Book Lovers Day: Le Roman de Silence by Heldris of Cornwall

The 9th August 2026 is Book Lovers Day. This is an opportune day to tell the history of a medieval romance story manuscript, Le Roman de Silence. It was part of the noted Willoughby Library, which was kept at Middleton Hall for centuries. Le Roman de Silence is one of the most significant manuscripts within the surviving Willoughby Library Collection, which was purchased by the University of Nottingham from Lord Middleton in 2007.

The manuscript of Le Roman de Silence in the Willoughby Library Collection is the only known worldwide copy of this Arthurian tale by Heldris of Cornwall. It is believed that the author’s name is a pseudonym and that the story was influenced by Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae. It is written in Picardian Old French on vellum, is illustrated, is believed to date to the early 13th century and consists of over 6,000 octosyllabic rhyming lines.

Miniature of Heldris de Cornüalle at the start of Le Roman de Silence, University of Nottingham, WLC/LM/6, folio 188r, uploaded by Smec, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Part of the story was transcribed in the Middleton Manuscripts and this is a translation of that text, which includes the introduction, the start of the story, the conclusion of the story and the last words by the author:

Master Heldris of Cornwall

Writes these verses entirely in keeping with the subject,

For those who are commanded and ruled,

At the beginning of the tale that he has found,

So that whoever understands it may first discern them,

And may avoid those sorts of people,

Who, when they hear a good story

Do not know the worth of what it leads to;

And he does not want it to be scattered among people

Who prize money more than honour,

Nor among people who want only to hear tales

And yet have no concern for what may be heard in them

Nor for any reward they might wish to give in return.

A clerk could spend a long time learning

To find rhyme and to find verses,

For this age is so perverse

That he could sooner find a rhyme

Than he could find truth in this world.

Evan was once King of England,

And he kept the land well in peace;

Except only for King Arthur

There was nothing in the realm equal to Arthur’s valour

Within the kingdom of the English.

His command was not English-born,

For there was no man in the realm

From Winchester up to Durham,

Who dared to break his command,

Nor would fail to carry it out in his service:

By such a covenant he had neither right nor wrong

Nor would he depart from it until death.

Great joy came of this, as is right.

Master Heldris says here

That one ought to love a good woman more

Than to hate or blame a bad one.

But striving more to do good

Here I wish to bring my tale to its end.

Blessed be he whom I tell you of

Blessed be he who made the tale;

And to those men and women who hear it

May Jesus grant that which they desire.

The story concerns the adventures of Cador and then his daughter Silence. The author begins by a moral condemnation of the greed of the wealthy class. Then, it tells how the King prohibited any female from inheriting and how Cador came to marry Eufemie and became the Earl of Cornwall – he fought a dragon. Cador and Eufemie agreed that if their child was a girl, which it was, they would lie to everybody that it was a boy so that the child would be able to inherit. Nature and Nurture feature as characters influencing Silence as to whether to be male or female, with various trials and tribulations. Silence then runs away with minstrels and is seduced by the Queen who, after being refused, accuses Silence of raping her. Silence is then sent to the King of France, then brought back to England to fight in war, then sent to capture Merlin (who can only be caught by “the trick of a woman”). After being caught, Merlin reveals the truth about Silence, which proves the Queen lied to the King. The Queen is executed (along with her cross-dressing male lover who is in disguise as a nun) and the King marries Silence. He strips away her male clothing, changes her name to the feminine Silentia and makes her Queen. The concluding moral of the story is the virtue of being a good woman.

Further Reading:

W. H. Stevenson, Report on the Manuscripts of Lord Middleton, Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1911. p.224-5.

"Romances and Fabliaux (WLC/LM/6)", Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham, https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/collectionsindepth/medievalliterarymanuscripts/wollatonlibrarycollection/wlclm6.aspx

Author - Debbie Jordan, Middleton Hall Volunteer.

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