Estreitement bende: Marie de France's Guigemar and the erotics of tight dress

Medium Aevum, Spring-Summer, 2008 by Nicole D. Smith

Although these late medieval examples rely on the supernatural elements of knots in order to ensure continence, the instances in Guigemar do not. As Helen Cooper has recently argued, romances characteristically lean on magic, but magic often does not determine events in the narrative. Rather, the protagonists' own initiatives or emotions do.

(52) Such is the case in Guigemar. Marie presents an interesting revision to the conventional use of supernatural knots in romance by using magic 'non-magically', so that the hero 'bring[s] out something in himself'. (53) Guigemar and his lady use their respective knots to demonstrate the courtly ideal of self-control. Their discipline is morally sound, despite their appearance as tightly clad individuals who, according to the clerics, would probably behave sinfully. Their dress acts as a metonym for fidelity, not a magical talisman that either ensures or wards off love. (54) That Guigemar's tied shirt serves as a materialization of the courtier's everlasting presence when he can no longer be by his lover's side might be understood as Marie's sartorial rendition of depicting lovers who are bound in their devotion. In this way, Marie anticipates what Andreas Capellanus' courtier proposes to his beloved in De amore: 'et ego, quamvis corpore videar discedere, corde tamen vobis colligatus exsisto' (p. 96; 'I may seem to depart from you in the body, but in my heart I shall always be bound to you'). Guigemar may leave his lady after their affair is discovered, but their knots emphasize a faithful connection--much like the one Andreas's lover experiences when he figuratively ties himself to his beloved--which endures through mutual agreement rather than magic. In this way, Marie understands tight dress as a new art of courtly love--one that not only influences the behaviours of Guigemar and his lady, but also bears upon amorous adventures in later romances. (55)