REmiSiÓN y lA POSibiliDAD DE RECuRRENCiARECuRRENCiA

King Ebain of Cornwall declares that women can no longer inherit after two knights are killed fighting over twin ladies; there had been a dispute as to which one was older and thus the heir. Ebain makes this decision quickly, without consulting with his advisors. When Count Cador (Ebain’s nephew) learns that his wife Eufemie is pregnant, he immediately makes a rash decision himself, and devises a plan to cross-dress his child should she be born female. In order to carry out this ruse, Cador also decides to recruit members of his and his wife’s family who will help him and keep Silence’s sex secret. While explaining his plan to his pregnant wife, and even before she acquiesces, he says that he will bring in a female relative of his to attend to Eufemie at the birth. He explains that “la dame si est ma cosine / Et somes trestolt d’une orine” [the lady is my cousin: we are very closely related].25 Cador summons his cousin, and when the lady arrives at the court, Cador and Eufemie explain the situation to her and she agrees to attend to Eufemie and to participate in the deception if the child should be born female in exchange for “many

25

Silence: A Thirteenth-Century French Romance, trans. Sarah Roche-Mahdi (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1992), 1743-44. I will be using Roche-Mahdi’s translations unless otherwise noted. All references are to lines of verse.

things,” which are not yet specified.26 Cador explains that his cousin is recently widowed and childless. He does not say so precisely, but this means that she does not have many resources and would likely rely on the generosity of relatives like Cador, or, as in this case, remuneration for a task. Cador’s cousin attends to Eufemie during her labor as she had promised, and Eufemie safely delivers a girl. When the lady announces to Cador that his “son” is born, the narrator indicates that she is Cador’s “cozine germaine” - not just a cousin, who could be a very distant relation, but a first cousin.27 This is also interesting considering that King Ebain is Cador’s uncle. Thus, the lady cousin could actually be Ebain’s daughter. However, this seems unlikely given that it is not specified, and she would probably not be in a precarious financial situation if that were the case. Regardless, the repetition of the fact that she is a close relative indicates that this influences Cador’s decision to ask her to be the caretaker.

Cador had informed his cousin to announce to all that he has a son, whether or not the child is male. Since Cador has no way of knowing the child’s true sex from his cousin’s announcement, he goes to Eufemie directly after the birth (which, the narrator notes, is against practice and embarrasses Eufemie), who informs him that in fact he has a daughter. Speaking to his wife, he then begins to develop a more elaborate plan for how to raise his female child as a boy. He mentions his cousin again and gives further details on why he thinks she will make a good nurse:

Et ceste dame i mettra painne, Ki est ma cozine germainne, Devenra por m’amor norice. Se jo sui manans ele iert riche. 26

Ibid., 1771-72. 27

Mar avra ja de honte soig S’or me secort a cest besoing. and the lady who is my first cousin will take care of everything.

She will be nursemaid out of loyalty to me. If I prosper, she shall be rich.

She will never have to worry about being poor and abandoned if she helps me now with this task.28

Now that Cador has “hired” his cousin to attend at the birth and has assurance of her cooperation, he adds more to her job description: he wants his cousin to be the child’s “norice” as well. Since, as we soon learn, Silence is to be isolated in the woods with only this lady, the seneschal, and a child servant, it is clear that by “norice” Cador must be including the responsibility of breastfeeding the baby. Cador had explained to Eufemie that his cousin was pregnant when her husband died and she subsequently went to live with Cador’s aunt, where she gave birth to a son who lived only one week. Although the timeline is not very clear, this backstory may be meant to account for the cousin’s physical ability to breastfeed Silence on Cador’s command, although it is still not terribly realistic since Eufemie had not even given birth yet when the cousin’s child died – and we do not know whether the cousin even breastfed her own child for the one week that he was alive. Thus, the text does not address any physiological questions about lactation, but the lack of another source of milk implies that Cador’s cousin will breastfeed Silence. Further in this chapter, I will discuss why the cousin’s breast milk has a special significance for Silence.

The cousin will become Silence’s nursemaid because of Cador’s love for her (“Devenra por m’amor norice”), or her “loyalty” towards him, as Roche-Mahdi translates. It is clear, though, from Cador’s plan, that love is not enough. The nursemaid cousin will also have to be provided with material goods that will allow her to live comfortably. As Cador says in the above

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passage, he will give her these material goods “s’or me secort a cest besoing,” “if she helps me with this now.” The “if” highlights the transactional nature of their relationship. Heather Tanner has written about the role of generosity in good kingship in Silence, noting that King Ebain consistently provides examples of bad lordship because he does not give generously to his lords, but rather in terms of exchange of goods or services.29 Cador operates similarly to King Ebain when it comes to his cousin; he does not display liberality but rather he exchanges “finite wealth for specific services which must be rendered in full.”30 This transactional relationship between the nursemaid cousin and Cador exemplifies the condition of women in Silence; “good” women are sometimes forced to do things with which they do not necessarily agree, either in exchange for material support or because they feel they must lend moral support to a male relative. For example, although Cador informs Eufemie of his plan to cross-dress Silence and she consents to the plan, the idea that she could comfortably voice any opposition to this plan is certainly not a given. Similarly, Cador may say to Eufemie that he thinks his cousin is accepting his offer to her out of love, but in fact he is offering a monetary reward for her work, and he expects her to be happy to accept this reward. His cousin would have to worry about being poor and abandoned if it were not for his offer. In this sense, Cador certainly does not display the qualities of a generous lord, and he also places a woman in a position wherein, in order to support herself, she must commit a rather serious form of deception involving inheritance.

29

Heather Tanner, “Lords, Wives, and Vassals in the Roman de Silence,” Journal of Women’s History 24, no.1 (2012): 141.

30

Stephen D. White, “Giving Fiefs and Honor: Largesse, Avarice, and the Problem of ‘Feudalism’ in Alexander’s Testament,” The Medieval French Alexander, ed. Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox (Albany: SUNY Press, 2002), 136-137. Cited in Tanner, “Lords, Wives,” 141.

Cador’s idea to cross-dress Silence, while it gives Silence an advantage because he retains his inheritance, on the contrary disadvantages the nursemaid (making her subject to bribery, essentially) and places his wife Eufemie in a very uncomfortable position wherein she cannot realistically oppose her husband’s plan to cross-dress their child. I disagree with Tanner’s statement that “Cador never assumes her [Eufemie’s] consent.”31 In fact, he uses persuasive religious language in order to convince her that it is her duty to agree with him, hence leaving her no option of freely given consent. Before Cador first brings up his plan to Eufemie, he prefaces it with a monologue about Adam and Eve being of one mind and one flesh. The same is true of a married couple, he says, and thus, “Sor als est puis s’il ne se tienent” [It is upon their heads if they don’t hold to this thereafter]. Eufemie responds, “Bials sire, / Ja rien que vostres cuers desire / N’orés par moi estre escondie” [Sweet lord, nothing that your heart desires will I refuse you]. 32 Her answer indicates that she agrees to support Cador in his decision, not that she agrees with what he has proposed. Cador thus controls the decisions of his wife as well as those of the nursemaid, while making it seem as if they were both freely consenting to the plan.

Elizabeth A. Waters notes that “images and evocations of shame surround Silence’s cross-dressing.” She references Eve Sedgwick’s discussion of shame as formative to identity in some queer childhoods, and shows that Silence’s motivation for not giving up cross-dressing is fear of shaming his family, the opposite of the expected situation in contemporary society, in which a child might be shamed into giving up cross-dressing.33 Shame is also a useful tool in

31

Tanner, “Lords, Wives,” 150. 32

Silence, 1720; 1725-27. 33

Cador’s relationship to the nursemaid. He admits that he is putting his cousin into a situation that she or others in their society might find shameful, because a noblewoman would not normally become a nursemaid. This shame becomes advantageous to Cador because it would explain why she chose to isolate herself in the woods:

Et se la fole gens demande Porqu’ele est o l’enfant si seule, On dira que n’a soig de peule, Qu’ele a de l’enfant norrir honte Por cho qu’ele est parente a conte. And if foolish people ask

why she stays so isolated with the child we will say she doesn’t want anyone around, that she is ashamed to be nursemaid

because she is of noble birth.34

Cador believes that his cousin might reasonably be expected to be ashamed to be a nursemaid in her noble position. Whether or not she actually does feel shame is not a matter of concern to him, but rather this imagined shame is useful to scare off any nosy neighbors. By removing Silence from the court, Cador avoids the possibility of bringing shame upon himself - and transfers that possibility of shame to his cousin. The change of gender, if discovered, brings the possibility of shame and humiliation to all involved – the parents, the surrogate parents, and Silence himself. But Cador’s decision to remove Silence from his presence creates a layer of distance and protection from this humiliation, while still affording Cador the benefit of the pride of having a son who will inherit from him. While explaining that the nursemaid cousin will receive money from Cador, the narrator even inserts his own commentary, giving his approval of this monetary transaction:

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Moult funt de doner, de promeitre A la dame por en grant mettre Qu’ele nen ait pas en porvil De norir lor fille por fil. E jo certes n’i voi nul blasme Se grant loier donent la dame Car de mescine avront valet, Et de lor fille un oir mallet.

They gave many gifts and promises to the lady to secure her good will, so that she would not disdain to raise their girl as a boy.

And I certainly see nothing wrong with rewarding the lady handsomely, for they will be getting a boy for a girl, a little male heir instead of a daughter.35

The fact that the narrator feels the need to sanction Cador’s behavior indicates that it could be seen as “un-lordly” behavior of the nature that Heather Tanner described – a transactional relationship that places Cador in bad light. Essentially, the narrator says that the “ends justify the means:” Cador’s buying of his cousin is legitimate simply because such a great reward, a male heir, comes out of it.