Fouke le Fitz Waryn: Literary Space for Real Women?

The romance of Fouke le Fitz Waryn had its impetus in the contested spaces of the thirteenth-century Welsh frontier, where the historical Marcher family of FitzWarin struggled to hang on to its patrimony, and Fulk FitzWarin III, in particular, played an iconic part in border history. Deeply indebted to the socio-political context/s of its creation, and interweaving fact, fiction, and tried-and-tested literary motif, the extant prose redaction of Fouke furnishes female characters that are at once striking and enigmatic. Although historians are no longer dismissive of Fouke as a source, it remains to be seen what space the narrative's portrayal of women allots to the depiction of real-world conditions.