Gender_and_Gentility_in_Medieval_England

The subject of gentility is approached in a wide spectrum in Marie de France's Lanval and Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale. Both pieces illustrate the surface of gentility to be something almost perfect, described in detail that portrays unsurpassed beauty, wit, and morality. However, both pieces also hint at grave descrepancies of the higher class perhaps alluding to a social issue often raised in societies where class is so distinctly separated. Lanval brings to life the world of Avalon with a broken promise to a fairy queen while The Wife of Bath's Tale begins with the description of a perfect knight who is also a heinous criminal. Both tales approach gentility with different lights but perhaps come to the same conclusion: On the surface, the high class is not all that it seems. Marie de France and Chaucer make it clear in different perspectives through the view of women, the roles of the gentility themselves, and the moral point of the tale that things are not all that they seem in the upper class. Through history, we see the typical role of a woman as submissive to her husband, a homemaker, and cast in the part of 'seen but not heard.' Early literature is lacking a significant number of female writers, politics sees few female leaders until modern times, and the workforce consisted mostly of men until after the second World War. Those women that did 'make it in a man's world' stick out in our minds as anomolies. Marie de France, as one of the only documented female writers of the medieval period, is one of those women. In her lais, Lanval she describes in lines 143-145 the control of a fairy queen over the knight that loves her: "'Love,' she said, 'I admonish you now, I command and beg you, do not let any man know about this...'" (Marie de France 206). This illustrates a unique concept in which the female character of the story exhibits control over the man. Knights often fought for 'courtly love,' and their ladies. This extends beyond that love into a realm of obedience and sovereignty over a man that rarely (if at all) occured outside of literature and fairy tales. The higher class was in control of society, and they held that control over the peasants of the feudal system and, for the most part, the women in their own class. This power, seen from the eyes of the women of gentility, must have seemed quite appealing in their semi-oppressed state. It would seem, in some cases, this power was sought through literature. Chaucer's 'Dame Alison' also tells a tale of fairies in which a Knight must seek out the answer to a question asked of him by Queen Guinevere. Critics argue over Alison's role as a sort of pre-modern feminist or a satirical anti-feminist but it would seem, by the powerful roles weilded by women in her tale, that she is more feminist than anti-feminist. Guinevere and her ladies manage to save the Knight from his execution and send him on a seemingly impossible task to find the answer to an unanswerable question. Furthermore, the Knight then falls under the control of a fairy, who tells him the answer to his question. "'My lige lady, generally," quod he, 'Wommen desire to have sovereinetee as well over hir housbonde as hir love, and for to been in maistrye him above.'" (Chaucer 398). The answer, reflecting the psychological state of Lanval, is that women desire to be powerful above their husbands. Perhaps this is a direct result of being powerless in their own class, surrounded by the elite without a say of their own. Moreover, the role of gentility themselves is something to be taken into account. In the feudal system, there are distinct lines between the levels of classes. Gentry, nobles, and peasants are all easily distinguishable from each other and they all hold different positions. Peasants work, gentry and nobles rule. There is evidence of this in both Lanval and The Wife of Bath's Tale. However, we find two very different people holding the role of 'villian' in both pieces. In Lanval it is Queen Guinevere who accuses Lanval of taking advantage of her because he has broken his promise to the Fairy Queen and admitted to Guinevere that his Lady is far fairer than the Queen herself. This is, yet again, another example of a woman's attempt at weilding power in a man's world. Contrasting the female enemy of Lanval, Chaucer's "lusty bacheler" (Chaucer 395) is, at the same time, a Knight of Arthur's Round Table and a heinous rapist. He takes control over a female without consent, leading to the conclusion that what women want is control in the same way the men of the medieval system had control. In Lanval it is the fairy that saves Lanval from being executed over the Queen's false claims and in The Wife of Bath's Tale it is another fairy, also a woman, that teaches the Knight the answer the question and makes sure he has learned from what he discovered at the same time. Both females are weilding power over the men in the tales in ways that were otherwise impossible anywhere but in literature of the day. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, are the morals of both of the tales. It could be argued that perhaps Lanval is little more than a fairy tale but digging deeper it could also be said that the piece teaches several lessons. The most obvious is to keep a promise but underlying that is a moral regarding an equality of power. In the higher and lower classes alike, women were little more than marital bargaining tools. They had very little, if any, voice in the way things were conducted. In Lanval the Knight learns that women are something more than what they were once believed. He is under the control of a fairy but she is still a female and represents the feminine half of the species. She is the epitome of good and beautiful. In lines 100-105, she is described: "Her body was well shaped and elegant; for the heat, she had thrown over herself, a precious cloak of white ermine, covered with purple alexandrine, but her whole side was uncovered, her face, her neck and bosom; she was whiter than the hawthorn flower..." (Marie de France 205). Dame Alison, in Chaucer's tale, also exhibits the personality of a powerful female herself. She is a strong-willed, outlasting businesswoman of great worth and she tells a tale in which women desire nothing more than power over themselves, their houses, and their husbands. In this tale, the Knight goes from being a despised criminal sentenced to death for his crimes to a dutiful and obedient husband, an unheard of type of character in medieval literature. Marie de France and Chaucer, although writing from different perspectives, in different social classes, in different times, have come to a similar conclusion. The feudal system separated not only the classes, but alienated members of those classes from the people like them. Women were powerless compared to men, trading tools and marital peace offerings. They were often times forced to do things they would not otherwise do and go to lengths that would not be necessary for men in order to gain the power they watched being weilded. As members of the upper class, they were thought of as gentility...as power elite, with the ability to control those below them. However, that power was solely in the hands of men unless women used cunning, wit, and literature to gain favor and grasp some of that power for themselves. Works Cited Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Longman Anthology of British Literature The Middle Ages. Vol. 1. New York: Longman Pub Group, 2009. 375-403. Print. Marie De France. The Longman Anthology of British Literature The Middle Ages. Vol. 1. New York: Longman Pub Group, 2009. 203-19. Print