lls the story of a woman transformed by magic into an
             ugly form and who can only be restored to her former beauty by some action,
             in this case her choice when she attains the pure love of a young man who
             had previously been a rapist but who agrees to marry the old woman, only to
             find that she is a young woman bewitched. The story includes the necessity
             for the man to tell the women of the court what woman most want, and he
             answers that what they most want is to have sovereignty over their
             husbands. The woman who asks the man to discover what women want is
             Guenevere, the Queen, who wants to be sovereign over the king. This is a
             further indication that the courtly love tradition mirrors the liege and
             his servant, with the difference being that the men view the women as the
             servant, while the women view the man in that role. This story thus delves
             into the tradition and turns it on its head. One of the interesting
             features of "The Franklin's Tale" is the way if comments on other stories
             already told, including that by the Wife of Bath and by the Miller and the
             Clerk, criticizing to a degree the conclusions reached in those tales while
             itself exploring the same territory in a new away, based on the interesting
             way Chaucer uses the courtly love tradition in this story.
             The idea of courtly love was common in the medieval era. The term
             usually referred to the love a knight had for a lady not his wife, but it
             has broader implications. The lover would express his love only from afar
             and pay homage to his beloved with courtly gestures and flowery language
             while keeping her on a pedestal. The tradition was likely structure on the
             same basis as the feudal relationship between the knight and his liege,
             with the respect the knight had for the liege now manifested as love for a
             lady in the court. The knight would place himself in service of the lady
             in a way similar to how he served hi...