The sculpture in the basin of the fountain is of:
"...young Perseus unchaining Andromeda." (p. 111)
When Violante meets Lucas by the fountain, she covers her hair only with a mantilla. (p. 112) Apparently, this is not usually considered enough. We are back with the status of women.
Lucas jokes that he does not want to provoke the anger of Zeus. Medieval Christians referred both to a believed-in communion of saints and to a Classical literary pantheon.
Violante has heard that Provencals are shameless flatterers. Lucas, a Venetian, spins elaborate flatteries. Will he wind up with Violante or with Djansha?
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It's all very well to bemoan the lowly status of women in Medieval Europe. But that needs to be taken into context by comparing how women lived elsewhere. I recall reading of how Muslim chroniclers were scandalized by how FREE "Frankish" women were in the Crusader states.
Ad astra! Sean
Yup. Women have always been better off in Western Europe than in any of the other major Eurasian farming-based societies. The pre-Islamic Middle East was always pretty bad that way, though it got more uniformly worse.
(Certain things are almost uniformly bad for women: polygamy, for starters, and seclusion and the obsessive sexual jealousy that requires it.)
Incidentally, -maidens- usually wore their hair loose ("down") and only lightly covered, if at all, in pre-modern and early modern Europe. Covering the hair and putting it 'up' was a sign of married/adult status.
This lasted a very long time, into the 19th century. Neither gender was considered really adult if unmarried, of course.
In the "Tam Lin" ballad there's a line that goes: "I forbid ye maidens all/Who let fly your lovely hair/For to go to Carter Hall/For young Tam Lin is there". That reflects it; the Catholic and High Church custom of women covering their heads in church (and men doffing hats) is a remnant of it. (My mother always covered her hair in Church -- at least, in Anglican and Catholic ones.)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I would add that the status and conditions of life women have to endure in most Muslim countries even NOW are so bad that even western Europe in Medieval times looks positively libertarian!
Ad astra! Sean
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