0521513359 cambridge university press women and marriage in german medieval romance apr 2009

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WOMEN AND MARRIAGE IN
GERMAN MEDIEVAL ROMANCE

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 in the twelfth century 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 – including 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.
d.h. green is Professor Emeritus in the University of Cambridge and
a Fellow of Trinity College.


cambridge studies in medieval literature
General editor
Alastair Minnis, Yale University
Editorial board
Zygmunt G. Barański, University of Cambridge
Christopher C. Baswell, University of California, Los Angeles
John Burrow, University of Bristol
Mary Carruthers, New York University

Rita Copeland, University of Pennsylvania
Simon Gaunt, King’s College, London
Steven Kruger, City University of New York
Nigel Palmer, University of Oxford
Winthrop Wetherbee, Cornell University
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Fordham University

This series of critical books seeks to cover the whole area of literature written in the
major medieval languages – the main European vernaculars, and medieval Latin
and Greek – during the period c.1100–1500. Its chief aim is to publish and stimulate
fresh scholarship and criticism on medieval literature, special emphasis being
placed on understanding major works of poetry, prose, and drama in relation to
the contemporary culture and learning which fostered them.
Recent titles in the series
Mary Dove The First English Bible: The Text and Context
of the Wycliffite Versions
Jenni Nuttall The Creation of Lancastrian Kingship: Literature,
Language and Politics in Late Medieval England
Laura Ashe Fiction and History in England, 1066–1200
Mary Carruthers The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture
J. A. Burrow The Poetry of Praise
Andrew Cole Literature and Heresy in the Age of Chaucer
Suzanne M. Yeager Jerusalem in Medieval Narrative
Nicole R. Rice Lay Piety and Religious Discipline in Middle English Literature
D. H. Green Women and Marriage in German Medieval Romance
Peter Godman Paradoxes of Conscience in the High Middle Ages: Abelard,
Heloise and the Archpoet
A complete list of titles in the series can be found at the end of the volume.

WOMEN AND MARRIAGE IN
GERMAN MEDIEVAL
ROMANCE
D. H. GREEN


CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521513357
© D. H. Green 2009
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the
provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part
may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2009

ISBN-13

978-0-511-51798-3

eBook (NetLibrary)

ISBN-13

978-0-521-51335-7

hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy
of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.


Contents

Preface
List of abbreviations

page vii
viii

Introduction

1

part i t h e r o l e o f w o m e n

3

Introduction

5

1 Women in the Middle Ages

6
8
13
17
20

Old Testament
New Testament
Middle Ages
Marriage

2 Feminisation in the twelfth century
Religious life
Literature

31
34
43

part ii m a r r i a g e a n d l o v e

61

Introduction

63

3 Erec

84

84
93
103

Patriarchal society
Antifeminine attitudes
Questions and revisions

4 Tristan

128
128
140
152

Patriarchal society
Antifeminine attitudes
Questions and revisions

v


Contents

vi
5

Parzival
Patriarchal society
Antifeminine attitudes

Questions and revisions

172
174
196
213

Conclusion

237

Bibliography
Index

241
257


Preface

In the preface to Women Readers in the Middle Ages I wrote that the present
companion volume was under active preparation. I was able to say this
because the research and collection of material for both volumes were
conducted at the same time and with an eye to what I originally, and
optimistically, thought might be their joint appearance. If I have been
able to complete the present book so relatively soon after its predecessor
this is also because, when one has advanced well into one’s eighties, one is
more than ever conscious of the pressure of time exerting its own urgency.
The converse of this is that retirement gives one the freedom for uninterrupted research which our political masters, for all their talk of research
assessment exercises, are loath to grant to academics, especially in the

humanities, before they retire.
As previously, I owe a number of debts of gratitude. Foremost amongst
these I thank Mark Chinca and Nigel Palmer for reading through the
chapters of this book in their first shape and for giving me their detailed
comments, most of which I have accepted. I have made considerable
demands on the patience and readiness to help of members of the
Cambridge University Library, which they have uniformly met with courtesy and efficiency. It is also a pleasure to thank once more Laura Pieters
Cordy, and assisting her Hansa Chauhan, for transposing my handwriting
into a print-ready text and for the helpful suggestions on style and wording
which this elicited. Further, I acknowledge with gratitude the financial
support from my University and my College which made a number of
research stays in Germany possible.
My greatest debt is to Sarah, for her unflagging help, encouragement and
willingness to talk over my many questions with me. Without her this book
would not have been written.

vii


Abbreviations

AASS
ABäG
AfK
BMZ
CCM
CN
DVjs
EG
Ep.

FMLS
FMS
FS
GRM
HRG
IASL
LiLi
MÆ
MF
MGH
MHG
MIÖG
MLR
MSt
NML
OL
PBB
PL

Acta Sanctorum, J. Bolland et al. (eds.), Antwerp 1643ff.
Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik
Archiv für Kulturgeschichte
G. F. Benecke, W. Müller and F. Zarncke,
Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Leipzig 1854–61
Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale
Cultura Neolatina
Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift
Études Germaniques
Epistola
Forum for Modern Language Studies

Frühmittelalterliche Studien
Festschrift
Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift
A. Erler and E. Kaufmann, Handwörterbuch zur deutschen
Rechtsgeschichte, Berlin 1971–8
Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der Literatur
Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik
Medium Ævum
Minnesangs Frühling
Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Middle High German
Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische
Geschichtsforschung
Modern Language Review
Mediaeval Studies
New Medieval Literature
Orbis Litterarum
Paul und Braunes Beiträge
J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina
viii


List of abbreviations
PMLA
RBPH
RG
RPh
RR
SG
SMRH

ZfdA
ZfdPh
ZfRG (GA)

Publications of the Modern Language Association
Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire
Recherches Germaniques
Romance Philology
Romanic Review
Studia Gratiana
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History
Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum
Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie
Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte (Germanistische Abteilung)

ix



Introduction

This book is conceived as a companion volume to Women Readers in the
Middle Ages (Cambridge 2007), but with a double change of focus. In the
earlier book I attempted to give a selective survey of the various classes of
women in three countries (Germany, France, England) throughout the
Middle Ages who were active as readers or engaged in other ways in
literature, and also of the kinds of text they read, whereas now my question
is more what appeals their reading made to them and how they may
conceivably have reacted to it. Whereas the first book ranged over the
whole span of the Middle Ages, from the seventh to the early sixteenth

century, this one concentrates on the years before and immediately after
1200, above all because the wonderfully innovative force of the twelfth
century promises illumination in regard to our question and because of
the disturbances in the gender system which have been registered in that
century. Focusing on the earliest German romances has the added advantage that they were written by authors of the highest rank and can be
compared with French counterparts of similar quality.
The title of this book refers specifically to women alone. The reason for this
is to provide continuity with the earlier volume, of which this one was at first
conceived to form a part, but also because medieval misogyny felt the problem
to lie more with women than with men, just as its modern successors coined a
term for this (Frauenfrage) without feeling the need for a corresponding
Männerfrage. Writing this book after its companion volume means that certain
problems discussed earlier are not taken up again. These include the importance of women’s literacy and their reading practice (especially of romances),
but also their activity as sponsors and patrons of literature in the vernacular. As
a consequence, authors addressed not merely a lay audience, but more
specifically a female audience, to whose interests they made special appeal.
In Part I one chapter gives a brief, but purposely general sketch of views
about women commonly held in the Middle Ages and a second chapter
prepares the ground for what is to follow by narrowing its focus down to
1


2

Women and Marriage in German Medieval Romance

feminisation in the twelfth century. Part II is devoted to a more detailed
discussion of three of the earliest romance themes in European literature:
Erec, Tristan and Parzival. It is not difficult to justify the choice of these
romances, for they are historically important as the first examples of the

‘matter of Britain’, the first works to engage in vernacular fictional writing,
and they were also in the lead in treating lay themes for a lay audience.
Above all, they are works of high literary quality, of European rank. English
speaking medievalists may perhaps know the works of Chrétien de Troyes,
yet few outside the dwindling band of Germanists in English speaking
countries are acquainted with his German colleagues. This is regrettable,
not simply because of the quality of these German works (no mere copies of
French originals), but also because they provide rich evidence of value for a
gendered approach to the medieval period.
As a Germanist my main concern is with the German versions of these
three romance themes, but their French counterparts are also taken into
account. To assist English speakers, quotations from medieval works are
translated, either where my text introduces them or in brackets after the
actual quotation. Those who, it is hoped, wish to explore the works in their
entirety are well served by English translations. Chrétien’s Erec and Perceval
are available in translation in W. W. Kibler, Chrétien de Troyes. Arthurian
romances (London 1991). The Erec of Hartmann von Aue has been rendered
into English by M. Resler, Erec, by Hartmann von Aue (Philadelphia c.1987),
Gottfried’s version of the Tristan story by A. T. Hatto, Gottfried von Strassburg.
Tristan (Harmondsworth 1960), who has also translated Wolfram’s version of
the Parzival theme, Parzival. Wolfram von Eschenbach (Harmondsworth 1980).
Hatto’s translation of Gottfried also includes a translation of the fragments of
Tristran of Thomas of Britain.
Although medievalists have learned much from the new questions raised
by women’s studies in particular and by gender studies at large, I seek to
qualify what may be termed an extreme feminism, the reluctance of some
to recognise that, however dominant misogyny may have been in the Middle
Ages, we cannot talk of a universal antifeminism in this period. If in
A. Blamires’s anthology of texts, Women defamed and women defended
(Oxford 1992), the defence seemed to fall markedly short, this was soon

more than made good by the same scholar’s monograph, The case for women
in medieval culture (Oxford 1997), in which the detailed and far-ranging case
was argued by an impressive number of male as well as female authors. In the
pages that follow I attempt to show that the case was also presented by the
earliest authors in the romance genre in Germany as well as France. Medieval
women were not entirely without sympathisers and allies amongst men.


part i

The role of women



Introduction

In the two chapters that make up Part I the argument operates with a double
time-focus. The first chapter ranges over the medieval period at large,
discussing selectively views held about women, largely negative but sometimes positive. Given its importance for clerical views we start with authoritative biblical evidence, but also consider ways in which it was developed
throughout the Middle Ages, and include occasional significant qualifications or divergences from its implications. This theological testimony is
then supplemented by what light the practices of feudal society may throw
on secular attitudes towards women and their position in the world, sometimes in agreement with ecclesiastical views, sometimes deviating from
them.
In Chapter 2 we narrow our range down to the twelfth century in
considering what I term ‘feminisation’ in this restricted period. The justification for this closer focus is the important changes in the relationship
between the sexes which have been registered for this century, but also
because this sets the scene for Part II with its treatment of vernacular
romances dating from before and just after 1200.
Both chapters provide a background for the works discussed in Part II
and are meant to contextualise them. They cover a broad range of social and

ecclesiastical issues relating to women, deliberately broader than those
treated in Part II, in order to illustrate the extent of the debate into which
vernacular authors then insert their literary contributions. This breadth of
range is also meant to highlight the ambivalence of traditional views which
lie at the heart of such a prolonged debate.

5


chapter 1

Women in the Middle Ages

The difficulty facing Eileen Power in her Medieval Women – how to treat a
large subject in a short book – is even more acute in the case of a short
chapter such as this. My first task is to present an abbreviated survey of the
range of topics concerning women commonly discussed in the Middle Ages,
providing the wider background for the more restricted number of themes
taken up in the romances to be considered. Secondly, I focus on the variety
of opinions, divergent and even contradictory, that could be held, thus
preparing the way for the discussion or debate about women, love and
marriage which the authors of these romances hoped to encourage in the
vernacular amongst laypeople. The highly selective evidence presented in
this chapter covers first the authoritative opinions voiced in the Old and
New Testaments, with echoes and deviations in medieval discussion, and
secondly the extent of agreement and also opposition between ecclesiastical
views and the secular practices of feudal society in the Middle Ages. If this
double perspective means omitting other contributory factors, such as
medical views about the differences between the sexes,1 my excuse must
be that we thereby move more in the mainstream of medieval thought on

these matters.
By talking of a variety of opinions and an opposition between views
I have already suggested the core of what follows, namely that it is a mistake
to regard the Middle Ages, as has long been done, as being characterised by a
monolithic antifeminism. Misogyny may well pervade the whole period
(and beyond) and may even be predominant, but not to the exclusion of
other opinions questioning it from many points of view. Two scholars in
particular have performed yeoman service in questioning the assumption of
an unrelieved misogyny in this period. In England, Blamires gave markedly
more space in his anthology of medieval texts to antifeminism than to
defensive responses to it, but this impression of imbalance was redressed by
1

On these see Bullough, Viator 4 (1973), 485–501, and Cadden, Meanings.

6


Women in the Middle Ages

7

his monograph on the case for women in the Middle Ages.2 Whereas most
earlier work in this direction had concentrated on isolated and relatively late
examples of profeminine attitudes (e.g. Chaucer, Christine de Pizan)
Blamires covers a much wider range. He thereby establishes a tradition in
defence of women, existing alongside and in answer to the misogynous
tradition, from the early to the late Middle Ages, but also drawing on
support from the examples of a number of biblical women.
In Germany this argument has been reinforced by Schnell in two

monographs.3 He argues that scholarship on medieval views on women
has largely depicted them as uniformly misogynous because it has been
based too narrowly on evidence taken from Latin clerical writing for
‘internal’ consumption, which has been wrongly held to represent the
only view of women in the Middle Ages. In taking other discourses into
account Schnell differentiates the picture and argues, like Blamires, that
women could be defamed, but also defended against such attacks. Against
the assumption of an all-embracing medieval misogyny Schnell stresses the
interdependence of what is said and the conditions under which it is said,
including such varying factors as oral or written communication, discourse
amongst men alone or including women, Latin (for clerics) and vernacular
(for laypeople), learned or pragmatic function, different social groups
addressed for whom the issue works out differently. Schnell also makes a
fundamental distinction between discourse on women (Frauendiskurs) on
the one hand (scholarly, androcentric and a vehicle for misogynous views)
and discourse on marriage (Ehediskurs) on the other (pastoral in intent and
stressing the shortcomings of men as well as women).4 He emphasises the
relevance of various types of discourse meant for laypeople in the vernacular.
To these belongs, as the argument will show in Part II, court literature
treating themes such as the relationship between men and women in love
and marriage.5 This literature may reflect misogynous opinions deriving
from clerical discourse as well as patriarchal attitudes to women at home in
feudal society, but it would be rash to assume that the employment of such
topoi necessarily implies an acceptance of them, rather than including them
as a subject for discussion and debate. Finally, Schnell also maintains that
the divergence of views can imply the contrast between imperfect reality and
a utopian project, stressing that such utopianism can be detected in clerical
views as well as in court literature.
2
4

5

Blamires, Woman and Case. 3 Schnell, Frauendiskurs and Sexualität.
On some of these distinctions see also Schnell, FMS 32 (1998), 307–64.
Treated with relative brevity by Schnell in chapter VII of Sexualität.


8

Women and Marriage in German Medieval Romance

We may sum up these varying attitudes to women by applying to them
what Bond, in another context, maintains of the conception of the private
secular self in the high Middle Ages: the images ‘which began to appear are
neither uniform nor coherent; they represent instead contested positions
within an arena of ideological controversy’.6 More specifically with regard to
the manifold depictions of women in medieval literature we must reckon
not merely with differences between genres (which is Schnell’s main concern), but also within a given genre, within one author or even within one
work. To look for a unified picture of women under such conditions and to
expect that picture always to be essentially negative does little justice to the
intensity of a debate on their nature which persisted throughout the
medieval period.
We start by considering what first the Old Testament and then the New
have to say about women, including also some selective references to how
later authors reduplicated or qualified such statements. My main purpose is
to illustrate the undoubted antifeminine current throughout these examples, but also to point to occasional, but persistent deviations from this
tradition.
old testament
For the Old Testament we may begin by quoting what Blamires says of the
scriptural background in his anthology, that ‘ideally one would need the

complete stories of Samson, Judith, Esther, etc., as well as extensive readings
in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Ecclesiasticus, the three books in which the
most damaging assertions are made about women’.7 Such an undertaking is
clearly out of the question as much for us as for Blamires, so that we must
confine ourselves to selected passages from these books, but also considering
the two episodes in Genesis, the Fall and the creation of man, on which
misogynous tradition drew so persistently.
Solomon, or the gnomic sayings attributed to him, is our leading Old
Testament misogynist. Ecclesiasticus 25, 33 begins at the beginning with its
claim that from woman arose sin and through her we all die, but surpasses
this in extremism when it says that the iniquity of a man is better than a
woman who does good (42, 14) and gives warning that there is nothing
worse than the anger of a woman (25, 23). This warning recurs in Proverbs
21, 19 with a shift from misogyny to misogamy in the statement that it is
better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and irascible woman. The
6

Bond, Subject, p. 1.

7

Blamires, Woman, p. 31.


Women in the Middle Ages

9

same book also refers misogynously, in a manner not made clear in the
Authorised Version, to the insatiability of women when it includes the

mouth of the vulva, alongside the grave, parched earth and fire, amongst
the four things that can never be satisfied (30, 15f.). Such categorical statements, enjoying biblical authority, seem damning enough, but that
does not protect them from later qualification, however discreetly. Schnell
draws attention to two admittedly early modern modifications of this kind.
Where according to Solomon’s saying only one good woman was to be
found amongst a thousand (Ecclesiastes 7, 29) João de Barros (1540) makes
the minor adjustment of talking about one good human being amongst
a thousand, thereby involving both sexes, not women alone.8 The other
example concerns Ecclesiasticus 42, 14 (the iniquity of man preferable to a
good woman), as interpreted by Nicolas l’Archevesque as late as 1638.9
Whereas the biblical saying was meant misogynously, the French author
converts this into one critical of men instead. He does this by arguing that
the biblical text does not mean that the virtue of a woman is of less value
than the offences of a sinful man, but rather that the man is morally so weak
that, on seeing a woman, he lusts after her and commits sin. What brings
about his sin is therefore not the beauty, let alone the virtue, of the woman,
but the man’s desire (‘mais c’est sa propre concupiscence’). We shall see in
what follows that the modification of the antifeminine thrust of the biblical
argument brought about in these two examples of Schnell is not without
parallel in the Middle Ages.
More important for the development of medieval misogyny than such
sayings, however frequent and categorical, are two episodes in the Bible: the
Fall and the creation of man. Both are recurrently used to establish woman’s
proneness to sin and her inferior status, but both call forth attempts to
rectify such interpretations.
In the biblical account of the Fall (described by Blamires as the ‘front-line
weapon of misogyny’)10 the serpent’s tempting of Eve and her subsequent
tempting of Adam are enough to bring down on Eve, and through her on all
women, the punishment of the pain of childbearing and subordination to
man (Gen. 3, 16: ‘in dolore paries filios, et sub viri potestate eris, et ipse

dominabitur tui’ you will bring forth children in pain and be under the
authority of your husband, who will rule over you). Paul makes reference to
both these points as part of his argument that women are not to teach, for
that would amount to authority over man and also because it was not the
man, but the woman who was first seduced (I Tim. 2, 12 and 14). The
8

Schnell, Frauendiskurs, p. 233.

9

Ibid., p. 202.

10

Blamires, Case, p. 32.


10

Women and Marriage in German Medieval Romance

apostle is followed by fathers of the Church on this, as when Tertullian,
quoting Genesis on woman’s subordination, refers to her as the gateway of
the devil, the first to go against divine law and the one who persuaded him
whom the devil could not seduce,11 or when Ambrose likewise quotes Paul
to the effect that the woman, but not Adam, was deceived as the justification
of women’s subjection to the stronger sex.12 The weakness attributed to
women in this connection can be interpreted in various ways, as naive
simplicity (simplicitas), softness (mollities) as opposed to firmness of character, short-sightedness or intellectual inferiority, but in any case explaining

why the devil was able to tempt Eve as more vulnerable than Adam.13
The history of the exegesis of this doctrine, however, reveals a number of
significant variations which lessen or question the antifeminine implications
seen in it. Blamires has pointed out that, as part of the hierarchical relationship which demoted women, men were conceived as active and women as
passive, but that as a result men must be more guilty than women, so that
scrutiny of responsibility affects all areas of the debate.14 An example of how
the antifeminine exegesis of the Fall, placing the blame squarely on Eve, can
be adapted to involving Adam as well occurs in the Middle English Dives
and Pauper.15 This text castigates Adam for the sin of blaming Eve, attributing his fault to her when God rebuked him, an evasion of responsibility by
the ‘stronger’ party which amounts to a fals excusacioun. A similar strategy
(undercutting misogyny by extending the criticism to embrace men as
well) is employed by the author of the Anglo-Norman Bounté des femmes
in insisting on Adam’s share of responsibility because of his own folly.16
Nor do we have to wait for late medieval texts in the vernacular for the
articulation of such criticism. As early as with Chrysostom Adam can be
condemned since, if he is to be seen patriarchally as the ‘head’ of his partner
and Eve as the ‘body’, then his responsibility is all the greater.17 That is a
very condescending mitigation of Eve’s responsibility and it lurks within a
pronouncedly antifeminine context, but it does point the way to a later
possible exculpation from an explicitly misogynous charge. Insofar as Adam
is involved as well, the fault lies with human nature itself and is not gender
specific, a defence of woman which as we shall see plays a prominent part in
vernacular literature around 1200 with critical generalisations which are not
restricted to the female sex alone, but extended to males too. The logical
force of this strategy has been summed up well by Blamires as a refusal ‘to let
11
14
16

Quoted by Blamires, Woman, p. 51. 12 Ibid., p. 61. 13 Blamires, Case, p. 113.

Blamires, Woman, pp. 14f. 15 Ibid., p. 265, and Case, pp. 118f.
Blamires, Case, p. 28. 17 Ibid., p. 114.


Women in the Middle Ages

11

misogyny get away with a view of woman as a being of congenital unresponsibility on the one hand who is simultaneously, on the other hand,
held profoundly responsible for sin’.18 Behind the claims for female or male
responsibility which such examples illustrate we may detect traces of reflection on how to reconcile traditional biblical exegesis on the Fall with what
was provided from other sources: hagiography (women saints), scripture
(the women disciples’ loyalty to Christ) and everyday experience.19
The other episode in Genesis, the creation of man, was also exploited
misogynously, as a means of establishing woman’s secondary, derivative and
hence subordinate status. Material for debate, if not always used for that end
in the Middle Ages, was present in the Bible in that Genesis incorporates
two different accounts of creation difficult to reconcile.20 The first version
(1, 27), in biblical scholarship known as the ‘priestly’ one, implies the
creation of man and woman at the same time, equal in their common
designation as a human being (homo), but differentiated by terms denoting
their sex (‘Et creavit Deus hominem ad imaginem suam; ad imaginem Dei
creavit illum, masculum et feminam creavit eos’ And God created man in
his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he
created them). This version was largely ignored in exegetical tradition (until
modern feminist criticism) in favour of a second (‘Yahwist’) account followed by patristic and medieval commentators. According to this version
God first created man (Adam) from the slime of the earth (2, 7) and only
subsequently took Eve from one of Adam’s ribs (2, 7 and 21f.), whereupon
Adam, because she had been formed from his bones and flesh, called her
virago, woman, taken from vir, man. (The Latin word play follows the

model of Hebrew and has a fortunate parallel in English man and woman,
just as Luther employs Mann and Männin in this passage.) This version of
creation therefore sees woman formed after man and deriving from him, a
sequence Paul sums up in saying that man was not created for woman, but
woman for man.21
As with exegesis of the Fall there are a number of variant interpretations
of creation which, without reference to the first version of Genesis, attempt
to rescue some equality for both sexes. The chronological sequence which
was used to give man priority over woman was reinterpreted, for example, in
a response, possibly by a woman author, to Richard de Fournival’s Bestiaire
d’amour by the simple, but effective means of arguing that, although man
had been fashioned well by God the artisan, this was with the lowly material
of slime, whereas woman was created from nobler material, the result of
18

Ibid., pp. 238f.

19

Ibid., p. 239.

20

Discussed by Bloch, Misogyny, pp. 22–5.

21

I Cor. 11, 9.

12

Women and Marriage in German Medieval Romance

God’s handiwork.22 It is no surprise that this argument also recurs
with Christine de Pizan in her Livre de la Cité des Dames.23 This view that
woman, formed from Adam’s bone, was made of better material than he
and therefore occupied a superior position in creation could be strengthened by developing corresponding privileges of women in post-creation
history,24 which suggests a sustained need to rectify Eve’s bad press concerning her supposed guilt for the Fall. Blamires points out the weakness
of this argument (in attempting to convert disadvantages of sequence into
advantages it remains tied to the concept of sequence present in the Yahwist
version, but not in the first), but we break away from this with Hugh of
Saint-Victor who uses details of the creation story for another purpose.
With him the rib cliché, used traditionally to demonstrate woman’s secondary status, acquires a novel function when applied to the relationship of
man and wife. Had Eve been created from Adam’s head she would have
been intended for dominion, if from his feet for subjection, but in being
formed from his side she was meant for companionship, so that equality of
the sexes, at least in marriage, has been retrieved from inferiority.25
The idea of man’s dominion and woman’s subjection which was derived
from the Yahwist version of Genesis also found concrete expression in the
equation of man with the head and woman with the body.26 This is brought
out in the injunction of Eph. 5, 22f. to wives to submit themselves to their
husbands, as if to the Lord, on the grounds that the husband is the head of
the wife, just as Christ is the head of the Church (cf. the hierarchical
arrangement in I Cor. 11, 3). This paradigm of head and body was acceptable
because it lent itself to various interpretations: the head controls the
body while the body serves the head; the head is superior and the body
inferior; the head leads or goes ‘ahead’ while the body takes its place
behind.27 All these interpretations contributed to a reinforcement of gender
hierarchy, even to the point of gaining entry into ecclesiastical law in the

twelfth century in Gratian’s Decretum, in which the paradigm is quoted
as a demonstration of woman’s servitude to man in all things.28 In making
this point Gratian refers to Augustine’s commentary on Genesis, but
Blamires has shown that paradoxically Augustine also illustrates some
reluctance concerning woman’s place in this paradigm,29 especially since,
basing himself on Gal. 5, 13, he enjoined married couples to serve one
22
24
26
28
29

Quoted by Blamires, Woman, p. 243. 23 Christine, Livre I 9 (pp. 22, 23).
Blamires, Case, pp. 96, 105f. 25 See below, p. 68.
On this doctrine see Blamires, ‘Paradox’, pp. 13–29. 27 Ibid., p. 17.
Quoted by Blamires, Woman, p. 84, referring to Gratian, Decretum, Part II, causa 33, quaestio 11.
Blamires, ‘Paradox’, p. 28.


Women in the Middle Ages

13

another, but not to exercise authority.30 It was also he who raised the crucial
question whether the paradigm could function for the wife whose husband
is sinful and cannot truly lead, and answers by recommending her to regard
Christ, no longer her husband, as her head.31 This transfer of authority or
‘headship’ from husband to Christ still leaves the woman in a subordinate
position, but as a ‘solution’ it illustrates the difficulty of always maintaining
the paradigm on the human level. It suggests an evasion by the woman of

the husband’s authority, just as the woman who became the bride of Christ
as a nun or recluse could regard this freely chosen spiritual marriage, as
did Christina of Markyate, as an escape from the ‘headship’ of an earthly
husband.32
new testament
The biblical evidence for an attitude to women passed on to the Middle
Ages has so far come from the Old Testament, mainly from Genesis. To the
extent that Christianity incorporated the Old Testament as proof that what
the prophets foretold had come to pass, it could easily adopt its predecessor’s written views on women. However, this is not as straightforward as it
seems, for the New Testament also grants a role to women, especially those
who surround Christ or come into contact with him, which would be
unthinkable in the Old. This is best summed up by the new religion’s
view that the sexes are equal concerning grace and salvation (Gal. 3, 28), for
there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor
female. Although this declaration comes from Paul it is by no means typical
of him, because in his epistles he largely continues what we have hitherto
seen as characteristic of the Old Testament, and any amelioration of the
position of women promised at the beginning by Christianity seems largely
to have vanished after him. This means, however, that not even Paul himself
presents a unified view of women and that there is a similar potential
discrepancy between what Christianity promised and what it inherited
from Jewish tradition, enough to provide material for exegetical debate in
the following centuries.
Although most feminists nowadays would presumably regard Christ’s
views on gender relations as more acceptable, it is striking that medieval
discussion of women concentrates less on what he says than on Paul. Our
30
31
32

Schnell, Frauendiskurs, pp. 262f.
Blamires, ‘Paradox’, pp. 24f. See also Schnell, FMS 32 (1998), 321, 333.
On Christina see Head, ‘Marriages’, pp. 116–37.