Marie De France Yonec Analysis

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Life in Twelfth Century Europe Throughout Marie de France’s lai ‘Yonec’ there are many references to the type of systems that governed Europe in the twelfth century. The system of inheritance is shown when the rich man, “because he possessed a large fortune…took a wife in order to have children, who would come after him and be his heirs” (71). Due to the system of inheritance if the man was to not have children all the money would he worked for would disappear, this shows the great dependence on having children to insure the prosperity of your linage. Another trend in the twelfth century was the arrangement of marriages to increase power, gain alliances, or to mend bad blood between people. This can be seen when the girl, after being in the tower for so long, says “A curse on my family, and on all the others, who gave me to this jealous man, who married me to his body” (72). It was not the girl’s choice to be married to this man because of love but due to her beauty, wisdom, and good family she was married to this rich man. A constant theme throughout this story is the importance of the church and religion. The girl when given the opportunity to run away with the hawk that transformed into a knight and escape the terrible life she had lived asked if he was a Christian, and if he was not she would not go (74). This demonstrates the importance …show more content…

It was major theme throughout the tale that there was a damsel in distress, a forbidden love, a cruel villain, and the quest of a young knight to exact revenge; all major story line that were of great interest to the people in the twelfth century. The story possessed many themes that would have interested and entertained many people at the time, due to the outrageous storyline it is impossible to assume that this story was created to inform instead of

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