into the weaknesses ofhis argument. It is through Bakhtin's problematic treatment ofwomen in his vision ofcamival that we gain the clearest insight into the danger ofverbally unruly women and the potential ofdialogic analysis. In a culture which genders oral and textual modes, and aligns orality and textuality with the centrifugaI and centripetal forces oflanguage respectively, the deviant speaking woman not only represents the skeptical destabilization ofauthoritative textual discourse, but also, through her identification with dialogical orality, new ways ofknowing. In order to ascertain how a theoretical approach which acknowledges bimodality provides a new interpretive framework for the literary discourse surrounding women, this chapter will make a case study ofthe most familiar medieval embodiment ofthe speaking woman. A reexamination ofthe archetypal representative ofthe imaginary feminine counter­ discursive sphere, Chaucer's Wife ofBath, reveals the relevance ofBakhtin's ideas and the interpretive significance oforality in the Wife's characterization. A self-confessed gossip and shrew, and also powerfullike the witch because ofher marginality to textual culture, the Wife ofBath embodies the paradoxical medieval speaking woman, perceived as both powerful and powerless, self-liberating and self-condemning. Hajdukowski­

Ahmed states that "a resisting discourse cannot be mistaken for a politically-subversive act; nor does it transform social practices unless it has access to an interpretive community and to power" ("Framing" 194). The recognition ofthe oral modes inherent in the Wife ofBath's Prologue and the application ofa theoretical model that acknowledges the dialogical principle at work in this text allow readers to become an interpretive community ofgossips, reading against the grain ofthe antifeminism in this text and others like it to find new meanings in the resistant female voice. 214

Section One: Bakhtin, Medieval Literature and Gender Analysis

A number ofideas introduced by Mikhail Bakhtin prove useful for a project exploring the interpretive implications and critical potential inherent in our recognition of the relationship between women and orality in the Middle Ages. Although Bakhtin rarely addresses the Middle Ages or women directly, his theoretical work has attracted the attention ofboth ofmedievalists and feminists. The particular interest generated by

Bakhtin's discourse theory and his concept ofthe carnivalesque stems from the relevance ofthese ideas for scholars working in either field or both fields. Conversely, Bakhtin's relevance for medieval and feminist criticism places such scholars in the ideal situation to criticize and refine Bakhtin's theoretical models. Consequently, in contrast to what Clive

Thomson refers to as the "add-Bakhtin-and-stir approach" ("Feminist Projects" 216), the proximity of Bakhtin's thought to topics endemic in medieval and feminist scholarship allows for a consideration ofhow the literary and social materials we deal with reflect on his ideas.

In his introduction to Bakhtin and Medieval Voices, Thomas Farrell asserts that

Bakhtin offers "a kind ofinventory ofnarrative discourse," since the terms that Bakhtin links to the novel in fact identify principles evident in divergent literary forms across various cultures and ages (4). The related notions ofpolyphony, heteroglossia and dialogism that Bakhtin introduces lend themselves to various texts that concern themselves with representing what Bakhtin frequently terms "the image ofa language."

Bakhtin's concept ofpolyphony evokes the auraI imagery oforchestration in order to illustrate how literary discourse can represent a register ofdifferent social voices.

Heteroglossia, or "another's speech in another's language," complicates this polyglot phenomenon even further by identifying a type of"double-voiced discourse" where two 215 voices and meanings can inhabit the same utterance (DI: "Discourse" 324). Farrell suggests that literary heteroglossia is achieved by "familiar techniques-framing devices, incorporated narrative, speech in dialect-that bring varieties ofspeech into the novel, highlight the differences between them, and contextualize each ofthem in a specifie world view" (Introduction 3). Bakhtin himselfdeals at length with parodie and ironie discourse to explain how an utterance can contain both direct and refracted intentions.

In order to understand Bakhtin's notion ofheteroglossia one must recognize the importance that Bakhtin places on context and his sense that language is never a "neutral medium" (DI: "Discourse" 294):

The word in language is halfsomeone else's. It becomes "one's own"

only when the speaker populates it with his own intention, his own accent,

when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and

expressive intention. Prior to this moment ofappropriation the word does

not exist in a neutral and impersonallanguage (it is not, after aIl, out ofa

dictionary that the speaker gets his words!), but rather it exists in other

people's mouths, in other people's contexts, serving other people's

intentions: it is from there that one must take the word and make it one's

own. (DI: "Discourse" 293-294)

Thus, heteroglossia is principle ofdiscourse in which, in the words ofMary Pollock,

"[meaning] is never fixed; rather, words are force fields" (233).

The characteristic epistemological mode ofcommunication demonstrating heteroglossia is dialogism. Dialogism refers to the interanimation that occurs between various voices in a text. Friedericke Eigler offers a concise summary ofBakhtin's 216 dialogic principle that conveys its relevance as a general discursive factor in various types oftexts:

Bakhtin calls for an approach to literature that stresses and explores

differences ("multiple voices") and challenges readings that harmonize

differences or reduce the text to a single ("monologic") meaning. [...]

He employs the term "dialogic" and "dialogization" to capture the

specific modes in which voices are related to each other, including

different degrees oftension and struggle. No voice exists in isolation but

always relates to, is shaped by, and competes with other voices.

(Eigler 191)

For Bakhtin the dialogic nature oflanguage does not refer to an intra-Ianguage dialogue or conflict between individual wills, but rather to "a struggle among socio-linguistic points ofview" (DI: "Discourse" 273).

Heteroglossia and the struggle between various socio-linguistic voices are crucial concepts informing Bakhtin's other enormously influential discussion ofthe camivalesque. Bakhtin's juxtaposition ofunofficial folk culture with the official culture ofsocial authorities and institutions rests largely on his sense ofthe political and social possibilities inherent in dialogism. The recognition that language can be expropriated and forced to submit to new intentions invites the possibility that the authoritative language that controls society can be disrupted:

At the time when poetry was accomplishing the task ofcultural, national

and political centralization ofthe verbal-ideological world in the higher

official socio-ideologicallevels, on the lower leve1s, on the stages oflocal

fairs and at buffoon spectacles, the heteroglossia ofthe clown sounded 217

forth, ridiculing aIl 'languages' and dialects; there developed the literature

ofthe fabliaux and Schwanke ofstreet songs, folksayings, anecdotes,

where there was no language-center at aIl, where there was to be found a

lively play with the'languages' ofpoets, scholars, monks, knights, and

others, where aIl 'languages' were masks and where no language could

daim to be an authentic, incontestable face. (DI: "Discourse" 273)

Bakhtin envisions this camivalesque folk attack on official culture as a battle between the centrifugaI and centripetal forces in language. He associates the stabilizing centripetal tendencies in language with "authoritative discourse" that must remain distanced and inviolable. Authoritative speech, passed down from the "lofty spheres" of a hierarchically superior past, must remain untouched by time or other forms ofdiscourse in order to preserve its political power. "It remains sharply demarcated, compact and inert [...demanding], so to speak, not only quotations marks but a demarcation even more magisterial, a special script, for instance" (DI: "Discourse" 343). Bakhtin's footnote to this passage invites the reader to consider the frequency offoreign-language religious texts in many cultures-Latin in the Middle Ages is one excellent example. In contrast to the isolated and static authoritative discourse stands the dialogical nature of"intemally persuasive discourse." While the inertia ofauthoritative speech means that it can only be profaned, intemally persuasive speech is characterized by semantic openness:

In the everyday rounds ofour consciousness, the intemally persuasive

word is half-ours and half-someone else's. Its creativity and productivity

consists precisely in the fact that such a word awakens new and

independent words, that it organizes masses ofour words from within, and

does not remain in an isolated and static condition. It is not so much 218

interpreted by us as it is further, that is, freely, developed, applied to new

material, new conditions; it enters into interanimating relationships with

new contexts. More than that, it enters into an intense struggle with other

intemally persuasive discourses. Our ideological development is just such

an intense struggle within us for hegemony among various available verbal

and ideological points ofview, approaches, directions and values. The

semantic struggle ofan intemally persuasive discourse is notfinite, it is

open; in each ofthe new contexts that dialogize it, this discourse is able to

reveal ever newer ways to mean. (DI: "Discourse" 345-346)

Therefore the social power that Bakhtin invests in camival is fundamentally linked to his discursive theory.

While Bakhtin develops his discourse theory in relation to the novel, he frequently tums to the literature ofthe Middle Ages for precedents. In "From the Prehistory of

Novelistic Discourse" Bakhtin acknowledges the heteroglot complexity ofmedieval literary composition and the importance laid on authoritative discourse:

The relationship to another's word was equally complex and ambiguous in

the Middle Ages. The role ofthe other's word was enormous at that time:

there were quotations that were openly and reverently emphasized as such,

or that were half-hidden, completely hidden, half-conscious, unconscious,

correct, intentionally distorted, unintentionally distorted, deliberately

reinterpreted and so forth. The boundary lines between someone else's

speech and one's own speech were flexible, ambiguous, often deliberately

distorted and confused. Certain types oftexts were constructed like

mosaics out ofthe texts ofothers. (DI: "Prehistory" 69) 219

Bakhtin offers the medievalist new terminology in order to make sense ofthose medieval

texts that encode numerous voiees and points ofview. Indeed, Bakhtin's considerations

ofpolyphony and heteroglossia have special resonance for the scholar who must contend

with medieval attitudes toward authorship that often, to put it simplistically, privilege

transmission over contemporary notions oforiginality. Robert Sturges goes so far as to

claim that "[medieval] manuscript texts, in fact, with their openness to a multiplicity of

sources and authors, may be considered precursors ofthe Bakhtinian polyphonie text, and

may even be an indirect source ofthe modem novel's heteroglossia" (123).

Bakhtin also identifies an "early dialogism" in the satire, minor parodie genres, fabliaux and Schwanke ofmedievalliterature (DI: "Discourse" 371). It is his interest in

the parodie, travestying medievalliterature that makes the Middle Ages such an important

reference point in Bakhtin's work on the camivalesque. Bakhtin's appeal for

medievalists is perhaps over-determined given his frequent references to medieval

culture, especially in Rabelais and His World. Medievalists, however, must approach

Bakhtin's camival with caution since, as John Ganim points out, Bakhtin does not address

a medieval text in Rabelais, but rather, a text containing a discourse ofmedievalism

("Monster" 40). Bakhtin's Middle Ages emerge from his analysis ofan early modem text

that constructs the "Medieval" as a foil. An analysis ofBakhtin's notions ofofficial­

authoritarian and unofficial-camivalesque cultures in the Middle Ages shows that Bakhtin

also reduces the Middle Ages to a problematic exegetical principle. The problem lies in

Bakhtin's oppositional terminology, a mystifying choice given his own condemnation of

binarism in Saussure, explainable perhaps by the Stalinist context in which he wrote.

Bakhtin's choice ofmedieval examples, the mock liturgies, parodie grammars and

goliardic songs he draws from clerical Latin texts, belie his definition ofmedieval society 220 as composed oftwo conflicting sectors ofthe populace: an official culture ofthe medieval

Church enforcing its will upon society versus the unofficial folk culture, a topsy-turvy utopia ofregenerative laughter.

The clerical camivalesque examples Bakhtin uses illustrate a more complex interaction between beliefs and artistic forms in the Middle Ages than his terminology admits. Nancy Bradbury recommends Gurevich as a corrective to Bakhtin's "lack of precision" (159). Gurevich reminds us that oral, popular beliefs and forms can only be reconstructed through the medium ofofficial, literary forms. The reason we are able to do this at aIl is that official, clerical culture borrowed from and participated in unofficial, popular culture. The idea that clerical texts appropriated popular forms, such as tales and songs, in order to communicate more effectively with a lay populace suggests that, as

Nancy Bradbury claims, Bakhtin has identified not two sectors ofmedieval society, but two "stances" in medieval culture (159). Chaucer, for example, identifies these stances as

"emest" and "game." Thus, Bakhtin is useful to medievalists for he draws attention to the different voices and double-voicedness issuing from many medieval texts and in particular to the potential ideological functions ofhumour and camivalesque topsy­ turvydom in medieval texts.

In my discussion ofgossips, shrews and witches, 1have sought to throw into relief two specific voices in medievalliterature, the voices, so to speak, ofthe Philosopher and the Shrew. My analysis reveals that in the popular camivalesque theme ofthe battle between the sexes we find the "images oftwo languages": oral and textual discourse.

Few works illustrate the significance, both formally and thematically, ofthese two

"languages" in late medieval culture as beautifully as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Chaucer's literary account ofa medieval oral story-telling occasion presents a 221 carnivalesque moment in which the ludic suspension ofsocial hierarchy, and consequent mingling ofhigh and low styles among the storytellers, produce not only linguistic diversity, but also reveal struggles between various verbal-ideological worlds. One such struggle between two socio-linguistic voices in the Canterbury Tales is the tension between oral and textual discourse.

The relationship between oral and literate modes in the Canterbury Tales is not new to Chaucer studies. The suggestion that Chaucer read his works aloud to his audience has led to sorne debate among Chaucer scholars about the orality ofhis work.

Most critics participating in the debate position themselves on either the oral or literary side ofthe proverbial "Great Divide." Scholars like Carl Lindahl insist that modern critics ofthe Canterbury Tales "trained in the art ofsilent reading, do not hear the nuances that were developed in an oral environment in response to conversational needs"

(Eamest Games 160). Others, such as Barry Sanders, analyze Chaucer's grammar to praye that Chaucer's style was purely literary, that he in fact intends to frustrate the oral expectations ofhis audience and that, as Gaylord argues, a performative appraach to the

Canterbury Tales prevents the audience from catching the work's poetic nuances

(Gaylord 90). However, the increasing complexities ofthe theories surrounding orality suggest that the critical appraaches that argue for or against Chaucer's orality based on his possible recitation ofhis works are oversimplifying the issue oforality in Chaucer and medievalliterature generally. Oral aesthetics could influence a literary work regardless ofits actual reception, offering the image ofan oral language implied by Biiuml's notion ofpseudo-oral works. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a work that uses a frame narrative, a form linked to orality, and which invokes a specifically oral context for its plot, illustrates such an interaction between oral and literary aesthetics. 222

Cook's interpretation ofthe Canterbury Tales underscores the influence ofboth oral and textual modalities on Chaucer's text. "Each ofthe tales tends to gravitate towards one ofthe two models ofdiscourse: those oriented towards the written, leamed

'foreign' modes or those oriented towards the oral, vemacular, 'native' modes" (174­

175). In his assessment ofthe Clerk's Tale, for example, Cook suggests that the Clerk vacillates between asserting "unchanging truths" through the technique ofallegorical interpretation that was the preserve ofleamed culture and conceding that the meaning of the story may lie as much in how it is understood by his primarily lay audience (187-188).

Cook's interpretation presents the medieval juxtaposition ofliterate and oral culture in terrns ofcentripetal and centrifugaI forces. Authoritative discourse such as medieval leamed Latin-which Ong describes as textualized and chirographically controlled

("Medieval Textualization" 9)-represents the centripetal ideal oflanguage as a stable medium, capable ofetemal truths. These etemal truths are related to divine intentionality since, as Kristina Simeonova indicates, medieval theology claimed that the redeemed function oflanguage was to convey God's word (79). Opposed to this idealized vision of discourse and independent ofwritten forrns is what Bakhtin describes as the "culture of the loud word spoken in the open" (Rabelais 182). Entangled in what Ong terrns the

"subjective involvments ofa language leamed orally ("Medieval Textualization" 9), the medieval perception ofthe centrifugaI spoken word included an awareness of "linguistic shiftiness, ofthe potential for corruption and manipulation inherent in the use oflanguage in a fallen world" (Ashley, "Renaming" 276). Seen from a more positive perspective, if there can be said to be truths in the medieval conception oforal modes they are not etemal, but rather, as Cook e10quently states, "truths ofbecoming" (178). 223

Recognizing the potential for dialogic interaction between oral and textuaI modes in medievalliterature facilitates a more refined articulation ofhow the speaking woman can be perceived paradoxically as both marginal and empowered. In her critical examination of"The Witch and the Cow-Sucking Bag," Nancy Bradbury indicates how the tale enters into dialogue with its own stated message. The text sets up two competing ideological and discursive realms. The witch's reference to "oure lawe" opposes her creed, and the community associated with it, to orthodox Christianity. Moreover, the exemplum depicts the two realms as commensurate in many ways, even as it seeks to impose a simple moral. As Bradbury points out, only two lines are allotted to the official clerical position, while the rest ofthe tale is narrated in a way that enhances its subversive potential (167). This subversion stems primarily from the fascination with oral elements exhibited by the tale. The most pertinent proofBradbury mentions is the application of the language ofpopular beliefin the use ofa rare English verb, sygaldryd, to describe the casting ofthe spell:

Forms ofthis native English word are attested in Middle English only

here, in one version ofan anonymous romance, and in the earlier Ancrene

Wisse, once again in the context ofclerical prohibition ofEnglish magical

beliefs. It is presumably a term ofpre-Christian magic that persisted

primarily in the spoken language. Bakhtin would argue that admitting a

language ofa rival system undermines the universal or monologic

aspirations ofa given discourse; in this case, the tale participates in a

popular magical world view even as it seeks to discourage il. (167)

Given the fact that the witch sets an example more worthy ofemulation than the bishop

she instructs, Bradbury conc1udes that the tale's curiously "open-minded" refusaI to 224 actually denigrate the witch presents her instead as a match for the bishop. This equality,

1propose, is not attributable to the witch's individual power, but to the power ofthe realm she represents. As Bradbury observes, "the agrarian nature ofthe tale's magic as weIl as its oralist leaning (the efficacy ofthe 'charme' is its oral performance and not its written transcript) both point to the survival in popular consciousness ofthe older attitudes resistant to those propagated by the c1ergy" (167). This momentary recognition of"an altemate world view with its own possibilities for hypocrisy and integrity" destabilizes the authority ofa work intended for pastoral instruction (Bradbury 168). The rebellious people's laughter Bradbury hears in this overtuming ofhierarchical relations is directed by the tale's insistence on an oralltextual dichotomy not just at the bishop, but 1would argue, also at the bishop's source ofauthority, his literacy. Moreover, while Bradbury neatly explicates the formaI oralltextual tensions in the tale, she does not note a crucial detail: these competing modes are portrayed by two gendered representatives ofthe rival ideological systems.

"The Witch and the Cowing-Sucking Bag" indicates that while Bakhtin's discourse theory is important for medievalists dealing with the bimodal conditions of medieval culture, these principles are also related to gender analysis in medieval texts.

Bakhtin's appeal for critics interested in gender analysis, and for this project in particular, is that he combines linguistic theory and narratology with cultural analysis. Bakhtin's formaI analysis ofdifferent voices or languages in the literary texts is grounded in his beliefabout the social nature oflanguage. Bakhtin's sociological stylistics establish that an utterance's content and form will be determined from within the speaker's context (DI:

"Discourse" 300). According to Bakhtin's discursive theory: "Discourses cannot be tailored semantically to the expressive intentions ofan individual without betraying the 225 fabric from which they have been cut" (Glazener 109). As a consequence, the dialogic nature oflanguage is "a struggle between socio-linguistic points ofview" (DI:

"Discourse" 273).

A product ofhis era, regardless ofscholarly debates about his relationship to

Marxism, Bakhtin's work foregrounds questions ofclass and region rather than the topics ofgender, race and sexuality that currently occupy cultural analysts. 1 Nevertheless, according to Nancy Glazener, Bakhtin's approach to discourse appeals to feminists on a philosophicallevel for two reasons. First, the idea that literature represents a struggle between socio-ideologicallanguages challenges what she calls "the patriarchal myth that there could be a language oftruth that transcends power and desire" (l09). Bakhtin himse1f recognizes this myth when he refers to language that poses as inviolably transcendent in order to maintain power over people as "authoritative discourse."

Second, Glazener states that "Bakhtin's insistence that words and discourses have socially differential significance implies that linguistic and literary forms are necessarily shaped by the gender relations that structure society" (l09). Therefore, Glazener concludes, "the concept ofthe subjectively-defined utterance ensures that for as long as gender has a share in the social constitution ofsubjectivity, part ofevery utterance's social intelligibility will derive from its orientation toward gender" (lI0).

Bakhtin's sociological stylistics confirm the central feminist axiom that informs my own assessment ofthe medieval gendering oforality and textuality: "gender plays a crucial role in the modes ofapprehending and assigning value, [and] in the production

1 Numerous critics examining the feminist applications ofBakhtin wam against the utopian tendency in Bakhtin's dialogism and suggest that this tendency is complicated precisely by contemporary considerations ofgender, race and sexuality where the conflict remains constant and the battle waged for discursive power is ongoing. (See Clive Thomson, Dale Bauer, Mary Pollock, Veronica Stewart and Friedericke Eigler) 226 and reception ofdifferent modes ofcommunication" (Diaz-Diocratez 122). My examination ofthe gossips, shrews and witches ofmedievalliterature demonstrates that the struggle between unofficial and official culture, and between the oral and textuaI modes ofcommunication associated with the two realms, is also marked in terms of

gender. A most intriguing piece ofevidence further linking gender and discourse theory

cornes from Bakhtin's work itself. Many ofthe texts Bakhtin examines for the sake of discourse also happen to be, as he notes casually, attacks on women. For example, the

fifteenth-century sermonsjoyeux once given in medieval French churches as part ofthe

Féte defous that Bakhtin examines for their ridicule ofthe "straightforward serious word" become in their secular incarnation "satires in verse form, often directed at

women" (DI: "Prehistory" 52). Similarly, in Rabelais and His World, the carnival forms,

such as the fabliaux, Schwanke and prandial conversations that Bakhtin investigates,

frequently mock not only authoritative discourse, but also women. Bakhtin himself

acknowledges this when he pauses to consider the representation ofwomen in the French

fifteenth- and sixteenth-century querelle des femmes, a subject we shall return to in the next section.

Part ofthe reason why so many ofBakhtin's examples ofdouble-voiced and

carnivalized discourse occupy the same territory as my own investigation ofantifeminist

satire is because ofthe forms ofspeech depicted in these texts. The appropriated and confessional speech ofthe gossip, the reporting ofspeech by the eavesdropper, the billingsgate ofthe shrew, the debate Inherent in many ofthe literary battles ofthe sexes

aIl illustrate the agonistic nature oflanguage that Bakhtin identifies in his idea of

dialogism. Thus it is hardly surprising that Bakhtin himselfuses gender to delineate the boundaries between official and unofficial discourse by describing authoritative discourse 227 as "the word ofthe fathers" (DI: "Discourse" 342). The implicit feminization ofthe dialogical intemally-persuasive word is manifested when Bakhtin identifies unruly female literary and camival figures as the representatives ofthe centrifugaI forces in language.

Bakhtin's work confirms that in medieval and early modem literature the figure ofthe deviant speaking woman was used to illustrate a discursive principle, the disruptive potential oforality. The linguistically shifty gossip and the abusive shrew are aligned with, according to this approach, the principle ofthe "merry rogue," the figure that challenges the language ofthose who hold power in society (DI: "Discourse" 401). As

Dale Bauer indicates, the lying rogue or uncomprehending fool who helps to defamiliarize the canonized languages we generally accept can also be played by a woman (12). Thus, in addition to Bakhtin's dialogical oppositions, such as fool/poet, fool/scholar-pedant, fool/moralist, fool/priest (DI: "Discourse" 403), my analysis ofthe

Philosopher-Shrew topos adds: gossip/eavesdropper-poet, fishwife/pedant, shrew/patriarch, and witch!ecc1esiastic.

Section Two: Building on Bakhtin

That women were associated in medievalliterature with the disruptive force of oral language that attacked the authoritative "word ofthe fathers" and inverted social hierarchy is c1ear from the many texts that have been dealt with in the previous chapters ofthis dissertation. However, an analysis ofunruly women in medievalliterature that does not take Bakhtin's thought any further than this point will either sink due to its lack oftheoretical integrity or founder on the rocks ofhistory. The problem lies in the fact that the discovery ofwomen as syrnbols oforal, camivalized discourse does not have the liberating effects that Bakhtin, and sorne feminist critics who have used him, assume. An 228 anecdote from the Malleus that would be the envy ofthe great theorist ofthe camivalesque himselfdemonstrates the problem:

We know a woman who yet lives, protected by secular law, who, when

the priest at the celebration ofthe Mass blesses the people, saying,

Dominus uobiscum, always adds to herselfthese words in the vulgar

tongue, "Kehr mir die Zung im Arss umb." [May my tongue come out

ofmy ass.] (96)

The witch whose vulgar incantation (in both the denotative and connotative senses) attacks the power ofthe priest's Latin provides yet another example ofwomen's deviant speech competing with authoritative discourse. Yet the context from which this example is drawn complicates the celebratory approach that Bakhtin takes toward women as the representatives ofcamivalesque attitudes and language in Rabelais and His World. The discursive convention this woman can represent, and most likely is created from, is overshadowed by the fact that her belligerence, in reality, endangers her by drawing the attack ofKramer and Sprenger, powerful representatives ofauthoritative discourse and its social mechanisms. The conventionalliterary fool, Bakhtin states, may still be the object ofan author's scom (DI: "Discourse" 404). However, women's alignment with the centrifugaI tendencies oflanguage in its oral aspect occasionally drew more than literary mockery. Thus, using Bakhtin in order to assess the dialogic potential ofthe unruly speaking woman in medievalliterature must move beyond Bakhtin's own discoveries to build upon them.

While much ofBakhtin's work appears superficially perfectly adapted to gender analysis in medievalliterature, a familiarity with the medieval primary texts reveals sorne discrepancies in Bakhtin's approach to medieval camivalesque culture and literature. 229

First and foremost, an examination ofmedieval representations ofwomen reveals that

Bakhtin's conception of"medieval holiday laughter" is reductive in more ways than those outlined by Bradbury (DI: "Prehistory" 73). In order to celebrate the camivallaughter that "degrades" official power, Bakhtin sets up a problematic chronology ofhumour, distinguishing between the ambivalent "festive laughter" ofthe Middle Ages and the condemning laughter ofthe "pure satire ofmodem times" (Rabelais 12). The distinction

Bakhtin makes between camivallaughter and the laughter evoked by satire such as

Grobianism rests on an alignment ofthese two modes with public and private reactions.

Public laughter implicates the whole world; private laughter divides by deriding its object. However, Bakhtin's vision ofhumour in the Middle Ages is problematized when one considers that official culture was not the only target ofpublic laughter in the Middle

Ages. Just as official and unofficial culture were two coexistent Weltanschauungen (as opposed to social sectors) in medieval culture, so, too, medievallaughter could reinforce social norms and boundaries, as weIl as degrade the power ofsocial authorities.

A scholar aware ofthe misogynistic, antisemitic and xenophobie conventions in the Middle Ages is forced to ask: What iflaughter is directed not just at the powerful, but also at the marginalized? What happens when so-called unofficiallaughter serves official causes, when official culture masquerades as rebellious camival? Bakhtin himselfis forced to contend with precisely this issue in one ofthe rare moments when he directly considers women subjects-as opposed to feminine symbols-in carnivalesque tradition.

In his attempt to explain Rabelais's treatment ofwomen as a result ofthe Gallic tradition,

Bakhtin asserts that scholars misunderstand Rabelais because they confuse two distinct lines ofthought in Gallic tradition. Bakhtin juxtaposes the "popular comic tradition" that uses Woman as the incarnation ofthe debasing and regenerative carnival and the "ascetic 230 tendencies ofmedieval Christianity" that consider Woman the "incarnation ofsin"

(Rabelais 240). In his troubled attempt to keep these two perspectives separate in order to identify Rabelais with the "authentic" popular Gallic tradition Bakhtin relies once again on a problematic binary view ofmedieval society and on his chronology:

We must note that the image ofthe woman in the "Gallic tradition," like

other images in this tradition, is given on the level ofambivalent laughter,

at once mocking, destructive, and joyfully reasserting. Can it be said that

this tradition offers a negative, hostile attitude toward woman? Obviously

not. The image is ambivalent. [...] But considered by the ascetic

tendencies ofChristianity and the moralistic abstract ofmodern satirists,

the Gallic image loses its positive pole and becomes purely negative. It

cannot be transferred from the comic to the serious level without distorting

its very nature. Therefore, in most encyc10pedic writings ofthe Middle

Ages and the Renaissance which sum up Gothie accusations against

womanhood, the authentic Gallic images are disfigured. (Rabelais 241)

The interpretive challenge that Bakhtin does not address in his discussion is how a scholar

can recognize authentic or disfigured Gallic tradition. What is authentic Gallic tradition when the medieval carnivalesque is passed down to posterity in the vessel ofso-called

official culture? As our discussion ofmedieval sermon exempla and dramatic texts has

shown, the ascetic tradition did not always transform laughter into seriousness; it also

appropriated laughter to enforce social norms. Pure satire does not develop over time; it

is contingent on context, and most specifically on the object oflaughter. The reason

Bakhtin's vision ofmedievallaughter is limited is because the scope ofhis project on 231

Rabelais and the context in which he wrote blinded him to the targets ofmedieval laughter that complicate its celebratory and participatory nature.

Bakhtin's omission ofwomen as meaningful subjects in his text and his employment ofWoman as an abstraction prevents him from fully understanding the complexities ofthe camivalesque, in particular the fact that camival can be complicit with dominant culture. As Mary Russo avers, "[there] are especial dangers for women and other excluded or marginalized groups within camival" (214). While Russo refers here specifically to what happens when taboos about the female body as grotesque and unruly are given free reign in the public sphere ofcamival activity, the dangers exist within literature, as weIl. Bakhtin identifies the literary camivalesque woman as "the bodily grave ofman," representing in her person "the undoing ofpretentiousness" as a symbol of rebellion and renewal (Rabelais 240). The question remains for critics interested in women and other marginalized groups whether this disruption ofnorms is as far-reaching and universal as Bakhtin asserts:

The camivalized woman such as Lady Skimmington, whose comic

female masquerade ofthose "feminine" qualities ofstrident wifely

aggression, behind whose skirts men are protected and provoked to

actions, is an image that, however, counterproduced, perpetuates

the dominant (and in this case misogynistic) representation ofwomen

by men. In the popular tradition ofthis particular example, Lady

Skimmington is mocked alongside her henpecked husband, for she

embodies the most despised aspects of 'strong' femininity, and her

subordinate position in society is in part underlined in this enactment

ofpower reversaI. (Russo 216) 232

The problem lies in the relationship between real women and the symbolic currency of womanhood. Russo suggests that women can be so identified with a style itselfthat "they are as estranged from [its] liberatory and transgressive effects, as they are from their own bodies as signs ofculture generally" (217). Bakhtin's construction ofthe grotesque in his contemplation ofthe "senile, decaying and deformed" flesh ofthe Kerch terracotta laughing pregnant hags (Rabelais 25) cannot have the same liberating effect for members ofsociety whose bodies are considered always already transgressive and dangerous.

Ruth Ginsburg summarizes the feminist objection to Bakhtin's grotesque: "women are often the objects ofmale laughter, who can join in only at the cost oftheir self­ degradation" (Ginsburg 167). Thus, according to Wayne Booth, Bakhtin's exoneration of the female grotesque is for a male audience. Just as the querelle des femmes was conducted by and for men so, too, "the exoneration ofcamivallaughter is by and for men" ("Freedom" 63). As Mary Russo incisively observes, the question never occurred to Bakhtin: "whyare these old hags laughing?" (277). One reason for this omission on

Bakhtin's part, 1propose, is that to recognize their subjectivity would destroy their symbolic potential.

Indeed, when Bakhtin actually deals briefly with laughing, unruly women as subjects, rather than symbols, we begin to see just how exclusive camival becomes in exegetical praxis. No critic has devoted much attention to Bakhtin's briefexcursion into seventeenth-century French gossips' lore, the caquets, in Rabelais. Given Bakhtin's delineation ofthe grotesque symposium, "the antique tradition offree, often improper, but at the same time philosophical table talk" (89) that links the feast with the rebellious spoken word, and his suggestion that prandial conversation frequently tums to the subject ofmarnage (280), it seems hardly surprising that Bakhtin should tum his attention to 233

convivial gossips' literature. What is surprising and revealing, however, is his attitude

towards the talk and laughter ofwomen, when they become literary subjects instead of

sYffibols. In "Discourse in the Novel" Bakhtin defines unofficial speech as explicitly masculine: the "unofficial (male) side ofspeech" reflecting the "words and expressions

connected with hard drinking" (238). Mary O'Connor inquires:

Where does a woman fit into this "unofficial (male) speech," gendered

as it is by Bakhtin himself? Must she always remain outside the tavern

door, that is, in the realm ofthe official and even the object or butt of

that drunken discourse; or to maintain BakhtiniPushkin's terrns, must she

remain outside the public square, that is, always, indoors, entirely enclosed

in the realm ofthe sublimated? (138)

Even though convivial and alewife poems demonstrate that there are traditions that depict

women in the same contexts that define Bakhtin's "unofficial (male) speech," his

perception ofsuch traditions reveals his gendered standards for what women's laughter

and speech can achieve.

Bakhtin's analysis ofthe "Caquet de ['accouchée" reveals that men's unofficial

prandial conversation becomes debased as gossip in the mouths ofwomen:

[The Caquet] presents the usual female gathering at the bedside ofa

woman recovering from childbirth. The tradition ofsuch gatherings is

very old. They were marked by abundant food and frank conversation,

at which social conventions were dropped. The acts ofprocreation and

eating predeterrnined the role ofthe material bodily lower stratum and

the theme ofthese conversations. In this particular piece the author

eavesdrops on the women's chatter while hiding behind a curtain. 234

However in the conversation that fol1ows, the theme ofthe bodily

lower stratum (for instance, the Rabelaisian topic ofswabs) is

transferred to private manners. This female cackle is nothing more

than gossip and tittle-tattle. The popular frankness ofthe marketplace

with its ambivalent grotesque lower stratum is replaced by the chamber

intimacies ofprivate life, heard from behind a curtain. (Rabelais 105)

There are many striking elements in Bakhtin's observations. It is fascinating that a theorist so preoccupied with notions ofrenewal and regeneration would reject that most literaI scene ofregeneration, a birthing room, and an event exhibiting so many camivalesque traits, as an inappropriate context for universal conversation. His dismissal relies on a (rather contemporary) notion ofpublic and private contexts. The movement from the public sphere to the private signaIs a shift from universal truths to petty gossip, the degeneration of"marketplace frankness" to "the washing ofpersonal unclean underwear" (Rabelais 106).2 This attitude has a distinct disadvantage for women who for centuries ofliterary history have been contained, for the most part, in the private domestic realm. Moreover, Bakhtin implies that by their very nature, women forfeit the freedom of the public realm. In listing other examples ofwhat he terms this "feeble and narrow" genre ofgrotesque realism, Bakhtin mentions two other caquets, the "Caquets des

Poissonières" and the "Caquets des Femmes du Fauborg Montmartre." Remarkably, although these caquets clearly link the chattering women to a marketplace environment,

Bakhtin nevertheless groups these texts along with other private discussions. Somehow

2 Ironically, for many centuries, including the seventeenth, laundry was very much a public activity. Moreover, even a briefperusal ofthe Caquet reveals it to be a deliberate discussion not ofprivate matters, but larger social concems. While pamphlets four and six treat the subjects ofmarriage and the defense of the female sex, the bulk ofthe compilation focuses on politics, religion and satirical treatments ofthe bourgeoisie. 235 the tittle-tattle ofwomen even in a public environment still remains a private affair. The implication is that women carry the private sphere within them. Femininity, and not social environment, is the overriding context in which women's speech is evaluated.

Bakhtin's refusaI to extend to female characters the power ofcamivalesque unofficial speech, reducing female chatter from universal marketplace billingsgate to private confessions and slander, reveals his own participation in a long tradition that seeks to denigrate women's speech.

Intriguingly, Bakhtin rejects women's speech most vehemently just as it becomes in one way more public than private, and more corporate than the individual Lady

Skimmington's verbal assaults. The caquets depict women talking in groups gathered for public occasions, such as a birth, or in public locations, like the marketplace and the bath­ house. Therefore one might conclude that while the speaking woman functions neatly as a camival principle when she stands alone in the garb ofthe virago or merry fool directly confronting men or the establishment, she becomes more threatening when she bears the ale cup or the distaffofthe gossip. To see the anxiety produced by women speaking with other women not only in the texts ofmedieval poets and early modem witch-hunters, but also in the thought ofa twentieth-century critic whose work seeks to celebrate the dismantling ofofficial culture, begs the question as to what threat the gossips' circle actually represents. What happens when women speak to each other, rather than to men?

Both my analysis ofthe unruly speaking women in medieval and early modem texts and my assessment ofBakhtin lead to the conclusion that images ofspeaking women are most threatening in that they do not highlight the importance ofwho is

speaking and what is said, but rather ofwho is listening and what is heard. Maroussa

Hadjukowski-Ahmed's evaluation ofhysteria as a discourse ofresistance sums up what 1 236 perceive to be the threat ofthe gossips' circle: "A resisting discourse cannot be mistaken for a politically subversive act; nor does it transform social practices unless the subject has access to an interpretive community and power" ("Framing" 194). From gossips' gatherings to covens, circles ofwomen present more than merely the potential for solidarity. The gossips' circle offers the possibility ofa new discursive sphere that produces an interlangagefém inin-a term, we will recall, coined by Muchembled to define one source ofanxiety for witch-hunters. Patricia McLure alludes to a similar notion ofspeaking women in Athenian drama:

Women, as a muted group, must leam the dominant discourse in order to

speak and yet, at the same time, they generate specific, altemate codes that

they may use among themselves. As a result, women can be considered

'bilingual' in that they understand both their own discursive strategies and

those ofthe dominant group, engaging in 'code-switching' in order to

function in societies where they are subordinated. (27)

The discursive strategy attributed to an interlangageféminin as it is depicted in gossips like Dunbar's ladies or the Wife ofBath involves the dialogical appropriation and manipulation ofdiscourse against women.

The concept ofa dialogical interlangageféminin indicates that women's link with the dialogical imagination does not relate to essentialist notions ofcamivalesque femininity, but rather to the context in which they are placed. To play upon Bakhtin's discomfiting image, perhaps the hags' laughter is not because the aging pregnant body is essentially emblematic ofthe grotesque, but because laughter is often generated by community and social interaction. Placing women in oral contexts makes dialogism inescapable. Similarly, associating women's speech with private, hence subjective, 237 discourse, forces an acknowledgement ofdialogism as a discursive strategy. While authoritarian discourse, the speech ofthe fathers, relies on its transcendence ofail private contexts for its power, an advantage enforced by privileging textuality in late medieval and early modem times, discourse stemming from oral contexts is dialogical by the virtue ofthe importance ofperformance and reception for interpretive significance.

To understand the discursive dynamics ofthe oral context that defines the gossips' circle one must recall that orality and textuality are not merely ways ofconveying information, but modes ofperception, a realization implicit in Bakhtin's theory of dialogism. Sorne ofthe psychodynamics oforality outlined by Walter Ong explain

Bakhtin's concept ofdialogic discourse, and confirm the epistemological shift inherent in dialogism. Ong suggests that leaming and knowing in an oral culture requires empathic and participatory modes, rather than "objectivity" (Technologizing 46). Truth in oral contexts is situational, rather than abstract, as it would be in what he considers the

"conceptual thinking" ofliterate societies (Technologizing 49). In his own discussion of the "living hermeneutics" ofeveryday language Bakhtin locates meaning in the context of an utterance:

In order to assess and divine the real meaning ofothers' words in

everyday life, the following are surely ofdecisive significance:

who precisely is speaking and under what concrete circumstances?

When we attempt to understand and make assessments in everyday

life, we do not separate discourse from the personality speaking it

(as we can in the ideological realm) because the personality is so

materially present to us. (DI: "Discourse" 340-341) 238

The understanding oforal narrative as a performance which requires a synchronie engagement with the audience and speech circumstances, as well as a diachronie involvement with one's own memory and imagination produces a situational aesthetic, an aesthetic which posits a more fluid, performative notion oftruth. Thus the focus oforal work is not the transmission ofan absolute truth but ofan art oftelling, where meaning is applied locally within the context ofexperience. Bakhtin insists that in contrast to the

"finite" authoritative word, dialogical intemally persuasive discourse is open; "in each of the new contexts that dialogize it, this discourse is able to reveal ever newer ways ta mean" (DI: "Discourse" 346).

When medieval writers imagine the gossips' circle they corne face to face with the

"living hermeneutics" ofeveryday speech filled with the "transmission, interpretation and evaluation ofvarious kinds ofverbal performance" (DI: "Discourse" 338).

Eavesdropping poems, for example, attempt to manipulate precisely these interpretive conditions by materially representing (subjectively) speaking women while the narrator and his intentions are obscured by his immateriality as a writer whose voice, detached

from his physical presence and personality, can meld with the ideological (therefore presumably objective) voice ofauthoritative discourse. In depicting the dialogical discourse oforal women who appropriate and manipulate others' speech about them, these authors locate the source ofwomen's other supposed rebellions. Orality forces the

acknowledgement ofa situatedness or subjectivity that potentially undermines authoritative discourse. The women's skepticism toward "the speech ofthe fathers"

entails a skepticism towards the authority ofthose who presume to have access to

authoritative discourse. Therefore, the dialogical nature ofthe gossip is perceived as

dangerous for a number ofreasons. Most obviously, the anarchie social threats posed by 239 the shrew and the witch originate in their linguistic skepticism as gossips. More importantly, however, the gossip models a dialogic criticism that threatens the stability of the text itself, potentially disrupting an audience's reception ofthe author's intentions. In the dialogic framework ofthe oral realm in which she is located, the literary gossip has discursive authority because she controls the context ofher utterances; she has chosen her interpretive community. A male eavesdropper or a confessor figure represents an attempt to contain the subversiveness ofthat performance by recontextualizing the utterance in a new interpretive community. However, with this emphasis on reception cornes the possibility that the interpreters themselves could choose to evaluate the author's words as the gossips have done instead offeeling bound by the authoritative word. As the following case study reveals, the gossip functioning as a critic ofliving hermeneutics can inspire the scholarly critic to becorne a gossip, to apply a dialogical framework to utterances otherwise perceived as stable, free from dialogic struggle primarily because of their association with a textuality imbued with a sense ofauthoritative discourse.

Section Three: Gossip as Critic/Critic as Gossip

The Wife ofBath 's Prologue serves as one specifie site in which to demonstrate the relationship between oral aesthetics and truth-telling authority posited by this hitherto abstract discussion ofwomen's association with dialogical orality. The Wife ofBath is a conventional shrew whose danger lies in her insistence on fashioning herselfand the world according to her own terms. The Prologue demonstrates that her success depends on her ability to disrupt the textual discourse that makes her its object. The Wife's self­ identification as a gossip, a participant in an oral counter-discursive sphere with an altemate epistemological mode, affords her the opportunity to becorne a speaking subject.

Given what Ashley terms the Wife's "auctoritee-Iaden monologue ("Renaming" 272) the 240

Prologue may not seem like a logical site in which to explore dialogical orality. Yet it is in such a text that we see most clearly the ongoing presence oforal aesthetics in late medieval culture and can explore the productive tension between oral and textual modes inliterature.

Bakhtin's principles ofdiscourse reveal that Chaucer's Wife ofBath 's Prologue, from its very first line, stages a struggle between socio-linguistic voices, the gendered voices of"experience" and "auctoritee." The voice of"auctoritee" stems from the masculine authority figures, the clerks and husbands the Wife addresses, that wield the abstract truths ofauthoritative texts to proscribe her independence. As a shrewish voice of"experience" that strives against men and their texts, the Wife locates herself in a community ofwomen, her gossips, who orally circulate the situational truths oftheir experiences and rebel against prohibitive textual traditions. Traditional views ofthe Wife ofBath perceive her as unsuccessful, a ridiculous character ironically undercut by her misinterpretations oftexts and her very need to appropriate authoritative texts in order to support her own agenda (McClellan 485). Examining the Wife through Bakhtin's discursive theory, however, reveals the Wife's discourse as a remarkable example of socio-linguistic struggle, "a discourse that is still warm from [social] struggle and hostility, as yet unresolved and still fraught with hostile intentions and accents" (DI:

"Discourse" 331). When one examines the oral context and approach ofAlisoun's prologue in light ofBakhtin's ideas, her references to "auctoritees" are a function ofthe inherited nature oflanguage that is always "half-ours and half-someone else's." Nor does the Wife merely play the camivalesque "merry rogue" by alienating and profaning the authoritative "speech ofthe fathers." More thanjust another variation ofLady

Skimmington, Chaucer's Wife ofBath presents a Weltanschauung that extends beyond 241 the controlled temporary chaos ofcamival and beyond herselfas an individual. By identifying herself as a gossip and locating the debate with texts in an oral context, the

Wife transforms the dimensions ofthe struggle for representational authority. Applying dialogic theory to the oral/literate dynamics ofthis text reveals the truth ofMcClellan's claim that the Wife could be a potentially "powerful oppositional voice" in the larger socio-political context offourteenth-century England when viewed in tenns ofBakhtin's work (McClellan 485).

With her assertion that "Experience, though noon auctoriteel Were in this world"

(WBP 1-2) lends her the right to speak ofthe woes in marriage the Wife ofBath introduces herselfas a polemicist in the conventional ongoing battle over representation between the sexes, the querelle des femmes. The Wife's outline ofthe dimensions ofthe conflict in her Prologue explicitly identifies the gendered system ofdiscursive relations that we have seen informing numerous offshoots ofthe querelle. In Thomas Hahn's estimation:

The web ofsocial meaning, gender, and communicative modes emerges

in the first twenty-five lines ofthe Wife's performance, which stress

her removal from the domain ofthe authorized Word recorded in writing.

All her experience ofauthority is oral and personally mediated: "me was

toold," "the same ensample taughte...me," "herde I...tellen." (437)

The Wife's exclusion from the masculine world oftexts is confirmed and reinforced by the Friar's response to her narrative in the prologue that follows her tale. He acknowledges that she has "touched [...] In scole-matere greet difficultee" and recommends that she "lete auctoritees, on Goddes name,! To prechyng and to scoles of 242 clergye" (FrP 1272; 1276-77).3 The Wife battles against a masculine textual community that produces, disseminates and interprets the texts that enforce social mIes. When the

Wife declares, "Offyve husbandes scoleiyng am 1," she sets her experiences against the claims that men "in hir bookes sette" (WBP 44f; 129).

However faulty her reasoning, Chaucer's liberal use ofmedieval antifeminist texts, such as Jerome's Adversus Jovinianum, Theophrastus's Liber aureolus de nuptiis, and Walter Map's Epistola ad Rufinum de non ducenda uxore, demonstrates his Wife's preoccupation with the textual traditions that proscribe her behavior. In fact, as John

Ganim observes, the "overriding image of [the Wife's] entire discourse" is the text itself

(Theatricality 53). The reason for her acquaintance with these texts is easily deducible from her accounts ofher "scoleiyng." The textual antifeminist tradition is disseminated by the men who seek to control her, a collaboration between clerks and husbands. Her frequent references to her husbands' preaching, for example her descriptions ofher old husband preaching "on his bench" (WBP 247) and the sermons on "Jobes pacience"

(WBP 436), indicate that clerical tradition fumishes aIl men with an arsenal ofsupposedly incontrovertible textual authorities with which to control their wives. While we cannot be sure that the Wife accurately dramatizes what her husbands have said to her, her enactment ofhow "she bar [her] olde housbandes on honde" (WBP 380) proves she has been exposed to many antifeminist commonplaces. Moreover, the Wife's understanding that the words her husbands speak carry the authority oftextuaI tradition becomes even

3 While this comment is directed at aIl the pilgrims, it appears rather pointed given that it responds to a narrator who depicts the juxtaposition ofspeaking women and leamed culture. Furtherrnore, one might note that in the Friar 's Tale the first three crimes the Archdeacon prosecutes, "fomicacioun," "wicchecraft," and "bawderye" (FrTl304-5) relate thematically as much to the Wife-a reputedly licentious woman whose friends arrange trysts for her and who hints at female access to occult knowledge-as to the Summoner. 243 more obvious when she contends with their use ofScripture. Acting out her response to the "wordes in the Apostles name" (WBP 341) spoken by her husband, the Wife protests:

"After thy text, ne after thy rubriche,l 1wol nat wirche as muchel as agnat" (WBP 346­

347). Her invocation of"rubriche," the words written in red as a heading for a textuaI passage, emphasizes the Wife's awareness that she vies not merely with the proverbial accusations ofan "olde kaynard" (WBP 235), but with "the ordered, formaI, systemically organized discourse ofmasculine authority in general" (Hahn 436).4

The Wife's relations with her fifth husband, Jankyn, crystallize the implicit relationship between husbands and clerical textual tradition, for the Wife has married her discursive rival. As a former "clerk ofOxenford" (WBP 527) Jankyn is the literaI incarnation ofthe textuaI male who formerly hovered abstractly behind her old husbands' words. Like her earlier husbands, Jankyn tends to "preche" at her (WBP 641), but in this case he has direct access to the texts. The Wife recounts her experience ofwatching

Jankyn use texts against her:

And thanne wolde he upon his Bible seke

That ilke proverbe ofEcclesiaste

Where he comandeth and forbedeth faste

Man shal nat suffre his wyfgo roule aboute.

(WBP 650-654)

The critical moment in Alisoun's relationship with Jankyn results from a similar literary maneuver in their marital struggle. Forced to listen to an endless array ofantifeminist tales read by Jankyn from his book of"wikked wyves" (WBP 685), the Wife finally

4 This reference is the only occurrence ofthe term "rubriche" in Chaucer's work. 244 physically acts on her previous verbal rejections oftexts and "rubriche" by tearing three leaves from the "cursed book" (WBP 789). The detailed description ofthe manuscript itself defines the Wife's act as an attack on textual tradition, as weIl as a personal assault on a particular book and its owner:

He hadde a book that gladly nyght and day,

For his desport he wolde rede always;

He cleped it Valerie and Theofraste,

At which book he lough alwey fuI faste.

And eek ther was somtyme a clerk at Rome,

A cardinal, that highte Seint Jerome,

That made a book agayn Jovinian;

In which book eek ther was Tertulan,

Crisippus, Trotula, and Helowys, [...]

And eek the Parables ofSalomon,

Ovides Art, and books many on,

And aIle thise were bounden in 0 volume. (WBP 669-681)5

The Wife's ultimate demand that her repentant husband "brenne his book" (WBP 816) constructs her not only as a censor oftextual tradition, but ultimately establishes new parameters for future marital conflict by eliminating her husband's advantage. The importance ofJankyn's book as a symbol ofmasculine textual power is clearly evinced by the Wife's description ofthe outcome oftheir marital skirmish. In her account ofher

5 The inclusion oftwo female writers in this collection ofantifeminist texts suggests that Alisoun should modify her claim that women authors would write different tales than their male counterparts. Women's words in textual form are presented paradoxically as part ofthe literary system which confines women; writing women participate in the textual community ofmen. Speaking women tell the tales that dialogically disrupt conventions. 245 acquisition of"maistrie" (WBP 218) the Wife offers a list ofher husband's concessions.

She moves from her significant material gains, "the govemance ofhouse and lond" (WBP

814), to more abstract advantages, "and ofhis tonge, and ofhis hond also" (WBP 816).

Yet her final demonstration ofhow she gained "soveraynetee" (WBP 818) refers to a detail that seems rather minor when compared with the other concessions: the buming of the book. On a symbolic level, however, the book-buming represents the greatest sacrifice: the surrender ofthe ultimate source ofJankyn's authority both as a man and a scholar. Thus, while the Wife begins her Prologue by rhetorically privileging her experience over textual "auctoritees," she ends the prologue by symbolically incinerating masculine textual tradition altogether to ensure her sovereignty.

As the voice ofexperience, Alisoun constructs herselfnot only as a shrewish outcast and target ofmasculine textual discourse, but also as a member ofan altemate discursive sphere defined in terrns oforality and femininity. The voice ofexperience that challenges the "auctoritees" is the gossip's voice. The wife characterizes herself at various points in the Prologue as a conventional gossip whose garrulity leads to breaches ofsexual and domestic boundaries: "And ofmy tonge [1 was] a verray jangleresse,/ And walke l wolde, as l had doon bifom,/ From hous to hous" (WBP 638-640). The garrulous tendencies that make the Wife an individual opponent oftextual tradition also signal her participation in an oral community ofwomen, her gossips. Significantly, Alisoun's self­ identification as a gossip is most pronounced when she relates the story ofher marriage to

Jankyn. Alone the frequent pairing, both visually and in terrns ofplot, ofthe words

"clerk" and "gossib" (a reference to a woman conveniently also named Alisoun) suggest a fourteenth-century variation ofthe conventional juxtaposition ofthe philosopher and the shrew: 246

He som tyme was a clerk ofOxenford,

And hadde left scole, and wente at hom to bord

With my gossib, dweelynge in oure toun; [...]

And so bifel that ones in a Lente-

So often tymes l to my gossyb wente,

For evere yet l loved to be gay,

And for to walke in March, Averill, and May,

Fro house to hour, to heere sondry talys-

That Jankyn clerk, and my gossib dame Alys,

And l myself, into the feeldes wente. (WBP 527-529; 543-549)

What is most important in the passages describing the Wife's seduction ofJankyn is that beyond her flaunting ofconjugal bonds, emphasized here by a movement out her domestic space to the houses ofothers and finally into the fields, Alisoun affirms the bonds between women. Her affectionate exclamations about her "gossib" Alys, "God have hir soule" (WBP 530), and her niece "which that [she] loved weel" (WBP 537) indicate that her transgression ofboundaries is as much for the sake ofthat community and its exchange oftales and counsel, as for her amorous adventures.

The juxtaposition ofthe gossip and the clerk extends beyond Alisoun's marital relationship to define two contrasting discursive spheres.6 The bond between the gossips, the Wife asserts, lies in their shared confidences. The Wife oudines an oral sphere of gossip that excludes and endangers men. The privileged authoritative audience for

6 This pairing in the Wife's Prologue lends even greater significance to the fact that the main pilgrim respondent to the Wife is the Clerk. Even in the larger frame ofthe Canterbury Tales itselfthe garrulous gossip stands in contradistinction to the book-loving Clerk whose main fault, in Ganim's opinion, is his desire to "impose abstract order on experience" (Theatricality 88). 247 women's secrets, the parish priest, is supplanted by the gossips' circle that circulates the

secrets ofmen in confessional interactions unchecked by institutional authority:

[...] Hir name was Alisoun.

She knew myn herte, and eek my privetee,

Bet than oure parisshe preest, so moot 1thee!

To hire biwreyed 1my conseil al.

For hadde myn housbonde pissed on a wal,

Or doon a thyng that sholde han cost his lyf,

To hire, and to another worthy wyf,

And to my nece, which that 1loved weel,

1wolde han toold his conseil every deel. (WBP 530-538)

Furthermore, while the Wife rejects the counsel ofmale social authorities and betrays the

"pryvatees" ofmen, she upholds the counsel ofwomen. The Wife's references to her mother indicate that her behavior is informed by a feminine oral tradition. Her seduction

ofJankyn is a "soutiltee" taught her by her "dame" (WBP 576). Inserted between two references to lessons taught by her mother, the Wife's indication that she was taught dream interpretation (WBP 581) illustrates the kinds oflessons presumed to be learned

among women. Therefore, just prior to returning to the account ofher marriage to a clerk the Wife ofBath reasserts that the source ofher authority is the lesson ofexperience passed oral1y between women: "[...] 1folwed ay my dames loore,! As weI ofthis as of othere thynges moore" (WBP 583-584).

While the fact that the Wife ofBath's Prologue depicts a conventional struggle between the textual voice ofmasculine authorities and the oral voice ofunruly feminine experience is self-evident, the outcome ofthis struggle is not as clear. What can one 248 make ofa gossip who continuously refers to biblical and classical texts in order to justify her transgressions ofmarital and social norms? Sorne readings propose that the voice of experience is undermined by its reliance on textual authorities, her references to "wordes

[written by] Ptholomee" (WBP 182), for example. This notion that the Wife intends to set herselfup as a textual authority finds its earliest expression in the fictional world of the Canterbury Tales itself, in the Pardoner's interruption. The Pardoner's identification, ironic or not, ofthe Wife as a "noble prechour" (WBP 165) presents her as an interpreter oftexts. Exegesis or, as the Wife frequently terms it, "glosen up and doun" refers to the practice oflocating the essential meaning ofa text; it is an expression ofthe medieval beliefin the centripetal tendencies oflanguage. Carolyn Dinshaw defines glossing as follows: "Glossing is a gesture ofappropriation; the glossa undertakes to speak for the text, to assert authority over it, to provide an interpretation, finally to limit or close it to the possibility ofheterodox or unlimited significance" (122). According to medieval rhetorical theories passed down from Augustine, language was a veil that must be tom away to pursue God's truth.7 Medieval hermeneutics reflect the limited interpretive scope ofthis approach:

Every text, according to Augustine, can and must be read so that it teaches

the single lesson ofthe law ofcharity. What is important about this

hermeneutic is that it is preemptive: the reader knows before he

approaches the text what will be the result ofhis reading, and his

interpretive task is not to discover what the text means but its way of

signifying the meaning it must have. (Patterson 346)

7 Peggy Knapp suggests that Augustine's interpretive system actually left open the possibility ofnew knowledge; it was the subsequent interpretations ofAugustine that c10sed down the notion ofpossibility ("Wandrynge"151). 249

As Patterson indicates, for exegetes, and the authors (such as Dante) who used this approach to writing, interpretation was about "mastering the text" (346). Ifthe Wife's quest for sovereignty includes a desire to gain mastery over textual tradition, her continuous misuse ofScripture, a profanation ofsacred texts, guarantees her failure in the eyes offictional and historical audiences alike. However, the Wife's immediate response to the Pardoner's invitation to "teche us yonge men" (WBP 187) explicitly rejects an association with authoritative discourse: "[ ...] taketh not agriefofthat 1seye,! For myn entente nys but for to pleye" (WBP 191-192).

The Wife's definition ofher prologue as playful forces her audience to reconsider the context ofher words. Like the Pardoner, scholars have used various textuaI prototypes, from Juvenalian satire to marriage ofCana sermons, in order to discuss the

Wife's battle with antifeminist texts in her Prologue. While such critical work is both interesting and useful for disceming how Chaucer worked with various sources, the focus on the medieval texts in the Prologue often overlooks the very oral nature and context of her performance. Barbara Gottfried's reading ofthe Wife ofBath helps to explain

Alisoun's significance as a performer/narrator in an oral story-telling context. Gottfried points out that throughout her prologue the Wife is animated by her awareness ofherself as a "speaking subject" and by her awareness ofher audience (202). Her constant references to "yow" throughout her speech, her numerous oral rhetorical flourishes, such as "so moot 1thee" (WBP 532) and "1 shal say sooth" (WBP 195), force us to remember that this monologue is consciously directed at a particular audience. The Wife's awareness ofher audience extends beyond her pilgrim companions to address the two competing discursive realms that she sees in her world, the discursive sphere ofclerics and the counter-discursive sphere ofgossips. Her awareness ofbeing evaluated by 250 clerical authorities is reflected in her decision to accept that human genitals were created both "for office and for ese ofengendrure" (WBP 127-128) so that "the clerkes be nat [...] wrothe" (WBP 125). Even more striking, however, is her mysterious address to an audience ofwomen: "Ye wise wyves, that kan understonde./ Thus shulde ye speke and bere hem wrong on honde" (WBP 225-226). The Wife ofBath's performance ofher verbal whipping ofher old husbands is staged, like Dunbar's Wedo's speech, for the benefit ofother wives: gossips not present in the pilgrim audience.

By taking control ofthe context ofher utterances in her definition ofher speech as play and her delineation ofthe various audiences for whom she speaks, Chaucer's Wife demands to be evaluated dialogically. The emphasis that Chaucer places on the oral context ofher prologue suggests that it is the performance that confers meaning on her words. Seen from the perspective ofBakhtin's discursive theory, the Wife's use of textuaI references is the result ofthe dialogism ofeveryday speech:

The transmission and assessment ofthe speech ofothers, the discourse

ofanother is one ofthe most widespread and fundamental topics of

human speech. In aIl areas oflife and ideological activity, our

speech is filled to overflowing with other people's words, which are

transmitted with highly varied degrees ofaccuracy and impartiality.

The more intensive, differentiated and highly developed the social

life ofa speaking collective, the greater is the importance attaching,

among other possible subjects oftalk, to another's words, another's

utterances, since another's words will be the subject ofpassionate

communication, an object ofinterpretation, discussion, evaluation,

rebuttal, support, further development and so on. (DI: "Discourse" 337) 251

Consequently, meaning lies not in the inherited words themselves but in the uses to which they are put by a particular speaker. The Wife ofBath appropriates and manipulates textual tradition in order to convey new meanings. An audience's ability to hear more than the authoritative discourse she appropriates lies in its ability to listen as gossips, and not as the Pardoner does. The Pardoner represents an audience that expects abstract truths from this "noble prechour." The Wife's references to her discourse as "pleye" and her invocation ofan interpretive community ofgossips for part ofher performance suggest that the Wife does not set out to teach a moral (or, for that matter, immoral) lesson. She speaks, instead, as a gossip.

Karma Lochrie is one ofthe few scholars who recognizes the interpretive importance ofthe Wife's self-identification as a gossip:

While it is common to view the Wife's Prologue as an appropriation of

clerical discourse, or in earlier criticism, as a distortion ofit, few scholars

have noticed the Wife's primary identification ofherselfas gossip, or of

her Prologue, as the translation ofantifeminist discourse into gossip by

the way in which she creates her own speech community as weIl as her

own authority. The Wife ofBath's famous assertion ofher own

experience is meaningless without her implicit assertion ofgossip as the

discursive mode that frames, interprets and even authorizes that

experience. (Covert 57)

Gossip as a discursive mode relies on the centrifugaI potential in language, diffusing meaning through double-voicedness. Lochrie's description ofgossip relates easily to

Bakhtin's most familiar examples ofdialogism: "Gossip challenges through parody, pastiche and excessive iteration ofdominant culture" (62). Thus the Wife, as a gossip, 252 can use the tradition against itselfwhen provided with an audience attuned to the contextual nuances ofher speech.

In the passage in which she explicitly addresses herselfto an audience ofgossips, the "wise wyves," the Wife ofBath demonstrates how context can transform the meaning ofan utterance. As Bakhtin argues: "the speech ofanother, once enclosed in a context is-no matter how accurately transmitted-always subject to certain semantic changes"

(DI: "Discourse" 340). Significantly this section ofthe Wife's Prologue concems itself directly with medieval conventions depicting women's manipulative abuse ofspeech.

Alisoun's use ofantifeminist commonplaces about unruly speaking women leads many scholars to believe that she reinforces the very ideology she seeks to undermine.

However, seen in the light oforal performance, the Wife recontextualizes women's use of language. Alisoun's dramatization ofhow she uses textuallanguage against her old husbands, while not denying misogynistic statements, redefines women's speech as a defensive, rather than offensive, maneuver. Her repetition of"Thou seist" 21 times throughout the drama (WBP 235-378) highlights both the Wife's auraI reception of antifeminist ideology and the fact that her speech is a response to textuaI tradition that she claims oppresses her in the form ofher husbands. Ofcourse she says that her "good" husbands were "fuI gilte1ees" (WBP 385). However, the need to "pleyn[e] first" (WBP

390) in order to prevent antifeminist accusations suggests the ubiquity ofthe tradition.

One confirmation ofthe prevalence ofantifeminist ideas and a clue as to where the Wife would have encountered misogynistic ideas prior to Jankyn, ifnot from her old husbands, cornes from identifying the pilgrims who interrupt Alisoun's prologue: the

Pardoner, the Friar and the Summoner. Given the characterization ofthese pilgrims as the most reprehensible representatives ofclerical abuses and the descriptions oftheir 253 manipulation ofChurch rhetoric for their own ends in the General Prologue, one might want to consider why Chaucer would choose to insert aIl three predatory ecclesiastics into

the Wife's Prologue. While it is conjecture to suggest that the Wife learned her

convoluted exegesis from similar officiaIs, it is not farfetched to argue that her "Thou

seist" statements quite the rhetoric ofthese types ofindividuals. Significantly, Alisoun

actually uses the concept ofquiting to define her use oflanguage in relation to her first

husbands. She clearly articulates her motivation and approach:

For, by my trouthe, 1quitte hem word for word.

As helpe me verray God omnipotent,

Though 1right now sholde make my testament,

1ne owe hem nat a word that it nys quit. (WBP 421-425)

By placing women's speech in the paradigm ofquiting the Wife illuminates the embattled

stance ofwomen conventionally depicted as aggressors.8 The shrew who attacks her

husband, in the Wife's opinion, battles more than merely an individual. Even as she

describes her actions as a marital scourge, the Wife demands that her actions be

considered in light ofa battle in which her words are not so much unwarranted assaults as

preemptive strikes against an "olde fool" and, more importantly, the textuai tradition that

lends him social authority.

The Wife's dramatic object lesson demonstrates the importance ofwhat Bakhtin

dubs the "dialogizing backdrop" ofan utterance (DI: "Discourse" 340). The Wife's

dialogical discourse forces her audience to realize that language can be populated by

different intentions and that, therefore, an utterance's meaning depends on its context.

8 One should recall that quiting is agame played among the pilgrims themselves. The Wife's invocation of this term moves this game out ofthe context ofthe actual pilgrimage into the context ofeveryday life. 254

Alisoun's climactic query highlights the lesson she communicates throughout her prologue: truth is contextual and language manipulatible.

Who peyntede the leon, tel me who?

By God, ifwommen hadde writen stories

As clerkes han withinne hire oratories,

They wolde han writen ofmen moore wikkednesse

Than al the mark ofAdam may redresse. (WBP 692-696)

Scholars accept that the Wife's query reveals that the supposedly objective discourse of the authorities is, in fact, subjective. The revelation ofclerical subjectivity, a subjectivity the Wife goes so far as to explain in terms ofthe psychological repercussions of"dotage" and an inability to do "Venus workes" (WBP 708-709), undermines the objective, transcendental quality oftheir institutionalized, written discourse. The Wife ofBath exposes the Ettle man behind the Wizard ofOz, to borrow a contemporary image, when she separates the men she argues with from the authoritative discourse they wield both figurativelyand, in Jankyn's case, literally.

However, many critics conclude that the Wife sets herselfup as the new objective authority. According to a reading which privileges the dialogic approach to truth used in oral narrative, the Wife's performance does not so much present her audience with an altemate exegetical truth as highlight the subjective nature oftruth itself. Alisoun's continuaI use of"1 seye" throughout her narrative, her ownership ofher opinion, acknowledges her own subjectivity. Lisa Kiser explains the Wife's rhetorical approach:

"Never pretending to offer definitive readings ofScripture the Wife plays the game of

'glosyng up and doun' as well as any exegete, but unlike exegetes, she is willing to expose the fact that her discourse is interested" (Kiser 139). As a situated speaker the 255

Wife does not demand the "unconditional allegiance" exacted by authoritative speech

(DI: "Discourse" 343). Even her confessional stance, produced outside ofits official context, suggests not the revelation ofessential truths, but what Root defines as a process ofself-fictionalization (Root 93). Moreover, the Wife does not function as a preacher, but as a gossip, a player whose intemally persuasive discourse participates in the continuous "struggle for hegemony among various available verbal and ideological points ofview" (DI: "Discourse" 346).

The Wife's insistence on subjectivity extends beyond the speaker to the audience, forcing listeners and readers to consider how they, as situated listeners, receive her utterances. Chaucer presents various model audiences in the Prologue: the clerks and

Pardoner who require a stable language ofabsolutes and the wives who know how to manipulate language by exploiting its malleability. The audience that recognizes the centrifugaI possibilities in language, as a gossip like the Wife does, participates in the

Wife's Prologue in a different way, recognizing the need for active engagement. The

Wife speaks in "pleye," with a responsive audience in mind:

In the actuallife ofspeech, every concrete act ofunderstanding is active:

it assimilates the word to be understood into its own conceptual system

filled with specifie objects and emotional expressions, and is indissolubly

merged with the response, with the motivated agreement or disagreement.

To sorne extent, primacy belongs to the response, as the activitating

principle: it creates the ground for active and engaged understanding.

Understanding cornes to fruition only in the response. Understanding

and response are dialectically merged and mutually condition each other;

one is impossible without the other. (DI: "Discourse" 282) 256

The need for an active and engaged understanding is apparent in another incident where the Wife makes a clear choice ofaudience. The Wife does not fully confess her secrets to the parish priest, whose authoritative discourse cannot responsively engage with her words in order to establish the truth ofher heart. She speaks instead to an audience that interprets her utterances in the context ofher heart, that acknowledges a similar situatedness; she confesses her secrets to Alisoun, a gossip who "knew [her] herte, and eek [her] privatee" (my emphasis WBP 531). Our grasp ofthe distinction between the two audiences as interpreters relies on the difference between knowledge and understanding articulated by Bakhtin in Problems ofDostoevsky 's Poetics; one audience seeks to know her secrets, the other to understand them.

Such a responsive understanding does not necessarily need to be sympathetic. We have noted that the Wife also anticipates the motivated disagreement ofclerical audience members. 1propose that Alisoun does not seek unanimity so much as a redefinition of the terms ofthis battle between the sexes. The Wife ofBath's attack on textual tradition is an example ofBakhtin's goal to theorize "a way to make the dominant (authoritative) languages into internally persuasive (resisting) ones" (Bauer xii). She transfers men's totalizing language from the "lofty spheres" ofauthoritative written discourse to the zone of"familiar contact" in oral altercations. Bakhtin reminds us that the "semantic struggle ofinternally persuasive discourse is not finite, it is open" (DI: "Discourse" 346). The

Wife ofBath's emphasis on the situatedness ofspeakers and listeners, her continuous consideration ofthe audience that attends her words, reveals an awareness that results from Bakhtin's sense ofthe dialogical imagination: "Truth is not born, nor is it to be found in the heart ofan individual person, it is born between people collectively searching for truth, in the process oftheir dialogic interaction" (PDP 110). 257

The Wife ofBath's presentation ofindividuals struggling with numerous competing, interested discourses need not suggest the breakdown ofthe possibility of truth. Gittes distinguishes between denial and deferral oftruth in Chaucer's work generally. She insists that despite Chaucer's portrayal oflife as a "mottled and sometimes chaotic tapestry" he still manages to leave us with the sense that "beneath this human chaos is a divine order, indiscemible to humans, sensed but never truly understood"

(Gittes 15). By improvising, continually adjusting and readjusting her vision, the Wife demonstrates one fundamental virtue ofthe dialogism that inforrns orality: meaning and truth cannot be calcified. The Wife reminds us ofthe semantically-open essence ofthe intemally persuasive word:

We have not yet leamed from it aIl it might tell us; we can take it into

new contexts, attach it to new material, put it in a new situation in order

to wrest from it new words ofits own (since another's discourse, if

productive, gives birth to a new word from us in response).

(DI: "Discourse" 346)

With the steady production ofnew contexts and meanings in a dialogical worldview cornes a conception ofunderstanding as fluid, as a process ofbecoming.

The varying subjective readerly responses to the Wife ofBath demonstrate one way in which new contexts and audiences transforrn meaning. The Wife's ongoing appeal illustrates how Chaucer's interest in what we can now calI dialogism uses a discursive approach in literature that continues to be relevant. Carl Lindahl explains that

Chaucer's choice ofa framework in which the audience and not the author judges the characters' merits was traditional in verbal art but new to literature (Earnest 13). In his book, The Idea ofthe Book in the Middle Ages: Language Theory, Mythology and 258

Fiction, Jesse Gellrich explores how Chaucer began to undermine medieval conventions ofimitation and theories oflanguage as a transparent, stable medium. Similar to

Lindahl, Gellrich identifies the oral in the Canterbury Tales as one ofthe stylistic means which challenge "the status ofthe signifying process" (236). For Gellrich, Chaucer's work proposes an uncommon medieval view that the fact that "a speaker utters something in the full presence ofan audience does not guarantee at aIl that he is aware ofthe total import ofwhat he has said or that its meaning will be evident to others" (228). In his consideration ofChaucerian theatricality, John Ganim also emphasizes Chaucer's play with the distance between intention and reception by delineating how the pilgrim's oral narratives, filled as they are with retellings and quotations, and polemically oriented toward the utterances ofothers, are imbued with a sense ofthe "provisional status of language" and the knowledge that "the meaning ofa discourse may be as much its context as its text" (126-127).9 The important changes in literary modes ofsignifying meaning identified in Chaucer by critics such as Gellrich, Kiser and Ganim trace their roots back to popular, oral tradition. Once scholars leam to avoid the "intellectual modalities" created by exclusive attention to textuality (Parks 58) it becomes easier to see that the textual openness in the Wife ofBath 's Prologue, and in the Canterbury Tales generally, ref1ects not so much our failure to extract the proper truth from the narrative, as an orally informed view-a view articulated by the newly emerging late medieval fiction-that the search for truth is a continuaI quest.

9 Ganim's Chaucerian Theatricality is a particularly interesting complement to the work that 1am doing in that Ganim also recognizes the Bakhtin's usefulness (with qualifications) for assessing texts that represent oral performance, although he does not address Bakhtin's discourse theory at length. 259

Conclusion

The Wife ofBath as gossip teaches us that truth, even about oneself, is born out of continuously interacting with the discourses ofothers, particularly the discourses we inherit and internalize. Thus the struggle ofthe medieval gossip ref1ects the type of challenge with which contemporary feminists contend:

The feminist struggle is not one between a conscious 'awakened' or

natural voice and the voice ofpatriarchy 'out there'. Rather, precisely

because we internalize the authoritative voice ofpatriarchy, we must

struggle to refashion inherited social discourses into words which

rearticulate intentions (here feminist ones) other than normative or

disciplinary ones. (Bauer 2) l propose that the gossip's voice ofexperience functions neither as an official confession ofessentialist truths, nor, as Lochrie asserts, as the result ofwomen's logophilic

"ceremonial exchange" ofothers' words (Covert 75). According to my reading, the medieval gossip circulates men's secrets and invokes official discourse, not for their own sake, but in an effort to constitute herselfas a speaking subject. lO "We acquire ourselves by engaging in our own dialogue with others, especially with the texts that challenge our beliefs" (Bauer 8). Gossip, as an internally persuasive discourse, "conducts experiments and gets solutions in the language ofanother's discourse" (DI: "Discourse" 347). In the

10 ln her recent exploration ofthe witch in literature and history, Diane Purkiss rnakes a sirnilar suggestion in her attribution ofa certain arnount ofself-fashioning to the testirnony given by sorne alleged witches, in contrast to the typical historical representation ofaccused witches as passive victirns. Lee Patterson, interestingly, cornes to the sarne conclusion that the Wife's performance should be seen prirnarily as a deliberate act ofself-fashioning and links this rhetorical act to the practice ofthe poet. However, where Patterson's text-oriented assessrnent ofrhetoric concludes that the Wife's successful construction of subjectivity is qualified by the fact that she "rernains in the prison house ofmasculine language" (337), rny understanding ofthe Wife's oral approach defines this as an ongoing, and therefore, successful process. 260 struggle to be a speaking subject, as opposed to the object ofauthoritative discourse, the

Wife as a gossip employs a strategy that allows her to wrest new definitions ofherself from the discourse that surrounds and informs her:

This process-experimenting by turning persuasive discourse into

speaking persons-becomes especially important in those cases where

a struggle against such images has already begun, when someone is

striving to liberate himself from the influences ofan image and its

discourse by means ofobjectification, or striving to expose the

limitations ofboth the image and the discourse. The importance of

struggling with another's discourse, its influence in the history ofan

individual's coming to ideological consciousness is enormous. One's

own discourse and one's own voice, although born ofanother or

dynamically stimulated by another, will sooner or later begin to liberate

themselves from the authority ofanother's discourse.

(DI: "Discourse" 348)

Alisoun's survival strategy reflects precisely this discursive struggle: "the Wife is a speaker, who through the recreative act ofspeaking reconstructs her experience in relation to men and by extension her relation to the patriarchal society in which she lives"

(Gottfried 202).

The success ofthe Wife's strategy is not measured by the definitive nature ofher self-revelations-an impossible c1aim given the elusive nature ofthe Wife-but rather in the audience's acceptance ofthe Wife as the authority on herselfand not the object of another's discourse. Like the priest we receive a performance ofher transgressions but do not know her heart or the "privitees" she shares with her gossips. Like her fourth 261 husband, the audience cannot easily distinguish between what she is and what she affects to be. What is more,just as her fifth marriage reveals her as the Xanthippe to Jankyn's

Socrates, the Wife asserts both her ability and willingness to be a "kynde" and "trewe" wife. The Wife's strategy for survival as an agent rests in her ability to exist in the fissures ofthe discourses that seek to define her, forcing us to listen as gossips who recognize the influence ofcontext, rather than with the categorical approach ofthe confessor or eavesdropper. The Wife possesses a protean potential akin to that ofthe

Loathly Lady in her tale. Unable to fit her in the conventional categories she herself mockingly invokes, like Jankyn and the hapless knight ofher story, the audience must relinquish its interpretive control.

The Wife ofBath's Tale reinforces the theme ofself-definition that emerges in the

l Wife's Prologue. ] The tale begins by clearing relating the predatory "lymytour" who seeks to "dishonour" women (and the pilgrim ecclesiastics to whom the figure alludes) to the "lusty bachelor" whose rape ofa maiden enacts the most extreme literalization of women's "oppressioun" in a society that deems them objects rather than subjects. l2

Poetic justice requires that this man be taught that the object he acted upon is in fact a

Il Sarah Disbrow's article, "The Wife ofBath's Old Wives' Tale," is an excellent complement to the issues raised by my discussion ofthe Prologue. Any further discussion ofhow the Wife ofBath's tale is qualified as an old wives' tale would be merely a footnote to her comprehensive discussion. Disbrow argues that the Parson's reference to 1 Timothy 4:7, "avoid profane and old wives' tales," is a critique ofsorne the pilgrims' tales, including the Wife ofBath's tale. She argues that the hag, referred to as "olde wyf' four times in the tale (WBT 1000, 1046, 1072, 1086), relates to two female figures whose rhetorical skills were considered deceptive: Eve and Augustine's al1egorical figure ofthe foolish woman ofProverbs 9:13, "the quintessential tel1er ofold wives' tales" (67). Alisoun's internaI explanatory voice in the Wife ofBath 's Tale would be viewed by audiences conversant with Augustinian teaching as that ofan "old wife" inappropriately interpreting traditional material and rhetorically manipulating the tale to suit her "immoral" purposes. My analysis ofthe Prologue suggests that this assessment ofthe tale is almost predetermined given her characterization as a gossip. As a text like the Gospelle ofDystaves indicates, the old wives' tale is a fundamental aspect ofthe gossips' discourse.

12 One might want to recall that eavesdroppers also lurk in bushes, although they impose their discourse and not their bodies on the women they encounter. 262

subject. Thus the life ofa man who callously disregarded the needs ofanother is made

dependent on learning "what wommen moost desiren" (WBT 905). In order to learn this

secret he is forced to turn to the discourse circulated among women, the interlangage féminin. As Karma Lochrie attests, the Wife's tale sets up gossip as a rival interpretive

community to the conventional medieval auctoritas, one authored and authorized by

women; the knight must attempt to gain access to its oracular secrets (Covert 59). The

magical nature ofthe Loathly Lady's appearance suggests that the woman who reveals

the secret to the knight symbolically stands for this larger community ofwomen. 13 The

"ladyes foure and twenty, and yet mo" (WBT 991) that catch the knight's eye are

replaced by a single "olde wyf' who is able to speak for aIl women (WBT 1000). In a

similar way, an invisible circ1e ofwomen hovers behind the aging Wife who speaks for

and to them in the Prologue. Moreover, as in the Wife's confrontation with Jankyn, the

question ofsovereignty in the encounter between the Loathly Lady and the knight relates

to the issue ofself-definition. The hag's pillow-Iecture takes the negative terms imposed

on her by her revolted husband and redefines them positively. She does this, one might

add, by appropriating the words ofmedieval "auctoritees" in an uncommon defense ofan

unusual subject, the figure ofthe aging, lower c1ass, poor, ugly woman. Her

transformation, like the Wife's with Jankyn, is dependent on her husband's acceptance of

the terms she uses to define herself, an acceptance signaled by his reference to her "wise

governance" even prior to his relinquishment ofmastery (WBT 1231). The Loathly

Lady's persuasive speech reforms her husband, transforming her into his "lady and [...]

13 The knowledge that the hag's revelation saves the knight positively qualifies the conventional assertion of the Midas tale that women "kan no conseil hyde" (WBT 980). The new context that immediately follows the Midas tale offers a differing perception ofthe effects ofwomen's garrulousness in that it becomes life­ affirming, preserving rather than destroying the man. 263 love, and wyf so deere" (WBT 1230) whose govemance he will follow even before she magically metamorphoses into the fair, young wife ofhis dreams.

In the Wife ofBath Chaucer has produced a character whose identification with orality allows him to explore the potential discursive force ofwhat Bakhtin would calI the intemally persuasive word. Bakhtin's articulation ofthe principle ofdialogism that informs intemally persuasive discourse helps to express the creative power oflanguage, a power reflected in what Benkov refers to as "the deep-seated medieval beliefin the affective power ofthe word and its ability to shape not only one's perceptions but the everyday reality ofthe world in which one lives" (245). In many ways the conclusion of the Wife ofBath 's Tale functions neatly as a parable ofthe power ofspeech, for it is her speech, and not her magic, that transforms the Hag into a loveable wife by altering the knight's perceptions. This transformative nature oflanguage is the central issue in a conventional battle over representation between the sexes where changing perceptions can affect social realities, the verbal-ideological worlds in which we exist.

The Wife as an unruly speaking woman aptly illustrates a larger vision Kathleen

Ashley identifies within Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a vision that speaks to the contemporary issue ofidentity politics, that "the power to 'name' oneselfand others is

[...] a political power" ("Renaming" 289). Identifying herselfas a gossip, rather than as an isolated virago, the Wife reminds us that this political power depends on the interpreting community that receives her utterances. In the fictions we have examined, the unruly speaking woman, as gossip, shrew or witch, is an object ofknowledge to the men who apprehend her utterances. It is in the gossips' circle that the Wife and her gossips acquire the power to be recognized as subjects, to name themselves and others.

Bakhtin explains: "Any object ofknowledge (including man [and woman]) can be 264 perceived and cognized as a thing. But a subject as such cannot be perceived as a thing, for as a subject it cannot, whi1e remaining a subject, become voice1ess, and consequently, cognition ofit can on1y be dia10gic" ("Methodo10gy" 161). According1y, Hadjukowski­

Ahmed states, "understanding rather than know1edge becomes the aim, ofwhich truth is on1y the horizon" ("Framing" 185). The Wife ofBath's discourse as a gossip must be judged for its ability to participate in, and not necessari1y reso1ve, the semantic struggle to produce a discursive self, and, most importantly, as Bakhtin states, "to give birth to a new word from us in response." The many responses to the Wife ofBath in the fictional audience ofpilgrims and the number and variety ofresponses to her, both creative and critica1, in literary history is the most telling tribute to the success ofthe dialogic vision that Chaucer presents in the voice ofthe gossip, a voice whose continuous evasion of definitive categorization persists in engaging its many audiences in dialogue with itself and each other. As a gossip, the Wife ofBath teaches us that the threat inherent in the image ofa women's counter-discursive sphere lies in its construction ofa rea1m whose oral context makes evident the potentia1 for continuous dia10gic interaction with the authoritative word, where subjectivity can emerge out ofthe fissures ofobjectifying discourse. 265

CONCLUSION

In this dissertation 1have explored the triadic image ofthe deviant speaking woman to reveal how literary treatments ofthe battle between the sexes rely upon and contribute to developing cultural attitudes towards orality and textuality. The preoccupation with women's speech in the late medieval and early modem periods reflects broader discursive issues that take on increasing importance at this transitional time in European society, when the rise ofprint, with a concomitant spread of literacy, the increasing importance ofthe vemacular, and the challenges posed by late medievallay piety raise questions about the nature ofdiscursive power and social authority. As

Beckwith indicates, as the boundaries between "lemed" and "lewed" blurred in late medieval society, the gender distinction that underwrote this division also began to erode

("Problems ofAuthority', 187). Hoccleve's address to Sir John Oldcastle illustrates the result, the insistent entrenchment ofbinary ideology to combat a linguistically complex reality:

Sorne wommen eeke, though hir wit be thynne,

Wole argumentes make in holy writ!

Lewde calates! sitteth doun and spynne,

And kakele ofsumwhat elles, for your wit

Is al to feeble to despute ofit! (lines 145-148)

My dissertation asserts that the war waged between the sexes in literature is always also a battle for discursive authority and attests to the related consequence that the polarized cultural definitions oforality and textuality consolidated in the later Middle Ages are distinctly gendered. The preoccupation with women's verbal deviance continually draws on this dichotomy, contrasting the clerk or poet with the gossip, the philosopher with the 266 shrew, the cleric with the witch. Consequently, even as orality remains a discursive modality in society and women participate in textual communities, orality nevertheless becomes a character in literary discourse, speaking in a distinctly feminine voice that echoes across centuries ofliterary history.

Seen from the perspective ofthe twenty-first century, the late medieval association ofa debased orality with femininity has left a remarkably mixed legacy. In a multi-modal environment where social authority resides in part on having exclusive access to a discursive modality invested with representational authority, women's identification with oral culture has affected the way in which women's utterances, both oral and literary, have been received. The noted Victorian criminologist, Cesare

Lombroso, associates women, because oftheir "loquacity and gossip," with speech "to the exclusion ofwriting" (Bloch 60). Ifwomen must write-despite their stunted

"graphic centers"-Lombroso encourages them to write letters, since letters are still a form of"conversation" which conforms to the "abundant orality" ofwoman's character

(Bloch 60).1 Lombroso defines the female mind as inferior because ofwhat he perceives to be its oral nature: its attention to detail and its aversion to philosophical abstraction

(Bloch 29). It is orality, according to Lombroso, which prevents women from philosophizing and limits them to the more decorative, less truth-telling genres.

Lombroso was not the first to attempt to limit women's access to genres, confining them in the enchanted forests ofthe fairytales. From classical times onwards

Lady Philosophy is far outnumbered by Xanthippe's sisters, women whose utterances are by definition non-canonical, the tellers ofold wives' tales. The ancient term "old wives'

1 One may want to reconsider, at this point, Ong's reference to women's contributions to the "conversational" style ofthe novel. 267 tale" encapsulates this identification ofwomen with the oral, the superstitious, the non­ literary. This association can be traced as far back as the classical texts ofCicero and

Seneca, as weIl as to the writings ofthe early Christian church. In the later Middle Ages the term "old wives' tale" was used as a concept in literary criticism by writers like

Boccaccio to dismiss certain texts by associating them with the vulgar women who tell superstitious and diverting (as opposed to properly didactic) folktales. The popular comic tradition ofthe man ofletters defeated by the vulgar woman in the early modem peroid builds on this association. Sara Matthews Grieco suggests that this popular engraving theme is "eloquent testimony ofa real antagonism which opposes a (masculine) culture of writing with an oral and popular culture identified with the woman" (my translation 311).

Mass literacy produced a notion ofpopular literature as literature drawn from the weIl of folk culture, the realm oforal tradition. The equation offeminized orality with popular or

"low" culture has affected social beliefs about what women read and what women write.

In her introduction to The Feminist Critique ofLanguage, Deborah Cameron writes of women's silence as a limitation to genres such as "gossip, storytelling, private letters, and diaries."

[This] list offemale genres gives a valuable clue to the constitution

of"women's silence." For none ofthese genres are especially

prestigious, and sorne, like gossip, are actually disparaged. They

are private forms oflanguage confined to the space ofthe home

or village community; in the public domain and especially in

the domain ofculture (by which 1mean society's representation

ofitselfin rituals, institutions, codified knowledge, and creative

art) these genres have no currency, let alone value. (6) 268

Moreover, even as women have achieved access to the "domain ofculture" critical assessments offemale audiences and authors-ofwhich the issue ofthe novel as a female genre is only one example-indicate that a women's textual community remains somehow bound with the private, the subjective, the confessional self. This alignment, my dissertation proposes, results not merely from women's practical and ideological domestic confinement, but also from their association with a particular epistemology drawn from a social orientation to living speech.

Regardless ofthe obviously detrimental effects ofthe lingering association between women and orality, the notion oforal femininity holds sorne appeal for a variety ofWestern women negotiating gender identity at this stage in history. One most intriguing popular incarnation, or perhaps one should say appropriation, ofthe medieval gossip is a Web site designed by Nikol Lohr aptly entitled Disgruntled Housewife

(www.disgruntledhousewife.com). Aimed exclusively at women seeking a "guide to modern living and intersex relationships," the Disgruntled Housewife site is a remarkable example ofthe longevity and evocative power ofthe medieval image ofthe women's counter-discursive sphere. Preoccupied with confessional exchange (with sections such as "Fears," "Secret Confessions"" "Neurosis " and "The Seven Deadly Sins") that emphasizes the pleasures ofvoyeurism and eavesdropping (the site search engine bears the title: "snoop around, you dirty little sneak"), the site is predicated on the related conventions offemale (heterosexual) sexuality and female friendship. Thus, an advice column, "Ask Queenie," and a section honoring female friendship, "Girls 1like," are accompanied by numerous sections exploring aggressive female sexuality. Most notable among these are "Slutty," a section premised on the notion ofthe powerful promiscuous woman, and "Pregnancy," the most controversial section, which expresses an aversion to 269 women's reproductive experiences and roles. Most significant ofaIl is the "Dick List,"

an alphabetical index where women can submit or read actual accounts (presumably) of

individual men's transgressions and inadequacies, whose express purpose is to promote

"girly solidarity through bile-spewing.,,2 While it is not my intention to endorse or vindicate this Web site as an advance for feminist thought, the site demonstrates the

continued appeal ofa stance like the Wife ofBath's which makes women's communal

narrative exchange the weapon in the battle for social and sexual independence from

The liberating potential in women's association with an oral counter-discursive

sphere has also been explored in various more complex ways by French feminists seeking

to establish a utopian space free from authoritative discourse, from which women can

write. Opposed to the symbolic order ofthe Law ofthe Father, theorists like Hélène

Cixous invoke the Voice ofthe Mother as the source offeminine power. This quest for

the new language offeminine power, the écritureféminine, takes a critic like Luce

Irigaray out ofthe Western philosophical discourse that has defined textual tradition for

centuries back into what she terms "babble." Seen in the context ofearly literary

2 ln a New York Times Magazine article drawn from his forthcoming book, The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction ofPrivacy in America, Associate Professor ofLaw Jeffrey Rosen indicts the DisgruntIed Housewife Dick List as dangerous because ofits textuality-its archivaI of"intemperate" and context-Iess comments as facts-while nostalgically valorizing "oral gossip" as a "flexible [read: because it is contextual] way ofenforcing communal norms while respecting privacy." While 1 share Rosen's disdain for the Dick List, it is nevertheless interesting that an author writing about technologies ofsurveillance should invoke notions ofgossip and slander, and should, moreover, choose as one ofa few concrete examples a Web site that so neatly reconstructs the counter-discursive dynamic ofa female gossip circle-a circle that according to both the medieval eavesdropper-poet and Rosen makes men the victims of fabrications masquerading as facts. Once again, the deviant utterances ofwomen becorne linguistic reference points at another crossroads ofdiscursive developments in the West.

3 Nikol Lohr's self-identification as a woman who is "awful at keeping [her] own secrets" and who emphasizes the sexual urge in women ("sometimes the libido overpowers common sense") frequently calls to mind the Wife ofBath "whose insatiable sexual appetite," in the words ofJanet Wilson, "exceeds her powers ofdiscrimination" (228). 270 definitions ofwomen's deviant speech, the French feminist's retreat from the syntactic order and logic that is the hallmark oftextuality and their interest in women's utterances as arising from the female body (and indeed, as in the case ofKristeva's semiotic, even tending towards the nonverbal) strategically appropriates the very discursive terms long leveled against women. Recognizing the way in which écritureféminine retraces the familiar dimensions ofwomen's ancient association with orality may, on the one hand, help alert us to the dangers ofessentialism inherent in this critical development that could potentially undermine its liberatingjouissance by relegating women to a ghetto of inarticulate primitivism. Nevertheless, critics such as Kristeva present the possibility, in a manner similar to the literary texts dealt with in this dissertation, that the marginal position that has caused women to be oppressed and feared also offers them a unique opportunity for empowerment.

The appeal oforal femininity for contemporary critics is dependent to a degree on the same paradox ofthe powerful disempowered woman developed in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. In literary texts, as in the trials ofwitches, the less power a woman had the more dangerous she became because ofthe power she presumably desired. With attitudes that on the whole excluded women from textual discursive authority, writers envision women tuming to an altemate discursive power, the power ofthe affective word.

Thus while literary history demonstrates that the creative nature ofliving speech contributed to the development oflate medieval fiction, such as Chaucer's, women are made the scapegoats for the potentially destabilizing consequences ofthis mode. Speech becomes a weapon, not only concretely in the invective ofshrews and curses ofwitches, but also in the mouths ofgossips whose dialogic play rattles the discursive foundations that uphold social order. Therefore, the battle for independence that concems the deviant 271 speaking woman, as the Wife of Bath and Margery Kempe demonstrate, is fought not only on the domestic and sexual fronts, but also in the linguistic realm ofsocial discourse.

The gossip's attack on her husband functions as an act ofself-fashioning, creating a narrative that, outside the institutional context ofconfession, allows her to define herself.

Similarly, the shrew, we have discovered, seeks to fashion the world according to her own terms. Likewise Kamensky has observed that what alarmed authorities about the female witch was her inclination to "author" herself. This resisting discourse continuously encounters, or even retums to, the question ofdiscursive authority as it was then expressed in terms ofthe juxtaposition oforal and literate modes.

One important insight to arise out ofmy analysis ofthe by no means unfamiliar deviant woman ofmedievalliterature, and that is related to her identification with orality, is that she is seldom conceived ofas an isolated individual. This observation arises in part for the attention given in this disseration to the popular culture that informs and conditions the more familiar officialliterary and legal discourse surrounding women.

Gnly by understanding the popular conceptions ofgossiping women can we fully grasp the significance ofthe references to deviant speaking women in official medieval discourse. The gossip that hovers in the constitutions ofthe shrew and the witch suggests that behind the transgressive woman speaker stands a community ofwomen and an alterior discursive sphere. It is this possibility ofan altemate interpretive community that makes the resisting discourse ofunruly women truly threatening. Bakhtin's dialogism helps to explain the power ofthe oral counter-discursive sphere that opposes a masculine textual community that perceives itselfas the matrix ofsocial authority. The "word ofthe fathers" that mIes society can be permeated and destabilized in the oral realm; for in the zone offamiliar contact where an utterance must confront its context, the authoritative 272 word is no longer finite, and thus becomes subject to answerability. Thus, the objects ofa discourse that defines the world in stable, transcendent terms can become the subjects of their own resisting discourse in a context that is alive to the centrifugaI tendencies of language, tendencies we recognize most easily in oral discourse.

The feminine counter-discursive sphere in medievalliterature teaches us that gossip can remake the world in ways more profound than temporary camivalesque suspensions ofsocial order. As Patricia Spacks states, in a comment only too appropriate for the women ofDunbar's Tretis or the Wife ofBath: "Gossip dramatizes the possibility that the unruly tongue may master the unruly phallus by telling stories about it" (137).

Unruly speaking women have long been perceived as dismantling the traditional social hierarchy in order to establish its topsy-turvy inverse. However, this perception rests on the assumption that what the rebellious woman offers is another authoritative discourse to replace the one she has dismantled. The Wife ofBath illustrates that what critics have missed due to their primarily allusive, rather than definitive, references to the gossip's orality is that the gossip's intent is "for to pleye." The power ofgossip lies not in doctrinal truths, which once subverted are powerless, but in stories, vehicles for meaning whose relationship to context and community allows them to transform over time. The medieval gossip who offers stories, not dogma, is a fine example ofHolquist's definition ofa dialogical approach to language and communication: "Ifwe do not own, we may at least rent meaning for a while" ("Politics" 163). The image ofthe female oral counter­ discursive sphere in medievalliterature reminds the contemporary critic that to engage with another's discourse is always also an act ofverbal self-creation, an act that acquires meaning through the community that receives it. As the representative oforal femininity, the medieval gossip teaches those attuned to the epistemological perspective from which 273 she speaks that "truth" in such acts ofself-fashioning is not a finishing line, but rather a horizon rising out ofthe staries we tell along the way. 274

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