Le Roman de Silence is a 13th-century post-Arthurian romance written in Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

 by an anonymous author about a protagonist named "Silence" and includes allegorical characters. Master Heldris, is in fact, not the author, but the narrator

Narrator

A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...

 of the story.

Discovery

The text was rediscovered in 1911 as part of an anthology in the dusty crates of Wollaton Hall

Wollaton Hall

Wollaton Hall is a country house standing on a small but prominent hill in Wollaton, Nottingham, England. Wollaton Park is the area of parkland that the stately house stands in. The house itself is a natural history museum, with other museums in the out-buildings...

 in Nottingham in a crate marked "unimportant documents". The crate also contained a letter written by Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

.

Narrative as criticism

It tells the story of "Silence", the only daughter of a noble family who is raised as a boy because the King of England denies women the right to inherit property. Nature and Nurture appear as two allegorical characters fighting for the mind and body of Silence. Nurture urges Silence to continue life as a man, while Nature tells her to pursue her true identity as a woman. Nature seems to "win" in the end, but despite the conservative ending of the romance, the poem – in which a woman becomes a spectacularly successful social man – invites critical approaches that challenge rather than posit a monolithic or unproblematic model for patriarchy

Patriarchy

Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...

. In this vein the poem is an important subject for critical work in medieval and gender studies

Gender studies

Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...

 alike.

Location

The text is now part of the Wollaton Library Collection, held by the Manuscripts and Special Collections, The University of Nottingham

Manuscripts and Special Collections, The University of Nottingham

Manuscripts and Special Collections is part of Information Services at the University of Nottingham. It is based at King's Meadow Campus in Nottingham in England...