Wife-Swapping in Medieval Literature

Description: Contrasts FranT with analogous medieval accounts of wife exchange to argue that Chaucer's "unusual" version "testifies to Arveragus's regard for his wife and to Aurelius's regard for Averagus's regard for his wife." Other versions testify to male homosociality: "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," "Lantfrid and Cobbo," "Athis and Prophilias," "Amis and Amiloun," the story of Rollo in Walter Map's "De nugis curialium," and Boccaccio's tale of Tarolfo in Decameron 4. A revised version of the article appears in Mann's Feminizing Chaucer (2002).