In Chrétien’s poetry, Lancelot is almost obsessively in love with Guinevere, falling into religious-like swoons and forgetting his own safety because he is thinking of her. By her spell-like thrall over him, Guinevere “reveals the potential dangers of a man’s unquestioning devotion to a woman,”152 something to be both simultaneously admired according to the tenets of courtly love, yet avoided at all costs in the reality of the male-dominated medieval period. Roberta Krueger notes, “[Woman’s] privilege as a literary figure is less an indication of ‘real’ power than a male mystification of femininity, one that obscures the reality of her historical decline.”153 Women were given a lofty ideal to aspire to, yet most were lucky if they survived the horrors of abuse, childbirth, and poverty.
“Intentionally or not, Chrétien illustrates the destructive power of love for Guinevere; it both stuns and brainwashes a previously capable and astute knight,”154 writes Bonner. The implied lesson here is that men must guard their hearts, for if they fall too deeply for a woman, she will unman them. So male readers were warned to take heed, while female readers were exhorted to guard themselves against spreading their inherent lust.
Guinevere and Lancelot as Models of Courtly Love
One interesting point about Chrétien’s treatment of the now infamous love affair is that it doesn’t contain the stain of sin that will later mar the stories for generations. Guinevere and Lancelot’s love is one of bliss and joy with no hint of remorse, which is Marie de Champagne’s ideal of courtly love. Bonner notes, “Where Wace and others expel Guinevere from their narrative following her indiscretions, Chrétien lets her go totally free, never making the affair known to Arthur.”155
If the story is to be read as an allegory of courtly love, then this makes perfect sense. While the definition of courtly love is greatly debated by scholars, we can look to the twelfth century Rules of Courtly Love as defined by Andreas Capellanus for guidance.156 His rules help explain Guinevere’s jealousy157 and Lancelot’s swooning.158
Guinevere and Lancelot’s love fulfills all four attributes of the ideal of courtly love, as defined by Gaston Paris, a nineteenth century scholar who is credited with being the person to coin the term, and refined by DePaul University professor David Simpson:159
Aristocratic - That is, happening within the nobility at the royal court. Guinevere is queen and Camelot is her royal court.
Ritualistic160 - The man makes grand gestures and woos his love with songs, poems, and other favors. In return the woman only needed to hint at her approval. This may be the best explanation for Guinevere’s haughty thoughtlessness. In addition, the woman was the mistress of the affair and the man her submissive slave of love. His love for her has an almost religious tone to it.161 We see this played out in the often melodramatic effect Guinevere’s love has on Lancelot. Courtly love also has its own set of rules that lovers must learn and observe.
Secret162 - The affair must only be between the two lovers. Note that it is always when their affair is discovered that Guinevere and Lancelot’s love ends. Putting aside how it likely would have made Arthur feel, this convention explains why the revelation of their affair has such serious effects.
Adulterous163 - Their love happens outside of marriage. This is different from the modern connotation of adultery, which usually implies extramarital sex. Courtly love allowed for physical contact, but it was about romance, not sex. In a world when most marriages were for political or economic gain or only to produce children, this was the real love that resulted in the sublime. Since Guinevere is married and the author gives us little hint of affection between her and Arthur, as opposed to the great passion between her and Lancelot, this criterion is fulfilled.
As Peter Noble points out, Guinevere was written specifically for this type of court: Chrétien took very little of his material for [Guinevere] from his predecessors, with the result that she is very largely his own creation, made necessary by the type of society for which he was writing and by the demands of the stories themselves. As Chrétien was writing during at least part of his career for the sophisticated court of Marie de Champagne at which women played a considerable social role, it would be only realistic to portray a character fulfilling such a role, even if idealized, in the romances.164
Comer goes one step further, arguing that “Guinevere as a character is not important; Guinevere as a symbol is…any other married noblewoman could just as easily play the part [of Lancelot’s lover]…Guinevere’s personality is ancillary and expendable.”165 It was Guinevere’s job to bring out the best in the knight in her service; in exchange, he would be her servant.166 “Starting with the French tradition of courtly love, noble women occupied a space that was both public and private…. She was also to be something of an icon—a figure for the knights to swear fealty to and for their ladies to imitate. As a wife, she was expected to follow her husband’s direction, and bear an heir, as well as perform that most courtly and impossible of tasks, bring her lover to perfection.”167
The melodramatic actions and reactions of Arthurian characters, especially Lancelot and Guinevere, are part and parcel of courtly romances. Comer notes that this drama has caused confusion among critics and scholars. “Th[e] manner of courtly love is so extreme that critics still do not know whether writers like Chrétien were treating the subject seriously or mockingly.”168 So deep is Lancelot’s passion for Guinevere, it even fuels him to perform feats of superhuman strength, as evidenced when he removes the iron bars leading to her chamber so that they might become lovers. Bonner notes that Guinevere is an equal actor and willing partner in this scene of seduction. She concludes that “Guinevere’s willingness and carelessness in this scene indicate that love has also debased her.”169
Is that true, or is Guinevere’s abandon a sign of her independence? Here she is acting against the morals of society by using her free will to take a lover. Samples writes, “It is noteworthy that in Charette, Guinevere’s independence is sexual, which is revolutionary because this affair challenges the existing institution of marriage and enhances the role of women. The lovers choose each other, and Guinevere enjoys an equal status in the relationship.”170
And therein lies the rub. Because this Guinevere, unlike Chrétien’s portrayals of her in his other poems, dares to act on her own accord, she is punished with the personality of a harpy. Walters says, “Her treatment…is an example of the distrust that surrounds the actions of a strong woman.”171 It is only when she becomes a major character in The Knight in the Cart that Guinevere becomes unlikable and, in the words of Lori Waters, “downright unattractive.”172
So Guinevere acts independently of society, but does that mean she has true agency? Most scholars, including Maureen Fries, say no. “In Lancelot, Guinevere would at first appear to be the dominant character, especially in terms of courtly love, which informs the romance…. But only on the surface, as further analysis discloses…. Guinevere exists, like other heroines of Arthurian and other romance, to get into trouble the hero must get her out of. The incentive to heroic action, she is at the same time it’s reward. Functionally, Guinevere is unable to act on her own.”173
Chrétien’s Motivations
Unlike many scholars who believe Chrétien’s personal opinion of Guinevere—outside of the influence of Marie de Champagne—was neutral to favorable, Bonner argues that “while Chrétien intends his Guinevere to be more than a pretty face, his low aspirations for her become clear in a careful analysis of her brief roles…. Her only control lies in matters of manners….Chrétien confines her actions to the inconsequential and…tells readers very little about her motivations or emotions.”174
While we may not know Chrétien’s opinion of her, there is a widely-held belief that Guinevere’s affair with Lancelot was likely forced on him by Chrétien’s patroness, Marie de Champagne. Comer notes “there is also a certain inconsistency in Guinevere’s character…that does not exist in the [works of lat
er authors]. Chrétien acquiescing to his patroness’s wishes and the influence of literary trends of the time can explain the incongruity. These forces as well as the theme of courtly love that pervades Chrétien’s Knight of the Cart transform Guinevere from Arthur’s good and faithful wife to Lancelot’s jealous and fickle mistress.”175 Later on, Comer elaborates, noting “Guinevere is almost two different characters—one with Arthur and one with Lancelot. When seen with Arthur, she is a good queen and a supportive wife; when seen with Lancelot, she is a demanding and jealous lover.”176
This makes sense when one considers that sexual adultery is rare in courtly romances,177 and when it does occur, it is not glorified; in fact, it is looked down upon.178 “Was it the poet’s intention to glorify courtly love, which was stronger than all injections of morality?” asks Bumke. “Or did he intend to take a stance of ironic aloofness from this kind of love?”179 We likely will never know the answer, but Chrétien’s handling of the subject of adultery shows how uncomfortable he was with the idea. As a poet, he would have known that such a storyline was not commonly accepted, yet he had to please his patroness, however reluctantly.
Another theory for the change in Guinevere’s demeanor takes the exact opposite argument, positing that Marie de Champagne “forced Chrétien to portray the queen as a calculating adulteress in order to illustrate the code of ‘courtly love’ popular at the time.”180 If we follow this line of thinking, then it seems Marie might have been using a bit of reverse psychology here; it could be that she wanted Chrétien to point out the affair because it is the exact opposite of what is commonly accepted in such circles. By pointing out the offending behavior, Chrétien would be enforcing the desired end: a pure, spiritual love that transcended the urges of the flesh—the ideal of courtly love.
Barbara Gordon-Wise takes yet another tack in trying to explain the abrupt about-face, by arguing Chrétien “was trying to avoid the French tradition of ‘an insipid Guinevere’ but the price was that she was even more deeply linked to adultery and seduction.”181 It’s possible that because Guinevere was a kind, nurturing character in Chrétien’s other stories, that this is how he really saw her and the “calculating adulteress” 182 we meet in The Knight of the Cart is his way of registering a complaint while still doing as Marie de Champagne asked.
Regardless of authorship or intent, Chrétien’s poetry forever changed the fabric of Arthurian legend, anchoring it firmly in the tradition of courtly love espoused by Marie de Champagne and her nobility. He gave us a more well-rounded Arthur and Guinevere, a king who “does more than wage war and conquer other nations, but also a more detailed and more active Queen.”183 Guinevere in some ways appears strong—she holds Lancelot in her sway with her love and is unabashedly sexual—but she is really only a symbol of the beauty idolized by a romantic court. As Walters notes, “Woman’s ‘power’ is a fiction of the male subject who needs her to resist so that he can desire her.”184 For all her seeming power, Guinevere is still very much “dependent upon the actions and desires of men…. Chrétien develops little more than her unhealthy love for Lancelot,”185 writes Bonner. But again, that is to be expected under the egis of courtly love where “[beauty] is more important than any real virtue and even supersedes the usually important one of chastity.”186
Marie de France
“I say this truth to you, my queen,
and you had better understand—
some servant girl she has at hand,
the poorest in her retinue,
is, Lady Queen, worth more than you.”
— Lanval by Marie de France187
Around the same time Chrétien was writing, a type of poetry called a “lai” (or “lay”) was being composed by Marie de France188 and her court, which viewed Guinevere from a completely different perspective. Here she was not held up as an ideal woman; rather, she was condemned as lustful and evil. “[The] sketch of Guenevere in ‘the Lay of Sir Launfal’ is a character one does not recall with pleasure,” writes Mason in his introduction to Marie’s works.189
Andrea Hopkins elaborates, “Parallel to the descriptions of Guinevere as a noble lady was from an early date a strong tradition of a bad Guinevere. This is a queen whom power has corrupted and she uses her feminine wiles to manipulate Arthur, throwing tantrums, crying or sulking to get her own way. Portrayals of her love affair with Lancelot here show that she is capable of extreme jealousy, and worst of all, she does not flinch at scheming to harm those who have thwarted her desires out of spite. The first occasion on which we meet this Guinevere is in one of the twelfth century’s Breton lays of Marie de France, ‘Lanval.”190
In this lai, Guinevere attempts to seduce a young knight named Sir Lanval. When he rejects her, she accuses him to others of trying to seduce her, while at the same time suggesting to him that his lack of desire for her is because he is homosexual. This is a motif that dates back to Potiphar’s wife in the Bible, a story popular in the Middle Ages,191 though David Chamberlain argues Guinevere is worse than the Biblical woman “given her motive, haste and virile husband.”192 John and Caitlin Matthews argue that Guinevere’s motivation is that she “fears him because he sees through her many infidelities…here there is no doubt of the queen’s infidelities and she is presented as a scheming and promiscuous woman.”193
Lanval is not the only lai in which Guinevere is portrayed in a negative light, again having to do with sex. Du Cor and the Conte du Mantel both contain tests of chastity, which Arthur’s queen (though unnamed) fails. A similar English ballad called The Boy and the Mantle gives almost the exact situation, naming Guinevere, who fails the test. It is claimed that she slept with fifteen men and she is called “a bitch and a witch/and a whore bold.”194
So what did Marie de France have against Guinevere? Obviously, something to do with sex, a sensitive subject for both men and women in the Middle Ages. In this work, Marie uses Guinevere to invoke two of the most taboo sexual subjects of her (and almost any) time: homosexuality and adultery. But her beef with Guinevere was not likely personal. Then, as now, Guinevere likely represented more than just a character. In this case, she represented Arthur’s court and its values, turning them upside down by her actions.195 Logan Whalen sees Marie’s poetry as pushing the envelope of her society. “Marie’s brief foray into Arthurian fiction…exemplifies the ambivalent capacity of courtly fiction both to reflect erotic fantasies and social desires and to probe the darker forces that subtend courtly society, where competition, sexual humiliation, and treachery threaten to undermine chivalric identity.”196
In the lai of Lanval, women are shown as their two generally accepted polarities: seductive like Guinevere or pure and Otherworldly like the Fairy Queen.197 It may be that this poem is calling attention to what would later be called the virgin/whore approach to viewing the feminine.
Or the intent could be the exact opposite, and Marie de France really is the early feminist some proclaim her. “An age so feminist in its sympathies as ours should be attracted more easily to Marie de France,” writes Mason. “To deliver oneself in any medium is always difficult. For a woman in the Middle Ages to express herself publicly by any means whatever was almost impossible. A great lady, a great Saint or church-woman might do so very occasionally. But the individuality of the ordinary wife was merged in with that of her husband.”198
Several scholars see the lais as Marie de France’s way of fighting back against the rules of the society in which she lived, arguing that she reverses traditional gender roles by having the knights depend on their maidens. Jessica Medeiros praises Guinevere’s comfort with her sexuality:
Guinevere’s villainous nature can be viewed as yet another gender role reversal thrown in by bad ass Marie. Throughout history, women have been portrayed as innocent and pure, characteristics which are widely equated with femininity. Usually, women in stories are the damsels in distress, not the hero or in Guinevere’s case, the villain…. Guinevere�
��attempt[s] to seduce Lanval simply because she finds him sexually attractive [not because she loves him]. This is further evidence of a woman owning her sexuality instead of shying away from it.199
As we have seen, the twelfth century has given us an interesting mix of perspectives on Guinevere. She began the century cemented in history as an adulterous traitor and then Chrétien de Troyes wrestled her already sullied reputation into the confines of courtly love. While he did Guinevere a favor by making her a main character in The Knight of the Cart, he also presented a confusing, often contradictory view of her, one that would be darkened over the next several centuries. Marie de France, while lesser known, was merciless on Guinevere, perhaps as a way of railing against the mores of her society. The combination of these two portrayals means that deep into the Middle Ages, Guinevere is tainted by both confusion and a stain that is seemingly impossible to remove.
* * *
140 De Troyes, Chrétien, Lancelot, or The Knight of the Cart (Herklion Press 2013), 67.
141 According to John and Caitlin Matthews, Chrétien did not invent the character of Lancelot, but he was the first to make him Guinevere’s lover and he’s the one who made Lancelot the most popular of Arthur’s knights. See their book, page 246.
142 Hopkins, Andrea, The Book of Guinevere, 56.
143 He also introduced the search for the Holy Grail.
144 Noble, Peter, "The Character of Guinevere," 534.
145 Ibid., 203.
146 Ibid., 535.
147 Charette is French for “cart”
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