Madness and Gender in Late-Medieval English Literature

Durham E-Theses Madness and Gender in Late-Medieval English Literature JOSE, LAURA How to cite: JOSE, LAURA (2010) Madness and Gender in Late-Medieval English Literature, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/217/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 1 Laura Jose “Madness and Gender in Late-Medieval Literature” This thesis discusses presentations of madness in medieval literature, and the ways in which these presentations are affected by (and effect) ideas of gender. It includes a discussion of madness as it is commonly presented in classical literature and medical texts, as well as an examination of demonic possession (which shares many of the same characteristics of madness) in medieval exempla. These chapters are followed by a detailed look at the uses of madness in Malory‟s Morte Darthur, Gower‟s Confessio Amantis, and in two autobiographical accounts of madness, the Book of Margery Kempe and Hoccleve‟s Series. The experience of madness can both subvert and reinforce gender roles. Madness is commonly seen as an invasion of the self, which, in a culture which commonly identifies masculinity with bodily intactness, can prove problematic for male sufferers. Equally, madness, in prompting violent, ungoverned behaviour, can undermine traditional definitions of femininity. These rules can, however, be reversed. Malory‟s Morte Darthur presents a version of masculinity which is actually enhanced by madness; equally divergent is Margery Kempe‟s largely positive account of madness as a catalyst for personal transformation. While there is a certain consistency in the literary treatment of madness – motifs and images are repeated across genres – the way in which these images are used can alter radically. There is no single model of madness in medieval literature: rather, it is always fluid. Madness, like gender, remains open to interpretation. 2 Madness and Gender in Late-Medieval English Literature Laura Jose PhD Thesis Durham University, Department of English Studies 2010 3 Contents Introduction 6 Chapter one: Madness in Classical Literature 29 Chapter two: Madness in Medical Texts 74 Chapter three: Demonic Possession 115 Chapter four: Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur 150 Chapter five: John Gower’s Confessio Amantis 180 Chapter six: Margery Kempe 219 Chapter seven: Thomas Hoccleve 260 Conclusion 302 Bibliography 307 4 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 5 Acknowledgements My thesis was made possible by an AHRC doctoral award and a Durham University doctoral fellowship. Profound thanks are due to my supervisor, Professor Corinne Saunders, for her invaluable help and support. I would also like to thank Pat Mussett and Dr Katherine Heavey for their assistance in translating some of the Latin texts. Thanks are also due to my parents, for support both financial and otherwise. 6 Introduction Madness has been long misrepresented in medieval studies. Assertions that conceptions of mental illness were unknown to medieval people, or that all madmen were assumed to be possessed by the devil, were at one time common in accounts of medieval society.1 Michel Foucault‟s Madness and Civilisation (1965) propagated the erroneous idea that mad people „led an easy wandering existence‟ in the medieval countryside.2 In fact, as many fine recent studies have shown, a medieval person suffering from madness would almost certainly have been looked after in the home.3 As Wendy Turner comments, „the English did not demand nor ask that an insane person leave his or her community, and were quick to reclaim an individual if he or she wandered off.‟4 Those thought to be dangerous would in fact have been closely confined, in order to protect themselves or others. Hospitals catering specifically to the insane, such as the infamous Bedlam, were, during the period my thesis covers (c. 1300-1500), almost non-existent. Although Bethlem Hospital (as Bedlam was officially known) was founded in 1247, it catered for a variety of sufferers, not just the insane. It was not until the fifteenth century that it became known primarily as a hospital for the mad.5 1 In fact, demonic possession, while accepted as a genuine condition, was an entirely separate affair from madness. While, as we will see, there was some overlap of symptoms, both cause and cure were entirely different. 2 Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, trans. Richard Howard (London: Tavistock, 1965) 7. 3 See for example Wendy Turner, “Afflicted with Insanity”: The Care and Custody of the Feeble-Minded in Late Medieval England, Diss., U of California, 2000 (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI, 2001). 4 Turner 31. 5 Jonathan Andrews, Asa Briggs, Roy Porter, Penny Tucker, and Keir Waddington, The History of Bethlem (London: Routledge, 1997) 81. 7 My thesis is, however, not concerned with the lived experience of madness during the Middle Ages, which has already been examined in detail by Wendy Turner, among others. Rather, I am concerned with the way in which madness is represented textually, and by the ways in which these representations are affected by, and affect in turn, conceptions of gender. I do not intend to evaluate madness in terms of modern diagnostic criteria, or to make decisions about the autobiographical status or otherwise of first person accounts such as those of Hoccleve or Margery Kempe. My criteria for determining what is or is not madness are modelled entirely on the criteria of the texts I examine. Given that they are the basis of my thesis, then, it seems logical to begin by examining the definitions of madness as accepted in the Middle Ages. Medical Definitions of Madness Medieval medicine is largely rooted in classical Greek medical theory, which is itself centred on the concept of the humours. In classical thought, the body is composed of four humours: phlegm, black bile, yellow bile and blood. Each humour possesses certain qualities, which in turn are predominant at different times of the year: black bile, for example, a cold and dry humour, predominates in autumn. The four humours, in turn, correspond to the four seasons, the four ages of man, and, most importantly, the four elements. The four elements – air, water, fire and earth – are the building blocks of the universe: everything is composed of a combination of elements. The body is a microcosm of the world itself. And, just as the world is composed of elements in perfect balance, so the body relies upon a balance of humours in order to remain in health. 8 Diseases are then, to some extent, thought of as being a product of the body itself. While the concept of infection was known to the Middle Ages (the Black Death, especially, prompted theories of transmission ranging from corruption through air to infection through the eyes), it was thought that only those whose unbalanced bodies laid them open to infection would contract disease. As Stanley Jackson notes, „diseases were rooted in the general nature of man.‟6 The humoural balance within the body, once upset, produces illness. The composition of humours in the body determines its overall temperament: the hot and wet body, dominated by blood, produces a sanguine temperament; the cold and wet body dominated by phlegm, phlegmatic; hot and dry dominated by red or yellow bile, choleric; and cold and dry dominated by black bile, melancholic.7 A melancholic body, then, is already predisposed to suffer from an excess of black bile, and thus vulnerable to melancholia. The humoural theory, stemming from Hippocratic times, was developed and added to throughout the classical and medieval periods. Galen, in particular, developed the pneumatic theory, which shared popularity with the theory of the humours in medieval medical thought. Roy Porter describes the pneumatic theory as being built on the Platonic doctrine of a threefold division of the soul, which distinguished vital functions into processes governed by vegetative, animal and rational „souls‟ or „spirits‟. Animal life was possible only because of the existence of pneuma. Within the human body, pneuma (air), the life breath of the cosmos, was modified by the three principal organs, the liver, heart and brain, and distributed by three types of vessels: veins, arteries, and nerves. Pneuma, 6 Stanley W. Jackson, Melancholia and Depression: From Hippocratic Times to Modern Times (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1986) 14. 7 J. A. Tasioulas, “Science,” Chaucer: An Oxford Guide, ed. Steve Ellis (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005) 174- 89, at 182. 9 modified by the liver, became the nutritive soul or natural spirits which supported the vegetative functions of growth and nutrition; this nutritive soul was distributed by the veins. The heart and arteries were responsible for the maintenance and distribution of innate heat and pneuma or vital spirits to vivify the parts of the body. The third alteration, occurring in the brain, ennobled vital spirits into animal spirits, distributed through the nerves (which Galen thought of as empty ducts) to sustain sensation and movement.8 The brain, then, is key to the proper functioning of the body.

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