Consent in the Old French Tristan Material: Thomas of Britain’s Ambivalent Representations of Female Sexual Trauma

This article troubles the entrenched notion that the device of the magic potion allows the Old French Tristan material to evade issues of consent. In keeping with high medieval reflection on the matter, both Béroul’s and Thomas of Britain’s romances are concerned with whether the influential men around the lovers consent to their behavior. Comparing these versions with each other and contextualizing them in relation to canon law and theology suggests, moreover, that these romances delve into the complexity of the problem of Tristan’s and Iseut’s consent more than is traditionally allowed. Surviving fragments of Thomas of Britain’s romance even intersect in powerful ways with modern consent theory. Reading the medieval text alongside the work of the psychoanalyst Clotilde Leguil underscores the sophistication with which Thomas interrogates the psychology of consent, by calling attention both to dynamics of force within the psyche and to the difficulties of expressing sexual trauma. Yet, in Thomas’s romance, this intricate psychological engagement with problems of consent has a profoundly ambivalent relation to women, which fosters a challenge for consent theory today: to imagine how, in both historical and theoretical terms, deep engagement with issues of consent can simultaneously advance and detract from the cause of gender equity.