Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance: Normans and Saxons 0415877989, 9780415877985

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Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance

This book explores how the cultural distinctions and conflicts between Anglo-Saxons and Normans originating with the Norman Conquest of 1066 prevailed well into the fourteenth century and are manifest in a significant number of Middle English romances including King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Sir Orfeo, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and others. Specifically, the study looks at how the material culture of these poems (architecture, battle tactic, landscapes) systematically and persistently distinguishes between Norman and Anglo-Saxon cultural identity. Additionally, it examines the influence of the English Outlaw Tradition, itself grounded in Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Norman Conquest, as expressed in specific recurring scenes (disguise and infiltration, forest exile) found in many Middle English romances. In the broadest sense, a significant number of Middle English romances, including some of the most well-read and often-taught, set up a dichotomy of two ruling houses headed by a powerful lord, who compete for power and influence. This book examines the cultural heritage behind each of these pairings to show how poets repeatedly contrast essentially Norman and Anglo-Saxon values and ruling styles. Dominique Battles is Professor of English at Hanover College, USA.

Routledge Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture

1 Biblical Paradigms in Medieval English Literature From Cædmon to Malory Lawrence Besserman 2 Sin and Filth in Medieval Culture The Devil in the Latrine Martha Bayless 3 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance Normans and Saxons Dominique Battles

Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance Normans and Saxons Dominique Battles

NEW YORK

LONDON

First published 2013 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2013 Taylor & Francis The right of Dominique Battles to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Battles, Dominique, 1964– Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance : Normans and Saxons / by Dominique Battles. pages cm. — (Routledge Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture ; 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Romances, English—History and criticism. 2. English literature— Middle English, 1100–1500—History and criticism. 3. National characteristics, English—History—To 1500. 4. England—Social conditions—1066–1485. I. Title. PR321.B38 2013 821'.109—dc23 2012041689 ISBN13: 978-0-415-87798-5 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-07874-7 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by IBT Global.

for my parents in gratitude

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Contents

List of Credits Preface Acknowledgments Introduction

ix xi xiii 1

1

Plotting Conquest

13

2

Castle Architecture and English Identity

58

3

Forest Landscapes and Forest Exile

84

4

The Greenwood Tradition: English Heroes and English Outlaws

107

Conclusion

146

Notes Bibliography Index

151 197 213

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Credits

A portion of Chapter 2 of this book was originally presented as a conference paper entitled “Castle Architecture and English Identity in Middle English Romance” at the International Congress on Medieval Studies (2009), an abstract of which was published shortly afterward in Avista Forum Journal 19 (2009): 107–108. Portions of this book originally appeared as an article entitled “Sir Orfeo and English Identity,” from Studies in Philology 107.2. Copyright © 2010 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. www.uncpress.unc.edu Portions of Chapter 4 of this book appeared as “Reconquering England for the English in Havelok the Dane,” The Chaucer Review 47.2 (2012).

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Preface

The idea for this book emerged from my investigations, starting in 2004, into the Middle English Sir Orfeo. I have presented various stages of this project in oral and written form: in a paper entitled “The Forest and English Cultural Identity in the Middle English Sir Orfeo,” presented in 2007 at the 42nd International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and in another paper entitled “Castle Architecture and English Identity in Middle English Romance,” presented in 2009 at the 44th International Congress on Medieval Studies, where I expanded my observations to cover the Middle English King Horn and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. An abstract of this paper was published in Avista Forum Journal 19 (2009): 107–108. The project on Sir Orfeo then appeared as an article entitled “Sir Orfeo and English Identity,” published in 2010 in Studies in Philology. The project subsequently extended to the Middle English Havelok the Dane, and in 2011, I presented a portion of this aspect of the project as a paper entitled “Reconquering England for the English in Havelok the Dane,” an expanded version of which appeared in 2012 in The Chaucer Review under the same title.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the following people for their essential roles in bringing this project to fruition. I am indebted to the anonymous readers of The Chaucer Review, Studies in Philology, and Routledge, whose detailed and incisive comments, criticisms, and suggestions led me to probe further and look in new directions. On a broader level, I am grateful for the late Professor Reinhold Schumann of Boston University, whose kind yet rigorous guidance years ago fi rst set me on this path. Professor Robert Levine, also of Boston University, remains an abiding influence regardless of what I’m working on at the moment. I am deeply grateful for my friend and colleague Mi Yung Yoon, who encouraged me to aim higher and work through obstacles in the earliest stages of this project. Without her, I would not be writing this. I would also like to thank Fernanda Zullo, James Buckwalter-Arias, Krista Hughes, Sara Patterson, and Jared Bates for sharing in all the little milestones of the project. In preparing the manuscript at various stages, I would like to thank Sarah Cramer, Dylan Brenner, and Kylie Miller, and the Faculty Development Committee of Hanover College for their grant to support in this aspect of the project. For their assistance in procuring sources for my research, I thank Patricia Lawrence and Kelly Joyce. I would also like to thank the many wonderful students at Hanover College with whom I have had the pleasure of sharing the ideas for this volume. My editors at Routledge, Erica Wetter and Elizabeth Levine, have been the soul of calm and kind professionalism, and I have been grateful for their steady encouragement each step of the way. No one’s encouragement can match that of a parent’s, and I thank my mother, Camay Woodall, for believing in me through it all, and for keeping me so well supplied with beautiful plants and good chocolate. Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to Perry Battles, who has always inspired me by his very presence, and to Paul Battles for lovingly sharing in all parts of this project, large and small.

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Introduction

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” —William Faulkner

By any estimation, the Norman Conquest was one of the most cataclysmic and far-reaching events of English history, affecting all levels of AngloSaxon society. The upper echelons of society, the Anglo-Saxon nobility, saw a wholesale transference of control over their lands into Norman hands, so that by 1086 there were only four Anglo-Saxon lords left who still possessed significant landholdings.1 Dispossessed Anglo-Saxon lords who were not killed outright often sought exile, either abroad or at home, permanently displaced. The Anglo-Saxon church leadership also experienced a wholesale transference of their authority into the hands of Norman ecclesiastics. The Anglo-Saxon peasantry, too, faced their own challenges in the form of impossibly high taxes, higher rents for land, and punishment for rebellion. Peasants found themselves having to buy back their own lands at prohibitive prices, and the decades following the Conquest saw a dramatic drop in the number of free landholders, or small, independent landholders, while much of this land became subsumed into new aristocratic private estates. 2 According to the AngloSaxon Chronicle for the year 1087, “The king and the chief men loved gain much and over-much—gold and silver—and did not care how sinfully it was obtained provided it came to them.”3 Northern territories, in particular, paid perhaps the heaviest price in 1070 when, in retaliation for resistance, William the Conqueror imposed a slash-and-burn penalty on the county of Yorkshire, commonly referred to as the “harrying of the North,” destroying enormous swaths of crops and villages; this resulted in widespread homelessness and starvation that perisisted for years.4 When the worst of the turmoil was over, England was a colonial society dotted with castle-plantations that controlled all of the nation’s wealth and power. 5 The brutalities and ensuing injustices produced by the Conquest were of such a nature, and on such a scale, that no one involved, on either side of the conflict, would soon forget—not for generations. Writing around 1400, the English chronicler, Robert of Gloucester, traces the historical roots of the dominant political and social hierarchy of his day:

2 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance & kniʒtes of biʒonde se ∙ & oϸer men al so∙ [William] ʒef londes in engelond ∙ ϸat liʒtliche com ϸer to∙ Þat ʒute hor eirs holdeϸ ∙ alonde monion: & deseritede moni kundemen ∙ ϸat he huld is fon∙ So ϸat ϸe mestedel of heyemen ∙ ϸat in engelond beϸ∙ Beϸ icome of ϸe normans ∙ as ʒe nou iseϸ. (7,578–7,583)6 [And to the knights from beyond the sea [William] gave lands in England, and to other men also, so that they gained it with no effort, and their heirs still own much of it; in so doing, he disinherited many native men whom he considered his enemies, so that, as you can now see, the greatest part of the high men in England are descended from the Normans.]

This passage from Robert’s Chronicle speaks to the English perspective on the Norman Conquest in several ways. It relates the Norman takeover of England in 1066 not as a step toward progress for the country, but as a shameless power-grab, as William’s foreign knights came into their English lands “liʒtliche,” without any effort. It records the cost of this power grab to native English landholders who were “deseritede” by William in the process. It suggests further, that the “enemy” status that these AngloSaxon men assumed, being “huld is fon” in William’s eyes, was subjective and convenient, rather than rooted in reality. Above all, this passage attests to the living memory of these past events and injustices into contemporary, fourteenth-century England. Robert clearly identifies the Norman aristocrats of his day as the heirs of the Norman invaders of the past. Robert’s world was, in fact, full of daily reminders of the cultural difference between the conquerors and the conquered, as the political and social inequities ushered in by the Conquest had become institutionalized in the legal and administrative systems of post-Conquest England. The relationship between the conquerors and the conquered was made most obvious by language; French was the language of politics, of law, and of the court, of Norman life, while English remained the demeaned language of the native Anglo-Saxons.7 Thus, Robert’s very choice to write in English, rather than Latin or French, becomes an assertion of a native perspective on the events he covers. He remembers the Conquest from the vantage of the conquered, in the language of the conquered.8 This book explores how that memory was expressed in some of the popular English literature of the post-Conquest period. It examines how the cultural distinctions and conflicts between Anglo-Saxons and Normans originating with the Norman Conquest of 1066 prevailed well into the fourteenth century and are manifest in a significant number of Middle English romances including King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Sir Orfeo, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Tale of Gamelyn, among others. More specific, the study looks at how the material culture of these

Introduction

3

poems—architecture, battle tactic, landscapes—systematically and consistently distinguishes between Norman and Anglo-Saxon cultural identity. In addition, it examines the influence of the English Outlaw tradition, itself grounded in Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Norman Conquest, on Middle English romance. More specifically, I discuss how the story of Hereward, the Anglo-Saxon resistance fighter whose deeds survive in numerous chronicle accounts, forms an important subtext for these well-known English romances. I argue that these English poems capture and explore the often tumultuous and polarizing past events and experiences that brought the Anglo-Saxon and Norman peoples together, in the process distilling some of the hallmarks of both side’s cultural identity. Concretely, a significant number of Middle English romances set up a dichotomy of two ruling houses headed by powerful lords, who compete for power and influence. This book examines the cultural heritage behind each of these pairings to show how poets repeatedly contrast essentially Norman and Anglo-Saxon values, priorities, and ruling styles. It shows that in some of the popular literature of the post-Conquest period, poets and audiences still shared a coherent understanding of these two distinct peoples and of the historical experiences that brought them together. Poets could still conjure an essentially Anglo-Saxon hero over two hundred years after the Conquest, and draw moral distinctions based on that cultural memory. I should say at the outset that one does not venture down the particular scholarly path pursued in this book without soon running into signs warning one to turn back. Signs of danger ahead and a general aspect of abandonment crop up everywhere. There had clearly been a conflict in this region, a long one. Anglo-Saxon cultural identity in the post-Conquest period was a topic that most scholars seemed content to tacitly ignore in the interest of keeping the peace. As an outsider, both culturally and generationally, fi nding the source of this confl ict took some doing. In the end, I discovered the root of the problem, at least in part, in post-medieval politics starting with Queen Victoria and ending with Adolf Hitler, encompassing the common program of both regimes of foreign imperialism driven by ideologies of progress. Victorian imperialists romanticized their Anglo-Saxon ancestry, looking to figures like King Alfred and Hereward the Wake as models of determination and patriotic zeal. Nobles and novelists alike conscripted leading Anglo-Saxon figures into the cause of foreign conquest, despite the fact that these men gained their fame as resistance fighters, not imperialists, as men who tried to stem imperial incursion into their homeland. Anglo-Saxonism became further politicized in the twentieth century, during World War II, when Germanic peoples of all kinds, including dead Anglo-Saxon ones, required sharp censure and containment in the interest of world peace. As a consequence, it has been difficult for scholars of subsequent generations to raise the topic of this book without also raising the specter of nationalism, imperialism, and theories of racial supremacy. Scholars of the post-World War II era caution against mistaking “the

4 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance tradition scented by readers of the Matter of England romances . . . as the vestiges of a lost culture,” one rooted in Germanic tradition (p. 173).9 The result is that the ideas in this volume have gone largely unbroached, certainly not in any forthright and sustained way, for a very long time despite a large and compelling body of evidence. The associations of Anglo-Saxonism and misplaced patriotism account for why, until recently, scholars have overlooked, in some cases expressly denied, the holdover of Anglo-Saxon culture in the post-Conquest period. Numerous arguments have insisted on a clean break with the Anglo-Saxon past. According to many scholars, within several generations of the Norman Conquest of 1066, widespread intermarriage and cultural exchange between the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons at all levels of society had all but erased any meaningful cultural difference between the conquerors and the conquered. This process of cultural assimilation led the people of England to forget the turmoil of the Conquest and soon set aside all differences in a newly blended society. To a large extent, this happened. Clear evidence suggests that within a generation or two after 1066, Anglo-Saxons and Normans had become more difficult to distinguish through the practice of intermarriage and voluntary adoption, by the English, of French customs, clothing, and names.10 Moreover, practical necessity drove many native English to downplay “Englishness” in the interest of social advancement.11 It would seem, therefore, that English society adopted a forgive-and-forget attitude in an effort to move forward. According to this argument, by extension, in the melting pot of medieval England, lines of cultural difference blur in the literature as well. According to many scholars, not only did the events of the Conquest fade in popular memory, but so did any substantial memory of native English culture, including their rich literary tradition, which had formed the only vernacular literary tradition in Europe at the time. Certain facts corroborate the death of Anglo-Saxon literature as a living literary tradition.12 The murder and dispossession of English nobility and their households by Norman nobility severely limited the venue for the performance of Anglo-Saxon poetry.13 Similarly, as Norman clerics replaced English clerics throughout the country, the production of manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon poetry all but stopped except in a few monasteries, until such manuscripts eventually became the province of antiquarians.14 Because the Normans brought with them their own stories from France and because they now comprised the main reading public, English literature of the post-Conquest, Middle English period consists largely of English translations and adaptations of French literature. Moreover, Middle English poets make few overt references to specific Anglo-Saxon poems; they seem not to have read much of it. Given that the language itself changed so dramatically in the post-Conquest period, it is likely that few people could even read whatever Anglo-Saxon literature may have survived. Indeed, according to Ingulph’s Chronicle of Croyland, “The very [English] language even they abhorred with such intensity, that

Introduction

5

the laws of the land and the statutes of the English kings were treated of in the Latin tongue; and even in the very schools, the rudiments of grammar were imparted to the children in French and not in English. The English mode of writing was also abandoned, and the French manner adopted in charters and in all books” (p. 142).15 Educational and administrative policies following the Conquest enacted a rift with the English language and its literary tradition. Finally, English poets and audiences adopted a growing eclecticism in preference to rigid tradition, so that, according to one representative scholar, “literary resources from pre-Conquest England, Anglo-Saxon and Viking, from the Old French chanson de geste as well as the roman courtois, . . . are plundered, mingled and reworked with evident indifference to any feeling of national identity or cultural integrity.”16 Thus, the conquest of Anglo-Saxon institutions and leadership would appear to have conquered native English literary tradition as well. We know, however, from instances around the globe that cultural assimilation is never total or unilateral, particularly when the initial stages of cultural contact involved prolonged violence and/or subjugation of one people by another, as in the case of the Norman Conquest. Furthermore, as time has brought more distance and objectivity to the horrific events of the twentieth century that placed a taboo on things Germanic, the study of the survival of Anglo-Saxon culture beyond 1066 has reemerged a legitimate area of inquiry. Other scholars, for instance, have emphasized ongoing cultural difference, arguing that an awareness of cultural difference between the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons prevailed well into the early fourteenth century. Although the French influence on English society and literature in the post-Conquest period remains indisputable, recent studies have argued for the persistence of Anglo-Saxon cultural identity well into the late medieval period. Nick Webber, for instance, explores how the inescapable cultural confl ict that results from the Conquest served to solidify and polarize English and Norman identities, from both perspectives, throughout the colonial period.17 Even as the Normans became naturalized, as their affiliations with England grew stronger, they remain Franci in legal documents, suggesting the insistence of cultural separateness from the perspective of the English, who from the start, referred to the Normans as “Franci” rather than as the more culturally specific “Normanni.”18 Hugh M. Thomas explores several important texts that uphold English honor against the backdrop of rampant prejudice against the English as rustic, militarily inept, and incompetent.19 (Of course, the Normans more or less created this model of Englishman by killing off most of the native English aristocracy.) On the Norman side, historian David Carpenter points out that the sense of cultural difference persisted the longest among the ruling classes, who engaged far less in intermarriage in the interest of preserving Norman descent, who in many cases maintained strong connections to Normandy, and who, until 1204, served a king who spent half of his time on the continent. This small, but very influential, group “had powerful

6 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance incentives to keep alive their own Normanitas and pause before identifying themselves entirely with England.”20 Thus from both the Anglo-Saxon and Norman perspectives, gestures of assimilation were matched by gestures of resistance. Cultural difference took on renewed importance in the thirteenth century, when English identity was contested and debated at the highest levels of society. The initial wave of Norman immigrants that came to England with the Conquest, numbering roughly 8,000 people spread throughout the counties, was followed in the mid-thirteenth century by a second wave of French immigrants, similarly privileged, who came this time by express invitation by the English monarch, Henry III.21 Like his predecessors, Henry married a foreign queen, Eleanor, the daughter of the Count of Provence, whose elder sister, Margaret, was married to King Louis IX of France. Upon her arrival in England, Henry soon granted important offices of church and state, including the archbishopric of Canterbury, to her Savoyard relatives and friends. 22 This wave of Savoyard immigrants connected with Queen Eleanor were soon followed by an additional wave of Lusignans immigrants connected with Henry himself, members of his own extended family on the continent. These new French immigrants found themselves face-to-face with the older immigrants whose ancestors had come over with William I, and who now found themselves competing for office and influence with French-speaking foreigners who were far more “French” than they were. Thus, Robert of Gloucester writes, “Þoru hom & ϸoru ϸe quene was ∙ so much frenss folc ibrouʒt./Þat of englisse men ∙ me tolde as riʒt nouʒt” (10,992–10,993). Moreover, the loss of Normandy in 1204, some fi fty years earlier, compounded this sense of cultural isolation among the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. 23 This meeting of cultures in the circles of power prompted members of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy to seek a sense of rootedness and belonging within England, to adopt it as a mother country, which involved tapping into its mother culture, its AngloSaxon roots and the English language. 24 This desire among the Norman nobility to cultivate a closer kinship with the native, conquered culture of the Anglo-Saxons brought forth a body of literature intended to create a seamless, harmonious transition between pre-Conquest England and post-Conquest Norman society rooted in continental history. 25 These stories imagine constructive cultural exchange between Norman and Anglo-Saxon. Written in French, and drawing from French literary tradition (notably the chanson de geste), these texts nevertheless feature Anglo-Saxon heroes set in pre-Conquest England, and in some cases draw upon English legendary history. 26 Essentially assimilationist in spirit, poems such as Boeve de Haumptone and Gui de Warewic feature “English” heroes who move within situations and settings derived from French literature. 27 The confl ict portrayed in both poems occurs primarily (as in Boeve), if not exclusively (as in the case of Gui), not in England but abroad, in mainland Europe and the Middle East, drawing the

Introduction

7

English heroes into the crusading landscape so central to Old French literary tradition. 28 Moreover, we fi nd very little confl ict occurring on English soil, among English subjects in these poems, reflecting the primary intent of these stories to justify the Norman presence in England through images of cultural reciprocity. 29 In the case of Gui, the hero himself embodies this reciprocity, a man allegedly based on Wigod of Wallingford, the famous cup-bearer of Edward the Confessor, by far the most beloved and acceptable Anglo-Saxon leader among the Norman ruling class, who married into Norman nobility affiliated with the Earl of Warwick. 30 Like the historical situation of Wigod, the fictional situation of Guy of Warwick affects social assimilation, for both Anglo-Saxon and Norman, rather than confl ict. To some extent, Boeve de Haumptone better captures the historical predicament of the Anglo-Saxon lordly class in its themes of forcible disappropriation, exile, and endangered patrimony, but it pins culpability safely on the emperor of Germany (rather than on any Norman) and sets the hero on a course to the continent more familiar to the heroes of French literature. Both Boeve and Gui, along with many other Anglo-Norman romances, were later translated into English as Beves of Hamptoun and Guy of Warwick with limited modification in terms of both plot and characterization, quite possibly for consumption within the increasingly bilingual AngloNorman community.31 On the whole, the images of Anglo-Saxon people and events found in these stories reflect an afterlife of Anglo-Saxon literary tradition as a pursuit rooted in comfortable antiquarianism rather than in lived experience.32 They operate on “conscious archaism,” producing imitations of Anglo-Saxon literary tradition. The foreign landscapes of the poems, as well as other narrative features, reveal a nonnative perspective on Anglo-Saxon identity, and the “English” heroes succeed only on Norman terms. Some scholars, therefore, implore us to disregard these images of Anglo-Saxon cultural as nothing more than fiction, as “not necessarily . . . the vestiges of a lost culture, but . . . the conscious production of romance writers . . .”33 However, archaizing literary constructs of all kinds do not arise out of thin air. They are based on some preexisting reality, however maligned or distorted. Although I do not dispute the losses to the Anglo-Saxon literary tradition and the greater literary eclecticism of the post-Conquest period, a growing body of research suggests the survival of Anglo-Saxon literary tradition in the centuries following the Conquest. Thorlac Turville-Petre has written extensively on the survival and assertion of an English (that is, Anglo-Saxon) national identity in opposition to the Norman, and earlier Danish, invaders in a host of literary, as well as historical, texts and manuscripts.34 His study of the famous Auchinleck manuscript, perhaps the richest compendium of Middle English romance, demonstrates just how pervasive the subject of native English identity could still be, even as late as the early fourteenth century. 35 Richard Firth Green has examined late fourteenth-century English literature in light of medieval legal

8 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance practice, distinguishing between the “folk law” of pre-Conquest England and “the king’s law” of the post-Conquest period.36 Mark Amodio’s study of oral tradition argues that Anglo-Saxon poetry did not in fact die with the Norman Conquest. Instead, it went underground, from which it resurfaces in the Middle English period in the form of themes (such as exile) and story patterns (such as the return song). 37 Similarly, Thomas A. Bredehoft, in his book Early English Meter, argues for the Anglo-Saxon roots of Middle English alliterative meter; far from representing a construct of the post-Conquest period, it “is part of a continuous poetic tradition that begins with the classical verse of Caedmon and Beowulf.”38 Likewise, Robert Allen Rouse explores the survival and proliferation of the memory of Anglo-Saxon England in the romances of the fourteenth century. Examining the Matter of England romances, among other texts, Rouse explores how English identity is negotiated, revised, but nevertheless preserved well beyond the Conquest. He argues that “the Anglo-Saxon past, far from being marginal to post-conquest English culture, occupied an important role within the social imagination of medieval England.”39 Finally, most recently, Elaine Treharne has argued for the “continued authority of English” in post-Conquest society and institutions, and the on-going relevance of English as a medium of resistance and negotiation.40 Thus, scholars are increasingly taking seriously the references to Anglo-Saxon people, places, and culture in later medieval texts, exploring how these evocations of an earlier era speak to contemporary concerns. The texts that form the subject of this volume approach native English cultural identity in ways that stress cultural difference rather than assimilation, and which accord with Anglo-Saxon perspective, both literary and historical. Texts such as Beves of Hamptoun and Guy of Warwick correlate rather closely to their French antecedents, and thus preserve, in English, an essentially Anglo-Norman perspective. Other Middle English romances, however, such as King Horn and Havelok the Dane, depart rather dramatically from their French antecedents and analogues, adding details of setting and characterization, not found in their French counterparts that make them feel more “English.” More important, unlike the treatment of the heroes of Guy and Beves, who, despite their “English” identity, fight like continental heroes in continental settings, the heroes of Havelok and Horn fi nd themselves in predicaments that are true to native English experience, before, during, and after the Conquest. Finally, these poems locate the problem predominantly, and in some cases solely, on English soil, not abroad, indicating internal divisions rather than internal harmony. The same patterns of characterization, setting, and plot are found in Sir Orfeo and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, although neither of these poems is said to deal explicitly with English identity. As a consequence, I have found the widely accepted literary classification known as the “Matter of England” of limited use, because it groups together texts purely on the basis of non-Arthurian, English legendary content regardless of treatment.41 King

Introduction

9

Horn, Havelok the Dane, and The Tale of Gamelyn all fall within the Matter of England, but Sir Orfeo and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight do not, despite their powerful commentaries on cultural identity.42 Perhaps the simplest and clearest narrative feature that distinguishes the Middle English romances covered in this volume concerns a common theme of restoring what was lost. All of the heroes featured in these poems contend with challenges to their honor and/or territory, to their very identity. Horn, Havelok, and Sir Orfeo, all feature king-heroes who lose their kingdoms and kingly status through external aggression. On a domestic level, The Tale of Gamelyn deals with a youngest son whose older brother seeks to strip him of his inheritance lands, and, by extension, his social standing. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight concerns a challenge to kingly status and identity, as the Green Knight insults the honor of Arthur’s entire court, prompting Gawain to seek to restore that honor. In each text, the hero whose honor and patrimony are threatened exhibits habits of mind and action characteristic of Anglo-Saxon tradition. His challengers, by contrast, exhibit the social customs and perspectives found throughout French chivalric literature. All of these texts follow a similar pattern whereby the hero works to restore his social and material standing in society, which in some cases involves him suffering social humiliation as he assumes the disguise of a lower-ranking individual, often for long stretches. These heroes do not seek to rise in social status; they simply wish to reclaim their former standing within their society. They remain convinced of their own self-worth, and must convince their challengers likewise. This pattern of dispossession and reclamation, moreover, as mapped out in cultural terms through characterization and setting, hearkens at the lingering theme of the Norman Conquest of restoring English honor and patrimony. I should clarify at the outset what I mean by “Anglo-Saxon” cultural identity, starting with what I do not mean. The population of pre-Conquest England, as noted, included an array of ethnic peoples, including AngloSaxons (themselves a fusion of the Angles and the Saxons), Celts (themselves divided by regions), Picts, Britons, and Danes, among others. When I speak of “Anglo-Saxon” cultural identity, I do not mean those people of Anglo-Saxon racial descent exclusively. As historian Susan Reynolds notes, the inhabitants of pre-Conquest England “did not call themselves Anglo-Saxons (let alone Saxons), but English, and they called their kingdom England. It was not a hyphenated kingdom but one whose inhabitants felt themselves to be a single people.”43 To be sure, the majority of pre-Conquest kings were of Anglo-Saxon descent, but they commanded the loyalty of all the disparate peoples of their realm. Likewise, during the native rebellions against Norman rule in the years following the Conquest, for which Anglo-Danes formed the backbone, the English population as a whole did not view the events in Lincolnshire as serving only the interests of the Anglo-Danish community of the north. Instead, events in Lincolnshire inspired similar revolts in the south and west, all sharing

10 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance the same end, even when not sharing the same leadership. In discussing “Anglo-Saxon” cultural identity, I therefore draw upon the sense of shared cultural heritage, the common values and interests that led the peoples of pre-Conquest England to defi ne themselves as one nation. The texts that form the subject of this volume derive from all corners of England, from the West Midlands, to Lincolnshire, to London, yet they all give voice to an older cultural perspective characteristic of pre-Conquest England, one that fi nds itself embattled by a far more powerful cultural package bearing all the hallmarks of Norman society. The term “material cultural” also requires some clarification with respect to this project. Within the discourse of literary criticism, “material culture” most often refers to the modes and technologies of publication, distribution, and consumption of literary texts. It addresses the extrinsic economic and social conditions that determine and shape literary works and their reception. Although I do, at various points, include information regarding the manuscript context of various works, I use the term “material culture” primarily in reference to the material life depicted, fictionally, within the poems themselves, to the material life intrinsic to these works. I devote particular attention to the homes various characters occupy, the kinds of, and uses of, landholdings associated with those homes, the animals and their uses associated with those lands, the weapons and strategies of combat preferred by various characters, in short, the spaces and objects, large and small, animate and inanimate, that govern daily life in the poems. At the same time, I demonstrate how these fictional homes, landholdings, animals, and methods of combat correspond to historical models, that material culture of both fiction and fact work together, and that the particular array and arrangement of these items fit together in coherent cultural pictures that have much to tell us about the social aftermath of the Norman Conquest. Chapter 1 explores the causes and methods of confl ict found in each of the texts. In the simplest terms, it discusses why, how, and where the hero fights. In King Horn, I discuss how the poet revisits the historical enemies of the Anglo-Saxons, including the Viking invaders from the pre-Conquest period as well as the Norman invaders of the post-Conquest period. Each of these enemies prompts the hero to employ historically appropriate battle tactics and strategies in dealing with them. In Havelok the Dane, I explore how the English poet reconfigures his French source material, moving the time frame of this Lincolnshire narrative up from the distant pre-Conquest past into the more recent Conquest scene, invoking the story of English resistance, which also took place in Lincolnshire. With Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, I argue that the poem adapts the Anglo-Saxon literary plot of the hero in search of the monster, most famously exemplified in Beowulf, to the more recent cultural challenge posed by an entitled Norman aristocracy. The two foes, the monster of Anglo-Saxon tradition and the refi ned lord of French chivalric literature, meet in the figure of the Green Knight. In Sir Orfeo, I explore how the two kings of the poem, the Fairy King

Introduction

11

and King Orfeo, embody contrasting cultures, Norman and Anglo-Saxon respectively, and reenact the modes of aggression, retaliation, and response characteristic of the Norman Conquest. Finally, in The Tale of Gamelyn, I reveal how the underlying confl ict of the poem contrasts Anglo-Saxon and Norman legal institutions. Chapter 2 explores the pattern found throughout these Middle English romances whereby the hero resides in a “hall,” a pre-Conquest lordly dwelling that includes a large common room with a private chamber attached. In general, the hero’s hall is sparsely described. The antagonist, on the other hand, resides in a Norman-style castle, described in great detail, a postConquest lordly residence. A form of military architecture, castles came to England as part of the Conquest package and enabled the Normans to take control of the English landscape, becoming emblematic of the Norman aristocracy. As a tool of conquest, castles retained their association with power and its abuses, hence the “good” characters do not live in them. Chapter 3 explores natural landscape in these romances as a tool of characterization. In Sir Orfeo and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in particular, we fi nd that the hero experiences the forest landscape as a place of political exile and exclusion from civilization, as a life-threatening landscape characteristic of Anglo-Saxon literature. The hero’s opponent, on the other hand, experiences the forest (often the very same forest) as a pleasure ground, an extension of civilization, for various courtly pastimes including recreational hunting and hawking, sometimes with ladies. Such forest landscapes are found throughout French chivalric romance, and are the type of landscapes contrived by the Normans in the large-scale reorganization of land use during the colonial period, often at the considerable expense of Anglo-Saxon settlement. Finally, Chapter 4 explores the English Outlaw tradition as a source for many of the distinctive plot features found in some of these romances. Also known as the “Matter of Greenwood” after its most famous hero, Robin Hood, the stories of the Outlaw tradition have their roots in Anglo-Saxon resistance to Norman dominion and feature underdog heroes who must resort to disguise, trickery, and forest exile to right political wrongs. The stories of Hereward the Wake, Eadric the Wild, and Harold Godwinson, in particular, contain many of the elements that drive the plots of certain Middle English romances. The Outlaw tradition is the source for a distinctive type of scene involving disguise and infiltration (into a castle), often but not always involving harping, found in certain Middle English romances including the Sir Orfeo and King Horn, among others. I show, further, how the story of Hereward, the Lincolnshire nobleman whose fight for AngloSaxon freedom involved a Anglo-Danish alliance, became an important subtext for the story of Anglo-Danish alliance found in Havelok the Dane. The young hero of Gamelyn, too, follows in the footsteps of Hereward when he retreats to the forest where he joins a group of similarly disenfranchised, but thoroughly respectable, men, who adopt the ambush tactics that

12 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance made Hereward and his followers successful enough against the Normans to warrant William the Conqueror’s personal military intervention. In the broadest sense, this book seeks to uncover some of the English roots of English romance. As a rule, scholarship on Middle English romance relies almost exclusively on the criteria of French chivalric romance, the literature of the mother culture of the Norman aristocracy. In many cases, this is entirely appropriate, but not in all cases. Although the French influence on Middle English romance remains undisputed, the Anglo-Saxon voice, nevertheless, asserts itself, sometimes in rather obvious ways, as a direct challenge to things French. Sir Gawain may wear the latest in armored fashion, appropriate to that of any Anglo-Norman aristocrat, but his reasons for venturing into the wilderness of Wirral, and his experience once there, date back five hundred years or more.44 This book aims to detail the pattern of cultural difference between Norman and Anglo-Saxon identity found in a significant number of Middle English romances. First, it explores the survival of aspects of the Anglo-Saxon literary tradition into the post-Conquest period in the form of recurring scenes and narrative devices, cultural values, and literary perspectives. Second, it explores the many, if subtle, ways that these romances use material culture (dwellings, weapons) as cultural markers for characterization. Finally, it brings into the conversation texts from the English Outlaw tradition, a body of literature that preserves and celebrates Anglo-Saxon experience during and after the Conquest.

1

Plotting Conquest

The Middle English romances that form the subject of this volume feature heroes who find themselves embroiled in unjust politics, usually at the receiving end. These various situations of corruption and wrongdoing have naturally led scholars to read these texts within a variety of political contexts. Some scholars have looked to the contemporary political scene that produced these stories, to thirteenth- and fourteenth-century England, finding meaningful parallels among the political machinations of an unpopular king, or baronial intrigues, or court culture.1 Others have turned to the fictional political contexts of continental literature, seeking parallels for these English texts among the body of French chansons de geste, which also feature heroes whose careers and reputations hinge on their handling of various politicized relationships and situations.2 While the chansons do share certain narrative features with these Middle English romances, such as large-scale combat stemming from political conflict, the political circumstances featured in the chansons in general emerge from the historical crusading incursions into foreign, often Muslim, lands.3 Such campaigns place the hero on the side of the invading Christian force, not on the side of the invaded people, as we find so often in Middle English romance. The one political context that has not been brought to bear on these English poems is that of the Norman Conquest, by far the most cataclysmic and far-reaching political event of medieval England, and the event that reshaped the English language and English poetry most dramatically from that point on. Given its import for English society and literature during the later Middle Ages, the Conquest forms the proverbial white elephant in the room in discussions of Middle English romance. The absence of the Conquest in such discussions, even in political readings, is all the more striking when we consider how frequently these poems explicitly feature situations of conquest, and how often these stories are set in the pre-Conquest past, not to mention how regularly we, the audience, experience the hostile takeover from the perspective of a hero who belongs to the conquered people. In this chapter, I revisit a number of Middle English romances against the backdrop of the Norman Conquest, exploring the many ways that these plots and heroes capture and perpetuate the cultural difference between the conquering Normans and the conquered Anglo-Saxons.

14 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance The theme of conquest from the perspective of the conquered underlies some of the most well-read and often-taught texts of Middle English literature. Unlike the heroes of French romance, who apply themselves in acquiring new things, whether it be the women they love or the kingdoms they eventually inherit, the heroes of the English romances of King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Sir Orfeo, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Tale of Gamelyn all struggle instead to reclaim what was lost and to end up where they started. More specific, they fi nd themselves and their people robbed of land, loved ones, position, and/or honor, and must fight to restore those things. Their struggle often leads them into a period of exile, during which they ponder their losses, in some cases modify their identity either through voluntary disguise or involuntary physical deterioration, and eventually plot a return. This struggle for stability often, though not always, coincides with a love interest, showing the clear influence of French chivalric literature. Unlike the French hero, however, these English heroes are not at leisure to go questing for adventure in search of new things. The loss of property or inheritance that results in a loss of identity and often exile, followed by recognition and restoration of that property, has been identified by Susan Wittig as a central and distinctive theme of Middle English literature, a theme that often competes in importance with the love interest of these stories.4 Wittig and others have attributed this theme of loss and reclamation in Middle English literature to mythic patterns common to most literature rather than to any historical reality. 5 Still others have traced the theme of exile and return to Norman political mythmaking as the “heirs” to England.6 I would suggest that the theme of loss and restoration involving exile and return, which dominates the English literature of post-Conquest England, reflects the historical and literary legacy of the Anglo-Saxon people who, despite their losses and failed attempts to resist the Norman Conquest nevertheless, remained the large majority of the English population. This theme of loss of property reflects an Anglo-Saxon consciousness on two fronts, literary and historical. Fabienne Michelet points out that a major theme in Anglo-Saxon literature is “contested space.”7 The confl icts of so many works of Old English literature revolve around struggles for control of various spaces including the hall of Heorot in Beowulf, the beach in the Battle of Maldon, the mound in Guthlac A. The theme of contested space also underlies the Anglo-Saxon elegiac tradition, which gives expression to the nostalgia for lost, previously contested spaces. This theme carries over into the literature of the Middle English period, where we see the heroes of King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Sir Orfeo, and The Tale of Gamelyn, lose their kingdoms or inheritance, and subsequently their identity, enter into a period of exile, and reemerge at the end of the story to triumphantly reclaim their property. In each case, with the exception of Gamelyn, the story of the love interest is interwoven with the theme of exile and return, and in fact serves the larger project of restoration as the

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15

woman provides the hero with the opportunity to reveal himself and reassert his claims to his identity and property. The theme of exile and return, however, goes beyond the realm of literary entertainment in that poets of the Middle English period use these stories to revisit the cultural divide between Normans and Anglo-Saxons precipitated by the Conquest, and the clues to this divide are often hidden in plain sight. The English poets use specific cultural markers (styles of homes, landscapes, legal procedures, and methods of combat) to ground what looks like a general literary theme into the specific historical reality of post-Conquest England and the people who brought it about. Thus the figures invading and robbing the hero of his lands and identity use the specific tools of England’s historical invaders, Norman and, in some cases, Viking. Likewise, the English heroes interpret these violations to themselves and their property through an Anglo-Saxon worldview, and retaliate using the tools of Anglo-Saxon society. Some of these texts, such as King Horn, feature an enemy most commonly associated with the notion of conquest, that is, an external invading force, however, more often than not, conquest in these stories comes by way of an internal agent—a traitor, known and trusted by the hero. Here too, the historical picture proves enlightening, for the success of the Norman takeover came in part through Anglo-Saxon “turncoats” who betrayed their own people, a situation acknowledged openly in the English interpretations of the Conquest. The Middle English Life of Wulfstan, for instance, attributes much of the fall of England to weak lords, “Vor Englisse barons bycome somme vntriwe and fals also/To bitraie hom sulf and hore kyng ϸat so much triste ham to” (ll. 79–80).8 In fact, Wulfstan establishes a chain reaction of treason reaching all the way to Harold Godwinson, who “wiϸ traison alas/Þe croune he bar of Engelond wuch wile so it was/Ac William Bastard ϸat was ϸo duk of Normandie/Þoʒt to wynne Engelond” (ll. 61–64), while Harold himself was betrayed: “For hy ϸat Harald triste to faillede him wel vaste” (l. 85). This theme of betrayal from within occurs in English romance as well, for King Horn, Havelok the Dane, and Gamelyn all have the hero betrayed by an individual from his own household (King Mody and Fikenhild; Goddard and Godrich; Johan). Likewise, Sir Orfeo and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight both feature challengers who, though previously unknown to the hero, live in the same general region as the hero. In some cases, as with Fikenhild or Godrich, for instance, the traitor goes by an Anglo-Saxon name and appears to share Anglo-Saxon cultural background with the hero. Nevertheless, in all of these cases, the traitor or challenger applies tools and ideologies long associated with the conquering Normans, tools and ideologies not shared by the hero and his people, thus solidifying the cultural divide created by the Conquest across actual ethnic barriers. The divide, therefore, becomes a matter of mentality rather than exclusively one of race. Not surprising, the theme of exile and return (or “separation and restoration” according to Wittig) often occurs alongside the theme of death

16 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance of the father, so that the hero loses his property as a result of his father’s (sometimes violent) death.9 King Horn, Havelok the Dane, and The Tale of Gamelyn all begin with the death of the hero’s (and heroine’s in Havelok) father. Because of his death, the hero or heroine loses his or her lands, and the rest of the story has to do with his or her attempts to regain them. In each case, moreover, the death of the father marks a rift between the old culture and the new, between pre-Conquest ways of doing things and postConquest political realities. The dead father belongs to the old culture, and the hero must navigate on his own through various unfamiliar and often hostile spaces and experiences of Norman design, including buildings, landscapes, and judiciary procedures. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight too, while not featuring the hero’s father in life or in death, nevertheless presents a father figure, King Arthur, Gawain’s uncle, with whom the hero remains powerfully identified from beginning to end, and whose court bears a pre-Conquest cultural picture. Thus, an Anglo-Saxon father culture, represented by fathers in these stories, comes under direct attack, and the hero or heroine’s task involves defending and restoring everything it represents. In this sense, these stories recast the widespread political trauma of the Conquest as personal trauma, using a specific family or household to revisit the political misfortunes of the many. The old father culture represented in these stories fi nds expression in the hero’s social bonds, where male companionship takes precedence, yet another feature that distinguishes English from French romance. One key feature of how confl ict unfolds in the English romances in question concerns the prominence of the hero’s companions throughout, a presence that recalls the Warrior Band of Anglo-Saxon tradition. Unlike the heroes of French romance who insist upon venturing out alone, the English heroes Horn, Havelok, King Orfeo, and Gamelyn all fight with a band of supporters, never alone. Variously known as the Retainer Band, the War Band, or in Latin, comitatus, the institution of the Warrior Band reflects the social structure of Anglo-Saxon culture and warfare.10 Lords at all levels of society, whether king, aetheling, or ealdorman, maintained a loyal band of warriors, some of them his own kin, who lived in his hall, ate at his table, and in return fought on his behalf. The lord-retainer relationship was highly personal, reciprocal, and lifelong, bestowing benefit and honor on both sides. The historical reality of the Warrior Band became a literary topos as well in the form of recurring scenes throughout Anglo-Saxon poetry involving a band of loyal retainers defending, serving, and/or avenging their lord, mostly famously exemplified in the Battle of Maldon.11 So pervasive is the concept of the band of retainers in Anglo-Saxon tradition that Old English adaptations of classical Latin and biblical texts will introduce imagery of the social institution of the Warrior Band where it may be lacking in the original. Thus, in his translation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy into Old English, King Alfred expands a single phrase characterizing corrupt earthly kings “saeptos tristibus armis” (“surrounded by

Plotting Conquest

17

forbidding arms”) into a scene evoking the Warrior Band in the hall.12 Similarly, the Old English Genesis A casts the prelapsarian heavenly angels as loyal thegns to their lord in the heavenly hall.13 The Warrior Band as a cornerstone of native English society and warfare survives into the Middle English period, where it continues to shape cultural identity in a literary context. This takes primarily two forms. First, we have combat scenes, where the hero fights alongside a group of loyal companions, as seen in King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Sir Orfeo, and Gamelyn. Such is the case even when the story line of a hero fighting for his lady would seem to call for single combat, as in Sir Orfeo and portions of King Horn. Second, we see in the influence of the Warrior Band in the hero’s social sphere, which frequently includes a small group of loyal male companions who nearly always accompany the hero on key missions as well as into battle. Such is the case for Horn, Havelok, and Gamelyn. In the case of Horn and Havelok, in particular, comparison with AngloNorman versions of the same stories reveals how the English poet adds and/or expands the presence of male companions for the hero where none exist in the French, suggesting adherence to Anglo-Saxon literary tradition. Thus, unlike the hero of French romance, whose knightly success is conditional on the solo quest, the hero of many English romances, even one like Gawain who ventures alone into the wilderness, remains, in mind if not in body, fi rmly oriented toward his male companions, all of whom, as we shall see, live in a hall. Defending and restoring the old father culture takes a variety of forms in these romances. The specifics may vary, but the underlying pattern is the same. The Middle English King Horn presents two invading forces, seemingly disconnected from one another, who together form a panorama of the historical invaders of Anglo-Saxon England, Viking as well as Norman. The Middle English Havelok the Dane unfolds a geography of conquest, reshaping an earlier Lincolnshire legend to include the whole of England, and using the occasion of political conquest in Denmark to invite a reexamination of the Conquest of England. The Middle English Sir Orfeo presents a tale of two kings, one styled as an Anglo-Saxon and one as a Norman, and reenacts the Conquest scenario of invasion, exile, and return by way of striving for some degree of social parity between conqueror and conquered. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight invokes the Anglo-Saxon type-scene of the monster in the hall, merging the invader of Anglo-Saxon literary imagination with the newer, far more fashionable invader of post-Conquest England. Finally, The Tale of Gamelyn stages a contest between AngloSaxon and Norman legal institutions and procedures through a courtroom struggle between two brothers over their inheritances. These poems span a period of roughly 175 years (c. 1225–1400), the earliest, King Horn, dating almost 200 years after the Conquest; yet again and again, we fi nd English poets revisiting the events, consequences, and lingering injustices wrought by the Norman Conquest from the vantage of the Anglo-Saxon people. I

18 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance should say at the outset that these English texts do not identify the problem explicitly by using proper names and terms such as “Norman” or “Norman Conquest.” Rather, they provide oblique, yet copious and highly incriminating evidence in the form of material culture. Without necessarily naming it, these texts compulsively work out the dynamics of the Conquest and the peoples involved, using configurations of detail that leave no mistake as to the ultimate origin for the experiences depicted.

KING HORN The theme of conquest is presented from the very beginning of English romance, in the Middle English King Horn, dating to c. 1225, the earliest extant English romance.14 Given its setting in pre-Conquest England and given its explicit references to “England” as a geographic and political space, King Horn is commonly classified among the “Matter of England” romances.15 Furthering the connection to pre-Conquest concerns, the poem survives in three manuscripts, one of which also contains the South English Legendary, a compilation of Saint’s Lives, many of them of Anglo-Saxon figures.16 King Horn tells the story of the son of King Murry and Queen Goldhild of Sudene. When enemies invade, killing the king and seizing the kingdom, young Horn finds himself exiled with a small group of companions. His years of exile take him fi rst to Westernesse, where he falls in love with a girl named Rymenhild only to be betrayed to her father by a trusted friend and sent into exile again. He sails to Ireland where he serves King Thurston and continues to prove his mettle on the battlefield. Meanwhile, Rymenhild faces two attempts at forced marriage, fi rst with King Mody and then with Fikenhild, prompting Horn to come to her rescue twice, a feat that coincides with his reclamation of his lost kingdom. Despite its pre-Conquest setting, Horn’s value as a testament to Anglo-Saxon cultural experience has been somewhat compromised by scholarly claims against the poem’s historicity, claims that overlook the poem’s connection with conquest because the people and place names do not clearly correspond to specific historical antecedents. Most of the character names of the poem (Murry, Godhild, Mody, Fikenhild, and Horn) as well as place names (Westernesse, Sudene), with the exception of “England” and “Ireland,” do not correspond clearly with any historical people or places.17 Scholars have, therefore, often relegated the poem’s major plot details to the infinitely flexible and ultimately noncommittal realm of folklore, arguing for the poem’s “distinct facelessness.”18 Looking past the names, however, we fi nd recognizable people and circumstances that defi ned Anglo-Saxon experience, notably in the forms of the enemy. In its handling of loss, exile, and return, King Horn presents two sets of enemies who appear to have nothing to do with one another. On the one hand, we have the external enemies, termed “Saracens,” who arrive by ship,

Plotting Conquest

19

invade, and conquer the hero’s kingdom, and who impose their heathen value system on the kingdom’s Christian subjects. Their presence in the poem creates a world “where enemies are a threatening reality, rather than a chivalric ritual,” and, as in heroic epic, they fight in large-scale, military encounters.19 On the other, we have the internal traitors (King Mody and Fikenhild), one of whom (Fikenhild) is a member of the hero’s own household, who exploit internal confidences and connections, establish themselves in impressive castles, and attempt to steal the hero’s love interest. Unlike the external enemy, these internal enemies operate through intimate channels on intimate matters of the heart, though their effect proves every bit as hostile. These two sets of enemies operate quite independently from one another in the poem and elicit diametrically opposed responses from the hero. Whereas the external invaders enable the hero to publicly assert his royal identity and manly prowess on the battlefield, the internal enemies force the hero to hide his royal identity and assume a weak, beggar status in his efforts to rescue his love. I would argue that in their tactics against the hero and his own responses to them, these two enemies together form part of the same tapestry of Anglo-Saxon history, representing two different invading forces in England’s past, the Viking and the Norman. 20 The question at the outset is, would an English audience, over a century after the Conquest, compare the Norman invaders of the eleventh century with the Viking invaders of previous centuries? Does the double-invader narrative I argue for in King Horn appear elsewhere in post-Conquest writing? According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it would seem so. In the entry for the year 1137, the chronicler describes at length the heinous crimes against the native English people perpetrated by the newly settled Norman aristocracy, identified solidly by their newly built castle homes. After listing the various forms of torture imposed on the Anglo-Saxon population by these “devils and wicked men,” the chronicler puts this period of English experience within a wider historical context, saying “There had never been till then greater misery in the country, nor had the heathen ever done worse than [the Normans] did.”21 This passage provides clear evidence that a post-Conquest English audience could, and did, liken the Norman invaders to the Viking invaders and, in fact, judge them more harshly than the heathen. The question of the “Englishness” of King Horn is complicated by the survival of an earlier twelfth-century Anglo-Norman version, The Romance of Horn (1170), attributed to a poet called “Thomas,” leading scholar to speculate whether the Middle English King Horn represents an English story with French aspirations, or an Anglicized French story. While most scholars believe the Romance of Horn constitutes an analogue to, rather than a source for, the later English King Horn, probably sharing a common source, certain features of the poem suggest clear French influence. 22 In addition to sharing many of the same plot features, the two poems both identify the invading forces as “Saracens” (the standard enemies of the chanson de geste), and they both use love as a motivating factor for the

20 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance hero, which would seem to argue for the French origin of King Horn. 23 The use of the term “sarazins” (l. 38ff.), in particular, to designate the invading enemy in both versions of the story has led at least one scholar to argue for a closer textual relationship, since Saracens feature so prominently behind enemy lines in Anglo-Norman and continental Old French literature, yet seem so inappropriate to the pre-Conquest English setting of King Horn. 24 Nevertheless, whatever the precise relationship between the two versions, the English poem keeps the story of Horn much more narrowly focused in England, both geographically and culturally. The Old French Romance of Horn is quite international in scope in that it presents an English hero who falls in love with a woman from Brittany and who fights a Muslim enemy, while the poem includes further references to areas of France, Spain, and Italy, not to mention Ireland. 25 The geographic scope of the poem replicates the Norman political arena, including major crusading fronts, and lends prominence to a key political resource for the Norman Conquest of England, Brittany. 26 The hero too of the Old French Romance of Horn shares in the international mission of spreading the faith common to all crusading heroes of medieval French literature and bears a sword inscribed with the name of God (ll. 1,381–1,382). 27 By contrast, the Middle English King Horn presents an English hero concerned with preserving his English kingdom, who falls in love with an English woman, and who fights an enemy bearing strong resemblance to the familiar Viking invaders of the English past, despite their Saracen name tag. Thus, as I discuss in greater detail below, while the term “sarazin” invites comparison between English and Anglo-Norman versions of the story of Horn, the English version of the story does not replicate the cultural diversity or missionary vision characteristic of the Old French Romance of Horn. Therefore, rather than envisioning an English poet trying very hard to imitate newer French literary forms, it may be more useful to envision an English poet trying to make a story which deals with English history, but which also happens to survive in a French version, feel more English. 28 Scholars and editors have long noted how the “Saracens” of King Horn recall the Viking invaders of Anglo-Saxon England.29 They arrive by surprise on the coast in a fleet of “Schipes fiftene” (l. 37), with clear hostile intent, exclaiming “‘Þi lond folk we schulle slon/And alle ϸat Crist luueϸ vpon/And ϸe selue riʒt anon,/Ne schaltu todai henne gon’” (ll. 43–46). Like the historical Viking invaders, they are non-Christian and are hence labeled “payn” (l. 41, “pagan”), thus in this passage and elsewhere throughout the poem, they pose an unmistakable threat to the Christian faith of the people of this land. Likewise, they wreck devastation not only on the people but also on the “churchen” (l. 62). Finally, Horn and his father before him consistently encounter these “Saracens” in spaces historically associated with Viking invaders, namely beaches and coastal lands, and the encounters always involve one mode of interaction, namely fighting, the same mode of interaction that dominated Anglo-Saxon/Viking relations. In an

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oft-cited study, Diane Speed later argued for a more literal and literary interpretation of the “Saracens” as Muslims derived from French literary tradition rather than English historical experience, but her argument has failed to persuade modern editors. 30 To be sure, the English poet imported the term “Saracens,” as well as “Admirad” (l. 89, “emir”) directly from the Old French Romance of Horn, which refers to the raiding pirates that beleaguer Horn’s land as “Saracens.” Speed’s study regarding the Saracens in King Horn argues for an English poet attempting to imitate French literary forms and values. However, a comparison of the Anglo-Norman and Middle English versions of the Horn story reveals that the English poet Anglicizes the enemy portrait. What exactly did an English audience understand by the term “saracen”? Speed suggests that this term must refer to Middle Eastern peoples and hence references a French, crusading context. However, a closer look at how both Horn and other Middle English texts employ the term suggests it can also stand generically for a pagan adversary such as Vikings. The Horn-poet adapts the Saracens into an enemy more familiar to the English audience, into Vikings, in several revealing ways. First, he introduces canine imagery into his portrayal of the Saracens, so that in addition to “sarazins” (l. 38ff.) and “payns” (l. 41ff., pagans), they are referred to as “hundes” (“dogs,” ll. 601, 611, 831, 881) or “heϸene honde” (“heathen dog,” l. 598), a common derogatory term for Vikings in Old English literature.31 While the term “heathen dog” elsewhere in Middle English literature can refer to a Muslim foe, the very characterization of a heathen enemy as dog-like is a distinctly English attribution rooted in their history of fighting Vikings.32 Hence, by contrast, canine imagery does not factor into the depiction of the Saracens in the Old French Romance of Horn. 33 Moreover, the term “Saracen” referring to an enemy in an English poem by no means precludes Scandinavian origins. 34 For instance, the Middle English Of Arthour and of Merlin (1250–1300) features an attack by “kyng Angys of Denemark/And many a Sarsyn stout and stark” (ll. 19–20), and later mentions “mony Sarsyn stout and stark/Of Saxoyne and of Denemark” (ll. 75–76), demonstrating the use of the term “Saracen” to refer to Germanic, not Middle Eastern, enemies.35 Any ambiguity surrounding the cultural identity of the “Sarazins” in King Horn becomes similarly clarified in the later fourteenth-century Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild, which identifies the invaders who arrive by ship explicitly as “houndes. . . . /Out of Danmark” (ll. 42, 49ff.) while setting the story clearly in the north of England in territory known to have endured Viking incursions. 36 The example of Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild demonstrates that the longer the story circulates in English, the more pronounced its Anglo-Saxon historical context becomes. Second, the Horn-poet further characterizes the Saracens as Viking invaders in how the English people respond to them. For example, right from the start, Horn’s father, King Murry, employs Anglo-Saxon battle tactic when

22 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance he and his two companions encounter the invaders on the shoreline. The king and his companions are on horseback, out riding for pleasure, when they spy “Schipes fi ftene/with sarazins kene” (ll. 37–38). The king rides toward them and questions them as to their intentions. When they respond with hostility, “Þe kyng aliʒte of his stede,/For ϸo he hauede nede,/& his gode kniʒtes two” (ll. 47–49). Rather than drawing their swords and charging the Saracens on horseback, the king and his companions dismount in order to fight. We fi nd this same tactic employed in the Battle of Maldon, where Byrhtnoth orders one of his men to dismount and drive off his horse in preparation for battle with the Viking invaders (Het ϸa hyssa hwaene hors forlaetan,/feor afysan, and forᵭ gangan, ll. 2–3). While the AngloSaxons rode horses to the battle, they did not generally ride horses into battle, since their fighting style favored infantry. 37 In the later fourteenthcentury Horne Childe and Maiden Rimnild, in the comparable scene where Horn’s father dies fighting Danish invaders, the poet says King Hatheolf (cf. Murry) “on fot stode” (l. 205) on the battlefield, surrounded by his army.38 Thus, in both English versions of the Horn story, the hero’s father dies at the hands of Viking invaders in a large-scale battle, fighting on foot, recalling the method and all-too-frequent outcome of Anglo-Saxon confrontations with the Vikings. Anglo-Saxon battle tactic appears later, in Ireland, when Horn and his men are challenged to a duel by the heathen giant. 39 The setting is a Germanic-style hall.40 Horn and his allies “gunnen vt ride/And funden on a grene/A geaunt suϸe kene” (ll. 850–852), and the poet does not specify whether they dismount to fight at this point. However, after Horn defeats the giant, “Horn & his compaynye/Gunne after hem wel swiϸe hiʒe/& sloʒen alle ϸe hundes/Er hi here schipes funde” (ll. 879–882). Here, the poet employs the Anglo-Saxon battle tactic of pursuit of a retreating enemy, referred to here as “hundes” (l. 889). Anglo-Saxon armies, in general, maintained a three-pronged strategy of infantry warfare. First, they formed a defensive formation known as the shield wall (scyld truma) designed to exhaust the enemy arsenal, a tactic which I discuss at greater length below; the second stage involved breaking the defensive formation (or a portion of it) and engaging the enemy in hand-to-hand combat on foot; if this second stage did not result in certain defeat, the Anglo-Saxon army entered into a third and fi nal stage of pursuit. If the enemy turned to retreat from the battlefield, the Anglo-Saxons would chase after them to prevent escape. This was especially important when fighting the Vikings since they typically struck by surprise and quickly reboarded their longships only to reappear elsewhere, a strategy that enabled them to penetrate deeply along rivers. The pursuit could take place either on foot, or on horseback, as Anglo-Saxon soldiers remounted their horses following the battle to fully surround the remaining enemy, dismount, and fight them again.41 This often formed the bloodiest stage of combat in such encounters, and English forces would maintain this strategy until dark.42 Asser relates this strategy at the battle

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at Wilton of 871, where Alfred and a few of his men chase the retreating Danes, who suddenly turn on their pursuers and defeat them.43 To similar effect, the later Norman forces exploited this English battle tactic at the Battle of Hastings by feigning retreat, luring the Anglo-Saxons into pursuing them, thus breaking the defensive shield wall that had so depleted Norman archers and spearmen.44 This strategy of pursuit following battle was designed to not simply defeat, but destroy, an enemy. Both of these instances of combat in King Horn, performed within the context of invasion in a landscape undefended by castles or fortresses, contrast with the methods and circumstances of French chivalric literature. While the chanson de geste, like Horn, generally portrays large-scale combat with far-reaching political implications, the motivation for and tactics of combat in Horn could not be more different. First, the larger circumstances of the chansons are not those of sustained invasion from the perspective of the invaded people. Quite the contrary, they tend to extend the story of conquest from the invader’s perspective through crusading on foreign soil, so perfected by the Normans with both the sword and the pen. Second, the mode of combat tends to revolve around siege warfare in a landscape dominated by fortresses, with field combat generally performed on horseback, not on foot, quite unlike what we see in Horn.45 The English poet, by contrast, portrays two important Anglo-Saxon battle tactics that Horn and his father employ against the invading party of “hundes” (code for “Vikings”), thus capturing the ethos of Anglo-Saxon society and its historical enemies. Above all, the Saracens encountered and fought by Horn in King Horn prompt the hero to defi ne his personal and cultural identity in the same way the Anglo-Saxons defi ned themselves against the heathen Vikings. While in Ireland, Horn fi nally gets the chance to avenge his father’s death and the wrong done to his kingdom, an encounter that enables him to assert his royal identity and military prowess. Upon being subdued by Horn, the heathen giant claims “hi nevre nadde/Of knighte dentes so harde-/Bote of King Murry/That wes swithe sturdy./He was of Hornes kunne,/Y-born in Suddene” (ll. 869–874).46 This encounter reveals Horn’s true identity on every level, familial, royal, geographic, cultural, and, by extension, religious. Horn immediately claims and defends this identity when he “”smot him ϸureʒ ϸe herte” (l. 875), thus avenging his father’s death and the loss of his land. Horn and his companions promptly chase down the remaining “hundes” (l. 881) and strike a decisive victory, asserting their military valor. Likewise, Anglo-Saxon texts such as the Battle of Maldon, assert and celebrate Anglo-Saxon, Christian identity and military prowess even in the face of defeat. The Anglo-Saxon warriors on the beach, despite inferior numbers or unwise tactical decisions, have nothing to hide, and the poet identifies individual men within all ranks by name, affording them fame and honor in battle, despite defeat in trying to defend their homeland. Horn’s honor and prowess against his heathen enemy grows more distinctive as an

24 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance expression of Anglo-Saxon cultural experience when we contrast it with his relationship with the other enemy in King Horn. In addition to repeatedly facing the seafaring raiders on the beach, Horn must contend with enemies closer to home and heart. If the former correlate to the Viking invaders of Anglo-Saxon history, the latter correlate to the Norman invaders of the Conquest era. Fikenhild and King Mody, who have little to do with one another, and nothing to do with the raiders on the beach, would at first appear to share the same basic cultural identity as the hero, Horn. Fikenhild is Horn’s friend, as far as Horn is concerned, a member of his own household akin to Horn’s close companion Athulf. Along with Athulf, he follows Horn into exile, residing at the domain of King Aylmar. Only later does Horn realize that Fikenhild is “ϸe wurste moder child” (l. 648). King Mody of Reynes, likewise, seems to have no distinguishing cultural designation, though he, unlike Fikenhild, is introduced immediately as “On of hornes enemis” (l. 952). However, several things about Fikenhild and King Mody align them with the Norman invaders of the Conquest. First, as I discuss at greater length in the next chapter, both men share a predilection for castle architecture. The fact that they live in Norman-style castles would not seem all that remarkable if it were not for the fact that Horn and his many allies and supporters clearly do not live in castles, residing instead in dwellings characterized as halls, the domestic architecture of Anglo-Saxon England. The case of Fikenhild, in particular, affords a rare instance in Middle English literature of a castle under construction, and Fikenhild’s motivation for building it accords with the historical function of castles in England as tools of overlordship. Second, unlike the seafaring raiders, who challenge Horn in the political and military sphere, both Fikenhild and King Mody affect the hero in the intimate sphere. They both, at different times, attempt forced marriage with Rymenhild, threatening the hero’s love interest. Thus, the Norman style of their castle dwellings corresponds to the love elements in the story, reflecting the literary influence introduced to England by the Normans, namely chivalric romance. Third, and likewise, Horn interacts with both Fikenhild and King Mody primarily in intimate, domestic spaces, not on battlefields. Even when Horn enters the feasting halls of Fikenhild and Mody, the perspective remains essentially intimate and personal given the secret nature of Horn’s mission. Finally, as I discuss more fully in Chapter 4, Horn must respond to Fikenhild and King Mody in the completely opposite way he responds to the Viking raiders. Whereas the raiders enable Horn to assert his royal identity and military valor, Fikenhild and King Mody force Horn to hide his royal identity through disguise and restrain his military valor until the last possible moment. They force him to play a delicate social game, in domestic spaces unfamiliar to him, having to do with matters of love, precisely the terms of interaction dictated to the Anglo-Saxons by the Norman colonists. At fi rst glance, it would seem that the Horn-poet fully embraces the fusion of combat and love so characteristic of French literature. Indeed, we

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see French influence perhaps most vividly in the scenes of combat and trial. Before agreeing to betroth Rymenhild, Horn insists upon proving himself militarily, saying “‘Mid spere ischal furst ride,/& mi kniʒthod proue,/Ar ihc ϸe ginne to woʒe’” (ll. 544–546), thus linking prowess and love, as in French romance. Likewise, when Horn fights some “sarazins” to prove his worthiness to Rymenhild (ll. 611–613), or faces the heathen giant while in Ireland (ll. 872–876), or later infi ltrates the castle of Fikenhild to rescue his love (ll. 1,483–1,484), Horn needs only look at the ring Rymenhild gave him to fi nd the strength needed to triumph, again linking love of a woman to martial success.47 The ring itself shares certain key features with a similar ring found in the Old French Yvain: just as Laudine gives Yvain a ring to protect him in the tournaments during the year ahead, so Rymenhild gives Horn a ring that will embolden him against his enemies. Combat in Horn, therefore, seems decidedly French in how it serves, and is served by, the love interest. However, despite the female presence behind the hero’s martial activity in Horn, several qualifying details distance it from the French chivalric tradition. First, though Horn must prove himself worthy of Rymenhild’s love through feats on the battlefield and though, like a French knight, he insists on doing this alone, he himself sets the conditions of this challenge, rather than Rymenhild, and he passes this test almost as soon as he starts it, in less than thirty lines (ll. 595–24).48 Shortly after returning to court triumphantly, he enters Rymenhild’s bower, ready to woo her (l. 649). While such quick and concise action is typical of this poem in general, the brevity of this rather important heroic test comes in sharp contrast to French romance, where the martial testing of the hero for the sake of love is a prolonged activity that consumes the better part of the narrative.49 Other things, therefore, are more important to Horn’s development. Second, while the ring Rymenhild bestows on Horn seems akin to the ring Laudine bestows on Yvain in its protective function, unlike in Yvain, where the ring affords physical protection against fatal wounding, in Horn the ring affords psychological protection only. 50 The ring, therefore, never compromises his manhood or agency on the battlefield by giving him unfair advantage over his opponents. Third, while Rymenhild figures prominently in the hero’s career, as in French romance, in following chapters, we shall see how Rymenhild herself moves within an AngloSaxon cultural milieu both in terms of her home in an Anglo-Saxon style hall, and her performance of the domestic ritual as the lady with the mead cup. 51 Thus, her role in the hero’s life may mimic that of French romance, but she fulfi lls this role within English parameters. In sum, while love underlies combat in King Horn, indicating French influence, it does so in ways that are atypical of French romance and more consistent with the poem’s Anglo-Saxon concerns. Perhaps the most telling way the Horn poet modifies the love element in the narrative has to do with the figure of Athulf, Horn’s closest companion,

26 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance for whom Horn also fights. In contrast to French romance, which prioritizes the love between a man and a woman, Anglo-Saxon tradition prioritizes the love among men, as encoded in the comitatus ideal, and we see this latter priority at play in King Horn.52 A comparison between the Old French Romance of Horn and the Middle English King Horn, in this regard, proves especially revealing. In the parallel Old French Romance of Horn, Haderof, the counterpart to Athulf, plays a similar role as Horn’s companion, but his role in the hero’s life remains distinct from that of Rigmel (cf. Rimenhild). In King Horn, however, Rymenhild rarely enters into the action without Athulf, and many of Horn’s gestures toward Rymenhild are paralleled by similar gestures toward Athulf. For example, when Rymenhild summons Horn to her bower to declare her love, Athelbrus arranges for Athulf to take Horn’s stead in this meeting, and in so doing Athulf shares in Horn’s relationship with Rymenhild. When Rymenhild bestows the famous ring on Horn, she tells him “‘And sire Aϸulf, ϸi broϸer,/He schal haue anoϸer’” (ll. 577–578), though we never see Athulf’s ring in action. (In the Old French Romance of Horn, Haderof does not receive a ring as Athulf does.) Similarly, when Horn rescues Rymenhild from the castle of King Mody, he also rescues Athulf, who is imprisoned in one of the castle towers. From this tower, moreover, Athulf laments his failure to fulfill his duty to Horn of protecting Rymenhild, thus restating his bond to his male companion (ll. 1,098–1,104) as Horn himself reaffi rms his bonds to both of them. (No such lament by Haderof occurs in the Old French Romance of Horn, nor does Horn rescue Haderof along with Rigmel.) After freeing Rymenhild and Athulf, Horn returns to his own land intending to reclaim it and, disembarking, “He tok aϸulf bi honde/& vp he ʒede to londe” (ll. 1,299–1,300). Horn later repeats this same gesture, on the same shoreline, at the end when “Horn tok Rymenhild bi ϸe honde/& ladde hure to ϸe stronde” (ll. 1,499–1,500) along with Athelbrus. At every juncture where Horn interacts with Rymenhild, Athulf is not far off. Thus, the hero’s relationship with Rymenhild coincides with his relationship with Athulf, and the two relationships often share the same choreography, placing the bond between men on an equal footing with the bond between the man and the woman. The hero may fight for Rymenhild, but he also fights for Athulf. The bonds among men so central to Anglo-Saxon tradition assert themselves still further in the prominence of the hero’s other companions, whose presence and function evoke the Anglo-Saxon Warrior Band. Unlike the hero of French chivalric romance, who insists on facing his challenges alone, the hero of English literary tradition enters into confl ict surrounded by a small band of loyal companions, or band of retainers. We see the tradition of the Anglo-Saxon Warrior Band reflected in the Middle English King Horn. Right from the start, Horn faces adversity surrounded by his own people. When the heathen king invades Horn’s land and kills his father, he exiles Horn along with other children of the realm (ll. 91–114). By the time they arrive on the shores of King Aylmar’s land, Horn has become their

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leader and “spak for hem alle,/vor so hit moste biualle;/He was ϸe faireste/& of wit ϸe beste” (ll. 171–174). When Horn reaches manhood at Aylmar’s court, the king announces that he will knight Horn, who will in turn, knight “‘alle his feren twelf’” (l. 489). Most interesting, King Aylmar states twice Horn’s role in knighting his twelve companions, thus stressing his role as a leader of his people despite his present status as a knight in Aylmar’s service.53 Also, at this critical milestone in the hero’s career, he identifies Horn’s companions not as the unspecified number of “children” (ll. 111, 120) or “‘Feren . . . ʒonge’” (l. 127) he arrived with, but as his “feren twelf” (ll. 489, 496, from the Old English gefera), a number that not only accords with the apostles, but also roughly with that of the retainer band, and therefore positions them toward the hero as specifically fighting companions. These companions later aid him in battle in Ireland against the heathen giant, where they chase after and kill the retreating enemy before they, like Vikings, can reach their ships (ll. 879–882). When Horn later heads to Westernesse to rescue Rymenhild from King Mody, the poet mentions Horn’s companions (“twelf ferin”), now including King Aylmar, who wait to assist him in a nearby wood (l. 1,242). Having rescued Rymenhild and Athulf, Horn boards a ship along “Wiϸ his yrisse felaʒes” (l. 1,290, Old Norse felagi), an unclear designation that nevertheless situates Horn within a small group of supporters. (Horn’s “Irish men” here seems to refer to men who fought with him in Ireland, rather than Irish men.54) Arriving back home in Suddene, ready to retake his kingdom, Horn, unrecognized, hears from a sentinel how the young Horn had been exiled years ago with “‘Tuelf felaʒes’” (l. 1,338), and Horn announces “‘Icom to Sudenne/Wiϸ mine irisse menne’” (ll. 1,365–1,366) who will teach the heathens “‘To speken vre speche’” (l. 1,368). Although Horn appears to have both arrived in Ireland, and to have left Ireland for Westernesse alone, the poet mentions his companions at each place as Horn enters into a life-threatening situation, surrounding the hero with fighting companions.55 Thus in number, military function, and social status with respect to the hero, the companions of King Horn replicate the role of the retainer band of Anglo-Saxon tradition. Finally, in addition to fighting within a community, the characters of King Horn fight for the community, further situating the poem within Anglo-Saxon literary tradition where combat is linked to community, not to romantic love. Unlike the hero of the French chivalric tradition, who typically fights alone and for personal reasons, the characters of King Horn continually fight in response to threats to the entire land.56 At the beginning of the story, Horn’s father, King Murry, fights Saracens on the shore who, upon being asked, announce they wish to slay “‘Þi lond folk’” (l. 43) as well as Murry and his two companions. He dies fighting to defend his community. Later in the narrative, Horn fi nds a similar ship of Saracens who, when asked, announce “‘Þis lond we wulleʒ wynne’” (l. 603). Although this happens to serve as the test of Horn’s worthiness to woo Rymenhild, he fights to defend “ϸis lond,” not just himself. Likewise, in Ireland, Horn fights the

28 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance Saracen giant who announces that, should King Thurston’s side fail the contest, “‘Al ϸis lond schal vre beo’” (l. 816). During the contest itself, Horn then learns that this same giant killed his own father. Thus, in Horn’s duel with the giant, he defends the people of Ireland while also avenging the wrong done to his father and, by extension, his own people. Finally, Horn slays Fikenhild and his followers partly of course to rescue Rymenhild, but also as part of his larger design to reclaim his kingdom, which Fikenhild has betrayed. In this way, the combat in King Horn consistently serves the wider community, even when it serves the love interest. Thus, while Horn, like the hero of French romance, may draw strength to fight from his love of Rymenhild, the matters of whom, how, and why Horn fights derive from Anglo-Saxon tradition.

HAVELOK THE DANE: THE GEOGRAPHY OF CONQUEST Like King Horn, the Middle English Havelok the Dane, dated between 1295 and 1310, revolves around circumstances of political conquest, and like Horn, it features internal traitors who model themselves on the Norman invaders.57 The fact that the single complete manuscript of Havelok survives in the same manuscript as King Horn furthers the family resemblance of these two stories.58 Unlike Horn, however, Havelok the Dane does not portray anything like the Viking threat, focusing more narrowly on the later, Norman invasion, which it encodes largely through geography. Havelok the Dane is known for its rather specific place names (Winchester, Dover, London, to name a few). Significantly, its particular place names, however, differ from those of earlier versions of the story of Havelok. Twelfth-century versions of the legend, Geffrei Gaimar’s Anglo-Norman L’Estoire des Engleis (History of the English People) and the anonymous Anglo-Norman Lai d’Haveloc (Lay of Havelok), both confi ne the story to the region of Lincolnshire. Gaimar tells of two kings from neighboring kingdoms in Lincolnshire. The Lai d’Haveloc too situates the story squarely in that same region. The Prose Brut, which makes use of various versions of the Havelok legend, including Gaimar and the Middle English Havelok, also restricts the story to the region of Lincolnshire. 59 Both French versions, therefore, treat the story of Havelok as a regional legend. The Middle English Havelok the Dane, however, transforms this regional legend into a national one in part by extending the geographic boundaries of the story to cover all of England, one of the chief ways the poem presents a “consciously constructed and foregrounded England.”60 It also references more Lincolnshire history than earlier versions of the legend, thus extending the political and social influence of this single region. Thorlac Turville-Petre and others read Havelok the Dane in light of contemporary, thirteenth-century political circumstances, arguing that the expanded geographic scope of the poem constitutes a gesture of integration, an attempt

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to address current, national political issues that affect disparate English peoples, places, and interests, including those of Lincolnshire.61 I would argue instead that the poet of Havelok the Dane looks to the past, not the present, and uses geography to segregate key aspects of native English, that is Anglo-Saxon, identity from nonnative, Norman identity through places, spaces, and historical figures that bear powerful association with AngloSaxon England and the events of the Norman Conquest. Political readings of Havelok the Dane that situate the poem in the present, within the contemporary thirteenth-century political affairs of the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), tend to emphasize the abuse of royal power in general while ignoring the rather overt theme of conquest, on two national fronts, that pervades the poem.62 The poem concerns political usurpation in two countries, England and Denmark. In both countries, the monarch dies before his children are of age, precipitating disputed regencies in both countries. The poem tells the parallel stories of Havelok and Goldeboru, the one heir to the Danish throne, and the other heiress to the English throne. Both of them lose their fathers (and kings) in childhood and fall victim to greedy usurpers who rob them of their inheritance. In the case of Havelok, he and his sisters are imprisoned by Goddard, who soon afterward kills the sisters and sends the boy off to be killed by a servant. The servant, Grim, saves the boy and escapes with his family to England where they support themselves as fishermen. In England, the political situation is further complicated by the lack of a male heir. The heiress, young Goldeboru, fi nds herself similarly imprisoned and impoverished by an evil usurper, Godrich, who seeks to rule the country himself, shirking the concept of a female ruler. The Middle English version of the story imitates earlier versions in setting the story equally in Denmark and England, but it nevertheless modifies the story’s English geography and political priorities in ways that link this story’s theme of political usurpation with the more famous story of the political usurpation of England wrought by the Normans, an event similarly sparked by a crisis of succession. In arguing for a “geography of conquest” in Havelok the Dane, it is important at the outset to establish that English poets and audiences of the post-Conquest period retained a historical awareness of how their land changed with the Conquest. Havelok the Dane appears in a thirteenthcentury manuscript that also contains a version of the South English Legendary (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 108), a collection of saints’ lives, including a number of Anglo-Saxon lives, surviving in sixtyfive manuscripts of various lengths and configurations. In her study of the Anglo-Saxon lives contained in the South English Legendary, Jill Frederick identifies geography as a notable component in these narratives, in particular how geography forms one of several links between past and present.63 For instance, in the Life of St. Edward the Martyr, the poet notes that “A chapele ϸare is arerd: ase ϸat holie bodi lai/In ϸe toun of warygne: ϸat stant ʒeot to ϸis dai” (l. 117–118).64 The same life of St. Edward notes that in the

30 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance town of Corfe, “A strong castel ϸare is nouϸe: ake ϸe ʒuyt nas non ϸere” (l. 49), castles being specifically a post-Conquest element in the landscape not present earlier. Similarly, the Life of St. Wulfstan (Wolston) speaks of how William the Conqueror “mid vnriʒhte hadde i-sched: mania ne mannes blod,” prompting him to ease his guilty conscience by erecting an abbey on the battlefield “‘ϸe Abbeie of ϸe bataille’ is cleoped: ϸat wel noble stand ʒeot ϸere” (l. 96–98). Phrases like “ʒeot to ϸis dai,” “ϸe ʒuyt nas non ϸere,” and “stand ʒeot ϸere” make explicit comparisons between events of the past, in many cases events of the Conquest, and today’s landscape, using geography to tell history. Thus, the pattern of historical geography seen in Havelok the Dane participates in a larger awareness of English geography, over time, found throughout the South English Legendary. There can be little doubt that Havelok the Dane is a story as much, if not more, about England than Denmark. When we compare the Middle English poem with earlier Anglo-Norman versions, we see that the poet consistently prioritizes English identity, geography, and politics, starting with the title. The single manuscript of the poem announces Havelok as “Rex Anglie et Denmarchie,” not only including England in the holdings of this Danish heir, but placing it fi rst in the list. Indeed, manuscript evidence from Laud Misc. 108 suggests that “Denmarchie” was added almost as an afterthought.65 Second, the story of Havelok begins not with Havelok, but with the English king, Athelwold, an arrangement of material by no means consistent in earlier versions. The Old French Lai d’Haveloc, for example, begins with Havelok’s father, Gunter, in Denmark and only later introduces the affairs of King Ekenbright and his heir, Argentille, in England. Gaimar’s version opens with the affairs of Adelbrict and Edelsi in England, but has Adelbrict die within thirty-two lines of the poem. We learn very little about him, something that also holds true for the Lai. The English poet not only introduces King Athelwold fi rst, but also expands the king’s presence in the story, making him a precursor of Havelok himself. The poet does not introduce Havelok until almost eight hundred lines into the poem, and then uses Athelwold (not the Danish king Birkbeyn, Havelok’s own father) as a measure for Havelok’s character, praising the latter by referencing the former (ll. 30–34, 955–958).66 Furthermore, the poet emphasizes Athelwold’s English identity, praising him as “Engelondes blome” (l. 63) and designates his realm as “Englond” three more times within a span of eleven lines (ll. 52, 59, 61). Finally, the poem matches and parallels the fates of Havelok and the English heiress, Goldeboru, to an even greater extent than in earlier versions. The question, therefore, is not whether Havelok is about England, but which chapter in England’s history it hopes to capture. The specifics of the poem, I suggest, better accord with the Conquest than with contemporary England. The poet of Havelok alters the geographic and political landscape of the legend to better simulate the conditions of England at the time of the Conquest. He does this fi rst by elevating the status and importance of the English king and father of Goldeboru, and

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expanding his geographic domain. Geffrei Gaimar’s L’Estoire des Engleis, presents two kings of roughly equal status presiding in Lincolnshire. King Adelbrict holds lands spanning from the city of Colchester (in modern-day East Anglia) to the district of Holland in Lincoln (ll. 46–52). The deathbed scene, where Adelbrict summons his councilors to select a guardian for his daughter, takes place in the town of Thetford, Lincolnshire, and he is afterward buried in Colchester. His young daughter, Argentille, grows up in the towns of Lincoln and Lindsey, north of Colchester.67 Gaimar’s version ends with Haveloc acquiring the former lands of King Adelbrict from Holland to Colchester, and then two weeks later the lands of Lincoln and Lindsey, formerly held by King Edelsie (ll. 802–814). The Lai d’Haveloc too situates the story squarely in Lincolnshire: King Ekenbright (cf. Athelwold) holds lands toward “Surois” (Surrey, l. 201), while King Alsi holds Lincoln and Lindsey, as well as Rutland and Stamford (ll. 196–198).68 Both French versions, therefore, treat the story of Havelok as a regional legend, confi ning the kings’ power to towns and areas of Lincolnshire. The English poet of Havelok, however, presents a single English king, Athelwold, who rules over the entire country, not just a region.69 The rival figure, rather than being a fellow king as in earlier versions, is an underling, Godrich, Earl of Cornwall. Athelwold, therefore, is not a king of England, he is the king of England. His domain, moreover, encompasses the length and breadth of England: the story opens in the city of Winchester (l. 158), spans east to Dover (l. 320), and then north up to Lincolnshire where most of the plot takes place, ending in London (l. 2,943). The plot also involves the Earl of Cornwall, Godrich, and rewards Gunnild, the daughter of Grim who aided the hero in his early life, by marrying her to the Earl of Chester (l. 2,896). The city of York is represented when the archbishop of York presides at the wedding of Havelok and Goldeboru (l. 1,178) at the end. In other words, the poem spans the whole of England, not just Lincolnshire.70 Moreover, four of these cities, London, Lincoln, York, and Winchester, represent the most important cities of Anglo-Saxon England as is evident from the fact that they formed the centers of the Anglo-Saxon royal mints.71 In essence, the tragedy of Goldeboru’s loss of her inheritance, her throne and dominion, has escalated into the loss of an entire country, not just a region, precisely the scale of loss on the eve of the Conquest. Geography further imitates the circumstances of the Conquest in where the poem locates political power. In a departure from earlier versions of the story, the poet of Havelok relocates the royal seat of King Athelwold to the city of Winchester (l. 158ff.). Winchester was the royal seat, the “capital” so to speak, of the West Saxon kings, including King Alfred, who refounded and redesigned the city in the late ninth century. In Winchester, the AngloSaxon kings ruled, were crowned in many cases, and buried.72 When the Normans arrived in 1066, they continued to use Winchester as the seat of royal power for about another one hundred years until London surpassed Winchester as the preferred capital city.73 Robert Allen Rouse demonstrates

32 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance that the association of Winchester with Anglo-Saxon royal power was preserved, and even enhanced, throughout the post-Conquest era largely through literary means. Artifacts and spaces connected to the legends of Guy of Warwick, a pre-Conquest hero, and King Arthur’s early Britain were deliberately incorporated into the city’s historical significance.74 Thus even long after the Conquest, Winchester, in the words of T. A. Shippey “stands for nativeness, for legitimacy, for age.”75 The poet’s choice of Winchester as the royal seat in Havelok suggests a conscious shift toward distinctly Anglo-Saxon sympathies when we consider that other versions of the legend situate the story squarely in the north among the Anglo-Danish population of Lincolnshire. Also, if the Havelok poet sought to reference contemporary English politics, as some have argued, he would have placed the capital in London. Thus the poet manipulates the geography of the legend to extend the story’s original pre-Conquest setting to capture the more full political geography at stake at the time of the Conquest. In addition to locating the king’s seat in the Anglo-Saxon capital, the poet of Havelok characterizes the king more fully in Anglo-Saxon terms. First, the English poet departs from earlier sources in changing the name of the Adelbrict/Ekenbright figure to the distinctly Anglo-Saxon name “Athelwold.”76 Earlier versions of the story of Havelok keep the king’s name relatively consistent, particularly in the naming ending: Adelbrict (Gaimar), Edelbright (Lai), Egelbright (Lambeth), and Athelbright (Anglo-Norman Brut). The poet of Havelok the Dane, however, changes the name to “Athelwold,” a name reaching far back into Anglo-Saxon history. We fi nd a King Athelwold in seventh-century East Anglia, for example, in the twelfth-century Liber Eliensis, where the geography is consistent with the Lincolnshire setting of Havelok the Dane.77 Other famous Athelwolds (or Aethelwold) include a son of King Aethelred and fi rst cousin to King Alfred,78 Athelwold, the Earldorman of Kent,79 both mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Aethelwold, the prominent scholar, monastic reformer, and abbot of Abingdon (c. 954–963) and later bishop of Winchester (963–984).80 Thus, in renaming the king, and father of the heroine, “Athelwold,” the poet of Havelok the Dane aligns him with famous figures of Anglo-Saxon history. Second, the English poet erases the Danish heritage of the Athelwold figure of Gaimar’s version, where Adelbrict is a king of Danish descent living in England.81 The Havelok poet makes Athelwold simply an English king, never mentioning any Danish heritage.82 Similarly, Robert Allen Rouse has shown how the figure of King Athelwold as a leader who maintains peace on the kingdom’s roads participates in a common Anglo-Saxon historiographic motif of safe travel that carried into the post-Conquest era known as the “peace of the four roads.”83 Found in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, the Peterborough Chronicle, and elsewhere, the peace-of-the-four roads motif makes the image of a single, vulnerable, yet unmolested traveler (e.g. a mother with a newborn or a man bearing a chest of gold), emblematic of the peace of the realm at large. Athelwold’s reputation as a great leader

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invokes this motif as the poet declares that during that time a man carrying fifty pounds “Of rede gold up-on his bac” (l. 47) encountered no misdeed “N[e] hond on [him] with iuele leyde” (l. 50).84 Thus the signs of King Athelwold’s benevolent rule draw upon Anglo-Saxon historiography, as well as Anglo-Saxon ideals of kingship. Athelwold also appears steeped in Anglo-Saxon legal heritage. For example, when Athelwold, on his deathbed, seeks protection for his daughter and heir until she comes of age, he employs Anglo-Saxon legal methods. As Richard Firth Green points out, Athelwold and Godrich enter into a bond which involves “manrede and holde-oϸes boϸe,” an Anglo-Saxon cultural practice which constitutes a bilateral obligation, binding both parties in a mutual commitment. The solemn ritual of manrede accompanies the oath.85 In sum, the Havelok-poet enriches the portrait of Athelwold from earlier sources by drawing upon Anglo-Saxon cultural identity and custom, creating a plausible portrait of an English king who rules from Winchester. Another geographic feature that anchors the story of Havelok the Dane, more specifically within the context of the Norman Conquest, concerns the occurrence and use of the city of Dover. Once King Athelwold dies, Godrich, the man who should be protecting young Goldeboru and the kingdom, seizes power by securing a network of castles throughout the country, a type of architecture unknown in pre-Conquest England, and introduced by the Normans as a key tool in conquest and overlordship, about which I have more to say in the next chapter. Godrich (referred to as “Judas” here) then takes Goldboru out of Winchester and imprisons her under false pretenses in the castle at Dover, clearly as a way of limiting her political influence: Also a wicke traytur Iudas; And dede leden hire to Doure, Þat standeth on ϸe seis oure; And ϸerinne dede hire fede Pourelike in feble wede. Þe castel dede he yemen so Þat non ne mihte comen hire to Of hire frend, with [hir] to speken, Þat euere mihte hire bale wreken. . . . Þer sho liggeth in prisoun. (ll. 319–330)

The Middle English Havelok is the only version of the story to mention Dover castle.86 The poet’s choice of this particular castle as the place where the English heiress comes into custody of a hostile usurper is consistent with the role Dover castle played in the Conquest. Dover was one of the fi rst castles William built upon arriving in England, and it later served as the “command center” of Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William’s half-brother whom he put in charge of the large-scale castle construction program that secured

34 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance the country in Norman hands. That the Havelok-poet names Dover castle immediately upon Godrich’s takeover of England accords with its strategic importance both during the initial stages of the Conquest and subsequently throughout the Middle Ages as “the key to England.”87 Dover, therefore, was one of the very fi rst castles William built in England that served thereafter as a vital center of administration for securing control.88 Thus, with Dover castle, the poet of Havelok correlates Goldeboru’s fictional disinheritance with the historical loss of England in 1066. In addition to replicating the geographic and political scope of England on the eve of the Conquest, the poet of Havelok the Dane also uses geography to reference the ensuing political struggles between Normans and Anglo-Saxons following the Conquest. Just as the Havelok-poet expands the story’s geographic scope by way of expanding its political scope, he also extends the story’s original Lincolnshire setting to include the famous Anglo-Saxon political resistance efforts that centered in Lincolnshire following the Conquest. Specifically, the English poet references a particular historical episode in the career of Hereward (also known as Hereward the Wake), the Anglo-Saxon outlaw who led the most sustained resistance, headquartered in the city of Ely, Lincolnshire, against William the Conqueror. The details of the source relationship between Havelok the Dane and the story of Hereward are laid out more fully in Chapter 4, but a brief discussion of this context pertains to the poet’s use of geography as it relates to cultural identity. The episode concerns Hereward’s sacking of Peterborough Abbey in 1069 (1070 in some histories) allegedly to foil immanent Norman takeover, a deed that first brought Hereward to national prominence. This well-known Lincolnshire event forms a subtext for Havelok the Dane in three important ways involving geography: (1) like Havelok, it features the wider backdrop of political conquest; (2) it accounts for the name changes introduced by the English poet for the heroine, the English heiress, as well as her father; and (3) like Havelok, it casts the Danes as vital allies of the English people in the face of hostile takeover. As I discuss in a later chapter, Lincolnshire was the site of the most sustained and famous resistance efforts against William the Conqueror, led by Hereward, and involved a brief alliance between the Anglo-Saxon rebels (including the disinherited Anglo-Saxon heir to the throne) and the Danes. The incident that brought Hereward into the political spotlight involved the sacking of Peterborough Abbey as a Norman contingent under the command of the new Norman Abbot Torold headed north to take possession of the abbey. Hereward and his men burst into the abbey, stole most of its many treasures including several holy relics, and set fi re to the building. None of the monks were harmed, in all likelihood since Hereward and many of his men had long-standing ties to the abbey and wished, above all, to keep its riches from enemy hands. While the incident is preserved in several accounts of the deeds of Hereward, the Havelok-poet seems to have drawn from the fullest version as found in the

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Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, written in the fi rst half of the twelfth century, in the generation following the actual events. Hugh tells of the tumultuous events at the “golden borough,” the common name for Peterborough Abbey, and I argue, the source for the name “Goldeboru,” the young heiress of Havelok who fi nds herself threatened by hostile takeover and, whose fate represents that of all of England. He tells further of the efforts of a certain Prior Athelwold, who goes with Hereward to join the Danish allies and successfully recovers two holy relics from the stolen treasure of the “golden borough,” preserving them for England. He tells fi nally of the brief alliance between Anglo-Saxons and Danes under King Sweyn, and of English hopes in Danish aide in driving William out with the likelihood of a new Danish ruler having joint possession of England and Denmark. Hereward’s raid on Peterborough Abbey magnified his fame from the local to the national level from that point on. Havelok the Dane in turn extends the geographic and political ramifications of a regional legend to encompass the entire realm. The earlier, Anglo-Norman versions of the legend simply do not share this political scope. The Lincolnshire stories surrounding Hereward the Wake also seem to have inspired at least some of the combat of Havelok the Dane. Perhaps the most famous combat scene in Havelok the Dane fi nds a compelling parallel in the twelfth-century Gesta Herewardi, the longest single account of the life of Hereward, and a text with strong Lincolnshire ties.89 The scene involves Havelok, recently returned to Denmark and staying with a certain Bernard, fighting off a group of sixty attackers using an immense door bar as a club (ll. 1,794–1,795).90 Bernard, Havelok, and his companions are about to sit down to a meal when the attackers arrive. A similar scene occurs in the Gesta Herewardi where Hereward, having disguised himself as a potter, infiltrates the king’s household and enters into the kitchen. After drinking too much wine, the servers, cooks, and kitchen boys begin to taunt Hereward, grab and blindfold him, and try to shave his head and pluck his beard. When one of them hits him in the head, Hereward retaliates and must defend himself against a throng of attackers using a piece of wood he grabs from the fi re. He narrowly escapes being taken prisoner by the king’s guards. Both scenes share key elements such as disguised identity (Havelok’s true identity remains secret to others), a surprise attack in a domestic setting at dinner hour, a large number of attackers against a single hero, a modest, wooden club-type weapon (a door bar and a log) that the hero uses to defend himself, and the hero’s victory over the numerous attackers. Both men too share the long-range goal of regaining their father’s estates from a political usurper with national aspirations. Another feature of Havelok the Dane that links it compellingly with Anglo-Saxon tradition in general and with the deeds of Hereward the Wake in particular concerns the list of companions who accompany Havelok in his mission to regain his patrimony and that of Goldeboru. Earlier versions of the legend of Havelok have the hero journey alone to Denmark to fi nally

36 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance reclaim his throne. The English poet of Havelok, however, invents a small group of companions (a retinue band) for the hero, so that like the Anglo-Saxon hero (and unlike a hero of French romance), he lives and fights among a band of companions. More important, the poet forms this band for the hero at precisely the point in the narrative where he reveals his true identity as the heir to the Danish throne (l. 1,403), thus linking the companions to the hero’s political mission. Furthermore, the poet names these companions by name, including fi rst and last names: Roberd the Rede, William Wenduth, and Huwe Raven, all sons of Grim, his adoptive father, and therefore fellow Danish kinsman of the hero. Moreover, while the poet mentions them individually at several points in the narrative, he lists them formally twice (ll. 1,397–1,398, 2,366–2,369), as if establishing a record. Their common status in no way excludes them from that record. This list of names has led at least one scholar to link Havelok’s companions with those of Hereward the Wake, with some justification.91 One of the distinctive features of the Gesta Herewardi is the lists, often quite long and duplicative, of names of Anglo-Saxon men who accompanied Hereward in his exploits.92 Many of these names refer to famous Anglo-Saxon nobleman, men such as earls Morcar, Edwin, and Tostig. The lists also include, however, names of lesser men such as Hereward’s closest companions Winter, Martin Lightfoot, Siward the Red, and Siward the Blonde (two nephews of Hereward), as well as the twin brothers Outi and Duti, Wulfwine, a monk and friend of Hereward’s father, Leofwine Prat “the Dodger,” Ordgar, a nobleman of Ely, and Hogor, Hereward’s cook, to name but a few. In other words, the lists seem intended to establish a precise record of those who stood with Hereward in his faceoff with the Normans. Moreover, the lists, like that of Havelok the Dane, include men at all levels of the social hierarchy, including the cook. In this sense, the list of men recalls the list of warriors recorded in the Battle of Maldon, which includes men of note as well as otherwise anonymous men bearing a first name only. While none of the exact names of Grim’s three sons appear in the Gesta Herewardi, the names share a certain resemblance: “Huwe Raven” resembles “Wulfric Rahere” (the “Heron,” l. 67); the name “Wenduth” resembles “Wennoth” (ll. 73–74); “Roberd the Rede” might be likened to “Siward the Red” (l. 65ff.) in sharing the same descriptive epithet “the Red.” In this way, the list of companions for Havelok, kinsman who assist him in his fight for justice, shares the same spirit and function as the list of companions for Hereward in the Gesta. Thus, on several levels, the Havelok-poet uses the story of the historical figure of Hereward, the AngloSaxon resistance fighter from Lincolnshire, as a subtext for his retelling of the Lincolnshire legend of Havelok the Dane, broadening and deepening the story’s regional ties in ways that lend it national importance. The closing scene of Havelok the Dane provides a fi nal geographic modification linking this story with the events of the Conquest, for there we see a shift in the administrative center of England that parallels the historical shift of the national capital witnessed after the Conquest. As noted earlier,

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the poem opens in the city of Winchester, the pre-Conquest capital of the West-Saxon kings. However, by the end of Havelok, the power center of England has moved. Havelok and Goldeboru, now triumphantly in possession of her English inheritance, travel to London, not Winchester, to be crowned (l. 2,943). (In both of the earlier French versions of the story, the fi nal scene occurs in the city of Colchester.)93 Pre-conquest England did not have an official coronation site, and Anglo-Saxons kings were crowned in various places, including Winchester, Kingston-upon-Thames, Bath, and Canterbury. Between 1045 and 1050, Edward the Confessor built an abbey adjacent to his palace at Westminster, and upon his death, Harold II became the fi rst English monarch to use Westminster Abbey for coronation, a practice that held from that point on.94 Under the Normans, the capital city of England eventually shifted from Winchester to London, and the royal palace in Winchester was eventually demolished in 1141.95 One sees this same shift of power in Havelok the Dane, whereby the poem opens in Winchester, the pre-Conquest capital and royal seat, yet ends with the coronation in London, the post-Conquest royal seat, and now the established cite for coronation. Robert Allen Rouse suggests that the shift between pre-Conquest and post-Conquest capitals affected in Havelok constitutes a gesture of social integration whereby “there is space for Briton, Saxon, and Norman alike.”96 I would argue instead that the relocation of royal power at the end of the poem constitutes of gesture of social segregation rather than integration, an expression of Anglo-Saxon wish fulfillment that undoes the effects of the Conquest. The geographic shift between the beginning and the end of the poem accompanies a political shift in the poem that starts with the political usurpation of England involving key cites of the Norman Conquest, and ends with a restoration of the native English heir with the help of the Danes, thus successfully realizing the failed historical promise that nearly came to be. Havelok, the new Danish king and ally (as well as spouse) of Goldeboru, fulfi lls in a fictional way the historical dream of reconquest promised by King Sweyn, the Danish king and one-time ally of Hereward the Wake, the hero from Lincolnshire who became the icon of Anglo-Saxon freedom. By restoring the heir of King Athelwold to the English throne with a coronation in London, the poet effectively reverses the Conquest, taking England back from the usurpers who moved the capital city to London.

SIR ORFEO: A TALE OF TWO KINGS The Middle English Sir Orfeo, dating to 1325, is not normally read in terms of cultural identity. Classified as a “Breton Lay,” the poem tends to be grouped among other stories concerning the supernatural and other purely imaginary material, and not attributed with any cultural agenda.97 When scholars do conjecture on King Orfeo’s identity, they tend to look

38 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance to the French chivalric tradition, viewing Orfeo as a courtly figure akin to the heroes of French romance.98 For sure, certain aspects of the poem seem to imitate the chivalric model: the plot revolves around the loss of a woman beloved by the hero, resulting in a love triangle; the mood of the poem, more than of most Middle English romances, is intensely intimate, featuring private spaces and even more private thoughts and feelings; the hero, upon losing his beloved, ventures alone into the forest, suggesting the knightly “quest” similar to those found throughout chivalric literature. Indeed, the classical story that Sir Orfeo is ultimately based upon, of the young Orpheus confronting the king of the Underworld in order to rescue Eurydice from death, lends itself so readily to this familiar romance paradigm. The English author of Sir Orfeo has all the necessary elements, therefore, to transform the classical story of Orpheus and Eurydice into an exercise in growth and potential, a quest for love. However, he does not go in that direction. While Orfeo’s problem, in the broadest sense, involves a personal, emotionally traumatizing loss of love akin to the problem facing a French hero, his responses to that crisis come out of Anglo-Saxon, not French, tradition. In a subsequent chapter, I examine Orfeo’s forest exile through the lens of Anglo-Saxon elegy, which features prolonged, seemingly indefi nite wandering in the wilderness. However, prior to this passive response, Orfeo attempts a more proactive, military solution to his problem, where his choices in this matter also bespeak an Anglo-Saxon worldview. Scholars have long noted how the abduction of Queen Heurodis in the Middle English Sir Orfeo is as much, if not more, a political crime as a personal one, that is, how the loss of Heurodis very quickly turns into the loss of a kingdom.99 The nature of the crime attests to this. Rather than taking her outright, the Fairy King approaches Heurodis in the orchard, takes her against her will on a tour of his kingdom, then returns her to the orchard, only to then steal her again the next day. The intervening time turns what would have been a private act (i.e. an abduction/rape) into a public and political act, as Heurodis reports to King Orfeo on the extent of the Fairy King’s holdings, his “palays . . . castels & tours,/Riuers, forestes . . . /& his riche stedes ichon” (ll. 157–161), and as Orfeo assembles an army into a defensive maneuver.100 Orfeo’s failure the next day to protect the queen becomes, therefore, not simply a personal loss, but a military defeat of sorts, witnessed by hundreds of fighting men, to a foe whose landholdings, as far as we can tell, outclass Orfeo’s own. The invasion of Orfeo’s realm, the failure of his forces, and the subsequent exile of the king himself clearly mirrors the story line of political conquest. The land holdings, castles, and military strategies surrounding this crime, among other aspects of the poem, to an important extent cast the central confl ict between Orfeo and the Fairy King in cultural terms that suggest an awareness of cultural difference between Anglo-Saxon and Norman long after the Conquest. In the present discussion, I explore each king’s strategy toward the other,

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arguing that the Fairy King’s strategy of intrusion and King Orfeo’s military response evoke the scenario of the Norman Conquest. The scholarly connection between the Middle English Sir Orfeo and the literature of pre-Conquest England is by no means new. Some fi fty years ago, J. Burke Severs argued that certain key variations that the English poet introduces to the ancient story of Orpheus derive from King Alfred’s ninth-century translation and adaptation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, which includes the story of Orpheus, into Old English. While Alfred works closely with the Latin original, he adapts the Consolation for an English audience by introducing details and interpretations not found in Boethius, some of which Severs argues influenced the Middle English retelling of the Orpheus legend, the most salient being Orfeo’s exile into the wilderness immediately after losing his wife, an episode I explore more fully in Chapter 3.101 Severs became the fi rst scholar to tie the Middle English Orfeo to the Anglo-Saxon tradition, but his fi ndings, while cited in subsequent scholarship, have gone largely unexplored and undeveloped. The Anglo-Saxon literary roots that Severs identified in Sir Orfeo manifest themselves in several aspects of the poem, including battle tactic. There is of course no actual combat in Orfeo since the Fairy King magically steals Heurodis before fighting can break out. Nevertheless, one thing is certain: King Orfeo never attempts single combat on behalf of his lady, as one would expect of medieval romance in general, and of this episode in particular given how Orfeo’s circumstances require him to rescue a beloved woman. Instead, his single military strategy involves group combat, a seemingly inappropriate choice for two reasons. First, the confi ned, wooded nature of the orchard space is not suited to the large-scale encounter Orfeo has planned. The poet specifies “ten hundred kniʒtes” (l. 183) summoned by Orfeo for this task. Such a large-scale military encounter typically calls for a large, open space such as a field of battle. Second, the narrative expectations of a plot involving two men vying for the same woman would seem to promise a dramatic one-on-one fight between the two rivals. Orfeo’s awkward military choice, therefore, serves neither the expectations of chivalric romance, nor the practical purpose of his confrontation with the Fairy King. Instead, Orfeo’s choice reveals Anglo-Saxon cultural priorities. First, the continual presence of fighting companions for King Orfeo, as in other texts discussed above, recalls the Anglo-Saxon comitatus, or retinue band. Not only does Orfeo configure combat as communal, but earlier Orfeo is similarly accompanied by “kniʒtes tene” (l. 99) when he fi rst learns of his wife’s encounter with the Fairy King, again recalling the Anglo-Saxon hero who always appears with his men. Second, as he and his men try to confront the Fairy King in the orchard, the poet does not specify where Orfeo is, suggesting he forms part of the group of warriors, also in keeping with the comitatus ideal. Finally, unlike in chivalric romance, which has the hero fight in a series of venues located away from court, in Sir Orfeo, the hero fights on his own land, alongside his own people,

40 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance suggesting the combat situations common to Anglo-Saxon literature. Thus in terms of the number of warriors, and of Orfeo’s equal place among them during this episode, as well as the location of the encounter, combat in Sir Orfeo evokes the battle scenario of Anglo-Saxon tradition. Anglo-Saxon battle practice becomes clearer still in the particular maneuver Orfeo plans. Once Orfeo hears of the planned abduction of his wife by the Fairy King, he and his men devise a defensive strategy powerfully associated with the Anglo-Saxons. Armed and on foot, they enter into the garden where Heurodis originally encountered the fairies, approach the ymp tree where they expect the Fairy King to strike, and form a battle formation called a “scheltrom”102: Amorwe þe vnder-tide is come, & Orfeo haþ his armes y-nome, & wele ten hundred kniʒtes wiþ him, Ich y-armed, stout & grim; & wiþ þe quen wenten he Riʒt vnto þat ympe-tre. Þai made scheltrom in ich a side, & sayd þai wold þere abide & dye þer euerichon, Er þe quen schuld fram hem gon. (ll. 181–190)

According to the Middle English Dictionary, scheltrom refers generally to “a group of soldiers in fighting formation, a tight battle formation or phalanx.”103 The Anglo-Saxon roots of the word, however, yield a more precise meaning. In Old English, scyld-truma denotes a particular battle formation commonly known as the “shield wall, or shield troop” (scyld meaning “shield” and trum meaning “wall,” “hedge,” or “host, army, troop”).104 In Anglo-Saxon military practice, a scyldtruma refers to a battle formation involving infantry lining up side by side, overlapping the edges of their shields, thus forming a more or less solid barrier of shields. Spears pointed out from between the shields, forming an impenetrable barrier, even in the face of a cavalry charge, so long as the formation held. From behind the shield wall, spearmen and archers would attack the enemy from a distance. The scyldtruma formed a standard tactic of Anglo-Saxon warfare, which revolved around infantry.105 Unlike the Normans, who used horses during battle, the Anglo-Saxons customarily fought on foot, not on horseback, and are deemed by historians as to have been the best infantry in Europe at the time.106 We fi nd an example of a shield wall, for instance, in the Battle of Maldon, where Byrhtnoth and his men create a wi(g)-haga (l. 102, literally “battle-hedge”), later referred to in the poem as a scyldburh (l. 242, “shield-fortress”) against the Viking invaders along the Essex coast.107 Perhaps most famously, we see examples of the Anglo-Saxons employing this tactic in the depiction of the Battle of Hastings in the Bayeux tapestry.

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The Anglo-Saxons, appearing on foot, form a shield wall, a passive, defensive, and immobile strategy, against charging Norman cavalry.108 While it sometimes proves difficult to tell the Saxons from the Normans on the basis of clothing and equipment in the tapestry, the Anglo-Saxons distinguish themselves clearly through their formation of a shield wall. The association of the shield wall with pre-Conquest England in all likelihood has to do with the demise of the tactic itself, which fell out of use in post-Conquest Britain primarily due to the Norman preference for cavalry, though the Scots continued to use it.109 Not until 1322, at the Battle of Boroughbridge, did an English army employ the tactic again, where the English commander, Sir Andrew Harclay formed a shield wall in imitation of the Scots.110 King Orfeo employs a scheltrom in the specific sense of a close, defensive formation involving shield-bearing infantry, an outdated tactic unusual in the poem precisely for its antiquity. The question is, of course, would an early fourteenth-century English audience have any recollection of Anglo-Saxon battle tactic? Does the Middle English usage of scheltrom ever indicate the specific defensive formation of a “shield wall” as used by the Anglo-Saxons? Judging from other texts of this period, it would seem so. In King Horn, we see the hero’s father doing battle with a Viking host (the “Sarazins”) on the shore. He and his companions have been out riding when they spy armed men disembarking on the shore. Sensing hostile intent, the king and his men dismount in order to fight them, on foot, with swords (ll. 51–62), a move the modern editors of King Horn note as “curious” since “in later romances hand-to-hand combat takes place only after an opponent is knocked off his horse.”111 Joseph Hall, the early editor of Horn, however, connects the move of dismounting in preparation for combat to pre-Conquest English custom.112 Layamon’s Brut, composed some one hundred forty years before Orfeo, exhibits a similar historical awareness of Anglo-Saxon battle tactic specifically through the use of a shield wall. The Brut depicts the invading Roman army encountering the native British forces of Arthur, who form a shield wall (sceld-trume) in defense (Brut, 13,729), and here sceld-trume denotes specifically a tight, defensive formation (as opposed to a “troop” in general) that the Britons try to hold, and the Romans manage to break.113 (Layamon associates what is actually an Anglo-Saxon tactic with the Britons). Other Middle English texts use the word scheltrom in the specific sense of a defensive “shield wall,” though not always in connection with the AngloSaxons.114 These examples demonstrate that a late medieval English poet could indeed have an awareness of Anglo-Saxon antecedents. Orfeo’s use of the scheltrom, or “shield wall,” functions more to characterize him as a king than it does to effectively meet the threat at hand. If anything, the strategy Orfeo employs is ill-suited to the threat. Orfeo and his men have every reason to expect cavalry. Heurodis specifies that the Fairy King and his men approached her on horseback. Yet none of Orfeo’s men mount horses to meet that threat, not even in some combination with

42 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance the scheltrom. While Orfeo’s particular choice of a scheltrom may appear as an oversight on Orfeo’s part, given its inappropriateness to both the actual threat as well as to the genre, it may instead represent a conscious choice of a familiar, distinctively English, defensive tactic, a tactic often associated with Anglo-Saxons in other post-conquest texts. Orfeo’s military choices, including what he chooses not to do, suggest Anglo-Saxon cultural practice. Of course, the failed outcome of his military strategy in preventing his wife’s capture also accords with historical reality. After all, the most famous examples of the shield wall in Anglo-Saxon tradition, that of the Battle of Maldon and that of the Battle of Hastings, both record the spectacular failure of this particular strategy against the Vikings, on the one hand, and the Normans, on the other. By contrast, the intent and strategies of the Fairy King and his men suggest Norman cultural practice and priorities. First of all, they engage in offence, not defense as Orfeo does, and they do so on horseback, evoking the portrait of the Norman invaders, whose military victory and subsequent success rested on a mounted knightly class. In contrast to the Anglo-Saxons, who preferred infantry warfare, the Normans became famous for mounted warfare.115 Although their armies also included spearmen, archers, and swordsmen, mounted knights formed the backbone of their military force.116 Renowned for their skill at maneuvering their horses on the battlefield, the Normans mastered the tactic of the cavalry charge, which, given the speed and force of charging horsemen, had the advantage of shock and surprise. Mounted warfare led to the development of the kite shield, which protected the knight’s leg as well as torso and shoulders from lance and sword attack. It also coupled the knight’s own strength with that of his horse with the development of the couched lance, held in place under the knight’s arm by a fi xture in the armor itself.117 The Normans not only pioneered military strategies based on mounted knights, but had also developed an industry of breeding horses specifically for battle, the destier, large horses measuring seventeen hands high (173 cm/68 in), as opposed to the typical medieval horse of thirteen to fourteen hands (122–132 cm/48–52 in).118 In addition to warfare, the Normans used horses extensively in recreational combat through tournaments, and the well-equipped knight used separate horses for these different occasions.119 Hence, the French term for knight, “chevalier,” has its roots in the word for horse, “cheval.” If we look at the Fairy King and his entourage, we find that they are mounted, armed, and glamorous. In fact, the poet repeatedly (and exclusively) associates the Fairy King and his entourage with splendid horses, and lots of them. Heurodis is fi rst approached in the garden by “kniʒtes,/ Wele y-armed al to riʒtes” (ll. 135–136), followed by the Fairy King and knights and ladies “Al on snowe-white stedes” (l. 145). He brings her a “palfray” (l. 156) and takes her on a tour of his kingdom where she sees, among other things, his “riche stedes ichon” (l. 161). Later, Orfeo spies his captive wife in the forest accompanied by sixty ladies who “on hors ride”

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(l. 304). Thus horses form a cornerstone of the Fairy King’s political image in a way they do not for Orfeo. In addition to mounted invasion, the Fairy King employs other strategies of coercion that indicate Norman cultural tradition. With respect to cultural identity, the Fair King of Sir Orfeo is most often aligned with Celtic tradition, in which we fi nd similar instances of fairy abduction.120 However, compounding the Celtic dimension of the Fairy King, we fi nd an additional layer of identity drawn specifically from French chivalric culture. Perhaps the clearest indication of the Anglo-Norman, rather than simply Celtic, context of the Fairy King’s attack on Heurodis has to do with his “courtship” of the heroine prior to abduction. The Fairy King’s history of terror has an elegant side, which we see in how he graciously packages his threat to Heurodis. While he makes it clear to Heurodis that she will join him or else, he fi rst takes her on a tour of his kingdom. He brings a palfrey for her, and together they survey his “palays, . . . castels & tours,/Riuers, forestes. . ./& his riche stedes ichon” (ll. 157–161). This tour becomes a courtship of sorts, where he shows off everything he has to offer her, all of which could be hers if she joins him. It is peculiar. After all, he could simply steal her the fi rst time around, rather than approach her in the orchard, then take her on a tour, then return her to the orchard, then steal her the next day. Why the rehearsal? Other supernatural encounters in orchards in Middle English literature do not involve elaborate courtships. The heroine of Sir Gowther, for instance, encounters a man in her orchard “that hur of luffe besoghth” (l. 69), and he promptly lies with her.121 So too, the demon-lover of Sir Degaré tells the heroine he has loved her “mani a yer”(l. 105) and then promptly rapes her.122 While both men disguise themselves as familiar, respectable figures, they do not dawdle in their purpose, and their purpose is sexual. In the Irish Wooing of Étaín, Mider simply snatches the heroine and leaves. We get no abduction rehearsal. Sir Orfeo, however, unlike other supernatural rapes in Middle English literature, and unlike other fairy abductions, includes an intervening step whereby the heroine is fi rst seduced, thus evoking the garden of love so ubiquitous in French chivalric literature, associations evoked at the outset with the May setting and the garden (l. 57). The Fairy King seduces Heurodis, moreover, specifically on political terms. Heurodis is not seduced on the grounds of sex, but rather on grounds of power, through political and military coercion and by the prospect of shared dominion over all his land and property. The Fairy King does not woo Heurodis with declarations of love, as in the other Middle English romances mentioned, nor does he flatter her by noting her beauty. Instead, he sends “‘kniʒtes,/Wele y-armed al to riʒtes,’” who, she says, “‘bad me comen on an heiʒing’” (ll. 135–137), exercising his power over her, not his love for her. The Fairy King then does not offer himself; he offers his realm, trying to impress her with his vast holdings, his power. Furthermore, unlike Sir Gowther or Sir Degaré, Sir Orfeo does not include an actual rape. We

44 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance may assume that Heurodis sleeps with the Fairy King at some point, but the coupling does not form part of the plot as it does in these other romances.123 Instead, the Fairy King exerts his power by forcible entry into the orchard, by taking what is not his, by displaying his great holdings to Heurodis (and by extension to Orfeo and his court), and by displaying in his courtyard the consequences of noncooperation in the form of his frozen victims. While a number of scholars have identified the Fairy King in Sir Orfeo with Satan,124 he is, above all, as Edward Kennedy suggests, “an evil king, one who terrorizes people and forces them to come under his dominion,” in sharp contrast to Orfeo himself.125 I would add that the Fairy King is a tyrant of a more particular, namely Norman, stripe, given the style of his military intrusion into Orfeo’s life, given the French flavor of the orchard scene that forms the backdrop to the intrusion, and given the tragic political consequences of his activity for Orfeo’s realm. Above all, the rehearsed abduction in the orchard scene in Sir Orfeo turns what would have been a private act (e.g. a rape) into a public, and therefore political, act, as Orfeo’s entire kingdom rallies to contend with the threat using the main AngloSaxon military strategy employed at Hastings.126 Thus, the scenario of two men vying over the same woman, while suggesting the circumscribed, ahistorical plot device of chivalric literature, becomes in Sir Orfeo a historicized struggle between two political leaders, two kings, who embody the two sides contending for control of England in 1066.

THE MONSTER IN THE HALL IN SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT The same theme of competing cultures evident in Sir Orfeo appears in the Middle English Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which also opens with a surprise, hostile intrusion into a domestic space. As in Sir Orfeo, the intrusion spells insult and danger to the entire court, and the hero, young Gawain, spends the remaining duration of the narrative trying to recover what was lost, in this case, the honor of King Arthur and Camelot. Also like Sir Orfeo, the central confl ict facing the hero involves him moving between two courts, Arthur’s Camelot and Bertilak’s Hautdesert, two courts that capture and contrast Anglo-Saxon and Norman cultural identities. Thus, when Gawain leaves Camelot and sets out toward Hautdesert, he moves between pre-Conquest and post-Conquest ways of doing things. Subsequent chapters explore how these competing identities express themselves in the poem’s architecture and landscapes. The present discussion examines how the central confl ict of the poem, the Green Knight’s intrusion into Camelot, the challenge he issues, and the response he elicits from its members, contains underlying tones of the monster in the hall theme featured so prominently in Beowulf. Like Grendel, the Green Knight, a monstrous being, invades a kingly hall, challenges those within, and leads at

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least one of its members out into the wilderness to face what appears to be a fight to the death with this monster. Unlike Grendel, however, the Green Knight assumes an additional layer of identity, his Bertilak side, which captures the particular type of elegance and influence so prized by the Norman aristocracy. Thus, the Green Knight merges the monstrous invader of Anglo-Saxon literary tradition with the Norman invader of Anglo-Saxon historical experience. This “most English of Arthurian romances” contains certain powerful echoes of the monster in the hall scenario at the heart of Beowulf.127 In the broadest analysis, we fi nd important parallels between the Green Knight’s sudden and threatening entry into Camelot and Grendel’s invasion of Heorot. Both texts present monstrous beings who burst into the hall uninvited and threaten the very lives of those within. For all his refinement, the size, color, appearance, and behavior of the Green Knight all indicate a monster, and indeed the Gawain-poet refers to the Green Knight as “etayn” (l. 140, “giant”), a word derived from the Old English eoten, the word used to describe Grendel.128 Like Grendel, who has eyes like fi re (ligge gelicost, l. 727) the Green Knight has “rede yʒen” (l. 304, “red eyes”). The huge size and greenness of the horse, and the description of man and horse as a seamless unit also contribute to the monstrous and animalistic impression he strikes in the hall.129 Moreover, the vocabulary for describing the person (the body parts) of the Green Knight (as opposed to his clothes) relies overwhelmingly on Anglo-Saxon vocabulary.130 While the Green Knight insists he wants only a “gomen” (l. 283, “game”), he threatens the court with an enormous battle axe, turning this “game” into a life and death matter, like the monster invasion, and quite unlike the courtly games of chivalric romance. Like Grendel, who loses an arm in the hall, the Green Knight loses his head, and Arthur links these two monstrous encounters further when he insists they mount the axe on the wall over the dais so “alle men for meruayl myʒt on hit loke” (l. 479), just as Hrothgar mounts Grendel’s arm on the wall of Heorot for all to marvel at. Thus, the Green Knight, in many ways, recalls the monstrous enemy in the mead hall of Anglo-Saxon literary tradition. That we are meant to interpret this physical intrusion as a collective, cultural insult can be seen in the Green Knight’s verbal challenge once inside the hall. The Green Knight issues a series of verbal insults, evoking the literary type-scene known as “flyting,” or a formal exchange of insults between warriors normally prefacing a physical challenge.131 (Grendel of course never speaks, but Unferth’s provocative verbal exchange with Beowulf provides a well-known example of flyting in Beowulf.132) Upon entering uninvited (an insult in its own right), he fails to, or refuses to, recognize the king in the room, exclaiming “‘Wher is. . ./Þe gouernour of ϸis gyng?’” (ll. 224–225), and scanning the room for “Quo walt ϸer most renoun” (l. 231), as if the king’s presence would not be obvious. When Arthur welcomes him all the same, the Green Knight refuses this hospitality, saying he will

46 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance not “‘wone any quyle in ϸis won’” (l. 257). Moreover, he addressed Arthur using the informal “thou,” as opposed to the formal “you” more appropriate to the king’s status (e.g. l. 259ff.).133 Right at the outset, therefore, the Green Knight challenges the honor, the identity, of Camelot by refusing to recognize the king’s authority in his own home. These generalized insults, however, take on cultural resonance in some important ways. First, the episode deviates from traditional flyting in terms of the number of individuals targeted. Typically, flyting, while being a public performance, entails verbal insults between two warriors only, such as Unferth and Beowulf. An individual warrior targets another individual warrior. The insult challenges the warrior’s honor and reputation, and, in heroic literature, is met with a similar insult in return. The Green Knight, however, targets not one man, but the entire court, an entire people, consistent with his literary kinship to a monster like Grendel, who threatens not just one, but all of Hrothgar’s retainers.134 Unlike Grendel, however, who targets the physical lives of the hall retainers, the Green Knight specifically targets their identity as warriors by calling their honor into question, a challenge at the heart of all flyting scenes. After citing the renown of Arthur’s Camelot, he looks over all the knights present and exclaims “‘Nay, frayst I no fyʒt, in fayth I ϸe telle;/Hit arn aboute on ϸis bench bot berdlez chylder’” (ll. 279–280). The collective nature of the insult explains why Gawain, the knight who fi nally steps up to the Green Knight, seems to take very little personal offence from the challenge; he does not return any verbal insult to the Green Knight and rises to the occasion primarily to defend his king and court rather than to defend his own honor. (The communal nature of the confl ict becomes reinforced again at the end when, upon Gawain’s return, the entire court shares in Gawain’s disappointment at the green chapel by all wearing green sashes.) Second, the Green Knight’s challenge characterizes Arthur’s knights in terms that recall native AngloSaxon virtues of “‘gryndellayk,’” “‘greme,’” and “‘grete wordes’” (l. 312, “ferocity,” “wrath,” and “boasts”) using largely native English vocabulary.135 In other words, the Green Knight questions their identity specifically in Anglo-Saxon terms, creating a cultural profi le of them in the process of insulting them. Finally, Arthur’s response to the Green Knight’s insult further evokes the heroic tradition rather than that of chivalric romance. Prior to Gawain’s gracious acceptance of the Green Knight’s challenge, we fi nd the king himself angrily striding over to the Green Knight and seizing the giant axe, “And sturnely sturez hit aboute, ϸat stryke with hit ϸoʒt” (l. 331). This aggressive response from the king himself accords with heroic literature, where the leader, rather than a retainer, performs the main heroic deeds, and where hostility is matched with hostility rather than with polite accommodation or withdrawal, as we fi nd more often in romance.136 Here too Arthur speaks for his entire court, saying “‘I know no gome ϸat is gast of ϸy grete wordes’” (l. 325), further emphasizing the collective nature of this challenge. The flyting between the Green Knight and Arthur’s court,

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therefore, frames Camelot in Anglo-Saxon cultural tradition and puts that tradition on the defense. While the Green Knight threatens Arthur’s court in terms that recall the Anglo-Saxon monster in the hall, the Green Knight is only “half-etayn” (half giant), and his other half, expressed chiefly in his clothing, recalls another enemy of the Anglo-Saxon people, the Norman invaders. Scholars have long noted the dual nature of the Green Knight as both monstrous and elegant, huge, and green, on the one hand, yet dressed and groomed exquisitely, on the other.137 In addition to his monstrous nature, the Green Knight has an elegance and refi nement that foreshadows the Norman aristocratic household which he heads, later seen in Hautdesert. Through his enormous size and unnaturally green hue, the Green Knight exhibits exquisitely tailored clothes, coiffed hair, and precious adornments, and the word “clene” (“clean, pure, bright, fair”) echoes through the opening lines of his description (ll. 146, 154, 158, 161, 163). Moreover, the vocabulary for describing these elegant clothes (as opposed to his monstrous person) draws overwhelmingly from the Old French, a principle that applies equally to his horse’s accoutrements.138 Such refi nement anticipates the form he later takes as the lord of a Norman castle and grounds who delights in Norman recreational pursuits like hunting. As with the Fairy King in Sir Orfeo, who too invades on horseback, the Green Knight’s elegance does not diminish his rudeness and the perceived threat he poses as an uninvited guest who invades the hall issuing demands. His French roots go deeper still. The Green Knight’s verbal refi nement in making these demands has led some scholars to trace him to the “hostile challenger” of French Arthurian tradition, where he fi nds parallels with figures such as Caradoc le Grand, who enters Arthur’s court and abducts Gawain, prompting a quest to rescue him.139 Still, the hostile challenger of course is always an actual man, not a monster, and monsters do not tend to end up in the feasting hall in French chivalric romance, where the safety of court drives the hero elsewhere in search of dangerous situations to prove himself. Thus while the Green Knight may recall the hostile challenger of French tradition, his monstrous side places him additionally in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, where danger strikes the hall itself, as it does in Arthur’s Camelot in Sir Gawain. Thus, the Green Knight, combining savagery and refi nement, becomes a composite of the monster-intruder of Anglo-Saxon literary tradition as seen in the hall, and the Norman intruders of Anglo-Saxon historical experience as represented later in the castle. The central confl ict of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight recalls the Anglo-Saxon theme of the monster in the hall, fi nally, in the specific heroic response it demands. Gawain’s journey into the wilderness in search of the Green Knight, the huge green man seemingly able to defy death, recalls Beowulf’s journey to the mere in search of Grendel’s lair following the attack of Grendel’s mother on Heorot. Just as Beowulf anticipates the strong possibility of dying in the challenge with the monster, Gawain fully expects

48 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance to die at the hands of the Green Knight, a sentiment shared by the entire court.140 When Gawain leaves Camelot, “He wende for euermore” (l. 669), believing he will never return. Prior to leaving, he hears mass, in particular a mass associated with All Saints Day, a mass for the dead, foreshadowing his own death.141 Once he has gone, the courtiers expect Gawain to be “britned to noʒt” (l. 680, “destroyed to nothing”), and “Hadet wyth an aluisch mon” (l. 681, “beheaded by an elvish man”), counting him as “lost” (l. 675), gone for good. The French chivalric code, by contrast, seeks to spare life. While Erec and Yvain of French romance expect difficult martial contests, they fully expect to return to court having successfully defended the honor of their queen or kinsman, with all the social commendation that comes with such knightly feats. Their confidence is warranted, moreover, since their opponents, namely Yder and Esclados the Red, are in fact human. Gawain, on the other hand, simply expects to die at the hands of a monster whose supernatural powers he cannot possibly match. Gawain may not necessarily fear the Green Knight, but he has agreed to take the return blow without opposition, and therefore has every reason to presume his own death. In this respect, the narrative device of the quest that normally launches the hero’s career in French tradition seems likely to end the hero’s career in Sir Gawain. Thus Gawain’s journey for the green chapel takes on a sense of fatalism typical of the heroic challenge of Anglo-Saxon tradition and atypical of the adventure of French romance. Gawain follows in the footsteps of Anglo-Saxon heroes, like the warriors in the Battle of Maldon, who commit themselves to courses of action that prove fatal to them. Again, however, Gawain’s heroic challenge with the green “monster” at the green chapel merges with his (equally heroic) challenge with Bertilak’s court at Hautdesert, which as we shall see in the next chapter, has all the marks of the Norman aristocratic estate.

THE TALE OF GAMELYN: A CLASH OF PRE-CONQUEST AND POST-CONQUEST LEGAL SYSTEMS The Tale of Gamelyn (c. 1350) presents another instance where Anglo-Saxon and Norman cultural identities confront one another, only in this case, the confrontation occurs not on the battlefield, or in the forest, or in a castle, but instead in the courtroom. The story of Gamelyn attests to the persistence of cultural difference between Norman and Anglo-Saxon well into the fourteenth century, hundreds of years after the Conquest. Unlike King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Sir Orfeo, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which all take place in the distant past, Gamelyn is set in the present, in fourteenth-century England. Nevertheless, the poem clearly indicates that, despite the lapse of time since the Conquest, differences in cultural practice continue to shape everyday life, and prejudicial systems of government that privilege Norman traditions over native ones continue to rancor. Scholars

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have long pointed out the class issues at play in the clash between Gamelyn and his older brother in The Tale of Gamelyn, but they have failed to note that the conflict is driven by cultural difference, specifically as encoded in legal institutions, both pre- and post-Conquest.142 Fundamentally, the poem tracks the redistribution of wealth within a family whose members individually place their loyalties in opposing social spheres: the knightly class on the one hand and the common folk on the other.143 However, scholars also assume a shared value system rooted in French feudalism despite those class differences and often measure Gamelyn against the heroes of French romance.144 With little exception, scholars tend to overlook, if not deny, the cultural component accompanying the issue of social class in Gamelyn. Cultural difference underlies the two legal institutions that come under scrutiny in the poem, primogeniture and the jury system, two of the most prominent and far-reaching Norman legal innovations introduced in the post-Conquest period, innovations the poem ultimately rejects. Cultural difference also explains why Gamelyn’s particular form of protest involves hiding out in the forest with a band of similarly disenfranchised, though thoroughly respectable, men who recognize an alternate system of authority, including a “king” of their own, a system rooted in Anglo-Saxon experience, and one the poem ultimately embraces.145 The alternate system of authority comes into play immediately in Gamelyn in the legal dilemma facing Gamelyn’s father which precipitates the central conflict of the plot. The poem opens with Sir Johan of Boundys, on his deathbed, pondering how best to provide for his three sons, Johan, Ote, and Gamelyn, after his death. He summons “wise knightes” (l. 17) from the area to help him with this decision regarding his lands. After consulting among themselves, the knights advise Sir Johan to “delen hem alle to oon” (l. 43), the eldest son, and proceed with the arrangements, counting on Sir Johan’s approval.146 Sir Johan, however, insists on providing for all three of his sons, not just the eldest one, so that “ech of hem hadde his part” (l. 16). Thus he bequeaths five ploughshares of land he inherited from his own father to Johan, the eldest son, another five ploughshares of land he acquired in his own lifetime to the middle son, Ote, and all his remaining acquired lands, with their tenants, and all his horses, to his youngest son, Gamelyn (ll. 57–62).147 This decision on the part of Sir Johan drives the entire subsequent plot. Sir Johan’s deathbed decision concerning the disposition of his lands contrasts two systems of inheritance that divide pre-Conquest and postConquest familial practice.148 Sir Johan, on the one hand, insists upon a model of inheritance, technically referred to as “coparcenary,” and commonly known as “gavelkind” (Old English gafol, “tribute, rent” + kind, “child”), that was the norm in pre-Conquest England; in this, the testator bequeathed his lands equally among all his children (daughters as well as sons), and/or among members of his extended family, including brothers, nephews and nieces and their spouses, wives, uncles and aunts, and so

50 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance on.149 In this way, land and wealth among the Anglo-Saxons were distributed horizontally within the family, reflecting the prominence of the family clan as the basic social unit. Sir Johan seeks to employ such a system when providing for his children after his death.150 Under this system, moreover, the ancestor could “nominate” his own heirs, so that inheritance was not predetermined by an external system regardless of the ancestor’s wishes.151 Thus Sir Johan assumes that his choices of heirs and their portions fall within acceptable practice. In post-Conquest England, coparcenary, also known as “partible inheritance,” was permitted with certain modifications that made it more compatible with newer inheritance practice, namely that sons alone would inherit, and that the younger sons held their share from the eldest brother “in a strange form of tenure in which there were no services or incidents and the tenant was somehow a peer of his lord.”152 Coparcenary (gavelkind) prevailed mostly among the middling and lower classes, less often among Norman nobility, and in rural areas over urban areas, further suggesting native roots, and it remained especially common in Kent as well as East Anglia, roughly the area from which Gamelyn originates.153 The “wise knights” in Gamelyn, on the other hand, argue for a different legal practice, the rule of primogeniture, whereby the eldest son inherits all of the father’s holdings upon his death. This was the system introduced to England by the Normans, more or less standardized by the reign of Henry I (1100–1135), and later reinforced under the reign of Edward I (1272–1307).154 The Norman system of primogeniture, in contrast to preConquest practice, reflects the shift from family clan to family dynasty, whereby wealth is distributed vertically down through the generations via eldest male heirs. Primogeniture served the feudal system which linked land tenure to a knight’s military service to the king.155 Thus, according to Ranulf de Glanvill (d. 1,190), the chief judiciar of England during the reign of Henry II, if the testator is a knight, then “primogenitus filius patri succedit in totum, ita quod nullus fratrum suorum partem inde de iure petere potest” [“the eldest son succeeds to his father in everything, so that none of his brothers can lawfully claim any part thereof”].156 Since Sir Johan is obviously a knight, the question of inheritance in Gamelyn involves lands tied to knight service, hence the knight advisors’ defense of Johan, the eldest son. Eventually, the practice extended to include lands linked with nonmilitary service (e.g. agricultural rents and services, also known as “socage” lands).157 It ensured a clear chain of service and command, and became the default system for inheritance at all levels of society. Additionally, unlike the pre-Conquest system that allowed the ancestor to choose his own heirs, under primogeniture, state policy dictated that the ancestor’s holdings automatically went to the eldest son.158 If an ancestor wished to provide for a younger son on his deathbed, he had to get the approval of the eldest son and heir, and Glanvill’s warnings of legal difficulties arising thereof suggest that providing for younger sons was discouraged.159 Above all, primogeniture enabled families to maintain and increase land holdings

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across generations, avoiding the dispersal of property endemic in the system of coparcenary. According to historian James C. Holt, the change in inheritance practice was not gradual, but a “sharp antithesis, the new confronting the old across the divide of 1066.”160 To be sure, exceptions to primogeniture continued to be made following the Conquest, and Norman families routinely provided for younger children, though usually in the form of chattels rather than lands. Such exceptions, however, were precisely that: exceptions to the rule of primogeniture. The Tale of Gamelyn, composed by a poet who “knew his law,”161 witnesses such an exception as Sir Johan clearly goes against the norms of inheritance, and certainly against consensus opinion, by providing for all three of his sons along the lines of Anglo-Saxon practice.162 At fi rst, it would seem that Sir Johan’s decision to divide his lands is not such a big issue. After all, his holdings are legally “partible” since portions of them were acquired by different means; Sir Johan inherited part of his lands from his own father, while other parts he acquired during his own lifetime, in which case the sum of the estate did not exist as a single unit in the past (ll. 57–62).163 Such distinctions between heritable lands and acquired lands came to the forefront with the Conquest, since Norman families now held heritable estates back in Normandy and newly acquired lands in England. In the generation after the Conquest, the heritable lands in Normandy generally went to the eldest son of the family, while younger sons would inherit the English holdings, a system that faced modification in subsequent generations.164 English common law allowed for fathers to give acquired lands to a younger son, but only if the holdings were small enough so as not to disinherit the heir (or eldest son), who required sufficient lands to meet knight service. Within certain legal parameters, therefore, Sir Johan’s decision to provide for his younger sons was permissible. However, the poet himself explicitly calls attention to the unconventionality of Sir Johan’s decision by involving the knight advisors, thereby highlighting the dimension of cultural difference at play. From a narrative standpoint, the advisors seem superfluous since they do not influence the plot one way or the other.165 Upon their arrival, Sir Johan tells them he wishes for them to “‘dresseth my lond among my sones thre’” (l. 36). When they return from their counsel and recommend the standard practice of primogeniture, he simply reasserts his original plan to divide his holdings three ways. If anything, he further disregards the rule of primogeniture by providing a larger share to the youngest son, in the end, than either of the two older ones, and the particulars of the fi nal arrangement would quite likely prevent the eldest son from having the minimum income requirement for meeting and/or maintaining the status of knighthood.166 In other words, Sir Johan does not seem concerned about legally “disinheriting” his eldest son by compromising his knight service. He also does not seek Johan’s approval, as the eldest son and heir, for granting lands to the younger sons while on his deathbed, as required under English common law.167 Sir Johan

52 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance expresses equal contempt for both the rule of primogeniture and for the legal strategies for circumventing it. In essence, Sir Johan’s plan to split his holdings remains the same before and after the counsel of the wise knights. Their role in the narrative, therefore, involves introducing the idea of primogeniture in order for it to be rejected, along with all its accompanying legal provisions, in favor of a system rooted in a different social tradition that allowed more personal freedom in distributing one’s property at the end of one’s life. When the eldest son, Johan, violates his father’s wishes and insists upon the rule of primogeniture, we witness the old confronting the new and the ensuing divisions within a single family. The cultural split exhibited in the family of Sir Johan Boundys bears direct relation to the particular stratum of society they occupy. The father’s social title, “Sir,” and the eldest son’s insistence on sole inheritance would seem to place the Boundys family in the knightly class dominated by the descendants of Norman landholders. However, the style of their domestic dwelling, which I discuss more fully in Chapter 2, along with the father’s preference for partible inheritance, bespeak native English cultural identity. Their cultural profile best fits that of the minor gentry, or “knights of the shire,” members of whom might be descendants of lesser Norman landholders or, as it appears in the case of the Boundys’, members of the local English community who, through service in civic offices and wise dealings in the village land market (suggested in the father’s acquired lands), could rise to the knightly class.168 Historian David Carpenter refers to this class of lesser gentry as “a hinge between the peasantry and the gentry,” a social category which explains the very different social circles preferred by the brothers Johan and Gamelyn, even while living under the same roof. As it happens, moreover, one of the chief societal roles these lesser gentry played involved staffi ng and running the “hundred,” the administrative unit that oversaw the local court system, the world at the center of the family and the story of Gamelyn.169 The familial division in Gamelyn finds its way into the court system, where we see another post-Conquest legal innovation coming under attack: the jury system.170 When the Normans arrived in 1066, they found a legal system in place that was, in many respects, more advanced than their own, and much of it was written down. In the century following the Conquest, the Norman kings translated and amended, but nevertheless continued to rely upon the laga Eadwardi, or Law of Edward (the Confessor), particularly with respect to land law.171 One of the few distinctly Norman innovations within the English legal system was the Inquest, the basis of trial by jury, involving a sworn body of neighbors addressing a question put to them by the king or duke, a process which became formalized in 1166 under Henry II with the Assize of Clarendon, thereby guaranteeing the future role of the jury in civil disputes.172 This measure introduced both the jury of twelve men, designed to address land disputes, and the “grand jury” of twenty four men, designed to address criminal cases. All cases came before a panel of judges appointed by the crown,

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who traveled a circuit.173 The Assize of Clarendon also marks the beginning of canonical jurisprudence, as Henry II, in his “most lasting triumph in the legal field,” entrusted the Church with administering the law.174 Whereas the Assize of Clarendon introduced judicial procedures, such as the jury, that would seem to bring greater efficiency and fairness to the judicial process, in fact, it initiated King Henry’s larger anticrime campaign that intensified methods of trial and punishment frequently involving corporal mutilation.175 Over the ensuing decades, the jury system proved all too corruptible, being easily swayed toward the interests of the powerful, as contemporary court records attest; hence the suspicion surrounding the jury in The Tale of Gamelyn.176 Many aspects about the jury critiqued in The Tale of Gameyln accord with the jury system established during the twelfth century. First, just as the petty jury of twelve was intended to deal with land disputes, and the grand jury system to deal with criminal cases, the jury in Gamelyn revolves around the land dispute between Gamelyn and his older brother Johan that evolves into a criminal case that awaits the arrival of a circuit judge (ll. 742, 766).177 When young Gamelyn challenges his brother Johan for his inheritance lands, his brother promptly has him declared an outlaw. Second, rather than being selected for their objectivity, members of the jury were chosen in full awareness of their subjectivity in the matter. Jurymen were selected from among local men on the basis of their prior knowledge of the case, and they exercised their duty not necessarily by listening to testimony, so much as by analyzing existing evidence of the case, only assembling after the investigation to discuss the case.178 While the defendant could plead his side, he did not act through an attorney.179 Similarly, in Gamelyn, the jury formed by Johan does not listen to the testimony of both sides, but rather “investigates” the case outside of court and assembles after this investigation to issue a verdict against Gamelyn, declaring him a “wolues-heed” (l. 710, “wolf’s head”) or outlaw, on the basis of his conduct surrounding the land dispute. While it is tempting to fault the jury in Gamelyn for issuing a verdict before hearing all sides, the methods employed by the jurors in the poem coincide with those of the historical jury system.180 Third, the allegations, once made, await the presence of a circuit judge representing the crown, who “sits” at cases at designated times of year, reflecting the increased centralization and bureaucratization of the legal system, a process alluded to in Gamelyn (ll. 742, 766).181 Fourth, the Gamelyn-poet indicates that the jury meets in a “moot-halle” (ll. 717, 812, 814, also spelled “halimote” or “hallmoot”), the precise term for the local manorial court where such cases were tried.182 Finally, just as the formalized jury system coincided with ecclesiastical jurisdiction in administering the law, so too in Gamelyn, Johan aligns himself with various clerical leaders, including abbots and priors (ll. 434–436), who then form the target of Gamelyn’s retaliation (ll. 781–782). The Church and the jury are equally implicated in the poem. Thus, the poem captures in minute and rather accurate detail the mechanisms of the post-Conquest court system.

54 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance Additionally, the conditions governing the jury of Gamelyn, and its outcome, reflect on the changing powers of the office of the sheriff.183 Sheriffs, an office dating back to pre-Conquest times, were originally officials appointed by the crown, and answering to it. After the Conquest, the sheriffs were recruited primarily from among the baronage, and their powers gradually increased.184 Later, under Henry I (1100–1135), the crown began recruiting sheriffs and other lower ranks of the ministerial class from among the lesser nobility, intensifying royal control of these officers.185 Centralized control of the office diminished, however, during the reign of Stephen I (1135–1154) and beyond, when sheriffs no longer acted as agents of the crown so much as agents of various local magnates, reflected fictionally in how Johan manipulates his office for his own aims. Reports of illegality and corruption of the office of the sheriff run throughout contemporary court records, and royal efforts aimed at curbing such excess had little effect.186 Through all of these changes, however, French surnames continue to dominate the rolls for the office of the sheriff, reflecting persistent cultural as well as political bias.187 Under the Assize of Clarendon, property disputes were taken, in the king’s name, to the sheriff, whose most important task involved empanelling a jury of twelve free and lawful men, a role that Johan assumes in Gamelyn.188 He was then responsible for summoning the defendant, as he does with Gamelyn. Under Henry II, with the Assize of Clarendon, sheriffs acquired the additional power to seize the property of criminals, which explains why Johan moves so quickly to designate Gamelyn as an “outlaw,” since that would enable Johan to finally acquire Gamelyn’s lands should he win the case.189 The sheriff and the jury both conspire to this end in Gamelyn. The portrait of Johan, the ambitious elder brother from a family rooted in traditional ways, who maneuvers to become sheriff and exploits that office to win a land dispute that hinges on the rule of primogeniture, a Norman innovation, in defiance of his family’s wishes, distills years of development of the office of the sheriff under Norman law. Thus Johan, as sheriff, exploits two Norman legal innovations, the jury system and the rule of primogeniture, to maximize his own advantage against Gamelyn. If the eldest brother, Johan, employs judicial tools pioneered under Norman rule, the youngest brother, Gamelyn, draws his judicial methods from native English popular culture, what Richard Firth Green calls “folklaw.” On the whole, Green notes the poem expresses a “nostalgic commitment . . . to an older legal order” in contrast to the “untrustworthy machinery of the king’s law,” and we fi nd this commitment expressed in the career of the hero.190 Unlike the judicial method of Johan, which relies on the work of a tribunal culminating in a “trial,” the method employed by Gamelyn hearkens back to an older system of justice that relies on “proof,” or supernatural “proof” as revealed in ordeals of physical strength or endurance, contests which took place in and out of the ancient court system.191 We see this “unofficial” form of justice in the wrestling match that Gamelyn enters and wins. Fairly early in the narrative, Gamelyn, known for his size and strength, hears of an upcoming local wrestling match with a ram and a ring

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and decides to go “to preuen his might” (l. 174). Borrowing a horse from Johan, he insists that winning the prizes of the ram and ring would bring the family “‘moche worschip’” (l. 185). Such matches were common spectator events traditionally held at the Midsummer Day fair in rural England.192 Even outside of English literature, wrestling was associated with English culture, as seen in Hartmann von Aue’s Erec, where Erec “in sîner kintheit/ zEngellande, sam man seit,/vil wol gelernet ringen” (ll. 9,282–9,284, “had in his childhood in England, so they say, learned to wrestle very well”).193 At fi rst, it seems that Gamelyn’s participation in the match is purely recreational, and intended primarily to solidify his “common man” status.194 However, the poet changes what would have been a simple recreational event into a judicial contest in two important ways. First, he allies the “champion” that Gamelyn will face in the match with Johan, who sees in this match an opportunity to have his younger brother killed, or at least crippled (ll. 192–194).195 The reader is led to believe that Johan’s political influence has infi ltrated the match. Second, the poet has Gamelyn intercepted on his way to the match by a “frankeleyn” (l. 197), who claims that the champion in the match has nearly killed his two sons, and he offers ten pounds to the man who will avenge him, though no one has come forward (ll. 201–207). Gamelyn takes on the challenge with honor. After the match, the franklin and his two sons approach the defeated champion, and the franklin boasts to his face of Gamelyn’s triumph over him (l. 254). Apart from being a simple test of strength, therefore, the wrestling match becomes, on two levels, a defense of the unjustly treated (Gamelyn and the franklin) against the powerful.196 Thus, in addition to marking Gamelyn’s class affiliation, the wrestling match as an informal judicial measure marks the hero’s cultural affiliation with native English popular culture, and his success in the contest affi rms this method as eminently more honorable and straightforward than the jury system preferred by his brother.197 Gamelyn’s wrestling skills complement the other array of non-knightly weapons he uses throughout the poem, including “a good cart-staf” (l. 590), “bowes and . . . floon” (l. 648), and of course his bare hands, further removing him from the ranks of courtly heroes.198 As we shall see in Chapter 4, Gamelyn’s cultural affi nities become clearer still in the face of heightened corruption, when he begins to react in the manner of a disinherited Anglo-Saxon nobleman of old.

CONCLUSION Each of the texts discussed in this chapter captures in some way the cultural difference between Anglo-Saxon and Norman that came to dominate English social and political life from 1066 on. Each of them begins with a hero, who lives and thinks like an Anglo-Saxon, being violated in some way by an aggressor who lives and thinks like a Norman (or, in the case

56 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance of Horn, like a Viking and later a Norman). Each of them unfolds a plot whereby the hero tries to regain the land and/or honor he lost at the beginning, a plot that further highlights the cultural difference between him and his enemy. The earliest text, King Horn, dramatizes the crisis of conquest in the life of Horn, who experiences fi rst-hand the traumatic loss of his family and kingdom to military and political usurpation. The plot takes Horn into confl ict with two sets of enemies who correlate directly with England’s historical invaders, Vikings and Normans, drawing meaningful parallels between the struggles of the past and those of the present. Havelok the Dane too revolves around two crises of conquest, one in Denmark and the other in England, and it intertwines the fates of these two countries in ways that recall the historic Anglo-Danish alliance that threatened to undermine Norman plans in England. Havelok the Dane takes the regional legend of Havelok and extends its parameters, fi rst, geographically, to encompass the whole of England, including some key landmarks in the Conquest of 1066, and second, politically, to include the resistance efforts to Norman takeover that were centered in Lincolnshire, a subject I explore more fully in the last chapter. The Middle English Sir Orfeo, explores the cultural difference brought about by the Conquest by means to two households, the Fairy King’s and King Orfeo’s, that correlate respectively to Norman and Anglo-Saxon cultural patterns, and whose interaction replicates on a small scale the broader losses of kingdom and honor imposed by the Norman Conquest. The same model of contrasting households appears in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight between Arthur’s Camelot and Bertilak’s Hautdesert. Here, the poet merges the monster foe of Anglo-Saxon literary tradition and the Norman political foe of Anglo-Saxon historical experience in the bipartite figure of the Green Knight/Bertilak, the giant green man who invades Arthur’s hall at the start of the poem only to be revealed later as a lord with all the marks of a Norman aristocrat. The Green Knight prompts Gawain into a journey that shares elements remarkably similar to the fateful ventures of a hero like Beowulf. Finally, The Tale of Gamelyn witnesses the entrenched inequities, rooted in the Conquest, that continue to pervade the everyday life of ordinary Englishmen. The poem depicts a family torn apart by competing models of inheritance, one pre-Conquest and the other post-Conquest. In its exploration of the precise legal terms of inheritance, and its damning portrayal of the fourteenth-century English court system, Gamelyn offers perhaps the most concrete example of cultural difference and prejudice between Normans and Anglo-Saxons, well into the fourteenth century. Taken as a whole, these texts track the progress of the Conquest of England from the initial stages in 1066, to the colonial period in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and into the contemporary period. King Horn and Havelok the Dane seem to revisit the situation of the Conquest itself and resistance efforts to it. Both works adopt a sweeping, panoramic view involving kings, countries, and armies, and spread the effects of conquest

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over the whole of England. Just as in 1066, the cultural divide and subsequent military takeover in these poems comes as a surprise to the hero/ heroine and his/her family, furthering the sense of injustice. Sir Orfeo and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight reflect more the circumstances of the colonial period. Both poems tighten the focus, locating the cultural divide between two otherwise equal, cohesive, and established courts located within fairly close proximity to one another, capturing the demographics of the colonial period. None of the characters in these poems crosses an ocean or seeks foreign aid. Instead, Orfeo and Gawain focus on the domestic sphere, on private homes and private thoughts. Cultural difference in both of these poems seems to be assumed, taken as a fact of life, as it was in the colonial period. The Tale of Gamelyn reflects contemporary fourteenth-century England, where cultural prejudice continues to pose problems. Gamelyn narrows the focus further still, placing the divide within a single household among close kin, and the cultural divide, while more modest in scope, proves equally damaging. In each case, the issue at stake is identity. The hero does not concern himself with matters of leisure (love, recreational pursuits), but rather with the most basic aspect of his being: who he is. Hence, his words and actions continually reassert who he is and what his mission is, and that mission repeatedly involves recovering what was originally his, thereby reclaiming a respected place for himself, whether that means reclaiming an entire kingdom or just a few ploughshares.199 It is a mission of justice and, in the case of Orfeo and Gamelyn, of social equality. His identity, moreover, takes an Anglo-Saxon cast, a portrait that becomes clearer in the chapters that follow. Fulfilling that mission, moreover, means facing an opponent who, above all, condescendingly refuses to accept the hero’s property and personal integrity, his identity, and who asserts, instead, a political superiority based largely on material superiority whose style and function bears all the hallmark of the Norman invaders. Thus, these fictional texts reenact the historical struggle between the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans hundreds of years after the Conquest.

2

Castle Architecture and English Identity

Castles are so ubiquitous in Middle English literature that we tend to view them as neutral components of the man-made landscape.1 We tend to forget that castle architecture came to England with the Norman Conquest of 1066, that castles, as a form of military architecture, formed a vital component of the conquest strategy, and that castles remained associated with Norman dominion for long afterward. This chapter explores how Middle English poets could, and did, use castle architecture to suggest cultural (Norman) identity and/or sympathies. Similarly, though more sparingly, they use “hall” architecture (a large hall with a private chamber attached) to evoke authentically English (i.e. Anglo-Saxon) cultural identity. This cultural contrast obtains in several Middle English poems, including King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Sir Orfeo, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and to a certain degree, The Tale of Gamelyn, where the protagonists live in dwellings whose description and location suggests Anglo-Saxon lordly architecture, while the antagonists occupy dwellings of Norman design described at great length. This systematic use of architectural detail accords with other textual details in these poems that indicate cultural identity, and with recent scholarship, both historical and literary, that suggests that such cultural categories remained meaningful for centuries beyond the Conquest. Thus, even as late as the fourteenth century, English poets could use castle architecture to indicate cultural and moral affi nities. Prior to the Norman Conquest, fortifications in England consisted of the burh, the fortified town or city. The burh is a large communal fortification, averaging one hundred acres in size, which could protect an entire community from attack. King Alfred, for example, had a network of burhs constructed against the Danish invasions. Located in densely populated areas, along the main road and river routes leading into Wessex, the system of burhs seems intended to ensure that no one lived more than twenty miles or so from a burh and the protection it could afford in the event of attack.2 While some burhs served a strictly defensive purpose, others were clearly planned as urban centers of residence and commerce, often involving large-scale relocation of the population.3 This system of defense not only protected the kingdom from attack during Alfred’s day, but also

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helped his successors to consolidate West Saxon control of the Danelaw.4 The Old English burhs belonged to a system of national defense overseen by royal authority and paid for through public taxes.5 Thus, in Anglo-Saxon England, fortification was a centralized, public affair, instituted by royal prerogative, designed to benefit the community at large. The communal nature of fortification in Anglo-Saxon England is echoed in the dominant form of lordly architecture for Anglo-Saxon rulers, the heall (Latin aula), or “hall.” As an architectural space, the hall (Middle English halle) formed the heart of the Germanic lordly residence. It is a communal space, shared by a lord and his extended family and retainers, reflecting the highly communal nature of Germanic societies. Built of wood, or a combination of wood and stone, the hall formed the dominant architectural space in pre-Conquest England, most famously illustrated by Heorot in Beowulf. Anglo-Saxon halls sat at ground level, with the main door opening onto a paved area and approach path.6 Halls typically contained a separate chamber (Old English bur, or “bower”) at one end, a private space reserved for the lord and his family, not so much a bedroom as a separate apartment within the hall. In most cases, the chamber and hall were contained under the same roof, but in some instances, the chamber might form a separate building, adjacent to the hall.7 While some Germanic halls were defended and situated within outer walls, they were not fortified in architectural terms. So central was the hall to Anglo-Saxon family and civic life that “on Anglo-Saxon estates duties were sometimes owed not to an individual, but to a particular hall.”8 In both cases, the burh and the hall, Anglo-Saxon architecture is essentially communal and defensive. The type of fortification the Normans brought with them in 1066 served a rather different, offensive as well as defensive, function. The castle, in contrast to the burh, is a more or less private dwelling, a fortified residence that, nevertheless, served public functions. While Norman castles contained a hall, they also included a host of other architectural features, such as towers and defensive outer walls, and of course, they were built of stone, not wood (though some of the earliest castles the Normans built were initially constructed out of wood and later rebuilt in stone), all reflecting their military purpose. In the fi rst generation of Norman castle building in England, such fortifications were built within existing Anglo-Saxon burhs to serve as seats of civil administration, asserting Norman military and political dominance from within.9 These fortifications also served as the private residence of whichever Norman lord was placed in charge of the city. Located within the city, these castles formed a key military tool in the Norman invasion, providing commanders with a safe headquarters of operation within enemy territory. Hence, the Normans began constructing castles as soon as they disembarked on the coast of England in September 1066, and continued building them at each new leg of the Conquest. All told, the Normans built over fi fteen hundred castles in England as part of their military and administrative takeover.10 Since castles came to England

60 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance with the Norman invaders, and since many of them were constructed within burhs at the expense of considerable vernacular architecture, the English people, understandably, viewed them as symbols of oppression. In a famous line, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells of how “[William] had castles constructed and poor men oppressed,” capturing the rather negative image of castles shared by many Anglo-Saxons.11 Castle building continued to serve Norman political interests beyond the military phase of the Conquest and into the period of colonization in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. In this second generation of Norman castle building, fortification became increasingly privatized and rural, giving rise to a castle plantation society. This period also sees the influence of Anglo-Saxon architecture on castle design, notably in the increasing size and prominence of the great hall, which according to architectural historian John Goodall, “passed with undiminished prestige through the Conquest as an essential element of any substantial residence.”12 The Norman hall might form part of a larger castle, or stand alone as a smaller manor. In both cases, however, the Norman hall differs from the Anglo-Saxon hall in two important respects: it generally occupies the fi rst floor rather than the ground floor, accessed by a fl ight of steps set at right angle, and it was generally built of stone.13 Nevertheless, the ancient pattern of the ground floor hall persisted in England well after the Conquest. Unlike Anglo-Saxon fortification, which rested in the hands of the king and revolved around urban centers, the Norman castle fortress might belong to any lord with enough status and wealth to construct one (though building one required royal authorization)14 and expanded fortification into the countryside, away from urban centers.15 (Eighty-two percent of documented castles in England are located in rural sites.)16 Such castle manors reflected not a national system of defense, like that of the Anglo-Saxons, so much as the personal, local ambitions of the individual landowner.17 Since castle ownership remained synonymous with control of the land and its population, castles continued be viewed as symbols of oppression and injustice well into the twelfth century, and especially during the tumultuous reign of Stephen I (1135–1154) when, according to one historian, “a predatory regime came into existence, or lords based in castles, extorting ransoms and protection money from the surroundings.”18 In short, castle architecture came to England as a foreign import, part of the Conquest program. Nor did the reputation of castles as a tool of conquest diminish during the centuries following 1066. One of the most expansive, and certainly the most expensive, phases of castle building in Great Britain occurred during the reign of Edward I (1272–1307) in connection with the English conquest of Wales.19 Edward launched a series of military campaigns into Wales during the late thirteenth century, each of which generated new and impressive castle fortresses. Following the war of 1277, the castles of Builth, Aberystwyth, Flint, and Rhuddlan were constructed. After the war of 1282–1283, we have the famous castles of Conwy, Caernarfon, and

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Harlech, while the castles of Beaumaris and Angelsey were built following the rebellion of 1294–1295. Located mostly along the coast for easy provisioning, these castles were designed to house and sustain large armies. The entire program involved recruiting architectural expertise from abroad, notably the Savoyard master mason James of St. George and his team of masons (mostly from Savoy), and hiring diggers, carpenters, sawyers, quarrymen, and smiths often numbering in the thousands, at an estimated cost of £80,000 between years 1277–1304.20 These magnificent buildings constituted “a most formidable symbol of the English conquest” and facilitated colonization of the area with English emigrants. 21 From a purely design standpoint, many consider the castles of Edward’s Welsh program to represent the zenith of castle engineering in medieval Britain. 22 Thus, we see an unbroken line of castle building from the Conquest down to the early fourteenth century, all with the intent of accomplishing and consolidating the military and economic domination of the areas within which they were constructed. Castle architecture, therefore, forms a coherent, longenduring, and distinctly Norman strategy of political domination practiced throughout the post-Conquest period, a living tool for preserving and enforcing cultural difference. As such, castles form an important tool for characterization in literature of the post-Conquest period. It is not surprising that the native population of England viewed castles with a combination of awe, suspicion, and outright contempt. Not only did castles provide “tangible and irrefutable evidence of Norman political and military domination,” but in the decades after the Conquest, during the reign of Stephen I, castles became associated with rampant terrorization of the Anglo-Saxon population. 23 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (E), for the year 1137, laments “all the torments infl icted upon wretched people in this country,” telling of how “. . . every powerful man built his castles . . . and fi lled the country full of castles. They oppressed the wretched people of the country severely with castle-building. When the castles were built, they fi lled them with devils and wicked men. Then, both by night and day they took those people that they thought had any goods—men and women—and put them in prison and tortured them with indescribable torture to extort gold and silver . . .” After describing in some detail the indescribable torture, the chronicler goes on to describe how villages were robbed and burned, taxes (“‘protection money’”) imposed, and local people driven out, concluding “there had never been till then greater misery in the country, nor had heathens ever done worse than they did.”24 The Normans were so synonymous with castles that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to them several times as simply “castelmen.”25 The brutal history of castles in England from the vantage of the native population fi nds expression in a number of Middle English

62 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance romances, where we see castles from the native perspective as impressive but dangerous places, as enemy territory. In Sir Orfeo and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the audience sees the castle for the fi rst time through the eyes of the English hero, who stands outside the castle walls, alone, an outsider, marveling at its imposing splendor. King Orfeo and Sir Gawain, like young Horn, enter into that castle at their own risk, in some cases under false pretense, and face their greatest challenges. In Havelok the Dane too, castles are the preferred architecture of the usurper, Godrich. To a great extent, castles are to the hero of Middle English romance what forests are to the heroes of French romance: the zone of adventure, the testing ground for the hero, equally if not more treacherous than the forest, reflecting the historical relationship native English people had to these buildings.

KING HORN The developments in architectural design brought about by the Conquest manifest themselves in meaningful ways in certain English romances, including the very earliest extant Middle English romance, King Horn (c. 1225). 26 The poem is set in pre-Conquest England during the period of the Viking raids, and the hero Horn is an Anglo-Saxon, the son of King Murry, who falls in love with a girl named Rymenhild. Like all historical fiction of this period, the poem blends certain aspects of the past and present, so that, for example, the Vikings are referred to as “sarazins” (l. 38ff.), conflating pre-Conquest and post-Conquest enemies. 27 Similarly, the poet inserts castles into this pre-Conquest landscape when, in fact, such castles did not exist yet in England. While the poem’s castles are anachronistic, their presence in the narrative is, nevertheless, significant as a tool of characterization, a tool unique to this English version of the Horn story and not found in the earlier Anglo-Norman Romance of Horn. The English Horn-poet consistently ties architectural design, both pre- and post-Conquest, to characterization in order to draw lines of cultural difference and sympathy. The Horn-poet uses architecture to make moral judgments, beginning with the good characters, whom he associates with pre-Conquest design. The poem features three deeply sympathetic kings who shelter and aid the hero throughout the poem, and all three of them live in dwellings referred to exclusively as “halls.” Typical of the pattern seen elsewhere, these halls receive brief, though consistent, description. The good kings in the poem, King Murry of Sudene, King Almair of Westernesse, and King Thurston of Ireland live in residences characterized by two architectural spaces: a “halle” (ll. 71, 223, 255) and a “bure” (a private “bower” or “chamber,” ll. 286, 526ff.) attached to the hall at one end, precisely the features of the pre-Conquest English hall. King Murry is Horn’s father and an Anglo-Saxon who dies fighting the Vikings. When his queen Godhild hears of Murry’s death on the coast, “He wenten vt of halle” (l. 71) to take up another, safer residence.

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King Almair, Rymenhild’s father, takes in Horn and his twelve companions, whom the Vikings banished by boat. Like King Murry, King Almair lives in a hall with a private chamber attached. (By contrast, his counterpart in the Old French Romance of Horn, Hunlaf, lives in a castle in Brittany). 28 Upon discovering and questioning Horn, “Þe kyng com in to halle” (l. 223; also ll. 255, 368, 456, 472, 586, 625) and immediately orders his steward, Athelbrus, to “‘tech him of harpe & songe’” (l. 240).29 (This combination of halls and harping becomes a recurring theme in other Middle English literature, echoing the association of halls and harping found throughout Anglo-Saxon literature.)30 Throughout the poem, King Almair’s residence is consistently referred to as a “hall.” Later in the poem, when Horn is exiled by Almair, who misunderstands Horn’s secret marriage to Rymenhild, Horn (under the alias “Cuthbert,” evoking the Anglo-Saxon St. Cuthbert) travels to Ireland where he meets King Thurston, who too lives in a “halle” (ll. 779, 892) with a private chamber attached. Thus, all three kings affiliated with Horn, including his father, live in halls. Moreover, the poet uses no other language to describe either the interiors or the exteriors of these dwellings, despite his wide vocabulary for castle architecture seen elsewhere in the poem. Such absence of descriptive language surrounding hall architecture is the rule in the Middle English romances, where the word “hall” alone seems to serve as literary shorthand for Anglo-Saxon architecture. Two of the kingly halls featured in King Horn, those of King Almair of Westernesse, and King Thurston of Ireland, specify a private “bure” (“chamber”) attached to the hall. In both cases, this private chamber is strongly associated with the king’s daughter. Indeed, Horn presents a series of “chamber scenes” involving Horn and Rymenhild. Throughout the poem, Rymenhild and Horn meet repeatedly in the “bure,” a private chamber (in this case with a window, l. 649) attached to the hall. She summons him there to reveal her feelings for him and, effectively, propose marriage. Her father later discovers the couple there in an embrace. The room, however, does not appear to be a private bedroom. In the thirteen occurrences of the word “bure” in relation to Almair’s hall in the poem (ll. 269, 280, 286, 294, 325, 372, 386, 394, 526, 649, 686, 695, 709) only two indicate possession: fi rst when Rymenhild refers to “‘my bur’” (l. 325) and second when Almair himself refers to the same room as “my bure” (l. 709), suggesting a private chamber reserved for Almair’s entire family, not just for a single member of that family. In each other instance, the word is employed neutrally, so that Horn goes “into bure.” Both uses suggest the chamber reserved for the lord and his family typical of Germanic hall architecture.31 In King Thurston’s hall in Ireland, we hear of a “lofte” (l. 904, “upper room”) attached to the hall, where Thurston’s daughter Reynild “sitteth.” In hall architecture, an upper room, in Latin solarium, might serve as a bur, of which Thurston’s “lofte” provides an example.32 Thus, King Horn establishes a pattern seen in later Middle English romances whereby the hero and his supporters live in Germanic halls, pre-Conquest lordly dwellings.

64 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance In addition to halls, the hero of King Horn is associated with another architectural space derived from the Anglo-Saxon past: the souterrain, an underground building, an artificial structure lined with stone or timber, the remains of which are found throughout the British Isles. While souterrains often served pragmatic functions (such as food storage), they also served as retreats for sexual intimacy as well as hideaways for dependent family members in the event of attack; hence, souterrains are often associated with women.33 Perhaps the fi nest literary example of a souterrain in connection with circumstances of invasion occurs in the Old English poem The Wife’s Lament, where a woman, hidden away in a souterrain, wonders about the fate of her lord who has gone off to fight. The Horn-poet features a souterrain in historically consistent ways when he has Horn’s mother Queen Godhild retreat “Vnder a roche of stone,/Þer heo liuede alone” (ll. 73–74), following her lord’s death in the recent Viking attack. She successfully hides there as a Christian, “Þat no payn hit ne wiste” (l. 78). At the end of the poem, when Horn returns to reassume leadership of his father’s land, he visits his mother in this souterrain: “He com to his Moder halle/In a roche walle” (ll. 1383–1384). Like the woman of The Wife’s Lament, Godhild uses the souterrain as a hideaway during invasion, and like the Wife, she worries and prays about the future of her loved ones while hiding there (ll. 83–84). Thus, Queen Godhild’s souterrain in King Horn, like the lordly halls of the hero’s supporters, captures the spirit of pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxon experience. The souterrain features elsewhere in Middle English literature, for example, in Sir Tristrem (“erthe hous,” ll. 2,468 and 2,477) and in Layamon’s Brut (“eorᵭ-hus” l. 1,181), again as a place of refuge and again associated with women (Ysolde; Astrild), and similarly set in pre-Conquest England, arguing further for the survival of the souterrain as an Anglo-Saxon architectural concept. 34 Meanwhile, the two evil lords of King Horn live in castles of Norman design. While Horn is away in Ireland for seven years, a certain King Mody of Reynes arrives in Westernesse “ϸat wolde [Rymenhild] haue to wyue” (l. 924), clearly against her wishes. Mody, “On of hornes enemis” (l. 952), has a castle with a fortified hall within the castle wall (ll. 1,041–1,042), a gatehouse (ll. 1,043, 1,078), a tower (ll. 1,091, 1,224), and a bridge (l. 1,076, indicating a moat) leading to the gatehouse. Moreover, the English poet shows Mody using his castle as a tool of oppression. King Mody takes Rymenhild captive in his castle, attempts a forced marriage, and imprisons Horn’s closest companion, Athulf (with whom Horn entrusted Rymenhild), in one of its towers. The other evil lord in the poem, Fikenhild, presents an even more vivid example of how the Horn-poet uses architectural style to invoke cultural and moral difference. Originally one of Horn’s companions who survived the Viking raid in Sudene, Fikenhild is, technically, an Anglo-Saxon who lived in the hall of King Murry, Horn’s father. However, the poet marks him at the outset as a traitor, “ϸe werste” (l. 28), a foil to Athulf, “ϸe beste” (l. 27). Fikenhild (from the Old English ficol,

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“deceitful”) follows in Mody’s failed footsteps in trying to force a marriage with Rymenhild while Horn is away tending to family business. 35 As a prelude to this act of treachery, Fikenhild builds a Norman-style castle: Ston he dude lede Þer he hopede spede. Strong castel he let sette, Mid see him biflette. Þer ne miʒte liʒte Bute foʒel wiϸ fliʒte. (ll. 1393–1398)

This passage describing the castle of Fikenhild is especially rare in that it shows a castle under construction, including the motivation for building it. The poet links it explicitly with treachery in that, fi rst, Fikenhild has already been described as untrustworthy (“ϸe werste”), a traitor to Horn’s family, and second, the fi rst use to which Fikenhild puts this castle involves stealing Rymenhild “bi ϸe derke” (l. 1,431). His castle, or “nywe werke” (l. 1,432) becomes a weapon to coerce and exploit. The poet depicts the arrogance of the man who has stone and seawater hauled to create a moated castle that will distance him from everyone but the birds, an edifice built on the backs of poor people.36 This passage is revealing in that we see the material, psychological, and political process of castle building at work all at the same time in a picture that accords with historical reality, despite the imaginary place names. Castles in King Horn become emblematic of power and its abuses, and the good characters do not live in them. The example of Horn shows that a Middle English poet and his audience could still, one hundred fifty years after the Conquest, have a historical awareness about castle and hall architecture in the English landscape.

HAVELOK THE DANE Another poem with a seemingly ahistorical plot whose architecture nevertheless bespeaks historical reality is the Middle English Havelok the Dane. While the poet takes a special interest in the history and topography of Lincolnshire, scholars have argued that the poem bears little consistency with specific historical facts or sources.37 The poem seems based on Geffrei Gaimar’s Anglo-Norman L’Estoire des Engleis (ca. 1135–1140), containing a legend concerning the marriage of Argentille, the daughter of the Anglo-Danish King Adelbrit and Haveloc, the son of the Danish King Gunter, which was later adapted by an anonymous poet into the Anglo-Norman Lai d’Haveloc (ca. 1200). However, given the legendary status of the source text and the English poet’s liberties with and expansions of the story, scholars have understandably tended to relegate Havelok, along with King Horn, to the generic category of “folklore” and its hero to the status of a “male Cinderella.”38 However, as

66 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance I show elsewhere, the poem engages the subject of English resistance to the Conquest, and many details in the poem, including architectural space, have much to say about Anglo-Saxon cultural memory. As in King Horn, we fi nd two competing architectural spaces in Havelok the Dane: halls and castles. Like the Horn-poet, the poet of Havelok associates hall architecture with the virtuous characters and castle architecture with the villains. The poem opens with the “golden age” of King Athelwold, the English king who protects and provides for his people and strikes fear in his enemies. On his deathbed, Athelwold summons his earls and barons “into the halle/At Winchestre” (ll. 157–158) to designate a guardian for his small daughter until she comes of age. After King Athelwold dies, the poet tells of widespread grief among the people, including “Leuedyes in boure, knihtes in halle” (l. 239). While the poet later indicates that this English landscape also includes castles containing halls within them, he does not describe King Athelwold’s palace using any castle terminology, and we never see King Athelwold in a castle or associated with a castle. Once again, therefore, the poet situates the virtuous leader in a lordly residence characterized as a hall with a bower. Moreover, the poet situates that kingly hall in the city of Winchester, the pre-Conquest capital of the West-Saxon kings.39 In Gaimar’s L’Estoire, King Adelbriht holds lands spanning from the city of Colchester (in modern-day East Anglia) to the district of Holland in Lincoln. The deathbed scene, where Adelbriht summons his councilors to select a guardian for his daughter, takes place in the town of Thetford, Lincolnshire, and he is afterward buried in Colchester. His young daughter, Argentille, grows up in the towns of Lincoln and Lindsey, north of Colchester.40 Winchester, located much further south, does not figure in either Gaimar’s version of the story or that of the Lai d’Haveloc. The English poet, however, transplants the king from Lincolnshire to Winchester and in so doing, grounds his prestige in Anglo-Saxon cultural roots. Again, as in Horn, the virtuous leader in the poem is associated with hall architecture, wheras the villains in the poem are associated with castles. More precisely, the villains use castles not so much as residences but as tools of conquest. And, as we have seen, this is a thoroughly realistic understanding of castles. For example, once Godrich assumes responsibility for Goldeboru under false pretenses, he makes his fi rst grab for power by securing control of the castles: And in ϸe castels let he do Þe knihtes he mihte tristen to; And alle ϸe Englis dede he sweren Þat he shulden him god fey beren (ll. 252–255)

By securing the castles, the poet says, Godrich “al Engelond/Sone sayse intil his hond” (ll. 250–251). Control of the castles means control of the land.

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Godrich also uses a castle as a residence, for later he hears of Havelok’s great strength “In the castel, up in ϸe halle” (l. 1,067), and the word “up” in this line suggests a raised, or fi rst-floor, hall typical of castle architecture. Godrich’s second action in taking control of England also involves a castle. He takes Goldeboru out of Winchester and locks her in the tower of Dover castle: Also a wicke traytur Iudas [Godrich]; And dede leden hire to Doure, Þat standeth on ϸe seis oure; And ϸerinne dede hire fede Pourelike in feble wede. Þe castel dede he yemen so Þat non ne mihte comen hire to Of hire frend, with [hir] to speken, Þat euere mihte hire bale wreken. . . . Þer sho liggeth in prisoun. (ll. 319–330)

Again, Godrich uses the castle at Dover as a tool of conquest, as a prison for the rightful heir whose place he has usurped and as a tool for isolating her from her people who might consider taking revenge (“hire bale wreken”). The Middle English Havelok is the only version of the story to specify Dover castle, whose historical significance cannot be ignored.41 The poet’s choice of this particular castle as the place where the English heiress comes into custody of a hostile usurper resonates with the role Dover castle played in the Conquest. Like many other Anglo-Saxon burhs, this one incorporating the remains of an old Roman fort including a lighthouse (pharos), Dover offered a convenient fortification for William and his army in the fi rst weeks of the Conquest.42 As he had already done in Pevensey and Hastings, William raised a castle in Dover, spending eight days there.43 Following his coronation, William returned to Normandy in early spring 1067, leaving behind two high-ranking officials, his half brother Bishop Odo of Bayeux and William Fitz Osbern, to build upon the initial gains of the Conquest.44 Odo of Bayeux established headquarters in Dover castle as the new earl of Kent. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Odo, along with Earl William, “built castles far and wide throughout this country, and distressed the wretched folk, and always after that it grew much worse.”45 Odo came to own more land in England than anyone save William himself and is also believed to have most likely commissioned the famous Bayeux tapestry which visually documents and commemorates the Conquest. Dover continued to serve an important role politically and militarily, as evidenced by the enormous expenditure on it by subsequent kings, making it perhaps the strongest castle in England, and certainly the most expensive.46 Its strategic importance throughout the Middle Ages earned it the title of “the key to England.”47 Thus, with Dover castle, the poet of Havelok uses

68 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance Goldeboru’s fictional disinheritance to symbolize the historical loss of England in 1066. Similarly, the other villain in the story, Godard of Denmark, uses castles as a fi rst step in seizing control. Like Godrich, he falsely assumes responsibility for the children (including Havelok) of the dying King Birkabeyn “And in ϸe castel dede hem do,/Þer non ne mihte hem comen to/Of here kyn” (ll. 412–414). Like Goldeboru in England, the children of the rightful heir suffer imprisonment where they remain cut off from their kinsmen. Later, after the children nearly die of hunger and cold, Godard climbs the “tour” (l. 448) to kill them once and for all. Both Godrich and Godard, therefore, abuse the power they have been entrusted with specifically by using castles for imprisonment, usurpation, and tyranny. Quite apart from the villains in Havelok the Dane, the English poet consistently links political power to castles. As noted above, Godrich, a “wicke traytur Iudas” (l. 319), secures control over the land’s castles as a fi rst step in his tyrannous reign, and he resides in a castle once he gains power. The equation of castles as power also obtains, however, in Havelok’s reconquest of Denmark. Havelok himself never lives in a castle in the poem, nor do we see him using castles as weapons. Nevertheless, he clearly understands that in order to regain control over his country, he will have to take control over the land’s castles. Just before returning to Denmark, Havelok has a prophetic dream whereby, as he tells his wife, he fi nds himself in Denmark and “‘ϸe stronge castles alle/On knes bigunnen for to falle,/Þe keyes fellen at mine fet’” (ll. 1,301–1,303). Goldeboru affi rms his dream vision by saying “‘Denemark shal knele to ϸi fet;/Alle ϸe castles ϸat aren ϸer-inne/Shaltow, lemman, ful wel winne’” (ll. 1,320–1,322). This passage is especially revealing in how it personifies the castles kneeling, like human subjects, at Havelok’s feet, creating a vivid image of the reversal of power. Emboldened to return to Denmark, Havelok offers the three sons of Grim big rewards, including “‘castles ten’” (l. 1,442) each, if they assist him.48 Havelok, then, completes his ascent to power “hwan he hauede of al ϸe lond/Þe casteles alle in his hond” (ll. 2,364–2,365). It is interesting to note that Havelok, like his father before him, does not take up residence in a castle once he assumes power. In this way, these virtuous figures remain untainted by the negative associations with castles. Nevertheless, the virtuous Havelok, like the wicked Godrich and Godard, understands that castles are the dominant currency for gaining and granting political power in the land. It is worth noting that the poet of Havelok the Dane introduces distinctions in lordly architecture that do not factor in earlier versions of the legend. In Gaimar’s L’Estoire des Engleis, for instance, the only aristocratic residence mentioned is the hall in which the citizens of Denmark recognize Havelok as king and swear allegiance to him (p. 327). A church tower (p. 326) serves as a defensive base for Havelok, and Argentille while they face attack in Denmark, but the story features no castles. The only mention of castle architecture serves comparative purposes when

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the kingly horn that Havelok must blow to prove his identity is likened in worth to “a castle” (p. 327). Likewise, in the Lai d’Haveloc, the poet uses castles as neutral markers of status. King Gunter of Denmark (cf. Birkabeyn) lives in a castle (l. 53), and the virtuous King Ekenbright (cf. Athelwold) possesses castles (l. 228). There are no halls contrasted with these castles. The English poet of Havelok employs halls and castles, in contrast to earlier versions of the tale, as meaningful indicators of ruling styles, political circumstance, and certainly content of character. In a poem where lordly architecture becomes specified and polarized, one instance of architecture in Havelok stands out for its ambiguity. This occurs in Denmark, in the building where the Danes first realize Havelok’s royal birth. Havelok returns to Denmark to reclaim his birthright and attracts the attention of the figure of Ubbe, who summons him to the “heye curt” in “the halle” (ll. 1,685, 1,694), “heye” here suggesting a first-floor hall.49 Shortly thereafter, Ubbe offers him shelter in “‘a bowr/Þat is up in ϸe heye tour’” (ll. 2,072–2,073), a room further delineated later as “ut of the halle” (l. 2,121). Towers, especially “high” towers, typically indicate castle architecture, and the other towers in the poem all belong in castles. However, the poet never uses the word “castle” to designate this building, even though elsewhere in the poem he very clearly designates buildings with towers and halls such as this as “castles” (for instance, ll. 412, 1,067). This tower may correspond to the church tower that Haveloc, Argentille, and the sons of Grim take refuge in while fending off an attack in Denmark in Geffrei Gaimar’s L’Estoire (p. 326). In either case, the poet does not associate the hero explicitly with castle architecture at this critical point in the story. Later, when Havelok successfully reclaims Denmark, the poet shows the citizenry pledging loyalty to Havelok “in the halle” (l. 2,267; cf. L’Estoire, p. 327). Presumably, this is the same hall contained in the building with the tower, in other words a castle. Again, however, the poet does not use the word “castle.” The lack of identifying terminology here grows even more curious given the poet’s specificity with respect to the interior of the room within the tower that Havelok sleeps on the night when he breaks disguise; the poet indicates the partition board separating the sleeping quarters of Havelok and his wife from those of Ubbe which contains a peephole through which Ubbe and other knights spy the sleeping king (ll. 2,078, 2 106), highly specific, intimate detail. Therefore, the ambiguous nature of this building does not accord with the poet’s close attention to interior detail, nor to the poet’s consistent use of the word “castle” elsewhere in the poem, nor to the poet’s general tendency, compared with earlier adaptors of the tale, to clarify rather than ambiguate story setting. I would suggest that the poet hesitates to use the term “castle” for the place where Havelok goes from victim to victor out of reluctance to associate the hero’s victory with castle architecture. Havelok becomes, like Athelwold, the king in the hall. The Anglo-Saxon perspective in the Middle English Havelok as expressed through architecture accords with broad scholarly consensus that the poem speaks to a nonaristocratic audience. The unabashed admiration for hard

70 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance work and those who do it well, 50 the portrait of the model king who attends to the needs of all members of his realm down to the poorest, 51 and the rags-to-riches plotline of the story all suggest a third estate readership. 52 In post-Conquest England, as in our own day, race and class went hand in hand. 53 One of the chief strategies of the Conquest involved eliminating any members of the Anglo-Saxon community powerful enough to retaliate successfully, namely the Anglo-Saxon lordly class. Anglo-Saxon noblemen were either killed, driven into exile, and/or reduced in social status. In this way, the Normans replaced the native aristocracy with themselves, thus creating a bipartite society consisting of a Norman fi rst estate restricted by birth and an Anglo-Saxon third estate. Thus, cultural origin became a critical dividing line of social class in post-Conquest England. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that a nonaristocratic poem such as Havelok the Dane should preserve an Anglo-Saxon worldview, including its perspective on architecture. In sum, the English poet extends the story of Havelok beyond the confi nes of Anglo-Danish experience to encompass pre-Conquest England as a whole by refashioning King Adelbriht in Linconshire as King Athelwold at Winchester, a king with an Anglo-Saxon name residing in an AngloSaxon hall in the pre-Conquest capital of England. He introduces castle architecture into the story and shows power-hungry characters using those castles in historically appropriate ways: to secure control and command of the land, to imprison and disinherit the original rightful heirs to that land, and to foil retaliation. As in King Horn, the good characters do not live in them. However, unlike in King Horn, the younger generation, at least the generation of Havelok and Goldeboru, recognize the strategic importance of castles in maintaining defense and control of the land, and they learn to use them for the good rather than for ill. 54

SIR ORFEO The Middle English Sir Orfeo, which dates to 1325, roughly one hundred years after King Horn, provides another example where cultural difference expresses itself in architectural form. Unlike King Horn and Havelok the Dane, the setting of Sir Orfeo is, on the whole, less sweeping geographically and more intimately focused on two specific courts. Nevertheless, as with Horn and Havelok, the English poet draws lines of cultural difference using building design. Sir Orfeo presents two royal dwellings. One of these dwellings, King Orfeo’s, is barely described at all, while the other (the Fairy King’s) is described in great detail. Both residences allow the reader to glean some cultural distinctions between the two leaders. Both kings in Sir Orfeo live in fortified dwellings, and the poet uses the same vocabulary, words such as “castel,” “palays,” and “tour” to describe both royal residences. However, their dwellings are quite different, and the differences

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speak to cultural identity. In the broadest sense, the two royal dwellings featured in the poem conform to what we know about pre-Conquest and post-Conquest fortifications in England. As with Havelok the Dane, the Orfeo poet locates King Orfeo’s kingly residence in the city of Winchester, again suggesting a pre-Conquest milieu. All versions of the poem locate Orfeo’s palace in Traciens, but the Auchinleck manuscript, containing the earliest manuscript witness of the poem, glosses Traciens as “Winchester” (ll. 49–50). Winchester was the royal seat of the West Saxon kings, including King Alfred, who refounded and redesigned it in the late ninth century. In placing King Orfeo in the city of Winchester rather than London, the interpolator ties Orfeo’s English identity to the Anglo-Saxon kings and to pre-Conquest royal power. 55 The detail of Winchester also ties Orfeo to other Middle English romances set in preConquest England, such as Guy of Warwick, which also appears in the Auchinleck manuscript, and has the king residing in Winchester. Most of what little description we get in the poem of Orfeo’s palace has to do with its location. King Orfeo’s palace lies within a burh, a fortified city. The poet designates Traciens as “a cité of noble defens” (l. 48). When Orfeo goes into exile after the loss of his queen, he goes “out of toun” (l. 236). He returns at the end of the poem to “his owhen cité” (l. 479). So the location of Orfeo’s palace suggests an urban residence within a fortified city. Appropriate to the Winchester setting, Orfeo’s palace is described, albeit sparingly, as a hall typical of pre-Conquest design. Orfeo’s residence is characterized by two architectural spaces: a “halle” (hall, ll. 219, 524) and a “chaumber” (private chamber or room, l. 196), a hall with a private chamber, this one with a stone floor (l. 197). Just before going into exile, the poet tells us that “Þo was þer wepeing in þe halle” (l. 219). Later, returning from exile, Orfeo is welcomed into the palace where he “sat stille in þe halle” (l. 524). The brief description of Orfeo’s dwelling found in the Auchinleck manuscript grows clearer in the Ashmole manuscript of the poem, in the episode of King Orfeo’s forest exile, specifying how he had once “sate in boure & halle” (l. 243); now, living in the woods, a tree forms “hys haule euyn & morow” (Ashmole, l. 270). It is interesting to note that while the Auchinleck manuscript has the steward lead Orfeo “In ϸe castel” (l. 519) at the very end, the Ashmole manuscript indicates the steward leading Orfeo “in-to ϸe halle” (l. 509) and notes how “Ther was grete myrthe in Þe halle” (l. 514). When Orfeo, while withholding his identity and attempting to test the loyalty of his steward, misleads the steward into thinking that King Orfeo has died, the steward in the Ashmole manuscript “fell in ϸe halle” (l. 540) in clear distress. Thus, three times within the same episode, the Ashmole manuscript designates Orfeo’s palace as a hall, compounding the evidence for hall design found in the Auchinleck manuscript. In both manuscripts, upon losing Heurodis, Orfeo withdraws to “his chaumber” (l. 196), presumably connected to the hall, also consistent with hall design. Orfeo’s palace, as far as we can tell, exhibits none of the other architectural features,

72 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance interior or exterior, that typify Norman castle design. Again, though scarce, the textual detail about Orfeo’s palace forms a definitive picture. Moreover, the poet, as the reader discovers later, possesses a wide architectural vocabulary, especially for castle design, yet does not apply castle terminology to Orfeo’s palace. The simple hall vocabulary and the Winchester setting both, therefore, characterize King Orfeo as an Anglo-Saxon figure. By contrast, the Fairy King occupies a castle in the sense of a private fortified residence, the architecture so favored by the Norman aristocracy, and the poet provides lots of descriptive detail to verify that fact.56 To be sure, strange literary castles like this one tend to exist in remote locations, and the Fairy King’s castle no doubt participates in such a tradition. The literary context, however, does not preclude examining this structure in a historical light, especially given the copious architectural detail the poet uses to render it. The fi rst indication of its post-Conquest design concerns location. Unlike Orfeo’s palace, the Fairy King’s castle does not lie within a town, but instead in a rural area. When Orfeo follows the Fairy horde into the rock: He com in-to a fair cuntray, As briʒt so sonne on somers day, Smoþe & plain & al grene —Hille no dale nas þer non y-sene. Amidde þe lond a castel he siʒe. (ll. 351–355)

These lines emphasize the geographic solitude of this residence, away from any town or city. The castle lies within a flat and, more important, unpopulated area. Archaeologist Oliver Creighton notes that in the post-Conquest period, castle building shifted decidedly away from cities and into the country. He then distinguishes between castles built within or near royal forests and castles built with adjoining deer parks. Those within or near royal forests often served as residences and administrative centers for appointed foresters and other officials, and provided accommodation for hunting parties. Such sites “tended to occupy isolated and secluded locations remote from other settlements. Castles with dependent deer parks, on the other hand, were more likely to be associated with villages or planned towns.”57 The remote location of the Fairy King’s palace, therefore, aligns it with the royal hunting castle, especially since the poet associates the remote Fairy castle with a recreational hunting party (l. 281ff.), which Orfeo spies and then follows back to the castle. In addition, in the tour of his kingdom that Heurodis takes at the beginning of the poem, the Fairy King makes it clear that he owns not one, but many “castels & tours” (l. 159), indicating a network of castles in which this particular castle might have a more specialized purpose, such as hunting, the sport the Normans took to new heights in England. (By way of comparison, the Ashmole manuscript of Sir Orfeo adds a further line to the list of the Fairy King’s holdings at this point that

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notes, in addition to his castles and towers, his “hey haules & boures” (l. 159), the word “hey” (“high”) indicating fi rst floor halls typical of Norman architecture, as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon ground floor hall.) Of course, the poet indicates that Orfeo too “hadde had castels & tours” (l. 245), suggesting a network of royal buildings, but this may simply constitute a formulaic phrase for comparing the two kings in general, especially given the comparative rather than descriptive context of this phrase in relation to Orfeo. While the Fairy King’s castle has often been interpreted as a poetic and/ or Celtic Otherworld, the poet provides rather specific architectural detail that grounds this building in Norman design. Like Orfeo’s palace, it contains a “kinges halle” (l. 410), but it includes many other architectural features besides: the castle is “wonder heiʒe” (l. 356, “marvelously high”), with a “diche” (l. 361, “ditch”) surrounding it. In this respect, it conforms to what we know of the motte and baily castle, where the main tower rests atop an artificial hill surrounded by a ditch, height playing a factor in the structure’s defensibility.58 In addition, the poet stresses details of fortification: it has an “vt-mast wal” (l. 357, “outermost wall”), or “ringworks,” in this case, clear and made of crystal, with a gate (l. 379). Furthermore, “An hundred tours þer were about” (l. 359), towers forming the primary architectural component of Norman castles.59 Notably, from the mid-tolate twelfth century on, the central “great” tower of early Norman castles gives way to configurations of towers, a design seen in the Fairy’s King’s castle.60 His castle also has “butras” (l. 361, “buttresses”), a feature not only of French cathedrals but also of Norman castle architecture.61 Finally, it is “bataild stout” (l. 360, “stoutly crenellated”), a military design feature that facilitates defense of the outer wall and an architectural feature regulated by royal licensure in post-Conquest England, particularly during the colonial period. In fact, the list of particular architectural features used to describe the Fairy King’s Castle—outer wall, towers, crenellation, buttresses, and ditch—replicates the list of details found in many licenses to crenellate.62 The castle’s external features would seem, therefore, to announce the Fairy King’s castle as a private residence of military design, the kind of architecture that helped make the Norman Conquest successful, and that proliferated Norman political and social authority. Internally too, we fi nd certain details that suggest tastes in castle architecture of continental origin of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The castle’s interior layout creates a series of barriers that Orfeo must cross in order to gain access to the lord of the castle. Orfeo knocks at a gate, is questioned and then admitted by a gatekeeper, and enters into a courtyard. From there, he enters into a “halle” (l. 410), which itself is divided into spaces delineating status, since the Fairy King and his queen sit on a “tabernacle blisseful & briʒt” (l. 412, a “merry and bright canopied dais”). Such segmentation of interior space controls access to the lord to a far greater degree than Anglo-Saxon lordly architecture (which consisted chiefly of

74 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance one big room), indicating the more hierarchical nature of Norman society in contrast with the relatively communal nature of Anglo-Saxon society.63 Inside this castle, we also fi nd evidence of a conquest mentality. Other critics have rightly noted how many (though not all) of the figures in the catalog of victims assembled in the Fairy King’s castle courtyard (ll. 387– 401) (itself a feature of castle design) resemble victims of violent coercion and war. The headless, wounded and dismembered victims recall images of defeat and punishment meted out to those who fail to comply, a threat the Fairy King extends to Heurodis herself should she refuse to cooperate (ll. 169–172).64 To this observation should be added the fact that the structure where these victims are displayed, a castle, accords with the punishments. Castles became, in fact, strongly associated with torture. The twelfth-century Liber Eliensis attests to the Norman implementation of such punishment for Saxon leaders. How many, the chronicle asks, in addition to being driven into poverty and exile, were “effossis oculis vel ceteris amputatis membris opprobrium hominum factos aut certe miserrime afflictos vita privates?”65 [“. . . made the object of men’s scorn by the gouging out of their eyes or the amputation of other parts of the body or, indeed, being tortured most wretchedly and then deprived of life?”]

At the siege of Ely, the Liber Eliensis speaks of the Norman threat later fulfilled to carry out these very crimes on Anglo-Saxon resistors.66 Later during the anarchy under King Stephen I, as noted earlier, such injustices became inflicted broadly upon the common people as well. The AngloSaxon Chronicle for the year 1137 describes castles as houses of horror, places where innocent people were taken and subjected to all sorts of cruel and creative torture involving twisting, squeezing, and crushing: They were hung by their thumbs or by the head, and corselets were hung on their feet. Knotted ropes were put round their heads and twisted till they penetrated to the brains. They put them in prisons where there were adders and snakes and toads, and killed them like that. Some they put into a “torture-chamber”—that is in a chest that was short, narrow and shallow, and they put sharp stones in it and pressed the man in it so that he had all his limbs broken. In many of the castles was a “nooseand-trap”—consisting of chains of such a kind that two or three men had enough to do to carry one. It was so made that it was fastened to a beam, and they used to put a sharp iron around the man’s throat and his neck, so that he could not in any direction either sit or lie or sleep, but had to carry all that iron. Many thousands they killed by starvation. I have neither the ability nor the power to tell all the horrors nor all the torments they inflicted upon wretched people in this country . . . and it was always going from bad to worse.67

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We tend to forget that castles, which now seem so quaint, were to the native population both eerie and threatening. The gruesome gallery of victims in the Fairy King’s castle, while unusual for chivalric romance, accords with the historical reality of castles as places of imprisonment and torture. In this light, the magical castle of the poem also forms an even more meaningful counterpart to the classical underworld to which it ultimately alludes. Thus, the subtext of cultural confl ict helps to account for the disturbing presence of the Fairy King’s tortured victims in Sir Orfeo, where the castle is literally hell.68 In conclusion, like King Horn and Havelok the Dane, Sir Orfeo provides a further example where good and evil correlate to architectural style and design, which in turn speaks to cultural difference between Anglo-Saxon and Norman. Each poem presents kingly pairings, one of whom occupies a hall-style dwelling typical of Anglo-Saxon lordly architecture, while the other occupies an elaborately described, Norman-style castle. The kings occupying the hall-style dwellings find themselves having to defend their lands from invasion and defend their rights to rule in their own lands. The kings who live in those Norman castles, moreover, invade other people’s lands, imprison their people, and steal their women. They use their castles with the historically intended use of castles in England, as means to impose authority on those outside it through dispossession and violent coercion, and to provide a haven of privilege for those within. Thus, architectural design in these poems becomes a testament to shared cultural experience and lingering cultural confl ict.

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT The Middle English poem that illustrates the paradigm I have been discussing perhaps most vividly, and certainly most famously, is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Here too the hero resides in an English-style hall, while the intruder lives in a Norman-style castle. As in the previous examples, the poem features two lordly figures, King Arthur and Lord Bertilak, one of whom enters the other’s land uninvited and issues a threat/challenge, which then prompts the hero to enter into a castle where he is tested. As in the previous examples, the English dwelling receives little description as to the building itself, while the castle is described in great detail. To be sure, both dwellings participate in the imaginary realm of Arthurian literature, where the English-style hall is Camelot, while the Norman-style castle appears so unreal as if “pared out of papure purely” (l. 802).69 Moreover, the supernatural element of the poem would seem to immediately remove it several degrees from any historical reality.70 Nevertheless, the poet employs such vivid and precise historical detail of castle architecture as to invite the reader to compare castle Hautdesert with actual examples of these buildings in the English landscape, including their social history as well as their design.71

76 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance Traditionally, Camelot is King Arthur’s most famous court, and the Gawain-poet adheres to this point of Arthurian lore; however, this particular Camelot has a decidedly Anglo-Saxon flavor. The poet characterizes Arthur’s dwelling exclusively as a “hall,” and as in King Horn, the terminology of hall architecture in Sir Gawain is quite consistent.72 The poet most often refers to Camelot as simply a “halle” (ll. 62, 102, 136, 221, 302, 450, 458, 495) and once at the end of the poem as a “wynne halle” (l. 2,456, “lovely/delightful hall”). Occasionally, he uses the French word “sale” to refer to the hall (ll. 243, 349, 558), though at least one of these instances may serve stylistic purposes of alliteration (l. 243). The poet also indicates a dais, a raised platform typical of hall architecture, at one end of the hall (ll. 75, 222, 250, 445). More interesting still, as the Green Knight challenges the court, he addresses Arthur and refers to “‘ϸy burʒ’” (l. 259).73 This particular term for castle derives from the Anglo-Saxon “burh,” the pre-Conquest fortified city that formed the only fortification in England until the Normans introduced castle architecture. Moreover, the Green Knight’s sudden entrance and exit from Camelot on horseback indicates an English-style hall, situated at ground level, as opposed to a French-style hall, which typically occupied the first floor and was accessed by a flight of steps set at a right angle to the hall (the type of hall we see later at castle Hautdesert).74 As soon as the Green Knight exits the hall, we hear his horse’s hooves on the outer paving stones (l. 459), with no indication of stairs (which in any case would not suit an entrance or exit on horseback), clearly indicating hall doors at ground level, typical of preConquest hall architecture. The association between Camelot and pre-Conquest culture is by no means unique to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, suggesting a shared literary connection. For example, in Book XVIII/10 of the Morte D’Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory identifies Arthur’s Camelot with the historic, preConquest capital city of Winchester. Sir Lancelot and Sir Lavayne made them redy to ryde, and aythir of them had whyght shyldis—and the rede sleve Sir Launcelot lete cary with him; toke their leve at Sir Barnarde, the olde barowne, and at hys daughter, the fayre mayden. And than they rode so longe tylle that they cam to Camelot, that tyme called Wynchester. (ll. 40–45, p. 600)75

Malory enhances the prestige of Arthur’s Camelot specifically through association with the Anglo-Saxon capital city of Winchester. In this way, Malory’s connection, in the fi fteenth century, between Camelot and the political center of the West Saxon kings helps to account for why a poet of the fourteenth century, such as the Gawain-poet, would give Arthur’s Camelot the form of a Saxon-style hall. The poet’s characterization of Camelot as a hall dwelling in no way compromises its sophistication as a cultural center. The Christmas feast at the opening of the poem features the “fi rst cors” of a multicourse meal served

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“with crakkyng of trumpes” and “mony baner ful bryʒt” (ll. 116–117), with delicacies and fresh foods served on covered dishes (ll. 121–122). The holiday gathering draws “gentyle kniʒtes” (l. 42) and “lordez and ladies” (l. 49) who delight in jousting and dancing (ll. 42, 47), among other courtly activities.76 Several objects in the hall, moreover, including the nakres (indicated by the “nakryn noyse,” l. 118) and the wall tapestries of Toulouse and “tars” (l. 77), suggest Middle Eastern and continental luxury goods normally featured throughout French chivalric literature rather than Anglo-Saxon poetry, and in fact, we fi nd these exact same items later in castle Hautdesert.77 In short, Arthur’s court, though only a “hall,” hosts social gatherings every bit as rich and refi ned as that of any Norman. The poet insists as much, even as he reasserts the cultural difference between the two, when he remarks for comparative purposes For al watz ϸis fayre folk in her first age, On sille, Þe hapnest vnder heuen, Kyng hyʒest mon of wylleHit were now gret nye to neuen So hardy a here on hille. (ll. 54–59)

The closing lines of this passage deserve close attention. They state, “It would be difficult now to name so bold a company/warrior band (here) on a castle-mound.” Once again, the poet uses an architectural referent, in the form of the “hille,” the artificial mound (or motte) created in excavating the ditch for a moated castle, to distinguish Arthur’s “hall” (“sille,” l. 55), as noted in the bob, from a castle on a “hille,” which this is not. Moreover, the rhyme of “sille” and “hille” in these lines highlights further the comparison of these spaces. With these lines at the close of lavishly described feasting, the Gawain-poet establishes a “separate but equal” relationship between Camelot and Hautdesert. The Gawain-poet leaves not a shadow of a doubt that the intruder in the poem, later revealed as Lord Bertilak, lives in a Norman-style castle. In terms of its exterior features, one is hard pressed to fi nd a more detailed and comprehensive catalog of Norman castle architecture than Hautdesert, leading many scholars to correlate this fictional castle with existing castle sites in England and Wales.78 The castle’s very name, from the French “haute” (“great” or “high”) and “desert” (“wilderness”), announces continental influence.79 Looking through Gawain’s eyes, we get a catalog of its impressive architectural features, including a “mote” (l. 764, “moat”), a “depe double dich” (l. 786, “deep double ditch”),80 a “lawe” (l. 765, a “mound” or “hill”) on which it sits, an outer “wall” of amazing height (ll. 786–787), “carnelez” (l. 801, “battlements”), a “barbican” (l. 793, “fortified gateway”), “Towres” (l. 795, “towers”), “ʒatez” (l. 782, “gates”), and a “bryge” (l. 781, “drawbridge”).81 Gawain also sees multiple “chymnées”

78 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance (l. 798, “chimneys”), costly amenities indicating wall fi replaces, in contrast with the central hearth of the wooden hall.82 The outer wall encloses a “cloyster” (l. 804, “castle bailey”) and a “halle ful hyʒe” (l. 794, “high hall”) from which knights and squires of Bertilak’s court “comen doun” (l. 824, “descended”) to bring Gawain to the hall. This descent by members of Bertilak’s court to meet Gawain suggests a Norman-style hall located at fi rst-floor level and accessed by a fl ight of steps.83 The fi rst-floor hall, built of stone, is yet another expression of Norman strategic design, where height, along with mediated access in the form of a fl ight of steps and, in some cases, a fortified porch, afforded protection from violence.84 Finally, as with the Fairy King’s castle in Sir Orfeo, Bertilak’s castle is powerfully associated with recreational hunting, which takes place, literally, in the grounds surrounding the castle and, metaphorically, in Gawain’s bedchamber.85 Thus in his description of the exterior of castle Hautdesert, which spans forty-two lines (ll. 764–806), the Gawain-poet displays an extensive vocabulary for Norman castle architecture. The interior of Bertilak’s castle also reveals Norman domestic arrangements. In addition to a great hall, the castle complex contains several chapels (l. 930), one of which Gawain attends on the night of his arrival. Most important, the castle has enough lodging space to afford Gawain his own apartment, a “chamber” (l. 850) containing a “bryzt boure” (l. 853, “bedroom”) with its own fi replace (l. 875), a private space that becomes one of the main settings from hereon in.86 By contrast, the poet remains rather unclear about Gawain’s lodgings in Camelot, and only the arming scene suggests private space, since Gawain “Syϸen . . . comez to ϸe kyng and to his cort-ferez” (l. 594) after arming and hearing mass. The private bedchamber in castle Hautdesert, however, becomes a threat to the hero and forms the cornerstone of Gawain’s testing by Lady Bertilak, a more important setting than even the Green Chapel. Though Gawain seems thoroughly comfortable in the castle and is clearly quite taken by all its amenities, nevertheless, he later fi nds out that the comforts and hospitality came with a hidden agenda. Private space itself becomes a weapon in testing the hero. The Gawain-poet further characterizes castle Hautdesert as an essentially Norman space through the figure of Bertilak and the members of Bertilak’s court, who conduct themselves with “frenkysch fare” (l. 1,116, “French behavior”). Right at the outset, as Gawain receives welcome at the castle, Bertilak’s courtiers express their own Frenchness in what they expect out of Sir Gawain, and the whole passage is drenched with French vocabulary.87 Before even speaking with him, they anticipate learning from Gawain the “‘teccheles termes of talkyng noble’” (l. 917), more specifically to “‘lerne of luf-talkyng’” (l. 927). In the famous bedroom scenes, Lady Bertilak recalls the entire textual tradition of French romance when she plies Gawain about the “‘lel layk of luf, ϸe lettrure of armes’” (l. 1,513), thus disclosing her own expertise in “‘ϸe tytelet token and tyxt’” (l. 1,515) of the whole tradition of fin’amors. Such expectations of Gawain’s behavior

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reveal the cultural priorities of this court, namely refi ned conversation on amorous topics, the central concerns and behaviors encoded in French chivalric romance. Above all, feminine influence, good and bad, pervades Bertilak’s court, despite the robust and manly persona of Bertilak himself, thus echoing the world of French romance where masculine worth is tested and measured according to feminine wishes.88 Gawain’s reticence to fulfi ll these expectations (especially in the bedchamber), and the poet’s reluctance to attribute any such conversation in the form of direct speech to Gawain (who never speaks of love to Lady Bertilak), suggest rather different cultural priorities on Gawain’s part. The two architectural spaces in Sir Gawain, the English-style hall of Camelot and the Norman-style castle of Hautdesert, create a social commentary of their own accord, quite apart from the main action of the poem. Bertilak’s Hautdesert is an impressive but also dangerous space, rife with mystery and deception, as well as hospitality, equipped with private comforts that later spell public shame for the hero. It is also a foreign space for Gawain, full of people whose way of doing things requires explanation (“frenkysch fare”) and who read books of love stories with which Gawain seems to possess only distant familiarity. While they continually expect Gawain to conform to their way of life, and seem to share a preconceived opinion of him as one of them, nothing Gawain does justifies their mental image of him as one skilled in “luf-talkyng.” Audience suspicion of this castle space is warranted, indeed dictated, by the realization at the end that the lord of this castle and the monstrous intruder at Camelot are one and the same person, and that for all their refi nement, the folk of Hautdesert scheme both among one another (as Morgan manipulates Bertilak) and with others (as Bertilak, through his wife, by means of Morgan, manipulates Gawain and by extension Arthur).89 By contrast, the hall of Camelot is home for people who share strong, transparent relationships with one another as well as with others. The hero Gawain assumes an Anglo-Saxon cultural perspective when he sets forth from this hall in order to defend the honor of the lord of that hall in the aftermath of a distinctly Anglo-Saxon experience of having that hall threatened by a monster. Thus the hall and the castle in Sir Gawain become emblematic of competing cultural identities and expectations.

THE TALE OF GAMELYN In the previous examples, the paradigm involves a hero who lives in a hall, faced with an opponent who lives in a castle. Horn, King Orfeo, and Sir Gawain all occupy dwellings described as a hall with an adjoining chamber, while their opponents, the men who intrude, steal, and challenge the heroes’ very identities, all live in Norman-style castles. In each case, the hero’s dwelling receives sparse description, limited primarily to key words

80 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance such as “halle” and “bure” or “chamber,” while the villain’s castle involves copious descriptive vocabulary of castle architecture. The Tale of Gamelyn (c. 1350) provides a much fuller picture of hall architecture than the previous texts discussed, in large measure because most of the poem takes place within the hero’s home (which happens to also be the home of his opponent, his brother Johan). There are no castles in Gamelyn. In Chapters 1 and 4, I discuss how the poet establishes Gamelyn as a thoroughly English hero. The main confl ict of the poem erupts when Gamelyn’s father chooses an older, Anglo-Saxon inheritance practice over the system of inheritance introduced by the Normans, primogeniture. When Gamelyn’s eldest brother, Johan, undermines their father’s wishes and robs the hero of his inheritance, Gamelyn adopts the manner and methods of the most famous Anglo-Saxon resistance fighter, Hereward the Wake, whose own career began with a loss of patrimony under William the Conqueror. In keeping with the English preferences and actions of the hero and his father, the family of Gamelyn occupies an English-style dwelling, and here the poet presents an uncommon literary example of not simply a hall, but of an entire hall complex, rooted in Anglo-Saxon design, as recorded in archaeological data. Textual and archaeological evidence of the Anglo-Saxon period attests to the prevalence of the hall complex. Perhaps the best surviving AngloSaxon example of a hall complex is Goltho, Lincolnshire, dating to the mid-ninth or early tenth century. Excavations at the site reveal a complex that included a large hall (80 feet × 20 feet; 24 m × 6 m), a chamber located some 40 feet from the hall (40 feet × 18 feet; 12 m × 5.4 m), and subsidiary buildings such as kitchens and a weaving shed.90 The entire complex occupied an enclosed, banked area surrounded by a ditch up to 7 feet deep and 18 feet wide. After several rebuildings, the entire area measured approximately 325 feet by 270 feet by the eleventh century.91 Such complexes were typically enclosed by a ditch, fence, or hedge, but these barriers did not serve a primarily military function as did castle fortification. Instead, they offered some protection against hostile neighbors in private feuds.92 A very similar hall complex is described in the early eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon document known as Geϸyncᵭo, commonly attributed to Wulfstan II, Archbishop of York between 1002–1023. It tells of the Anglo-Saxon lordly estate compound as including a church and a bell cote, a kitchen house (separate from the hall), and a gatehouse.93 The style of hall complex preserved at Goltho, and described in Geϸyncᵭo, prevailed in basic outline well into the later Middle Ages in what Michael Thompson calls the “triumph of the native style.”94 Gamelyn provides one of the best views of a typical English hall. As in the previous poems discussed in this chapter, the hero’s home is described as a “halle” (ll. 77, 186, 387, 611) and only as a hall. Like the ailing Athelwold of Havelok, Gamelyn’s father, Sir Johan, summons advisors to his hall on his deathbed, similarly vexed over the fate of his children’s inheritance.

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While the hall door is mentioned several times (ll. 461, 515, 518), there is never mention of steps leading up to the hall, suggesting a ground-floor structure typical of English design. Like the other halls discussed in this chapter, it has an attached chamber, but in this case, as in King Thurston’s hall in King Horn, the chamber consists of an upper room, referred to as a “loft” (l. 127), “selleer” (“solar,” l. 351), and also, comically, as “litel toret” (l. 329).95 When Gamelyn’s greedy brother Johan flees here, we learn that this room has a door (which he slams, l. 127) and a window (l. 134). Its powerful association with Johan, the social-climbing eldest brother, perhaps explains the ironic reference to this space as a “litel toret,” since halls in general did not contain turrets or towers as did castles. As at Goltho, the hall in Gamelyn is situated within a “ʒerde” (l. 296) accessed by a “gat” (l. 191ff.), indicating an enclosing fence, which Johan locks with a “pyn” (“latch,” ll. 292, 298). The gate can be raised (l. 311) and contains a peephole for the porter (l. 560). As at Goltho, the gate clearly does not serve any serious military function, since Gamelyn is able to kick it down without difficulty (l. 298). In addition to a main gate, the hall complex has a rear gate (ll. 389, 589) that serves twice as an escape route. As at Goltho, the complex also contains at least one subsidiary structure, a cellar for storing wine and food (l. 316). Thus in basic layout, the hall and surroundings in Gamelyn accord with the basic layout of a native English-style hall complex, and this architectural picture, among other narrative features, helps to identify Gamelyn and his family as native Englishmen. By contrast, the most vivid nonnative architectural term in this picture, “turret,” is associated with the evil brother, who rejects the father’s traditional priorities in his plans to court power. One other Middle English romance offers a glimpse of a hall complex, and it is worth examining for its parallels with that of Gamelyn. The late thirteenth-century Middle English Sir Tristrem, an adaptation of the Anglo-Norman Roman de Tristan of Thomas, distinguishes between the castle dwellings in the continental landscapes of the poem and the hall-style dwelling of King Mark in Cornwall. For instance, Tristrem’s foster father Rohand clearly lives in a “castel” which he “had made,” complete with a “tour” (ll. 149, 158), and Tristrem later dies in a castle, indicated by a “castel gate” (l. 3,488). Mark’s residence in Cornwall, however, takes on more of the appearance of a hall. While referred to as a “court,” and at one point described as having a “tour” (l. 75), the absence of the word “castle” to characterize Mark’s court is striking, especially given the frequency of the term in the poem for describing continental domestic buildings.96 More revealing, in the scene where Meriadok follows Tristrem’s tracks through the snow leading to Isolde’s bed, the English poem indicates the “Bituen the bour and the halle/The way was naru and lite” (ll. 1,941–1,942), suggesting a hall complex where the chamber block (“bour”) forms a separate building from the hall, connected by a narrow passage, as at Goltho. Tristrem and Meriadok had been sleeping in the hall while Ysolde lay in the bower. By contrast,

82 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance in Gottfried von Strassburg’s adaptation of this same scene from Thomas, Meriadoc follows Tristan’s tracks through an orchard and across a lawn before reaching Isolde’s chamber, not at all like the standard arrangement of the English hall and bower (ll. 13,564–13,569). The poem further indicates pre-Conquest architecture in its use of a souterrain (“erthe hous” (ll. 2,468, 2,477), where Tristrem and Ysolde go during their banishment from Mark’s court, consistent with the traditional associations of souterrains with women and often sexual intimacy (see above).97 While Gottfried von Strassburg fashions this same space (the minnegrotte) as a tomb-like structure using imagery of funerary architecture (in keeping with the liebestod theme), the English poet fashions this space as a souterrain, an Anglo-Saxon, artificial underground dwelling used for emergency shelter or for intimacy, with none of the architectural embellishments found in Gottfried.98 The specificity regarding hall architecture found in Gamelyn, and the absence of any contrasting castle space in the poem, reflect the poem’s primary concern with the private sphere. There are court scenes of course involving public officials engaged in public legal proceedings, and Gamelyn joins up with other men in similar straits. Essentially, however, the political is personal in Gamelyn, and the enemy is within. The political and legal changes brought about and developed during the early post-Conquest period penetrate into the closest relationships and personal decisions within a family, both between parent and child and between brothers. Gamelyn’s ailing father wants the decision of his children’s inheritance to remain private. He wants it to be his decision alone to make, as it would have been under Anglo-Saxon law, but in Gamelyn, the state and Norman laws of primogeniture make the decision for Sir Johan, politicizing what would otherwise have been a private affair, and thereby reducing personal freedom. Gamelyn’s eldest brother readily allies himself with the state as Sheriff and divides the family. These familial divisions become dramatized within the family’s hall, hence all the scenes of feasting in this hall emphasize not unity and shared purpose, as they do elsewhere in Middle English literature, but division and cross-purposes. First, Gamelyn, returning triumphantly from the wrestling match, bursts into the hall complex, banishes Johan into the upper chamber, and entertains his friends for several days, expressing his dominance, for now. Then Johan seizes control, ties Gamelyn to a pillar in the hall, and invites his powerful friends over to feast and humiliate the captive Gamelyn. Each architectural detail (the gate, the hall, the chamber, the pillar, the postern gate, and so on) records a specific point in the confl ict as Gamelyn kicks down the gate, Johan slams the chamber door, Johan ties Gamelyn to the pillar, and Gamelyn and Adam escape through the postern gate. As the confl ict unfolds, so does the architectural picture of this hall complex. In another sense, the portrait of this hall grows most vivid as it comes under greatest threat through family disunity. The ambitious eldest brother, Johan, does not occupy a castle, but he may as well, given his personal allegiances. As far as Johan is concerned, his hall

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is his castle, or at least his “litel toret.” The castle in Gamelyn, therefore, is not so much a place as a state of mind.

CONCLUSION Castles may be common in Middle English literature, but they are by no means neutral. The poems discussed in this chapter associate pre-Conquest dwellings, or Anglo-Saxon halls, with virtuous characters, and postConquest dwellings, or Norman-style castles, with characters of dubious integrity. In the cases of the Middle English King Horn and the Middle English Havelok the Dane, the survival of Anglo-Norman antecedents for these stories provide a valuable opportunity for comparative analysis with respect to architecture as a cultural marker. The pattern is clear. The English poets distinguish between halls and castles, while the Anglo-Norman poets make no such distinction. The English poets express suspicion of castles and castle-based culture by placing suspicious characters in them, while the Anglo-Norman poets do not. The English poets, in turn, express approval for halls and hall-based culture by placing the hero and his people in them, while the Anglo-Norman poets do not. Anglo-Norman antecedents do not survive for either Sir Orfeo or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, yet the pattern observed in the earlier Horn and Havelok prevails: castles are foreign, mysterious, and potentially quite dangerous places, and halls are home. The Tale of Gamelyn takes us furthest into such a hall home, into the intimate structures of both the hall complex as well as the family complex, where we see pre-Conquest ways of doing things disintegrate. These poems each, in their own way, attest to the memory of castle architecture in the English landscape and the cultural divisions it embodies, and the evidence is written in stone.

3

Forest Landscapes and Forest Exile

The cultural difference expressed through created spaces, halls and castles, discussed in the previous chapter extends into the natural landscapes surrounding these structures. Just as the English poets contrast Norman and Anglo-Saxon cultural tradition through a series of juxtaposed households, so too they explore this same cultural difference through competing perspectives on, and uses of the forest. Two of these poems in particular, Sir Orfeo and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, convey diametrically opposed views of the natural world that correspond to pre-Conquest and post-Conquest worldviews. On one hand, we have the hero, the man who lives in a hall, reluctantly venturing into the wilderness as a place of exile, meditating on the warmth and companionship he has left behind, keenly aware of his own vulnerability to the elements and convinced of his own imminent death. Such is the life-threatening view of nature found throughout Old English literature. On the other, we have the antagonist of the poem, the man who lives in a castle, who ventures out into the forest as a pleasure ground, who views the forest as a place of recreation and companionship in the hunt, and who feels renewed and revitalized by the elements. Such is the view of nature expressed, both imaginatively and literally, throughout French chivalric literature and culture. Orfeo and the Fairy King, and Gawain and Bertilak, move through the same forests, sometimes simultaneously, yet their experience of these landscapes could not be more different. In this respect, the forest in these poems forms an important tool of characterization, yet another narrative means for exploring cultural difference. The Norman reorganization of the inhabited landscape of Anglo-Saxon England was matched in scale and spirit by a complete reorganization of England’s wild landscape. The same confidence that imposed castle architecture on English cities, towns, and eventually rural settings, also ushered in a new way of thinking about the wilderness and the beasts within it, as manageable entities. This perspective of command over the wilderness stems largely from the prominence of hunting in Norman cultural identity and social practice. While the Anglo-Saxons certainly hunted, the Normans introduced new social ritual surrounding hunting, created new types of landscapes such as the “forest” and the “park” for the primary purpose

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of hunting, implemented a new system of administration to manage those lands, drafted a new body of legislation for governing these properties, and stocked those hunting grounds with new species of animals, large and small, imported from abroad whose meat could only be enjoyed by members of their own community.1 Privatizing and taming the wild landscape in this way effectively extends the arena of court civilization into the wild. It defi nes the wilderness as “a separate and privileged world, governed by its own laws, and providing delight and recreation to the court.”2 This is the model of wilderness we fi nd throughout French chivalric romance, whose rise in the Norman community abroad and in England coincided with this drastic remodeling of the English landscape. The “forest” in the post-Conquest medieval English landscape meant something other than simply “woodland,” as it does in modern parlance. The forest, as distinguished from common or ordinary woodland, was a contrived and much coveted landscape, designed and maintained as a hunting or game preserve affiliated with a lordly residence. The Normans introduced to England a concept of the “forest” (from the French forêt) as a preserve restricted for royal hunting that far exceeded the practices of Anglo-Saxon kings.3 While pre-Conquest kings certainly enjoyed hunting, and had game parks set aside for that purpose, the Normans greatly (and some would say ruthlessly) expanded the amount of land set aside as forest preserve and regulated its use with increasing legalism. It is estimated that by the twelfth century, as much as a third of England had been demarcated as Royal Forest, and as with castle building, much of its creation came at the expense of Anglo-Saxon landholdings.4 The extreme example of this is the New Forest of Hampshire, which caused the destruction or disruption of some thirty villages along with arable land. King William confiscated between fi fteen to twenty thousand acres of inhabited land, displacing roughly two thousand people, which he then added to seventyfive thousand acres of partially populated woodland, in order to create a pleasure ground for hunting. Norman kings also developed a separate body of law, known as the “Forest Law,” to manage these lands, complete with its own courts and set of officials, including inspectors, wardens, foresters (gamekeepers), woodwards (officers in charge of the wood), agisters (collectors of rents and dues), and justices. Punishments for violating newly imposed forest laws created under the reigns of William I and Henry I included blinding, emasculation, and death.5 In the event that a carcass was found, an entire village could be held accountable until the perpetrator was discovered.6 Not surprisingly, Forest Law soon became a source of nearly universal resentment, with disputes over forest rights continuing well into the early fourteenth century, when the age of the forest was coming to an end. Forests, therefore, as privileged preserves, were as much political entities as natural spaces. Private individuals also sought to procure land for hunting, and these “parks” or “chases” (which distinguishes them from royal forest) became

86 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance “the supreme status symbol for aristocratic families.”7 Like the forest, the “park,” a preserve of between one hundred to two hundred acres and enclosed by a ditch and wooden pale (and sometimes a stone wall), served royal and aristocratic recreational hunting.8 While late Anglo-Saxon lords often set aside enclosed wooded land as hunting parks, the Normans greatly developed the deer park as a feature of aristocratic life.9 As of 1086, about forty deer parks had been established, increasing to 3,200 by 1300, covering an estimated two percent of the landscape.10 In fact, the development of the deer park in England coincides with the history and habits of specific breeds of deer desired for hunting. The native roe and red deer of England soon competed with a new, exotic breed of deer, the fallow deer, imported from Sicily (though originating in the Middle East), who eventually displaced the roe and red deer as the preferred breed for deer parks.11 As with the forest, hunting in the post-Conquest park was strictly the privilege of the lord who owned it. Venison was an elite meat that was not available legally on the open market. It was only available to those who owned land stocked with deer and those within their social sphere.12 Hence, archaeological evidence of animal remains shows that the growth of both the forest and park landscapes in the post-Conquest period coincides with a sharply widening gap in game consumption between the richest and poorest members of English society, a gap that held into the fourteenth century.13 In short, both the forest and the deer park are landscapes of empowerment representing the fruits of Norman privilege. These post-Conquest landscapes of pleasure, both real and fictional, present an antithetical view of nature from that cultivated by the Anglo-Saxons, whose perception of the wilderness throughout most of their literature is that of the hunted, not the hunter. Rather than fashionable hunting parties seeking recreation in nature, Anglo-Saxon works such as The Wanderer and The Seafarer feature lone individuals forced into exile in the wilds beyond civilization. Rather than the springtime forest landscapes of French chivalric literature, these poems feature barren, windswept winter landscapes. Rather than single afternoons of intense hunting outdoors followed by feasting, Anglo-Saxon works feature banishment for indefinite stretches of time, presumably years, with no end in sight. In Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry, Jennifer Neville characterizes the dominant image of nature found in Old English elegy, tying it to heroic identity: “Through the depiction of the natural world, the state of the human race on earth reveals itself to be a state of perpetual siege. Passive endurance against the natural world is thus transformed into, and interpreted as, active performance in heroism against the devil.”14 Neville identifies a pattern in Old English literature, as exemplified in The Wanderer, of human diminishment and destruction in the face of nature.15 The relationship, therefore, between humanity and nature involves “not so much the assertion of human superiority, but rather the recognition of human inferiority to nature’s power.”16 The hero then proves himself not in

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how well he masters nature, but in how well he endures its elements. Both Sir Orfeo and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight feature and contrast these two competing views of nature, one empowering, the other disempowering, one Norman and the other Anglo-Saxon.

ORFEO’S EXILE AND THE FAIRY KING’S FAIR GAME Just as the created landscape, the hall and castle of Sir Orfeo reflects important cultural differences between the two kings presented in the poem, so too the natural landscape of the poem and, more important, how the two kings perceive that landscape, reflects the literary heritage of each of those cultures. King Orfeo and the Fairy King move within the same natural landscape, often simultaneously, but they experience it and use it differently in ways that accord with the Anglo-Saxon and Norman worldviews as codified in their literature. In short, Orfeo experiences the forest landscape of the poem as a “wilderness” while the Fairy King uses the same woodland as a “forest.” Whereas Orfeo experiences disempowerment and loss in the forest, the Fairy King conveys a sense of empowerment and abundance in that same forest. Orfeo’s self-imposed exile in the forest after the loss of Heurodis is one of the most compelling and perplexing plot features of the poem. Students of Sir Orfeo so often fi nd Orfeo’s retreat from public life disappointing and frustrating precisely because it comes at a point in the narrative where a romance quest ought to be. They want Orfeo to go looking for his wife, and he does not. For this reason, Orfeo’s exile has attracted much scholarly interpretation, much of which tries to account for the absence of a quest. Some scholars have suggested that he goes into exile as a form of Christian penance, arguing for the influence of allegorical readings as found in the Latin commentary tradition where Orpheus’ story becomes an allegory of the soul.17 Such a reading traces the forest landscape setting of Orfeo’s exile to the biblical tradition of forest exile, such as that of Nebuchadnezzar, who, like Orfeo, is driven from society, lives on grass, and becomes more animal-like in appearance.18 Other scholars argue along political lines that Orfeo abandons his kingdom out of a sense of personal failure as a ruler incapable of governing his kingdom after the loss of his wife. They argue for the influence of the tradition of the rex inutilis motif, whereby the rulerhero withdraws from political life on account of his desire for a woman.19 In either reading, whether Christian allegorical or political, Orfeo himself bears full responsibility for his own misfortune. However, an equally rich source for exile motifs, one that accords with other narrative detail discussed is other chapters, is the Anglo-Saxon literary tradition, where exile forms a distinct traditional theme, a standard response to the loss of an important relationship. 20 Orfeo’s exile imitates the circumstances of exile typical of Old English elegy. Several famous

88 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance examples of this survive in Old English, including The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Wife’s Lament, and the lay of the Last Survivor in Beowulf. In each case, the protagonist fi nds himself alone in a wild, hostile landscape cut off from his civilization as a result of either natural or political catastrophe.21 In Old English literature, exile can also express a state of mind, not necessarily a literal condition, and both types of exile, mental and physical, come into play in Sir Orfeo. The fi rst aspect of the exile episode in Orfeo that ties it to the AngloSaxon tradition concerns origins. None of the classical versions of the Orpheus myth have the hero retreat into exile immediately following Eurydice’s death by snake bite. Scholars agree, therefore, that it comes from a nonclassical source. A. J. Bliss and subsequent scholars assume a lost, Breton source, while J. Eadie argues for a lost Middle English source that might account for this narrative detail, claims that remain difficult to verify in the absence of the sources. 22 A more likely source for the exile episode in Sir Orfeo emerges out of the fi ndings of J. Burke Severs, who looks to King Alfred’s Old English translation and adaptation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, which includes a retelling of the Orpheus myth. In Alfred’s version, Orpheus goes into the wilderness in despair, living among the beasts, after the loss of Eurydice, constituting the only extant version of the myth where the hero does this. 23 Alfred writes, Ða sceolde se hearpere weorðan swa sarig þæt he ne meahte ongemong oðrum monnum bion, ac teah to wuda, & sæt on ðæm muntum ægðer ge dæges ge nihtes (“Then that harper grew so sad that he could not be among other men, but withdrew to the forest and sat upon the hills both day and night”). 24 Orpheus’ exile is one of numerous additions that Alfred makes to the Latin source that draw specifically upon AngloSaxon tradition. The Anglo-Saxon roots of Orfeo’s forest exile accounts for the occurrence of the word “wilderness” in the poem. Each time Orfeo refers to the place of his exile, he uses the Old English word “wilderness” rather than the Anglo-Norman word “forest.” When announcing his departure to the court, he says “‘In-to wildernes ichil te’” (l. 212), and shortly thereafter the poet confi rms “In-to ϸe wildernes he geϸ” (l. 238). At the end of the poem, he tells the steward of the “‘wildernes’” (l. 536) he traveled through. Finally, when revealing himself to the court, he clearly associates that landscape with the exilic experience of Anglo-Saxon literature when he tells of how “‘y-suffred ful ʒore/In wildernisse miche sore’” (l. 559–560). (Similarly, on two occasions the poet uses the more neutral Old English “wode” (ll. 237, 272, “wood”) as Orfeo moves through the forest.) By contrast the only time the poet refers to the woodland in the poem as a “forest” occurs twice in reference to royal holdings: fi rst, as Heurodis recounts seeing the Fairy King’s “‘Riuers, forestes, friϸ wiϸ flours’” (l. 160), and second, for contrastive purposes, in references to Orfeo’s “Riuer, forest, friϸ wiϸ flours” (l. 246), which he formerly enjoyed. Thus, the poet’s vocabulary for

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Orfeo’s experience of the wooded landscape accords with the Anglo-Saxon literary source tradition of the forest episode. A second feature of the exile episode that harkens back to Anglo-Saxon poetry concerns perspective. 25 The vantage of Old English elegy remains entirely retrospective and nostalgic. 26 It is an exercise in remembering. The exiled person does not look forward in time, and is not searching for anything or trying to accomplish anything; he/she simply meditates on his/her present circumstances by recalling earlier, better times. While “seeking” (for a lord, a home) forms an element in the exile theme in Old English poetry, that search goes unfulfi lled in the course of the poem. 27 Grief and loss, never hope, become the dominant themes. This is true too of Orfeo’s exile. He seems to have no hope or plan of ever returning to court or of recovering his wife. He lives entirely in the past. 28 By contrast, in romance, the hero’s quest, which invariably separates him from court, is future-oriented as he works toward the goal of proving himself worthy for membership at court, to which he has every expectation of returning. Chretien’s Yvain, for instance, contains a wilderness episode very much like the one in Sir Orfeo. Like Orfeo, Yvain lives almost like an animal among animals. He too lost his lady (through his own fault). However, Yvain’s forest exile comes in two stages: fi rst, he slips into madness as a result of losing Laudine’s favor and lives like a wild man, a madness of which he is cured by a magical ointment; second, he uses his forest exile to accomplish a series of deeds in service to women that qualify him for Laudine’s forgiveness. Ultimately, his forest exile becomes an important phase of self-improvement, and he is a better man after it than before. This turnaround never happens for Orfeo. His exile is not a time for self-improvement for future gain. He simply grieves, and the point at which Heurodis appears to him in the forest marks the end of his exile through no effort of his own. The exile in Sir Orfeo, therefore, does not correlate with character development, which aligns it more with the Anlgo-Saxon tradition of exile, than with the forest exiles of French romance. Third, the loss concerns an entire community of people, not just an individual. The heroes of The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and the Last Survivor in Beowulf all mourn the loss of their communities, though usually emphasizing the loss of a particular male kinsman, a protecting lord whose support means inclusion in the group. The Wanderer mourns the death of his goldwine (“gold-friend,” l. 22), which means that he will remain eðle bidæled,/ freomægum feor (“cut off from my country, far from my kinsmen,” ll. 20–21). The Seafarer is winemægum bidroren (“deprived of kinsmen,” l. 16) and bereft of hleahtor wera (“the laughter of men,” l. 21). The Last Survivor mourns that Ealle hie deað fornam,/ærran mælum (ll. 2,236–2,237, “death has taken away all of [my people]”). He remains se an ða gen . . . se ðær longest hwearf,/weard winegeomor (ll. 2,237–2,239, “that one who lived the longest, alone, a guardian mourning for his companions”). Images of the “mead-hall” and the “feasting place” abound. Orfeo’s forest exile

90 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance resembles the experience of the Old English exiles in its stress on community. Orfeo’s exile originates with a loss (in this case Heurodis), but the loss of a wife quickly magnifies into the loss of his entire kingdom. The hero’s tragedy has to do not merely with a single relationship (man and wife), but rather with the loss of a broader social network of relationships. Hence, the loss of a wife soon takes on the flavor of the ubi sunt topos, so pronounced in Old English verse, which involves an exiled figure, wandering in the wilderness, pondering his/her isolation from a former people. To be sure, Orfeo’s people still live; he has the option of return. However, Orfeo experiences his exile as a permanent state, and the poet stresses his loss of community even more than his loss of a wife. Fourth, in Old English poetry, this exilic meditation takes on the form of a description of lost pleasures, a feature we see reproduced in Sir Orfeo. In her article on the theme of transience in Old English poetry, Christine Fell notes a poetic preoccupation with “the loss of those things which put joy into life, usually expressed in terms of human relationships.”29 These lost relationships become codified in concrete images of property such as an empty mead hall or lost weapons, listed as an ubi sunt lament, images which become emblematic for lost civilization as a whole, lost both to the exiled figure and to the civilization that met with disaster.30 We fi nd this same listing of lost pleasures, to the same end, in Sir Orfeo. Once Orfeo retreats into exile, the poet catalogs the lost pleasures of Orfeo’s former, harmonious life and contrasts those with his present destitution: He þat hadde y-werd þe fowe & griis, & on bed þe purper biis —Now on hard heþe he liþ, Wiþ leues & gresse he him wriþ. He þat hadde had castels & tours, Riuer, forest, friþ wiþ flours —Now, þei it comenci to snewe & frese, Þis king mot make his bed in mese. He þat had y-had kniʒtes of priis Bifor him kneland, & leuedis —Now seþ he no-þing þat him likeþ, Bot wilde wormes bi him strikeþ. He þat had y-had plenté Of mete & drink, of ich deynté —Now may he al-day digge & wrote Er he finde his fille of rote. (ll. 241–256)

The catalog includes losses of clothing, furnishings, dwellings, landholdings, knights and companions, ladies, and food and drink, all the things that constitute civilization. 31 The poet establishes a pattern of before-and-after contrasts: whereas the king was formerly accustomed

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to a royal bed, now he sleeps on the heath; whereas he formerly had plenty to eat, now he digs for roots to eat, and so forth. The very presence of a catalog of lost community of this sort links Sir Orfeo far more with pre-Conquest literary tradition than with the romance tradition to which it is normally assigned. 32 Other, more obvious features of season and duration situate Orfeo’s exile more in the Anglo-Saxon than in the Anglo-Norman literary tradition. The poem opens in the usual season for medieval romance, in springtime. Heurodis enters the garden specifically at the beginning of May (l. 57) and is abducted within days of the opening scene. Orfeo goes into exile, therefore, some time during the summer months. However, his exile extends into winter (many winters in fact), and the poet dwells on the stark winter forest landscape.33 On the whole, winter landscapes have little place in medieval romance, where the springtime landscape gives outward form to inner renewal and rebirth.34 By contrast, in Sir Orfeo, the king fi nds himself at the mercy of the elements. It begins to “snewe & frese” (l. 247), he nearly starves “In winter may he no-þing fi nde/Bot rote, grases, & þe rinde” (l. 259–260). Orfeo remains in that landscape, moreover, for “ten ʒere & more” (l. 264), in contrast with romance narratives which tend to cover a time span of about a year. Orfeo’s ten-year exile, therefore, is highly unusual for a romance. It is so long, in fact, that we can assume that Orfeo sees his departure from court as permanent, not temporary, evoking the exilic experience in Old English elegy, where any sense of time seems to vanish. In length and setting, therefore, Orfeo’s exile participates in a long, earlier literary tradition of exile where the hostile winter landscape forms a character in its own right. 35 Finally, the exile episode in Sir Orfeo reveals two rather different perspectives of the forest landscape that correspond to pre-Conquest and postConquest English literature. 36 King Orfeo and the Fairy King move within the same forest setting in the poem. Yet, their attitudes toward that forest, and the effect of the forest upon them could not be more different. The different experiences of the same forest landscape between Orfeo and the Fairy King speak further to the dichotomy of Anglo-Saxon and Norman that I have been exploring. Whereas Orfeo experiences the forest in the AngloSaxon mode as a place of wilderness exile that cuts humankind off from civilization, the Fairy King experiences the forest in the romance mode as a pleasure ground, an extension of his household rather than a threat to it. This latter view of the forest derives specifically from French aristocratic culture, which prized the forest as a source of recreation and social prestige. If we look at the fairy company (“gret ost,” l. 290) that Orfeo “oft” (l. 282) spies in the forest, we fi nd a list of courtly pleasures typical of medieval romance, the literature that the Normans imported to England.37 These pleasures include hunting with hounds (ll. 283–286), courtly processions of armed knights (ll. 291–296), knights and ladies dancing elegantly (“queynt,” l. 298), and ladies hawking (ll. 303–313). Just as the poet

92 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance catalogs the lost pleasures of Orfeo, here he catalogs the thriving pleasure of the Fairy King’s court in a matter of thirty-two lines (ll. 281–313). In fact, one is hard-pressed to find a more succinct and economical tableau of French court culture than in the forest scene involving the fairy horde in Sir Orfeo. Not surprisingly, when referring to the Fairy King’s use of the woodland, he uses the Anglo-Norman word “forest” in the sense of royal landholdings reserved for recreational hunting affiliated with castle properties (l. 160), in contrast with Orfeo’s Old English “wilderness.” The season, moreover, accords with these courtly activities, as Orfeo spies all this during the “hot vnder-tides” (l. 282), clearly during the warm months. While this timing undoubtedly participates in the literary topos of the noon-day demon, the season remains pertinent, since we never see the Fairy King during the winter months, as we do King Orfeo, even though they move within the same forest.38 Above all, however, these are not Orfeo’s pleasures, since he remains an outsider looking in. The pattern of land use depicted in the poem corresponds to the historical reality of land use in the post-Conquest period. In short, the forest experience that the Fairy King enjoys, full of courtly activities including hunting, replete with a rural castle to lodge his hunting party, bespeaks the Norman transformation of the English landscape for their own pleasure during the colonial period. In turn, the literary tradition of exile in Anglo-Saxon elegy acquired new, concrete applicability during the Conquest, giving appropriate literary expression to the political reality of so many Anglo-Saxon leaders who, upon losing their lands and positions, retreated into exile in the forests.39 Known to Norman authorities as “silvatici” (or “forest dwellers”), these disenfranchised Anglo-Saxons used the forest as a base of operation for the guerilla war they would wage against the Normans for several years after the Conquest, as I discuss more fully in the next chapter.40 Orfeo’s Anglo-Saxon identity, therefore, helps to account for his exclusion from the courtly pleasures within the very same forest that the Fairy King so enjoys.

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT The same contrasting uses and experiences of the forest landscape we fi nd among the two kings in Sir Orfeo also apply in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Gawain, like king Orfeo, experiences the forest in the Anglo-Saxon mode as a place of danger and exile. Lord Bertilak, on the other hand, like the Fairy King, uses the forest in the manner of the Norman aristocrat, as a pleasure ground for fellowship and hunting. Thus the same forest that brings Gawain starving and nearly frozen to the gates of Hautdesert provides a place of sustenance and renewal to Bertilak. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, however, the presence of Anglo-Saxon literary elements far exceeds what we fi nd in Sir Orfeo, arguing even more powerfully for

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the survival of the earlier literary tradition. Several of the poem’s major episodes evoke the heroic experience of Anglo-Saxon literature, not least of which is the opening scene at Camelot, which recalls the monster-in-thehall scenario famously illustrated in Beowulf, as discussed in Chapter1. In this chapter, I discuss three more aspects of the poem, pertaining specifically to landscape, that similarly recall Anglo-Saxon tradition, both literary and historical: the forest journey through the wilderness of Wirral, which participates in the tradition of Anglo-Saxon wilderness exile; the scene at the Green Chapel, which recalls Beowulf’s monstrous encounter at Grendel’s mere; and the Green Chapel itself, which takes the form, location, and function of the historical late Anglo-Saxon “hundred,” or district court. Thus, at each juncture of the narrative, Gawain relives the experience of the Anglo-Saxon hero, while the Green Knight/Lord Bertilak doubles as the monster of Anglo-Saxon literary tradition and the Norman overlord testing the integrity of Anglo-Saxon identity. At fi rst, it would seem that Gawain’s departure from Camelot qualifies as a knightly quest akin to similar quests found throughout French chivalric romance, and many scholars treat it as such.41 Gawain sets out alone, at the start of the narrative, with a specific martial task in mind. He travels through a forest, fights beasts (supernatural as well as natural), has a romantic encounter with a beautiful woman, and returns to court safely at the end. In its broadest outlines, Gawain’s adventure might compare with Erec’s quest in search of Yder to avenge the insult to Guinevere in Chrétien’s Erec and Enide, or Yvain’s quest to fight Esclados the Red to avenge the insult to his cousin, Calogrenant in Chrétien’s Yvain. Both quests take the hero alone into the forest, introduce the hero to a beautiful woman with whom he falls in love, involve the hero in martial tests with various men and beasts (including supernatural ones), and return the hero safely to court at the end. The French Arthurian connection in Sir Gawain would seem to only affi rm the parallels between Gawain’s forest journey and those of his fellow knights of the Round Table from French tradition. However, in its particulars, Gawain’s journey into the forest of Wirral evokes the wilderness landscape of Anglo-Saxon literary tradition rather than the forest of French romance, beginning with its function as a testing ground for the hero. Wild landscapes in both literary traditions typically provide a setting, away from court, where the hero proves himself through martial deeds, and the forest in Sir Gawain proves no exception to this rule. The poem, however, presents two tests, each of which requires a different wild landscape: the test Gawain expects and plans for, and the test he actually receives during the course of the narrative. The test that Gawain anticipates as a result of recent events at Arthur’s hall has a distinctly Anglo-Saxon flavor. In Chapter 1, I noted the parallels between the Green Knight’s intrusion into Arthur’s hall at Camelot and Grendel’s intrusion into Hrothgar’s hall of Heorot in Beowulf. The setting of the English-style hall, and the Green Knight’s characterization as an “etayn”

94 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance (l. 140, “giant”; cf. Grendel as etan in Beowulf) invading that hall both suggest Anglo-Saxon influence. This monstrous intrusion, moreover, leads the hero, Gawain, out into the wilderness in order to contend with a monstrous being, the Green Knight, at whose hands he expects to die. Gawain’s wilderness journey also evokes the exilic landscape of AngloSaxon tradition in how the hero’s isolation from court becomes an occasion for self-deterioration rather than an opportunity for self-growth, as it would be in French romance. We recall from Chrétien’s Yvain how the hero, about to go to the magic spring to avenge his cousin, “intended to go there all alone” and “was distressed and upset that the king was about to go there,” since he fears Sir Kay will receive the honor of fighting Esclados.42 Intent on securing the challenge for himself, Yvain “did not wait for them; he resolved instead to set off alone” (l. 303). Similarly, Erec, upon setting off into the forest, “swore and promised [the court] that he would have no companion except his wife; he said that he would go alone” (l. 70). Both Yvain and Erec view the isolation afforded by the forest as an opportunity for self-improvement, a chance to prove oneself worthy of belonging at court, expecting, for the most part, to enjoy their improved status within court society upon return. Gawain, on the other hand, experiences the isolation of the forest as a form of exile, and the poet repeatedly associates isolation with things lost, not things to be gained. Gawain spends his nights in the forest “leudlez alone” (l. 693, “companionless alone”), a seemingly redundant phrase, since to be alone means to be without companions, yet a phrase that defi nes the particular way Gawain experiences aloneness, and one that recalls the comitatus in the hall, as discussed earlier. Similarly, Gawain rides “Fer floten fro his frendez” (l. 714, “far adrift from his friends”) and “fremedly” (l. 714, “as a stranger”), again associating aloneness with lack of companionship. His isolation comes to a head when he fi nds himself in the forest “alone” (l. 735), a “mon al hym one” (l. 749, “man all by himself”) on Christmas Eve, perhaps the most festive day of the year. At this point, he is nearly frozen to death. Again, the mention of the holiday (l. 734) only heightens Gawain’s feeling of destitution alone in the forest. Thus, Gawain’s experience of isolation in the forest, like King Orfeo’s, recalls the landscape of exile in Anglo-Saxon elegy, where to be alone far from the hall means to approach the brink of annihilation. Gawain’s experience in the forest shares with King Orfeo’s forest exile the nostalgic perspective typical of Anglo-Saxon elegy, which catalogs lost joys.43 Unlike the forward-looking quests of French chivalric romance, Gawain’s forest quest is retrospective in outlook. Like the Orfeo-poet, who contrasts the past comforts and companionship the king enjoyed at court with the deprivations of the present in the forest (ll. 241–256), the Gawain-poet reminds us of all that Gawain left behind at Camelot as he wanders north: Oft leudlez alone he lengez on nyʒtez Þer he fonde noʒt hym byfore ϸe fare ϸat hym lyked;

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Hade he no fere bot his fole bi frythez and dounez, Ne no gome bot God bi gate wyth to karp—(ll. 693–696)

The poet recalls the former companionship, conversation, and food Gawain enjoyed at Camelot by means of emphasizing his present desolation “Fer floten fro his frendez” (l. 714, “Far adrift from his friends”). Nowhere does Gawain express eagerness for challenge or anticipation of future glory as a result of the venture. This list of lost joys accords with the exilic perspective of pre-Conquest literature, where to be far from the hall means to be lost. The most striking Anglo-Saxon feature of Gawain’s forest journey concerns, of course, the season, and here the poet seems to insist on an AngloSaxon milieu. Unlike the vast majority of medieval romances, French and English, which begin and end in the springtime, Sir Gawain begins and ends in the dead of winter. Just as French romance avoids descriptions of winter or winter weather even while following the hero through this season, Sir Gawain merely reports the passing of the spring and summer (ll. 506–520) as Gawain must wait before setting out in November, when the main action of the poet resumes. Therefore, all of the main action of the poem takes place in the fall and winter. Above all, as in Anglo-Saxon literature, the winter landscape in the poem forms a character in its own right, a threat to the hero equal to the beasts and monsters of the forest. Gawain traverses many a “bonk vnbene” (l. 710, “cheerless bank”), sharp cliffs (l. 713), and “mony bryddez vnblyϸe vpon bare twyges,/Þat pitosly ϸer piped for pyne of ϸe colde” (ll. 746–747, “many unhappy birds on bare branches, that chirped piteously from pain of the cold”). The harsh winter landscape leaves the hero “Ner slayn wyth ϸe slete” (l. 729, “nearly slain with the sleet”), sleeping in his armor beneath icicles. After the reprieve in castle Hautdesert, Gawain once again faces “wylde wederez” (l. 2,000) with “innoghe of ϸe norϸe ϸe naked to tene” (l. 2,002 “enough of the north wind to numb the flesh”), taking us back into the life-threatening landscape so distinctive of pre-Conquest literary tradition where winter goes hand-in-glove with exile.44 In short, the cold, barren wilderness Gawain moves through in the poem reflects the Anglo-Saxon nature of the test he carries in his mind. The Anglo-Saxon flavor of Gawain’s challenge in the wilderness grows more striking in connection with the Green Chapel, which combines two landscape features specifically associated with monsters in Anglo-Saxon literature: the mere and the barrow.45 In general, Grendel-type monsters are associated with meres, while dragons are associated with barrows, as in Beowulf. In Sir Gawain, both landscapes come together with the Green Chapel. In fact, the Gawain-poet uses the same word, mere, to designate the place where Gawain must meet the Green Knight: Gawain tells Bertilak of his promise “‘To mete ϸat mon at ϸat mere’” (l. 1,061), “mere” meaning the site of the Green Chapel. While at least one translator renders this particular instance of the Middle English word “mere” generally as “rendezvous,” the word also occurs in Pearl, where it carries the more specific, Old English, meaning of

96 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance “pool, water” (ll. 140, 158, 1,166), as it does in Beowulf.46 Likewise, in Old English literature, the image of boiling water, even in a winter landscape, is a literary device that announces the hero’s immanent encounter with a monster. Thus, Beowulf sees the “boiling” (ll. 847, 1,422) water of the mere as he moves toward battle with Grendel’s mother, and later passes a stream where he sees steam rising from the boiling water as he approaches the dragon’s cave (l. 2,546). Similarly, the Gawain poet describes how the “brokez byled” (l. 2,082, “brooks boiled”) as Gawain gets closer to the Green Chapel where he will encounter the Green Knight. Once he arrives at the Green Chapel, Gawain notices the stream just bordering the Chapel “blubred” and “boyled” (l. 2,174, “surged” and “boiled”). While Gawain passed bodies of running water earlier (l. 731) on his journey leading to castle Hautdesert, the water did not “boil” as it does near the Green Chapel; on the contrary, it is frozen in the form of icicles, in keeping with the winter season. The unnatural “boiling” water in the vicinity of the Green Chapel, within an otherwise snow-covered landscape (“On snawe,” l. 2,234), therefore, suggests a narrative marker within a larger literary formula ushering in a monstrous encounter of this kind, the same marker that prefaces Beowulf’s fight at Grendel’s mere and at the dragon’s cave. Likewise, just as Beowulf, who senses the mere as demonic, Gawain feels this must be where “‘Þe Dele his matynnes telle!’” (l. 2,188; also l. 2,193). Also, just as Beowulf discovers a huge, ancient sword made by giants in the cave under the mere, the Green Knight is also associated with giant weapons: he bursts into Arthur’s hall bearing an axe “hoge and vnmete” (l. 208, “huge and monstrous”), and he later strides forth from the Green Chapel bearing a giant Danish axe “fowre fote large—/Hit watz no lasse” (l. 2,225–2,226, “four foot wide, it was no less”). Finally, when the Green Knight addresses Gawain at the Green Chapel, he tells him to be less “gryndel” (l. 2,338), meaning “fierce, angry,” furthering the connection between the Green Knight and a Grendel-type monster through the use of Old English vocabulary, the Gawain-poet being the only Middle English poet to use this word.47 Thus the entire terrain of the Green Chapel, including its remote, wild location, the cold starkness of the setting, the unnatural “boiling” water, and the expectation of death at the hands of a monster who owns giant weapons, all suggest powerful associations with Anglo-Saxon literary tradition. Similar images of wilderness exile associated with monsters (both natural and supernatural) to those found in Sir Gawain appear in other Old English texts. For example, in Guᵭlac A, the narrator observes: Wid is ϸes westen, wræcsetla fela, Eardas onhæle earmra gæsta. Sindon wærlogan ϸe ϸa wic burgaᵭ. [This wilderness is wide—[there are] many places of exile and secret dwelling places of wretched spirits. They are devils who dwell in this place.]

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Here, as in Sir Gawain, the wilderness is associated with devils (SGGK, l. 2,188; also l. 2,193). Likewise, a poem commemorating the new cathedral at Durham characterizes the surrounding countryside in similarly dire terms: And ᵭær gewexen is wudafæstern micel; Wuniad in ᵭem wycum wilda deor monige, In deope dalum deora ungerim. [A sprawling, tangled thicket has sprung up there; those deep dales are the haunt of many animals, countless wild beasts.]48

The Blickling Homilies offers a vision of Saint Paul with even closer parallels to what we find in both Beowulf and Sir Gawain: Swa Sanctus Paulus wæs geseonde on norᵭanweardne ϸisne middangeard, ϸær ealle wætero niᵭergewitaᵭ, & he ϸær geseah ofer ᵭæm wætere sumne harne stán; & wæron norᵭ of ᵭæm stane awexene swiᵭe hrimige bearwas, & ᵭær wæron ϸystro-genipo, & under ϸæm stane wæs niccra eardung & wearga. & he geseah ϸæt on ᵭæm clife hangodan on ᵭæm Ísigean bearwum manige swearte saula be heora handum gebundne; & ϸa fynd ϸara on nicra onlicnesse heora gripende wæron, swa swa grædig wulf; & ϸæt wæter wæs sweart under ϸæm clife neoᵭon. [As St. Paul was looking toward the northern region of the earth, from whence all waters pass down, he saw above the water a hoary stone; and north of the stone had grown woods very rimy. And there were dark mists; and under the stone was the dwelling place of monsters and execrable creatures. And he saw hanging on the cliff on the icy woods, many black souls with their hands bound; and the devils in likeness of monsters were seizing them like greedy wolves; and the water under the cliff beneath was black.]49

As in the Green Chapel episode of Sir Gawain, this remote wilderness is associated equally with monsters and devils. This passage contains the fuller combination of hoary stone, dark mists, frosty woods, and the monstrous that occur in both Beowulf and Sir Gawain, indicating a broader shared literary tradition that the Gawain-poet had to draw upon.

98 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance Just as the wilderness journey Sir Gawain makes participates in the Anglo-Saxon literary topos of the wilderness exile, so too the destination of the Green Chapel, its form and function, derives from Anglo-Saxon cultural and legal tradition. When Gawain leaves Hautdesert and ventures back out into the forest of Wirral to settle his agreement with the Green Knight, he makes his way to the agreed upon meeting point, the Green Chapel, only to fi nd not a green chapel, but a green mound: And ofte chaunged his cher ϸe chapel to seche. He seʒ non suche in so syde—and selly hym ϸoʒt— Saue, a lyttel on a launde, a lawe as hit were, A balʒ berʒ bi a bonke ϸe brymme bysyde, Bi a forʒ of a flode ϸat ferked ϸare; Þe borne blubred ϸerinne as hit boyled hade. Þe knyʒt kachez his caple and com to ϸe lawe, Liʒtez doun luflyly and at a lynde tachez Þe rayne of his riche, with a roʒe braunche. Þenne he boʒez to ϸe berʒe, aboute hit he walkez, Debatande with hymself quat hit be myʒt. (ll. 2,169–2,179)

The “chapel” is described variously as a “lawe” (“mound” or “hill,” ll. 2,171, 2,175), a berʒ (“barrow” or “mound”), and later simply as a “hil” (l. 2,199). In giving directions to this site, the servant accompanying Gawain specifies that he will fi nd this chapel by riding along a path or track (“rake,” l. 2,144) to the bottom of a “valay” (“valley,” l. 2,145; also a “slade” or “valley,” l. 2,147), and across a “launde” (“grassy plain,” l. 2,146). When Gawain approaches, the Green Knight comes out of hole in the mound (l. 2,221), suggesting the pattern of a barrow. We also know that this spot is located near the estate of Hautdesert, where at least some of its household servants know where it is, since one of them guides him there. Although the poet clearly creates confusion and mystery for the hero in this scene, certain things are quite clear: the green “chapel” is an outdoor landmark, in the shape of a mound or barrow, located near a grand estate, situated within an open plain, accessed by a visible path, and sought out by the hero with the expectation of some fi nal reckoning. The image of the barrow as a landscape feature associated with a final reckoning has rich associations in Anglo-Saxon tradition in two important respects, the fi rst of which recalls monsters. Both Beowulf and the OE Guᵭlac A contain prominent monster-barrows. In Beowulf, the fi nal monster the hero takes on, the dragon, lives at the site of a barrow containing the treasure of a lost people (ll. 2,211–2,214a). Once Beowulf slays this dragon, his people bury him at this site (l. 3,137ff.). Thus the hero’s fi nal major challenge with a monster in the poem takes place at a barrow that then becomes permanently associated with him. Similarly in Guᵭlac A, the poem’s hero battles with monstrous demons for possession of a barrow.50

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Gawain’s fi nal challenge in Sir Gawain aligns with these monster-barrows of Old English literary tradition, fi rst, in the expectation he has of fighting a monster (the Green Knight) when he gets there, and, second, in the description of the landscape leading up to the barrow, the frozen winter landscape that, nevertheless, features boiling water, suggesting the supernatural, landscapes also found in both Beowulf and Guᵭlac. Barrows, however, hold an additional historical meaning in Anglo-Saxon tradition as sites of reckoning. In its form, location and purpose for the hero, the Green Chapel corresponds to the meeting sites for the pre-Conquest judicial court, the “hundred” or, in northern counties, “wapentake.” Late Anglo-Saxon administrative systems divided each county into districts, each with its own “hundred,” or group of representatives (including thegns as well as peasants) who met on a monthly basis for matters of governance, including the dispensation of public justice. Thus the term “hundred,” or “wapentake,” (from Old English wæpentac) refers equally to the district governing body and to the judicial court under its purview. 51 According to Della Hooke, the Anglo-Saxon hundred typically met in an open air assembly located away from settlement, on the boundary of a royal estate to which it would have been annexed, accessed by a road, with an extensive view in all directions from the center of the site. These hundred meeting sites typically took their names from a significant landmark at the meeting place, such as a tall tree. In the region of the West Midland Hwiccan kingdom (modern day Worcestershire, Warwickshire, and Gloucestershire), not far from where Sir Gawain and the Green Knight originates, the names of these meeting sites often indicate the presence of mounds, hills, or barrows. 52 Hooke identifies ten pre-Domesday and Domesday hundreds sites containing the Old English term hlāw, hlæw (“mound”; cf. “lawe” of SGGK), and three containing the Old English term beorg (“barrow, hill”; cf. “berʒ” of SGGK).53 All told, no less than thirteen of these hundred meeting sites, in the West Midlands, are associated with mounds or barrows. We fi nd this same legal landscape feature, using the same descriptive vocabulary, in the meeting place where Sir Gawain faces his trial with the Green Knight. Indeed, the scene at the Green Chapel becomes Gawain’s day in court. Several scholars have noted the prevalence of precise legal language throughout the poem, particularly as articulated and enacted by the Green Knight and members of his household. The Green Knight may, in appearance and gesture, take on the aspect of the monster figure of Anglo-Saxon literature luring the hero out to a “mere” (l. 1,061) in the wilderness, but he also doubles as a learned judge.54 Robert J. Blanch traces the “year and a day” timeframe for the “covenant” stipulated by the Green Knight to the Germanic Aufl assung (surrender) to the lord of a judicial tribunal, which later became incorporated into English common law.55 Blanch notes that the Green Knight states the terms of the covenant at the Yule feast at Camelot in legal language, including the time frame of a year and a day (ll. 285–300), and

100 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance subsequently traps the hero in a beheading game that simulates murder, thus “Gawain’s imminent death at the Green Chapel, then, would represent both fulfillment and release from such encircling legal strictures.”56 The scene at the Green Chapel becomes Gawain’s court day. The Green Knight’s performance in the Green Chapel further accords with English legal procedure in his religious tone and vocabulary, assuring Gawain that he has “confessed so clene,” having performed his “penaunce” (ll. 2,391–2,392), thus emulating the intensely religious flavor of Old English law.57 Finally, the Green Knight’s dual identity as lord of the local manor, Hautdesert, is consistent with the operation of the late Anglo-Saxon hundred, where the local lord presided as judge in the court annexed to his estate. Thus, the legalistic scene in the Green Chapel, taking place as it does in an open air meeting place, associated with a local estate, and presided over by the lord of that estate, evokes the late Anglo-Saxon hundred.58 In essence, the Green Chapel combines two aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture: the monster lair of Anglo-Saxon literary tradition, which lures the hero into a misty, forbidding, life-threatening landscape, and the historical legal institution of the Anglo-Saxon hundred, the outdoor meeting place for settling legal disputes and contracts, a fitting end to Gawain’s wilderness exile. By contrast, Bertilak’s experience in the forest differs dramatically from Gawain’s, and features another type of forested landscape contrived by members of the French-speaking aristocracy of Norman descent and celebrated in their literature. The Gawain-poet characterizes part of the forest surrounding Hautdesert as “a park al aboute” enclosed by a “pyked palays pyned ful ϸik,/Þat vmbeteʒe mony tre mo ϸen two myle” (ll. 768–770), that is, a deer park, or “chase.” An elite landscape, the deer park is distinguished from the “forest” for its smaller size (ranging from a few acres to somewhat over a thousand) and for its clearly demarcated boundaries, in this case a palisade.59 As noted above, such parks typically adjoined castles and formed a feature of the post-Conquest feudal system.60 From the mid-thirteenth century on, privately owned deer parks became a symbol of status and power for the wealthiest families, who paid handsomely for their licensing and construction.61 Like castles, parks often came about at the expense of arable land and village settlements, and thus could foster antipathy among the native population.62 Like the forests, deer parks reflect the aristocratic love of recreational hunting, so it comes as no surprise that hunting, literally and metaphorically, forms the most prominent activity associated with Hautdesert, both in the park and in the bedroom. Thus, the landscape that brought Gawain hungry and nearly frozen to death to Bertilak’s threshold serves as a pleasure ground for Bertilak and his court. Notably, the Gawain poet applies the same realism to describing the hunt and the hunting grounds as he devotes to describing the castle itself, thus reinforcing the Norman cultural identity of Bertilak and his court conveyed in the castle residence. At least one scholar, in fact, has argued that the hunting scenes of the poem seem entirely designed to profile Bertilak and

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his court, since they detract from the main action of the poem.63 However, better than anything else, they characterize Bertilak’s cultural heritage. The poet notes various hunting dogs and their uses (ll. 1,139, 1,142, 1,436), and the precise use of horns in the hunt, clearly aiming for an accurate picture of aristocratic recreation.64 The poet dwells on the specifics of the hunt, relating in the fi rst scene the distinctive “bow and stable” method, or deer drive, used by the Anglo-Norman aristocracy, a method that “enables rich men to provide easy sport for their guests,” and which produces great quantities of venison.65 This method involved driving large numbers of deer toward the hunters, and was especially suited to the smaller hunting space afforded by the average deer park (as opposed to the open forest).66 It is interesting to note that the deer drive as a hunting method originated with the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, many of whom, as noted above, kept enclosed wooded parks for hunting. With the introduction of the fallow deer from Sicily in the post-Conquest period, whose stamina did not match that of the native red deer more favorable to open forest hunting, we see the rise of the deer park specifically designed to enclose this new breed of deer.67 As a result, the deer drive, a method of hunting in enclosed parks, made its way into the standard hunting manuals of the post-Conquest period. Hence, the early fi fteenth-century The Master of Game, while largely a translation and adaptation of the French Livre de Chasse of Gaston Phebus, nevertheless, includes an additional chapter at the end (the longest and most detailed) describing the deer drive method, a method not found in the French original.68 The hunt for the deer in Sir Gawain, therefore, reflects the appropriation of a native English hunting practice that best suited the Norman preference for specific deer requiring emparkment. The highly specific terminology used for deer in the fi rst hunting scene of the poem further reinforces the Norman aristocratic portrait of castle Hautdesert. As the hunting party gathers, the poet lists the deer contained in this deer park: Þay let ϸe herttez haf ϸe gate, with ϸe hyʒe hedes, Þe breme bukkez also, with hor brode paumez; For ϸe fre lorde hade defende in fermysoun tyme Þat ϸer shulde no mon meue to ϸe male dere. Þe hindez were halden in with “Hay!” and “War!” Þe does dryuen with gret dyn to ϸe depe sladez. (ll. 1,154–1,159)

Walter J. Ong demonstrates how the Gawain poet distinguishes in this passage between breeds of deer: “hart” and “hind” delineate the male and female respectively of the red deer (Cervus elaphus), a large breed native to England. The male red deer have high, rounded antlers, hence the poet speaks of their “hyʒe hedes.” By contrast, “buck” and “doe” refers to the male and female respectively of the fallow deer, a smaller, nonnative breed introduced to England by the Normans specifically in connection with the rise of the aristocratic

102 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance deer park, and a breed which eventually supplanted native breeds as the preferred game in such parks. The male fallow deer have antlers that fan widely to the side, hence the poet refers to their “brode paumez,” from the French “empaumures.”69 In specifying these breeds of deer, therefore, the poet reveals the specifically Norman design of this particular deer park and its lord. The Norman flavor of the deer hunt in Sir Gawain grows stronger when the poet describes the dressing of game following the hunt, a highly ritualized practice that also serves as a cultural marker. The process of “excoriation,” or splitting up the parts of the slain animal, came to England as a Norman import from Sicily and reflects the highly developed ritual surrounding hunting that distinguishes post-Conquest hunting practice from what came before.70 Its appearance in England coincides with the introduction of the fallow deer from Sicily. In fact, the ritual of excoriation seems originally distinctive to this particular breed of deer at the time of its introduction, though the ritual eventually spread to cover other species of deer obtained through a variety of hunting methods.71 This culminating ritual of the hunt involves “unmaking,” or carving up, the animal and distributing its various parts among members of the hunting party. Knowledge of the precise terms and procedures of excoriation marked someone as a member of the nobility.72 Thus the lengthy passages in Sir Gawain describing the excoriation, while tiresome to most students of the poem, provide perhaps the best evidence of Bertilak’s cultural heritage. The Gawain-poet further situates Bertilak among descendants of continental origin with the boar hunt, the second hunt of Sir Gawain. Unlike the deer hunt, however, which reflects the historical reality of hunting in England, the boar hunt in the poem seems to reflect “old world,” that is, continental French and German, practice despite the English scene. Archaeological data shows little evidence of wild boar in medieval England, the species having become “exceptionally uncommon” by the thirteenth century, a hundred years before Sir Gawain was written.73 By contrast, wild boar predominated in the elite hunting lands of medieval France and Germany.74 It is ironic, therefore, that the author of the Middle English Master of Game assumes great familiarity with the wild boar among his audience, obviating the need to describe it.75 While the audience for the French source, the Livre de Chasse, could assume such familiarity with the wild boar, the English audience may have very well had to rely on book knowledge about this animal. The rarity of the wild boar in everyday hunting practices in England would suggest that the Gawain-poet seeks to capture not contemporary hunting patterns with his inclusion of the boar hunt, so much as broader cultural practice reflecting continental influence. The boar hunt and the fox hunt both take the form of the “chase” (l. 1,416), the method of hunting preferred by the Norman kings and nobility. As a less controlled and less choreographed style of hunting than the deer drive, the chase par force typically required a larger expanse of land than afforded by the deer park, and so typically took place in the forest beyond a

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park.76 Unlike the deer drive, which had the practical advantage of procuring large amounts of meat in a single hunt, the chase, which involved pursuing a single animal over long stretches of distance and time with minimal gain, was primarily recreational. Such appears to be the case in Sir Gawain, where Bertilak and his hunters pursue the boar (and later the fox) in an open-ended chase over rough, craggy ground. The “foo cragge” (l. 1,430) and a cliff side where “rogh rocher vnrydely watz fallen” (l. 1,432) recalls the harsh landscape Gawain experienced earlier in the poem. In other words, the hunting party now moves, for fun, into the forest that Gawain passed through to reach Hautdesert, the forest that nearly claimed his life. In the case of both the deer park and the open forest beyond, Bertilak, like the Fairy King in Sir Orfeo, enjoys mastery over the forest landscape as a natural extension of his castle property. Unlike Gawain, who enters the wilderness resignedly, Bertilak enters the forest enthusiastically: Þe lorde, for blys abloy, Ful oft con launce and lyʒt, And drof ϸat day wyth joy Thus to ϸe derk nyʒt. (ll. 1,174–1,177)

The poet repeatedly relates Bertilak’s intense delight with the chase, despite the hardships and long hours in pursuit. Unlike Gawain, who views his errand in the forest as “no gomen” (l. 692), Bertilak very clearly enters the forest to take part in “gamnez” (l. 1,319). Unlike Gawain, who moves through the forest alone, Bertilak enters the forest with a large company of friends and attendants, “A hundredth of hunteres” (l. 1,144). Finally, unlike Gawain, who falls victim to life-threatening beasts of the forest and the elements of the season, Bertilak masters the beasts of the forest through the hunt, a point illustrated most vividly in his single-handedly slaying the wild boar, the fiercest animal, on foot with a sword (ll. 1583–1596) in bold opposition to safe hunting practices of the day.77 In short, the same landscape that leaves Gawain vulnerable and “ner slayn” (l. 729), celebrates Bertilak’s power and pleasure. As in Sir Orfeo, however, the hunting scenes, while resplendent, have a dark side, correlated as they are with a mysterious figure who likes to establish his power over others.78 Indirectly, the aristocratic forest landscape adjoining castle Hautdesert becomes associated with Gawain’s testing, which Gawain faces unwittingly in the bedchamber with Lady Bertilak. If the fi rst test (the journey to the Green Chapel) has an Anglo-Saxon flavor, this second test has a distinctly French flavor. The temptation scenes seem to derive from French sources, fi nding compelling parallels in the Caradoc episode from the Vulgate Lancelot. The episode involves Caradoc le Grand entering Arthur’s court and abducting Gawain. Three knights, including Lancelot, go on a quest to rescue Gawain, and in the process, Lancelot faces seduction by a damsel of Morgana (who seeks revenge on Guinevere). The longer version

104 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance of the Vulgate Lancelot includes three temptation scenes that bear striking resemblance to the three temptation scenes in Sir Gawain, including the knight’s verbal evasions, the centrality of the concepts of chastity, courtesy and keeping faith, and the knight’s confl ict between accommodating the damsel and keeping his word to Morgana.79 Thus, French literary influence underlies the temptation sequence in the poem. Moreover, the poet, through Lady Bertilak, rather self-consciously invokes “‘ϸe tytelet token and tyxt’” (l. 1,515) of romance with its “‘lel layk of luf, ϸe lettrure of armes’” (l. 1,513), the textual tradition itself of chivalric romance. Whereas the fi rst test belongs in the wilderness landscape of Anglo-Saxon literary tradition, this second test belongs in the forest landscape of French chivalric romance, where the hero’s tests within the forest are linked specifically to the love of a woman. While Gawain does not go on the hunts in the forest with Bertilak and his companions, the poet links the events in the forest with the events in the bedchamber by interlacing the three parallel hunting and bedroom scenes, as some scholars have discussed. Lady Bertilak “hunts” Gawain just as Bertilak hunts the deer, boar, and fox.80 In this sense, while the hunting scenes appear to remove us from the main action of the poem, and certainly from Gawain for the fi rst time, their interlaced structure merges the hero’s amorous activities with the forest landscape in ways consistent with French romance.81 The fi nal scene at the Green Chapel captures brilliantly the patterns of cultural difference between Anglo-Saxon and Norman that I have been exploring thus far, for it contrasts the very nature of the heroic challenge in Anglo-Saxon and French chivalric literature. Gawain fulfi lls his promise to meet his test at the Green Chapel only to find that there were two tests, not one, as he had thought. The “official” test he thought he had to undergo, the meeting with a green monster in the frozen wilderness, as we have seen, comes directly from Anglo-Saxon literary tradition. The “unofficial” test he already underwent, unbeknownst to him, resembles the heroic test of French chivalric literature in both setting and nature. It took place in a Norman-style castle saturated with female influence and involved a beautiful woman who sought romantic exchange with the hero, and who assumed, erroneously it seems, his expertise in this area. In fact, this entire test was orchestrated by a woman, Morgan le Fay, who managed to manipulate even a powerful lord like Bertilak into carrying out her plan to challenge Arthur’s court. Everything about this unofficial test bespeaks the value system of French romance, revolving as it does around romantic love and feminine will. Gawain does not recognize this as a test and certainly does not welcome it as a viable method for improving his heroic status, as the French hero would. Instead, he chooses to abstain from the lady’s advances and to prioritize his allegiance to the lord of the castle over its lady, to prioritize the bonds among men over the bond between a man and a woman, perhaps no better expression of Gawain’s Anglo-Saxon worldview. Moreover, the power dynamic at the Green Chapel, in which

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Bertilak holds the hero’s very life in his hands while sizing up his integrity as a man and hero, captures the historical inequality between conqueror and conquered. At the same time, the outcome of Gawain’s encounter in the Green Chapel offers a vision of a new understanding between the two cultures. While Bertilak certainly takes for granted his privileged rank over Gawain, both socially and morally, and assumes a confident, patronizing stance toward him, nevertheless, he extends acceptance and admiration toward Gawain: “‘As perle bi ϸe quite pese is of prys more,/So is Gawayn, in god faith, bi oϸer gay knyʒtez’” (ll. 2364–2365). He invites Gawain back to Hautdesert for the New Year celebration and offers to reconcile him with his wife. Gawain declines this invitation, to some extent to balance the power dynamic between himself and Bertilak. Still, the gesture itself, coming on the heels of Bertilak’s admiring complement, suggests the promise of future reciprocity. At the very least, this fi nal scene between the challenger and the challenged conveys a sense that, in the near future, these two cultures, however separate, might enjoy greater equality.

CONCLUSION In conclusion, Sir Orfeo and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight contrast the empowering landscapes of Norman aristocratic culture, as reflected in their landholdings and celebrated in their literature, with the disempowering landscapes of Anglo-Saxon tradition. The heroes, Orfeo and Gawain, experience the forest as life-sapping places of exile, and images of winter abound. By contrast, the Fairy King and Bertilak experience those very same forests as restorative, life-renewing places for fellowship and recreation, which offer sustenance for both body and spirit. The hero, though apparently a social peer of the antagonist, does not partake in these forest delights, and instead watches from the margins, either involuntarily as Orfeo does, or voluntarily as Gawain does while at Hautdesert. Sir Gawain extends the landscape of Anglo-Saxon tradition further, with the Green Chapel, which evokes both the monster-landscape of the mere and the barrow of Anglo-Saxon literature, and the legal landscape of the hundred meeting site, where the Green Chapel recalls the open-air judicial court of pre-Conquest England. Both Orfeo and Gawain survive their forest exiles, unlike most of the heroes of Anglo-Saxon tradition who endure similar wilderness exiles and enjoy no such happy endings. Nevertheless, the examples of Sir Orfeo and Sir Gawain show that Anglo-Saxon landscape imagery continued as a living tradition well beyond the Conquest. An English poet, hundreds of years into the post-Conquest period, could use forest imagery to distinguish native English culture from that of the immigrant Norman aristocracy. This is hardly surprising given that the Norman aristocracy continued to control most of the forests throughout the post-Conquest

106 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance period, serving as a daily, visible reminder of the political, economic, and cultural transformation brought about by the Conquest, a lived testament of difference. In the next chapter, I explore how Anglo-Saxon forest imagery took on new meaning and applicability during the Norman Conquest, when fiction became reality.

4

The Greenwood Tradition English Heroes and English Outlaws

The Norman Conquest had devastating effects on all levels of Anglo-Saxon society, but most visibly on its leadership, those who held and governed the land, those most likely to rebel. So comprehensive was the disappropriation of the Anglo-Saxon landholding class that, by the Domesday survey of 1086, only four Englishmen remained as major landholders.1 Most others were not so fortunate. Many of those who survived left England, either by choice or by force. Orderic Vitalis tells of how “foreigners grew wealthy with the spoils of England, whilst her own sons were either shamefully slain or driven as exiles to wander hopelessly through foreign countries.”2 Some went to nearby countries such as Scotland or Denmark. A sizable contingent ventured to Constantinople, where they found themselves “warmly welcomed by the Greeks and . . . sent into battle against the Norman forces” who had alienated their Byzantine allies, a situation that enabled many displaced Anglo-Saxons to exercise their vengeance on foreign soil.3 Others, however, sought refuge within England, taking to the forests where they lived in tightly knit groups. Known to Norman officials as silvatici (“forest dwellers” or “wild men”), these men stayed alive by hunting and, when necessary, raiding, and regularly laid ambushes for traveling Normans while offering support to their own people against the forces of injustice.4 The historic silvatici and their ongoing resistance against Norman rule gave rise to a body of medieval English literature conceived in the political struggles of the post-Conquest period: the tradition of English outlaw narratives, the most famous of which in our day concerns the fictional character of Robin Hood. This late medieval, fictional English hero has his roots in an earlier medieval historical figure, a man from Lincolnshire called Hereward, also known as Hereward “the Wake,” who organized the most substantial and sustained resistance campaign against the Normans.5 Hereward is the paradigmatic outlaw of English history, legend, and literature, and his story influenced virtually all subsequent outlaw tales in one way or another. In this chapter, I explore the influence of the story of Hereward, among other related outlaw narratives, on the Middle English romances King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Sir Orfeo, and The Tale of Gamelyn, demonstrating how the English outlaw tradition forms an important member of the textual community of these well-known romances. In their struggle to win back

108 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance what was unjustly taken from them, the heroes of these English stories follow in the footsteps of Hereward, and other figures of English resistance, who tried to regain England for the English. In his pioneering work on English outlaw narratives, Maurice Keen traces the whole tradition of what he calls “The Matter of Greenwood” to the stories of the last Anglo-Saxon heroes who rallied resistance to the Norman takeover, men like Hereward and Eadric the Wild, who organized and led a series of campaigns against the Normans throughout the North between 1067–1071.6 The stories of Hereward (known in his own day as “Hereward the Exile”)7 and Eadric,8 the earliest English outlaws fighting against injustice, lent the entire tradition of English outlaw narratives the flavor of popular protest. In his discussion of both Hereward and Eadric, Keen notes how many Anglo-Saxon noblemen, driven from their land during the Conquest, took long-term refuge in the forests, becoming silvatici, as an alternative to begging and menial labor.9 While the outlaw tradition eventually came to include fictional characters such as Robin Hood and Gamelyn, Keen identifies the historical figure of Hereward as the “lineal ancestor of the later English outlaws.”10 Nor did the outlaw tradition dissolve entirely into the realm of fiction. Richard Firth Green identifies the numerous forest-dwelling bands of the later Middle Ages as the heirs of pre-Conquest “folklaw,” rather than common hooligans, defenders of the old order.11 Because of their resistance to corrupt authority, these outlaws enjoyed the support and admiration of their people, despite their criminal actions.12 Hence, their stories became the subject of popular literature and song.13 By far the most famous Anglo-Saxon resistance leader was Hereward of Lincolnshire, and his story forms a vital context for tracing the native English roots of Middle English romance. Accounts of his activities in the late 1060s and early 1070s survive in upward of ten different medieval sources, spanning the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, including the chronicle accounts of Geffrei Gaimar (twelfth century), the Liber Eliensis (twelfth century), the Lyber de Hyda (a fifteenth-century manuscript of events spanning 455–1023), the Historia Croylandensis (the “False Ingulph,” a fourteenth-century compilation), Florence of Worcester (late eleventh to early twelfth century), Orderic Vitalis (late eleventh to early twelfth century), Hugh Candidus of Peterborough (twelfth century), and the Annales Burgo-Spaldenses (a fourteenth-century compilation sometimes attributed to a certain John of Peterborough).14 The longest and most substantial text recording the deeds of Hereward, the thirteenth-century Gesta Herewardi, falls somewhere in between history and literature, and has therefore eluded a permanent home in either scholarly discipline.15 Despite his fairly broad presence in medieval chronicle sources, Hereward has not enjoyed much attention in modern literary scholarship. This is partly because most of the sources for Hereward’s life are preserved in Latin, not English, removing them from the domain of English popular literature. It is also partly due to what Hereward came to represent in the centuries following the Middle Ages.

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At one time, Hereward was a household name, but he has since fallen into obscurity in large measure because of the role he played during the time of the British Empire. Victorian England cultivated a special fondness for the Anglo-Saxon period of English history and imagined resemblances between Queen Victoria and King Alfred as loyal, visionary rulers defending church and country, civilization itself, against heathen foreigners.16 The Conquest and its aftermath held particular fascination for them, most famously reenacted in Sir Walter Scott’s enormously influential Ivanhoe (1819). Ironically, despite Britain’s global imperial agenda, Victorian audiences, when looking to the age of the Conquest, identified with the conquered Anglo-Saxons, not with the conquering Normans with whom they actually had most in common. Figures like Hereward and King Alfred, who distinguished themselves by fighting against imperial incursions into their homelands, were invoked during the nineteenth century to defend just the opposite, British expansion abroad, in which cause they served as examples of British heroic resolve and determination against great odds. In this way, Hereward was posthumously conscripted into the service of British imperialism, even though his own credentials are decidedly anti-imperial. Hereward and King Alfred enjoyed special presence in children’s literature, in particular, where they provided the archetype of English “character” throughout the Victorian and Edwardian periods. Hereward’s fame also reached well beyond the nursery and into the highest circles of power, as reflected in the publication in 1866 of Hereward the Wake: The Last of the English by Charles Kingsley, reputedly Queen Victoria’s favorite preacher and the tutor of Edward, Prince of Wales.17 Kingsley’s portrait of Hereward touches on another major thread of nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxonism, namely ethnic pride. Kingsley and others looked nostalgically to the AngloSaxon past, and the likes of Hereward, for rugged and virtuous ancestry.18 These two threads of pre-World War I Anglo-Saxonism, patriotism and ethnic pride, that come together in the nineteenth-century portrait of Hereward, spelled his demise after World War II, when the devastating results of rampant, misplaced patriotism and ethnic superiority put an end to such thinking and banished its heroes, with good reason.19 In essence, Hereward’s obscurity for modern readers and scholars has to do mostly with nineteenth and twentieth-century events and anxieties and little to do with the Middle Ages. Now that we have gained some distance from these events, the time has come to take a fresh look at Hereward and how his story influenced later medieval literature. Hereward was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman and tenant of three manors in Lincolnshire at the time of the Conquest. 20 The Gesta Herewardi tells of Hereward, a youth of noble descent, who causes so much trouble at home among family, friends, and neighbors, that his own father arranges with the king to have him exiled as an outlaw. Thus his outlaw status predates his activities against the Normans. Hereward goes fi rst to his godfather in Northumberland where he distinguishes himself by killing an extraordinary

110 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance bear with human intelligence, then on to Cornwall and later Ireland, where he catches the eye of the king’s daughter, proving his worth in arms at each step of the way. Eventually, he goes to Flanders where he fights for both work and pleasure, and marries Turfrida, the daughter of his host. By the time he returns home to England, the Normans have taken over, and he arrives at his ancestral home only to fi nd a Norman party in full swing. He infiltrates the hall, slays a host of Normans, including an important nobleman, and from that point on becomes a fugitive in his own country. The Gesta relates the historical details, corroborated in other chronicle accounts, of how Hereward withdraws into the forest where he rallies other disenfranchised Anglo-Saxon noblemen. In late Spring 1070, he and his group of followers sack Peterborough Abbey and make off with many of its most prized treasures, in all probability to preempt the Norman seizure of the abbey. 21 Hereward’s political career culminates in the Norman siege of Ely of 1071, where he and numerous other Anglo-Saxon noblemen team up with Danish allies and form the final stronghold of Anglo-Saxon resistance in what one historian calls “the last throw by men with nothing left to lose.”22 Unlike many of the Anglo-Saxon rebels, Hereward escapes capture when the city falls and retreats, once again, to the forest of Brunneswald before, by some accounts, reemerging some years later to make peace with William.23 Ten main sources record the deeds of Hereward, the latest dating to the mid-fourteenth century or later, suggesting the persistence and popularity of his deeds well into the later medieval period. Of these sources, the Gesta Herewardi provides the longest, most detailed account of his life, and the account which holds the most literary significance for the English outlaw tradition, as well as for several Middle English romances. 24 The Gesta Herewardi forms a key text in understanding cultural difference in the post-Conquest period precisely because it places that very question front and center. The writer of the Gesta prefaces his account of Hereward’s life with a window into the rift in native English historiography created by the Conquest. He identifies himself as a native Englishman, recounting his own struggle as a writer trying to track down reliable sources, both written and oral, from “among our own people” (46). He seeks out an account of Hereward he had heard of written by the deacon Leofric, Hereward’s “priest at Bourne” (45), mentioning three times that Leofric wrote this account “in English” (45). He fi nds only a few “rotten . . . and decayed” loose pages of Leofric’s work, suggesting the story was very nearly lost. Moreover, he struggles with the “unfamiliar writing” (45), suggesting that English writing, possibly the script itself, no longer comes easily, even to an Englishman like himself, partly explaining perhaps why he chooses to write in Latin. His “assistants” face similar disappointments following false leads of rumored texts (45). In retelling the story of “the great Englishman Hereward and his famous men,” the writer turns to some of Hereward’s companions still living, telling us “I have frequently seen some of these men—tall in stature, well-built, and

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exceptionally courageous,” nevertheless bearing the marks of punishment for their association with Hereward, “having lost the beauty of their limbs due to the trickery of enemies, being deprived of certain members through envy” (46). As we saw in Chapter 2, torture was a common tool of intimidation used by the Normans against insurgents. 25 He writes in part to tell the English side of the story, so that the reader can “understand how valorous [Hereward] was, and how greater his deeds were than those reported of him” (46), indicating competing, incriminating accounts of Hereward’s deeds, most likely accounts reflecting the views of those who meted out the punishments. While the details of this preface are of course impossible to verify, nevertheless, the preface accords with certain circumstances of the post-Conquest period that we know to be true, including the demise in the production (and therefore increasing rarity) of Anglo-Saxon texts, the increasing perceived antiquity of written English even among English people, the practice of punishing native English resistance by maiming or dismembering, and continuing Norman prejudice, both latent and overt, against the native English in their writings. 26 Historian Hugh M. Thomas identifies several ways the Gesta Herewardi defends native English honor. 27 First, it distinguishes certain English customs and practices from their Norman counterparts. About some of these practices we know almost nothing, making their presence here all the more evocative, such Anglo-Saxon style dancing, seen when Hereward spies a Norman jester mocking that style of dance up on a table during a feast (63); or an Anglo-Saxon “knighting” ceremony, whereby Anglo-Saxon warriors are “knighted” by monks rather than secular lords, a particular rite Hereward insists upon for him and his men (64); 28 or Anglo-Saxon feasting customs, as witnessed and later praised by a Norman prisoner (73); or native musical styles, as when Hereward and two companions perform with harp and voice “in the manner of the Fenland people” (53). The hero, Hereward, repeatedly claims these customs with pride and frequently challenges those who insult English customs or people. Second, the Gesta shows the hero consistently outdoing the Normans (as well as other opponents) in combat, despite clear prejudice against the English as, according to one Norman solider, “‘less proficient in war and less skilled in military affairs than other races’” (71).29 He easily outwits and overwhelms the forces bent on stopping him, often against great odds. He infiltrates his ancestral hall as the new Norman occupants hold feast and “laid low fourteen of them together with their lord, with the aid of [a] single attendant” (63). Similarly, in one encounter at Ely, Hereward and a few of his companions fi nd themselves surrounded by a Norman troop, including the Earl de Warenne (whose brother Hereward had slain in the attack at his home earlier). Despite superior Norman forces in this scene, Hereward manages to shoot a single arrow at the earl so that “the earl was rendered almost lifeless by the blow” even though it deflected off of his breast armor (69). In fact, Hereward only meets his match in a fellow

112 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance Anglo-Saxon warrior, Letold, of whom he remarks “‘I’ve never found such a man, nor did I ever meet with his equal in courage’” (84), something he never says of his Norman opponents. Third, in addition to dispelling Norman prejudice, the Gesta also shows Hereward mastering certain French combat practices equally to any Norman knight. He proves that there are “none to equal him in the chase and in hunting” (48), a form of recreation emblematic of the Norman aristocracy from which Anglo-Saxons were excluded, as we saw in Chapter 3. While in Flanders, he fights effectively on horseback, mirroring Norman knighthood, famed for its cavalry (as opposed to Anglo-Saxon warriors, famed for infantry), and participates in tournaments (58). Unlike the heroes of Anglo-Saxon tradition, Hereward wins the hearts of women in Ireland ( 48–54), Flanders (Turfrida, 56ff.), and fi nally in England (the widow of Earl Dolfin, l. 83), and in the case of the daughter of the king of Ireland, he fights on her behalf like any French hero would do (48–49; 54). Despite his prowess as a warrior, Hereward repeatedly displays courtesy, even toward his enemies, as when he treats the Norman captive Deda with respect and care (70), or when “courteous as usual” (84), he greets Letold, the AngloSaxon who gives him the toughest fight. Finally, while fighting in service to the Count of Flanders, Hereward proves himself every bit as good at political conquest as any Norman contingent. Indeed, the author makes the comparison explicitly when the enemies of Flanders concede lest they “become subject to foreigners like the English people were to the French” (59).30 Hereward, therefore, masters many of the tactics of the continental knight even as he proudly retains his native identity. Fourth, the Gesta frequently portrays the Normans in an unfavorable light, as either bloodthirsty tyrants or fools. For instance, Hereward returns to his ancestral home to fi nd his brother’s head stuck over the gate to the estate, a grisly sign of the new Norman owners. The author also undercuts Norman honor as when Hereward uses simple disguise to infi ltrate enemy lines and burn newly built Norman ramparts (77), or when the Normans repeatedly fail to build a viable bridge across the marshland surrounding Ely (69–70), or especially when the Normans, thwarted in the siege at Ely, hire a witch to aid them whose magical powers amount to baring her bottom to the Anglo-Saxons posted along the city defense line (74–78). Hereward outwits Norman defense so consistently and successfully, that William “declared that it was shameful to be so frequently ridiculed by him” (77). Above all, the Gesta Herewardi imagines an alternate outcome to the historical conquest. Interestingly, that outcome does not involve reconquest so much as political and social egalitarianism. In cultural terms, it proposes an English society where native English noblemen enjoy respect and equality with their Norman peers. The Gesta often uses Norman figures to praise the Anglo-Saxons, especially in the face of military opposition. For instance, one of the most prominent scenes in the work comes during

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the siege of Ely when the Anglo-Saxons capture a Norman solider named Deda (70–73). Hereward allows Deda to live with them in safety and comfort so he “might get to know their valour from personal experience” (70). Deda later returns to the Norman camp praising the Anglo-Saxons for their sumptuous feasts, the valor of their monks as well as their soldiers who enjoy close companionship, and the bounty of their natural landscape; he goes through the ranks of the Anglo-Saxon leadership, telling of “the splendid nature of their activities,” these the “toughest men” (71). Similarly, Hereward’s Norman guardian toward the end of the narrative, Robert de Horepol, grows so impressed with his captive that he defends Hereward before the king, praising “the very commendable things about Hereward and his men” (87). Such voices among Norman ranks alter Hereward’s fate. In practical terms, the Gesta reverses the material outcome of the historical Hereward’s experience. Hereward attains justice when he makes peace with King William, who acknowledges that “Hereward had not been justly treated” (87). William restores Hereward’s ancestral estates despite the jealous machinations of several Norman courtiers (87–88). In a vivid scene, Hereward faces and defeats a Norman soldier named Ogga (or Ogger) in single combat over the issue of his claim to his estates. Hereward’s fictional victory over Ogga effectively reverses the historical circumstances recorded in the Domeday Book where a man named Oger the Breton becomes the successor to Hereward’s lands. 31 As Hugh M. Thomas notes, the Gesta Herewardi not only portrays the confl ict between the Normans and AngloSaxons, but more importantly uses fiction to propose a solution, “urging conciliation . . . on honorable terms for the English,” or cultural parity at a respectful distance.32 In effect, the Gesta embellishes key historical elements pertaining to the Norman Conquest in such a way as to rewrite the political situation in more favorable terms to the Anglo-Saxons, both in the sense of preserving their honor in the face of defeat and in imagining a reversal of fortune, however modest, for the English. Key plot elements of the story of Hereward, and other similar figures of resistance, though often centered on different conflicts, reemerge in several well-known Middle English romances. Since these outlaw narratives have to do with righting political wrongs, these stories present the hero as an underdog who must resort to a variety of covert tactics in order to achieve his goal, including disguise, trickery, and sometimes forest exile.33 The exile then ends in a return where the people welcome their hero back to his rightful home. Such elements appear, individually or in combination, in the plots of King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Sir Orfeo, and Gamelyn. For the most part, scholars have dismissed these plot elements of disguise and infi ltration, harping contests, exile and return to the all-inclusive and undifferentiating realm of “folklore.”34 However, when read in light of the outlaw tradition and when taken in combination with the other narrative features of these texts as discussed in previous chapters, these fictional plot elements begin to merge with factual circumstances of the Anglo-Saxons

114 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance during and after the Conquest, moving out of the realm of simple entertainment into areas of deeper political and social significance. One such plot element found throughout the English outlaw tradition and common to all of the texts discussed in this chapter is disguise. Like the plot features of exile and return, the element of disguise in these texts has been treated as a common folkloric element included primarily for entertainment value.35 Also, since French romance also includes a certain amount of disguise in the form of voluntary anonymity, as when Yvain insists on calling himself simply “The knight with the lion,” it becomes tempting to see the disguise found in Middle English romances as another form of French influence. In English romance, however, we not only see more disguise, in more forms, for longer periods of the narrative, but also disguise itself serves a different function than in French romance. First, disguise in many English romances coincides with a dramatic shift in political power. King Horn, Havelok the Dane, and Sir Orfeo all portray a hero who falls victim to political invasion and/or takeover. Horn, Havelok, and King Orfeo all lose their homes, loved ones, and people to an aggressor, and this loss prompts them to adopt an alternate identity through hiding out and/or through changes of name and appearance. Second, the English hero, unlike the French hero, is comfortable with his true identity. Unlike Yvain’s rather tenuous sense of himself in the forest, the English hero knows who he is, is proud of who he is, and wishes to assert his true identity. In this sense, disguise is forced on the English hero against his will.36 Third, the hero’s identity is linked to an older, displaced political order, and, therefore, he faces real danger should he reveal his identity openly, unlike say Yvain, who faces no such danger. For much of the narrative, therefore, these heroes hide their identities in various ways. Fourth, for these English heroes, disguise involves a fall in social status. Horn and Orfeo both disguise themselves as wandering minstrels and, as a result, often receive derision from social superiors. Havelok spends most of the narrative disguised as a common laborer and later poses as a merchant in Denmark. All three men are in fact kings or future kings. Finally, these heroes break disguise at the point when political circumstances have shifted back into their favor, and they can once again reclaim their old kingdoms. The hero’s personal identity, therefore, is fused with his hereditary rights.37 The crisis of identity in these English romances, as in the outlaw narratives, is a symptom of political, not psychological, crisis, linked specifically to the loss of a kingdom.

KING HORN The connection between disguise and infi ltration, political power, and cultural identity emerges in the earliest Middle English romance, King Horn, where the stories of Hereward the Wake and young Horn show clear signs of cross-fertilization. The story is set in England during the time of the

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Viking raids, to which the hero’s family falls victim. In Chapter 2, we saw how the poet uses hall and castle architecture to differentiate the hero, whose family and allies are associated with hall architecture, from the antagonists (namely King Mody and Fikenhild, and excluding the “Sarazins”), who are consistently associated with castle architecture. Whereas such architectural detail appears anachronistic, given the pre-Conquest setting of the poem, nevertheless, it serves to solidify the Anglo-Saxon cultural identity of the hero against that of the usurping forces in a way meaningful to a post-Conquest audience, whose memory of invading forces has since expanded to include a race of castle builders. The poem brings together two groups of invaders for the English audience, both under assumed names: the Vikings (called “Sarazins”) and the Normans (represented by the two villains of the poem). The former initially invade Horn’s kingdom, kill his father, and drive his people into exile, while the latter express their malice and greed expressly through their preference for castles. In addition to using hall architecture, the poet further solidifies Horn’s Anglo-Saxon identity by means of two episodes of disguise and infiltration, both times into castles. While scholars commonly relegate these two disguise and infiltration scenes to the all-inclusive realm of “folklore,” close analysis of these scenes show their affi nities with a similar scene found in the longest account of the life of Hereward the Wake, the Gesta Herewardi.38 Horn, therefore, in addition to being an Anglo-Saxon, becomes a resistance figure like Hereward and his followers. Horn uses disguise and infiltration to rescue his beloved, Rymenhild, which would seem to trace the disguise elements to French literary tradition, where love of a woman motivates the hero’s actions. The survival of an earlier Anglo-Norman analogue, the twelfth-century Romance of Horn, would support such a reading. Nevertheless, as discussed in previous chapters, the English Horn-poet shapes his English hero in several ways that make him seem more English to the English-speaking audience. In addition to introducing distinctions in domestic architecture, halls and castles, not found in the Anglo-Norman analogue, he limits the geography of the poem to the British Isles, unlike the Anglo-Norman Romance of Horn, which spans much of the continent as well as England. He also makes Rymenhild an Englishwoman, unlike her counterpart in the Romance of Horn, who comes from Brittany. Above all, the English Horn never fights a Muslim enemy, as does the French hero. Instead, he fights his battles on English soil, against foes modeled on England’s traditional invaders, including men who live in (indeed build) castles on that same soil and who seize the English heroine, Rymenhild, as part of the bargain. Just as the circumstances of the plot revolve around the theme of Conquest, including the most recent conquest that introduced castles to England, so too some of Horn’s key retaliatory tactics mimic those of Hereward the Wake. On two different occasions in King Horn, the hero must rescue his beloved Rymenhild from a castle, and both scenes draw upon a scene in

116 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance the Gesta Herewardi that concerns Hereward’s relationship with a Cornish princess, the daughter of the Cornish prince Alef. 39 Twice, Hereward saves her from an unhappy marriage. After the fi rst instance, where he defeats the suitor Ulcus Ferreus, the princess sends him to live in safety with the King of Ireland. While in Ireland, Hereward receives an urgent message from the princess that a second suitor, an Irish princeling, stands to win her in marriage, when in fact she loves Hereward. He rushes to her aid with three companions, arriving at her home on the eve of the wedding. Disguising himself by coloring his blonde hair black and his youthful beard ruddy color, Hereward passes himself off as a servant of a certain nobleman from the West, a foreigner traveling through the land. Taking the lowest seat at the banquet table, Hereward rouses suspicion in the princess, who sees a likeness to Hereward. After dinner, she and her ladies make their rounds serving drinks to the guests, “as the custom in that region is” ( 53). Hereward refuses a goblet of wine offered by one of the girls in preference for something offered by the princess herself. As the princess offers Hereward a drink, she recognizes him and secretly gives him a ring as a sign. Immediately, a performer in the hall pressures Hereward to take up the harp and put his harping talents to the test. He performs so well that the princess rewards him with a cloak, while the prince offers him “whatever he cared to ask, except for his wife and his land” (53). He asks for the release of the messenger of the Irish king’s son, and while the prisoner is being fetched, a member of the feast suspects Hereward. The princess warns him of danger, and Hereward flees with the princess to a nearby wood. After three days, they travel to safety, and Hereward and the princess marry. This episode of disguise and infi ltration in the Gesta Herewardi inspired two similar episodes in the Middle English King Horn, thus creating a likeness between the hero Horn and Hereward.40 In a study from 1906, Max Deutschbein fi rst linked the disguise episodes of King Horn with a similar disguise episode in the Gesta Herewardi, but these fi ndings have gone largely undeveloped by subsequent scholars.41 The parallels between the disguise and infi ltration episodes in both texts are in fact quite striking and accord with other Anglo-Saxon elements in Horn. Moreover, in the parallel Anglo-Norman version of the Horn story, the Romance of Horn, this particular episode is explicitly linked with ancient Germanic custom. Like Hereward, Horn leaves his home and widowed mother in the aftermath of invasion, and eventually goes to serve in an Irish court, that of King Thurston, under the name of Cutberd (compare Cuthbert, the English saint). While there, he receives news that his beloved Rymenhild faces a forced marriage with King Mody of Reynes, and like the princess of the Gesta, Rymenhild sends a message to Horn for help (ll. 949–952). Making his way toward Westerness, whence he and Rymenhild come, Horn disguises himself by donning a pilgrim’s mantle (“sclauyne,” ll. 1,054, 1,057) and dirtying his face and neck (l. 1,064). As in the Gesta, the hero seeks to rescue not only the princess, but also a companion of the hero, in this case, Athulf

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(like the messenger of the Irish king’s son in the Gesta), to whom Horn had entrusted Rymenhild for safe keeping. Like Hereward, Horn arrives just in time for the wedding feast. Infi ltrating the building, Horn, like Hereward, takes a seat at the lowest table (“beggeres rowe,” l. 1,080). Rymenhild, like the princess of the Gesta, begins to circulate through the hall serving wine and ale to the guests, and as in the Gesta, she begins to suspect Horn’s true identity while offering him drink (ll. 1,147–1,152). Horn uses this occasion to slip a ring to Rymenhild that will reveal his identity. Thus, as in the Gesta, the offer of a drink coincides with the exchange of a ring. (In this case, it is Horn who gives her the ring, rather than vice versa, though the ring originally belonged to Rymenhild.) The ring ultimately reveals Horn’s identity, which precipitates their escape, along with Athulf.42 Thus, the two parallel episodes in the Gesta Herewardi and King Horn share the features of service at an Irish court where he receives a plea for help from the hero’s beloved, disguise and infi ltration by the hero during the wedding feast to rescue his beloved from a forced marriage, the device of the offer of a drink, and the exchange of a ring which reveals the hero’s identity and sparks their escape. The Horn-poet, however, adds certain details to this episode borrowed from the life of Hereward to further solidify the hero’s Anglo-Saxon identity and to amplify the specifically Anglo-Saxon cultural context. First, whereas Hereward infi ltrates a building of unspecified design, Horn infiltrates a castle specifically, thus evoking the historic struggle at the heart of Hereward’s career.43 Secondly, the poet borrows the gesture of the princess circulating the room to serve drinks, referred to generally as a “custom of the region” (53) in the Gesta, and modifies it in two ways that recall the specific Anglo-Saxon domestic ritual termed by Michael J. Enright as “the lady with the mead cup.”44 This ancient Germanic ritual involves the lord’s wife entering the hall with a cup, greeting the warriors, serving drink fi rst to her husband, the lord, and then serving drink to the other warriors. In doing so, she affi rms the hierarchical structure of the comitatus, starting with the lordship of her husband. We see this in Beowulf, for example, with Hrothgar’s queen: Eode Wealhþeow forð, cwen Hroðgares cynna gemyndig, grette goldhroden guman on healle, ond þa freolic wif ful gesealde ærest East-Dena eþelwearde, bæd hine bliðne æt þære beorþege . . . Ymbeode þa ides Helminga duguþe ond geogoþe dæl æghwylcne, sincfato sealde, oþ þæt sæl alamp þæt hio Beowulfe, beaghroden cwen mode geþungen, medoful ætbær. (ll. 612b–624)45

118 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance [Wealhϸeow went forth Hrothgar’s queen, mindful of etiquette, attired in gold she greeted the men in the hall and that noble lady gave the cup first to the Lord of the Danes, bade him be happy at that drinking of beer. The lady of the Helmings then went around the hall, and to each of the senior and junior warriors she gave the jeweled cup, until it happened that to Beowulf the queen adorned with rings -wise in judgment—bore the mead cup.]

Upon receiving the cup, Beowulf announces that he will rid Heorot of Grendel, or die trying. Feasting, therefore, includes a ceremonial gesture whereby the most important woman in the room moves among the guests alone offering drink, fi nally arriving at the hero, prompting him to state his mission. Enright points out that while the practice of this ritual was already dying out by the time Beowulf was composed, the ritual “still maintained a powerful hold on the emotions of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy who continued to recognize the essential rightness and congruity of the statement.”46 The Horn poet clearly molds the episode borrowed from the Gesta Herewardi according to Anglo-Saxon custom in a number of ways. First, the poet has Rymenhild circulate the room alone, as Wealhtheow does, rather than with lady servants, as in the Gesta; while she retreats to her bower with four other women just after her encounter with the disguised Horn (l. 1,162), there is no mention of servants accompanying her through the room. Rymenhild’s solo performance also contrasts with her counterpart in the parallel, Anglo-Norman version of the Horn story, the Romance of Horn, where Rigmel circulates the room with thirty maidens (ll. 4,149). Second, just as Wealhtheow uses a special cup for this ritual, Rymenhild uses a drinking horn, a specifically Anglo-Saxon drinking vessel: “On horn he bar anhonde,/So laʒe was in londe” (ll. 1,109–1,110).47 Gilded drinking horns were a specialty of Anglo-Saxon metalwork. Orderic Vitalis notes the French nobility, on receiving members of the Anglo-Saxon nobility for the fi rst time after the Conquest, “eyeing curiously the long-haired denizens of England, wondering at [the] . . . horns of wild oxen decorated with gold at both ends,” among other fineries “fitting the magnificence of a king.”48 Rymenhild offers this horn, moreover, “as was the custom of the land,” suggesting a precise ceremonial gesture, as in Beowulf (l. 605).49 The English poet uses this drinking horn to further seal the shared cultural heritage of both Rymenhild and Horn when she turns to offer Horn a drink. Thinking he is a beggar, she lays down the drinking horn and fi lls his bowl with a gallon from a wooden bowl (ll. 1,122–1,123). He insists, however, on drinking from the “cuppe white” (l. 1,132), or the drinking horn, and plays on the word “horn” to reveal himself to her: “‘Drink to me

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of disse,/Drink to horn of horne:/Feor ihc am I orne’” (ll. 1,144–1,146). 50 The horn as a symbol of a shared cultural background grows even more powerful when we consider that in the Anglo-Norman Romance of Horn, the heroine, while performing this ritual, is not actually an Englishwoman; she resides in Brittany. In this respect, the English poet asserts the Englishness of this custom further by making Rymenhild actually English, just like the princess of the Gesta Herewardi, though in the Gesta, the cup remains unspecified.51 Thus the revelation of the hero’s identity pivots around a distinctly Anglo-Saxon domestic object, a drinking horn, within the context of the Anglo-Saxon ritual of the lady circulating through the hall offering drink to guests. As in the Gesta and in Beowulf, this gesture in King Horn solidifies the hero’s loyalty to the cause (the woman) and prompts the hero to state his determination to fulfi ll his mission; it prompts the hero to assert his cultural identity. In short, the Horn poet shapes Horn’s cultural identity by borrowing an important episode from the life of the Anglo-Saxon hero Hereward and honing certain elements of that scene to accord with specific Anglo-Saxon cultural practice. On a second occasion in King Horn, the hero must again rescue Rymenhild from a forced marriage, this time to Fikenhild, a traitorous and arrogant (“prut,” l. 1,389) old friend of Horn’s who has recently built a castle (ll. 1,393–1,397).52 Fikenhild leads Rymenhild against her will, by night, into his “nywe werke” (l. 1,432), where he plans to marry her. Horn hears of this, gathers up a few companions, and disguises himself as a harper (ll. 1,461ff.). At the gate, they pass themselves off as traveling musicians (“harpurs” and “gigours,” or “fiddlers,” ll. 1,471–1,472) and infiltrate the castle during the wedding feast. He sits down and plays a song that sends Rymenhild into a swoon. He then looks on her ring, which emboldens him to stride up to the table and strike Finkenhild down with his sword, thus rescuing Rymenhild. Several features link this episode with the disguise and infiltration episode in the Gesta Herewardi. Mostly notably, as in the source episode in the Gesta, harping figures prominently in this second disguise and infiltration scene in King Horn. In both cases, the hero has real musical talent. In the Gesta, Hereward participates in a harping contest once he enters the feast, takes the harp, and “touched the strings most adroitly” (53); Horn not only disguises himself as a harper, but possesses actual musical skill at the harp, acquired earlier in the poem at the hall of King Thurston (ll. 231–244). Both heroes also have companions with them. In the Gesta, Hereward sings both solo and in unison with his two companions (53); Horn sings only solo, yet he and his men go in posing as a troop of musicians. Finally, both heroes participate in this harping while in disguise, at a wedding feast, for the purpose of freeing the girl from an unwanted marriage. Interesting, the author of the Gesta packages the scene of disguise and infi ltration involving harping in terms of cultural identity, as regional custom, where “a cup was given to each person who played—which is a particular and characteristic

120 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance kind of entertainment in those parts” (53), and Hereward and his men later sing together “in the manner of the Fenland people” (53), marking Hereward’s Anglo-Saxon identity, with specific reference to the Fenland, the region near Ely where Hereward was from. I would argue that the Horn poet, by basing his own episode of disguise and infiltration involving harping on this earlier one, invites us to assign the same cultural identity to Horn. The fact that the poet includes two such disguise and infiltration episodes, each of which draws upon different aspects of Hereward’s venture to rescue the princess, and each bringing the hero into a dangerous castle, only magnifies the Anglo-Saxon portrait of the hero, Horn. In sum, Hereward’s tactic of disguise, infi ltration, and harping, performed against the backdrop of the Conquest for the purpose of rescuing the princess, reappears in the story of Horn. Both heroes are of high-ranking blood and have lost their kingdom to invaders, face a foe with a predilection for castle architecture, and must conceal their true identity for their own safety. The English poet of Horn, moreover, “anglicizes” the disguise scene far more than the earlier Anglo-Norman version of the story, adding details of material culture (architecture, drinking vessels, social ritual) to ground the story specifically in Anglo-Saxon culture. Both heroes perform this trick while “on the run,” while embroiled in the larger project of reclaiming their kingdoms. Thus, the story of the famous English resistance fighter, Hereward, as preserved in the Gesta Herewardi, forms an important subtext for the Middle English King Horn, grounding the poem’s fictional plot of conquest in the factual circumstances of the Conquest known to its English audience.

HAVELOK THE DANE The influence of the outlaw tradition on post-Conquest English literature grows more prominent still when we turn to Havelok the Dane (c. 1295– 1310), a poem that shares Lincolnshire roots with the story of the historical, Lincolnshire man Hereward the Wake. The sources and manuscripts for both stories help to account for many of the sweeping changes the English poet brings to the legend of Havelok. In Chapter 1, I discussed how the Havelok-poet replicates the geographic and political scope of England on the eve of the Conquest, expanding the story’s geographic scope in general by way of expanding its political scope. In this chapter, I discuss how the poet of Havelok the Dane also uses geography to reference the ensuing political struggles between Normans and Anglo-Saxons following the Conquest by expanding the story’s original Lincolnshire setting to include the famous Anglo-Saxon political resistance efforts that centered in Lincolnshire following the Conquest. Specifically, the English poet references a particular historical episode in the career of Hereward, namely his sacking of Peterborough Abbey in 1069 (1070 in some histories) allegedly

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to foil immanent Norman takeover, a deed that first brought Hereward to national prominence. This well-known Lincolnshire event forms a subtext for Havelok the Dane in three important ways: (1) like Havelok, it features the wider backdrop of political conquest; (2) it accounts for the name changes introduced by the English poet for the heroine, the English heiress, as well as her father; (3) it helps to account for the poet’s enhanced characterization of Havelok as a saintly figure; and (4) like Havelok, it casts the Danes as vital allies of the English people in the face of hostile takeover. Joining the stories of Hereward and Havelok is not unique to the Middle English Havelok. The earlier, twelfth-century Anglo-Norman source for the Havelok legend, the Estoire des Engleis (1135–1140), or History of the English, of Geffrei Gaimar, also preserves the story of Hereward the Wake. Gaimar lived and wrote in both Hampshire and Lincolnshire under the patronage of Constance FitzGilbert, the wife of Ralf FitzGilbert, who held lands in Lincolnshire and who had been involved in founding and maintaining several monastic houses in the region.53 Originally hired by Constance to translate into French Geoff rey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, Gaimar also wrote the Estoire, whose fi rst half (up to ll. 3,594) derives from a version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, treating English history from the arrival in England of Cerdic of Wessex, a relative of Hengist, in 495 up to the death of William II Rufus in 1100. The Estoire made English history available and respectable for the nonnative, French speaking audience, and several copies of the Estoire also contain a topography (c. 1150s) of English roads, counties, and bishoprics, suggesting a foreign audience.54 Gaimar’s L’Estoire recounts a number of events pertaining to Anglo-Danish history, including the episode of Buern Cucecarle and the Danish conquest of Northumbria in 866 (ll. 2,571–2,701), the Danish invasion under Gormant (ll. 3,239–3,310), and the story of Havelok the Dane (ll. 96–819).55 As it happens, it also provides one of the few surviving records of the deeds of Hereward the Wake and his fight for Anglo-Saxon freedom (l. 5,463ff.). The Estoire of Gaimar, therefore, attests to an early, regionally based, connection between the stories of Havelok and Hereward and sets the stage for the fuller cross-pollination between the stories we fi nd in the Middle English Havelok the Dane. Gaimar relates the stories of Havelok and Hereward separately in his L’Estoire, yet their stories contain some of the same elements, parallels which may have inspired the later English poet to fuse their stories more fully. For example, both Havelok and Hereward are rescued from almost certain death by a fisherman in the context of political turmoil. Havelok is rescued by Grim, a fisherman who sneaks Havelok and his mother, the queen, out of Denmark on his ship, and who later adopts the boy as his own. Hereward too flees the city of Ely, on the brink of surrender to the Normans, with a few companions with the aid of an anonymous fisherman who hides them in his boat by covering them up with reeds (ll. 5,499– 5,503) and sneaking them through a guard post. Similarly, both Havelok

122 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance and Hereward fi nd themselves having to fight, vastly outnumbered, with borrowed weapons they happen to fi nd at hand. Havelok is beset by henchmen of Sigar, who lusts for Havelok’s wife, whom he fights with an ax he manages to grab from a nearby house (ll. 537–538). Hereward too faces a surprise Norman attack while about to sit down to dinner in Aelftrude’s home. Without his weapons and armor, he grabs a shield, lance, and sword that happen to lie near at hand and fights to his death with a small number of companions. It is most important to note that both Havelok and Hereward are victims of power, as both men suffered disinheritance through conquest of their homeland: Havelok in Denmark as a result of conquest by King Arthur, in this account (ll. 398–400), and Hereward in England as a result of the Norman Conquest (l. 5,465). Thus, Gaimar’s L’Estoire offers compelling parallels between the stories of Havelok and Hereward that may account for the English poet’s more powerful identification of one story with the other in Havelok the Dane. The link between Havelok and matters of the Conquest is also reflected in the poem’s manuscript context. The most complete manuscript of Havelok the Dane is found in the thirteenth-century Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108 (which also contains the earliest version of the Middle English King Horn), two-thirds of which is comprised of the earliest surviving copy of the Middle English South English Legendary, a collection of saint’s lives, many of them of Anglo-Saxon figures. These Anglo-Saxon lives, moreover, like Havelok the Dane, make extensive use of English geography.56 Surviving in sixty-five manuscripts of various configurations and lengths, the South English Legendary contains, among other things, the lives of several AngloSaxon saintly kings such as King Oswald, King of Northumbria, who fought against Viking invaders, and a relic remain of whom, as I discuss further on, plays a key role in the English retelling of the Havelok legend preserved in the Laud Misc. 108. Only MS Laud 108 includes Havelok among these AngloSaxon lives, and recent scholarship has detailed the close connection between the content and style of Havelok the Dane and other Anglo-Saxon lives of the South English Legendary.57 Moreover, the South English Legendary itself places English identity at the heart of the entire collection, frequently depicting (Anglo-Saxon) Englishness as embattled and demoralized, while at the same time envisioning a reempowered England, offering happy endings to this notoriously sad tale.58 Whether the poet of Havelok adapted the story of Havelok according to the formula of the South English Legendary, or whether the compiler MS Laud 108 included Havelok the Dane for the suitability of its content and style for this collection, or some combination of both, Laud Misc. 108 demonstrates that medieval audiences categorized Havelok among material concerned with the lives and fates of pre-Conquest people and their leaders. However, the connection between Havelok the Dane and matters of the Conquest, including Hereward’s resistance to it, goes deeper still. While he is best remembered for organizing the last holdout of AngloSaxon resistance at the city of Ely in Lincolnshire in 1071, forcing William

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the Conqueror into a prolonged and costly siege of the city, Hereward fi rst launched his national political career in late Spring 1070, through a superb and controversial act of vandalism, a raid on Peterborough Abbey. The story of Hereward’s sacking of Peterborough Abbey is preserved in The Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, originally composed in the fi rst half of the twelfth century, transcribed later in the mid-thirteenth century by Robert of Swaff ham, and also surviving in part in an Anglo-Norman verse translation entitled La Geste de Burch.59 According to Hugh, for whom this was still recent history, as the newly appointed Norman abbot, Turold, heads toward Peterborough Abbey with a fighting force of one hundred sixty knights, Hereward and some of his men raid the abbey before Turold arrives.60 The raid occurs shortly after Hereward and his followers have allied themselves with a group of Danes, under King Swein (1047– 1076), who have landed at Ely. Hereward and his band strip the abbey of all its many valuables, including two important holy relics. None of the monks are killed or harmed in the raid, but many of the older monks leave with Hereward, presumably as hostages, as they return to Ely to rejoin the Danes.61 Hereward intends to give the treasure to the Danes in part to seal the alliance and, most important, because he believes “melius illa Dani seruarent ad opus ecclesie quam Franci” (l. 79), “the Danes would guard these things better than the Frenchmen for the use of the church,” l. 41. While seemingly an act of hostility, Hereward “ipse sepe postea iurauit se bona intencione hoc fecisse” (l. 79) (“oft times swore in after times that he had done this of good intention,”l. 41), in order to keep this treasure out of Norman hands. More to the point, Hereward “homo monachorum erat” (l. 79) (“was himself a man of the monks,” l. 41), and he and many of the men involved in the attack held lands belonging to Peterborough Abbey, lands that William intended to redistribute in exchange for knight service. Thus these men “stood to lose everything by William’s move.”62 Among the monks taken to Ely with Hereward is Prior Aethelwold, who wished to safeguard certain relics counted among the abbey treasure. In a vivid scene, Aethelwold slips out of the feasting hall at Ely where the Danes and Anglo-Saxons are celebrating, posts two faithful servants as guards, and sneaks into the room containing the treasure. He fi nds the wooden chest containing the receptacle holding the arm of Saint Oswald and the relic of the Holy Innocent, quickly hides these relics in his bedstraw, splashes his face with cold water, and returns to the feasting hall to face the Danes. The next day, Aethelwold secretly dispatches two servants to take the relics to Ramsey Abbey and returns himself to Peterborough upon Hereward’s orders. While this famous episode from the life of the most famous Anglo-Saxon resistance fighter by no means provides a neat mirror-image of the plot of Havelok the Dane, it nevertheless contains a striking number of common narrative elements that invite comparison. First, aside from the obvious kinship of Lincolnshire origins, both stories share the backdrop of political

124 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance conquest at the national level, set in the pre-Conquest era, involving the hostile takeover of the throne, which is located in Winchester, the pre-Conquest capital of England. Likewise, both the episode from the life of Hereward and the Middle English Havelok provide parallel cases where events in Lincolnshire take on national proportions. Hereward’s raid on Peterborough Abbey magnified his fame from the local to the national level from that point on. Havelok the Dane in turn extends the geographic and political ramifications of a regional legend to encompass the entire realm. While earlier versions of the legend of Havelok restrict the story to the region of Lincolnshire, the Middle English Havelok extends the story’s geographic scope to include the whole of England, including the city of Winchester (ll. 158, 318), the royal seat of King Athelwold, as well as Dover, London, Lincoln, Chester, and Cornwall, one of many ways the poem incorporates more of pre-Conquest history and geography, replicating the scale of loss on the eve of the Conquest.63 Second, we have the matter of the name changes introduced by the English poet. While the two earlier, Anglo-Norman versions of the Havelok legend retain approximately the same names for the father of heroine, King Adelbrit/Ekenbright, and the name Argentille for the heroine herself, the Middle English poet changes the names of both characters to “Athelwold” and “Goldeboru” respectively.64 “Athelwold,” as discussed in Chapter 1, is an Anglo-Saxon name with precedents throughout pre-Conquest history and constitutes one of many ways the Havelok-poet recasts this figure from earlier versions as a distinctly Anglo-Saxon figure. “Goldeboru,” another Anglo-Saxon name, translates literally to “golden city.” Thus it is a proper female name that also recalls a place. These name changes have confounded medieval and modern scholars alike, since they fail to correlate concretely to any historical (or fictional) figures, certainly not in concert with one another. In the early fourteenth century, Robert Mannyng, in researching and compiling his Chronicle, encountered a series of dead ends in trying to uncover the historical basis for Havelok, and the Middle English version clearly did not help: noiþer Gildas, no Bede, no Henry of Huntynton, no William of Malmesbiri, ne Pers of Bridlynton writes not in þer bokes of no Kyng Athelwold ne Goldeburgh, his douhtere, ne Hauelok not of told. (ll. 521–524)65

Not only are versions of the Lincolnshire legend of Havelok rare, as Robert indicates, but the names “Athelwold” and “Goldeboru” of the English version fail to clarify the historical basis of the legend, even for a Lincolnshire man like Robert familiar with the sources, both pre- and post-Conquest, local and otherwise.66 The name “Goldeburc” occurs in the Anglo-Norman Romance of Horn (1170, l. 257) as the daughter of the German Emperor, Baderouf, and the grandmother of the hero, Horn, but she plays no active

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role in the poem, nor does the poem provide sufficient details of characterization to make for a meaningful comparison with the Goldeboru of Havelok.67 Modern investigations into the historical basis for the name changes found in Havelok have met with similar frustrations.68 In the Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, however, the names “Goldeboru” and “Aethelwold” occur in close proximity under circumstances of conquest, involving Danes, similar to those found in Havelok, only here “Goldeboru” refers to a place, not a person. In this passage, the Norman abbot Turold arrives at Peterborough Abbey in the aftermath of Hereward’s raid: Turo abbas . . . inuenit autem combusta omnia intus et foris, preter solam ecclesiam. Tunc illa quo uocabatur ciuitas aurea facta est pauperima. Prior autem Adeluuoldus et ceteri seniores ducti sunt sicut diximus cum thesauris, et fuerunt in Eli cum Danis. (l. 80) [“Abbot Turold . . . found all things both within and without utterly burned, save only the church. So that city which was called the Golden Borough became the poorest of cities. Prior Aethelwold and others of the elders were carried, as we have said, with the treasures, and were at Ely with the Danes.” (l. 42)]

As it happens, during the Middle Ages, Peterborough Abbey was commonly known as the “golden city,” or in English, “Golden Borough,” “Gildeneburch,” or “Burch” for short.69 The variant spelling of this name outside of the poem is “Goldeburc,” “burc” meaning city, further evidence for linking the figure of Goldeboru with the place of Peterborough.70 Scott Kleinman has argued that the poet may have included the name “Goldeboru” to strengthen the poem’s East Anglian connection in general.71 I would go further in arguing that the poet chooses the name “Goldeboru” not for its geographic connection in general so much as for the more precise designation of Peterborough Abbey itself. The Anglo-Norman version of this episode in La Geste de Burch preserves the reference to Peterborough as the “golden city” and concurs the fate of the abbey and its surrounds, saying “Ore est Gildeneburch a ‘chaitif burch’ turné” (l. 471, “Now is Gildenberg turned to ‘wretched borough,’” l. 215). Both Hugh Candidus and La Geste de Burch go on to describe the further impoverishment of the monastery under the leadership of the Norman abbot Turold, who redistributed abbey lands to his knights and relations, and depleted the abbey of its many precious possessions, reducing the abbey to a third of its original value (Hugh Candidus, 84–85; La Geste, ll. 525–538). Like the king’s young daughter, Goldeboru, Peterborough, the “Golden Borough,” becomes a contested entity of great value, reduced to poverty against a backdrop of conquest despite the best efforts of a benevolent fatherly figure called Athelwold.

126 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance Prior Aethelwold also accounts for the particular way the Havelok poet expands the role of King Athelwold over previous versions of the legend, notably in the king’s piety. For example, the English poet alone renders the figure of King Athelwold as an unmarried man. All earlier versions of the story of Havelok include the king’s wife Orwein, the mother of Argentille, who dies shortly after her husband. The poet of Havelok the Dane, however, eliminates both the name and the character of the king’s wife, an inexplicable move that makes more sense if his character is based, at least in part, on another unmarried man such as a cleric. This would accord too with the intense piety of King Athelwold, who “louede God with al his miht” (l. 35), who seals Godrich’s pledge using formal objects of the Mass (ll. 185–188), who self-flagellates as he approaches death (ll. 213–217), and who voices Christ’s own last words, “In manus tuas” (Luke 23:46) on his own deathbed (l. 228), all elements of characterization introduced by the English poet, and not found in earlier versions of the story.72 Thus, the king’s habits resemble those of a cleric, further suggesting a link with the figure of Prior Aethelwold. Above all, like Prior Aethelwold, King Athelwold holds the future of England in his mind as the threat of hostile takeover looms. The connection between the person Goldeboru, the heroine of Havelok, and the place of the “Golden Borough,” or Peterborough Abbey, from the story of Hereward helps to account for the particular way the poet develops her role from earlier versions of the legend of Havelok. While it is not uncommon for a poet of popular romance to expand the role of the central female figure found in earlier stories, her importance tends to grow chiefly in the amatory sphere. Such is not the case in Havelok, where Goldeboru and Havelok express disgust and indifference, respectively, toward one another upon their marriage. Instead, the heroine’s expanded role takes the form of political, rather than romantic, influence. King Athelwold, on his deathbed, anguishes over the future not only of his young daughter, but of her succession to the throne, soliciting among his barons for a future guardian for her, a man who can look after “‘Boϸen hire and Engelonde . . . ?’” (l. 173). The poet leaves no doubt that the girl and the realm stand as one when the king “. . . ϸe erl hire bitauhte And al the lond he euere awhte [Of] Engelonde, eueri del; And preide, he shulde yeme hire wel.” (ll. 206–209)

The king worries over the future of his daughter, whose fate is inextricably intertwined with that of England. Not only does Goldeboru come to symbolize England itself, but she assumes an equal, if not greater, status in the poem compared with Havelok himself. In every way, Goldeboru becomes a female counterpart

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to Havelok. The poet establishes a series of parallels between her story and that of Havelok: we have two kings (one English, one Danish), two deathbed scenes where the kings bequeath their kingdoms and children to a trusted advisor who later betrays them, and two scenes where the king’s children and rightful heirs to the throne (Goldeboru in England and Havelok in Denmark) are imprisoned in a tower by the traitor usurper and mistreated.73 Thus, the poem invites us to take Goldeboru as seriously as Havelok by expanding her story and modifying his story so as to create two versions of essentially the same story. Since her story comes fi rst in the poem, we read the story of Havelok in light of the English heiress. The poet heightens Goldeboru’s importance further in the story by having Athelwold, on his deathbed, specify the precise terms for Goldeboru’s succession, including her age when she will take the throne (l. 12, at which point she will be “bold” of speech), her education in the etiquette of courtesy, and her right to choice and dignity in marriage (ll. 189–203). G. V. Smithers notes that the English poet, unlike Gaimar, describes Goldeboru as an “heir” as frequently as he does Havelok.74 The English poet also has Havelok refuse to accept the throne of England until Goldeboru is fully recognized as the English heir and lawful queen (ll. 2,778–2,787).75 For the English poet, therefore, Goldeboru’s status as a rightful heir matches that of Havelok. Moreover, the English poet increases the suffering and injustice experienced by Goldeboru by having her imprisoned in Dover castle, itself powerfully linked with the Norman Conquest, and left there for “what must have been a long time.”76 The poet dwells on the tragedy of the innocent heiress, languishing in prison, “in feble wede” (l. 323), where “non ne mihte comen hire to/Of hire frend, with [hir] to speken,/Þat euere mihte hire bale wreken” (ll. 325–327). By contrast, in Gaimar and the Lai, Argentille is brought up in Edelsi’s own household at Lincoln where, presumably, she might enjoy a more normal life. In short, Havelok the Dane is as much a story of Goldeboru’s struggle for the English throne as it is about Havelok’s struggle for the throne of Denmark.77 She becomes fi rst and foremost a political and politicized entity, an icon of England itself, much like the place of Peterborough Abbey during the English resistance. The third narrative feature linking Havelok the Dane and the story of Hereward as rendered in the Peterborough Chronicle has to do with the characterization of Havelok himself and concerns the poet’s recasting of him as a saintly figure. The Middle English Havelok the Dane introduces two important features to the portrait of the hero, Havelok: (1) a birthmark in the shape of a golden cross on his shoulder and (2) a substantial episode relating the trials of Havelok’s early childhood after his father dies. The birthmark complements the hero’s other distinguishing physical feature, a flame that glows in his mouth as he sleeps, derived from earlier sources of the legend.78 The birthmark and oral flame eventually expose his royal lineage at night as he sleeps, fi rst to his would-be-murder, Grim (ll. 604– 605), then to his wife (ll. 1,262–1,263) and later to the citizens of Denmark

128 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance (ll. 2,139–2,140). While the flame in his mouth derives from earlier versions of the story, the birthmark on the shoulder is unique to the Middle English Havelok. The poet uses it simultaneously with, and in conjunction with, the flame to reveal Havelok’s true identity to others. In fact, it seems to altogether replicate the function of the flame as an identifying mark in the narrative. If the shoulder mark serves the same narrative function, at the same points in the narrative, as the flame, then why would the poet include it? The story of Prior Aethelwold and Hereward in the Peterborough Chronicle suggests some important reasons why the English poet of Havelok would introduce the seemingly redundant detail of the birthmark on the hero’s shoulder. Of all the monastery treasures Hereward keeps from Norman hands, the relics hold most value for Prior Aethelwold, and as the Danes and Anglo-Saxons feast, he sneaks into the room containing the stolen treasure and recovers the relics, sending them on to Ramsey Abbey. These relics include the arm of St. Oswald and a shoulder blade of one of the Holy Innocents.79 Once at Ramsey, this relic of the shoulder blade causes an incident when the sacrist watching the church one night hears an infant’s voice calling “‘Sanctus’ ac si dixisset ter ‘nolumus hic requiescere’” (l. 84; “‘Holy! Holy! Holy!’ as though he had said three times ‘We desire not to rest here,’” l. 44). When Abbot Martin hears of this the next morning, he interprets that the relic of the Holy Innocent is communicating that the relics of Peterborough Abbey belong back in Peterborough, and he has the prior, Turbern, arrange for their immediate return. This episode from the story of Hereward, therefore, includes not only the name “Aethelwold” who protects the treasure of the “Golden Borough,” but also a shoulder of a holy child that features prominently. The link between Havelok’s shoulder and the shoulder blade relic of Peterborough Abbey also helps to account for the particular shape and nature of the birthmark on the hero’s shoulder. The poet refers to the mark on Havelok’s shoulder as a “kyne-merk” or “kunrik” (“king’s mark,” ll. 604, 2,143), and as such, it corresponds to other such birthmarks in medieval literature. In the Middle English Emaré, for instance, Emaré gives birth to an infant, Segramour, with a “dowbyll kyngus marke” (l. 504), the mark of royal status.80 Similarly, the thirteenth-century Richars li Biaus features a foundling hero who bears a birthmark on his right shoulder in the form of a double cross (“ii crois,” l. 669) that also marks his royal status.81 The double cross, therefore, appears to be the standard shape for such king’s marks. To be sure, the mark on Havelok’s shoulder underscores his royal destiny as corroborated by these other literary examples, and by the expanded royal scope (including England as well as Denmark) for the hero in the poem as a whole. However, the mark on Havelok’s shoulder differs from those of Richars and Segramour in both shape and color, suggesting a more specific point of reference. We see the mark on the hero’s shoulder through the eyes of several

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different people, and always at nighttime. We fi rst see the mark through the eyes of Grim and his wife, who see “a kyne-merk; /A swiþe briht, a swiþe fair” (ll. 604–605) on the right shoulder of the child Havelok. Later, we see it again through Goldeboru’s eyes: “On hise shuldre, of gold red/She saw a swiþe noble croiz” (ll. 1,262–1,263). Later, in Denmark, we see the mark through the eyes of Ubbe: “So weren he war of a croiz ful gent On his riht shuldre, swiϸe briht, Brihter ϸan gold ageyn ϸe liht; So ϸat he wiste, heye and lowe, Þat it was kunrik ϸat he sawe. It sparkede, and ful brihte shon So doth ϸe gode charbucle—ston, Þat men se mouthe, by ϸe liht A peni chesen, so was it briht.” (ll. 2,139–2,147)

Havelok’s birthmark takes the form of a single red gold cross that shines as bright as a carbuncle, even in the dark. Two things align this birthmark powerfully with the treasure of Peterborough Abbey, which includes the shoulder blade relic of the Holy Innocent: first, the mark takes the distinctly religious (and not especially kingly) form of a single, not double, cross.82 Second, unlike the birthmarks of the babies Segramour and Richars, whose color and aspect are not described, Havelok’s birthmark is described with words redolent of worked precious metal, specifically red gold that shines brightly like a precious stone (carbuncle). Many of the valuables seized from Peterborough Abbey, in addition to the shoulder blade relic, were precisely these sorts of jewel-studded treasure, worked in gold (much of it described as “red gold”).83 The phrase “red gold” itself, which has puzzled scholars, derives specifically from AngloSaxon tradition, where gold is quite frequently described as “red” rather than “yellow,” as we describe it today, a designation that carried over into the Middle English period.84 This Anglo-Saxon connection to “red gold” perhaps accounts for why, out of all three descriptions of the birthmark in the poem, only the one through the eyes of Goldeboru, the English heiress, specifies it as “gold red” (l. 1,262). Furthermore, the image of “rede gold” (l. 47) appears earlier in the poem in association with the golden age of King Athelwold, whose portrait as a ruler draws upon Anglo-Saxon historiographic motifs.85 Thus, in addition to announcing the hero’s royal lineage, the birthmark of the displaced husband of Goldeboru also suggests, in both form and medium, the displaced Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical treasure of the Golden Borough. Furthermore, this shoulder blade of the Holy Innocent in the story of Prior Aethelwold accounts for the early portrayal of Havelok as a holy innocent in Havelok the Dane. Of all the extant versions of the life of Havelok, the Middle English Havelok the Dane is the only one to cover the early childhood of the hero, where we see Havelok at his most vulnerable,

130 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance an incident that recalls the biblical account of the massacre of the Holy Innocents.86 Julie Nelson Couch has detailed the ways that Havelok’s vulnerability in this portion of the story correlates with the vulnerability of England itself, so that “vulnerable childhood and notions of Englishness become aligned.”87 Her analysis corroborates the even more specific link to the story of Hereward, whereby Havelok’s embattled childhood fi nds meaningful correlation with the relic of the Holy Innocent rescued by Prior Athelwold. In Havelok the Dane, upon the death of the Danish King Birkabeyn, Goddard, the king’s corrupt official, imprisons the royal children, including Havelok and his two sisters, in a tower. In a horrific scene, Goddard enters the tower intent on slaying all three of them. He fi rst seizes the two girls as if it were “his gamen” (l. 468), and then “karf on-two here ϸrotes” (l. 471), as the young Havelok witnesses. Havelok escapes the same fate only by pleading for his life. The poet stresses the children’s vulnerability and, above all, their innocence (Havelok individually and the children collectively are termed “seli,” ll. 477, 499). By contrast, earlier versions of the story include no mention of Havelok’s sisters or any attempt to murder any of them. In Gaimar, Havelok’s mother, the queen, flees Denmark with baby Havelok, an only child. They are attacked by outlaws, and she gets flung into the sea. Grim, the fisherman on board the same ship, saves Havelok and raises him as his own (ll. 418–436). The Lai d’Haveloc relates an almost identical story (ll. 603–610). Havelok the Dane, however, presents the hero in his early childhood as a direct victim of a corrupt tyrant (like Herod) who feels (like Herod) threatened by the boy’s lineage, and includes a massacre scene involving the “innocent” royal children, one of whom bears a birthmark on his shoulder that “calls out” at nighttime, in several separate scenes, like the relic of the Holy Innocent of Peterborough Abbey wanting to return home. The shoulder blade of the Holy Innocent in the Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus helps to account for this particular modification in the characterization of Havelok. The triangle of the Prior Aethelwold/the golden borough/the shoulder blade of the Holy Innocent becomes replicated in King Athelwold/Goldeboru/Havelok, the victimized hero with a distinctive shoulder. The connection between Havelok the Dane and the relic of the Holy Innocent of Peterborough Abbey is also in keeping with the sweeping revision of the story of Havelok as a Saint’s Life. As others have noted, Havelok the Dane contains several narrative features emblematic of the hagiographic tradition.88 The incipit to the poem, for instance, reads “Incipit vita Havelok, quondam Rex Anglie et Denemarchie,” (“Here begins the life of Havelok, sometime king of England and Denmark,”) the term “vita” normally referencing the life of a saint, not a secular hero. Similarly, as noted earlier, the poet adds instances of pathos recounting the hero’s early suffering, as in the massacre scene, another hallmark of the saintly hero. Godrich and Goddard, the victimizers of the poem, are both associated with Judas (ll. 319, 425). Additionally, almost from the beginning, Havelok’s unusual

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qualities of the flame in his mouth and the birthmark on his right shoulder become associated with prophecy, as when Grim and his wife announce the “‘He shal hauen in his hand/Al Denemark and Engeland’” (ll. 609–610), a conclusion that Goldeboru too later draws. While Grim and his wife might recognize the Danish heir, they have no basis for including England in his patrimony, thus the scene serves a proleptic function, something not found in the comparable scene in either Gaimar or the Lai. Likewise, Goldeboru’s revelation of her husband’s destiny takes on a miraculous quality not found in earlier versions. In Gaimar (ll. 195–242) and in the Lai d’Haveloc (ll. 397–532), Argentille has an inscrutable dream of her husband being attacked by a bear with some foxes, and relies on others to interpret the dream for her. In Havelok the Dane, the same scene becomes a holy vision where Goldeboru is visited by an angel at night who tells her of Havelok’s lineage and political destiny in both Denmark and England (ll. 1,264–1,278), concluding “ϸou shalt quen and leuedi ben!” (l. 1,274). In this way, the story of Havelok becomes hybridized with hagiographic tradition, a quality that accords with the hero’s affiliation with the relic of the Holy Innocent of Peterborough Abbey. The story of Prior Aethelwold and Hereward’s raid on Peterborough Abbey correlates finally with the Danish connection in Havelok the Dane. The Middle English Havelok concerns matters of Danish succession as much as English succession and features an Anglo-Danish alliance as a central tool of English political salvation. So too the larger story of Hereward’s raid on Peterborough concerns a crisis of English political succession and features an Anglo-Danish alliance as a corrective, however temporary or limited, to England’s political woes. In 1069, a fleet of between two hundred forty and three hundred ships arrives in England, harrying the coast of Ipswich and Norwich.89 During this mission, King Swein strikes up an alliance with Edgar Aetheling, Edward the Confessor’s son and heir, then living in exile in Scotland, along with the earls Gospatric and Waltheof, Siward Barn, Mærle-Sveinn, the sheriff of Lincolnshire, Arnkell, the sons of Karli, and “with all the Northumbrians and the people, riding and marching with an immense army, rejoicing exceedingly.”90 Together they regain possession of the city of York, the fi rst major retaliatory success since the Conquest, and a victory that sparked similar uprisings in the southwest.91 Not long after the victory at York, Swein arrives at Ely and allies himself with Hereward, precipitating the famous raid on Peterborough Abbey. There is no question that the purpose of the Anglo-Danish alliance of 1069– 1071 was reconquest, followed by some form of joint rule between England and Denmark. The Danes seem to have had their own political ambitions for allying themselves with these dispossessed Anglo-Saxon leaders, in all likelihood expecting to gain the English throne amidst William’s political struggles. Hugh Candidus remarks that Hereward, along with his Danish allies, attack Peterborough because he “putabat illos uincere Willilmum regem, et ipsos possessuros terram” (79; “supposed they were conquering King William, and

132 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance would themselves possess the land,” 41), and they clearly had the backing of the English population to do so. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (E) notes that when King Swein arrived in England, “ϸaet landfolc comen him ongean & griðedon wið hine. waendon ϸaet he sceolde ϸet land ofergan” [“the local people came to meet him and made a truce with him—they expected he was going to conquer the country.”]92 Orderic Vitalis emphasizes English support further, suggesting that King Swein came by express invitation, noting “Some [Anglo-Saxons] sent to Swein, king of Denmark, and urged him to lay claim to the kingdom of England which his ancestors Swein and Cnut had won by the sword.”93 (As cousin to Queen Edith, the wife of Edward the Confessor, to some extent, King Swein had a legitimate claim to the throne, and for the next hundred years, Danish rulers would periodically reassert this claim for the English throne.94) The historical picture, therefore, includes a Danish king allied with the dispossessed heir to the English throne with the intent of reconquest.95 Moreover, the presence of Danish allies at York and Ely in the years 1069–1071 greatly increased the import of this retaliation, both militarily and imaginatively, for both the Anglo-Saxon people and William the Conqueror, placing these native uprisings in a completely different class than previous such rebellions.96 This historical Anglo-Danish alliance has a number of important parallels with the Anglo-Danish alliance in Havelok the Dane. For one, the Danes appear as allies rather than foes. This positive image of the Danes that we find in both stories is striking in itself, when we consider the far more common historical image of the Danes as the ravenous Viking invaders who terrorized England during the pre-Conquest period, an image alluded to briefly (and erroneously) in Havelok the Dane when Godrich attempts to thwart Havelok’s retaliatory invasion.97 Furthermore, both accounts present an alliance between the royal house of Denmark and the dispossessed heir to the English throne (Edgar Atheling; Goldeboru) with the intent of retaking England. Also like Havelok, the larger context of Hereward’s raid on Peterborough Abbey and the preceding events projects the likelihood of a Danish ruler gaining joint possession of the English as well as Danish thrones. Above all, the “Danish solution” advanced and paralleled in both Havelok, and Hugh Candidus reflects the very real, desperate hope of the Anglo-Saxons during the height of Hereward’s activities for outside aide in their fight for freedom, hopes which seem to have centered almost exclusively on Denmark.98 The Danes, of course, eventually dashed all such hopes. Nevertheless, the powerful association in both texts of Denmark with political salvation forms part of the cultural memory of the decades following the Conquest. In short, Hugh Candidus’ account of Hereward’s sacking of Peterborough Abbey forms the basis for some of the most profound changes the English poet makes to the legend of Havelok. It explains the poet’s particular use of the names Athelwold and Goldeboru, as well as their relationship to one another as protector and protected. It also accounts for the intensely pious, at times priestly, portrait of King Athelwold. It accounts for the prominence of

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the hero’s shoulder and the holy birthmark it bears as a literary incarnation of the shoulder blade relic of the Holy Innocent restored to its rightful home. The context of the Holy Innocent itself, a symbol of infant suffering, accounts for the addition, unique to the English version of the story, of Havelok’s suffering in early childhood. It also explains more broadly the poet’s recasting of Havelok as a saintly figure, and his lifelong innocence and piety, all in keeping with the story’s ecclesiastical origins. It accounts further for the altered political and geographic scope of the poem; just as the incident at Peterborough forms a microcosm of the progress of the Norman Conquest of England, so the struggles of Havelok and Goldeboru against conquest and disinheritance affect the entire country, not just a single region, as in earlier accounts. Above all, it accounts for the centrality of the English heiress, Goldeboru, who like the Golden Borough, falls victims to poverty in the midst of a power struggle only to be restored, as if by destiny, through an Anglo-Danish alliance, her marriage to Havelok. Havelok the Dane magnifies the theme of political conquest and resistance in England, by incorporating the historical role played by the people of Lincolnshire during the time of the Norman Conquest. The poem recreates the political terrain of the Norman Conquest and draws from a famous episode in Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Conquest, revisiting its lingering tensions and anxieties while proposing an alternate outcome that would favor the English. The ending of the poem provides the happy conclusion missing in the historical reality of post-Conquest England. The poem tracks the usurpation of political power in Winchester (the Anglo-Saxon royal seat) which prompts an Anglo-Danish alliance in Lincolnshire in the union of Havelok and Goldeboru (mirroring the Anglo-Danish alliance in that same region forged by Edgar Atheling, and later Hereward), and ends with a coronation in London, the post-Conquest capital city of England.99 Unlike the historical outcome of 1071, the fictional Anglo-Danish alliance of Havelok succeeds, as the English heiress returns to England triumphant with the help of the Danes, thus realizing the failed historical promise that nearly came to be. Moreover, the restoration of the English heiress correlates to a restoration of English judiciary practice, as Godrich faces distinctly English methods for punishing treason.100 The marriage of Havelok, the new Danish king, and Goldeboru, the restored English monarch, fulfills in a fictional way the historical dream of reconquest promised by King Swein, the Danish king and one-time ally of Hereward the Wake, the nobleman from Lincolnshire who became the icon of Anglo-Saxon freedom.

SIR ORFEO The texts discussed thus far in this chapter contain numerous narrative elements traceable to a specific source within the English outlaw tradition, most of them having to do with the life of Hereward the Wake. The Middle

134 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance English Sir Orfeo also shares many affi nities with the English outlaw tradition, but in a somewhat less direct way, and less concretely tied to a specific source or historical figure. Instead, Sir Orfeo contains a constellation of plot features that evoke the overall tenor of the outlaw narratives, all of which involve the loss of a kingdom and exile within one’s homeland. In this sense, it is useful to consider Sir Orfeo within the context of several outlaw narratives, including the story of Eadric the Wild as related in Walter Map’s De Nugis Curialium, the story of Harold Godwinson as told in the thirteenth-century Vita Haroldi, as well as the story of Hereward in the Gesta Herewardi, all of which contain more convincing parallels than the narrative features typical of French romance. Hereward’s story, as recorded and embellished in the Gesta Herewardi, shares certain striking plot features that mark Orfeo’s experience. Hereward, like Orfeo, at one point disguises himself as a beggar in order to infiltrate an enemy household where his beloved is being held against her will and forced to marry a man she does not love.101 The scene involves a harping contest, in which Hereward, like Orfeo, plays the harp so beautifully that the bridegroom promises him “whatever he cared to ask,” though unlike the Fairy King, the bridegroom excludes his new wife from the bargain.102 Through trickery, Hereward wins back the woman and returns to his home. The parallels between these two scenes become all the more compelling when we consider the Celtic connection in each; Hereward must win the woman back from the King of Ireland, while Orfeo must win his wife back from a king often associated with the Celtic Other World.103 The return scene, like that of Sir Orfeo, also involves the hero again disguising himself as a beggar and working through friendly citizens on the outskirts of his father’s estate in order to calculate the method of his return, only in Hereward’s case, enemy Normans occupy his hall whom he also outwits through disguise. Of course, the choreography and sequence of these common plot elements often work rather differently in the Gesta Herewardi than in Sir Orfeo. Hereward, unlike Orfeo, freely and frequently uses violence to achieve his aims. More important, the tone of the Gesta Herewardi tends toward the swashbuckling at points, which no one would say about Sir Orfeo. I would not, therefore, argue for any direct source influence between these two texts. Nevertheless, the nature, number, and concentration of shared plots featured in the Gesta Herewardi and Sir Orfeo is striking.104 The fact that these plot features (including disguise, harping, trickery, forest exiles, departures, and disguised returns) characterize the outlaw narratives in general, a selection of which record the confl ict between Anglo-Saxon nobleman and corrupt Norman officials, may help to account for these same qualities in Sir Orfeo.105 The use of these elements as a tool of assigning cultural identity becomes all the more compelling when we consider how these same narrative features, in the same combination, also occur in the Middle English King Horn, where as discussed above, the poem’s

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Anglo-Saxon hero, a skilled harpist, disguises himself as a pilgrim (donning a “sclavyn,” l. 1,067, the same word as in Orfeo) in order to infi ltrate a castle to rescue his woman, parallels that Joseph Hall traces specifically to the Gesta Herewardi.106 It is worth noting how one of the ways the author of the Gesta Herewardi distinguishes between Anglo-Saxon natives and Norman invaders concerns architecture, details that resonate with the Middle English Sir Orfeo, as discussed in the Chapter 2. Hereward and other English collaborators live in Saxon-style halls associated with “English-style” feasting that are clearly communal in nature.107 Such a hall-style dwelling existed in the city of Ely, the famous last refuge for anti-Norman dissidents, including Hereward. By contrast, the Normans are associated with castles in the Gesta. According to the Gesta, during the siege of Ely, the Norman prisoner Deda, who spends time behind Anglo-Saxon lines, returns to his Norman commander to report newfound respect for the English and their land: “‘Certainly I don’t know that they are in need of anything as regards defense, let alone in spirit, when they have a fruitful island, so productive of every kind of grain and growing things, and so well fortified by waters and swamp, much stronger than any castle surrounded by walls.’”108 Here we have a not-soveiled criticism of the Norman need for their castle fortresses in the face of their Anglo-Saxons adversaries. The other leader of Anglo-Saxon resistance whose story correlates closely with King Orfeo’s is Eadric the Wild, an Anglo-Saxon thegn who held manors in Shropshire and Herefordshire at the time of the Conquest and who, according to one chronicle, “disdained submission to the king.”109 Between 1067 and 1069, Eadric retreated into the wild (hence his name) of the Welsh marches from which he led a revolt against King William.110 Florence of Worcester relates that “as often as [the king’s army] made inroads in his territory, they lost many of their knights and squires.”111 Like Hereward, Eadric became the hero of popular romance, a version of which survives in Walter Map’s De Nugis Curialium (Dist. ii, c.12), identified by earlier scholars as a probable source for Sir Orfeo.112 In Map’s account, Eadric, homo multe probitatis (“a man of great prowess”), was returning one evening from hunting in the wild when he comes across a large drinking hall on the edge of the forest. Inside, he spies a large group of dancing noble ladies whom he immediately associates with fairies. Looking through the window, he falls in love with one of them, makes his way inside and snatches her, sustaining an assault by the other ladies. He keeps her for three days, after which she issues a prophecy that he will lose her, “meque sublata detrimento frequenti deficies” (“and when I am gone you will fail with successive losses”). News of this unorthodox union reaches King William in London, who requests the couple’s presence and then sends them home. After many years, Eadric returns home from another hunt to fi nd his wife gone. He lives out the remainder of his days in the forest, in the spot where he found her, calling out to her sed ad insipienciam sibi; nam uita

136 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance eius ibi defecit in dolore continuo (“but all turned to his own confusion, for his life came to an end in that place in unceasing sorrow”). Many of the narrative elements of this story of Eadric resemble those of Sir Orfeo, but with some differences. We have the fairy dwelling in the forest113 and the woman within it whom the hero loves, as well as a forest exile and the connection between the loss of a woman and the loss of all else held dear. As in Sir Orfeo, the forest figures very prominently as the point of contact between the fairy and human realms, and as the point of exchange of the woman. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, Walter Map’s story of Eadric seems to hide the revolutionary deeds of its historic protagonist, instead featuring Eadric in an apolitical plot concerning a supernatural love affair while relegating the more historical material (for example, King William’s summons) to the background. The plot seems completely innocuous, despite the revolutionary history of the story’s hero. So too the plot of Sir Orfeo appears to involve a simple instance of losing and regaining a beloved woman, a matter of the heart only. However, as revealed in previous chapters, the English poet uses details of material culture, namely architecture and battle tactic, to introduce a political subtext that recalls the struggles of the Conquest, the same subtext found in the story of Eadric. Again, as in the case of the Hereward legend, Sir Orfeo is not simply a later retelling of the story of Eadric. Nevertheless, the concentration of these plot elements in both stories, and the backdrop of fairy land, is compelling, suggesting again an important connection between the Middle English Sir Orfeo and the stories of the last Anglo-Saxon heroes. Finally, the story of Harold Godwinson, as preserved in the early thirteenth-century Vita Haroldi (Life of Harold Godwinson), also presents a fictionalized account that contains some of the core plot features we find in Sir Orfeo.114 In this revisionary, and fiercely anti-Norman, version of the events of 1066 and shortly thereafter, “which we know to have escaped the attention of most people,” the Vita argues that Harold Godwinson did not in fact die at the Battle of Hastings.115 Instead, he was found “stunned and scarcely breathing by certain women,” taken to a nearby cottage, and from there secretly brought to Winchester by two peasants. Meanwhile, the monks of Waltham Abbey send out a woman named Edith, who “had frequently been present in the privacy of [Harold’s] bed-chamber,” to go onto the battlefield of Hastings and identify the body of the king.116 Not fi nding the body, and hearing several Normans boasting loudly of Harold’s death despite the lack of a body, Edith picks out another man, whose face was so bloodied as to be unrecognizable, who is then buried in the king’s place. Meanwhile, for two years, Harold is kept in a secret hiding place in a cellar in Winchester and nursed back to health by an Arab woman skilled in surgery.117 Upon regaining health, he sees how all the common people and the nobility of England “had submitted their necks to the yoke of the Conqueror,” and “all the leading men were either annihilated or driven from their homeland, leaving their ancestral estates to be divided and

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occupied by foreigners.”118 After failed attempts to gain support abroad, fi rst from the Saxons of Germany and then from the Danes, Harold returns to England and goes into a ten-year, voluntary exile, living in a cave near Dover, not far from the battlefield of Hastings. From there, he chooses an even harder path of disguising himself as a beggar and living among the Welsh.119 Eventually, he resurfaces in the city of Chester, where he lives the remainder of his days in a room of a church, never breaking disguise, all the while regaling visitors with stories of Hastings, arousing suspicions that he is in fact Harold himself.120 Variations of the story of Harold’s survival after Hastings also survive in at least three Norse sources dating into the fourteenth century.121 The Vita Haroldi shares many plot features with Sir Orfeo, beginning with the loss of a kingdom. Both Harold and Orfeo are kings who lose their kingdoms as a result of a mounted invasion. Both kings live in Winchester. Both kings, moreover, respond to the mounted invasion using the military maneuver of a shield wall (scheltrom), as discussed in the Chapter 1, and both kings witness the failure of the shield wall. As a result, both Harold and Orfeo retreat into voluntary exile. Harold, accepting defeat, “leaves all his friends . . ., deserts his relations . . ., [and] retires secretly from all those who had known him.”122 Orfeo too withdraws from family and friends, all of whom “praid him, ʒif his wille were,/Þat he no schuld nouʒt fram hem go” (ll. 224–225). Harold, like Orfeo, retreats into the wilderness, living as a recluse for a period of time specified as ten years (Vita, 28; Orfeo, l. 264). Finally, just as the Orfeopoet itemizes the lost kingly joys of Orfeo’s former life as he wanders in the wilderness, so too the author of the Vita itemizes Harold’s lost kingly features as he transforms into a beggar (Orfeo, ll. 239–264; Vita, l. 15). Thus, both the stories of Harold Godwinson and King Orfeo follow parallel plots of invasion, loss of a kingdom, and voluntary exile of their royal heroes. The wandering of both Harold and Orfeo as a penitent kings follows the trajectory of the heroes of Anglo-Saxon elegiac works such as The Wanderer and The Seafarer. The theme of exile is one of the most powerful, enduring, and frequent literary topoi in Anglo-Saxon literature. This theme gained new and unfortunate relevance after 1066, when an entire nation was put in an exilic state, as it were, by being deprived of their country’s rule. Harold represents this most powerfully on the royal/national level, as the king and representative of the English people. Eadric and Hereward mirror the destinies of more ordinary people (though they are still nobility). The stories of these heroes provides a striking example of post-Conquest English authors interpreting the very real losses to the English at the time of the Conquest through the lens of the traditional literary form of Old English elegy. The similar wandering of King Orfeo after the loss of his kingdom would, in all likelihood, evoke the same cultural and political context found in the stories of these English outlaws.

138 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance A more precise parallel between the Vita Haroldi and Sir Orfeo concerns the penitential quality of the exile experience, even in the absence of confi rmed guilt on the part of the king. Orfeo’s exile, as some have argued, has the fl avor of the penitential. Upon withdrawing from his kingdom, Orfeo dons a pilgrim’s mantle (“sclauin,” l. 228) and ventures barefoot (l. 232) into the wilderness, much like a penitent. A number of scholars, therefore, have suggested that Orfeo goes into exile as a form of Christian penance, arguing for the influence of allegorical readings as found in the Latin commentary tradition where Orpheus’ story becomes an allegory of the soul. His particular sin varies from Pride (in thinking he can prevent Heurodis’ abduction and, by extension, defeat death), to Accidia (or moral laziness, by neglecting royal duties in favor of a woman), to Lust (by investing too much in earthly love and sensuality).123 Such a reading traces the forest landscape setting of Orfeo’s exile to the biblical tradition of forest exile, such as that of Nebuchadnezzar, who, like Orfeo, is driven from society, lives on grass, and becomes more animal-like in appearance.124 Such Christian allegorical interpretations insist that Orfeo himself bears full responsibility for his own misfortune. Likewise, the Vita Haroldi, fi rst and foremost, casts Harold’s life in the aftermath of Hastings as a journey of penance. Characterized as “secular hagiography,” the Vita tells explicitly of Harold’s profound guilt and regret at losing his kingdom, qualifying his period living among the “savage Welsh,” in particular, as a exercise in Christ-like suffering.125 Replete with miracles and lengthy digressions into biblical interpretation, the Vita follows the inner struggle of a king as he ponders his failure to protect his kingdom from harm, a mindset some have also seen in Sir Orfeo.126 The penitential qualities in both stories echoes a sentiment found throughout the chronicle accounts of the Conquest, on both sides of the confl ict, that the Anglo-Saxons brought their suffering on themselves and were now being made to repent. Finally, both the Vita Haroldi and Sir Orfeo have the royal hero return to civilization at the end only after carefully assessing the relative danger of revealing his identity to his people. Harold ends his suffering among the Welsh by entering the city of Chester, wearing a veil across his face to hide his battle scars, and taking up residence in a small room in St. John’s church. Although he quickly becomes a source of curiosity to visitors wanting to hear the story of the Battle of Hastings, he never reveals his identity despite his clear acceptance among the common people. Orfeo too reenters Winchester, his city, under disguise, and maintains that disguise until he can fully test the loyalty of his steward and other members of his hall. These instances of disguised return in the Vita and Orfeo also accord with similar episodes discussed above in connection with King Horn, scenes linked specifically to the outlaw tradition. Again, as with the earlier outlaw narratives, it would be difficult to argue for direct source influence between the Vita Haroldi and Sir Orfeo. Nevertheless, both stories, relate

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the experience of a vulnerable king, forced into disguise and exile, and ultimately redeemed by the unwavering loyalty of his own beloved people. In essence, Sir Orfeo shares numerous parallels, both in terms of plot structure and material culture within the poem, with several of the stories of the English outlaw tradition, including the stories of Hereward the Wake, Eadric the Wild, and Harold Godwinson. Orfeo’s path of loss of his kingdom due to mounted invasion, wilderness exile in the guise of a pilgrim, and disguised return all fi nd powerful parallels in the stories of the dispossessed historical figures of Hereward, Eadric, and Harold, all of whom tried to fight back. These texts participate in a larger tradition rooted in Anglo-Saxon resistance to conquest, one in which a poet depicting the exile of a king dwelling in Winchester would have found a rich font of narrative elements. The same theme of loss and exile, however, applies not only to royalty and nobility, but also to more ordinary people, as seen in the story of Gamelyn.

THE TALE OF GAMELYN One fi nal Middle English text where we fi nd a powerful influence of the story of Hereward the Wake is The Tale of Gamelyn (c. 1350), another poem from the Northeast Midlands, possibly Lincolnshire, where the story of Hereward flourished.127 Unlike the previous texts discussed in this chapter, this influence does not take the form of direct source influence from texts preserving the life of Hereward, as in King Horn and Havelok the Dane. Instead, it derives from certain aspects of the historical experience of Hereward and his followers, corroborated by contemporary chronicle accounts, namely their use of the forest as a refuge from oppression and as a base of operation for resistance. Scholarship on Gamelyn has focused largely on the story’s future, quite understandably, since it became associated with two famous medieval figures: Geoffrey Chaucer and Robin Hood.128 Whether by accident or by purpose, a copy of Gamelyn was bound together with an early manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, falling at the end of the unfi nished Cook’s Tale, leading some scholars to postulate that Chaucer had intended to adapt The Tale of Gamelyn into a Canterbury Tale. This partnership with the enormously popular Canterbury Tales produced twenty-six manuscript witnesses of the poem, more than any other Middle English romance.129 Later still, the character of Gamelyn reappears in the ballads of Robin Hood, including the “Ballad of Robin Hood and the Stranger,” as “Gamwell,” where he enters the forest, joins Robin’s band of merry men, and changes his name to Will Scadlock (elsewhere known as Will Scarlet).130 Gamelyn’s membership in Robin Hood’s band of outlaws of a later period behooves us to examine what in the story’s past led to this future. Not only is Gamelyn’s own band of “mery men” (l. 774) a precursor of Robin’s merry men, but behind both of these fictional outlaws lies the

140 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance real historical figure of Hereward and his band of Anglo-Saxon noblemen who hid out in the forests, defending their native English lands and people against Norman greed.131 Chronicle accounts of the years following the Norman Conquest capture the political reality of so many Anglo-Saxon noblemen who, upon losing their lands and positions, retreated into exile. The chronicler Ingulph reports of the wholesale Norman seizure of English properties and positions, sometimes by simple verbal oath, and sometimes by the “spur, a body-scraper, a bow, and some with an arrow.” So complete was the transfer of property and wealth that the Normans “would hardly allow any Englishman to attain any honorable position, or to hold any office that conferred any power.”132 The English who did not die in this process, fled. While many of them went abroad to places like Scotland and Denmark, or as far away as Constantinople, many of them sought exile on their native soil.133 Known to Norman officials as “silvatici” (or “forest dwellers”), these disenfranchised Anglo-Saxons, who included powerful men such as Earl Morcar, Earl Edwin, and Aethelwine, Bishop of Durham, used the forest as a base of operation for the guerilla war they would wage against the Normans for several years after the Conquest.134 Orderic Vitalis tells of the English rebels who rallied resistance “de iniuriis et oppressionibus quibus intolerabiliter Angli affligebantur a Normannis et eorum contubernalibus” (“against the injustice and tyranny which the Normans and their comrades-in-arms had inflicted on the English”). The rebels, he says, prepared to defend themselves in “siluas, paludes, [et] aestuaria” (“woods, marshes, and creeks,”) and many of them “in tabernaculis morabantur, in domibus ne mollescerent requiescere dedignabantur; unde quidam eorum a Normannis siluatici cognominabantur” (“lived in tents, disdaining to sleep in houses lest they should become soft; so that the Normans called them ‘wild men’.”)135 The forests, therefore, became associated with political resistance. Of all the Anglo-Saxon noblemen taking to the forest, Hereward, according to Ingulph, was “the only one of them who enjoyed a prosperous end,” and hence his story of forest-based resistance inspired a lasting literary tradition, one that influenced The Tale of Gamelyn.136 Accounts report Hereward and his men using the forest as their hideout and base of operation. Hereward, upon returning to England from Flanders, rallies his followers (700, according to one account) to the forest of Brunneswald near Bourne, Hereward’s homeland.137 Later, in fleeing from Ely, he and his men pass through Brunneswald and set up camp in the forests of Northamptonshire. When Hereward hears of Norman officials sent to route them out, he and his men “concealed all their archers and slingmen positioned in the trees, standing unseen among the branches to discharge their missiles from above,” thus allowing Hereward an advantage in advancing “beneath the woodland trees under cover of their archers.” After successfully ambushing the Norman officials, Hereward and his men once again “retired to the forest for protection.”138 Thus the story of Hereward, together with

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chronicle accounts of the Anglo-Saxon silvatici, establishes the precedent for the “merry men” of The Tale of Gamelyn. The band of forest dwellers whom Gamelyn joins resembles the AngloSaxon silvatici fi rst and foremost in their gentility. Like Hereward and his men, the forest men of the poem are referred to as “outlawes” (ll. 637, 660, 669). Nevertheless, their speech and demeanor reveal a surprising level of refi nement.139 For example, upon hearing Gamelyn and Adam advancing toward their area, the leader of the outlaws says to his men “‘ʒonge men . . . by the goode roode,/I am war of gestes god sende vs non but goode!’” (ll. 639–640), and promptly dispatches a couple of men to stop and question Gamelyn. Such a clear chain of command, adherence to the terms and customs of hospitality, and references to divine gifts all suggest noble origins. Nor do his men disappoint him, addressing Gamelyn and Adam as “ʒonge men” (l. 648) when telling them to disarm, and inviting them “myldely and stille” (l. 655) before their leader. Interesting, when Gamelyn fi rst spies the men in the forest, he anticipates the real possibility that they might in fact be of noble origin, again using hospitality as the test. Gamelyn says to Adam “‘If that he be hende and come of gentil blood,/He wol ʒeue vs mete and drynk and doon vs som good’” (ll. 663–664), a test which the outlaw leader passes when he “bad hem ete and drynke and that of the beste” (l. 680), thus treating these “gestes” with particular honor in conferring the best of what they have. Later in the poem, after evading imprisonment until his trial, Gamelyn returns to the woods “And fond there pleying ʒonge men of prys” (l. 772). Far from being hardened criminals, these are men of “prys” (reputation, worth) who enjoy sporting.140 This portrait accords with Maurice Keen’s observations of the outlaw tradition as a whole, whereby men take to the forest not for reasons of social class such as trying to escape an unfree status.141 Thus, the band of forest dwellers of Gamelyn are homeless men who, nevertheless, display civility and grace on the order of the silvatici, whose ranks included earls. Gamelyn’s experience of joining, and eventually leading, the outlaws in the forest in Gamelyn parallels Hereward’s rise to power among displaced Anglo-Saxons already marginalized due to political circumstances. Gamelyn boasts respectable lineage (“‘born of a lady and geten of a knight,’” l. 108), despite his present reality.142 Moreover, Gamelyn does not form a band of followers; he fi nds them. The poem provides sufficient opportunity for Gamelyn to form his own band of men who could have followed him into the forest. For instance, when Gamelyn wins the wrestling competition (l. 287ff.), he returns home victorious with a “grete rowte” (l. 285) of friends and admirers who strike fear in Gamelyn’s brother. Gamelyn forces his way into the barred gate, tosses the porter into the well, and proceeds to entertain this large crowd for seven days and seven nights (l. 327). Clearly then, Gamelyn has a group of compatriots who could serve as allies in his struggle for personal justice. This does not happen, however. Instead, Gamelyn sets out from his home with a single companion, Adam

142 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance Spencer, and fi nds in the forest a separate group of men, already established as a social unit with their own agenda, and quite large in number (“Seuene score,” l. 628). The men very quickly recognize Gamelyn’s strength and ability and make him second in command within a matter of three weeks (l. 686). Eight lines later, Gamelyn himself becomes their “kyng” (l. 694). Like Gamelyn, Hereward before him discovered many men of similar circumstances and joined with them, quickly becoming their leader.143 Upon returning to England from Flanders, Hereward, along with a single companion, Martin Lightfoot, sought out men in similarly dispossessed circumstances “wanting to help any friends or neighbors who perhaps might still be alive in the place.”144 As word of his strength and ability spreads, more and more Anglo-Saxons join his ranks, so that “day by day [Hereward] saw his force growing larger with fugitives, the condemned and disinherited.”145 In fact, according to Gaimar, Hereward’s followers, like the forest men of Gamelyn, are numbered at an unusual, unrounded quantity involving the number seven (seven hundred, l. 5,553, vs. seven score in Gamelyn). Thus, Gamelyn’s integration and rise to prominence within an organized band of men living in genteel exile in the forest closely resembles Hereward’s own rise to prominence among the disenfranchised Anglo-Saxon noblemen following the Conquest. The outlaw leader Gamelyn succeeds in the poem, in fact, faces circumstances that suggest those of Hereward and his displaced followers. Not long after Gamelyn assumes the position of second in command, the outlaw leader received news: Within the thridde wyke him com tydyng, To the maister outlawe that tho was her kyng, That he schulde come hom his pees was i-mad; And of that goode tydyng he was tho ful glad. Tho seyde he to his ʒonge men soth for to telle, “Me ben comen tydynges I may no lenger dwelle.” (ll. 687–692)

Two details of this passage recall the social predicament shared by many Anglo-Saxon noblemen immediately following the Conquest. First, the outlaw leader seems to have taken up exile in the forest not by choice but as a last resort. The mention that “his pees was i-mad” suggests political/ familial circumstances of sufficient severity to drive him to seek safety elsewhere. The “elsewhere,” moreover, could not be some other city or town, but required him to withdraw from civilization altogether, precisely the nature of the circumstances that drove the Anglo-Saxon noblemen, including Hereward, into the forests when their lands were confiscated.146 They were not safe out in the open. Second, the outlaw leader’s joy upon receiving welcoming news from home indicates that he prefers home to exile in the woods, again suggesting he chose exile out of political expediency not out of choice. Given the opportunity to resume his former place in his community,

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he takes it. The band of outlaws in Gamelyn, therefore, provides a tight, though temporary, support network for the outlaw leader and others facing similar circumstances, like Gamelyn himself. It is interesting to note that the primary function of the band of outlaws in Gamelyn, as with the historical silvatici, seems to revolve around providing loyal support for its members and the wider community, rather than engaging in random criminal activity.147 The men perceive themselves as a separate, peaceable, yet alternate social system that recognizes an alternate leader.148 Several times, the poet refers to the head outlaw as their “kyng” (ll. 660, 669, 688), a status conferred by coronation with an actual crown (ll. 671, 694). Under the command of their king, the forest men are surprisingly law-abiding.149 When Gamelyn and Adam Spencer join the outlaw band, the poet indicates no prior record of criminal activity. Nor does Gamelyn fear such behavior from them. Quite the opposite in fact, he expects their leader might be “hende” (“courteous,” l. 663). Once a member of the outlaw band, Gamelyn, along with the other forest men, commits no random acts of violence, so that “Whil Gamelyn was outlawed hadde he no cors;/There was no man that for him ferde the wors” (ll. 779–780). Members of the community, such as the farm hands and their families from Gamelyn’s rightful lands, look to Gamelyn for honest support and leadership (ll. 699–713) against oppression, which he promises to them.150 In fact, Gamelyn’s violent ways diminish once he joins the outlaws. Prior to his joining the outlaws, the poet repeatedly shows Gamelyn physically crushing those who oppose him, while after joining the band, up to the fi nal courtroom scene, the poet instead tends to mediate Gamelyn’s criminal actions (or suggestions of them) by summarizing them and/or casting them off stage. For example, once an outlaw, Gamelyn targets important clergy, including “abbotes and priours monk and chanoun” (l. 781), yet these attacks do not form part of the main action, and they remain entirely retaliatory in response to those clergy who willingly and publicly mocked him while he was tied to a post in his own hall (ll. 480–488), events that do form part of the main action. Similarly, Gamelyn’s early intentions of poaching, as stated to the outlaws, are linked to basic need “‘As men that ben hungry and mow no mete fynde’” (l. 675). The one time we see the outlaws in action comes when they accompany Gamelyn to his “trial,” the outcome of which has already been predetermined by corrupt officials to result in Gamelyn’s execution. Despite his clear desire for revenge, Gamelyn checks Adam Spencer’s blood lust, insisting “‘We wil slee the giltyf and lat the other go,’” (l. 822), again showing the hero’s reasoned discretion in meting out punishment. If anything, the true criminals of Gamelyn are the rapacious knights, abbots, and legal officers under the leadership of Gamelyn’s eldest brother, who abuse the legal system for personal gain.151 Thus, like the historical silvatici, the outlaws of Gamelyn form a marginalized yet respectable social system, recognizing a king other than the one on

144 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance the throne, and seek primarily solidarity against corrupt officials, both sacred and secular, ready to strip them of their rights and their land. In The Tale of Gamelyn, we witness, on a small scale, the larger social consequences of the centralized legal innovations of the post-Conquest period which, according to Richard Firth Green, forced people “to re-defi ne social loyalties by turning old folklaw virtues into new crimes against authority.”152 In Chapter 1, I discussed the central confl ict of the poem as a clash of pre- and post-Conquest inheritance practice. Sir Johan’s plan for providing for all three of his sons’ futures, which under pre-Conquest law would model good parental responsibility, becomes, under post-Conquest law, a violation of that same responsibility. Similarly, Gamelyn’s claim to his inheritance upon reaching adulthood, while perfectly reasonable under the old legal system, transforms him into an outlaw under the new order as represented by his older brother. In the meantime, the portrait of the pre-Conquest social system presented in the poem through the figures of Gamelyn and the band of outlaws commemorates good citizenship. In his defeat of the wrestling champion backed by his older brother, Gamelyn successfully defends a fellow man in his community who saw two sons badly defeated by the champion backed by corrupt powers. Working well outside the official legal system, Gamelyn brings about justice for this man and other members of his community. Likewise, the outlaw band forms a community predicated on loyalty, reciprocity, inclusiveness, and support, even for its newest members, like Gamelyn and Adam. The outlaw tradition portrayed in Gamelyn constitutes, among other things, a “last-ditch appeal to older legal strategies.”153 Thus, in addition to criticizing contemporary legal corruption, The Tale of Gamelyn honors the social and legal system that was displaced in the decades following the Conquest in large measure by evoking the honorable “outlaws” who originally defended the old order. The outlaws form a counter-society, an Anglo-Saxon utopia of sorts, whose fairness, justice, and honor serve to indict the ruthless abuse of power in the “civilized” realm, a realm under Norman law.

CONCLUSION Each of the English romances discussed in this chapter draws upon the Greenwood tradition, with its cast of determined resistance fighters, in order to imagine an “empowered Englishness” in the face of actual defeat.154 The salient theme running through all of these poems, and a theme which lies at the core of the story of Hereward the Wake, concerns the struggle to win back that which was lost.155 The heroes of King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Sir Orfeo, and The Tale of Gamelyn do not strive to acquire something new, or to seek out new experiences, or earn social recognition at court, like the hero of chivalric romance. Nor do they begin the story empty-handed. From the start, each of these heroes already has a land to

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govern, and the social rank required to govern it. That land and status, however, are compromised by a second figure, of equal (or even less, as in Havelok) social standing, who in some way deprives the hero of his rightful place, possessions, and recognition. The stories, therefore, revolve around the hero regaining what was lost, to get back to where he started, and in the process regaining (rather than earning anew) proper social recognition. This process involves challenging, and in some cases overcoming, unjust lordship.156 In short, these romances tell stories of conquest and resistance to it. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the well-known story of Hereward’s struggle against the Norman invasion influenced the popular stories of the post-Conquest period told in English. The Middle English King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Sir Orfeo, and The Tale of Gamelyn are usually only grouped together in the broadest sense of their shared language. After all, they differ dramatically in source material, perspective, scope, and plot. Yet, each of these English poems makes use of the English outlaw tradition, rooted in an embattled Anglo-Saxon cultural identity in the post-Conquest period. Horn’s attempts to rescue Rymenhild parallel Hereward’s attempts to rescue the Cornish princess in the Gesta Herewardi, a likeness that would seem merely coincidental were it not for the virtually identical extenuating circumstances faced by each hero, not to mention the central priority of Anglo-Saxon cultural identity in each text. Havelok the Dane, likewise, reshapes the legend of Havelok to prioritize English political crisis, tracking England’s conquest and reconquest, and it does so in large part by drawing upon the Lincolnshire story of Hereward the Wake, especially his alliance with the Danes. Sir Orfeo, while seemingly ahistorical both in terms of its classical source material and plot, also echoes, in style and perspective, Anglo-Saxon elegiac poetry. The Vita Haroldi, the story of Harold Godwinson’s defeat by a mounted invading force, followed by fictional survival and wandering for ten years, followed by his reemergence in a major English city, shares striking similarities with the story of King Orfeo, similarities corroborated by the poem’s material culture, which discriminates pre- from post-Conquest English life. Finally, Gamelyn, the latest of these poems, and in most ways the least historicizing of them all, also alludes to the English outlaw tradition, to the career of Hereward and men like him, in its flattering portrayal of the silvatici, forest dwellers who came to symbolize Anglo-Saxon resistance to Norman rule. Each of these poems demonstrates an affi nity with the English outlaw tradition, suggesting that the outlaw narratives were not quite as marginal to Middle English literature as once thought. Above all, it suggests that these well-known English poems embody a great deal of historical fact within their fictions, sharing distinctly English cultural aspirations that go far beyond mere entertainment.

Conclusion

The purpose of this study has been to sensitize readers to the many and various ways Anglo-Saxon and Norman cultural identities are expressed and differentiated in the Middle English literature of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. I have worked from the premise, all along, that people do not forget who they are, especially when their identity comes under sharp assault, as it did for the Anglo-Saxons in 1066 and beyond. Likewise, people do not easily relax their cultural perceptions of themselves when those perceptions form the basis of unbridled success and gain, as they did for the Normans during that same period. While scholars have long recorded the Norman aristocratic influence that saturates virtually all of the literature of post-Conquest England, English as well as French, native Anglo-Saxon cultural influence in literature of this period has gone largely unacknowledged, even though the Anglo-Saxons remained the vast majority of the English population and important consumers of literature in their own language. Throughout this book, I have mapped out some of the ways certain Middle English romances preserve a memory of the cultural and political dynamics between Anglo-Saxons and Normans brought about by the Conquest. As English romances, these texts capture aspects of native English identity and revisit the injustices originally ushered in by the Conquest and perfected over the following centuries. The enduring sense of cultural difference between conquerors and conquered fi nds expression in these poems in a plot structure centering on conquest from the point of view of the vanquished people, and in various aspects of material culture including buildings, designed landscapes, battle tactics, rituals and ritual objects, and legal codes. Cultural difference also underscores some less tangible, but equally determining features of perspective in these poems, in ways of experiencing the land and envisioning the future. In exploring Anglo-Saxon and Norman identity in Middle English literature, I have aimed not so much to do a comprehensive survey of this question throughout all of Middle English literature, but instead to provide a meaningful sample of texts that capture cultural difference especially vividly and diversely. The earliest of these texts, King Horn, unfolds a plot of conquest and reclamation, featuring two sets of enemies, unconnected to

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one another, who conform to England’s two most prominent historical conquerors: Vikings and Normans. Horn’s father dies at the hands of Vikingstyle invaders at the very start of the poem, and Horn then spends the rest of the narrative in retaliation, fi rst against the seafaring invaders who killed his father, and later against the more sophisticated, though equally treacherous foes who attempt to steal the woman he loves, foes who build and proudly occupy Norman castles. The hero, like all the sympathetic characters of the poem, occupies a hall home that conforms to Anglo-Saxon domestic architecture, and his mother takes refuge in a souterrain, a type of Anglo-Saxon dwelling featured powerfully in the Old English Wife’s Lament. On the two occasions that Horn rescues his beloved from a forced marriage, he distinguishes himself by infi ltrating a castle. One of these scenes, in particular, shares a striking number of narrative features with a similar scene in the Gesta Herewardi, the life of the most famous AngloSaxon resistance fighter, Hereward the Wake. Unlike Hereward, Horn successfully reclaims his kingdom and woman. Thus, King Horn fictionalizes not a conquest but the Conquest, replaying the historical conquests of the past, and profi ling the Normans against the Vikings, by way of imagining a different future. Using fiction to rectify history also comes to bear in the Middle English Havelok the Dane. As in King Horn, the English poet distinguishes the hero and heroine of the story from their respective enemies partly through architecture, associating Havelok and Goldeboru with halls, and Goddard and especially Godrich with castles. Also like Horn, the poem evokes the historical Anglo-Saxon resistance efforts of the late 1060s and early 1070s, including those of Hereward the Wake. Notably, Havelok the Dane revisits the Anglo-Danish alliance between the Danish King Swein and the dispossessed heir to the English throne, Edgar Aetheling, then living in exile in the north. This same Danish expedition to England in response to the Conquest resulted in an alliance with Hereward, precipitating his famous raid on Peterborough Abbey (the Golden Borough) in 1070 with the help of his Danish allies. This Anglo-Danish alliance held out the only hope for the Anglo-Saxons of reconquest and carried with it every expectation of Danish joint possession of England and Denmark. Goldeboru’s very name recalls the Abbey where the struggle for power between Normans, AngloSaxons, and Danes was so vividly dramatized in 1070, the Abbey which became emblematic of England itself, the way Goldeboru is in the poem. The fictional marriage of Havelok and Goldeboru in Havelok the Dane resurrects the historical Anglo-Danish alliance between the royal house of Denmark and the dispossessed Anglo-Saxon royal heir in a narrative of retribution, using fiction to succeed where history failed. History and myth unite to similar ends in the Middle English Sir Orfeo. While cast on a more intimate level, emotionally as well as geographically, than either Horn or Havelok, Sir Orfeo revolves similarly around conquest. King Orfeo’s realm is invaded by a mounted force that kidnaps his wife.

148 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance In response, he assembles a large fighting force and attempts to defend his wife (and realm) using a standard battle tactic of Anglo-Saxon warfare: the shield wall (scheltrom). Like other famous shield walls of history, namely those at Maldon and Hastings, Orfeo’s shield wall fails, driving him into despair and exile. Orfeo’s ten-year exile in the forest draws upon the theme of exile in Old English literature, one of the most enduring and ubiquitous themes in Anglo-Saxon literature. Orfeo’s story of loss and prolonged exile in his homeland also resonates remarkably with the story line of the thirteenth-century Vita Haroldi, the fictional story of Harold Godwinson’s miraculous survival of the Battle of Hastings and subsequent exile in his homeland. Orfeo’s Anglo-Saxon worldview and fighting style are matched by a domestic dwelling characterized as a hall and located in Winchester, the pre-Conquest capital city. Conversely, the leader of the mounted invasion, the Fairy King, whose actions spell loss and exile for Orfeo, lives in a Norman castle and enjoys recreational activities typical of French court culture, and his attention centers on gaining a woman, the focus of countless French chivalric romances. Thus, the struggle over possession of Heurodis in Sir Orfeo brings into relief the cultural difference between Anglo-Saxons and Normans. Two households, alike in dignity, yet of competing Anglo-Saxon and Norman cultural affiliation, also feature in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Like the previous works, Sir Gawain opens with an intrusion that threatens the hero’s identity and demands a response. Also like the earlier works, the Gawain-poet delineates cultural difference through architecture, characterizing Arthur’s Camelot, Gawain’s home, as a hall dwelling and Bertilak’s Hautdesert as a Norman castle. As in Sir Orfeo, the hero wanders alone in the forest in a mental state that recalls the exilic mindset of Old English literature. Sir Gawain, however, goes further than any of the other texts in using landscape as a tool of characterization. The Green Knight’s intrusion into the hall of Camelot is akin to Grendel’s intrusion into Heorot and draws the hero out into the wilderness whose description matches the monster-laden wastelands of Old English literature. The Green Chapel, in its location and description, doubles as an Anglo-Saxon monster barrow of Anglo-Saxon literature and a meeting site for legal proceedings akin to similar sites in late Anglo-Saxon England. Conversely, the green intruder leads an alternate life in a Norman castle surrounded by a landscape of Norman design. Gawain’s journey through both landscapes follows the trajectory of the Conquest through Anglo-Saxon eyes, and history is written on the land. In The Tale of Gamelyn, the repercussions of the Conquest are manifest in the two competing systems of inheritance at odds in the poem, one pre-Conquest and the other post-Conquest. Unlike the previous texts, where cultural difference cuts along the lines of entire communities or courts, in Gamelyn cultural prejudice cuts within a single family, dividing two brothers whose personal allegiances correspond to native English

Conclusion

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and nonnative Norman cultural pictures. Gamelyn’s ailing father prefers a system of inheritance known as coparcenary, or partible inheritance, that typified pre-Conquest inheritance custom, distributing lands and goods evenly among multiple heirs. Young Gamelyn stands to gain from this as the youngest brother in the family. The oldest brother, however, siding with the wealthier knight advisors of the community, insists on the rule of primogeniture, the system of inheritance developed by the Normans whereby the eldest son inherits all of the family wealth. The poem follows Gamelyn and Johan as they each attempt to assert their rights, as well as their control of their hall home. Norman justice appears to win out when Johan becomes sheriff, a position that enables him to manipulate the other Norman legal innovation featured in the poem, the jury. Meanwhile, Gamelyn takes to the forest, joining a group of rather gentile forest-dwelling “outlaws” who prove especially good at surprise attacks. From this point, Gamelyn’s career parallels the career of Hereward the Wake, whose many followers, including Anglo-Saxon noblemen, hid in the forests and launched surprise attacks on Norman contingents. Above all, The Tale of Gamelyn, set in contemporary fourteenth-century England, attests to the persistent of cultural prejudice codified and perpetuated through the post-Conquest legal system. In addition to a pervading theme of conquest and notable consistencies in certain aspects of material culture such as architecture and designed landscapes as measures of cultural difference, two other broad observations regarding these works are worth mentioning. One concerns the role of women in these poems as embodiments of native English identity. It is widely observed that in French chivalric romance, women form the cornerstone of the hero’s project. From its inception, the genre of romance prioritized romantic love, balancing matters of the heart over and against matters of empire. By contrast, Middle English romance, while certainly including romantic interest, does not prioritize love to the same exclusion of political life. Thus, the English hero tends to win his woman while simultaneously reclaiming his kingdom. Such is the case in King Horn, Havelok the Dane, and Sir Orfeo. It would seem, therefore, that women matter less to English poets than to French poets in that they are made to compete with other agendas and people. However, the heroines of Horn, Havelok, and Orfeo all, to a large extent, come to symbolize the realm/nation itself. In rescuing Rymenhild from a castle (in fact, two castles) and bringing her to his newly reclaimed kingdom with its hall home, Horn reasserts his status and identity as an English king against would-be usurpers. Rymenhild becomes every bit as important as the realm. The same holds true for Heurodis; the loss of Heurodis correlates with the loss of Orfeo’s kingdom, and her reclamation correlates with the reclamation of his kingdom. The interconnectedness of the heroine and the realm figures most prominently in Havelok the Dane, where Goldeboru quite literally corresponds to the Golden Borough, Peterborough Abbey, which came to symbolize the nation of England itself during the resistance campaign led by Hereward the Wake

150 Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance in the region of Lincolnshire. She is also, quite literally, the royal heir to the English throne in the poem, and her dispossession and later restoration mirrors the loss and restoration of the realm. These women stand for the nation—the Anglo-Saxon nation, to be precise. Thus, far from playing second fiddle to matters of politics in these works, the heroines and their fates impact far more people, over distance as well as time, than a single besotted hero. While all the poems discussed in this volume stage a cultural encounter between Normans and Anglo-Saxons, they do not all arrive at the same prescription for the future. King Horn and Havelok the Dane take an allor-nothing approach, whereby usurpers are killed outright, sometimes rather dramatically and publically as in the cases of Fikenhild and Godrich. It is not enough for the hero to claim his kingdom; he must punish and/or annihilate his enemies in the process. Sir Orfeo and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight take a more conciliatory approach. King Orfeo does not kill the Fairy King; he simply outwits him and returns to his realm, leaving the Fairy King’s court intact. Orfeo’s earlier military failure against the Fairy King lays the foundation for such an outcome, where the best that Orfeo can expect is a separate-but-equal status. Such is the case, to a large extent, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where Gawain accepts his humiliation at the hands of the Green Knight/Bertilak and respectfully withdraws to return to his own kingdom. Camelot and Hautdesert continue to coexist in mutual, though separate, regard at the end of the poem. The Tale of Gamelyn combines these two styles of ending. The poem closes with a rather violent courtroom brawl to Gamelyn’s advantage, followed by the public hanging of his older brother, the sheriff, and his cronies. However, Gamelyn does not refuse an opportunity to join the powers that be, happily making peace with the king and accepting the position of Chief Justice of the Forest. Thus, in exploring the cultural difference between the conquerors and the conquered, and in reopening lingering prejudices, these poems also explore different responses of the oppressed people to this political reality, ranging from reconquest to cultural exchange. None of them, however, accept defeat.

Notes

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION 1. These lords were Edward of Salisbury, Gospatric, son of Arnkell, Thorkell of Warwick, and Colswein of Lincoln. See David Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery: The Penguin History of Britain 1066–1284 (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 78–79. 2. Stephen Baxter, “Lordship and Labour,” in A Social History of England 900–1200, ed. Julia Crick and Elisabeth van Houts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 98–114, 104–114. 3. Dorothy Whitelock, ed. and trans., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (E) (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1961), 163. 4. Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery, 77. 5. See J. C. Holt, Colonial England 1066–1215 (London: Hambledon Press, 1997). 6. William Aldis Wright, ed., The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, 2 vols., Rolls Series 86 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1887; rept. Kraus, 1965), Vol. 2. 7. Thorlac Turville-Petre, Reading Middle English Literature (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007), 13–25. 8. See also Sarah Mitchell, “Kings, Constitution and Crisis: ‘Robert of Gloucester’ and the Anglo-Saxon Remedy,” in Literary Appropriations of the AngloSaxons from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. Donald Scragg and Carole Weinberg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 39–56. 9. Rosalind Field, “Romance as History, History as Romance,” in Romance in England, ed. Maldwyn Mills, Jennifer Fellows, and Carol M. Meale (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1991), 163–173, 173. 10. Ian Short, “Tam Angli Quam Franci: Self-Defi nition in Anglo-Norman England,” Anglo-Norman Studies 18 (1996): 153–175; John Gillingham, “Henry of Huntington and the Twelfth-Century Revival of the English Nation,” Leeds Texts and Monographs, n.s. 14 (1995): 75–101; on naming patterns, see Robert Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075–1225 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 538–546. 11. Hugh M. Thomas, The English and the Normans: Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation, and Identity, 1066–1220 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 134–137. 12. See R. M. Wilson, The Lost Literature of Medieval England (London: Methuen, 1970). 13. On the fate of the native English aristocracy, see Thomas, The English and the Normans, 105–137. Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin

152

14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26.

27.

Notes Kings, 493–497; Albert C. Baugh, ed., A Literary History of England (New York: Appleton-Century-Croft, Inc., 1948), 109–116; Robert M. Adams, The Land and Literature of England: A Historical Account (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985), 49–53, 76–77; A. W. Ward and A. R. Waller, Cambridge History of English Literature I (New York: G. P. Putnam and Sons, 1907), 165–172; Derek Pearsall, Old English and Middle English Poetry (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), 85–89. Christine Franzen, The Tremulous Hand of Worcester: A Study of Old English in the Thirteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991); Pearsall, Old English and Middle English Poetry, 75. Henry T. Riley, ed. and trans., Ingulph’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1968). Rosalind Field, “Romance in England, 1066–1400,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 152–176, 153; also Susan Crane, “Anglo-Norman Cultures in England, 1066–1460,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, 35–60, 35–43. The Evolution of Norman Identity, 911–1154 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2005), 107–180, 131–133. Webber reads the Norman acceptance of the designation Franci as another expression of their pragmatism regarding their ethnonym, a way they could accommodate their new subjects in the interest of dominion. See The Evolution of Norman Identity, 131–133. See his chapter “The Defense of English Honor,” in The English and the Normans, 241–260. Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery, 7. See Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery, 4; also Thorlac Turville-Petre, England the Nation: Language, Literature, and National Identity 1290–1340 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 1–10. Bonifice of Savoy became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1241. See Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery, 342. On the loss of Normandy, see Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 25–28. Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery, 8–9. See Ivana Djordjević, “Saracens and Other Saxons: Using, Misusing, and Confusing Names in Gui de Warewic and Guy of Warwick,” in The Exploitations of Medieval Romance, ed. Laura Ashe, Ivana Djordjević, and Judith Weiss (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), 28–42, 42. One of the most famous episodes from Gui de Warewic, for instance, involving Gui’s fight with Colbrond, appears to be based on the victory of Athelstan and his brother Edmund over the Viking invader, Anlaf (Olaf III Guthfrithson), at Brunanburh in 937, a victory recorded in multiple medieval sources. The occurrence of the names Athelstan and Anlaf within the poem attest to this. However, the victory at Brunanburh took place in the north, possibly Yorkshire or Scotland, not in the vicinity of Winchester, as in the poem. See Laura Hibbard, Mediaeval Romance in England: A Study of the Sources and Analogues of the Non-Cyclic Metrical Romances (New York: Burt Franklin, 1969), 132–133; Jim Bradbury, The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare (London: Routledge, 2004), 136. Boeve de Haumptone features an English hero living in pre-Conquest England, but the origins of the story appear to be continental. For an overview of its origins, see Hibbard, Mediaeval Romance in England, 119–124. On the story of Gui within the context of French literary tradition, see Velma Bourgeois Richmond, The Legend of Guy of Warwick (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.,

Notes

28. 29. 30. 31.

32.

33.

34.

35. 36. 37.

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1996), 37–48. On the influence of the chanson de geste on medieval romance in England, see Melissa Furrow, “Chanson de geste as Romance in England,” in The Exploitations of Medieval Romance, 57–72; Marianne Ailes, “The AngloNorman Boeve de Haumptone as a chanson de geste,” in Sir Bevis of Hampton in Literary Tradition, ed. Jennifer Fellows and Ivana Djordjević (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2008), 9–24; Judith Weiss, “Insular Beginnings: Anglo-Norman Romance,” in A Companion to Romance from Classical to Contemporary, ed. Corinne Saunders (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 26–44, 30–34; also the essays by Ivana Djordjević, Rosalind Field, and Alison Wiggins corroborating the consistency between the Anglo-Norman Gui and the Middle English Guy collected in Guy of Warwick: Icon and Ancestor, ed. Alison Wiggins and Rosalind Field (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2007), 27–43, 44–60, 61–80. See Robert Allen Rouse, The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2005), 114. Turville-Petre, England the Nation, 6–7; Judith Weiss, trans., Boeve de Hamptone and Gui de Warewic: Two Anglo-Norman Romances (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2008), 1–2. W. R. J. Barron, English Medieval Romance (London: Longman, 1987), 74. Judith Weiss, “Emperors and Antichrists: Reflections of Empire in Insular Narrative,” in The Matter of Identity in Medieval Romance, ed. Phillipa Hardman (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002), 87–102. Rosalind Field conjectures that English adaptations of these Anglo-Norman romances would make these stories available to the children and grandchildren of Anglo-Norman families who may have felt more comfortable with English as a first language. See her “Patterns of Availability and Demand in Middle English Translations de romanz,” in The Exploitations of Medieval Romance, 73–89, 88. Field classifies Guy of Warwick along with Middle English romances derived from specific French sources and Beves of Hamptoun with Middle English romances bearing an indirect relationship with any French source. Field, “Patterns of Availability,” in The Exploitations of Medieval Romance, 76–77. Whereas Beves does include substantial additional episodes, such as the hero’s fight with a dragon, the overall characterization of the hero along the lines of French literary tradition remains intact in the Middle English version. Hibbard, Mediaeval Romance in England , 133. On the additional episodes in Beves of Hamptoun, see Albert C. Baugh, “The Making of Beves of Hampton,” in Bibliographical Studies in Honor of Rudolf Hirsch, ed. William Miller and Thomas G. Waldman (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Library, 1975), 15–37. Based on his study of the manuscript evidence, Baugh proposes that the Middle English Beves is a translation of an AngloNorman version, which in turn is a translation of a lost English original. Field, “Romance as History, History as Romance,” in Romance in England, 163–173, 173; Judith Weiss notes that both Boeve de Haumtone and Gui de Warewic express the Norman interest in the past history of the adopted country. See Weiss, trans., Boeve de Haumtone and Gui de Warewic, 1–2. England the Nation; also his “Politics and Poetry in the Early Fourteenth Century,” Review of English Studies, n.s. 39 (1988): 1–28; “Havelok and the History of the Nation,” in Readings in Medieval English Romance, ed. Carole M. Meale (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1994), 121–134. England the Nation, 108–141. A Crisis of Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). Mark Amodio, Writing the Oral Tradition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 2004), 129–202; also Seth Lerer, “Old English and Its Afterlife,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, 7–34.

154 Notes 38. See his Early English Meter (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 120. Working with verse of Layamon and his contemporaries, Bredehoft argues that “just as the rules for late Old English verse seem to have clearly derived from the rules of classical Old English verse, the early Middle English rules discussed here can be seen as an evolutionary development from . . . late Old English verse” (100). 39. The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance, 160. 40. Elaine Treharne, Living Through Conquest: The Politics of Early English 1020–1220 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 121. 41. The “Matter of England” as a classification of certain English romances is a modern scholarly expansion of Jean Bodel’s twelfth-century system of classifying narrative subjects into three Matters of France, Rome, and Britain (specifically Arthurian legend). See Jean Bodel, La Chanson des Saisnes. 2 vols. (Geneva, Librairie Droz, 1989), 6–7. On the development and problematic nature of the term, see Rosalind Field, “The Curious History of the Matter of England,” in Boundaries in Medieval Romance, ed. Neil Cartlidge (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 2008), 29–42; also her “Waldef and the Matter of/with England,” in Medieval Insular Romance: Translation and Innovation, ed. Judith Weiss, Jennifer Fellows, and Morgan Dickson (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000), 25–39. 42. See W. R. J. Barron, English Medieval Romance. Barron classifies Sir Orfeo generally under “The Matter of Romance” as a “Derivative of the Matter of Rome” and Sir Gawain under “The Matter of Britain,” 186–190, 166–176. 43. Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 900–1300 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 266. 44. See Michael Lacy, “Armour I,” in A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, ed. Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1999), 165–173.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 1 1. See, for example, Edward D. Kennedy, “Sir Orfeo as Rex Inutilis,” Annuale Mediaevale 17 (1976): 88–110; Oren Falk, “The Son of Orfeo: Kingship and Compromise in a Middle English Romance,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30 (2000): 247–274; Susan Crane, Insular Romance: Politics, Faith, and Culture in Anglo-Norman and Middle English Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Rob Barrett, Against All England: Regional Identity and Cheshire Writing, 1195–1656 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009); David Staines, “Havelok the Dane: A Thirteenth-Century Handbook for Princes,” Speculum 51 (1976): 602– 623; Christopher Stuart, “Havelok the Dane and Edward I in the 1290’s,” Studies in Philology 93 (1996): 349–364. 2. See, for instance, Rosalind Field, “Romance as History, History as Romance,” in Romance in Medieval England, ed. Maldwyn Mills, Jennifer Fellows, and Carole M. Meale (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1991), 163–173; Diane Speed, “The Saracens of King Horn,” Speculum 65 (1990): 564–595. 3. Lee C. Ramsey identifies large-scale combat involving whole armies and kingdoms as one of the distinguishing features of Middle English romance, as opposed to French romance, which favors one-on-one combat. While the English hero may engage in single combat as part of these larger confl icts, combat in the English romances tends to involve armies who fight over political encroachments. See Ramsey, Chivalric Romances: Popular Literature in Medieval England (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 52. Given

Notes

4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15.

16.

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the large scale of combat in English romance, some scholars have sought parallels with French heroic epic rather than French romance. See Stylistic and Narrative Structures in the Middle English Romances (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978), 168–169, 173–178, 182–189. See, for example, John Finlayson, “King Horn and Havelok the Dane: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” Medievalia et Humanistica, New Series 18 (1992): 17–45, 18. Rosalind Field, “The King Over the Water: Exile-and-Return Revisited,” in Cultural Encounters in the Romance of Medieval England, ed. Corinne Saunders (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2005), 41–53; also her “Romance as History, History as Romance,” in Romance in Medieval England, 163–173. Creation, Migration, and Conquest: Imaginary Geography and Sense of Space in Old English Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Charlotte D’Evelyn and Anna J. Mill, eds., The South English Legendary, EETS OS 235, 236, 244 (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), Vol. 1, 8–15. D’Evelyn and Mill edit from Corpus Christi College MS. 145 and British Museum MS. Harley 2277 with variants from Bodley MS. Ashmole 43 and British Museum MS. Cotton Julius D.IX. An earlier edition of the South English Legendary is Carl Horstmann, ed., The Early South English Legendary, EETS OS 87 (London: Trubner & Co., 1887). Horstmann provides an edition of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 108, which also contains Havelok the Dane. See also Jill Frederick, “The South English Legendary: Anglo-Saxon Saints and National Identity,” in Literary Appropriations of the Anglo-Saxons from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. Donald Scragg and Carole Weinberg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 57–73, 64–65. Susan Wittig, Stylistic and Narrative Structures in the Middle English Romances, 106–109. Richard Underwood, Anglo-Saxon Weapons and Warfare (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing, Ltd., 1999), 107–119. See Paul Battles, “‘Contending Throng’ Scenes and the Comitatus Ideal in Old English Poetry, with Special Attention to The Battle of Maldon 122a,” Studia Neophilologica 83 (2011): 41–53. Ibid., 44–45. Renée Trilling, The Aesthetics of Nostalgia: Historical Representation in Old English Verse (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 87–89. See Charles W. Dunn, “Romances Derived from English Legends,” in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050 –1500, 11 vols., ed. J. Burke Severs, Albert E. Hartung, Peter G. Beidler, and John Edwin Wells (New Haven: The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1967), Vol. 1, 17–37, 18. On the corpus of the Matter of England, see W. R. J. Barron, English Medieval Romance (London: Longman, 1987), 63–88; on the history and intellectual debate surrounding the Matter of England as a literary category, see Rosalind Field, “The Curious History of the Matter of England,” in Boundaries in Medieval Romance, ed. Neil Cartlidge (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 2008), 29–42. The manuscripts containing King Horn are Harleian 2253 in the British Museum; Laud Misc. 108 in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; and MS Gg.4.27.2 in the University Library at Cambridge. The Cambridge manuscript is considered the oldest and best, and is the one used for this study. Laud Misc. 108 contains the South English Legendary. See Donald B. Sands,

156 Notes

17.

18.

19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

24.

25. 26.

27.

ed., Middle English Verse Romances (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1966), 15; Joseph Hall, King Horn: A Middle English Romance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901), vii–xv. For recent studies on Laud Misc. 108, see Kimberly K. Bell and Julie Nelson Couch, eds., The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108: The Shaping of English Vernacular Narrative (Leiden: Brill, 2010). Walter Hoyt French and Charles Brockway Hale, eds., identify “Sudene” as the Isle of Man, “Westernesse” as possibly “Wirral,” and “Reynes” as “Furness, northern Lancashire.” See Middle English Romances (New York: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1930), 53. W. H. Schofi eld argues for “Suddene” as the Isle of Man, “Westir” as Ireland, and “Westernesse” as the Wirral. His study treats the geography of the poem extensively and summarizes various early theories concerning the poem’s place names. See his “The Story of King Horn and Rimenhild,” Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 18 (1903): 1–83; also Laura Hibbard, Medieval Romance in England (New York: Burt Franklin, 1969), 91. For further discussion of the possible derivations of the place names in King Horn, see Walter Oliver, “King Horn and Suddene,” Proceedings of the Modern Language Assocation 46 (1931): 102–114. Sands, Middle English Verse Romances, 15; Finlayson insists that “the Horn story has not a scrap of historical validity” in “King Horn and Havelok the Dane: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” 18; also Barron, English Medieval Romance, 65–69. Mary Hynes-Berry, “Cohesion in King Horn and Sir Orfeo,” Speculum 50 (1975): 656–659, 659. Hynes-Berry ties these two sets of enemies to what she feels are two separate plot lines, one set (King Mody and Fikenhild) pertaining to the love affair of Horn and Rymenhild, and the other (the Saracens) pertaining to the heroic element in the story, including the long time span. See her “Cohesion in King Horn and Sir Orfeo,” 664. Dorothy Whitelock, ed. and trans., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (E) (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1961), 199. Mildred K. Pope and T. B. W. Reid, eds., The Romance of Horn, 2 vols. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1955–1964), Vol. II, 19–20, and, on the dating of the poem, 123–124. On the French influence in King Horn, see Finlayson, “King Horn and Havelok the Dane: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” 17–45; Speed, “The Saracens of King Horn,” 564–595; Field, “Romance as History, History as Romance,” in Romance in Medieval England, 163–173; also Hynes-Berry, “Cohesion in King Horn and Sir Orfeo,” 656–658. All citations to King Horn, unless otherwise indicated, are from the Cambridge manuscript from Hall, ed., King Horn: A Middle English Romance. In the interest of clarity, I have substituted the “s” as represented by an “f” in Hall’s edition with an “s”; Speed, “The Saracens of King Horn.” On the topography of the Anglo-Norman version, see Mildred K. Pope and T. B. W. Reid, eds., The Romance of Horn, Vol. II, 4–6. According to R. Allen Brown, the Bretons were “the most numerous of those contingents of non-Norman volunteers who followed the duke to England in 1066.” See The Normans and the Norman Conquest (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1968 and 1985), 128; K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, “William I and the Breton Contingent in the Non-Norman Conquest of 1066–1087,” AngloNorman Studies 13 (1990): 157–172. See Laura Ashe, Fiction and History in England, 1066–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 146–158.

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28. Dieter Mehl likens Horn to a saga or chronicle rather than any kind of chivalric romance. See The Middle English Romances of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 48–51. 29. Hall, King Horn: A Middle English Romance, 96–97; Sands, Middle English Verse Romances, 16; Ronald B. Herzman, Graham Drake, and Eve Salisbury, eds., Four Romances of England (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, Medieval Institute Publications, 1999), 12; Barron, English Medieval Romance, 65. 30. See “The Saracens of King Horn,” 564–595; also Robert Mills, “The Early South English Legendary and Difference: Race, Place, Language, and Belief,” in The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108 (Leiden: Brill, 2011) 197–221, 213–215. The most recent edition of King Horn appears in Herzman, Drake, and Salisbury, eds., Four Romances of England, 11–70, 12; in a recent article, Phillipa Hardman and Marianne Ailes fi nd a middle ground, agreeing with Speed’s identification of the Saracens in Horn as Muslims, but concede that English audiences would hear “an echo of the insular experience of raiding Vikings.” For this point and a broader survey of Saracens in several other Middle English romances, see their “Crusading, Chivalry and the Saracen World in Insular Romance,” in Christianity and Romance in Medieval England, ed. Rosalind Field, Phillipa Hardman, and Michelle Sweeney (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), 45–65, 50. 31. According to Speed, the Cambridge text of King Horn refers to the Saracens twelve times as “payn” (pagan), “heϸene honde” (heathen dog) once, and “hundes” another five times. The Oxford text refers to them as “paynim” seven times as a variant of “payn.” It replaces the word “payn” elsewhere with “hunde” three times (78, 87, 897). See “The Saracens of King Horn,” 573. For canine imagery in the depiction of the Vikings, see The Battle of Maldon, l. 96, where they are referred to as “waelwulfas” (“wolves of slaughter”), and earlier as “haeϸene” 55. 32. In Bevis of Hamptoun, for instance, the hero calls his Muslim enemies “hethene hounde” (l. 692, 1006ff.). 33. In the Romance of Horn, the Saracens are sometimes referred to as “felun(s)” (“treacherous,” ll. 1,675, 3,662), but not as dog-like. 34. On the use of the term “Saracens” to refer to Danes, see Ivana Djordjević, “Saracens and Other Saxons: Using, Misusing, and Confusing Names in Gui de Warewic and Guy of Warwick,” in The Exploitations of Medieval Romance, ed. Laura Ashe, Ivana Djordjević, and Judith Weiss (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), 28–42, 34–35. 35. See O. D. Macrae-Gibson, ed., Of Arthour and of Merlin, Vol. 1, EETS OS 268 (London: Oxford University, 1973). Siobhain Bly Calkin characterizes the Saracens of Of Arthour and of Merlin as “hybrid East-West Saracens,” a blend of the Middle Eastern foe of crusading tradition, and the northern European foe of English historical experience that “writes these Saracens into a narrative of English history.” Such a reading does not preclude viewing them as Vikings. See Saracens and the Making of English Identity: The Auchinleck Manuscript (New York: Routledge, 2005), 173. 36. See Maldwyn Mills, ed., Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild: From the Auchinleck Manuscript (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1988). The stereotype of Viking “wolves” also appears in Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle of c. 1300, where he speaks of the Viking attacks on the people of East Anglia as those of “wolves among ssep” (“wolves among sheep,” l. 5,299). William Aldis Wright, ed., The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, 2 vols., Rolls Series 86 (London, 1887; reprt. Kraus Reprint Ltd., 1965).

158 Notes 37. In his edition of King Horn, Hall notes this gesture of dismounting before going to battle as distinctly Anglo-Saxon (97). See Miles Campbell and Michael R. Powicke, “Armies and Military Service: Anglo Saxon Armies,” in Medieval England: An Encyclopedia, ed. Paul E. Szarmach, M. Teresa Tavormina, and Joel T. Rosenthal (New York: Garland Publishers, 1998), 73–74. 38. Horn Childe includes a previous scene where Hatheolf fights the Danes (ll. 49–84), in which he rides out to meet the army, but it does not indicate clearly whether he fought on foot, as in the second battle in which he dies. 39. Scholars have found analogues to this duel with the giant in both Germanic as well as French literary tradition, where a champion within a larger invading force challenges the court to a one-on-one duel, the result of which determines the fate of the kingdom. George H. McKnight fi nds similar episodes in the Saxo Grammaticus as well the historic duel between Cnut and Edmund Ironsides as recorded in Gaimar’s L’Estoire (vv. 4,255ff.). See “Germanic Elements in the Story of King Horn,” Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 15 (1900): 221–232, 228–229. Speed compares this episode in Horn with similar ones in the Old French Otinel, the Chanson de Roland and Fierabras, for example. See “The Saracens of King Horn,” 577–580. 40. See Chapter 1, this volume, pp. 62–63. 41. Matthew Bennett, Jim Bradbury, Kelly DeVries, Iain Dickie, and Phyllis Jestice, Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World AD 500 to AD 1500: Equipment, Combat, Skills, and Tactics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006), 21, 92. The combination of infantry combat and mounted pursuit gave the Anglo-Saxons great versatility on the battlefield. 42. Bennett et al., Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World AD 500 to AD 1500, 19. 43. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, trans., Asser’s Life of King Alfred, I.42. 44. Jim Bradbury, The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare (New York: Routledge, 2004), 150–151; also Bennett et al., Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World AD 500 to AD 1500, 21–22, 96–97. 45. This is the case for most of the texts discussed in relation to King Horn by Speed, “The Saracens of King Horn.” 46. I have used Donald B. Sand’s edition of Horn for this quote, which combines lines from MSS. O and C. 47. Finlayson, “King Horn and Havelok the Dane: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” 27–30. 48. See Dieter Mehl, The Middle English Romances of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, 50. 49. In both Yvain and Erec of Chrétien, the martial testing of the hero to prove himself worthy of his lady takes up most of the second half of each narrative. 50. Hynes-Berry, “Cohesion in King Horn and Sir Orfeo,” 660. 51. For Rimenhild’s home as an Anglo-Saxon style hall, see Chapter 2, p. 63; for how Rimenhild’s conduct during the wedding feast for her and King Mody is modeled on the topos of the lady with the mead cup, see Chapter 4, pp. 117–119. 52. See Joseph Harris, “Love and Death in the Männerbund: An Essay with Specific Reference to the Bjarkamál and the Battle of Maldon,” in Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period: Studies in Honor of Jess B. Bessinger, Jr., ed. Helen Damico and John Leyerle (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, Medieval Institute Publications, 1993), 77–114. On the importance of Athulf, see Hynes-Berry, “Cohesion in King Horn and Sir Orfeo,” 662;

Notes

53.

54.

55. 56.

57.

58.

59.

60. 61.

62.

159

Andrew Lynch, “Genre, Bodies, and Power in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108: King Horn, Havelok, and the South English Legendary, in The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108, 177–196, 189–191. “‘& alle his feren twelf He schal kniʒten him self: Alle he schal hem kniʒte Bifore me ϸis niʒte.’” (ll. 489–492) The alliance and support Horn fi nds in Ireland has precedent in pre-Conquest English history, whereby prominent Anglo-Saxons regularly found temporary refuge in Ireland and returned with Irish reinforcements to reassert their political claims. See Marie Therese Flanagan, Irish Society, AngloNorman Settlers, Angevin Kingship: Interactions with Ireland in the Late Twelfth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 58–61; Kimberly K. Bell, “‘Holie Mannes Liues’: England and Its Saints in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108’s King Horn and South English Legendary,” in The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108, 251–274, 269–274. George H. McKnight traces the hero’s companions to Germanic tradition, though their role in King Horn is abridged given the French influence of the love story. See “Germanic Elements in the Story of King Horn,” 223. On the solitary and strictly personal nature of combat in French chivalric romance, see Erich Auerbach, “The Knight Sets Forth,” in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), 123–142. On the dating of Havelok the Dane, see W. W. Skeat, ed., The Lay of Havelok the Dane, 2nd ed., rev. K. Sisam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1915; reprt. 1939), xxiii–xxv; Dunn dates the poem to 1280–1300. See “Romances Derived from Middle English,” in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, Vol. I, 17–37, 22. The single, complete manuscript witness of Havelok the Dane is MS Laud Misc. 108 in the Bodleian Library and is followed consecutively by King Horn. Fragments of the poem survive in Cambridge University Library Add. 4407. See Skeat and Sisam, The Lay of Havelok the Dane, viii–xi. The Prose Brut (latest versions dating to 1307), surviving in 50 manuscripts in Anglo-Norman, 180 in English, and 20 in Latin, is by far the most popular medieval source for the Havelok legend. Nevertheless, it contains the briefest treatment of the story, drawn primarily from Gaimar. While later versions of the chronicle show the influence of the Middle English Havelok in the substitution of the names “Goldeburgh” for “Argentille” and “Birkebein” for “Gunter” of earlier versions, they do not adopt the more sweeping changes introduced by the English poet. See Julia Marvin, “Havelok in the Prose Brut Tradition,” Studies in Philology 102 (2005): 280–306. See Julie Nelson Couch, “The Magic of Englishness in St. Kenelm and Havelok the Dane,” in The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108, 223–250, 223. See his England the Nation: Language, Literature, and National Identity 1290–1340 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 149–153; also Robert Allen Rouse, The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2005), 156. David Staines, “Havelok the Dane: A Thirteenth-Century Handbook for Princes”; Christopher Stuart, “Havelok the Dane and Edward I in the 1290’s.” Stuart proposes general comparisons between Edward’s political affairs in Scotland in the latter part of his reign and Havelok’s affairs in Denmark (pp.

160

63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

68.

69.

70. 71.

72.

73. 74. 75. 76. 77.

Notes 361–363); also Ananya J. Kabir, “Forging an Oral Style?: ‘Havelok’ and the Fiction of Orality,” Studies in Philology 98 (2001): 18–48, 31–32, 46–47; Sheila Delany and Vahan Ishkanian, “Theocratic and Contractual Kingship in Havelok the Dane,” Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 22 (1974): 290–302; Crane, Insular Romance, 40–52. “The South English Legendary: Anglo-Saxon Saints and National Identity,” in Literary Appropriations of the Anglo-Saxons from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century, 67–73. Horstmann, ed., The Early South English Legendary. See Kimberly K. Bell, “Resituating Romance: The Dialectics of Sanctity in MS Laud Misc. 108’s Havelok the Dane and Royal Vitae,” Parergon 25 (2008): 27–51, 41–42. All citations of Havelok the Dane are from Skeat and Sisam, eds., The Lay of Havelok the Dane. See Geff rei Gaimar, L’Estoire des Engleis, ed. Alexander Bell and AngloNorman Text Society (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960), Nos. 14, 15, 16. The Havelok segment has been translated by Stephen Shepherd in Middle English Romances (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), 319–329, 320. All citations and references to the Lai d’Haveloc are from Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy and Charles T. Martin, eds., Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1888; reprt. Kraus Reprint Ltd., 1966), Vol. 1. It is worth noting that a later version of the story of Havelok in Castleford’s Chronicle (c. 1327) preserves the earlier formulation found in Gaimar and the Lai of several rival kings, rather than a single king as in Havelok the Dane. See Caroline D. Eckhardt, “Havelok the Dane in Castleford’s Chronicle,” Studies in Philology 98 (2001): 1–17, 4. See Thorlac Turville-Petre, England the Nation, 147–149. Of the Anglo-Saxon coinage recovered by archaeologists, twenty-four percent comes from London mints, ten percent from York, nine percent from Lincoln, and seven percent from Winchester, roughly half of the nation’s wealth. See T. A. Shippey, “Winchester in the Anglo-Saxon Period and After,” in Winchester History and Literature: Proceedings of a Conference in Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Founding of King Alfred’s College Held on the 16th March 1991, ed. Simon Barker and Colin Haydon (Winchester: King Alfred’s College, 1992), 1–21, 7. Trevor Rowley, Norman England (London: Batsford, 1997), 80. The AngloSaxon kings buried at Winchester, spanning three hundred years, include Cynewulf, Aethelwulf (Alfred’s father), King Alfred, Edward the Elder (Alfred’s son), Aelfweard, and Canute. See Shippey, “Winchester in the Anglo-Saxon Period and After,” in Winchester History and Literature, 11. Rowley, Norman England, 94–98. Rouse, The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance, 134–156. See his “Winchester in the Anglo-Saxon Period and After,” in Winchester History and Literature, 19. Thorlac Turville-Petre, “Havelok and the History of the Nation,” in Readings in Medieval English Romance, ed. Carol M. Meale (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1994), 121–134, 122. Aethelwold, a pious and just king, is responsible for converting the King of the East Saxons, Swithelm, to Christianity. Here, we see the kind of alliance that brought the Angles (whence Aethewold descends) and the Saxons together as the Anglo-Saxons. Aethelwold ruled for a short time after the death of his brother Aethelhere, who in turn had ruled after their brother—King Anna, an

Notes

78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

83. 84.

85.

86.

87. 88.

161

equally beloved and benevolent king—had been killed in battle with the Mercian king in 654, in the nineteenth year of his reign. See E. O. Blake, ed., Liber Eliensis, (London: Royal Historical Society, 1962), Camden Third Series, Vol. 92, Book I.2 and 7–8. The Liber Eliensis has been translated into English by Janet Fairweather (Boydell Press, 2005); see also J. A. Giles, ed. and trans., William of Malmesbury’s Chronicle (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1847; reprt. New York: AMS Press, 1968), 89. This same King Aethelwold of East Anglia also appears in Edward Edwards, ed., Liber Monasterii de Hyda, Rolls Series (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1866; reprt. Kraus Reprint Ltd., 1964), Vol. 45, 11. The Liber de Hyda also mentions a King Ethelwold of the South Saxons, 7–8. The East Anglian Aethelwold also appears in the eleventhcentury Life of St. Botulf. See Scott Kleinman, “The Legend of Havelok the Dane and the Historiography of East Anglia,” Studies in Philology 100 (2003): 245–277, 255–256; also Dorothy Whitelock, “Fact and Fiction in the Legend of St. Edmund,” Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archeology 31 (1969): 230–231, 230; G. V. Smithers, ed., Havelok, liii–lvi. See Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, trans., Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (London: Penguin Books, 1983), 120, 177. Keynes and Lapidge, trans., Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources, 113. See Barbara Yorke, “Bishop Aethelwold: Winchester’s ‘Golden Eagle,’” in Winchester History and Literature, 22–35. Gaimar stresses the Danish heritage of King Adelbrit (ll. 46, 58) at the outset, while the Lai does not specify Edelbright’s heritage. Gaimar identifies the other king, Edelsi, as a Briton (l. 59), as does the Lai (l. 200). Thorlac Turville-Petre suggests that the poet erases Athelwold’s Danish heritage from earlier sources to dissociate him from the negative Viking past, a history still preserved in fourteenth-century chronicle accounts. See his “Havelok and the History of the Nation,” 129–131. See Rouse, The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance, 106–112. The motif is also used in the Anglo-Norman Gui de Warewic (ll. 105–110), and later by the English adaptor in Guy of Warwick (ll. 103–106), to characterize Gui’s father. Here, however, the French poet misapplies the motif, normally reserved for kings, to a lower-ranking figure, a steward. The English poet reproduces the error. See Alfred Ewart, Gui de Warewic: Roman du XIIIc Siècle, 2 vols. (Paris: Édouard Champion, 1933); J. Zupitza, ed., The Romance of Guy of Warwick, EETS 25 and 26 (London: Oxford University Press, 1875; reprt. 1966). The Anglo-Saxon hold oath later merged into the Norman act of homage. On the Anglo-Saxon nature of Athelwold’s oath, see Richard Firth Green, A Crisis of Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1999), 61–62, and for the evolution of the practice of manrede, 210; also Rouse, The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance, 118–119. The town of Dover is mentioned two other times in the poem (ll. 139, 265) in conjunction with Roxburgh, in both cases to delineate the boundary of the kingdom and in the context of the king’s peace. Dover castle, however, is only presented in a context of abuse of power. See Smithers, ed., Havelok, 99. Matthew Paris, the thirteenth-century chronicler, coined this famous phrase. See Jonathan Coad, Book of Dover Castle and the Defense of Dover (London: B. T. Batsford/English Heritage, 1995), 41. Brown, The Normans and the Norman Conquest, 153–154, 203–205.

162

Notes

89. The Gesta Herewardi has been edited and translated by Michael Swanton, Three Lives of the Last Englishmen (New York: Garland, 1984), 45–88; reprt. in Thomas H. Ohlgren, Medieval Outlaws: Ten Tales in Modern English (West Lafayette: Parlor Press, 2005), 28–99. All references to the Gesta are from Swanton’s 1984 edition. See also Hugh M. Thomas, “The Gesta Herewardi, the English, and Their Conquerors,” Anglo-Norman Studies 21 (1999): 213–232; Timothy S. Jones, Outlawry in Medieval Literature (New York: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2010), 74–87. 90. Maldwyn Mills sees correspondences between Havelok’s fighting off the horde of men in the home of Bernard le Brun and a similar fight in Richars li Biaus. See his “Havelok’s Return,” Medium Aevum 45 (1976): 20–35, 24–28. 91. See Michael Swanton, English Literature before Chaucer (London: Longman, 1987), 202. 92. See Swanton, ed. and trans., Gesta Herewardi, 66–67, 71, 74. 93. Gaimar, L’Estoire des Engleis (l. 805); Lai d’Haveloc, (l. 1,085). 94. Edward the Elder was crowned in 901 in Kingston-upon-Thames, as was Edmund in 940, Edmund’s brother Eadred in 946, and Edmund’s son Eadwig in 955/956. Located southwest of London, Kingston-upon-Thames was not incorporated into greater London until 1965. King Edgar was crowned in Bath in 973, and Edward the Confessor was crowned at Winchester in 1043. It is not clear whether Edward intended for Westminster Abbey to serve as coronation site, and Harold’s coronation there in January 1066 may reflect his haste to establish himself on the English throne. See Roy Strong, Coronation: A History of Kingship and the British Monarchy (London: Harper Colllins Publishers, 2005), 26, 30–39. 95. Rowley, Norman England, 94–98; Tony Dyson and John Schofield, “Saxon London,” in Anglo-Saxon Towns in Southern England, ed. Jeremy Haslam (Southampton: Phillmore & Co., 1984), 285–313, 288, 303, 308. 96. Rouse, The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance, 156. 97. Sir Orfeo is generally classified as a Breton Lay and not included among the Matter of England romances, which explore England’s Anglo-Saxon past. See Mortimer J. Donovan, “Breton Lays,” in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050–1500, Vol. 1, 124–137, 133–143; A. V. C. Schmidt, Medieval English Romances, Part I (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1980), 21–33; Sands, Middle English Verse Romances, xi, 185–200; Barron classifies it among “The Matter of Romance” as a “Derivative of the Matter of Rome” in English Medieval Romance, 186–190. 98. Representative examples of this reading are Shearle Furnish, “Breton Lay,” in A Companion to Old and Middle English Literature, ed. Laura Cooner Lambdin and Robert Thomas Lambdin (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), 86–97; Mortimer J. Donovan, The Breton Lay: A Guide to Varieties (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 155–158; Rosalind Field, “Romance in England, 1066–1400,” in Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 152–176, 173; Andrea Pisani Babich, “The Power of the Kingdom and the Ties That Bind in Sir Orfeo,” Neophilologus 82 (1998): 477–486. 99. Edward Donald Kennedy, “Sir Orfeo as Rex inutilis,” Annuale medievale 17 (1976): 88–110; A. S. G. Edwards, “Marriage, Harping and Kingship: The Unity of Sir Orfeo,” American Benedictine Review 32 (1981): 282–291; Babich, “The Power of the Kingdom and the Ties That Bind in Sir Orfeo”; Oren Falk, “The Son of Orfeo: Kingship and Compromise in a Middle English Romance”; Hynes-Berry, “Cohesion in King Horn and Sir Orfeo,” 664.

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100. Unless otherwise indicated, all citations refer to the version of Sir Orfeo preserved in the Auchinleck manuscript (Advocates’ 19.2.I) as edited by A. J. Bliss, Sir Orfeo, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966). 101. “The Antecedents of Sir Orfeo,” in Studies in Medieval Literature in Honor of Professor Albert Croll Baugh, ed. MacEdward Leach (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961), 187–207. Other parallels between Alfred’s Old English and the anonymous Middle English versions of the legend include the introduction of Orfeo and Heurodis as a couple prior to Heurodis’ death; where previous versions begin with Orfeo in the throes of grief, Alfred’s version, like the Middle English Orfeo, begins by introducing Orfeo and his wife in their prime, prior to Heurodis’ death. The previous versions Severs examines are Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Virgil’s Georgics, Boetheius’ Consolation, and Walter Map’s De Nugis Curialium; see also Jane Chance, Medieval Mythography, Vol. 1 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994), 211–215. 102. Elaine Treharne, ed., glosses scheltrom (Sir Orfeo, l. 187) as “shield wall” in Old and Middle English c. 890–c. 1400: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004); Ann Haskell, ed., glosses scheltrom (Sir Orfeo, l. 163) as “shield-room, enclosure of armed men” in A Middle English Anthology (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1985); Brian Stone, trans., uses the term “a wall of shields” in his translation of Sir Orfeo in Medieval English Verse (London: Penguin Books, 1985); the recent editors of Bevis of Hampton gloss scheld trome (l. 993) as “shield retinue” in Herzman, Drake, and Salisbury, eds., Four Romances of England. 103. Frances McSparran, ed., Middle English Dictionary (2001), online. 104. Aelfric uses scyldtruman in his Grammar (xlvii (Z.) 274) to gloss the Latin testudine, testudo meaning “body of men in close formation” with the corresponding meaning of “protection.” This defi nition also appears in the Old English Glosses (I.2959). Technically, the Roman testudo was distinct from the Anglo-Saxon shield wall in that soldiers would also raise shields above their heads, forming a turtle shell effect. See also R. E. Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word List from British and Irish Sources (London: Oxford University Press, 1965). 105. Campbell and Powicke, “Armies and Military Service: Anglo Saxon Armies,” in Medieval England: An Encyclopedia, 73–74; Bennett et al., Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World AD 500 to AD 1500, 21, 92–93. 106. The Normans, following the Conquest, adopted many of the infantry tactics they witnessed among the Anglo-Saxons. See Bennett et al., Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World AD 500 to AD 1500, 21–22, 92. 107. This is later called a scyld-burh (l. 242, “shield-fortress”). Other examples are the bord-haga of Elene (l. 652) and the scild-weall of Beowulf (l. 3,118). Unless otherwise noted, all references of Anglo-Saxon poetry are from the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 6 vols., ed. G. P. Krapp and E. V. K. Dobbie (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931–1942). 108. Jim Bradbury, “Battles in England and Normandy, 1066–1154,” in Anglo-Norman Warfare, ed. Matthew Strickland (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1992), 182–193, 185–186; R. Allen Brown, “The Battle of Hastings,” in Anglo-Norman Warfare, 161–181, 167–168; also Bradbury, The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare, 150–151; Ute Engel, “The Bayeux Tapestry and All That,” in War and the Cultural Construction of Identities in Britain, ed. Barbara Korte and Ralf Schneider (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002), 61–91, 66–71. 109. Andrew Ayton, “Arms, Armour, and Horses,” in Medieval Warfare: A History, ed. Maurice Keen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 186–208,

164 Notes

110.

111. 112. 113. 114.

115.

116. 117. 118. 119. 120.

121. 122.

203–205; also his Knights and Warhorses: Military Service and the English Aristocracy under Edward III (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1994), 9–25. This suggests that the tactic had fallen out of practice among the English. See Kelly DeVries, Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century: Disciplines, Tactics, and Technology (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1996), 66–99. Herzman, Drake, and Salisbury, eds., Four Romances of England, 59. King Horn, 97. Layamon, Brut, EETS, no. 250, 277, ed., G. L. Brook and R. F. Leslie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963). In poems set in the context of the crusades, a scheltrom is often employed by the Saracens, as in Richard Coeur de Lion (also preserved in the Auchinleck manuscript), where scheltrome appears three times, once in the general sense of “troop” (l. 5,577) and twice in the sense of the formation of a “shield wall” employed by the Saracens (ll. 5,620, 5,629). See Henry Weber, ed., Metrical Romances of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries, Vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co., 1810), 3–278. Similarly, in Octovian Imperator, the Saracens form a scheldtrome (l. 1,505) and stout scheldestrome (l. 1,595) against the Christian army. See F. McSparran, ed., Octovian Imperator (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1979). The word scheltrom appears in other Middle English works as well, where it takes on the more general meaning of “troop” or “retinue.” Nevertheless, even these occurrences are very often associated with Anglo-Saxons and/ or early English warfare. In Bevis of Hampton, a Middle English romance roughly contemporary with Sir Orfeo and also found in the Auchinleck manuscript, the hero, a pre-Conquest Englishman, earns command over his fi rst army, referred to as his “ferste scheld trome” (l. 993). The term scheltron occurs eight times in the Alliterative Morte Arthure (ll. 1,765, 1,813, 1,856, 1,992, 2,106, 2,210, 2,922, 4,115), where, as in the Brut, the poet recounts the early English military campaigns of King Arthur against the invading Romans. The poet uses the term in reference to both sides of the confl ict in the more general sense of “troop.” R. Allen Brown: Castles: A History and Guide (New York: Crown Publishers, 1980), 66. For Norman horse breeding, see R. H. C. Davis, The Medieval Warhorse (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989), 55–68; Ayton, “Arms, Armour, and Horses,” in Medieval Warfare, 108, 186–208. Bennett et al., Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World AD 500 to AD 1500, 84–97. Norman soldiers used both couched and uncouched lances at the Battle of Hastings. Ibid., 86. Ibid., 84. Ibid. Some scholars have noted similarities between the abduction of Heurodis and the supernatural abduction found in the Irish legend of The Wooing of Étaín. For the Celtic context, see Dorena Allen, “Orpheus and Orfeo: The Dead and the Taken,” Medium Aevum 33 (1964): 102–111; G. L. Kittredge, “Sir Orfeo,” American Journal of Philology 7 (1886): 176–202; also A. J. Bliss, Sir Orfeo, xxxiii–xxxv; The Wooing of Étaín has been edited and translated by Jeff rey Gantz, Early Irish Myths and Sagas (London: Penguin Books, 1981), 37–59. Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury, eds., The Middle English Breton Lays (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University Press, 1995), 263–308. Ibid., 89–144.

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123. On the absence of the rape in Sir Orfeo in comparison with other demonlover abductions in Middle English romance, see Amanda Hopkins, “Female Vulnerability as Catalyst in the Middle English Breton Lays,” in The Matter of Identity in Medieval Romance, ed. Phillipa Hardman (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002), 43–58, 49–51. 124. Friedman, Orpheus in the Middle Ages, 180–190. 125. “Sir Orfeo as Rex Inutilis,” 105. 126. See also Babich, “The Power of the Kingdom and the Ties That Bind in Sir Orfeo.” 127. E. Talbot Donaldson, “View Point,” reprinted in Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Denton Fox (Englewood Cliff s, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968), 99. 128. All citations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are from Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron, eds., The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Rev. ed. (Exeter: University of Exeter, 1987); reprt. in Casey Finch, trans., The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); all citations to Beowulf are from R. D. Fulk, Robert E. Bjork, and John D. Niles, eds., Klaeber’s Beowulf, 4th ed. (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2008). 129. On Grendel’s similar dual nature as both somewhat human and animalistic, see Ward Parks, “Prey Tell: How Heroes Perceive Monsters in Beowulf,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 92 (1993): 1–16. 130. For example: swyre (ll. 138, 186, “neck”); swange (l. 138, “hips”); lyndes (l. 139, “loins”); muckel (l. 142, “size”); bak and brest (l. 143, “back” and “chest”); wombe and wast (l. 144, “belly” and “waist”); and hwe (l. 147, “color”), all derive from Old English. See also Walter S. Phelan, “Playboy of the Medieval World: Nationalism and Internationalism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Literary Review 23 (1980): 542–558, 548. 131. Ward Parks, Verbal Dueling in Heroic Narrative: The Homeric and Old English Traditions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 33–41. For my understanding of this scene as an example of heroic flyting, I am grateful for my conversations with Rob Allega. See his “Words, Combat, and Genre: A Comparative Analysis of Medieval Flyting,” Hanover College: Senior Thesis, 2009. 132. See Carol J. Clover, “The Germanic Context of the Unferth Episode,” in Beowulf: Basic Readings, ed. Peter S. Baker (New York: Garland Publishing, 1995), 127–154. 133. See Cecily Clark, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Characterization and Syntax,” Essays in Criticism 16 (1966): 361–74, 363. 134. See Mel Storm, “The Green Knight and Other Medieval Dismemberments,” Enarratio 16 (2009): 140–152, 143. 135. Phelan notes that “the challenges issued by the Green Knight and later the terms of the bargain are narrated in passages with the lowest accumulation of romance vocabulary.” See “Playboy of the Medieval World: Nationalism and Internationalism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” 548. 136. On the influence of the heroic tradition as derived from the chronicle tradition of Arthur, see Arlyn Diamond, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: An Alliterative Romance,” Philological Quarterly 55 (1976): 10–29. Diamond speaks of the “two vocabularies, two perspectives” the poet uses to characterize Arthur’s court (p. 18). 137. For example, see Corinne Saunders, “Subtle Crafts: Magic and Exploitation in Medieval English Romance,” in The Exploitations of Medieval Romance, 108–124, 121–123.

166 Notes 138. For example: strayt cote (l. 152, “close-fitting” “coat” or “tunic”); mantile (l. 153, “mantle” or “cloak”); pelure (l. 154, “fur”); blaunner (l. 155, “ermine” or “fur”); vesture (l. 161, “clothes” or “vestments”); verdure (l. 161, “green”); and aray (l. 163, “clothes”) all derive from the Old French. See also, Phelan, “Playboy of the Medieval World: Nationalism and Internationalism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” 548. 139. See Marjory Rigby, “‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ and the Vulgate ‘Lancelot’,” Modern Language Review 78 (1983): 257–266. Rigby characterizes the Gawain-poet’s use of the Prose Lancelot as “wonderfully independent” (p. 264). 140. Before setting off, Beowulf releases Hrothgar from any funeral expenses should he die, and just before plunging into the mere (ll. 1,492–1,495), he makes provision for his men (ll. 1,480–1,483). On the literary kinship between Gawain’s forest journey and the older warrior code of Anglo-Saxon tradition, see Laura Ashe, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Limits of Chivalry,” in The Exploitations of Medieval Romance, 159–172, 162–163. 141. Henry L. Savage, The Gawain-Poet: Studies in His Personality and Background (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956), 27. 142. Richard W. Kaeuper, “An Historian’s Reading of The Tale of Gamelyn,” Medium Aevum 52 (1983): 51–62; Barron, English Medieval Romance, 81–84; Ramsey, Chivalric Romances, 93–95; Colleen Donnelly, “Aristocratic Veneer and the Substance of Verbal Bonds in The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell and Gamelyn,” Studies in Philology 94 (1997): 321–343; Edward Z. Menkin, “Comic Irony and the Sense of Two Audiences in the Tale of Gamelyn,” Thoth 10 (1969): 41–53; T. A. Shippey, “The Tale of Gamelyn: Class Warfare and the Embarrassments of Genre,” in The Spirit of Medieval English Popular Romance, ed. Ad. Putter and Jane Gilbert (Harlow, Essex: Longman, 2000), 78–96. 143. Maurice Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 92. 144. See for example, Donnelly, “Aristocratic Veneer and the Substance of Verbal Bonds in The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell and Gamelyn”; John Scattergood views Gamelyn as a “revolutionary traditionalist” seeking to recover his position in the social hierarchy rather than challenging that system. See his “The Tale of Gamelyn: The Noble Robber as Provincial Hero,” in Readings in Medieval English Romance, 159–194, 191. W. F. Prideaux suggests that “Gamelyn” derives from the French “Gaudeline,” the name of a companion of Folk Fitz Warine, the Norman nobleman who clashed famously with King John. See his “Who Was Robin Hood?,” in Robin Hood: An Anthology of Scholarship and Criticism, ed. Stephen Thomas Knight (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1999), 51–57, 56–57. Keen claims that “the outlaw band works on the same principle as the ‘feudal’ system of society.” See The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 93. Menkin sees Gamelyn’s brother, Ote, as the courtly, albeit somewhat satiric, figure in the poem. See his “Comic Irony and the Sense of Two Audiences in the Tale of Gamelyn,” 51–53. 145. Keen disregards the connection between Hereward and Gamelyn on the basis of social class, noting that Gamelyn clearly belongs to a lower social class than Hereward and his many companions. Nevertheless, he sees the story of Hereward at the root of the outlaw tradition in general. See The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 79–80; Barron, while acknowledging the connection between Gamelyn and the heroes of English legend, including Hereward, reduces The Tale of Gamelyn (and most of the Greenwood Tradition) to a

Notes

146.

147.

148.

149.

150.

151. 152.

153.

154. 155.

167

series of folklore motifs that form “a timeless pattern, independent of specific social circumstances . . .” See his English Medieval Romance, 82; Hibbard, however, notes the “old native strain . . . little changed by French influence.” See her Medieval Romance in England, 157. Following this line, the advisers appear to split the lands in two (l. 45), presumably dividing it between the two oldest boys, perhaps as a compromise between their desire to grant it all to the eldest son and Johan’s desire to provide for all three sons. In any case, the knights do not include Gamelyn in their deliberations. All citations to Gamelyn are from W. W. Skeat, ed., The Tale of Gamelyn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893; reprt. 1971). According to Edgar F. Shannon, Jr. “ploughshares” is a specifically northern term for a unit of land, the equivalent of a “hide” in southern areas, usually figured at 120 acres. See his “Mediaeval Law in The Tale of Gamelyn,” Speculum 26 (1951): 458–464, 463, n.17. For the social implications of the changes in inheritance practice brought by the Conquest, see J. C. Holt, Colonial England, 1066–1215 (London: Hambledon Press, 1997), 161–178; also Hugh M. Thomas, The Norman Conquest: England after William the Conqueror (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), 79–80, 86, 101–103. J. H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 4th ed. (London: Butterworths LexisNexis, 2002), 267; Sir Frederick Pollock and Frederic William Maitland, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), Vol. II, 263–264. Pollock and Maitland note that at the highest strata, among thegns, one of these sons would typically assume responsibility for any military service owed for this landholding, a practice that leaned toward later feudalism. Nevertheless, all of the sons in a family inherited a portion of the father’s land. Shippey proposes that Gamelyn may in fact be a bastard son of Sir Johan, hence the vehemence of the eldest brother’s claim. Nevertheless, Sir Johan wishes to provide for all three sons (not just one), confi rming the model of coparcenary, regardless of Gamelyn’s precise ancestry. See Shippey, “The Tale of Gamelyn: Class Warfare and the Embarrassments of Genre,” 87. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 4th ed., 265. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 4th ed., 267. Partible inheritance also remained standard practice in Wales even after the Conquest of Wales under Edward I, a situation that led to the legal distinction among the marcher baronies between “Englishries” and “Welshries.” See David Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery: The Penguin History of Britain 1066–1284 (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 426. Richard M. Smith, “Families and Their Land in an Area of Partible Inheritance: Redgrave, Suffolk 1260–1320,” in Land, Kinship and Life-Cycle, ed. Richard M. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 135– 195; Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 4th ed., 265–266. Baker notes that in many rural areas, ultimogeniture (commonly referred to as “Borough English”), or inheritance by the youngest son, survived as well (p. 266). It is interesting to note that Gamelyn’s father leaves him the largest, though not the exclusive, share of all the brothers. On the survival of gavelkind in Kent, see C. S. Kenny, “The History of the Law of Primogeniture in England,” in Two Essays on the Law of Primogeniture (Cambridge: J. Hall and Sons, 1878), 21–34. Holt, Colonial England, 166 and n.22; Shannon, “Mediaeval Law in The Tale of Gamelyn,” 458. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 4th ed., 267–268.

168

Notes

156. G. D. G. Hall, ed. and trans., Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Anglie qui Glanvilla vocatur [The treatise on the laws and customs of the realm of England commonly called Glanvill; hereafter referred to as “Treatise.”] (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1965), vii.1, 75. 157. See Kenny, “The History of the Law of Primogeniture in England,” in Two Essays on the Law of Primogeniture, 16–21. 158. According to Ranulf de Glanvill, “solus Deus heredum facere potest, non homo” [“only God, not man, can make an heir”], indicating a far more hierarchical and impersonal model for inheritance than practiced under gavelkind. See Hall, ed. and trans., Treatise, vii.1, 71. Also, Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 4th ed., 266. 159. Hall, ed. and trans., Treatise, vii.1, 70, 72–73. Sidney Painter, “The Family and the Feudal System in Twelfth-Century England,” Speculum 35 (1960): 1–16, 3–4; also Geert van Iersel, “The Twenty-Five Ploughs of Sir John: The Tale of Gamelyn and the Implications of Acreage,” in People and Texts: Relationships in Medieval Literature. Studies Presented to Erik Kooper, ed. Thea Summerfield and Keith Busby (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), 111– 122, 121. 160. Colonial England, 1066–1215, 167. Holt discusses changes in family and inheritance patterns affected by the Conquest through three chapters of this book (Chapters 8–10). 161. Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 91. 162. See van Iersel, “The Twenty-Five Ploughs of Sir John: The Tale of Gamelyn and the Implications of Acreage,” 120. 163. See Shannon “Mediaeval Law in The Tale of Gamelyn,” 459; also Donnelly, “Aristocratic Veneer and the Substance of Verbal Bonds in The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell and Gamelyn,” 335–337; Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 4th ed., 268. 164. Holt, Colonial England 1066–1215, 122; Painter, “The Family and the Feudal System in Twelfth-Century England,” 4. 165. Menkin, “Comic Irony and the Sense of Two Audiences in the Tale of Gamelyn,” 46. 166. See van Iersel, “The Twenty-Five Ploughs of Sir John: The Tale of Gamelyn and the Implications of Acreage,” 117–119. The minimum standard income level for maintaining knighthood (or “level of distraint”) was £40 in landed revenue by 1324. See Nigel Saul, Knights and Esquires: The Gloucestershire Gentry in the Fourteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 11; also Donnelly, “Aristocratic Veneer and the Substance of Verbal Bonds in The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell and Gamelyn,” 336. 167. Painter, “The Family and the Feudal System in Twelfth-Century England,” 4. 168. Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery: Britain 1066–1284, 412. Carpenter cites the specific example of the Knivetons of Derbyshire, who, over several generations, rose from peasant to knightly status. Richard Kaeuper notes that the growing presence of the gentry in the legal system led to rampant social climbing, the very situation featured in The Tale of Gamelyn. See his “Social Ideals and Social Disruption,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Culture, ed. Andrew Galloway (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 87–106, 101–103. 169. Ibid., 410–411. 170. On the development of the jury system in medieval England, see Doris M. Stenton, English Justice between the Norman Conquest and the Great Charter 1066–1215 (Philadelphia, PA: The American Philosophical Society, 1964), 13–17; Alan Harding, The Law Courts of Medieval England (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1973), 32–63.

Notes

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171. Pollock and Maitland, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, 2nd ed., Vol. I, 79, 92, 96–105. 172. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 4th ed., 72–75. Pollock and Maitland, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, 2nd ed., Vol. I, 93–94; John Hudson, “Maitland and Anglo-Norman Law,” in The History of English Law: Centenary Essays on “Pollock and Maitland.” Proceedings of the British Academy 89, ed. John Hudson (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1996), 21–46, 24. 173. The three assizes that dealt with land disputes, collectively known as the “possessory assizes,” included the assize of the novel desseisin (the most important of the three), the assize of mort d’ancestor, and the assize of darrein presentment (last presentment), all designed to afford better protection to a freeholder’s property. See Franklin K. Pegues, “Assize, English,” in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, 13 vols., ed. Joseph R. Strayer (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982), Vol. I, 596–598, 596–597; also Richard W. Kaeuper, “Assize,” in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Vol. I, 594–596, 594. Also, Austin Lane Poole, From Domesday to Magna Carta 1087–1216 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 405–412. 174. Pollock and Maitland, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, 2nd ed., Vol. I, 132–133. 175. Robert Bartlett points out that Henry II made “widespread use” of ordeals of either the hot iron or cold water for criminal cases as part of his drive against crime launched by the Assize of Clarendon. Unfree men, in particular, formed the target of such Angevin criminal justice. See his England under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075–1225 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 183–184. Green notes the connection between bureaucratic centralization of the law and “increased severity in the administration of the law” that characterize the measures introduced under Henry II. See A Crisis of Truth, 130. 176. Kaeuper, “A Historian’s Reading of The Tale of Gamelyn,” 55–56. 177. Although the original assizes called for a panel of judges, by the thirteenth century, cases came before a single judge who traveled a circuit. See Kaeuper, “Assize,” 594. 178. According to Baker, the jurors “were supposed to know somewhat of the truth before they came to court; hence the rules required them to be drawn from the vicinity where the facts were alleged (the ‘venue’).” See An Introduction to English Legal History, 4th ed., 75. Under this system, bias seems inevitable. See also Green, A Crisis of Truth, 132. Carpenter stresses the social cohesiveness of the men who served in the local courts, forming a class all their own, a view that accords with the picture we get in Gamelyn of an insider’s game. See The Struggle for Mastery, 411. 179. Pegues, “Assize, English,” 597. 180. Shannon notes it was not until the sixteenth century that it became common practice for the jury to rely on the testimony of witnesses. See “Mediaeval Law in The Tale of Gamelyn,” 461–462; also Pegues, “Assize, English,” 597. 181. Paul Brand, The Origins of the English Legal Profession (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 14–19. Brand notes that prior to the legal reforms of the twelfth century, the lord’s reeve typically presided at manorial courts such as this (p. 5). 182. Also known as “halimote” and “hallmoot” (Old English moot, or “assembly”). See Pollock and Maitland, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, 2nd ed., Vol. I, 38; Austin Lane Poole, From Domesday to Magna Carta 1087–1216 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), 57–59; Paul Brand, The Origins of the English Legal Profession (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 5. Historian Susan Reynolds resists the idea of the jury system as a

170 Notes

183. 184. 185. 186. 187.

188. 189. 190. 191.

192. 193.

194.

195.

purely Norman invention, arguing instead that the Norman legal innovations simply formalized and hierachized a practice of collective judgment that one already fi nds in pre-Conquest England, of which the hallmoot would form a part. See Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 900–1300 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 33–34, 39; also Marjorie Chibnall, AngloNorman England 1066–1166 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 184–191. See also, Shannon, “Mediaeval Law in The Tale of Gamelyn,” 459–460. Stenton, English Justice between the Norman Conquest and the Great Charter 1066–1215, 55, 80–82. Quoting Orderic Vitalis, Poole notes how Henry I began recruiting petty officials “‘of ignoble stock and raised, so to speak, from the dust.’” See From Domesday to Magna Carta 1087–1216, 388. Kaeuper, “A Historian’s Reading of The Tale of Gamelyn,” 56. Julia Boorman examines sheriff personnel of the late twelfth century. See “The Sheriffs of Henry II and the Significance of 1170,” in Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy: Essays in Honor of Sir James Holt, ed. George Garnett and John Hudson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 255–275. Pegues, “Assize, English,” 596; Poole, From Domesday to Magna Carta 1087–1216, 388–390. Christopher Corèdon and Ann Williams, A Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004), 163; Kaeuper, “A Historian’s Reading of The Tale of Gamelyn,” 56. Green, A Crisis of Truth, 194–198. On the contrast between the newer “trial” and older “proof” systems, see Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 4th ed., 72. Bartlett examines the role of the judicial ordeal in both pre- and post-Conquest England. See Trial by Fire and Water: The Medieval Judicial Ordeal (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 62–69. Bartlett notes that judicial trial by combat was not practiced among the Anglo-Saxons, introduced instead by the Normans (p. 104). Gamelyn’s wrestling match, while involving a feat of strength to address injustice, should not be confused with official trial by combat. M. J. Swanton, “‘A Ram and a Ring,’ Gamelyn 172 ET SEQ,” English Language Notes 20 (1983): 8–10. Albert Leitzmann, ed., Erec von Hartmann von Aue (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1960). Joachim Bumke reads this episode in Erec as an alternative to the courtly duel. See his Courtly Culture: Literature and Society in the High Middle Ages, trans. Thomas Dunlap (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 172. For a similar reading of the wrestling match in Gamelyn, see Donnelly, “Aristocratic Veneer and the Substance of Verbal Bonds in The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell and Gamelyn,” 338. Ramsey, Chivalric Romances, 94; Colin Richmond, “An Outlaw and Some Peasants: The Possible Significance of Robin Hood,” Nottingham Medieval Studies 37 (1993): 90–101, 95; Skeat, The Tale of Gamelyn, 39. Some scholars read the wrestling match as a satiric inversion of the knightly duel. See, for example, Menkin, “Comic Irony and the Sense of Two Audiences in the Tale of Gamelyn,” 46–47; Donnelly, “Aristocratic Veneer and the Substance of Verbal Bonds in The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell and Gamelyn,” 338. It is interesting to note that in Thomas Lodge’s 1592 adaptation of The Tale of Gamelyn entitled Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie, the wrestling champion is explicitly Norman, though the setting of the tale is no longer England, but France. See Skeat, The Tale of Gamelyn, xix.

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196. In this sense, the wrestling match accords with the other acts of violence in the poem as “done in the cause of the right in the battle against injustice.” See Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 90–91. 197. A similar test of strength in service of justice (though not an instance of recreational wrestling) occurs in Guy of Warwick, set in pre-Conquest England. Guy’s closest friend, and King Athelstan’s favorite, Harrawde, is accused of treason by Merof (l. 8,575). Harrawde wishes to prove his innocence through a duel with his accuser, but Athelstan refuses to let them fight. Elaine M. Treharne and others, argue that Middle English poets include duels of this kind to authenticate the Anglo-Saxon setting, and present them as positive and effective judicial methods. See “Romanticizing the Past in the Middle English Athelston,” Review of English Studies, New Series 50 (1999): 1–21, 8; Helen Young argues that judicial duels in these works express “historical nostalgia” for pre-Conquest English law. See “Athelston and English Law: Plantagenet Practice and Anglo-Saxon Precedent,” Parergon 22 (2005): 95–118, 104. 198. Shippey notes that “Gamelyn and its rough-justice analogues have no more idea of cavalry than of chivalry. They are, however, quite clear about the realistic values of archery . . .” See “The Tale of Gamelyn: Class Warfare and the Embarrassments of Genre,” 90. 199. See John M. Ganim, “History and Consciousness in Middle English Romance,” The Literary Review 23 (1980): 481–496, 493.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 2 1. I originally developed the ideas for this chapter in a paper entitled “Castle Architecture and English Identity in Middle English Romance” presented at the 44th International Congress on Medieval Studies (2009), the abstract of which was published in Avista Forum Journal 19 (2009): 107–108. I later published an expanded version of these ideas in an article entitled “Sir Orfeo and English Identity,” Studies in Philology 107 (2010): 179–211. 2. Michael Wood, The Domesday Quest: In Search of the Roots of England (London: BBC Books, 2005), 86. 3. At Wallingford, for example, the burh contained roughly four hundred houses within the walls, suggesting a population of 1,500–2,000. See Wood, The Domesday Quest, 87–88. 4. Richard Abels, “From Alfred to Harold II: The Military Failure of the Late Anglo-Saxon State,” in The Normans and Their Adversaries at War, ed. Richard P. Abels and Bernard S. Bachrach (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2001), 15–30, 20–21, 30. Abels argues that Alfred’s system of interconnected, garrisoned burhs proved costly to maintain and fell into inexpert hands with his successors. Nevertheless, he corroborates that these burhs were the only defensive architecture in England when the Normans arrived in 1066. The only “castles” in Great Britain at the time were located in the Welsh marches and built, as some historians argue, by Norman settlers there. See Abels, “From Alfred to Harold II,” in The Normans and Their Adversaries at War, 29. Also C. A. Ralegh Radford, “The Later Pre-Conquest Boroughs and their Defenses,” Medieval Archaeology 14 (1970): 81–103; Jeremy Haslam, Early Medieval Towns in Britain c. 700–1140 (Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire: Shire Publications, 1985), 31–44. 5. R. Allen Brown, English Castles (London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976), 40–42. 6. A good example is the Saxon long hall excavated at Goltho, Lincolnshire. See Guy Beresford, Goltho: The Development of an Early Medieval Manor

172 Notes

7.

8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13.

14.

15. 16.

17.

c. 850–1150 (London: Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission, 1987), 42. See John Blair, “Hall and Chamber: English Domestic Planning 1000– 1250,” in Anglo-Norman Castles, ed. Robert Liddiard (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2003), 309–311. Excavations of Saxon halls at Cheddar and Yeavering also indicate separate chamber blocks. See Beresford, Goltho, 42, as well as illustrations on 30–31, 35–36. John Goodall, The English Castle 1066–1650 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 57. O. H. Creighton, Castles and Landscapes (London: Continuum, 2002), 133–138. R. Allen Brown, Michael Prestwich, and Charles Coulson, Castles: A History and Guide (Poole: Blanford Press, 1980), 18. Dorothy Whitelock, ed. and trans., The Anglo Saxon Chronicle (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1961), 220. Castles within burhs were generally situated at one corner of the existing town defenses, allowing for control of the town as well as ready access to the surrounding countryside. Examples include the castles of Winchester, Chichester, Wareham, and Wallingford. See Philip Holdsworth, “Saxon Southampton,” in Anglo-Saxon Towns in Southern England, ed. Jeremy Haslam (Southampton: Phillmore & Co., 1984), 341. For more precise data on the destruction of urban property in the process of castle building, see Creighton, Castles and Landscapes, 139–151; at Shrewsbury, fi fty-one houses were destroyed, at Lincoln, one hundred sixty houses were destroyed, and at York, one of the seven wards of the city was destroyed to make room for the new castle. Oxford’s west suburb was completely dislocated in order to make room for a castle in 1071. See Trevor Rowley, Norman England (London: Batsford, 1997), 70, 101. The foundations for a large timber urban hall were discovered under the bailey of the castle at Southampton. See Holdsworth, “Saxon Southampton,” in AngloSaxon Towns in Southern England, 340–341. See also Robin Fleming, Kings and Lords in Conquest England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 194–198; and her “Rural Elites and Urban Communities in LateSaxon England,” Past and Present 141 (1993): 3–37, 24–25. See Goodall, The English Castle 1066–1650, 57. According to Goodall, while hall architecture abounded in continental Europe, “in no kingdom is that tradition as consistently strong or ambitious as in England” (p. 57). See Blair, “Hall and Chamber,” in Anglo-Norman Castles, 307–328; Michael Thompson, The Medieval Hall: The Basis of Secular Domestic Life, 600–1600 A.D. (Aldershot, Hamptonshire: Scolar Press, 1995), 29–49. On the strategic advantages of the fi rst-floor Norman hall, see D. J. Cathcart King, The Castle in England and Wales: An Interpretive History (Portland, OR: Areopagitica Press, 1988), 35–36. Ann Williams, “A Bell-house and a Burh-geat: Lordly Residences in England before the Norman Conquest,” Medieval Knighthood 4 (1992): 221–240; Creighton, Castles and Landscapes, 70; Robert Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075–1225 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 279–280. See Creighton, Castles and Landscapes, 136. Also Rowley, Norman England, 125–126. O. H. Creighton, “Castle Studies and the ‘Landscape’ Agenda,” Landscape History 26 (2004): 1–18, 10; also “Castles and Castle-building in Town and Country,” in Medieval Town and Country, ed. C. Dyer and K. Giles (Oxford: Society for Medieval Archaeology Monographs, 2005), 275–292. Creighton, Castles and Landscapes, 46, 50.

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18. Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 284. 19. Michael Prestwich, Edward I (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 207–218. 20. Ibid., 209, 214. 21. Prestwich notes that these castles were linked with the development of new towns. See Edward I, 215–216. 22. Cathcart King, The Castle in England and Wales, 107. 23. Trevor Rowley, The Norman Heritage 1066–1200 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983), 36. 24. Whitelock, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 199. 25. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (D) 1067, 1076; The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (E) 1075. Cecily Clark, ed., The Peterborough Chronicle 1070–1154 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 1,075, ll. 17–18. 26. King Horn, dating to c. 1225, survives in three manuscripts: Harleian 2253 in the British Museum, London; Laud, Misc. 108 in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; and manuscript Gg. 4.27.2 in the University Library, Cambridge, the last being the oldest (c. 1250) and considered the best. 27. All citations of King Horn are from the Cambridge manuscript from Joseph Hall, ed., King Horn: A Middle English Romance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901). In the interest of clarity, I have substituted the “s” as represented by an “f” in Hall’s edition with an “s.” 28. Fortifications are indicated by the mention of a porter (l. 1,354) and by crenellations (l. 1,588). All citations to the Romance of Horn are from Mildred K. Pope, ed., The Romance of Horn of Thomas, 2 vols. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell for the Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1955). 29. The editors Walter Hoyt French and Charles Brockway Hale liken Horn’s arrival and welcome at Almair’s hall to similar scenes in Beowulf. See French and Hale, eds., Middle English Metrical Romances (New York: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1930), 30, n.155. 30. The combination of halls and harping participates in a larger theme in Old English poetry known as “Joy in the Hall.” See Jeff Opland, “Beowulf on the Poet,” Mediaeval Studies 38 (1976): 442–467, 445–453. 31. The word “bure” occurs four other times in the poem (ll. 1,046, 1,161, 1,223, 1,438) in connection with a castle, not a hall, which contains a great many other rooms. In those instances, “bure” seems to refer more specifically to a private bedchamber of Rymenhild. 32. Blair, “Hall and Chamber,” in Anglo-Norman Castles, 309; Goodall, The English Castle 1066–1650, 28. 33. See Paul Battles, “Of Graves, Caves, and Subterranean Dwellings: Eorđscræf and Eorđsele in The Wife’s Lament,” Philological Quarterly 73 (1994): 267–286. 34. Ibid., 274–276. 35. Lee C. Ramsey, Chivalric Romances: Popular Literature in Medieval England (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 33. 36. In the Anglo-Norman Romance of Horn (ll. 5,035–5,040), Wikele (Fikenhild) also builds a stone castle and stocks it lavishly with food, wine, and knights, but the poet does not include the details of labor (such as hauling seawater) or of social distancing (e.g. only the birds can reach him) as found in the English poem. 37. Charles W. Dunn, “Romances Derived from English Legends,” in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050–1500, 11 vols., ed. J. Burke Severs, Albert E. Hartung, Peter G. Beidler, and John Edwin Wells (New Haven: The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1967), Vol. 1, 17–37, 24. 38. See for instance, W. R. J. Barron, English Medieval Romance (London: Longman, 1987), 65, 69–70; Nancy Mason Bradbury, “The Traditional

174

39. 40.

41.

42.

43.

44. 45.

46.

47. 48. 49.

50.

Notes Origins of Havelok the Dane,” Studies in Philology 90 (1993): 115–142, 140; John Halverson, “Havelok the Dane and Society,” Chaucer Review 6 (1971): 142–151, 150; John Finlayson, “King Horn and Havelok the Dane: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” Medievalia et Humanistica, n.s. 18 (1992): 17–45, 18, 36, 41. For a fuller discussion of Winchester as a setting for the opening of Havelok, see Chapter 1 of this volume. See Sir Thomas Duff us Hardy and Charles T. Martin, ed. and trans., “Geffrei Gaimar’s L’Estoire des Engleis,” in Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (London, 1889; reprt. Kraus, 1966), Vol. 1, ll. 47–82. The Havelok segment has also been translated by Stephen Shepherd in Middle English Romances (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1995), 319–329, 320. The town of Dover is mentioned two other times in the poem (ll. 139, 265) in conjunction with Roxburgh, in both cases to delineate the boundary of the kingdom and in the context of the king’s peace. Dover castle, however, is only presented in a context of abuse of power. See also G. V. Smithers, ed., Havelok the Dane (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 99. R. Allen Brown, The Architecture of Castles: A Visual Guide (New York: Facts on File Publications, 1984), 27–28; also Jonathan Coad, Book of Dover Castle and the Defenses of Dover (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd./English Heritage, 1995), 19–22. Chronicle accounts speak of fortifications at Dover prior to William’s arrival in 1066, and in all likelihood, Dover had many of the features of an AngloSaxon burh. Upon arriving at Dover, William spent eight days enhancing the existing fortifications to his own purposes. See R. Allen Brown, Dover Castle (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, Department of the Environment Official Handbook, 1974), 6–8. On the crucial role William Fitz Osbern played in the castle construction program of the Conquest, see Goodall, The English Castle 1066–1650, 61–65. Whitelock, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (E), 142. Other chronicle accounts also note Odo’s activities at Dover. Also see for example, Marjorie Chibnall, ed. and trans., The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), ii.67, Book IV, 194–195; also Thomas Forester, ed. and trans., The Chronicle of Florence of Worcester (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), 171; R. Allen Brown, The Normans and the Norman Conquest, 2nd ed. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1985), 158–159. By his death, Henry II spent a total of ₤6,000, while Richard I spent an additional ₤600 in the fi rst year of his reign. By comparison, the cost for a new castle during this period amounted to roughly ₤1,500 or less. See Brown, Dover Castle, 9; Coad, Book of Dover Castle, 23. Matthew Paris, the thirteenth-century chronicler, coined this famous phrase. See Brown, The Normans and the Norman Conquest, 153–154, 203–205. Havelok’s father, Birkabeyn, also grants “casteles and tunes” (“castles and towns,” l. 397) to Godard for assuming responsibility of his children, though this particular instance of castles may be formulaic. G. V. Smithers suggests the “heye curt” in this case may represent a raised hall within a castle, in contrast with the Old French “basse court,” or area below the hall where cattle and horses were kept. See Smithers, ed., Havelok the Dane (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), xxxix. Several scholars argue for a peasant-class audience. See Halverson, “Havelok the Dane and Society”; also Judith Weiss, “Structure and Characterization in Havelok the Dane,” Speculum 44 (1969): 247–257.

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51. See David Staines, “Havelok the Dane: A Thirteenth-Century Handbook for Princes,” Speculum 51 (1976): 602–623. Staines notes how the poem offers “no extended glimpse of court life, no description of the life of the nobility” (p. 612). 52. Scholars who argue for a merchant class, rather than peasant class, audience include Roy Michael Liuzza, “Representation and Readership in the Middle English Havelok the Dane,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 93 (1994): 504–519; Susan Crane, Insular Romance: Politics, Faith, and Culture in Anglo-Norman and Middle English Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 44, 52. 53. See Hugh M. Thomas, “The Defense of English Honor,” in The English and the Normans: Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation, and Identity, 1066–1220 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 241–260. 54. Similarly, Havelok and Goldeboru employ a system of vassalage, requiring both an oath of fealty and a pledge of homage, introduced to England by the Normans and not employed earlier by either of their parents (King Birkabeyn or King Athelwold) to devastating effect. The element of homage linked the pledge of fealty directly to a grant of land, and thus formed a cornerstone of feudalism. See Liam O. Purdon, “The Rite of Vassalage in Havelok the Dane,” Medievalia et Humanistica 20 (1993): 25–39. 55. Also collected in the Auchinleck manuscript, Guy of Warwick has King Athelstan, the grandson of King Alfred, and perhaps the greatest Anglo-Saxon king, preside in Winchester. 56. The designation of castles as “private” dwellings has come under considerable scrutiny in recent studies of castle architecture. Creighton, Coulson, Wheatley, and others note the considerable civic administration that took place in the castles of medieval England. That being noted, castles of the post-Conquest period were not intended to protect entire communities within their walls (hence their limited acreage), and they did double as lordly residences. This distinguishes them from the Anglo-Saxon burh, which enclosed an entire community within a space of roughly one hundred acres. See Creighton, Castles and Landscapes; Charles L. H. Coulson, Castles in Medieval Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Abigail Wheatley, The Idea of the Castle in Medieval England (University of York: York Medieval Press, 2004). 57. Creighton, Castles and Landscapes, 185. 58. Rowley, Norman England, 70–74. 59. Brown notes that during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, castle architecture began to incorporate a curtain wall defended by flanking towers, most of them open-backed. The towers described in the poem may refer to this type of castle design. See Brown, Prestwich, and Coulson, Castles: A History and Guide, 50; also Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 277–278. 60. See Goodall, The English Castle 1066–1650, 126. 61. Brown, Prestwich, and Coulson, Castles: A History and Guide, 41. For an excellent illustration of Norman castle buttresses that date to the first century after the Conquest, see Brown, The Architecture of Castles: A Visual Guide, 47. 62. Brown, The Architecture of Castles: A Visual Guide, 55, 99; Charles L. H. Coulson discusses a progression in licenses to fortify, whereby crenellation became architectural code for lordly residence by the mid-thirteenth century. See his “Structural Symbolism in Medieval Castle Architecture,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 132 (1979): 73–90. Also, Rowley, Norman England, 66; Richard Eales, “Royal Power and Castles in Norman England,” in Anglo-Norman Castles, 41–67, 59–67.

176 Notes 63. Philip Dixon, “Design in Castle-Building: The Controlling of Access to the Lord,” Château Gaillard XVIII (1998): 47–57. 64. Alan J. Fletcher, “Sir Orfeo and the Flight from the Enchanters,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22 (2000): 141–177, 148–152; Patrizia Grimaldi, “Sir Orfeo as Celtic Folk-Hero, Christian Pilgrim, and Medieval King,” in Morton W. Bloomfield, ed., Allegory, Myth, and Symbol (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), 153–61, 153; Eleanor Hull, “The Idea of Hades in Celtic Literature,” Folklore 8 (1907): 121–165, 153; also, Donna Crawford, “‘Gronyng wyth grysly wounde’: Injury in Five Middle English Breton Lays,” in Carol M. Meale, ed., Readings in Medieval English Romance (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1994), 35–52, 46–49; Anne Marie D’Arcy, “The Faerie King’s Kunstkammer: Imperial Discourse and the Wondrous in Sir Orfeo,” Review of English Studies 58 (2007): 10–33. 65. E. O. Blake, ed., Liber Eliensis (London: Royal Historical Society, 1962), Camden Third Series, Vol. 92, Book II., 101–102; translations are from Janet Fairweather, trans., Liber Eliensis (Boydell Press, 2005). 66. Blake, Liber Eliensis, II. 102 and 111, pp. 206, 229. 67. Whitelock, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 199. 68. The strangeness of these violent images in the poem leads Bruce Mitchell to speculate that this passage is a later interpolation rather than original to the poem. If so, the interpolator may have included this feature, along with the reference to Winchester, in response to other features in the poem that recall the history of the Conquest. See his “The Faery World of Sir Orfeo,” Neophilologus 43 (1964): 155–159. 69. On Hautdesert as an Otherworld castle, see Muriel A. Witaker, “Otherworld Castles in Middle English Arthurian Romance,” in The Medieval Castle: Romance and Reality, Medieval Studies at Minnesota, 1 vol., ed. Kathryn Reyerson and Faye Powe (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1984), 27–45. 70. See Corinne Saunders, The Forest of Medieval Romance: Avernus, Broceliande, Arden (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1993), 151–155. 71. The plot of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has been traced to the thirteenthcentury French Vulgate cycle, specifically the Vulgate Lancelot, Merlin, and the continuation of Merlin. However, hall and castle architecture does not feature in that version and thus seems to be an element introduced by the English poet. See Richard R. Griffith, “Bertilak’s Lady: The French Background of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” in Machaut’s World: Science and Art in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Madeleine Pelner Cosman and Bruce Chandler (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1978), 249–266. 72. Two items within Arthur’s hall pose some exception to an otherwise consistent pattern: the tapestries from Tharsia (l. 77) and the nakryn (l. 118), both items of Middle Eastern origin which would fit more appropriately in a Norman lordly dwelling, given their prominent role in the Crusades. 73. At the end of the narrative, Gawain returns to “the kynges burʒ” (l. 2,476), again consistent with the poet’s vocabulary for describing Arthur’s hall. While Bertilak also refers to his own dwelling as a “burʒ” (l. 1,034), his dwelling is also referred to, and characterized, as a “castel.” The word “castel” never applies to Arthur’s hall. 74. See Michael Thompson, “Castles,” in A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, ed. Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1997), 119–130, 130. 75. Stephen H. A. Shepherd, ed., Le Morte Darthur (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), XVIII/10. 76. Thorlac Turville-Petre compares the courtly refi nements of Arthur’s court in the poem with those of Edward III’s court as described by Jean Froissart. See

Notes

77.

78.

79. 80.

81.

82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87.

177

Reading Middle English Literature (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 82–87. The word “naker” derives from the Arabic naqqāra and indicates a kettledrum of Middle Eastern origin. They appear in England as of the early fourteenth century at the court of Edward I, but are mentioned in France in the thirteenth century (nacaires). See Stanley Sadie, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, 3 vols. (New York: Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1984), Vol. 2, 744–745; Willi Apel and Ralph T. Daniel, eds., The Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music (New York: MFJ Books, 1960), 188. “Tars” is a precious fabric (probably silk) from “Tharsia,” or “Tartary,” that is, the Mongol Empire in central Asia, possibly Romania. See Paul Battles, ed., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2012), note to l. 77; cf. Guy of Warwick (Auchinleck, l. 709) and Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale (l. 2,160), both of which mention cloth of Tars. The French town of Tolouse was also known for its fine cloth. These same fine cloth tapestries and instruments are also found in castle Hautdesert (ll. 858, 1,016). M. W. Thompson, “The Green Knight’s Castle,” in Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. Allen Brown, ed. C. Harper-Bill, C. H. Holdsworth, and J. L. Nelson (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 1989), 317–326; also Michael Thompson, “Castles,” in A Companion to the Gawain-Poet. Both studies compare the description of Bertilak’s castle with Beeston Castle in Cheshire, among others, in terms of both the castle itself and the surrounding landscape. See also Robert Cockcroft, “Castle Hautdesert: Portrait or Patchwork,” Neophilologus 62 (1978): 459–477, and R. W. V. Elliot, “Sir Gawain in Staffordshire,” The London Times (May 21, 1959): 12, both of which suggest similarities between Hautdesert and Swythamley Park. Also Peter J. Lucas, “Hautdesert in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Neophilologus 70 (1986): 319–320. More recently, Ordelle G. Hill links castle Hautdesert with the late medieval castles of the West Midlands and Wales. See Looking Westward: Poetry, Landscape, and Politics in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2009), 92–100. See Battles, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, l. 2,445. The “double ditch” has perplexed scholars. R. W. Ackerman suggests a single ditch of twice the average width. See “Castle Hautdesert in SGGK,” in Mélanges de Langue et le Littérature du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance, offerts à Jean Frappier, professeur à la Sorbonne (Geneva, Droz, 1970), Vol. 1, 1–7, n. 6. Andrea Clough notes the French derivation of much of the vocabulary used to describe Hautdesert. See her “The French Element in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 86 (1985): 187–196. On Gawain’s shifting perspective as he enters Hautdesert, see Cockcroft, “Castle Hautdesert: Portrait or Patchwork,” 459–477. Frank Bottomley, The Castle Explorer’s Guide (London: Kaye and Ward, 1979), 32–33; Hill, Looking Westward, 95; Goodall, The English Castle 1066–1650, 34–36. Cockcroft, “Castle Hautdesert: Portrait or Patchwork,” 471. Cathcart King, The Castle in England and Wales, 35–36. On the relationship between the hunting and bedroom scenes, see Margaret Charlotte Ward, “French Ovidian Beasts in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 79 (1978): 152–161. According to Goodall, fi replaces suited the small private chamber typical of castle architecture better than the large central hearth typical of hall architecture. See The English Castle 1066–1650, 35–36. Walter S. Phelan, who calculated the ratio of Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and romance vocabulary in certain passages of the poem, notes “this short passage

178 Notes

88.

89. 90.

91. 92. 93. 94.

95.

96.

97. 98.

has the highest romance word-count of any ten lines I found.” See “Playboy of the Medieval World: Nationalism and Internationalism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Literary Review 23 (1980): 542–558, 551–552. The most recent textual editing of Sir Gawain suggests that feminine influence is even more determining in the poem than scholars had previously thought. See Paul Battles, “Amended Texts, Emended Ladies: Textual Editing and Female Agency in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” The Chaucer Review 44 (2010): 323–343. On the critique of court culture in the poem, see also Robert Levine, “Aspects of Grotesque Realism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” The Chaucer Review 17 (1982): 65–75. Goltho provides an example of hall architecture where the chamber and hall are in close proximity but not actually joined. See Guy Beresford, Goltho: The Development of an Early Medieval Manor c. 850–1150 (London: Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission, 1987), 30–31, 35–36, 41–42, 54; Blair, “Hall and Chamber,” in Anglo-Norman Castles, 309–310. Beresford, Goltho: The Development of an Early Medieval Manor c. 850– 1150, 29–38; Williams, “A Bell-house and a Burh-geat,” 230. Williams extends the term burh to include such private estates. Williams, “A Bell-house and a Burh-geat,” 239–240. See Robin Fleming, “Lords and Labour,” in From the Vikings to the Normans, ed. Wendy Davis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 107–137, 112–113. Thompson devotes an entire chapter to the survival and expansion of the native-style hall in the post-Conquest period. See Chapter 6, “The Triumph of the Native Style,” in The Medieval Hall, 99–143. Also David A. Hinton, “Archaeology and Post-Conquest England,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Culture, ed. Andrew Galloway (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 43–65, 72–73. Later in the poem, Adam Spencer speaks of freeing Gamelyn from Johan’s “bour” (l. 405), the word normally used for the chamber adjoining the hall at ground level. While the word “bour” is consistent with hall architecture, in this case, the poet seems to use it primarily for rhyming compatibility with the word “traytour” (l. 406) in the following line. Adam means “hall” in general, where Gamelyn is tied up. See Alan Lupack, ed., Lancelot of the Laik and Sir Tristrem (Kalamazoo: Western Medieval Institute Publications, 1994; reprt. 1997). Mark makes Tristrem steward of “Cities, castels alle” (l. 2,434), but this appears to be an isolated, formulaic phrase indicating reward and bears little resemblance to the buildings described in Cornwall. By contrast, in Tristan und Isolde, Gottfried von Strassburg, who worked from the same Anglo-Norman source of Thomas of Britain, very clearly describes Mark’s court as a castle, as Tristan exclaims “‘Tintajêl? Â welh ein castêl!’” (l. 3,159, “‘Tintagel? What a splendid castle!’”), and castle imagery dominates Tintagel throughout. See von Strassburg, Tristan, 3 vols., ed., Rüdiger Krohn (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam, 1980; reprt. 2006). See Paul Battles, “Of Graves, Caves, and Subterranean Dwellings,” 274–276. See Dominique Battles, “The Literary Source of the Minnegrotte in Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan,” Neophilologus 93 (2009): 465–469.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3 1. Oliver H. Creighton, Designs upon the Land: Elite Landscapes of the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2009), 122–166.

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2. Corinne J. Saunders, The Forest of Medieval Romance: Avernus, Broceliande, Arden (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1993), 10. 3. The word “forest” appears in English c. 1300 specifi cally in reference to an area subject to Forest Law as conceived by the Norman, and later Angevin, kings. For a recent discussion of the terminology of the concept of the forest and Forest Law in medieval England, see Scott Kleinman, “Frið and Fredom: Royal Forests and the English Jurisprudence of Laʒamon’s Brut and Its Readers,” Modern Philology 109 (2011): 17–45, 26–27, 43. 4. Charles R. Young, The Royal Forests of Medieval England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979), 1–17; Trevor Rowley, Norman England (London: Batsford, 1997), 128–132. 5. See Saunders, The Forest of Medieval Romance, 8–9. 6. See Austin Lane Poole, From Domesday to Magna Carta 1087–1216 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 32–33. By 1216, the crown was fi nally forced to release some of its control of the forest given the antagonism the laws had generated. 7. Rowley, Norman England, 128–130. 8. Trevor Rowley, The Norman Heritage 1066–1200 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983), 153; Stephen Friar, The Sutton Companion to Castles (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 2003), 91. 9. See N. J. Sykes, “The Impact of the Normans on Hunting Practices in England,” in Food in Medieval England, ed. C. M. Woolgar, D. Serjeantson, and T. Waldron (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 162–175, 169. 10. Friar, The Sutton Companion to Castles, 91. 11. Rowley, The Norman Heritage 1066–1200, 153. The Norman conquest of Sicily spanned several decades (1061–1091) and coincided with the conquest of England. 12. Creighton, Designs upon the Land, 124; J. Birrell, “Deer and Deer Farming in Medieval England,” Agricultural History Review 40 (1992): 112–126, 114–115. 13. Sykes, “The Impact of the Normans on Hunting Practices in England,” in Food in Medieval England, 165–166. Sykes notes that even when overall consumption of game rose among all social classes, the gap in consumption between the richest and poorest remained constant. 14. Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 43. 15. Ibid., 47–52. 16. Ibid., 35. 17. See Patrizia Grimaldi, “Sir Orfeo as Celtic Folk-Hero, Christian Pilgrim, and Medieval King,” in Allegory, Myth, and Symbol, ed. Morton W. Bloomfield (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 153–161, 156–161; also J. Eadie, “A Suggestion as to the Origin of the Steward in the Middle English Sir Orfeo,” Trivium 7 (1972): 54–60, 56; on the sin of sensuality, see John B. Friedman, Orpheus in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 86–95; Thomas B. Hanson, “Sir Orfeo: Romance as Exemplum,” Annuale mediaevale 13 (1972): 135–154. 18. Saunders, The Forest of Medieval Romance, 10–19. 19. Oren Falk, “The Son of Orfeo: Kingship and Compromise in a Middle English Romance,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30 (2000): 247–274; Edward Donald Kennedy, “Sir Orfeo as Rex Inutilis,” Annuale medieval 17 (1976): 88–110; A. S. G. Edwards argues for Orfeo’s ineffectiveness as a king, an argument that hinges on ironic readings of several key

180

20.

21.

22.

23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

Notes scenes. See his “Marriage, Harping, and Kingship: The Unity of Sir Orfeo,” American Benedictine Review 32 (1981): 282–291. Stanley B. Greenfield, “The Formulaic Expression of the Theme of ‘Exile’ in Anglo-Saxon Poetry,” Speculum 30 (1955): 200–206. In a recent study of the exile motif in Middle English romance, Rosalind Field suggests that Orfeo’s exile and return speaks to Norman, not Anglo-Saxon, identity. See “The King Over the Water: Exile-and-Return Revisited,” in Cultural Encounters in the Romance of Medieval England, ed. Corinne J. Saunders (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2005), 41–53, 48–50. Nicholas Howe, “The Landscape of Anglo-Saxon England: Inherited, Invented, Imagined,” in Inventing Medieval Landscapes: Senses of Place in Western Europe, ed. John Howe and Michael Wolfe (Gainesville: University Press of Florida), 91–112, 103–109. The Twelfth-Century French Romance Floris et Blanchefl or Preserves a Reference to “le lai d’Orphey” (l. 855). A. J. Bliss, Sir Orfeo, xxxi–xxxiii; Eadie, “A Suggestion as to the Origin of the Steward in the Middle English Sir Orfeo,” 54–60. “The Antecedents of Sir Orfeo,” in Studies in Medieval Literature in Honor of Professor Albert Croll Baugh, ed. MacEdward Leach (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961), 187–207, 190–192. See also Saunders, “Introduction,” in Cultural Encounters in the Romance of Medieval England, 3–6. Ovid has Orpheus immediately go to the Underworld to reclaim Eurydice upon her death. After losing her the second time, Orpheus spends seven days lamenting her death while going without food. For Virgil, the time is seven months. Alfred has Orpheus deliberately forsake the company of other men and go into the wild. Cited from W. J. Sedgefield, King Alfred’s Version of Boethius De Consolatione Philosophiae (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900), 102. On the intensely personal and emotional vantage of this episode in Sir Orfeo, see Mary Hynes-Berry, “Cohesion in King Horn and Sir Orfeo,” Speculum 50 (1975): 652–670, 654–656. For nostalgia as a cornerstone in Anglo-Saxon literary consciousness, see Renée Trilling, The Aesthetics of Nostalgia: Historical Representation in Old English Verse (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009). Greenfield, “The Formulaic Expression of the Theme of ‘Exile’in AngloSaxon Poetry,” 203. See especially Felicity Riddy, “The Uses of the Past in ‘Sir Orfeo’,” Yearbook of English Studies 6 (1976): 5–15. “Perceptions of Transience,” in Cambridge Companion to Old English Poetry, ed. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 172–189, 187. On “deprivation” as a recurring element in the exile theme in Old English poetry, see Greenfield, “The Formulaic Expression of the Theme of ‘Exile’ in Anglo-Saxon Poetry,” 202–203. Some examples include the Last Survivor’s speech in Beowulf: Næs hearpan wyn,/gomen gleobeames, ne god hafoc/ geond sæl swingeð, ne se swifta mearh/burhsteade beateð (ll. 2,262–2,265, “There was no harp’s delight/no mirth of the joyful harp/nor does the good hawk wing through the hall, neither does the swift horse prance in the enclosure of the fortress”). The text is cited from Fr. Klaeber, ed., Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 3rd ed. (Lexington, MA: Heath, 1950). Compare also The Wanderer: Hwær com mearg? Hwær com magu? Hwær com maþþumgyfa?/Hwær com symbla gesetu? Hwær syndon seledreamas?/Eala beorht bune! Eala byrnwiga!/Eala þeodnes þrym! (ll. 92–95, “Where has the horse gone? Where the kinsman? Where the giver of treasure? Where the place of

Notes

31.

32. 33.

34.

35.

36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

45.

181

feasting? Where are the pleasures of the hall? Alas, the bright cup! Alas, the warrior! Alas, the lord’s glory!”). Riddy has noted similar lists of lost pleasure in some Middle English penitential lyrics, where images of courtly luxury connote vainglory. Nevertheless, as Riddy points out, whereas the lyrics express contempt for worldly luxury, the Orfeo-poet expresses nostalgia for those same pleasures, a view shared by Old English elegy. See Riddy, “The Uses of the Past in ‘Sir Orfeo’,” 12–13. On the parallel between the marriage of king and state, and of man and wife, as embodied in Orfeo, see Edwards, “Marriage, Harping, and Kingship: The Unity of Sir Orfeo,” 282–291. Laura Hibbard Loomis lists the winter landscape as one of the many typically English features of the poem. See her review of Bliss’s edition of Sir Orfeo in Journal of English and Germanic Philology 55 (1956): 290– 292, 291. For example, Chretien’s Erec and Enide, which ends with a Christmas coronation ceremony, says nothing about winter. One notable exception in English literature is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but the winter landscape there is remarkable precisely for its departure from convention. See, for example, The Wanderer, ll. 23–24, 48, 57, 102–103; The Seafarer, ll. 14–15, 32–33. Winter is so central to the Anglo-Saxon theme of exile, that the Old English poet of Andreas even adds wintertime in total contradiction to his source when describing the hero’s imprisonment. See Andreas 1255– 1269. For a discussion of this passage and specifically the influence of the Old English “Exile” theme upon it, see John Miles Foley, Traditional Oral Epic: The Odyssey, Beowulf, and the Serbo-Croatian Return Song (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 351–353. Saunders also distinguishes between Orfeo’s experience of the forest and the Fairy King’s experience of that same landscape. However, she arrives at rather different conclusions. See The Forest of Medieval Romance, 138–140. Saunders discusses the Fairy Hunt in Orfeo in the context of other fairy hunts in Celtic literature and notes that the courtly sport in this scene links it with the French romance tradition rather than with the fairy hunt of Celtic tradition. See The Forest of Medieval Romance, 138–139. John Block Friedman, “Eurydice, Heurodis, and the Noon-Day Demon,” Speculum 41 (1966): 22–29. See Marjorie Chibnall, ed. and trans., The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969–1980), Vol. II, 203, 205– 206, 267, 313. Peter Rex, The English Resistance: The Underground War against the Normans (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing, 2005). John Finlayson suggests that Gawain sets out from Camelot to defend Queen Guinevere’s honor. See “Sir Gawain, Knight of the Queen, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” English Language Notes 27 (1989): 7–13. Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, trans. William Kibler (London: Penguin Books, 1991), 303. See Note 29 above. George L. Kittredge, A Study of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916), 4; Walter S. Phelan, “Playboy of the Medieval World: Nationalism and Internationalism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Literary Review 23 (1980): 542–558, 553; Saunders, The Forest of Medieval Romance, 150. See Nora K. Chadwick, “The Monsters and Beowulf,” in The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in Some Aspects of Their History and Culture Presented to Bruce

182

46. 47. 48.

49.

50. 51.

52. 53. 54.

55. 56. 57.

58.

59.

Notes Dickins, ed. Peter Clemoes (London: Bowes and Bowes, 1959), 171–203, 175–177. Paul Christopherson noted the similarities between the forest scenes of Sir Gawain and the wild landscape of Beowulf several decades ago, but did not develop these observations very fully. See “The Englishness of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” in On the Novel: A Present for Walter Allen on His 60th Birthday from His Friends and Colleagues, ed. B. S. Benedikz (London: Dent, 1971), 46–56, 49–50. Citations from Pearl are from Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron, The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript, as reprinted in Casey Finch, ed. and trans., The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). The word “gryndel” also occurs in Patience, l. 524. J. Bord and C. Bord, Sacred Waters: Holy Wells and Water Lore in Britain and Ireland (London: Granada Publishing, 1985), 34; cited in Della Hooke, Trees in Anglo-Saxon England: Literature, Lore and Landscape (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2010), 69–70. Blickling Homilies XVII, “Dedication to St. Michael’s Church”; R. Morris, ed., The Blickling Homilies, EETS OS 58, 63, 73 (1874, 1876, 1880; reprt. as one vol. 1967), 208–211; on the source connection to Beowulf, see R. D. Fulk, Robert Bjork, and John D. Niles, eds., Klaeber’s Beowulf, 4th ed. (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2008), note to l. 1,357bff. The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, Vol. 3, in The Exeter Book, ed. George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936). Christopher Corèdon and Ann Williams, A Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases, 159, 294. The hundred fi rst appears in the eleventh century. On the origins of the hundred, see F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1947), 289–290, 296–297, 497. Trees in Anglo-Saxon England, 170–174. Ibid., 172. J. A. Burrow, A Reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), 22–23, 66–69; Edward Wilson, The Gawain-Poet (London: E. J. Brill, 1976), 119–120; Robert J. Blanch and Julian W. Wasserman, “To ‘ouertake your wylle’: Volition and Obligation in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Neophilologus 70 (1986): 119–129; also their “Medieval Contracts and Covenant: The Legal Coloring of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Neophilologus 68 (1984): 598–610. “The Legal Framework of ‘A Twelmonyth and a Day’ in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 84 (1983): 347–352. Ibid., 350. Regarding the hundred court, Stenton remarks that “the spiritual element was so strong in the national assembly that it is sometimes described as a synod . . . [while] the king himself speaks as a homilist rather than a ruler” (Anglo-Saxon England, 538). On the religious language of the Green Chapel episode, see Gerald Morgan, “The Validity of Gawain’s Confession in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Review of English Studies 36 (1985): 1–18, 14–18; John Burrow, “The Two Confession Scenes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Modern Philology 57 (1959): 73–79. The specifi cally Anglo-Saxon fl avor of the Green Chapel as a place of trial becomes all the more striking when compared with the famous trial episode in The Tale of Gamelyn, which takes place indoors, rather than outdoors, within a village, rather than out in the forest, refl ecting contemporary practice. Rowley, The Norman Heritage 1066–1200, 153. Boundaries might be created with a ditch, a wooden fence, or in some cases a stone wall. On the

Notes

60.

61. 62. 63. 64.

65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72.

73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

183

length of the palisade in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, see Robert Cockcroft, “Castle Hautdesert: Portrait or Patchwork,” Neophilologus 62 (1978): 459–477, 466–467. Anglo-Saxon lords on the eve of the Conquest were only just beginning to engage in deer husbandry and establishing deer parks. See Robin Fleming, “Lords and Labour,” in From the Vikings to the Normans, ed. Wendy Davis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 107–137, 131. Rowley, The Norman Heritage 1066–1200, 153. Rowley provides an example from the mid-twelfth century, where William le Gros destroyed several villages to create a chase in the North Riding of Yorkshire. See The Norman Heritage 1066–1200, 153–154. See Ann Rooney, “The Hunts in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” in A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, ed. Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1997), 157–163, 158. Ad Putter traces these practices to Anglo-Norman hunting manuals. See “The Ways and Words of the Hunt: Notes on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Master of Game, Sir Tristrem, Pearl, and Saint Erkenwald,” The Chaucer Review 40 (2006): 354–385. John Cummins, “Veneurs s’en vont en Paradis: Medieval Hunting and the ‘Natural’ Landscape,” in Inventing Medieval Landscapes: Senses of Place in Western Europe, ed. John Howe and Michael Wolfe (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), 33–56, 40–41. Cummins is himself an experienced hunter. Creighton, Designs upon the Land, 151. N. J. Sykes, “The Impact of the Normans on Hunting Practices in England,” 173. Edward, Duke of York, The Master of Game, ed. William Adolf Baillie-Grohman and Florence Ballie-Grohman (London: Chatto & Windus, 1909). See Walter J. Ong, “The Green Knight’s Harts and Bucks,” Modern Language Notes 65 (1950): 536–539, 537–538. On the growing preference for the fallow deer in deer parks, see Friar, The Sutton Companion to Castles, 91. Sykes indicates that excoriation appears in England shortly after 1066, based on skeletal remains of deer at various sites. By contrast, the patterns of body parts indicating excoriation are not found in France until the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. See “The Impact of the Normans on Hunting Practices in England,” 172–174. Ibid., 173. Ann Rooney, Hunting in Middle English Literature (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993), 12–13. For example, in Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan, the young hero, having landed in England, identifies himself as a member of the highest social class, and as a foreigner, in how he breaks a deer in the presence of members of Mark’s court (l. 2,843ff.), who stand in awe of his skills. See Gottfried von Straßburg, Tristan, 3 vols., ed. Rüdiger Krohn (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun., 1980; reprt. 2006). Sykes, “The Impact of the Normans on Hunting Practices in England,” 166. Ibid., 167. See Edward, Duke of York, “The Wild Boar and His Nature,” in The Master of the Game, Chapter 6. Sykes, “The Impact of the Normans on Hunting Practices in England,” 169–170. See Rooney, “The Hunts in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” 159. Rooney cites contemporary hunting manuals, which advise remaining on one’s horse and attacking the boar with a boar spear. Saunders likens the hunt near Hautdesert to the hunt in Sir Orfeo, “for the hunt is both a civilized, ritual and realistic action, and a strangely threatening

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Notes

and savage one, a mixture of qualities which becomes emblematic of Gawain’s sojourn at Hautdesert.” See The Forest of Medieval Romance, 152. 79. See Marjory Rigby, “‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ and the Vulgate ‘Lancelot’,” Modern Language Review 78 (1983): 257–266, 260–261. One important diff erence is that Morgana and Caradoc do not work together in the temptation of Lancelot, as Morgana and Bertilak’s wife do in Sir Gawain. 80. See Marcelle Thiébaux, The Stag of Love: The Chase in Medieval Literature (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974), 85; Saunders, The Forest of Medieval Romance, 153. 81. See Rooney, “The Hunts in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” 158.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 1. Edward of Salisbury, Gospatric son of Arnkell, Thorkell of Warwick, and Colswein of Lincoln. See David Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery: The Penguin History of Britain 1066–1284 (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 79. 2. Margorie Chibnall, ed. and trans., Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969–1980), Vol. 2, ii. 223, Book IV, 266–267. 3. Chibnall, Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ii. 172, Book IV, 202–203. 4. See Peter Rex, The English Resistance: The Underground War against the Normans (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing, 2005), 76–79. 5. For some time, Hereward was considered a member of the Wake family. More recently, his ancestry has come under revision. See Victor Head, Hereward (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1995), 156–169; Rex, Hereward: The Last Englishman (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing, 2005), 36–50. 6. These tales of Hereward and Eadric are collected and translated in Thomas H. Ohlgren, ed., Medieval Outlaws: Ten Tales in Modern English (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1998). A revised and expanded edition of this book is published by Parlor Press, 2005. For a historical account of the English resistance, see Ann Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 1995), and the recent accounts by Rex, The English Resistance, and Hereward: The Last Englishman. 7. Maurice Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2000), 10. 8. For a recent discussion of Eadric, see Timothy S. Jones, Outlawry in Medieval Literature (New York: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2010), 61–62. 9. Keen devotes two chapters to the legend of Hereward in The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 2nd ed., 9–38, 30. Concurring with Keen’s assertion that this tradition emerged out of the political confl icts of the Norman Conquest, Thomas Ohlgren identifies the story of Earl Godwin, whose confl icts with a French advisor of Edward the Confessor are preserved in the anonymous Vita Ædwardi Regis (c. 1065–1067), as the “earliest extended account of outlawry in English literature.” See Ohlgren, ed., “General Introduction,”in Medieval Outlaws: Ten Tales in Modern English (1998), xvii, and Jones’s Introduction to the Vita, 1–4. 10. Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 11, 23. 11. A Crisis of Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 187–188. 12. Ohlgren, Medieval Outlaws, xxiii–xxv.

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13. R. M. Wilson, The Lost Literature of Medieval England (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1969), 9, 123–125; Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 34–35. 14. See Head, Hereward, 16–36. 15. The Gesta Herewardi has been edited and translated by Michael Swanton, Three Lives of the Last Englishmen (New York: Garland, 1984), 45–88; reprt. in Ohlgren, Medieval Outlaws, op. cit. All references to the Gesta are from Swanton’s 1984 edition. For an excellent study of the Gesta Herewardi and English identity, see Hugh M. Thomas, “The Gesta Herewardi, the English, and Their Conquerors,” Anglo-Norman Studies 21 (1999): 213–232. Jones discusses the Gesta in relation to other sources for the Hereward legend in Outlawry in Medieval Literature, 74–87. 16. See Velma Bourgeois Richmond, “Historical Novels to Teach Anglo-Saxonism,” in Anglo-Saxonism and the Construction of Social Identity, ed. Allen J. Frantzen and John D. Niles (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997), 173–201, 173–174; Clare A. Simmons, Reversing the Conquest: History and Myth in Nineteenth-Century British Literature (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 175–202. 17. Hereward the Wake (London: J. M. Denton & Sons, Ltd., 1961). See Richmond, “Historical Novels to Teach Anglo-Saxonism,” in Anglo-Saxonism and the Construction of Social Identity, 182–183. 18. Other nineteenth-century novels inspired by Hereward include C. MacFarlane’s Camp of Refuge (published 1844 and again between 1846–1848), and Bulwer Lytton, Harold, Last of the Saxons (1848). In 1896, Lt-Gen Harward published Hereward the Saxon Patriot, in an attempt to trace his own ancestry back to the famous resistance leader. During the fi rst half of the twentieth century, Hereward formed the subject of a few more fictional works: For Hereward and Freedom by A. Edwards Chapman (1933), The Last Englishman, by H. Weenolson (1952), and Russel Thorndike’s The First Englishman (1949). Rex discusses each of these fictional works in Hereward, 166–181. 19. Simmons, Reversing the Conquest: History and Myth in Nineteenth-Century British Literature, 198–202. 20. John Hayward, “Hereward the Outlaw,” Journal of Medieval History 14 (1988): 293–304, 295. For a listing of Hereward’s landholdings, see Rex, Hereward, 197. Based on the amount of a mutually agreed rent between Hereward and Peterborough Abbey, Ann Williams concludes that Hereward was a kingly thegn rather than a median thegn. See The English and the Norman Conquest (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1995), 50. 21. Cyril Hart defends Hereward’s actions at Peterborough on the basis of the imminent arrival at Peterborough of the new Norman abbot, Turold, with a retinue of one hundred sixty knights, and Hereward’s long affi liation with that abbey, which may explain why Hereward’s men harmed none of the monks. See Hart, The Danelaw (London: The Hambledon Press, 1992), 625–648. 22. Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest, 51. 23. Hayward, “Hereward the Outlaw,” 295; Hart notes that the forest of Brunneswald was held by Turkil of Harringworth, a neighboring landowner and possible ally of Hereward (a certain Turkil appears alongside Hereward in the Gesta Herewardi). See Hart’s chapter entitled “Hereward ‘The Wake’ and his Companions,” in The Danelaw, 636–640. 24. In addition to the thirteenth-century Gesta Herewardi, the sources of Hereward’s deeds include the “E” version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle compiled at Peterborough (segment on Hereward written before 1121), the early twelfth-century Liber Eliensis (which may have provided an earlier draft

186

25. 26. 27. 28.

29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35.

36. 37. 38.

39.

Notes of the Gesta), Geff rei Gaimar’s L’Estoire des Engleis (c. 1140), the Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus (written after 1175), and the History by the false Ingulf (whose dating, according to scholars, falls somewhere between the mid-fourteenth and mid-fi fteenth centuries). See Hayward, “Hereward the Outlaw,” 293, 294. See pp. 74–75. See Hugh M. Thomas, “The Defense of English Honor,” in The English and the Normans: Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation, and Identity, 1066–1220 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 241–260. See his “The Gesta Herewardi, the English, and Their Conquerors.” Thomas cites Hayward, who connects this episode with the prohibition in the council of Westminster in 1102 lest abbots “make knights” (faciant milites), recorded in another version as “dub or make knights” (adobbent aut faciant milites). See Hayward, “Hereward the Outlaw,” 303 n.2; Dorothy Whitelock, Martin Brett, and C. N. L. Brooks, eds., Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, 1066–1204 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), Vol. I, Part 2, 676–677, 680; Thomas, “The Gesta Herewardi, the English, and Their Conquerors,” 225. Anti-English prejudice on the battleground also comes from non-Norman inhabitants of Britain in the Gesta, such as Ulcus Ferreus, a man “reckoned the strongest warrior among the two nations of the Scots and Picts,” who disparages “the English nation for lacking the virtue of strength and being useless in battle” ( 49). Hereward replies that such ineffectual English opponents “‘were conceived in your own mind,’” and promptly knocks him out with one blow ( 49). See also Thomas, “The Gesta Herewardi, the English, and Their Conquerors,” 229. Thomas, “The Gesta Herewardi, the English, and Their Conquerors,” 230– 231; Rex, Hereward, 195–196. Thomas, “The Gesta Herewardi, the English, and Their Conquerors,” 231. On the centrality of trickery and disguise as plot features in the outlaw tradition, see Ohlgren, Medieval Outlaws, xxvi–xxviii. Donald B. Sands, Middle English Verse Romances (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc., 1966), 15; John Finlayson insists that “the Horn story has not a scrap of historical validity” in “King Horn and Havelok the Dane: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” Medievalia et Humanistica, n.s. 18 (1992): 17–45, 18; also W. R. J. Barron, English Medieval Romance (London: Longman, 1987), 65–69. See Rachel Snell, “The Undercover King,” in Medieval Insular Romance: Translation and Innovation, ed. Judith Weiss, Jennifer Fellows, and Morgan Dickson (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 2000), 133–155; also Howard Nimchinsky, “Orfeo, Guillaume, and Horn,” Romance Philology 22 (1968–9): 1–14, 9–13.. Ibid., 136–137. Lee C. Ramsey, Chivalric Romances: Popular Literature in Medieval England (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 41–44, 152. George H. McKnight sees the disguise scenes in Horn, among other features, as belonging to “the common stock of medieval romantic frippery.” See “Germanic Elements in the Story of King Horn,” Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 15 (1900): 221–232, 231–232; also Finlayson, “King Horn and Havelok the Dane: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” 21, 25–27; Barron, English Medieval Romance, 65–69. Gesta Herewardi, in T. H. Hardy, ed., Gaimar’s Estoire. Rolls Series I (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode for H. M. Stationery Office, 1888), 349–353;

Notes

40.

41.

42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 47.

48.

49.

50.

187

Swanton, “Gesta Herewardi,” in Three Lives of the Last Englishmen, 51–54. See Laura A. Hibbard, Medieval Romance in England (New York: Burt Franklin, 1969), 92–93; George H. McKnight likens the development of the story of Horn to that of Hereward, but does not argue for source influence. Instead, he draws parallels between this rescue episode and similar episodes in Saxo’s Gesta Danorum and Layamon’s Brut, though the similarities are not as precise, or of the same number and configuration as in the Gesta Herewardi. See “Germanic Elements in the Story of King Horn,” 222, 226–228. Deutschbein argues that the disguise episode in both the Gesta Herewardi and the Middle English King Horn derive from an earlier, now lost, version of the Horn story. In other words, for Deutschbein, the Horn story influenced the Gesta, not vice versa. Although the precise relationship between these two stories, in Deutschbein’s formulation, is difficult to verify in the absence of the lost source, nevertheless, he too notes parallels between these two texts that are too close to be coincidental. See his Studien zur Sagengeschichte Englands (Cöthen: Otto Shulze, 1906), 54–57. Although this disguise and infi ltration scene does not include harping (as in the Gesta, and by comparison Sir Orfeo), we know that Horn has been instructed in harping at the orders of King Aylmar (ll. 231, 240). See Chapter 2, pp. 64–65. See Lady with a Mead Cup: Ritual, Prophecy and Lordship in the European Warband from La Tène to the Viking Age (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1996). For this topos within Anglo-Saxon tradition in particular, see 2–11, 189–195. McKnight traces Rymenhild’s marriage to King Mody to the archaic Germanic custom of marriage by purchase. See “Germanic Elements in the Story of King Horn,” 230. Lady with a Mead Cup, 4–5. In the Old French Romance of Horn, Rigmel similarly uses a drinking horn (corn de bugle, l. 4,153), and when Horn puns on this drinking vessel with his own name, he ties it to English context: “‘Mes “corn” apelent “horn” li engleis latimier.’” (l. 4,206). Mildred K. Pope notes that the drinking horn Rigmel uses resembles a highly ornamented English-style horn possessed by Henry I, “sicut apud antiquissimos Anglos usus habet,” as well as other such horns mentioned by Geff rei Gaimar in L’Estoire des Engleis (l. 3,804). See Pope and T. B. W. Reid, eds., The Romance of Horn, Vol. II, 112–113. Chibnall, Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ii. 168. Drinking horns with metal mounts, in particular, were status objects in Anglo-Saxon culture. On the importance of drinking horns in Anglo-Saxon life, ceremony and burial, see David A. Hinton, Gold and Gilt, Pots and Pins: Possessions and People in Medieval Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 57, 63, 145, 148, 165–166, 169. The English poet indicates the antiquity of this custom with one brief phrase, whereas the French poet of The Romance of Horn references the antiquity and exoticism of this custom with three separate phrases: “Si cum costume esteit . . .” (l. 4,133); “ke fi rent si anceisor . . .” (l. 4,134); and “Costume iert a idonc en icele cuntréé . . .” (l. 4,137), suggesting the perspective of an outsider. In the Old French Romance of Horn, Rigmel offers the hero the drinking horn from the outset, rather than offering a bowl fi rst. The hero, therefore, is not faced with a choice of drinking vessels. Horn’s insistence on the drinking horn over the bowl in the English story only further emphasizes his AngloSaxon cultural identity.

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51. King Horn confi nes the topography of the story to the British Isles, while the Old French Romance of Horn expands the topography to include England, Brittany, and France, with further references to Italy and Spain. See Pope and Reid, The Romance of Horn, Vol. II, 4–6. 52. On the possible Germanic origins of the double climax plot structure of Horn, see McKnight, “Germanic Elements in the Story of King Horn,” 224–225. 53. See Alexander Bell, ed., L’Estoire des Engleis by Geff rei Gaimer (Oxford: B. Blackwell for the Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1960), ix–x. 54. Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery, 6. 55. Hans-Erich Keller, “Gaimar, Geff rei,” in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, 11 vols., by Joseph R. Strayer (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1985), Vol. 5, 340–341. 56. See Jill Frederick, “The South English Legendary: Anglo-Saxon Saints and National Identity,” in Literary Appropriations of the Anglo-Saxons from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. Donald Scragg and Carole Weinberg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 57–73. 57. See Kimberly K. Bell, “Resituating Romance: The Dialectics of Sanctity in MS Laud Misc. 108’s Havelok the Dane and Royal Vitae,” Parergon 25 (2008): 27–51; also her “‘Holie Mannes Liues’: England and Its Saints in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108’s King Horn and South English Legendary,” in The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108, ed. Bell and Julie Nelson Couch (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 251–274; Couch, “The Magic of Englishness in St. Kenelm and Havelok the Dane,” in The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108, 223–250. 58. See Anne B. Thompson, Everyday Saints and the Art of Narrative in the South English Legendary (Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2003). 59. All references and citations of Hugh Candidus are from W. T. Mellows, ed., The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, a Monk of Peterborough (London: Oxford University Press, 1949); Charles Mellows and William Thomas Mellows, trans., The Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus (Peterborough: Peterborough Museum Society, 1966). Hugh spent his life from boyhood on at Peterborough, eventually becoming subprior. His chronicle seems to have been augmented after his death. The original manuscript of Hugh’s chronicle as transcribed in the Peterborough Cartulary was part of the library of Sir Robert Cotton and lost in the fi re that destroyed most of that collection in 1731. Mellows’s edition is based on a seventeenth-century transcription of the Peterborough Cartulary (Cambridge University Library Dd.14.28). See Mellows, The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, xvi–xviii. Mellows also includes an edition of the partial Anglo-Norman verse translation of Hugh’s chronicle entitled La Geste de Burch (pp. 177–203), along with a modern English translation by Alexander Bell (pp. 204–218). 60. Mellows, The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, a Monk of Peterborough, 77–87; Mellows and Mellows, The Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, 41–45. Mellow’s Latin edition also includes a comparison of Hugh’s account of this episode with versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (xxvi–xxix). 61. Hart, The Danelaw, 628, 648. While Hugh does not specify the size of the crosses that Hereward seized, records from half a dozen communities prior to the Conquest indicate churches having collections of man-size crosses crafted of precious metal. See Robin Fleming, “Lords and Labour,” in From the Vikings to the Normans, ed. Wendy Davis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 107–137, 135. 62. See Hart, The Danelaw, 647–648. Hart notes that Peterborough Abbey was the fi rst religious house to face this threat to its lands after the Conquest. The monasteries of Ely and Bury St. Edmunds soon faced the same situation.

Notes

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68. 69.

189

These three monasteries, moreover, carried “an imposition of knight service almost equaling the demands made on all the rest of the English abbeys put together” (p. 647). See Thorlac Turville-Petre, England the Nation: Language, Literature, and National Identity 1290–1340 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 149–153; also Robert Allen Rouse, The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2005), 156. In earlier versions of the story of Havelok, the character corresponding to King Athelwold goes by the name “Adelbriht” (Gaimar), “Achebrit” (Lai d’Haveloc), “Egelbright” (Lambeth), or “Athelbright” (Anglo-Norman Brut). The figure of “Goldeboru” in Havelok goes by the name “Argentille” in earlier versions. G. V. Smithers has a useful chart of proper names for the story of Havelok. See his Havelok (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), xxxi; a similar chart of proper names appears in W. W. Skeat and K. Sisam, eds., The Lay of Havelok the Dane (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939), xix. Idelle Sullens, ed., Robert Mannyng of Brunne: The Chronicle (Binghamton University: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1996). It is interesting to note that these lines referencing an English version of the legend such as the Middle English Havelok, as indicated by the names “Athelwold” and “Goldeburgh,” occur in one manuscript witness of Mannyng’s Chronicle (MS P), but are replaced in a separate manuscript (MS L) with an eightytwo-line summary of the legend derived from an earlier French version, thus preserving the names “Egelbright” and “Argille” (cf. Argentille). See Sullens, Robert Mannyng of Brunne, 500–502. That Mannyng knew French, as well as English, versions of the legend is evidenced by his reference to King “Gunter” (l. 506) as Havelok’s father, instead of “Birkabeyn” as in Havelok the Dane. Sullens, Robert Mannyng of Brunne, 13–22; see also Thorlac Turville-Petre, “Havelok and the History of the Nation,” in Readings in Medieval English Romance, ed. Carole M. Meale (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1994), 121–134, 123–124. Many scholars have argued that the story of Havelok originates with Gaimar, who created the story from diverse sources. See Derek Pearsall, “The Development of Middle English Romance,” Medieval Studies 27 (1965): 91–116, 98; Scott Kleinman, “The Legend of Havelok the Dane and the Historiography of East Anglia,” Studies in Philology 100 (2003): 245–277, 264–265. Others have argued against this theory, suggesting that the French sources of Gaimar and the anonymous Lai d’Haveloc derive from an earlier, orally transmitted legend, which then receives fuller treatment in the Middle English Havelok the Dane. For a full discussion of this argument, see Nancy Mason Bradbury, “The Traditional Origins of Havelok the Dane” Studies in Philology 90 (1993): 115–142. Pope and Reid, The Romance of Horn, 2 vols. A similarly frustrating situation surrounds the occurrence of the name “Swanborow.” In Havelok the Dane, Swanborow (l. 411) is the name of one of Havelok’s two sisters who are murdered by Goddard, aside from which she plays no role in the poem. In the Old French Romance of Horn, Suanburc is Horn’s mother and plays an important narrative role. Again, insufficient characterization of her in Havelok impedes meaningful interpretation. Kleinman, “The Legend of Havelok the Dane and the Historiography of East Anglia,” 265–276. The original Anglo-Saxon town of this site was called “Medehamstede.” In the tenth century, a new abbey was built on the ruins of the old abbey (ruined by a Danish attack), and c.1000 a wall was built around the entire complex including town and abbey, at which point it was renamed “St.

190 Notes

70. 71.

72.

73.

74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79.

80. 81.

Peter’s Burgh” (Burgh referring to the fortification). In subsequent years, the abbey was bequeathed with so many riches and precious treasures, that it became known as “Gildene Burch.” See Cecily Clark, ed., The Peterborough Chronicle 1070–1154, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), appendix including “Peterborough Interpolations,” 115, 126. Hugh Candidus refers to Peterborough most often as simply “Burch.” Kleinman puts forth Peterborough as one of several possible sources for the name Goldeboru in the poem, but he does not develop the connection further. See his “The Legend of Havelok the Dane and the Historiography of East Anglia,” 266. The Old French Romance of Horn uses the spelling of “Goldeburc” (l. 257). Kleinman, “The Legend of Havelok the Dane and the Historiography of East Anglia,” 266; Alexander Bell, ed., L’Estoire des Engleis by Geff rei Gaimer, n. to ll. 2,091–2,118. Gaimar refers to Peterborough as “Goldborch” and “Gyldeneburh,” a spelling similar enough to “Goldeboru.” See also Kimberly K. Bell, “Resituating Romance: The Dialectics of Sanctity in MS Laud Misc. 108’s Havelok the Dane and Royal Vitae,” 38–40. Bell reads Athelwold in light of other saintly kings of the South English Legendary in a general sense. On these and other parallels in the poem, see Ananya J. Kabir, “Forging an Oral Style?: ‘Havelok’ and the Fiction of Orality,” Studies in Philology 98 (2001): 18–48, 20–29; on parallelism and other narrative structures in the poem, see Robert Hanning, “‘Havelok the Dane’: Structure, Symbols, Meaning,” Studies in Philology 64 (1967): 586–605; Dieter Mehl, The Middle English Romances of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), 168–169; Susan Crane, Insular Romance: Politics, Faith, and Culture in Anglo-Norman and Middle English Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 42. Gaimar applies the term to Haveloc exclusively; Argentille is only mentioned once as an heir, and only in combination with Haveloc as a joint heir to the throne. Smithers, Havelok, lvii. See David Staines, “Havelok the Dane: A Thirteenth-Century Handbook for Princes,” Speculum 51 (1976): 602–623, 610. Smithers, Havelok, xxxv. Smithers sees Goldeboru’s lengthy imprisonment as a flaw in the English version of the story. See Smithers, Havelok, xxxvi, liv–lv. See Gaimar, L’Estoire de Engleis, ll. 243–246, 625–641; Lai d’Haveloc, ll. 437, 450, 838. The anonymous Lai and Gaimar’s Havelok episode have been edited together by Alexander Bell, ed., Le Lai d’Haveloc and Gaimar’s Haveloc Episode (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1925). Alexander Bugge argues that the figure of Havelok derives ultimately from St. Olaf Tryggvason, whose light over his head corresponds to the flame in Havelok’s mouth. See his “The Origin and Credibility of the Icelandic Saga,” The American Historical Review 14 (1909): 249–261, 252–255. The Anglo-Norman verse translation of Hugh’s chronicle relates the story of the arm of St. Oswald but not that of the shoulder blade of the Holy Innocent. See Mellows, The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, a Monk of Peterborough, 195–197, 214–216. Walter Hoyt French and Charles Brockway Hale, eds., The Middle English Metrical Romances, 2 vols., (New York: Russell and Russell, 1964), Vol. I, 439. The wife of the man who discovers the baby, upon discovering the birthmark, cries “Dieus . . . cjilz sera rois!” (l. 670, “God, he will be a king!”) Also, the baby’s face shines “con lumiere” (l. 664, “like a light”), another possible correspondence to the light in Havelok’s mouth. See Anthony J. Holden, ed., Richars li Biaus: Roman du XIIIe siècle (Paris: Honoré Champion,

Notes

82. 83.

84.

85.

86.

87. 88.

89.

90.

191

1983). For a discussion of possible source influence between Richars li Biaus and Havelok the Dane, see Maldwyn Mills, “Havelok’s Return,” Medium Aevum 45 (1976): 20–35, 24–28. See also Bell, “Resituating Romance: The Dialectics of Sanctity in MS Laud Misc. 108’s Havelok the Dane and Royal Vitae,” 46–48. According to Hugh Candidus of Peterborough, among the treasures seized from Peterborough Abbey by Hereward and his men is a footrest from underneath the crucifi x made of pure gold and gems. See Mellows and Mellows, The Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, 41. The Anglo-Saxon Peterborough Chronicle specifies that this golden footrest is crafted from “reade golde.” See Clark, The Peterborough Chronicle 1070–1154, 1. On “red gold” as an Anglo-Saxon phrase, see Earl R. Anderson, Folk Taxonomies in Early English (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003), 130–141; Nigel Barley, “Old English Color Classification: Where Do Matters Stand?,” Anglo-Saxon England 3 (1974): 15–28. A somewhat more literal derivation of the phrase “red gold” distinguishes between AngloSaxon metalwork, which combined gold metal with lavish use of garnet, as opposed to the niello-and-silver technique preferred by Viking metalworkers. See Perette E. Michelli, “Anglo-Saxon Metalwork,” in Medieval England: An Encyclopedia, ed. Paul Szarmach, M. Teresa Tavormina, and Joel T. Rosenthal (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), 506–508. Rouse has shown how the figure of King Athelwold as a leader who maintains peace on the kingdom’s roads participates in a common Anglo-Saxon historiographic motif of safe travel that carried into the post-Conquest era known as “peace of the four roads.” See The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance, 106–112. See Julie Nelson Couch, “The Vulnerable Hero: Havelok and the Revision of Romance,” The Chaucer Review 42 (2008): 330–352; also Bell, “Resituating Romance: The Dialectics of Sanctity in MS Laud Misc. 108’s Havelok the Dane and Royal Vitae,” 43–44; Maldwyn Mills, “Havelok and the Brutal Fisherman,” Medium Aevum 36 (1967): 219–230. “The Magic of Englishness in St. Kenelm and Havelok the Dane,” in The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108, 223– 224, 237–244. See Bell, “Resituating Romance: The Dialectics of Sanctity in MS Laud Misc. 108’s Havelok the Dane and Royal Vitae.” Bell argues that the hagiographic aspect of Havelok stems from the work’s manuscript context, which is overwhelmingly religious in content, therefore dictating a religious reading of the poem. I would suggest that the relationship also works in the reverse: the author of Havelok altered the story internally in such a way as to qualify it for inclusion in such a religious collection. See also Diane Speed, “The Construction of the Nation in Middle English Romance,” in Readings in Medieval English Romance, 135–158. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (D), 1069 mentions two hundred forty ships. Dorothy Whitelock, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1961), 150. See also R. Allen Brown, The Normans and the Norman Conquest, 2nd ed. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1985), 168–169. King Swein himself did not personally attend this mission, instead placing the fleet under the command of his brother, Asbjorn, and at least two of his sons. See Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest, 36. Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (D), 1069, p. 150. Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest, 37; Brown, The Normans and the Norman Conquest, 168–169.

192 Notes 91. Scattered revolts followed at Exeter, led by men from Devon and Cornwall, and at Robert of Mortain’s new castle at Montacute. While most likely inspired by the success at York, these revolts, however, do not seem to represent a unified or broadly coordinated Anglo-Saxon front. See Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest, 37. 92. John Earle and Charles Plummer, eds., Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel: With Supplementary Extracts from the Others (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), 205; Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (E), 1069, 151. 93. Chibnall, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ii. 172; Hart, The Danelaw, 627; Rex, Hereward, 84–88. 94. In 1193, Cnut VI made over his rights to the English throne to Philip Augustus, ending the Danish claim. See Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest, 36. 95. According to historian David Carpenter, King Swein had allied himself with Edgar Aetheling, who had gained the support of King Malcolm in trying to regain the throne. Carpenter claims that, in the confrontation at Ely, the Danes were bought off, and hence withdrew their support from Hereward. See The Struggle for Mastery, 76–77. On the deal struck between King Swein and William the Conqueror, which left Hereward’s forces in the lurch, see also Rex, Hereward, 88. 96. Brown, The Normans and the Norman Conquest, 168–171. 97. Godrich warns his “Englishe” (l. 2,566) force against the “Denshe men” (l. 2,575) whom he rumors to have raided local priories and churches, seized the treasure, burned the priests, and strangled the monks and nuns, thus playing on the historical image of Danes as “dogges” (l. 2,596), none of which applies in this particular instance. Turville-Petre reads this passage as a conscious attempt to revise the historical understanding of the Danish ancestors of the people of the region of Lincolnshire. See “Havelok and the History of the Nation,” 132. 98. Rex, The English Resistance, 79, 95–103. 99. Under the Normans, the capital city of England gradually shifted from Winchester to London, and the royal palace in Winchester was eventually demolished in 1141. See Trevor Rowley, Norman England (London: Batsford, 1997), 94–98; Tony Dyson and John Schofield, “Saxon London,” in Anglo-Saxon Towns in Southern England, ed. Jeremy Haslam (Southampton: Phillmore & Co., 1984), 285–313, 288, 303, 308. Rouse reads the geographic shift at the end of Havelok in the spirit of social integration rather than segregation, as I do here. See The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance, 156. 100. Rouse argues that the two executions at the end of the tale also contrast continental and insular practice. Goddard, in Denmark, is executed by fl aying and other horrific means, a method typical of the continent. Godrich, in England, is executed by English means by being led to execution on a horses’ tail. See The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance, 104–105. He cites J. G. Bellamy, The Law of Treason in England in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 13; W. R. J. Barrow, “The Penalties for Treason in Medieval Life and Literature,” Journal of Medieval History 7 (1981): 187–202; also Larissa Tracy, “The Matter of Britain: Defi ning English Identity in Opposition to Torture,” in Torture and Brutality in Medieval Literature: Negotiations of National Identity (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2012). 101. The same combination of humble disguise and infi ltration into an enemy castle to reclaim a woman appears in the Middle English Bevis of Hampton, where the poem’s Saxon hero dons a sklavin (pilgrim’s mantle, ll. 2,066,

Notes

102.

103. 104.

105.

106. 107. 108. 109. 110.

111. 112.

113.

193

2,242) as a disguise in order to infi ltrate the stronghold of King Yvor and win back Josian (though this case involves no harping). Orfeo too dons a sclauin (ll. 228, 343) upon retreating into exile, a garment cited by some scholars as evidence of the penitential nature of Orfeo’s exile. Nevertheless, the Orfeo poet may have included it for its associations with Saxon tactical disguise for the purposes of reclaiming a loss (in Orfeo’s case, as in Bevis’, a woman). Swanton, Gesta Herewardi, 52–54. The association of disguise, harping, and infi ltration with Anglo-Saxon identity also appears in William of Malmesbury’s (c. 1095–c. 1143) Gesta Regum, where King Alfred himself, now driven back by the Danes into the marshy island of Athelney, disguises himself as a minstrel in order to infi ltrate the camp of the Danish King. The information he gathers over several days enables him, upon returning to Athelney, to organize English resistance and win back most of England. William of Malmesbury’s Chronicle of the Kings of England, ed. and trans. J. A. Giles (London: George Bell and Sons, 1889), 113–114. William’s Gesta is roughly contemporary with the Gesta Herewardi, and some scholars have argued that the scene from the Gesta Herewardi derives from William’s story of King Alfred. T. D. Hardy and G. T. Martin, Lestoire des Engles solum Maistre Geff rei Gaimar, 2 vols. (London: Royal Society), 1888–1889), 126. See Dorena Allen, “Orpheus and Orfeo: The Dead and the Taken,” Medium Aevum 33 (1964): 102–111. We could add a shared happy ending to the list of common plot elements between the Gesta Herewardi and Sir Orfeo. Thomas rightly calls the happy ending of the Gesta “fantasy” since “the vast majority of nobles in the historical Hereward’s generation suffered death, exile, or degradation to a lower class status as a result of the Norman Conquest.” See “The Gesta Herewardi, the English and Their Conquerors,” 231. Similarly, the happy ending of Sir Orfeo defies the tradition of the Orpheus legend, in which Eurydice goes back to the underworld. The Middle English romance of King Horn, which takes place in the AngloSaxon past during the period of the Viking raids, shares this pattern of exile, pilgrim disguise, rescue of a lady from a forced marriage, and return, elements which have been traced to Germanic tradition. See McKnight, “Germanic Elements in the Story of King Horn,” 221–232. King Horn, liv–lvi, 156 (l. 1,079n). Swanton, Gesta Herewardi, 63–64, 73. Ibid., 73. Thomas Forester, ed. and trans., The Chronicle of Florence of Worcester (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), 171. His deeds are preserved in the chronicles of Wygmore Abbey and in the Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ii. 194. Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 28–31; Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium, ed. and trans. M. R. James; rev. C. N. L. Brooke and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 154 n.1. Also, Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest, 89–94. Forester, The Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, 171. A. J. Bliss, Sir Orfeo, xxxii–xxxiii. Bliss refers to a different story within De Nugis Curialium (Dist. IV, c. 8), also involving fairies. Also, J. Burke Severs, “The Antecedents of Sir Orfeo,” in Studies in Medieval Literature in Honor of Professor Albert Croll Baugh, ed. MacEdward Leach (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961), 187–207, 192–196. This is not, however, a castle. Rather, Map specifies an English-style drinking house, which he calls a ghildus, a term not recorded elsewhere. See Map, De Nugis Curialium, 154–155, n.2.

194

Notes

114. W. de Gray Birch, Vita Haroldi (London: Elliot Stock, 1885); trans. in Three Lives of the Last Englishmen, 3–40. 115. Gray Birch, Vita Haroldi (London: 1885); the Vita has been translated by Swanton in Three Lives of the Last Englishmen, 3–40. See also Stephen Matthews, “The Content and Construction of the Vita Haroldi,” in King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2005), 65–73. The Vita Haroldi criticizes the Normans on several levels: fi rst, among other things, by stating three times in the opening that Harold, unlike William, was “rightfully and lawfully crowned” king (p. 3); second, by itemizing the treasures of Waltham Abbey that William stole and “carried off to France” (p. 80); third, by insisting that the Normans concocted the rumor of Harold’s death at Hastings because they feared “their destruction if the enemy [English] should hear that he was alive” (p. 34). 116. Swanton, Life of Harold Godwinson, 34. This is Edith Swan-Neck, Harold’s mistress. 117. Swanton, Life of Harold Godwinson, 13. 118. Ibid. 119. Swanton, Life of Harold Godwinson, 28–29. 120. Chester also happens to be the city where Harold’s widow, Ealdgyth (the sister of Earl Morcar, who participated in the rebellion at Ely), withdrew to after the Battle of Hastings. See Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest, 51–52. 121. Hemingsϸáttr, Fornmanna Sögur, and Játvarϸar. See Margaret Ashdown, “An Icelandic Account of the Survival of Harold Godwinson,” in The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in Some Aspects of Their History and Culture Presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. Peter Clemoes (London: Bowes and Bowes, 1959), 122–136. 122. Swanton, Life of Harold Godwinson, 17. 123. See Patrizia Grimaldi, “Sir Orfeo as Celtic Folk-Hero, Christian Pilgrim, and Medieval King,” in Allegory, Myth, and Symbol, ed. Morton W. Bloomfield (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 153–61, 156–161; also J. Eadie, “A Suggestion as to the Origin of the Steward in the Middle English Sir Orfeo,” Trivium 7 (1972): 54–60, 56; on the sin of sensuality, see John B. Friedman, Orpheus in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 86–95; Thomas B. Hanson, “Sir Orfeo: Romance as Exemplum,” Annuale mediaevale 13 (1972): 135–154. 124. Corinne J. Saunders, The Forest of Medieval Romance: Avernus, Broceliande, Arden (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1993), 10–19. 125. See Stephen Matthews, “The Content and Construction of the Vita Haroldi,” in King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Gale R. OwenCrocker, 65–73; Swanton, Life of Harold Godwinson, 30, 36. The Norse Hemingsϸáttr, another version of Harold’s survival, also casts Harold in a saintly role, indicating how, upon Harold’s death, King William and others enter the cell where the body lay and detect “a sweet odour in the place, so that all who were by were convinced that he was indeed a holy man.” See Ashdown, “An Icelandic Account of the Survival of Harold Godwinson,” in The Anglo-Saxons, 123. 126. The miracles in the Vita Haroldi surround Harold but do not involve him actually performing them. For instance, there is a long portion concerning how, as Harold was heading south to Hasting having just defeated the Norwegians, he stops at the church of Waltham and bows his head to a statue of Christ. Miraculously, the statue bows its head back in response (pp. 22–25), an occurrence that generates much interpretation. Then, when Harold enters into Chester after years of exile, a disembodied voice tells him he can fi nd shelter at the Church of St. John (p. 31). On Orfeo as a self-consciously failed

Notes

127.

128. 129. 130.

131.

132. 133. 134.

135. 136.

195

king, see Edward Donald Kennedy, “Sir Orfeo as Rex Inutilis,” Annuale medievale 17 (1976): 88–110; Oren Falk, “The Son of Orfeo: Kingship and Compromise in a Middle English Romance,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30 (2000): 247–274. The date of Gamelyn has been the subject of some discussion. The earliest date, 1340, was proposed by F. Lindner, “The Tale of Gamelyn,” Englische Studien 2 (1879): 94–114, 321–343, 112–113. C. W. Dunn dates it between 1350–1370. See his “Romances Derived from English Legend,” in Manual of Writings in Middle English, 1050–1500, Vol. I, Romances, ed. J. B. Severs (New Haven: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1967), 17–37, 32. The Tale seems to come from the Northeast Midlands, either Nottinghamshire or Lincolnshire, or possibly Leicestershire. For a fuller discussion of both the dating and location of Gamelyn, see “The Tale of Gamelyn,” in Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, 2nd ed., ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University Press, 2000), 184–226, 185. Gamelyn’s influence carried into the Renaissance when Thomas Lodge based his novel Rosalynde (1590) in part on it, which was in turn dramatized by William Shakespeare in As You Like It. W. W. Skeat, ed., The Tale of Gamelyn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893), xiii– xvi; Franklin R. Rogers, “The Tale of Gamelyn and the Editing of the Canterbury Tales,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 58 (1959): 49–59. Gamelyn also appears in the ballad “Robyn and Gandeleyn.” See Skeat, The Tale of Gamelyn, ix–x; Barron, English Medieval Romance, 81–84; Nancy Mason Bradbury, “The Tale of Gamelyn as a Greenwood Outlaw Talking,” Southern Folklore 53 (1996): 207–223; Laura Hibbard notes similarities between the wrestling match episode of Gamelyn and that of the Geste of Robin Hood (Fit II, st. 135–142). See Medieval Romance in England, 159–160; also J. C. Holt, Robin Hood (London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd., 1989), 71–74; P. R. Coss, “Aspects of Cultural Diff usion in Medieval England: The Early Romances, Local Society and Robin Hood,” Past and Present 108 (1985): 35–79, 66–77; for a recent discussion of Gamelyn within the context of the English outlaw tradition, see Jones, Outlawry in Medieval Literature, 139–142. On Hereward as the “lineal ancestor” of the fictional Robin Hood, see Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 9–38. Keen notes that Gamelyn is the fi rst outlaw narrative to survive in English (p. 88). All citations of the poem are from Skeat, The Tale of Gamelyn. Henry T. Riley, trans., Ingulph’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854; reprt. 1968), 141–142. See Chibnall, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, 203, 205–206, 267, 313. Rex, The English Resistance, 8, 65, 76–79, 88–89, 99, 109, 118; Edward A. Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England, Vol. IV (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1873), 316; E. O. Blake, ed., Liber Eliensis. Camden Third Series, Vol. 92 (London: Office of the Royal Historical Society, 1962), II. 107; Swanton, Life of Hereward the Wake, 67, 71; Bell, L’Estoire des Engleis by Geff rei Gaimar, ll. 5,457, 5,461. See Chibnall, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, 216–219. Riley, Ingulph’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland, 141. Croyland Abbey is where Hereward’s fi rst wife, Turfrida, became a nun following her separation from Hereward. Thus Ingulph’s account was probably informed by eye-witness accounts. See Rex, Hereward, 79. Nancy Mason Bradbury acknowledges the similarities between the stories of Gamelyn and Hereward, among other outlaw figures, but notes the absence of stories about Hereward

196

137. 138. 139.

140.

141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149.

150. 151. 152. 153. 154.

155. 156.

Notes in English as a barrier for further comparison. See her “The Tale of Gamelyn as a Greenwood Outlaw Talking,” 210. See Swanton, Gesta Herewardi, 66–67; Geff rei Gaimar, “L’Estoire des Engleis, ll. 5,553–5,554. Swanton, Gesta Herewardi, 81. Colleen Donnelly, “Aristocratic Veneer and the Substance of Verbal Bonds in The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell and Gamelyn,” Studies in Philology 94 (1997): 321–343, 340–341; Dean A. Hoff man, “‘After Bale Cometh Boote’: Narrative Symmetry in The Tale of Gamelyn,” Studia Neophilologica 60 (1988): 159–166, 163; John Scattergood, “The Tale of Gamelyn: The Noble Robber as Provincial Hero,” in Readings in Medieval English Romance, 159–194, 177–178. The word “play” in Gamelyn is often used ironically to mean “fight” (e.g. ll. 130, 136, 254, 307). However, in these instances, the word “play” follows on scenes where Gamelyn clearly fights. By contrast, the word “playing” in the outlaw scene here does not follow combat. Hence, one editor glosses “playing” as “sporting” (l. 772). See Donald B. Sands, ed., Middle English Verse Romances (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc., 1966). “Introduction,” in The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 2nd ed., xv. With respect to Gamelyn, Keen notes how “the outlaws accept . . . the social order with its lords and kings” (p. 93). Scattergood emphasizes Gamelyn’s distinguished lineage, in contrast with some scholars who tend to view the hero as a commoner. On this question, see his “The Tale of Gamelyn: The Noble Robber and the Provincial Hero,” 164. Rex, Hereward, 76–79. Swanton, Gesta Herewardi, 61–62. Ibid., 64. On the redistribution of Anglo-Saxon lands among Norman nobility, see Peter A. Clarke, The English Nobility under Edward the Confessor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 153–163. See Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 90. For the forest outlaws in Gamelyn as an alternate social system to that of Johan and the local gentry who staff the jury, see Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 93. Richard W. Kaeuper compares the outlaws of Gamelyn with fourteenthcentury gangs roaming the English countryside. The gangs he notes, however, were known for random and indiscriminate acts of violence against the population at all levels of society, and therefore do not correlate with the band of outlaws in Gamelyn. See his “An Historian’s Reading of The Tale of Gamelyn,” Medium Aevum 52 (1983): 51–62, 54. See Ramsey, Chivalric Romances, 94. See Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 92. A Crisis of Truth, 163. Ibid., 164. Couch, “The Magic of Englishness in St. Kenelm and Havelok the Dane,” in The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108, 224, 244. What Couch notes for Havelok applies further to each of the texts discuss in this volume. Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England, Its Causes and Its Results, Vol. IV, 307. Keen notes this as a dominant theme of Gamelyn, but we fi nd the same theme at the heart of Havelok the Dane, King Horn, and to some extent, Sir Orfeo. See Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 91.

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Index

A Abels, Richard, 171n4 Ackerman, R.W., 177n80 Aelfric, Grammar, 163n104 Ailes, Marianne, 153n27, 157n30, 197, 204 Alfred, king, 3, 23, 32, 109, 160n72, 175n55, 193n102 burhs, 31, 58, 71, 171n4 translation of Consolation of Philosophy, 16–17, 39, 88, 163n101, 180nn23, 24, 209 Allega, Rob, 165n31 Allen, Dorena, 164n120, 193n103 Alliterative Morte Arthure, 164n114 Amodio, Mark, 8, 153n37, 197 Anderson, Earl R., 191n81 Andreas, 181n35 Anglo-Danes, 9, 32, 65, 70 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 1, 19, 32, 60–61, 67, 74, 121, 132, 151n2, 156n21, 173nn24, n25, 174n45, 176n67, 185n24, 188n60, 191nn89, 90, 192n92, 211 Anglo-Saxonism, 3–4, 109 Anglo-Saxons architecture, see “halls,” “burhs” battle tactic, 21–23, 40–42, 137, 148, 158n37, 163nn102, 104, 164n114, see also “shield wall” Annales Burgo-Spaldenses, 108 Ashdown, Margaret, 194nn121, 125 Ashe, Laura, 156n27 Asser, Life of Alfred, 22 Athelwold, King, in Havelok the Dane, 30–33, 37, 66, 70, 124–126, 129–132, 175n54, 189n64, 191n85

Auchinleck Manuscript, 7, 71, 163n100, 164n114, 175n54 Auerbach, Erich, 159n56 Ayton, Andrew, 163n109, 164n115

B Babich, Andrea Pisani, 162nn98, 99, 165n126 Baker, J.H., 167n149 Barley, Nigel, 191n84 Barrett, Rob, 154n1 Barron, W.R.J., 154n42, 155n15, 156n18, 165n97, 166nn142, 145, 173n38, 186n34, 195n130 Bartlett, Robert, 151nn10, 13, 152n23, 169n175, 170n191, 172n14, 175n59 Battle of Maldon, 14, 16, 22–23, 36, 40, 42, 48, 157n31 Battles, Dominique, 178n98 Battles, Paul, 155n11, 173n33, 177n77, 178nn88, 97 Bayeux Tapestry, 40, 67 Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, 32 Bell, Alexander, 160n67, 188n59 Bell, Kimberly K., 156n16, 159n54, 160n65, 188n57, 190n72 Bennet, Matthew, 158nn41, 42, 44, 163nn105, 106, 164n116 Beowulf, 8, 10, 14, 44, 47, 56, 59, 88, 89, 93–99, 117–118, 163n107, 166n140, 173n29, 180n30, 182n45 Beresford, Guy, 171n6, 172n7, 178nn90, 91 Beves of Hamptoun, 7, 8, 153nn31, 32 Birrell, J., 179n12 Blair, John, 172n7 Blanch, Robert J., 99, 182n54

214 Index Blickling Homilies, 97 Bliss, A.J., 88, 164n120, 180n22, 193n112 Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, 16, 39, 88 Boeve de Hamptone, 6–7, 152n27, 153n33 Boorman, Julia, 170n187 Bord, J. and C. Bord, 182n48 Boroughbridge, battle of, 41 Bottomley, Frank, 177n82 Bradbury, Jim, 152n26, 158n44, 163n108 Bradbury, Nancy Mason, 173n38, 189n66, 195nn130, 136 Brand, Paul, 169n181, 182 Bredehoft, Thomas A., 8, 154n38 Britons, 9, 41 Brown, R. Allen, 156n26, 163n108, 171n5, 172n10, 174nn42, 43, 45 Brut, Prose, 28, 159n59 Bugge, Alexander, 190n78 Bumke, Joachim, 170n193 burhs, 58–60, 67, 71, 76, 171nn3, 4, 172n11, 174n43, 175n56 Burrow, J.A., 182n54, n57

C Calkin, Siobhain Bly, 157n35 Campbell, Miles, 158n37 Carpenter, David, 5, 52, 184n1, 192n95 Castles and the Norman Conquest, 58–62 in Havelok the Dane, 65–70 in King Horn, 62–65 in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 75–79 in Sir Orfeo, 70–75 in Wales, 60–61 Chadwick, Nora K., 181n45 Chance, Jane, 163n101 chanson de geste, 5–6, 19, 23, 153n27 Chaucer, Geoff rey, 139 Chibnall, Marjorie, 170n182, 174n45, 181n39, 184nn2, 3, 187n48, 192n93, 195nn133, 135 Chrétien de Troyes Erec and Enide, 48, 93, 94, 158n49, 181n34 The Knight with the Lion (Yvain), 25, 48, 89, 93, 94, 114, 158n49 Christopherson, Paul, 182n45 Clark, Cecily, 165n133, 173n25, 190n69

Clarke, Peter A., 196n146 Clough, Andrea, 177n81 Clover, Carol J., 165n132 Cockcroft, Robert, 177nn78, 81, 83, 183n59 Comitatus, 16–17, 26, 39, 77, 94, 117 Coss, P.R., 195n130 Couch, Julie Nelson, 130, 156n16, 159n60, 188n57, 191n86, 196n154 Coulson, Charles L.H., 172n10, 175nn56, 62 Crane, Susan, 152n16, 154n1, 160n62, 175n52, 190n73 Crawford, Donna, 176n64 Creighton, Oliver H., 72, 172nn11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 175n56, 57, 178n1, 179n12, 183n66 Cummins, John, 183n65

D D’Arcy, Anne Marie, 176n64 Davis, R.H.C., 164n115 Deer, 85–86 Delany, Sheila, 160n62 Denmark, 17, 29–30, 35, 56, 68–69, 107, 121–122, 127–133, 140, 147, 192n100 Deutschbein, Max, 116, 187n41 DeVries, Kelly, 158n41, 164n110 Diamond, Arlyn, 165n136 Dickie, Iain, 158n41 disguise, 9, 11, 14, 24, 35, 43, 69, 112–120, 134–135, 137–139, 192n101, 193nn102, 105 Dixon, Philip, 176n63 Djordjević, Ivana, 152n25, 153n27, 157n34 Domesday Book, 99, 107 Donaldson, E. Talbot, 165n127 Donnelly, Colleen, 166nn142, 144, 196n139, 168nn163, 166, 170n193, 194 Donovan, Mortimer J., 162nn97, 98 Dover, 137, 174nn43, 45. See also Havelok the Dane, Dover in Dunn, Charles W., 155n14, 159n57, 173n37, 195n127 Dyson, Tony, 162n95, 192n99

E Eadie, J., 88, 180n22, 194n123 Eadric the Wild, 11, 108, 134–137, 139 Eales, Richard, 175n62

Index Eckhardt, Caroline D., 160n69 Edgar Aetheling, 131, 132–133, 147, 192n95 Edward I, king of England (1272– 1307), 29, 50, 60, 167n152, 177n77 Edward, Life of St. Edward the Martyr, 29 Edward the Confessor, king of England (1042–1066), 7, 37, 52, 131, 132, 162n94 Edwards, A.S.G., 162n99, 179n19, 181n32 Eleanor of Provence, queen of England (d.1291), 6 Elene, 163n107 Elliot, R.W.V., 177n78 Ely, siege of (1071), 74, 110, 112–113, 123, 135 Engel, Ute, 163n108 English resistance, 1, 3, 10–11, 34–36, 56, 80, 107–114, 120–150 Enright, Michael J., 117–118 Exile, literary theme of, 8, 11, 14–15, 18, 24, 38–39, 84–106, 137– 139, 148, 181n35

F Falk, Oren, 154n1, 162n99, 179n19, 195n126 Fell, Christine, 90 Field, Rosalind, 151n9, 162n99, 179n19, 195n126 Finlayson, John, 155n5, 156nn18, 23, 158n47, 174n38, 181n41, 186nn34, 38 FitzGilbert, Constance, 121 FitzGilbert, Ralf, 121 Flanagan, Marie Therese, 159n54 Fleming, Robin, 172n11, 178n93, 183n60, 188n61 Fletcher, Alan J., 176n64 Florence of Worcester, 108, 135 Floris et Blancheflour, 180n22 Flyting in Beowulf, 45–46 in Sir Gawain, 45–46 Foley, John Miles, 181n35 Forests and hunting, 84–85 Forest Law, 85 in Anglo-Norman England, 84–85, 91–92, 100–104 in Anglo-Saxon tradition, 86–87, 92–99

215

in French chivalric romance, 84–85, 91–92, 100–104 New Forest, 85 royal forests, 84–85 Frederick, Jill, 29, 155n8, 188n56 Freeman, Edward A., 195n134, 196n155 French, Walter Hoyt, 156n17, 173n29 Friar, Stephen, 179nn8, 10, 183n69 Friedman, John B., 165n124, 179n17, 181n38, 194n123 Furnish, Shearle, 162n98

G Gaimar, Geff rei, L’Estoire des Engleis, 28–32, 65–66, 68–69, 108, 121–122, 127, 130–131, 142, 158n39, 159n59, 160n69, 161n81, 187n47, 189n66, 190nn71, 74 Ganim, John M., 171n199 Genesis A, 17 Gesta Herewardi, 107–120, 134–135 Glosses, Old English, 163n104 Goodall, John, 60, 172nn8, 12, 173n32, 174n44, 175n60, 177nn82, 85 Green, Richard Firth, 7, 33, 54, 108, 144, 161n85 Greenfield, Stanley B. 180n20 Griffith, Richard R., 176n71 Grimaldi, Patrizia, 176n64, 179n17, 194n123 Gui de Warewic, 6–7, 152n26, 153n31, 161n84, 171n197, 175n55 Guᵭlac A, 14, 96, 98 Guy of Warwick, 7–8, 32, 71, 153n31, 161n84, 171n197, 175n55

H Hale, Charles Brockway, 156n17, 173n29 Hall, Joseph, 41, 135 Halls in Havelok the Dane, 65–70, 83 in King Horn, 62–65, 83 in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 75–79, 83 in Sir Orfeo, 70–75, 83 in The Tale of Gamelyn, 79–83 Halverson, John, 174nn38, 50 Hanson, Thomas B., 179n17, 194n123 Harding, Alan, 168n170

216 Index Hardman, Phillipa, 157n30 Harold Godwinson, 11, 15, 134, 136–137, 145, 148 Harris, Joseph, 158n52 Hart, Cyril, 185nn21, 23, 188nn61, 62, 192n93 Haskell, Ann, 163n102 Haslam, Jeremy, 171n4 Hastings, battle of, 23, 40, 42, 44, 67, 136–138, 148, 194nn115, 120 Havelok the Dane, 2, 8–11, 147–150 and Gaimar’s L’Estoire, 28, 30–32 and Hereward the Wake, 35–37, 120–133, 144–145 and the Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, 32, 34–35, 120–133 and the South English Legendary, 29–30 birthmark in, 127–130 castles in, 65–70 combat, 35 Dover in, 33–34, 28, 31, 67–68, 124, 127, 161n86, 174n4 Havelok as a saintly figure, 127–30 geography of, 28–37 Goldeboru in, 30–31, 37, 126–127 hall architecture in, 65–70 King Athelwold in, 32–33, 125–126 Winchester in, 31–32, 37, 66 Hayward, John, 185n20 Head, Victor, 184n5, 185n14 Henry I, king of England (1100–1135), 50, 54, 85, 170n185, 187n47 Henry II, king of England (1154–1189), 50, 52, 54, 169n175, 170n187, 174n46 and the Assize of Clarendon, 52–53, 54, 169n175 Henry III, king of England (1216–1272), 6 Hereward “the Wake,” 3, 11–12, 34–36, 80, 107–128, 130–145, 147, 149, 166n145, 184n5, 185nn18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 186n29, 187n40, 188n61, 191n83, 192n95, 195n136 Herzman, Ronald B., 157nn29, 30, 163n102, 164n111 Hibbard, Laura, 152nn26, 27, 153n32, 156n17, 167n145, 181n32, 187n40, 195n130 Hill, Ordelle G., 177n78

Hinton, David A., 178n94, 187n48 Historia Croylandensis, 108 Hitler, Adolf, 3 Hoff man, Dean A., 196n139 Holdsworth, Philip, 172n11 Holt, James C., 51, 151n5, 167nn148, 154, 168nn160, 164, 170n187, 195n130 Hood, Robin, 11, 107–108, 139 Hooke, Della, 99 Hopkins, Amanda, 165n123 Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild, 21, 158n38 Howe, Nicholas, 180n21 Hudson, John, 169n172 Hull, Eleanor, 176n64 Hynes-Berry, Mary, 156nn19, 20, 23, 158nn50, 52, 162n99, 180n25

I Ingulph, Chronicle of Croyland, 4, 108, 140, 195n136 Ishkanian, Vahan, 160n62

J Jestice, Phyllis, 158n41 Jones, Timothy S., 162n89, 184n8

K Kabir, Ananya J., 160n62, 190n73 Kaeuper, Richard W., 166n142, 168n168, 169nn173, 176, 177, 190nn186, 189, 196n149 Keats-Rohan, K.S.B., 156n26 Keen, Maurice, 108, 141, 166nn144, 145, 177n196, 184n9, 185n13, 193n110, 195n131, 196nn141, 148, 151, 156 Kennedy, Edward Donald, 44, 162n99, 179n19, 195n126 Kenny, C.S., 167n153, 168n157 King, D.J. Cathcart, 172n13, 173n22, 177n84 Kingsley, Charles, 109 King Horn, 2, 8–12, 14–18, 146–150 and Gesta Herewardi, 114–120, 144–145, 147 castles in, 62–65 combat in, 21–24, 146–147 comitatus in, 25–27 Fikenhild in, 15, 18–19, 24–25, 28, 65–65, 115, 119, 150 King Murray in, 18, 20–22, 27 hall architecture in, 62–65

Index Rymenhild in, 18, 25–26, 28, 114–120 Saracens in, 18–22 souterrain in, 64, 147 Kittredge, George L., 164n120, 181n44 Kleinman, Scott, 125, 161n77, 179n3, 189nn66, 68, 190nn69, 71

L L’ai d’Haveloc, 28, 30–31, 65–66, 130–131, 189nn64, 66, 190n78 La Geste de Burch, 123, 125 Layamon, Brut, 41, 64, 154, 187n40 Levine, Robert, 178n89 Liber de Hyda, 108, 161n77 Liber Eliensis, 32, 74, 108, 185n24 Lindner, F., 195n127 Liuzza, Roy Michael, 175n52 Lodge, Thomas, 170n195, 195n128 Lucas, Peter J., 177n78 Lynch, Andrew, 159n52

M Maitland, Frederic William, 167n149, 169nn171, 172, 174, 182 Mannyng, Robert, 124 Map, Walter, De Nugis Curialium, 134–136, 193n113 Marvin, Julia, 159n59 Matthews, Stephen, 194nn115, 125 McKnight, George H., 158n39, 159n55, 186n38, 187nn40, 45, 188n52, 193n105 Mehl, Dieter, 157n28, 158n48, 190n73 Menkin, Edward Z., 166nn142, 144, 168n165, 170n194 Michelet, Fabienne, 14 Michelli, Perette E. 191n84 Mills, Maldwyn, 157n36, 162n90, 191nn81, 86 Mills, Robert, 157n30 Mitchell, Bruce, 176n68 Morgan, Gerald, 151n8

N Nebuchadnezzar, 87, 138 Normans battle tactic, 40–42, 112 castle architecture and, 58–83 landscape and, 84–87, 100–106 Norman Conquest and, 1–3, 107–145

O Octovian Imperator, 164n114 Of Arthour and of Merlin, 21, 157n35

217

Ohlgren, Thomas, 162n89, 184n9 Ong, Walter J., 101 Opland, Jeff, 173n30 Orderic Vitalis, 107, 108, 118, 132, 140, 170n185, 174n45, 193n110 Orpheus and Eurydice, 38–39, 87–88, 138, 180n23, 193n104 Outlaw Tradition, 3, 11–12, 108–145

P Painter, Sidney, 168nn159, 164, 167 Paris, Matthew, 161n87, 174n47 Parks, Ward, 165nn129, 131 Pegues, Franklin W., 169nn173, 179, 180, 170n188 Peterborough Abbey, sacking of in 1069/70, 34–35, 110, 120, 123–132, 147, 149, 188n62, 191n83 Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, 34–35, 108, 123–132, 190n69, 191n83 Phebus, Gaston, The Master of Game, 101–102 Phelan, Walter S., 165nn130, 135, 166n138, 177n87, 181n44 Pollock, Sir Frederick, 167n149, 169nn171, 172, 174, 169n182 Poole, Austin Lane, 169nn173, 182, 170nn185, 188, 179n6 Pope, Mildred K., 156nn22, 25, 187n47 Powicke, Michael R., 158n37, 163n105 Prestwich, Michael, 172n10, 173nn19, 21, 175nn59, 61 Prideaux, W.F., 166n144 Purdon, Liam O., 175n54 Putter, Ad, 183n64

R Radford, C.A. Ralegh, 171n4 Ramsey Abbey, 123, 128 Ramsey, Lee C., 154n3, 166n142, 170n194, 173n35, 186n37, 196n150 Ranulf de Glanvill (d. 1190), 50, 168n158 Reid, T.B.W., 156n25, 187n47, 188n51 Reynolds, Susan, 9, 169n182 Rex, Peter, 181n40, 184nn4, 5, 6, 185nn18, 20, 186n31, 192nn93, 95, 98 195nn134, 136, 196n143

218 Index Richard Coeur de Lion, 164n114 Richars li Biaus, 128–129, 162n90, 190n81 Richmond, Colin, 170n194 Richmond, Velma Bourgeois, 152n27, 185nn16, 17 Riddy, Felicity, 180n28, 181n31 Rigby, Marjory, 166n139, 184n79 Robert of Gloucester, 1–2, 6, 157n36 Rogers, Franklin R., 195n129 Romance of Horn, OF (1170), 19–21, 26, 62–63, 115–116, 118–119, 124, 157n33, 173n36, 198nn47, 49, 50, 188n51, 189n67, 190n70 Rooney, Annn 183nn63, 72, 77, 184n81 Rouse, Robert Allen, 8, 31, 32, 37, 161, 159n61, 160n74, 161nn83, 85, 162n96, 189n63, 191n85, 192n99, 100 Rowley, Trevor, 160nn72, 73, 162n95, 172nn11, 15, 173n23, 175nn58, n62, 179nn4, 7, 8, 11, 182n59, 183n61, 62

S Sands, Donald B., 155n16, 186n34, 196n140 Saul, Nigel, 168n166 Saunders, Corinne J., 153n27, 155n6, 165n137, 176n70, 179nn2, 5, 18, 180n20, 23, 181nn36, 37, 44, 183n78, 184n80, 194n124 Savage, Henry L., 166n141 Scattergood, John, 166n144, 196nn139, 142 Schmidt, A.V.C., 162n97 Schofield, John, 162n95, 192n99 Schofield, W.H., 156n17 Scott, Sir Walter, 109 Severs, J. Burke, 39, 88, 155n14, 193n112 Shakespeare, William, 195n128 Shannon, Edgar F., 167nn147, 154, 168n163, 169n180, 170n183 Shepherd, Stephen, 160n67, 176n75 Shippey, T.A., 32, 160nn71, 72, 166n142, 167n150, 171n198 Short, Ian, 151n10 silvatici, 92, 107–108, 140–145 Sir Degaré, 43 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 2, 8–11, 148–150 bedroom scenes in, 78–79, 103–104 Bertilak in, 44–48, 77–79, 100–106 castle architecture in, 75–79

deer breeds in, 100–102 deer park in, 100–103 excoriation in, 102 exile in, 92–95 flyting in, 45–47 forest in, 92–106 Gawain in, 10–12, 48, 99–100 Green Chapel in, 95–100 Green Knight in, 44–48, 100 hall architecture in, 75–79 monster-in-the-hall in, 44–48, 56–57 winter in, 95 Sir Gowther, 43 Sir Orfeo, 2, 8–11, 147–150 and Eadric the Wild, 135–136, 139 and the English Outlaw tradition, 133–139, 144–145 and the Gesta Herewardi, 134–135, 139 and the Vita Haroldi, 136–139 battle tactic in, 39–43 castle architecture in, 70–75 exile in, 87–92 Fairy King in, 38–44, 70–75, 91–92 forest in, 87–92, 105–106 hall architecture in, 70–75 Heurodis in, 38, 43–44, 149 hunting in, 72, 91–92 torture and, 74–75 Winchester in, 71–72, 137–139 Sir Tristrem, 178n96 hall-complex in, 81–82 souterrain in, 64, 82 Skeat, W.W., 159n57, 159n58, 167n146, 170nn194, 195, 189n64, 195n129 Smith, Richard M., 167n153 Smithers, G.V., 127, 161nn77, 86, 174n49, 189n64, 190nn74, 76, 77 Snell, Rachel, 186n35 souterrain, 64, 82, 147 South English Legendary, 18, 29–30, 122, 155nn8, 16, 157n30, 159n52, 190n72 Speed, Diane, 21, 156nn23, 24, 157nn30, 31, 158nn39, 45, 191n88 Staines, David, 154n1, 159n62, 175n51, 190n75 Stenton, Doris M., 168n170, 170n184 Stenton, F.M., 182n51, 182n57 Stephen I, king of England (1135– 1154), 54, 60, 61, 74

Index Storm, Mel, 165n134 Strong, Roy, 162n94 Stuart, Christopher, 154n1, 159n62 Sykes, N.J., 179nn9, 13, 183nn67, 70, 73, 76 Swanton, Michael, 162nn89, 91, 170n192, 194n115 Swein, King of Denmark (1047–76), 123, 131–133, 147, 191n89, 192n95

T The Tale of Gamelyn and Hereward the Wake, 2, 9–11, 148–150 hall architecture in, 79–83 jury system in, 52–55 mery men in, 139 office of the sheriff in, 54 outlawry in, 140–144 inheritance practices in, 48–55 Thiébaux, Marcelle, 184n80 Thomas, Hugh M., 5, 111, 113, 162n89, 167n148, 175n53 Thompson, Michael, 80, 176n74, 177n78 Treharne, Elaine, 8, 163n102, 171n197 Trilling, Renée, 155n13, 180n26 Turfrida, wife of Hereward, 110, 112, 195n136 Turold, Abbot, 123, 125, 185n21 Turville-Petre, Thorlac, 7, 28, 151n7, 152n21, 153n29, 160nn70, 76, 161n82, 176n76, 189nn63, 66, 192n97

U Underwood, Richard, 155n10

V van Iersel, Geert, 168nn159, 162, 166

219

Vita Haroldi, 134, 136–138, 145, 148, 194n126 von Strassburg, Gottfried, 82, 178n96, 183n72 Victoria, Queen of England, 3, 109 Vikings, 21–23, 27, 42, 56, 62–63, 115, 147, 157nn30, 31, 35

W Wales, 60, 77, 167n152, 177n78 Ward, Margaret Charlotte, 177n85 Wasserman, Julian W., 182n54 Wealhtheow, 118–119 Wheatley, Abigail, 175n56 Whitelock Dorothy, 151n2, 161n77, 186n28 William of Malmesbury, 161n77, 193n102 William the Conqueror, 1, 12, 30, 34, 80, 132, 192n95 Williams, Ann, 172n14, 178nn91, 92, 184n6, 185nn20, 22, 191nn89, 90, 192nn91, 94, 193n110, 194n120 Wilson, R.M., 151n12, 185n13 Wilton, battle of (871), 23 Winchester, 31–32, 37, 66, 76, 136–137, 160nn71, 72, 162n94, 172n11, 192n99. See also Havelok; Sir Orfeo Witaker, Muriel A., 176n69 Wittig, Susan, 14, 15 Wood, Michael, 171n2 Wooing of Étaín, 43, 164n120 Wulfstan, Life of, 15, 30

Y Yorke, Barbara, 161n80 Young, Charles R., 179n4