This week sees the first of the blogs composed by you,
the students! You get to take over our online interactions, and direct
our discussion from the outset. Please be considerate of your
colleagues' efforts and be sure to contribute generously online and in
class.
Kathleen
Emily writes:
The gender expectations of this time were that
women were to run the households and to raise the children; marriage was about
financial and political connections and love was something reserved for Christ.
But with the rise of interest in courtly and romantic love, marriage was
idealized as being a symbol of love and expression of passion, thereby altering
the gender expectations of women being bought and sold as wives, but as women
who were something to be desired and loved. We’ve looked at the story of
Abelard and Heloise, and another I think it would be interesting to look at is
the poem about Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere:
Sir Lancelot and Queen
Guinevere by Lord Alfred Tennyson
Like souls that balance joy
and pain,
With tears and smiles from
heaven again
The maiden Spring upon the
plain
Came in a sunlit fall of
rain.
In crystal vapor everywhere
Blue isles of heaven
laugh'd between,
And far, in forest-deeps
unseen,
The topmost elm-tree gather'd
green
From draughts of balmy air.
Sometimes the linnet piped
his song;
Sometimes the throstle
whistled strong;
Sometimes the sparhawk,
wheel'd along,
Hush'd all the groves from
fear of wrong;
By grassy capes with fuller
sound
In curves the yellowing
river ran,
And drooping chestnut-buds
began
To spread into the perfect
fan,
Above the teeming ground.
Then, in the boyhood of the
year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen
Guinevere
Rode thro' the coverts of
the deer,
With blissful treble
ringing clear.
She seem'd a part of joyous
Spring;
A gown of grass-green silk
she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps
before;
A light-green tuft of
plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.
Now on some twisted
ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling
rivulet,
In mosses mixt with violet
Her cream-white mule his
pastern set;
And fleeter now she skimm'd
the plains
Than she whose elfin
prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,
When all the glimmering
moorland rings
With jingling bridle-reins.
As she fled fast thro' sun
and shade,
The happy winds upon her
play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from
the braid.
She look'd so lovely, as
she sway'd
The rein with dainty
finger-tips,
A man had given all other
bliss,
And all his worldly worth
for this,
To waste his whole heart in
one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.
We’ve already looked at Abelard and Heloise, but
the story of Lancelot and Guinevere idealized the passion and lust that was so
highly sought after with the notion of romantic and courtly love.
Throughout the early, or the low middle ages the life of many consisted of
being raised by your parents, married off to secure money, political
connections, more land or other materialistic acquisitive means, and then the
men ran the farms or worked the land, and the women raised the children. There
were slight variations throughout socio-economic groups of course, but that was
a generic and largely accepted routine. Within the readings, focus on the
contrasts drawn between Lady Eve (from the Garden of Eden) and the Virgin Mary.
One was condemned for the downfall of man, while the other was praised with
bringing the Messiah to man and how this might have changed or been affected
through the concepts of marriage. This also relates to virginity, which many of
Gen Y may not think all that much about nowadays, could have resulted in
women’s perceived ‘value’ being lowered and fines being paid to her father as
compensation back in the day.
~ ~ ~
Clare adds:
The following are some questions which you may see
as a guideline in pinpointing some aspects of this week's text. Whilst you don’t have
to write out exact answers for these questions, please take time to consider
each of them, and what the author/s of this week’s reading opinions are.
- How did the ‘cult of Mary’ or the ‘cult of
virginity’ influence the lives of medieval women? Did the birth of Christ,
from the Virgin Mary, lift women’s lowly position in medieval society or
were they still scorned as the ancestors of the first sinner, Eve?
- What are the key determinants for marriage
during the High Middle Ages? Did the Church’s views differ from that of
the heads of families and clans?
- How did the duties of wives and women differ
among the classes? Did activities such as needlework and tapestry making
(among the upper classes) or being a wet-nurse (among lower classes)
further hinder their freedom or enhance it?
- It was expected that a good obedient wife
would conceive and bear many children. How did this constant state of
pregnancy affect women? Was motherhood a type of outlet for the medieval
woman or was it just another shackle to endure?
Also, consider these quotes from Christine de Pizan. She
appears to be quite a unique and talented woman. Would you agree? Is she a rare
example of an intelligent woman of her time, or just one lucky enough to be
granted the right to education and thus able to express her feelings through
prose and text?
“The man or the woman in whom resides greater
virtue is the higher; neither the loftiness nor the lowliness of a person lies
in the body according to the sex, but in the perfection of conduct and virtues.”
“How many women are there ... who because of
their husbands' harshness spend their weary lives in the bond of marriage in
greater suffering than if they were slaves among the Saracens?”
