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,

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