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purple motes

Artifacts to help you imagine more.

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Highlights

  • Abelard castrated
  • Byzantine wife saves husband
  • Amphitryon & Geta duped
  • Chastelaine de Vergi tragedy
  • Aristotle’s advice to Alexander
  • Empress Theodora: woman leader
  • Tristan & Isuet
  • Xanthippe & Socrates
  • New Modern Sexism Scale

Marie de France

Marie de France probably wrote late in the twelfth century in England or France. She wrote poetry primarily in Anglo-Norman French, but also knew Latin and English. Her surviving works are mainly lais and fables. Twelve lais are attributed to Marie de France, while another twenty-four lais (“anonymous lais”) have also survived. The latter lais are now readily available in Burgess & Brook’s Twenty-Four Lays from the French Middle Ages (2016). While all the lais concern relationships and are thus important to men, Marie de France’s lais are particularly important to men. Marie de France appreciated the challenges and difficulties in men’s lives and showed keen sensitivity for men as a gender.

Ignaure & castration: against women imprisoning men in love

Ignaure, a medieval French lay, narrates women imposing constraints on men’s sexuality, leading to castration & death. Choice for men is a more loving way. … Read the post Ignaure & castration: against women imprisoning men in love

wife caused nightingale’s death, anxious husband killed for it

Gesta Romanorum and Marie de France’s Laustic teach that men’s lack of self-confidence in love contributes to the allure of the nightingale’s song. … Read the post wife caused nightingale’s death, anxious husband killed for it

Marie de France appreciated women’s carnal desire for men

Marie de France’s lai Yonec poignantly expresses a young, noble woman’s carnal desire for a young, noble man whom she imagines from a hawk. … Read the post Marie de France appreciated women’s carnal desire for men

Tondberht and Ecgfrith in sexless marriages to Æthelthryth

In 7th-century England, Earl Tondberht and King Ecgfrith endured sexless marriages with Æthelthryth. She’s a famous Anglo-Saxon saint. They were chumps. … Read the post Tondberht and Ecgfrith in sexless marriages to Æthelthryth

varieties of dread game in Andreas Capellanus’s De amore

Andreas Capellanus’s medieval treatise De amore indicates that in medieval Europe, natural dread game was more important than supernatural dread game. … Read the post varieties of dread game in Andreas Capellanus’s De amore

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