SPIRITUAL TRANSCENDENCE AS THE PATH TO HAPPINESS IN A SELECTION OF OLD FRENCH TEXTS
Stephanie Grace Petinos
Happiness is an elusive term that evolves and changes over time. Even within a narrow time frame, in the case of the current study, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there is no singular definition for what constitutes happiness within a society. Scholars note that theologians who discuss happiness, most notably Thomas Aquinas, recognize that while there is an attainable happiness on earth, true and perfect happiness is only found in the afterlife, since perfect happiness is devoid of all evil and resides in God.1 Forming a seeming dichotomy with theological principles is the secular literature of the time, which, although varied—romance, lyric poetry, epic poetry, fabliaux, etc.—, is often cited for its concentration on happiness through carnal love, military prowess and other temporal pursuits. This study aims to demonstrate that these two traditions—the spiritual and the secular—are, in fact, not at odds in expressing notions of happiness within secular literature; rather, we see layers, a sort of blending together, of spiritual with secular concerns that lead to a unique version of happiness. The two texts discussed in this study allow the protagonists to attain happiness through spiritual transcendence without losing resonances of secular happiness. To that end, each text—the twelfth-century lai Eliduc by Marie de France and the thirteenth-century romance Le Roman de la Manekine by Philippe de Remi—uses the same term for happiness as a noun, joie. While Aquinas employs the Latin terms beatitudo, felicitas and perfectio to explore the various nuances of happiness, the texts in this essay use the more secular, vernacular term. At the same time, these texts reflect the radically shifting religious scene that is particularly prevalent in these two centuries, wherein the central female protagonists conclude their respective adventures in a situation deemed spiritually elevated by the Church at the time.
During the central Middle Ages in Western Europe the Church, an enormously influential institution invested in secular politics, economy and social concerns, underwent major changes. In the twelfth century, this religious rejuvenation primarily took the form of newly emerging monastic orders, especially the Cistercians and the Carthusians. These new orders illuminated the desire to rid the monastic life of worldly concerns, like money and fame, and return to the strict adherence to the Rule of Saint Benedict. By the thirteenth century, there was a growing desire for those outside the walls of the monastery to participate in the religious life without renouncing secular life entirely. This desire is most obviously manifested in the creation of mendicant orders like the Dominicans and Franciscans, whose members travel widely, preaching Scripture and interacting with secular individuals. The Franciscans created a special division (the Third Order of St. Francis), which allowed laypeople to live by the Rule without renouncing their secular life. Communities like the Beguines, where secular individuals lived together in a monastic-like community without taking official vows, emerged, which were especially popular for women; likewise, a proliferation of female mystics occurred around this time period, where women enjoyed an intimate connection to and relationship with Christ through visions and somatic experiences.2
It is important to note that the two texts that I have chosen to discuss happiness in this time period focus on female protagonists who achieve spiritual transcendence. This is, perhaps, a surprising feature of these texts considering the male-centric medieval society and culture in which they are composed; women in this period have little to no control over the direction of their lives: the two almost exclusive options for women—marriage or the convent—are decided typically by a male relative. With very little personal choice available to women, it is striking to see two examples of women who take advantage of the opportunities when choice presents itself, and although both women experience bouts of potential and/or lived suffering, their choices result directly in their spiritual transcendence. In each text, suffering and victimization are major themes that are practically a requirement for women to achieve some form of happiness in the end. In fact, suffering becomes the vehicle through which each heroine achieves spiritual transcendence, and her suffering comes to an end once transcendence and spiritual elevation are conferred. Neither protagonist is officially canonized or explicitly enters into the cult of the saints, yet both women are treated with an air of sanctity, and scholars agree on the spiritual and moral integrity of these women.3 While these two texts are not meant to represent the entire corpus of medieval literature, each was widely circulated and immensely popular throughout the Middle Ages, lending a certain measure of influence to each text.
I will begin with Marie de France’s twelfth-century lai Eliduc. Eliduc is a noble knight who becomes the victim of slander, which results in his exile. Eliduc travels abroad and swears fidelity to a new King after saving the kingdom from an attack. He meets the King’s daughter, Guilliadun, and they fall in love, engaging in a purely emotional, rather than physical, relationship, allowing Eliduc to remain innocent of adultery, although he hides the fact that he is already married from Guilliadun. Eventually, Eliduc is summoned back to his original court and pardoned, but not before vowing to return to Guilliadun. Eliduc returns to his lover and sneaks her out of her kingdom to return home with him, all the while still married to his wife, Guildeluëc. It is on the journey back to his homeland that a sailor reveals that Eliduc is married, causing Guilliadun to faint, though everyone believes she is dead. Eliduc, overcome with grief, throws the sailor overboard, steers the boat to safety and places his lover in a recently deceased hermit’s chapel on his lands, where he visits her every day. His wife, Guildeluëc, follows him to the chapel and discovers the girl. When she witnesses a weasel resuscitating its fatally wounded mate by using a flower, she uses the remedy to revive the girl. Guilliadun admits she has escaped from her home with Eliduc, but that she did not know he was married; Guildeluëc reveals that she is Eliduc’s wife, and that she is not angry with either the girl or with her husband. She then announces her decision to renounce her marriage in order to take the veil, which allows the lovers to legitimately marry. Eliduc, grateful for his wife’s selfless act, grants her leave and gives her a portion of his own land for the foundation of a convent, as she had requested. She enters it, along with 30 nuns, and establishes its Rule. Eliduc and Guilliadun eventually turn to God, with Eliduc entering a monastery that he founds and placing Guilliadun into Guildeluëc’s convent, where they live as sisters. The three live their remaining years in perfect harmony, writing letters to and praying for each other, all three living primarily for God.
In this text, the main source of unhappiness and central conflict for the titular protagonist stems from the fact that he is already married to Guildeluëc when he meets and falls in love with Guilliadun. The only way to achieve the happiness he desires and resolve the love conflict would be to somehow remove Guildeluëc from the equation. At this time, there are very few (if any) solutions that would not have a negative impact on Guildeluëc, whether he chose to bring Guilliadun into his home as his mistress—an option that is clearly impossible, given her reaction to discovering he was already married—, repudiate her, mistreat her or force her into a convent. When Guildeluëc revives Guilliadun and becomes aware of the situation, and of the fact that her marriage to Eliduc is the obstacle to his happiness, she acts upon a rare occasion that allows her to make an independent choice. She seizes the opportunity by announcing her desire to renounce the marriage. She does not wait for Eliduc to make a decision that could adversely affect her; instead, she takes control of the situation by forgiving all of Eliduc’s transgressions and providing a solution guaranteed to ensure the happiness of everyone involved, including herself.
Guildeluëc’s decision succeeds in providing her with agency; it is also a potentially dangerous move. In a society where a woman’s worth was linked to that of her husband, her children and her lineage, Guildeluëc consciously puts herself in a precarious position and performs a symbolic death to ensure happiness for Eliduc and Guilliadun.4 However, while Guildeluëc gives up her worldly husband and secular status, she gains a better husband in the religious life: Christ. Bridal imagery among nuns, with respect to their profession and vows, abounds; thus, when Guildeluëc enters the religious life, she gives up a mortal, flawed husband, gaining instead a husband whose perfection surpasses any and all human man.5 What Marie de France does, then, is to create two new marriages when Guildeluëc renounces her marriage to Eliduc: the worldly marriage of Eliduc and Guilliadun and the spiritual marriage of Guildeluëc and Christ. Guilliadun and Eliduc experience a carnal, earthly love that, while lauded by the author, still retains the remnants of imperfection through Eliduc’s past actions. On the other hand, Guildeluëc achieves a perfect love match with a partner who is considered the very embodiment of sacrifice: a husband worthy of her own selflessness. Guildeluëc leaves behind her worldly family but she gains an even more perfect spiritual family. While Christ is her perfect husband, she also gains several sisters—the 30 nuns that follow her into her newly established convent. Moreover, while Guildeluëc’s renunciation negates any possibility of furthering her ancestral line through the bearing of children, especially male children, it also erases any danger involved in childbirth, a very dangerous prospect with great risk to both mother and child, with no guarantee that that child would survive long enough to bring any temporal glory to the family. She does not bear any biological children, but she is the spiritual mother, as well as sister, to the nuns in her convent as the abbess: Guildeluëc is the person responsible for their education, their discipline and their well-being.6 Her lineage is linked to the continuation of her convent, and her role as mother is intensified by the fact that Guildeluëc herself writes the Rule for the order, because all subsequent generations of nuns will be her direct descendants as the daughters of the order that she has brought into existence. Guildeluëc’s suffering is, thus, rather short-lived and resides in the potentially negative path(s) that her life could have taken. By acting through renouncing, she escapes all negative consequences, and instead she becomes the vehicle of redemption for Eliduc.7 She is rewarded with the power to control her own convent, which Eliduc builds on his own lands; thus, Guildeluëc is not even forced to leave her home, instead taking control of a portion of her husband’s lands for herself through her convent.8
There is another woman in this story who undergoes a much longer and more intense period of suffering: Guilliadun. While Guilliadun does not become the exemplar of selflessness that Guildeluëc becomes, she is, nonetheless, a relatively innocent personage. She does leave her homeland without her father’s permission, a violation of both familial and feudal law, as her father is also the King, but Marie presents the love she experiences with Eliduc as a legitimate reason to transgress these codes. Once Guilliadun learns that Eliduc already has a wife, her period of suffering begins: she not only realizes that her lover has lied to her throughout their entire courtship, but that she is on a voyage that will end with her either becoming a mistress, a violation of her royal station, or his second wife, a violation of both secular and Church law. Neither option is acceptable and, overwhelmed by this realization, she is rendered incapacitated and falls, seemingly dead. It is when Guildeluëc discovers Guilliadun in the chapel that she understands the pure and true love shared between the couple: the moment that begins Guildeluëc’s short-lived suffering. Struck by Guilliadun’s beauty, Guildeluëc understands Eliduc’s feelings, she is saddened that her husband is now suffering. By allowing Guilliadun to reveal the story of Eliduc’s misdeeds when she awakens, she is able to forgive both her husband and the girl, as well as demonstrate her selflessness. Thus, Guildeluëc’s announcement that she wishes to enter the religious life and renounce her marriage is the moment that ends all suffering within the story: Eliduc’s mourning of his unconscious lover, Guilliadun’s guilt of having a married lover and her own suffering for the lovers, as well as the potential future suffering that could accompany Eliduc’s love for another woman.
In the beginning of the text, Guildeluëc exists almost entirely as an obstacle to Eliduc’s happiness with his lover, occupying a marginal, barely perceptible, space within the narrative. Her decision to renounce marks a turning point for the entire story as well as for Guildeluëc’s role: she ceases to be a passive figure, a victim of circumstances that come her way, and she becomes an active character in the story. Her renunciation transforms her from the obstacle standing in the way of Eliduc and Guilliadun’s marital happiness into the vehicle of that happiness, in fact their only option for attaining that happiness (Coolidge, 1992). She has managed to transform herself from an obstacle to the key for happiness in the story: first for Eliduc and Guilliadun in their marital life, and then for the subsequent final happiness that all three individuals experience as a collective group. It is at this moment that marital happiness is bestowed upon Eliduc and Guilliadun, while a new brand of happiness, one that leaves Guildeluëc safe and protected, having secured land, funds and a newly erected convent from Eliduc, is experienced by her. Guildeluëc, then, has moved beyond a temporal definition of happiness and has turned entirely toward the ultimate source of happiness: God. Therefore, even though Guildeluëc voluntarily removes herself from the love triangle, it is reformed and reimagined within the spiritually directed conclusion; Guildeluëc, then, is far from removed from the final turn of happiness, in which all three direct all of their thoughts and actions toward God. She is, in fact, integral to this happiness, as the source of inspiration to turn to the religious life as Eliduc founds his own monastery and enters it with several faithful vassals; she is also the person charged with Guilliadun’s protection, since Eliduc leaves her in Guildeluëc’s care. As one of the nuns in her established house, Guildeluëc becomes at once a surrogate mother and sister to her husband’s second wife.
The very end of the lai presents the final word on happiness not only for the three protagonists in this text, but for the entire anthology of Marie de France’s Lais, as Eliduc occupies the final position in the series. As a result, the conclusions we encounter in this final tale can serve as a final conclusion for the entire anthology. It is essential to note, as many scholars have, that this is the only one of Marie’s lais that ends on a religious note. At the same time, it is the only lai that ends with all members of her notorious love triangle in a happy state. While Marie presents various forms of the love triangle with different solutions, it is telling that her final solution allows all members of the love triangle to experience not only happiness, but continued contact among its members in a state of satisfaction and equality, erasing or inverting all previous inequalities of class and gender: in the religious world, Guildeluëc is the pivotal model, while the royal Guilliadun and her former husband, though now redeemed, do not match the level of sanctity bestowed upon Guildeluëc. Marie’s final solution also reflects the path promoted by religious thinkers in the twelfth century. As Émile Bréhier states, “The monastic ideal, that of the status religiosus, is a life of renunciation; the pursuit of perfection is based on adherence to the common code of poverty, chastity, and obedience” (1965). When Guildeluëc renounces her marriage, she is not only choosing a path that would allow her to escape any negative consequences by staying married to Eliduc, nor is she only gaining a voice, she is, in fact, consciously choosing the path that would guarantee her position as a paragon of holiness, her consideration as a saintly figure and her attainment of happiness—the perfect happiness of Aquinas—as she upholds the ideal twelfth-century conception of religiosity. Guildeluëc, as a selfless Marian figure, has entered into this religiously ideal life; it is in this way that she has attained the spiritual transcendence that leads to the type of perfect happiness that theologians like Thomas Aquinas describe in their writings, a way of life that Marie herself is thought to have lived as a nun in a convent in England.
While Guildeluëc, and eventually Guilliadun and Eliduc, live a life of perfect happiness according to twelfth-century ideals, we will see that happiness, like religious teachings and monastic models, have moved beyond the cloistered monastic walls of the twelfth century to be firmly intertwined with secular life in the thirteenth century in Philippe de Remi’s Le Roman de la Mankeine. By this time, women in particular were encouraged to maintain their positions as wives and mothers, rather than renounce the secular life entirely, a notion that concords with the emerging mendicant orders and other communities and ways of life that started to blend the religious and temporal realms.
In La Manekine, Philippe de Remi’s thirteenth-century romance, The King and Queen of Hungary have one child—a daughter, Joïe. The Queen dies, having first secured the King’s promise to remarry only if it is with a woman resembling herself. To keep the promise, the barons and clergy urge the king to marry his now sixteen-year-old daughter. When Joïe learns of the forced marriage to her father, she chops off her left hand, which falls into the river below. The King condemns her to death, but she is secretly freed and a mock execution is staged. Joïe ends up in Scotland, where she marries the King who nicknames her “Manekine” due to her missing hand. Joïe gives birth to a son while the King is absent, and, through falsified letters, his men believe she is to be put to death. For a second time, Joïe/Manekine is freed and a mock execution is staged. After learning the truth, the King sets out to find his wife and son, reuniting with them several years later in Rome. Meanwhile, the King of Hungary regrets his actions and travels to Rome for absolution. At the Maundy Thursday service, at which Joïe/Manekine, her husband and son are all present, he makes his confession. Hearing her story made public, Joïe identifies herself, reunites with her father after granting him forgiveness and recovers her original name. Joïe’s perfectly preserved hand is discovered in a nearby fountain, and the Pope miraculously restores it to Joïe’s body. A heavenly voice directs Pope Urban to open the sturgeon that had swallowed the hand when it fell into the river, finding inside the sweet-smelling glove-shaped reliquary that the Virgin Mary placed there to protect the hand, which is carried to St Peter’s. After a papal feast where all dine on the sturgeon, Joïe and her family journey to Hungary, where her father abdicates to his son-in-law, after which they travel to Armenia to claim Joïe’s mother’s inheritance. Joïe, her husband and son all return to Scotland where they have more children. The final lines attribute Joïe’s salvation to her constancy and avoiding despair.9
The suffering through which Joïe achieves spiritual elevation and, thus, happiness is directed toward her by multiple sources: her father, mother-in-law and society at large. Joïe’s father makes her a victim of his illicit feelings. It is his sinful feelings toward her that cause her to cut off her own hand, resulting in her being a victim of bodily violence. This violence is written upon her body for the majority of the text; in fact, it is this very violence that inspires her husband, the King of Scotland, to confer the nickname “Manekine” upon her. Her suffering is at the forefront of her existence; even the text of her life is named not after the joyful name given to her by her parents, but rather the nickname that denotes the violence, ambiguity and hardship of her life. Indirectly, she is also the victim of the barons and corrupt clergy, because it is these men that pressure Joïe’s father into remarriage. It is during their council with the King of Hungary that they determine Joïe is the only suitable marriage choice that fulfills his wife’s dying wish. The possibility of not having a male heir to whom the King could leave his kingdom proves to be a greater concern to both secular and religious representatives than having a King who would commit incest, a crime that transgressed both secular and religious laws. The barons and clergy ignore Church marriage laws that prohibit marriage within four degrees of kinship at this time to ensure the kingdom not pass to the female heir, Joïe. Joïe is, therefore, the victim of the entire feudal and patriarchal system, which favors inheritance through a son rather than through a daughter. This cultural, ecclesiastically backed, favoring of a male heir over a female, to the extent that the clergy would encourage the transgression of Church law through father–daughter incest, robs Joïe of any argument to avoid the marriage (Gouttebroze, 1989). Because the patriarchal leaders turn Joïe into a victim of their political agenda, she resorts to self-mutilation to escape violating God’s law [ll. 795–800]. She becomes the victim of her own bodily violence in order to maintain her chastity and avoid the more serious victimization intended by the barons, the clergy and her own father.
Joïe is also a victim of her mother-in-law’s jealousy and wrath after she marries the King of Scotland. Her mother-in-law opposes the union from the start due to Joïe’s ambiguous ancestry, since revealing any information about her mutilation and lineage would reveal her father’s transgression. After the birth of her son, Jehan, the mother-in-law undertakes the conspiracy of falsified letters, turning Joïe and her child into victims yet again. Joïe’s suffering, then, does not cease after falling in love and marrying the King of Scotland. Her missing hand continues to be a source of anger, first for her father and then for her mother-in-law; in both cases, the hand is the inspiration for her condemnation to burn at the stake. Her mutilation incites anger and fear; yet, it is also the marker for her identification. It is the source of her constant suffering and victimization.
This suffering causes Joïe to flee her current situation several times by sea. Each time Joïe embarks on a sea journey, it is secretly and as the result of an escaped condemnation of death for a crime she did not commit. When she sets out from Hungary, it is to escape her father’s condemnation because she would not submit to marry him; when she sets out from Scotland, it is to escape her husband’s falsified condemnation. The sea journey is always preceded by life-threatening events; as such, it becomes the only refuge to an unjust and hazardous world on land. Additionally, the sea becomes the space for her to prove her dedication to God’s law. During both of these journeys, to which I will add the journey of the King of Scotland as he searches for his wife, the seascape becomes the space for prayer and divine intervention. Barbara Sargent-Baur notes in the introduction to her edition of this text that during her sea voyages, Joïe recounts the history of mankind according to her religious formation, spanning the fall of Adam to Christ’s Resurrection. On her second journey she “renounces Fortune and begs the intercession of the Virgin Mary with her Son, so that she may be saved and enlightened, and so that her child may be restored to his heritage.” She also notes the call for divine intervention by the King of Scotland, wherein he recites an Ave Maria that lasts about 160 lines, invoking Mary’s aid (Philippe de Remi, 1999). In these instances, precisely because of the hazardous nature of the seascape, it becomes the space where all is entrusted to God. For Joïe in particular, who, on both occasions, is in a rudderless boat, eliminating all semblance of control over her destiny, it is necessary to put all of her faith in God in order to be saved (Castellani, 1985). In this way, the spiritual dimension becomes central to the sea voyages.
More than just being a call for divine aid, the seascape becomes a transformative space that changes and “converts” those that journey upon it. Castellani notes the conversion of the King of Scotland, which he proves by respecting the requirement of abstinence during Lent when he reunites with his wife after not having seen her for several years (1985). I would add that the seascape is the space of religious evolution for both Joïe and the King of Hungary. It is during these maritime voyages that Joïe proves her saintly status through her unwavering dedication to God and to her faith. Unlike another notable episode that takes place at sea—when Peter briefly walks on water toward Jesus until his fears of the sea cause him to doubt Jesus’s power, causing him to sink—Joïe never doubts God. While she may renounce Fortune for the turn of events from Scotland to Rome, she never renounces God; she continues to pray and to invoke the aid of both God and Mary. When tested, Joïe proves that her belief is, in fact, steadfast, and she knows that if she remains faithful, God will protect her on her journey. Her father also undergoes a spiritual transformation, having come to regret his actions toward his daughter; he proves his “conversion” by undertaking the sea journey from Hungary to Rome in order to confess his sins on Maundy Thursday. In each case, the sea becomes the space for self-discovery, the renewal of faith and a sort of supernatural passage through which each travels in order to rededicate himself/herself to God.
In this text, one cannot continue to grow in one’s faith by remaining in one country; there is a necessity to move geographic locations via the seascape that completes the transcendental journey. The sea, then, is a way to pass from one world to the next. In the geographical sense, this means that Joïe passes from Hungary to Scotland, and then to Rome, each time arriving closer to a more ideal, Christian life. In passing from one land to the next in the order that they occur in the text, Castellani notes that she passes from the feudal realm to the courtly realm and finally to the land that serves as the symbol of Christianity (1985). As she passes from each realm to the next, the sea is the space of rebirth, where each new land begins a new life for Joïe; each sea voyage is like a new baptism as she starts over, each time with the hope of more positive results than in the previous land (1985). The sea, then, is a mixed space of danger and hope; the uncertain nature brings the risk of death and lawlessness but also the possibility of a new life more conducive to a Christian way of life. Each rebirth is marked by a shift in the approach to her name and identity: she transforms from Joïe, daughter of a King, to Manekine, wife of a King, where this nickname is bestowed upon her; to Manekine, mother and servant in the senator’s household, where she willingly retains her nickname. Each transformation is accompanied by a shift in her social and political station which, like her nickname, she willingly embraces in order to abide by Christian law. In the final transformation, wherein her body is restored, Joïe does not undertake a sea voyage; instead, she is reattached to the hand which itself has undertaken a sea voyage via the sturgeon. The hand is discovered in the fountain of blessed water and is, thus, baptized in the Roman fountain. The thirteenth-century association of Mary with fresh water underscores the fact that the sturgeon, which houses the Virgin Mary’s reliquary, is found in these same waters (Castellani, 1985). When this hand is reattached, Joïe is reborn yet again; though she regains her body, her original name and identity, she does not simply return to her premutilated state; rather, she has transformed into a saintly woman of exemplary holiness who has proven her dedication to the faith on her multiple sea voyages.
On the sea, Joïe never falls into despair, always praying to God and Mary for protection [ll. 8545–557]. On land, her corporeal suffering is at the fore, identifying her with the suffering of Jesus and the saints. For the duration of her suffering, Joïe endures it patiently and without complaint. It is this patience and constancy in suffering that elevates Joïe to the saintly status she earns at the end of the text. Once her father publicly confesses his sins, Joïe reunites with him, forgiving him of his transgressions and recovers her original name, social status and political station. Moreover, she has gained a spiritual status as a woman of exemplary holiness, whose spiritual value serves to redeem her father of his sins. The final proof of Joïe’s spiritual elevation is corporeal: Her body is physically renewed when her hand is reattached, completing her transition from suffering, silent, body to living relic. Joïe shifts from being defined as a fragmented, incomplete, imperfect body to the site of miraculous healing. She is directly touched by God, marking her as divinely privileged and unquestionably saintly.
Joïe/Manekine’s name and its changes embody the violence and victimization she experiences throughout the story. She is born Joïe, appropriately named for the joy that she brings to her parents, providing them with an heir, albeit not male; she reclaims this name only after she is restored to her family line and is safe from further victimization. Once Joïe can safely speak again, her true identity is revealed because there is no longer a threat to her chastity or to her life; she is once again a source of joy for her father and her countrymen. It is also upon recovery of her joyful name that happiness is restored for herself, her family and her entire kingdom; this comes as a result of her spiritual elevation. During the time that bookends her life as Joïe, the majority of the text, in fact, the heroine is called “Manekine.” This time period is marked by a certain unhappiness, or at least ambiguity, as Joïe/Manekine is separated from her family and has not yet achieved full spiritual transcendence. The etymological connection between her nickname and her missing hand reaffirms the violence that her body endures since her new name draws attention to her bodily trauma;10 it also highlights the necessity of her silence: the King grants her this nickname due to her refusal to reveal her real name, which would reveal her father’s sin and treatment toward her. Being named for her lack symbolizes not only her physical lack of a hand, but also her lack of family, homeland, nation; it makes evident her total lack of support and her complete vulnerability in the world. Upon recovery of her joyful name, joy and happiness is recovered as well; it is at this point that Joïe no longer needs to remain silent to protect herself and she is freed from her suffering state. This joy is recovered at the same moment when Joïe’s spiritual transcendence is accomplished. To further underscore Joïe’s spiritual accomplishments, Irene Gnarra notes that, while the author employs the terms joïe and joie with a wide range of various secular synonyms, it is only at the very end when her name is recovered that it takes on the meaning of “spiritual grace,” a nod to her spiritual achievements (452).
Gnarra notes the final meanings of these terms, at the very end of the tale and in the epilogue: “Joy is love, an ennobling experience, which increases constantly and is fulfilled in a happy marriage. Joïe’s quest for identity ends in joie, the contentment of motherhood. In this case, joie is a function of Nature and a means of repopulating the earth,” and “In the epilogue, the word joie can be glossed several ways: comfort after suffering, grace that protects man from sin and assures entry into Paradise, and the poet’s reward for rhyming La Manekine” (453). Joïe, then, takes on the thirteenth-century ideal of both womanhood and the religious life: Her name signals the happiness that she has found in love, marriage and motherhood, as well as what awaits her in the afterlife as she ends the tale, like Guildeluëc, as a model of saintly feminine perfection.
The heroines discussed in this study become models of holiness through selflessness, forgiveness and suffering. The heroines successfully use religious channels as the path to both spiritual and temporal transcendence, becoming a model of holiness while overcoming the limitations commonly imposed upon women at the time. They transform their suffering into a spiritual positive through their direct connection with Christ’s suffering. This suffering becomes the source for the heroines’ powers of redemption. Alternatively imagined, their selflessness simultaneously becomes their path to spiritual transcendence and a vehicle for agency and ultimately for happiness. It is the way these women become autonomous beings with individual identities. Their authors, whether intentionally or not, have created a path to holiness, secular prestige and happiness through victimization, where an injustice originally outside the woman’s control is redefined and renegotiated for her benefit to gain spiritual and secular value and become a true agent in her own life.
1Thomas Aquinas discusses both modes of happiness—the imperfect, earthly happiness attainable by man, and the perfect happiness only possible in the next life—in the Treatise on Happiness (particularly Question 5 “Of the Attainment of Happiness”), a portion of his longest and most famous work, Summa Theologica.
2For a more thorough discussion of the emerging orders and, especially, of female sanctity in the central Middle Ages, see, among others, Vauchez, “La sainteté féminine dans le mouvement franciscain” and Saints, prophètes et visionnaires; Cazelles, The Lady as Saint; McGinn, The Flowering of Mysticism (The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism); Grundmann, Religious Movements in the Middle Ages: The Historical Links between Heresy, the Mendicant Orders, and the Women’s Religious Movement in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century, with the Historical Foundations of German Mysticism; and the edition of Dor, Johnson and Wogan-Brown, New Trends in Feminine Spirituality: The Holy Women of Liège and Their Impacts.
3I have yet to find a reference that does not mention the spiritual integrity of Joïe/Manekine, though the corpus of secondary literature on this text is limited.
4Entrance into the monastic life was considered a metaphorical and literal death at this time. Metaphorically, the individual became dead to the secular world, living behind the walls of the monastery. Literally, the monastery was considered an intermediary space between the secular world and heaven; thus, the monks and nuns residing inside were viewed as having one foot in the door to paradise.
5Warren, Spiritual Economies: Female Monasticism in Later Medieval England, among others, discusses the notion of nuns being the bride of Christ within several Orders, including the Benedictines, Franciscans and Brigitines (2001).
6Warren discusses the notion of the abbess as maternal figure in the first half of her text. Within the Franciscan and Brigitine Orders, the maternal nature of the abbess is greatly emphasized; while the Benedictine Order did not stress the maternal role in the profession as the Franciscans and Brigitines did, there is the potential for maternal authority. In fact, in the Benedictine vow, abbesses are charged with the well-being of their nuns, particularly with respect to chastity (2001).
7I have written about Guildeluëc as a vehicle of redemption in more detail, both in my dissertation (2016) and in an article (2015) that focuses on the advantages, both secular and religious, of Guildeluëc’s renunciation.
8Bruce Venarde notes that the individuals within a religious house controlled its economic rights once the lands were donated (1997).
9The text does not explicitly present reasons for why Joïe avoids despair. However, given her steadfast dedication to the Christian faith and its practices, it becomes evident that Joïe avoids despair because it would be, in essence, blasphemous to give in to despair, as it would imply that there is no hope for salvation (i.e., that God has abandoned her and is incapable of saving her). Her lengthy prayers at sea, her charity as the Queen of Scotland, her fidelity to her husband and remaining chaste during the Lent after reuniting with her estranged husband are all proof of her continued belief in God’s salvific power, which will grant her eventual happiness, whether on Earth or in the afterlife.
10King, in “Learning from Loss: Amputation in Three Thirteenth-Century French Verse Romances,” notes that the term “Manekine” is “equivalent to the modern French manchot, designating a person missing a hand or hands” (2012).
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