ABSTRACT
This chapter follows a shift in social values and hence in the ideological uses of myths of bastardy. In the earlier hierarchical order dominated by royal and noble lines, illegitimacy could either be positively valorised as proof of the father’s wealth and virility or negatively valorised as the contamination of the patriarchal line. Myth, closely linked to the alternative structures of illegitimacy, glorifies the matriarchal system that can supplement or replace the patriarchal in times of war or family dissolution. A vital role was often played by the matriarch in late medieval culture in her economic and social control of the clan or extended family. In other words, one of the advantages of the autographic and autothanatographic narratives of illegitimacy and delegitimation is that they offer an entry into a polymorphous and ex-centric experience which shapes both life and fiction.
