The woman traveller in French literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

This dissertation studies the woman traveller in French narrative literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with emphasis on the courtly romance. It examines factual aspects of women's travel in the literature under study, offering for comparison some factual material from other sources. The study shows that a focus on the travel of women often allows their identities to emerge sharply and to develop as they respond to the challenges, foreseen and unforeseen, of the road. Following women's travel in this literature reveals shifts in their portrayal that correspond to chronology, theme and genre. In the twelfth century, the theme of the shorter narrative forms is the intense love that motivates the travels of often persecuted women who have the full sympathy of a narrator who values the love they experience. The classic romans courtois of the great twelfth-century poet Chrétien de Troyes present the theme that love should be integrated into a broader societal perspective in which a chivalry of service is of first importance. Women travellers, usually strong and resourceful, value and serve this idea. In the thirteenth century, competent, independent women travellers are depicted in the romans d'aventure. Although the travel in the romans d'aventure is motivated by love, still a prominent theme, the idea of women's self-sufficiency is important as well. However, in the thirteenth-century Arthurian romances, the themes of chivalry and the camaraderie of knights receive increasing emphasis. More and more, the woman traveller serves the knight's story. Sometimes the traveller in these romances deteriorates in character from her usually high-minded counterpart in the work of Chrétien de Troyes. In thirteenth-century verse and prose romances, fairly frequent examples of the unsavory types of women travellers that overrun Guiron le Courtois appear. The contrast between twelfth-century depictions of women travellers where love is an important theme and those in Guiron le Courtois where the theme is a chivalry reduced to the camaraderie of severely misognynistic knights emphasizes the widely differing incarnations of the woman traveller in this literature.