Christopher Callahan

Canon Law, Primogeniture, and the Marriage of Ebain and Silence

ing Ebain’s decision, at the close of the Roman de Silence,’ to wed its eponymous heroine, whom he has just restored to her rightful position as countess of Cornwall, strikes modern readers as K impetuous and poorly conceived. This marriage is particularly disturbing in that it effects a complete reversal of the case which Master Heldris seems to be advancing on Silence’s behalf. Marriage to the very sovereign who was responsible for her predicament hardly seems a fitting resolution to a tale that belies its own misogynous rhetoric by presenting Silence and her subterfuge in a very sympathetic light. Although this marriage may indeed be a reward for Silence’s loyalty, it also clips her wings, while making the case that as a woman, this is the best she can aspire to. For with the undoing of her public persona, she must now lose the voice she had acquired through her mastery of lyric discourse,’ and her music/mode of expression must be relegated to a purely private sphere, as she herself foresaw (w. 2865-72):

Lyric Discourse and Female Vocality: On the Unsilencing of Silence

The practice of lyric allows both Silence and Nicolete of chantefable fame to transcend the limits of gender, by validating both their male and female personae at once. Whether purely literary convention or reality, this empowerment is characteristic of medieval lyric discourse.

Gautier de Coinci: Miracles, Music, and Manuscripts (review)

tioner was allowed to present witnesses.They testified on the contested articles, and the defendant questioned them, as per the inquiry procedure of the common law. Nevertheless, while the petitioner produced fourteen witnesses, the defendant also presented six on articles that have not been preserved. These twenty depositions are integrally transcribed and occupy fifty-six pages of the volume.The testimonies are not constant on the priest’s or the vicar’s qualifications and do not pronounce themselves on the legitimacy of the ruling of 1457.