Sharon Kinoshita’s essay examines Marie de France’s La Fresne and Eliduc through the historical lens of medieval marriage practices. More specifically, she discusses the ways in which these two lays portray the aristocratic practice of serial polygamy. She claims that in the courtly literary tradition, love triangles composed of one woman and two men lead to adultery. However, love triangles including one man and two women possess the alchemy necessary for “the courtly representation of serial polygamy” (34). Far from criticizing aristocratic practices of polygamy, Marie validates them as means by which her male protagonists are able to reject their original marriages in favor of “love.” Marie’s secular justification of polygamy, Kinoshita reveals, places her in stark opposition to newly developing ecclesiastical dictates that prescribed the interminability of marriage vows.

            First, Kinoshita explores the role of polygamy in La Fresne. Gurun’s behavior throughout the lay, she argues, portrays disdain for ecclesiastical edicts. For example, Gurun stops at Le Fresne’s convent on his way home from a tournament. Kinoshita argues that the medieval church disdained the practice of tournaments. Therefore, Gurun’s participation indicates that he is in discord with Church law. Gurun further contradicts ecclesiastical practices by seducing La Fresne away from the convent where she is living as the abbess’ adopted daughter.

            The culmination of Gurun’s rejection of ecclesiastical law comes when he rejects his first wife, La Codre, in favor of her sister, Le Fresne. According to ecclesiastical marriage conventions, there is no legitimate reason for the annulment of Gurun’s original marriage. Verbal consent alone forms an indissoluble marriage, with or without consummation. However, despite the ecclesiastical authenticity of Gurun’s marriage to La Codre, the archbishop grants an annulment. The archbishop’s gesture, Kinoshita argues, represents the yielding of Church authorities to feudal marriage practices. The lay is not critical in its portrayal of Gurun’s remarriage. Instead, it validates serial polygamy with the presence of love, as remarriage allows Gurun to be with his true love.

            Kinoshita then examines the presence of serial polygamy in the lay of Eliduc, in which Marie again contradicts ecclesiastical dictates. In this lay, Eliduc’s first wife, Guideluec, decides to become a nun so that her husband may marry his new love. The idea that a man would remarry after his wife “takes the veil” was controversial in medieval church doctrine (48). Despite this controversy, however, Eliduc remarries, and feudal norms prevail over ecclesiastical marriage dictates. Again, Marie tacitly endorses serial polygamy in favor of love.

            Kinoshita concludes her essay by stating that the feudal notion of serial polygamy placed women at a disadvantage, as it allowed men to discard their original wives.

On the surface, Kinoshita’s examination of Marie de France is reminiscent of Dolliann Margaret Hurtig’s essay, “I do, I do”: medieval models of marriage and choice of partners in Marie de France’s ‘Le Fraisne.’” Both scholars discuss marriage in the Lais in terms of medieval modes of marriage and the new Church role in diagnosing marriage procedures. Both cite the same historical material, and both engage with the text of Le Fresne. However, they are arguing in opposite directions. Hurtig claims that Marie’s lay favors the ecclesiastical mode of marriage, as it afforded women greater agency in choosing their partners. In contrast, Kinoshita argues that Marie favors secular modes of marriage, as they are more permissive of love.

Personally, I would place myself on Kinoshita’s side of the discussion. While Marie does indeed frame Le Fresne around two disparate modes of marriage, she ultimately champions secular marriage practices. While her essay predates Hurtig’s, Kinoshita’s analysis serves to repudiate many of Hurtig’s conclusions. For example, Kinoshita states that new, ecclesiastical edicts rendered marriage indissoluble. Therefore, if Marie were portraying the trumping of ecclesiastical marriage practices over secular marriage practices, then she would not have allowed the annulment of Gurun and Eliduc’s original marriages.

I have only one significant criticism of Kinoshita’s work. In her introduction, she briefly mentions that, in courtly literature, love triangles involving one woman and two men lead to adultery rather than to serial polygamy. This fact alone does not necessarily inform us as to Marie’s attitude towards women, as her lays are overwhelmingly sympathetic in their portrayal of adulterous wives. However, it does indicate that secular marriage practices served to disadvantage women. Similarly, in her conclusion, Kinoshita states that the feudal nobility practiced serial polygamy at the expense of self-sacrificing women, such as La Fresne and Guideluec. Kinoshita is silent about one very essential question. If Marie favors secular modes of marriage over ecclesiastical modes of marriage, and if secular modes of marriage disempower women, then what statement is Marie making about the role of women in feudal society?

Rebecca Harpine

University of Mary Washington