Lords, Wives, and Vassals in the Roman de Silence

Heather Tanner
Journal of Women's History, Volume 24, Number 1, Spring 2012, pp.
138-159 (Article)
Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI: 10.1353/jowh.2012.0004
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138
2012 Journal of Womens History, Vol. 24 No. 1, 138159.
Lords, Wives, and Vassals in the
Roman de Silence
Heather Tanner
In the contrasting lives and fates of the rulers, husbands, vassals, and
wives, and through the use of ambiguity and the manipulation of gender
stereotypes in the Roman de Silence, Heldris of de Cornalle offers a mod-
el of political and personal lordship which is founded upon consultation,
consent, and self-restraint. When superiors, be they lords or husbands,
provide an environment for the sharing of wisdom, both home and court
nurture loyalty, good service, true liberality, and peace in vassals and
wives. While Heldriss portrayal of the characteristics of good lordship
is in many senses conventional, his hero(ine) and the parallels he draws
between lordship and marriage affrm a very unconventional notion that
women should play an active role in both governance and marriage.
A
fter remaining in the shadows for many years, Heldris de Cornulles
Roman de Silence has recently been drawn into the spotlight, as scholars
of literature have explored the poems tantalizingly ambiguous portrayal
of gender.
1
Although the text is becoming increasingly well known among
literary scholars, it has not yet been widely utilized by historians. For those
who have not had the pleasure of reading this tale, here is Sharon Kinoshitas
admirably succinct outline of the plot, Heldris de Cornulle recounts the
adventures of a heroine named Silence. Born at a time when women are
barred from inheritance, she is brought up as a boy, winning great renown as
a knight and a jongleur, to the gratifcation of Nurture and the consternation
of Nature. Because Silence spurns the amorous advances of queen Eufeme,
he is twice accused of attempted rape and banished from court. In the end,
however, her sex is revealed, and following the execution of the adulterous
queen, Silence is married to the king, in a union acclaimed by the court.
2
The romance raises many ideas and themes, and as a political histo-
rian I was struck by the authors use of gender imagery in exploring the
nature of lordship. The literary scholars Lorraine Stock, Peggy McCracken,
and Sharon Kinoshita have examined elements of this theme, but I would
like to expand upon their interpretations. In her male guise, Silence is the
quintessential noble, and her interactions with the English and French kings
develop the poets conception of good political lordship. In the conficting
depictions of womens capabilities and nature in Eufemie (Silences mother),
Eufeme (the queen), and Silence, the author advances an argument about
the parallel elements of good marriage. While Heldriss portrayal of the
Heather Tanner 2012 139
characteristics of good lordshipliberality, bravery, justice, and consulta-
tionis in many senses conventional, his hero(ine) and the parallels he
draws between lordship and marriage affrm the very unconventional notion
that women should play an active role in both governance and marriage.
3
In addition to lordship, the poet uses gender explicitly and implicitly to
examine a wide variety of issues in the course of the text: poetics, the nature
of gender, language, silence, and interpretation. The literary scholars Peter
Allen and R. Howard Bloch have argued that each of these discussions in
the poem is marked by ambiguity and that the text is all about misreading
and its authors refusal to offer defnitive answers to the questions that the
text raises.
4
The ambiguities in the text have led to widely divergent assess-
ments of whether the poet is advocating a conventionally misogynistic or
proto-feminist view of womens nature and abilities. The literary scholars
Kathleen Brahney and Anita Lasry have argued that the romance offers a
positive view of womens capabilities through the authors portrayal of
the performative nature of gender.
5
The literary scholars Simon Gaunt,
Caroline Jewers, Michle Perret, Gloria Gilmore, and Peggy McCracken
see it differently; despite the authors exploration of the role society plays
in the defning of gender, the affrmation of nature over nurture at the end
of the tale reveals the essentially conservative nature of the authors views
of womens roles and nature.
6
But as the literary scholar Regina Psaki has
argued, the ending does not negate or neutralize the radical events that
preceded it. The universe remains disturbed: commonplaces about biologi-
cal and social gender have still been shaken, and the pat ending with its pat
commentary do not successfully repair the rift in this conceptual fabric.
7

While the poet does not explicitly advocate womens equality to men, I
agree with Psaki that the romance has shown its audience that women are
quite capable of exercising power welland that, even if men generally
wield power, there is no need to bar women from inheritance or lordship.
8
This rift or ambiguity in the conceptual fabric is not there just to con-
vince the audience of the ultimate inability of humans to understand, as
Bloch and Allen have argued; rather, it seems to serve a didactic purpose.
9

The literary scholar Suzanne Kocher has argued that the numerous examples
of misinterpretation by the poems characters and narrator are the means by
which the author teaches the audience how to read, hear and understand
. . . .The text encourages its audiences to practice the lessons it teaches, and
to take part in an always incomplete process of making meaning from its
complex juxtaposition of what is said and what is shown, what is stated
and what is kept silent.
10
One of the principal themes that Heldris uses to teach the process of
interpretation is that of lordship. The poets fctional portrayal of the exclu-
Journal of Womens History 140 Spring
sion of female inheritance allows him and his contemporaries to explore the
nature both of gender and of good lordship. The nexus of land and power
(or lordship) was the most important key to maintaining the nobles role and
status, and these were threatened by kings increasing powers to regulate
the transmission of property through law and feudo-vassalic ties in the
thirteenth century. Nor is it surprising that a romance would be a vehicle to
discuss the implications of the changing nature of royal power.
11
McCracken
argues that the mutability of Silences body reveals the role of political
and social institutions in maintaining a binary gender system, necessary
to ensure familial succession to property.
12
Kinoshita has linked the texts
gender politics to the thirteenth-century changes in the feudal institutions
of marriage, lineage, and the transmission of property and particularly to
the shift of the basis of the nobilitys role from that of military service to
one of genealogical reproduction.
13
Both McCracken and Kinoshita see the
tale as reaffrming patriarchy, the silencing of women, and their exclusion
from power. Lorraine Stock, however, persuasively argues:
the Roman de Silence exposes how power is allocated to and ap-
propriated by both genders . . . .While Heldris presents male
representatives of patriarchal political authority as mutual foils,
the text also plays them against its female characters, who, as
wives of rulers, also possess and exercise various types of power
. . . .Merlins revelations [at the end of the tale] undermine any
reliable model of gendered power and invite questioning of the
presumed male gender of the otherwise unknown author, who
voices provocative questions about the gendering of the roles
played and the power possessed by females and males in medi-
eval society. Heldriss romance resists, destabilizes, and subverts
the patriarchal silencing of feminine power typical of medieval
literary texts.
14
Building upon Stocks thesis that Heldris undermines the gendering
of power and McCrackens and Kinoshitas position that the romance is
specifcally addressing the changing contours of royal and noble power,
what model of good lordship in politics and marriage does Heldris offer?
In Heldriss model, the crux of good lordship is creating an environ-
ment that fosters good lords, vassals, husbands, and wives. While nature
provides the essential traits, it is nurture that determines how one acts.
And its ones actions that reveal ones true character. Or as it states in the
romance: Good habits are a sign of a good life.
15
All the main characters
in the tale are well born (i.e. of noble lineage), but it is their upbringing and
the environment provided at court (the two contexts of nurture) that reveal
their character and thus, their ability to be a good lord or vassal. For the au-
Heather Tanner 2012 141
thor, discretion is a useful skill but the absence of good counselsilenceis
a key cause of failure in governance and in marriage.
16
Both parties, lord
and vassal, husband and wife, share the responsibility of communicating
wisdom. Political and personal lordship thus requires frst and foremost
consultation and truthfulness. Self-discipline is the other key. Regulation
of ones emotions is necessary to ensure justice. If one has true consultation
and self-restraint, then the court and home provide the nurture that leads
to loyalty, good service, true liberality, and consensus which in turn allows
peace and good governance to fourish.
Although the narrators prologue is often seen as an anti-prologue,
since it seemingly fails to offer an interpretative guide to the romance, it in
fact introduces both the theme of lordship and the importance of counsel
and discretion. The narrators introductory complaint about parsimonious
patrons is not a digression but rather a signal to the contemporary audience
that lordship will be a central theme of the story. Liberalitythe lord as
ring-giverhad long been a key component of good lordship; good lords
give spontaneously, joyously and without calculation.
17
On the other
hand, the gifts of avaricious lords look like payments or bribes, rather
than gifts; the relations they establish are, in F.G. Baileys terms, purely
transactional, not moral in that they entail only balanced exchanges of
fnite wealth for specifc services which must be rendered in full.
18
Although
the narrator praises King Ebain as a generous lord this evaluation is under-
mined by the narrators own description of Ebains behavior and events
within the narrative.
19
The narrator describes Ebains liberality as given
freely for his mens service, but he then indicates that his gifts required a
quid pro quo: He enriched all his friends and placed them in positions of
great honor, so that when the hour of greatest need came, they got him out
of any trouble.
20
This overt reference to the utilitarian nature of the kings
liberality is substantiated by the adventure with the dragon in the forest
of Malroi. Unwilling to tackle the dragon himself, Ebain offers an earldom
and a bride to whoever kills the dragon.
21
His calculating spirit is further
evidenced when discussing with his nobles Cadors reward for slaying the
dragon. Ebain wants one of them to convince Cador to accept Ebains choice
of bride (Eufemie) rather than let Cador choose his own bride as promised.
22

The Count of Chester takes on this task, heartily praying to Saint Amant
to create such love between them that they would not protest the kings
proposal.
23
The counts pious hope reveals the kings lack of fdelity and
generosity, despite the nobles assertion that the king had spoken like a
loyal man.
24
The prologues long complaint over the lack of liberality at
most courts concludes with the narrator stating that he wants to tell his
story without quarreling or fussing.
25
As Kocher has pointed out, the
whole prologue has been full of noise and contentiousness (a preview of
Journal of Womens History 142 Spring
the character of Ebains lordship), and the audience is given its frst hint
that the narrators judgment is questionable and that ultimately he lacks
the hero(ine)s discretion and wisdom.
26
This narrative ambiguity or gap, between what the action shows and
the pronounced judgment of the narrator or common wisdom, is used con-
sistently by the poet to portray Ebain as a bad lord. Although the narrator
asserts that King Ebain is second only to Arthur, the poet demonstrates that
the king is at times avaricious, unjust, uncontrolled, and injudicious. This
depiction develops, in part, through playing with gender expectations. Lor-
raine Stock has shown how Ebains masculinity and his power are undercut
by the destablizing of his genderit is he and not a damsel who needs
rescuing from the dragon; it is Ebain who is capricious and unreasonable,
like a stereotypical woman.
27
Ebains failure to engender an heir and his
need for the superior physical prowess of Cador and Silence to rescue him
from the dragon and the Count of Chesters rebellion, respectively, also
feminize him.
28
The prologue and the opening scenes of the romance thus
begin to establish the contours of bad lordshipavariciousness, injustice,
cowardice, and high-handednessthrough the use of ambiguity and the
subversion of feminine stereotypes to convey Ebains character.
Ebains autocratic tendencies are further highlighted by the narrators
description of the English king as judge. His rules were not just idle talk
there wasnt a man in the kingdom . . . whom he wouldnt have thrown
in jail if he dared to break his laws on such terms that, right or wrong, he
wouldnt get out till he was dead. He upheld justice in his realm.
29
In the
midst of praising Ebains frm provision of justice, the narrator hints at the
undue and unjust severity of the kings punishments, which we come to see
as based in the underlying intemperate and dictatorial character of the king.
This undue severity is then linked to Ebains lack of self-restraint in a
case of disputed inheritance, Then a count with twin daughters came to
the land. Two counts married the girls. Each one claimed to have the older,
but one of the two must have had the younger. There was a quarrel over
the inheritance, for both of them wanted to have the land. One wanted to
share it equally; the other said he would be a martyr and vile coward in
battle before he would yield an inch of it.
30
Warfare threatens to break out between the two brothers-in-law, so
the king calls them to Chester to negotiate a settlement. Neither would
compromise, and both died while fghting a duel. Furious, Ebain outlaws
female inheritance.
31
The unchecked anger of both the counts and the king
leads to injustice and dishonor. The counts lack of self-restraint prompts
them to refuse the counsel of the king and nobles to establish an honorable
settlement to their dispute. Ebains rage deprives his nobles of their proper
Heather Tanner 2012 143
role in society by infringing upon the transmission of their inherited prop-
erty and excluding them from their advisory role in creating and enforcing
law; his rage is thus a fundamental attack on their honor.
The question at the heart of this quarrel is whether only the eldest
daughter has a claim on her fathers property or whether all daughters
share equally. A short excursus on inheritance law and customs will help
to contextualize Heldriss plot device for modern readers (the thirteenth-
century noble audience would have been quite conversant with the issues).
In England and in France, the privilege of masculinity prevailedeldest
sons inherited the bulk of the family property, while younger sons and
daughters were provided for with acquired property. In the absence of
male heirs, female heirs inherited both allodial property and fefs. Around
the 1140s in England, the law became: where there is no son, the daugh-
ters divide their fathers land by spindles, and the elder cannot take from
the younger her half of the land without violence and injury.
32
However,
partible inheritance for female heirs also required a determination of who
would hold the caput or chief messuage, or in legal terminology, the anesse.
As the historian J.C. Holt has argued, this did not necessarily go to the el-
dest daughterit could also go to the resident unmarried daughter or the
daughter who had the most powerful husband.
33
In 1209 Philip Augustus,
in consultation with a noble assembly, decided that in case of parage for
fefs that pertained directly to the king, each inheritor must do homage to
the lord rather than the eldest doing homage to the lord and his/her siblings
doing homage to the eldest.
34
It would thus seem that the count who sought an equal division of
the sisters inheritance had the right of it in English and French law. The
argument over who had married the eldest is not, as Kinoshita implies,
irrelevant, since anesse determined ownership of the caput in England.
35

The poet tells us that the case or lawsuit (li plais) was so contentious that a
judicial duel was set, and Ebain and his nobles were unable to mediate and
enforce a peaceful settlement based upon the law.
36
Kinoshita argues that
Ebain was powerless to resolve this case.
37
Ebain had the power and the
legal means to settle the dispute. What turned this lawsuit into an armed
confict was uncontrolled anger. It was the anger of the claimants that led to
their deaths and the threat of continued violence among their noble peers
that roused the kings ire. As the historians Richard Barton and Stephen
White have argued, anger had a well-recognized formal role in the settle-
ment of disputes in medieval society.
38
One showed anger to indicate that
ones honors or rights had been harmed, and this signal initiated a process
of negotiation in which both parties sought to right the relationship.
39

Violence used to bring the parties to the negotiating table was considered
Journal of Womens History 144 Spring
just, but the goal was a peaceful resolution of the confict. In the counts
case, anger worked well in the beginning, but the intransigence of the two
parties led to the social ills that medieval preachers taught stemmed from
anger: insults, fghts, vengeance, and other violence.
40
This type of anger
(ira per vitium, stemming from vice) should be opposed by ira regis (a form
of ira per zelum or anger against vice). A good king uses his anger to main-
tain peace and justice within his realm.
41
Thus, Ebain initially responded
appropriately to the counts anger; however, he lost control of his emotions
when confronted with the threat of warfare among all his vassals. Enraged
by the loss of his men and his control over the situation, Ebain abolished
female inheritance in his kingdom. The kings decision was unjust, for it
punished those who had not violated the peace. While the narrator does
not blame Ebains intemperance for his hasty and unfair decree, the author
tacitly asks us to see where Ebains rage leads through the juxtaposition of
his lack of anger before the duel and his fury afterwards. Similarly, Cador
acts angrily and unjustly when he banishes, without consulting his men,
all troubadours from his county in response to Silences disappearance.
42

Throughout the story, uncontrolled anger on the part of those in positions
of power leads to injustice.
43
The poets choice of the name Silentius or Silence (an name uncommon
in romance or history) in part refects the desire for a unisex name which
can be switched from male to female should the necessity arise. It also may
be intended to emphasize the injustice of Ebains law and to highlight a
lords need for wise words of advice. Cador, states We shall call her si-
lence, after Saint Patience, because silence relieves care.
44
The reference to
patience also resonates with the idea of biding ones time until the need
for disguise is over. Caroline Jewers has argued the meaning of relieves
care/anxiety may stem from the legal principle that Cador cannot be held
guilty of perjury or fraud because he has not directly lied.
45
In Justinians
Digest, directly preceding the discussion of the legal meaning of silence, is
a passage which states Anything which is established against a rule of law
should not become a precedent. While it is possible that a few members of
the noble audience of this tale would have caught these legal allusions, the
religious connotations of Silences name would be more evident to them.
Throughout the Middle Ages in the juxtaposition of vices and virtues, ira
(anger) is generally opposed by patientia (patience); Ebains anger and
subsequent unjust behavior thus will be exposed by Silences patience.
46

The poet reverses the traditional gendering of emotion and reasonit is
Ebain who is emotional and lacking in restraint and Silence who is calm and
self-controlled. Ebains intemperate statute sets in motion further injustices.
Queen Eufemes false accusations and plots against Silences life are a direct
Heather Tanner 2012 145
consequence of Ebains law, and Silence faces these tribulations patiently.
47

The king allows rage to overcome justice when he acquiesces to the queens
scheme to send Silence in search of Merlin. Silence is banished rather than
rewarded for winning the battle against the rebels. Silence, nonetheless,
continues to serve loyally.
Ebains fat to abolish female inheritance was not only an unjust pun-
ishment for the nobles violence; it violated his vassals property rights and
abrogated the proper means of creating law. As Kinoshita persuasively
argues, Ebains law changes the relationship between lord and vassals:
Evan [Ebain] in effect affrms that patrimonies are transmitted not through
the laws of inheritance but by royal decree.
48
Military service would no
longer be suffcient to ensure a nobles status and role within the kingdom; a
male heir must be produced. Like Ebains vassals, real nobles in thirteenth-
century northern France faced a similar specter with Philip Augustuss
increasingly routine intervention in cases of female inheritance.
49
Abuse of
lordship, particularly failure to seek the advice of ones nobles, is explicitly
and implicitly criticized throughout the poem. The immediate reaction of
the fctional nobles to the new law is mixed: Some [swore] in anger, but
most did it quite gladlythe ones who had nothing to lose. But as for
those who had only daughters and huge holdings to bequeath, dont you
think their hearts were flled with rancor?
50
The author thus alludes to the
lack of emotional control on the part of the nobles who then do not fulfll
their obligation of giving good advice to their lord. The Count of Chester
articulates some of the nobles disgruntlement over the new law while
advising Cador to marry Eufemie: for all of Cornwall will be yours at the
death of count Renald. Now it would be a good idea to explain: the land
should have been this ladys, but she no longer has a right to it.
51
After
repeating why the king has prohibited female inheritance, he sarcastically
continues, Now the king wants to bestow the land on this lady and you.
Isnt he doing you a tremendous favor?
52
The infringement on noble property was matched by the circumven-
tion of the proper means of creating law. The historian Gavin Langmuir has
shown that in later twelfth- and thirteenth-century France, legal change was
predicated upon a lord (noble or royal) obtaining the counsel and common
assent of the nobles.
53
For example, new laws instituting primogeniture in
Brittany in 1185, the regulation of female inheritance and the inheritance of
fefs in Champagne in 1212 and 1224, and royal regulation of inheritance
in Maine and Anjou in 1246, all stress the nobles role in formulating and
assenting to the statutes.
54
Ebain acted unilaterally when he created the new
law, and then had the nobles swear to uphold the decree.
55
While Ebain co-
opted the assent of the nobles, he did not gain their counsel. At no point
Journal of Womens History 146 Spring
in the poem does the poet show Ebains nobles discussing or debating in
the councils that Ebain calls. This pro forma calling of councils deprives
the English king of his nobles wisdom and further illustrates his lack of
restraint. The dangers of the lack of counsel are also illustrated by Cadors
intemperate law banishing minstrels under pain of death; his decision is
made without counsel, and only the good eyesight and wise speech of an
old man saves Silence (in her guise as minstrel) from death.
56
By his intemperate and unjust action, Ebain creates an environment at
court that discourages his nobles from offering wise counsel, and he creates
resentment and disloyalty. Cador, the kings nephew and most accomplished
knight, deceives his lord and violates the law in order to preserve his heirs
property. Throughout the poem, when Cador and Silence speak about the
reasons for their deception, they emphasize the preservation of her iretage,
the legal term for inherited, allodial property.
57
Silence, troubled by Natures
argument, tells Nurture that this behavior is unnatural. Truly, no woman
of my lineage ever behaved in such a way.
58
Her view is supported by
Nature, who argues that Silence should not cultivate such savage ways
for fef or inheritance.
59
Silence rejects Natures argument and sides with
Reason and Nurture, driven by the privileges of maleness and her duty to
her lineage. Although he seemingly acquiesces to the kings marriage of his
daughter (and dispossessed heir), Count Renaud took Cador to the king
and invested him then and there with whatever he held in fef, provided his
daughter should have an heir. If she died without an heir, it should go to
the rightful claimant.
60
Renaud thereby affrms that inherited property is
governed by different customs (or laws) than fefs. The distinction between
fefs and inherited property (fef and iretage), highlighted by the poets choice
of terms throughout the poem as well as in thirteenth-century customals,
reveals the poets and the nobilitys rejection of the amalgamation of fefs
and allodial property effected by Ebains decree. The iretage is linked with
lineage and honor (the familys accumulated lands and dignity), and the
preservation of status, and thus, on Ebains unjust attack on nobles power
and prestige.
The author creates a telling contrast between Ebains failure to seek
true counsel and the behavior of the French King. When in a quandary
over what is the honorable course of action, the French King calls upon
his counselors to discuss the issue; the poet devotes over 340 lines to the
discussion.
61
After greeting Silence with a kiss of peace, thereby entering
her into his peace and safe conduct, the French King is faced by the unjust
behavior of a vassalEbain asks him in a letter to kill his vassal for an un-
stated crime.
62
In response to this dilemma that concerns both royal justice
and honor, the king seeks the advice of three trusted counts. These counts
Heather Tanner 2012 147
discuss their views in private, and when one voices the fear that the king
will not like their advice, the wisest of them answers, Is this any reason
to keep silent and deny him proper counsel, if he requests it? By God, no!
If he asks for it, I am duty bound to give him sound advice, and then let
him act as befts a king!
63
The French King follows their advice, thereby
preventing Silence from being unjustly killed by Queen Eufemes false ac-
cusation and letter. As a good lord, the king has preserved justice and his
own honor, as well as gained a knight of great skill. The French Kings vas-
sals fourish and peace reigns in his kingdom because he honors them by
seeking and following their advice, behaving with justice and self-restraint,
and rewarding their good service.
Just as the French King personifes good lordship, Silences actions
exemplify the ideals of noble behavior. She is, as Suzanne Kocher has
discussed, a mireir, a didactic model with her exemplary character and
upbringing.
64
Her ability to achieve these ideals has its origins in her an-
cestry, or as it would have been phrased in the thirteenth century, Silence is
debonaire. To be debonaire literally meant that one comes from a good lineage
and region. The adjective also connotes good sense, wise speech, clemency
and pity (dbonnairet).
65
It was also used to mean meekness or patient self-
restraint, as can be seen in the commonplace of thirteenth-century French
sermons: Blessed are the debonaire for they shall inherit the earth.
66
While
the poet does not specifcally use the adjective debonaire, Natures two
hundred line description of her creation of Silence as a masterpiece (ouvre
forcible) through a process like sifting white four (a code for nobility) em-
phasizes the childs noble nature.
67
Throughout the romance the author also
refers to Silence as coming from good stock and emphasizes her nature and
education, which reveal her goodness, intelligence, and honor.
68
Silences
character is indirectly compared to Eufemie whom the poet characterizes
as de pute aire ( of bad character).
69
Dbonnairet is a quality both men
and women can exhibit. Silences family is distinguished; her father, Cador,
is of royal descent and a brave and skillful warrior; her mother Eufemie
was well versed in the seven arts, the wisest doctor in the kingdom, and
heir of a distinguished lineage. Throughout the poem Silence expresses an
awareness of her distinguished ancestry and ancestral land: in the many
references to Cornwall as her heritage (iretage), in her refections upon her
own male behavior in comparison to the other women of her lineage,
and in her knowledge of Gorlois of Cornwall as her ancestor.
70
Silence
shares her parents traits, and this nature, in combination with the care-
ful upbringing provided by her parents, allows her to excel as a knight.
71
As both a jongleur in training and as a knight, Silence loyally serves her
lords. She brings distinction to the French Kings court by her tournament
Journal of Womens History 148 Spring
victories; her nurture at the French court, where the king provides good
lordshipliberality, justice, and peaceallows her fame to grow. She also
serves Ebain loyally, saving his life and winning the battle for him against
the rebels. As the Count of Clermont states, loyalty, even when a lord asks
something unworthy or even shameful, is owed to a lord.
72
After watching
the furious queen falsely accuse her of rape, Silence muttered softly, She
is gravely in the wrong, but whatever she does, she is my lady. I must not
sully her reputation.
73
In addition to her loyalty, Silence exercises self-
restraint. During the battle against the Count of Chester, Silence encourages
her men to fght with honor and act with restraint.
74
She does not display
anger when Ebain fails to reward her service against the rebels; she patiently
suffers the dishonor and obeys the kings command to bring Merlin to his
court.
75
Even though Merlin behaved treacherously to her ancestor Gorlois,
Silence restrains her just anger in order to faithfully serve Ebain.
76
Silences
actions throughout reveal her character (both innate and nourished) and
exemplify the traits needed to be a good vassal.
The Count of Chesters rebellion, which threatens to strip the English
king of his kingdom, highlights the failure of Ebains lordship; Silences
dbonnairet, however, defeats the evil consequences of Ebains intemperance
and injustice. Silences prowess (a masculine trait) saves Ebain (here cast as
the female to be rescued). Despite Silences faithful service, Ebain falls prey
to anger and his wifes deceit, and he banishes Silence on an impossible
quest to bring Merlin to court (since only a woman can catch Merlin). Heldris
specifcally states that Merlins visit will reveal the kings wrongdoing.
77

Merlins revelations expose Ebain as both a bad lord and a bad husband.
The queens and Silences deceptions dishonor the king, but this dishonor
had its origins in his own wrathful prohibition of female inheritance and
in his silencing of their wisdom and advice. Ebains shame prompts him to
restore right relations in his kingdom. His frst act is to abolish the bad law
against female inheritance, thereby rewarding Silences loyal vassalage. The
nobles are overjoyed and Silence tells Ebain: It is by his acts that one know
who is truly king.
78
Ebain then executes Eufeme by proper procedure and
universal assent; then, with the advice of his nobles, he marries Silence.
79
Silences marriage introduces her to the societally-defned role of wife
and mother and thus, back into the system for transmitting property. As
McCracken and others have argued, Silences assumption of a female
identity is profoundly troubled at the end of the romance.
80
For McCracken
and Kinoshita, Silences marriage ratifes female silence and exclusion from
power; however, the authors ambiguity maintains his challenge to the
assumption of a biological rather than a socially constructed defnition of
gender. Silence may be restored to a traditional gendered role, but the poets
Heather Tanner 2012 149
abrupt and ambiguous conclusion broaches the proposition that marriage,
like lordship, requires one to behave honorably and to draw upon the wis-
dom and skills of ones subordinate partner(s).
The foregrounding of marriage in tandem with a display of good
lordship at the conclusion of the poem suggests the poets ideas about the
nature of good lordship also apply to marriage. This connection is reinforced
by the centrality of marriage to the narrativethe marriages of Ebain and
Eufeme, Cador and Eufemie, the counts and the twin heiresses, and fnally,
of Ebain and Silence. The link between lordship and marriage is also not
uncommon in twelfth and thirteenth-century romances. Marriage, in the
guise of adulterous queens, is used to critique a kings ability to rule (in this
case, lordship).
81
A kings inability to retain the love of an ideal woman, for
example Mark and Isolde, suggests that if he cannot rule his household, then
he cannot rule his kingdom effectively either. The pleasure-seeking adulter-
ous wife, similarly, such as the queen in Le Roman de sept sages, threatens
the integrity of the realm, and serves as a symbol of inadequate lordship.
As the medievalist Katie Keene has argued, Eufeme combines, most unusu-
ally, these two types of unfaithful queen.
82
For the medieval audience then,
Ebain is shown to be a bad lord, who is unable to rule either household or
realm effectively; his faults as a husband, similarly, derive from his belief
that women should be silent.
My claim that good marriages depend on womens speech and mens
solicitation of their wives counsel and assent may appear counter-intuitive,
given the symbolism of the names Heldris gives to the female characters,
particularly the hero(ine). The authors choices, however, both encapsulate
his societys practices and expectationsthat women should be silent in
public but never areand also allow him to challenge the prevailing wis-
dom.
83
Eufeme and Eufemie represent two familiar caricatures of women.
Eufeme, whose name can be read as Alas, woman, enacts all the nega-
tive stereotypes; she is lustful, scheming, disloyal, vengeful, and deceitful.
Eufemie, whose name suggests good speech, by contrast, is the typical
romance heroine: courteous, wise, beautiful, honorable, and subordinate.
84

Silence transcends both literary and real life conventions. As Psaki asks,
what other romance take[s] it for granted that absolute chivalric and poetic
preeminence are within reach of a womanwithout ever even discussing
the issue? The narrator offers no explanation or apology for the fact that
this most perfect of women can be a perfect knight, even saving her kings
throne when some of his vassals rebel. It is apparently assumed that, freed
of the various constraints of a female upbringing, women can disprove
even the most commonplace accusations of the antifeminist diatribe. Hence,
clearly, one of the resonances of the heroines nameshe is innocent of
Journal of Womens History 150 Spring
stereotypical female garrulousness.
85
The poet suggests that it is men who inscribe gender upon women: Ca-
dor, with his wifes consent, engenders his daughter physically and socially,
just as later it is Ebains declaration of Silences femaleness that re-genders
her female (although Nature then has to spend three days removing all
traces of masculinity from Silences body).
86
Cadors decision is predicated
upon Ebains silencing of his nobles advice and denying them their proper
role in law-making. The author likewise suggests that female duplicity is
generally the product of societys silencing of womens voices. It is by this
nurture that woman has less motivation, provided that she even has the
choice, to be good than to be bad.
87
Nurture is the key to understanding not only the characters of Eufeme
and Eufemie, but also the qualities that will lead to a good marriage. Both
women are initially described as beautiful and of distinguished birth, so
by naturethe implication isthe two are equal.
88
What distinguishes
the two must therefore be their nurture. Eufemie is learned in the seven
liberal arts and particularly distinguished by her medical knowledge. Her
intelligence is both nurtured as well as native (neither my learning nor
my native intelligence).
89
Eufemie uses the power of speech and her intel-
ligence to good effect when she and Cador suffer the typical romantic fear
of unrequited love. Their romantic impasse is broken through speech, frst
hers and then Cadors.
90
Once each is assured of the others love, they confer
on the best plan to get the king to agree to their marriage; He saw them
talking and taking counsel privately and whispering and speaking.
91
At
each challenge they face (with the exception of the law against minstrels),
Cador and Eufemie are shown communicating and acting in concert, thereby
drawing upon each others wisdom. During Eufemies pregnancy, Cador
comes to her with a plan to preserve their lands if their child is a daughter.
Cador begins by stating that the sacrament of marriage has made them one
fesh and that their will should be one as well. He then presents his plan
to raise a daughter as a boy in order to preserve their property. At each
stage, Eufemie agrees with his reasoning and consents to the plan.
92
Cador
is clearly the decision maker, or lord, but as a good husband and lord, he
always seeks Eufemies advice and consent. Her wisdom is now his, just
as both are of one mind and body by marriage. Eufemie is subsumed into
Cadors persona (the countess, his wife), and yet Cador never assumes her
consent. He truthfully presents his ideas and plans and seeks her agreement
and counsel. By doing so, he preserves the honor of both, and the result is
a productive and happy marriage as well as a peaceful county.
In contrast, while Eufemes noble birth (she is a Norwegian princess)
and beauty are established at her entrance into the story, throughout the
Heather Tanner 2012 151
tale she is never consulted. This lack of consultation is frst shown at her
betrothal; it was her fathers and Ebains decision for her to marry.
93
The
consequence of this lack of consultation is subtly alluded to by the descrip-
tion of her arrival in England. She is courteously and affectionately greeted
by Ebain, but her own heart was a little bitter from the tiring journey across
the sea, perhaps because she is a war trophy not Ebains beloved in the fn
damor tradition, despite Ebains claim to have long suffered for love of a
woman he has never met.
94
Shaped by a nurture that has denied her a voice,
Eufeme becomes highly skilled in deception and prey to all the faws at-
tributed to women in medieval commonplace: she is lascivious, changeable,
irrational, duplicitous, conniving, and disloyal.
95
As Nature asserts, And
many a heart of noble nature becomes much worse through nurture and
hardens itself to very shameful ways.
96
Ebain only seeks Eufemes assent
when he has already succumbed to unjust rage. He lies to her about the
punishment he intends for Silence, after Eufemes frst accusation of rape, as
he wasnt crazy or foolish enough to destroy the lad because of her terrible
rage.
97
Ebain judges her anger to be too extreme to be just, and therefore
as a wise and moderate fellow, he would save everyones reputation by
sending Silence from the court.
98
The narrators assessment here is shown
to be false; Ebains moderation is in fact gravely disloyal to his wife and
her honor; he arbitrarily judges the case without gathering any evidence.
He presents his decision to Eufeme as a fait accompli, and she, suspicious,
unwillingly accedes to his plan. Ebain then goes on to justify his lie to her
as a way to save himself from her nagging him to do her will. His lies and
failure to gain her true assent lead the queen to usurp his position of judge
and lawgiver. It was a commonplace of the era that the king was law; the
queen was mercy.
99
The substitution of her letter (requesting the French
King to kill Silence) for her husbands makes her the judge and feminizes
her husbandhe acts mercifully while she demands the letter of the law.
Although Eufemes duplicity in the matter of the false letter is revealed to
Ebain, he is still deceived by the queens next accusation against Silence be-
cause he allows his rage to overpower his reason. He therefore agrees to her
plan to banish Silence by a quest to capture Merlin. Both Ebain and Eufeme
are dishonored by the voicelessness that is foisted upon her. She is exposed
as an adulterous schemer and Ebain as a cuckold and dishonorable lord.
Ebain never seems to realize the role he has played in nurturing Eu-
femes character, as he continues to champion the ideal of a womans silence,
A womans role is to keep silent. So help me God, I think a mute can tell
what women are good for, for theyre only good for one thing, and that is
to keep silent.
100
Just as Ebain fails to appreciate the need to gain true con-
sent from his vassals, he seems oblivious to the need to gain a wifes assent
Journal of Womens History 152 Spring
through consultation. Silences reaction to Ebains actions in the fnal scene
is telling. While the king has declared her femaleSilentiaher actions are
still those of a knight. She praises him for restoring female inheritance, tell-
ing him, It is by his acts that one knows who is truly king.
101
She assumes
the garb of femininity and says nothing about the proposed marriage. She
withholds her judgment and her speech; by his actions she will know what
kind of husband she will have.
102
Will Ebain act upon her proven wisdom
and good character by seeking her advice and assent in private? Or will he
be fooled by Natures removal of all masculine traces upon her body and
treat her as he treated Eufeme?
While Heldris leaves this question unanswered, a couple of clues
suggest that Ebain will probably not change. Ebain, most tellingly, does
not follow the legal procedures for a valid marriagehe does not seek the
consent of Silence, her parents, or the Church, since he and Silence are re-
lated within the prohibited degrees of consanguinityand this is in marked
contrast to his careful following of procedure in the marriage of Cador and
Eufemie.
103
The narrators injunction that A good woman should neither
take offense nor blame herself for someone elses faults, but simply strive
all the harder to do what is right more subtly seems to indicate that Silence
will have to patiently suffer Ebains faults as husband and lord. Silences
dbonnairet suggests that she will act virtuously, giving Ebain unsolicited
advice as is her duty, for as the narrator states [she does not] care to remain
silent any longer.
104
As the antithesis of her outspoken and treacherous
predecessor Queen Eufeme, Silence is exalted as a model of circumspection
and loyalty.
105
Circumspection is not necessarily silence; Eufemie, a model
of traditional feminine virtue, was not silent.
If ones true nature is known by ones actions, then the poet suggests
that silence is disastrousit leads to dishonor and discord in marriage
as well as in feudal governance. The seeking and giving of advice allows
all parties to share their wisdom and prevent injustice. While lords and
husbands are by custom the superior in their relationships, it is incumbent
upon them not to act unilaterally. Dbonnairetwise speech, good sense,
and patient self-restraintis a virtue both men and women can have and
are the hallmarks of good lords, vassals, husbands, and wives. It is the duty
of vassals and wives to offer the best possible advice they can, even if it
rouses the anger of the lord or husband. It is a lords and husbands duty
to actively confer with their subordinates and not allow anger to overcome
their judgment. Only then can true consent be given and peace maintained.
The juxtaposition of two irreconcilable gender ideologies without resolution
at the end of the poem leaves the reader or listener, today as well as in the
medieval period, without a defnitive answer. I would argue, however, that
Heather Tanner 2012 153
throughout the romance, the proponents of feminine silence and exclusion
from lordship and inheritance are shown to be lacking in wisdom; Heldris
is thus implicitly advocating womens ability to participate in governance,
either as lords or as vassals. To silence Silence (Silentia/Silentius), or in-
deed any subordinate (male or female), leads to turmoil, injustice, and a
disunifed realm.
Notes
The author would like to thank Regina Psaki, frst for introducing me to
this text, but also for our many discussions of the romance and my analysis of it.
I also want to thank Norman Jones, Cynthia Callahan, and the readers for their
suggested revisions.
1
For a discussion of the types of analysis done on the Roman de Silence see
Regina Psaki, Un coup de foudre: la recherche Anglo-Saxon sur le Roman de Silence,
Cahiers de Recherches Mdivales 13 (2006): 287303.
2
Sharon Kinoshita, Heldris de Cornulles Roman de Silence and the Feudal
Politics of Lineage, PMLA 110 (1995): 397409.
3
Throughout the article, I will use poet or Heldris when referring to the
author of the tale; I will use narrator when referring to the authorial voice
in the text.
4
R. Howard Bloch, Silence and Holes: The Roman de Silence and the Art of
the Trouvre, Yale French Studies 70 (1986): 8199; Peter Allen, The Ambiguity of
Silence: Gender, Writing, and the Roman de Silence, Sign, Sentence, Discourse, eds.
Julian N. Wasserman & Lois Roney (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press 1989),
98112. Bloch explores the complex series of articulations which the text establishes
between language and desire, between writing and sexual difference, [and] between
poetry and power, and concludes that the text is all about misreading; Bloch, 81
and 98. Peter Allen posits that the text is fundamentally about ambiguity; the poem
forces us to question and think and refuses, on principle, to provide pat answers to
the issues the text raises; Allen, 110.
5

.
Anita Benaim Lasry, The Ideal Heroine in Medieval Romance: A Quest for
a Paradigm, Kentucky Romance Quarterly 32 (1985): 227243 and Kathleen Brahney,
When Silence was Golden: Female Personae in the Roman de Silence, The Spirit of
the Court, eds. Glyn S. Burgess & Robert A. Taylor (Dover, NH: D.S. Brewer, 1985),
5261.
6
Simon Gaunt, The Signifcance of Silence, Paragraph 13 (1990): 20216;
Caroline A. Jewers, The Non-Existent Knight: Adventure in Le Roman de Silence,
Arthuriana 7 (1997): 87110; Michle Perret, Travesties et Transsexuelles: Yde, Si-
lence, Gisandole, Blanchandine, Romance Notes 25 (1985): 328340; Gloria Thomas
Gilmore, Le Roman de Silence: Allegory in Ruin or Womb of Irony, Arthuriana 7
(1997): 111123; Peggy McCracken, The Boy Who Was A Girl: Reading Gender
in the Roman de Silence, Romania Review 85 (1994): 51736. The role of silence as
Journal of Womens History 154 Spring
the profound fgure of poetic enterprise [and]...compared time and again to the
absent, unheard and unseen female body; is explored by Kate Mason Cooper in
Elle and L: Sexualized Textuality in Le Roman de Silence, Romance Notes 25 (1985):
341360; quotation from 344.
7
Heldris of Cornulle, Le Roman de Silence, trans. Regina Psaki (New York:
Garland Press, 1991), xxxii.
8
See Roberta L. Kreugers discussion of the authors explicit staging of gen-
der as performance, and the political forces which shape the discourse of gender;
Beyond Debate: Gender in Play in Old French Courtly Fiction, in Gender in Debate
from the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance, eds. Thelma S. Fenster and Clare A. Lees
(New York: Palgrave, 2002) 7996.
9
Haidu convincingly argues that the author uses adjutorial allegory in order
to guidenot determinethe process of interpretation: the texts metadiscourse
is nondirective self-glossing. Peter Haidu, The Subject Medieval/Modern. Text and
Governance in the Middle Ages (Stanford: Stanford Universty Press, 2004), 243244.
10
Suzanne Kocher, Narrative Structure of the Roman de Silence: Lessons in
Interpretation, Romance Notes 42 (2002), 357358.
11
Geraldine Heng, Empire of Magic: medieval romance and the politics of cultural
fantasy (New York: Columbus University Press, 2003), 99.
12
McCracken, The Boy Who Was, 535.
13
Kinoshita, Heldris de Cornulles, 3978. In Male Order Brides: Mar-
riage, Patriarchy, and Monarchy in the Roman de Silence, Arthuriana 12 (2002): 6475,
Kinoshita further explores this theme through the use of two specifc mechanisms of
royal power: exchanging an adulterous, exogamous wife for a chaste, endogamous
one; and dispossessing the earl of Chester, a great baron of the realm, 64.
14
Lorraine Stock, The Importance of Being Gender Stable: Masculinity and
Feminine Empowerment in Le Roman de Silence, Arthuriana 7 (1997) 734.
15

.
Lewis Thorpe, The Roman de Silence: A Thirteenth-Century Arthurian Romance
(Cambridge, UK: Heffer, 1972), l. 5169. Bons us a qui bone vie uze. Us can be
translated habit, custom, behavior. It thus conveys the belief that ones character is
shaped strongly by ones daily habits or practices. These in turn are inculcated by
ones upbringing, or what in the modern context is called nurture. See Haidu at page
249 for the us in usage, and page 256 for his discussion of Bons us a qui bone vie
uze. Unless otherwise indicated, the translations are from Sarah Roche-Mahdis
facing-page translation. All line references are from Thorpes edition, which match
those in Roche-Mahdis edition.
16
As it is in Erec et Enide when Erec imposes silence on Enide as a punish-
ment, a rash punishment.
17
Stephen D. White, Giving Fiefs and Honor: Largesse, Avarice, and the
Problem of Feudalism in Alexanders Testament, The Medieval French Alexander,
eds. Donald Maddox and Sara Bturm-Maddox (Albany: SUNY Press, 2002), 136.
Heather Tanner 2012 155
18
White, Giving Fiefs, 136137.
19
Thorpe, The Roman de Silence, ll. 107144.
20
Ibid., ll. 140142; italics mine.
21
Ibid., ll. 378386.
22
Ibid., ll. 12481308.
23
Ibid., ll.1330-1332.
24
Ibid., l.1303.
25
Ibid., l.106.
26
Kocher, Narrative Structure, 351352.
27
Stock, The Importance of Being, 813.
28
Ibid., 1316.
29
Thorpe, The Roman de Silence, ll. 107119.
30
Ibid., ll. 278288.
31
Ibid., ll. 309318.
32
J.C. Holt, The Heiress and the Alien, Colonial England, 10661215 (London:
Hambleden Press, 1997), 252; quoting from charter of Roger de Valognes in favor
of the priory of Binham; Regesta regum Anglo-Normannorum, vol. 3, 11351154, eds.
H.A. Cronne & R.H.C. Davis (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), charter no. 106. Henry Is
coronation charter (1100) confrms the custom that a daughter could inherit, in the
absence of sons, but only one daughter. Daughters who were married at the time of
their fathers death were not eligible. S.F.C. Milsom, Inheritance by Women in the
Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries, On the Laws and Customs of England, eds.
M.S. Arnold, T.A. Green, S.A. Scully & S.D. White (Chapel Hill, NC: University of
North Carolina Press 1981), 6365; 78.
33
Holt, The Heiress and the Alien, 25859. In 1236, Henry III replied to an
enquiry from Ireland, that for tenants-in-chief, all sisters performed homage and
owed the knights service for their portion of their inheritance. This refutes Glanvill
who states that the eldest receives the caput and owes homage and the whole of the
knights service, and the younger sisters hold their property of the elder until the
third generation. Holt, The Heiress and the Alien, 25253.
34
Recueil des Actes de Philippe Auguste, eds. M.J. Monicat & M. J. Boussard
(Paris: Impremerie Nationale, 1966) 3, no. 1083.
35
Kinoshita, Heldris de Cornoulle, 400.
36
Thorpe, The Roman de Silence, ll. 301306.
37
Kinoshita, Heldris de Cornoulle, 400.
Journal of Womens History 156 Spring
38

.
Richard E. Barton, Zealous Anger and the Renegotiation of Aristocratic
Relationships in Eleventh-and Twelfth-Century France,and Stephen D. White, The
Politics of Anger, both in Angers Past, ed. Barbara Rosenwein (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1998), 153170 and 127152 respectively.
39
Barton, Zealous Anger,1623; White, The Politics of Anger, 1435.
40
Barton, Zealous Anger, 1556.
41
Ibid.,155160; Paul Hyams, What Did Henry III of England Think in Bed
and in French about Kingship and Anger? Angers Past, ed. Barbara Rosenwein
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 99105. For a discussion of Cadors ira
vitium see Suzanne Kocher, Narrative Structure, 356.
42
Thorpe, The Roman de Silence, ll. 30093131.
43
The minstrels fury and jealously over Silences talent and success led them
to plot against her life (ll. 3245 ff.); Queen Eufemes fury over Silences rejection
of her sexual advances causes her to plot Silences death and later her exile. Only
once is there a reference to Cadors anger, the word used is rage (l. 3113), and that
it led to a thousand [minstrels] were persecuted (l. 3130). The word used for Ebains
anger is ire (grant ire, tel ire, and once maltailent; Thorpe, The Roman de Silence, ll.
308, 4952, 5485, 5767, 5769, and 5769.
44
Ibid., ll. 20672068.
45
Jewers, The Non-Existent Knight , 9495. The quotation from the Digest
in the following sentence is from page 95.
46
Hyams, What Did Henry III, 99.
47
Eufeme is sexually attracted to Silence; Silence can not explain her refusal
by admitting she is female. Eufeme, enraged at having her offer rejected, retaliates
with false accusations of rape and demands for justice.
48
Kinoshita, Heldris de Cornulle, 401.
49
Philip used relief as a means of extending royal authority and landholding
in 1191 in Vermandois and Valois (in return for Peronne, Roye and Montdidier),
in 1192 in Boulogne (in return for the county of Lens and an additional 7000 livres
above the normal relief), and large cash payments from Richard of Aquitaine (24,000
marks), John of Normandy (20,000 marks), Jeanne of Flanders (50,000 marks); John
W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus ( Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1986), 200204; 2778.
50
Thorpe, The Roman de Silence, ll. 321-326.
51
Ibid., ll. 1450-1454.
52
Ibid., ll. 1460-1463.
53
Gavin I. Langmuir, Community and Legal Change in Capetian France,
French Historical Studies 6 (1970): 2812. The principles according to which such
Heather Tanner 2012 157
change [in constituted legislation] was acceptable also seem clear....Individual assent,
confrmed by sworn promises of observance, should be obtained. Mere consulta-
tion was insuffcient. Nothing is more noticeable than the frequency with which...
reference is made both to counsel and consent, a clear indication that the meaning
of the two terms was not identical. In the second place, the assent of all members of
the appropriate legal category, or as many as possible, should be obtained, whether
directly or indirectly.
54
Langmuir, Community and Legal Change, 2801.
55
Thorpe, Silence, ll. 112120 (for Ebains justice) and ll. 308320 (for the new
decree and oaths).
56
Ibid., ll. 35593610.
57
Ibid., ll. 168694, 175160, 20368, 243962, 3874, 4173, 6447, 659599, and
6614. We will raise her as a boy...thus we will be able to make her our heir/Faisons
le com un fl norir...Si le porons del nostre engier; Thorpe, Silence, 11. 1757, 1759. See
also, ll. 20378; We ought to devise a plan to keep our heir from losing her lands/
Consel nos convenra aquierre, Que nos oirs ne perge sa tierre.
58
Ibid., ll. 25542556.
59
Ibid., ll. 25452546.
60
Ibid., ll. 15881593.
61
Ibid., ll. 45314878.
62
Ibid., ll. 44594719. This passage discusses all the angles of the dilemma.
63
Ibid., ll. 46984702.
64
Kocher, Narrative Structure, 351.
65
Hyams, What Did Henry III,11316.
66
Hyams, What Did Henry III, 115 and n. 89.
67
Haidu, The Subject, 245246.
68
Reference to Silence coming from good stock (tel nation, l. 2664); her nature
and education, ll.23782400 and frequent references to her/his lineage, for example
l. 2555, 2555, 3874, 4173, 614445, 6598, 6614, Thorpe, The Roman de Silence.
69
Thorpe, The Roman de Silence, l. 5748.
70
Ibid., ll. 2545, 2555, 3874, 4173, 614445, 6598, and 6614.
71
Silence adopts the name Malduit (badly brought up) during her time as a
minstrel; Ibid., l. 35753582. Later, Silence states Silences ne se repent rien / De
son usage, ains lainme bien Silence had no regrets / about his upbringing; in
fact, he loved it, ll. 51778.
Journal of Womens History 158 Spring
72
Ibid., ll. 48094830.
73
Ibid., ll. 41664169
74
Ibid., ll. 538081. A few lines later, the French troops are characterized as
well disciplined and sent by a good king; Li Franois sunt bien a conroi. Bien pert
quil vienent de bon roi/The French were a well-disciplined troop. It was clear that
a good king had sent them, ll. 538889.
75
Ibid., ll. 58405875) Silence does not react with just anger at the jongleurs
plot to kill her,ll. 33703476.
76
Ibid., ll. 61406158.
77
Ibid., ll. 61686169.
78
Ibid., ll. 66466650.
79
Ibid., ll. 66516683.
80
McCracken, The Boy Who Was, 532.
81
Katie Keene, Cherchez Eufeme: The Evil Queen in Le Roman de Silence,
Arthuriana 14 (2004), 422.
82
Ibid., 4.
83
Sarah Roche-Mahdi, ed. and trans., Silence: a thirteenth-century romance (East
Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, 1992), xxii.
84
Eufemie is a variant spelling of Euphemia, which has its origins from the
Greek for well spoken. Eufeme, is a compound of Eu femme or Oh/alas woman.
85
Psaki, Silence, xx.
86
Thorpe, The Roman de Silence, l.1657. De Cador, de sengendrere/ Of Cador
and of those he engenders (or his offspring).
87
Ibid., ll. 66886690.
88
Keene argues that the notable absence of a detailed description of Eufemes
beauty by the narrator would imply an innately bad character, especially in light
of Eufemes Norwegian ethnicity; Keene, Cherchez Eufeme, 58. She also argues
that the reader could also read the poem as indicating it is Ebains bad nurture that
corrupted Eufemes character, 11.
89
Thorpe, Silence, l. 789.
90
Ibid., ll. 8791090.
91
Ibid., ll. 11891190; ll. 13911393.
92
Ibid., ll. 16831763.
Heather Tanner 2012 159
93
Roche-Mahdii, Silence, xx.
94
Thorpe, The Roman de Silence, ll. 245246 and 1.185.
95
Ibid., l. 3713.
96
Ibid., ll 23242326.
97
Ibid., ll. 42624263.
98
Thorpe, Silence, ll. 418790.
99
John Carmi Parsons, The queens intercession in thirteenth-century Eng-
land, in Power of the Weak, eds. Jennifer Carpenter and Sally-Beth MacLean (Urbana,
IL: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 147177.
100
Thorpe, The Roman de Silence, ll. 63996402.
101
Thorpe, The Roman de Silence, l. 6646.
102
As Terrell points out, after her restoration to female form, Silence does not
speak; Katherine H. Terrell, Competing Gender Ideologies and the Limitations of
Language in Le Roman de Silence, Romance Quarterly 55 (2008), 4249.
103
Christopher Callahan, Canon Law, Primogeniture, and the Marriage of
Ebain and Silence, Romance Quarterly 49 (2002), 1314.
104
Thorpe, The Roman de Silence, ll. 66996701 and 1.6627.
105
Terrell, Competing Gender Ideologies, 43.