Dress for Success: Béroul's Tristan and the Restoration of Status through Clothes

Abstract

The expression 'to dress for success' refers to the notion that a person's clothing is profoundly related to his or her social status, that appea ance is inherently and inextricably linked to identity, and that dressing in a better manner can actually lead to the achievement of one's desires.1 In the twelfth century in particular, a courtly and largely literary ideal developed whereby a person's outward qualities perfectly mirrored that person's inner qualities.2 Over and over in medieval texts we find perfectly fair maidens who are morally flawless; the handsomest knight is also the most brave, most courageous, most loyal?in short, simply the best. Therefore, it is disturbing when noble characters are reduced to poverty, and their beautiful appearance degraded.3 Such a fall occurs both on the physical and also on the more abstract moral and social planes. For example, in Chretien de Troyes's Le Chevalier au lion, Yvain goes temporarily mad because his lady love reclaims from him her ring (and thus her love).4 Yvain's fall into madness is accompanied by his rejection of his clothing: his nakedness both reflecting and making material his mental incapacity.5 The removal of his clothes also signifies the removal of his social status?to such an extent that it is nearly impossible for two maidens who know Yvain from court to recognize the unclothed, compromised man they encounter one day in the forest. The text makes clear, however, that they would have recognized him immediately if he had been dressed appropriately.6 Yvain takes on the appearance of a madman because he is one, his madness manifest in his appearance. For the Anglo-Norman writer B?roul in his Tristan? clothing has a much greater role than simply acting as the embodiment and assertion of status. B?roul's two protagonists, the lovers Tristan and Yseut, are expert manipulators of the clothing code, exploiting clothing's dual ability not only to reveal information but also to conceal it. Moreover, what they reveal and conceal through the use of clothing is not simply status but truth: truth about their identities as lovers, their feelings for one another and, most importantly,