ABSTRACT
A belief in a female proclivity for garrulity meant that the figure of the gossip was not limited to the secular world of disgruntled wives either. The paradox of the gossiping recluse highlights the degree to which the traditional alignment of the orifices dedicated to vocal and sexual activity, based on the Classical tradition that the female body has an upper and a lower stoma, has neglected a third orifice, the ear. Understanding what makes the quest for "tidynges" so dangerous in the eyes of social authorities requires a more precise definition of gossip as a theorized discursive practice. In the move to create the gossips' circle as a counterpoint to men's textual communities, the scribe lays out some formal differences between oral and literate modalities. The genealogy that he attributes to women's wisdom through Zoroaster nevertheless depicts women's authority as emerging from a fissure, not a foundation.
