Violence against women is a common motif in the courtly literature of the Middle Ages. At first glance, this observation seems incompatible with the ideals of courtly behavior and the staged veneration of women. This study makes a critical attempt to explain male violent behavior in the Middle Ages through the application of sociological and psychological theories. For this purpose, a model of male socialization in the Middle Ages is developed for the first time, serving as a comparative basis for examining literary figures. From this perspective, structural, discursive, and manifest forms of violence are analyzed in the Siegfried narrative of the Nibelungenlied and in Wolfram's Parzival. It becomes evident, among other things, that both the narrated acts of violence and the manner of storytelling itself aim to stabilize male dominance in the gender relationship.