HUMANITIES Indiana University Journal of Undergraduate Research | Volume V | 2019 24 All Roads Lead to Homosociality: The Role of Chivalry in Medieval and Modern Society Grace M. McDougall Faculty Mentor: Dr. Karma Lochrie, Department of English, Indiana University Bloomington This paper examines the role of chivalry in Marie de France’s lais, focusing on Guigemar with support from Bisclavret. One of the most-studied authors of the medieval period, Marie de France channels the values, anxieties, and societal dynamics of her time by both adhering to and pushing against literary norms. Guigemar and Bisclavret present near-perfect examples of knighthood according to chivalric norms, save for two faws: Guigemar has no love for women, and Bisclavret is a werewolf. The treatment of these knights and their peculiarities reveals the strict expectations of masculinity and the risks of breaking from them. I pay particular attention to the importance of humility in chivalric masculinity and the ways in which their peculiarities afect their relationships, especially with other men. Guigemar shows that humility, rather than courage, martial skill, or courtesy, was the most important chivalric value. Humility is so essential because the main role of chivalry was to preserve the relationships between men that formed the basis of medieval society. I argue that understanding the cultural history of chivalry is important for modern audiences because the concept of chivalry is still used by many groups to legitimize and promote their interests and continues to shape our perceptions of masculinity and gender dynamics. While what we think of chivalry has changed greatly since Marie de France’s time, the ends of chivalry remain the same—to promote the interests of those in positions of power. ABSTRACT THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARIE DE FRANCE O ne whom God has given knowledge / and good eloquence in speaking / should not keep quiet nor hide on this account / but rather should willingly show herself” 1 . These lines, translated from old French to modern English, begin the general prologue to Marie de France’s collected lais. Marie de France wrote for the court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine in the late twelfth century, and the lais that are the focus of this paper are a category of short, narrative poems that originated through oral storytelling in Brittany. While not much of Marie de France herself is known, her works have endured as containing some of the most delightfully unique moments in medieval literature. Love, specifcally between noble men and women, is the central theme that pervades all of the stories. The ways that Marie de France depicts love are all drastically diferent—what is condemned or ridiculed in one lai is celebrated and praised in the next. These variations in representation are possible because of Marie de France’s strong attention to specifc socio-cultural context. Common themes of scholarship on the lais include courtly love, gender dynamics, and male relationships. Jenny Adams’ work “Pieces of Power: Chess and Male Homosocial Desire” examines the similarities in another of the lais between heterosexual love and vassalage 2 and the importance of bonds between men 3 . The lais’ emphasis on social ties provides the opportunity to consider how relationships between men formed the fabric of medieval society and how, in particular, chivalry functioned to regulate these relationships. The period in which Marie de France wrote is sometimes considered the beginning of the High Middles Ages, and it was during this time that chivalry in England fully developed into a social and cultural ideal. The development of chivalry in England began in 1066 when William the Conqueror introduced the style of fghting on horseback and a new military code of conduct. This code of conduct, which medieval historian Nigel Saul argues is the beginning of chivalry, arose from the nobility’s need for self- 1 Claire M. Waters, The Lais of Marie De France Text and Translation (Petersborough, Broadview Editions, 2018), lines 1-4. 2 Jenny Adams, “Pieces of Power: Medieval Chess and Male Homosocial Desire,” The Journal of English and German Philology 103, no. 2 (2004): 201. 3 Adams, “Pieces of Power,” 203. preservation amid incessant warfare on the Continent. Some of its tenets included treating prisoners fairly and minimizing bloodshed after victory was secured 4 . In the eleventh century, a religious component of chivalry emerged as the Church began to consider knights as warriors of Christianity and used them to further their interests, as evidenced by the crusades. The last aspect of chivalry, courtesy, developed in the twelfth century. By the time that Marie de France was writing, chivalry had risen to an ideal that greatly infuenced and was infuenced by the culture and art of the time. There is, of course, a great diference in how chivalry existed as an ideal and how chivalry functioned in everyday reality—what some knights and authors wanted chivalry to be and what knights actually were. A critical tension within chivalry is the need to promote martial prowess as a means to retain and gain power through military success, while also restraining violent impulses to prevent excessive violence, social destabilization, and mutual self-destruction. So, while depictions of knights and chivalry may focus more on personal glory and the virtues used to acquire it, such as courage or martial prowess, when we look to chivalry’s origin as a means to mutual self-preservation, humility emerges as the most important chivalric value. Humility is motivated by dependence on others, by helplessness, rather than the acquisition of glory. It is this recognition of dependence that sustains homosocial bonds. Medieval society was largely homosocial, meaning that the most important relationships that created power and that either created or destroyed social stability were between men. Marianne Ailes writes, “[m]en were largely defined…by their relationships with other men—father and son, lord and vassal” 5 , and Harriet Spiegel notes that another of Marie de France’s works, the Fables, presents a male power hierarchy as both a representation and a critique of her own patriarchal society 6 . Chivalry and its composite values reflect the centrality of the homosocial bonds between a lord and his knights—the knights’ military prowess helps the 4 Nigel Saul, “The Origins of English Chivalry,” in Chivalry in Medieval England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 10. 5 Marianne Ailes, “The Medieval Male Couple and the Language of Homosociality,” in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. D. M. Hadley (New York: Taylor & Francis, 1999), 214. 6 Harriet Spiegel, “The Male Animal in the Fables of Marie de France,” in Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages, ed. C.A. Lees, T.S. Fensters, J. McNamara (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 151. “