Three Medieval Views of Women: La Contenance Des Fames, Le Bien Des Fames, Le Blasme Des Fames - Paperback

by Gloria K. Fiero (Editor), Wendy Pfeffer (Editor), Mathe Allain (Editor)

This bilingual edition of three lively and amusing French poems dating from the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries contains two poems that assail the vices of women and a third that lists women's virtues. The verses, translated here into English for the first time, provide significant insights into the role of women in the Middle Ages as well as into medieval social history and the history of misogyny.

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The three poems that form the subject of this study represent a relatively unexplored medieval genre, the dit (from the French dire= 'to say, ' hence 'something said'). Dits differ considerably from other vernacular literary forms. In the case of the three dits that constitute this study, that theme is women, their characteristics, and more particularly, their vices and virtues.