Gilles is a historical saint who died in the early eighth century in Provence. Aside from his fantastical parentage, much of what is said about Saint Gilles in TN lines up with hagiographical accounts. According to the tenth-century Vita Sancti Aegidii, the twelfth-century Old French version of his Vita, and the episode as it appears in TN, Gilles was saying mass for Charlemagne when he received a heavenly letter stating that Charlemagne had not confessed a certain terrible sin. Gilles then is able to confess Charlemagne of the sin, which, although not named in the Vita, is specified in TN as the sin of incest – Charlemagne slept with his sister, and Roland is said to be the fruit of this union.171 In TN, Gilles also confesses Tristan of the sin of incest with his first
171
Miranda Griffin, “Writing Out the Sin: Arthur, Charlemagne, and the Spectre of Incest,” Neophilologus 88 (2004): 506; 515. Griffin notes that Tristan de Nanteuil is the first French text wherein Charlemagne’s sin is explicitly identified as incest with his sister; see TN
cousin Clarisse. Tristan and Clarisse’s son Garcïon/Grevesson is raised by Saracens and unknowingly kills his father at the end of the poem. The two children of incest thus have completely different destinies; as Alban Georges writes, “[l]’engendrement du futur Saint Gilles n’est pas le fruit du péché mais celui du miracle. Cet aspect désincarné de la procréation constitue l’antithèse, et donc le rachat du péché lié à la naissance de Grevesson, le fruit de l’inceste.”172 And while Gilles’ presence in the world is positive because he is able to confess and heal others, his adoption of a monastic lifestyle, living as a hermit and subsisting only on herbs, indicates that some sort of penitence is taking place – perhaps penitence for his parents’ sin(s) of incest and same-sex desire?
TN indicates explicitly at only one moment that Clarinde was punished for having desired and lain with Blanchandine:
Sachés que la roÿne ne disoit se voir non, Car il advint tel chose a bien brefve saison Que par force convint oultre droit et raison Qu’elle eüst Blanchandine dont je fais mencïon, Et espousa la belle a la loy de Mahon,
Et geust avecques lui dedens son pavillon, De quoy il lui advint puis grant perdicïon.173
Know that the queen spoke the truth, because such a thing soon came to pass: against [Blanchandine’s] will and against right and reason, she [Clarinde] had Blanchandine whom I mention, and she married the beautiful woman according to the Saracen law, and lay with her in her tent, for which reason great calamity befell her.
lines 21705-10. For the Old French poem, see La Vie de Saint Gilles par Guillaume de Berneville, poème du XIIe siècle, ed. Alphonse Bos and Gaston Paris (Paris: Firmin Didot et cie, 1881).
172
Georges, TN, 597. 173
This one instance of clear disapproval of homoerotic desire is unusual in the text, as Clarinde’s desire for Blanchandin(e) is generally treated as if it were something humorous and not to be taken seriously. The passage places the blame entirely on Clarinde and speaks only of the calamity that befell her, not Blanchandin. However, Blanchandin also suffers greatly. After the sex change and when Blanchandin and Clarinde are living in newly conquered Greece, a traitor attacks their castle and cuts off one of Blanchandin’s arms;174 he wanders homeless for thirty years, and is separated from Clarinde and Gilles, who also suffer hardship. In comparison to this passage that indicates that same-sex desire is sinful, incest is never explicitly mentioned as a problem for Blanchandin(e) and Clarinde’s marriage; it is never entirely clear if this is because the degree of kinship is not close enough to cause alarm, or because the cross-dressing and sex change alters their kinship. However, it is worth noting that the issues of homoerotic desire and cousin incest are the only two in the text to require any character’s confession. The men in this text, and particularly Tristan, variously commit fornication, adultery, and rape, but these do not elicit condemnation. Rather than representing another instance of deviance that would sit alongside incest and homosexuality, sex change is presented as a positive event that renders Clarinde and Blanchandine’s relationship normative: after the sex change, Clarinde is married to a man, and he is apparently no longer her cousin.
I will begin the body of this chapter by presenting Blanchandine and Clarinde as they appear in the earlier part of the text, in which they are both still Saracen princesses. The two cousins are never shown to interact in this portion, but their individual portraits offer some clues as to how their characters will later develop. I will then show how the author foreshadows the
174
In the scene where the arm is reattached, it is clearly identified as his right arm (TN, 22812-17). Another scene, however, implies that it is the left (Ibid., 22639-43).
sex change before I enter into the heart of the cross-dressing, marriage, and sex change episodes. During cross-dressing, Blanchandine identifies with aspects of “Blanchandin’s” masculine identity, and the continuity or discontinuity of emotions and memories between the male and female personas inform us about how gender and sex change alters (or doesn’t) human identity in this text. Finally, I examine the relationships between the newly male Blanchandin and his companions Doon, Tristan, and Clarinde, showing how TN constructs masculinity and how the dynamics of gender and power adjust in light of sex change. All of this change and continuity occurs in the context of Saint Gilles’ holiness and a vague sentiment of sin that overhangs Blanchandin and Clarinde’s relationship.