Chapter VI provides perhaps the most striking illustration of the way in which the withdrawal of the first person plural in the prayers functions to replace boundaries. This chapter, which addresses silence, begins with the introductory phrase, “Sain benet spekis in þis sentence of silence, how ʒe sal it halde” (Prose 10). Not only is there no “we” in a prayer in this chapter, but the text also repeatedly addresses its female readers or hearers as “ʒe,” saying, “he bidis þat ʒe do als þe prophete sais: ‘kepe ʒour tunge, it sp[e]ke no scaþe, & ʒour lippis fra iuil, & kepe ʒow fro dedly synne.’… þe maistires aw at speke for to lere hyr dicipils wisdom. þe decipils sal here þar lesson & understand it” (Prose 10). This is a significant departure from the Latin, which speaks with a participatory first person plural in prescribing restrained speech, and, in quoting Scripture, uses the first rather than the second person: “Faciamus quod ait propheta: Dixi: Custodiam vias meas, ut non delinquam in lingua mea.”32 The language and grammar of the translated passage set up a hierarchy, absent in the Latin, which goes beyond daily monastic practice of silence and which is important in considering issues of gender, power, and authority. In contrast to the female listeners, “þe maistires,” a group of those (male) individuals with sufficient authority and knowledge, are to speak. Included among these “maistires” is, arguably, the translator. He has access to the original text and he, being by virtue of his knowledge and gender exempted from the requirement of silence put forth by the chapter, “leres” the hearers of the text’s wisdom through the translation just as Bishop Fox does in his translation.33 “Sain benet spekis,” as does the translator, but the nuns do not. The text does its utmost to constrain the feminine vernacular and contain the female voice which would speak this language with potentially disruptive consequences.
The verse translation in MS BL Cotton Vespasian A. 25 sets up the same hierarchical relationship in which a voice of male authority subordinates a female audience. It makes the requirement of silence apply more strictly to women than to men. On the ladder of meekness, the eleventh step of humility concerns speaking few words. The Latin ends the section with the verse, “Sapiens verbis innotescit paucis” (RB 1980 200). The English verse translation reads:
“Sapiens in paucis verbis expedit—
He þat is wise in word & dede,
His wark with fone wordes wil he spede.”
And naymly women nyght & day
Aw to vse fune wordes alway. (Verse 1081–84)
While it is an indication of virtue, a sign of wisdom, for a man to use few words, women in particular (naymly) have an obligation to (aw to) use few words.34 This emphasis reflects widespread clerical attitudes about women and speech; “aside from carnality in general, the vice most frequently assigned to women was loquacity.”35
Differing ecclesiastical attitudes toward silence for men and women religious appear in episcopal injunctions to male and female houses, amplifying the differences evident in the verse translation of the Benedictine Rule. In his 1432 injunctions to the male Benedictine house of Ramsey Abbey, Bishop Gray enjoins that “silence be kept henceforward in the cloister, church, dorter, and frater, under pain of one penny to be paid out of the commons of every monk who shall transgress herein, towards the work of the floors aforesaid.”36 Bishop Flemyng, in his 1421–1422 injunctions for the female Benedictine house of Elstow Abbey, enjoins:
silence be kept by all without distinction at the due times and places, to wit in the house of prayer, the cloister, and the dorter, under pain of fasting on bread and water upon the Wednesday and Friday following; and, if any nun shall make default in this particular, let her be constrained to that penalty: the second time, let the same penalty be doubled; and, if she be proved to have made default in this matter a third time, let her be from that time enjoined to fast on bread and water every Wednesday and Friday for the next half year, and on Monday and Thursday, let her be content with bread and beer.37
Notably, the penalties for women who break silence are from the outset more severe than those for men (for whom a simple fine suffices), and the punishments mandated for women escalate with repeated offenses. The bishop, however, does not envision that the monks might engage in repeated transgressions. His description of second and third offenses by nuns manifests the general ecclesiastical perception that faults of speech were especially common for women. The bodily punishments for women, contrasted with the financial punishments for men, underline concerns about female carnality, pointing to a desire to address the source of the problem: the unruly female flesh. Significantly, the system of monetary fines in the male community does not chastise the flesh but rather ultimately contributes to the physical improvement of the house (i.e., the work of the floors), leading to better living conditions for all.
Silence and regulation of speech are clearly important parts of monastic life for both men and women.38 The verse and prose translations, however, construct a system of social relations in which, as in Hoccleve’s “Remonstrance,” male authorities (significantly, in both translations those with access to Latin) have the right to speak, while female hearers are commanded to keep silent on spiritual matters, listening rather than speaking. This particular framing of monastic silence, like that constructed in the injunctions, recalls the cultural desires evident in antitranslation rhetoric—that is, the desires to keep dangerously carnal women quiet and obedient.
The verse translation does not include chapter introductions and concluding prayers as the prose version does, but it attempts to minimize the potentially disruptive power of the vernacular and of women in other ways. For example, preceding the Rule’s prologue beginning “Asculta, o filia, disciplina[m] magistre tue,” it contains a prologue added by the translator. This additional prologue explicitly states that the text is a translation for women who do not know Latin:
Monkes & als all leryd men
In latyn may it lyghtly ken,
And wytt þarby how þay sall wyrk
To sarue god and haly kyrk.
Bott tyll women to mak it couth,
þat leris no latyn in þar ʒouth,
In ingles is it ordand here,
So þat þay may it lyghtly lere. (Verse 9–16)
This passage illustrates the translator’s connection of Latin with a masculine, learned elite and the vernacular with a feminine, unlearned, inferior group. The repetition of the word lyghtly sets up apparent sameness that is actually difference. The prologue indicates that both men and women can easily (lyghtly) learn the doctrine of the Benedictine Rule; however, monks and all educated men learn it easily in Latin while women only learn it easily in English. The passage implies that the English of this version will say the same thing as the Latin, an implication proved false by a comparison of the translation with the Latin. What monks and educated men learn from the Latin is not at all the same as what women religious learn from the vernacular verse translation. The Latin and English versions of the Benedictine Rule do not shape men’s and women’s work, their service to Holy Church, as either the same or equal in spite of the theoretical sameness the passage implies. In the verse translation of the Benedictine Rule, language difference in fact marks gender difference, and difference is, in the course of this version, once again an indication of the lesser perfection of the feminine.
Although the verse translation lacks any references to “sain benet” that position him as an authority figure, it does retain Latin chapter headings. It also contains many more full lines of Latin in the body of the text than the prose version does. The general practice of the prose version is to include