As mulheres em A Demanda do Santo Graal e sua relação com a sociedade portuguesa no século XV

Abstract

The present work aims to understand the medieval women through the feminine characters of the novel of Chivalry The Quest for the Holy Grail, an anonymous novel written in France during the thirteenth century and that in the same century enters Portugal. The Quest recounts the adventures of the knights of the Round Table to seek to rediscover the Holy Grail, the vessel used by Christ at the Last Supper and with which Joseph of Arimathea had collected the sacred blood poured out by the Messiah on the cross. The novel presents Christian behavioral models for men and women, denoting the strong Christian influence present in the narrative. The women, whose representations are associated with the imaginary of Eve, Mary or even with ambiguous behavior, are sources of discord or helpers of the knights. We seek to broaden our view of these female characters to understand, from the feminine condition and its protection, the social and cultural elements that influence the conception of being a woman in the Middle Ages. Also, we seek to annalyse the masculine fears, their speeches of legitimation or not of spaces of female performance in order to understand the medieval woman. Comparisons with Medieval Portugal and its historical characters enabled us to recognize the plurality and the importance of the female condition in society, its constructions and the fears they have aroused in the past, as well as the connection of these representations with the present.