Chivalry In King Arthur's Court
Women's view of Chivalry in King Arthur's Court
King Arthur's court is often presented as home to noble knights; however it may also be found that opposing views exist of how Knights of the Roundtable carried themselves, such as presented in Marie de France's Lanval and Chaucer's Wife of Bath, where one knight is being mistreated by his fellow brothers-in-arms and another knight is simply a rapist. These authors question the nobility of the knights as well as of the ladies and through their literary works they both critique the male world as well as the upper class.
Marie de France in her description of King Arthur's court and its rules leaves a romantic notion, as to how noble knight shall carry himself as true gentleman. Her Lanval …show more content…
is formerly "a prince of great estate" (Lanval, line 26), who was also handsome, strong and courageous. Lanval, a foreigner in the land of King Arthur, is nevertheless a loyal subject sworn to serve the king. Yet, his fellow knights are not so good to him, neither is King Arthur who was never rewarded Lanval for his service, therefore it is shown that Arthurian world had its' flaws and chivalry was not always practiced.
The world in which Lanval lives is inhabited with fairies; it's a superficial world, world where people of Marie de France's and Wife of Bath's time wanted to escape into and where superficial saves the protagonist. Both of these literary works, written with two centuries in between of them share the same value system where upper classes are not all that perfect but females of all social standings are actively seeking their knights in shining armor. For Marie de France it's someone like Lanval while for Wife of Bath it's some "lusty bacheler" who could satisfy her desires. Perhaps, Wife of Bath in her tale when speaking of an old, ugly woman and thinks that with young knight by her side would regain her youthfulness. Even though Wife of Bath's description can be considered both like criticisms of chivalry and as suggestion that even such a noble institute such as order of noble knights had its own fallacies, she wouldn't mind to get her hands on young man such as described in her tale. The Wife of Bath tells us a story of "a lusty bacheler" (line 889) who rapes a young virgin lady and therefore is condemned by King Arthur's court to die. Still, at queen's and other ladies' request, his life is given into their hands so that they can decide how to punish him better or not. King Arthur acts as the true gentleman and submits to lady's desire or perhaps out of notion that female can select a better choice of punishment since one of their own was taken advantage of. Perhaps, Wife of Bath being a lusty woman herself pictured herself in queen's shoes and thus wouldn't dare killing a bachelor that she might had an eye on. Yet, it doesn't seem that the knight on trial is as a gentleman as it was expected from persons of his stature. He had not only dishonored a maiden but when sent by queen on the journey in search of the answer to her question he almost dishonors himself upon reappearing in queen's court again. After appearing at Queen's court and delivering the answer to her question, this knight refuses to keep his promise to the old lady who had given him the correct answer to Queen's question.
The Wife here is very ironic of the way nobleman handles himself since he attempts not to keep his promise to old lady and asks her to "ask for something else; take all [my] property and let [my] body go" (lines 1066-67).
Here, it is shown that knights were true noblemen only as long as they didn't have to go against their own will and marry old women. Perhaps in the company of fair ladies or even fairies they behave themselves well and held well up to the common standard of chivalry that all King Arthur's knights obeyed but once made to do something against their will they were no longer noble and it was highly questionable whether they acted better than peasants. For certain, Wife of Bath shows how lower class people regarded nobility and what they thought of them. However, what is interesting is that the old lady this nobleman was married to asks him on their first night "Fareth every knight thus with his wif as ye? Is this the lawe of King Arthures hous?" (lines 1094-95), showing clearly that lower class people thought that King Arthur's knights had to act just like their king as he served as the embodiment of chivalry. As we can see it wasn't really so and there were even knights that weren't great depictions of chivalry as Marie de France described them in
Lanval.
Finally, to answer the question whether the female's description of the knights is any different from the one of the male author I would say that not by much. The main reason is because not only tales such as one told by Wife of Bath and one by Marie de France are mere legends but also because they are purely far-fetched. For Marie de France it was the way to criticize people of her own class and what was the best way than by turning to King Arthur's court who everyone in her time liked hearing, while for Chaucer as Wife of Bath it was an opportunity to pick on high class people of his time.
King Arthur's court is often presented as home to noble knights; however it may also be found that opposing views exist of how Knights of the Roundtable carried themselves, such as presented in Marie de France's Lanval and Chaucer's Wife of Bath, where one knight is being mistreated by his fellow brothers-in-arms and another knight is simply a rapist. These authors question the nobility of the knights as well as of the ladies and through their literary works they both critique the male world as well as the upper class.
Marie de France in her description of King Arthur's court and its rules leaves a romantic notion, as to how noble knight shall carry himself as true gentleman. Her Lanval …show more content…
is formerly "a prince of great estate" (Lanval, line 26), who was also handsome, strong and courageous. Lanval, a foreigner in the land of King Arthur, is nevertheless a loyal subject sworn to serve the king. Yet, his fellow knights are not so good to him, neither is King Arthur who was never rewarded Lanval for his service, therefore it is shown that Arthurian world had its' flaws and chivalry was not always practiced.
The world in which Lanval lives is inhabited with fairies; it's a superficial world, world where people of Marie de France's and Wife of Bath's time wanted to escape into and where superficial saves the protagonist. Both of these literary works, written with two centuries in between of them share the same value system where upper classes are not all that perfect but females of all social standings are actively seeking their knights in shining armor. For Marie de France it's someone like Lanval while for Wife of Bath it's some "lusty bacheler" who could satisfy her desires. Perhaps, Wife of Bath in her tale when speaking of an old, ugly woman and thinks that with young knight by her side would regain her youthfulness. Even though Wife of Bath's description can be considered both like criticisms of chivalry and as suggestion that even such a noble institute such as order of noble knights had its own fallacies, she wouldn't mind to get her hands on young man such as described in her tale. The Wife of Bath tells us a story of "a lusty bacheler" (line 889) who rapes a young virgin lady and therefore is condemned by King Arthur's court to die. Still, at queen's and other ladies' request, his life is given into their hands so that they can decide how to punish him better or not. King Arthur acts as the true gentleman and submits to lady's desire or perhaps out of notion that female can select a better choice of punishment since one of their own was taken advantage of. Perhaps, Wife of Bath being a lusty woman herself pictured herself in queen's shoes and thus wouldn't dare killing a bachelor that she might had an eye on. Yet, it doesn't seem that the knight on trial is as a gentleman as it was expected from persons of his stature. He had not only dishonored a maiden but when sent by queen on the journey in search of the answer to her question he almost dishonors himself upon reappearing in queen's court again. After appearing at Queen's court and delivering the answer to her question, this knight refuses to keep his promise to the old lady who had given him the correct answer to Queen's question.
The Wife here is very ironic of the way nobleman handles himself since he attempts not to keep his promise to old lady and asks her to "ask for something else; take all [my] property and let [my] body go" (lines 1066-67).
Here, it is shown that knights were true noblemen only as long as they didn't have to go against their own will and marry old women. Perhaps in the company of fair ladies or even fairies they behave themselves well and held well up to the common standard of chivalry that all King Arthur's knights obeyed but once made to do something against their will they were no longer noble and it was highly questionable whether they acted better than peasants. For certain, Wife of Bath shows how lower class people regarded nobility and what they thought of them. However, what is interesting is that the old lady this nobleman was married to asks him on their first night "Fareth every knight thus with his wif as ye? Is this the lawe of King Arthures hous?" (lines 1094-95), showing clearly that lower class people thought that King Arthur's knights had to act just like their king as he served as the embodiment of chivalry. As we can see it wasn't really so and there were even knights that weren't great depictions of chivalry as Marie de France described them in
Lanval.
Finally, to answer the question whether the female's description of the knights is any different from the one of the male author I would say that not by much. The main reason is because not only tales such as one told by Wife of Bath and one by Marie de France are mere legends but also because they are purely far-fetched. For Marie de France it was the way to criticize people of her own class and what was the best way than by turning to King Arthur's court who everyone in her time liked hearing, while for Chaucer as Wife of Bath it was an opportunity to pick on high class people of his time.