domain: chim spi

text:
Koyomi Nakazawa

Antoine Lévrier

Sergii Rudiuk

Ayako Yamada

Mathieu Morel

Damien Baigl
email: damien.baigl@ens.psl.eu

Budding-driven localization of lipid domains at prescribed positions in confined giant unilamellar vesicles

à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

Living cells are characterized by a well-defined and highly-regulated spatiotemporal organization of their biomolecular content. In particular, non-uniformity in molecules concentration (gradients) and distribution (e.g., polarization), is capital in many key biological processes, from apical-basal establishment in epithelial cells [START_REF] Bacallao | The SubceUular Organization of Madin-Darby Canine Kidney Cells during the Formation of Polarized Epithelium[END_REF] to asymmetric division in stem cells, [START_REF] Knoblich | [END_REF] or directional sensing and motility in neuronal growth cones. [START_REF] Bouzigues | Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci[END_REF] For most of these events, the spatial organization of membrane proteins and associated lipids, constituting the interface with the surrounding micro-environment, contribute to the specificity of the signaling outcome. [START_REF] Bethani | [END_REF] Mechanisms driving the spatial organization of the lipid membrane are thus of particular importance to understand biological polarization. For example, microdomains of ordered lipid phase, called "lipid rafts", are hypothesized to recruit specific sets of transmembrane and scaffolding proteins for functional processes. [5] However, the understanding of the underlying mechanisms directing ordered/disordered lipid phase segregation as well as further recruitment of specific lipids and proteins in sub-domains, remains incomplete in particular due to the difficulty of extracting essential parameters in the highly crowded and multi-factorial environment of living cells.

There is thus a need for the development of reconstituted in vitro system, in which all components and physico-chemical parameters could be precisely tuned, and ideally precisely ordered in space and time. To this aim, giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs), which are spherical entities with a phospholipid bilayer membrane and a diameter (1-100 µm) comparable to that of actual cells, appear as particularly suitable minimal models to mimic living cells. [6] Various methods have been developed to control their size, [7,8] inner content [9] and composition of their membrane (in lipids and proteins), [10,11] leading to various relevant examples of synthetic cells, each of them mimicking, reproducing or allowing to study one or several specific biological features. [6,[12][START_REF] Noireaux | Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci[END_REF][START_REF] Liu | [END_REF][15] Hence, the lipid domain formation and organization has been studied using GUVs as models for lipid phase segregation. [16,17] Indeed, mixtures of unsaturated and saturated lipids with cholesterol in proper proportions exhibit liquid-ordered (Lo) / liquid-disordered (Ld) phase separation. [10] Controlling domain formation in GUVs, either by lipid stoichiometry [10] or externally by temperature [10] or light stimulus, [18] is a well-established process but the control over the domain spatial distribution remains a highly desired challenge that has been partially achieved in only a few notable reports. For instance, microstructured substrates have been shown to direct the position of lipid domains at specific locations but this involved the use of supported bilayers [19,20] and not GUVs. To our knowledge, spatial control over lipid domain position in GUVs has been realized either on a single vesicle under pneumatic stress [21] or on GUVs squeezed in pH-sensitive gels. [22] The first study showed that, in a GUV compressed into a pancake shape between two walls, the lipid phase in minority tended to localized away from the flat parts in contact with the walls. Such an approach was however limited to a single compressed GUV and did not allow much flexibility in terms of GUV domain localization. In contrast, the second study allowed to impose a broad variety of user-defined shapes to many constrained GUVs but required a specific pH-sensitive gel microenvironment and the control over domain distribution was not studied in detail.

Here, we report the first systematic method investigating how domains of interest can be localized in many intact GUVs in a fluid environment. The strategy was to confine vesicles in microfluidic channels to create free budding regions where the lipid phase in minority accumulated and formed a single domain minimizing line tension. GUVs of different Ld/Lo compositions were first confined in straight microchannels where we studied the spatio-temporal evolution of domain distribution. The analysis of a large number of confined GUVs allowed us to establish the probability to get the minority phase in the free budding regions of the GUVs. This resulted in the formation of polarized GUVs having one or two Lo or Ld poles at its extremities, surrounding a body mainly composed of the other phases. Finally, other confinement geometries allowed us to direct the distribution of lipid domain into 3 or 4 well-positioned poles.

Results and Discussion

It has been theoretically and experimentally shown that the evolution of micro-scale domains in Lo/Ld phase-separated GUVs is mainly controlled by line tension, resulting in particular in domain coalescence, growth and budding [23,24] [25] (Figure 1, top). Based on that knowledge, we attempted to control the domain location, growth and coalescence by creating a "free region" where budding would favorably occur and a "confined region" at predefined position in a vesicle by confining it in a microchannel (Figure 1, bottom).

At the confined region, we hypothesized that domain budding was hindered due to the close contact of the membrane with the flat walls of the microchannel. In contrast, budding was not restricted in the "free region". As a result, this "free region" created a favorable region for the domains to coalesce, grow and bud through minimization of the contact line between co-existing phases.

We started with a microfluidic device with straight channels in parallel to capture multiple GUVs in different lanes simultaneously (Figure 2A). GUVs with a typical diameter around 60 µm were confined in the straight channels with a smaller square-shaped constriction (h = w = 20, 30, or 40 µm where h and w where the cannel height and width, respectively). That allowed us to confine and deform GUVs into rod-shaped morphologies (Figure 2A) where the middle part of each confined GUV was in contact with the microchannel walls ("confined region"). In contrast, its extremities constituted "free regions" where the growth and coalescence of lipid domains and their budding would thus be favored. GUVs were produced by electro-formation [7] and introduced in the microfluidic device previously coated with -casein to limit membrane adhesion. The device was heated above the mixing temperature to get an isotropic membrane [10] and render GUVs more flexible by the increase of membrane surface area as well as by the decrease of their bending rigidity. [23,26] Applying a small pressure allowed to introduce the isotropic GUVs in the confinement channels (Figure 2B). Once the GUVs were confined, the flow inside channels was stopped (Figure S1) to avoid any hydrodynamic effects on domains formation and redistribution. Phase separation was then initiated by letting the system cool down to room temperature (Figure S2). S3). We repeated this analysis on many confined GUVs and plotted the median value of Ld ratio along this axis for different compositions and geometries of confinement (Figure 2E). This shows the strong effect of domain localization for both compositions producing Lo-rich (Ld domains at the tip) and Ld-rich (Ld-rich phase in the middle) GUVs. Since switching of phases for localization was possible, the method did not depend on the chemical natures of lipids nor on the interaction between domains and walls of the passivated channels. We also obtained similar distributions regardless of the width and height of the confining channel, due to too small curvatures at tips to induce the type of domain sorting that could be observed in highly curved membranes. [27] By looking at the temporal evolution of confined GUVs during the cooling process, we observed that phase separation occurred either by nucleation or spinodal decomposition (Figure 2F, Movie S1, Movie S2). Interestingly, regardless of the mechanism of phase separation, we observed that the majority of domain coalescence and growth was localized at the "free region". All these results show that line tension and free budding are the main driving parameters for domain localization and maturation in confined GUVs.

The domain localization at both end of the confined vesicles is reminiscent to the polarization that can be observed in some cellular processes. To further quantify this analogy, we determined by image analysis the probability of having domains at both ends of GUVs in our confined system. We introduced an adimensional number referred to as "polarization index" (PI) to classify the state of individual confined vesicles. Difference of Ld region (area) between a "Pole" and a "Body", ALd(Pole) and ALd(Body) respectively as described in Figure 3 S4 for the details). As we see in Figure 3B, the probabilities to have one and two pole(s) is nearly independent of the length of the confined GUV. When aspect ratio of confined GUV increased, confined region increased while ratio of free region decreased. At high aspect ratio, domains indeed localized at tips, it however gave low PI values because of extra minority phases which stayed at middle confined region due to poor capacity in free region (Supplementary Figure S5). In contrast, the Ld/Lo ratio has a strong role in defining the number of poles. Many singleand double-pole of Lo-rich and Ld-rich GUVs were found in a region where the ratio of Ld phase was around 30-40% and 50-60%, respectively. Conversely, we found either one pole or no poles in the region of less than 30% and more than 70% of Ld ratio. Certain amounts of domain were thus required for the coverage of free regions.

Our understanding of domain positioning was applied to different patterning of domains using other geometries. We designed microfluidic chambers with periodically spaced 50 µm-diameter pillars distributed in a hexagonal or squared fashion (Figure 4) and applied a similar procedure of GUVs confinement as with straight channels. Vesicles being trapped between the pillars adopted the local geometry and displayed either 3 or 4

"budding" regions according to the pillar arrangement. As expected, the free budding regions defined by the area between the pillars dictated the localization of the minority phase (Figure 4 + Supplementary movie S3). This eventually led to tripolar and quadripolar GUVs. Mechanism of domain sorting in GUVs under the confinement between pillars seemed to be consistent with that in straight channel. This behavior was therefore not limited to the specific geometry, but appeared instead as a general feature in Ld/Lo phase separation GUVs under confinement. As such, it is readily extendable to other types of geometries to spatially control specific lipid domains, domain-specific membrane-associated proteins [11,30,31] and/or nucleic acids [32] in a user-defined fashion.

Conclusion

Spatial position of lipid domain of liquid-disordered/liquid-ordered (Ld/Lo) phase separation in a giant unilamellar vesicle (GUV) was controlled by physical confinement in microchannel. The confinement limits and determines the area where the lipid domain, minority phase of Ld/Lo phase separation, can bud and minimize line tension between co-existing two phases, resulting in a favorable growth and coalesce of domains at the prescribed area. GUVs confined in straight channels and in between pillars produce polarized GUVs from one pole to multi poles, depending on the design of microchannel.

Our method is simple, user-defined, and other types of confinement with different composition/species of lipids or even domain specific membrane-associated proteins can also be controlled. Our method can be applied to a future model system for studying some biological phenomena which require polarization, such as cell division.

Materials and Methods

Chemicals

Giant unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs) preparation

GUVs were prepared by the electroformation method using a custom-made protocol adapted from the historical paper [7] . DPPC, DOPC and Cholesterol with desired relative amounts were dissolved in Chloroform/Methanol 9:1 (v/v%) to a total lipid concentration of 20 mM. NBD-PE and Rhodamine-DHPE were added to the lipid mixture (0.1 mol% for each) in order to visualize Lo and Ld phases, respectively, based on the fact that Rhodamine-DHPE distributes in Ld phase while NBD-PE are in both Ld and Lo phases with strong preference in Ld phase. [33] This lipid solution was spread on the conductive side of two pre-warmed ITO-coated glass slides (70 ºC, 6 L lipid deposition for each).

A lipid dry film immediately formed on the substrate and the film was further dried under vacuum for 3 hours. A chamber made by the two lipid-deposited ITO slides and a 1 mmthick PDMS spacer was then filled by a 100 mOsm/L Sucrose, 5 mM NaN3 aqueous solution. The chamber was sealed with a PDMS plug, inserted into a 70 ºC dry oven and 600 mV AC voltage at 10 Hz was applied for 3 hours. The resulting GUV solution was pipetted to a glass tube, kept at 4 ºC and used for experiments within one week.

Microfluidic device fabrication

The microfluidic device was fabricated in poly-dimethylsiloxane (PDMS) using standard photolithography technique. [34] Briefly, the master mold was produced by spin-coating a desired thickness of negative photoresist (SU8-2025, Microchem) on a silicon wafer and exposing it to UV light through a chromium mask of the desired design (ex. Figure 2A).

After development of the resist, the master mold was coated with a 100 nm layer of Parylene by vapor deposition. PDMS (Sylgard 184, Dow) was poured on the master, degassed and then baked overnight at 72 ºC. PDMS was removed from the master, the chip was cut, and inlets pierced with a 1.5 mm-diameter biopsy punch, then sealed to a glass coverslip by oxygen plasma bonding. To reduce surface interaction with vesicles, channels were passivated by flowing a PBS solution containing 0.5 wt. % Beta-Casein immediately after bonding and for at least 30 min. [35] The channels were then washed with a 100 mOsm/L sucrose solution containing 5 mM of NaN3 as preservative.

GUV reshaping in microfluidic device and imaging/data analysis Experiments were conducted on an epifluorescence microscope (Observer Z1, Zeiss) equipped with a transparent heating stage (Thermo Plate, Tokai Hit), an EMCCD camera (Evolve, Photometrics) and a Xenon light source (XBO, Zeiss). GUVs solution was first loaded in a 0.5mm ID Tygon tubing (Tygon S54HL, Saint-Gobain), connected to the inlet of the microfluidic device and flowed using pressure controllers (MFCS, Fluigent). To avoid strong shear, a small pressure difference (1-2 mbars) was applied between input and output. The chip was put in a homemade humidity chamber (Supplementary Figure S1) to avoid evaporation through PDMS, and temperature was increased to 50 ºC in order to melt the liquid-ordered phase (Tm= ca. 35~38 ºC, depending on the composition) [10] and to increase membrane flexibility so that GUVs entered the smaller channels

  Subsequent domain formation and redistribution were observed under fluorescence microscopy and recorded by camera every 20 or 30 seconds for one hour. We chose the ternary system of DPPC/DOPC/Cholesterol for the model system of Lo/Ld phase separation. In our study, two different lipid compositions, namely Comp.1 (DPPC/DOPC/Chol = 45/25/30 in molar ratio) and Comp.2 (DPPC/DOPC/Chol=30/45/25), were selected to obtain Lo-rich and Ld-rich GUVs, respectively. To characterize the distribution of lipid domains, we supplemented the GUVs with fluorescent lipids, which specifically localized in Ld phase (Rhodamine-DHPE) or distributed in both phases (NBD-PE), and characterized the resulting GUVs by fluorescence microscopy.Although broadly distributed, we found that, before confinement, the Lo-rich GUVs with Comp.1 contained a majority of GUVs with 40% of Ld phase, while the Ld-rich GUVs with Comp.2 contained a majority of GUVs with 60% of Ld phase (Figure2C). This phase separation was accompanied by domain coalescence and budding of the phase in minority, i.e., Ld and Lo for Comp.1 and Comp.2, respectively (Figure2D, top). Interestingly, when these phase-separated GUVs were confined, we observed that lipid domains corresponding to the minority phase were mainly localized in the "free regions" resulting in rod-like shaped GUVs with those domains at their tips (Figure2D, bottom). Hence, with Comp.1 (resp. Comp.2), Lo-rich (resp. Ld-rich) GUVs had Ld (resp. Lo) domains localized at their tips. We thus obtained the same patterning (minority phase at tips and majority phase in between) with opposite distribution of Lo and Ld phase depending on the initial lipid composition. To characterize the extent of domain localization achieved with this method, we established the distribution of Ld phase along a normalized longitudinal axis of each confined GUV divided into 20 areas (Figure

  Figure 3B (see Supplementary FigureS4for the details). As we see in Figure3B, the probabilities to have one and two pole(s) is nearly independent of the length of the

1 , 2 -

 12 dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC), 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3phosphocholine (DOPC) and cholesterol (ovine wool, >98%) were purchased from Avanti Polar Lipids, Inc.. N-(7-Nitrobenz-2-Oxa-1,3-Diazol-4-yl)-1,2-Dihexadecanoylsn-Glycero-3-Phosphoethanolamine, Triethylammonium Salt (NBD-PE) and Lissamine™ Rhodamine B 1,2-Dihexadecanoyl-sn-Glycero-3-Phosphoethanolamine, Triethylammonium Salt (Rhodamine-DHPE) were purchased from Thermo Fisher Scientific. Sucrose, D + glucose, Sodium Azide, Beta-Casein from bovine milk and PBS buffer were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC. Indium Tin Oxide (ITO)-coated glasses (Slide 25 x 75 x 1.1 mm, surface resistivity 15-25 Ω/sq) were from Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC.

  (20-40 µm width). The absence of residual flow was ensured by closing tubing clamps at inlet and outlet. The heating stage was then stopped, resulting in a progressive cooling from 50 ºC to room temperature. Fluorescence image was acquired after 1 hour from the beginning of the cooling ramp. In order to follow the kinetics of distribution and rearrangement of domains, time lapse was applied every 20 seconds from the beginning of the cooling ramp for 1 hour with autofocus (Definite focus, Zeiss). NBD-PE was imaged through a FITC filter set (Exc: 470/40 nm Dc: 495 nm Em: 525/50 nm) and Rhodamine-DHPE through a mCherry filter set (Exc: 562/40 nm Dc: 593 nm Em: 641/75 nm). Fluorescence images were then treated and analyzed using a home-made routine (Fiji). Results of GUV detection and proportion of Rhodamine-DHPE (Ld domains) along vesicles were further analyzed using Matlab.

Figure 1 .

 1 Figure 1. Schematic representation of the strategy to prescribe spatial position of lipid domain (minority phase of Lo/Ld phase separation) by physical confinement of a Giant Unilamellar Vesicle (GUV). Without confinement (top), domains are randomly positioned and budding to reduce the line tension between co-existing phases.In contrast, under physical confinement in a microchannel (bottom), domains growth and coalescence are facilitated by budding at free regions, resulting in a domain localization, a process we referred to as "restricted

Figure 2 . 1 (

 21 Figure 2. Microfluidic confinement of phase-separated GUVs directs the positioning and growth of minority phase lipid domains at the free regions in a compositionbut Lo/Ld phase-independent manner. A) A design of a microfluidic

Figure 3 .

 3 Figure 3. Polarization occurrence in confined GUVs. A) Color plot of polarization index PI =(ALd(Pole)-ALd(Body))/ ALd(Tot) (ALd: area occupied by liquid disordered (Ld) phase, ALd(Tot): the total area of Ld domain) as a function of GUV length and global ratio of Ld phase in GUV. B) Categorization of GUVs in "single pole" (red diamond; single Ld pole, blue diamond; single Lo pole), "double (red star: double Ld poles, blue star: double Lo pole) and "other situations" (black circle) based on the threshold of PI value (Figure 3A) as following; PI > 0.33 for Ld poles in Lo-rich vesicles and PI < -0.33 for Lo poles in Ld rich-vesicles. Distribution profiles of Ld phase in each category are shown in Supplementary Figure S4. Results are plotted and phase diagram was made as a function of GUV length and global ratio of Ld phase in GUV.

Figure 4 .

 4 Figure 4. Controlled generation of multipolar GUVs using multiple free budding regions. Transmission microscopy images of pillars in microchannel (left). Schematic illustrations of confined GUVs between pillars (middle) and fluorescence microscopy images of GUVs confined between pillars (right). Lo-rich GUV with Comp.1 and Ld-rich GUV with Comp.2 60 min after cooling down were both imaged. Red and blue signals correspond to the region of Ld phase and Lo phase, respectively. All scale bars are 50 µm.

Acknowledgement

We thank Armand Despons, Jacques Fattaccioli and Yong Chen (Ecole Normale Supérieure) for experimental support and/or discussion.

Funding

This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) (European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. 258782, D.B.), the French National Research Agency ANR contracts DYOR (ANR-18-CE06-0019, D.B.), and an Overseas Research Fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS, K.N.). It has received the support of "Institut Pierre-Gilles de Gennes" (laboratoire d'excellence) and "Investissements d'avenir" program ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL, ANR-10-LABX-31, and ANR-10-EQPX-34

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.


Emmanuelle Dantan -

Prof Revol Thierry

Dantan Emmanuelle

GENDER -Vulnerability of Gendered Voices and Visions Vulnerability of Female Voices in Trouveres' French Songs of the 12 th and 13 th Centuries: Myth or Reality?

In the French songs of the 12 th and 13 th centuries, the female voice, often considered inexistent, appears vulnerable and subjugated to the male voice. As it happens, about 65 percent of all trouveres' songs are what is called chansons courtoises, in which a man is speaking about a woman, who is usually silent. Her silence, moreover, is stressed by the male voice in these songs. We might thus think that women's voices are intentionally ignored by the dominant voice, and are therefore vulnerable.

However, other songs stage female characters speaking in many different situations. A shepherdess or a noblewoman in discussion with a knight, women speaking together about love, a nun yearning for her freedom, a woman weeping alone about the bleakness of her situation… The female voice is not totally absent from medieval lyric. In about 15 percent of all French songs of the 12 th and 13 th centuries that we can access today, women's voices are audible to a significant degree.

We may in turn may ask ourselves the following questions. Are these female voices an opposition to the dominant voice of men through a discursive strategy of "enunciative deletion"? 1 Are they merely a vulnerable object "allowing poets to express their naughty thoughts" within their own writing? 2 Or, is making feminine characters speak a way to artistically create an audible female voice, one that is therefore no longer vulnerable? 3

We will first examine the silent voices that comprise the majority of this type of literature. We will then analyse the female voices in dialogue with male ones, in which the former sometimes appear to be alternately strong or vulnerable. Finally, we will see texts where female voices take up all the situation of enunciation, in dialogue or in monologue.

Introduction Context

Fille, ne soiez mie

Daughter, do not Ne trop parlant ne trop nonciere, Speak or name too much Ne de parler trop coustumiere

And do not get used to speaking Quar a mal puet l'en atorner

Because it could bring sorrow Fame quant l'en l'ot trop parler

To a woman who speaks too much, Autrement que ele ne doit. [...] 4 More than she should.

Controlling women's speech seems to have been the rule in the Middle Ages, as this extract of the fabliau named "De l'escureul", copied in the 13 th century in the manuscript 837 of the BNF, shows us. 5 It was frequent, in educational books for girls, to read that they must at the very least be reserved, if not entirely silent. 6 They were enjoined to keep their speech within the limits of what was considered acceptable for a woman in their society. This idea is illustrated by the term of taciturnitas: "virtuous behaviour that imposes little talk, with measure and only when necessary." 7 This tendency also appears in the Old French medieval lyric, which presents many chansons courtoises, in which a man is speaking about a woman, who is usually silenced. Her silence, moreover, is stressed by the male voice in these songs, who notices and emphasizes this silence. We could thus think that women's voices are intentionally ignored by the dominant voice. This situation could lead us to think that the female voice is especially vulnerable in this type of literature, to the point of subjugation.

Definitions

Vulnerability

The concept of vulnerability is broad and has been defined in several ways. In its general meaning, the vulnerability of somebody or something is "the fact of being weak and easily hurt physically or emotionally." 8 This is a complex concept because "it involves many characteristics of people and groups that expose them to harm and limit their ability to anticipate, cope with, and recover from the harm." 9 This notion is broadly studied today along with other concepts such as risk, hazard and resilience, especially in the fields of environmental studies or economics. Following these approaches, vulnerability can also be defined as "the degree to which a system, or part of it, may react adversely during the occurrence of a hazardous 4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES event." 10 This would mean that resilience is the ability for a system or a group to cope with an unexpected situation, and then, to reduce its vulnerability accordingly.

Yet vulnerability can also be considered as a natural dimension of human life. "To be vulnerable is to be fragile, to be susceptible to wounding and to suffering; this susceptibility is an ontological condition of our humanity, 'a universal, inevitable, enduring aspect of the human condition' (Fineman, 2008: 8)." 11 This is what these authors call inherent vulnerability. 12 From this point of view, everybody is vulnerable, to disease, to the natural environment, to society and social relations.

"Vulnerability as a phenomenon is related to individual human beings, but also to the social systems and the systemic interconnections between politics, law and medicine." 13 In this way, vulnerability implies the concepts of dependency, dignity and personhood. 14 This dependence, on others and their care, entails a variation in the dignity and freedom that the person in question enjoys. It can produce unbalanced situations in which "vulnerable persons are those with reduced capacity, power, or control to protect their interests relative to other agents" and these "inequalities of power, dependency, capacity, or need render some agents vulnerable to harm or exploitation by others." 15 Given that this vulnerability is linked to a specific context, it may be called situational vulnerability. 16 In the context of Old French medieval songs, the question of the vulnerability of female voices might be linked to the degree of dependence or independence of their speech relative to that of male voices.

My Case Study: the Trouveres' French Songs

The medieval literature of the Northern part of France, written in vernacular language (namely Old French), is composed of various genres. There are hagiographic texts, romans, fabliaux, plays, religious tales, chansons de geste and lyric poems. These poems were sung in noble courts or in more popular locations such as marketplaces.

They were composed from the end of the 11 th century to the end of the 13 th century and copied in manuscripts during the period from the 12 th to the 14 th centuries. Today, 50 manuscripts are considered to be major (according to Linker's bibliography), from which more than 2990 songs can still be accessed. 17

These main manuscripts are not all framed the same way. Firstly, some of them (17 pieces) only contain songs, and they are thus called "chansonniers." Seven of these actually present more than 400 songs. On average, however, the chansonniers include 340 songs. Secondly, the majority of the important manuscripts (22 manuscripts) have a mixed content, containing songs (from 1 to 500 pieces and on average 50 songs) and other types of works such as romans, chansons de geste, religious or juridical texts… Thirdly, 4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES 11 pieces are fragments, which is to say that they are incomplete and that we do not know in which type of manuscript they were included.

A large number of manuscripts were copied in Northern France, either in the Arras area, or in Paris or Lorraine, essentially during the 13 th century.

The major manuscripts of Linker's bibliography are:

Female Voices

The Old French medieval lyric principally presents songs where the lyrical subject is a man (firstperson male persona) but the chansons courtoises are not the only kind of song that we can find in this type of literature. Even if they represent 65% among those, we also find a significant number of songs (more than 450 pieces, that is to say 15% of all songs) where female characters clearly speak in various situations. For example, we can find a shepherdess or a noblewoman conferring with a knight, women discussing love, a nun yearning for her freedom, a woman weeping alone about the bleakness of her situation… Thus, several feminine characters appear in these songs, making other voices audible to us than those of the courtly man waiting for the gratitude of the mysterious woman to whom he devotes his life.

For years, the researchers who worked on these songs (Alfred Jeanroy,18 Joseph Bédier,19 or Pierre Bec20 ) rejected the hypothesis that they could have been written by women. According to them, female voices were fictional only. According to Pierre Bec, these women's voices were the expression of a textual feminity (féminité textuelle) that "does not necessarily imply female authorship (féminité génétique)."21 He based his theory around the fact that the majority of these songs were anonymous or attributed to a male author.22 "But there is no reason to conclude that women were excluded from composing and performing either in the courts or in the marketplace."23 Following the work of the authors of the anthology Songs of the Women 'trouvères', we now know that "women were capable of composing, but also -and more important -that for a woman to compose a song was perfectly natural and commonplace." 24 These songs may thus be seen as a medium for feminine expression, holding a mirror up to medieval society, regardless of the author's gender. In any event, "all social hierarchies are the results of historical processes, which the literary and cultural works mirror in a highly complex manner. There are no simple fantasy products, and the less a poet seems to write about concrete conditions concerning the gender relationship, the more his or her text provides access to the audience expectations and projections, and also to the writer's mentality."25

Statement of the Problem

In one way or another, the songs of the 12 th and 13 th centuries reveal issues about medieval society, and perhaps even about the relationship between men and women.

In her study of the female voice in medieval romance lyric, Doris Earnshaw concludes that "the female speaker in medieval lyric is seen to be […] an embodiment of cultural inferiority in class status, social attitude, and language use." She considers that "the vital role of the female voice is to remind us of the other side of things, the eccentric places in the social fabric. […] Representative of both the juvenile 4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES and archaic values, her voice is the foil against which the centrist male voice is created and recognized."26 For Doris Earnshaw, the female voice is dominated and controlled by the male poet and is thus completely dependent on them. According to the critic, "borrowed speech" is "a carrier of undercurrents of social values not generally permitted or approved" by society. 27 Michel Zink comes to a similar conclusion, perceiving the female character of the shepherdess in pastourelle as "a pure erotic object"28 which allows male poets to express their "naughty thoughts"29 in a "pure function of release."30 There is clearly some truth in these hypotheses (in some songs, women are neglected and treated with contempt by male poets), but they deny the possibility of female poets composing some of these songs. These points of view seem categorical and stereotyped, and should be balanced with other studies. Furthermore, the dialectical view of women against men is also historically and culturally determined, related to our conception of society and gender relationships. As noted by Carolyne Larrington, "the concept of 'Woman' […] exists for the male medieval writer as a sign, bearing meanings which have little to do with the actual social roles of individual women."31 When studying female voice, we must also be aware of medieval society's conceptions and pay attention not to transpose our contemporary visions on this culture. Rachel Méegens, in a work about female voices in the motets (songs consisting of a superposition of music and texts), considers that "the motet appears such as a form of stylization of love speech, the one that men address to women, and the one that they place in their mouth, contributing to the development of a feminine imaginary." It allows the "artistic creation of the female voice,"32 that can thus become audible.

For Juan Manuel López Muñoz, the predominance of anonymous songs with a female voice amounts to a discursive strategy of "enunciative deletion" to create an opposition "to the voice legitimated by the institutions, which is […] masculine and educated, even aristocratic and Christian."33 He bases his theory on three criteria: (i) the anonymity of the characters and the author of the song, (ii) the femininity of the voice speaking in the song, and (iii) the appearance of popularity of the subject or of the poem. However, not all the songs including a female voice follow this system. We can for example find chansons courtoises with a feminine lyric "I" or other courtly genres with a feminine voice (as jeux-partis). Furthermore, a number of songs with a female voice have been attributed to either a male or female author.

Based on the different hypotheses and the existing literature that we have previously mentioned, the following research questions arise:

Are the female voices in the Old French medieval songs vulnerable, that is to say forced to hide, in order to exist and challenge the male dominant voice? Are they only a vulnerable object for writers to play 4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES with, "allowing poets to express their naughty thoughts?" 34 Or are these female voices actually independent, assertive and audible -a specifically feminine mode of expression? 35

Methodology

Traces of Female Voice

Pursuing a different goal than the researchers who have explored the "songs of women" 36 in the medieval lyric, 37 I have chosen to investigate clues of the representation of female voice in all the available Old French medieval songs. I did not limit my corpus to the songs that have been identified as chansons de femmes, rather I looked for traces and clues of female speech in all types of songs.

In order to do this, I studied nouns (ami, Robert, mari…), pronouns (ele, cele, je…), adjectives (jonete, lasse, amiete…), and past participles (espoantee, blasmee, remplie, nee…) confirming that a woman character is speaking. 38

Discursive Approach

To conduct my study, I followed a discursive approach and looked at the different represented speeches of female characters. 39 As Authier-Revuz explains, the term "represented speech" is broader than "reported speech". All traces of speech are indeed not always a report of speech. For instance, "narrated speech," which mentions a speech act without providing its content, is an interesting element that I included in my research. 40 The aim of my research is to identify all signs of female speech or what I will call non-speech (since silence may be seen as voluntary or forced, and therefore as an attitude towards speech worth including). I have observed different types of represented speech that I organised as follows:

 Non-speech act evoking a silent woman who keeps quiet,  Narrated discourse, "a reference to an enunciative event, without mention of its precise content by way of a completive or an infinitival clause," 41  Indirect discourse in which "the inset is grammatically subordinated to the framing utterance, with person, tense, and deixis adjusted to conform to those of the frame,"  Direct discourse in which the speech is reported as it has been said by the character, "preserving (for instance) expressive elements of the original utterance," introduced by GRADÍN (1990), TYSSENS (1992), DOSS-QUINBY, TASKER GRIMBERT, PFEFFER, AUBREY (2001). 38 We sometimes find a voice gendered as female but that represents the speech of an allegory (Love), an animal (nightingale) or ideas (reason, courtesy, sense). These voices deserve particular attention and are worth studying. However, I chose in this study to focus on women's voices and not all "female" voices.

Corpus

In order for my research to have as broad a perspective on the Old French lyric as possible, I have read and compiled all the songs that were copied in the 50 aforementioned main manuscripts, and completed it with Raynaud's, Spanke's and Linker's bibliographies. I have thus inventoried 2990 songs and have systematically identified in each of them whether or not a female voice was represented.

In the following section, I present some samples of each type of speech representation in different songs to analyse the vulnerability of the female voices in the French medieval lyric.

Results

We observe in trouveres' songs various situations of represented speech of female voices. I decided to classify them into three categories, according to the place of the female voice in the situation of enunciation. I consider the situation of enunciation in the diegesis of the poem. 43 Dominique Maingueneau defines three personal positions in a situation of enunciation:

The enunciator is identified by the pronoun I, the co-enunciator is the 'character-addressee' 44 of the enunciator and the non-person who is not there in the situation. 45 Using those terms, I classified female voices from the songs in these three categories:

1. Women as non-person 2. Women as co-enunciator 3. Women as enunciator

Women as Non-Person

In the cases of women represented as non-persons, that is to say that they are not in the situation of enunciation but the enunciator makes a mention of the character in their speech, we observe two situations in a discursive perspective:

1. The female character is mentioned as silent, 2. The female character is represented through discourse and thus becomes audible.

Women as Non-Person and Silent

A typical characteristic of courtly songs is the silence of the lady to whom the speaker is dedicated. This particularity is stressed in several songs, portraying the women as indifferent and ungrateful.

4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES

This idea is clearly expressed in the song RS 1076 (Linker 9.2) between Andriu Douche and Jehan. In this text, the poet asks his co-enunciator what to do with a woman who stays silent towards him despite all the devotion he displays:

Ne volt a moi nes .i. seul mot parler46 (She does not want to say a word to me)

In a number of courtly songs, the poet highlights the woman's silence, with different expressions:

Nule merci ne puis en li trouver47 (RS 1827 / Linker 7.1) (I cannot receive any mercy from her)

Por .i. soul mot ke de vos ne puis traire 48 One can note that all these non-speech facts appear within narrated discourse, to the point of illustrating Sophie Marnette's term 'Narrated Attitude.' 52 The woman in these courtly songs is thus especially characterized by her silence and incapacity to speak. However, is this silence a mark of vulnerability or is it a sign of the woman's power who has the opportunity to remain quiet if she so wishes? In these poems, the speaker seems to be particularly troubled by this silence, saying that it "could kill him", or that the "woman wants his death". This silence seems to be powerful and shows an interesting ability of the woman to have authority over the man. In the absence of the woman's verbal input, the man is lost and does not know what the lady thinks about him. He is then more vulnerable than the woman is.

Women as Non-Person but Audible

In the songs, we also find women as non-persons, that is to say that they are not in the situation of enunciation, but they are audible by virtue of being quoted by male speakers in the poems.

There are represented in narrated discourse, indirect discourse or direct discourse.

4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES

In Narrated Discourse

Poets often use narrated discourse to evoke some of the ladies' qualities or how they relate to one another: Puis k'ele m'a .ii. fois ou trois menti 53 (RS 1608 / Linker 117.6). (Since she lied to me twice or three times.)

Et les doulz mos ke vuelt a moy pairleir 54 (RS 679 / Linker 38.1) (The sweet words that she wants to tell me.)

Cortoise et sage et bien parlant 55 (RS 74 / Linker 44.3) (Courtly, wise and well speaking.)

Quant ma dame le plait a comander 56 (RS 787 / Linker 65.51) (When my lady wants to order.)

Quant cele dont j'esperoie / weredon m'a refusé 57 (RS 1736 / Linker 101.4). (When the one from whom I hoped, has refused to gratify me.)

Quant cele me het et mesprise 58 (RS 1627 / Linker 154.12) (When she hates and despises me.)

In many of the songs seen before, the woman is unknown and unnamed; she is called dame. Nevertheless, in one type of song, the woman is clearly identified: these are the pious songs devoted to the Virgin Mary. It is worth noting that sometimes poets allude to the Virgin's speech or prayers:

Se la dame plaine de grant bonté / qui est lez lui por nos ne li prioit / si tres douz moz plaisant et savoré / les granz corroz dou grant seignour rapaie 59 (RS 1843 / Linker 240.17). (If the lady filled with great goodness, who lies near him, does not pray to him, her pleasant and savoury words ease God's ire.)

The speaker, who must leave to go on a crusade, is sad to part with his amie and record her qualities:

Et quant recort sa simple cortoisie / et les douz moz dont suet a moi parler / conment me puet li cuer ou cors durer 60 (RS 679 / Linker 38.1). (When I remember her simple courtesy and the sweet words that she used to say to me, how could I bear my heart and my body?)

Frequently, the narrated speech found in what I call 'meeting songs' occurs in the act of singing rather than in the act of speaking. The narrator hears a woman singing:

4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES

Je l'oï au la praielle chanter an la fontenelle par desor une codroie62 (RS 2079 / Linker 44.11) (I heard her singing in the field near a source under a hazel tree.) La bele Amelinete / cui je vi gardeir moutons / chantoit une chansonnete / dont moult me plaissoit li sons63 (RS 968 / Linker 166.2) (The beautiful Amelinete who I see tending sheep sang a chansonnette whose music I enjoyed.) Usually, in meeting songs, the man greets the woman first, but in the following song, the woman initiates the conversation:

El m'a premiers salué64 (RS 606 / Linker 154.15) (She greeted me first.)

In some more unusual songs, the narrator meets a shepherd (and not a shepherdess) and talks with him about his heartache. In the following example, his beloved's mother has prohibited the girl from seeing him:

Or s'en vait aperchevant sa mere lui li deffant / si l'en a mis a raison65 (RS 293 / Linker 255.8). (However, her mother noticed it, she bans her from seeing me, and she reasoned with her.)

In Indirect Discourse

In several texts, the poet says that he writes a song because a woman (or "Love") has asked him to do it:

Ai faite cançon / si n'en ai autre ocoison / fors c'une dame m'en prie66 (RS 2038 / Linker 2.35). (I composed a song, I have no other occasion, because a lady requested it.)

In the following extract, we can see a rare case of a woman with a name in a courtly song who gives orders to the poet:

Maix la contesse de Brie […] m'ait comandeit a chanteir67 (RS 1232 / Linker 65.11) (But the Countess of Brie ordered me to sing.)

In the following jeu-parti, the poet wonders whether he should continue to bestow his love on a woman who has not reciprocated his feelings so far, or whether he should accept the love offered him by another woman:

Or ai trouvé .i. autre ki me prie de s'amour avoir68 (RS 862 / Linker 133.30). (However, I find another who requests my love.)

4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES

In the following example, a man loves a woman sincerely, she asks that they meet in secret, but he knows that slanderers will find them out: Sa dame li conmande et li prie / qu'il voist a li parler priveement / en secré lieu69 (RS 1674 / Linker 170.12) (His lady orders him and prays of him that he would come to her to talk privately in a secret place).

Here is another case of a woman giving orders to the poet, this time demanding that he should be happy:

Cele qui a povoir / de moi conforter / dit que de desesperer ne mi doit chaloir70 (RS 1786 / Linker 192.11). (The one who has the power to comfort me says that I need not worry about despair).

It is worth noting that there are variations to this song, of which we find copies in several manuscripts, in this particular sentence. In some manuscripts, cele becomes mes amours, which changes the interpretation of the line: it is no longer the woman, but love, which has power over the man. It would be interesting to compare these different manuscripts in relation to their representations of female voices.

The role of the woman can also be reversed -she can bar the man from singing, stop his advances or will his death, as seen in these examples:

El dit que trop sui hastis71 (RS 1104 / Linker 265.501). (She says that I am too much in a hurry.) Elle m'en heit et dist k'elle voldroit / je fuisse mort72 (RS 201 / Linker 265.1218). (She hates me and says that she wishes [that] I would be dead.) She sometimes doubts the man's sincerity:

Ele tient mes diz a controvaille / et dit touz jors que je la vuil trahir73 (RS 1727 / Linker 240.13). (She takes my words as lies and says always that I want to betray her.)

In the following song, one shepherdess (Marot) has lied to another (Perrin), the latter of whom is the shepherd's beloved, resulting in Perrin refusing to talk to him: Maix s'est fait Marot / ke dist k'en cest boix l'autrier la baixai74 (RS 2008 / Linker 256.1). (Marot is the one who said that I embraced her the other day in this wood.)

Most frequently, the knight-narrator meets a shepherdess in nature. In a short song (motet), the narrator explains that he has talked with a shepherdess who has asked him why he was joyful:

Tantost m'ait araisonner / por coi j'astoie jolis / s'avoie par amors amei75 (Linker 265.135). (She asked me why I was joyful and if I was in love.)

4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES

In the next song, also a motet, the knight-narrator meets a shepherdess who is complaining of her beloved, Robin, who has left her:

Tant erroi c'oïe touse souz un pin qi se plaignoit de Robin qi tant ot amé de cuer fin76 (Linker 265.168). (I roamed so much that I heard a young woman under a pine who was complaining of Robin who used to love her with a fine heart.)

The sottes chansons are satirical songs mocking love, courtesy and, often, women. The tone is frequently ribald. Sometimes, the speaker uses a woman's discourse to ridicule her or himself:

Ancor ai pis c'est ceu ke je cloche / dont ma dame m'ait souvent irascu / car tot ades el me lou reproche / cant nos gisons ensamble nut et nut77 (RS 1656 / Linker 265.658). (Another defect of mine is that there is something wrong with me and my lady is often upset and she blames me when we lay naked together.)

In Direct Discourse

Often the speaker uses direct discourse to portray painful moments with his lady, as we can see in these extracts:

Quant je suis revenus / ele moi dist "leveis sus" / ains ke je puisse pairleir78 (RS 1661 / Linker 2.32). (When I came back she said to me "stand up" before I could speak.)

Quant je la prie ele me dit vie "fui de ci gars je ne t'aime mie"79 (RS 1506 / Linker 265.1638). (When I expressed my devotion, she told me "go away boy, I do not love you!").

In the aforementioned song with the Countess of Brie, another instance of represented speech can be found, this time in direct discourse:

Lors me dist per contralie "quant ireis vous outre meir?"80 (RS 1232 / Linker 65.11). (Then she says to spite me: "When will you go overseas?")

In the following extract, a lover remembers past times, when the woman reciprocated his feelings: Douce dame bien me menbre del jor / ke vos premiers m'apallaistes "amin"81 (RS 1849 / Linker 262.4). (Sweet lady, I remember well the day that you first called me "Ami".) Ki tous jors dist par samblant "baisiés, baisiés moi amis"82 (Linker 265.525). (Who always says untruely "give me a kiss, ami".)

In Old French lyric, we find songs which are strongly critical of women. Sometimes, the poet uses female direct discourse to give weight to his argument.

4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES

For example, in these songs, the speaker has been deceived by a woman and concludes that women in general are only attentive to rich men, and are compulsive liars:

Fame est ace menee / qu'ele dit a chacun "je vos aim meuz que nul" / por decevoir fu nee83 (RS 922 / Linker 125.1). (Woman is such as she says to anyone "I love you better than anyone else"; she is born to deceive.) Kant veux voir m'amie / et je n'ai point d'argent / moult iriement me dit "vai tant / je ne te conois mie" 84 (RS 1155 / Linker 265.284). (When I want to see my dear, and I have no money, with anger she says "go away ! I do not know you!") Poets also use direct female speech in sottes chansons, rendering the story with greater humour and liveliness:

Et elle dit "j'ain moult millor de vous / nostre bergier c'ait la teste plumee / ke l'autre soir m'estordit ma buee"85 (RS 717 / Linker 265.61). (And she told me "I like our shepherd better than you, he who has the plucked head, who last evening wrung my laundry dry".)

These sporadic highlights of female speech thus emerge in male discourse. They can express a variety of views on women's discourse, be they negative, neutral, or positive. In this configuration, however, the female voice appears to be highly dependent on the male voice and as such vulnerable.

Women as Co-Enunciators

The lyric literature in vernacular language also includes a number of songs with dialogue between a male voice and a female one. The majority of the speeches are represented in direct discourse, but sometimes also in indirect or narrated discourse. The woman may talk or sing. These texts stage different kinds of female characters:  Shepherdesses, who make up the majority of the female characters, sparring verbally with a knight or another peasant;  Noblewomen in songs staging debates or in narrative songs;  The Virgin Mary in discussion with the Angel Gabriel;  Nuns talking about love with monks;  Women who regret marrying;  …

The power dynamic between the female and the male voices varies. Some rhetorical, linguistic and semantic marks show that one enunciator has more power than the other does. For instance, I have observed discussions in which the woman is ridiculed and her speech does not have any weight. I have also noted debates where the speakers are on an equal footing, the two co-enunciators quietly discussing 4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES different subjects. In addition, I have observed discussions in which the woman seems to have the upper hand over the man, or at least is attempting to.

Women as Co-Enunciators in Unequal Talk, Unfavourable for the Woman

A number of pastourelle, songs in which a knight meets a shepherdess and tries to have some pleasure with her, present a dialogue between the two protagonists. In most of them, the knight has the power over the young woman and her speech has no effect on him.

In the following song (RS 1698a / Linker 265.1037), the shepherdess starts by saying that she will accept his love only if they marry, but ultimately she accepts unconditionally: "Sire vostre biau senblant va mon cuer si destraignant / Vostres sui que que nus die / des cestui jour en avant"86 (My lord, your beautiful look troubles me so much that I am yours whatever one might say, as of now.)

In a song attributed to Conon de Bethune, a knight has a discussion with the woman he loves. She has refused his love several times before and she now changes her mind:

Ce li ait dit "Amins par parolles vos ai meneit tous jors"87 (RS 1574 / Linker 50.6) (She tells him: "My friend, I have always played you with my words").

This sentence likely illustrates a widespread notion in medieval society that women would manipulate men with words. A debate between the two characters follows and the knight makes her understand that she is too proud and that she should learn from her mistakes:

Dame fait il ce vous a molt grevé

Lady, he says, it has really hurt you

Que vous fiez en vostre seignorage

To believe in your power.

[…] On n'aimme paz dame pour parenté

We do not love a woman for her lineage Maiz quant ele est bele et cortoise et sage but because she is beautiful, courtly and wise Vouz en savroiz par tanz la verité 88 You will yet feel of it the truth.

Women as Co-Enunciators in Equal Talk

Many jeux-partis, texts in which two or more poets discuss life, love dilemmas or male-female relationships, stage a man and a woman debating together.

For example, this diverting song portrays a man and a woman discussing sexual pleasure (RS 365 / Linker 265.52):

Amis ki est li muelz vaillans

My friend, which one has more value:

Women as Co-Enunciators in Unequal talk, Favourable for the Woman

The shepherdess in discussion with the knight can sometimes have the last word and gain the upper hand thanks to her rhetoric (RS 292 / Linker 265.781):

Chevalier se Deus vos voie

Knight, may God lead your way Puis que prendre voulez proie Since you are looking for a prey En plus haut lieu la pernez que ne seroie Capture her higher than I could ever find myself Petit gaaigneriez et g'y perdroie 92 You would not profit much here and I would lose a lot

The following extracts further exemplify the shepherdess's rhetorical power over the knight: In these examples, we can see that the female voice sometimes is more powerful than the male voice. This is particularly evident in the pastourelle were a true argumentative discussion takes place between two characters of different social statuses. While we might think that the knight always gets what he wants, the shepherdess's rhetoric from time to time turns out to be more powerful.

Women as Enunciators

To finish, we will look at songs in which the female voice makes up the entirety of the situation of enunciation. This can take place in a dialogue between two or more women or in monologues where only the female voice is present.

In Dialogue

The jeux-partis are again a good example of women as enunciators in dialogue. Three of them remain accessible today. They are very similar to those which include male speakers and also evoke love dilemmas. The other instances of dialogue between women are introduced in a narration by a first-person male speaker (intra-diegetic narrator96 ), who relates a conversation he has witnessed while riding on his horse. The dialogue in itself only stages female characters (RS 368 / Linker 213.2):

Delez un pré verdoiant

Near a green field Trovai deux dames seant I found two women sitting "Que ferai dist l'une a l'autre "What will I do, asked one to the other De mon ort vilain puant Of my disgusting and dirty man Qui pour mon ami le cointe

Who beats me all day Me va tout jour batant ?" 97 Because of my dearly beloved".

This motif of the unhappy, frustrated wife is frequent in the Old French medieval lyric and offers a number of songs with female voices. They always debase the husband who is portrayed as a jealous, stupid and disgusting man. 98 FRIDAY, THE 5 Another very interesting song is the Tornois des dames (RS 1024 / Linker 114.1), which narrates a possibly historical event that may have occurred circa 1180 in Lagny. It would seem that a group of noblewomen decided to organise a female tournament to experience what knights suffered for them. The poem almost exclusively consists of narrative mode, but we find occurrences of direct discourse, which increase the vivid nature of the narration, all told in the female voice:

Quand Marguerite se voit rauser

When Marguerite sees she is followed Cambrai ! crie, son frein prend a tirer […] "Cambrai !" she shouts and spins her horse

Adeluye, ri nantuel vait criant Elise of Nanteuil goes shouting Avec la senescaussesse Yolent

With the seneschal Yolande Aeliz en vait devant.

Elise goes ahead De Trie aiguillon criant […]

Shouting "De Trie Aiguillon!"

Aeliz, montfort criant […] 104

Elise shouting "Montfort!"

Even though this song does not include long female speeches, it presents a narration about women, who are the protagonists of the song. It also gives us a surprising and instructive vision of noblewomen from the 12 th century through their speeches.

Discussion and Conclusions

Conclusions

This panorama of female voices represented in the Old French lyric shows us that the vulnerability of these voices is not as evident as one may have thought. Female discourse is indeed actualised in characters from various social statuses, and shows itself not to be exclusively dependent on male voices. We have studied a number of texts in which the female voice depends on the male voice such as non-person situations and women as co-enunciators in an unequal talk unfavourable to the woman, as well as poems where there is no represented discourse or attitude of a female character. Concerning the representation of the silence of the lady, the case is slightly different. The silent voices, that we might consider as particularly vulnerable because inaudible, actually display the power that the woman has in not responding to the declarations of love coming from the man who courts her. Her voice, because she keeps silent, is no longer vulnerable.

Figure 1 :

 1 Figure 1: Main manuscripts of trouveres' songs, according to Linker's Bibliography

  42[START_REF] Mchale | Speech Representation[END_REF]), p. 387-388. 43 GENETTE (1972), p. 280. 44 MARNETTE (2005), p. 29. 45 MAINGUENEAU (2015), p. 13-14.

  ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGESanother character, or in a situation of dialogue or monologue, openly taken on by the character.42

39 AUTHIER-REVUZ (2020), p. 65. 40 Op. cit., p. 220. 41 MARNETTE (2005), p. 85.

4TH

  (RS 1432 / Linker 265.375) (For only one word that I could not obtain from you) Quant ne me veut regarder na parler 49 (Linker 265.242) (When she does not want to look at me or speak to me) Quant je de vos confort ne puis oir 50 (RS 1429/ Linker 207.1) (When I hear nothing comforting from you) Por la meillor dont ja nus parler oie 51 (RS 1766 / Linker 190.2) (For the best one from whom I never hear).

  Ou cil ki gist toute la nuit The one who lies all night Aveuc s'amie a grant desduit With his beloved taking great pleasure Et sans faire a tot son talent But without fully consuming, 4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGESOu cil kit tost vient et tost prentOr the one who hastily consumes and fast takes Et quant il ait fait si s'en fuit ?89 And after he obtained what he wants, escapes?In a pious song, this time, the poet imagines the dialogue between the Madonna and the Angel Gabriel, of which we find various iterations in this body of texts. The subject is essentially the same, but the tone is different: La virge dit "coment estre porra / quant onc ne fui de nul hom atouchié" 90 (RS 1315 / Linker 265.332). (The Virgin said "how could it occur when I have not been touched by a man?")In this song, a man is getting ready to go on a crusade and he converses with his beloved (RS 1659 / Linker 265.545): But if it pleases God and you Je ne veul pais kil remaigne por moi I do not want that he stay for me A mains jointes a la Meire Deu proiHands joined I will pray the Mother of God Ke vos ramoinst & vos laist grant bien faire91 That you may come back and do much good.

	Biaus dous amis	My sweet dear
	Certes se poise moi	It grieves me
	[…]
	C'outre la meir vos en irois sens moi	That across the seas you will go without me
	[…]
	Maix pues kil veult a Deu & a vos plaire

  El me dist : biau sire par saint DenisShe said to me: "My Lord, by Saint Denis j'aim plus biau de vos et mult meuz apris 93 I love a man more beautiful and more educated than you".

	4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES
	(RS 1583)
	Ele me dist : Sire alez vostre voie! 94	She said to me: "Lord, go away!" (RS 527)

  In the following example, Sainte des Prez asks Dame de la Chaucie how to react to someone who seeks her love (RS 1112 / Linker 246.1):

	Que ferai je Dame de la Chaucie	What shall I do, Lady of Chaucie,
	S'il est ensi c'on me requiert m'amour ?	If someone should seek my love?
	Conseilliez moi par vostre courtoisie	Do advise me, most courteously,
	El quel des deus j'avrai plus grant honnour	In which of these I will reap greater honor:
	Ou ce que je lesse a celui tout dire	Should I let him declare
	Sa volenté ou ançois l'escondire ?	His desire or instead refuse?
	Par fine amour löez m'ent le meillour	In the name of true love, recommend the better
		choice to me. 95

  TH FEBRUARY 2021 DANTAN EMMANUELLE 20 4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES N'ai pas quinze ans Not yet fifteen. point ma mamelete My little breasts are swelling Selonc le tans […] With time. Je sent les doz maus desoz ma ceinturete I feel the sweet pangs beneath my little girdle: Honnis soit de Diu qui me fist nonnete ! (Ref.) May God curse the one who made me a nun! 103

JEANROY (1969), p. 96.

BÉDIER (1972), p. 912-915.

BEC (1979), p. 235-262.

Op. cit.,

DOSS-QUINBY, TASKER GRIMBERT, PFEFFER, AUBREY (2001), p. 1.

Op. cit., p. 11.

Op. cit., p. 17.

CLASSEN A. (2012), p. 8-9.

EARNSHAW (1988), p. 121.

Op. cit., p. 13.

ZINK (1972), p. 117.

Op. cit., p. 74.

Op. cit., p. 117.

[START_REF] Larrington | Women and Writing in Medieval Europe[END_REF], p. 2.

MÉEGENS (2011), p. 2.

LÓPEZ MUÑOZ (2014), p. 156.

Manuscript BnF fr. 1591, f. 24.

Manuscript BnF fr. 12615, f. 138.

Manuscript Bern 389, f. 59.

Manuscript Vaticano Reg. 1490, f. 117.

Manuscript Bern 389, f. 42.

Manuscript BnF fr. 845, f. 111.

[START_REF] Marnette | Speech and Thought Presentation in French[END_REF], p. 85.

Manuscript BnF fr. 20050, f. 104.

Manuscript Bern 389, f. 195.

Manuscript BnF fr. 844, f. 101.

Manuscript BnF fr. 12615, f. 108.

Manuscript Vaticano Reg. 1490, f. 54.

Manuscript Bern 389, f. 26.

Manuscript Vaticano Reg. 1522, f. 152.

Manuscript Arras 139, f. 161.

Manuscript BnF fr. 845, f. 48.

Manuscript BnF NAF 1050, f. 226.

Manuscript Bern 389, f. 246.

Manuscript BnF fr. 846, f. 35.

Manuscript Bern 389, f. 16.

Manuscript Oxford Douce 308, f. 244.

Manuscript Wolfenbüttel 1099, f. 248.

Manuscript Oxford Douce 308, f. 242.

Manuscript Bern 389, f. 181.

Manuscript BnF NAF 1050, f. 208.

Manuscript Bern 389, f. 26.

Manuscript Bern 389, f. 55.

Manuscript Vaticano Reg. 1490, f. 114.

Manuscript BnF fr.

845, f. 117.

Manuscript Oxford Douce 308, f. 239b.

Manuscript Arsenal 5198, f. 376.

Manuscript Oxford Douce 308, f. 147.

Manuscript BnF fr. 844, f. 45.

Manuscript Bern 389, f. 2.

Manuscript BnF NAF 1050, f. 272.

Manuscript Bern 389, f. 58.

Manuscript Arsenal 5198, f. 308.

Manuscript BnF fr. 845, f. 81.

Manuscript BnF fr. 847, f. 97.

Songs of the Women 'trouvères' (2001), p 81.

Ib.

Manuscript Arsenal 5198, f. 208.

Songs of the Women 'trouvères' (2001,) p. 151.

Songs of the Women 'trouvères' (2001), p. 131.

Songs of the Women 'trouvères' (2001), p. 143.

Songs of the Women 'trouvères' (2001), p. 173.

Songs of the Women 'trouvères' (2001), p. 154.

Songs of the Women 'trouvères' (2001), p. 246-247.

Manuscript BnF fr. 12615, f. 53v.

4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES

In Monologue

We find more than 90 songs with a female monologue in the trouveres' songs (about 3% of all the songs). These poems present a variety of tones and female characters. Among them are courtly songs that follow the style and the rhetoric of the male-voiced chansons courtoises (RS 100 / Linker 265.990):

Lasse pour quoi refusai

Unhappy that I am, why did I refuse Celui qui tant m'a amee

The one who loved me so? Lonc tens a a moi musé He whiled away much time with me Et n'i a merci trouvee And found no mercy there. 99 We also find crusade songs in which the woman is mourning her dearly departed (RS 21 / Linker 106.4): All naked. 102 We also find a nun bemoaning her situation (Linker 265.949):

Je suis joliete I am a merry Sadete pleisans

Gracious, charming Joine pucelete :

Young girl,

DANTAN EMMANUELLE 21 4TH ANNUAL GRADUATE CONFERENCE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEDIEVAL & MODERN LANGUAGES

Moreover, several songs shape the female voice in a way that allows her to transcend her situation of vulnerability. When the female character is co-enunciator in an equal talk or an unequal talk favourable to her, her voice acquires legitimacy and respect, and does not seem to be dependent on the man.

Lastly, all the songs representing a female monologue, even if some of them were written by a male author, express a clearly feminine voice, affirming its independence. Consequently, it can be argued that in these poems, the female voice is no longer vulnerable. The fact that these songs have reached us, that is to say that they have been copied, some of them in several manuscripts, by medieval copyists, is a sign that these voices had sufficient "strength" to eclipse the possible societal "pressure." 105

Difficulties and Limits

This study did not run without some obstacles and difficulties.

First of all, deciphering the different manuscripts and being able to transcribe and translate the texts constituted a big challenge. The various manuscripts have indeed several specific characteristics such as writing, organisation, decoration or regional language. Furthermore, some manuscripts are damaged and have become difficult to be read.

Next, Old French was not a unified language in the Middle Ages and was liable to change a lot from one manuscript to the other (even in the same manuscript), therefore understanding the songs can be problematic and translating them can lead to errors.

Lastly, the identification of female voices in the texts can be a problem, because some poems are not explicitly gendered, reported discourses are not characterized by punctuation, and we can easily mistake the speaker.

It would also be interesting to study the thoughts and attitudes (re)presented in the songs, following the works of Sophie Marnette. 106 I started doing this with the observation of women's silence in the songs, and the question would benefit from further research.