Middle English Literature

part in eleven manuscripts and three early printings. The majority of the
text concerns the ways in which Christian doctrine intersects with human
Marriage
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22
Conventions and Institutions
worldly practices (frequently legal practices). Parts of the text take up issues
of interest to Wycliffite writers and their opponents. The following excerpt
(and the other, in “Sumptuary,” p. 215) is from chapter 4 on adultery, the
subject of the seventh commandment.
Primary documents and further reading
Geoffrey de la Tour Landry (1973) The Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry,
Compiled for the Instruction of His Daughters, ed. T. Wright. EETS, o.s. 33
(1868). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Helmholz, R. H. (1974) Marriage Litigation in Medieval England. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Ho, C. (1994) “As Good as Her Word: Women’s Language in The Knight of the
Tour d’Landry.” In L. O. Purdon and C. L. Vitto (eds.) The Rusted Hauberk:
Feudal Ideals of Order and Their Decline. Gainseville: University of Florida Press,
99–120.
Krueger, R. L. (1993) “Intergeneric Combination and the Anxiety of Gender in Le
Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry pour l’Enseignement de Ses Filles.” L’Esprit
Créateur 33: 61–72.
Loengard, J. S. (1990) “ ‘Legal History and the Medieval Englishwoman’ Revisited:
Some New Directions.” In J. T. Rosenthal (ed.) Medieval Women and the Sources
of Medieval History. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 210–36.
Montaiglon, A. de (1854) Le Livre du Chevalier de La Tour Landry pour
l’enseignement de ses filles. Paris.
Noonan, J. T. (1973) “Marriage in the Middle Ages: Power to Choose.” Viator 4:
419–34.
Power, E. (ed. and trans.) (1928) The Goodman of Paris. London: Routledge.
Sheehan, M. M. (1996) Marriage, Family, and Law in Medieval Europe: Collected
Studies, ed. J. K. Farge. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Geoffrey de la Tour Landry (1971) The Book of the Knight of the Tower, trans. W. Caxton, ed.
M. Y. Offord. EETS, s.s. 2. London: Oxford University Press, 168–70.
Language: English (Southeast Midland)
Book date: 1484
How men ought to love after his estate and degree.
“What saye yow, lady,
1
wold ye have kept them so straitly that they shold
not take somme plesaunce more to somme than to the other?”
“Syre, I wylle not that they have or take ony plesaunce of them that ben
of lower estate or degree than they be of, that is to wete, that no woman
1
the lady of the tower.

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unwedded shalle not sette her love upon no man of lower or lasse degree
than she is of. For yf she tooke hym, her parentes and frendes shold hold her
lassed and hyndered.
2
These, whiche loven suche folke, done ageynste theyre
worship and honoure. For men ought to desyre ne coveyte nothynge so moche
in this world as worship and the frendship of the world and of hir frendes, the
whiche is lost as soone as she draweth oute her self oute of the governement
and fro the counceyll of them, as I myght telle, yf I wold, an ensample of
many whiche therfore ben dyffamed and hated of theyr parents and frendes.
“And therfore, syre, as I theyr moder charge and deffende them: that
they take no playsaunce,
3
ne that in no wyse sette theyr love to none of
lower degree than they be come of, ne also to none of hyhe estate, whiche
they may not have to their lord. For the grete lordes shalle not take them to
theyr wyves, but alle theyr lovynge loke and semblaunt, they do it for to
deceyve them and for to have the delytes and playsaunce of theyr bodyes,
and for to brynge them in to the folye of the world.”