Society during the Middle Ages was grounded on conventions of loyalty and devotion towards the lord and master, and these societal qualities extended greatly into Medieval Literature at the time – particularly in tales such as The Nibelungenlied, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion’, or in ‘The Lais of Marie de France’. Among the virtues upheld by medieval society, loyalty was the most valued, yet it was not the only quality that held merit during the Middle Ages - both betrayal and love feature heavily throughout medieval literature, and carry great significance on their own. However, both loyalty and betrayal are intrinsically linked to love, thus suggesting that love is the most significant of all these attributes. The Nibelungenleid is a tale …show more content…
Nevertheless, there is no more dominant theme in Marie’s lais than love, and each of the stories consider the various perspectives on love relationships - whether it be love within a marriage, love between parents and children, or even love between lords and their vassals, although many do typically focus on idolising the concept of courtly love. The Nibelungenlied further emphasises the notion that courtly love was an important component of the culture during the Middle Ages; Siegfried, for example, is well practised in the chivalrous art of winning a lady’s love, while Kriemhild is embodied with metaphors that are commonly found within courtly lyrical love poetry. Furthermore, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion shows the necessity for Yvain to be a courtly love, due to his standing as a knight. Considering the story centres around Yvain’s quest to reclaim his knighthood and win back the love of Laudine, this suggests that love and the court go hand-in-hand, and thus love as represented in Medieval Literature is almost certainly …show more content…
Similarly, in Yvain, the resolution of the action is often considered to be tenuous and unstructured; Topsfield argues that ‘the ending of Yvain is unconvincing’ in that it patches together the story’s ending in a seemingly thoughtless way in order to make Yvain and Laudine