"That he is gentil that doth gentil dedis."
"Is there any medieval/Renaissance basis for the current Ansteorran trend of insisting that ladies be escorted into court?" -- HL Livia Madeline Montgomery
You know, Livia, when I got
this question, I was a little confused since I really hadn't noticed anything
about this kind of "trend". So I tootled over to my research staff
and asked them what the deal was. I was knocked on my behind by the
intensity of the opinions both for and against the practice of escorting
people into Court. I'd really feel safer answering questions on *religion*
or *politics*. But hey, answering the questions that people really
want to know about is what we're here for, and that's going to mean getting
hit with questions about unhappy subjects. It's way too easy to get
bogged down in the muddy debate between the various viewpoints that arise
when this question comes up. I'm goint to try to avoid that by just
telling you what the basic positions are, as I understand them, and then
just answer the question you asked. Escorting people into Court is
just a gallant way to show that we honor and respect the person going before
the Crown. It shows everyone that we are defending and protecting
them as Chivalry demands. It is degrading to both men and women since
it forces them to be presented by a social superior. It is a way
to draw attention to yourself, to horn in on the limelight of the
person actually being called up.
After examining the materials,
the legal documents, the drawings of the time, as well as annoying historians
and cultural anthropologists all over the world in search for the answer
to this question, I feel really safe in saying: No, there is not one overall
custom that says that before 1600, women, or anyone, had to be escorted
into the presence of the Crown. Of course, there are some exceptions, most
notably where a social superior, like a father or a husband, was presenting
a social inferior, like a wife or daughter, to the Court; where a prisoner
was being presented before a Court; or the "escort" in fact was serving
as intermediary speaking for the person they were escorting, such as a
husband or translator. Women appear in the materials at hand both
escorted and not. I find it interesting that when they ARE escorted,
women are most often escorted by other women when they are not in the company
of their Husbands. It does make a certain amount of sense that to
be seen being escorted by someone other than your husband could call your
virtue into question.
As an example, where "Courtly
Love" was the norm, attention was sometimes lavished on women, and a woman
might well have men vying for her attentions. But even with all that,
the point of the concept was not to usurp the appropriate public roles
of the woman's Lord and Husband, or to tarnish her reputation. She
might, though, choose to be escorted, but that's altogether a different
thing.
However, and I can't stress
this hard enough, different places and different people do things differently.
It is impossible to say that "They" did such a thing, although there are
some general points that can be made. In those places and times where
women might need to be escorted at all times, women had no place at Court
at all, and weren't seen much outside the home. In those times and
places where women had political power, even unofficial power, they weren't
required to be escorted.
It is interesting to note, as a bit of a side bar, in modern
Royal Courts, when a person, male or female, is called to receive an honor
or award, they are escorted by Heralds or other functionaries only as far
as the doorway leading in, and and they make that last, long walk by themselves.
I am told by my protocol
expert this is because the Crown wants to see *them*, and not anyone else.
This does not mean that
I feel the Ansteorran Tradition is a bad one, or that the Crown shouldn't
insist on it. I'm just answering your question about history.
Some Suggested Reading on just Part of this question:
Bornstein, Diane. The Lady in the Tower, Medieval Courtesy
Literature for Women. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1983.
Gies, Frances and Gies, Joseph. Women in the Middle Ages.
New York: Crowell, 1978.
Harksen, Sybelle. Women in the Middle Ages. New York:
A. Schram, 1975.
LaBarge, Margaret Wade. A Small Sound of the Trumpet, Women
in Medieval Life. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986.
Levin, Carole, and Watson, Jeanne. Ambiguous Realities, Women
in the Middle Ages. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987.
Nicholas, David. The Domestic Life of a Medieval City, Women,
Children, and the Family in 14th Century Ghent. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1985.
Rose, Mary Beth. Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
Literacy and Historical Perspectives. Syracuse: Syracuse
University Press, 1986.
Uitz, Erika. The Legend of Good Women, Medieval Women in Towns and
Cities. Mt. Kisco, NY: Moyer Bell Ltd, 1988.
Wheeler, Bonnie. Representations of the Feminine in the Middle
Ages. Dallas: Academia, 1993.