What Women Want: Female Readers Of Virgil In The Middle Ages

In this essay I will consider the influence of female readers of Virgil's Aeneid in two medieval adaptations of Virgil's text: the C11th Latin Encomium Emmae Reginae and the C12th Old French Roman d'Eneas. In these two texts female readership of Virgil is manifested in two ways: tailored to a female audience in the Roman and for a female patron in the Encomium. Virgil's Aeneid was well known in the Middle Ages, not only to those who were not literate in Latin, but also to those who could not read themselves (i.e. the aurally literate) (Tyler 2005a: 366). It was a narrative well-known at court and as such could be used to exert political and social influence. While some have dismissed female patronage as no more than a literary topos, there is evidence that women commissioned works (Ferrante 1994: 3). Literary patronage was in fact one of the few spheres in which women could have influence at court (McCash 1996: 1). For Emma of Normandy, the patroness of the Encomium, Virgil's text was a tool with which she could negotiate within the politics at court. In the case of the Roman D'Eneas, written under the patronage of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitane's court and for a mixed-gender audience (Desmond 1994: 105), rather than for a specific female figure, Virgil's text was a space in which women's place in society was both worked out and set out in models for them to follow. Through a comparison of these two texts, we can see that Virgil's epic could be used to exert influence both for and on women. The Encomium was commissioned by Emma in order to intervene in the fraught politics of the C11th English court (Tyler 2005a: 359). Emma evidently knew Virgil's epic and commissioned a Latin work modelled on it as a political tool to influence the actions of men. The Roman was written for Henry and Eleanor's court. Although Eleanor was known to be a patron of literary works (McCash 1996: 6), there is no evidence that she as an individual patronised the Roman, which as well as providing entertainment also serves as a comment on women who - like Eleanor herself - seek erotic autonomy in a politically complex world. As such it reflects not so much a writing influenced by the desires of women but a writing influenced by the desire to influence the female readers of the text. Both adaptations of the Aeneid effect a move from Virgil's male-centric social model. While their emphasis on the power of love and marriage to create and support empire argues for the importance of women in the political sphere, in this essay I will argue that it is in the Encomium that we see 'what women want' politically and socially, whereas in the Roman, it is rather a vision of what men want women to want in order to further their own political ends.

The judicious choice of which texts to patronise was one of the few ways that women could influence political discussions at court. As McCash suggests, 'a clear underlying motive and impetus for a great deal of women's patronage in the Middle Ages... was the need to influence societal attitudes and make their voices heard' (1996: 36), and this is evident in the Encomium. Female patronage - a 'iubentem dominam' (commanding mistress) - is explicit within the Encomium. That a woman has commissioned a C11th text in Latin is indicative that while Emma was probably not able to read or write in Latin (Tyler 2005a: 374), women such as she could nonetheless use Latin texts for their own political and social ends. The Encomium was written to influence the spoken discussions going on at court (Tyler 2005a: 364-6), influencing the immediate political and social sphere, not a written, clerical one. As such, Emma as patroness harnessed Virgil's politically loaded text - for it is impossible to divorce his epic of destined empire from its political significance - to support a fiction of unified dynasty in the interest of fostering peace. While the Encomiast uses the work of several other Latin authors including Lucan and Sallust (Campbell 1998: xxix), only Virgil is mentioned explicitly, thus indicating that it is the Virgilian political themes of unified empire and destined rule that he wants his audience to have in mind. Emma's motives for commissioning the Encomium have been suggested variously as being intended to 'discredit Edward's claim to the throne' (Barlow 1970: 47), as a reconciliation with her son Edward (McCash 1996: 17), or to defend her against those at court who accused her of having a hand in the murder of Ælfred (Tyler 2005: 362), one of her sons by Æthelred. Nonetheless, it is clear that Emma's intentions are deeply connected to what she wanted for her family. Virgil's epic, heavily invested in creating a myth of 'Troianus origine Caesar' (I 286) (A Caesar of Trojan blood) for the sake of Octavian who commissioned it, undertakes to construct a fiction of direct blood relation from Aeneas to Octavian, and the Encomium follows this model. Just as Octavian, who was Julius Caesar's nephew and adopted son, is made by the Aeneid into 'divi genus' (VI 792) (son of a god [i.e. Julius Caesar]), a direct blood descendant. Likewise, the Encomium suggests that Edward is Cnut's son through Emma's presentation as a 'virgo' (virgin) before her marriage. Although John suggests that this was not intended literally, and could either mean 'princess' or indicate that she was a widow (1980: 63), it nonetheless carries connotations of virginity and thereby purity of bloodline. Everyone at court would have known it was fiction that Edward was Cnut's son, but it was the fiction not the truth that was important and that was intended to assert political influence (Tyler 2005b: 154). Emma is 'suis prudenter prouidens' (wisely providing for her own) when she extracts the promise from Cnut that he will pledge the throne to the children they have together. Surely, by identifying Edward as Cnut's son Emma is 'wisely providing' for him, too, this time through the use of fiction. Just as the model of Aeneas as ancestor of Octavian by direct line constructs a fiction of a single family line, of unity, harmony and destiny, so too does the elision of Æthelred and the fiction of Edward as Cnut's son. This fiction dissuades from factionalism within the court by presenting the complex royal step-family as a unified single family, if not literally joined by blood (as of course Julius Caesar was not to Octavian) then joined strongly enough in the public imagination to engender unity. Just as the fiction that Octavian was a direct descendant of Aeneas helped to shore up his place as Emperor and secure his position as rightful heir to Julius Caesar among the bitter factionalism in Rome post-Civil war (Griffin 1986: 60), so did the Encomium act as a political tool to present the royal family as a single unit, united by blood, love and destiny. At the end emphasis falls on 'inuiolabile uiget faedus materni fraternique amoris' (the inviolable bond of motherly and brotherly love is strong), leaving us with the image of a strongly unified family. Even if the reality was far from such unity at the beginning of the C11th (Barlow 1970: 34), the fiction of unity created by the text was intended to turn this fiction into reality.

Stenton labels the Encomium a 'panegyric of Cnut' (1971: 697), suggesting that its small mention of Emma reflects her relative unimportance and her limited sphere of influence. However, evident in the Encomiast's praise of male figures that are prudent politicians and support unity and peace - the behaviours Emma wanted to promote - is the pressure that Emma's commissioning of this text allowed her to apply to these men. 'Judicious praise - praise of the virtues of a ruler --can be a form of pressure on him to exhibit those virtues' (Griffin 1986: 60), and just as Virgil's 'pious Aeneas' (I 220) (dutiful Aeneas) put pressure on Octavian to be similarly selfless for the sake of his nation, the Encomium sets up literary ideals that compel their historical counterparts to live up to them. Cnut, praised as 'tantus...rex' (such a great king), once in power 'elegit primum qui regnum suum deberent custodire' (firstly chose those who should guard his kingdom). That 'Knutr appears as a politician rather than as a warrior' (Campbell 1998: xxii) and is presented as an ideal model of kingship creates pressure for leaders who want such praise for themselves to behave in a similarly prudent and peaceable manner. Furthermore, the Encomiast directs attention to the importance of women, and men's relationship with them, for the establishment of peace and empire. The Cnut of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has Emma 'feccean' (Cotton Tiberius B.iv 1017) (fetched), while the Cnut of the Encomium sends 'proci' (wooers) to acquire his bride. Emma is 'ex uictrici gente' (from a victorious people), and therefore a sound political choice, but, despite the fact that Cnut needed such a marriage to secure his place politically and maintain peace (Eric 1980: 97), the Encomium makes sure that Emma is presented as more than a political token. The text presents Cnut as wanting her as 'imperii sui consortem' (partner to his power), a co-ruler whom he woos because her excellence 'prudentiae' (in wisdom) makes her an active and useful partner, not a political pawn to be 'fetched'. The model of masculinity that the patroness promotes here is one who chooses a wife to be his equal, who understands and wisely uses the power of queens and the role they play in creating lasting peace. Lacking in the influence of a strong patroness like Emma, the Roman still to an extent reflects the desire of women to have a valued place in society; if not the equality that Emma imagined, then at least a degree of recuperation from their progressive marginalization in Virgil's epic. By its transformation in genre from epic to romance, women and their role are brought to the fore. The suspicion of the homosocial comitatus of the epic genre is manifested in the Roman as the fear that Eneas is a 'sodomite' (8583) (sodomite) who might 'molt par aimme char de maslon' (8571) (like much more the flesh of a cock). Fear of homosexuality here expresses fear of a society that has no place for women (Lankewish 1998: 222). One might imagine a female reader (presumably aural, probably in translation) of the Aeneid wondering what place for women there is in its society; Aeneas loses his wife, abandons Dido, and leaves the Trojan women behind after they burn the ships in Book V. When accusing Eneas of sodomy, Lavine says 'de feme lui est molt petit' (9132) (women are of little importance to him). Although these words are proved false later insofar as Eneas enters into a heterosexual marriage, we could almost imagine them as a medieval female reader's response to Virgil's Aeneas. The Roman shows a man moulded from a fighter to a lover, an opposite trajectory from Virgil who moulds his hero from a lover to a fighter. Eneas says of the loss of his wife Creusa, 'ge atandi tant a ferir, qu'en la presse la deperdi' (1182-3) (I had given so much of my attention to fighting, that I lost her in the commotion). This seems callous and uncaring, showing little regard for his wife. By the end, however, he is re-formed to such an extent that he fits the perfect mould of the romance suffering lover; 's'amour lo destrainoit,/ ... il an ert paliz et tainz' (9191-2) (His love gripped him hard... he was pale and harried). Conversely, Virgil's Aeneas goes from lover who tries 'ter frustra' (II 793) (three times in vain) to embrace the ghost of his wife 'dilectae... Creusae' (II 784) (Creusa whom [he] loved) while Troy burns around him, to a single-minded killer, who marries Lavinia because it is 'fata. profectum' (VII 255) (set out by the fates). A hero who, in the fit of rage and violence that closes the poem, 'condit' (XII 950) (buried) his sword in his enemy Turnus, just as Turnus is begging for his life. Virgil's choice of verb - it is also used of founding cities (Def. 1b Chambers-Murray 2007) - equates the founding of empire with savagery, violence and death, while the Roman equates it with love and nuptial union; Eneas has to apply eros in the right place, whereas Virgil's Aeneas has to purge himself of it (Haas 2008: 49). The Roman's reversal of this character development may reflect a troubled female response to the gradual exclusion of women from Virgil's text, and as such returns importance to them, but this does not necessarily give power to them.

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The extent to which pressure is put on women to fit their desires to politics through analogy with a Virgilian framework in the Roman is thrown into relief when we consider Emma, who throughout the Encomium remains inscrutable. The identification of Emma with Octavian rather than any of the women of the Aeneid excludes Emma from any kind of Virgilian allegorical system that would type her as a Lavinia or a Camille or a Dido and leaves her beyond the text in a way that Octavian is not. The Encomium, which has been criticised for its lack of mention of Emma, and indeed deemed not to be in praise of her, actually demonstrates no models of how women should behave. While the Encomium praises certain male behaviours, it avoids such prescri ption for women and substitutes instead of praise of Emma, that would clearly define what it would be right for her to do, 'laudem suo generi' (praise of her family). Emma does nothing, but possesses the rather general positive qualities of excelling 'pulcritudinis et prudentiae' (in beauty and wisdom) and acts as vessel of the right rule insofar as her presence in England 'bellicos sedaret motus' (might settle the disturbances of war). The lack of a Virgilian female for Emma to map on to serves to free her from any social pressure exerted by the text, rather than making her irrelevant. Although the marriage of Emma and Cnut brings together two peoples in peace like that of Lavinia and Aeneas, the Encomiast is careful not to draw any parallels, thus preventing Emma from appearing as a passive token (Tyler 2005: 380). Emma is outside the schema of the allegorical text of the Aeneid, even more so than Octavian, the figure with whom the Encomiast aligns her, and as such holds a privileged position as one irreducible to a figure in the narrative and inscrutable. Emma is there, but as an unreadable yet pervasive presence, controlling the text and indeed using it to control court politics, to intervene in and smooth over factionalism, and to create a myth that unites the English court. Emma, whom the Encomiast says he describes in the same manner as 'giraueris circulum' (you might draw around a circle), is the invisible centre of representation, but escapes definition. Emma has read (or heard) the Aeneid and decided that the place of power - where women (and men) really can get what they want and have autonomy - is outside the text.

These texts intersect in the image of Lavine firing the arrow carrying the letter in which she 'escrit tot an latin' (8777) (wrote it [her desire for Eneas] all in Latin). Although Lavine is within her text and circumscribed by it and Emma is without, the historical Emma and the fictional Lavine are doing the same thing: sending out a Latin text, hoping it will get them what they want. This letter reshapes the social and political landscape of Italy, and in a similar way the Encomium and the Roman seek to reshape social and political opinions at the Anglo-Danish and Angevin court respectively. The Aeneid offers itself to Emma as the means of her own political empowerment, and to the author of the Roman a set of models to be fashioned into cautionary tales to control women. Neither text is a passive aesthetic object, but one that is expected to exert influence and effect change in the political and social sphere. The Roman, in its move from epic to romance, its re-imagination of the hero, and the prominence it gives to Lavine, seems on the surface to be reflecting the desires and influence of women. In fact, the more women are represented, the more they can be controlled through the social pressure exerted by the text. Female characters were used as tools to show women what was and what was not acceptable and indeed safe and prudent for them not just to do, but also to want. Emma escapes this by being the centre of the circle, outside of the descri ption of the author and inscrutable. The only way of women escaping the bounds that male literature sets for them is for them to not be represented at all. The ambiguous presentation of female autonomy in the Roman raises the question of what the response of female listeners to this text might have been; while Emma in the Encomium is inscrutable, the presence of female characters in the Roman invites discussion. The grim shadow of Lavine's compulsion by Cupid hangs over the ending of the Roman, and while this text is not such a demonstration of female power as the Encomium, the uncomfortable love-story it adds to Virgil's epic is also an invitation to question - What do women want? Who controls their desires? And, on a personal rather than a political level, can they ever truly attain them?