Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index



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  • Title: Miniature of Queen Guinevere Questioning Lancelot about his Love for Her, from Lancelot du Lac
  • Creator:
  • Description: British Library MS Add. 10293 is part of a three-volume manuscript containing the Lancelot-Grail, a popular French Arthurian romance cycle of the 13th century. This small miniature appears in the middle of a section of the romance known as the Conte de la Charette (Tale of the Cart), a re-working of Chrétien de Troyes’s Lancelot, le Chevalier de la Charrette (Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart), and depicts Queen Guinevere questioning the validity of Lancelot’s love for her once the couple had begun their legendary affair. The two sit perched on a bench, and Guinevere holds Lancelot’s right hand in her own. The queen wears a blue gown with a rose-colored chemise, a veil, and a crown while the knight wears a blue tunic beneath a red doublet or cloak. Both Lancelot and Guinevere gesture at each other in a manner that implies speech and response and their mouths curve up into smiles, thus demonstrating a playful interrogation common to narratives of courtly love. Their legs lean suggestively toward each other, perhaps to emphasize the adulterous and transgressive sexual nature of their relationship. Here Guinevere takes the lead role in advancing their eventual tryst through her bold decision to grasp the timid Lancelot by the hand, and ensures through her questioning that his love for her is true to the ideals of fin’amor (Hahn, 2008).
  • Source: British Library
  • Rights: Public Domain
  • Subject (See Also): Arthurian Romance Courtly Love Courtship Guinevere Lancelot Romance
  • Geographic Area: France
  • Century: 14
  • Date: ca. 1316
  • Related Work: Comprehensive view of folio 199: http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=52087; Additional minatures from the same manuscript: http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=18463&CollID=27&NStart=10293; MS Additional 10292, from the same atelier, and likely the same manuscript: http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8572&CollID=27&NStart=10292; MS Additional 10294, from the same atelier, and likely the same manuscript: http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8569&CollID=27&NStart=10294
  • Current Location: London, British Library MS Additional 10293, f. 199
  • Original Location: France, Northern, Saint-Omer or Tournai
  • Artistic Type (Category): Digital Images; Manuscript Illuminations
  • Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Vellum (Parchment); Paint
  • Donor:
  • Height/Width/Length(cm): 39.5/29.5/
  • Inscription: Ensi que la royne requeroit Lancelot de ses amours (Translation: Thus the queen questioned Lancelot about his loves) - Rubric above the manuscript illumination
  • Related Resources: Hahn, Stacey. "Feminine Sexuality in the Lancelot-Grail Cycle" in Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: New Approaches to a Fundamental Cultural-Historical and Literary-Anthropological Theme. Ed. Albrecht Classen. Walter de Gruyter, 2008. pp. 485 - 502; Longley, Anne P. "Guinevere as Lord." Arthuriana 12:3 (2002), 49-62; Stones, Alison. "Illustrating Lancelot and Guinevere" in Lancelot and Guinevere: A Casebook. Ed. Lori J. Walters. Routledge, 2002. pp. 125-57;