Green D.H. Women and Marriage in German Medieval Romance

New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. — 276 p.In contrast to the widespread view that the Middle Ages were a static, unchanging period in which attitudes to women were uniformly negative, D. H. Green argues that in the twelfth century the conventional relationship between men and women was subject to significant challenge through discussions in the vernacular literature of the period. Hitherto, scholarly interest in gender relations in such literature has largely focused on French romance or on literature in English from a later period. By turning the focus on the rich material to be garnered from Germany – including Erec, Tristan and Parzival – Professor Green shows how some vernacular writers devised methods to debate and challenge the undoubted antifeminism of the day by presenting a utopian model, supported by a revision of views by the Church, to contrast with contemporary practice.D.H. Green is Professor Emeritus in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College.