#I hope Guy de La Roche-Guyon's wife knows I've thought about her every day the last two years since I read this...

[ardenrosegarden]

In contrast, chronicle evidence provides examples of loving or happy marriages. Orderic Vitalis tells of many affectionate couples, with wives longing for their husbands’ return. Even Abbot Suger characterized aristocratic marriage as emotionally invested. When Guy of La Roche-Guyon was assassinated at the behest of his kinsmen, his wife, "struck dumb at seeing this, . . . tore her cheeks and hair with wifely fury. She ran over to her husband and, caring nothing for death, tumbled down and covered him with her body. 'Me,' she said, 'Behead me, you vilest of butchers, I am the most miserable wretch that should die.' Having thrown herself on top of her husband, she received blows and wounds inflicted by the swordsmen. 'Dearest spouse, what wrongs did you these men? Weren’t this son-in-law and father-in-law inseparable friends? What is this madness? You people are complete maniacs.' Twisting her by the hair, they dragged her away struggling as best they could, for she was stabbed and wounded over nearly her whole body. . . . While the murderers roamed about gnashing their teeth, the woman lay on the floor and, lifting up her piteous head, looked upon the mutilated body of her husband. In an outburst of love which her weakness hardly allowed, she slid along like a snake, dragging her own completely bloody body up beside the lifeless corpse. As if he were alive, she gave him as many sweet kisses as she could." This example is even more extraordinary given the fact that Guy’s assassins were his wife’s brothers, meaning that this noblewoman stood up for her husband against her natal family.

-Amy Livingstone, Out of Love for My Kin: Aristocratic Family Life in the Lands of the Loire, 1000–1200