Material Object

Dehumanized from the start, Bisclavret’s wife was primed to take on monstrous qualities. While the betrayal of her husband was not a just or morally commendable course of action, I have to question if her crime fits her punishment, especially in light of Bisclavret’s violent outbursts. And, to that matter, what was her crime in the end? Was it hiding her husband's clothes to freeze him in his werewolf form, or was it her infidelity? While it is impossible to say, definitively, what Marie De France’s intentioned moral of Bisclavret was, it certainly served as a warning to the women of Medieval English society: deceit, disloyalty, and adultery are greater crimes than mutilation, as was the fate of a real teenaged girl over a thousand years ago in Medieval England (Cole et al. 1268).

Her skull, which was excavated at Oakridge, in Basingstoke, England, is yellowed, with one tooth still attached. Estimated to date back to 776-946 AD, the skull is in relatively good condition, with only some damage occurring on its anterior side (Cole et al. 1267). The most significant feature of the skull, however, are the cuts across its forehead, and along the mouth and nose area, indicating the removal of these features. Although it is not known for certain if these wounds were fatal, their edges are too sharp to indicate that any healing took place. This means that the girl died shortly after they were inflicted (Cole et al. 1269).

Despite the fact that this skull - demonstrating the deliberate removal of nose and mouth - is the first material example of facial mutilation found from Anglo-Saxon England, there are undoubtedly countless more of its kind. Nose-cutting, or rhinotomy, is a punishment that stems from the Old Testament as a means to control and define the norms of female sexuality (Skinner 147). This practice, adopted into many legal codes, was a consequence for women accused of adultery in a Medieval Anglo-Saxon context (Cole et al. 1274). Eventually formally written into King Cnut’s legal codes, rhinotomies continued to be prevalent for centuries to come in Anglo-Norman society (Skinner 146).

Although so much will never be known about the teenage girl who’s skull is now recognized as the Oakridge Cranium, we do know that she was the victim of a rhinotomy, and that her wounds were the work of a long, thin blade. At the time of her death, this blade would have likely been an iron knife (Geggel).

The knife shown in this exhibit gives us an idea of what such a blade would have looked like. Housed at the British Museum, the knife is dated back to between the late 5th and early 7th centuries AD, and originated from England. This makes it a couple hundred years older than the girl. Rusted and in poor condition, the knife’s shape - its blade and handle - are still distinguished. At 8 inches long, with just over half of that length belonging to the knife’s blade, it is clear to imagine the ease at which such a weapon could perform a rhinotomy.

As I learn more about the practice of punitive rhinotomy, I find myself wondering more about its victims. We know that the teenager of the Oakridge Cranium died from her wounds - likely due to the severing of the artery at the back of her nose (Cole et al. 1269). But some people must have lived on. What was life like for the survivors? Were they cast out as monsters, just like Bisclavet’s wife and her banished clan? After searching for any illumination of a medieval noseless monster, I came across the example shown in this exhibit.

It is a 14th-century illustration on parchment, created after the writing of Bisclavret and found in Thomas de Kent’s Romance of all Chivalry. Although these creatures are not actual depictions of the descendants of Bisclavret’s wife, they provide a possible window through which we can view the medieval perspective of noseless adulterers. Not as ferocious monsters, but as pitiful beings with vacant wide eyes and emotionless expressions. Their bodies are humanoid in shape, but they are naked. Like Bisclavret, stuck without clothes in his wolf form, this is a sure signal that these beings are animal, or Other. They are not even granted the same rich colour found elsewhere on the page - instead, they are reduced into blank, empty creatures.