La Châtelaine De Vergy Is as Much a Tale of Social Pressures and Power Struggles as It Is a Love Story.

Pauline Chatelan                                                       Trinity 2014 - week 4

Essay on La Chastelaine de Vergi

"La Châtelaine de Vergy is as much a tale of social pressures and power struggles as it is a love story."

La Chastelaine de Vergi is an anonymous medieval short romance written in rhyming octosyllabics, framed by a prologue and an epilogue, from the 13th century; it recounts the story of a knight and a châtelaine who swear to keep their love a secret; but the knight's feudal oath to his overlord, the Duke of Burgundy, interferes in the couvenant, as the malicious duchess wants revenge and attempts to ruin the knight because he rejected her love. Frequently, La Chastelaine is considered to be a text about courtly romance because of the love relationship between the stereotypical characters of the knight and the châtelaine. However, despite the traditional medieval theme of courtly romance, the text defers from other literary works of the time in the way the author uses courtly romance in his poem. Indeed, there are more than two main characters as the duchess and the duke also have an important role to play and the story is not restricted to the relationship between the lovers, but the action of the text relies mostly on the theme disclosure, set off my different elements. Other aspects of the French medieval period such as the social system of feudalism as well as the psychologies of the characters also matter to the problem of disclosure in the story and therefore we must ask ourselves how the different themes of La Chastelaine de Vergi create the dynamic of the story altogether. We will first turn to the love story aspect of the text, then see how the poem is also a tale of more than one social pressure and finally we will study the characters' power struggles.

Firstly, considering La Chastelaine to be a text about courtly romance is a well-founded judgement as it is indeed a story about love and it borrows the leitmotiv of traditional courtly love.

It is relevant to say the text is a love story because of the relationship between the knight and the châtelaine. They are both in love with one another to the point where they are driven by their feelings. Before dying of a broken heart - even though she is mistaken - the châtelaine pronounces a long passionate monologue which contains many exaggerations such as "vous estiiez ma richece / Et ma santez et ma leece" (l. 779-80) that show the intensity of her love. Moreover, it is the love story between the knight and the châtelaine, which constructs the story of the "example" (l. 952) of the morality the prologue and epilogue aim to teach to the audience of the text. The action starts with the recounting of their shared love and finishes when they both die. Thus the two characters are at the heart of the text. However they are not the only main characters. Indeed, the duchess is also a character in love with the knight, "li chevaliers fu biaus et cointes [...] que la duchoise l'enama" (l. 43-48). It is mostly the duchess's feelings that trigger the action of the text, as they constitute the disruptive element of the tale when the woman makes advances to the knight. From the moment she is rejected, the mechanism of disclosure is set off. Therefore we can see how the love story aspect of the text can be perceived in another light, that of the duchess's unshared love as it is crucial to the action of the story.

Furthermore, traditional elements of courtly romance are present in the text. Firstly, the vocabulary of courtly romance is used in the poem from the prologue, with expressions such as "fin amant" (l. 12), within the character's direct discourses, "mon douz seignor" (l. 411), "ma douce amor" (l. 885), and finally in the epilogue, "enquereors" (l. 957) to point at those who attempt to ruin "autrui amors" (l. 958). The knight's presentation is typical of courtly romance mal protagonits: he is "preu et hardi" (l. 19). The setting of the knight and the châtelaine's secret rendez-vous also draws on motifs from lyric poetry with the enclosed orchard. Furthermore, the theme of the lovers who cannot live without one another is traditional of other medieval courtly romances and the double death - before that of the duchess - at the end of the story is reminiscent of Tristan et Iseult and the châtelaine herself compares her story to the famous great love tale, "Je cudoies que plus loiaus, [...] Que ne fu Tristans a Yseut" (l. 758-60). Indeed, from the beginning of the text, the aspect of courtly romance in the presentation of the characters, who moreover are of nobility, "prepares us in part for the way in which they will behave as the action develops"^[1] as observes Paula Clifford and therefore, we can anticipate the traditional tragic outcome of the love story tale simply by the characterizations of the protagonists.

Despite those elements, which justify the love story aspect of the poem, some apparent deviations of traditions already hint at the particularity of the work. Indeed, the traditional "amour naissant" usually found in Marie de France's work is absent from the text^[2]. The narrator does not recount how the knight and the châtelaine fall in love nor how the knight must prove his value to his lady. This choice of omission on behalf of the author already suggests that telling a love story is not the main purpose of his work, but perhaps rather how it interacts with a set of other themes. Another variation can be observed with the role of the dog: it replaces the traditional role of the "confidant", and not only does it become the symbol of the lovers' secrecy in the multiple revelations but it also restricts the number of characters to four, that is the knight, the châtelaine, the duke and the duchess: this proves the importance of the dynamic between the four, which does not only rely on the love relationships as the duchess's is unreturned, and the one between the duke and the duchess is not particularly expressed in the text.

La Chastelaine is without doubt a love story as it recounts the passionate and tragic love of two characters, typical of courtly romance, but these traditional elements are used in an original way and the dynamic of the "récit" also depends on the presence of other themes.

French medieval period is supposedly marked by the social hierarchic system of feudalism and this theme is present in La Chastelaine with the relationship between the duke and the knight.

In medieval feudalism system, a lord would be the "suzerain" of his "vassal", another lord, or a knight in the case of La Chastelaine and the latter would swear an oath of loyalty in return for the protection of the former^[3]. In the text that we are exploring, this oath is of crucial importance as it turns out to be incompatible with the knight's couvenant to the châtelaine. Indeed, because the duchess slandered the knight, the duke thinks his vassal has betrayed him and therefore challenges the knight to prove his innocence; the knight is then confronted with a dilemma suggested to be "the true core of the work" by Arrathoon^[4] as indeed, the love story of the knight and the châtelaine faces the obstacle of a society in which the knight must obey his feudal oath of allegiance to the duke. It is because he is socially pressured to prove his innocence to the duke that the knight reveals his secret and betrays his love in order to prove he is innocent of social betrayal. Such dilemma justifies the argument elevating the knight to the figure of a tragic hero^[5]. Indeed, from then on, the reader and the audience of the tale know the mechanism of disclosure is set off as the prologue anticipates the issue of disclosure in society and the "récit" can only illustrate the general truth stated in the prologue. Therefore tragic outcome of the story finds is originated by the social pressure of the feudal system, which shows how political loyalty of ideal feudality can overcome the ideal love of courtly romance.