I Am Woman: The Complicated Relationship between Fairy Mistresses, Virgin Martyrs, and the Medieval Patriarchy

While modern scholars cannot expect medieval authors to live up to our expectations of feminism, we can still reflect upon the ways in which they both circumvented and upheld the typical patriarchal discursive structure which dominated the Middle Ages. A cross-genre examination of virgin martyred saints and fairy mistresses will illuminate significant overlap in the treatment of magic and divine intervention and the typical female portrayal in these circumstances. Saint’s Lives and Medieval Romances occupy significantly distinct spaces in the popular literary consciousness of the High and Late Middle Ages; however, both genres offer moral instruction for the women who encounter these stories allowing for a meaningful comparison of the female tropes in each genre. Using Sandy Bardsley’s distinction between power and authority from Women’s Roles in the Middle Ages, in which “Power suggests the ability to effect a change…[and] Authority is defined as ‘recognized and legitimized power,’” this project examines the extent to which virgin martyred saints and fairy mistresses are allowed power and authority in their respective texts (Bardsley 193). Through an examination of the Katherine Group virgin martyr saints’ lives and the fairy mistresses of Sir Launfal, Lanval, and Tomas off Ersseldoune, this paper demonstrates that while Saints’ Lives and Romances can depict powerful women, there is still a tendency to undermine women’s authority; even when a woman has legitimized authority over her own power, an inexplicable source such as magic is used to justify that authority. I hope this paper will challenge traditional notions of women’s power and authority in the well-trod tropes of virgin martyred saints and fairy mistresses.