What's in a Name?: Machaut, Deschamps, Peronne, and the Uses of Women for Writers in Fourteenth Century France

Guillaume de Machaut's Voir Dit (c. 1364) stages a young woman's poetic apprenticeship and quotes poems and letters said to have been written by her. Although works by Machaut's contemporary Deschamps identify this woman as a certain Peronne, her status as an historical figure remains problematic. This essay revisits the passages in which Machaut and Deschamps name Peronne, and shows that such moments of naming provide the male poet with an occasion to define and name himself, establishing his identity in counterpoint to that of the woman he addresses. Although information about Peronne remains elusive, Machaut's and Deschamps' use of her in their texts testifies both to the importance they accorded to women's amateur literary activity, and to the trepidation with which they sometimes regarded it.