How we cite our quotes: (Line Number)
Quote #7
It ne semed nat by lyklinesse
That she was born and fed in rudenesse,
As in a cote or in an oxe-stalle,
But norished in an emperoures halle. (396-399)
If this passage seems overly concerned with food and eating, it may reflect the medieval reality that a higher-class person was likely to have better nutrition, and thus to appear healthier and more attractive, than a lower-class person.
Quote #8
With sterne face and with ful trouble chere,
[He] seyde thus: 'Grisilde,' quod he, 'that day
That I yow took out of your povre array
And putte yow in estaat of heigh noblesse
Ye have nat that forgeten, as I gesse.' (465-469)
Walter portrays himself as a God-figure to Grisilde in the way he speaks of plucking her from poverty and raising her to nobility. The way he views his role in her life may even be a little prideful, appropriating powers that are rightfully God's. Do Walter's wealth and status entitle him to "play God"?
Quote #9
And though to me that ye be lief and dere,
Unto my gentils ye be no-thing so;
They seyn, to hem it is greet shame and wo
For to be subgets and ben in servage
To thee, that born art of a smal village. (479-483)
Although Walter is lying about the sentiment his nobles are expressing, it's not unlikely that they might secretly object to being ruled by a lower-class person. If they believed that God had ordained nobility to rule and lower-class people to be ruled (many medieval people did believe this), they would totally have some gripes about Grisilde's power over them.