The Seducer's Tongue: Oral and Moral Issues in Medieval Schooltexts (pre-print) (original) (raw)
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The Kiss in Medieval Literature Erotic Communication, with an Emphasis on Roman de Silence
Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science , 2022
In the pre-modern world, exchanging kisses carried many different reasons, not at all purely erotic. Instead, we commonly observe that the kiss was of great significance in religious, political, and legal terms. However, we have not yet fully recognized the fact that the kiss represents the ultimate medium of communication in an erotic or other type of relationship. After surveying briefly the history of kissing in medieval literature, this article examines some major situations in Heldris de Cornwall's Roman de Silence where this phenomenon is most dramatically illustrated. Once words have failed to express the full meaning of an exchange, the kiss constitutes the ultimate human expression joining two individuals.
Images of adultery in twelfth and thirteenth-century Old French literature
2003
This thesis examines literary images of masculinity and femininity, their function and depiction in marriage roles and homo-social relationships in the context of crisis: wifely adultery. The study is heavily reliant upon vernacular texts, especially Old French works from the twelfth and thirteenth century including works from the genres of romance, lais, fables, and fabliaux. Latin works including historia and prescriptive texts such as customaries, penitentials, etiquette texts and medical and canon law treatises are also used to contextualise themes in the Old French literature. The introduction summarises modern literary and historical criticism concerning sexuality in the Middle Ages. It then discusses the influences of the Church, philosophy, medicine, natural theory and society on medieval definitions of sexuality to contextualise the literature which is focal to this thesis. The following four chapters each consider a single character in the adulterous affair: the adulteress, the husband, the lover and the accuser. The literary images of each character are analysed in detail revealing the diversity of depictions between and also within genres. This enables the identification of medieval sexual constructs, challenging some previous critiques of representations of sexuality in the Middle Ages. The final chapter explores the language by which the sexual act is presented. Furthermore, it shows how language is used and occasionally abused in committing, prosecuting and evading punisliment for adultery and how it can be wielded as a weapon of women. Through the focus of a body of literature rich in depictions of sexuality, this thesis questions the misogynist overtones often attributed to medieval literature. The diversity of images shows that the literature illustrates a wide range of opinions and ideas reflective of the complexity of sexuality in medieval society. I would like to thank my supervisor, John Hudson for his invaluable support over the last four years. Other members of the Department of Medieval History at St Andrews have also given of their time, providing advice and guidance, particularly Rob Bartlett and Simone Macdougall. For their help in teaching me Old French and for specific language advice I would like to thank Clive Sneddon and Norris Lacy. Several others have also contributed greatly to my research and their assistance has made the process not only easier but more enjoyable-1 would therefore like to thank the librarians of the Bibliothèque Nationale and the British Library and above all, the secretaries of the Department of Mediaeval History, Anne Chalmers, and Berta Wales who has been an inspiration and who, in particular, has given support and guidance far exceeding any secretarial duties. I would like to thank Bob and Julie Kerr-my fairy-godpeoplewhose quiet strength and support and unexpected help and generosity saw me through difficult times impossible to enumerate. During the course of my Ph. D., I have been privileged to be part of an active and close postgraduate community: I am thankful to all its members, in particular Angela Montford, Bjorn Weiler, Caroline Proctor, Sumi David and Lindsay Rudge. I would like to thank Michele Mason for long talks, her friendship and her ability to make me smile and Brian Briggs for the good times, bad times and back again. Finally, I would like to thank those people who have constantly come to my aid and given unwavering support by rescuing hard drives, giving advice and offering their support over cups of coffee, pints of Guinness, around campfires, atop Munroes and in canoes: David Green, Iona McCleery and Kris Towson. For peppercorns of knowledge and understated but immeasurable generosity, I would like to thank Angus Stewart. It remains to thank one person in particular-Sally Crumplin. It strikes me that during the course of writing a work that focuses on themes of distrust and betrayal, I have been given the gift of unwavering, unconditional trust, faith and support. For this and all else, I thank her. This thesis is dedicated to my father. He would have claimed not to have understood it, on account of its lack of engine, gears and grease and yet he did all that was in his power to make sure that I could attain my goal, providing endless faith, support and love. I hope that in some way the completion of this work proves that his faith and years of hard work were not in vain and that I am as proud of him and all he did as he was of me.
2020
Uncorrected proofs of my chapter for the Anthology of European Neo-Latin Literature. Battista Mantovano, Adolescentia 5 (selections): Introduction, text, translation and commentary.