Lisa Templin
(Mount Saint Vincent University)

Paper
presented at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies
(Kalamazoo, 2025)

Session on
“Women and Manuscripts: Questions of Authorship”

Sponsored by
Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Organized by Jaclyn L. Reed (Independent Scholar)

2025 Congress Program

“Not soe good as common”:
The Eroticization of the Female Voice in the Margins
of Rachel Speght’s A Mouzell For Melastomus

Abstract:

In her printed pamphlet, A Mouzell for Melastomus (1617), Rachel Speght responds to Joseph Swetnamʼs infamous Araignment of Lewde, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women (1615), presenting herself as a young virgin armed “with the truth . . . and the Word of Gods Spirit” against Swetnam, the “Goliah” to her David. To combat both Swetnam and the double bind which simultaneously necessitates and precludes her speaking on behalf of other
women, Speght constructs for herself a speaking position of chaste authority backed by religious precedent. However, Speght could not prevent what she calls “the biting wrongs” of her would-be detractors as evinced by a copy of A Mouzell for Melastomus at Yaleʼs Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library that contains manuscript marginalia in which a contemporary male annotator makes crude sexual puns at Speghtʼs expense, highlighting the perceived connection between the uncontrolled female voice and sexuality in the early modern period. On some pages these manuscript annotations compete for dominance on Speghtʼs printed page, creeping into the spaces
between lines, and enveloping the space over, under, and around her words, effectively disciplining the page in her absence.

This paper explores how the manuscript response to Speght attempts to silence Speght from the margins of her own text by negating Speghtʼs speaking position. With a strategy that mirrors Speghtʼs construction of chaste authority, the annotator appropriates and eroticizes her voice so that her arguments may be ignored as simply an example of uncontrolled female sexuality and unworthy of consideration.

*****