Conclusion

Abstract

The first three chapters of this book have focused on devotional and religious texts written by men for and about medieval women; the second half turned to secular texts written for and about women. In the first half, women emerge as saintly and heroic, active exponents of the Christian faith, although even here they must be chastened through suffering, torment, and death (as in the cases of the virgin martyrs Cecilia and Catherine of Alexandria juxtaposed in chapter 3). And in “The Prioress’s Talc.” the purity of the Virgin Mary is always shadowed by its vilified inverse (prostitutes, old women, and Jews). In the second half of the book, the image of women is less positive, although here too male ambivalence colors the depiction of the female characters: the belligerent ladies who animate the Latin and Czech legends of the Bohemian Maidens, and even the conquered Amazons Hyppolita and her sister Emily, in “The Knight’s Tale.” pose a threat to male power that must be neutralized sooner or later in the narratives. The assertive female protagonists of “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the Czech chivalric romances similarly straddle an ambiguous line between autonomous women and the sinful daughters of Eve.