Kalamazoo Medieval Congress Blog: Sunday 10:30

Session 537 - Female Friendship in Medieval Literature II

• Sponsor: Medieval Studies Institute, Indiana Univ.–Bloomington
• Organizer: Usha Vishnuvajjala, Indiana Univ.–Bloomington
• Presider: Karma Lochrie, Indiana Univ.–Bloomington

Models of Female Friendship in the Lives of Saints - Andrea Boffa, York College, CUNY

A young widow escapes to the Poor Clares to avoid a second marriage, taking the name Clara, is retrieved by her family, then is allowed to enter a Dominican convent. Her new sisters were annoyed by her excessive humility, but some liked her enough to accompany her when she later established a new Dominican house. But this paper begins with a specific incident when she was participated in a group of female friends. A man is afflicted by a sudden and disgusting illness, and is cared for by a group of female friends. They are joined by the young woman who would later become Clara. This episode was used to illustrate her piety and humility, but the episode itself suggests that her activities were more to bond with the pious women and become part of their circle.

Clara is part of a proliferation of female saints in the 13-14th centuries in northern Italy, many of whom were “lay saints” never joining an order, or like Clara, who had experience in the world before entering a convent. Hagiographers grappled with how to present an independent, worldly woman as worthy of veneration. But for historians, these vitae provide useful evidence of the everyday lives of ordinary women. Female friendships are a notable theme within the texts, though in many variants.

Examples:

Margaret ran away as a teenager to live with her lover, with whom she had a son. When her lover was murdered, she was rejected by her family and taken in by a woman and her daughter. When Margaret wanted to take a Franciscan habit and was rejected, her female friends helped her establish herself as a midwife. Although she attempts to live a relatively solitary devotional life, her days are continually interrupted by women of the community who wish to interact with her socially.

Another woman, unhappily married, became sanctified by living as a recluse in a tower provided by her family. But during her unhappy marriage, she was supported by friendship with her sister-in-law. During an episode when the devil tempted her by showing her false images of her family being dead, she rejects all as illusions. The illusions are in increasing order of importance and closeness, moving from family, to children, to the Virgin Mary, but ending with her dear female friend, thus demonstrating the supreme emotional importance to her of this relationship.

A woman (Clare of Rimini?) was accused of undermining male authority via her support of and influence over female friends. She increasingly gathered a circle of like-minded women who eventually established a women’s community when a neighbor offered to sell her his house for the purpose.

The hagiographers who wrote of these women and their lives may not have intended to focus on the importance of female friendship in their lives, but the theme shows through. Furthermore, their vitae support the acceptance that women living holy but non-regulated lives as part of a community of lay women could be considered to be models of a holy life just as much as those within a convent.

Love and Friendship in the Twelfth Century - Stella Wang, Harvard Univ.

Looks at female friendship themes in three French texts: the romances of Le Fresne and Guildeluëc and Guilliadun and Aelred of Rievaulx’s Spiritual Friendship. The common theme is that friendships between women transcend the conventions of courtly love. That the exclusive heterosexual love motif that pits women as rivals is here undermined by the supportive bonds the women make.

In Le Fresne, two women become pregnant at the same time, when the first to give birth has twins, the other woman slanders her with the trope that twins must have had different fathers. So when the second women herself has twins, she vows to murder one of the girls to save her reputation, but the girl is instead taken away into anonymity. These two sisters later find themselves attached to the same man leading to reconciliation with the mother because of the bond of friendship between the sisters. (I think I may have lost the thread and this may not be entirely accurate, but I’m bringing in recollections of the tale from previous sources.)

Aelred’s text on friendship notes that love can exist without friendship, but friendship can’t exist without love, and that love can proceed from nature, duty, reason, or affection, or a combination of these.

G&G also focuses on the consequences of two women whose friendship is challenged by their romantic attachment to the same man: one as wife, one as mistress. The wife finds that she so loves and admires the mistress (who is struck down by grief at finding her lover married) that she determines to set her husband free and take the veil so the lovers can have each other. (Note that the introduction to the tale notes that it was originally named after the male lead, but was renamed after the female characters because it turned out to be their story.)

These romantic triangles subvert the expectation of women as inherent rivals.

Aelred further comments on spiritual friendship that “carnal friendship” is considered normal among the young and should be tolerated if not dishonorable in hopes that it will evolve into a more spiritual friendship that will in turn naturally lead the experiencer to a love and affection for God.

Sisters, Eroticism, and the Red Cat: Homosocial Female Bonds in Troubadour Poetry - Leslie Anderson, Tulane Univ.

Troubadour poetry is known for its overt and sometimes explicit descriptions of sexuality, often focusing on women as the source of both pleasure and (romantic/erotic) pain. The poem in question involves what the speaker humorously characterizes as “a kinky threesome” and plans to explore the relationship between the two women in the episode, not just their relationship to the man.

Little detail is provided in the poem directly about the two women, other than their names, but much can be read between the lines. What was clearly originally a context of homosocial female bonding becomes “queer” by the introduction of the man.

The narrator, traveling through France in pilgrim’s garb. He fakes being a foreigner who can’t speak the local language when encountering two local women. The women at first are pleased that he “can’t tell our secrets” but then test him with their “red cat” (a whip) to make sure he’s truly not able to understand/speak their language.

The narrator puts up with being stripped naked and whipped in order to have a chance to have sex with both women. The narrator ends telling of his success and how he later wrote a letter to the two ladies (clearly indicating his language facility) thanking them and asking them to kill the cat. But what is overlooked in this male perception of triumph is that the episode was clearly driven by the women’s desire for the encounter.

There is a discussion of differences between male homosocial bonding and female homosocial bonding in this era, where male bonds require rejection of homosexual potential, while female bonds allow for the possibility. Expanded to an erotic triangle, two men with a woman can only be rivals, but two women with a man can be collaborators, accepting an erotic relationship with each other in order to create a relationship with the man.

There is a discussion of Adrienne Rich’s The Lesbian Continuum and other theoretical considerations of the range of female homoerotic experience that can overlay and intersect with superficially heterosexual scenarios.

The two women in the poem deliberately seek out sexual relations with a stranger while their husbands are absent, but they share the desire and the action as partners and conspirators with each other, demonstrating autonomy and sexual experience to which their male lover is incidental. The exact nature of their relationship cannot be determined (despite one passing reference between them as “sisters”) other than as partners in sexual adventures. The “red cat” is referred to as “theirs” in common, both are familiar with it, both know where it is. Their actions are all done in tandem with the narrator left in the position of passive acted-on object. Whether this can be considered to represent a homoerotic partnership between the women, or simply an attack on the primacy of male agency with regard to erotic relations (and thus indirectly an attack on heteronormativity and patriarchy), it is clear that the homosocial bond between them undermines the characterization of the episode as merely a tale of male sexual adventure.

Final Notes

Just for those who have been paying attention to the session numbering: There were 574 numbered sessions in this year’s Congress, not counting a variety of gatherings, workshops, and displays that were not part of the numbered system. Just think of all the sessions I couldn't attend because they conflicted with those I chose!

The themes in the sessions I attend each year emerge from the intersection of my immediate and long-term interests with the fashions in topics and the ebb and flow of particular subjects. This year those intersections included the history of magic, especially including magic and mysticism in the Islamic world; feminist topics and women’s friendships/communities; dress and textiles; and the application of historical research to the writing of historically-based genre fiction.

There will be one more post in this year’s Kalamazoo series: the book intake post. I may have time to post it while hanging out at the airport later.