The Wife of Bath Tale

The Wife of Bath tale is an example of feminism and role reversal in medieval society, using a retelling of the Lanval story we read earlier in the semester. Our handbook defines feudalism as “a system of society and political organization that prevailed in Western Europe during much of the medieval period” (Handbook, 216). Lords controlled vast landholding, worked by the underling serfs, and kept a standing army of knights to protect his holdings and keep the peasants from revolting. Women were not suppose to have large role a
in a feudalistic society, except to produce the next generation, but in the Wife of Bath’s tale, she tells of a woman, a fairy queen who welds tremendous power, as she tests a mortal man that she has chose for he lover. This is story is not unlike the story of Lanval by Marie de France, but it is told from the female perspective because of the way the character of the knight takes a back seat to the action being performed by the Fairy
Queen. The knight has already angered King Arthur’s wife in the beginning of the story and he has set him to find out what women really desire. He finds out that, in a feminist twist that “Wommen desire to have soverintee, As wel over hir housbonde as hir love, And for to been in maistrye him above” (Norton Anthology, 278). The Fairy Queen , because he has married the knight, now has “soverintee” over him and he becomes the woman in the relationship. In fact, when the knight gets himself into trouble with King Arthur’s wife, he becomes the maiden in distress, and the Fairy Queen becomes his “knight in shining Armor” in order to save his life. Not the Fairy Queen uses military tactics, storms the castle and carries the knight away on her horse, but she uses more subtle warfare, sending in her prettiest attendants the distract the court before she makes her entrance and demands the knight’s life be spared.
The Wife of Bath, and Chaucer since he is putting the words into the character’s mouth,
are both taking tongue in cheek when telling this tale, because they are poking fun at what many people consider to be “the good old days when knights were bold and women were silent and subservient”. This makes the tale a feminist tale of sorts, but it is more about turning society on its proverbial ear in order to take a better look at it.