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THE RELATIVE FREEDOM OF WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES
Joan Kelly-Gadol, author of the essay �Did Women Have a Renaissance� claims that women benefited from the courtly love scenario present in the early and middle Middle Ages. She claims that one proof of the power of women during this time period was through �the regulation of female sexuality as compared with male sexuality� (176). By this, Kelly-Gadol suggests the general acceptance of the principle of �courtly love.� The Lais of Marie de France is used in Kelly-Gadol�s article to support this idea. Many of Kelly-Gadol�s hypotheses of equality rest on the fact that women were free to take lovers. This paper will explore the concept, in light of the many contradictions present in Kelly-Gadol�s work and between her work and that of the Lais of Marie de France.
Contrary to Kelly-Gadol�s assertion, women of the Middle Ages were not free or powerful at all. The thesis of Kelly-Gadol�s article is that courtly love provided an example of women who were in control, or at least equal, with their partners. On page 183, Kelly-Gadol states that �It gave women lovers, peers rather than masters; and it gave them a justifying ideology for adultery.� She expands upon this, explaining that this gave women more social power and equality overall. However, she earlier stated that �Adultery, after all, required certain precautions� (181). This suggests that women were not exactly �free� to take lovers, as her thesis seems to suggest. If women were �free,� they would not need to hide their extramarital relations. Another claim, to the effect that courtly love reinforced political marriage, would seemingly support the idea that women were free to choose outside lovers to satisfy themselves, as their purpose in marrying had only been alliance of political power. This argument has the same flaws as the argument for women being in control, even partially, of their own public lives. If society required to hiding adultery, it was not socially acceptable in a broad sense.
This brings us to the Lais of Marie de France. There are several points I would like to make with the six examples provided. The first is that of the role of lovers. Within the six stories told by Marie de France, there is only one clear case in which the woman approaches the man. And in that particular case, Guilliadun does not approach Eliduc for courtly love, but for simple courting. Guilliadun, importantly, was also single. She could lawfully approach Eliduc. In the case of Guigemar and his lady, both were afflicted with love at the same time, and sufficiently isolated to be able to declare it equally. However, in the rest of the stories, the men approached the women. Marie de France addresses this issue in the second paragraph of �Chaitivel.� �It would be less dangerous,� de France writes, �for a man to court every lady in an entire land than for a lady to remove a single besotted lover from her skirts� (105). The passage suggests that a man, rejected for an indecent offer, could seek revenge on a woman.
The implication of male instigation of courtly love and de France�s statement that it was dangerous for a woman to reject a man�s suit are very serious. It imperils the idea that a woman could enter a courtly relationship freely. In the story of �Equitan,� there is the issue at hand that the woman is being courted by a king. Her husband is the king�s seneschal. Her entire fortune relies on the king�s good will. While this is an isolated case, it is necessary to look into the inequalities of a man and woman entering into a courtly relationship. An offer for courtly love by a man who could damage the lady�s holdings, family, or wealth might well be able to coerce her into a love relationship through threat.
A second look reveals that two of the six tales involve a husband locking his wife in an impenetrable isolation to prevent her from being unfaithful. This example acknowledges the husband�s fear of courtly love, which suggests that courtly love was indeed widespread. It also points out the husband�s complete control over his wife. While Kelly-Gadol may be correct about the equality within courtly love, the situation of women overall was not improved. Husbands had the right to lock wives away, suggesting the continuation of a very strong patriarchal tradition. In the story of �Eliduc,� Eliduc steals Guilliadun away from her father�s kingdom without his approval. Guilliadun needed her father�s permission to leave and marry. This strengthens the argument that men, within the family as in marriage, controlled women.
If courtly love were indeed an equal conquest, as we have already seen it is not, it would stand to reason that a woman would easily enter into a relationship if she so desired. However, in the three tales in which an active seduction occurs, the man resorts to pleading his case of love. Indeed, these arguments read very much like a sales pitch. Guigemar implores, �Before anyone discovers or hears of [our] love, [we] will greatly profit from it� (50). Equitan says to his lady, �Do not regard me as your king, but as your vassal and lover� (58). The knight, Muldumarec, in the tale of Yonec hurriedly explains that �I never loved any woman but you, nor shall I ever love another� (87). Why are these men explaining their motives in this way? The text suggests that while the men often do not profit from courtly love, they at least are free to escape from the stigma attached to it. When Guigemar and his lady are discovered by her jealous husband, the literary device of the ship simply carries him away. In �Yonec,� Muldumarec dies peacefully. Had he not given his lover a magical ring to cause her husband to forger her faithlessness, she would have soon followed him. However, her death would have been face to face with the wrath of her husband instead of dying peacefully in the arms of her beloved, as does Muldumarec. The lais of �Equitan� also follows this trend. Equitan jumps into the scalding water to hide his �wickedness� (60). The lady is pushed into the tub by her husband. She does not choose her fate. And, a final example, is the case of Eliduc. Eliduc receives congratulations from his first wife, when he brings home a young woman to take her place. The first wife even takes the veil so that Eliduc may marry Guilliadun without issue.
This trend is very interesting, especially when coupled with the fact that of all the women characters, only Guildeduec, Guilliadun, and Noguent are named. Noguent is only named once, referenced as the sister of Guigemar. De France makes a point to exclude the names of women. In �Chaitivel,� de France relates to the reader that �The lady whose story I wish to relate was courted constantly because of her beauty and worth�� and the very next sentence reads �There lived in Brittany four men whose names I do not know� (105). These passages are very contradictory. The story is about the lady. She is given to be of beauty and worth. Yet it remains that the important names belong to the four men who courted her.
These aspects of the stories imply that women were seen as inferiors. Ultimate responsibility was given to the woman for the act of adultery. As the adulteress, she was liable to receive punishment in some form. And as the story of Eliduc seems to suggest, if the man committed adultery, it was up to the woman to behave appropriately and without anger. De France may even go so far as to allude to the failure being the wife�s, in the case of her husband�s deflection. In the case of naming, Marie de France only allows the reader to see male figures as important enough to be named. Women might be queens or ladies, but beyond that, their influence was limited.
Following this critical analysis of de France�s work, it is hard to see where Kelly-Gadol saw the lady giving Eliduc a kiss �freely.� Compelled by Eliduc�s courtly words and trapped by her elderly husband, the lady without a name has no other freedom at all except to give this kiss. Kelly-Gadol claims that women promoted the ideas of courtly love through recitation, singing, and plays involving courtly writings. The genre of courtly literature, she also says, was greatly contributed to by women. However, to hold Marie de France up as an example of a courtly writer that supports ideas of equality and freedom is grossly overstated. De France does uphold a general idea that equality existed within courtly love. But the ideal does not go beyond that. De France�s writing style, portrayal of the sexes, and the roles that they take all point to a heavily sexist, patriarchal society in which women had little or no freedom.
MARGERY KEMPE IN HER TIME
Throughout the known history of the western world, society has been predominately paternalistic. The trend gave men increased power, which in turn came to signal oppression to many women. Restricted to petticoats and petty matters, women were turned away from the functioning society. But not all women were satisfied with this turn of events, and found ways in which to express themselves as individuals and as people in the general society. The Book of Margery Kempe illustrates both sides of the way in which women behaved, and shall be used in this paper as the primary text in discovering how Margery pushed the limits imposed on a typical English wife in the Middle Ages.
Margery was the daughter of the mayor of Norwich. This was a matter of honor to her, and at the beginning of her book, she notes this in saying, �she was come of worthy kindred� (44). The form of honor she gave her family was in dressing finely. This form follows the display value of well-dressed women, which remains visible in modern society. Although Margery was indulging in pride, her attitude towards dress was a product of a society that expected her to have a pretty face. Though her outfits did not gain the respect she desired in her husband�s community, she had grown up in a household that expected her to be a well-dressed woman.
This example provides a glimpse at Margery as a well adapted woman of the Middle Ages. In Chapter Two, as she explores the issues of dressing, brewing, and milling, she shows her willingness to take part in standardized women�s areas. It is here that the reader comes to a question. Does Margery maintain this willingness, or is her new vocation a ticket into a world where she begins to act and think outside of her gender shaped cage?
It is my suggestion that Margery breaks free of the patriarchal society as she begins her quest in faith. The first indicator of this change occurs when Margery begins her quest for chastity. This begins in Chapter 3, after Margery hears a heavenly melody and declares �All the love and affection of my heart is withdrawn from all earthy creatures and set on God alone� (46). This is an extremely significant passage. In this one statement, Margery gives to herself the power over her own will and life that is usually only reserved for men. And even more importantly, she follows this path without the support of many of the male figures in her life, which previously would have influenced her greatly.
This argument finds a supporting premise in the attitude of Margery�s husband towards her decision to be chaste. Her husband does not find Margery�s argument sufficient, and declares he will �do so when God willed� (47). Despite her husband�s refusal to embrace chastity, Margery holds firm to her decision, rejecting pleasure in physical contact and love, although she �bore him children during that time [of three years]� (47). Throughout Margery�s commentary, men continue to object to her plans and visions, but she continues. Indeed, she begins to mold men to do her bidding.
Margery�s intelligence and the confidence she gained through her conversations with Christ play a key role in her movement towards independence. Margery displays a fair amount of wit in her bargaining to go to Rome and Jerusalem on pilgrimage. Through inheriting a sum of money, she arranges to pay off all her husband�s debts to gain his permission to go to Jerusalem. Obviously this move was very canny. Though her husband clearly displayed a desire to have things his way (as noted in his frustration about being forced into chastity on page 58), he clearly could benefit from Margery�s proposition. Although Margery often benefited from �mystical� events, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem is entirely a product of Margery�s manipulation of circumstances. Margery doesn�t give this reason, however. Which makes the reading of her book somewhat a stretch a times, as the narrator constantly gives good events a holy origin and bad events a punishment aspect. However, it is very significant that Margery does actively pursue her own interests successfully throughout the work. It suggests that women may have had a more subtle method of obtaining power that was layered below and between the layers of oppression. Margery�s method of writing furthers this in that she constantly places the initiating action on God or Christ. If women did not see themselves as initiators, it is even less likely that men, who did the much greater amount of writing, would be likely to give women an initiating role in society. Again, this follows the patriarchal pattern, but the significance should not be lost through assumption.
One of Margery�s most consistent moves within the text is to seek out allies. Though she often claims to weep and mourn �because I did not have any of the shame, scorn and contempt that I deserved� (64). Despite this claim to want scorn and contempt, Margery enlists people throughout who give her support and encouragement. Early in the text, she describes a vicar who would take her confession when she visited Norwich. This in part includes a brief paragraph sketching a period in which she was at trial, and the vicar who �delivered her from the malice of her enemies� (76). This is in marked contrast to her earlier conversation with the monks. In this section, she implies that any person who has the good sense to befriend her is likely one of the people who employ a higher grace from God. She even notes that �he would pass with great grace,� just two lines down from her statement about his friendship.
This is not an isolated incident. Not long after describing the vicar, Margery actually goes so far as to complain about a confessor who is not sympathetic to her visions. �He that is my confessor in your absence is very sharp with me,� she says, �He won�t believe my feelings; he sets no store by them at all; he considers them merely trifles and jokes and that is most painful to me�� (80). She is speaking to her normal confessor, who is very sympathetic and supportive.
The best and most vivid example of this trend is present when Margery is living and traveling through Italy. For a while, a point of issue between her and others is the color of her clothing. She wears white, as she has been commanded by God to do so. Others find this very inappropriate, however. A priest who was in the group she originally began traveling with was very against this mode of dress for Margery. �The cause of his malice was that she would not obey him,� (120) Margery writes. This is very odd, because on the very next page, she is ordered to return to black dress by another priest�whom she obeys. What is causing this discrepancy? God does not command her when she decides to obey the second priest. It is a free choice of obedience.
Even more oddly is her reaction when she meets up with the first priest. He is pleased with her return to black clothes. However, she responds with comments that incite the priest. This is again contrary to her earlier statement about the reason for his dislike of her. The relationship as described is that of mutual dislike, in which Margery accounts for portions of the antagonism as does he. She underscores her belief in her rightness with a statement that is striking in its directness. �I have no liking for him;� God says, �for as long as he speaks against you he speaks against me, for I am in you and you are in me� (121-2) Is this a divine support of Margery�s own feelings? And of a man of God, none the less? This is an incredible leap for her to take.
This situation has a valuable conclusion as well. Around Christmas time, Margery is commanded by Jesus to go back to her confessor and ask him for permission to wear white once more. �And when she told him the will of our Lord he did not dare once say �no.� And so she wore white clothes ever after� (128). Here, Margery clearly asks for an action, which the priest does not desire to allow. But in believing Margery�s tale, he is forced to allow her to do the thing, whether it is her will or God�s will is irrelevant.
It is here that the argument comes back into play. Margery, as seen through these episodes, is molding her situation. She is using pressure to apply to people around her to receive the proper effect. Although she phrases many of her statements in passive language, and gives all the credit of nearly all her actions to God, or to Christ, she is in fact making entirely human choices. She returns again and again to people who support her and mostly avoids people who are in active disagreement with her. At times she even attributes this characteristic to God, who gives her justification to dislike various people. This theme repeats over and over. Margery, unlike her statements, is simply another person. She has not conquered the need for affection or excuses. And since she can be identified as merely another variation of the basic human form, her manipulation of events is significant to the role other women may have played in their communities. Margery Kempe found many ways to the ends she desired, including God. She lived in a paternalistic environment, and reacted to paternalistic culture in a fairly standard manner. But she did control her own destiny, and she made choices that moved around the standards of her day.
Margery came to understand her place in society. Yet she moved in a public sphere and managed to preserve a great deal of autonomy. Her example suggests that other women were not always fully repressed into standardized roles. Women, despite patriarchy, could be active in society.
THE IMPLICATIONS OF APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE
The apocalypse is a major theme in all cultures. The idea of an eternity in which nothing significant changes lies uneasily on the dreams of humanity. Beyond religions, scientists search for an ending, a reversal of the Big Bang. Sociologists look for the cracks in society that will lead to an annihilation of our species. Everyone looks to the future and wonders�. What will it be like? Will I live to see the time of the apocalypse? Will I be right?
One specific genre of literature revels in the market of the future. Science fiction leads the field in bold guesses of what might be in store for us. The popularity of science fiction is recent. Following the advent of the nuclear bomb, the immediate future of homo sapiens became less assured. Turn of the century new technology changed the lives of everyday people drastically. Science fiction developed as a way for people to cope with their new circumstances. Literature and television programs described distant worlds and amazing technology. Compared to Issac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and The Twilight Zone, no one�s life could quite feel as weird or confusing.
Science fiction frequently deals in the apocalyptic myth type. It bears symbols in its message. These symbols are placed so as to reassure the reader, to give the reader both a point of reference and a grain of hope. Even in the end, the apocalypse. They also give hints to the immense load of cultural and religious history attending these myths. Most dominant in Western culture, Christianity plays a major role in Science Fiction literature. Alice Turner, in History of Hell, notes �Christianity was an apocalyptic religion, the whole point of which rested on death and salvation through resurrection� (Turner, 76).
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, by Orson Scott Card, provides a fantastic example of the apocalyptic myth in action. A future society, which has machines that allow them to watch the past, makes a discovery that they could go back in time and make changes. But to do so, they will erase their own history from the point in 1490, when the travelers arrive, onwards. �Yes, they said, we can send a living person back into the past. But if we do so there is no chance, no chance whatsoever, that our present world will survive in any form� (Card, 215)
Conquering the Americas never was a good idea. In retrospect, many people feel a latent brand of guilt associated with nearly annihilating the entire native population. In association, present day science informs our society that pollutants from cars, factories, and household items are damaging our world. A large-scale extinction of animals began 10,000 years ago, and has only increased in recent history.
There are two styles of apocalypse in science fiction. These types are environmental and societal. An environmental apocalypse in science fiction often echoes the Christian version of the apocalypse, with massive changes to the earth. The changes are so drastic that people can no longer live there, and must leave or find another alternative. In this version is the �healing technology� motif, which describes first how the world will be made over, and avoid the coming apocalypse. Often, the healing technology fails. This is important to the overall myth.
In Pastwatch, this motif applies. The world has come to a peaceful time, in which everyone becomes who he or she wants to be, and is graded by achievement. Technology causes clouds to water the Sahara and the Amazon River valley. People work tasks for the good of everyone and themselves. But the world will not heal. The earth is too hot, the oceans are rising too fast, soon the croplands will flood and there will be global famines�. Scientists speak, saying, �If we started rationing right now, it would mean that the devastating famines would begin in twenty years instead of six� (Card, 238). Following this obstacle, climatologists predict an ice age, which will reduce technology levels to stone age for the survivors.
The failed technology symbolizes a futility. Despite the clouds which release rain where and when it is needed, and people have amazing skills, nothing can stop what is already in play. The glaciers have melted, symbolizing a force outside the scope of humanities� healing powers. The time in which people must pay their dues has arrived. �The damage our ancestors did was too great. It is not within our power to sop the forces that have already been in motion for centuries� (Card, 237-238). Despite the seemingly oblivious nature in which the planet is shedding her people, this is a religious reference. The earth takes on the position of God, and punishes humans for their disrespect and excesses.
The second type of apocalyptic myth, societal, deals with a societal delusion. This delusion often causes gigantic pain and suffering. It may lead to the environmental apocalypse. Societal apocalypse avoids the unavoidable God reference, however. Societal apocalypse can be overturned, and a new society can be implemented. Hope appears at this point of the science fiction stories.
Pastwatch proves this point through its pastwatching machines. Through these amazing devices, the protagonist, Tagiri, discovers that a future before theirs had changed history by causing Columbus to go to the Americas, rather than leading a Crusade. Through research, she finds in the Crusade version of that history the Aztecs conquered Europe. �Think of what it would have meant to human history, if the powerful, technology wielding civilization that swept to dominance over the whole world was one that believed in human sacrifice� (Card, 190) Tagiri says, realizing the terrible history which was the fountainhead of her own.
The decision of Pastwatch to go back in time is a careful one, and echoes the prior �Pastwatchers� and allows both futures to right their wrongs. Societal apocalypse is averted through remolding of the past, until it will eventually be sustainable. Sustainable in environment and society. The remolding of society also holds a religious connotation, similar to Jesus. Tagiri�s daughter makes a comparison, �[W]e will sacrifice to create their history, as parents sacrifice to create healthy, happy children� (Card, 242). The old society is able to remake the new, in essence, take away original sin, and allow people to ascend to heaven.
The Handmaid�s Tale by Margaret Atwood gives proof the example of a societal apocalypse. It is entirely composed of a story of a societal apocalypse. Religious fanatics have taken over the United States, through a �terrorist� attack on Congress. An ultra-conservative and strict society rules. Men and women in their second marriages or single parents are labeled adulterers and arrested or forced to work as �Handmaidens,� or virtual baby makers for childless couples.
Atwood makes the reader aware, through subtle remarks and actions of characters, that this society is not self-sustaining. Adherents break their own rules, dissenters are simply sent away or to work camps where they cannot live for long. Without the population the new order survives on, they will all soon die. Or at the very least, a new social order will come to power out of the ashes. In the final �Historical Notes� section, Atwood makes the reader aware that the latter is true.
The paradigm of the new society growing from the old holds true in these novels, as well as others, such as The Giver by Lois Lowery, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, 1984 by George Orwell, and many others (though 1984 does not actually go on to show a new society). It is a more common theme than environmental apocalypse, though that is not uncommon either. It can be seen the Dune series by Frank Herbert, Red Alert by Peter George, and movies such as Armageddon and Deep Impact. Environmental apocalypse possesses the power of complete annihilation, without hope, that social apocalypse does not. Yet even with this dire prediction, a way out is provided. The people may leave the planet, or go underground, or do other thing. But it remains a fact that environmental apocalypse removes almost all hope from the future. Due to this, it is less common.
Apocalyptic science fiction bears humanity�s history and culture. It reflects hope and dreams of a million, a billion people. It also expresses fear. Symbols of Christ, redemption, and God are present in science fiction books. New societies are born from the ashes, when the old recognizes its demise. Hope remains. Hope for a cleaner, more sound future. Apocalypse, then, is not solely a story of the end of all things, but a story of rebirth and regeneration. It is a story of our past as much as it is of our future.
Bibliography
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid�s Tale. United States: Anchor Books, 1986
Card, Orson Scott. Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. New York: Tor Books, 1996
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