REIMAGINING GENDER, REIMAGINING KINSHIP: CROSS-DRESSING, SEX CHANGE, AND FAMILY STRUCTURE IN FOUR MEDIEVAL FRENCH NARRATIVES by Karen Adams B.A., Vassar College, 2003 M.A., University of Pittsburgh, 2010 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2016 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Karen Adams It was defended on October 21, 2016 and approved by Chloé Hogg, Assistant Professor, French and Italian Todd Reeser, Professor, French and Italian Jennifer Waldron, Associate Professor, English Dissertation Advisor: Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Distinguished Professor, French and Italian ii Copyright © by Karen Adams 2016 iii REIMAGINING GENDER, REIMAGINING KINSHIP: CROSS-DRESSING, SEX CHANGE, AND FAMILY STRUCTURE IN FOUR MEDIEVAL FRENCH NARRATIVES Karen Adams, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2016 In this dissertation, I show that instances of cross-dressing and female-to-male sex change in four thirteenth- and fourteenth-century French texts have both a disruptive purpose and a healing function in their relation to family structures. The alterations in identity due to cross-dressing and/or sex change provoke situations in which links of kinship are re-imagined: sometimes simply restructured, at other times erased from the narrative. I examine the representation of gendered personhood through the lens of kinship ties, and correct the tendency of previous scholarship on these texts to separate questions of gender identity from the intricate web of familial identity. By including what happens after sex change – namely, the engendering of sons – I show the ways in which sex change is coded as a holy event that begets new forms of masculinity and new relationships to kinship, inheritance, and lineage. In my first chapter, on Le Roman de Silence, I argue that the decision to cross-dress Silence and raise him as a boy forces a reconstruction of Silence’s family itself, and that Silence’s masculine gender identity becomes a stable referent against which kinship bonds are made and unmade. In chapter two, I show that Aye d’Avignon, the cross-dressed grandmother in Tristan de Nanteuil, reaffirms her role as a mother despite her Saracen masculine disguise, while at the same time she remakes herself into the carrier of lineage through the representation of her lactation and breastfeeding. In my third chapter, also on Tristan de Nanteuil, I show that the construction of Blanchandin(e)’s identity, from pre-cross-dressing, to cross-dressing, to sex iv change, is connected to disruptions caused by incest and same-sex marriage, as well as concepts of religious identity and conversion. In chapter four, I analyze the effects of sex change on masculine identity and the establishment of lines of lineage between fathers and sons in Yde et Olive II and Croissant. In chapter five, I examine Blanchandin’s son Saint Gilles, who has a special role as a saint, a redeemer of those who have committed incest, and as the unifier of the fractured Nanteuil family. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .................................................................................................................................... XI 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 TRANSGENDER STUDIES IN THE MEDIEVAL CONTEXT .................... 4 1.2 PREVIOUS SCHOLARSHIP AND THE ROLE OF THIS DISSERTATION ............................................................................................................................... 9 1.3 ORGANIZATION OF THE DISSERTATION AND CHAPTER OUTLINES ......................................................................................................................... 16 1.4 MY CORPUS OF TEXTS ................................................................................. 18 2.0 CROSS-DRESSING AND IMAGINARY KINSHIP IN LE ROMAN DE SILENCE ..................................................................................................................................... 21 2.1 A SURROGATE FAMILY: MISOGYNY AND SHAME ............................. 24 2.2 THE SENESCHAL AND THE NURSEMAID: GENDER AND DECEPTION ...................................................................................................................... 30 2.3 NOURISHMENT AND EDUCATION: SILENCE’S CHILDHOOD .......... 37 2.4 PEER PRESSURE ............................................................................................. 45 2.5 FAMILY IDENTITY IN FLUX ....................................................................... 48 2.6 “MALDUIT” AND CHANGING SOCIAL CLASS ....................................... 54 2.7 SILENCE’S COMMUNITY ............................................................................. 57 vi 2.8 ENGENDERING THE PERFECT KNIGHT................................................. 62 2.9 SILENCE: GOOD VASSAL OR GOOD WIFE?........................................... 65 2.10 MARRIAGE AND KINSHIP ........................................................................... 67 2.11 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 71 3.0 NATURE, RECOGNITION, AND LINEAGE: AYE D’AVIGNON IN TRISTAN DE NANTEUIL............................................................................................................................ 73 3.1 MATERNAL VS. PATERNAL RECOGNITION.......................................... 75 3.2 AYE D’AVIGNON BEFORE TRISTAN DE NANTEUIL ............................. 80 3.3 AYE AND TRISTAN ........................................................................................ 82 3.3.1 Cross-dressed woman and wild child ........................................................ 82 3.3.2 Aye’s lineage ................................................................................................ 85 3.3.3 Nature and recognition ............................................................................... 87 3.3.4 Breasts, maternity, and femininity ............................................................ 93 3.4 AYE, GANOR, ANTOINE, AND RICHER .................................................... 98 3.4.1 Blood, lactation, and memory .................................................................... 98 3.5 AYE AND GUI ................................................................................................. 108 3.5.1 Disguise and the threat of rape ................................................................ 108 3.5.2 Recognition, maternity, and lineage ........................................................ 113 3.6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 119 4.0 KISSING COUSINS: SEX CHANGE, INCEST, AND IDENTITY IN TRISTAN DE NANTEUIL.......................................................................................................................... 121 4.1 CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGE ............................................................. 124 4.2 SAINT GILLES ............................................................................................... 126 vii 4.3 TWO SARACEN PRINCESSES .................................................................... 129 4.3.1 Morinde/Clarinde ..................................................................................... 131 4.3.2 Blanchandine ............................................................................................. 133 4.4 FORESHADOWING: MARRIAGE, SEX CHANGE, AND SAINT GILLES ........................................................................................................................... 135 4.5 CROSS-DRESSING AND THE BEGINNING OF TRANSFORMATION .... ........................................................................................................................... 141 4.5.1 Cross-dressed Blanchandin as an intermediary persona ...................... 142 4.5.2 Conversion, sin, and a same-sex marriage.............................................. 144 4.5.3 Same-sex and inter-religious marriage ................................................... 146 4.5.4 Blanchandin: a virtuous husband ........................................................... 152 4.5.5 Virility and shame ..................................................................................... 155 4.6 THE CHANGE OF SEX ................................................................................. 158 4.6.1 Bodily and spiritual rebirth: change and continuity ............................. 158 4.6.2 Physical changes and recognition ............................................................ 165 4.6.3 Sex change and kinship ............................................................................ 171 4.6.4 Becoming a king and knight..................................................................... 173 4.6.5 A love triangle ........................................................................................... 175 4.6.6 Gender, power, and speech ...................................................................... 181 4.6.7 Male bonding and homoerotic desire ...................................................... 184 4.7 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 188 5.0 AFTER SEX CHANGE: KINGSHIP, INHERITANCE, AND DIVINE INTERVENTION IN YDE ET OLIVE II AND CROISSANT