International Medieval Society, Paris • Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris

Symposium 2010 - Traditio

The Translatio of Transvestism: Translating Problems of Signification in Miniatures Depicting the Story of Grisandole

Laura J. Campbell, Durham University

The illumination of narrative texts in medieval manuscripts involves, by its very nature, an act of translatio. As with any form of translation, the transfer of meaning between the parallel signifying systems of word and image involves a strong hermeneutic element. Removing meaning from the abstraction of language into the more concrete, literal medium of illustration highlights the discrepancy between their capacities for the construction of signification; the increased physical detail of imagery, in addition to its restricted capacity for explanation, forces the illuminator to interpret the text’s meaning and reproduce it visually in a way which is recognisable and coherent for the reader.

This paper will analyse the translatio of signification with reference to the story of Grisandole, a short narrative interpolation in the Arthurian Vulgate Estoire de Merlin, in which a cross-dressing female seneschal and an adulterous empress, who disguises her lovers as chambermaids, manipulate appearances to obscure true identities. The story explores the problems of interpreting misleading appearances; the transvestite men and woman define themselves outwardly with deceptive signs, their clothes, behaviour and social roles all acting as conventional signifiers for members of the opposite gender. The issue, therefore, is one of visual signification within a textual framework, which raises interesting questions when considered from the perspective of manuscript illustration. This paper will explore one such visual interpretation in BNF fr. 24394, where a series of miniatures use space, gesture and juxtaposition to convey simultaneously the deceptive exteriors and the true essence of these disguised characters. The capacity of text to simultaneously reveal to the reader the false exteriors and their true meanings is translated into visual format using the connotational properties of visual signifiers. In this way, the illustration serves to reinforce the textual signification through a paratextual medium.