#chivalric romance

[illustratus]

Enid and Geraint by Rowland Wheelwright

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[gawrkin]

Medieval culture really does blow me away, sometimes.

So, whenever you read about Courtly Love or Chivalric Literature, this should be on your mind.

[we-are-knight]

Recent Old World acquisitions.

Fancy new book, and Bretonnian Standard Bearer.

@we-are-scribe @wearelibrarian

[themousefromfantasyland]

Proposition: Chivalric romances and fairy tales are set in the same universe, but told by different perspectives.

Chivalric romances, especially the Arthurian ones, focus sorely on knightly princes fighting epic battles, going into quests and rescuing damsels in peril.

Fairy Tales in general focus more on the exploits of those damsels in peril, along with some working class representation in the figure of lucky tricksters and helpless children.

In other words, Chivalric romances are mainly about Prince Charmings, while fairy tales are about everyone else.

The reason I started thinking about this was because of how much these types of stories share similar settings:

Humans, fae-like beings, dwarfs, cannibal giants (Ogres), and dragons being the main races.

Enchantress like Morgan Le Fay and the Lady of the Lake being suspiciously similar to the Fairies from the french fairy tales.

Christian entities being super present and somehow living relatively peacefully with other magical brings.

Heck, the oldest recorded version of the Sleeping Beauty type of story was in Perceforest, a Chivalric romance mea t to be a prequel to the King Arthur mythos.

Remember Perrault's version of the story, where after waking the Sleeping Beauty the prince has to go to war, leaving her and their children with his ogre mother?

Totally would be the type of story that chivalric romances would explore in bloody details

@ariel-seagull-wings @princesssarisa @adarkrainbow

[lijahwood]

 Mirror case, ivory, the Storming on the Castle of Love, France (Paris), second quarter of the fourteenth century

“The scene is an allegorical representation of an attack on the Castle of Love. Knights attack the Castle of Love 'defended' by women, who ardently receive the knights when they climb over the battlements, above a twin-towered gate house with a portcullis.

The subject of the Siege of the Castle of Love appears frequently on secular ivories in the fourteenth century; the Museum owns two other mirror cases and a casket bearing similar representations. An allegorical siege of the Castle of Love seems to have been frequently enacted during the Middle Ages; the thirteenth century chronicler, Rolandino of Padua, for instance, records a festival in the town of Treviso in 1214 where a castle was built, and defended by the women and girls of the town while being attacked with fruits, perfumes and flowers thrown by the men. This type of festivity remained popular for several centuries. We know that the marriage of Henry VII's son, Prince Arthur, in 1501, was celebrated with a Masque of the Mount of Love besieged by knights, and a similar pageant took place regularly in Fribourg up until the eighteenth century.”

— Victoria and Albert Museum Collections

[mbharestuff]

Lancelot was basically the "bad boy" of the group. like Sean Cameron from Degrassi.

[sasukesexbomb]

remember when in the orlando furioso (the frenzy of orlando) ariosto said that everything lost on earth is to be found on The Moon, and not just lost objects but

fame, prayers, vows, lovers' tears and sighs, time wasted gambling, idleness, projects never put into practice, and also puddles of spilled soups, broken bottles, flowers that stink and so on...

only madness is not found on the moon, because it is all on earth.

i am very fond of this passage

[thejaymo]

Why Don Quixote is So Great | 2336

“Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes, is hailed as the first modern novel. A unique blend of humor, tragedy, and critique nestled within a meta-narrative on chivalry and storytelling. Jay reflects on the enduring relevance of Don Quixote’s adventures through the lens of modern fan fiction and intellectual property debates.

[jamesfrancillo]

[illustratus]

The Green Knight by Julek Heller

[wearycopiedwizard]

Orlando furioso is actually great. Towards the end of canto four Rinaldo/Renault says this in response to hearing about a woman being executed for having an affair:

"it is not for me to vouch that she did not do it -- I do not know, and could perhaps speak falsely. What I will say is that she should incur no punishment for such an act, and whoever devised these pernicious laws was unjust or downright mad: they should be repealed as evil, and new laws should be framed with greater wisdom. If the same ardour, the same urges drives both sexes to loves gentle fulfillment, which to the mindless commoner seems so grave an excess, why is the woman to be punished or blamed for doing it with one or several men the very thing a man does with as many women as he will, and receives not punishment but praise for it? This inequal law does obvious injustice to women, and, by God, I hope to show how criminal it is that such a law should have survived so long!"

I want him.

[t0rschlusspan1k]

After the season of summer with the soft winds, when Zephyrus blows on seeds and herbs, happy is the plant that waxes then, when the dank dew drops from the leaves, to await the blissful glance of the bright sun.  But then harvest hastens and hardens it soon: warns it to wax full ripe against the winter. He drives with drought the dust to rise,— from the face of the earth to fly full high.  The wild wind of the welkin wrestles with the sun. The leaves fall from the bough and light on the ground. The grass becomes all gray that erst was green. Then all ripes and rots that which formerly flourished; and thus runs the year in yesterdays many; and winter returns again without asking any man, till the Michelmas moon has come in wintry wise.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Fytte the Second

[we-are-knight]

'Romance of the Grail' by Joseph Campbell: Ch 1 - Neolithic, Celtic, Rom...

[themousefromfantasyland]

Trigger Warning: Discussion of sexual assault and women' issues by a cisgender gay man.

European Middle Ages as described by Chivalric romances and Franco-German fairy tales is one of the safest places for women in myth and folklore.

I will not deceive you saying these tales were feminist or something like that. They still portray a patriarchal feudalistic society where women were still treated like property and there still significant violence.

But women in these stories have semi-decent positions of power, they play significant roles, and rape and sexual assault are at least aknowleged as being bad in-universe.

Compare that to epics and sagas where women have little to no presence, Greek Myths where sexual assault seem to be the norm, or Arabian Nights tales where femicide seems to be the norm.

@ariel-seagull-wings @princesssarisa @mask131