Medieval Monday: The Mischief-Makers

For the past two weeks, I've been posting pieces of my final research paper for Grad Studies in Medieval Lit on the role of women. Last week, I covered the peace-weavers, so this week we move on to the mischief-making females of medieval literature.

Perhaps one of the most studied versions of the female medieval mischief-maker is that of the loathly lady, “a character whose special knowledge and social position combine with her physical undesirability to mark her as marginal” (Jones). Within the texts studied for this paper, appearance can certainly coincide with a woman’s role as either peace-weaver or mischief-maker. For example, the Faerie Queen, a peace-weaver of these tales, is described in great detail, over 34 lines are dedicated to her beauty. Her body “well shaped and elegant” (100) combined with her “eyes bright, her face white / a beautiful mouth, a well-set nose” (565-566) create a woman who is so beautiful “the lily and the young rose / when they appear in the summer / are surpassed by her beauty” (94-96). On the other side of the spectrum, we have Morgan Le Fay who is “noosed and knotted at the neck” (957), “withered by years” (951) with cheeks “wattled and slack” (953) and “buttocks bulged and swelled” (967) who is so unattractive that she is referred to as a “sorrowful sight” (963).

The “special knowledge” and “social position” referred to in Jones’s definition are also evident in females from the analyzed texts. Morgan Le Fay is a witch who occupies a position of power within a family not her own; Grendel’s mother is a powerful woman-beast who is isolated from civilization. Both of these women are privy to knowledge outside of normal human understanding, and both live outside normal societal structure. As Jones argues while classifying the loathly lady as Other, she is an outsider “in part simply because she is female-but more than her gender, her physical constitution and lack of societal connectedness illustrate the multiple, systematic oppressions inherent in medieval culture”. What role could an unattractive, intelligent, non-conforming woman have other than mischief-maker?

Unlike peace-weavers, mischief-makers are easily identified as active agents within their stories. “Through spells, gifts, and shrewd manipulation of conventional gender roles, such female characters often function to produce – rather than merely participate in – the narrative action” (Schaus 786). After all, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight relies entirely on Morgan Le Fay’s desire to irk her sister Guinevere without which there would be no story. As Miyares points out, “men were puppets in the hands of Morgan Le Fay to grieve another powerful woman, Guinevere” (186). Her action starts the narrative. Likewise, without Grendel’s mother, Beowulf would be a much different tale. Her desire to avenge her son’s death launches the longest subplot within the text. Finally, in our third text, The Lay of Lanval, the Faerie Queen is the foundation of the action: she initiates the relationship with Lanval which leads him to insult Guinevere. These women are catalysts, creators (creatures) of action, and rather mischievous; however, they are not all quite the same level of mischief-maker. Some are tricksters; some are a bit more evil.

Lady Bertilak, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is the most pure example of a female trickster within the texts being discussed in this paper. Lady Bertilak’s true nature as trickster is not revealed until the end of the poem when Lord Bertilak tells Sir Gawain that she has been functioning as a co-conspirator: Bertilak says “I know of your courtesies, and conduct, and kisses / and the wooing of my wife – for it was all my work! / I sent her to test you” (2360-2362). Prior to this point, Lady Bertilak could be construed as an evil temptress as she attempts to seduce Gawain on three separate occasions. While her actions appear immoral while reading, they are excused when the reader finds out her attempt at seduction was sanctioned, even ordered, by her husband. Earlier in the paper, Lady Bertilak is referred to as a moderator due to Lord Bertilak’s promise to Sir Gawain that the lady will serve to comfort him in Lord Bertilak’s absence. This promise of comfort fulfills a function of a peace-weaver; however, the promise made is flawed. Lady Bertilak is not a comfort to Sir Gawain; she deceives him and disingenuously seduces him. Represented by her husband as a peace-weaver, she is in fact a mischief-maker.

Another character in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Morgan Le Fay, illustrates the role of female trickster. Morgan turns Bertilak into the Green Knight in an effort to frighten her sister, Guinevere. According to Lord Bertilak, Morgan sent him to Arthur and the Round Table “to muddle [their] minds” (2459) in the hopes that “grieving Guinevere would go to her grave / at the sight of a specter making ghostly speeches / with his head in his hands before the high table” (2460-2462). Morgan clearly has control over Lord Bertilak and her actions create a conflict and quest for Sir Gawain, but her influence is not reminiscent of a peace-weaver or even a great beauty who affects the lives of men by her desirability. Her control manifests itself in the game she is playing with her sister in which Lord Bertilak and Sir Gawain function as mere chess pieces. In fact it is possible that “Morgan’s presence expresses an essential feeling in the plot, that woman, a witch, is responsible for it all, rather than the hero himself” (Miyares 186). When her influence over the events is seen in this way, the question becomes: is Morgan a trickster or is she actually evil? After all, Morgan and Lady Bertilak’s “game” could have had dire consequences, Sir Gawain’s death which would certainly push her over from trickster to evil manipulator. Then again, if Morgan controlled the game and knew Bertilak’s axe swing would not harm Gawain, she remains a trickster.

The best example of the evil female, rather than the trickster, is Grendel’s mother. “Identified only by her biological function of having given birth to Grendel,” she fulfills a role in the poem that is significantly larger than her son’s (Horner 82); however, despite her crucial role to the action of the poem, Grendel’s mother is not given the respect of a name. Not only does this reveal the speaker’s and the culture’s indifferent view of her as an individual, but by not having a name, she remains “uncontained…she alone remains outside of the peace-weaving economy of exchange, and thus outside of any kind of physical or cultural enclosure” (Horner 82). She is unmarried and uninterested in maintaining the peace. Another detail that marks her as different from the peace-weaving women of her tale is that Grendel’s mother uses violence instead of words to fulfill her purposes. While Wealhtheow’s careful manipulation of words allows her to subtly influence her husband’s actions, Grendel’s mother’s direct violence seems rather more effective – except of course, that in the end, Grendel’s mother dies because of her difference.

In part, this difference is due to a simple fact of medieval society: gender defined life. Men and women functioned in distinct spheres, and any cross-over was aberrant. Adopting characteristics of the opposite sex did not change one’s sex or gender, as it can today, instead “women who transgressed the expectations for their gender did not thereby become not-women; they became deviant women”; to use this paper’s term, they became mischief-makers (qtd. in Oswald 9). This deviance was deemed monstrous, and the woman was seen as part male; this “collapse of two sexes into one body is perhaps even more troubling” than the monsters in literature who were part man and part animal (Oswald 8). As Oswald states, “while threatening to smash the distinction between man and animal is frightening, eliminating the distinction between male and female would lead to the collapse of the medieval social order” (Oswald 8-9).

Two male characteristics displayed by the vilified females in our texts are vengeance and violence. For example, Grendel’s mother “acts aggressively, arguably in a fashion reserved for men” (Acker 705). Her actions are actually remarkably similar to that of her son, a fact which is emphasized in the poem when the poet remarks that one of the warriors will die “just as had often happened before when Grendel preyed upon the hall” (qtd. in Acker 705). The impropriety of her actions are directly related to gender expectations as her actions would be seen as admirable and even necessary if she were male. If a son was killed, a father would by necessity have to avenge his death. When Grendel’s mother completes the same action, she is vilified, possibly because she “threatens not just an individual man's dominance but the whole system of male dominance” (Acker 708). Jane Chance states it clearly: “It is monstrous for a mother to avenge her son as if she were a retainer, he were her lord, and avenging more important than peacemaking” (qtd. in Horner 84). Her status as a woman makes her revenge monstrous rather than honorable (Acker 705).

Jane Chance draws a connection between the three mothers in Beowulf in relation to this system of vengeance: "The past helplessness of the first mother, Hildeburh, to requite the death of her son counter points the anxiously maternal Wealhtheow's attempt to weave the ties of kinship and obligation, thereby forestalling future danger to her sons. Later that night, Grendel's mother, intent on avenging the loss of her son in the present, attacks Heorot, her masculine aggression contrasting with the feminine passivity of both Hildeburh and Wealhtheow" (qtd. in Acker 704).

Acker then identifies Grendel’s mother as a female antitype (704), an argument well supported by her adoption of male characteristics. Similar to Grendel’s mother, albeit in a less aggressive way, Modthryth from Beowulf, displays male characteristics. Again, she wields power and “her masculine performance manages to subvert the usual use of women as objects in exchanges between men” (Dockray-Miller 32). While Grendel’s mother kills directly, Modthryth merely orchestrates death. This may appear to make her less monstrous than Grendel’s mother, but while Grendel’s mother killed to avenge the murder of her son, Modthryth orders the death of many, apparently just for looking her in the face. Modthryth is presented as the antithesis to Queen Hygd, a mediator and peace-weaver in the tale: "A woman should weave peace, not punish the innocent with loss of life for imagined insults" (1942-1943). Initially, Modthryth is similar to Grendel’s mother, “violent, unviewable in daylight, and fatal for men to encounter” (Horner 89). Eventually both women are tamed, so to speak; Grendel’s mother is slain by Beowulf, and Modthryth becomes docile when she is married off to King Offa. Her marriage reinforces the belief that a woman must be contained within a peace-weaving role and that marriage is “essential for conventional femininity” (Horner 89).

Similar to Modthryth, Guinevere in The Lay of Lanval has her husband dole out her punishments. In this case, she manipulates her husband into punishing the man who refuses her advances. When her attempted seduction of Lanval fails, Guinevere is disappointed, but his subsequent insult to her beauty pushes her past the point of logic. Originally, Lanval merely tells Guinevere that he has “no desire to love [her]” (270) because he has “served the king a long time” (271) and he doesn’t want to “betray [his] faith to him” (272). Guinevere, unhappy with Lanval’s answer, gets angry and “in her wrath, she insulted him” (276), suggesting he is homosexual, saying he is a “base coward, a lousy cripple” (283) and that God may punish Arthur for letting Lanval stay at Camelot (284-286). Understandably upset by Guinevere’s words, Lanval tells Guinevere that even “the poorest girl of all [in the employ of his Faerie Queen] / is better than you, my lady queen / in body, face, and beauty / and in breeding and in goodness” (299-302). In response, Guinevere tells her husband, Arthur, that Lanval tried to seduce her and “insulted and offended her” (319). Her manipulations cause Arthur to arrest Lanval. While Lanval’s incarceration may seem trivial and not worth classifying Guinevere as ‘evil’, readers must realize that her deceit could cost Lanval his life. After all, Arthur states that if Lanval “could not defend himself in court / he would have him burned or hanged” (327-328). Guinevere is willing to architect Lanval’s death solely from injury to her pride. Pride, of course, being an emotion and motivator reserved for men…and mischief-makers.

For the thrilling conclusion, see next week's Medieval Monday!