This study challenges the commonplace view that all courtly literature promoted the social status of women.

List of illustrations; Preface; 1. The displaced reader: the female audience of Old French romance; 2. The question of women in Yvain and Le Chevalier de la Charrette; 3. Playing to the ladies: chivalry and misogyny in Ipomedon, Le Chevalier à l'Epée, and La Vengeance Raguidel; 4. Women readers and the politics of gender in Le roman de Silence; 5. Double jeopardy: the appropriation of women in four romances from the cycle de la gageure; 6. Constructing sexual identities in Robert de Blois' didactic poetry; 7. The reader as object of desire in Le roman du Castelain de Couci et de la dame de Fayel; 8. A Woman's Response: Christine de Pizan's Le livre du Duc des Vrais Amans and the limits of romance; Conclusion; Appendix; Notes; Bibliography; Index.