Medieval Beauty 101.
After last week’s advice on how to woo your very own damsel or knight, I hope your romantic horizons were significantly expanded. If, however, you were even laughed off at a Battle of Castillon re-enactment, I have the very advice for you: how to look good, medieval style.
Now it’s very difficult to know what constituted ‘looking good’ in the Middle Ages, and an emotionally intelligent person would reason that, just as today, beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder. But today I am not that person.
Women in western medieval literature generally belong to a sort of description binary: haggard crone, or The Most Beautiful Woman You Will Ever See (sometimes both). Certain attributes are believed to have had moral connotations: famously, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s gap-teeth signified sexual licentiousness. Men can be fair (if young), ‘the best’ (if good at fighting things), but tremendous emphasis is placed on deportment and clothing. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, half the poem is taken up with the fourteenth-century equivalents of fashion blogging and instagramming one’s food, thereby confirming that a hipster is a squire with a beard. And although there is testimony that Edward IV was a very tall man, the only way to know this for sure is by examining a man’s armour. Are the characteristics of a beautiful person in a poem or chronicle indicative of a standard of beauty, or are these physical tropes?
It’s perhaps even harder to know in the case of artwork. The clichéd complaint of larger women, that ‘I’d have been far better-off living in Rubens’ day’, or the questionably complimentary ‘You look very Pre-Raphaelite’, cannot necessarily be accepted as accurate. What tiny samples of clothing survive from the seventeenth century suggest that women generally were not larger than is seen as healthy today – and a multitude of portraits from the period also suggest that they did not generally aspire to be. Portraiture as we perhaps understand it was not a widespread medieval concern – depending, of course, on one’s definition of medieval – and it’s more than plausible that, for example, Eve’s rounded belly in Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece betokens fertility, not ideal beauty. Unless the ideal woman is one who is constantly pregnant.
As ever, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Elizabeth Woodville – really ridiculously good-looking.
But since, to paraphrase Robin Williams, all literature was created, quasi liber et pictura, to help us woo, so might literature have the answers to our physical inadequacies.
De Tribus Puellis
The most important thing you can do to attract a potential partner is always to stand between two slightly uglier friends. Ideally you will already be blonde, but you should also wear a crown of flowers, embroider your clothes with gems, and trot about in a coquettish fashion. Random wood-strangers love this. Also, prepare a picnic in advance: you never know when the party will move back to yours.
Sir Launfal
Even better than two friends – bring your entire gang! Dress to impress, put your horse to good use, and make sure you’re better looking than whomever you have to insult.
Sir Orfeo
Even better than a gang and a horse – bring an army and wear your flashiest crown! They’ll be so transfixed by your glowing headgear, they’ll notice nothing else about you.
The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney
Remember to moisturise your hands. The skin on your hands is even thinner than the skin on your face, and suffers a lot more wear and tear. Callouses are not a good look.
The Alexandreis
Be confident in what you’re after. But also be pretty. If you’re forward, and pretty, any legendary king would be honoured to impregnate you!
The Clerk’s Tale
Be willing to put up with all sorts of nasty crap, especially if you’re female. Don’t have too much of a personality: potential husbands can forgive a lot, but not opinions, ethical conduct or verbal communication. But also be pretty.
Guy of Warwick
Practice creative ways to kill animals. This may fill you with guilt at a later stage, but in the immediate context of wooing, it’s guaranteed to work like a charm.
Njál’s Saga
Pick your intended wisely. If you are proceeding well with one party, don’t be tempted by another. This is greedy and is frowned upon by the bro code. Also try not to be old.
Any Female Saint’s Life
Don’t be a pagan.
noon auctoritee 