The point is well taken about the attribution of modern motivations, outlooks and feelings to people from other times ("historical fiction", films and the like being particularly grievous offenders, in that they encourage readers/audiences to think of historical characters as "us in funny outfits", which they are most assuredly NOT!).

The Wife of Bath is *not* a feminist, any more than Joan of Arc is a feminist (or a "proto-Protestant", religious reformer, as she's sometimes ridiculously interpreted), because feminism was not an extant concept in the late medieval period. The Wife of Bath is a quasi-comic figure who has some very entertaining and amusing ways of looking at the world; no doubt there are grains of many real 14th century Englishwomen in her, and she remains so appealing 600 years later because she has qualities we can identify with. She's strong-minded, sure of herself, and pretty independent, despite the fact that she is identified by her oft-married status ("Welcome the sixte, whan that evere he shal"!)...but these are HUMAN qualities, not necessarily "feminist", or belonging to any other retroactively applied, modern construct.

She *definitely* wants "sovereignt" to indicate that the woman is superior in power, control, and "auctoritee"!

D