The Middle English romance Emaré is briefly discussed by Elizabeth Archibald in her authoritative study, Incest and the Medieval Imagination, and also in an earlier article, as one instance of the ‘Accused Queen and Incestuous Father group of narratives’. Elizabeth, as a Cambridge undergraduate, was one of the most clear-thinking pupils I have ever had the pleasure of teaching (and learning from), and her many publications display no less clarity of thought and expression. If in my discussion of Emaré I sometimes lack that clarity, going beyond ‘the medieval imagination’ and venturing on what she calls ‘anachronistic thoughts of dysfunctional family behaviour and the problem of healing the damage it causes’, I hope she will forgive me. My concern will be with two aspects of Emaré. One is what kind of story it tells: a story that acknowledges and eventually reconciles tensions within the patriarchal family, focusing on female experience. The other is how it tells its story: how the narrative methods of popular romance, very unlike those assumed by most modern thought about narrative, make possible this reconciliation.

The story is briefly this. Emaré, the emperor Artyus’s only child, loses her mother in infancy and is brought up in the household of Abro, a lady who teaches her courtesy and fine sewing. The king of Sicily visits Artyus and gives him a splendidly embroidered cloth. Artyus longs to see his daughter, now grown; when she arrives he falls in love with her and obtains papal dispensation to marry her. He has a robe made from the cloth, and on seeing her in it reveals his incestuous intention. When Emaré refuses, Artyus has her cast adrift in the robe, only to regret doing so. After a week at sea Emaré reaches Galys and is given refuge by Kador, the king’s steward; renaming herself Egaré, she teaches embroidery in his household. The king sees ‘Egaré’ in her robe and falls in love. Kador says she is an earl’s daughter, there to teach his children courtesy, and the king marries her, against his mother’s wishes. With ‘Egaré’ pregnant, the king is sent by his overlord to fight the Saracens. ‘Egaré’ bears a son, Segramour, but Kador’s letter to the king with this news is replaced by the king’s mother with one saying that ‘Egaré’ has borne a monster.