True Women and Good Ladies—Virtuous Living

Abstract

Balancing the Seven Deadly Sins are the Seven Virtues—faith, hope, charity, justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude. Of these, The Book of the Knight of the Tower emphasizes faith and charity with a little temperance thrown in. And of course, Sir Geoffrey is very concerned with his daughters’ chastity—as his focus on lechery in chapter 12 indicates. Before he tells stories about good and wise women from the Bible, from classical literature, from saints’ lives, and from stories about “good women of the present time,” he introduces the subject of virtuous living to his daughters—taking as his source The Mirror for Good Women. Avirtuous life in fourteenthcentury France and fifteenth-century England is indistinguishable from a good Christian life: good Christians don’t stop at practicing the virtues; they also avoid sinning.