The Lais of Marie de France

The Adulterous Medieval Times Since the beginning of written history, matrimony is portrayed as a sacred vow by approximately all(prenominal) religions and peoples throughout the Earth while fornication is about unendingly looked upon as wrong. Marie de France was one of the few female writers in medieval generation which made her very influential and well respected. In her book highinnate(p) The Lais of Marie de France, she gives the lecturer a look into the affairs and adultery that was going on in the medieval courts.It seems Marie de France does not particularly agree with adultery, but her behavior of writing leads the ratifier to see that it is not so bad, depending on the situation. It is almost as if she separates the lais into devil distinct bases. The first of which argon the stories where Marie tries to make the reviewer feel compassion and sorry for the savorrs like in Lanval and Yonec. The other group is where the indorser is made to feel anger and displea sure toward the two somes like in Equitan and Bisclavret. IN the lai Yonec, there is a young charr who has been locked away by her much older husband. By the end of just the first page, the reader is meant to feel this womans pain and how hard her life essential be to be marries to this horrible man. She really commodenot do anything about her s of all timee situation though since she is married to him which means that she is basically his property. The thing that makes this lai contrary from the others is that this woman prays to immortal to have someone come and save her.God answers her prayers by sending a hawk that turns into a courtly horse cavalry that lovers her. These two become adulterous lovers but it seems respect satisfactory since it was God, Himself, that sent this woman a new lover. The affair is not just about sex, preferably that these two share a spiritual connection and relationship which makes the jointure even more than respectable with the defendard s of the time. When her husband realizes what is going on he sets a trap and mortally wounds the knight. The lady is very sad until the knight tells her that she is pregnant.The knight tells the lady that she is to name her son Yonec and that he will penalize their love. As the boy grows up though the rest of the story, he learns the rectitude about his father. His mother finally reveals the whole truth to Yonec and dies while she is doing so. Yonec and so goes and takes his real fathers sword and chops off his stepfathers head. veritable(a) though this lai ends on a somewhat gruesome note, the reader is go away with a sense of relief and happiness because the authoritative lovers were finally avenged from the cruel tyrant that tore them apart.In the lai Lanval, King Arthur is sh profess as a great business leader who is giving out land and wives to all the knights that pay heed him, all of them except Lanval who is all but forgotten. Lanval was very distraught by this so he left the castle to clear his mind. He happens upon two very beautiful women who take him back to their maiden. Once Lanval meets this maiden the love affair begins but it is very pure of heart and shown as true love. This makes the reader very happy for the loving couple, but that feeling is insincere because this is a carnal relationship out of wedlock which is wrong.The reader indeed learns that Lanval can tell nobody about her or she will submit him that same instant. This puts the woman into the lord role over Lanval giving him a married woman and land as long as he obeys her. anval in short boasts about his lady and insults Queen Guinevere at the same time. Lanval must stand trial for what he has done and prove to the court that his lady is more beautiful which is impossible since he spoke about her and now she is gone. As the trial is ending his lady comes to his rescue and the ride away to Avalon.The reader is left with a satisfied feeling even though they are not marri ed. This lai lets the reader put their own morals to suit themselves in each situation. The first two lais were very similar in cover adultery as being a pretty good thing. The bordering two are totally opposite. Bisclavret shows an adulterous relationship in a very negative way. In this lai, there is a happy couple that seem to enjoy each other but end up as enemies. The man is a werewolf but does not presently share this information with his wife until she keeps bugging him and he feels guilty about not letting her know.After the wife learns of his secret, she refuses to sleep with him anymore and becomes the lover of another(prenominal) man. She then knows that all she has to do is hide his clothes when he is a werewolf and he will then stay as a werewolf. This is where the reader starts to feel true annoyance toward this woman because she planned this lese majesty on her husband only after he shared all his secrets with her. This lai is different because it is the woman who is being terrible to her husband. He told her all his secrets and kinda of trusting him, she ultimately weaveed his trust.Bisclavret does get his revenge though. The King takes him in as a pet until he sees his wife and her new lover and bites her wind off. He gets his clothes back so he is human again, and the great revenge that Bisclavret gets is that his former wifes children are all born without noses. The reader never feels any pity toward the woman even though she does get hurt by her husband because she had nothing but vicious intent against Bisclavret through the entire story. The ending is also like a moral to a fable to show that this behavior is not something anyone should ever do.The lai equitant has many similarities to Bisclavrets story. The great power in this story wants to marry his seneschals wife which is of course wrong. Nothing seems so bad because the king is letting her think about what she might want to do. Then it turns vile because the wife and the king then plot to murder her husband. She plans for the king to betray her husband so that he will die in a very hot, scalding bath. The seneschal comes to the room where this is supposed to happen and he finds the king and his wife in each others arms.The king accidentally jumps into the scalding bath and dies. The seneschal then throws his wife into the burning water as well for the treason that she plotted. The seneschal gets the revenge he deserved by being able to kill the main person who plotted against him with his own hands. Again, the reader feels no remorse or mercy towards the king and the seneschals wife because they betrayed him. Marie also ends this story with a moral showing that betrayal can easily backfire on the impure people that plot it.Marie de France presents adultery in a way where the reader can form their own opinions. She definitely does not approve of adultery in and way, shape, or form. The reader is led to feel hope and understanding about the lovers in some of the lais while in others, the reader can only feel hatred and displeasure towards the betrayers of love. The hope and understanding comes to the read during the cruel things that happen to sustain true love from happening. The hatred that the reader develops is when the betrayal and evil whole kit and caboodle are brought into the story.