"Olde feble wymmen with perseuerance ouercome many longe pilgrimages": Mapping the Feminine in Disce mori

Abstract

"Olde feble wymmen with perseuerance ouercome many longe pilgrimages":Mapping the Feminine in Disce mori Denis Renevey Contrary to what its title may suggest, Disce mori is not a treatise about how to die. As a compilation, it is made up of several texts or extracts of texts that have been put together by a compiler to make a distinct and coherent whole. Disce mori is a manual of religious instruction, touching upon basic topics such as vices and virtues, an exposition of the Pater noster, the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the seven works of corporal and spiritual mercy. This didactic material is divided into ninety-seven chapters. They are followed by a final part, the "Exhortacion," which, in accordance with the progressive order of presentation of the material, deals with the more ambitious subject of contemplation. The anonymous treatise not only compiles at a thematic level, but also offers generic variety. Indeed, sermon structure, epistolary form, and lyric are brought together to construct a structurally coherent whole for the attention of a primarily female readership. Disce mori is one of the many compilations that are insufficiently investigated when discussing the medieval canon, genre, and gender. This compilation in fact raises issues as to the too often neglected question in modern scholarship of the role of anonymous writings and compilations within medieval literary culture. Indeed, focus on canonical authors and major genres such as romance overlooks complex questions about the relationship between the canon and compilations. The discussion of this relationship in Disce mori, with reference to Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde [End Page 351] and other canonical texts, problematizes it in interesting ways. Also, the construction of the female devout woman in particular, and the representation of readerly subjectivity identified as female, which this article explores, demonstrate the usefulness of extending our literary horizon for an understanding of the complex significance of anonymous works and compilations with the canon. Disce mori is extant in only two manuscripts: Oxford, Jesus College, MS 39 (J), which dates from the period 1453–64, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. th. C. 57 (L), which was copied around 1470, according to some features of its script.1 The compilation borrows from "rédaction w" of the French Miroir du monde, also known as Somme le roi. This treatise survives in more than 100 manuscripts and was translated into a large number of vernacular languages, with at least nine English versions.2 It also relies on a fifteenth-century Latin compilation, the Speculum spiritualium, for insertion of passages on remedies against the sins, following Miroir du monde passages on these sins. The first part of Speculum spiritualium is made up of catechetic material, followed by contemplative material gathered from the doctors of the Church and continental contemplatives, but also including Edmund of Abingdon, Walter Hilton, and Richard Rolle.3 In fact, as noticed by Eddie Jones, a quarter of Disce mori is borrowed from the Speculum spiritualium, including all of the material borrowed from Richard Rolle.4 Other compilations contribute to Disce mori's discussion on the virtues, which logically follows that on the sins. Indeed, between a third and a half of The Chastising of God's Children is found in Disce mori.5 The material used for the composition of Disce mori belongs to the range of texts that one could argue makes the fodder of religious compilation. The interest of this compilation lies especially in the way the material has been organized for the attention of a female lay readership. [End Page 352] Following a suggestion made by Jones that Disce mori was written for the attention of a vowess, Annette Kern-Stähler has argued that the passage discussing secular love's duplicity borrowed from Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde gains in didactic impact if, in fact, the recipient was a devout laywoman, rather than a nun, possibly from Syon Abbey.6 Kern-Stähler offers a perceptive analysis of episodes from Troilus and Criseyde that shows how a good understanding of the heroine, both initially as a model to emulate, and then as an exemplum of how not to fall into the lure of carnal love...