70). Even in the text’s physical appearance, Latin is superior to and prior to the vernacular. That this reassertion of Latin’s authoritative superiorty is emphasized in the layout of the printed edition, produced in 1530 by Richard Fawkes, indicates, as do elements of Fox’s translation of the Benedictine Rule, the strength of clerical market-saving desires over 120 years after Arundel’s Constitutions were promulgated.
That there is more at stake than convenience in the layout of the text emerges even more clearly when the translator discusses how the Myroure should be read aloud. He says that, depending on the nature of the passage, either the opening words of the Latin or the Latin at the beginning of each clause should be read so “that ye shulde redely knowe. when ye haue the latyn before you. what englysshe longeth to eche clause by yt selfe” (Myroure 71). The translator continues to specify the correct use of the translation in divine services, offering the following caveat: “This lokeynge on the englyshe whyle the latyn ys redde. ys to be vnderstonde of them that haue sayde theyre mattyns or redde theyr legende before. For else I wolde not counsell them to leue the herynge of the latyn. for the entendaunce of the englysshe” (Myroure 71). Hearing the Latin, even if one does not understand it, is more important in divine service than reading the English.
The extended efforts to ensure that the audience comprehend the hierarchical relationship between the vernacular and the Latin are “strategic” in Michel de Certeau’s sense of the term—that is, by ensuring the place of Latin, the cleric seeks to distinguish his own place, the place of his power and will.83 Placing controls on the vernacular works by extension to place controls on the female readers of the vernacular with whom it is so strongly associated and who might, like the women in apocalyptic antitranslation materials, gain independence and power from the access to knowledge enabled by the vernacular text.
It is significant that the efforts to reiterate the hierarchical relationship of Latin and vernacular come in a section prescribing reading methods which themselves seek to contain the potentially threatening female learning that is, according to the Rule, so fundamental to Brigittine spiritual life. The section concerning “how ye shall be gouerned in redyng of this Boke and of all other bokes” (Myroure 65) serves a disciplinary function, striving to limit possibilities for interpretation, for participation in the sorts of textual exchanges demonized by the antitranslation faction. In discussing Fox’s translation of the Benedictine Rule, Wogan-Browne et al. observe that it envisions reading taking place in an all-female group, without clerical supervision or participation.84 Such a context for nuns’ reading may help explain Fox’s desire, as well as that of the translator of the Myroure, to insert a guiding clerical “presence” into the text—for Fox, the speaking figure of St. Benedict whose voice merges with his, for the Brigittine translator, a detailed methodology of correct reading.
The translator first specifies what types of books are to be read—“no worldely matters. ne worldely bokes. namely suche as ar wythout reason of gostly edyfycacyon” (Myroure 66). He sets out the purposes of particular kinds of books, and he describes the proper “disposition” for reading—“with meke reuerence and deuocyon” (Myroure 66). Finally, he puts forth a program for ensuring proper comprehension, admonishing, “ye oughte not to be hasty to rede moche at ones. but ye oughte to abyde thervpon. & som tyme rede a thynge ageyne twyes. or thryes. or oftener tyl ye understonde yt clerely” (Myroure 67).
The directive to read slowly in order to ensure clear understanding resembles directives to monks to read “ruminatively,” and so is not necessarily or entirely a restriction on women’s reading.85 The translator, however, further constrains the reading process by his explanation of what texts are and his specification of the correct motivation for reading them. The translator conceives of books for the nuns in terms of a regulatory and corrective specularity appropriate to his title, of which he says, “And for as muche as ye may se in this boke as in a myrroure, the praysynges and worthines of oure moste excellente lady therfore I name it. Oure ladyes myroure. Not that oure lady shulde se herselfe therin, but that ye shulde se her therin as in a myroure, and so be styred the more deuoutly to prayse her, & to knowe where ye fayle in her praysinges, and to amende” (Myroure 4). Books provide mirrors for examining one’s conduct; the nuns are exhorted, in reading the Myroure and other texts, to “beholde in yourselfe sadly whether ye lyue & do as ye rede or no” (Myroure 68). If the reader does not see her life “rewled in verteu” but feels that she lacks “suche verteows gouernaunce as [she] rede[s] of,” she is directed, “kepe in mynde that lesson that so sheweth you to youre selfe & ofte to rede yt ageyne. & to loke theron. & on your selfe. with full purpose & wyll to amende you & to dresse youre lyfe therafter” (Myroure 68).
In conjunction with this presentation of texts as regulatory mirrors, the translator works to transform women’s reading from something potentially disruptive into a means of advancing a clerically approved mode of religious life for women. Women religious are not to read in order to acquire knowledge which they can exchange for authority or resources, either material or symbolic. Rather, they are to read and use the knowledge gained to shape their own conduct within approved parameters. They are advised, “dresse so your entente, that your redyng & study. be not only for to be connynge. or for to can speke yt fourthe to other; but pryncypally to enforme your selfe. & to set yt a warke in youre owne lyuynge” (Myroure 67). This directive calls to mind the transformation of the desirable qualities of an abbot (to be learned and have textual knowledge) into those of the prioress (to be meek and have knowledge of proper conduct) in the verse translation of the Benedictine Rule. The proposed reading method denies the powers of female and vernacular particularity so prominent in Brigittine texts; it is a prophylactic against the possible escapes of the feminine, the maternal, and the mother tongue from the hierarchical relations so crucial to the designs of those who wish to save the market.
Prescribing a method of reading is not, though, the end of the story, and the prophylactic is not necessarily effective. Reading is not just a passive act, a behavior that can be contained by a method of correct training. As Certeau argues, reading is an act of productive consumption; a reader takes what she is given and “makes something of it.” Reading is one of the prime opportunities for engaging in tactics, manipulations which are the “arts of the weak” enacted in the “space of the other.”86 Reading is thus, in a sense, an economic activity. What the reader produces from the text “belongs” to her, if only momentarily, and she can use that production of her own volition and to her own advantage.
The possibilities for “making something of” the text of the Myroure in spite of the attempts to contain interpretation are particularly rich since the text itself so resists the constraints of the feminine and the vernacular imposed upon it in the prologue. In its presentation of the Incarnation and redemption, the text of the Myroure sets up relationships of bodies and words, production and reproduction, language and gender, which relentlessly assert the value of female difference. The Myroure is thus potentially quite empowering for women religious who might wish to “play the market” by accessing the value of the female body and the mother tongue in the religious sphere. For example, the translator of the Myroure includes part of the Reuelaciones extravagantes capitulo iii to explain why the sisters say their hours after the brothers. The explanation begins with an allegory in which a poor man delivers a city besieged by a mighty man. The city is Mankind, which is saved when Mary submits her will to be the instrument of the Incarnation. On the one hand, Mary’s maternity is described as submission and obedience. On the other hand, however, the explanation continues with Christ saying, “my mother & I haue saued man, as yt had be with one hart” (Myroure 25). Thus, Mary’s maternity is not simply an instrument of, but a primary agent of, salvation.
The translator further elucidates why the brothers perform their services first by aligning Mary’s poverty of spirit in submitting to the Incarnation with the poverty of spirit the sisters are to exhibit by giving precedence to the brothers. The discussion that follows, however, complicates this convenient equation. Christ
