By: Maria Spong
Magic and Women’s roles are two topics represented in Medieval Literature, and often, when paired together, lead to a more in-depth reading of their relationship to power and give insight to the inner workings of society in general.
Magic
During the Middle Ages, magic was generally categorized into two groups; Catholic and Pagan. In Catholicism, the ‘good’ magic, a power granted by God, often reveals itself through the Sacraments and other rites. Pagan magic was “bad” magic; it was illicit and anything related to it had a negative connotation. This magic was done by those asking for power from Satan or other demonic spirits for their own gain. Often, these differences were clear based on whether the magic was permitted by the church. Pagan magic was much more focused on White or Black magic. White magic had a naturalistic approach and was much more commonly practiced and accepted, especially in the courts. Courtiers would wear stones or garments that had magical powers for protection, most notably the green girdle in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which was meant to protect Sir Gawain from all physical harm. Black magic was often used to forward a person’s own interests or to punish others. For instance, in The Faerie Queene, the character Druessa is a witch who uses black magic for her own gain, most notably by changing her appearance and turning her travel buddies into trees.
Women’s Roles
Feudal System
The feudal system was broken up into clergy, nobility, and serfs. In the clergy, women were restricted to being nuns, but the other two categories were a little more complex. In nobility, women were seen as little more than bartering tools — they were used to create alliances and to be married off. As land ownership was power, a woman’s worth was dictated by the amount of land that the husband gained in the exchange. This power allowed for a variation of quality of life and freedom within the women of the nobility, but in the late Middle Ages, the development of courtly love was significant for their rights. However, serf women had a little more freedom than the noble women did, in that the suffering and hardships of the serfs were consistent for men and women, so women often worked alongside men and were viewed as closer to equal.
Church
The opinion of the Catholic Church is crucial for the understanding of women’s portrayal in literature. There was the contradictory view of women as damning and redeeming depending on the biblical figure being compared. When compared to Eve, women were demonized, saying that because a woman was the reason for the Fall from Eden, all women were evil. Before the Middle Ages, the Virgin Mary, deemed the Mother of God, led to the rise of the Cult of the Virgin Mary. Mary’s role in the church was seen as redemptive because she gave birth to Jesus, which led to the possibility of women’s restorative powers. Despite this, it did little to help raise women’s status because women were more often compared to the damning figure of Eve. This view of women as “The view of women as either evil temptresses or virginal goddesses left no middle ground for a reasoned perception of woman-as-individual” (Mark). We can see this reflected in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight through Morgan le Fay, Bertilek’s Wife, and Guinevere, as well as in The Faerie Queene in the characters of Una, Error, and Druessa.
Works Cited
Bovey, Alixe. Women in Medieval Society. 17 Jan. 2014, https://www.bl.uk/the-middle-ages/articles/women-in-medieval-society.
Greenblatt, Stephen, et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 10th ed., B, W.W. Norton, 2018. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Greenblatt, Stephen, and James Simpson. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 10th ed., A, W.W. Norton, 2018. The Faerie Queene.
Mark, Joshua J. Women in the Middle Ages. 22 Nov. 2019, https://www.ancient.eu/article/1345/women-in-the-middle-ages/.