Women and Marriage in German Medieval Romance

Abstract

In contrast to the widespread view that the Middle Ages were a static, unchanging period in which attitudes to women were uniformly negative, D. H. Green argues that around 1200 the conventional relationship between men and women was subject to significant challenge through discussions in the vernacular literature of the period. Hitherto scholarly interest in gender relations in such literature has largely focused on French romance or on literature in English from a later period. By turning the focus on the rich material to be garnered from Germany - the romances Erec, Tristan and Parzival - Professor Green shows how some vernacular writers devised methods to debate and challenge the undoubted antifeminism of the day by presenting a Utopian model, supported by a revision of views by the Church, to contrast with contemporary practice.

Estrategias de supervivencia de las viudas del Reino de Sevilla a finales de la Edad Media y comienzos de la Modernidad (siglos XIV-XVI)

“…En este sentido, y sin pretender ofrecer una relación exhaustiva de las investigaciones existentes, queremos destacar para la Corona de Castilla los trabajos de M. Asenjo González (1990), D. Carvajal (2004), I. Pérez de Tudela (1984), L. García Rubio y L. Rubio Hernández (2000), C. Segura Graíño (1986) y M. I. del Val Valdivieso (2004). La Corona de Aragón cuenta con los estudios del Equip Broida (1984), M. C. García Herrero (1990, 2009) y C. Pérez Galán (2014. El Reino de Navarra ha sido recientemente analizado por A. García de la Borbolla y García de Paredes (2019).…”

Orgeluse and the Trial for Rape at the Court of King Arthur: Parzival 521, 19 to 529, 16

“…The issue of consensual sex first surfaces in this scene when Gawan tells Orgeluse that Urjans wrestled with the lady 'ân ir danc' [without her consent (525, 22)]. 68 A few lines later it is reiterated when Gawan reports that the lady arrived at court, distraught 'durch daz ir hête genomen / der nie was in ir dienst komen / ir kiuscheclîchen magetuom' [because a man / who was never in her love service / had taken her chaste maidenhood (526, [3][4][5]]. In both passages Gawan's perspective on the harm of the rape involves not simply the loss of virginity but also the misfortune of how it was lost, with force (i.e.…”