Case Study: Phyllis Riding Aristotle: Social Hierarchies
Reading:
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For this case study you are to analyze Chapter 12 Social Hierarchies (Pgs. 379 - 383) and review the sources provided below. You are expected to be able to answer the guiding question in full depth with specific historical evidence and supporting details.
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The story of Phyllis on Aristotle dates back to the 13th century in German and French versions, but is much better known from John Herold’s Latin version from the 14th century. Herold was a Dominican who compiled a number of exempla that could be used in sermons. According to this version, Aristotle had warned his student, Alexander the Great, to avoid intimate affairs with his wife, Phyllis. Alexander should, instead, concentrate on philosophy. Phyllis was understandably upset that her husband was shunning her and particularly angry at Aristotle for encouraging him to do so. To exact revenge, Phyllis started flirting with the old philosopher until finally seducing him and humiliating him by riding him like a horse while Alexander hid and watched. The story is short and worth reading:
Once upon a time, Aristotle taught Alexander that he should restrain himself from frequently approaching his wife, who was very beautiful, lest he should impede his spirit from seeking the general good. Alexander acquiesced to him. The queen, when she perceived this and was upset, began to draw Aristotle to love her. Many times she crossed paths with him alone, with bare feet and disheveled hair, so that she might entice him.
At last, being enticed, he began to solicit her carnally. She says,
“This I will certainly not do, unless I see a sign of love, lest you be testing me. Therefore, come to my chamber crawling on hand and foot, in order to carry me like a horse. Then I’ll know that you aren’t deluding me.”
When he had consented to that condition, she secretly told the matter to Alexander, who lying in wait apprehended him carrying the queen. When Alexander wished to kill Aristotle, in order to excuse himself, Aristotle says,
“If thus it happened to me, an old man most wise, that I was deceived by a woman, you can see that I taught you well, that it could happen to you, a young man.”
Hearing that, the king spared him, and made progress in Aristotle’s teachings.
The point of this exemplum seems to have been to warn men of the threatening power of women. If even the wise and most learned Aristotle could be reduced to a rude animal by lust and the wiles of a woman, how much more would lesser men suffer. Initially the story probably reinforced other exempla that illustrated similar ideas, e.g., Adam and Eve, Samson and Delilah.
In the late 15th and early 16th centuries fear of powerful women and their ability to overturn accepted social and cultural norms breathed new life and significance into the story. At the same time a market for mass produced images was emerging throughout Europe. Artists quickly adapted the story and produced countless drawings, woodcuts, engravings, and paintings of Phyllis on Aristotle, making it one of the most common and recognizable visual expressions of the power of women tropes. These images reinforced a constellation of anxieties and fears that also contributed to witchcraft accusations and persecutions across Europe.
Once upon a time, Aristotle taught Alexander that he should restrain himself from frequently approaching his wife, who was very beautiful, lest he should impede his spirit from seeking the general good. Alexander acquiesced to him. The queen, when she perceived this and was upset, began to draw Aristotle to love her. Many times she crossed paths with him alone, with bare feet and disheveled hair, so that she might entice him.
At last, being enticed, he began to solicit her carnally. She says,
“This I will certainly not do, unless I see a sign of love, lest you be testing me. Therefore, come to my chamber crawling on hand and foot, in order to carry me like a horse. Then I’ll know that you aren’t deluding me.”
When he had consented to that condition, she secretly told the matter to Alexander, who lying in wait apprehended him carrying the queen. When Alexander wished to kill Aristotle, in order to excuse himself, Aristotle says,
“If thus it happened to me, an old man most wise, that I was deceived by a woman, you can see that I taught you well, that it could happen to you, a young man.”
Hearing that, the king spared him, and made progress in Aristotle’s teachings.
The point of this exemplum seems to have been to warn men of the threatening power of women. If even the wise and most learned Aristotle could be reduced to a rude animal by lust and the wiles of a woman, how much more would lesser men suffer. Initially the story probably reinforced other exempla that illustrated similar ideas, e.g., Adam and Eve, Samson and Delilah.
In the late 15th and early 16th centuries fear of powerful women and their ability to overturn accepted social and cultural norms breathed new life and significance into the story. At the same time a market for mass produced images was emerging throughout Europe. Artists quickly adapted the story and produced countless drawings, woodcuts, engravings, and paintings of Phyllis on Aristotle, making it one of the most common and recognizable visual expressions of the power of women tropes. These images reinforced a constellation of anxieties and fears that also contributed to witchcraft accusations and persecutions across Europe.
Key Concept:
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Guiding Question - Skill: Contextualization
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Sources:
Source 1: Jacopone da Todi, Praise of the Virgin Mary "O Thou Mother, Fount of Love"
The ambivalence that medieval men, particularly intellectuals, expressed toward women arose from several sources. Influenced by ancient Greek and Roman attitudes toward the inferiority of women, the clerical insistence that celibacy was superior to marriage, and the Christian view of men and women as equals in the sight of God was obscured by certain scriptural texts. Countering this negative image was the New Testament picture of Mary, whose acceptance of her role as the mother of Jesus made salvation possible for all people. The following poem is a tribute to the Virgin Mary. |
0 thou mother, fount of love,
Touch my spirit from above, Make my heart with thine accord! Make me feel as thou halt felt; Make my soul to glow and melt With the love of Christ my Lord. Holy mother, pierce me through! In my heart each wound renew Of my Saviour crucified; Let me share with thee His pain, Who for all my sins was slain, Who for me in torments died. Let me mingle tears with thee, Mourning Him who mourned for me, All the days that I may live; By the Cross with thee to stay, There with thee to weep and pray, Is all I ask of thee to give. Virgin of all virgins blest! Listen to my fond request: Let me share thy grief divine; Let me, to my latest breath, In my body bear the death Of that dying Son of thine. |
Source 2: Christine de Pisan, The City of Ladies
In the City of Ladies Pisan questioned three allegorical figures - Reason, Rectitude, and Justice - about the lies and slanders of males concerning the virtues and achievements of women. |
In this next passage, de Pisan discusses the slander that women are not as intelligent as men.
"... But please enlighten me again, whether it has ever pleased this God, who has bestowed so many favors on women, to honor the feminine sex with the privilege of the virtue of high understanding and great learning, and whether women ever have a clever enough mind for this. I wish very much to know this because men maintain that the mind of women can learn only a little." She [Lady Reason) answered, "My daughter, since I told you before, you know quite well that the opposite of their opinion is true, and to show you this even more clearly, I will give you proof through examples. I tell you again—and don't doubt the contrary—if it were customary to send daughters to school like sons, and if they were then taught the natural sciences, they would learn as thoroughly and understand the subtleties of all the arts and sciences as well as sons. And by chance there happen to be such women, for, as I touched on before, just as women have more delicate bodies than men, weaker and less able to perform many tasks, so do they have minds that are freer and sharper whenever they apply themselves." "My lady, what are you saying? With all due respect, could you dwell longer on this point, please. Certainly men would never admit this answer is true, unless it is explained more plainly, for they believe that one normally sees that men know more than women do." She answered, "Do you know why women know less?" "Not unless you tell me, my lady." "Without the slightest doubt, it is because they are not involved in many different things, but stay at home, where it is enough for them to run the household, and there is nothing which so instructs a reasonable creature as the exercise and experience of many different things." "My lady, since they have minds skilled in conceptualizing and learning, just like men, why don't women learn more?" She replied, "Because, my daughter, the public does not require them to get involved in the affairs which men are commissioned to execute, just as I told you before. It is enough for women to perform the usual duties to which they are ordained. As for judging from experience, since one sees that women usually know less than men, that therefore their capacity for understanding is less, look at men who farm the flatlands or who live in the mountains. You will find that in many countries they seem completely savage because they are so simple-minded. All the same, there is no doubt that Nature provided them with the qualities of body and mind found in the wisest and most learned men. . . ." |
Source 3: A Merchant of Paris, On Love and Marriage (c. 1393)
In the late 14th century, a merchant of Paris, tried to put in words for his fifteen-year-old bride some practical advice as to what a good wife should be and should do for her loving husband. |
HOW GOOD WIVES ACT TOWARD THEIR HUSBANDS, AND GOOD HUSBANDS TOWARD THEIR WIVES, WHEN THEY GO ASTRAY
Husbands ought to hide and conceal the follies of their wives and lovingly protect them from future mistakes, as did an honorable man of Venice. In that city there was a married couple with three children. As the wife lay on her deathbed, she confessed, among other things, that one of the children was not her husband's. The confessor at length told her that he would seek advice about how to counsel her and return. This confessor went to the doctor who was looking after her and asked the nature of her illness. The doc-tor said that she would not be able to recover from it. Then the confessor went to her and told her that he didn't see how God would give her salvation unless she begged her husband for forgiveness for the wrong she had done him. She summoned her husband; had everyone removed from the room except her mother and her confessor, who placed her, and held her, on her knees on the bed: and before her husband, with folded hands, humbly begged pardon for having sinned in the law of his marriage and having had one of her children with another man. She would have said more, but her husband cried out: "Stop! Stop! Stop! Don't say anything else." Then he kissed her and pardoned her, saying: "Say no more. Don't tell me or anyone else which of your children it is; for I want to love each as much as the other—so equally that you will not be blamed during your lifetime or after your death. For through your blame, I will be dis-honored, and because of it, your children, and others through them—that is, our relations—will receive vile and everlasting reproach. Therefore, don't say anything. I don't want to know any more. So that no one can ever say that I do wrong by the other two, whichever it is, I will give him in my lifetime what would come to him under our laws of succession." So, dear sister, you see that the wise man bent his heart to save his wife's reputation, which would affect his children. This shows you what wise men and women ought to do for each other to save their honor. |
Source 4: Baldassare Castiglione,The Book of the Courtier
A literary treasure of Italy, put on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Vatican for 400 years, not least because of its views on the equality of women. |
Consider these words written by a Castiglione, five hundred years ago:
This sounds like modern feminism but more attractive. Castiglione's high view of female mental ability is balanced by the view that women should remain totally feminine. They should always appear a woman without artifice and without any resemblance to a man. In The Book of the Courtier, he warns women not to do macho things - namely, wrestle and play tennis. They must not play the trumpet, drums, play the fife, because stridency is not feminine. For him, these instruments are fit only for brazen women, who lack the qualities special to women. Castiglione's ideal woman is someone who is highly educated, graceful, able, feminine, witty, agreeable, charming - and spirited. This is exactly the kind of heroine that William Shakespeare creates in his plays. It is the type of woman that Jane Austen admires. |