Abstract
Two pillars of medieval English literature, Chaucer and Malory, stand accused by posterity as criminals, yet scholars remain perplexed about the nature of their crimes over five centuries later. Some convict them of the heinous offense of sexually assaulting a woman against her will, while others believe them guilty of no more than seduction or consensual sex. The allegation against Malory has even been reframed to portray him as a knight in shining armor rescuing a damsel (or wife) in distress; thus instead of seizing a woman in order to rape her, this author of Arthurian legends “stole” Joan Smith away from her abusive husband when Joan departed with Malory consensually. Keen to illuminate the personal lives of the authors whose Canterbury Tales, Morte Darthur, and other works opened up the world of the Middle Ages for posterity, contemporary researchers have seized upon medieval English legal sources to clarify these authors' own stories. The crime in which Chaucer and Malory have been implicated, of s...
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