Conjugal Rights in Flux in Medieval Poetry Page: 5
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discloses a manner in which Anglo-Saxon women, especially queens, might have been permitted
to posit legal agency. In order to suggest that Eve's agency is best derived from her role as a
forespeca in the poem, I compare her to the only woman known to be an advocate in Anglo-
Saxon England during the time the Junius manuscript is alleged to have been compiled, Queen
IElfthryth. The historical figure of Queen IElfthryth illuminates Eve's role as advocate by
demonstrating that queens had the potential to serve asforespecas in Anglo-Saxon legal matters.
Although many of the Old English law codes subordinate a woman's role in marriage to a man's,
there were still avenues in which wives might overcome their constrained positions. Instead of
highlighting the subordinate position of women in Anglo-Saxon law and criminalizing the
character of Eve in the Fall like most versions, the authors of the poems decide to depict an
agentive female protagonist who is able to carve out a new rhetoric for female agency through
her observation of the law as fluid.
In chapter 3, "Gender Legal Fictions in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde," I explain that
by defamiliarizing aspects of both the historical story and the power dynamics between Troilus
and Criseyde in his translation of Boccaccio's Il Filostrato, Chaucer critiques patriarchal
ideology and its subsequent laws. Many critics acknowledge that Criseyde posits agency in
Troilus and Criseyde but do not consider medieval law in relation to her autonomy in the poem.7
This is a critical oversight since Troilus and Criseyde's interest in female agency is closely
related to its engagement with medieval law. Bearing this in mind, I consider the legal context
during the period of 1382-86, when Chaucer is thought to have composed Troilus and Criseyde,
7 On Criseyde's agency, see Louise O. Fradenburg, "'Our owen wo to drynke': Loss, Gender, and
Chivalry in Troilus and Criseyde," in Shoaf and Cox, eds., Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (Binghamton,
NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1992), 88-106; Winthrop Wetherbee, "Criseyde
Alone," in Cindy L. Vitto and Marcia Smith Marzec, eds., New Perspectives on Criseyde (Asheville, NC:
Pegasus Press, 2004), 299-332; Constance Saintonge, "In Defense of Criseyde," Modern Language
Quarterly 15 (1954): 312-20; and T. E. Hill, "She, this in Blak": Vision, Truth, and Will in Geoffrey
Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (New York, NY: Routledge, 2006).5
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Ward, Jessica D. Conjugal Rights in Flux in Medieval Poetry, thesis, May 2014; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc500176/m1/10/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .