[Sca-cooks] persona play (was FYI)

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 01:58 AM 12/25/02 -0600, you wrote:
>> Now- just as an aside- Cousin 'Bob' (Robert de Montgris) *is* an example of
>> cross-dressing- 'Bob' is 'Lainie, dressed as her cousin, trying to pass off
>> as a guy so she can do stuff that girls aren't supposed to do... that's
>> much more like a Roaring Girl...
>
>For various reasons (including why would you want to go down in status
>
>rather then up), gender changing in the Middle Ages seems to have been women
>dressing as men, rather than the opposite direction.

Yes. *UNLESS* you are in a fabliaux or other work of period fiction. Then
all bets are off. I have in mind specifically a seriously gender-bendering
story- the _Roman de Silence_. In it the main character, Silence, is a girl
raised as a boy, becasue of some silly inheritance law. (S)he doesn't
realize the truth for some time, and in the meantime has grown to be a
young knight of some prowess. Many adventures ensue, including a scenario
witht he Queen that is very like Joseph and Potiphar's wife. At the end,
Silence is proven to be a maid, AND one of teh Queen's retinue, a nun, is
proved to be a man in disguise- the Queen's lover. All in all a very
interesting story.

There are otehrs but that is the one I can think of off the top of my head.

'Lainie
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Sometimes Life makes drastic changes without our permission...