Essay On Marie De France's Lanval

The twelfth century was a time of chivalry and gallant knights. It is also a time where many stories consisted of a heroic knight saving a defenseless, frightened woman. In modern times, this idea is commonly depicted in movies, such as Superman or Jack Reacher. However there is a work from the era that ignores the standard sequence of events of a love story. Marie de France’s “Lanval” defies expected gender roles by a woman being the hero and a knight as the one in distress, both physically and financially.
Typically when one thinks about the medieval times of chivalry and nobility, they also think of damsels in distress being saved by the knight in shining armor. Marie de France reverses those roles in “Lanval.” At the beginning of the poem,

it is noted that “Lanval was in difficulty, / depressed and very worried” (lines 33-35). Lanval was in a bad state mentally, which led him to not care about himself physically. Once the fairy queen and he cross paths, she does what she can to ensure he is in good health before he leaves her. Her fairy underlings “gave him water for his hands / and a towel to dry them, / and they brought him food” (178-80). While it was typically expected during the twelfth century for a woman to care for her husband, it is not expected of her to ride in on a horse and save him from execution. The fairy queen, however, does the unexpected and proceeds to confidently defend Lanval to King Arthur with the following speech:
“’I have loved one of your vassals: / you see him before you – Lanval. / He has been accused in your court – / I don’t want him to suffer / for what he said; you should know / that the queen was in the wrong. He never made advances to her. / And for the boast that he made, / if he can be acquitted through me, let him be set free by your barons’” (615-24).
This storyline goes against the conventional damsel in distress standard of the time by making the fairy queen the hero saving the frightened Lanval.
If a woman rescuing a man was a shock during the medieval ages, having a woman financially support a man without her family’s help must have been just as outrageous.

Lanval is not a wealthy night when the poem begins, despite being the son of a king. However, the fairy queen, once again defying the gender stereotypes of the time, “gave him a gift: / he would never again want anything, / he would receive as he desired; / however generously he might give and spend, / she would provide what he needed” (135-39). She provides Lanval with enough money to not just live lavishly himself, but enough for him to afford gifts for the entire kingdom. This is illustrated by the speaker stating: “Lanval gave rich gifts, / Lanval released prisoners, / Lanval dressed jongleurs, / Lanval offered great honors. / There was no stranger or friend / to whom Lanval didn’t give” (209-14). Though it was expected for women to have a dowry for her husband upon marriage, the woman’s father was expected to be responsible for that. To have a woman be wealthy enough independently to be able to support the frivolous spending of a man was practically unheard of for the time, this being just another way the fairy queen crushes the gender stereotype expected of

her.
In a time where women were expected to wait to be saved by a heroic knight, Marie de France’s fairy queen had a different idea. She takes it upon herself to rescue her beloved Lanval first from himself, then from poverty, and finally from the punishment of King Arthur. The fairy queen is scandalous character for the twelfth century because she proves that women do not always need saving. In fact, sometimes they can be the savior.