A host of contradictions

A literary metaphor for the variable temper of the times, Mary's pregnant body was envisioned as a condition, a site, and as an occasion of fourteenth-century writing. In this thesis, I shed light on how Mary's pregnant sidis, or sides, figured fourteenthcentury writing. Drawing on a diverse array of fourteenth-century Middle English texts—namely, Cursor Mundi, The York Cycle Plays, The Book o f the Duchess, The Canterbury Tales, St. Erkenwald, Athelston, and the Chester Nativity Play—I demonstrate how Mary's contradictory "sidis" manifest both on and off stage, not only as a test of and a testament to the expressive power of human discourse, but also as a medium of expression and exchange, as a wilde, yet not onkynde, exemplar and exemplum for charitable literary activity.