ABSTRACT

FIGHTING BACK: MARIE DE FRANCE AND CHRISTINE DE PIZAN’S EXPOSURE AND DISCREDITING OF BENEVOLENT AND HOSTILE SEXISM IN COURTLY LOVE CULTURE

Today, we are bombarded with the stereotype of women as sex objects or princesses. It is not very often that women are portrayed as smart, capable, empowering females who contribute to the world around them. These stereotypes are enforced by the popular media of our time and have led to the use of hostile and benevolent sexism against women. This thesis looks at how benevolent and hostile sexism were supported by courtly love culture in the late Middle Ages. It also looks at how Marie de France and Christine de Pizan combated the benevolent and hostile sexism of the twelfth through fifteenth century, by criticizing courtly love culture and constructing a female image that promoted positive traits, such as intelligence and morality. By examining Marie and Christine, modern women writers can use similar tactics to bring awareness to all women.

Alexandria Nichole Richerson August 2018

FIGHTING BACK: MARIE DE FRANCE AND CHRISTINE DE PIZAN’S EXPOSURE AND DISCREDITING OF BENEVOLENT AND HOSTILE SEXISM IN COURTLY LOVE CULTURE

by Alexandria Nichole Richerson

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English in the College of Arts and Humanities California State University, Fresno August 2018 APPROVED For the Department of English:

We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student’s graduate degree program for the awarding of the master’s degree.

Alexandria Nichole Richerson Thesis Author

Lisa Weston (Chair) English

Steven Adisasmito-Smith English

Laurel Hendrix English

For the University Graduate Committee:

Dean, Division of Graduate Studies AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER’S THESIS

X I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship.

Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me.

Signature of thesis author: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To my family who always pushed me to be the best I could be and never stopped believing in me. To my friends, who dragged me out of the office to relax when things got too stressful. A thank you to my committee for guiding me through this long process. And to Nathan, for reminding me that I am more intelligent then I give myself credit for. I am truly blessed to be surrounded by such amazing people. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1 CHAPTER 2: BENEVOLENT SEXISIM IN ANDREAS CAPELLANUS’ THE ART OF COURTLY LOVE ...... 12 CHAPTER 3: MARIE DE FRANCE ADDRESSES THE BENEVOLENT SEXISIM IN COURTLY LOVE ...... 20 CHAPTER 4: JEAN DE MUEN’S USE OF HOSTILE SEXISM IN THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE TO ENFORCE NEGITIVE STEROTYPES OF WOMEN ...... 35 CHAPTER 5: THE CONSTRUCTION OF A POSITIVE FEMALE IMAGE IN THE BOOK OF THE CITY OF LADIES BY CHRISTINE DE PIZAN ...... 46

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION ...... 60

WORKS CITED ...... 63

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

In 2016, Brock Turner, a freshman at Stanford, was sentenced to six months in jail and three years of probation for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. He served only three months in jail due to good behavior. Judge Persky stated that the “character letters that [had] been submitted showed a huge collateral consequence for Mr. Turner” if he were convicted (Levin para. 34). The judge put the life of Turner above that of his female victim, which signified that Turner’s life was worth more than the female victim’s. While this incident brought awareness about sexual assault on college campuses, the outcry has since died down and there has been no change to the victim-blaming that occurs in the courtroom. Then, in 2017, the New York Times published an article detailing thirty years of sexual harassment by Harvey Weinstein, a well-known film producer, and the public was, once again, outraged. After the publication, more women came forward to accuse Weinstein and other powerful men of sexual misconduct. Women spoke up against the abuse by powerful men and demanded change. With this new information came the critique of casting couch culture, which is when someone seeking a job, often in show business, will exchange sex for a job with the understanding that it will stay a secret. Often, the person in power is a male, like Weinstein, with the power to enforce this culture. It is a part of show business that is joked about but never really looked at too closely because of the threat of retaliation if victims begin to talk about it. That is, until recently. Since the story broke, there have been marches and speeches to bring awareness to and change the violence against women within Western culture. 2 2

This outcry against the sexual abuse of women and the justification of these violent sexual acts are not surprising, since we live in a culture where media constantly promotes and justifies male sexual aggression. Today, we use the term rape culture to explain the social constructs allow for the sexual assault of women and the decriminalization of rape. Rape culture “refers to the complex beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women” by creating “a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent” (Rutschler 66). In rape culture, “women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself” (Rutschler 66). Rape culture is supported by ambivalent sexism, which is the “combination of misogyny and chivalry - i.e., hostile and benevolent sexism” (Fraser 145). Hostile sexism is “an adversarial view of gender relations in which women are perceived as seeking to control men, whether through sexuality or feminist ideology” and “benevolent sexism refers to characterizing women as pure creatures who ought to be protected, supported, and adored and whose love is necessary to make a man complete,” and these two different forms of sexism work together to remove female agency and justify the violence directed at women (Fraser 147). Benevolent sexism is harder to combat because it is structured to make women believe they are getting something out of it, such as protection. The events concerning Turner and Weinstein are examples of how sexism plays a role in Western culture. In the rape case, the valuing of Turner’s needs over the victim’s shows that hostile sexism still prevents justice for women because it reinforces how men are more important than women. The dehumanization of women by aligning them with sex objects allowed Weinstein to use his power to extract sexual favors under the guise of helping women obtain jobs. The verbal and actual violence directed at women are different aspects of the dehumanization 3 3 of women and are constructs that have become common practice in Western culture. The perpetuation of rape culture through hostile and benevolent sexism depends upon the dehumanization of women. Fraser defines dehumanization as “more than simple objectification” because it “entails treating women as a tool for men’s own purposes, as if there is no need to show concern for women’s feelings and experiences, and as if it is permissible to damage women” (152). This means that women are viewed as objects to be used to fulfill the desires of men, not as people with feelings and agency of their own. The dehumanization of women is troubling because it leads to the creation of female stereotypes in popular media that promote weak, often unintelligent, women who are expected to fulfill the needs of men whether they want to or not. It is difficult to fight against the stigma of rape culture, due to the violent ideologies it consists of being fed to us via popular media. Fraser argues that, Essentially, cultural attitudes are transmitted in efficient, regular doses through media such as television and movies, and the more we watch, the more we learn to express those same attitudes ourselves. It follows that encountering the deluge of gendered images and narratives present in the media—in advertising, film and television, music, books, and more—leads to the same process of bias- reification in terms of complementary gender differentiation, heterosexual romance, and paternalism. In particular, Hollywood’s romantic tropes reinforce the perception that men’s benevolently sexist treatment of women is desirable despite its disempowering effects. (154) 4 4

To explain further, we, as a society, are constantly bombarded with social ideologies that continue to justify and normalize the violence directed at women. This demonstrates not only that the media is effective in shaping people’s roles in society, but it has a huge impact on what we perceive as normal, making it harder for women to fight against hostile and benevolent sexism. The use of media to promote gender norms is an integral part of Western history. By studying literature, the most used form of media in the twelfth through the fifteenth century, we see the justification and promotion of sexual violence towards women has not changed and the cycle of violence directed at women, and women’s reaction towards it, is a recurring theme in our literary tradition. Before exploring how medieval literature historically has regulated women into limiting roles, there needs to be an examination of the social norms that were in practice during the later Middle Ages. During this period, leaders of the church continued to promote the idea that women were not to have “authority over men” and that they should “learn in silence with all submissiveness” (Hult XIV). The church argued that Eve, who was blamed with introducing original sin to humanity, passed on her sin to women, making them inherently sinful. Therefore, as sinners, women were not capable of being equal to men. Earlier men of the church, such as Jerome, wrote about the “softness of soul” or “fickle mindedness” of women while later writers took their cue from Jerome, such as John Chrysostom, defined women as, “wicked, false, insulting, garrulous, irrational, and given to drink” (Clark 166-167). According to Ruth Mazo Karras, by the late Middle Ages, the promotion of celibacy reinforced antifeminist ideologies because sexual activity was condemned by the church. Since women were seen as the 5 5 creators of desire, they were often blamed for sexual behavior (108). Karras1 also argues that the “placing of blame also [indicates] a real fear of women” as if women would “disrupt the established order of things by leading men astray, by causing bastards to inherit, by destroying clerical celibacy, [and] by polluting the nunnery” (108). Thus, for monastic authors in the late Middle Ages, women became the symbol for desire and sexual temptation leading hostility towards sexuality and a “shift into hostility towards women” (Karras 130). The view of women constructed by monastic writers continued into the literature outside of the Christian church, which further promoted hostility towards women within society. The ideologies associated with women also impacted secular law, which lead to a justice system that often condemned the victim instead of the perpetrator. “Law is one of the most powerful means any society has at its disposal to control behavior” and the laws of the twelfth through the fifteenth century continued to control women’s bodies (Karras 13). Since it was argued that women were responsible for inciting desire, it was easy for male perpetrators to claim that the woman was responsible for the sexual act in order to counter rape charges (Blamires 5)2. In fact, it was even difficult for women to report their rapes. According to Henry of Bratton (Bracton), a writer during the thirteenth century, in the twelfth century the victim had to “go at once and while the [rape was] newly done to the neighboring townships and there show the injury done to her to men of good repute, the blood and her clothing stained with blood, and her torn garments” before she could make her appeal “at the first County Court, unless she can at once

1 Benjamin Semple also argues that theologians perceived women as a threat in “The Male Psyche and the Female Sacred Body in Marie de France and Christine de Pizan.”

2 Similar ideas are also argued in Brownmiller and Karras 6 6 make a complaint directly to the Lord king or his justices” (Brownmiller 26) 3. Even if a victim made an appeal, the accused had multiple defenses to choose from. For example, Bracton wrote that the accused could claim that “he had her as his concubine and amica before the day and the year mentioned in the appeal; or that he had defiled her with consent and not against her will, and that if she now appeals him it is in hatred of another woman whom he has as his concubine, or whom he has married” (Brownmiller 26). He may also claim that “on the year and day the deed was supposed to be done he was elsewhere, outside the realm” giving him an alibi that did not have to be backed up by witnesses (Brownmiller 26). If the accused were found guilty, he could offer financial compensation to the victim’s family or marry the victim. During the later Middle Ages, a man of nobility was rarely charged with the crime of rape if his victim was of a lower class than him because the crime was often blamed upon his liegemen, allowing noblemen to evaded charges (Brownmiller 27). Additionally, if the victim was of a lower class than the male perpetrator, rape was often excused because it was not seen as a major offense. The accusation of rape only became a serious crime if the female was of a higher class than the male perpetrator because he could be using the act to improve his social status. The laws concerning rape during the later Middle Ages indicate that only a virgin could be raped. In fact, in the laws addressing rape, the term “virgin” was used instead of “woman” to reinforce the idea that virgins were the only ones who could be a victim of rape. This made it difficult for women to prove rape because in order to be the victim of rape, the woman had to be a virgin and prove that she was before the rape occurred. The burden of proof fell onto the victim, and the

3 Bratton is also referenced in Caroline Dunn's article “The Language of Ravishment.” 7 7 victim needed to be above reproach in order for her case to have merit. The reason it was limited to virgins was because virgin women were worth more, since some women were considered investments for their families. A daughter could be married off to another family in order to bring in new alliances or wealth. If a woman was raped, it was a property crime because the value of the daughter was diminished, and the male head of the household could sue for reparations. As Caroline Dunn points out, “The word that some twentieth-century scholars translated as rape in fact denoted three modern-day offenses - sexual assault, abduction, and theft” (88). The fact raptus has many meanings has led to confusion for scholars examining the sexual assault of women in the Middle Ages. While there is a difference between rape and abduction, both have to do with the decreasing of a woman’s value to her family. If a woman was raped, she no longer had as much worth as she did when she was a virgin, and if she was abducted and forced to marry her adductor, then the family could not marry her off for political gain. This enforced the idea that male family members needed to protect women, not only because they could not protect themselves, but to protect the value associated with the female body. This idea of protection in exchange for the use of a woman’s body stands as an example of benevolent sexism in the social power structure of the twelfth through the fifteenth century. In the thirteenth century rape law was extended to cover married women who were raped by men other than their husbands. This law was important because it allowed husbands to seek compensation as well as justice for their wives. If it was discovered that the wife was in an affair, the husband could now act against the other male. However, the law still claimed that a wife could not be raped by her husband because she gave consent to her husband during their wedding vows. However, if another man raped her, her husband could receive 8 8 compensation. A wife could even seek a separation from her husband if he forced her into a marriage that they never consummated. Dyan Elliott presents a case from 1514 where a wife named Agnes fled from her husband, John, because he was abusive. Her running away undermined her case because John’s violent acts were seen as trying to correct her behavior. Elliot theorizes that her case for separation based on her being forced into a marriage would probably have been a better case for her then accusing him of abuse. While we do not know the outcome of her case, Elliot argues that whether it was upheld or not would only result in disadvantages for Agnes because she would either be forced to make a living for herself or be forced to stay with her abusive husband. Agnes’ case exemplifies that women were not guaranteed safety from violence once they entered into a marriage and it was difficult for them to escape from marriages that were abusive. The inability for women to claim rape against their husband was problematic because if they were kidnapped and forced into a marriage, once it was consummated their chance at escape would be minimal. The literary traditions of the twelfth through the fifteenth century worked to reinforce the laws and gender roles that were harmful to women. Female stereotypes were controlled by the elite, predominately male writers and scholars. Those stereotypes constructed by male authors created a dichotomy that degraded women and justified the acceptance of violence towards them. According to Cheryl Glenn, “medieval literature offers a range of literature featuring women, but never are they accorded the full range of human feelings or characteristics” (Glenn 86). Female characters were often portrayed as flat characters who never developed in the narratives and were not based on the realistic lives of women from the twelfth through the fifteenth century. 9 9

The literary portrayals of women in literature during the twelfth through the fifteenth century were few. There were often only two major roles that women could occupy in the literature of the late Middle Ages: the lustful wife, who either cuckolded her husband or nagged him, and the Virgin/Saint, who was so remarkably chaste and virtuous that she often had to endure torture before she was allowed to die. Medieval male authors wrote unrealistic portrayals of women that were dangerous because they dichotomized women into Saints or sinners. For example, male writers wrote Saint stories about women that underwent torture and eventually death in defense of their beliefs, while other male writers wrote about female characters who would abuse their husbands as they cheated on them. There were very few, if any, depictions of women who were normal wives, who did not cheat or normal maidens who did not become Saints. Male writers drew upon benevolent and hostile sexism to force women into this dichotomy. When a woman was depicted as a Saint, she was placed on a pedestal where she was unable to make mistakes or have faults. However, she was protected, often by God, or worshiped for her virtue. By worshiping and protecting Saintly women, male writers argued that this was what all women should aspire to. The female audience should strive to be holy because Saints were the type of woman that Christian men would worship and cherish. By placing Saintly women on a pedestal, male authors were able to cover up the fact that female Saints had to be stripped of their femininity, represented by their physical bodies, in order to be placed on this pedestal.4 Bloch argues that this led to an idealization of women that had very little chance of becoming a reality (148). While male writers set Saints on pedestals, they attacked wives by depicting them as abusive to their

4 On this topic see Semple, Benjamin. “The Male Psyche and the Female Sacred Body in Marie de France and Christine de Pizan.” 10 10 husbands, as well as adulterous. Male writers used hostile sexism to show their female audience that wives were evil and if they occupied the role of wife then they deserved to be verbally attacked. According to male writers, being a wife seemed to be the worst role that women could occupy. This dichotomy is problematic because it relies on benevolent sexism to push women to strive for unrealistic standards and justifies the use of hostile sexism against wives, the role of wife being one most women would end up occupying. A popular genre written from the twelfth through the fifteenth century was courtly love literature. In these stories, women were often saved by noblemen from their demanding husbands or fathers or a case of lovers overcoming multiple obstacles in order to be together. While these stories may seem romantic, Susan Brownmiller argues that the love that is portrayed in courtly love stories is not love but rather rape and it was seen as heroic because the male lover was often saving the female lover. 5 The hero often had to fight for the lady and this turned her into a prize to be won. In doing so, the female continues to be viewed as a prize, not a human, and is often told that she should be happy that the best man is taking her. Bloch argues that antifeminist rhetoric and courtliness are connected because the misogynistic idealization of women was interwoven with courtly literature (164). This promotion of the idealized and dehumanized woman in courtly love literature continued to reinforce the social constructs that normalized and glorified the violence directed at women. This thesis will explore not only how male authors during the twelfth and thirteenth century used literature to dehumanize women but also how women writers during the twelfth and fifteenth century fought back against both the

5 Susan Brownmiller calls this the “Heroic Rape Myth.” 11 11 benevolent and hostile sexism directed at them. To start, this thesis will analyze The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas Capellanus to examine how benevolent and hostile sexism was woven into the courtly love construct that was popular during the twelfth century and how benevolent sexism was hidden under the illusion of equality in romantic affairs for women of the nobility. Andreas also used hostile sexism against women of the lower class to decriminalize rape before continuing his hostile rant to promote the idea that women are creatures of sin. Next, this thesis will examine how Marie de France used the lais Lanval, Le Fresne, and Laüstic to expose the benevolent sexism outlined in the courtly love construct, allowing her to criticize not only how courtly love stripped women of agency, but also how its benevolent sexism justified the lack of choice women had over their lives. Marie de France also exposed how the ideal female beauty standard in courtly literature promoted an unrealistic expectation of women that dehumanized women of the twelfth century. Both of these texts were written near the beginning of the emergence of courtly love and provided insight on how different writers approached courtly ideas. Having examined the foundation of the courtly love construct, this thesis will move into the thirteenth century to examine how The Romance of the Rose by Jean de Meun took the benevolent and hostile sexism of courtly love and turned it into hostile sexism in order to promote a female stereotype that debased women by restricting their value to their body and portraying them as unintelligent, deceitful, and shallow, as well as furthering the decriminalization of rape. In response to Jean de Meun’s hostile sexism, Christine de Pizan denounced how male writers construct literary women as well as problematized rape before reconstructing a positive female stereotype that she then promoted in the Debate of the Rose during the fifteenth century. CHAPTER 2: BENEVOLENT SEXISIM IN ANDREAS CAPELLANUS’ THE ART OF COURTLY LOVE

Little is known about Andreas beyond he was a Chaplin and a courtier writing out of Northern France around the beginning of the twelfth century (Monson 4). Some scholars have also attached Andreas to the French court of Queen Eleanor and King Henry II while other scholars have theorized that he may have been an apprentice of Marie de Champagne at Troyes (Bloch 161). Either way, scholars feel confident that Andreas’ The Art of Courtly Love was influenced by the French court. His work has been preserved in multiple manuscripts as well as multiple translations throughout Europe and is credited as a guide for King Juan of Aragon and his wife, Violant de Bar, as they establish the courtly love tradition in Spain during the late Middle Ages. Since it was preserved in multiple languages as well as appears in other documents that are not from the French court, it is safe to assume that it was popular enough to spread throughout Europe. Despite the lack of knowledge concerning his background, Andreas is often at the heart of courtly love studies. The Art of Courtly Love is a text that portrays how men and women from the higher nobility to the middle class should have acted in the pursuit of love. Scholars continue to debate over the realism of The Art of Courtly Love because some consider it “a parody at best, a compilation of obscenities at worst” while others believe it recorded what courtly culture was truly like in the twelfth century French court causing a contradiction in how it should be used when discussing the twelfth century (Classen 343). Peter L. Allen even argues that Andreas Capellanus was writing in the literary tradition established by Ovid’s Ars Amatoria in order to place secular fictions of love in twelfth century literature that has been dominated 13 13 by church doctrine and holy script6. The reason for so many interpretations is due to The Art of Courtly Love being riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions that it becomes difficult to say if Andreas meant for it to be a guide book on how people should conduct affairs in court or if it was a parody of courtly life. However, as Albrecht Classen points out, “Medieval readers often enthusiastically welcomed this quixotic textbook” while others seemed to condemn the “book’s glorification as a fundamental guidebook of love, and the bitter accusation that it would mislead the pious onto a path of debauchery and sinfulness” (Classen 344). No matter what the reason The Art of Courtly Love was written, it was widely read and had some type of impact on its audience. What it says about women is consistent throughout and the interpretation of women is independent of its being a parody or a real textbook. The Art of Courtly Love was continuing to promote misogynistic discourse that demeaned women instead of promoting positive female images. Courtly love included the concept that husbands and wives could not love each other, mostly because marriages were arranged, instead; according to Andreas, people should find love in the form of secret affairs. While it was not explicitly stated that those affairs were sexual in nature, they were often depicted in a sexual manner. Some of the important rules of courtly love were marriage is no real excuse for not loving, no one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons, differences in class is not a justifiable reason, when made public love rarely lasts, the easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment

6 For more on the debate, see the Introduction of Andreas Capellanus, Scholasticism, and the Courtly Tradition by Don A. Monson. 14 14

makes it prized, and good character alone makes any man worthy of love. (Andreas 184-85) Such rules implied the love of the woman was valued if she denied the suiter because if her love was difficult to win, it was prized. In the end, there were no excuses for women of any class to deny men that sought an affair with them. This was problematic because it turned the denial of love, and a sexual affair, into an invitation to try harder while also eliminating a woman’s right to say no. Such rules removed women’s ability to deny the advances of a male lover by striping her of her right to choose whether or not she wanted to enter into an affair. The removal of a female’s right to choose to enter into an affair appears in the dialogues of Book 1. Andreas writes out the conversations between men and women of different social classes to demonstrate the best ways to win the love of women from different social classes. The conversations follow a similar pattern. The male flatters the pursued female, who in return seems to reject what the male is saying. It is important that the female not seem too interested or she could be deemed unworthy of love as stated in the rules above. After the male continues to flatter the pursued female, she eventually gives into his speech and grants her love in some form, for example, either as the acceptance of his servitude or an affair. At the end of every dialogue, the woman gives in to the male, despite her own desires. Based on these conversations, all a man must do is flatter the woman’s beauty and make simple promises, and she will say yes. Women were not to give in easily but, they would have been expected to give in eventually according to these dialogues. Women would have been trapped into saying “yes” if men approached them using the rhetoric that these dialogues set up. As Jerry Root explains, “the implication is that if [a lady] is courtly she can (and should) say yes to his love” thus making a positive answer “more of a trap for a woman than a 15 15 liberation or empowerment” (12). While The Art of Courtly Love seems to suggest the idea that women had control over their male lovers, they, in fact, were unable to deny their male pursuers. Choice is just an illusion and women held little to no power in those affairs. Instead, courtly love constructed a trap where men could offer their love in the disguise of servitude, but women had no ability to choose if they wanted the attention or not. Secrecy was another important aspect of courtly love. Andreas writes that a “man who wants to keep his love affair for a long time untroubled should above all things be careful not to let it be known to any outsider” because if more people find out about an affair, the affair “ceases to develop naturally and even losses what progress it has already made” (Andreas 151). The reason the affair needed to stay a secret was because extramarital sex as well as adultery was condemned by the church meaning the lovers could be punished. It was also problematic if the female lover was unmarried because her family could seek financial compensation for her devaluing or force the lovers to marry. If the female lover was married, she could face social repercussions as well as punishment from her husband that a married man would not have faced. It is important for the affair to stay a secret because women were not supposed to be entering into affairs. For example, when discussing cheating, Andreas writes, in the case of men such a thing is tolerated because it is so common and because the sex has a privilege by which all things in this world which are by their nature immodest are more readily allowed to men, in the case of women they are, because of the decency of the modest sex, considered so disgraceful that after a woman has indulged the 16 16

passions of several men everybody looks upon her as an unclean strumpet unfit to associate with other ladies. (162) Such writing reinforced that women were not allowed the same actions of their male counterparts especially when it came to the expression of sexual desire. There was a double standard that existed between lovers. While female lovers were expected to be faithful to their husbands, male lovers could be sexually promiscuous. Loyalty was only expected of the women because she owed her loyalty to the man she belonged to, her husband. In fact, women’s sexual agency was discouraged whereas male sexuality was tolerated. The Art of Courtly Love reinforced the harmful stereotypes about women, such as they were objects to be owned and desired. It did not promote women to take charge of their sexuality, and in fact, it discouraged men from accepting women who were sexually adventurous. Again, courtly love seemed to claim that women were equals in love when in actuality they were supposed to be faithful to their husbands or remain virginal until they married. However, women were not able to make the choice to retain their faithfulness to their husbands or their virginity because courtly love did not allow them to have control over their bodies. When it came to women of the peasantry, Andreas switched from benevolent to hostile sexism. Andreas writes that women of the peasantry are incapable of comprehending the nuances of courtly love, and therefore men should not waste time trying to explain it to them. This means that courtly love can only be practiced by those from the middle to upper class. While the idea of courtly love was portrayed as a romantic and standard idea, it was a concept that, when put into practice, had negative ramifications for women of every social class. Just like women of the nobility, Courtly love was a cover for the decimalization of 17 17 rape. For example, when addressing how men of higher class can interact with women of the peasantry, Andreas writes, And if you should, by some chance, fall in love with one of [the peasantry’s] women, be careful to puff her up with lots of praise and then, when you find a convenient place, do not hesitate to take what you seek and embrace them by force. For you can hardly soften their outward inflexibility so far that they will grant you their embraces quietly or permit you to have their solaces you desire unless first you use a little compulsion as a convenient cure for their shyness. (150) Women of the peasantry were essentially fair game for nobility, and women had no right to deny the request of male pursuers. This passage is an example of how rape was being decriminalized by male authors. Rape, which is what this passage describes and advocates, was justified because it was done to women from the peasantry. Since they were unable to understand the nuances of courtly love, men of the nobility did not have to follow the dialogues. Instead, they should view women of the peasantry as practice. This act is dehumanizing because the victim is not a human but a thing which the classed male has a right to use. Essentially, she is property that a noble has a right to control. She never truly has a say in the matter and therefore is not allowed a voice with which to reject the sex or the recognition of a person with the right to refuse a male’s advances. Not only is this problematic because it justifies the raping of women, but it also decriminalizes the rape of women from the peasantry, an established crime that was already hard to prove, because it portrays it as an entitlement for men of the nobility. For the victims, it creates challenging lives afterward. As stated in my introduction, women were valued for their virginity. If women of the peasantry have no power of retaining their virginity, and by extension their value, then they 18 18 were facing a life where they may have been turning to prostitution in order to make a living since they were condemned by society for having sex outside of a marriage. If they were married, then their husband could turn them over to the church for adultery or punish them as they saw fit. If the victims brought their rapist to court, there was a slim chance that they would have been able to prove rape and if they made it public and lost, they would have risked being defined as a loose woman, which would have made it difficult to regain their reputation. The lives of those women were in the hands of their rapists, and the Art of Courtly Love completely striped power from women of the peasantry to nothing more than objects used by the men around them. Thus, the promotion of the dehumanization of women in courtly love literature continued to reinforce the social constructs that normalized and glorified the violence directed at women. While Books 1 and 2 use benevolent and hostile sexism to justify the rape of women from different social classes, Book 3 uses hostile sexism to condemn all women. Book 3 is where Andreas exposes that courtly love should not be practiced because women are sinful, and no respectful man would want anything to do with them. Alcuin Blamiers, Karen Pratt, and C.W. Marx thought that this Book was a hoax or a way for Andreas to appease the church (116). Whatever his reason for writing it, the third book’s anti-feminist tirade reflects hostile ideology that presents women as only possessing the worst traits of humanity but does not actually add to courtly love culture. Instead, it just promotes negative stereotypes of women. Andreas writes that women are “greedy, inconsistent, fickle in [their] speech, disobedient and impatient of restraint, spotted with the sin of pride” as well as liars, drunkards, and prone to every evil including lust (201). As David O. Wise discusses, “Andreas provided an almost inexhaustible store of ammunition for the use of the medieval preacher who wished to attack the conventions of 19 19 courtly love” and women (507). Book 3 is a moment where the concepts of women that have been constructed come to light. It shows that women really had no chance at equality and the ideas presented in Books 1 and 2 were a farce because the society stranding courtly love culture continued to depict women as second-class citizens. The hostile sexism presented in Book 3 not only exposes the empty promises of courtly love but also the promoted stereotypes of women. These stereotypes were harmful to women since they claimed that all women were sinful creatures and excluded any positive traits a woman could possess. The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas continued to reinforce the link between antifeminist ideology and courtliness. It also decriminalized rape, a crime that was already difficult for women to prove, through the use of benevolent and hostile sexism.

CHAPTER 3: MARIE DE FRANCE ADDRESSES THE BENEVOLENT SEXISIM IN COURTLY LOVE

While both Andreas Capellanus and Marie de France are contemporaries, they address courtly love from different perspectives. Andreas uses The Art of Courtly Love to enforce the benevolent and hostile sexism that ultimately decriminalizes the raping of women. Marie, however, uses her lais to complicate and expose the benevolent sexism that courtly love culture hides. While her lais are not a response to Andreas’ work directly, they are a response to the benevolent and hostile sexism that he incorporates in The Art of Courtly Love. Marie wrote twelve lais that all critique courtly love; however, this thesis will analyze Lanval, Le Fresne, and Laüstic to see how they expose the benevolent sexism of courtly love to Marie’s readers. Lanval shows that the beauty standards for women were unattainable and dangerous as well as how courtly love was not designed for women, Le Fresne shows how benevolent sexism affects women of low social class; and Laüstic has multiple interpretations of the nightingale that allows scholars to examine how misogynistic ideas are undermined at different levels. Not a lot is known about Marie or her life, but scholars have made guesses about her personality based on her collection of lais. Scholars have credited her as the writer of the Fables as well as the Lais; however, there is no definite proof that she was even real.7 Scholars have also placed these writings in the last half of the twelfth century and speculate that Marie had ties to the French Court. Marie claims in her prologue that she is just writing down the stories “by those who first began them and put them into circulation, to perpetuate the memory of adventures they had heard” (41). However, her lais addressed the same benevolent and hostile

7 For discussion on the possible identities of Marie de France see R. Howard Bloch. The Anonymous Marie de France. 21 21 ideology discussed in the previous chapter, which would mean that despite her claim to modesty, Marie was actually rewriting the stories for her twelfth century audience. Marie’s lais have also been described as simple and humanizing. R. Howard Bloch comments how critics insist that Marie’s lais introduce human elements within tales of marvels (14). Despite the fantastical elements of the lais, for example, the werewolf and fairy queen, the actions, reactions, and emotions of the characters are how people in Marie’s world would have behaved. Her characters break through the courtly script to expose how real people would act in courtly affairs. These lais become less about fantasy and more of a critique on how complicated and problematic courtly love was when put into practice as well as how dangerous it could be for women. Lanval is one of Marie’s most circulated and translated lais. Lanval is a foreign knight who is defined by his “valor, generosity, beauty and prowess,” making many in King Arthur’s court jealous (Marie 73). Overlooked by the king, Lanval is sad and rides out of town. When he comes to a meadow, he meets two maidens dressed in purple who ask him to follow them to their Lady. When Lanval first meets the Fairy Queen, which scholars generally call her, she is laying on a very beautiful bed with coverlets that cost as much as a castle. She is clad only in her shift and “her body [is] well-formed and handsome, and in order to protect herself from the heat of the sun, she had cast upon her a costly mantle of white ermine covered with Alexandrian purple” and “her side was uncovered, as well as her face, neck and breast” and “she was whiter than the Hawthorn blossom” (Marie 74). Upon seeing Lanval, the Fairy Queen declares her love for him and he accepts and loves her back. Their affair continues under the promise it 22 22 is to remain a secret. The secret is important because it is a key concept in courtly love affairs. However, once back in King Arthur’s court, Arthur’s queen, who is not named, tells Lanval that she has “honored, cherished and loved” him and that he can have all of her love (Marie 76). Lanval rebuffs her love stating, “I have no desire to love you, for I have long served the king and do not want to betray my faith. Neither you nor your love will ever lead me to wrong my Lord!” (Marie 76). The queen flies into a rage and claims that Lanval prefers the comfort of other men. In order to reject the accusation of being a homosexual, Lanval tells the queen he, in fact, is “loved by a lady who should be prized above all others” and that one of his Lady’s servants, “even the very poorest girl,” is worth more than the queen (Marie 76-77). Since Lanval broke his promise and revealed the Fairy Queen, she will no longer be his lover. The queen, who is caught weeping by the king, tells the king that Lanval “had requested her love and because she had refused him, had insulted and deeply humiliated her” (Marie 77). The king promises that if Lanval cannot defend himself in court, he will be burned or hanged for insulting the queen. The final scene takes place in court where Lanval, knowing he broke his promise, does not try to defend himself because he believes his love will not come for him. However, the court is constantly interrupted as beautiful maidens, who are constantly praised for “their bodies, faces, and complexions,” continually arrive, paving the way for the Fairy Queen (Marie, 80). The Fairy Queen finally shows up and it is said “there was none more beautiful in the whole world” (Marie 80). She is described as being Dressed in a white tunic and shift, laced left and right so as reveal her sides. Her body was comely, her hips low, her neck whiter than 23 23

snow on a branch; her eyes were bright and her face white, her mouth fair and her nose well-placed; her eyebrows were brown and her brow fair, and her hair curly and rather blonde. There was no one in the town, humble or powerful, old or young, who did not watch her arrival, and no one jested about her beauty. She approached slowly and the judges who saw her thought it was a great wonder. No one who had looked at her could have failed to be inspired with real joy. (Marie 80) Since she is the most beautiful woman anyone has seen, proving Lanval was telling the truth, Lanval is set free. The Fairy Queen then takes him to Avalon and they are never heard from again. To start, Marie uses the Fairy Queen to comment on a literary tradition that emphasized the beauty of women and in doing so, made beauty the focal point of importance for women and showing how it is a standard that not all women can fulfill. The Fairy Queen is from Avalon meaning she is not of the real world. Therefore, her beauty and wealth are also not of the real. Here, Marie exposes how women composed in literature are not realistic examples of what women should look like. Their beauty belongs in the abstract and is not achievable. Not only did these female stereotypes set what characteristics were required to be beautiful, i.e. blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin, they also attach these features with identifying moral women. Good women also possess the characteristics associated with the main ladies of courtly literature. Constantly promoting the idea of the blue-eyed, pale-skinned, blonde woman was damaging to women because it was setting women up for failure by promoting unattainable beauty standards as well as restricting the physical attributes of moral women to blonde hair, blue eyed, pale skin women. 24 24

After exposing how beauty standards set for women are unattainable, the lai exposed how courtly love centered on the beauty of women. In courtly love, beauty is important because love can be acquired through a beautiful figure and, as Marie points out with the Fairy Queen, love is formed at first sight. While Andreas claims that “character alone is worthy of the crown of love,” Marie shows that wealth and beauty have a huge impact on the formation of love. As Kauth points out, “love was commonly thought to enter through the eyes, and medieval theories of sight postulated a more tangible connection” (Kauth 57). Andreas can argue that character should be the most important aspect of a lover, but Marie shows that humans are going to focus on the physical form before moving onto a lover’s character. That was why the lady of courtly tales was often described physically in such detail in courtly literature. The hero of the tale is often drawn to her physical aspects before he ever speaks with her. Ultimately, the Fairy Queen’s beauty was more important than any personality she may have. Readers know this because, as stated above, she was described in such detail before she even spoke. In both instances where the Fairy Queen makes an appearance, more lines are used to describe her physical appearance then she actually speaks. This implies that her beauty is more important than anything she has to say. As is always the case with Marie, one should always look beneath the surface for deeper meanings. While the Fairy Queen seems to be enforcing the tie between beauty and value, there is more going on below the surface. To subvert this benevolent idea of female beauty being linked to value, Marie switches the gender roles of the Fairy Queen and Lanval. Thus, the actions of the Fairy Queen should be the focus of analysis when looking at how Marie is exposing misogynistic ideas. When the Fairy Queen rides in to save Lanval from court, she is taking on the role of the Knight and Lanval becomes the damsel in distress. Jane 25 25

Chance argues that the lack of names allows for gender fluidity among the Fairy Queen, Lanval, and the queen. Chance also states that Avalon becomes a symbol for a matriarchal society that subverts the chivalric society of King Arthur’s court. In this reversed court, Lanval becomes a representation of the lady who has no agency over their life and who is sought after for his beauty. Marie uses the traits associated with women in courtly love literature and exposes how ridiculous it is to have a weak attractive character which no agency over his or her life. Lanval is not the only lai where “the other world” becomes a place to subvert traditional roles. In his article, “The Male Psyche and the Female Sacred Body in Marie de France and Christine de Pizan,” Benjamin Semple breaks down how Marie uses the female body as a source of healing in her lai, Guigemar. He writes, “The Lady’s body becomes not the absolute goal but the means by which change is wrought” (175). The Fairy Queen also comes from the “other world” where the power structure seems to be subverted. In fact, the Fairy Queen ends up taking the mantle of hero and Lanval takes the role of lady in distress when the Fairy Queen comes to Lanval’s rescue. The Fairy Queen is even responsible for instigating the affair. This subversion of traditional ideas is Marie’s way of showing her audience that women are not always the ones in need of help. In fact, both genders are capable of being feminized and masculinized. Thus, women are capable of possessing characteristics, such as intelligence and strength, often associated with men. Marie is using the female body to show how change can be implemented into a patricidal culture while maintaining deniability by placing this new female in the “other world.” The queen in Lanval exemplifies how courtly love is not meant for women to find love. The queen tries to start an affair with Lanval but is denied. Some will argue that it is because he already has a lover, but why would she be denied so 26 26 harshly for trying to start an affair? Scholars like Jerry Root argue “even though she speaks first, the fairy queen clearly acknowledges Lanval as the motivating force for her action” whereas the human queen “seems to think it unnecessary to flatter Lanval with anything more than her own availability” (17). This would mean she was rejected because she tried to start an affair for selfish reasons. Lanval, himself, argued that he already loved someone and wished to remain loyal to her. Both are logical arguments that can be backed up by the text but they also seem to be lacking. I argue that the queen is rejected for two reasons; one, that women, like the queen, were not actually supposed to be the ones to start affairs, and two, the queen represents the idea that courtly love should not actually be sought out by married women. While, courtly love was founded on the idea that marriage was arranged and therefore people should go outside of marriage to find true love, in practice, it appears women were not supposed to be the ones finding love outside the marriage. This theme is not only represented by the queen of Lanval but also by the knight’s wife in Laustic. Both wives are denied the affair, which they sought out, in the end. In fact, the only women who manage to have affairs that end in a semblance of happiness were women who entered into the affairs single or were approached by the male lover. When a wife sought out an affair, she was described as sexually promiscuous and her affair ended in tragedy. Here, Marie exposes how courtly love was not designed for married women to find love, and she demonstrates that it was actually designed for men to justify their affairs. This ties in to the queen’s agency. Marie is critiquing the concept that courtly love allowed for both men and women to pursue love. Marie uses the queen to show how when women pursue love, they are rejected and, in some cases, punished. The queen is planted in the real world by being tied to a mortal king who is situated 27 27 within a real court. She is used to represent real women who are reading this lai. Marie is using the queen to expose the fact that in practice, women, even if they were queens, were unable to pursue love without facing repercussions and rejection, especially if they were married. They were not truly allowed the same agency to find love as their male counterparts. The queen also represents the idea of male responsibility for women in their family. The king is not offended by the fact Lanval made a pass at the queen, but he is offended that Lanval has shamed her and, by extension, the king’s pride. The reader is led to believe that the king wishes to defend the queen’s honor. It is his job as the head of the household to protect her. While that may seem heroic, in reality, the king does not punish Lanval for shaming the queen but for implying that the king does not have the courtliest woman. This is an example of benevolent sexism because it is disguising the ownership of a wife under the idea of protecting her. The king seems to be protecting the queen’s honor, but in reality, he is seeking retribution against the slander he believes has been spoken against him. It is not in defense of the queen’s honor, but rather at being told his property is not the best. Marie is critically analyzing the idea of men protecting women by placing them on a pedestal. When that pedestal crumbles, the men seek retribution not for the woman, but for their own honor. This protection is not about saving the woman, but as a way for men to protect their honor. In the end, not only is Marie using Lanval to expose the unrealistic standards women are supposed to fulfill, she also exposes how women did not really have agency when it came to finding love and that they were not protected for their own sake, but for the sake of the men who owned them. In Le Fresne, Marie critiques how men were entitled to use women of the peasantry as they wanted to. Le Fresne starts with a lady, who after attempting to 28 28 slander a neighbor knight’s wife by saying the wife’s twins are the result of adultery, becomes pregnant with twin daughters. The mother becomes hysterical and contemplates killing one of the daughters because she “would rather make amends with God than shame and dishonor” herself (Marie 64). However, a maid takes one daughter, who is wrapped in a fine cloth and has a ring attached to her arm, to a nearby abbey and places her in an ash tree, earning her the name Le Fresne. Later, the child is discovered by a porter who, in turn, hands her over to the abbess of the church who raises Le Fresne as her niece. After Le Fresne grew up, a knight named Gurun visits the abbey where she lives and falls in love with her. In order for Gurun to visit the abbey without raising suspicion, he gives the abbey a generous portion of his wealth under the guise of the donation being a remission for his sins (Marie 64). After Le Fresne gives in and grants Gurum her love, and sex, Gurun tells her, “Fair one you have now made me your love. Come away with me for good! I assure you that should your aunt notice she would be most aggrieved and extremely angry if you became pregnant in her house;” he then takes Le Fresne away to his home (Marie 64). After a while, “the landed knights reproach him” and they ask him to take a noble wife because they “would be happier if he had an heir to inherit his land” since it “would be a grievous loss if he did not have a child by a wife on account of his concubine,” Le Fresne (Marie 65). La Codre, the wife chosen for him by the other knights and her family are brought over, and La Codre and Gurun are married. During this time, Le Fresne continues to live with Gurun and shows no displeasure or worry at his replacement of her. In fact, “when the bed in which [La Codre] was to lai was being prepared, [Le Fresne] went there” and she showed the Chamberlain “how her Lord wanted the bed made, for she had often seen it done” (Marie 66). When Le Fresne saw the shabby bedding, she “took out her brocade 29 29 and, to honor him, put it on her Lord’s bed” (Marie 66). When the mother of La Codre sees it, she recognizes it and comes forward about being Le Fresne’s mother. The marriage between Gurun and La Codre is then annulled since Le Codre and Gurun had yet to consummate it, and Le Fresne, having been recognized as belonging to a noble family, is married to Gurun. Le Fresne is a perfect example of how courtly love negatively affected women of the lower class because it stripped them of their agency and justified the mistreatment of them. In Le Fresne, it appears Le Fresne has a choice in becoming involved with Gurun, but she actually does not. Gurun pays to have access to the abbey, and by extension, to Le Fresne. It states in the lai that he does not pay for the resolution of his sins and that he wants to visit the abbey without the abbess noticing he was visiting Le Fresne. It is appropriate to decipher that he bought his way in to beg Le Fresne to be his love. Because Le Fresne could not leave the abbey, she is not able to escape from Gurun and his advances. She is trapped socially and physically. At this point, she is also of a lower class than him because she is an orphan and as explained in the introduction, she really has no choice to deny the affair. Le Fresne also has no choice but to run with him because if she was caught pregnant and unmarried, she faced being removed from the abbey and put on the street were there were few ways for her to make a living. She has no kinsmen to protect her, to demand payment for her diminished value, so there is no hope for her unless she goes with Gurun. Since she has no kinsmen, she is not acknowledged as a woman of the noble class and is instead a woman of the peasantry. While the readers and the abbess know she is from an aristocratic family, Gurun does not. Therefore, she is not a worthy wife for Gurun because she has nothing of value to bring to his land, and she only allowed to be a concubine. Marie is exposing how women of the lower class were used by men of the 30 30 nobility. They were stripped of a voice with which to deny the sexual advances of men. Those courtly love affairs did not help women of the lower class. Instead, it justified men taking women of a lower class and making them concubines, ruining their chances for an actual marriage by decreasing their value. While it may seem beneficial for the woman who is moving up the class system, in reality, she is never truly equal and, like Le Fresne, can be replaced. Marie uses Le Fresne’s submissiveness to show how women of a lower class were stripped of their ability to make choices. The mother assumes that Le Fresne will cause ill will between Gurun and La Codre and wants her removed from the home because she claims that a man cannot have both a wife and a concubine in his home. Since the mother is trying to remove her, the calmness of Le Fresne seems to be abnormal but, even if Le Fresne fought to stay, she is in no position to make demands. She has no value to anyone and therefore has no voice. In fact, the only time she talks is when the mother asks her a question. Never does she voice her choices or take responsibility for her life. Her only resort is to not cause a fuss and hope that Gurun continues to treat her well. Marie uses Le Fresne’s silence to argue women of the peasantry did not have a say when it came to their life. In courtly love, the male lover makes the choices for the female lover, and outside of the affair, the family chooses how a woman lives and how valuable she is. This concept is continued when Gurun and Le Fresne are allowed to marry after she is claimed by a noble family. She is now of value because she is the daughter of a noble family whereas before she was only valuable to Gurun because he wanted her physically. It is not until the father recognizes her as his daughter that she is considered a suitable wife for Gurun. While she has evidence with her that she belonged to a wealthy family, she is not recognized by a male 31 31 family member and therefore is not someone of value. If there are no male family members there to protect her, then she holds no value and therefore, she can be used by other men as they see fit. Where Andreas implies that love was classless, Marie argues that courtly love does affect women of different classes in different ways. The only thing that changed about Le Fresne to make her marriageable is a title. For Marie, Le Fresne becomes a symbol of how men were entitled to treat women of the peasantry as tools for sex. This social concept could lead to the decriminalization of rape, as discussed in The Art of Courtly Love as well as a harder life for women of the peasantry. In Laüstic, Marie’s critique moves onto the inherently sexual, and sinful, nature of courtly affairs as well as, how these affairs can have dangerous ramifications for women. Laüstic starts with two knights who are neighbors. One of the knights takes a wife who is “wise, courtly and elegant” and who “conducted herself, as custom dictated, with admirable propriety” (Marie 94). The young knight who lives next door, and the wife fall in love and begin an affair that consist of looking, talking, and throwing gifts between the houses. For the lovers, “there was scarcely, anything to displease them and they were both very content except for the fact that they could not meet and take their pleasure from each other, for the lady was closely guarded when her husband was in the region” (Marie 94). During the nights, they would go to their windows and talk. The husband becomes angry and asks why she is constantly getting out of bed. She replies, “anyone who does not hear the song of the Nightingale knows none of the joys of this world. This is why I come and stand here. So sweet is the song I hear by night that it brings me great pleasure. I take such delight in it and desire it so much that I can get no sleep at all” (Marie 95). The husband devises a plan to catch the nightingale and when he does he calls, “Lady where are you? Come 32 32 forward and speak to us. With bird-lime I have trapped the nightingale which has kept you awake so much. Now you can sleep in peace, for it will never waking you again” (Marie 95). When she asks her husband for the bird, he kills it out of spite, “breaking his neck quickly with two hands” before throwing “the body at the lady, so that the front of her tunic was bespattered with blood just on her breast” (Marie, 95). The wife wraps the bird in samite that is “embroidered in gold and covered in designs” before sending it to the young knight (Marie 96). The young knight has a gold casket made to put the bird in and carries it at all times, and then the affair ends. The nightingale, and its death, are used to show the inherent sexual, and sinful, nature of courtly affairs. While the young knight and the wife manage to keep the affair a secret, which is the biggest component of keeping an affair going, they are unable to be together physically, which causes their affair to end. Marie brings this up because it was argued that two people could have an affair that was nonsexual. Andreas would also suggest not all affairs had to be sexual in nature, but as the previous chapter argues, that was a lie. Marie is critiquing this lie by showing her readers that affairs have to be sexual in nature to last. Since sex outside of marriage was considered a sin, for Murray, Marie is critiquing courtly love as she tries and leads her twelfth century audience to a “better understanding of what it means to lead a fulfilled, moral, and Christian life” (16). According to Murray, Marie is using the love between two neighbors to point out how unethical affairs can be as well as how these unethical affairs will not last long. Murray argued that the wife’s actions change the husband from a good-natured knight to a jealous husband. Murray goes on to explain that “the red stain, akin to a scarlet letter, marks the lady and identifies her sinfulness” marking her as both 33 33

“adulteress and participant in the laüstic’s murder” (10). The sin of the lovers causes the death of the nightingale, which means affairs are not victimless. Marie continued to use the nightingale to show that affairs do not really help women gain freedom or independence as courtly literature implies. Marie is critiquing the illusion that women have freedom from their husbands that courtly love literature often implies. She exposes the reality that affairs could create dangerous situations for the female. After the affair was done, women were still the possession of the husband. The woman, who is represented by the bird in the lai, will be caged by the head male of her family or her husband. She could also be condemned to the role of the adulterous, which would have left her as an outsider in society. Never was she truly free. This was because courtly love did not really promote female agency like it claimed to. The murder of the nightingale by the husband exposes the thin line between protection and cruelty. The husband traps and kills the bird supposedly because it is keeping his wife awake. There is no indication in the text that he knows of the other man in her life. Therefore, her husband is trying to protect her from a bird that, while it does keep her up, brings her joy. He did not need to kill the bird in front of her or throw it at her. He does it to remind her that he is in control of her. The husband is using the idea that he is responsible for protecting her to justify his abhorrent violence that is directed at the wife. Jean-Marie Kauth offers a different interpretation of the nightingale in her article, “Barred Windows and Uncaged Birds: The Enclosure of Women in Chretien de Troyes and Marie de Marie.” Kauth argues that the nightingale is a representation of the female voice and that it is being used to show a female attempt to subvert male authority. Kauth starts her argument by discussing how the tower and the action of enclosing a woman within it are seen as acts of 34 34 protection. In literature, “towers and outer walls enclose, control, and isolate at the same time as they protect” (Kauth 37). However, this protection is often accompanied by violence directed at the female. The use of these images in the lais is to show the undermining of the husband or father’s success. When the wife uses the nightingale to send a message to the young knight, she is undermining her husband’s attempts to isolate her. Therefore, the nightingale becomes a symbol of the female overcoming the barriers forced upon her. While the husband can control the wife’s body, he is unable to control her spirit. While I agree that the bird could be a substitute for the wife attempting to undermine her husband, in the end, the death of the bird represents the silencing of the female voice. Consequently, while the wife may have a moment of freedom, she is still stripped of a voice much like the other women in courtly literature. Lanval, Le Fresne, and Laüstic all point out how courtly love does not present equal opportunities for women like it claims. Marie exposes how women finding freedom and equality in affairs is a lie because courtly love absolutely stripped women of their agency. While Andreas argues that women were equals in the field of love, using the lais Lanval, Le Fresne, and Laüstic, Marie disagrees. Courtly love was not designed for married women to instigate affairs and it created unattainable beauty standards in its literature. Courtly love also denied women of the lower class the right to refuse the advances of men, and was dangerous for women because they had to return to their husbands or family if they were mistreated.

CHAPTER 4: JEAN DE MUEN’S USE OF HOSTILE SEXISM IN THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE TO ENFORCE NEGITIVE STEROTYPES OF WOMEN

Where Andreas and Marie were writing at the beginning of courtly love, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun were writing when its literary tradition had long been established. The first part of The Romance of the Rose was written by Guillaume, who wrote the first 4,000 lines between 1225 and 1230 and the second part was written by Jean, who wrote over 17, 000 lines between 1269 and 1278 (Horgan ix). The Romance of the Rose is considered one of the most influential texts of the late Middle Ages and was widely read (Horgan ix). According to Frances Horgan, the Romance of the Rose was “read, quarreled over, printed, moralized, and admired until the mid-seventeenth century, edited and re-edited from 1735 onwards, and has in recent years been the subject of a vast and daunting body of critical study” (ix). Not only was it a popular text when it was originally published, but it continues to be a much studied text among scholars which is why it needs to be analyzed to see how male writers write about women. Part of The Romance of the Rose’s popularity came from the multiple interpretations it allowed for. As Sylvia Huot explains, the Rose had a diverse readership and appealed to both “learned and popular audiences” because it could be read for “both pleasure and edification” (19). The fact that the meaning of the text changes slightly based on how it is read lead to some readers, like Christine de Pizan, taking Jean’s portion as an attack on women. While Blamires et al. argue that Guillaume does present sexist ideology in his section, it is more explicit in Jean’s section and since Jean’s section sparked a debate about the morality and positive images of women, this thesis will only be analyzing his portion. 36 36

While The Romance of the Rose is often seen as a satire that mocks the ideas of courtly love, it in fact reinforces key components of courtly ideology that support the dehumanization of women. The Romance of the Rose not only reaffirms that women should be stripped of their agency, but it also promotes stereotypes that are harmful to women in the thirteenth century. The image being promoted for women by Jean is a villainous, inherently sinful, sexually deviant, lying, woman that is incapable of anything moral. This female stereotype is shaped by the allegorical women known as Reason, the Old Woman and the Rose as well as the male allegorical figure known as Advice of Friend. The Romance of the Rose is a dream vision about a young lover who falls in love with a Rose. In order to pluck his love, the Rose, he must overcome Jealousy and her minions. The young lover is helped along on his journey by Reason, The Advice of Friend, The Army of Love, Venus, and Fair Welcome and after many battles and obstacles, he is finally allowed to take the rose. The feminized allegory that the reader encounters first is Reason. In allegorical texts, Reason is often gendered female because Ratio is the female noun in Latin. In his text, Jean does not construct a Reason character that is logical and collected, instead Reason is illogical and slanderous. Jean uses Reason to enforce social ideology about women and their lack of intelligence. Jean’s Reason seems to give fair warning about how women are deceiving like Fortune; however, in doing so, Reason is exposing how women are prone to spreading slanderous gossip about other women. Thus, Jean’s Reason enforces the concept that women are slanderous and incapable of logical thought. Reason attempts to use logic, her best trait, to talk the young lover out of the folly of love while also slandering Fate. Reason states “Hearts drunk with love are given up to great misfortune...If you live long enough to see yourself freed 37 37 from Love, you will bewail the time you have wasted” (Jean 70). Clearly Reason despises love, however, by the end of their conversation, Reason asks the young lover to become hers instead. Reason argues that she “would like to become [the Lover’s] beloved” and that the Lover should accept because “no-high-born maiden was ever so free to love as [she] is” (Jean 89). The young lover denies her because she uses the real terms for genitalia meaning she is uncouth and not worthy of his love. Reason justifies her use of these words by claiming that it is logical to use the real terms. Her logic is rejected, and the young lover moves on without her. Some scholars, like Peter L. Allen, have viewed Reason as the lover staying true to ami. Reason, however, is rejected because she does not convince the lover to act in a logical manner. Reason is presented as a “poor rhetorician and a bad psychologist” (Allen 85). Jean uses Reason’s inability to form coherent arguments as a way of stating that women are illogical and incapable of rational thought. Reason, who is supposed to provide infallible logic, cannot do so because she is a woman. Bloch argues that women are portrayed as a kind of false logic, a sophism, that vanquishes both grammar and dialects, the science of the true (65). This means that Jean reinforces the idea that women are incapable of logical thought or speaking rhetorically. Reason is also used to show that women who are try to appear intelligent are covering for their “bawdy” and foolish behavior (Jean 106). The young lover claims that Reason is really a “loose woman” and while Reason tries to defend herself, she is ultimately unable to do so. According to McWebb, “immediately after having proclaimed discretion the primordial virtue...Reason launches a lengthy metatextual justification of why it is her right and duty to name things literally” causing her to act contrary to her own advice (8). Her logic is contradictory and unreliable. McWebb also discusses how Reason is unable to 38 38 answer some of the questions that the lover asks of her. Instead, she goes on roundabout tangents despite claiming to be knowledgeable. Reason is used to reinforce the idea that women who are intelligent are simply attempting to cover up their loose morals and are not to be trusted as no woman is capable of true intelligence. Not only does Reason represent the idea that women are unintelligent or incapable of intelligent speech, she is also used to reinforce the idea that the only speech women are capable of is slander. While there is a literary history of lamenting fortune, The Romance of the Rose moves from simple complaining to full out slandering. During her lengthy speeches, Reason continually refers back to Fortune, who is depicted as a woman, by examining all Fortune’s flaws as a woman. It is as if Reason cannot help but point out everything that is wrong with Fortune, as if, it is in her nature to do so. For example, Reason states that when Fortune wants to be honored, Fortune disguises herself, but I tell you truly that when she sees her person attired in this way, she gives not a straw for anyone in the world but is so proud and haughty that there is no pride to be compared with hers. For when she sees her great riches, honors, and dignities, she is so extremely foolish as to believe that there is not a man or a woman in the world to equal her, however things may go afterwards... When she sees misfortune, she looks for a shameful way out, and she takes herself to a brothel...And since she is so perverse as to dishonor good men and an injure them and cast them into the mire, while raising the wicked on high and giving them an abundance of dignities, honors, and power which she then steals and 39 39

takes away from them when it suits her, since in fact she does not seem to know what she wants. (Jean 94) Jean is using the feminized figure of Reason he constructed to strengthen the perception that women, like Fortune, do not know what they want and will constantly go back and forth between ideas. Jean is also writing that women are proud and vain, and they think that there are none who can compare to them when they are made up in fancy clothing. Fortune further represents women who feel entitled to the attention of others simply because they look the part. As the turn of the wheel shows, women like Fortune are not what they try to appear to be. The idea of women disguising who they really are is extended and enforced by the Old Woman. The Old Woman, who is supposedly the face of wisdom, advises women to maintain their beauty and use it to trick male lovers into providing for them. For example, if a woman’s hair starts to fall out she should have the “hair of some dead woman brought to her or pads of light colored silk and stuff it all into false hair hairpieces” or if her “neck and throat are fair and white, let her see to it that her dressmaker cuts the neck so low that half a foot of fine white flesh is visible front and back” (Jean 205). The Old Woman claims that if a lady is “aware of any fault, she must cover it unless she is a fool” (Jean 205). The Old Woman doesn’t stop there, either. She continues to advise that a woman should not “lead to cloistered life, for the more [she] stays at home, the less [she is] seen by everyone and the less [her] beauty is known, desired, and sought-after” (Jean 208). The Old woman argues that if a woman’s dress trails or hangs down to the pavement, [she should] lift the side or the front of it as if to feel the air a little...Then she must ensure that her foot is exposed, so that everyone who passes that way sees her shapely foot. And if she wears a mantle, she must wear it in such 40 40

a way that it does not hinder people too much from seeing the lovely body it covers. The better to display her body...she must take hold of her coat with both hands and stretch her arms out wide, whether the path is good or muddy...If her face is not beautiful, she will, if she is wise, turn towards them her rich tresses of fair blonde hair and the nape of her neck, if she knows that her hair is well arranged; a beautiful head of hair is most attractive. (Jean 208-09) According to the advice presented by the Old Woman, the most important thing a woman can do is maintain her beauty even if it means hiding imperfections with dead women’s hair. The reason for women to look their best and to be seen as often as possible is so that they can lure in multiple lovers who will provide for them. The Old Woman encourages women to take as many lovers as possible and drain them of all their wealth so that the women are left rich (Jean 209). Not only does the Old Woman reiterate woman’s value is tied to her physical beauty, she also claims a woman’s goal in life should be to use that beauty to attract the attention of men; because the more male attention she has, the more she is worth. The Old Woman promotes the idea that the purpose for women is to look beautiful and please men. In essence, the Old Woman limits the role of women to that of a prostitute. The Old Woman, who is supposed to be wise and often virtuous, claims women are valued based on how much their bodies can make for them from their male suitors. This idea of men providing something for women in exchange for favors seems to link back to the benevolent sexism of courtly love with women of nobility. However, Jean has taken the benevolent sexism and transformed it into a hostile action against women by insinuating that women only hold value based on how much they please men. There is no benevolence in this situation. Instead it is arguing women are meant to be there to please men 41 41 implying that men have a right to use women as they want. This is demeaning to women because it enforces the idea that women are nothing more than pieces of decorated flesh and not individuals with agency. These stereotypes depict women as tricksters who deserve to be used for sexual gratification because they live for the attention of men. Another problematic idea Jean enforces is how women are inherently sexual and sinful creatures. This section reiterates the idea of women being used for the pleasure of men. Since, they are valued based on how successfully they are at attracting attention, they are being condemned for their wanton ways. In the section where the lover is walking with The Advice of Friend, the reader is told a story about a husband who grows jealous when he finds out his wife is having affairs with other men, so he beats her. The Advice of Friend says that the husband is in the wrong, and husbands should not try to tame their female companions because it is in their nature to want to have affairs with multiple men; men should know that going into the relationship. Therefore, it is counterproductive for husbands to try and prevent women from having affairs. This gives the impression that it is promoting women to take control of their sexuality and be allowed the same rights to affairs as their male counterparts, much like The Art of Courtly Love seemed to imply for female lovers. However, also much like the reality of The Art of Courtly Love, women are not granted control over their affairs but are instead being set up to in a way that male desire can be fulfilled. Upon further analysis, the Advice of Friend is in fact declaring women are promiscuous and, by extension, inherently wicked, and since it is a part of their nature to have sex with multiple people, men cannot change it. Being sexually active is a characteristic that is condemnable. Scholars like Karras, Bloch, and Roberts have stated that sex was condemned by the church. Church doctrine, like the ones from the 42 42 introduction, discussed how women were inherently sinful and sexual creatures and therefore needed to be controlled by men. The enforcing of the idea that women are incapable of not having sex is problematic because it sets up the idea that women will never be capable of a moral life. The inability to live a moral life means they are undeserving of being equal to men. Jean is emphasizing that women deserve to be second class citizens because of their immorality. Advice of Friend furthers the idea of the unchaste woman when he mentions how women wage war on Chastity. He states “all those in cloisters and abbeys have sworn hostility to [Chastity]; however strictly they are enclosed, they still hate Chastity” but he is “not speaking of good woman, whose limits are set by virtue,” even though he has not found any such good woman (Jean 138, 152). These comments mixed with the story of the sexually active wife reinforce the idea that women are sexual “creatures,” and if a man decides to marry or engage in an affair with one, he should not be surprised (Jean 152). There are multiple problems with this logic. First, it supports the notion that women are the creators of sin, and by their nature, they are incapable of being virtuous. Second, constant references to women as untamable creatures also implies women are incapable of making rational choices because they are incapable of understanding human concepts of morality and are driven by animalistic tendencies. These arguments act as justifications for the sexual abuse of women. Advice of a Friend states that a man should make “[a woman] submit to his love making; then he will be free of her complaints” after a fight (Jean 150). Since she is incapable of rational conversation, a man should use sex to control her. “Submit” implies that her consent is not needed for engaging in sexual activities thus further enforcing the claim that she is not entitled to a choice. Much like the decriminalization of rape in The Art of Courtly Love, Jean argues that rape is justified because it allows a man 43 43 to tame women. Jean continues to enforce the idea that men have a right to a woman’s body because it is inherently sexual and men should control women using base needs such as sex, because they are incapable of rational thought. So not only does Jean create a dehumanizing portrayal of women, he also decriminalizes the rape of them by saying rape is a valid tool of control. The Romance of the Rose ends with the rape of the Rose, thus continuing to promote the dehumanization of women and the decriminalization of rape. The Rose, who is the object of love, is an inanimate object. The Rose is unable to speak out against its capture or the love forced upon it. Jean compares women to objects that are meant to be possessed and have no voice in how they are used. In fact, the consent to handle the rose is given by Fair Welcome, who is portrayed as a male. The handling of the Rose is discussed between two men, giving the impression that women are not allowed to have a say in the use of their bodies much like the female lovers in The Art of Courtly Love. The affair between the young lover and the Rose is full of sexual aggression directed at her. While the young lover promises Fair Welcome that he will not be rough with the Rose, the act of plucking is described as a violent, sexual act. The young lover states that he tried to be careful; however, “[He] was forced to break the bark a little, for [he] knew no other way to obtain the thing [he] so desired (Jean 334). This implies that the use of violence to obtain a lover is justified if it is the only way a man knows how to obtain love. The lover goes on to show how violent he became with the Rose by stating, I can tell you that at last, when I had shaken the bud, I scattered a little seed there. This is when I had touched the inside of the rose- bud and explored all its little leaves, for I longed, and it seemed good to me, to probe its very depths. I thus mingled the seeds in such a 44 44

way that it would have been hard to disentangle them, with the result that all the rose-bud swelled and expanded. I did nothing worse than that... Of course, [Fair Welcome] reminded me of my promise, and told me that my behavior was outrageously improper. But he did nothing to oppose my taking and caressing and plucking the rose- bush, with all its branches, flowers, and leaves. (Jean 334-35) The words “plucked,” “shaken,” and “mingle” are all words that describe a violent action where “touched the inside” and “caressing” are words used to stimulate the idea of a sexual interaction. Here sex and violence become normalized when directed at women. Even Fair Welcome comments on how the actions are highly inappropriate but does nothing to stop it. This illustrates the Rose is no longer under the protection of Fair Welcome and is the young lover’s to do with as he pleases. Once a woman belongs to another male, the original male has no say over her treatment and once a woman is in an affair, she has no say about the violent or sexual acts done against her because she then belongs to the male lover. She has no voice to speak out against being “plucked” or “explored.” She is expected to be silent and have no voice of her own. Jean promotes the use of aggressive sex against women by having the lover state, “Youngsters, you shall learn what I did and how I did it, so that if, when spring time comes, you find it necessary to pluck the roses yourselves, open or closed, you will go about it so skillfully that you will not fail” (Jean 334). The young lover is showing other men how they are supposed to handle the Rose/a woman. The troubling words here are “open or close” since this implies it does not matter if the woman does not want to engage in sexual activities, men can use violence to make her. The young lover is used to show that there is nothing wrong with taking a female with violence. Like in The Art of Courtly Love, the male lover should have ultimate possession over his female 45 45 companion and the female lover really has no choice or voice when it comes to the affair. Jean uses hostile sexism to create a problematic stereotype of women. This female image is slanderous, foolish, valuable only if they are beautiful, hypersexual, deceitful, and all around sinful. This image not only dehumanizes women but also justifies the use of rape against them as a form of control. Ultimately, Jean furthers hostile sexism by reinforcing the idea that women are not equals and are undeserving of control over their lives. CHAPTER 5: THE CONSTRUCTION OF A POSITIVE FEMALE IMAGE IN THE BOOK OF THE CITY OF LADIES BY CHRISTINE DE PIZAN

Credited with being the first female to support herself by writing, Christine de Pizan decided to speak out against the benevolent and hostile sexism against women that was promoted by male authors. As Christine insisted, it should not “be considered folly or presumptuous for her, a woman, to take on such a subtle author, when he, a single man, dared to defame without exception an entire sex” (Ferrante 205). Her defense of the morality of women is not only seen in her literary work but also during the Debate of the Rose, where she challenges male authors who tried to silence her defense of women. Christine sees the misogyny in literature as a “doctrine that was deleterious to the well-being of both sexes” and therefore should be condemned (Brown-Grant 50). She also explains how “women accepted and internalized an unjustifiable evaluation of their sex” (Blamires 278). Although scholars like Ferrante and Rigby have looked at how Christine defends the morality of women, they have yet to examine how she reconstructs a positive female image as a way of combating hostile and benevolent sexism that male authors used to attack women. An analysis of The Book of the City of Ladies shows how Christine discusses the common characteristics associated with women in literature and discredits them as reasonable arguments by providing examples of women who disprove male author’s claims. At the same time, she enters into the literary traditions established by male writers in order to undermine their credibility and the negative and inaccurate stereotypes that they promote. By discrediting the image of women that male authors promoted, and their authority, Christine is able to construct and promote a positive female image that describes women as intelligent, moral, and in possession of skills that make them as valuable as men. 47 47

The Book of the City of Ladies begins with Christine, the character, reading books by male authors who argue women are sinful and idiotic creatures, much like the idea promoted in The Romance of the Rose and The Art of Courtly Love. After reading these texts, Christine becomes distressed and begs to know what the purpose of such a sinful creature is. After her outburst, Lady Justice, Lady Reason, and Lady Rectitude enter and tell Christine that these writers are lying, and that Christine will build a city for women to live in, protected against the slander of lying men. As they begin to clear the foundation of the city, Lady Reason explains that male authors write slanderous texts for multiple reasons. According to Lady Reason, men who “criticize the female sex because they are inherently sinful are men who have wasted their youth on dissolute behavior and who have had affairs with different women” (Christine 18). She goes on to explain how men who have slandered women do so because they are “all bitter and twisted in the mind” or they are envious because they have known “women who were cleverer and more virtuous than they are” (Christine 19). Because of these faults, the male writers need to prove they are better than someone, so they berate women to make themselves feel more powerful. Christine identifies specific male writers, like Jean de Muen, in order to personally attack them as well as to enter into the conversation on the matter of women.8 Christine, the writer, continues to discredit both benevolent and hostile sexist ideas when setting the foundation of the city. The action of clearing the space to set the foundation of the city is an allegory that symbolizes the clearing away of misogynic ideologies surrounding women in the fifteenth century.

8 “The Matter of Women” was taken from Elizabeth Ann Robertson. For more on the history of the term see Robertson’s article, “Practicing Women: The Matter of Women in Medieval English Literature.” 48 48

According to Jill Wagner, as Lady Reason explains why male authors write slanderous texts, Christine removes the dirt, which represents misogynistic ideas, allowing them to work together to prepare a section of ‘flat and fertile plain’ on which to lay their foundation of protofeminism (71). Thus, “the field becomes a sort of level playing field because the clearing of it gives women’s arguments validity” (Wagner 71). By the time that the foundation is laid, Lady Reason, and by extension Christine, the writer, have discredited and removed the misogynistic ideas male authors have constructed about women. In doing so, Christine has stripped the literary woman of all the slanderous stereotypes, such as the ones enforced by Jean de Meun, and uses the women of the past, present, and future to reconstruct a female archetype that represents women in a positive way. Since the personification of Lady Reason, instead of the character Christine, denounces the credibility of anti-feminist male writers, another layer is added to the argument. If Reason, who is often associated with logic, condemns these writers by arguing that these writers do not speak, act, or write from a place of logic. Christine, the writer, argued that male writers who slander women are doing so out of hatred and thus are not transmitting a truthful image. Christine not only discredits male writers but their anti-feminist rhetoric as well by claiming such rhetoric comes from a place that is not based in logic. Brown-Grant points out that “the prologue of the Citie not only establishes Christine’s doctrine as the criterion by which Christine can undermine the credibility of misogynistic writers, it also uses theology in order to provide her with a model for her own authority in the text” (Brown-Grant 145). Not only is Christine able to undermine misogynistic doctrine and the writers who promote it, she is also able to build up her own credibility as a writer. It is important that Christine, the writer, establishes her credibility because she is arguing against misogynistic ideas that have been in 49 49 practice for a long time. She is also a female, and therefore, is already considered incapable of intellectual thought by the male authors’ standards. She has to work twice as hard to establish herself as a competent writer and to disprove the conventional, sexist, ideology. Christine continues her attack against male writers by creating a Lady Reason that is intelligent and reasonable, to counter the slanderous Reason presented in The Romance of the Rose. In The Book of the City of Ladies, Lady Reason uses logical arguments to advise Christine, the character. Here, Reason is allegorized as a woman. However, unlike the Reason created by Jean, Christine’s Lady Reason never contradicts her own advice and is able to answer every question Christine has. Lady Reason also does not go off on long tangents where she slanders other women. According to Brown-Grant, Lady Reason is able to recognize the difference between “theological authority,” the authority from Scripture, and “philosophical and poetic pseudo-authority,” the authority from writers, when justifying her arguments (144). For example, when Christine brings up that many men have mocked women due to a Latin proverb that states “God made women to weep, talk and spin,” Lady Reason counters by using the example of Mary’s crying over Jesus’s death to show it is not a criticism (Christine 26). Lady Reason makes it a point to use examples from the Bible to counter the arguments provided by male authors to show that logical people use examples from Scripture. In The Romance of the Rose, Reason does not give much thought to where she draws her arguments from. This leads her to draw from stories such as those of Virginius, Cicero, and from Roman myths. In having a Lady Reason that is capable of actually answering questions and sticking to theological evidence, Christine, the writer, shows that women are capable of intelligent thought as well as producing logical arguments. 50 50

Christine continues to reinforce the idea of women being capable of intelligence throughout The Book of the City of Ladies. The virtue of intelligence is first mentioned in Part One. The character Christine asks Lady Reason to tell her if women have an aptitude for learning. Lady Reason claims that while “women may have weaker and less agile bodies than men, which prevents them from doing certain tasks, their minds are in fact shaper and more receptive when they do apply themselves,” but that they do not know as much as men because “they are less exposed to a wide verity of experiences since they have to stay at home all day to look after the household” (Christine 57). The writer Christine argues that women have the capacity to learn and are by nature more intelligent than men. They, however, are not presented with the opportunities to expand their intellect because male authority refuses to acknowledge that women are capable of intellect. Christine supports these claims by sharing the stories of women such as Cornifica, Proba, and Sappho, all of them women who used their intellect and education to better society or their families. Christine also tells stories of women who have invented new sciences, like Minerva. All these women were able to pursue knowledge and had a scholarly impact on the world. Thus showing, given the opportunity to learn, women can easily use their intellect to change the world. The reason Christine uses women from mythology and the past is to take women characters from male authors and reconstruct them in a way that promotes positive characteristics of women (Stecopoulos 48). Instead of these women being footnotes in male dominated stories, Christine argues that their accomplishments have had a direct positive impact on the world they occupy. Christine, the character, continues the debate of education for women by telling Lady Rectitude that she is “amazed at the opinion of some men who state that they are completely opposed to their daughters, wives, or other female 51 51 relatives engaging in study, for fear that their morals will be corrupted” (Christine 139-40). Christine addresses the misogynistic idea that women are not allowed to attend schools and are often not taught academics. Lady Rectitude claims that the idea of women not having the capacity for intellect is false and argues how academic knowledge allowed Novella, the daughter of Giovanni Andrea, to help her father by lessening his work load. Lady Rectitude even points out that Christine was educated by her father and she is not immoral because of it. Lady Rectitude concludes that men push women away from an education because those who are not clever “don’t want women to know more than they do,” while those who are intelligent do not agree with the idea of women being kept from an education. Christine, the writer, was educated by her father, despite her mother’s protest (Willard 23). Her education helped her thrive when her father and husband died, leaving her to provide for her family. Clearly, education would have been seen as important for Christine. Having Jean claim women are only destined to please men, most likely would have encouraged Christine to argue for the education of women so that they could achieve more in their lives. Christine also discredits Jean’s argument further by claiming intelligent men believe in education for women implying that Jean is not intelligent and should not be commenting on women. Christine continues to question the intelligence of male writers who embrace anti-feminist ideologies. Christine claims that if male writers are against educating women, then they must be afraid women will become smarter than they are, therefore, the male writers are not as intelligent to begin with while if they promote educating women they are, themselves, intelligent to recognize women’s capabilities. Christine argues that the men who oppose education for women are men who are afraid and who use women to make themselves feel as though they 52 52 are in power. Christine also argues women who cannot be equal to men due to the accusation of women being unintelligent is not a valid argument. Men use the lack of education for women as a way to further degrade women under the guise of protecting them from their own intelligence, reinforcing the benevolent sexism of the thirteenth century. While crediting women with intelligence is important, reinstating the morality of women was a large part of creating a positive female image. Women as inherently sinful and promiscuous are the characteristics that male authors most often used to attack women. The most prominent accusation against women is that they are responsible for bringing original sin into the world and are thus immoral and can never be equal to their male counterparts. This is a key argument Christine addresses, discredits, and uses to reconstruct the morality of women. According to Elizabeth Clark, Tertullian, a Christian author and scholar, tells his female audience that they “are the Devil’s gateway; [they] are the unsealer of that tree; [they] are the first foresaker of that divine law; [they] are the one who persuaded him whom the Devil was not brave enough to approach; [they] so lightly crushed the image of God, the man Adam; because of [their] punishment, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die” (169). Tertullian argues that a woman was the one to bring the Devil into this world. Since women were morally weak and brought sin into this world, they cannot be equal to their male counterparts and should not be allowed to teach or preach in person or though writing. The idea of women as immoral creatures appears in The Art of Courtly Love9 and The Romance of the Rose10 where Andreas and Jean both reinforce the idea that it was in a woman’s

9 In Book 3 10 In the Chapter “Advice of a Friend” 53 53 nature to commit sin, and these women could not be considered equal to men. Since the idea of women as inherently sinful was a key argument against women, Christine makes sure to dismantle the argument completely. Christine addresses this argument when she lays the foundation of the city and, by extension, strips away the slanderous ideas attached to women. After being asked by Christine, the character, about the idea that without the creation of women, men could converse with God, Lady Reason states that “those who state that it is thanks to a woman, the lady Eve, that man was expelled from paradise, my answer to them would be that man has gained far more through Mary than he ever lost through Eve” (Christine 23). What Lady Reason argues for men not to condemn Eve. If Eve had not eaten the apple, then the Virgin Mary, who is often praised by the church, would not have been necessary, and humankind, through the salvation of Christ, would not be one with God. Therefore, the argument of a woman responsible for original sin cannot be used to condemn women since Mary, a woman, is also responsible for the salvation of man. The writer Christine continues the argument against women who are incapable of being moral. In the third book of The Book of the City of Ladies, the city is filled with women who either lived moral lives or lived morally to the best of their ability given their social standing. While there are many virgin saints allowed into the city, there are also mother saints who are not virginal, yet tried to live a moral life. Saint Afra, who was a prostitute that found God and refused to worship false pagan idols. When the judge tries to force her to worship pagan idols, Saint Afra argues that “it says in his gospel that a female sinner washed his feet with her tears and was forgiven” because Jesus “didn’t despise either prostitutes or sinful publicans, but rather allowed them to sit and eat with him” (Christine 234). The story of Saint Afra accomplishes two things. First, it debunks 54 54 the idea that women have to be virgins to be moral because Afra shows that morality is not dependent on being a virgin, but rather on living a godly life. A woman can make a mistake and it does not have to define her for her entire life. Second, it uses the Bible to justify the women who have sinned can find redemption and live moral lives. If Jesus Christ can forgive women who have sinned but turned their lives around, why can’t mortal men do the same? Christine shows male writers that they do not have the authority to condemn women as sinners just because they did not stay virgins. While the church condemned sex both in and out of marriage, most women did not have the choice to deny their husbands. This would mean married women would be condemned for things they could not control. Christine’s allowing mothers and redeemed sinners into the city shows that morality is not tied to virginity, but how a woman devotes her life to God. This allows for women who are unable to devote their lives to chastity a chance to still maintain their morality. As discussed in The Romance of the Rose, by defining women as promiscuous and inherently sinful, male writers were able to promote the idea that women were responsible for their own rapes. After Christine discredits the idea of women as immoral, she argues against the idea that women are willing participants in their rapes. The seemingly social acceptance of rape, and, in cases where there was found to be an actual rape, the victim blaming associated with it further repressed women. By glorifying and rebranding rape in literature, writers like Jean and Andreas decriminalized the raping of women. In the stories of female Saints, women who are faced with rape are often saved at the last minute by God or the Holy Spirit. This promotes the idea that women who didn’t really want to be raped would be saved from it. These myths combined with the idea that women provoke desire in men due to their inherently sinful ways continued to 55 55 promote the acceptance of violence and abuse of women. Women being held responsible for their rape was part of the stereotype male writers reinforced in society. Christine, the character, tells Lady Rectitude that it upsets her “when men claim that women want to be raped and that, even though a woman may verbally rebuff a man, she won’t in fact mind it if he does force himself upon her” (Christine 147). Lady Rectitude goes on to state that women do, in fact, hate rape and provides stories of women who either kill themselves, take revenge or use intelligence to overcome their rapists. One example is the Queen of Galtians, who was raped while imprisoned. When she found the right opportunity, she took a knife and slit her rapist’s throat before decapitating him. Hyppo and the Sicambrians, on the other hand, found themselves in a situation where they were unable to escape, so they all killed themselves to deny their enemies the chance to rape them. The daughters of the lord of Lombardy, in another instance, placed raw chicken between their breasts so that they would stink so enemy soldiers would avoid them. These stories exemplify how women were not sexual creatures who wished to have sex all the time like Jean implies in the Romance of the Rose. These stories also show what women have to go to extreme lengths to get men to leave them alone. Here, Christine counters the benevolent sexism that is a part of the heroic rape myth. Where courtly literature and art often romanticizes the conquering of women by invading forces, Christine is showing that it is attention that is being forced upon women. 11 These stories are examples of how women dealt with being victims or potential victims of rape. According to Jean and Andreas, the Queen of Galtians

11 For further discussion on Heroic Rape in art see Diane Wolfthal “A Hue and a Cry: Medieval Rape Imagery and Its Transformation.” 56 56 should not have been angry at her rapist because she is responsible for it. This is problematic, as she was being held captive and was unable to avoid her attacker. By putting in the effort to kill her rapist, after already being freed, she shows that it was not an act between lovers but a violation of her person. What is also troubling about this story is how the only one to place any blame on the rapist was the female victim. The Queen of Galtians had to seek justice for herself, which implies that she would not receive justice in any other way. This exposes the lack of legal protection for women when it came to rape because, in the eyes of the law, this rape may not have been viewed as a real crime. However, Lady Rectitude disagrees and makes sure the audience knows this rape is a crime and deserving of punishment. By insisting that rape is a crime, Christine attempts to reestablish rape as a dehumanizing and violent offense, not an act of love. These stories reinforce Christine, the writer’s, claim that “women do not enjoy rape and honestly are trying to prevent it” (147). Christine explains that stories about women who are said to be responsible for their own rape constitutes another lie told by male authors and such lies have serious ramifications for women. Christine argues, as well, that women are not bringing this violent act upon themselves but are in fact fighting against it. She shows rape is an unacceptable act that women are not responsible for, and, by extension men, who are justifying rape, are justifying an atrocious crime. The writer Christine does more than just reconstruct what it means to be a woman; she also reconstructs how women should be valued. In the Romance of the Rose, Jean enforces the idea that women were valued based off of their beauty, and in Lanval by Marie de France, the beauty expectations of women would have been unachievable for all women. The fact that Christine’s “evaluation of the characters she studies rests on their skills and contributions to society, not merely 57 57 on status or historical reputation” adds to her reconstruction of women’s value (Stepcopulos 50). Christine uses her examples to show that there is a long history of women contributing inventions and ideas to society to help it grow. Christine emphasizes the achievements, so they become the focus of why women should be valued. Women’s value is no longer attached to their body and social status. By arguing that women have value that extends beyond the physical form, Christine humanizes women and further problematizes the violence directed at them. No longer are women simple prizes to be won, but they are beings capable of thought and enriching the society around them, which makes them equal to men. Women are creators, inventors, rhetoricians, craftswomen, and preachers of morality and are worth more than the value of their virginity and beauty. By the end of her dream vision, Christine, the writer, has created a positive female image to combat the hostile sexism promoted in texts like The Romance of the Rose. Christine has shown that women are intellectual like Minerva, loyal and supportive wives like Empress Triaria, and moral like Saint Catherine. The women of The Book of the City of Ladies demonstrates that women are equal to men in morality and intelligence, and therefore the idea that they should be treated as second class citizens does not make sense. The literary female reconstructed by Christine reflects the complexity of real women, and they deserve to be written about in ways that reflect that truth. Male writers need to recognize that women are not creatures who are there to serve the desires of men but are human beings capable of rational thought who have a right to an education and equality. Christine continued to use her intellect outside of her literary endeavors to continue to prove that women are intellectual equals to men. Christine not only reconstructed what it meant to be a woman in her texts, but she also portrayed her ideas in her everyday life. When mentioning Christine and her crusade to 58 58 reestablish a positive female stereotype, it is important to discuss The Debate of the Rose. The Debate was a conversation between the supporters of The Romance of the Rose and people who said it was a story that promoted immoral ideas. The Debate of the Rose begins with Christine writing letters detailing her experience reading the Romance of the Rose and critiquing it for its indecency before she collected other criticisms and complied them into a dossier (Hult 12). According to Hult, the “second phase of the debate was inadvertently initiated by what might be considered the surprising intervention of one of the most prominent theologians of the time, Jean Gerson” (13). His letter is followed by Pierre Col’s response which is addressed to Christine where Col “likewise pursues a path in the course of which he attempts not only to address the substance of the issue but to call into question the motivations of the Rose’s critics” (Hult 16). He calls into question Christine’s morality while claiming that the criticism may be a form of promoting The Romance of the Rose (Hult 16). Hult claims that what is crucial about the debate is the fact that Christine is “establishing a dialogue with her interlocutors from a female perspective” and is “using her position as a woman to attack a male establishment (2). Christine uses her experience as a woman to enter into an academic debate with popular male writers who did not see her as an equal or qualified to have an opinion. Christine does not shy away, but shows them that women can be clever, intelligent, and equal to male authority figures. During the debate, Christine seeks “to save readers from the harmful moral effects of misogynist teachings, which condone men to amoral attitudes and behavior and their amatory relationships with women” while also attempting “to convince these readers of women’s potential and actual status as exemplars of virtues which are applicable to both sexes” (Brown-Grant 28). Christine argues that it was a writer’s duty to write about morality and to preach ideology that 59 59 benefits society, not ideology that promotes discord between people. She also practices what she argues and is an example of how the complex literary woman she creates is a realistic portrayal actual women. The fact that she makes herself the center of an academic debate, discredits male writers by drawing them into her arguments to prove her points, and has the agency to collect the debate documents and send them to the Queen of France, all show how women were capable of much more than male authors gave them credit for. During the debate, Christine exemplifies the intellectual and moral image she constructed and further discredits the hostile sexism that Jean de Meun enforced in The Romance of the Rose. Not only did Christine create a place where feminist rhetoric could recover the stories of women during and before her time, she also created a space where she could reconstruct a positive image of women before making it into a reality in the debates. This new female archetype humanized women while placing them on an equal level with men. While women may not have had true equality in society at this time, the idea of equality would start to problematize the violence women faced and push the boundaries on how women should be valued.

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION

This thesis has argued that benevolent sexism was a part of the courtly love construct. The concept that courtly love implied that women and men were equal in love was in fact a cover for the dehumanization of women. The benevolent and hostile sexism Andreas argued in The Art of Courtly Love and Marie critiqued in The Lais of Marie de France shows that courtly love stripped women of their agency and voice while attaching the value of women to their beauty. Courtly love also decriminalized rape, which the introduction showed was an established crime, justifying that the forced affection of men on women was an act of love. In The Romance of the Rose, sexism of courtly love transforms into anti- feminist rhetoric that enforces the idea that all women are unintelligent, overly sexual creatures incapable of living a moral life. Jean’s popular allegory depicts an image of women that continues to dehumanize them, claiming that women are closer to creatures than to men. Instead of sex being portrayed as an act of love, it is now justified rape because women are prone to promiscuity as well as second class to men. Therefore, men have the right to use women as they want. The Romance of the Rose continues to promote the violence directed at women by stripping them of their morality and arguing that women should be happy that men are paying attention to them. After all, Jean argued that women are only valued based on the attention they get form men. In the fifteenth century, Christine de Pizan fights back against the antifeminist image that has been imposed on women. In her dream vision, The Book of the City of Ladies, and The Debate of the Rose, Christine argues that the depiction of women created by male authors is a lie. Women possess morality as well as intelligence that make them equal, if not better, than men. By discrediting the arguments of male writers, Christine strips away the misogyny that clings to 61 61 women at this time. With a clean foundation in her city, Christine reconstructs and promotes a positive image of women. The benevolent and hostile sexism of the Middle Ages continues into our society today. The oversexualization of women in our media has led to a justifying of the mistreatment of them.12 With advertising and movies implying that the abuse and rape of women is acceptable, women are finding that they have to prove their morality in order to combat the negative images that are being imposed on them. Women are also finding that they are being blamed for their rape because they drank too much or have a history of being friendly with men, leading to a justice system where women are once again blamed for their own rapes or told they actually wanted it. Yes, there are some women who are joining together to try and combat the antifeminist ideology that is dominating our western society. Scholars like Jean Kilbourne are working to expose the hostile sexism that influences the world of advertising much like Marie exposed the benevolent sexism of courtly love culture. Like Marie, writers need to expose the deep-seated sexism of our society and explain why it is a problem that needs to be dealt with. As Frasier points out, benevolent sexism is the hardest to fix because so often it is disguised as helping women. Therefore, women writers need to be vigilant and work together to bring it to the attention of all women. After female writers expose the sexism that is running rampant in our culture, they need to follow in the steps of Christine and work at creating and promoting a positive image of women. More women need to work on pushing for representations of women who are intelligent, skillful and dependent. There needs

12 Jean Kilbourne. “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence.” 62 62 to be a counter to the images of women as love interests, damsels in distress, or assistants with positive images of women who save the day and are just as useful as their male costars. By promoting a positive image, women we can start fighting back against the misogyny that has been dehumanizing them for so long.

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