Malory's Magical Medieval Women - The Role and Importance of Women in Le Morte D'Arthur.

“ ..it befell a great anger and unhap that stinted not till the flower of chivalry of all the world was destroyed and slain; and all was long upon two unhappy knights, the which were named Agravaine and Sir Mordred”

This woman is a passive agent to Malory, as most medieval women were to the men of the time. She is defined by the men around her, and particularly by the Knights of the Round Table, most notably, Lancelot. It appears that her assigned role by the author, although one of wrongdoing and blame, is much less important than that of the male characters who react to her. She may or may not be seen as the cause, but in actual terms, it is the men who effect the change of the plot and control the action.

Guinevere found herself once again in a position to be seen as betraying Arthur when Mordred seized the throne and announced that he would marry her. To support the evidence that she did not truly betray Arthur in the latter case, she refuses him and locks herself in the Tower of London. This could be seen as Guinevere taking control and influencing the plot, thus making her an important figure to Malory. However, whilst I believe that this is indicative of her power as a character, it is Lancelot who rescues her and thus takes control. Lancelot’s loyalty to Guinevere causes him, in his anxiety to protect her, to unwittingly destroy the man he loves most – Gareth, Gawain's brother; and it is grief that turns Lancelot’s truest friend, Gawain, into his sworn enemy and causes the mortal strife of the final catastrophe.

After Guinevere was rescued by Lancelot, she sought refuge in a convent, to live out her days repenting of the sins she had committed, and in doing so to find salvation.  Now defined by the female population which surrounds her, she becomes a stronger character, and her role in the previous events may be seen in a different light. In this saintly context, she could be seen to have “confer[red] grace on her unworthy supplicant [Lancelot] and, like a feudal lord, receive[d] pledges of his undying service.” However, to increase this power further, she is seen, after Arthur’s death, to feel immense sorrow for her affair with Lancelot, and refuses to see him. Her position in the abbey gave her the opportunity to do penance and the nuns later made her the abbess, because she had lived such a pure life whilst there.

Lancelot also turns to a life of religion, and his and Guinevere’s religious life repudiates their previous sinful existence which led to the destruction of an idealistic society, and their chivalric ideals are replaced by a wholly different set of religious values. There is genuine contrition to be found at the close, “whilst in the noble words of Sir Ector, there is also a moving lament for what has been lost”:

“ ‘Ah Lancelot!’ he said, ‘thou were head of all Christian knights! And now I dare say,’ said Sir Ector, ‘thou sir Lancelot, there thou liest, that thou were never matched of earthly knight’s hand. And thou ere the courteoust knight that tever bore shield! And thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse, and thou were the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman….’” 7

This illustrates that Guinevere and Lancelot had truly changed, that she was not a ‘bad’ woman, and that her role in Le Morte D’Arthur was an important and influential one.

Elaine of Corbenic is identified in Malory’s work as the mother of Galahad, and the daughter of King Pelles, the keeper of the Grail. Purely by association then, she fulfils an important role as the mother of the purest knight who wins the quest for the Holy Grail. However, in order to create this perfect knight, who represents the mixing of two strains of ‘holy’ blood, Elaine must seduce the less than eager Sir Lancelot, which she achieves by enchanting him. She appears to him as Guinevere, which causes Galahad to be engendered, and, as a result of this, the Queen to be enraged. Elaine is therefore usually perceived to be either naïve or insincere, and her behaviour to be wicked. Paradoxically, even though Galahad is conceived in a duplicitous way by a ‘wicked’ woman, the result is a perfect knight who benefits the court and the Round Table greatly. This may be because, although she is wicked in the sense that she was an unmarried mother, she was merely a vessel for Galahad and so was somehow detached from him, and therefore able to produce this uncorrupted soul. In this respect she becomes almost a Mary figure, as her actions can be seen to be for the ‘greater good’ and to display a type of selflessness, though knowingly causing the wrath of the Queen:

“So the noise sprang in Arthur’s court that Launcelot had gotten a child upon Elaine, … wherefore Queen Guenevere was wroth,…said the queen, when it is daylight I command you to avoid my court; and for the love you owe unto Sir Launcelot do not discover his counsel…” 

Elaine uses her magical powers - appearing as Guinevere - to control the situation, realising her goal and asserting herself, which without doubt makes her an important and influential figure of the story, regardless of her status as Galahad’s mother.

Elaine of Astolat is a prime example of the powerless woman so typical of medieval writing. She is a cursed damsel who falls in love with Lancelot and dies of grief when she realises her love is unrequited. Her body is borne by a barge to Camelot where all the court views both her and a letter explaining her death to be a result of Lancelot’s rejection. Elaine is not as prominent or as influential as the women I have mentioned, in fact she conforms to the powerless stereotype, but her impact on the story lies in the fact that she is a tragic woman who, through being true to her heart caused her own downfall.

“Why should I leave such thoughts? Am I not an earthly woman? … my belief is I do none offence though I love an earthly man; and I take God to my record I loved never none but Sir Lancelot du Lake, nor never shall… it is the sufferance of God that I shall die for the love of so noble a knight…”

In a subverted way, she took control of her own destiny by choosing to love Lancelot deeply even when she realised her feelings were not returned, and in that sense sacrificed herself. This shows some strength of character, but her importance is illustrated by the fact that she is still well renowned today for being Tennyson’s Lady of Shallot, her story therefore being memorable and valuable enough to live on hundreds of years later.

As I have stated already, women in literature of this period were typically marginalised and often appeared to be entirely dependent on others. If the female character was more prominent or given a more central role to the story, she suddenly became ‘otherworldly’ or somehow mystical and therefore not of this world, as if to diminish the reality that this feminine power could be true of real life. These such characters can be found in Le Morte D’Arthur as Morgan le Fay and Nimue, a Lady of the Lake, who in my opinion are much more powerful and influential than the other female characters, which perhaps warrants their alien status.

Morgan le Fay plays a very important role in the politics of Malory’s work.  She is a very powerful woman, and uses her power to manipulate the men around her. Filled with visions of grandeur, she planned to kill Arthur and take over the Kingdom. She used her lover, Accolon of Gaul with the sword Excalibur, as her weapon to destroy Arthur, while she tried to kill her husband, King Uriens. Accolon confesses to Arthur Morgan’s treason after he realised that his wounds were serious.

“Now, sir, said Accolon, I will tell you; this sword hath been in my keeping this twelvemonth; and Morgan le Fay,…sent it me yesterday…, to this intent, that I should slay King Arthur…then had she me devised to be king in this land, and so to reign, and she to be my queen.” 

Morgan was very thorough in her plans to take over the Kingdom and was willing to kill anyone who got in her way. She was extremely ruthless, a typically male trait, and underestimated by her half-brother King Arthur: 

“…I shall be sore avenged on her an I live, that all Christendom shall speak of it; God knoweth I have honoured her and worshipped her more than all my kin, and more have I trusted her than mine own wife and all my kin after.”

When Morgan heard that her attempt to kill him had failed, she did not relinquish her fight for the throne, but sent him a mantle under the guise of a peace offering. Nimue however, suspecting treachery from Morgan, advised the King not to wear the robe, and when it was placed on Morgan’s attendant, the girl was burned to death. His half-sister continued to try to kill Arthur, but only succeeded in killing those she manipulated into assisting her.

Morgan le Fay, though undoubtedly evil and a practitioner of witchcraft, is a very powerful character. Despite the fact that she uses her powers of magic and manipulation with evil intent, she possesses an independence, strength of character, and important status which make her a very influential player in the story, and therefore one of the most important characters, either male or female. Perhaps it is the immense influence and control of the action that Morgan possesses which make her a threat to the patriarchal society of the Middle Ages and thus necessitate her ‘fairy’ nature. “In the Middle Ages people believed in the existence of good and evil magic”, and witchcraft was viewed as a “legitimate means in a struggle when used by men, and as a horrible expression of capriciousness and inherent wickedness when used by women”. This use of the fairy world and its innate magic as a literary device employed by Malory would therefore reduce the credibility of Morgan’s character and thus render her status to below that of the men.

There are two women who possess the title of Lady of the Lake in Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur. This is made clear by the fact that she is beheaded in Arthur’s court by Balyn, but then later reappears. The Lady of the Lake who is killed has Arthur in her debt for the loan of Excalibur, an obligation that the King feels with sufficient force to cause him to expel Balyn from court. In this respect, she is a very important character, as she wields influence over Arthur and is responsible for the introduction of the famous sword.

The second Lady of the Lake, Nimue, is an enchantress possessed of such magical powers as the first Lady of the Lake and Morgan le Fay, which provide her with an “extraordinary autonomy… an untrammelled freedom to act that is denied to others”. Nimue is responsible for the capture and demise of Merlin, and accomplishes this through an “interrogation of the familiar courtly role of the beloved mistress”. Merlin uses his sorcery to impress Nimue, and she uses her charm and exploits the ‘spell’ of her attractiveness to cajole him into a cave when she grows tired of him, before using the magic that he has taught her to imprison him there. Merlin has prophesied his own demise but is powerless to stop it, and through her clever manipulation of his besotted attitude towards her, Nimue succeeds in becoming his superior. This pattern of a man becoming besotted with a woman and losing his human position could be attributed to Arthur, who marries Guinevere against Merlin’s advice, and also Lancelot, who cannot obtain the Grail and eventually becomes a hermit because of his involvement with the Queen.

 The actions of Nimue may be seen as wicked and evil, but later in the text, she protects Arthur from Morgan’s treachery and uses her powers for the good of the society, in this fulfilling Merlin’s role. The text also seems to “approve and confirm her freedom for such extemporising” by placing the responsibility for his own capture with Merlin himself:

“And always Merlin lay about the lady to have hir maidenhood, and she was ever passing weary of him, and fain would have been delivered of him, for she was afeard of him because he was a devils son, and she could not beskift of him by no mean.”

The above quotation suggests the main reason for her anxiety to be free from him. Fear is a typically female weakness, and although I believe she has just cause to fear him as a “devyls son”, even if it were not justified she shows herself to be strong enough to overcome both her fear and his considerable power, thus warranting her status as an important and strong female character.

Reid in Arthurian Legend says “it is fitting that when he takes a mistress who encompasses his ruin; she should be of fairy origin”. Is that why she is allowed influential ‘otherworldly’ status, or is it because if she is mythical, she is not real and her power cannot be recognised in ordinary women? Only one man, Merlin, is decisively associated with the practice of sorcery. The references of magic to women are almost casual, even nameless figures who make the briefest appearances may possess magical objects and spells and work enchantment. It is a language conveyed by the text as being in every way uniquely familiar to women, and the source of power for some of the most influential and important characters of the story.

Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur is written in a simple, undecorated style, chronicling the Romantic material as if it were fact, and so suspending the reader’s

disbelief. Arthurian chivalry was, to the author, “something more specific than an example of noble thoughts and virtuous deeds”. It was, primarily, an “example of loyalty to a great cause” and Arthurian romance was “a record of the heroic past of England”.  This could perhaps explain why women were not seen as important in literature of this kind. The lack of personal description with regard to appearance and emotions, and the lack of narrative opinion of the characters, aided by Malory’s paratactic style, facilitates the reader’s reductive view of many of the women. In medieval romance there is a wide variety of ways in which women are presented and in the situations in which they are placed. Many of these noble ladies are simple reflections of the male desires of courtly love, but I believe that the women in Le Morte D’Arthur should be seen independently of their heroes’ idealising perceptions. These women are as richly complex as the men, if not more so. Beneficent or malignant, there should be no doubt that the prominent female characters in this work are strong and powerful with important roles to fulfil in Arthurian society.

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