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This whole thread, but I want to add a thing. A lot of European medieval literature and music was actually commissioned and supported by women. https://twitter.com/fozmeadows/status/1361566371805417472
In fact, the probably-first mention of Lancelot at all, and definitely the first appearance of the Lancelot/Guenivere romance, was Chretien de Troyes' Lancelot, The Knight of the Cart, and it was commissioned by a woman.
In fact, Chretien's works were firsts for a lot of Arthurian things (the Grail!), so we're looking at works that were paid for by, and made for, a woman.
This is not at all unusual for the period, btw. Somebody's got to be running the manor/town/kingdom while Sir Knight is off crusading or whatnot. Your medieval noblewoman was not exclusively decorative. At the very least she's running a complicated, heavily staffed household.
And likely she's managing significantly more than that. So, as I said, quite a lot of music and literature in this period is produced at the direction of women. Probably more women than we realize were directly making that art.
Now, the version of Arthur that is best known is by a guy, and it's so well known that it's "canon" for folks who haven't thought much about it. That version (Malory's) is basically an abridged translation of a much longer French one that, last I heard, was likely
written by one or more monks (at least one to do the outline/planning, and several to do the actual composing). It is NOT friendly to women. But this is not because women were nothing but oppressed lumps in the middle ages and of course the Arthurian material was all macho.
It's because (among other things) the author(s) of the Vulgate Lancelot were reworking existing material with their own agenda(s), in some cases being pointedly critical of that previous material.
Moving to another bit of Arthurian material, I would also like to point out that we have NO IDEA who wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I mean, we kind of know where and when they lived, but really nothing else. Something to think about.
