Law, Gender, and Judgment in Middle English Debate Poetry
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES: LAW, GENDER, AND JUDGMENT IN MIDDLE ENGLISH DEBATE POETRY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Wendy Alysa Matlock, M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Karen A. Winstead, Advisor Professor Lisa J. Kiser ________________________ Adviser Professor Ethan Knapp English Graduate Program ABSTRACT My dissertation investigates the cultural significance of vernacular debate poems from the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries. Debate poems were hugely popular in late medieval England; dozens survive, often in multiple copies, and authors such as Chaucer, Lydgate, and Dunbar contributed to the genre. The disputants in these poems—birds, corpses, worms, and occasionally humans—argue about seemingly frivolous topics to no clear end, for the debates are never resolved. Debate poems are not empty rhetorical games, however, but fascinating literary and historical documents: they address, and often voice strong opinions on, issues of vital interest not only to medieval audiences but also to modern critics. After an introductory chapter that briefly traces the evolution and criticism of the debate genre, my dissertation focuses on three recurring themes in debate poetry: law, gender and eschatology. Chapter two focuses on the legal ramifications of three debate poems, The Owl and the Nightingale, Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls, and The Assembly of Ladies, contending that the irresolution of these debate poems mimics the slow pace of the law courts, and that the poems comment on the delays endemic in the English legal ii system. Chapter three shows that debates between the body and soul, far from being the straightforward vehicles for conveying moral lessons they are generally assumed to be, are, in fact, explorations of human identity that grapple with fears and uncertainties about the afterlife. My fourth chapter argues that characters engaged in debates purporting to be about the vices and virtues of women generally agree on the nature of women but disagree about how their sexual behavior affects men’s reputations. I contend that these debates represent ideas about masculinity and social control. Ultimately, my dissertation both reassesses the debate genre and shows the diversity of opinions that could circulate around these three issues, enriching our understanding of late medieval culture in England. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor, Karen Winstead, for her interest, insight, and discipline at every stage of the project. I am privileged to have worked with such a passionate medievalist, and I owe her an incalculable debt. I also thank Lisa Kiser, Ethan Knapp, and Nicholas Howe, who have questioned, challenged, and encouraged me throughout the writing of my dissertation. I thank the Department of English for awarding several fellowships that enabled me to spend extended periods of time researching and writing, and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies for travel grants that allowed me to conduct research at the British Library, the Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, and Cornell University. I also thank the Huntington Library for the Mayers Fellowship. I am grateful to Susan Aronstein and Carolyn Anderson for introducing me to the pleasures of reading medieval literature. I thank Mark Bayer and Sharon Mitchell for reading and commenting on various chapters, and for their friendship. I also thank my family without whose support I would never have completed this dissertation. Finally, I am deeply grateful to Dave Defries whose questions and companionship enrich my life. iv VITA June 10, 1973 . Born – Killeen, Texas 1995 . B.A. English, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 1995 – 1997 . Teaching Associate, Department of English, University of Wyoming 1997 . M.A. English, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 1997 – 2000 . Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University 2000 – 2003 . Administrative and Teaching Associate, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract . ii Acknowledgments . .iv Vita . .v List of Figures . viii Chapters: 1. Introduction . .1 2. Royal Justice and Unresolved Disputes . 15 2.1. The Dilatory Nature of Royal Justice . 19 2.2. Law versus Violence in The Owl and the Nightingale . 31 2.3. The Parliament of Fowls and Deferred Royal Justice . 48 2.4. “And long to sue it is a wery thing”: Legal Commentary in The Assembly of Ladies. 63 3. “Food for worms”: Judging the Flesh . .82 3.1. The Body in Theological and Pastoral Literature . 90 vi 3.2. The Sinful, Ephemeral Body . .100 3.3. “Þe hool man maad of body and of soule” . 112 3.4. The Last Judgment and Eternal Reward/Punishment . 135 4. Gender and Secrets . .165 4.1. “Þi sawe shall ben wide couþ”: Knowing Women in The Thrush and the Nightingale . 174 4.2. Telling Tales to the King in Lydgate’s Mumming at Hertford . .199 4.3. Gossip and Gender in Dunbar’s The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo . 215 4.4. Conclusion . 237 Bibliography . 241 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 3.1 BL Additional 37049, fol. 32v (Courtesy of the British Library) . 162 3.2 HM 1157, fol. 145v (Courtesy of the Huntington Library) . 163 3.3 HM 1134, fol. 142 (Courtesy of the Huntington Library) . 164 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Þe Ni?tingale at þisse worde Mid sworde an mid speres orde, ?if ho mon were, wolde fi?te; Ac þo ho bet do ne mi?te Ho ua?t mid hire wise tunge. ‘Wel fi?t þat wel specþ,’ seiþ in þe songe. Of hire tunge ho nom red; ‘Wel fi?t þat wel specþ,’ seide Alured. -The Owl and the Nightingale (late thirteenth century) In medieval literature . conflict represented a state demanding a resolution. It revealed a state of inadequacy that was present because of the misunderstanding or lack of awareness of a character, a state that could be remedied only when the character saw clearly and perceived the truth. -Edmund Reiss, “Conflict and Its Resolution in Medieval Dialogues” (1969) The Nightingale’s “wise tunge” is her second choice of weapon in her conflict with the Owl; she would prefer to fight with sword and spear point, but she acknowledges that thse is a bird and not a human to the extent that she resorts to verbal dispute for “ho bet do ne mi?te.” The Nightingale’s thoughts imply that debate is a rather ineffective course of action in the conduct of disputes and, furthermore, ironically associates unbridled violence with people and reasoned speech with animals. The passage continues, however, by quoting the proverb “Wel fi?t þat wel specþ” twice, attributing the 1 saying first to a song and second to Alfred (the only authority ever cited in the birds’ debate). The repeated phrase presents a much more positive view of disputation than the Nightingale evinced. The weight of authority, both popular and learned, lies with this latter view, but the conflicting views reflect the widely divergent uses of debate in late- medieval society, from carefully reasoned academic disputations to the seemingly petty squabbling of two birds. On the one hand, debate could be a tool to uncover and reveal the truth, and, on the other, it could perpetuate insignificant quarrels. It is only when the diverse practices of disputation are considered that we can properly begin to estimate the importance of debate in medieval literature. This project investigates the cultural significance of Middle English debate poetry, an enormously popular poetic genre from the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries. As the name implies, the essential feature of a debate poem is the conflict (usually verbal) between two or more disputants with opposed beliefs, principles, or practices. Unlike the teacher and pupil dialogues such as Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosphiae, in debate poems the disputants are typically evenly matched and the poet does little to direct the reader’s response to the disputants and their arguments; even where there is a ruler or arbitrator, judgment is usually postponed. Scholars have seldom agreed on the meaning of poems that contain little more than discourse between the body and the soul of a recent corpse, as in “Als i lay in a winteris nyt,” or among three women on Midsummer’s Eve, as in William Dunbar’s Tretis of Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo, 2 or between two birds, as in many of the Middle English poems.1 Debate poems are not empty rhetorical games, however, but fascinating literary and historical documents: they address, and often voice strong opinions on, issues of vital interest not only to medieval audiences but also to modern critics. In this project, I focus on three topics that recur in a number of the debates—royal law, divine judgment, and gender hierarchies—in order to begin to shed light on the dynamic role of debate in medieval literature and culture. A study of these subjects will also enrich our understanding of the complexity of medieval culture, for the debates reflect popular interest in rhetoric, law-court procedure, theology, and right rule. Thomas L. Reed’s 1990 broad survey of the debate genre, Middle English Debate Poetry and the Aesthetics of Irresolution, argues that unresolved debate poems are more than flippant riddles, that they are purposeful texts designed to “winnow good arguments from bad” (ix), but studies of the subjects the poems address have overlooked the debates as sources of information about medieval culture.2 My project accepts Reed’s argument and investigates the competing positions inscribed within individual debate poems as well as across the different poems concerned with matters of legal procedure, eschatology, and good governance in order to show the diversity of opinions that could circulate around controversial issues, enriching our understanding of medieval culture.