Transgressive Language in Medieval English Drama

Lynn Forest-Hill

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138718739
• eBook ISBN: 9781351764902
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This title was first published in 2000: Insults, abuse, oaths, scatological and bawdy language - these form the subject of Lynn Forest-Hill's study on "bad" language in the late Middle Ages. She demonstrates how, in mediaeval mystery plays and morality plays, dramatists used outrageous language with great sophistication and subtlety to create characterizations and define characters' moral status, to reflect on social conditions, to condemn social evils, and to comment upon sensitive cultural, political and religious topics of the 16th century. The author begins by defining what constitutes sinful or transgressive language in the later mediaeval period, and establishes its moral significance. She then illustrates how the moral significance of language is used in drama to define the spiritual and social status of characters, and introduces the concept of sinful language as a sign of spiritual change. In later chapters the book explores the use of "bad" language in mystery and morality plays, focusing specifically on Skelton's "Magnyfycence", Heywood's "The Play of the Weather", and Bale's "King Johan". The study shows the extent to which the moral significance of language in drama shifted during the 16th century under pressure from cultural and political change, paving the way for less morally rigorous and more socially sensitive definitions of "bad" language.

Chapter 1

Language law and drama

Transgressive language in both medieval drama and medieval society may be defined as language which was subject to constraint but nevertheless in some cases exceeded the limits of that constraint. This chapter sets out the social constraints on language, as these are revealed by a number of crucial medieval sermons and laws, in order to define the social significance of language. By comparing the condemnation of transgressive language in the sermons and laws with the punishments meted out for its misuse, and with the use of language in drama, the chapter will reveal that language used in drama differs from similar language used in society in the responses it produces.

In medieval society ecclesiastical and secular laws governed the use of language. These non-dramatic constraints would influence a spectator’s response to transgressive language in drama. Medieval sermons provide definitions of sinful language which establish its moral significance. This was used to create characterizations in both biblical and morality plays where such language signifies a character’s sinfulness. The moral significance of language remained unchanged in didactic drama until it was inverted and weakened by John Bale in the sixteenth-century morality King Johan.

While the laws themselves provide important contexts for the use of transgressive language in some biblical plays, legal cases which are contemporaneous with the drama show how the ideals set out in sermons were reflected in social practice, and provide insights into the social significance of transgressive language. The cases illustrate various forms of transgressive vocabulary, and draw attention to the functions of witnesses. Historical records reveal that the punishments for improper speech involved local communities. All these social contexts contribute to the significance of transgressive language in drama.

The functions transgressive language performs in drama are ultimately based on the moral significance accorded to language in medieval society. The drama not only reflects that significance, but exploits it and expands it as the foundation of important dramatic devices and conventions which dramatists in turn adapted in the service of entertainment, socio-political comment, and religious instruction.

A chronological progression towards increasingly complex uses of transgressive language can be traced through the fifteenth-century morality plays and the three sixteenth-century moralities, Magnyfycence, The Play of the Wether, and King Johan. This progression was driven by cultural, political, and religious change in the sixteenth century, and reflects the sensitivity of the topics that this language was used to address. As part of this process of change, the major functions of transgressive language to characterize, to involve audiences, and to comment on social and theological topics increase in complexity.

This chapter begins the process of defining transgressive language by establishing its moral significance and non-dramatic context. Language is transgressive when it ignores religious teaching, or the ecclesiastical and secular laws governing speech in society. It may be transgressive according to the ways in which it is used, or in the forms it takes. This chapter reveals that theological and legal definitions of transgressive language provide an important social context for interpreting such language when it is used in drama, and shows that responses to its use in drama differ markedly from responses to its use in society.

Sermons and transgressive language

In the thirteenth century St Thomas Aquinas provided early and influential definitions of the sins of defamation, backbiting, and ridicule. He asserts that:

dehonoratio quae fit in verbis dicitur convicium vel improperium (‘disgrace which takes place in words is called insult or abuse’).¹

He continues:

convicium et improperium consistunt in verbis, sicut et contumelia … per omnia haec repræsentatur aliquis defectus alicujus in detrimentum honoris ipsius (‘insult and abuse consist of words as does defamation … through all of them someone’s defect is exhibited to the detriment of his/her honour’).

(2a2æ 72, 1, p. 158)

Aquinas distinguishes between the sins of defamation and detraction, according to the motivation of the speaker, and the presence or absence of the person spoken about. He declares that

contumelia oritur ex ira, detractio autem ex invidia (‘defamation originates in anger but detraction originates in envy’)

(2a2æ 73, 3, p. 176)

and asserts:

verbo aliquis dupliciter aliquem lædit: uno modo in manifesto, et hoc fit per contumeliam … alio modo occulte, et hoc fit per detractionem (‘a person harms someone else by words in two ways: one way is openly, and this is through defamation … the other way is secretly, and this is through detraction’).

(2a2æ 73, 1, p. 170)

Aquinas indicates the significance of witnesses to both these sins of language. Witnesses are also important in later medieval laws governing language use, and their role is transferred, as we shall see in Chapter 3, to the audience of biblical plays, especially those which take language and law as a theme. In Aquinas’s view the presence of one or more witnesses who hear insulting remarks exacerbates the sin. He writes that one way in which words can cause harm is that:

homo damnificatur quantum ad detrimentum honoris sui vel reverentiæ sibi ab aliis exhibendæ. Et ideo major est contumelia, si aliquis alicui defectum suum dicat coram multis (‘a man is injured by the loss of his honour or of the respect due to him from others, and for that reason the defamation is greater if someone tells a man his failing in the presence of many people’).

(2a2æ 72, 1, p. 158)

Other definitions given by Aquinas provide possible interpretations of transgressive language in the festive context of which the biblical plays were a part. He makes the point that:

cum peccatum convicii vel contumeliæ ex animo dicentis dependeat, potest contingere quod sit peccatum veniale, si sit leve convicium, non multum hominem dehonestans, et proferatur ex aliqua animi levitate, vel ex levi ira absque firmo proposito aliquem dehonestandi (‘since the sin of abuse or defamation depends on the spirit in which it is said, it can happen that it is venial sin, if it is trivial abuse not dishonouring a man much, and uttered from some spirit of lightheartedness, or from slight anger without a firm intention that someone should be disgraced’).

(2a2æ 72, 3, p. 162)

Mockery may be spoken with the intention of insulting, but it is conventionally associated with laughter, and Aquinas writes that:

derisio … agitur enim ludo quandoque inter amicos, unde et delusio nominatur (‘because attacking with mockery sometimes happens between friends for fun, it is also called making fun’).

(2a2æ 75, 2, p. 194)

Dramatists who use transgressive language in their plays exploit these distinctions between language intended to harm and the same language which is intended to amuse. However, Aquinas notes that mockery may not always be lighthearted and takes mockery to be gravius quam contumelia (‘more serious than defamation’) if it is aimed at belittling someone. This is because:

contumeliosus videtur accipere malum alterius seriose, illusor autem in ludum; et ita videtur esse major contemptus et dehonoratio (‘the person who defames another seems to take his evil seriously, but the person who makes fun of another seems to treat it as a joke, and so there seems to be greater contempt and dishonour’).

(2a2æ 75, 2, p. 196)

The use of transgressive language in drama may, however, be justified as being governed by the intention of the author to entertain and instruct rather than by the intention of a character who insults and mocks. Aquinas’s careful attention to context and intention in defining what constitutes transgressive language therefore needs to be more than matched by the literary critic.

Aquinas goes on to distinguish between words and actions, defining the kind of mockery which is spoken and that which is not dependent on speech. He writes

subsannatio et irrisio conveniunt in fine, sed differunt in modo, quia irrisio fit ore, idest verbo et cachinnis; subsannatio autem naso rugato (‘mocking gesture and mockery are alike in their purpose, but different in performance because mockery happens orally, that is by words and laughter; while wrinkling the nose is the mocking gesture’).

(2a2æ 75, 2, p. 194)

This is a distinction which we will find is significant in the context of medieval drama, where both kinds of mockery are used.

Aquinas provides a telling justification for the use of apparently sinful language in medieval drama. He considers that:

revelare peccatum occultum, quod … ad detractionem pertinet, est actus virtutis vel caritatis, dum aliquis fratris peccatum denuntiat, ejus emendationem intendens (‘to expose a secret sin, which … is part of detraction, is an act of virtue or charity when someone denounces the sin of his brother, intending its amendment’).

(2a2æ 73, 2, p. 172)

The charitable denunciation of sin is an important justification for the use of transgressive language, which could control the way the language was interpreted, and received. Qualifications such as this, and the harmless desire to entertain, may have provided defensive contexts for a dramatist who was using mockery...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Language law and drama
• 2 Transgressive language and characterization
• 3 Social comment, religious dissent, and audience response in the biblical plays
• 4 Transgressive language in three fifteenth–century morality plays
• 5 Magnyfycence: signs of change in the sixteenth century
• 6 The Play of the Weather: entertainment and religious anxiety
• 7 King Johan: the language of virtue and reformation
• Bibliography
• Index