Marie de France in the Garden of Eden

The flesh and blood woman of Medieval Europe was often viewed as an evil temptress, ready to lead men into folly, as Eve did to Adam in the Garden of Eden, according to a selection by Angela Jane Weisl in Violence Against Women in Medieval Texts. With their social status so diminished, it can be argued that they are the largest group of “others” of their era.

But Marie de France flouts and perhaps parodies these notions in many of her Lais. In her stories, central female characters are often revered for their beauty. Love-struck knights eagerly served and attended to them. Even the maiden character in Guigemar, is portrayed as wise, as it is she who sets aside extra food for Guigemar and who urges him and his lady to proclaim their love for each other.

A striking religion-based example of this contrast between the real perceptions of women and Marie de France's portrayals came in Yonec, when the lady tells the knight she will only love him if can prove he believes in God. He complies and recounts the Garden of Eden. In his version of the story, however, Eve is not faulted.

He says: “I do believe in the Creator who set us free from the sorrow in which our ancestor Adam put us by biting the bitter apple.”

The lady, it goes without saying, accepts his entreaties.

Locking your wife in a tower...

is apparently less effective than you might think.

I was struck in my reading by the two instances of beautiful young wives being stowed away from society by their husbands so they would not be seen by other men who would seduce them. In both Guigemar and Yonec, the initial captivity of the women is seen as an inevitable byproduct of their unhappy marriages: the lord in Guigemar is old, and “all old men are jealous and hate to be cuckolded” (46), while the rich old man in Yonec locks his lady in a tower to “watch over her” (86). Both women are given limited female companionship and some access to religion in their prisons, but little else. Their beauty and sexuality, though attractive, is also threatening to their husbands, who believe they must physically contain it in order to control their households.

Given the social conventions and views of female sexuality at the time, I expected the men who safeguarded their wives’ chastity and Christianity to be seen as the heroes, the non-monstrous figures. Instead, Marie de France seems to ask us to sympathize with these women and their lovers, despite their association with the supernatural, either through ever-bleeding wounds and prophecies, or transforming into birds. The lover in Yonec is even implicitly granted to the woman in response to her prayer, implying that their affair, though technically adultery, is sanctioned by God. The lines between the monstrous and the divine in both these tales seem decidedly blurry.

One final note: both of these women end up escaping their imprisonment shockingly easily. Why did the woman in Yonec not jump out the window earlier in her seven year captivity? Sure, it was a high jump, but she does it so easily when motivated. Is seems the sexual female is not only easily (though understandably, seduced, even within captivity, but also impossible to truly contain, tower, or no tower.