"Idylls of the King" by Tennyson-Background and Resources

[Cera]

Silver wrote: In considering the Middle Ages, while I am sure there were families and parents whom did genuinely care about thier daughters, and would not wish to see them ill treated, on the other hand it is also true that the general mindset of that era was that daughters were not valued by fathers and often seen as a disappointment. And girls/women were just as susceptible to being beaten by thier fathers as they were by husbands. That is not say that such happened all the time, but it was socially acceptable, and legally supported and viewed as the father's godly right, and duty to use physical violence agasint his child if she were to act in a way which he considered to be disobedient.

Yes, and no, and maybe.

First of all, the medieval era covers a *long* time -- hundreds of years, at the very least. Society wasn't static during that time, and neither was the role of women. There were women (and men) who were abused, mistreated, and practically enslaved -- and there were women who ruled as Queens (Maud/Matilda of England), commanded armies, ran businesses, owned inns, practised as doctors, and many other things. The idea that _all_ women lived lives of oppression and misery is as misleading as Tennyson's idea that women lived in comfort, glory and splendour so long as they were chaste.

Secondly, yes, parents had a level of authority over their children which is not imaginable to a lot of people living in first-world European countries today -- but that level of authority was over *all* the children, male as well as female. Male children could be starved, beaten, forced into marriages, locked up in monasteries, sent overseas to live with strangers, and so on & so forth, just like female children. And from what I know of the historical record (which isn't a lot, because the history of domestic violence is not something I've studied), it was just as often the mothers who were doing it as the fathers, especially when the father was away from home for a dozen years on Crusade and the mother was running the estate, defending the land, raising the taxes, etc etc etc.

Thirdly, what we know about the lives of people in the medieval era in England is about the top 1% of the population who were important enough to get written about by the people who were literate, with the occasional exceptionally rare instance of people who were literate enough to write about themselves, like Margery Kemp. There is a lot that historians can glean from legal documents, local histories, etc etc, but the vast majority of the population were neither important enough to be written about, nor literate enough to write for themselves, and so the question of _how they felt_ in their marriages is pretty much lost to history. We have some examples in which there seemed to be real & true affection (look up the history of the Eleanor crosses) and some examples of women betraying their husbands to their enemies (look up Isabella of France). But on the whole we _just don't know_ how people felt about this stuff.

However, Tennyson wasn't writing about anything REMOTELY RESEMBLING the reality of medieval England. He was doing Victorian Medievalism, which is a very different beast entirely -- so the fact that we don't know about how people in the 13th century felt about their arranged marriages doesn't keep us from reading & understanding Tennyson's work!

[Silver]

Cera wrote: However, Tennyson wasn't writing about anything REMOTELY RESEMBLING the reality of medieval England. He was doing Victorian Medievalism, which is a very different beast entirely -- so the fact that we don't know about how people in the 13th century felt about their arranged marriages doesn't keep us from reading & understanding Tennyson's work! "

This conversation really is not directly related to Tennyson or the reading, but was a side issue that came up in a discussion and comments relating to the Rules of Courtly Love, which does play some role within Idylls of the King.

[Everyman]

Cera wrote: "Yes, and no, and maybe...."

Really nice post. Excellent points throughout. Thanks very much for it.

[Marialyce]

I enjoyed reading it too, Cera. Thanks for posting.

[Silver]

I found this really interesting site on King Arthur, I cannot recall if I posted it in my first links, but becasue of the current topic of our discussion, I particuarly found this article on Guinevere to be quite interesting.

http://www.kingarthursknights.com/faq...

[Rachel]

Really interesting Cera. I looked up the Eleanor crosses out of curiosity, and I thought they were quite an impressive tribute! I'd like to see some of them some day. I also looked up Isabella of France. I read that she was called the "She-wolf of France". Interesting name to be remembered by! ;)

[Silver]

The poem "The Defence of Guinevere by William Morris was brought to my mind in reading. So I thought you may find it interesting reading

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/...

For anyone who is interested I have opened up a thread for discussing this poem here:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/6...