Abstract
Lay Le Freine, found in the Auchinleck MS, is one of the two extant translations of Marie de France's lais into Middle English: unlike Sir Launfal, it seems to have garnered relatively little critical interest, despite being one of the few texts in Middle English identified as a lay within the text itself. Lay, not easily defined either formally or thematically, shares a fluid boundary with the romance - after all, Marie de France's Lai le Fresne was later transformed into a much longer romance, Roman de Galeran de Bretagne.
These various translations (whether within the "genre" of the lay or across genres) seem to be in keeping with the social translation of the heroine: Le Freine is accepted into the community intrinsically, by birth right. She remains silent for larger part of her own story, like the lay itself, which also refuses to define its own boundaries.
Lay Le Freine highlights issues of silence and good/bad speech, until the final recognition of the heroine through text/ile. Material artifact thus takes precedence over speech: a woman's work over woman's word, a position subtly subverted by the authorship of the lay.
Since the lay refuses a singular definition, its shifting material presence across various transformations must be interrogated - and Lay Le Freine provides a suitable material for such interrogation.