Jolene P. Brown
Dr. K. Smith
ENL 111
8 June 2009
The Power of Women in Malory’s Arthurian Works
The women of King Arthur’s world have two important attributes in the work of Malory. It is the women in the stories who establish gender roles between a knight and a lady or create ambiguous gender roles, raising questions about the significance of masculinity and femininity. As well as creating gender distinctions, a lady is often the key factor in determining the destiny of the knights and a knight’s relationship to a woman can be a determining factor is his success or failure in the sphere of the court. It is in this way that women have control over the masculine realm around them, and though their role is limited and very subtle, it is important to the overall continuum of Arthur’s court and his knights. The combination of establishing the gender role and determining the success or failure of a knight makes the women of Arthur’s world powerful creatures, which may explain the prevalence of mystical and magical qualities associated with the female realm, since the power that women wield is, at times, so subtle it is hardly recognized as power at all.
In Malory’s text, the women of King Arthur’s court do not often have a voice unto themselves. Instead of speaking, women use objects and attributes to communicate to each other and to knights in ways that are not altogether obvious. In her essay “Female Heroes, Heroines, and Counter-Heroes,” Maureen Fries argues that Arthurian women play one, and rarely more, of her three defined roles in connection to their femininity: a female hero, a heroine, or a counter-hero. However, she goes on to say:
All of these women, even the comparatively powerful counter-heroes, are limited by their inability to assume such traditional male roles as the warrior one of physical combat…female heroes and counter-heroes must use guile, both verbal and magical…As for heroines, they have only their beauty, a chancy weapon at best. (72)
Though it is true that women are limited to a certain numbers of tools at their disposal for moving up the social ladder they make effective use of what they have to further their cause. By making use of beauty, magical charms, spells, and companionship with other women, the ladies of the court are able to etch out an existence that, more often than not, works to their favor.
The goal of most Arthurian women is marriage and many of the women identify their future partners quickly by judging a knight according to his outward appearance, chivalrous character and family affiliations. Winning those partners, however, tends to be a harder feat than just the identification as there are often competitions among ladies for the best of the knights. The most obvious example of this is found in the overwhelming attraction to Lancelot and the lengths to which women go to seduce him for their own. Lancelot is pursued by four queens, who demand he choose one of them as his paramour (Malory p. 152); he is tricked into siring Galahad by Eleyne who drugs him (480); he is nursed back to health then given an ultimatum by another Elaine, who commits suicide at his refusal to be her husband or allow her to be his paramour (638). Each of these women uses their best skills in an attempt to woo or otherwise gain the favor of sir Lancelot. Despite their overall failures, their attempts should not be discounted as ineffective or frivolous. The power that each wields is strong, failing only because their choice of knight to enact it upon is Lancelot, the greatest knight of all. It can be argued that their failure in this capacity speaks more to the power of Lancelot than it does to lack of talent or power on the part of these very motivated queens and maidens.
Arthurian women play a vital role in the unfolding of Malory’s story despite their lack of voice and overall dismissal to the edges of the plot. There are several instances where women dictate not only the direction of the story, but also foresee and, indeed, enforce the outcome of the story. Through their use of their beauty, magic, magical items, feminine charms or even emotional appeals and ultimatums, women are able to manipulate the men around them to perform tasks that range from the menial to heroic. Even weapons, which are almost exclusively items that are identified with masculinity, are almost always associated with a woman through ownership or access, as discussed by Geraldine Heng:
Perhaps the most enigmatic and dangerous items of this material trove are swords, the instruments on which all masculine accomplishment must turn, and therefore pivotal to conceptions of male identity and personal force. These are so strongly associated with the feminine sources and ownership as sometimes to be only temporarily accessible to men. (98)
Women, though they do not wield the weapons, still have the power to dictate who will receive the weapons. For example, Excalibur belongs to the Lady of the Lake who claims ownership of it when Arthur wants it for his own: “’Sir Arthur,’ seyde the damsel, ‘that swerde ys myne, and if ye woll gyff me a gyffte whan I aske hit you, ye shall have hit” (Malory 35). The sword is hers, and it is hers to barter with in order to ask a favor—a gift—of Arthur at a later date. If it were not hers to trade, it could be argued, she would probably not be so quick to promise it away.
As the most obvious of the female figures in the tales of Arthur, Guinevere’s virtue lies in her beauty, as she holds the two most powerful men in the kingdom under the power of her beauty: Arthur, the king of England, and Lancelot, the greatest knight of the king’s court. Her beauty seems to have a magical element to it as a woman points out to Lancelot during one of his many adventures that “hit is noysed that ye love quene Guenyvere, and that she hath ordeyned by enchauntemente that ye shall never love none other but hir, nothing none other damesell ne lady shall rejoice you” (160 40-42). Though there is not mention of Guinevere practicing any kind of magical or enchanted arts, the implication speaks clearly of the power of her beauty and how it might affect both her husband and lover. Her use of her power seems to be limited to attaining a high station in life through her marriage to a king and maintaining that station through the work of her lover, Lancelot. Her beauty secures her queen-ship as Arthur tells Merlin he wishes to marry her because she “is the moste valyaunte and fayryst that I know lyvyng, or yet that ever I coude fynde” (59). Arthur marries her despite the warnings given to him by Merlin, arguably Arthur’s most trusted advisor, and enters the marriage with the knowledge that she and Lancelot are determined to be in love with one another. Though it is Arthur’s decision to follow through with this marriage despite the warnings and the knowledge of his wife’s eventual betrayal, it might also be seen as power that Guinevere has in her beauty. The reader is not told Guinevere’s reaction to being the object of the king’s affections, but it is not hard to imagine her being pleased at the prospect of marrying the powerful king of England, especially given that “Arranged marriages were the norm among the aristocracy and gentry in Malory’s day…Guinevere probably did not have to be coerced into marrying Arthur. He was a young king, renowned for his prowess and worship, and she might reasonably expect to grow to love him in time” (Kennedy 15).
Lancelot is also subject to Guinevere’s beauty, as it is he who maintains her position in the court. It is understood that no other knight can defeat Lancelot because he is the greatest knight in the world, and it is Lancelot who fights for Guinevere in place of Arthur on at least one occasion. For instance, when Lancelot is away, suffering Guinevere’s wrath, she has a dinner for the Knights of the Round Table, to show her appreciation for all of them. Unfortunately, there is an assassination plot on Gawain, and when it goes wrong, killing another knight, it is Guinevere who is blamed since she is the one who planned the dinner. Though the circumstances of the blame are unusual, and signal an environment of mistrust among the knightly brethren, what is more alarming is the mistrust directed at the wife of the king. Arthur cannot help her for his political ties as king, and even he suggests that Lancelot should be the one to defend her honor. Despite their earlier argument, and Guinevere’s seemingly characteristic unhappiness with him, Lancelot returns to defend her, and does so successfully. Lancelot is so in love with Guinevere, the woman he cannot have, that he passes up the opportunity to marry or otherwise secure the love of other eligible and beautiful women, such as the lady Elaine the Fair Maid of Astolat who kills herself for his love. Guinevere asks Lancelot why he did not show Elaine more mercy and his reply is succinct: “she wolde none other ways be answered but that she wolde be my wyff other ellis my paramour, and of thes two I wolde not graunte her…I love nat to be contrayned to love, for love muste only aryse of the harte self, and nat by none constraynte” (641). Lancelot is controlled by Guinevere’s beauty, at least to some extent, to go to such great lengths, even restoring her position as queen when their affair is alleged by Aggravayne and Mordred during the final chapter of Malory’s work.
Morgan le Fay is one of the more complex female roles in the Arthurian universe since, depending on the text, is sibling, friend, enemy, sorceress, enabler and disabler to Arthur. In Malory’s text she is cast in the role of villain, and her power obviously lies in the realm of magic and enchantment, which she wields over men to gain power over them. She is not the only woman who uses magic to her advantage, for the Lady of the Lake, Nyneve also does and traps Merlin who is trying to woo her. But there are differences in the way each woman uses her abilities:
If Morgan and Nyneve may be said to differ…it is a difference of intensity, rather than of kind. Nyneve…is more impersonal in her relations with the Arthurian world, less interested in its quotidian operations. Morgan…is intensely interested in the Arthurian ethos as a stage for her powers, and the disruptions she manufactures…point to a pleasure in their competitive display. (Heng 106)
Morgan takes pleasure in the control of men, and indeed does so at every opportunity she gets. She is one of the queens to pursues Lancelot to be his paramour (152), shortly after taking Accolon as a lover and using him to kill Arthur while she killed her own husband, only be stopped by her son, Uwayne (90 35-41). The Lady of the Lake, at least from the perspective of Arthur and his court, seems a more subtle, helpful influence on the activities of the court, while Morgan continues her disruptions throughout the story.
Morgan also deprives Arthur of the precious scabbard of Excalibur, which is supposed to keep him from ever losing blood (Malory 36). She steals into this chamber intending to steal the sword, but because the sword is “naked” in the hands of Arthur, she decided to take the scabbard instead, rather than risk waking him:
And she wente streyte unto his chamber…When the kynge awoke and myssid his scawberde, he was wroth, and so he asked who has bene there, and they sayde his sister, quene Morgan le Fay, had bene there and had put the scawberde undir hir mantel and is gone…’Sir,’ seyde they all, ‘we durst nat disobey your sistyrs commaundemente.’ (91)
The power she has over men is made evident in this passage for “we durste disobey,” which could be attributed to both her magic and to her place in the king’s family as his sister. Morgan is in control of Arthur’s fate at this point in the story, as she takes the scabbard and deprives him of his ability to spend an eternity on the English throne. Morgan, unlike Arthur, realizes the importance of the scabbard and it should be noticed that the power of Excalibur lies “not in blade but in the scabbard or sheath (Lat. vagina)” (Heng 98) and in depriving Arthur of his scabbard she is depriving him of an important connection and balance to the feminine world. This act could be interpreted as the beginning of the end with his wife, as his sword no longer has its sheath, he is also meant to lose the sheath to his own sword.
The power of women in the Arthurian world is not limited to that of Guinevere and Morgan. Many of the women in Arthur’s kingdom manage to control and manipulate their surroundings to their own benefit and ends. There are several examples of this in the story of Balin, the Knight with Two Swords. At the beginning of the story a damsel enters Arthur’s court in search of a great knight who can pull her sword out of her sheath. It is only evident later, through the help of Merlin, that the woman has asked the ladies of Avalon to help her have revenge on her brother by having part in the death of a great knight’s brother by use of that sword she is asking knights to pull out of the sheath. When Balin is successful in pulling the sword and refuses to give it back, even after the damsel’s request, she threatens him saying “ye ar nat wyse to kepe the swerde fro me, for ye shall sle with that swerde the beste frende that ye have and the man that ye moste love In the worlde, and that swerde shall be youre destruccion” (Malory 39-40). Through the use of these words and by this damsel seeking out the help of magical women to further her destructive cause, the damsel is creating her own destiny. It may not be the most chivalrous life, being that her mission is to bring destruction and revenge, and hers is certainly not an honorable cause, but she, unlike some of the other women of the court, is empowered to seek out what she feels is important.
Other women are given power by the author, since it is the death of these particular women that determine the fates of the knights who are involved. Again, from the story of Balin, the Lady of Sir Launceor kills herself upon her knight’s sword upon discovering his death at the hands of Balin, to which Merlin warns Balin how her death will affect the course of his adventure:
…because of the dethe of that lady [Launceor’s lady] thou shalt stryke a stroke moste dolorous that every man stroke, excepte the stroke of oure Lorde Jesu Cryste…and thorow that stroke three kyngdomys shall be brought into grete poverte, miseri and wrecchednesse twelve yere. And the knight shall nat be hole of that wounde many yerys. (45)
Still another example of a woman’s power after her death is found in the story of Torre and Pellinor, where Gawain is punished for the lack of mercy he shows toward another knight, yet instead of killing the knight: “Ryght so com hys lady oute of a chamber and felle over hym, and so he smote of hir hede by myssefortune” (66). The gruesome punishment that Gawain is forced to endure not only shows the extent to which Gawain suffers the torment of his lack of mercy, but also forces him to change the way he approaches both knights and women in the battle field since “sir Gawayne sworne upon the four Evaungelystis that he sholde never be ayenste lady ne jantillwoman but if he fight for a lady and hys adversary fyghtith for another” (67). Even after death women seem to have a power to change the fortune of knights, whether it be for better or for worse, and sometimes both.
While it is true that women have a limited role compared to the vast scope of the chivalric brotherhood, battlefield and honor code of the masculine realm of which they are a part of they do have significant powers in those realms they do control. Their realm is that of love, and a woman who can not only identify her lover, but also capture him and make him her knight, her paramour or her husband has truly mastered her womanhood. In taking advantage of what talents and skills they have, women are able to create for themselves a small part of their world that they can control. Like their control in the realm of love, as argued by Geraldine Heng,
…knightly obedience to and cooperation with the feminine supply effective means for actualizations of feminine will, creating an agency by which women may be active in the world. Knightly actions, where they are an extension of feminine will, are, in this sense, transparent, and have been describes as…the exploits of ladies through the medium of knights. (102)
It is through the interactions with the masculine and, ultimately, forging ties with the masculine realm that women are given power beyond that which is given them by their gender. Those women who cannot connect with the masculine realm, such as those women who learn magic, or those to betray the masculine realm, still manage to maintain a power unique to their gender. Men, on the other hand, must maintain a connection to the feminine in order to reach their full potential within their gender, be it through love, chivalry, or sex. Without the balance on the masculine side, the man falls victim to women and must suffer the wrath of those women who can control the realm that he is not only separate from, but has limited understanding of.
Works Cited
Fries, Maureen. "Female Heroes, Heroines, and Counter-Heroes: Images of Women in Arthurian Tradition." Arthurian Women: A Casebook. Ed. Thelma S. (ed and introd). Fenster. New York, NY: Garland, lxxvii, 1996. 59-73.
Heng, Geraldine. "Enchanted Ground: The Feminine Subtext in Malory." Arthurian Women: A Casebook. Ed. Thelma S. (ed and introd ). Fenster. New York, NY: Garland, lxxvii, 1996. 97-113.
Kennedy, Beverly. "Malory's Guenevere: A 'Trew Lover'." On Arthurian Women: Essays in Memory of Maureen Fries. Ed. Bonnie (ed and foreword) Wheeler and Fiona (ed and foreword) Tolhurst. Dallas, TX: Scriptorium, xiii, 2001. 11-34.
Malory, Sir Thomas. Complete Works of Malory. Ed. Eugene Vinaver. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.
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