Treason and the Charge of Sodomy in the Lai de Lanval

Abstract

Scholarship on Marie de France's Lai de Lanval has long held Guinevere's accusation of homosexuality against Lanval to have been motivated by hurt feelings: it is made, in the words of one commentator, "in the fury of a woman scorned." This article suggests that subtler motives may have been apparent to the text's earliest audiences. By the twelfth century, sodomy was increasingly categorized by ecclesiastical legislation as a kind of treason. Accordingly, it is likely that Guinevere's charge is meant to counter Lanval's insinuation that, in attempting to seduce him, she has tried to lure him into an act of treason as well.

Keywords:

• Arthurian literature
• Lanval
• Marie de France
• Lai de Lanval
• Old French
• romance