The Shaping of English Poetry - Volume III; Essays on 'Beowulf', Dante, 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', Langland, Chaucer and Spenser 3034309155, 9783034309158, 9783035303537

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The Shaping of

English Poetry Volume III Ess ays o n

Beowulf, Dante, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Langland, Chaucer and Spenser

Gerald Morgan

Gerald Morgan

Gerald Morgan was a Meyricke Exhibitioner at Jesus College, Oxford, and holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford. He was formerly a Senior Lecturer and Fellow in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin. His publications include Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Idea of Righteousness (1991), The Tragic Argument of Troilus and Criseyde (2005), The Shaping of English Poetry: Essays on ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Langland, Chaucer and Spenser (Peter Lang, 2010), The Shaping of English Poetry, Volume II: Essays on ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Langland and Chaucer (Peter Lang, 2013) and the edited volume Chaucer in Context: A Golden Age of English Poetry (Peter Lang, 2012).

The Shaping of  English Poetry, Volume III

T

his third volume of essays under the title The Shaping of English Poetry includes, as in the previous volumes, essays on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Langland, Chaucer and Spenser; it also includes essays on Beowulf and Dante. It was never the author’s intention to exclude Old English poetry from the historical continuum of English poetry, and practical rather than ideological considerations explain the absence of Beowulf from the two previous volumes. The language of Beowulf is in all essentials the language of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Piers Plowman, in one and the same native alliterative tradition, and also the language of Chaucer, in the European tradition inherited from the great French and Italian poets. The transition from Beowulf to Dante may seem abrupt, but the poetry of Chaucer, whose assimilation of Italian influences is both formidable and remarkable, requires us to make it. Indeed, the exploration in this volume of Dante’s exposition of love in the Purgatorio takes us to the heart of the poetry that we associate with the period of Chaucer’s greatness in the 1380s and 1390s. Here we see not an anachronistic system of courtly love, imposed on medieval poems by modern critics, but distinctions of natural, sensitive and rational love that make sense (among other things) of the ending of  Troilus and Criseyde as the poem’s logical and persuasive conclusion.

ISBN 978-3-0343-0915-8

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P ET E R L A N G

www.peterlang.com

The Shaping of

English Poetry Volume III Ess ays o n

Beowulf, Dante, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Langland, Chaucer and Spenser

Gerald Morgan

Gerald Morgan

Gerald Morgan was a Meyricke Exhibitioner at Jesus College, Oxford, and holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford. He was formerly a Senior Lecturer and Fellow in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin. His publications include Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Idea of Righteousness (1991), The Tragic Argument of Troilus and Criseyde (2005), The Shaping of English Poetry: Essays on ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Langland, Chaucer and Spenser (Peter Lang, 2010), The Shaping of English Poetry, Volume II: Essays on ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Langland and Chaucer (Peter Lang, 2013) and the edited volume Chaucer in Context: A Golden Age of English Poetry (Peter Lang, 2012).

The Shaping of  English Poetry, Volume III

T

his third volume of essays under the title The Shaping of English Poetry includes, as in the previous volumes, essays on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Langland, Chaucer and Spenser; it also includes essays on Beowulf and Dante. It was never the author’s intention to exclude Old English poetry from the historical continuum of English poetry, and practical rather than ideological considerations explain the absence of Beowulf from the two previous volumes. The language of Beowulf is in all essentials the language of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Piers Plowman, in one and the same native alliterative tradition, and also the language of Chaucer, in the European tradition inherited from the great French and Italian poets. The transition from Beowulf to Dante may seem abrupt, but the poetry of Chaucer, whose assimilation of Italian influences is both formidable and remarkable, requires us to make it. Indeed, the exploration in this volume of Dante’s exposition of love in the Purgatorio takes us to the heart of the poetry that we associate with the period of Chaucer’s greatness in the 1380s and 1390s. Here we see not an anachronistic system of courtly love, imposed on medieval poems by modern critics, but distinctions of natural, sensitive and rational love that make sense (among other things) of the ending of  Troilus and Criseyde as the poem’s logical and persuasive conclusion.

P ET E R L A N G

The Shaping of  English Poetry, Volume III

The Shaping of

Engli sh P o e t ry Volume III Essays on

Beowulf, Dante, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Langland, Chaucer and Spenser

Gerald Morgan

PETER LANG Oxford · Bern · Berlin · Bruxelles · Frankfurt am Main · New York · Wien

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. A catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library. Library of Congress Control Number: 2009045006

isbn 978-3-0343-0915-8 (print) isbn 978-3-0353-0353-7 (eBook)

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Contents

Acknowledgments vii Abbreviations ix Preface xix 1

The Treachery of  Hrothulf

2

Natural and Spiritual Movements of  Love in the Soul: An Explanation of  Purgatorio, XVIII.16–39

1

25

3 The Validity of  Gawain’s Confession in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 43 4

Langland and the Love of  Money: How Piers Beat His Peers

5

The Ending of  Troilus and Criseyde 97

6

The Worthiness of  Chaucer’s Worthy Knight

7

Experience and the Judgment of  Poetry: A Reconsideration of  The Franklin’s Tale 181

67

123

vi

8 Spenser’s Conception of  Courtesy and the Design of  The Faerie Qveene 211 9

‘Add faith vnto your force’: The Perfecting of  Spenser’s Knight of  Holiness in Faith and Humility

239

Index 275

Acknowledgments

In writing this third volume I have been encouraged once again by the invaluable professional support of  Dr Sarah Alyn Stacey, Director of  the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Trinity College, and also of  Dr Margret Fine-Davis, now Director of  the Social Attitude & Policy Research Group in Trinity College. I am indebted to the College itself  for successive research grants under the Arts and Social Sciences Benefactions Fund and to Professors Terence Brown (English) and Michael Marsh (Political Science) who as Deans of  Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences administered this fund, as follows: 2006–7 (€1750–00), 2008–9 (€1000–00) and 2009–10 (€3000–00). I am grateful once again to Amanda Holzworth for the scanning and formatting of articles. It is hard to convey the importance of such practical assistance, for it not only spared me from unnecessary anxiety but also left me free to attend to clarifying the arguments of  the essays themselves. I am indebted once again to Andrea Greengrass who compiled the Index and to Mary Critchley who formatted the proof. Their superb professionalism has not only been a source of constant encouragement and reassurance to me but also nothing less than a blessing. This volume is dedicated to Robert Hale and Russy Lewis from Lydbrook and to Joanne Fitzpatrick from Tallaght in the belief  that the works of  these great English poets not only have a relevance in today’s world but are deserving of  the widest possible audience. I recall with pleasure many lively debates into the night at my father’s expense in ‘Sunnydale’ in the 1960s on my return to Lydbrook in the vacations at Oxford. Joanne Fitzpatrick came to Trinity College Dublin in 2006. She has successfully completed the undergraduate course in English Studies and at the time of writing is studying for the M.Phil. in Medieval Language, Literature and Culture.

Abbreviations

I.  Chaucer’s Works Anel. Anelida and Arcite BD The Book of  the Duchess CkT The Cook’s Tale ClT The Clerk’s Tale FranT The Franklin’s Tale GP General Prologue HF The House of  Fame KnT The Knight’s Tale LGW The Legend of  Good Women MancT The Manciple’s Tale MerT The Merchant’s Tale MilT The Miller’s Tale MkT The Monk’s Tale MLT The Man of  Law’s Tale NPT The Nun’s Priest’s Tale PardT The Pardoner’s Tale ParsT The Parson’s Tale PF The Parliament of  Fowls Retr. Retraction Romaunt The Romaunt of  the Rose RvT The Reeve’s Tale SNT The Second Nun’s Tale SumT The Summoner’s Tale

x Abbreviations

TC Thop WBProl

Troilus and Criseyde The Tale of  Sir Thopas The Wife of  Bath’s Prologue

I refer to The Canterbury Tales by A, B, C, etc. and italicise individual tales, e.g. The Knight’s Tale. I recognise the merit of  I, II, III, etc. and The Knight’s Tale. I am here simply following my own long-established practice, but I assume that there are in reality only eight and not ten fragments.

II.  Sources and Works of  Reference A Chaucer Glossary Ad Her.

Aen.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Norman Davis and others, A Chaucer Glossary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979). [Cicero]: Rhetorica ad Herennium, translated by Harry Caplan, Loeb (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1964). Aeneid, translated by H. Rushton Fairclough, Virgil: Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid, The Minor Poems, revised edition, 2 vols, Loeb (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1969 and 1974). Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel with Supplementary Extracts from the Others: A Revised Text on the Basis of an Edition by John Earle, edited by Charles Plummer, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892 and 1899; reprinted with a chronological note by Dorothy Whitelock, 1952) and translated and edited by Michael Swanton, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (London: J.M. Dent, 1996).

Abbreviations

xi

Asser’s Life of  King Alfred, edited by William Henry Stevenson, new impression with article by Dorothy Whitelock (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959) and translated with an Introduction and Notes by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, Alfred the Great: Asser’s ‘Life of  King Alfred’ and Other Contemporary Sources, Penguin Books (Harmondsworth, 1983). Behaigne Le Jugement dou roy de Behaigne and Remede de Fortune, edited by James I. Wimsatt and William W. Kibler, The Chaucer Library (Athens and London: University of  Georgia Press, 1988). Benson Larry D. Benson and others (eds), The Riverside Chaucer, third edition (Boston: Houghton Mif f lin Company, 1987). Beowulf Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, edited by Fr. Klaeber, third edition (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1950) and translated by John R. Clark Hall, revised by C.L. Wrenn, with Prefatory Remarks by J.R.R. Tolkien (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1950). Boitani Piero Boitani, Chaucer and Boccaccio, Medium Aevum Monographs, New Series VIII (Oxford: Society for the Study of  Mediaeval Languages and Literature, 1977), Appendix II, pp. 200–10 (translation of  Boccaccio’s glosses on the Houses of  Mars and Venus in the Teseida). Bryan and Dempster W.F. Bryan and Germaine Dempster, Sources and Analogues of  Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (Chicago: University of  Chicago Press, 1941; reprinted, New York: Humanities Press, 1958). CA Confessio Amantis, in The English Works of  John Gower, edited by G.C. Macaulay, Early English Text Society (ES) 81–82, 2 vols (London: Oxford University Press, 1900–1901). Asser

xii Abbreviations

The Poems of  John Milton, edited by John Carey and Alastair Fowler (London and New York: Longman, 1968). Charrete Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes: III. Le Chevalier de la Charrete, edited by Mario Roques, CFMA (Paris: Champion, 1972). Chaucer’s Knight Maurice Keen, ‘Chaucer’s Knight, the English Aristocracy, and the Crusade’, in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, edited by V.J. Scattergood and J.W. Sherborne (London: Duckworth, 1983), pp. 45–61, reprinted in Nobles, Knights and Men-At-Arms in the Middle Ages (London: Hambledon Press, 1996), pp. 101–19. CID Barbara Reynolds and others, The Cambridge Italian Dictionary, Volume I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962). Commedia Dante Alighieri: La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata, edited by Giorgio Petrocchi, 4 vols (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1966–1967) and translated by John D. Sinclair, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, 3 vols (London: Oxford University Press, 1971). Convivio Dante Alighieri: Il Convivio, edited by G. Busnelli and G. Vandelli, second edition, 2 vols (Florence: Felice le Monnier, 1968 and 1964) and translated by Christopher Ryan, Dante: The Banquet, Stanford French and Italian Studies (Saratoga, California: Anma Libri & Co., 1989). Correale and Hamel Sources and Analogues of  The Canterbury Tales, edited by Robert M. Correale and Mary Hamel, 2 vols (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2002 and 2005). CP De consolatione philosophiae, translated by H.F. Stewart and E.K. Rand, Boethius: The Theological Tractates, The Consolation of  Philosophy, Loeb (London: William Heinemann Ltd; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968). Carey and Fowler

Abbreviations

xiii

Decameron Decameron, edited by Vittore Branca, in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, edited by Vittore Branca, 10 vols (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1964–1998), Volume IV (1976). Erec et Enide Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes: I. Erec et Enide, edited by Mario Roques, CFMA (Paris: Champion, 1970). Ethica Nicomachea/ Translated by W.D. Ross, in The Works of  Aristotle Ethics Translated into English, edited by J.A. Smith and W.D. Ross, 12 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908– 1952), Volume IX, revised by J.O. Urmson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975). Fil. Filostrato, edited by Vittore Branca, in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, edited by Vittore Branca, 10 vols (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1964–1998), Volume II (1964), pp. 1–228. Filocolo Filocolo, edited by Antonio Enzo Quag­lio, in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, edited by Vittore Branca, 10 vols (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1964–1998), Volume I (1967), pp. 45–675 and 706–970. FQ Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Qveene, edited by A.C. Hamilton, Longman Annotated English Poets (London and New York: Longman, 1977); second edition, text edited by Hiroshi Yamashita and Toshiyuki Suzuki (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2001). Havely N.R. Havely (trans.), Chaucer’s Boccaccio: Sources of  ‘Troilus’ and the ‘Knight’s’ and ‘Franklin’s Tales’, Chaucer Studies V (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1980). HE Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of  the English People, edited by Bertram Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). In de anima Sancti Thomae Aquinatis in Aristotelis librum de anima commentarium, edited by Angeli M. Pirotta,

xiv Abbreviations

sixth edition (Turin: Marietti, 1959) and translated by Kenelm Foster and Sylvester Humphries, Aristotle’s De Anima in the Version of  William of  Moerbeke and the Commentary of  St Thomas Aquinas (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, 1951). In ethicorum/Com- Sancti Thomae Aquinatis in decem libros ethicorum mentary on Ethics Aristotelis ad Nicomachum expositio, edited by Raymundo M. Spiazzi, third edition (Turin: Marietti, 1964) and translated by C.I. Litzinger, St Thomas Aquinas: Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, revised edition (Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1993). Inf. Inferno Le Livre de chevalerie Richard W. Kaeuper and Elspeth Kennedy, The Book of  Chivalry of  Geof froi de Charny: Text, Context, and Translation (Philadelphia: University of  Pennsylvania Press, 1996). McCoy Bernadette Marie McCoy (trans.), The Book of  Theseus: ‘Teseida delle Nozze d’Emilia’ by Giovanni Boccaccio (New York: Medieval Text Association, 1974). MD Malory’s Morte Darthur or The Works of  Sir Thomas Malory, edited by Eugène Vinaver, third edition, revised by P.J.C. Field, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). ME Middle English MED Middle English Dictionary, edited by Hans Kurath, Sherman M. Kuhn, Robert E. Lewis and others, 13 vols (Ann Arbor: University of  Michigan Press, 1952–2001). Met. Ovid: Metamorphoses, translated by Frank Justus Miller, Loeb, second edition, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1971 and 1976).

Abbreviations

ODNB OE OED Par. Pearl Pearsall

PL PN

Poetria

PPl

Purg.

xv

Oxford Dictionary of  National Biography, edited by H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, 60 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Old English Oxford English Dictionary, edited by J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner, second edition, 20 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). Paradiso Pearl, edited by E.V. Gordon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953). ‘Piers Plowman’ by William Langland: An Edition of  the C-text, edited by Derek Pearsall (London: Edward Arnold, 1978) and A New Annotated Edition of  the C-text (Exeter: University of  Exeter Press, 2008). Patrologia Latina, edited by J-P. Migne, 217 vols (Paris, 1844–1855). ‘Alan of Lille, De Planctu naturae’, edited by Nikolaus M. Häring, Studi Medievali, third series, 19 (1978), 797–879 and translated by James J. Sheridan, Alan of  Lille: The Plaint of  Nature (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of  Mediaeval Studies, 1980). Les Arts poétiques du xiie et du xiiie siècle, edited by Edmond Faral (Paris: Champion, 1924), pp. 194– 262 and translated by Margaret F. Nims, Poetria Nova of  Geof frey of  Vinsauf (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of  Mediaeval Studies, 1967). William Langland, Piers Plowman: A ParallelText Edition of  the A, B, C and Z Versions, edited by A.V.C. Schmidt, 2 vols (Longman: London and New York, 1995 and Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2008). Purgatorio

xvi Abbreviations

Rhetorica

Robinson RR

SGGK ST

Tes.

Theb.

The Bruce TLS

Aristotle, Rhetorica, translated by W. Rhys Roberts, in The Works of  Aristotle Translated into English, edited by W.D. Ross, Volume XI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924). The Works of  Geof frey Chaucer, edited by F.N. Robinson, second edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1957). Guillaume de Lorris et Jean de Meun: Le Roman de la rose, edited by Félix Lecoy, CFMA, 3 vols (Paris: Champion, 1973, 1979 and 1975) and translated by Frances Horgan, The Romance of  the Rose, World’s Classics (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, edited by J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon, second edition, revised by Norman Davis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967). St Thomas Aquinas: Summa theologiae, edited and translated by Thomas Gilby and others, 61 vols (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964–1981). Teseida delle nozze d’Emilia, edited by Alberto Limentani, in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, edited by Vittore Branca, 10 vols (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1964–1998), Volume II (1964), pp. 229–664. Thebaid, translated by J.H. Mozley, Silvae, Thebaid, Achilleid, Loeb (London: William Heinemann Ltd; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967 and 1969). John Barbour, The Bruce, edited with translation and notes by A.A.M. Duncan, Canongate Classics (Edinburgh, 1997). The Times Literary Supplement

xvii

Abbreviations

Vie du Prince Noir VE

Vulgate

Wack Widsith

Diana B. Tyson, La Vie du Prince Noir by Chandos Herald (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1975). Dante Alighieri, De vulgari eloquentia, edited by Aristide Marigo, third edition (Florence: Felice le Monnier, 1957) and translated by Robert S. Haller, Literary Criticism of  Dante Alighieri (Lincoln and London: University of  Nebraska Press, 1973). Biblia sacra iuxta vulgatam Clementinam, edited by Alberto Colunga and Laurentio Turrado, fourth edition (Madrid: La Editorial Catolica, 1965) and The Holy Bible: Douay Rheims Version (Baltimore: John Murphy Company, 1899; photographically reproduced, Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1971). Mary F. Wack, Lovesickness in the Middle Ages: The ‘Viaticum’ and its Commentaries (Philadelphia, PA: University of  Pennsylvania Press, 1990). R.W. Chambers, ‘Widsith’: A Study in Old English Heroic Legend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912; reissued New York: Russell & Russell, Inc., 1965).

III.  Journals and Series ANQ BIHR ChR CFMA EETS (OS) EHR

American Notes and Queries Bulletin of  the Institute of  Historical Research Chaucer Review Classiques français du moyen âge Early English Text Society (Original Series) English Historical Review

xviii Abbreviations

ELN ES JEGP MÆ MLN MLR MP MS NM NQ PMLA PQ RES RS SATF SM SP YES YLS

English Language Notes English Studies Journal of  English and Germanic Philology Medium Ævum Modern Language Notes Modern Language Review Modern Philology Mediaeval Studies Neuphilologische Mitteilungen Notes and Queries Publications of  the Modern Language Association Philological Quarterly Review of  English Studies Rolls Series Societé des Anciens Textes Français Studi Medievali Studies in Philology Yearbook of  English Studies Yearbook of  Langland Studies

Preface

This third volume of essays under the general title of  The Shaping of  English Poetry includes as before essays on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Langland, Chaucer (three) and Spenser (two) but includes also essays on Beowulf and Dante. It was never the intention to exclude Old English Poetry from the historical continuum of  English Poetry and practical rather than ideological considerations explain the exclusion of  Beowulf up to this point. Many years ago R.W. Chambers wrote a short book (in fact an extract from the introduction to Nicholas Harpsfield’s Life of  Sir Thomas More separately printed) entitled On the Continuity of  English Prose from Alfred to More and his School  1 in which he demonstrated without dif ficulty (although in the face of a strange ignorance and some curious prejudices)2 the historical continuity of prose in English. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is justly famous as the oldest European example of a ‘continuous national history’ (Swanton’s phrase)3 in the vernacular, dating back to the ninth century and the educational reforms of  Alfred the Great. The survival of  the English language after the battle of  Hastings, where the English were finally undone not by a lack of courage but by a lack of discipline, may not be easy to explain but it is a reassuring sign of  the vitality of  the English language in itself even in the wake of  the elimination of  the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy by the ruthless Norman conqueror. The language of  Beowulf is in all essentials the language of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Piers Plowman in one and the same native alliterative tradition and also the language of  Chaucer in the European tradition inherited from the great French and Italian poets. Thus the richness of English poetry is the happy consequence of  the meeting of  these two European traditions, the one Germanic and Scandinavian, the other Romance and Mediterranean. Chaucer shows the genius of  the English tradition in its ef fortless ability to absorb and assimilate these diverse inf luences.

xx Preface

Thus although we may say (as I frequently do) that Chaucer is the greatest of  English poets, we can hardly also say that he is the father of  English poetry. He is simply too young to claim that distinction. But just as Chaucer’s greatness in comparison with that of  Shakespeare has been obscured by his relative antiquity and at times relative strangeness in his use of  English (though this can be exaggerated), so too has the greatness of  the Beowulf-poet. The survival of an epic poem on the scale of  Beowulf is a blessing the English have often been slow to comprehend. Indeed we still labour to assign an agreed date to this Old English (not AngloSaxon) masterpiece. Perhaps, as I was once taught at Oxford in the 1960s, it belongs to the period (wide enough in all truth) between the conversion of  England to Christianity and the Danish invasions of  England, say, 650–800, whether in the late seventh century at the court of  Aldfrith of  Northumbria (685–705), as Ritchie Girvan supported by Rupert BruceMitford on Sutton Hoo still persuades me to think,4 or at the court of  Of fa the Great of  Mercia (757–796) in the late eighth century (a possible alternative dating as suggested by Dorothy Whitelock).5 Later scholars have found even these broad dates too restrictive, and Kevin S. Kiernan argues in 1981 for an eleventh-century date for the poem as late as that of  the extant manuscript and the reign of  that great Danish English king Cnut/Canute (1016–1035), the younger son of  Swein Forkbeard.6 A book-length study is devoted to the date of  Beowulf in 1982,7 but in the continuing absence of a decisive piece of evidence compelling universal assent we must hope that common sense will hold speculation in check. Nevertheless Beowulf itself does not stand alone and as Chambers in respect of prose so in poetry we have no dif ficulty in tracing a f lourishing native English poetic tradition back beyond the Norman conquest to the England of our Anglo-Saxon and Danish ancestors. But so remote is the Old English poet of  Beowulf  from the modern reader that many have often claimed that his language is a foreign language. That is an understandable but still a superficial point of view as a philological analysis will easily demonstrate. There is no denying, of course, the relative linguistic dif ficulty for the modern reader of poems such as Beowulf. But the presence of an epic poem such as Beowulf in the Old English period is surely one part of  the explanation of  the vitality of  the English language

Preface

xxi

itself, the language that Chaucer and his contemporaries inherited and the language passed down to such successors as Spenser and beyond. Thus I remain strongly of  the view that the history of  English poetry without Old English poetry is like a body without its head. I am pleased to think that the study of  English literature at Dublin University at the time of writing, as at Oxford in my youth, is one that begins at the beginning. It is a pity that Cambridge University settled long ago for an acephalous history of  English poetry, one in which Chaucer’s antecedents were despatched to a so-called realm of  Anglo-Saxon along with Old Norse and Celtic. It is a mistaken view of  history and a failure of  the historical imagination. It fails to do justice to our sense of  the Englishness of  English literature. There can be no denying, however, that the past of  the composition of  Beowulf and more especially that poem’s own past are remote indeed from modern view. Such remoteness, as in archaeology, can be an attraction in itself  but at the same time makes for dif ficulty in establishing a satisfactory historical context for particular poems. In these circumstances speculation and even prejudice are apt to harden into fact; the theme of  treachery, for example, can seem more compelling than that of  loyalty, although loyalty to the death in battle, as at Maldon on 10 August 991 no less than at Hastings on 14 October 1066, is a staple of  Old English battle poetry. Such it has long seemed to me is the case of  the critical response to the Beowulf-poet’s presentation of  Hrothulf in his relationship to the admirable Danish king, Hrothgar, nephew and uncle (suhtergefæderan, 1164a). The fate of  the princes in the tower, Edward and Richard, sons of  Edward IV and nephews of  Richard III, seems more persuasive (even though by no means uncontroversial in itself ) than the absence of primogeniture in the Germanic world of  Beowulf and Scandinavian history and legend. The essay on ‘The Treachery of  Hrothulf ’ is designed to dispel the attractions of so tendentious a matter by close attention to the text of  Beowulf itself. Although this may still be a minority view, in that minority is to be found an Old English scholar of  the stature of  Bruce Mitchell. Had I been a member of  his comitatus I would deem it an honour to have been so. Whatever our conclusions about the loyalty or disloyalty of  Hrothulf, the importance of  the values of  Danish or Viking codes of  heroism alongside

xxii Preface

specifically Anglo-Saxon ones in the historical stream of  English culture is unnecessary to debate. These values are so deeply embedded by the time of  William of  Normandy’s arrival at Pevensey in the morning of 28 September 1066 that not even a catastrophic military defeat is able to uproot them. Hence some three hundred years later, when England has been enriched by the foundation of its great universities and the inheritance of  Aristotle, a distinctively English poetry in the native alliterative tradition attains heights of sophistication and sublimity hardly to be matched by Beowulf itself or indeed by any poetry in the English language. The dif ference now is that by the 1360s we have enough, and often more than enough, evidence to place these poems in an historical context suf ficiently precise to do them justice. The understanding of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight turns on just such a point of  historical knowledge, namely, the Roman Catholic doctrine of  the sacrament of penance and in the light of it the validity of  Sir Gawain’s confession to the priest after the lady has departed on the third day of  her testing of  him, the day before, as he thinks, he goes to meet a greater test. The view that Sir Gawain makes a false confession has a ready appeal for many modern readers and is espoused by no less a scholar than John Burrow, but it is a reading that has no attractions for those familiar with Scholastic philosophy and penitential practice, as we must suppose the author of  the poem himself  to have been. Yet again the world of  the poem is an unfamiliar world, and especially so for English Protestants who do not care for the sacrament of penance and public confession of private sins. Like the author of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Langland is an orthodox English Catholic of  the fourteenth century and this gives his work a strangeness to modern readers that would have baf f led his contemporaries. But the passionate and sometimes vehement character of  his argument does not disguise the precision of  his thought and clarity of  the structure of  his poem for those familiar with Scholastic Aristotelianism. Moreover the denunciation of abuses in medieval society, and particularly of greed, finds an increasing relevance in present-day Europe distracted by the rashness of  bankers and politicians and the amassing of public debt. The transition from Beowulf  to Dante may seem abrupt, but the richness of  English poetry requires us to make it and we may associate

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it in particular with the poetry of  Chaucer whose assimilation of  Italian inf luences is both formidable and remarkable. The second essay on Virgil’s exposition of  love in the Purgatorio, a detailed analysis of  Dante’s text with its own rich assimilation of  Aristotelian philosophy, takes us to the heart of  the poetry that we associate with the period of  Chaucer’s greatness in the 1380s and 1390s. The analysis of  love in the Purgatorio is characteristically technical and precise, drawing directly as it does on the thought of  Aquinas. Here we see not a system of courtly love as imposed on medieval poems even by critics as distinguished as C.S. Lewis but distinctions of natural, sensitive and rational love that not only explain the pervasiveness of  love in human experience but account at the same time for the reality of choice side by side with the strength of human emotions. Such a systematic philosophy of  love enables us to see that the ending of  Troilus and Criseyde (the subject of  the fifth essay) does not contradict the poem that precedes it but is its logical and persuasive fulfilment. The long sixth essay on ‘Chaucer’s Worthy Knight’ is justified not only by the complexities of medieval chivalry and their ideological justification but also by the challenge imposed by critics, unduly inf luenced perhaps by the work of  Terry Jones, who see the Knight of  the General Prologue not in terms of crusading idealism but of  the exploitation of war by mercenaries. Once again this issue cannot be clarified without resort to philosophical arguments about moral virtue based on the thought of  Aristotle that inf luenced the world in which Chaucer lived, a world in this respect much unlike our own. Even in war cynicism has to yield to moral idealism when such idealism is internally validated. And it is possible to combine a detestation of war with admiration for the valour of  knights who are obliged to fight the battles that emperors, kings and lords decree. It is simply impossible to imagine a medieval world (or a modern world, come to that) in which wars no longer have to be fought. And, as in all other areas of  life, judgments of  human conduct in battle inevitably dif fer, for wars can be fought well or badly and for motives good and bad. The seventh essay (and third on Chaucer) addresses not for the first time by me the moral dilemma of  husband and wife in The Franklin’s Tale, a matter that still arouses debate and contradictory judgments among modern critics. The status of  Arveragus as a knight, and more particularly

xxiv Preface

the assumptions and sympathies concerning chivalric idealism at issue in the portrait of  the Knight of  the General Prologue, are key elements in the unravelling of  the dilemma in such a way as to keep the bond of marriage intact in the final outcome. Modern antipathies are often so strong as to treat Arveragus as a moral adolescent interested only in his own public standing in the world rather than the welfare of  his wife. Here it becomes especially necessary to challenge modern predilections by a careful investigation of medieval moral discourse. Once again Aristotle’s Ethics is at the centre of  these medieval moral debates, and often Aristotle puts these matters in a challenging new light. This is no less true when we turn to the final two essays on Spenser’s Faerie Qveene. At times it seems that there is a modern critical conspiracy to hide from view Spenser’s explicit and repeated invocation of  the authority of  Aristotle in the Letter to Raleigh. Or perhaps the attractions of  Platonic philosophy are simply too strong for some to resist. And yet the moral arguments of  the successive books of  The Faerie Qveene are worked out so systematically in terms of  Aristotelian moral categories that one wonders whether something other than philosophical logic is involved. Admittedly Spenser’s invocation of  ‘the twelue priuate morall vertues, as Aristotle hath deuised’ (Raleigh, 715/19) is seemingly at odds with the eleven moral virtues of  The Nicomachean Ethics, namely, courage, temperance, liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, the love of  honour, gentleness, af fability, truthfulness, ready wit (eutrapelia) and justice (Ethics, III.6–V.11). But in this respect also Spenser is neither eccentric nor uninformed. Although Aristotle classifies prudence as an intellectual virtue (Ethics, VI.5), moral virtue cannot exist without it (Ethics, VI.13). Hence ‘[b]ene si pone Prudenza, cioè senno, per molti, essere morale virtude,/ I grant that many hold prudence, or good judgment, to be a moral virtue’ (Convivio, IV.xvii.8; Ryan, 167). Among that number is to be included no less an authority than Giles of  Rome.8 We have to learn to take Spenser’s Aristotelianism seriously. There can be no doubt that courtesy is developed by Spenser in terms of  the familiar Aristotelian categories. Moreover there is a coherence in the first six books as well as a logic in respect of constancy as a seventh and concluding book that is wholly intelligible in relation to the thought of  Aristotle. Thus the name of  Aristotle is much more than a

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pleasant adornment to the explanation of  the allegory of  The Faerie Qveene in the Letter to Raleigh and takes us to the moral heart of  Spenser’s poem. The final essay on the themes of  faith and humility in the perfecting of  Red Cross testify to the fact that Spenser’s Aristotelianism is pervasive even on the seemingly unpromising ground of  holiness, for holiness, despite the reservations of a Rosemond Tuve, is a moral virtue and it is developed in characteristic Aristotelian fashion as a virtuous mean between the excess of superstition and the defect of irreligion together with the attendant complexities of  the elicited and commanded acts of  the virtue. It is evident that until we take more seriously the claims of  Aristotle the moral import of  The Faerie Qveene, no less than that of its medieval predecessors, will remain in the shadows of needless obscurity and enlightenment will be replaced by bewilderment and even hostility. Eight of  these essays first appeared in the following journals and I wish to thank their editors and publishers for permission to republish: ‘The Treachery of  Hrothulf ’, English Studies, 53 (1972), 23–39 (); ‘Natural and Spiritual Movements of  Love in the Soul: An Explanation of  Purgatorio, XVIII.16–39’, Modern Language Review, 80 (1985), 320–29; ‘The Validity of  Gawain’s Confession in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Review of  English Studies, NS, 36 (1985), 1–18; ‘The Ending of  Troilus and Criseyde’, Modern Language Review, 77 (1982), 257–71; ‘The Worthiness of  Chaucer’s Worthy Knight’, Chaucer Review, 44 (2009), 115–58; ‘Experience and the Judgment of  Poetry: A Reconsideration of The Franklin’s Tale’, Medium Aevum, 70 (2001), 204–25; ‘Spenser’s Conception of  Courtesy and the Design of  the Faerie Queene’, Review of  English Studies, NS, 32 (1981), 17–36 and ‘ “Add faith vnto your force”: the perfecting of  Spenser’s knight of  holiness in faith and humility’, Renaissance Studies, 18 (2004), 449–74. The ninth essay on ‘Langland and the Love of  Money: How Piers Beat His Peers’ was first delivered as a lecture at Malvern Theatre on 20 April 2007 and I remain grateful to David Hallmark for the invitation to deliver it there.

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Notes 1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8

R.W. Chambers, On the Continuity of  English Prose from Alfred to More and his School, EETS (OS) 191A (London: Oxford University Press, 1932). See, for example, the opinions of  G.P. Krapp (‘If  English prose must have a father, no one is so worthy of  this title of respect as Wiclif ’) and Sir Arthur QuillerCouch (‘From Anglo-Saxon Prose, from Anglo-Saxon Poetry, our living Prose and Poetry have, save linguistically, no derivation’). Quoted by Chambers, On the Continuity of  English prose, p. lvii. See Swanton, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Introduction, p. xx. See Ritchie Girvan, Beowulf and the Seventh Century, with a new chapter by Rupert Bruce-Mitford (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1971), pp. 9–10, 24–25 and 86–91. See Dorothy Whitelock, The Audience of  ‘Beowulf ’ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), pp. 23–30, 64 and 99–105. Kevin S. Kiernan, ‘Beowulf ’ and the ‘Beowulf ’ Manuscript (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1981). Magisterially reviewed by E.G. Stanley, MÆ, 53 (1984), 112–17. Colin Chase (ed.), The Dating of  ‘Beowulf ’, Toronto Old English Series, 6 (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1982). Brilliantly reviewed by Nicolas Jacobs, MÆ, 53 (1984), 117–20. See Stephen H. Rigby, Wisdom and Chivalry: Chaucer’s ‘Knight’s Tale’ and Medieval Political Theory (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009), Chapter One: The ‘Knight’s Tale’ as Ethics: the Aristotelian Virtues, pp. 27–87, especially p. 33 and notes 18 and 19.

1  The Treachery of  Hrothulf

I.  It is clear that a truly critical understanding of  Beowulf still eludes modern scholarship. Perhaps the main reason for this is that we are unable to place the specific formulations and ideas of  the poem within a wider context of ideas. It is dif ficult to define the constraints (intellectual, political, religious and emotional) within which a poet of  the eighth century must necessarily have been working. As a result it has not always been possible to test literary interpretations of  Beowulf against the social realities held to justify them. This can mean that certain interpretations become established simply because of  the scarcity and unreliability of  the existing evidence. Such interpretations, nevertheless, may involve distortion of  the poetic argument and ef fectively obscure elements of consistency in it. A case in point is the myth which scholarship has built up round the figure of  Hrothulf. He is mentioned twice in the description of  the Danish company assembled at Heorot to celebrate the defeat of  Grendel, once before and once after the relation of  the Finn story. It has often been explained that the poet ironically foreshadows the disruption of  Danish society through the treachery of  Hrothulf. Thus William Witherle Lawrence writes: There is a subtler purpose, too, in emphasizing Hrothgar’s apparent prosperity; it contrasts sharply with impending tragedy. The immediate danger confronting the Danes is the incursions of  the demon Grendel … But the king faces troubles more serious than this. His sovereignty, won by disregarding the legitimate successor, can hardly pass unchallenged to his sons. A scheming nephew, aided, it would appear, by a treacherous counsellor, is already plotting to seize his throne … It looks as if  the temptation to be king had been too great for Hrothgar, and as if  he feared the nephew (i.e. Heoroweard) who might have worn the crown. For he favors Hrothulf, the son of  his younger brother, who has no prior claim to the throne … Meanwhile Hrothulf, the favored nephew, cherishes his own designs … The plans of  the treacherous Hrothulf matured slowly … When Hrothgar’s son came to the throne after his father’s death, Hrothulf at last threw of f  the mask … It seems probable that Unferth,

2

GERALD MORGAN the þyle or ‘orator’ of  the Danish court, obviously a prominent counsellor, had some share in increasing the enmity between Hrothgar and Hrothulf. We are told – a suspicious circumstance – that he enjoyed the confidence of  both … Ambition and crime had made Hrothulf  king of  the Danes, but he was not to go unpunished. The rightful heir to the throne, according to strict succession, the neglected Heoroweard, came at last into his own.1

This view has been seriously challenged, to my knowledge, by only two scholars, M.G. Clarke2 and, more recently, Kenneth Sisam.3 Sisam’s rejection of it was based simply on the inadequacy of  the evidence brought to support it and was evidently not in itself considered to be particularly significant (p. 82): This supposition may seem relatively uninteresting, but it has the advantage of dispensing with a story built up in modern times on very slight foundations.

But it is clear that throughout the poem Hrothgar and Danish society are set against Beowulf and Geatish society. The parallelism is undeniable and forms the basis of  the poem’s larger structure. Thus, a king of  the Danes after ruling for fifty years is visited by Grendel and his mother, and a king of  the Geats after ruling for fifty years is visited by a dragon. There is an implicit and extended comparison between the two situations and between behaviour in those situations. Any argument, therefore, which af fects the relative status of  Danes and Geats is central to the understanding of  the poem. The purpose of  this article is to restate and reaf firm the rejection of  the standard view of  Hrothulf ’s treachery and to show that such a view involves a fundamental misdirection of interest in the poem and a misunder­standing of its historical context. II.  We must begin by stressing that there is no external evidence to support the proposition that Hrothulf was a traitor. Indeed, in accepting this inter­pretation we have to ignore the Scandinavian traditions which agree in making Hrothulf  the most glorious of  the Danish kings.4 This implies the assumption of a now unknown tradition available to the English poet which more or less contradicts the Scandinavian versions. This is not

1  The Treachery of Hrothulf

3

impossible (compare, for example, the varying treatment of  Gawain in medieval romance) but it does oblige us to pay very strict attention to the evidence of  the text itself. Heorot has been made ready for the banquet; the poet describes the company of  the Danes gathered together there in the following terms (1008b–19):          Þa wæs sæl ond mæl, þæt to healle gang   Healfdenes sunu; wolde self cyning   symbel þicgan. Ne gefrægen ic þa mægþe   maran weorode ymb hyra sincgyfan   sel gebæran. Bugon þa to bence   blædagande, fylle gefægon;   fægere geþægon medoful manig   magas þara swiðhicgende   on sele þam hean, Hroðgar ond Hroþulf.   Heorot innan wæs freondum afylled;   nalles facenstafas Þeod-Scyldingas  þenden fremedon. Then it was due time that Healfdene’s son should go into the hall; the king himself would take part in the banquet. Never have I heard that people bore themselves better round their treasure-giver, in a greater company. The men of great renown there seated themselves upon the benches, rejoiced in feasting, courteously drank many a cup of mead; Hrothgar and Hrothulf, the mighty kinsmen, were in the high hall. Heorot was filled within with friends, – not yet then had the Scyldings people used treachery.

The respect that the poet accords to the Danish company is at once evident. The relationship between lord and retainers is described in what appears to be an idealistic and approving fashion (1011–12). The dominant ideas are of glory (blædagande, 1013b), courtliness (fægere, 1014b) and valour (swiðhicgende, 1016a), the last two qualities being particularly associated with Hrothgar and Hrothulf. Heorot is filled with men of great nobility and courage; the poet is seemingly ungrudging in his admiration of  them. Herein, we are told, will be appreciated his fine sense of dramatic irony if we take the lines (1018b–19):

4

GERALD MORGAN          nalles facenstafas Þeod-Scyldingas  þenden fremedon

to be a serious qualification of  these same nobles and their behaviour. First of all it must be stated that there is not the slightest suggestion in them that Hrothulf is a possible traitor. We nowhere read that Hrothulf did not at that time commit treachery. Hrothulf in fact is nowhere isolated in the way that some criticism suggests but is associated with Hrothgar, so that we must assume that if  treachery is planned Hrothgar and Hrothulf are equally guilty in so far as they are syntactic equals. But neither is the subject of  fremedon unless included in Þeod-Scyldingas. ‘The people of  the Scyldings’ as a subject is much more general than proponents of dramatic irony suggest. Second, the Þeod-Scyldingas are said to be guilty of  facenstafas. Again, this compound has a much more general range of meaning than is readily allowed. Sisam has commented (p. 81): To translate facenstafas (found only here) by ‘treachery’ prejudices the discussion. Facen means any kind of wickedness, and facenstafas ‘wrongful acts (against the community)’. It would cover, e.g., acts of cowardice, disobedience, false swearing, as well as treachery.

Third, the allegedly pregnant þenden = ‘then’ draws attention for many to a time when Þeod-Scyldingas (that is, Hrothulf ) performed facenstafas (that is, treachery). Such a reference (in the present state of  knowledge) is quite irrecoverable. Those critics who see in þenden an anticipation of  the future treachery of  Hrothulf assume not only that it contains a specific reference, but also have to speculate the very existence of  that event to which reference is supposedly being made. But the implied period of  Scylding wickedness is very wide indeed; it could equally belong to the past as to the future. The poet makes no attempt to be specific. The most that can reasonably be said is that lines 1018b–19 form a contrast with the preceding lines and seem to direct attention to the present situation rather than to another at a dif ferent point in time. The language of  the poet can be regarded as intentionally general, underlining and not qualifying the virtues of  the Danes gathered at Heorot. What has been said positively in the previous lines is here reinforced by way of contrast.

1  The Treachery of Hrothulf

5

Having shown to us the harmony that exists in Heorot, the poet goes on to show the basis on which that harmony is founded – the generosity of  the king and his material capacity for generosity. This is not to be seen exclusively nor even perhaps primarily as a personal quality, but as a social necessity. A lord is enabled to retain the loyalty of  his thanes by his ability to reward them for their services. There is nothing dishonourable in such a contract on either side. The poet is careful, for example, to point out that Beowulf  has no cause to be ashamed, even though the gifts he receives from Hrothgar are clearly of  the greatest value (1025b–26):          no he þære feohgyfte for sc[e]oten[d]um   scamigan ðorfte. … no need had he to be ashamed of  the costly gifts before the warriors.

Such a society is bound together by a king’s power to reward his followers and a retainer’s loyalty to his oath. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the account of  the Danes in Heorot is a consciously idealised presentation of an heroic society. Heorot represents from the beginning a social ideal, a place wherein Hrothgar might (71b–73):          eall gedælan geongum ond ealdum,   swylc him God sealde, buton folcscare   ond feorum gumena. … apportion all things to young and old, whatever God had given him, except public land and the lives of men.

It now assumes its intended function. The poet concentrates upon the noble king who in the presence of  his loyal and united retainers gives treasure rather than upon the heroic warrior who receives it (1027–29): ne gefrægn ic freondlicor   feower madmas golde gegyrede   gummanna fela in ealobence   oðrum gesellan. Not many men have I known to give more heartily four such treasures, decked with gold, to others on the ale-bench.

6

GERALD MORGAN

Further, it is not merely an interest in precious weapons and armour, nor simply a love of description, which prompts the poet to detail them so care­fully. One need not be surprised that an eighth-century poet should be interested in these things. What the poet emphasises, however, is the value of  the gifts, which is by no means simply ornamental (1030–34). The poet ends the account of  the gifts given to Beowulf  by stressing once again the irreproachable behaviour of  the famous king (1046–49): Swa manlice   mære þeoden, hordweard hæleþa   heaþoræsas geald mearum ond madmum,   swa hy næfre man lyhð, se þe secgan wile   soð after rihte. In such manly wise did the renowned prince, treasure-warden of  heroes, repay Beowulf  for his battle-rushes with horses and with treasures, so that never man who wills to speak the truth in fairness shall disparage them.

It is a detailed and emphatic description, often ignored in the critical debate on the lines that precede it. It seems fair to say that it carries on in the same spirit which a natural interpretation of  lines 1008b–19 would lead us to expect. It is dif ficult to allow suspicion of  treachery in this context. What is most significant, perhaps, is the concentration upon Hrothgar and the Danes, and the complete subordination of  Beowulf. This may possibly be interpreted as a rehabilitation of  Hrothgar and a Danish nobility forced to acknowledge the superiority of  Geatish strength in battle. But the poet seems on the whole to have avoided a tension between the two (although Beowulf  himself makes much of it). The Danes have been consistently presented by the poet from his preface on Scyld onwards as a great and glorious people. There is nothing novel in the description that he gives of  them here; he merely confirms the impression that has already been received. It is perhaps significant that the poet chooses to remind us also of  Hrothgar’s valour as well as of  his generosity (1039–42): þæt wæs hildesetl   heahcyninges, ðonne sweorda gelac   sunu Healfdenes efnan wolde, –   næfre on ore læg widcuþes wig,   ðonne walu feollon.

1  The Treachery of Hrothulf

7

… that was the war-seat of  the mighty king, when Healfdene’s son wished to take part in the play of swords. Never did courage fail the far-famed chieftain at the front, when men were falling dead.

Kings were not respected for being good but weak. The Church understood this as well as warriors. In the Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum Bede makes it clear that belief in the Christian God is related to military success (HE, III.3, pp. 218–19): Idem ergo Osuald, mox ubi regnum suscepit, desiderans totam cui praeesse coepit gentem fidei Christianae gratia inbui, cuius experimenta permaxima in expugnandis barbaris iam ceperat. Oswald, as soon as he had come to the throne, was anxous that the whole race under his rule should be filled with the grace of  the Christian faith of which he had had so wonderful an experience in overcoming the barbarians.5

The real testing of a king took place upon the field of  battle; there must be no doubt of  his capacity as a war-leader. J. Campbell has written on Bede: There is a point where his admiration for the leader and defender of a Christian people meets a less specifically devout delight in the strenuitas of a warrior king … he was writing for an audience which saw Christianity in heroic terms and which may have believed in a more than rational connection between the virtue of a king and the prosperity of  his people.6

Hrothgar himself did not lack this kingly virtue. The devastation of  Heorot by Grendel is not to be seen as an indication of  Hrothgar’s lack of authority or of  Danish lack of valour. The poet never questions these qualities; rather he stresses continually the valour and nobility of  Hrothgar and his people. Their helplessness before Grendel is a mark of  the power of  Grendel and not of  their own weakness. Such weakness as is shown is spiritual (resort to idol worship) and not martial. On the other hand Beowulf, though his achievement has been great, remains a hero and not a king, a Geat and not a Dane. He is an honoured guest and a preeminent warrior and is duly accorded the respect to which his status entitles him. He neither qualifies nor challenges the authority of  Hrothgar. This order of  things is clearly established in the description that we have been considering.

8

GERALD MORGAN

III.  When the story of  Finn and Hengest has come to an end, the poet resumes his account of  the company assembled in Heorot. Imaginative interest is now centred upon the figure of  Wealhtheow, Hrothgar’s queen. This concentration upon Wealhtheow has been justly seen by most critics to balance that of  Hildeburh in the Finn story. But there is scope for some dif ference of opinion as to the significance of such a juxtaposition. The poet observes the appearance of  Wealhtheow in the following words (1162b–65a):          Þa cwom Wealhþeo forð gan under gyldnum beage   þær þa godan twegen sæton suhtergefæderan;   þa gyt wæs hiera sib ætgædere, æghwylc oðrum trywe. Then Wealhtheow came forth, and went, wearing a golden diadem, to where the two nobles sat, uncle and nephew; peace was between them still, each to the other true.

The critical attention given to these lines may be much greater than their intrinsic dramatic interest. We must, however, make some attempt to give them their proper emphasis and to understand them in their contextual perspective. Once again Hrothulf is not in fact isolated in treachery but coupled with Hrothgar in the inclusive phrase þa godan twegen. These words mean what they say. Hrothgar and Hrothulf are alike good men. It would be equally tenable on the evidence of  the text to assert (what is surely unthinkable) that Hrothgar himself is later to be found guilty of  treachery. The evidence of  Widsith has generally been brought into the discussion at this point. Here we read (45–49): Hroþwulf ond Hroðgar   heoldon lengest sibbe ætsomne  suhtorfædran, siþþan hy forwræcon   Wicinga cynn ond Ingeldes   ord forbigdan, forheowan æt Heorote   Heaðo-Beardna þrym. For a very long time did Hrothwulf and Hrothgar keep the peace together, uncle and nephew, after they had driven away the race of  the Vikings and humbled the array of  Ingeld, hewed down at Heorot the host of  the Heathobards.

1  The Treachery of Hrothulf

9

Sisam comments magisterially on these lines as follows (pp. 80–81): But, taken by themselves, these lines do not suggest a final quarrel between Hrothgar and Hrothulf. There was a natural limit to their alliance, which must end when one or the other died. From the similar use of  lengest in Widsith, 28: Sigehere longest   Sæ-Denum weold we do not infer that Sigehere was deposed or assassinated.

It is dif ficult to see any confirmation in Widsith for an allegation of  treachery. It is even possible, perhaps, to argue that Widsith suggests the reverse. It seems clear that Hrothgar and Hrothulf were traditionally regarded as having ruled together in peaceful partnership over a long period of  time, a time evidently extending beyond the Heathobard feud and the perspective of  the present poem. It should not be considered surprising that such a partnership was possible – Hrothulf, son of  Hrothgar’s younger brother, Halga, was of  the Scylding blood and would certainly have had a good claim to the throne. It should be remembered that Hrothgar himself was a younger brother of  Heorogar and succeeded to the throne even though Heorogar left a son, Heoroweard. The poem contains no suggestion that Hrothgar’s succession was unlawful. Beowulf ’s refusal of  the Geatish throne of fered to him by Hygd because her son, Heardred, was too young (2369–79a) is often regarded as ideal behaviour, and a damaging comparison is drawn with the alleged behaviour of  Hrothulf  here. Beowulf ’s behaviour is indeed confirmation of  his integrity and fidelity as a retainer, but it is doubtful whether any comparison is intended. Moreover, Beowulf ’s claim to the throne is much less easy to establish than that of  Hrothulf. Beowulf ’s claim lay only through the female line, his father Ecgtheow having married a daughter of  Hrethel. It is doubtful whether this descent could have of fered him any normal expectation of succeeding to the throne. H. Munro Chadwick has commented on this matter as follows: It is hardly necessary to mention that in historical times succession through the female line was not recognised. At all events no instance is known before the Norman Conquest. This is an important point of dif ference between English and Scandinavian custom, for in the latter such succession seems to have been known at all times. How

10

GERALD MORGAN far this dif ference goes back is of course uncertain. Succession through the male line seems to date from the time of  the kings of  Angel, but we do not know that succession through females was then excluded.7

Hrothulf, on the other hand, could properly hold every expectation. The standard view of  his treachery rests not only on an indiscriminate application of  Scandinavian tradition and a dangerously imprecise reading of  the text, but also quite evidently on an unawareness of  the principles of  Germanic kingship and succession. It has to assume the strict rule of primogeniture. It is necessary, therefore, to consider how far such an assumption is justified. IV.  The assumption of primogeniture is, as we have seen, contradicted by the poem, and we have to notice further that the evidence of  the poem is perfectly in accord with the historical evidence that we possess. The principle of  hereditary succession in the wide sense of succession of  the blood did indeed matter (it is the burden of  Wealhtheow’s speech to Hrothgar) and seems to have been accepted throughout the Germanic kingdoms. This is well illustrated by the measures and arguments employed by overpowerful subjects to provide a cover of  legitimacy for their actions in supplanting a legally descended king. The Carolingians, originally no more than Mayors of  the Palace to the Merovingians, eventually established themselves as rulers of  the Franks in this way. After the death of  Dagobert, the last great Merovingian king, in 639, the Arnulfing Mayors of  the Palace, particularly in the persons of  Pepin II (d. 714) and Charles Martel (d. 741), assumed ef fective control over the Frankish world. It is surely indicative of  the respect accorded to succession of  the blood that the Merovingian dynasty, however enfeebled, nevertheless continued to hold nominal rule over the Franks. There is little doubt that Pepin II and Charles Martel had the power to have obtained the throne. Indeed in the last four years of  his life there was no king for Charles Martel to dispossess, the Merovingian Theuderic IV having died in 737 without an heir. But there is no evidence that Charles ever attempted to become king.

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When Pepin III displaced Childeric III in 751 he did so after consulting the authority of  the Church. It is significant that the Carolingians were ritually anointed by the Church, the anointing of  David by Samuel in the place of  Saul (I Samuel, 16.13) providing a more than useful precedent. Pepin III was anointed not once but twice. The significance of  these events is brought out well by J.M. Wallace-Hadrill: He (Pope Stephen II) further reanointed the family at St Denis and strictly forbade the choice of any future king not of  the blood of  this family that had been exalted by divine mercy and confirmed and consecrated by the hand of  the Vicar of  the Apostles. Thus Pepin had done all he could to secure some veneer of  legality for his coup d’etat …8

The measures adopted by the Carolingians may seem to us excessive in view of  the undoubted power they wielded; they serve, however, to underline the force of  the belief in the sanguis regis. There was no warrior strong enough to ignore the popular respect accorded to the royal blood nor rash enough to set his own reputation against the transmitted virtue of  the royal ancestry. The long hair of  the Merovingian kings was a symbol which retained its vitality. Fritz Kern explains: For a special virtue, a mysterious ‘manna’ was inherent in the lord of a primitive people, a magic which brought him close to God, as a priest, a hero, or even as a divine being. But the Germanic peoples normally attached this inviolable sanctity not to a single lord but to his whole kindred; it was an inheritable commodity.9

The same respect for succession in the blood is equally evident in England. In the early records of  Wessex it is frequently emphasised that a king’s line of descent can be traced back to Cerdic,10 a Saxon war-leader (dux) of  the early sixth century, apparently not himself of royal birth. The inspiration behind regnal lists was the authority of and respect for such a tradition. Almost all the Anglo-Saxon regnal lists go back to Woden and some to Adam. Asser, Bishop of  Sherborne (c. 892/900–909), in his life of  Alfred (composed 893) provides a typical example (chapter 1.5–42).11 In fact, according to Asser (chapter 2), Alfred was descended from Cerdic on his mother’s side as well as on his father’s and hence, presumably, his possession

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of  the ancestral virtue was doubly assured. What is important for our purposes is not the authenticity of such a tradition but the belief (or need for a belief ) in its authenticity. It is equally clear, however, that respect for succession of  the blood did not necessarily imply the principle of primogeniture. No automatic significance can be attached to the fact that the eldest son failed to succeed to the throne. Kern tells us that (p. 21): … what especially dif ferentiates the kin-right of  the early Middle Ages from later legitimist principles is the lack … of a strict claim to the throne for any individual member of  the ruling line. The possession of  the throne by the whole family and the kin’s eligibility for it were universally recognised; but the succession of any particular prince of  the blood depended as a rule upon many f luctuating circumstances, and particularly upon the will of  the people.

The lack of any exclusive and well-defined principle of primogeniture is ref lected by Asser when commenting on Alfred’s coming to the throne (chapter 42.5–11): Quod etiam vivente praedicto fratre suo, si dignaretur accipere, facillime cum consensu omnium potuerat invenire, nempe quia et sapientia et cunctis moribus bonis cunctos fratres suos praecellebat, et insuper eo quod nimium bellicosus et victor prope in omnibus bellis erat. Indeed, he could easily have taken it over with the consent of all while his brother Æthelred was alive, had he considered himself worthy to do so, for he surpassed all his brothers both in wisdom and in all good habits; and in particular because he was a great warrior and victorious in virtually all battles.

The statement that Alfred might have been king earlier instead of  his brother, whatever its historical accuracy, can hardly have been made if  the principle of primogeniture had been widely accepted. The important unit is the family rather than the individual, and this seems to apply to kingship as well as to other spheres of  life. There is little aware­ness of a kingdom in the present understanding of a political unity. It is hardly relevant, therefore, to demand that kings of  this period (sixth to ninth century) should act in accordance with concepts that developed

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a good deal later. A kingdom was nothing more than the property of  the man (usually, though not always, a member of  the royal family) who had gained by fighting and maintained by fighting ef fective control over it. When he died he left it to his family. Thus, when Clovis died in 511 the lands he had won were divided between his four sons. Again, there is no sign that the political unification of  Gaul is in any sense a conscious objective in the seventh century. By accident Dagobert came to be the only ruler over the Franks, but when he died in 639 he did not pass on his rule to a single heir, leaving Austrasia to his son, Sigebert, and Neustria and Burgundy to a younger son, Clovis. When Charles Martel died in 741 he also divided his lands between his two sons, Carloman and Pepin III. Similarly, on the death of  Pepin III, his sons, Carloman and Charlemagne, succeeded him. Kern, in fact, has concluded (pp. 21–22): There did exist, however, at least a direct right to the throne for all male lineal descendants of a king; for the practice under the Merovingian kings of partitioning the state as a private legacy among the heirs of  the blood amounted to something like the realization of  this principle.

Charlemagne became sole ruler of  the Franks through a combination of  heredity, might and accident. His brother, Carloman, died within three years of his father, Pepin III, and he at once dispossessed his nephews. Alfred the Great was the fifth son of Æthelwulf. It is significant that between 856 and 858 the West-Saxon kingdom was divided between Æthelwulf and his eldest surviving son, Æthelbald, and that on Æthelwulf ’s death in 858 his share of  the kingdom passed to Æthelberht, the second surviving son. The kingdom was reunited under Æthelberht on Æthelbald’s death in 860.12 Five years later Æthelberht died, apparently, like Æthelbald, with­out an heir, and the kingdom fell to his next brother, Æthelred. In 871 Æthelred died, and although he left two sons both were minors. Alfred was immediately recognised as his successor; only an experienced leader (bellicosus et victor prope in omnibus bellis) could save Wessex from the Danes. Hrothulf, then, if  he did dispossess Hrethric and Hrothmund, is in good company; no less than that of  Charlemagne and Alfred the Great.

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It is necessary to understand also that kingship was not always thought of as rule by one man. All the male members of  the royal family may have been regarded as kings. It is likely, of course, that one of  them would have possessed final authority, but there must always have been legitimate scope for a strong and determined man of  the royal blood. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 455, indicates that the brothers Hengest and Horsa were joint-kings of  Kent. Similarly, the entry s.a. 519 suggests that Cerdic and his son Cynric became joint-kings of  the West-Saxons. The most striking reference, however, is to the five West-Saxon kings slain by Edwin of  Northumbria, recorded by the Laud MS of  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 626 (I.25): he þa for on West Seaxum mid fyrde 7 afylde þær v ciningas 7 þæs folces mycel ofsloh. And then he went into Wessex with an army and felled 5 kings there and killed a great number of  the people.

As Chadwick justly comments (p. 301): Indeed this story distinctly suggests that the term cyning may at one time have been applied to every male member of  the royal family.13

To sum up: the eldest son in most circumstances held a naturally favourable position and thus often did succeed his father. It was the principle of  hered­itary succession, however, that was respected, and not primogeniture. This is to be related to the importance placed upon the family rather than upon the individual. A kingdom was treated as a family property and on the death of  the head of  the family was therefore shared out among the male descendants. Since there was little awareness of a kingdom as a political unity there seemed no good reason why it should not be split up in this way. It is not surprising in these circumstances that a kingdom should be governed in partnership. A king necessarily had to be strong; minors were therefore unlikely to gain the succession.

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V.  This knowledge ought to play a vital part in our understanding of  Hrothulf. It would seem that the linking of  the names of  Hrothgar and Hrothulf (Beowulf, 1017a and 1163b, Widsith, 45) implies some form of shared rule, Hrothulf very probably having come into his father Halga’s share of  the kingdom. The partnership between Hrothgar and Hrothulf must, according to the tradition which Beowulf and Widsith seem to have in common, have been more harmonious than most – one may say, exceptionally so. It is clear that such a manner of disposing kingdoms as we have noticed above of fered great scope for disagreement and consequent instability if  two or more determined princes of  the blood attempted to make good their claims. It was worth a comment in such circumstances that honourable men could act in peaceful cooperation. This is how I understand lines 1164b–65a: ‘þa gyt wæs hiera sib ætgædere, æghwylc oðrum trywe’. Wallace-Hadrill strikes the right note when he writes that ‘[t]he marvel of early medieval society is not war but peace’.14 What is emphasised by the Beowulf-poet is the peace between Hrothgar and Hrothulf – hiera sib ætgædere – and their loyalty to one another – æghwylc oðrum trywe. A great deal, of course, does depend, and has depended, upon the significance attached to þa gyt. This can only satisfactorily be interpreted, if at all, in the light of  the evidence (textual and historical) that can be brought to bear on the context. But whatever force one chooses to attach to þa gyt, it cannot enable us to elicit from these lines the suggestion that Hrothulf unlawfully deposed his younger cousins. It is far from clear, however, what the significance of þa gyt must be. We may compare three translations of  lines 1164b–65a; that of  Chambers (Widsith, p. 82): as yet was there peace between them, and each was true to the other;

of  Clark Hall (p. 79): peace was between them still, each to the other true

and of  Garmonsway and Simpson (p. 32): as yet, there was peace between them, and each was true to the other.

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It may be noticed that þa gyt is a good deal more ominous in the translations of  Chambers and Garmonsway than in that of  Clark Hall. This is because in the one case þa gyt is italicised, in the other emphasised by punctuation. It is noticeable, further, that the formulation as yet in both is the most favour­able gloss that can be supplied in the interests of  the standard view. The fact remains that the sense of þa gyt can only be determined by the context. It could well contain much the same suggestion as does lengest in Widsith – an acknowledgment of a truly remarkable phenomenon in those days. Attention is directed towards the fact of peace, emphasised by þa gyt and not qualified by it. Sisam’s view is fundamentally sound (p. 82): … the clause could mean ‘the good pair of  kinsmen were still together (when Beowulf visited Heorot)’.

The great advantage of  this interpretation is that it makes sense of all the facts in a way that the standard view cannot. The suggestion of  treachery on Hrothulf ’s part is an admission of  failure to make sense of  this scene at Heorot in the wider context of  the development of  the poem as a whole. If þa gyt is ominous it can only be so in the sense that the peace between Hrothgar and Hrothulf was finally broken. There is no external evidence to support this proposition and some to suggest it rather unlikely. Its poetic significance (without the aid of speculative additions) has yet to be explained. Finally, the standard interpretation is quite at odds with what is explicitly told us in the text about Hrothgar and Hrothulf. It is surely impossible to allow so wide a discrepancy between critical opinion, on the one hand, and textual and historical sense on the other. VI.  Those critics who have discovered in this scene subtle hints as to the future treachery of  Hrothulf  have generally had little hesitation in connecting it with the designing malice of  Unferth, who has thus been seen in the role of evil-counsellor. Chambers is certain of  the fact, although he cannot demonstrate it:

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That the feud (that is, between Hrothgar and Hrothulf ) was due to the machinations of  the evil adviser can hardly be doubted by those who have studied the ways of  the old Germanic heroic story. But it is only an inference: positive proof we have none.15

The same theme has been taken up by Arthur Brodeur: The fact of  Unferth’s ultimate treachery cannot be doubted: the poet establishes beyond question his complicity in Hrothulf ’s treason (1164b–68a).16

One notices that the reservation, however slight, of  Chambers has been completely swept away in Brodeur’s dogmatic assertion. It should perhaps be said that Bonjour, a firm believer in Hrothulf ’s treachery, does not him­ self make this additional speculation.17 There are indeed good reasons to justify a more cautious assessment of  Unferth’s role in the poem. Unferth remains, his envy of  Beowulf ’s reputation notwithstanding, the preeminent warrior at the Danish court. He occupies a seat of  honour at the feet of  his lord, Hrothgar (500). Beowulf  himself  later addresses him as widcuþne man (1489), when acknowledging his generous loan of the sword Hrunting. Indeed it is precisely Unferth’s status as champion of  the Danes that makes his initial reaction to Beowulf intelligible. There is every reason, therefore, to doubt his ‘ultimate treachery’. Let us look, then, at those lines which Brodeur believes to establish his guilt (1165b–68a):          Swylce þær Unferþ þyle æt fotum sæt frean Scyldinga;   gehwylc hiora his ferhþe treowde, þæt he hæfde mod micel,   þeah þe he his magum nære arfæst æt ecga gelacum. Moreover, there sat Unferth the spokesman at the Scylding chieftain’s feet; all of  them trusted in his spirit, that he had much courage, although he might not have been upright with his kinsfolk at the play of swords.

It seems that quite the opposite conclusion must be drawn from them. Unferth was a trusted man at the Danish court despite his behaviour toward his kin. The poet seems anxious to rationalise this trust in lines 1167b–68a. Beowulf, it will be recalled, had already reproached Unferth with this behaviour during their initial confrontation (587–89):

18

GERALD MORGAN þeah ðu þinum broðrum   to banan wurde, heafodmægum;   þæs þu in helle scealt werhðo dreogan,   þeah þin wit duge. … though thou wast the slayer of  thy brothers – thy near kinsmen; for that thou shalt suf fer damnation in hell, good though thy skill may be.

The strength of  Beowulf ’s rebuke may derive a great deal from the horror at feud within the family felt by the poet himself. The obligation of  kinvengeance was designed to force the interested parties to bring about the composition of a feud through the payment of compensation. Since this operated at the level of  the family unit, no legal redress was possible for feud within the family. In these circumstances, therefore, some rationalisation of  Unferth’s conduct, and the trust still accorded to him, was evidently necessary. The fact that the poet does so rationalise underlines the force of  Beowulf ’s charge, but probably also suggests that Unferth is to be considered, this notwithstanding, as a man who could still be relied upon. It would otherwise not have been possible for the poet to represent him as generous and widely honoured. VII.  Wealhtheow’s speech to Hrothgar becomes intelligible in the light of  the knowledge gained from the discussion of  kingship and succession. She tactfully acknowledges Hrothgar’s duty to reward Beowulf in a fitting manner, but then comes directly to the point of  her speech. Generosity is desirable but it must not prejudice the rights of  the family (1175–80a): Me man sægde,   þæt þu ðe for sunu wolde hereri[n]c habban.   Heorot is gefælsod, beahsele beorhta;   bruc þenden þu mote manigra medo,   ond þinum magum læf folc ond rice,   þonne ðu forð scyle, metodsceaft seon. It has been said to me that thou wouldst have this warrior as a son. The radiant ring-hall Heorot is cleansed. Dispense, while thou mayst, many gifts; and leave the people and the realm to thy descendants, when thou shalt pass away to meet thy appointed fate.

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She is obviously disturbed by any possibility that Beowulf might in due course lay claim to the Danish throne. One notices again the respect for hereditary succession, but it is the right of the family (þinum magum, 1178b) that she upholds and not of one particular individual. This right can only be secured through the family in the person of  Hrothulf (glædne Hroþulf, 1181a) and not through a stranger. Wealhtheow recognises the probability that Hrothulf will assume power on Hrothgar’s death and places her trust in him to treat honourably (arum healdan, 1182a) her two sons. There is no reason to suppose that she expects him to act merely as regent and then to step down when Hrethric and Hrothmund come of age. Wealhtheow looks to Hrothulf, as she says, to treat her sons honourably. These words have a literal sense and should be read literally. They mean that Wealhtheow trusts in Hrothulf  to protect the rights of  her sons as members of  the Scylding royal family, not as sole heirs to Hrothgar’s throne. She has confidence that Hrothulf will follow the precedent of  his own treatment by Hrothgar. On the death of  Halga, one presumes, Hrothgar could (like Charlemagne and Alfred) have dispossessed his young nephew. He did not do so, and Wealhtheow foresees an oppor­tunity for Hrothulf  to show his gratitude in a similar fashion. There seems no good reason why we should not accept Wealhtheow’s words at their face value (1180b–87):          ‘Ic minne can glædne Hroþulf,   þæt he þa geogoðe wile arum healdan,   gyf þu ær þonne he, wine Scildinga,   worold of lætest; wene ic þæt he mid gode   gyldan wille uncran eaferan,   gif  he þæt eal gemon, hwæt wit to willan   ond to worðmyndum umborwesendum ær   arna gefremedon.’ ‘I know my gracious Hrothulf, that he will honourably entreat our children, if  thou, lord of  the Scyldings, leavest the world sooner than he. I trust that he will faithfully requite our sons, if  he is mindful of all the honour which in the past we both conferred on him for his pleasure and advancement while he was yet a child.’

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These words seem to have the support of at least one Scandinavian tradition, the pedigree list of  Danish kings called Langfeðgatal. The list runs as follows: … Healfdene – his sons Hrothgar and Halga – Hrothulf  Halga’s son – Ingeld’s son Hrethric ‘the Niggard of  Rings’ – …18

Chambers remains undeterred by evidence that contradicts his interpretation and blithely disposes of it as follows: The succession given in Langfeðgatal is Halfdan, Helgi and Hroar, Rolf, Hrærek: it should, of course, run Halfdan, Helgi and Hroar, Hrærek, Rolf. Hrærek has been moved from his proper place in order to clear Rolf of any suspicion of usurpation.19

If we accept this explanation of  the ‘false’ order of  the Langfeðgatal, how are we to tell that those responsible for moving Hrærek from his ‘proper’ place were not successful in their intention to clear Rolf of  treachery or usurpation? It is the force of a tradition that counts rather than its historical accuracy. If, however, we accept that the Hrethric of  Beowulf and the Hrærek of  the Langfeðgatal are one and the same person (as Chambers must), then we possess some external evidence to suggest that Wealhtheow’s trust in Hrothulf was justified. VIII.  The cup is borne to Beowulf, who is honoured with yet more gifts, including the finest of circlets (‘healsbeaga mæst’, 1195b). It is such as to prompt comparison with the ‘Brosinga mene’ (1199b) carried of f  by Hama when he f led from Eormenric. It is dif ficult on any view to see precisely what significance the reference to Hama bears in the present context. Doubtless the ‘Brosinga mene’ or necklace of  the Brisings was famous by tradition, and the poet may merely have intended to underline the value of  the gift given to Beowulf. But it seems likely also that the significance of the allusion is connected with the reference that follows to Hygelac’s disastrous raid against the Frisians. The allusion to the necklace may be little more than a way of intro­ducing the more significant reference to Hygelac. There is perhaps a contrast or a parallel here between the fates of  Hama and Hygelac.

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However we may choose to interpret the puzzling reference to Hama, the introduction of  Hygelac at this point does at least seem to be unambiguous (1205b–7a):          hyne wyrd fornam, syþðan he for wlenco   wean ahsode, fæhðe to Frysum. Fate took him of f when from reckless daring he brought trouble on himself, feud with the Frisians.

There can be no escaping the explicit criticism of  these lines. In the light of  the Finn story it is significant that Hygelac should perish in a feud with the Frisians. Thus it is with the Geats and Hygelac that the poet finds a parallel to the waste and slaughter that he describes in the Finn story. Moreover, the rashness of  Hygelac is set sharply against the behaviour of  Hrothgar and the Danes at Heorot. In these circumstances a comparison in the form of a parallel between Wealhtheow and Hildeburh seems less and less likely. We have seen that a natural interpretation of  the scenes at Heorot suggests that the description of  Danish society is an approving one, marked by stability and trust. This is highlighted by a straightforward contrast between the scene with Wealhtheow amid happiness and trust and that in which Hildeburh’s world is destroyed by slaughter and vengeance. It is evident from the Heathobard Episode (2024b–69) that the poet had a direct analogy to Hildeburh in the person of  Freawaru, Hrothgar’s daughter, immediately at hand. She also, we are later informed, bore the alecup to the warriors in Heorot (2020–24a). But the poet does not mention her presence there after the telling of  the Finn story. If  the poet had been concerned to press an analogy between Hildeburh and some woman of  the Danish company in Heorot, it is strange that he should have neglected such an obvious opportunity. The assumption of  Hrothulf ’s treachery has necessarily had some unfortunate consequences. It has led Lawrence inevitably to conclude that (p. 127):

22

GERALD MORGAN The telling of  the story of  Hildeburg in the presence of a queen who was herself of another people than that of  her husband, whose ef forts to keep the peace were destined to come to naught, and whose daughter Freawaru was to experience much the same melancholy destiny as the wife of  King Finn, is surely not without significance.

But it is only of significance in the way that Lawrence proposes if it can be shown that it was unusual for a king to marry a princess from the royal family of another people, that Wealhtheow did in fact fail to keep the peace and that the presence of  Freawaru is an imaginative issue at this point. Further, a parallel between Wealhtheow and Hildeburh presupposes a direct indictment of  Danish society. Thus we are to imagine that the picture of  Danish society presented in the poem is of one vitiated by those defects that are highlighted in the Finn story. It is clear that the poet is fully sensitive to the self-destructiveness of  feud. It is surprising, if we are to accept this view, that his moral sense should be so reticent in the presentation of  the equally defective society that commands more of our attention than any other in the poem. It would be surprising, too, if such a sensibility were itself so negative and destructive. It seems to me, however, that it was precisely to emphasise the stability of  the present Danish society that the poet gave us a picture of  Wealhtheow moving with assurance in a loyal and trustworthy gathering of men, a picture that gains immensely from the direct contrast with Hildeburh. And it seems likely also that for this very reason mention of  Freawaru’s presence there was rejected. Moreover, Hrothgar, the king of  the Danes, is the one person in the poem through whom any kind of constructive alternative to feuding is advanced. The policy he adopts may not always be successful, but the claim that in this matter Beowulf  himself shows a superior political wisdom is an astonishing one. Edward Irving has commented: … there (that is, in his account of  the Heathobard feud) we see Beowulf no longer passively receiving political advice but giving it and thereby revealing himself as an acute political analyst.20

This is surely excessive language by any standards. Beowulf ’s remarks merely indicate that his thinking is limited to the concept of  loyalty and revenge. The idealisation of  Danish society does not mean that Heorot will be free of  tragedy and af f liction. Grim fate (‘geosceaft grimme’, 1234a) had

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not abandoned the Danes at Heorot, but it is assuredly no qualification of  Danish virtue. The poet ends the scene as he began it, with sincere and transparent praise of  the Danish people (1246b–50):          Wæs þeaw hyra, þæt hie oft wæron   an wig gearwe, ge æt ham ge on herge,   ge gehwæþer þara efne swylce mæla,   swylce hira mandryhtne þearf gesælde;   wæs seo þeod tilu. It was their practice to be ever ready for the fray at home and in the field, and in either case at just such times as need befell their lord. They were a doughty race!21

Notes 1

2 3

4

William Witherle Lawrence, Beowulf and Epic Tradition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928; reprinted New York and London: Hafner Publishing Company Inc., 1961), pp. 73, 75, 76, 77 and 78–79. Similar interpretations had been put forward before Lawrence and they have been often repeated; compare especially R.W. Chambers, Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of  the Poem with a Discussion of  the Stories of  Of fa and Finn, third edition with a supplement by C.L. Wrenn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), pp. 25–31 and Adrien Bonjour, The Digressions in ‘Beowulf ’, Medium Aevum Monographs V (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1950), pp. 30–31 and 60–61. M.G. Clarke, Sidelights on Teutonic History during the Migration Period, Girton College Studies, No.3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), pp. 91–102. Kenneth Sisam, The Structure of  Beowulf  (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), pp. 33–43 and 80–82. See also now Bruce Mitchell, ‘Literary Lapses: Six Notes on Beowulf and its Critics’, RES, NS, 43 (1992), 1–17 (IV. ‘Was Hrothulf a Traitor?’, pp. 10–14). I am pleased to have been in agreement with this great Australian Old English scholar. The relevant material has recently been translated and brought together by G.N. Garmonsway and Jacqueline Simpson (trans.), Beowulf and its Analogues (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc., 1968), pp. 155–206. Reviewed by G.R. Morgan, Hermathena, A Dublin University Review, 108 (1969), 63–64.

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Compare also the example of  Cenwalh, King of  Wessex 643–74 (HE, III.7). J. Campbell, ‘Bede’, pp. 159–90 (p. 172), in T.A. Dorey (ed.), Latin Historians (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966). See also J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘The Work of  Gregory of  Tours in the Light of  Modern Research’, pp. 49–70 (pp. 60–62), in The Long-Haired Kings and Other Studies in Frankish History (London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1962). 7 H. Munro Chadwick, Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905; reissued New York: Russell, 1963), p. 358, n. 2. The succession of  Sigberct to the kingdom of  East Anglia in 630–31 may have been through the mother. See Charles Plummer, Baedae Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum: Baedae opera historica, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896), II.107. 8 J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Barbarian West 400–1000, third edition (London: Hutchinson & Co Ltd, 1967), p. 93. 9 F. Kern, Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages: Studies by Fritz Kern, translated with an introduction by S.B. Chrimes (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1939), pp. 13–14. 10 For Cerdic, see Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, I.14–17, s.a. 495, 508, 514, 519, 527, 530, 534 and 552, and notes, II.12–13. For the West-Saxon regnal lists, see I.20, 22, 34, 38 and 40, s.a. 597, 611, 674, 685 and 688 respectively. 11 Compare The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 855, I.66. 12 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 855 and 860, I.66–68 and II.80–83. 13 Chadwick also points out (p. 302) that the word cyning is in form a patronymic which originally would seem to have meant ‘son of  the family’. The full discussion on the hereditary principle in succession to earldoms (pp. 292–307) should be consulted. 14 Wallace-Hadrill, ‘The Bloodfeud of  the Franks’, pp. 121–47 (p. 147) in The LongHaired Kings. 15 Chambers, Introduction, p. 29. 16 Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, The Art of  Beowulf (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of  California Press, 1959), p. 153. 17 Bonjour, The Digressions, pp. 18–20. 18 See Sisam, Structure, p. 35, n. 4, who provides the English equivalents. 19 Chambers, Introduction, p. 26, n. 3. 20 Edward B. Irving, Jr, A Reading of  ‘Beowulf ’ (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 194–95. 21 I am grateful to the late Denis Bethell, lecturer in medieval history, University College Dublin, for many helpful suggestions.

2  Natural and Spiritual Movements of  Love in the       Soul: An Explanation of  Purgatorio, XVIII.16–39

I.  At the centre of  Purgatorio, in Cantos XVII and XVIII, is Virgil’s exposition of  love. The profundity of  the exposition is such that it comprehends (in a way that many scholarly treatises on courtly love have failed to do) the whole nature of  love as it is variously expressed in medieval love poetry. Dante is not a poet unaware of  the power of  his own genius, but here the dif ficulty of  his matter is so great that he builds into his text a warning of  the need for intellectual ef fort. Indeed he does so not merely once but twice. Thus before the formulation of  the distinction between natural and rational love (XVII.91–139), Virgil asks Dante for his attention (XVII.88–90; Sinclair, II.225):   ‘Ma perché più aperto intendi ancora, volgi la mente a me, e prenderai alcun buon frutto di nostra dimora.’ ‘… but, that thou mayst understand yet more clearly, turn thy mind to me and thou shalt pluck some good fruit from our delay.’

But the account of  the movement of  love in the soul (XVIII.1–75) is intellectually more demanding still, so that Virgil requires of  his eager and reverent pupil a yet greater ef fort (XVIII.16–17; Sinclair, II.233):   ‘Drizza’, disse, ‘ver’ me l’agute luci de lo ’ntelletto, …’ ‘Direct on me the keen eyes of  thy understanding’ he said …

When the ‘alto dottore,/ lofty Teacher’ (XVIII.2; Sinclair, II.233) uses such words we can be sure that his exhortation is no idle one, and it reaches out from Virgil beyond Dante personaggio to the reader.

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The context in which Virgil requires of  Dante his fullest attention is indeed of  the utmost significance. The two of  them have emerged from the blinding smoke that obscures from view the penitent spirits of  the third terrace and stand at the head of  the stairway leading from the third to the fourth terrace. Virgil’s exposition of  love, then, is set midway between the purgation of anger and sloth as bearing on each alike. Such a setting has its customary Dantesque relevance, for peace and joy are the ef fects of  love (ST, 2a 2ae 28.1 and 29.3), so that as the one is destroyed by anger so the other is destroyed by sloth (ST, 2a 2ae 35.2). The source of  the sin of anger is the clouding of  the mind by passion (hence the fitness of  the purgatorial smoke). Those who remain on the true path are those in whom passion is regulated by reason. And that reason is a suf ficient and trustworthy instrument for this task is shown by the reference to Virgil as a faithful guide: ‘la scorta mia saputa e fida,/ my wise and trusty escort (XVI.8; Sinclair, II.209). The reality and, in consequence, the terrible responsibility of our enlightenment by reason is af firmed by Marco Lombardo (XVI.64–129), who is himself, as he claims to be, a ‘vera spia,/ faithful scout’ (XVI.84; Sinclair, II.213), and who speaks with an authority comparable to that of  Virgil.1 Dante’s own enlightenment is shown by his oneness with Virgil. He enters into conversation with Marco at Virgil’s bidding (XVI.29–30) and indeed he follows Marco’s reasoning so well that he can commend him for the justice of  his argument (XVI.130). He emerges from the smoke of  the terrace (as Marco himself is yet unable to do) not only in the company of  Virgil but in complete accord with him, ‘pareggiando i miei co’ passi fidi/ del mio maestro,/ measuring mine with the faithful steps of my Master’ (XVII.10–11; Sinclair, II.221). At the beginning of  Canto XVII, therefore, Dante stands in the full light of reason, as one comprehending the meaning of  the subjection of reason to the passion of anger. Indeed, the very state of peace which is achieved on the third terrace (XVII.64–69) signifies a harmony of  the internal powers of sensitive and rational appetition.2 When Virgil turns to Dante on the threshold of  the fourth terrace, he is able to assume in him the enlightenment of one who has listened to and understood the words of  Marco Lombardo. This assumption becomes explicit in his opening statement of  the distinction between natural and rational love (XVII.91–93; Sinclair, II.225):

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  ‘Né creator né creatura mai’, cominciò el, ‘figliuol, fu sanza amore, o naturale o d’animo; e tu ’l sai.’ ‘Neither Creator nor creature, my son, was ever without love, either natural or of  the mind,’ he began ‘and this thou knowest.’

In the first part of  Virgil’s exposition of  love Dante learns of  the goodness of natural love and of  the possibility of error in rational love, and also that love is the source of actions that are good and bad alike (XVII.94–105). Dante’s clear understanding of  these matters (XVIII.10–12) is such that he is consumed by a new desire for complete enlightenment (XVIII.4). The fact is that it is not at all evident in the light of  the goodness of natural love how love can be a source of evil actions as well as good. Dante requires an explanation and seeks from the ‘dolce padre caro,/ dear and gentle Father’ (XVIII.13; Sinclair, II.233), that is, from one in whom reason is unclouded by passion, an account of  the movement of  love in the soul in order that he may understand the human potentiality for evil as well as good in loving (XVIII.13–15). But in the exposition which follows (XVIII.19–39) Virgil’s words prove at first too deep for Dante fully to comprehend, even though he has followed them with close attention (XVIII.40–42; Sinclair, II.235):   ‘Le tue parole e ’l mio seguace ingegno’, rispuos’ io lui, ‘m’hanno amor discoverto, ma ciò m’ha fatto di dubbiar più pregno’. ‘Thy words and my following wit’ I answered him ‘have revealed the nature of  love to me, but that has made me more full of perplexity.’

This interchange is, to say the least, disconcerting to a modern reader of  the poem and is a strong argument for the subtlety as well as the clarity of  Virgil’s exposition. But if we turn our gaze from the pupil to the master we shall find that perplexity is replaced by utter conviction. Virgil prefaces his account of  the movement of  love in the soul by a statement of  the larger purpose of  his exposition (XVIII.16–18; Sinclair, II.233):

28

GERALD MORGAN   ‘Drizza’, disse, ‘ver’ me l’agute luci de lo ’ntelletto, e fieti manifesto l’error de’ ciechi che si fanno duci.’ ‘Direct on me the keen eyes of  thy understanding’ he said ‘and the error will be manifest to thee of  the blind who make themselves guides.’

Whether these blind guides are the Epicureans (as is usually assumed) is possibly open to doubt. Imaginatively more important, however, is the link with the passage through the smoke of  the third terrace, where Dante goes with his hand on Virgil’s shoulder, ‘[s]ì come cieco va dietro a sua guida,/ [j]ust as a blind man goes behind his guide’ (XVI.10; Sinclair, II.209). The point is that ‘l’error de’ ciechi che si fanno duci’ (XVIII.18) is a comparable error to that of  those whose minds are clouded by sinful anger, that is, one in which reason is blinded by passion. But Virgil is a trustworthy guide on the fourth terrace no less than on the third. There is no doubt in Virgil’s mind that by his account of  the movement of  love in the soul he has exposed the falseness of  the claim that all loves are good (XVIII.34–36; Sinclair, II.235):   ‘Or ti puote apparer quant’ è nascosa la veritate a la gente ch’avvera ciascun amore in sè laudabil cosa.’ ‘Now may be plain to thee how hidden is the truth for those who maintain that every love is in itself praiseworthy.’

Here is no misplaced confidence in the spokesman of reason. Virgil knows well (indeed only too well) the limitations of reason and makes clear his awareness of  those limitations in the continuation of  his exposition at XVIII.46: ‘Quanto ragion qui vede,/ dir ti poss’ io,/ As far as reason sees here I can tell thee’ (Sinclair, II.235). We can be sure that at XVIII.34–36 Virgil speaks with all the authority that reason rightly allows him. It follows, therefore, that in his account of  the movement of  love in the soul (XVIII.19–33) there is a necessary implication of human freedom in loving and hence a refutation of  the claim that all loves are good. But it is an

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implication that is buried deep and Dante’s perplexity is an acknowledg­ ment of  the fact. The reader of  the poem is required, however, to command the perspective of  the master as well as of  the pupil and to see as plain what Virgil claims to be plain. Unfortunately the subtlety of  Virgil’s argument is such that the clarity of its presentation has in some respects still to be recognized, and from this point onwards I shall attempt to demonstrate the strict logical sequence of  Virgil’s exposition and to show how that logical sequence necessarily leads to the conclusion that he has made plain the error of  those who claim that all loves are good. Virgil’s exposition of  the movement of  love in the soul rests upon the knowledge already gained in Cantos XVI and XVII, namely, the freedom of  the rational soul in its relation to God (XVI.67–93) and the distinction of natural and rational love (XVII.91–105). These fundamental propositions are central to Virgil’s discourse and require some further clarification. II.  Marco Lombardo establishes the essential freedom of  human nature by showing the direct dependence of  human reason on God and on no merely secondary cause such as the material heavens (XVI.79–81; Sinclair, II.213):   A maggior forza e a miglior natura liberi soggiacete; e quella cria la mente in voi, che ’l ciel non ha in sua cura. To a greater power and to a better nature you, free, are subject, and that creates the mind in you which the heavens have not in their charge.

The reality of  freedom can be seen here to exist side by side with the necessity of nature. Now by nature all things are inclined to God as the source and term of  their movement and this natural inclination in created being is natural appetite or love (ST, 1a 60.5 ad 4). The inclination of created nature to the good, an inclination which proceeds from no internal principle of  knowledge (ST, 1a 2ae 26.1), is the divinely-implanted source of all loving, as Marco Lombardo explains (XVI.85–90; Sinclair, II.213):

30

GERALD MORGAN   ‘Esce di mano a lui che la vagheggia prima che sia, a guisa di fanciulla che piangendo e ridendo pargoleggia,   l’anima semplicetta che sa nulla, salvo che, mossa da lieto fattore, volontier torna a ciò che la trastulla.’ ‘From His hand who regards it fondly before it is, comes forth, like a child that sports, tearful and smiling, the little simple soul that knows nothing, but, moved by a joyful Maker, turns eagerly to what delights it.’

By this natural necessity of its being the soul is ordained to its ultimate end or universal good, and nothing will satisfy it save the return to God. That is indeed the purpose of  the penitent spirits in purgatory, as Dante acknowledges in his first words to Marco Lombardo: ‘ “O creatura che ti mondi/ per tornar bella a colui che ti fece,/ O creature who cleansest thyself  to return fair to Him that made thee” ’ (XVI.31–32; Sinclair, II.211). Such natural willing of  the end, or voluntas ut natura (ST, 3a 18.3), does not impair the freedom of  the will but supplies its only possible context. The freedom of  the will is unimpaired because in the temporal order the universal good is not proposed to the will. In this world there are only so many particular goods and in respect of  these (means to the ultimate end but not the end itself ) the will is free to choose or reject. The will chooses when the deliberating reason fixes upon the element of goodness in particular goods but rejects when the reason fixes upon the element of defectiveness that particular goods are bound to have in respect of  the universal good (ST, 1a 2ae 13.6). Such choice of  the means in the light of  the deliberation of reason is called voluntas ut ratio and it is of  this distinctively human act of choice that freedom is predicated. Thus reason can control the natural inclination in respect of all goods that fall short of  the universal good and the need for such control is recognized by Marco Lombardo (XVI.91–93; Sinclair, II.213):   Di picciol bene in pria sente sapore; quivi s’inganna, e dietro ad esso corre, se guida o fren non torce suo amore.

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At first it tastes the savour of a trif ling good; it is beguiled there and runs after it, if guide or curb do not divert its love.3

Indeed it is a lesson of  the third terrace that this precious freedom can be lost when the mind is clouded by passion, for freedom depends on reason exercising its control over passion. But it is in accordance with the natural order of  things that passion should be so subject to reason, as Aquinas explains in his commentary on Aristotle’s De anima (In de anima, 844). Thus we arrive at the distinction of natural and rational love, explicitly formu­lated by Virgil at XVII.91–93. Natural love and rational love are not simply opposed principles, although the one is necessary and the other is free, for natural love is the source of rational love. By rational love we are to understand the exercise of choice by an intellectual being in the light of its natural inclination. Natalino Sapegno is correct, therefore, in expressing Virgil’s distinction at XVII.91–93 as that between an instinctive love and the love of choice, glossing naturale as ‘innato, istintivo’ and d’animo as ‘l’amore che gli scolastici chiamano d’elezione’.4 Nevertheless it has also to be said that these glosses involve some simplification. Whereas such a distinction of instinctive love and the love of choice can be applied without distortion at XVII.91–139, it cannot be so applied at XVIII.1–75,5 since Virgil distinguishes in the second part of  his exposition of  love between natural love, sensitive love and rational love. Thus at XVIII.19–21 Virgil describes natural love, at XVIII.22–27 sensitive love and at XVIII.28–33 rational love. Such a structure is lucid and coherent, but it rests upon philosophical distinctions that are by no means easy to grasp. In order to understand Virgil’s structured discourse it is necessary to recognize first of all the scope of natural love as extending to sensitive and rational principles of  being, and secondly the complexity of  the rational soul as containing vegetative and sensitive as well as rational powers. The proper starting-point of any account of  the movement of  love in the soul is the natural inclination and it is accordingly the starting-point of  Virgil’s exposition at XVIII.19–21 (Sinclair, II.233):   L’animo, ch’è creato ad amar presto, ad ogne cosa è mobile che piace, tosto che dal piacere in atto è desto.

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GERALD MORGAN The mind, created quick to love, is readily moved towards everything that pleases, as soon as by the pleasure it is roused to action.

This is not a summary of  the psychological process described in the following four terzine, as Sapegno has described it,6 but the context or state of created nature within which that process takes place. The natural inclination of a created being is a movement in accordance with what that being is in its essence or specific nature. But there are dif ferent kinds of essence, that is, dif ferent kinds of natures of  things possessing an internal principle of motion, and here we can distinguish between inanimate beings, vegetable souls, sensitive souls and rational souls. The simple tendency or inclination of  beings to the good in accordance with their nature is thus itself distinguished in accordance with the distinction of natures (ST, 1a 60.1): Est autem hoc commune omni naturae, ut habeat aliquam inclinationem, quae est appetitus naturalis, vel amor. Quae tamen inclinatio diversimode invenitur in diversis naturis, in unaquaque secundum modum ejus. Unde in natura intellectuali invenitur inclinatio natur­alis secundum voluntatem; in natura autem sensitiva, secundum appetitum sensitivum; in natura vero carente cognitione, secundum solum ordinem naturae in aliquid. Now every nature, without exception, is the subject of some tendency or other, which is its natural appetition or love. But this dif fers in dif ferent natures according to the mode of each: where the nature is intellectual, the natural tendency takes the form of willing; where it is sentient, the tendency is sensuous desire; where it is devoid of all knowledge, the tendency is simply a natural orientation. (translated by Kenelm Foster)

As natural essences are moved in the manner of natural beings, so intellectual essences are naturally moved in the manner of intellectual beings. This is the point of  the comparison that Virgil draws between the movement of  fire and the movement of  love in the rational soul of  human beings (XVIII.28–33; Sinclair, II.233 and 235):   Poi, come ’l foco movesi in altura per la sua forma ch’è nata a salire là dove più in sua matera dura,   così l’animo preso entra in disire, ch’è moto spiritale, e mai non posa fin che la cosa amata il fa gioire.

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Then, as fire moves upward by its form, being born to mount where it most abides in its matter, so the mind thus seized enters into desire, which is a spiritual movement, and never rests till the thing loved makes it rejoice.

The movement that is natural to human beings is a spiritual movement. Accordingly Virgil uses the rhetorical device of  traductio to highlight the element of pleasure in natural love (piace, XVIII.20 and piacere, XVIII.21), for his exposition is directed to the higher forms of life in which perception is present. In this way he establishes at once that natural love is a principle of  the whole being of men and women.7 Having confirmed the underlying reality of  the divinely implanted instinct to love in human nature, Virgil turns next in his exposition to the material movement of  the soul that is characteristic of men and women as sensitive beings (XVIII.22–27). If we are to follow him here we must now begin to allow directly for the complexity of  the rational soul as the principle of  life in men and women. The rational soul is the substantial form of men and women and this substantial form is the explanation of  the unity of  the human substance.8 Thus there are not three souls in men and women but the one rational soul, exercising rational, sensitive and vegetative functions. The mind or reason is to be seen as the controlling principle and as expressive of  the unity of  the soul’s internal acts, and accordingly Virgil uses animo as the single subject of  his exposition at XVIII.19, 24 and 31:   L’animo, ch’è creato ad amar presto. sì che l’animo ad essa volger face.  così l’animo preso entra in disire.

The unity and multiplicity of  the soul is explained by Aquinas in terms of a distinction between the essence of  the soul and its parts. The soul does not have parts in any extended sense, but it can be said to have parts in the sense of a multiplicity of potential activities, that is, in the soul the powers are parts (In de anima, 279). Thus the natural substance of men and women is unified in its essence but diversified in the multiplicity of its powers. Now this complex unity requires a distinction not only of natural and intellectual appetition but also of sensitive appetition. A distinction is indeed to be drawn between natural appetite, or the inclination to the

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good in things lacking knowledge, and voluntary appetite, or the inclination to the apprehended good. But it is necessary to go further and distinguish between voluntary appetition in the full sense of  the intellectual appetite or will which follows understanding and voluntary appetition in the limited sense of  the sensitive or animal appetite which follows sensation (ST, 1a 2ae 6.2 and ad 1). Thus there is a sensitive love as well as a rational love.9 The movement of  love in the sensitive part of  the soul is made plain to the reader by the very detail in which Virgil describes it, first of all in terms of sense cognition (XVIII.22–24; Sinclair, II.233):   ‘Vostra apprensiva da esser verace tragge intenzione, e dentro a voi la spiega, sì che l’animo ad essa volger face,’ ‘Your perception takes from outward reality an impression [intention] and unfolds it within you, so that it makes the mind turn to it,’

and secondly in terms of sense appetition (XVIII.25–27; Sinclair, II.233):   ‘e se, rivolto, inver’ di lei si piega, quel piegare è amor, quell’ è natura che per piacer di novo in voi si lega.’ ‘and if  the mind, so turned, inclines to it, that inclination is love, that is nature, which by pleasure is bound on you afresh.’

Thus sense cognition involves the operation not only of the external senses but also of the internal senses. The common sense which receives the impressions of  the external senses and unites them also perceives its own perceptions (ST, 1a 78.4 ad 2); the imagination forms an image of  the sense impression, thus fixing it in the mind so that it can be re-presented in the absence of  the external object (ST, 1a 85.2 ad 3) and the cogitative power forms a judgment of  the relation between the object and the sensing subject (ST, 1a 78.4). As Dante observes in the De monarchia (I.xii), it is the act of judgment which is the link between apprehension and appetition. Aquinas indeed identifies three stages in the movement of  the sensitive soul. The first stage is the perception of  the object as fitting or harmful

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to the sense, the second stage is the presence of pleasure or pain and the third stage is the movement of  the appetite itself, that is, the movement of desire towards that which pleases and of  f light away from that which causes pain (In de anima, 769). In the order of its occurrence the passion of desire is preceded by love, as movement is preceded by inclination, and it is succeeded by pleasure, as movement is succeeded by rest. But the very notion of appetite lies in its order to the good, that is, in the intending of an end. In the order of intention pleasure comes first, for what is intended is the good and the good is not other than the enjoyment of  the good, the very definition of pleasure (ST, 1a 2ae 25.2). It is in the order of intention that pleasure can be seen to be the cause of  love (ST, 1a 2ae 25.2 ad 3) and it is thus that Virgil represents love as arising from pleasure (XVIII.26–27): quel piegare è amor, quell’ è natura che per piacer di novo in voi si lega.10

Virgil’s account of  the sensitive love has been confounded with natural love by some authoritative modern commentators,11 and not unreasonably (it may be supposed) when he says of  that sensitive love ‘quell’ è natura’ (XVIII.26). There is, however, a sense in which the sensitive love can properly be described as natural (as I hope shortly to explain). But at this point it is to be noted that Virgil does not say that the sensitive love is natural love but that the movement of  love which is an inclination of  the sense appetite to the apprehended good belongs to nature, that is, that it is a natural movement. Virgil avoids here the use of  the adjective naturale in reference to love, having already used it twice at XVII.93 and 94, where he establishes the distinction of natural and rational love. The ‘amor, quell’ è natura’ is defined as an inclination (piegare) to an intention (intenzione) by which the sense knows external reality; that is, it is a movement of  the soul in the light of an internal principle of  knowledge. As such it is not to be identified with natural love but contrasted with it.12 It is because the movement of sensitive appetition is directed to the object that arouses pleasure and not merely to the pleasure itself  that the reference to pleasure is withheld by Virgil and mentioned out of its logical sequence, almost as an afterthought (XVIII.27).

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The love that is described at XVIII.26–27 is, then, a passion of  the soul, that is, the inclination or complacency of  the sense appetite to an external object that fits the nature of  the sensing subject.13 Passion is to be understood here in its strict sense, that is, not merely as the actualization or perfecting of  the sense power (as in sensation), but the acquisition of one quality by the loss of another. Thus sensitive appetition always involves bodily change (ST, 1a 2ae 22.1). Such bodily change is called by Aquinas natural change, and it is distinguished by him from spiritual change (ST, 1a 78.3): Est autem duplex immutatio, una naturalis et alia spiritualis: naturalis quidem, secundum quod forma immutantis recipitur in immutato secundum esse naturale, sicut calor in calefacto; spiritualis autem secundum quod forma immutantis recipitur in immutato secun­dum esse spirituale, ut forma coloris in pupilla, quae non fit per hoc colorata. But there are two sorts of change within things, natural and spiritual. It is natural change when the form of  the source of change is received into the subject of change in a physical way, as heat is absorbed by something being heated. It is spiritual change when the form of  the source of change is received in the subject of change supraphysically, the way the form of a colour is in the eye, which does not become the colour it sees. (translated by Timothy Suttor)

Virgil’s exposition of  the movement of  love in the soul is built upon this opposition of natural and spiritual movement. First, there is the natural or material movement of sense appetition operating through a bodily organ in the body/soul composite: ‘quel piegare è amor, quell’ è natura’ (XVIII.26).14 Second, there is a spiritual or immaterial movement of intellectual appetition operating without a bodily organ in the soul alone: ‘così l’animo preso entra in disire,/ ch’è moto spiritale’ (XVIII.31–32). The distinction is reinforced by the use of  the term disire, for it is used as Aquinas uses desiderium to refer to a movement of will (ST, 1a 2ae 30 ad 2).15 The verb gioire, which is linked to disire by rhyme, is used in the same way and corresponds to Aquinas’s use of gaudium as distinct from delectatio (ST, 1a 2ae 31.3). The use of disire and gioire, quite apart from the specification of a ‘moto spiritale’, announces the fact of voluntary appetition proper to an intellectual nature (ST, 1a 19.1):

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Unde et natura intellectualis ad bonum apprehensum per formam intelligibilem similem habitudinem habet; ut scilicet cum habet ipsum quiescat in illo, cum vero non habet quaerat ipsum; et utrumque pertinet ad voluntatem. A thing of intelligence has a like attitude towards a good apprehended through an intelligible form, so that it makes for that good when it is still to be gained, and rests with it when it is gained: both are functions of willing. (translated by Thomas Gilby)

Now whereas the voluntary appetite which follows sensation does so of necessity, that which follows understanding is characterized by freedom (ST, 1a 2ae 26.1). It is, then, a necessary implication of  Virgil’s exposition to this point that the spiritual movement of  love in the soul of men and women contains within it a freedom of choice and, as Virgil has already explained, there is a possibility of error ‘per malo obietto/ o per troppo o per poco di vigore,/ through a wrong object or through excess or defect of vigour’ (XVII.95–96; Sinclair, II.225). In other words there can be evil loves as well as good and Virgil is justified in asserting the conclusion to which his exposition has been directed. Indeed he is able to reinforce his conclusion by suggesting how the error that all loves are good may have arisen (XVIII.37–39; Sinclair, II.235):   ‘però che forse appar la sua matera sempre esser buona, ma non ciascun segno è buono, ancor che buona sia la cera’. ‘perhaps because its matter always seems good; but not every stamp is good, even if it be good wax.’

The matter of  love is to be taken here as the inclination to love. As I have stated, in men and women this is an inclination of  the will itself and is the source of  the act of choice. In the act of choice there is an interpenetration of reason and will, for the will chooses the good as apprehended and judged by reason. Aquinas explains this interpenetration in terms of  the distinction between form and matter, that is, the act of choice is materially an act of will but formally an act of reason, since it is the reason that presents the object desired by the will as a fitting object (ST, 1a 2ae 13.1). Every

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love, therefore, from the point of view of  the will, or its matter, ‘appar … / sempre esser buona’ (XVIII.37–38) because the principle of willing is the goodness of natural inclination. But the goodness of a willed act cannot be estimated apart from cognition, so that Virgil is led at once to raise an irrefutable objection: ‘ma non ciascun segno/ è buono, ancor che buona sia la cera’ (XVIII.38–39). The sign is the mark or image imprinted on wax by a seal and the analogy of  the mark made by the seal on wax is used by Aristotle in the De anima (II.12) to explain the non-material reception of sensible forms by the senses in the act of sensation. Aquinas elucidates the significance of  Aristotle’s analogy as follows (In de anima, 554): Et ponitur conveniens exemplum de sigillo et cera. Non enim eadem dispositio est cerae ad imaginem, quae erat in ferro et auro. Et ideo subiungit, quod cera accipit signum idest imaginem sive figuram auream aut aeneam, sed non inquantum est aurum aut aes. Assimilatur enim cera aureo sigillo quantum ad imaginem, sed non quantum ad dispositionem auri. Aristotle finds an apt example of  this in the imprint of a seal on wax. The disposition of  the wax to the image is not the same as that of  the iron or gold to the image; hence wax, he says, takes a sign, i.e. a shape or image, of what is gold or bronze, but not precisely as gold or bronze. For the wax takes a likeness of  the gold seal in respect of  the image, but not in respect of  the seal’s intrinsic disposition to be a gold seal. (translated by Foster and Humphries)16

If  the particular object of sensation is congenial to the sense power or sensing subject, it will give pleasure and so necessarily become the object of sensitive appetition, for the sensitive appetite is determined to particular goods (ST, 1a 2ae 13.2). But the standard or measure of virtue is to be found not in a power of sense cognition but in reason, and the reason will judge the object not by a particular but by a universal criterion of goodness. Thus the sensible good, and hence its likeness impressed on the mind, will not always conform to the universal good of reason, that is, ‘non ciascun/ segno è buono’ (XVIII.38–39). The sensible good that is out of conformity with right reason is an apparent but not a real good, pleasing only to the sense. Thus within the space of a single concluding terzina Virgil cleverly suggests the (non-moral) goodness of  the natural inclination to love and

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the distinction between the love of a sensible good and of an intelligible good. But not even so reverent and eager a disciple as Dante personaggio can grasp the full import of  Virgil’s argument all at once, and one can only be grateful that he has managed to prevail upon the sage to develop his thought in the ampler form more suited to lesser intelligences.

Notes 1

The words with which Marco Lombardo identifies himself: ‘Lombardo fui, e fu’ chiamato Marco,/ I was Lombard and was called Marco’ (XVI.46; Sinclair, II.211), seem designed to recall the introduction of  Virgil into the poem in its opening canto: ‘Rispuosemi: “Non omo, omo già fui,/ e li parenti miei furon lombardi,”/ He answered me: “Not man; once I was man, and my parents were Lombards” ’ (Inf., I.67–68; Sinclair, I.27). 2 Aquinas explains that peace includes the notion of concord or harmony between diverse wills and adds to it the notion of  harmony within a single will (ST, 2a 2ae 29.1). The concord that here exists between Dante and Virgil is thus the outward expression of an inner peace. 3 The good that is the object of  the sense of  taste is presumably selected here because it comes low even in the scale of sensible goods. Thus the exercise of  the sense of  taste always involves a material change, whereas the exercise of  the sense of sight (the noblest of  the senses) involves only spiritual change; see In de anima, 418. Moreover, the sense of  taste, unlike the senses of sight and hearing, contributes hardly anything to our knowledge (ST, 1a 2ae 27.1 ad 3). 4 Natalino Sapegno, La Divina Commedia, Volume II: Purgatorio, second edition (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1968), p. 190. 5 As by Christopher J. Ryan, ‘Free Will in Theory and Practice: Purgatorio XVIII and Two Characters in the Inferno’, in Dante Soundings: Eight Literary and Historical Essays, edited by David Nolan (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1981), pp. 100–12. 6 Sapegno, Purgatorio, p. 195: ‘In questi versi è riassunto in breve il processo psicologico, che sarà analizzato e descritto nelle terzine seguenti’. 7 For the formulation of  this principle, see ST, 1a 2ae 26.1 ad 3: ‘… amor naturalis non solum est in viribus animae vegetativae, sed in omnibus potentiis animae,

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et etiam in omnibus partibus corporis, et universaliter in omnibus rebus: quia, ut Dionysius dicit, Omnibus est pulchrum et bonum amabile; cum unaquaeque res habeat connaturalitatem ad id quod est sibi conveniens secundum suam naturam,/ Natural love is not confined to the vegetative powers of  the soul; it is found in all the faculties of  the soul, in all parts of  the body, and indeed in all created things: as Dionysius says, All things tend to love what is beautiful and good; for everything has a built-in sense of af finity with whatever accords with its nature’ (translated by Eric D’Arcy). 8 See Aquinas, In de anima, 225: ‘Oportet enim secundum praemissa dicere, quod una et eadem forma substantialis sit, per quam hoc individuum est hoc aliquid, sive substantia, et per quam est corpus et animatum corpus, et sic de aliis. Forma enim perfectior dat materiae hoc quod dat forma minus perfecta, et adhuc amplius,/ But what our premisses compel us to say is that it is one and the same substantial form that makes a man a particular thing or substance, and a bodily thing, and so on. For the higher form can give to its matter all that a lower form gives, and more’ (translated by Foster and Humphries). 9 Aquinas, ST, 1a 2ae 26.1: ‘Et … coaptatio appetitus sensitivi, vel voluntatis, ad aliquod bonum, idest ipsa complacentia boni, dicitur amor sensitivus, vel intellectivus seu rationalis. Amor igitur sensitivus est in appetitu sensitivo, sicut amor intellectivus in appetitu intellectivo,/ … the terms “sensory love”, and “intellectual or rational love”, apply to the attachment, the sense of af finity with some good, the feeling of its attractiveness, felt respectively by the sensory orexis or the will: i.e. sensory love is seated in the sensory orexis [appetite], as intellectual love is seated in the will’ (translated by D’Arcy). 10 I follow Sapegno, Purgatorio, p. 195, in taking di novo in the sense of  ‘primamente’. 11 The sensitive love is identified with natural love by Sinclair, II.240, n. 1 and by Charles S. Singleton (ed.), Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy, Volume II, Part 2 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), pp. 415–18. 12 The distinction of natural and sensitive appetite is clarified by Aquinas at ST, 1a 80.1 ad 3: ‘… unaquaeque potentia animae est quaedam forma seu natura et habet naturalem inclinationem in aliquid. Unde unaquaeque appetit objectum sibi conveniens naturali appetitu. Supra quem est appetitus animalis consequens apprehensionem, quo appetitur aliquid non ea ratione qua est conveniens ad actum hujus vel illius potentiae, utpote visio ad videndum et auditio ad audiendum, sed quia est conveniens simpliciter animali,/ Each power of the soul is a form with its own nature and its own natural bent, so each by natural appetite reaches for the right object. Above this is the animal desire which follows knowledge. It seeks things not because they are needed for the activity of  this or that power, but because the animal simply likes them’ (translated by Timothy Suttor).

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13 See ST, 1a 2ae 26.2: ‘Sic ergo, cum amor consistat in quadam immutatione appetitus ab appetibili, manifestum est quod amor est passio: proprie quidem, secundum quod est in concupiscibili,/ Since therefore love consists in an ef fect produced in the orexis [appetite] by the desirable object, love is clearly a passion: a passion in the strict sense when seated in the af fective orexis [concupiscible appetite]’ (translated by D’Arcy). 14 There is, moreover, a fundamental correspondence between the inclination of nature and the inclination of  the sensitive appetite to the apprehended good, and for this reason there is a special fitness in the description of  the passion of  love as natural. See ST, 1a 2ae 41.3: ‘… sciendum est quod quaedam de passionibus animae quandoque dicuntur naturales, ut amor, desiderium et spes – aliae vero naturales dici non possunt. Et hoc ideo, quia amor et odium, desiderium et fuga, important inclinationem quam­dam ad prosequendum bonum et fugiendum malum; quae quidem inclinatio pertinet etiam ad appetitum naturalem,/ It may be added that … some emotions are said to be natural, under certain conditions – such as love, desire, and hope – but others are never so designated. Love and hatred, desire and aversion involve an inclination to pursue the agreeable and avoid the disagreeable and this sort of inclination is found also in a natural appetite’ (translated by John Patrick Reid). 15 Aquinas uses concupiscentia in the strict sense of a movement of  the sensitive appetite (ST, 1a 2ae 30. 1) and Dante similarly uses talento at Inf., V.38–39: ‘i peccator carnali,/ che la ragion sommettono al talento,/ the carnal sinners who subject reason to desire’ (Sinclair, I.75). 16 The reference of  the image and the wax to sensation, that is, to a cognitive process, is not in doubt. The explanation of  Sinclair that ‘the instinct of  love is the wax’ (II.240, n. 2) cannot therefore be accepted.

3  The Validity of  Gawain’s Confession in    Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Oltre a ciò, chi vuol formare l’idea d’un perfetto cavaliere, non so per qual cagione gli nieghi questa lode di pietà e di religione. — TASSO, Discorsi del poema eroico, Book II.1931

I.  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has at last begun to receive the concentrated attention that is its due, for it is one of  the great masterpieces of  English literature. That it has enjoyed a recent and not a continuous fame is no doubt an accident of  history, for no one who has mastered its language would wish to deny that he or she is in the presence of poetic genius. But the recovery of  the poet’s language (dif ficult and necessary though that task undoubtedly is) does not in itself suf fice for a true appreciation of  his great work. We are required also to follow a lucid but subtle moral argument. And it is evident that the poet’s moral argument is still inadequately understood. We may set aside the identification of tensions and ambiguities in the poem as no more than the passing fashion of  the present age. But we cannot very well ignore interpretations of  the poem that represent Gawain as making a sacrilegious confession of  his sins, for they introduce a confusion of  thought at the centre of  the poem’s meaning. On the other hand, the rejection of  these interpretations is too often summary and dogmatic, and also (what is much worse) uninformed. It is the purpose of  this article to clarify the moral relationship between Gawain’s acceptance of  the girdle of fered to him by Bertilak’s wife and his subsequent confession of  his sins to a priest (SGGK, 1846–84), and thus to demonstrate the coherence as well as the lucidity of  the moral argument of  the poem.

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II.  On the face of it nothing hinders us from believing that Gawain makes a complete confession of  his sins to the priest, for the words of  the poet are at once so explicit and emphatic (1880–84): Þere he schrof  hym schyrly and schewed his mysdedez, Of þe more and þe mynne, and merci besechez, And of absolucioun he on þe segge calles; And he asoyled hym surely and sette hym so clene As domezday schulde haf  ben diȝt on þe morn.

It is a belief  that places no strain on the critical intelligence, for it is based also upon fundamental and orthodox Christian teaching of  the Middle Ages. Those who are in expectation of death are required to make a public confession of  their sins (ST, 3a Supplementum, 6.5): Et quia ea quae sunt de necessitate salutis, tenetur homo in hac vita implere, ideo si periculum mortis immineat, etiam per se loquendo, obligatur aliquis ad confessionem faciendam tunc. Moreover, since man is bound to fulfil in this life those things that are necessary for salvation, therefore, if  he be in danger of death, he is bound, even absolutely, then and there to make his confession.2

It is necessary that sacramental confession should be made to a priest (Supplementum, 8.1). If circumstances make such a confession impos­sible, confession can in the hour of need be made to a layman (Supplementum, 8.2): … et ita etiam minister poenitentiae, cui confessio est facienda ex of ficio, est sacerdos; sed in necessitate etiam laicus vicem sacerdotis supplet, ut ei confessio fieri possit. In like manner the minister of  Penance, to whom, in virtue of  his of fice, confession should be made, is a priest; but in a case of necessity even a layman may take the place of a priest, and hear a person’s confession.

The common occurrence of such a need accounts for the spread in the fifteenth century of  the Latin treatise known generically as the Ars Moriendi and also of its translation into English as The Book of  the Craft of  Dying. At

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the end of  the century William Caxton ref lects the con­tinuing importance of death-bed confession by his publication of  two related treatises, The Art and Craft to Know Well to Die (1490) and the Ars Moriendi (?1491).3 A central part of all these versions is the interrogation of  the dying man; indeed The Book of  the Craft of  Dying and The Art and Craft to Know Well to Die contain two sets of interrogations, drawn respectively from St Anselm’s Admonitio Morienti and Gerson’s Opusculum Tripertitum.4 If circumstances are such as to make public confession of any kind impossible, whether to priest or layman, true contrition with the intention of making confession is suf ficient (Supplementum, 2.3 sed contra and 6.1): Nullum peccatum dimittitur, nisi quis justificetur: sed ad justificationem requiritur contritio. [N]o sin is forgiven a man unless he be justified. But justification requires contrition. Et ideo ad culpae remissionem et actualis, et originalis requiritur sacramentum Ecclesiae, vel actu susceptum, vel saltem voto, quando articulus necessitatis, non contemptus, sacramentum excludit. Wherefore for the remission of both actual and original sin, a sacrament of the Church is necessary, received either actually, or at least in desire, when a man fails to receive the sacrament actually, through an unavoidable obstacle, and not through contempt.

There is no question at this time of justification by faith alone. Gawain therefore fulfils a religious obligation when he makes a complete confession of  his sins on the eve of  his departure from Bertilak’s castle. John Burrow has argued against this interpretation, but is nevertheless prepared to concede that it is ‘a straightforward and in some ways attractive view of  the matter’. But it is worth noticing here the precise terms in which he has represented it: So Gawain approaches his priest, not because he has just imperilled his soul by agreeing to hide the girdle, but because he thinks he is to die next morning. He simply takes a convenient opportunity to do what any Christian should do when in peril of death. It is a routine visit.5

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The use of  the word routine hardly does justice to the true nature and force of  the argument. Virtues are indeed to be defined as good operative habits (ST, 1a 2ae 55.3) and are acquired by their corresponding acts. But acts of virtue are by definition voluntary acts (ST, 1a 2ae 6.1), that is, they are free and deliberated acts of will (ST, 1a 2ae 6.2 ad 2). The habit of virtue is a fixed disposition of  the soul to act in a particular way, but the possession of  the habit does not rule out the voluntariness of an act. Aquinas makes the relationship between habit and voluntary act clear in his discussion of sin (ST, 1a 2ae 78.2): Dicendum quod non est idem peccare habentem habitum et peccare ex habitu. Uti enim habitu non est necessarium, sed subjacet voluntati habentis: unde et habitus definitur esse quo quis utitur cum voluerit. To sin from habit is not the same as to sin having a habit. The use of a habit is not inescapable but free, for a habit by definition is something we use when we will. (translated by John Fearon)

Moreover, the mark of a virtuous act, as Aquinas subsequently explains, following Aristotle (see Ethics, V.9 1137a 5 f f.), is that it is performed promptly and with pleasure (ST, 1a 2ae 107.4): Alia autem dif ficultas est circa opera virtutum in interioribus actibus, puta quod aliquis opus virtutis exerceat prompte et delectabiliter. Et circa hoc dif ficile est virtus; hoc enim non habenti virtutem est valde dif ficile, sed per virtutem redditur facile … sicut etiam Philosophus dicit quod operari ea quae justus operatur, facile est; sed operari ea eo modo quo justus operatur, scilicet delectabiliter et prompte, est dif ficile non habenti justitiam. The other dif ficulty in the practice of virtue is in internal acts; for example, that one should perform a virtuous action promptly and with pleasure. And virtue is concerned with just this sort of dif ficulty; for it can be an extremely dif ficult matter for someone lacking the virtue, although it is made easy by virtue … as Aristotle himself says, it is easy to do what the just man does, but to do it in the way in which the just man does it, that is, with pleasure and promptly, is dif ficult for someone who does not have the virtue of justice. (translated by Cornelius Ernst)

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The Gawain-poet also makes it clear to us that Gawain’s piety is a moral virtue and not an unthinking devotional ref lex by stressing Gawain’s promptness and pleasure in going to mass and to confes­sion. After the lady has left Gawain on the first day of  her trial of  him (1309–11): … he ryches hym to ryse and rapes hym sone, Clepes to his chamberlayn, choses his wede, Boȝez forth, quen he watz boun, blyþely to masse.

When she leaves him on the second day (1558): Then ruþes hym þe renk and ryses to þe masse.

And in the same way, on the critical third day (1872–76): When ho watz gon, Sir Gawayn gerez hym sone, Rises and riches hym in araye noble, Lays vp þe luf-lace þe lady hym raȝt, Hid hit ful holdely, þer he hit eft fonde. Syþen cheuely to þe chapel choses he þe waye.

If  the poet had not so carefully structured his poem in order to elucidate the significance of repeated actions of  this kind, it might be possible to agree with Burrow (p. 106) that Gawain’s swift movements on the third day are intended to cast suspicion on his motives. But to put forward such an interpretation in the light of an enclosed and parallel structure is to elevate psychological interests above the stated moral concerns of the poet. The important point to note, therefore, is that Gawain’s conduct on the third day does not in respect of its swiftness dif fer from his conduct on the two previous days. On each occasion the poet assures us that it is the product of a fixed disposition of  the soul, a virtuous habit.6 In assuming that Gawain’s confession, if valid, is a matter of routine, Burrow fails to do justice to piety as a moral virtue. It is instructive to observe that repeated acts of  fidelity suf fer no danger of reduction to routine by Burrow after this fashion – and properly not. But the symbolism of  the pentangle does not suggest a division of  the virtues whereby some virtues (and here one thinks of  the virtue of chastity no less than the virtue of piety) are robbed

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of moral status. Indeed the dominant idea of  the pentangle resides in the integration of virtues and a satisfactory imaginative response to the poem requires an acceptance (poetic if not moral) of  the values to which the poet subscribes. It has to be admitted, however, that Burrow is on strong ground when he urges the inherent importance of  fidelity in the poet’s moral scheme. Both the Beheading Game and the Exchange of  Winnings agreement put Gawain’s fidelity to his pledged word to the test and it is in respect of such fidelity that Gawain is ultimately to be found wanting (2366): Bot here yow lakked a lyttel, sir, and lewté yow wonted.

We need not doubt that the virtue of  fidelity is specifically present, and not by way of mere implication, in the pentangle passage; it is a central part of  the deep significance that the poet attaches to felaȝschyp (652).7 It would be a damaging inference from the argument supporting the validity of  Gawain’s confession if it were to be held that infidelity is a sin of so little consequence as not to merit public confession. But this is an inference that Norman Davis does not hesitate to draw in his revision of  Tolkien and Gordon’s edition of  the poem (p. 123, note to 1882): The poet evidently did not regard the retention of  the girdle as one of  Gawain’s ‘mysdedez, þe more and þe mynne’, which required to be confessed.

In his review of  Burrow’s Reading of  ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Father Dunning develops the same point of view: To ‘orthodox imaginative men of  the fourteenth century’, the situation would seem clear enough: the girdle, as the lady assured Gawain, was not of any great material value (1847–8); the bargain with his host was, as Professor Smithers calls it, ‘sportive’ (M.Æ. xxxii (1963), 175); Gawain’s resolve to retain the girdle was a yielding to superstition to which even the best of  Christians are sometimes prone, but he certainly did not construe this resolve as a sin, worthy of  being mentioned in confession. It was, however, a social solecism, as the Green Knight will rub in later (though he excuses him).8

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The trivialization of infidelity can go no further. As Davis says (and rightly says) of  the notion of a sacrilegious confession, this is unacceptable. Burrow is entirely justified in his refusal to allow the moral value of  fidelity to be diminished in this fashion (p. 106): … notice that the particular ‘chivalric virtue’ in question here, fidelity to the pledged word, shares its name with the whole Christian-chivalric complex to which it belongs – both are ‘trawþe’. Are we to believe that Gawain’s ‘untrawþe’ (narrow chivalric sense) involves no more than a marginal disturbance of  his (broad sense) ‘trawþe’? Surely not. If  Gawain’s integrity, his virtue, is ‘trawþe’ (and the poet chose the word), then ‘untrawþe’ is to be looked to. It is not, prima facie at least, a trivial matter.

The assertion of  Gawain’s piety in his fulfilment of  the religious obligation of public confession of  his sins cannot be taken to imply a disregard for the virtue of  fidelity, and consequently I reject that implication. I take confidence from the fact that the assumed opposi­tion between piety and fidelity is alien to the poet’s moral thinking as it is set forth in the pentangle passage and also to the Scholastic system of moral philosophy from which the symbolic value of  the pentangle is derived. It is necessary to accept both the sinfulness of  Gawain’s acceptance of  the girdle and the completeness of  his confession of  his sins, and it is not illogical to do so. III.  It was Gollancz who first observed of  Gawain’s confession that ‘though the poet does not notice it, Gawain makes a sacrilegious confession’.9 This view rests first of all upon a failure to under­stand the gravity of such an of fence. Just as the moral philosopher recognizes a hierarchy among the virtues (a fact not incompatible with the integration of virtues), so too there is a hierarchy among sins. The gravest of sins are those, such as unbelief and blasphemy, that are committed directly against God (ST, 1a 2ae 73.3): Unde peccatum quod est circa ipsam substantiam hominis, sicut homi­cidium est gravius peccato quod est circa res exteriores, sicut furtum; et adhuc est gravius peccatum quod immediate contra Deum committitur, sicut infidelitas, blasphemia et hujusmodi. Et in ordine quorumlibet horum peccatorum, unum peccatum est gravius altero secundum quod est circa aliquid principalius vel minus principale.

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GERALD MORGAN Hence, sins which af fect the very being of a man such as homicide are worse than sins which af fect an exterior good, e.g. theft; and more serious still are those sins which are immediately against God, as infidelity, blasphemy, etc. And in each of  these basic areas of sin, one sin will be worse than another if its object is more important than that of another. (translated by Fearon)

No one supposes that the Gawain-poet is so morally imperceptive that he would fail to detect acts of murder or theft in his hero. But an act of sacrilege is more serious than either of  these. A certain argument against the notion of a sacrilegious confession is that its moral reper­cussions are so fundamental; no part of  the poem’s meaning could remain unaf fected by it. Once again an argument rests not upon the poet’s lack of moral understanding but upon that of  his modern readers. For the Gawain-poet piety is a moral virtue and as such it cannot be ignored. It is impossible to believe that a poet who has written of  the ‘pité, þat passez alle poyntez’ (654) will fail to recognize a lapse from piety. What by contrast is to be said of  the poet’s representation of  the conduct of  his hero is the lucidity and precision that characterize it. Gawain’s acceptance of  the girdle of fered to him by the lady is the last in a series of acts that progressively define his moral condition. Gawain values his courtesy even to the point of public misrepresenta­tion of it (1658–63), but courtesy stops short of yielding to the sins of unchastity and infidelity (1770–75). Indeed, Gawain is not prepared to acquiesce in the lady’s suggestion that he has rejected her because of  his love for another (1779–84). To do so would be to call into question the virtue of chastity, for chastity is in itself a suf ficient ground for rejection of  the lady’s advances, irrespective of any other moral con­sideration whatsoever. Hence the point of  the invocation of  the apostle St John, for St John was revered as an example of celibacy (1788–91):       Þe knyȝt sayde, ‘Be sayn Jon,’       And smeþely con he smyle,       ‘In fayth I welde riȝt non,       Ne non wil welde þe quile.’

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The lady represents herself as a true unrequited lover and hence destined to a life of  bitter and unrelieved sorrow (1794–95). But she cannot by this stratagem induce Gawain to give her a gift as a keepsake, since such a keepsake would cast doubt upon the chasteness of  his love for her and would be in itself dishonourable (1805–7). The lady of fers Gawain a gift in her own right, but Gawain rejects it, for the same argument that prevents him from of fering a gift also prevents him from accepting one (1822–23). The lady then af fects to believe that it is the costliness of  the ring and not its symbolic import that has led Gawain to reject it (1826–29). She succeeds only in provoking the most emphatic rejection of an of fer that it is possible for a poet to contrive (1836–38): And he nay þat he nolde neghe in no wyse Nauþer golde ne garysoun, er God hym grace sende To acheue to þe chaunce þat he hade chosen þere.

There can be no doubt that in the scene between Gawain and the lady up to this point the poet intends us to see his hero in the most admirable light. He is zealous (but not smug) in the defence of  his chastity and resolute also in the defence of  the rights of  his host by turning aside from the sin of adultery. He laments his present incapacity to be generous (1808–12), but is unmoved by covetous­ness of  the precious ring that the lady of fers him as her gift (1817–20). And all the time he strives to maintain his reputation for courtesy, save in so far as courtesy in itself  becomes prejudicial to acts of virtue. It is by successive acts of virtue that the poet proceeds to the one sinful act by which Gawain’s human imperfection is defined. The lady now shows her quality in entirely shifting the ground of  her attack, for by doing so she is able to attribute to Gawain a covetous­ness that is the product only of  her own suggestion (1846–47): ‘Now forsake ȝe þis silke,’ sayde þe burde þenne, ‘For hit is symple in hitself ? And so hit wel semez.’

She now takes advantage of a complication in the moral environment that results from the enclosing of  the Exchange of  Winnings agree­ment within

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the Beheading Game, for Gawain is beset by fears of impending death from the return blow. The poet has carefully drawn our attention to these fears at the beginning of  this third moral confrontation between Gawain and the lady (1750–54): In dreȝ droupyng of dreme draueled þat noble, As mon þat watz in mornyng of mony þro þoȝtes, How þat destiné schulde þat day dele hym his wyrde At þe grene chapel, when he þe gome metes, And bihoues his buf fet abide withoute debate more.

And it is to these fears that the lady successfully appeals. She puts it to Gawain that by accepting the girdle he will preserve his life (1851–54); it is a proposition to which his fears readily lead him to assent (1855–58). Once she has secured her advantage, the lady does not fail to press it home. She begs the knight not only to accept the girdle but faithfully to conceal it from her lord (1862–63). The knight agrees to do so (1863–65):           … þe leude hym acordez þat neuer wyȝe schulde hit wyt, iwysse, bot þay twayne       for noȝte.

And we see that he is indeed faithful to his word, for he ‘hid hit ful holdely’ (1875). But he is by now compromised, for no knight can maintain faith between two irreconcilable pledges. The poet’s moral analysis is as lucid as it is subtle. Fear for life has led Gawain to the acceptance of  the girdle into his permanent posses­sion and hence to the breaking of  his faith with his host in the Exchange of  Winnings agreement. The facts of  the case and their moral significance are not in doubt, and they are confirmed for us (if confirmation were at all to be needed) by the Green Knight’s subsequent rehearsal of  them (2366–68): Bot here yow lakked a lyttel, sir, and lewté yow wonted; Bot þat watz for no wylyde werke, ne wowyng nauþer, Bot for ȝe lufed your lyf; þe lasse I yow blame.

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If  there is one criticism of  the Gawain-poet that we should above all seek to resist, it is that he is ignorant of  the moral significance of  the events that he describes. IV.  By a strange irony it is the very lucidity of  the Gawain-poet that has led to so much misunderstanding of  his moral purpose. For by his lucidity the poet has posed the problem of  Gawain’s confession in the clearest possible light. There can be no doubt that Gawain intends to keep possession of  the girdle (1874–75). As we have seen, Gawain’s action is presented by the poet in terms of  the honouring of a pledge. Burrow significantly alters the imaginative perspective of  this action by claiming that ‘the poet is careful to make it clear that he [i.e. Gawain] has, from the start, no intention of  honouring his promise’ (p. 109). And from one misrepresentation we proceed to a second that is more serious. The confession of  his sins by Gawain, so far from being complete, ‘must be seen as invalid – not a remedy, but a symptom of  his fall from grace’ (p. 109). We are required to assume, it seems, that when Gawain goes to confession he fails to mention or lies about his future intention. Such a distortion of  the moral perspective of  the poem is brought about by a presumption on the reader’s part of a deliberation in sinning. On this basis it is necessary to reconstruct the sinful thought of  Gawain in the following terms: it is wrong for me to retain posses­sion of  the girdle, since it must be given up to the lord by virtue of  the Exchange of  Winnings agreement; but the preservation of my life is to be preferred to the honouring of an agreement, and so I shall indeed keep the girdle. As soon as this reconstruction is made, the inadequacy of  the presumption on which it is based becomes at once apparent. One who is capable of a premeditated sinful act of  this kind would sooner preserve his life by failing to honour his pledge to the Green Knight to present himself  for the return blow. But Gawain’s conduct in the Beheading Game is the very antithesis of such cowardice and infidelity. Indeed, he treats with a lofty disdain the guide’s suggestion that he might seek to avoid the appointment with the Green Knight by a well concealed f light (2127–31):

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GERALD MORGAN Wel worth þe, wyȝe, þat woldez my gode, And þat lelly me layne I leue wel þou woldez. Bot helde þou hit neuer so holde, and I here passed, Founded for ferde for to f le, in fourme þat þou tellez, I were a knyȝt kowarde, I myȝt not be excused.

The cowardice and infidelity that he shows in the Exchange of  Winnings agreement do not reduce him to this level of moral turpitude. For the poet’s representation of  his hero is again in this respect not only lucid, it is also coherent. A more complex view of  the psychology of sin is required. Sin is the product not of  knowledge, but of ignorance. This is the opinion of  Socrates and, as Aquinas observes, it contains a measure of  the truth (ST, 1a 2ae 77.2): In quo quidem aliqualiter recte sapiebat. Quia cum voluntas sit boni vel apparentis boni, nunquam voluntas in malum moveretur nisi id quod non est bonum aliqualiter rationi bonum appareret: et propter hoc voluntas nunquam in malum tenderet, nisi cum aliqua ignorantia vel errore rationis. Unde dicitur Prov.[14.22], Errant qui operantur malum. There is something to be said for this opinion. Since the object of  the will is the good, or at least the apparent good, the will is never attracted by evil unless it appears to have an aspect of good about it, so that the will never chooses evil except by reason of ignorance or error. Thus it says in Proverbs, Do not those who plot evil go astray?

But in his discussion of intemperance and incontinence (Ethics, VII.3), Aristotle makes it clear that it is possible for a human being to do what he knows is not good for him or her. A distinction needs to be drawn between two kinds of  knowledge, that is, between knowledge which is possessed but not exercised and knowledge which is possessed and exercised. That a man should in the exercise of  his knowledge of what is good for him yet go against it can hardly be credited, but incontinence implies rather a knowledge that is possessed and not yet exercised. It is in terms of  this distinction that Aquinas develops his own discussion of  the sin of passion (ST, 1a 2ae 77.2): Et hoc modo ille qui est in passione constitutus non considerat in particulari id quod scit in universali, inquantum passio impedit talem considerationem.

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This is another way in which a man who is emotionally aroused fails to consider in particular what he knows in general, for the emotion hinders such consideration.

The internal cause of sin is twofold, proximate and remote; the proximate internal cause of sin is the reason and will, the remote internal cause is the apprehension of  the senses and the sensitive appetite (ST, 1a 2ae 75.2). On this basis Aquinas distinguishes three kinds of sin, in so far, that is, as there is a defect of  the reason, of  the sensitive appetite and of  the will. These sins are termed respect­ively sins of ignorance, sins of passion and sins of malice. In each of  these sins there is ignorance of some kind (ST, 1a 2ae 78.1 ad 1): Ad primum ergo dicendum quod ignorantia quandoque quidem excludit scientiam qua aliquis simpliciter scit hoc esse malum quod agitur: et tunc dicitur ex ignorantia peccare. Quandoque autem excludit scientiam qua homo scit hoc nunc esse malum: sicut cum ex passione peccatur. Quandoque autem excludit scientiam qua aliquis scit hoc malum non sustinendum esse propter consecutionem illius boni, scit tamen simpliciter hoc esse malum: et sic dicitur ignorare qui ex certa malitia peccat. Sinning out of ignorance means total unawareness that a thing is evil. Sometimes ignorance involves only temporary unawareness that a given thing is here and now evil, and this is what happens when a man sins under the impact of emotion. Sometimes, however, a man fails to consider that the loss suf fered is not worth the gain even though he knows full well that the loss is itself evil, and in this case ignorance is compatible with resolute malice.

Those who find Gawain’s act of piety in confession irreconcilable with his act of infidelity in keeping possession of  the girdle do so because they assume a sin of malice in which the simple knowledge of evil is present. Why they should do so when the poet has so clearly identified the sin as a sin of passion it is hard to understand. The ignorance that is to be found in the sin of passion is ignorance of  the particular knowledge that can and should be derived from universal knowledge. Aquinas states the Aristotelian explanation in the following terms (ST, 1a 2ae 77.2 ad 4):

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GERALD MORGAN Unde Philosophus dicit in Ethic., quod syllogismus incontinentis habet quatuor propositiones, duas universales: quarum una est rationis, puta nullam fornicationem esse committendam; alia est passionis, puta delectationem esse sectandam. Passio igitur ligat rationem ne assumat et concludat sub prima; unde, ea durante, assumit et concludit sub secunda. Thus Aristotle writes that the incontinent man forms a syllogism from four propositions of which two are universal, e.g. one from reason that says fornication is to be avoided; and another from emotion that says pleasure is to be sought after. Accordingly, emotion hinders reason lest it draw a conclusion from the former and at the same time moves one to conclude from the latter.

It is not dif ficult to apply this reasoning to Gawain’s own circum­stances. Gawain is hindered by fear from arguing from the general proposition, namely, all winnings must be exchanged with the lord, to the particular proposition, namely, this girdle is such a winning to be exchanged. Instead, inclined by fear, he attends to a dif ferent general proposition, namely, a device that would preserve life is worthy of  being possessed (1855–58): Þen kest þe knyȝt, and hit come to his hert Hit were a juel for þe jopardé þat hym iugged were: When he acheued to þe chapel his chek for to fech, Myȝt he haf slypped to be vnslayn, þe sleȝt were noble.

In respect of  this second general proposition Gawain is unhindered by passion and does not fail to draw from it the correct conclusion, namely, this girdle is such a worthy device and is indeed to be possessed. What Gawain fails to recognize as a sin the lady cunningly represents as an act of virtue, that is, the keeping of a pledge (here the symbolism of  the fox is totally relevant). Passion does not excuse from sin altogether unless it rules out entirely the voluntariness of an act, as in those who become mad through love or anger, and then only when the passion is natural and not voluntary in its cause (ST, 1a 2ae 77.7). Now it is clear that Gawain is not so moved by fear as to have lost the use of reason altogether (1866–67):       He þonkked hir oft ful swyþe,       Ful þro with hert and þoȝt.

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It is also clear, therefore, that his ignorance in accepting the girdle is not of such a kind as to excuse him from sin (ST, 1a 2ae 77.7 ad 2): Ad secundum dicendum quod ignorantia particularis quae totaliter excusat, est ignorantia circumstantiae quam quidem quis scire non potest, debita diligentia adhibita. Sed passio causat ignorantiam juris in particulari, dum impedit applicationem communis scientiae ad particularem actum. Quam quidem passionem ratio repellere potest. The ignorance of concrete fact which totally excuses from sin … is ignorance of a circumstance which could not possibly be foreseen. A highly emotional state causes one to be unaware of  the particular application of a general principle, which is a detail of  law rather than of  fact. A reasonable man can and should withstand the inf luence of such emotions.

But whereas passion does not excuse from sin, it diminishes the sin if it precedes the sinful act (ST, 1a 2ae 77.6): Si igitur accipiatur passio secundum quod praecedit actum peccati, sic necesse est quod diminuat peccatum. When emotion precedes sin, it necessarily diminishes sinfulness.

Just as the Green Knight identifies the true motive of  Gawain’s sin, so too he recognizes that Gawain’s sin is diminished by that motive (2367–68): Bot þat watz for no wylyde werke, ne wowyng nauþer, Bot for ȝe lufed your lyf; þe lasse I yow blame.10

The assumption that Gawain goes to confession in a state of  knowledge is a false assumption. On the contrary he goes in ignor­ance of  the particular knowledge that it is unlawful for him to retain possession of  the girdle. And it is in the light of ignorance of  this kind that we must seek to understand the completeness of  his confession. V.  Confession is an act of virtue in so far as it is a true profession of  that which a human being has on his or her conscience (Supplementum, 7.2):

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GERALD MORGAN Haec autem conditio ad virtutem pertinet, ut aliquis ore confiteatur, quod corde tenet; et ideo confessio est bonum ex genere, et est actus virtutis. Now to express in words what one has in one’s thoughts is a condition of virtue; and, consequently, confession is a good thing generically, and is an act of virtue.

But a person can hardly be expected to make a true profession of a sin of which he or she is ignorant. Moreover, given the pervasive reality of sin, it will always be dif ficult to give a complete account of  the sins that one has committed and many sins will simply have been forgotten. But such forgetfulness does not imply a lack of sincerity in confession (Supplementum, 10.5 ad 4): … oblivio de actu peccati habet ignorantiam facti, et ideo excusat a peccato fictionis in confessione, quod fructum absolutionis, et confessionis impedit. Now forgetfulness of an act of sin comes under the head of ignorance of  fact, wherefore it excuses from the sin of insincerity in confession, which is an obstacle to the fruit of absolution and confession.

A general confession is suf ficient for mortal sins that have been forgotten (Supplementum, 10.5 sed contra): sed ille qui confitetur omnia peccata, quae scit, accedit ad Deum, quantum potest: plus autem ab eo requiri non potest; ergo non confundetur, ut repulsam patiatur, sed veniam consequetur. Now he who confesses all the sins of which he is conscious, approaches to God as much as he can: nor can more be required of  him. Therefore he will not be confounded by being repelled, but will be forgiven.

Provision for general confession is therefore made in a treatise such as The Book of  the Craft of  Dying; the third interrogation of  the Gersonian set ends as follows (34/8–10): Desirest thou also in thyn hert to haue verray knowynge of alle (the) of fenses that thou hast doo ayenst God and foryete, to haue special repentaunce of  hem alle?

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The Gawain-poet leads us to understand that Gawain makes a sincere confession. Gawain does what is possible for one who is ignorant of  the particular knowledge that defines his sin. The poet underlines Gawain’s ignorance in the scene in which the knight arms himself  for the last stage of  the journey to the Green Chapel (2011–42). Gawain wraps the girdle twice round his waist over his splendid coat of armour (2033–36). In one hardened by a sin of malice this might be taken for an act of shameless ostentation. But virtuous knights are not given to ostentation of any kind, as we see from Chaucer’s portrait of  his Knight (GP, A 73–78). And no more is Gawain (2037–42): Bot wered not þis ilk wyȝe for wele þis gordel, For pryde of þe pendauntez, þaȝ polyst þay were, And þaȝ þe glyterande golde glent vpon endez, Bot for to sauen hymself, when suf fer hym byhoued, To byde bale withoute dabate of  bronde hym to were      oþer knyf  fe.

But ignorance requires enlightenment and sins are properly cleansed through satisfaction. And the poet duly proceeds to those matters in the meeting between Gawain and the Green Knight at the Green Chapel. The penitential significance of  this meeting cannot escape the attention of any reader of  the poem and it has in many respects been satisfactorily explained by Burrow (pp. 127–33). But the second or quasi-confession stands in relation to the first not as valid to invalid but as the completion of a moral process. The Green Knight occupies the role of confessor and Gawain that of penitent sinner. The Green Knight is the judge who understands the hidden causes of  things and hence, as we have seen, he gives a true report of  Gawain’s motives and measures the extent of  his sin. The importance of  the Green Knight’s function as judge explains why so much is made of  his jovial nature. Bertilak is a jovial type in the full medieval sense; he is not only merry and companionable (908–9, 936–37, 981–87, 1086–87 and 1174–77), he is also generous (988–90 and 1156–57) and courteous (833–37, 1002 and 1029–36). It is Jove who dispenses justice and justice is to be dispensed with equanimity.

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The blow that Gawain receives from the third stroke of  the axe is the punishment that is due to his sin (2389–94): Thenn loȝe þat oþer leude and luf lyly sayde: ‘I halde hit hardily hole, þe harme þat I hade. Þou art confessed so clene, beknowen of þy mysses, And hatz þe penaunce apert of þe poynt of myn egge, I halde þe polysed of þat plyȝt, and pured as clene As þou hadez neuer forfeted syþen þou watz fyrst borne.

Satisfaction for sin is an act of justice; ‘satisfactio est illatae injuriae recompensatio secundum justitiae aequalitatem,/ satisfaction is compensation for an inf licted injury according to the equality of justice’ (Supplementum, 12.3). A man cannot make satisfaction in the sense of quantitative equality, that is, he cannot do anything that equals the goodness of divine grace, but he can do so in the sense of proportionate equality. By the justice of satisfaction, therefore, is to be understood a strict measure in accord with proportionate equality (Supplementum, 8.7 sed contra and 13.1 sed contra): Isaiae 27: In mensura contra mensuram, cum abjecta fuerit, judicabis eam; ergo quantitas judicii punitionis peccati est secundum quantitatem culpae. Praeterea. Homo reducitur ad aequalitatem justitiae per poenitentiam inf lictam: sed hoc non esset, si quantitas culpae, et poenae non sibi responderent; ergo unum alteri respondet. It is written (Isa. 27.8): In measure against measure, when it shall be cast of f, thou shalt judge it. Therefore the quantity of punishment adjudicated for sin answers the degree of  fault. Further, man is reduced to the equality of justice by the punishment inf licted on him. But this would not be so if  the quantity of  the fault and of  the punishment did not mutually correspond. Therefore one answers to the other. Satisfactio est, cum poena culpae aequatur; quia justitia est idem, quod contrapassum, ut Pythagorici dixerunt. There is due satisfaction when the punishment balances the fault, since justice is the same as counterpassion, as the Pythagoreans said. (Aristotle, Ethic. V)

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It is in accordance with the principle of contrappasso that Dante assigns punishment to the impenitent sinners in hell. Thus the spirits consumed by lust, that is, those who in their lives set the disturbance of passions above the order of reason, are driven weeping and wailing before the unrelenting tempest (Inf., V.28–51). And in the same way the impiety of diviners in claiming to forecast future events is punished by the denial of  forward vision (Inf., XX.10–15; Sinclair, I.249):   Come ’l viso mi scese in lor più basso, mirabilmente apparve esser travolto ciascun tra ’l mento e ’l principio del casso,   ché da le reni era tornato ’l volto, e in dietro venir li convenia, perché ’l veder dinanzi era lor tolto. As my sight went lower on them, each seemed to be strangely twisted between the chin and the beginning of  the chest, for the face was turned towards the loins and they had to come backwards, since seeing forward was denied them.

This is the principle of measurement that is at work in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and it accounts for the contrivance of  three blows of  the axe to match Gawain’s conduct on the three days of  the Exchange of  Winnings agreement (2352–57): For boþe two here I þe bede bot two bare myntes     boute scaþe.     Trwe mon trwe restore,     Þenne þar mon drede no waþe.     At þe þrid þou fayled þore,     And þerfor þat tappe ta þe.

It is the same principle of justice that explains the otherwise some­what forced comparison between the girdle and the axe (2223–26): A denez ax nwe dyȝt, þe dynt with to ȝelde, With a borelych bytte bende by þe halme, Fyled in a fylor, fowre fote large – Hit watz no lasse bi þat lace þat lemed ful bryȝt.

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Malarkey and Toelken are right to identify the lace as the lady’s girdle and not the thong of  the axe described earlier in the poem (217–20).11 But their explanation of its significance in terms of  Gawain’s unassuaged fears is not wholly convincing. Once again the poet’s primary motive is moral and not psychological. The girdle is the measure of  Gawain’s sin and the axe the instrument of punish­ment for that sin. This is the true sense in which the axe is measured by the girdle. The concerns of  the final fitt of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are those of justice simply, and not of justice and mercy. It is not to be assumed that mercy is at odds with justice, for the very defini­tion of mercy presupposes its conformity with justice (ST, 2a 2ae 157.1 ad 2). Burrow’s discussion of justice and mercy (pp. 137–40), for all its general interest, is not here relevant and results from the erroneous assumption of an invalid confession. Gawain receives at the hands of  the Green Knight what is due to his virtue. And it is to be especially observed at this point that he is excellent not only in the moral virtues as they are customarily conceived but also in the virtue of penitence. Penitence is a potential part of justice (ST, 3a 85.3). It is the right reason whereby one chooses to grieve for past sins that merit such grief and in proportion to the nature of  those sins, for there is also a mean of virtue in relation to the sorrow of repentance (ST, 3a 85.1). It is a specific virtue concerned with the destruction of past sins (ST, 3a 85.2): Manifestum est autem quod in poenitentia invenitur specialis ratio actus laudabilis, scilicet operari ad destructionem peccati praeteriti, inquantum est Dei of fensa, quod non pertinet ad rationem alterius virtutis. Unde necesse est ponere quod poenitentia est specialis virtus. Now it is clear that with penitence there is an act of special value, namely of working towards the destruction of past sin as an of fence against God, and this belongs to the specific function of no other virtue. Hence we conclude that penitence is a special virtue. (translated by Reginald Masterson and T.C. O’Brien)

The three parts of penitence are contrition, confession and satis­faction. The three are interlinked, as is plainly to be seen in the standard definition of contrition as ‘dolor pro peccatis assumptus, cum proposito confitendi,

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et satisfaciendi,/ an assumed sorrow for sins, together with the purpose of confessing them and of making satisfaction for them’ (Supplementum, 1.1 arg.1). The conditions of all three are fulfilled in the conduct of  Gawain. When Gawain learns of  his sin from the Green Knight he is filled with shame (2369–72). Such shame answers to the first recognition of sin, for shame is a reaction to a shameful deed as present (ST, 3a 85.1 ad 2). But penitence is not merely a passion, it is a virtue; true contrition requires a willed displeasure for sin committed (Supplementum, 3.1): … in contritione est duplex dolor: unus est in ipsa voluntate, qui est essentialiter ipsa contritio, quae nihil aliud est, quam displicentia praeteriti peccati. Et talis dolor in contritione excedit omnes alios dolores, quia quantum aliquid placet, tantum contrarium ejus displicet: finis autem ultimus super omnia placet, cum omnia propter ipsum desiderentur; et ideo peccatum, quod a fine ultimo avertit, super omnia displicere debet. … there is a twofold sorrow in contrition: one is in the will, and is the very essence of contrition, being nothing else than displeasure at past sin, and this sorrow, in contrition, surpasses all other sorrows. For the more pleasing a thing is, the more displeasing is its contrary. Now the last end is above all things pleasing: wherefore sin, which turns us away from the last end, should be, above all things, displeasing.

The importance of willed displeasure for sin is also stressed in a treatise such as The Book of  the Craft of  Dying (47/11–48/3): … therfor to euery suche man that is in suche caas and is come to hys last ende (it) is to be counceiled besily that he laboure wiþ reson of  hys mynde after hys power to haue ordinat 7 verray repentaunce, that is to menynge, not withstondynge þe sorwe 7 greuaunce of (hys) siknesse 7 drede that he hath of  hasty deth, that he vse reson asmoche as he may, and enforce hym self  to haue wilfully ful displesynge of alle synne for the due ende 7 (a) parfyt entent, that is for God.12

Thus Gawain’s response to the Green Knight’s disclosure of  his sin is not one of uncontrolled self-disgust (for that would be to add one sin of passion to another), but one of willed displeasure (2373–75): Þe forme worde vpon folde þat þe freke meled: ‘Corsed worth cowarddyse and couetyse boþe! In yow is vylany and vyse þat vertue disstryez.’

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Being truly contrite, Gawain has also a will to confess (2385–86):       I biknowe yow, knyȝt, here stylle,       Al fawty is my fare.

A true confession will in its turn ref lect the moral realities that have been thus described. Confession should be full of shame, as originat­ing in the horror one has of  the shamefulness of sin (Suppl. 9.4). And it should also be humble, that is, it should result in the abjection of one who is thus aware of  his sinful condition (Suppl. 9.4). The nourishment of such humility is Gawain’s expressed motive for the acceptance of  the girdle from the Green Knight himself (2429–36): And þus, quen pryde schal me pryk for prowes of armes, þe loke to þis luf-lace schal leþe my hert.   (2437–38)

Although the sensible sorrow that accompanies contrition can be immoderate (Suppl. 3.2), contrition itself  lasts for the whole of  the present life, even though satisfaction may have a temporal limitation (Suppl. 4.1): … dicendum, quod in contritione … est duplex dolor: unus rationis, qui est detestatio peccati a se commissi: alius sensitivae partis, qui ex isto consequitur. Et quantum ad utrumque contritionis tempus est totius vitae praesentis status.

Thus when Gawain returns to Camelot the slight wound in his neck is healed (2484), but his sorrow for his sins (2501–4) and his dis­pleasure for them (2505–10) remain unimpaired (2511–12): For mon may hyden his harme, bot vnhap ne may hit, For þer hit onez is tachched twynne wil hit neuer.

In our admiration for Gawain’s virtue, we should not suppose that the happy celebration of  his return by the court betrays any lack of moral or spiritual discernment on its part. For the poet has made it abundantly clear throughout his poem that Gawain is a representa­tive of  the chivalry of  the Round Table, and has significantly reminded us at its end of  Gawain’s kinship with Arthur (2464–66). It should therefore be noted that when

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the guilt of sin has been removed by penance, so also is removed the shame that arises from it (Suppl. 4.1 ad 1): … erubescentia respicit peccatum, solum inquantum habet turpitudinem; et ideo postquam peccatum quantum ad culpam remissum est, non manet pudori locus … Shame regards sin only as a disgraceful act; wherefore after sin has been taken away as to its guilt, there is no further motive for shame.

The court is right to see in the conduct of  Gawain an unsurpassable display of  human virtue, and right also to honour it by accepting the girdle as a badge of  honour (2514–18): For þat watz acorded þe renoun of þe Rounde Table, And he honoured þat hit hade euermore after, As hit is breued in þe best boke of romaunce.                 (2519–21)

No less a judge than the Green Knight appreciates the fitness of  this response (2398–99):          … and þis a pure token Of þe chaunce of þe grene chapel at cheualrous knyȝtez.

And well might he do so, for it is Aristotle who has told us that honour is the reward due to virtue (Ethics, IV.3). The romance of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight takes its place among ‘þe Brutus bokez’ (2523) as a witness of  the nobility of  England in the days of  King Arthur.

Notes 1

‘Besides, I do not know why anyone who wishes to form the idea of a perfect knight should deny him the commendation of piety and religion’, edited by Ettore Mazzali, Torquato Tasso: Scritti sull’arte poetica, 2 vols (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1977) and translated by Mariella Cavalchini and Irene Samuel, Torquato Tasso: Discourses on the Heroic Poem (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), p. 39.

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Reference is to Divi Thomae Aquinatis Summa Theologica, second edition (Rome, 1894), Volume V, Tertiae Partis Supplementum, translated by Fathers of  the English Dominican Province (London: Baker, 1917). 3 Texts of  the three English translations are edited in Gerald Morgan’s unpublished doctoral dissertation, ‘A Critical Edition of  Caxton’s The Art and Craft to Know Well to Die and Ars Moriendi together with the Antecedent Manuscript Material’ (University of  Oxford, 1973). 4 See Morgan, ‘A Critical Edition’, II.129–31. 5 J.A. Burrow, A Reading of  ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), p. 105. 6 The repeated action of  the daily exchange of winnings may be explained in a similar way, for on each occasion the poet focuses on Gawain’s generosity (fraunchyse). On the first exchange Gawain professes not to have seen such meat gained in hunting in seven years (1381–82); on the second he professes never to have seen such a quantity of  f lesh on any boar (1629–32) and even goes so far as to feign horror at the size of  the boar’s head in order to praise the lord (1633–34). The only possible course of action for a generous man on the third day is to take the initiative in order to spare the lord’s embarrassment at the poor return for his ef forts (1942–47). For Burrow, Gawain’s intervention (1948–49) is an example of  brusqueness, the sign of a bad conscience (p. 111). But it is not explained why we should attribute brusqueness to a knight so courteous as Gawain. The narrative is controlled not by the states of mind of  the characters in it but by the imposed abstract idea. This idea is the idea of  the pentangle. A narrative that is shaped in this way focuses not on bad consciences but on courtesy and generosity. 7 See Gerald Morgan, ‘The Significance of  the Pentangle Symbolism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, MLR, 74 (1979), 769–90 (pp. 776–77). 8 RES, NS, 18 (1967), 58–60 (p. 59). 9 Sir Israel Gollancz, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, EETS (OS) 210 (London: Oxford University Press, 1940), p. 123, note to 1880. 10 Gawain’s sin in withholding the girdle is a mortal sin generically but becomes venial through the weakness that results from the fear of death. It is to be classi­ fied as venial from the cause (see ST, 1a 2ae 88.2). 11 Stoddard Malarkey and J. Barre Toelken, ‘Gawain and the Green Girdle’, JEGP, 63 (1964), 14–20. 12 The author of  the Latin Ars Moriendi is here following Duns Scotus, Quaestiones in Lib. IV Sententiarum, Distinctio XX; see Morgan, ‘A Critical Edition’, II.136–37. 2

4  Langland and the Love of  Money:    How Piers Beat His Peers

With hym ther was a Plowman, was his brother, That hadde ylad of dong ful many a fother; A trewe swynkere and a good was he, Lyvynge in pees and parfit charitee. God loved he best with al his hoole herte At alle tymes, thogh him gamed or smerte, And thanne his neighebor right as hymselve. He wolde thresshe, and therto dyke and delve, For Cristes sake, for every povre wight, Withouten hire, if it lay in his myght. — CHAUCER, General Prologue, A 529–38

I.  Let me begin with some preliminary remarks on the name Piers itself, on madness and truth, and finally on the name medieval so as to put Piers Plowman, a much neglected English masterpiece even here in Malvern, into some kind of perspective for the benefit of modern readers.

Piers Most of us would nowadays recognise Piers as an upper-class English name. There was no one by the name of  Piers in Lydbrook County Primary School in the Forest of  Dean when I was a pupil there in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A typical modern association of  the name for my generation is that of  Piers Courage (1942–1970). He was heir to the Courage brewery dynasty,

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was educated at Eton College, became a Formula 1 racing driver and was tragically killed at Zandvoort in the Dutch Grand Prix on 21 June 1970. The charismatic Piers Morgan (no relation I might add, perhaps unnecessarily), the former editor of  The News of  the World (1994–1995) and Daily Mirror (1995–2004), was apparently named after him. Hence when I came across the headline, ‘How Piers Beat His Peers’, in The Sunday Telegraph earlier this year I knew more or less what to expect. And indeed my expectations were not to be disappointed: Little Piers Harris certainly has something to smile about: he is the proud owner of  the best-performing Child Trust Fund in Britain – and a pretty impressive nest egg it is. Since the account was opened just under two years ago it has shot up by a staggering 85 per cent. Piers’s parents invested his £250 government voucher in the Chinese stock market through Redmayne-Bentley, the stockbrokers. They have also used their own money to top up the fund by the maximum of £1,200 each year and it is now worth an estimated £4,500. You will struggle to find a bigger CTF today.1

This story clearly fits a pattern of expectation in a world of capitalism and globalisation. In due course, no doubt, little Piers (Peterkin) will be able to amass a fortune so as to buy a peerage and enter the House of  Lords. How dif ferent this is from the world of  Langland and Piers Plowman in pretty well every respect. Piers in the era of  Langland’s poem (c. 1367– 1386) is the familiar form of  Peter, as Bill is today of  William and Bob of  Robert. The association is reinforced in Langland’s poem by the pervasive alliteration. Thus in addition to ‘Piers þe Plowman’ (PPl, B V.634) and its variant ‘Perkyn þe Plowman’ (PPl, B VI.3) we also have ‘Piers þe Pardoner’ (PPl, B II.109) and ‘Sire Piers of  Pridie’ (B V.313). The latter is an incompetent priest, and it is somewhat reassuring that there were incompetent priests in the Middle Ages as well as in our own day.2 The physical hardness of  the life of a medieval ploughman is almost unimaginable for us today. There were no ‘nest eggs’ for them, impressive or otherwise. We might compare, for example, the life of a coal miner in the Forest of  Dean. And here I declare a possible bias, for my grandfather, Augustus Morgan, that is, Gus, was killed at Trafalgar Colliery near Lydbrook on 10 September 1917 at the age of 41, and my uncle, Albert Morgan, that is, Bert, was awarded

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the BEM for saving lives when Waterloo Colliery in Upper Lydbrook was f looded on 30 June 1949. Langland’s Piers, then, is what we might describe in modern terms as a working-class hero, the equal of any knight in the moral uprightness and purity of  his life. Nowadays the English working classes seem to be the object of  the contempt of  their educated superiors who have failed to educate them in the rudiments of  English grammar. It is perhaps time for them to reclaim their inheritance, and they might begin to do so by reclaiming the name of  Piers.

Madness and Truth I first encountered the name of  Ivor Gurney some ten years ago in the Flanders Fields Museum at Ypres (or Ieper, to use the proper Flemish form of  the name the locals insist upon) in Belgium. He was described as a British poet from Gloucester. A curious description, I thought at the time. Ivor Gurney was in the 2nd/5th Glosters and was his platoon’s crack shot by all accounts. He went to France with his battalion in May 1916, was wounded at Vermand in Picardy on 7 April 1917 and gassed at St Julien on the 10 September 1917. He had plenty of  time to ref lect on the folly and madness of  the war in France and Belgium as contrasted with the normality of  life at home (‘The Touchstone (Watching Malvern)’, 1–4): What Malvern is the day is, and its touchstone – Gray velvet, or moon-marked; rich, or bare as bone; One looks toward Malvern and is made one with the whole; The world swings round him as the Bear to the Pole.3

Ivor Gurney was not only a war hero, but a poet; not only a poet, but a war hero. He had seen many things that his fellow-countrymen preferred to ignore, and on his return he had a great message for the people of  England (‘Cotswold’, 10–12):

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GERALD MORGAN That County, Gloucestershire, wherefore many have crossed seas and died –   At Laventie I saw them, and at Ypres in the cannon thunder,   Rome would have kept silence at such courage not praised – Her own beside.4

His modern editor on the other hand is preoccupied with the question of  Gurney’s madness or, should I say, his supposed madness: The revisions made by Gurney after his committal are entirely congruous with his original texts: there are no obvious thematic, syntactical or grammatical dif ferences between the material which he completed between 1921 and 1922 and the additions which he made in 1923 and 1924 … In short, as strange as it may seem, Rewards of  Wonder appears to be free of any trace of its author’s schizophrenia.5

Ivor Gurney was sent to the Edinburgh War Hospital on 25 September 1917. This was not a unique experience for an English poet and war hero, for Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon were at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh in the autumn of 1917. What better place for an English war poet than a mental hospital in Scotland? It is far enough away from the centre of political af fairs in London (perhaps the Outer Hebrides would have been better, but a little too obvious). The truth can always be discredited by suggestions of madness. It is the most exquisite and the most enduring form of political spin. Langland himself is fascinated by the relation between madness and truth, and indeed goes so far in the B text as to make a lunatic the spokesman of justice (PPl B Prol. 123–27): Thanne loked vp a lunatik, a leene þyng wiþalle,  madman;creature;moreover And knelynge to þe Kyng clergially he seide,     learnedly (like a scholar) ‘Crist kepe þee, sire Kyng, and þi kyngryche,       protect;kingdom And lene þee lede þi lond so leaute þee louye,  grant;govern;justice;may love you And for þi riȝtful rulyng be rewarded in heuene!’     just;rule;(may you) be

It is imaginatively consistent for Langland to represent the case for justice in this manner and entirely logical, for at times (seeing the way in which the world is run) it seems that we have to be mad to believe in justice. But the love of justice is not in reality to be confounded with madness. Hence Langland sought to avoid such confusion by emphasising the scholarly

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character of  the lunatic’s words, for he speaks clergially (PPl, B Prol. 124). Moreover he is lean as a scholar, as Chaucer’s Clerk of  Oxenford is made lean by the discipline of  learning (GP, A 287–88): As leene was his hors as is a rake,                 lean And he nas nat right fat, I undertake.         very;declare,af firm

But Langland had second thoughts about its appositeness, presumably because of  the stigma that still attaches itself  to mental illness. It may well be that those who are mad often speak the truth, but because they are mad or are held to be mad their words are generally discounted. Gurney, like Owen and Sassoon, knew the truth, but the truth went with him on 21 December 1922 to the City of  London Mental Hospital at Dartford where he remained in terrible isolation for fifteen long years until his death: It could be said that the long, embittering and ultimately soul-destroying years of  his incarceration made Gurney into a sacrificial animal. In 1937 Marion Scott … managed to persuade the editors of  Music and Letters to devote a large part of  the January 1938 issue to an appreciation of  his music. Oxford University Press agreed to publish twenty of  his songs in two-volume format. By now, however, pulmonary tuberculosis was running through Gurney’s body. Proof copies of  Music and Letters were sent to him, but … he was too weak even to take the wrapping of f  the parcel. ‘It is too late’, he said. He died at 3.45 on the morning of 26 December 1937.6

All three poets may well be vindicated by the judgment of  history, but justice cannot wait so long for vindication. Hence Langland by the time of  the C text (1385–1386) recognised the need for decisive change in order to preserve the clarity of  his argument. Thus in the C text the commendation of justice is transferred to Kind Wit, the habit of  the first principles of  the intellect (PPl, C Prol.147–50): Thenne Kynde Witt to þe Kynge and to þe Comune saide,  Natural Understanding;                               Commons

‘Crist kepe þe, Kynge, and thy kyneriche, And leue the lede so þy londe þat Lewte þe louye,          Justice And for thy rightful ruylynge be rewardid in heuene!’7

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What is claimed here by Scholastic Aristotelian philosophers (following the master himself ) is that all human reasoning proceeds from infallibly known first principles in the light of which we deliberate and come to judgments (acts of conscience) as to what to do in particular circumstances (ST, 1a 79.8 and 12). Kind Wit or natural understanding thus supplies us with a certain knowledge of justice as a first principle of  the practical intellect. It is this knowledge that is foolishly denied by the dreamer (PPl, B I.138–47) and that is confidently asserted by Piers on his entrance into the poem as a sure means to Truth (PPl, B V.537–55). But it suits our purpose on too many occasions to avert our eyes from the claims of justice, and then it needs a madman (or seeming madman) to recall us to our humanity.

Medieval The word medieval has become all too commonly in our modern language a standard form of abuse and a synonym for ‘barbaric, savage, uncivilised’. In 2001 the British government slaughtered thousand upon thousand of  healthy sheep, in the Forest of  Dean, Somerset, and Cumberland and Westmorland in particular. I vividly recall lambs having to eat mud instead of grass, sheep running amok in a field in Usk being pursued by two men (or possibly women) in white boiler suits shooting at them, and (worst of all) the Gurkhas being sent to a woman’s cottage to slaughter the sheep she was trying to protect in the sanctuary of  her living room. These shameful acts were indeed barbaric and uncivilised, and accordingly they were described as medieval. But there is no evidence that our medieval ancestors slaughtered sheep in such a fashion or on such a scale. The word that is required for these acts is not medieval, but modern or possibly post-modern. In olden days sheep were allowed to roam at will in the Forest of  Dean. They are still entitled to do so as far as I am aware in accordance with the 1667 Dean Forest (Reaf forestation) Act. In 2001 the blood of sheep was on the roads of  the Forest of  Dean. And the purpose of  this savage exercise? The

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re-election of a Labour government on 7 June 2001. It seems that we can always rely on the people of  England to vote for the Labour or Conservative parties, even when they are slaughtering sheep or bringing democracy to Iraq. Even, it seems, when they are dismembering England itself. Properly speaking, the word medieval is a simple descriptive term. It refers to the period that is in the middle between the ancient world of classical civilisation and the modern world (the enlightened world, as we might like to think). Let us say the period from 400–1500. We may subdivide this period into a pre-conquest Anglo-Saxon England (up to 1100) and Norman England (1100–1500). If we look around us we shall find that our best buildings are almost always medieval buildings. Thus Worcester Cathedral, overlooking the Severn and the County Cricket Ground, is in essence a twelfth- and thirteenth-century building, containing the tombs of  King John (died 1216) and Arthur Tudor, the elder brother of  Henry VIII. Gloucester Abbey (as it then was, now the Cathedral) still dominates the entrance to the city by virtue of its fifteenth-century tower (c. 1450–1460) with its four pinnacles. The nave, of course, is Norman and the famous East window in the decorated style. It contains the tomb of  Edward II, murdered at Berkeley Castle in 1327. Great Malvern Priory itself is in origin a Norman building, begun in 1085 and reconstructed in 1430–1460. Its tower is roughly contemporary with that of  Gloucester Abbey and probably by the same architect. At the time of  the dissolution of  the monasteries (1539) the Lady Chapel, cloisters and South transept were destroyed. The period from 1330 to 1485 is characterised by the distinctive and uniquely English form of  Gothic architecture known as perpendicular. Landmarks of this style are the South transept of Gloucester Abbey (c. 1331– 1336) and the presbytery screenwork (1337–1367); the tower of  Worcester Cathedral (1357–1374), the work of  John Clyve, a mason who worked at Windsor Castle in 1362–1365 under William Wynford (c. 1330/40– 1405); the Lady Chapel of  York Minster (1361–1373); the North transept of  Gloucester Abbey (1368–1373) and the Neville Screen (1372–1380) in Durham Cathedral, the work of  Henry Yevely (c. 1320/30–1400).8 The life of  William Langland (c. 1330–1386) thus coincides with the first phase of  the perpendicular style. It is also (and by no means coincidentally) the great

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age of  English chivalry with the famous victories at Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356) and Nájera (1367). The Order of  the Garter was founded by Edward III at Windsor in 1348. Of  the twenty-six founder-knights of  the Garter at least twenty-two were in the field at Crécy, while Henry of  Grosmont, Earl of  Derby, the king’s lieutenant in Aquitaine in 1345–1347, and Jean de Grailly, captal de Buch, played important roles in the supporting action.9 It is an age which produced three English poets of  the highest genius, Langland himself, the Staf fordshire poet of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (a work perhaps of  the 1350s and 1360s rather than the 1380s and 1390s)10 and Geof frey Chaucer (c. 1343–1400). The Gawain-poet supplies a characteristically brilliant and detailed description of  Sir Bertilak’s castle at Hautdesert to match the splendid edifices he must have seen springing up about him in his daily life (SGGK, 787–97): Þe walle wod in þe water wonderly depe,        stood;marvellously Ande eft a ful huge heȝt hit haled vpon lofte         height;rose Of  harde hewen ston vp to þe tablez,     shaped;projecting cornice-moulding Enbaned vnder þe abataylment in þe best lawe;       machicolated;style And syþen garytez ful gaye gered bitwene,    turrets;fashioned;at intervals Wyth mony luf lych loupe þat louked ful clene:    window;was fastened;neatly A better barbican þat burne blusched vpon neuer.    outwork;knight;looked And innermore he behelde þat halle ful hyȝe,         further in Towres telded bytwene, trochet ful þik,      erected;crocketed;densely Fayre fylyolez þat fyȝed, and ferlyly long,     pinnacles;fitted;exceedingly With coruon coprounes craftyly sleȝe.  carved;ornamental tops;ingeniously made11

Why, then, this denigration of  things medieval by English writers? It is a question with profound implications. Even a writer such as C.S. Lewis (an Ulsterman, we must not forget, although educated brief ly at Malvern College in 1913–1914), feels at liberty to patronise Langland: What is truly exceptional about Langland is the kind, and the degree, of  his poetic imagination. His comedy, however good, is not what is most characteristic about him. Sublimity – so rare in Gower, and rarer still in Chaucer – is frequent in Piers Plowman. The Harrowing of  Hell, so often and so justly praised, is but one instance … Doubtless such heights are rare in Langland, as they are rare in poetry at all; but the man who attains them is a very great poet. He is not, indeed, the greatest poet of  his century. He lacks the variety of  Chaucer, and Chaucer’s fine sense of  language:

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he is confused and monotonous, and hardly makes his poetry into a poem. But he can do some things which Chaucer cannot, and he can rival Chaucer in Chaucer’s special excellence of pathos.12

And what is this talk of a Renaissance or re-birth of  learning in the sixteenth century? The learning of  Chaucer, the translator of  Le Roman de la rose and the De consolatione philosophiae and a man at ease in Latin, French and Italian literatures, would be dif ficult to match in any age. The term renaissance is an example, surely, of sixteenth-century spin and of  the vanity of a new age trying to make its mark at the expense of  the old. The Renaissance humanists, so-called, are the men who destroyed the Lady Chapel, cloisters and South transept of  Malvern Priory. Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) is perhaps a happy exception in recognising the prejudices of  his contemporaries: So that it is but the clowds gathered about our owne iudgement that makes vs thinke all other ages wrapt vp in mists, and the great distance betwixt vs, that causes vs to imagine men so farre of f, to be so little in respect of our selues.13

We must also not forget that Langland, the Gawain-poet and Chaucer are English Catholics. The attempt to refashion them (or perhaps render them acceptable to later English or Welsh or Scottish religious predispositions) as proto-Protestants is manifestly absurd. It is yet another example of a debilitating narrowness of outlook. The fourteenth century is indeed on its own terms of reference an English Golden Age. II.  Langland’s great poem has gradually been brought back into public view by the unremitting labours of  four generations of great scholars from Skeat to Schmidt and we can now rest assured that we have authoritative texts of  the three (or perhaps four) versions of  his work. This is a great investment of ef fort in any poem and we are inclined to judge it a masterpiece by this fact alone. George Kane, a Canadian, wounded in the lung at Calais and a prisoner of war from 27 May 1940, felt that his life had been ‘spared for Piers’.14 The author himself devoted his life to the task of writing the work, and he was still in the course of revising the C text at the time of  his death.

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His contemporaries, who spent so much time in copying out the various versions of  the work, must have inclined also to the author’s own sense of its importance. But despite this dedicated scholarly ef fort our response to Langland remains somewhat muted. He is an author as much to be avoided as studied in English courses today, often on the specious grounds of dif ficulty (as if  Dante and Chaucer, Shakespeare and Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth and Keats were not dif ficult). Dante is a poet who has no doubts of  the dif ficulty of  his own work. He assumes indeed that it is much too dif ficult for ordinary mortals. But he bids us not to be dismayed if only we attend to the beauty of  his work (Convivio, II.xi.9; Ryan, 65): O uomini, che vedere non potete la sentenza di questa canzone, non la rifiutate però; ma ponete mente la sua bellezza, ch’è grande sì per construzione, la quale si pertiene a li gramatici, sì per l’ordine del sermone, che si pertiene a li rettorici, sì per lo numero de le sue parti, che si pertiene a li musici. Le quali cose in essa si possono belle vedere, per chi ben guarda. O people who cannot grasp the meaning of  this canzone, do not for that reason spurn it; rather, recognize the great beauty it has: in syntax, the province of grammarians, in the structure governing its presentation, the province of rhetoricians, and in the rhythmical form of its parts, the province of musicians. These features in her can be appreciated as beautiful by every attentive observer.

Matthew Arnold makes essentially the same appeal in arguing for the merit of great lines of poetry as touchstones for our understanding and appreciation: Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of  the truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to have always in one’s mind lines and expressions of  the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry.15

These words are well judged, for how can we think of poetry without at the same time thinking of  beauty? Before we can come directly to terms with the dif ficulty of  Langland’s thought, we must attend first of all to the beauty of  Piers Plowman. We need to look for this poetic beauty not

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only in the detail of  Langland’s style, as in the famous opening lines, but also in the grand sweep of  the structure of  his poem. Beauty is no mere matter of individual perception (we can all appreciate the grandeur of medieval cathedrals), but a matter of clarity and proportion. These are the considerations a medieval poet takes into account as he forms the design of  his poem. In the same way medieval architects consider the design of  the cathedrals that the hands of many craftsmen and the labours of many workers will have to execute over many years (perhaps a hundred or more). The analogy between poetry and architecture is one that is found repeatedly among medieval commentators and philosophers. The most famous example, perhaps, is that of  Geof frey de Vinsauf (f l.1200) at the beginning of  his Poetria nova (43–49; Nims, 16–17): Si quis habet fundare domum, non currit ad actum Impetuosa manus: intrinseca linea cordis Praemetitur opus, seriemque sub ordine certo Interior praescribit homo, totamque figurat Ante manus cordis quam corporis; et status ejus Est prius archetypus quam sensilis. Ipsa poesis Spectet in hoc speculo quae lex sit danda poetis. If a man has a house to build, his impetuous hand does not rush into action. The measuring line of  his mind first lays out the work, and he mentally outlines the successive steps in a definite order. The mind’s hand shapes the entire house before the body’s hand builds it. Its mode of  being is archetypal before it is actual. Poetic art may see in this analogy the law to be given to poets.

These lines are so well known to Chaucer that he supplies a virtual translation of  them at the end of  the first book of  Troilus and Criseyde. Pandarus’s premeditation in betraying his niece to Troilus is so profound that it matches that of  the poet in fashioning a work of art (TC, I.1065–69): For everi wight that hath an hous to founde          construct Ne renneth naught the werk for to bygynne          hastens With rakel hond, but he wol bide a stounde,       rash;wait;for a while And sende his hertes line out fro withinne       builder’s line for keeping                          walls straight, joints even Aldirfirst his purpos for to wynne.               accomplish

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Langland must surely have expected his contemporaries to have applied these exacting standards to his own poem and we ought not to hesitate in applying them in our turn. It ought to be possible to set out the plan of  Piers Plowman in a systematic manner so as to reveal its structural coherence. I propose to do so under the heading ‘The Architectonic Sublime of  Piers Plowman’. This is indeed a grand title. I do not think it entirely out of place, but it is intended as a radical challenge to the view of  C.S. Lewis and all those readers who agree with him that Langland is confused and monotonous and has failed to convert his poetry into a poem.

The Architectonic Sublime of  Piers Plowman III.  Clarity of structure, of  the parts as well as the whole, is as characteristic of medieval works of philosophy such as the Summa theologiae of Aquinas as it is of  the great poetic monuments such as Dante’s Commedia and Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and indeed also of a Renaissance masterpiece such as Spenser’s Faerie Qveene (1590–1596). Philosophic realism, whether absolute (Platonist) or moderate (Aristotelian) guarantees knowledge as distinct from mere opinion and hence also the objectivity of works of art. Beauty is not in the eye of  the beholder but is objective, and we can identify its constitutive principles as wholeness, fitness of proportion and clarity or radiance. Thus Aquinas observes in the Summa theologiae (1a 39.8): Nam ad pulchritudinem tria requiruntur. Primo quidem integritas, sive perfectio, quae enim diminuta sunt, hoc ipso turpia sunt; et debita proportio sive consonantia; et iterum claritas, unde quae habent colorem nitidum pulchra esse dicuntur. Beauty must include three qualities: integrity or completeness – since things that lack something are thereby ugly; right proportion or harmony; and brightness – we call things bright in colour beautiful. (translated by T.C. O’Brien)

It is no coincidence that we find these qualities to best advantage in the great works of medieval poetic art. Dante’s Commedia is disposed into

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three canticas and one hundred cantos; in the Inferno thirty-four cantos, including an introductory canto; in the Purgatorio thirty-three cantos and in the Paradiso thirty-three cantos. Virgil’s exposition of  love in Purgatorio XVII and XVIII is at the centre not only of  the Purgatorio itself  but of  the Commedia as a whole. Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde is disposed into five books, complete with proems, invocations and epilogue. Books I and II tell of  the pain of  falling in love, Book III tells of  the consummation of  love (also, in its distinctive way, a painful experience) and Books IV and V tell of  the pain of  betrayal in love. Spenser’s Faerie Qveene, in its original intention and in accordance with classical example, is to be disposed into twelve books with twelve cantos in each book. This is poetic ambition of  the grandest kind and unsurprisingly the work is incomplete. Nevertheless six complete books and two cantos must rank as a monumental achievement in itself. Thus we come to Piers Plowman. Langland has disposed his own work into a Prologue and twenty passus (pl.) or steps. The passus (sg.) is perhaps the Langlandian equivalent of  the Dantesque canto. Like Dante’s cantos, the passus are of variable length, but Langland’s passus (even the shortest of  them, with one exception) are longer than Dante’s cantos and more variable in length. Dante’s cantos are usually 130, or 136 or 142 lines long, but Langland’s passus seldom contain fewer than two hundred lines, and occasionally more than six hundred. Piers Plowman is disposed into a sequence of eight dream visions and in addition there are two inner visions, that is, visions within visions (3a and 5a). The poem has been traditionally divided by its modern commentators into the Visio (visions 1 and 2) and the Vita (visions 3–8). But it needs to be emphasised that this in itself is merely a division of a single, coherent poem, for even the A text extends beyond the matter of  the Visio. In Vision 1 Langland expounds through the figure of  Lady Holy Church the meaning and simplicity of  Truth (Passus I) and then in Passus II its opposite, the doubleness of  falsehood. Falseness is represented by Meed and in the proposed marriage of  Meed to False. Subsequently Meed is rejected as a partner in marriage by Conscience who is supported in his rejection of  her by Reason (Passus II–IV). Thus the first vision identifies cupidity or greed as the corrupting power in the world and asserts also the

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necessity of  turning away from it. In Vision 2 (a more deeply meaningful vision) this turning away from sin in the light of reason is presented in terms of  the sacrament of penance in its three parts. Contrition leads to the Confession of  the Seven Deadly Sins and to Satisfaction in the form of  the pilgrimage to Truth. Here we have the entrance of  Piers himself into the poem, and the Ploughman reminds us that pilgrimage itself cannot be undertaken until the proper duties of a working life have been fulfilled. Penance leads to the absolution of sin and hence to Truth’s pardon (Passus V–VII). This process is not only not confused, but is neat and schematic. But the result is not a resolution of  the problem of salvation, but a crisis (much in the manner of other dream vision poems, such as Chaucer’s Parliament of  Fowls). The quarrel between Piers and the priest turns on the question of  the validity of  the pardon in the light of  the human susceptibility to sin. Thus a new start is necessitated and a search for Dowel. How is it possible to lead a good life, that is, one not merely or essentially materially prosperous, but one that is morally and spiritually good? The Vita, composed of six visions, is organised into three lives, namely, Dowel (visions 3 and 4), Dobet (visions 5 and 6) and Dobest (visions 7 and 8). It is clear at the end of  the Visio that the problems raised by the dispute between Piers and the priest cannot be resolved without a further investigation and a greater knowledge. The acquisition of such knowledge by more protracted thought and deeper study is the matter of  the third vision (Passus VIII–XII) and it leads in the fourth vision (as it ought to lead) to the acquisition of  the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, courage and temperance (Passus XIII–XIV). This is the domain of  Dowel. We proceed to the higher level of  Dobet when love is added to moral virtue, for love is a higher principle than moral virtue, rare and noble though moral virtue undoubtedly is. Thus in the mystical pageant or procession in the Earthly Paradise Dante represents the three theological virtues as three ladies dressed in red, green and white respectively dancing on the right side of  the triumphal car and the four cardinal virtues as four ladies dressed in purple dancing on the left side of the car (Purg., XXIX.121–32). The superiority of  the theological virtues is clearly articulated by Dante, for they ‘ “miran più profondo/ look deeper” ’ (Purg., XXXI.111; Sinclair, II.409) and show themselves ‘di più alto tribo/ ne li atti/ by their bearing

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to be of a higher order’ (Purg., XXXI.130–31; Sinclair, II.409). Thus the fifth vision sets before us the higher reality of  the theological virtues (Passus XV–XVII) and the sixth vision (Passus XVIII) the Crucifixion of  Christ as the supreme example of  love. Finally, we ascend to Dobest (Passus XIX– XX), and to the life of grace (vision 7) and the unremitting struggle against the Antichrist (vision 8). The inner visions imply a yet deeper level of spiritual meaning. The inner vision within the third vision (vision 3a; Passus XI.4–404) in the context of  the acquisition of  knowledge stresses at the same time the limitation of  learning, for justice is superior to learning. What is the point of  learning if it is used to a bad end? Hence Chaucer shows that the Clerk of  Oxenford, for all his knowledge of  ‘Aristotle and his philosophie’ (GP, A 295), is distinguished in the end not by the brilliance of  his learning but by his love of moral virtue (GP, A 307–8): Sownynge in moral vertu was his speche, And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche.

In the same way Samuel Johnson has a sober warning for those who prefer brilliance to truth (The Rambler): If, instead of wandering after the meteors of philosophy which fill the world with splendour for a while, and then sink and are forgotten, the candidates of  learning fixed their eyes upon the permanent lustre of moral and religious truth, they would find a more certain direction to happiness.16

The inner vision within the fifth vision (vision 5a; Passus XVI.20–167) tells of  the Tree of  Charity and of  the history of  Christ up to his betrayal by Judas Iscariot. Here we are to understand the deepest meaning of  love that stands at the core of  Christian belief. It will be clear from this summary that Langland has set out his poem in accordance with some fundamental principles of medieval poetic art. The triad Dowel, Dobet and Dobest reveals that pattern of a continuous, graded hierarchy so beloved of  Aristotle in which the higher principle (Dobet, then Dobest) includes the lower (Dowel, then Dobet) but contains in addition a dif ferentiating principle.17 In the same way the rational principle in man

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contains the sensitive, and the sensitive the vegetative, and these distinctions are represented symbolically by Aristotle in terms of pentangle, quadrangle and triangle.18 At the same time this subtly dif ferentiated hierarchy yields a unity of  the various functions, for the rational soul is a unity of interrelated parts or powers.19 That this view of  the relationship between Dowel, Dobet and Dobest is present in Langland’s earliest conception of  his poem is confirmed by the words of  Wit, that is, Understanding, in the A-Text (PPl, A X.118–28): ‘Þus in dred liþ Dowel, and Dobet to suf fre, For þoruȝ suf fraunce se þou miȝt how soueraynes ariseþ;  patient endurance of                             hardship, af  f  liction And so leriþ vs Luk, þat leiȝede neuere:            teaches;deceived Qui se humiliat exaltabitur …       he who exalteth himself, shall be humbled

And þus of dred and his dede Dobest arisiþ, Which is þe f lour and þe fruyt fostrid of  boþe.           nourished   ‘Riȝt as a rose, þat red is and swete, Out of a raggit rote and a rouȝ brere         rough;prickly;briar Springeþ and sprediþ, þat spiceris desiriþ,      dealers in spices,apothecaries Or as whete out of weed waxiþ out of þe erþe, So Dobest out of  Dobet and Dowel gynneþ springe Among men of þis molde þat mek ben and kynde.’        world

Although this passage is omitted from B and C there remain passages that show that Langland’s conception of  the hierarchical interdependence of  Dowel, Dobet and Dobest remains unchanged in the successive revisions of  his poem.20 The exposition of  the acquisition of  knowledge in Dowel is grounded in the ref lection on the superiority of justice to learning in the inner dream, and the exposition of  the theological virtues in Dobet is grounded in the deeper meaning of  love in the inner dream. The setting of dream within dream in this fashion is highly characteristic of  the art of  the Middle Ages. Thus in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight three successive bedroom scenes are framed by three successive hunts (of deer, boar and fox respectively) and the Exchange of  Winnings agreement as a whole is set within the Beheading Game.21 Such interlaced patterning or polyphonic narrative is a commonplace of medieval romance.

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As in our appreciation of  the great cathedrals of medieval England we are led to marvel not only at the magnificence of a great design but also at the intricacy of  the craftsmanship of  the smallest details, so too in Piers Plowman we must recognise Langland’s mastery of  the native alli­ terative medium. His love of wordplay, in particular, is unusual in alliterative poetry and has led his editor to compare him to Shakespeare in this respect.22 Langland shows both restraint and ingenuity in his wordplay. Thus in introducing the key name of  Peter (Petrus) into his poem as the rock (petra) on which the belief of  the Church (and of  Piers) is founded, Langland eschews the obvious pun and proceeds to make an elaborate pun on ‘cardinals’. Peter has the keys to the kingdom of  heaven, but the cardinals are the hinges on which our salvation turns (just as the cardinal virtues themselves) (PPl, B Prol. 100–6):  I parceyued of þe power þat Peter hadde to kepe –         saw To bynden and to vnbynden, as þe Book telleþ –  impose penance and absolve sins How he it lefte wiþ loue as Oure Lord hiȝte         commanded Amonges foure vertues, most vertuous of alle vertues, That cardinals ben called and closynge yates       closing gates (like hinges) There Crist is in kyngdom, to close and to shette,          where;shut And to opene it to hem and heuene blisse shewe.      i.e. the virtues

Thus if we apply the test of  beauty to Piers Plowman we can be sure from the beginning that in its larger structure and design and in the detail and ornamentation of its parts we are in the presence of a sublime work of art. Piers Plowman may lack the perfection of  the Commedia, or of  Troilus and Criseyde or of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but it is lucid and intelligible. But Langland, unlike Dante, is equally the object of reverence and condescension, admired for the sublimity of  his writing and deplored for (supposedly) the confusion and monotony of  his argument. The fault is not in Langland but in his readers, at least his modern readers. We have simply not taken him seriously enough and have not submitted ourselves willingly enough to the power of  his poetry. The sense of dif ficulty in our modern readings of  Langland is ref lected in responses to the characters or figures of  his fiction. This is understandable in the case of such figures as Kind Wit, Conscience and

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Reason which rely upon the subtle distinctions of  Aristotelian faculty psychology, or of  Favel, Guile, Liar and False, where we have to deal with the many disguises and machinations with which falseness presents itself  to us in this world. But it is more dismaying to find that such central figures as Lady Holy Church, Meed and Theology are misconceived, for Langland has seemingly gone out of  his way to make their central meanings significant. Holy Church is the ‘louely lady … in lynnen ycloþed’ (PPl, B I.3) who comes down from the tower (as Boethius’s Lady Philosophia before her) to discourse to the dreamer on truth (Passus I) and then to lay bare before his disbelieving eyes the true nature of  falsehood (Passus II–IV). Meed is not first of all mentioned by name until we are guaranteed by a dramatic gesture her true place among the false on the dreamer’s left and in the north (PPl, B II.1–8): Yet I courbed on my knees and cried hire of grace    knelt down;begged for And seide, ‘Mercy, madame, for Marie loue of  heuene,     have mercy;for the                           love of  Mary of  heaven That bar þat blisful barn that bouȝte vs on the rode –   bore;blessed;child;                             redeemed;Cross Kenne me by som craft to knowe þe false.’           teach;means,way   ‘Loke vpon þi left half, and lo where he stondeþ –        hand;see Boþe Fals and Fauel, and hire feeres manye!’       Deceit;Cunning   I loked on my left half as þe lady me tauȝte,         hand;directed And was war of a womman wonderliche ycloþed.        aware;wonderfully

Naturally she does not seem to be what she is, any more than the Fals Semblant of  The Romaunt of  the Rose (c. 1368–1372), for she would otherwise not be false (RR, 7443–48, and PPl, II.17–19): And Fals-Semblant had he sayn als,             seen;also But he knew nat that he was fals. Yet fals was he, but his falsnesse Ne coude he nat espye nor gesse;            detect;suspect For Semblaunt was so slye wrought,            cunning;fashioned That Falsnesse he ne espyed nought.

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 Hire array me rauysshed, swich richesse sauȝ I neuere.        clothing;                            entranced;opulence I hadde wonder what she was and whos wif she were.        might be ‘What is þis womman,’ quod I, ‘so worþili atired?’        what kind of

In her scarlet robes and precious rings she seems to be a Wife (how else to explain such conspicuous wealth?) and the dreamer (even with his recent access to the truth and reverence for Holy Church) is not merely impressed by her but dazzled by her. But she is not a wife (although she would make a suitable wife for a character such as False). She is a maid, and that is a fact that Langland repeats insistently in the course of  the following passus, for the truth is truly shocking and hard to grasp (PPl, B II.20, 57 and 235, and B III.1–4, 36, 87 and 105): ‘That is Mede þe mayde,’ quod she, ‘haþ noyed me ful ofte, …’     harmed To marien þis mayde was many man assembled.      witness the wedding of Saue Mede þe mayde na mo dorste abide.      no one else;dared;to remain Now is Mede þe mayde and na mo of  hem alle,           no one else Wiþ bedeles and baillies brouȝt bifore þe Kynge.  by means of;beadles;bailif fs The Kyng called a clerk – I kan noȝt his name –           know To take Mede þe maide and maken hire at ese.         treat hospitably To Mede þe mayde he meled þise wordes.        addressed,uttered Ac Mede þe mayde þe mair h[eo] bisouȝt[e].    but;mayor;she;beseeched To Mede þe mayde melleþ þise wordes.               utters

Meed is a maid, and false in herself. False even before her marriage to False. She is false by parentage, that is, false in the very conception of  those who

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mistake material reward for true happiness. It is an error we all make and from which the dreamer has yet fully to emancipate himself. It is a truth we do not wish to believe. Hence Langland begins by situating her among the false, because he knows that we are loath to accept the truth about her. Here Langland includes Theology with his clever but specious justification of  Meed, contradicting and in ef fect undermining the authority of  Lady Holy Church (PPl, B II.115–41). Even modern commentators on the poem unwittingly play their part with their claims for Meed’s neutrality (Pearsall) and their description of  her (in defiance of  Langland’s fiction) as Lady Meed (a usage sanctioned by Skeat himself ).23 She is not merely the desire for material reward, that is, cupidity, but the material reward itself as the object of cupidity. This is a distinction that Langland has painstakingly made clear (PPl, B II.51): ‘And þat no conscience acombre þee for coueitise of  Mede.’       vex

But Langland’s methods of ushering the reader into the truth of  his poem are those of a great dramatic poet with a f lair for metaphorical discourse. The world’s great allegorical poems are by and large medieval poems, for the metaphors rest on secure intellectual and philosophical foundations. Much of  the time it is simply too much for us, as in the very opening lines of  the poem. This becomes at once clear if we compare the original text with two modern translations. Langland’s justly celebrated lines read (PPl, B Prol. 1–19): In a somer seson, whan softe was þe sonne,          mild;sun I shoop me into shroudes as I a sheep were,     dressed myself;garments;as if In habite as an heremite vnholy of werkes,             wicked Wente wide in þis world wondres to here.              hear Ac on a May morwenynge on Maluerne Hilles          but;morning Me bifel a ferly, of  fairye me þoȝte.         marvel;(place of ) enchantment I was wery [of ]wandred and wente me to reste         wandered astray Vnder a brood bank by a bournes syde;             stream’s And as I lay and lenede and loked on þe watres,          reclined I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.   fell asleep;sounded;sweetly   Thanne gan [me] to meten a merueillous sweuene –      dream;dream That I was in a wildernesse, wiste I neuere where.

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As I biheeld into þe eest an heiȝ to þe sonne,          on high I seiȝ a tour on a toft trieliche ymaked,          saw;hillock;excellently A deep dale byneþe, a dongeon þerinne, Wiþ depe diches and derke and dredfulle of siȝte. A fair feeld ful of  folk fond I þer bitwene – Of alle manere of men, þe meene and þe riche,          poor Werchynge and wandrynge as þe world askeþ.         working,requires

If we were to rely on a modern translation rather than the original text we would encounter one or other of  the following descriptions: One summer season, when the sun was warm, I rigged myself out in shaggy woollen clothes, as if  I were a shepherd; and in the garb of an easy-living hermit I set out to roam far and wide through the world, hoping to hear of marvels.24 One summer time, when the sun was mild, I dressed myself in sheepskin clothing, the habit of a hermit of unholy life, and wandered abroad in this world, listening out for its strange and wonderful events.25

Why are these lines so troublesome for us? Why are we so literal-minded? The dreamer is not a shepherd and he is not clad in a sheepskin coat. This is hardly the attire in any case for a sunny May day in the Malvern Hills. The dreamer has lost his way. He is ‘wery [of ]wandred’ (PPl, B Prol. 7). That is the way with sheep. They follow one another with little thought for their own safety and huddle together for comfort and safety. If we doubt the testimony of our own knowledge of sheep, we may just as readily appeal to Dante (Purgatorio, III.79–84; Sinclair, II, p. 49):   Come le pecorelle escon del chiuso a una, a due, a tre, e l’altre stanno timidette atterrando l’occhio e ’l muso;   e ciò che fa la prima, e l’altre fanno, addossandosi a lei, s’ella s’arresta, semplici e quete, e lo ’mperché non sanno. As the sheep come forth from the fold by one and two and three and the rest stand timid, bending eyes and muzzle to the ground, and what the first does the rest do, pressing up behind it if it stops, simple and quiet, and do not know why.

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But in reality there is little safety to be found in a herd of sheep. They are timorous creatures and they need a guide. Langland might have thought himself safe with his audience in invoking so common a metaphor as the lost sheep. It is familiar from Isaiah, 53.6: All we like sheep have gone astray (erravimus), every one hath turned aside into his own way : and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all,

and made yet more familiar by the round of church services. Even now (2007), in St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, we begin Matins after the Exhortation with the General Confession: Almighty and most merciful Father; we have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have of fended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us.

Indeed, there is no health in our dreamer, as we discover the moment he falls into his sleep. The medievals look to Macrobius not to Freud for their understanding of dreams, and in dreams they expect the revelation of profound truth.26 It is at once clear that the dreamer, albeit in the Malvern Hills and in the sun, is in spiritual reality in a wilderness, a frightening and desolate place. His condition is hardly less to be feared than that of  Dante’s dreamer at the beginning of  the Inferno (I.1–7; Sinclair, I, p. 23): Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita   mi ritrovai per una selva oscura   che la diritta via era smarrita. Ah quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura   esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte   che nel pensier rinova la paura! Tant’ è amara che poco è più morte. In the middle of  the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard a thing it is to tell of  that wood, savage and harsh and dense, the thought of which renews my fear! So bitter is it that death is hardly more.

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This is what it means to have lost one’s way. Indeed, so bereft is the dreamer that he has entirely lost his grip on truth and falsehood, apparently without the means of  helping himself. He has indeed reduced himself  to a servile, sheep-like condition, and Holy Church, although a lady, has no time for such nonsense. The dreamer is in need not of comforting words but of a sharp rebuke if  he is to come to his senses (PPl, B I.138–41a):   ‘Yet haue I no kynde knowynge,’ quod I, ‘yet mote ye kenne me bettre                   natural understanding; must;teach By what craft in my cors it comseþ, and where.’    power;body;comes into being  ‘Thow doted daf fe!’ quod she, ‘dulle are þi wittes,       foolish;idiot To litel Latyn þow lernedest, leode, in þi youthe:      learnt;my man Heu michi quod sterilem duxi vitam iuuenilem!’   Alas, what a useless life I                         led in my youth!

He has to learn to think for himself and to return to the simple truths in the teaching of  the Church from which he has long departed in his ignorance. In her exposition of  Truth as justice and love Lady Holy Church sets him on the path by which he may eventually redeem himself. But as we see at the beginning of  Passus II and the meeting with Meed he remains as yet no match for the false attractions of  his present existence. The struggle with Meed centring on the allegory of  the marriage to False is a hard struggle, occupying Passus II–IV and the rest of  the first vision. Meed is persuasive not only to the dreamer, but also to many (perhaps most) of  those in positions of authority, at court, in the Church (that is, the ecclesiastical institution as distinct from the divinely appointed witness) and in the towns. Courtiers, friars, mayors, all run to do the bidding of  Meed. Nevertheless Meed is rejected by Conscience in the light of  Kind Wit and with the unwavering support of reason. The Scholastic faculty psychology that underlines these personifications is technically dif ficult, perhaps, but straightforward. Kind Wit is the infallible knowledge of  the first principles of  the moral order (essentially, if not precisely, what Aquinas calls synderesis), Conscience is the fallible judgment in particular cases and hence always open to question (but here a right judgment) and Reason is the moral virtue of prudence, that is, right reason in practical matters. By this means and with the utmost precision Langland shows that Conscience

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is right to reject Meed as a possible wife. There has to be a better way to live one’s life in this world other than to set it on the gratification of material goods in the pursuit of which so much else goes awry. Langland has no doubt that the love of money is the root of all evil. His argument is that of  Chaucer’s Pardoner, but shorn of  the Pardoner’s hypocrisy: ‘Radix malorum est Cupiditas’ (PardProl, C 333–34 and 423– 28). The importance of  this issue for Langland is seen in the space devoted to Covetousness (Coveitise) among the Deadly Sins, namely, one hundred and eleven lines (PPl, B V.186–296). With Covetousness goes Gluttony, even in a world of  famine, with eighty-nine lines (PPl, B V.297–385) and Sloth with seventy-six lines (PPl, B V.386–461). Pride gets no more than nine lines (PPl, B V.62–70) and lust (the preoccupation of so many spiritual leaders down the ages, it seems) a mere four (PPl, B V.71–74). Such love of money is truly ignorant. Hence Covetousness is ignorant of  the very meaning of  the word restitution and confounds it with its opposite, robbery, something with which he is much more familiar (PPl, B V.228–35):   ‘Repentedestow euere?’ quod Repentaunce, ‘ne restitucion madest?’  did you                    ever repent or make restitution?   ‘Ȝis : ones I was yherberwed’, quod he, ‘wiþ an heep of chapmen;  once;                      lodged;crowd;merchants I roos whan þei were a-reste and rif lede hire males!’   got up;at rest;robbed;bags   ‘That was no restitucion,’ quod Repentaunce, ‘but a robberis þefte; Thow haddest be bettre worþi ben hanged þerfore          for it Than for al þat þat þow hast here shewed!’         confessed to  ‘I wende rif lynge were restitucion,’ quod he, ‘for I lerned  thought;ransacking;                neuere rede on boke,        read And I kan no Frenssh, in feiþ, but of þe ferþest ende         know;                  of  Northfolk.’       Norfolk

Norfolk is a by-word for ignorance (perhaps in this respect much like the Forest of  Dean). It is an out-of-the-way part of  East Anglia that no one will visit unless he or she has a special reason for doing so. Hence Chaucer’s Reeve, a mean-minded, suspicious and vindictive figure (superstitious,

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too, if we are to judge from the carpenter of  The Miller’s Tale) hails from Bawdeswell in Norfolk (GP, A 619–20): Of  Northfolk was this Reve of which I telle, Biside a toun men clepen Baldeswelle.               call

Such a focus on ignorance sums up the essential nature of covetousness, for one has to be ignorant indeed to place the joy of one’s heart upon the acquisition and hoarding of money. It is uncomfortable for us to acknowledge the extent of such ignorance in our own world. We are unable to maintain our hospitals and schools and to pay our teachers and nurses an adequate salary, but we can build football stadiums and pay thousands of pounds a week to football players, managers and agents (most of  them foreign), or host an Olympic Games. As for our soldiers, we send them to die on our behalf  for less than the minimum wage. It is economic distortions such as these that give an edge of indignation to the argument of  Piers Plowman. But Langland’s anger is not an uncontrolled or savage anger. It is a just anger born of compassion for those whose lives are blighted by hardship and suf fering. The question of poverty is not a mere matter of economic theory, but a fact of daily life made unnecessarily worse by cruelty and greed. It finds its moral centre in the noble figure of  the ploughman, Piers. It is time to make a fresh start. We cannot keep on going down the road with Meed without irreparable damage to the fabric of our society. Langland represents this fresh start in terms of  the Christian doctrine of penance. But the institutional remedy for sin is itself open to the corruption of  Meed as is everything else. It is possible to go on pilgrimages in the same spirit of ignorance that leads one to commit sin in the first place. Who is going to guide the pilgrims on the way to Truth? Not the professional pilgrim or palmer. Like the Wife of  Bath (GP, A 463–67), he has been on all the major pilgrim routes, to Assisi, to Galicia, to Rome, to the Holy Land itself, to Egypt, to Armenia and to Alexandria, and has all the relics to prove the fact (PPl, B 515–31). But he has still no knowledge of  Truth. He has never heard of such a person. We cannot shed the error of our ways simply by going on pilgrimage with others like ourselves. It is possible to

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be a convivial travelling companion but at the same time to lack spiritual insight. We need a guide. At this moment of doubt the compelling figure of  the Ploughman enters the poem. He knows the way. He has no doubt of it (PPl, V.537–42):  ‘Peter!’ quod a Plowman, and putte forþ his heued,     by St Peter;head ‘I knowe hym as kyndely as clerc doþ hise bokes.        naturally;scholar Conscience and Kynde Wit kenned me to his place   Natural Understanding                             (synderesis);directed And diden me suren hym [siþþen] sikerly to seruen hym for euere,     made;                          promise; afterward;without fail Boþe to sowe and to sette þe while I swynke myȝte.    plant;labour;could I haue ben his folwere al þis fourty wynter.         follower;winters

What are we to make of so dramatic an intervention? The first word uttered by Piers by way of exclamation is ‘Peter’, that is, the invocation of  the authority of  St Peter and at the same time his own baptismal but not familiar name. Such exclamations in medieval texts are seldom empty of meaning but carry the full weight of original significance. When Sir Gawain arrives at the castle of  Hautdesert in answer to his prayer as Christmas approaches he is greeted at once by the faultlessly polite porter (SGGK, 811–14): ‘Gode sir,’ quoþ Gawan, ‘woldez þou go myn ernde    go as my messenger To þe heȝ lorde of þis hous, herber to craue?        noble;lodging ‘Ȝe, Peter,’ quoþ þe porter, ‘and purely I trowee    yes;by St Peter;certainly;think Þat ȝe be, wyȝe, welcum to won quyle yow lykez.’  sir (knight);dwell;it pleases you

It is the outward sign (perhaps a misleading sign in some respects) that all is well. Such should a porter be, as St Peter himself is the porter at the gateway to heaven. In Piers Plowman the speaker (we have yet to learn that his own name is Piers) signifies his utter confidence in the authority of  St Peter as the rock on which the church of  Christ is founded. Whereas the errant dreamer has lost touch with the teaching of  the Church into which he was baptised Piers the Plowman has adhered steadfastly to his belief over a long life of  labour and service. His confidence in his knowledge of  truth is not the false confidence or presumption of adolescence or youth

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(the presumption of a Red Cross Knight),27 but the product of  long experience in the world of work. He has served a lifetime at the plough, that is, some forty years, just as the Knight of  the General Prologue has served forty years in the field from the siege of  Algeçiras (1342–1344) to the crusades in Prussia with the Teutonic knights (1382–1385). He is now ‘old and hoor’ (PPl, B VI.83). But his belief is undiminished; rather it has been vindicated. Lady Holy Church is the authoritative expositor of  truth, but Piers is a shining example of a life led in the light of  truth. Piers is a sincere and faithful Christian labourer, obedient to the teachings of  the Church and justified by them. He is not naïve and he is not perfect, but he is admirable; admirable in the degree to which a knight such as the Knight of  the General Prologue is admirable. He is a worthy example and advocate of  his own estate and gives due dignity to that estate. It has become fashionable to pour scorn on the uneducated working person (and sometimes such people invite scorn). But the moral nobility of a Piers and the thousands like him is not to be mocked and, as Langland makes abundantly clear, it is superior to the moral ignorance of many well educated people.

Notes 1 2

3 4 5

The Sunday Telegraph, Money & Jobs, 21 January 2007, M1. Pridie, that is, ‘on the day before’, alludes to ‘Qui pridie quam pateretur in the canon of  the mass: … a priest who found he had forgotten to bring the bread and wine was obliged to recommence at this point: hence the name indicates that Sir Piers was incompetent’. See J.A.W. Bennett (ed.), Langland, Piers Plowman: The Prologue and Passus I–VII of  the B text as found in Bodleian MS. Laud Misc. 581, Clarendon Medieval and Tudor Series (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 173–74. George Walter (ed.), Ivor Gurney, Rewards of  Wonder: Poems of  Cotswold, France, London (Ashington: Carcanet Press, 2000), p. 39. Rewards of  Wonder, p. 63. Rewards of  Wonder, Introduction, p. 9.

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John Lucas, Ivor Gurney, Writers and their Work (Tavistock: Northcote House Publishers, 2001), p. 105. 7 On Kind Wit, see Gerald Morgan, ‘The Meaning of  Kind Wit, Conscience, and Reason in the First Vision of  Piers Plowman’, MP, 84 (1987), 351–58 (pp. 351–53). 8 On all these matters, see John Harvey, The Perpendicular Style 1330–1485 (London: B.T. Batsford Ltd, 1978). 9 See Hugh E.L. Collins, The Order of  the Garter 1348–1461: Chivalry and Politics in Late Medieval England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), p. 39. 10 This is the opinion of  Francis Ingledew, ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ and the Order of  the Garter (Notre Dame, IN: University of  Notre Dame Press, 2006). 11 In view of  the dates of  these three poets it may be more accurate to describe this age as an Edwardian rather than a Ricardian Age. It is Edward III (born 1312; king 1327–1377) and his eldest son, Edward of  Woodstock (1330–1376), Prince of  Wales and Aquitaine, Earl of  Chester (1333) and Duke of  Cornwall (1337), who as king and prince are the inspirational leaders of  English chivalry. Edward of  Woodstock’s second son, Richard of  Bordeaux (born 1367; king, as Richard II, 1377–1399) proved unable to match their illustrious reputations. 12 C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of  Love (London: Oxford University Press, 1936), pp. 160–61. 13 Samuel Daniel, A Defence of  Ryme (1603), 494–99, in Poems and A Defence of  Ryme, edited by Arthur Colby Sprague (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1950), p. 143. 14 See Charlotte Brewer, Editing ‘Piers Plowman’: The Evolution of  the Text (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 288–89 and 311 and n. 4. 15 Matthew Arnold, ‘The Study of  Poetry’ (1880), printed in Essays in Criticism, Second Series (London: MacMillan and Co., 1908), pp. 16–17. 16 Samuel Johnson, The Rambler (1750–52), edited by W.J. Bate and Albrecht B. Strauss, Volumes III–V, The Yale Edition of  the Works of  Samuel Johnson (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1969), Number 180 (Saturday, 7 December 1751), V.186. 17 See Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of  Being: A Study of  the History of an Idea (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 50–59. 18 See Aristotle, De anima, II.3, Aquinas, ST, 1a 76.3 and 1a 78.1 and Dante, Convivio, IV.7.14–15. 19 Aquinas, ST, 1a 76.3: ‘Sed si ponamus animam corpori uniri sicut ad formam, omnino impossibile videtur plures animas per essentiam dif ferentes in uno corpore esse … Sic ergo dicendum quod eadem numero est anima in homine sensitiva et intellectiva et nutritiva./ But given that the soul is united to the body as its form, it seems absolutely impossible for several essentially dif ferent souls to 6

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inform one body … We must assert, then, that the soul in man is one in number, at once sensory, intellectual and nutritive’ (translated by Timothy Suttor). 20 See PPl, B VIII.84 and 95 and IX.204–5, and C X.82 and 93. 21 See Gerald Morgan, ‘The Action of  the Hunting and Bedroom Scenes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Medium Aevum, 56 (1987), 200–16. 22 A.V.C. Schmidt (ed.), William Langland: The Vision of  Piers Plowman, Everyman, second edition ( J.M. Dent: London; Charles E. Tuttle, Vermont, 1995), Introduction, pp. li–liv. 23 See Pearsall, p. 57, note to II.43 and Rev. Walter W. Skeat (ed.), The Vision of  William concerning Piers the Plowman, EETS (OS) 38 (London: Oxford University Press, 1869), pp. xlviii–xlix. 24 J.F. Goodridge (trans.), William Langland: Piers the Ploughman, Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1959; revised edition, 1966), p. 25. 25 A.V.C. Schmidt, William Langland, Piers Plowman: A New Translation of  the B-Text, World’s Classics (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 1. 26 On Macrobius (f l. 400 a.d.) and the significance of dreams, see Gerald Morgan, The Tragic Argument of  ‘Troilus and Criseyde’, 2 vols (Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2005), pp. 505–7 and Commentary on the Dream of  Scipio, translated by William Harris Stahl (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1952). 27 See Gerald Morgan, ‘ “Add faith vnto your force”: the perfecting of  Spenser’s knight of  holiness in faith and humility’, Renaissance Studies, 18 (2004), 449–74 (pp. 454–59).

5  The Ending of  Troilus and Criseyde

Sempre quello che massimamente dire intende lo dicitore sì dee riservare di dietro; però che quello che ultimamente si dice, più rimane ne l’animo de lo uditore.1 — DANTE, Convivio, II.viii.2 … th’ende is every tales strengthe. — CHAUCER, Troilus and Criseyde, II.260

I.  The art that has gone into the making of  Troilus and Criseyde is at once evident in the formality of its structure. The narrative is disposed by Chaucer into five books ‘[t]he double sorwe of  Troilus to tellen’ (I.1);2 Books I and II tell of  the sorrows of  falling in love and of courtship; Book III celebrates the consummation of  the love (albeit in a manner full of  tragic irony) and Books IV and V tell of  the sorrows of  the loss of  love. The formal organization of  the poem is further underlined by a corresponding series of proems and invocations. John Burrow is led to conclude that ‘Troilus is, indeed, the supreme example of  formal articulation in Ricardian verse, surpassing even Sir Gawain in clarity and symmetry of structure’.3 What Burrow takes to be a characteristic excellence of a Ricardian poet may perhaps be considered more generally as a dominant feature in a medieval work of art. Aquinas tells us in the Summa theologiae that beauty itself resides in the combination of clarity and fitness of proportion (ST, 2a 2ae 145.2): Dicendum quod, sicut accipi potest ex verbis Dionysii [De divinis nominibus, 4. Lect.5], ad rationem pulchri sive decori concurrit et claritas et debita proportio. Dicit enim quod Deus dicitur pulcher, sicut universorum consonantiae, et claritatis causa. Unde pulchritudo corporis in hoc consistit quod homo habeat membra corporis bene proportionata cum quadam debiti coloris claritate. Et similiter pulchritudo

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GERALD MORGAN spiritualis in hoc consistit quod conversatio hominis sive actio ejus sit bene proportionata secundum spiritualem rationis claritatem. As may be gathered from Dionysius, beauty or handsomeness arises when fine proportions and brightness run together; he says that God is named Beautiful because he is the cause of  the consonance and clarity of  the universe. So beauty of  body consists in shapely limbs and features having a certain proper glow of colour. So also beauty of spirit consists in conversation and actions that are well-formed and suf fused with intelligence. (translated by Thomas Gilby)

Beauty in poetry, as Dante observes in the Convivio, is a harmony in structure, language and movement (II.xi.9; Ryan, 65): O uomini, che vedere non potete la sentenza di questa canzone, non la rifiutate però; ma ponete mente la sua bellezza, ch’ è grande sì per construzione, la quale si pertiene a li gramatici, sì per l’ordine del sermone, che si pertiene a li rettorici, sì per lo numero de le sue parti, che si pertiene a li musici. Le quali cose in essa si possono belle vedere, per chi ben guarda. O people who cannot grasp the meaning of  this canzone, do not for that reason spurn it; rather, recognize the great beauty it has: in syntax, the province of grammarians, in the structure governing its presentation, the province of rhetoricians, and in the rhythmical form of its parts, the province of musicians. These features in her can be appreciated as beautiful by every attentive observer.4

But the greater the ease with which we can explain the formal excellence of Troilus and Criseyde in terms of medieval aesthetic principles, the more acute becomes the problem of its ending. Unlike other works by Chaucer, it is a finished work, the product of  both careful thought and fine execution. It would seem to follow that the excellence of its form will above all be apparent in the artistic inevitability of  the ending to which it draws. But for many modern readers the ending of  Troilus and Criseyde is not so much pleasing as shocking, for in it Chaucer seems to reject those human values that otherwise distinguish his poetic representation of  the tragic loves of  his hero and heroine. In the course of  the present article it is my intention to vindicate Troilus and Criseyde as a finished work of art, that is to say, as complete in terms of  those principles of clarity and proportion that constitute its

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beauty, and to show that those principles of  beauty are specially present (as they have to be) in its ending. But our sense of  the fitness of  the ending of  Troilus and Criseyde above all rests upon the fact that it contains the essential meaning that the poem as a whole seeks to convey. To argue for a union of  form and content is not in any way to call into question the humanity of  Chaucer, although it has to be admitted that the moral and spiritual values of  the Middle Ages (and of  Troilus and Criseyde) are not always those that a modern reader would like them to be. II.  The search for a solution to the problem of  the ending of  Troilus and Criseyde may begin by a consideration of  two of  the more notable modern interpretations of it, for at the least they make us aware of  the dif ficulties that have to be overcome. C.S. Lewis sees in the ending a palinode in the authentic medieval manner: The Chaplain’s palinode does not stand alone. In the last stanzas of  the book of  Troilus, in the harsher recantation that closes the life and work of Chaucer as a whole, in the noble close of  Malory, it is the same. We hear the bell clang; and the children, suddenly hushed and grave, and a little frightened, troop back to their master.5

Lewis has taught us not to patronize the past and his own patronage of  Chaucer and the Middle Ages here is fatal to his understanding of  Troilus and Criseyde. It needs certainly to be stated that our view of  Chaucer the poet is not to be bounded by the image of  the self-deprecating ironist that modern criticism has a little too readily devised for him. The Chaucer of  Troilus and Criseyde, at any rate, takes his vocation as a poet with the utmost seriousness. Only a poet convinced of  his own high purpose could encourage (in however humble a manner) a comparison of  his work with that of  Virgil, Ovid, Homer, Lucan and Statius (V.1789–92). The conclusion of  E. Talbot Donaldson is to be preferred to that of  Lewis in so far as it is consistent with a more exalted view of  the poet and his work:

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GERALD MORGAN The poem states, what much of  Chaucer’s poetry states, the necessity under which men lie of  living in, making the best of, enjoying, and loving a world from which they must remain detached and which they must ultimately hate … For this paradox there is no logical resolution.6

This conclusion possesses the kind of sophistication that a reading of  Troilus and Criseyde requires of us, but it is an unmedieval sophistication. On the face of it we have a striking example of what Charles Muscatine has aptly described as ‘our typical mid-century feeling for an unresolved dialectic’.7 It is not impossible in theory that here is a point at which medieval and modern sensibilities coincide. But it has to be said that a reader of  the Summa theologiae will not find that a taste for paradox and ambiguity is at all a characteristic of  the thought of  Aquinas. Instead he or she will learn that the first of  the self-evident principles of  the speculative intellect upon which human reasoning depends is the principle of contradiction, that is, that the same thing cannot be af firmed and denied at the same time (ST, 1a 2ae 94.2): Et ideo primum principium indemonstrabile est quod non est simul af firmare et negare, quod fundatur supra rationem entis et non entis; et super hoc principio omnia alia fundantur, ut dicit Philosophus in IV Meta [IV.3 1005b 29]. This first indemonstrable principle, ‘There is no af firming and denying the same simultaneously’, is based on the very nature of  the real and the non-real: on this principle, as Aristotle notes, all other propositions are based. (translated by Thomas Gilby)

The Scholastic philosopher brings to the complexity of  things and of  the perception of  things not a paradox but a distinction. The paradox for which there is no logical resolution can be avoided by a modification of one of its terms. Scholasticism does not propose a simple loving or simple hating of  the world but attributes to the world a qualified goodness. Aquinas himself does not think in terms of an opposition between supernatural and natural orders but stresses rather the continuity of divine grace and human free will. Hence we are led to distinguish between the principal good that is our ultimate end (that is, God) and the secondary good that is the means to the ultimate end (ST, 2a 2ae 23.7):

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Sicut ergo duplex est finis, unus ultimus et alius proximus, ita etiam est duplex bonum, unum quidem ultimum, et aliud proximum et particulare. Therefore as end is twofold, ultimate and proximate, so too is good, ultimate on the one hand, proximate and particular on the other. (translated by R.J. Batten)

Among the secondary goods it is necessary also to distinguish between the true and the false (ST, 2a 2ae 23.7): Bonum autem secundarium et quasi particulare hominis potest esse duplex, unum quidem quod est vere bonum, utpote ordinabile, quantum est in se, ad principale bonum, quod est ultimus finis, aliud autem est bonum apparens et non verum, quia abducit a finali bono. A secondary and, as it were, particular good is also twofold, one which is truly good and by its nature capable of  being directed to the principal good which is the ultimate end, another a seeming but not a true good, since it leads man away from his final good.

The direct source of  Scholastic thought in Troilus and Criseyde is no doubt Dante’s Divina Commedia, and such a source explains at once the poetic resourcefulness with which Chaucer has handled these ideas in his own poem. We do not have to resort to speculation in our observation of  this process, for Chaucer draws in precise detail from all three canticas of  the Commedia at vital points in his work. The distinctions of principal and secondary goods and of  true and false secondary goods he will have found in the Purgatorio, where it is said of  the rational love (XVII.97–102; Sinclair, II.225):   Mentre ch’elli è nel primo ben diretto, e ne’ secondi sé stesso misura, esser non può cagion di mal diletto;   ma quando al mal si torce, o con più cura o con men che non dee corre nel bene, contra ’l fattore adovra sua fattura. While it is directed on the primal good and on the secondary keeps right measure it cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure; but when it is warped to evil, or with more or with less concern than is due pursues its good, against the Creator works His creature.

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From the interpretations of  Lewis and Donaldson (even if  by way of disagree­ment) we can draw two conditions that a satisfactory explanation of  the ending of  Troilus and Criseyde needs to fulfil; the first is that it must show a proper regard for the seriousness with which a medieval poet can take his vocation as a poet; and the second is that it must be demonstrated (and not merely inferred) that the ideas of a poem can be placed in a possible historical context. III.  Dante appeals to the beauty of  his Canzone, for he recognizes that its meaning is beyond the perception of many (Convivio, II.xi.9). There are fewer readers still whom he expects to follow his course through the Paradiso (II.1–6; Sinclair, III.33):   O voi che siete in piccioletta barca, desiderosi d’ascoltar, seguiti dietro al mio legno che cantando varca,   tornate a riveder li vostri liti: non vi mettete in pelago, ché forse, perdendo me, rimarreste smarriti. O Ye who in a little bark, eager to listen, have followed behind my ship that singing makes her way, turn back to see your shores again; do not put forth on the deep, for, perhaps, losing me, you would be left bewildered.

Chaucer is no less aware of  the danger of incomprehension or misinterpretation. At the end of  Troilus and Criseyde he expresses a concern not only for the text and metre of  his poem, but also for the preservation of its very meaning (V.1797–98): And red wherso thow be, or elles songe, That thow be understonde, God I biseche!

Our appreciation of  the beauty of  the ending of  Troilus and Criseyde indeed requires that we have understood the meaning that the whole narrative has been designed to embody. And this in turn requires that we should be alert to the poetic stratagems by which the meaning of  the narrative is conveyed.

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The proems and invocations, the mythological and astrological allusions, are not mere learned adornments; they are vital expressions of  the poem’s meaning. Through them the poet conveys his tragic awareness of  the gulf  that separates human love from the divine and also his belief in the true bond of  love that unites them. It is not simply that human loves are false, for the falseness of  Criseyde is intolerable by human standards as well as divine. It is that the limited and imperfect love of  human beings receives its true value only when united to its divine source. All created being is set in motion by love and is animated by love, as Dante explains in Paradiso (XXVI.31–36; Sinclair, III.375):   Dunque a l’essenza ov’è tanto avvantaggio, che ciascun ben che fuor di lei si trova altro non è ch’un lume di suo raggio,   più che in altra convien che si mova la mente, amando, di ciascun che cerne il vero in che si fonda questa prova. To that Essence, then, in which is such pre-eminence that every good found outside of it is nothing but a light from its radiance, must be moved with love, more than to aught else, the mind of everyone who discerns the truth on which this reasoning rests.

This truth the Christian knows by both revelation and reason (Par., XXVI.25–27). Thus in his examination by St Peter on faith Dante declares (Par., XXIV.130–32; Sinclair, III.351):      … Io credo in uno Dio solo ed etterno, che tutto ’l ciel move, non moto, con amore e con disio. I believe in one God, sole and eternal, who, unmoved, moves all heaven with love and desire.

And in his examination by St John on love he is able to invoke also the authority of  Aristotle (Par., XXVI.37–39; Sinclair, III.375):   Tal vero a l’intelletto mïo sterne colui che mi dimostra il primo amore di tutte le sustanze sempiterne.

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GERALD MORGAN This truth he sets forth to my understanding who established for me the primal love of all the eternal beings.

Here we have in medieval poetry the Scholastic synthesis of  Christian doctrine and Aristotelian philosophy, and it is this synthesis upon which the meaning and formal lucidity of  Troilus and Criseyde also rests. The recognition of  the unlawfulness of  the secret love of  Troilus and Criseyde, and beyond it of  the imperfection of all merely earthly loves, does not necessitate a rejection of  the human values built into the poem as a whole. And here I want to distance myself as much from the interpretation of  D.W. Robertson as from that of  Donaldson. The compassion that is shown for both Troilus and Criseyde within the poem is a part only of a complex truth, but it is a part. According to Robertson, to be moved by compassion is to be moved by a false sentimentality: ‘If, in the course of  the poem, the plight of  Troilus has moved us to compassion, we too can laugh, partly at ourselves’.8 Here Robertson invokes the otherworldliness of medieval neo­-Platonism. But it is not enough to appeal to a system of  thought simply because it is a medieval system. The possibility of an other­ worldly solution to the problem of  love is countenanced in the passage on the Somnium Scipionis in The Parliament of  Fowls, but it is set aside as unsatisfactory (88–91): And to my bed I gan me for to dresse, Fulfyld of  thought and busy hevynesse; For bothe I hadde thyng which that I nolde, And ek I nadde that thyng that I wolde.

The figure of  Nature is unable to resolve the conf lict among her noblest creatures and has to appeal to a power beyond herself (632–33): If  I were Resoun, certes, thanne wolde I Conseyle yow the royal tercel take.

The inconclusiveness of  the poem’s ending (693–99) is a poetic recognition of  the inadequacy of  the Platonic doctrine of  the World Soul (which lies behind the figure of  Nature). Aristotle has no need of a World Soul, for

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he does not separate forms from things, and Chaucer seems to have been led in his reading to recognize the superiority of  Aristotelian to Platonic logic. The universe of  The Knight’s Tale is the Aristotelian universe that is described by Dante in the Paradiso and at its centre is the unmoved mover (A 2987–89):   The Firste Moevere of  the cause above, Whan he first made the faire cheyne of  love, Greet was th’ef fect, and heigh was his entente.

The great merit of  Aristotelianism is that it preserves the reality of  the forms and at the same time the integrity of  the material world. Dualism cannot in the end be avoided but the extreme dualism of  the Platonic synthesis can be. Chaucer does not deny at the end of  Troilus and Criseyde the need to reject the false values of  this world, but the final emphasis of  his poem is a positive and not a negative one. The significance of  the joyful ascent of  Troilus to the eighth sphere is that it ef fects in the hero of  the poem a final transition from moral blindness to spiritual enlightenment. The poem ends with the celebration of that divine love which encompasses all other loves. This is indeed matter to test the understanding as well as the imagination of  the reader (whether medieval or modern). But Chaucer’s poem is intellectually subtle and not obscure, and the truths that it unfolds can be clearly revealed by the use that he makes in its ending of  his Italian sources. IV.  In the brief account of  the death of  Troilus (V.1800–1806) Chaucer nevertheless manages to make two significant additions to the narrative of  Boccaccio’s Filostrato (VIII.27) which he here follows. Chaucer enhances the nobility of  Troilus at the moment of death by adding the lines (V.1803–4): As he that was withouten any peere, Save Ector, in his tyme, as I kan heere.

Troilus remains to the end worthy of comparison with his illustrious brother (see II.643–44). But more striking is the addition also of a reference to the

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will of  God: ‘But weilawey, save only Goddes wille!’ (V.1805). Chaucer has already observed (following Boccaccio, Filostrato, VIII.26) that it is not Troilus’s Fortune to slay or be slain by Diomede (V.1763–64). Here he underlines the fact that all that a human being does is subject to the will of  Providence (to which Fortune also is subject). In the ascent of  Troilus to the eighth sphere we see the working out of  the true providential destiny of all human beings. The account of Troilus’s ascent (V.1808–27), as is well known, is derived not from Boccaccio’s Filostrato but from his Teseida (XI.1–3), where the ascent of  Arcita to the eighth sphere is described. But Chaucer uses the Teseida no less creatively than he does the Filostrato, and even slight alterations of detail are to be scrutinized for the evidence they contain of  his poetic purpose. Arcita dies with the name of  Emilia on his lips (Tes., X.113 and XI.1; Havely, 143 and 144): ma ’l mormorio transmutato in vere parole, con assai basso parlare, – A Dio, Emilia! – e più oltre non disse, ché l’anima convenne si partisse. but forming such murmurs into clearer speech he said in a very low voice: ‘Farewell, Emilia’ and no more – for his spirit was forced to depart.   Finito Arcita colei nominando la qual nel mondo più che altro amava. When Arcita had thus ended by calling upon her whom he loved more than any other in the world.

But Criseyde is not on the lips of  the dying Troilus, for Chaucer wishes to emphasize in the death of  Troilus not the misery of  his love for Criseyde but the true happiness of  his release from the wretchedness of  this mortal life. Hence he adds to Boccaccio’s ‘l’anima leve se ne gì volando,/ his free spirit f lew away’ (Tes., XI.1; Havely, 144) a significant new emphasis: ‘His lighte goost ful blisfully is went’ (V.1808). Arcita looks down and sees those things that he has left behind him: ‘Quindi si volse in giù a rimirare/ le cose

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abandonate,/ Then he turned downwards to look again at what he had left behind him’ (Tes., XI.2; Havely, 144). But the sight of  those things and the memory of  them are erased from the mind of  Troilus. The blessedness of  Troilus in his new state is underlined by Chaucer through the contrast with the wretchedness of  the world from which he has so happily been removed. The contrast is present in the Teseida: ‘e ogni cosa da nulla stimare/ a rispetto del ciel,/ and he judged it all to be worthless by comparison with Heaven’ (XI.2; Havely, 144) but Chaucer himself is responsible for the sharpness of  that contrast as it appears at the end of  Troilus and Criseyde (V.1816–19):      … and fully gan despise This wrecched world, and held al vanite To respect of  the pleyn felicite That is in hevene above.

Troilus’s rejection of  the values of  this world (V.1823–25) is cast in more specific terms than that of  Arcita. Whereas Arcita condemns the vanity and blindness of  human beings in the pursuit of  the false beauty of  this world (Tes., XI.3), Troilus condemns the blindness of  lust and its transience: ‘The blynde lust, the which that may nat laste’ (V.1824). Indeed the whole narrative of  Troilus and Criseyde has exemplified the moral blindness of  Troilus and the transience of a false love with an almost unbearable pathos. The generalized appeal to heavenly values, ‘And sholden al oure herte on heven caste’ (V.1825), takes on added significance in this context, for it points to that final end in which the desires of  human beings can find their certain resting-place. The disordered nature of  Troilus’s love for Criseyde has been illustrated in the aubades of  Book III by the lack of  harmony between the desires of  the lovers and the regular alternation of day and night in the created universe.9 The perfect felicity of  heaven is therefore suggested by the harmony of  the music of  the spheres that is beyond the range of any merely human power of  hearing (V.1812–13): The erratik sterres, herkenyng armonye With sownes ful of  hevenyssh melodie.

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Chaucer reproduces Boccaccio’s ‘suoni ascoltando pien d’ogni dolcezza,/ sounds that were full of  the utmost sweetness’ (Tes., XI.1; Havely, 144), but in the process points up the significance of  the harmony of  the heavenly spheres. Chaucer shows not only the true felicity of  Troilus in his heavenly ascent but also the spiritual illumination he receives as a result of it. Arcita looks with wonder upon the planetary spheres, ‘quivi le stelle ratiche ammirava,/ [f ]rom there he gazed in wonder at … the moving stars’ (Tes., XI.1; Havely, 144) and gazes down upon the littleness of  this world (Tes., XI.2). But once again Chaucer is more insistent. Troilus ‘saugh, with ful avysement’ (V.1811) and ‘faste he gan avyse/ This litel spot of erthe’ (V.1814). The poetic emphasis in the ascent of  Troilus to the eighth sphere is not so much one of rejection of  this world (although there is a sobering recognition of  the smallness and meanness of earthly pursuits) but rather one of joyful illumination in the comprehension of a higher spiritual reality. And it is in the grasping of  this truth that we shall see the true poetic significance of  the ascent not to any heavenly planet but to ‘the holughnesse of  the eighthe spere’ (V.1809). Although the reading eighthe is supported only by a minority of manuscripts (in fact by three), there seems no reason to doubt the authority of  their testimony, and it is accepted by both Root and Robinson.10 It seems clear, therefore, that at this point Chaucer is simply following the Teseida (XI.1; Havely, 144): l’anima leve se ne gì volando ver la concavità del cielo ottava. his free spirit f lew away towards the inner surface of  the eighth sphere.

But the identification of  the eighth sphere remains controversial, for the planets may be numbered from the Moon outwards or from the Fixed Stars inwards. Root argues in favour of  the latter (pp. 561–62) and is followed by Robinson (p. 837). In this interpretation Troilus is to be conceived as being in the sphere of  the Moon. Root argues in a surprisingly literal-minded way (p. 561) that the view of  the Earth from the Moon would be clearer

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than from the sphere of  the Fixed Stars: ‘Troilus, though able to see the planets “with ful avysement”, is near enough to Earth to distinguish the spot “ther he was slayn”, which he could hardly do from the eminence of  the outermost sphere’. But we are left to guess at the poetic significance of  Troilus’s ascent to the sphere of  the Moon. Since I believe that the identification of  the Moon as the eighth sphere is mistaken I shall not speculate on possible significances, although inconstancy in love is a meaning that comes at once to mind (see Par., III.29–30 and 55–57). In favour of  the Moon as the eighth sphere is urged the order of  the spheres as set forth by Macrobius in his commentary on the Somnium Scipionis (I.xvii). But we do not need to go as far afield as Macrobius to discover what Chaucer in Troilus and Criseyde understands by the eighth sphere, for Venus is identified in the proem to Book III as ‘the thridde heven faire’ (III.2). It follows, therefore, that the eighth sphere is the sphere of  the Fixed Stars. If we wish to understand the poetic significance of  the sphere of  the Fixed Stars we shall discover it in the Paradiso. Any doubt as to the visi­ bility of  the terrestrial sphere from the sphere of  the Fixed Stars is at once removed (Par., XXII.133–35; Sinclair, III.323):   Col viso ritornai per tutte quante le sette spere, e vidi questo globo tal, ch’io sorrisi del suo vil sembiante. With my sight I returned through every one of  the seven spheres, and I saw this globe such that I smiled at its paltry semblance.

The sphere of  the Fixed Stars is precisely that point in his heavenly progress at which Dante receives the illumination necessary to go to the end of  his spiritual journey (Par., XXII.124–26; Sinclair, III.323):   ‘Tu se’ sì presso a l’ultima salute’, cominciò Beatrice, ‘che tu dei aver le luci tue chiare e acute.’ ‘Thou art so near to the final blessedness’ Beatrice began ‘that thou must have thine eyes clear and keen.’

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Beatrice bids Dante to look down to earth on his ascent to the eighth sphere so that he may have earthly and heavenly things in true proportion. And here he plainly sees the true insignificance of earthly things (Par., XXII.136–37; Sinclair, III.323):   e quel consiglio per migliore approbo che l’ ha per meno. and that judgement which holds it for least I approve as best.

The angelic order or intelligence that controls the eighth sphere is that of  the Cherubim. The order of  Cherubim is distinguished by wisdom and together with the orders of  Seraphim and Thrones makes up the first triad in the angelic hierarchy (Par., XXVIII.106–11; Sinclair, III.407 and 409):   e dei saper che tutti hanno diletto quanto la sua veduta si profonda nel vero in che si queta ogne intelletto.   Quinci si può veder come si fonda l’esser beato ne l’atto che vede, non in quel ch’ama, che poscia seconda. And thou must know that all have delight in the measure of  the depth to which their sight penetrates the truth in which every intellect finds rest; from which it may be seen that the state of  blessedness rests on the act of vision, not on that of  love, which follows after.

It is fitting, therefore, that the ascent to the eighth sphere brings to Dante a true understanding of spiritual and material realities. And it is the same illumination that Troilus receives when he has been blessedly released from the bitterness of  the pursuit of a good that is by its nature imperfect and cannot satisfy the deepest longings of  his own being. In the formal conclusion of the story of Troilus and his love for Criseyde (V.1828–34) Chaucer turns again to Boccaccio’s Filostrato (VIII.28) and derives from it the splendid and moving rhetorical figure (repetitio) upon which he builds his own stanza. But the ideas that are thus rhetorically expressed have only a general relationship to those of  Boccaccio, and the

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comparison serves once again to suggest the distinctiveness of  Chaucer’s version. Chaucer brings together the nobility and the lust of Troilus, pointedly juxtaposed in the space of a single line, ‘Swich fyn his lust, swich fyn hath his noblesse!’ (V.1831), and the falseness of  the worldly values to which he has committed himself. The end of  his love is brought together with its beginning (V.1832–33): Swych fyn hath false worldes brotelnesse! And thus bigan his lovyng of  Criseyde.

We may note here the circularity of structure so beloved of  Ricardian poets.11 And indeed the sorrowful end of  Troilus is present in his sorrowful beginnings (I.53–56). The outcome of  Troilus’s love for Criseyde is utterly inevitable. It is not inevitable in the sense that Troilus lacks freedom, for clearly he does exercise choice.12 What is inevitable is the sorrow and disillusionment that results from a total commitment to the goods of a transient world. V.  In the final movement of  the poem, in which Chaucer turns from the representation of  Troilus and Criseyde and directly addresses the reader (V.1835–68), we at last begin to comprehend the spiritual and moral profundity that animates the whole work. Those modern readers who are inclined to see in such an address no more than a conventional medieval didacticism might ref lect once more on the dif ferences between Chaucer’s treatment and that of  Boccaccio. For Boccaccio the moral significance of  his narrative is indeed clear, for in it we are warned of  the need to restrain wicked passions (Fil., VIII.29; Havely, 101):   O giovinetti, ne’ quai con l’etate surgendo vien l’amoroso disio, per Dio vi priego che voi raf freniate i pronti passi all’appetito rio, You young men whose amorous desires keep growing with your years, I beg you in God’s name to restrain your eager steps from this wretched pursuit,

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and of  the fickleness of woman (Fil., VIII.30; Havely, 101):   Giovane donna, e mobile e vogliosa è negli amanti molti, A young woman is both inconstant and eager for many lovers.

It is a moral that might have been applied to the narrative of  Troilus and Criseyde by a lesser poet than Chaucer. But Chaucer sees in the falseness of  Criseyde a deeper falseness in the experience of  the world and therefore sets beside the falseness of woman the falseness of man (V.1779–83): N’y sey nat this al oonly for thise men, But moost for wommen that bitraised be Thorugh false folk; God yeve hem sorwe, amen! That with hire grete wit and subtilte Bytraise yow!

We need go no further than the beginning of  Book II for an eminent illustration of  the falseness of men, for there the trusting and vulnerable Criseyde is betrayed by the ‘grete wit and subtilte’ of  her uncle Pandarus. The ending of  Troilus and Criseyde is indeed no place for any mere sexual partisanship. All that Chaucer owes to Boccaccio, in fact, are the opening words with which he addresses the ‘yonge, fresshe folkes’ (V.1835). Chaucer nowhere writes with more poetic conviction than he does here, when he urges the reader to turn from the falseness and transience of  the world to the abiding love of  God (V.1845–46): For he nyl falsen no wight, dar I seye, That wol his herte al holly on hym leye.

We need not call into question the sincerity of  these lines, for similar convictions are expressed in the ballade entitled Truth (17–21): Her is non hoom, her nis but wildernesse: Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of  thy stal! Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al; Hold the heye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede; And trouthe thee shal delivere, it is no drede.

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But nor need we call into question their poetic relevance. The poet’s compassion for the human frailties of  Troilus and Criseyde does not blind him to the immutable laws of  this mortal life. Indeed the delicacy and tenderness with which human feelings are displayed serve only to make the recognition of  these laws more heartfelt and poignant. The opening lines of  the poem suggest the gulf  that separates the human love from the divine (I.15–56). The celebration of  the joy of  the lovers in Book III is introduced by a proem in which we are reminded how far removed the love of  Venus is from the love of  God (III.1–49) and is followed by a sequence of aubades (III.1415–70 and 1695–1708) and a song in praise of  love (III.1744–71) that sets the perturbation of  the one against the perfect harmony of  the other. The imperfect and disordered loves of  Troilus and Criseyde do not lack nobility, but they are weighed in a mighty balance and are found wanting. It is God and not man who is the measure of  the love that fills the created universe (Par., XIX.49–51; Sinclair, III.273):   e quinci appar ch’ogne minor natura è corto recettacolo a quel bene che non ha fine e sé con sé misura. from which it is plain that every lesser nature is too scant a vessel for that good which has no limit and measures itself  by itself.

At the end of  Troilus and Criseyde there is no unfeeling rejection of  human values but rather a celebration of a higher order of reality and of nobler values. Hence it becomes necessary for Chaucer to assert the final truths of  the Christian revelation in the face of pagan error (V.1849–53). Reverence for the great writers of classical antiquity stops short of  belief in pagan gods (V.1854–55): Lo here, the forme of olde clerkis speche In poetrie, if ye hire bokes seche.

But once again this is no mere ref lex of medieval piety, for the opposition of  Christian and pagan is subtly woven into the texture and argument of  the poem. Thus Criseyde, the af fectionate and trusting niece,

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characteristically has the name of  God on her lips (for example II.113–15, 123, 127, 133, etc.), and Pandarus, the cunning and disloyal uncle, enlists the aid of  the pagan pantheon: Minerva, Jupiter and Venus (II.232–34), Mars, the Furies and Neptune (II.435–45).13 In the proem to Book III there is the pointed juxtaposition of  Venus and God. Throughout the poem Chaucer speaks obliquely and ironically on these great matters; at its end he speaks with a lofty and impassioned directness. He is not motivated by any naturalistic concern to create a pagan setting for his poem and in this respect, therefore, Christian and pagan elements simply lie side by side with one another. But in the conduct of  the argument of  the poem Christian and pagan are set in consistent poetic opposition to one another. In his handling of  this opposition Chaucer on all occasions shows an imaginative power that matches and sustains his comprehen­sion. In all this we may need to revise our poetic expectations to allow for the harmony of moral seriousness and philosophical subtlety with imaginative truth. For Dante moral virtue is one of  the three great subjects of poetry (De vulgari eloquentia, II.2); Usk rightly says of  Chaucer (with Troilus and Criseyde in mind) that he is a noble philosophical poet (The Testament of  Love, III.4). Chaucer is faithful to his poetic vocation when he directs his great poem to ‘moral Gower’ and ‘philosophical Strode’ (V.1856–57). Neither adjective is lightly chosen; both testify to Chaucer’s under­standing of  the greatness of poetry. It is no idle compliment that Chaucer pays to the names of  Gower and Strode. Although it may no longer be possible for us to link Gower with Chaucer as one of  the two founders of  English poetry in the manner of a Sidney or a Puttenham, we should not for all that make too little of  the poetic achievement of  Gower. The work of  few poets of any generation will survive comparison with that of  Chaucer. But if we do Gower the justice of reading his Confessio Amantis from beginning to end, we find a true poetic imagination at work within it. And here it must be understood that the description of  Gower as ‘moral Gower’ is indeed a sincere commendation on Chaucer’s part. The word moral carries with it no implication of a false simplicity. A reader of  the Confessio Amantis is frequently surprised by the subtlety of  Gower’s moral analysis as well as by the humanity that informs the moral judgments his tales convey. Thus the courtesy of  Midas is apparent

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as well as his covetousness (V.154–77). Mundus is condemned to exile, not to death, for Gower recognizes the power of  human love (I.1047–59), and in the same way the love of  Canace for her brother is seen to be exceeded in viciousness by the merciless wrath of  her father (III.208–43). John Gower is a true moral poet and so the text of  Troilus and Criseyde can safely be committed to his charge. The moral orientation of medieval poetry results from the recognition that what is distinctive of  human beings is freedom of choice (see Dante, Convivio, IV.ix.7). The poet who seeks to give a just representation of  human nature necessarily focuses upon the exercise of  this freedom. But such freedom in its turn rests upon a stable order of  Providence (hence the moral dilemma that confronts Dorigen in The Franklin’s Tale when it appears to her that the rocks of f  the coast of  Brittany have indeed been removed by Aurelius). The exercise of  human freedom is set within the context of  God’s Providence and limited by it. Troilus and Criseyde are both free agents, but they are also af fected by forces beyond their control. When they fail to exercise their freedom properly (that is, in accord with that reason which seeks out the providen­tial will) they subject themselves to the randomness of external events, that is, to Fortune. The relation between human free will and Providence is central to Chaucer’s representation of  the lovers. By choosing a secret and hence unlawful love (I.372–85 and II.22–49) Troilus submits his hopes for happiness to the arbitration of  Fortune (III.1667–70 and 1714–15). But Troilus is not the victim of an immutable destiny when such dependence on Fortune is the result of  his own free act of will. Thus it is by Fortune that Criseyde is given to the Greeks in exchange for Antenor, but Troilus himself is powerless to prevent her going because his love for her is a secret love (IV.152–53): But natheles he no word to it seyde, Lest men sholde his af feccioun espye.

Troilus, it is true, blames Fortune for his misery (IV.260–87), but in so doing shows his need for that enlightenment he receives only on his ascent to the eighth sphere. The moral blindness of  Troilus is suggested a few lines further on in his complaint (IV.299–301):

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The underlying philosophical arguments are made explicit in Troilus’s discussion of predestination and free will (IV.953–1085). Chaucer here draws in close detail on Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae (Book V, prosa 3) in the interests of clarifying this vital element in his poetic design. He reproduces the argument of the fictional Boethius that God’s foreknow­ ledge implies a denial of  human free will. The accep­tance by Troilus of  this argument is in keeping with Chaucer’s representation of  his moral blindness and is plainly to be seen as an expression of  his despair (IV.954–55): He was so fallen in despeir that day, That outrely he shop hym for to deye.

In the De consolatione philosophiae the lady Philosophia resolves the dilemma proposed by Boethius and establishes the compatibility of  God’s foreknowledge and man’s free will (V, prosa 4–6). The dilemma results from the attempt to bind God to the temporal limitations of man. But whereas man exists within time, God is beyond time. Strictly speaking, therefore, God does not foresee, he simply sees. The eternal vision of  God interferes with human free will no more than a human spectator interferes with the free will of contestants in public games. The coexistence of divine providence and human free will in the eternal present of  the divine vision is memorably af firmed by Dante (Par., XVII.37–42; Sinclair, III.245):   ‘La contingenza, che fuor del quaderno de la vostra matera non si stende, tutta è dipinta nel cospetto etterno;   necessità però quindi non prende se non come dal viso in che si specchia nave che per torrente giù discende.’ ‘Contingency, which does not extend beyond the volume of your material world, is all depicted in the Eternal Vision, yet does not thence derive necessity, any more than does a ship that drops down stream [var. corrente] from the eyes in which it is mirrored.’

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The issue of predestination and free will is undeniably one of considerable philosophical complexity and the imaginative representation of one part of  that great issue calls for clearsightedness from both poet and reader. The tragedy of  Troilus is conceived in terms of  the adversity of  Fortune (IV.1–7):   But al to litel, weylaway the whyle, Lasteth swich joie, ythonked be Fortune, That semeth trewest whan she wol bygyle, And kan to fooles so hire song entune, That she hem hent and blent, traitour comune! And whan a wight is from hire whiel ythrowe, Than laugheth she, and maketh hym the mowe.

And Troilus sees himself readily enough as the victim of  Fortune. It is hardly surprising that some modern critics have been persuaded by this view of  the matter. But it is part only of a larger truth and it is to the greater truth that the poem as a whole testifies. It is fitting, therefore, that Chaucer should appeal to ‘philosophical Strode’ to maintain the integrity of  the poem’s meaning. Ralph Strode was a Thomist philosopher and Fellow of  Merton College, Oxford, before 1360.14 He was an opponent of  Wyclif and objected, as Robinson points out (p. 838) to the necessitarianism of  Wyclif. Who better than Strode, therefore, to perceive the significance of  Providence and free will behind the moving of  Fortune’s wheel? In Troilus and Criseyde are combined religious conviction, philosophical subtlety, moral lucidity, delicacy of  feeling and compassion. All these qualities (in harmony and not in opposition to one another) are suggested by the commendation of  the poem to ‘moral Gower’ and ‘philosophical Strode’. VI.  In the final stanza of  the poem Chaucer turns to an inf luence greater than either Gower or Strode and in so doing reveals not only the extent of  his indebtedness to Dante but also the depth of  his understanding of  the Commedia.

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No one can surely mistake the religious conviction that inspires the final stanza of  Troilus and Criseyde (V.1863–65): Thow oon, and two, and thre, eterne on lyve, That regnest ay in thre, and two, and oon, Uncircumscript, and al maist circumscrive.

Equally unmistakable is the poetic allusion to Paradiso, XIV.28–30 (Sinclair, III.201 and 203):   Quell’ uno e due e tre che sempre vive e regna sempre in tre e ’n due e ’n uno, non circunscritto, e tutto circunscrive. That One and Two and Three who ever lives and ever reigns in Three and in Two and in One and uncircumscribed circumscribes all.

But Chaucer for once has no need to modify his source; the words of Dante and the context which illuminates them can hardly be improved upon. Dante has come in his ascent towards the heaven of  God’s eternal presence to the sphere of  the Sun in which are imparadised the blessed spirits who were once distinguished by wisdom. And here we may see that Scholastic philosophy is not to be reduced to a series of  barren intellectual subtleties, for the wise in the sphere of  the Sun are compared to plants blooming in a garland (Par., X.91–93). We see too that Dante’s reverence for Boethius is not less than that of  Chaucer, for Boethius is the eighth spirit in the garland of  the wise (Par., X.124–26; Sinclair, III.153):   Per vedere ogne ben dentro vi gode l’anima santa che ’l mondo fallace fa manifesto a chi di lei ben ode. Within it rejoices in the vision of all good the holy soul who makes plain the world’s deceitfulness to one that hears him rightly.

The first circle of  the wise is matched by a second and the two combine in motion and song of an inexpressible beauty and sweetness (Par., XII.1–21). In the perfect harmony of  the two circles Dante expresses the unity of  love

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and wisdom. These two principles are suggested by the lives of  St Francis and St Dominic respectively and their union by the common end that inspires both alike (Par., XI.37–42). In the sphere of  the wise we learn not of pagan gods but of  the mysteries of  the true Christian God. The song of  the first and second circles of  the sphere of  the Sun far surpasses that of  the Muses and the Sirens (Par., XII.7–9). The praises they sing are not of  Bacchus and Apollo but of  the Trinity (Par., XIII.25–27; Sinclair, III.189):   Lì si cantò non Bacco, non Peana, ma tre persone in divina natura, e in una persona essa e l’umana. There they sang, not Bacchus and no Paean, but three Persons in the divine nature, and in one Person that nature and the human.

Aquinas explains to Dante that all created being is derived from the divine form or idea (Par., XIII.52–54). The light of  the divine form is dif fused through the angelic intelligences (the nine orders of subsistences or substantial forms) which move the heavenly spheres to the creation of contingent beings on earth (Par., XIII.55–66). The individuality (and imperfection) of contingent beings arises from changes in the position of  the heavenly bodies through which the divine form is mediated and in the undif ferentiated primal matter which receives that form (Par., XIII.67–72). The works of  Nature are thus always defective (Par., XIII.76–78; Sinclair, III.193):   ma la natura la dà sempre scema, similemente operando a l’artista ch’a l’abito de l’arte ha man che trema. but nature always gives it defectively, working like the artist who has the skill of  his art and [var. e] a hand that trembles.

By drawing on the Paradiso in the final stanza of  his poem Chaucer directs us to the deepest meanings of  his own work. In Troilus and Criseyde the reality of  Providence is set over against the falseness of  the pagan gods (and so also of  Fortune). The works of nature are indeed defective; Criseyde

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is but a creature of  f lesh and blood and so cannot sustain the faith that Troilus places in her. But men and women are not bound to a material destiny. They have the capacity to see beyond these earthly frailties and in their wisdom can participate in the abiding love of  God. It is with an inexpressible joy that the circles of  the wise sing their praises of  the triune unity (Par., XIV.19–24; Sinclair, III.201):   Come, da più letizia pinti e tratti, a la fïata quei che vanno a rota levan la voce e rallegrano li atti,   così, a l’orazion pronta e divota, li santi cerchi mostrar nova gioia nel torneare e ne la mira nota. As, impelled and drawn by increase of  happiness, dancers in a round raise their voices all together and quicken their steps, so at the eager and devout petition the holy circles showed new joy in their wheeling and in their wondrous song.

It is to the heights of  the divine love that Chaucer also aspires in the final lines of  Troilus and Criseyde. His poem ends not with a rejection of earthly loves but with a triumphant celebration of the all-encompassing love of God.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5

‘… what a speaker is most intent on conveying must always be reserved for the end, for what is said last makes the most enduring impression on the mind of  the listener’ (Ryan, 58). All references to Chaucer are to F.N. Robinson, The Works of  Geof frey Chaucer, second edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1957). J.A. Burrow, Ricardian Poetry: Chaucer, Gower, Langland and the Gawain Poet (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971), p. 59. See also Convivio, I.v.13. C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of  Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (London: Oxford University Press, 1936), p. 43.

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E. Talbot Donaldson, ‘The Ending of  Troilus’, Speaking of  Chaucer (London: The Athlone Press, 1970), pp. 84–101 (p. 100). 7 Charles Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition: A Study in Style and Meaning (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of  California Press, 1957), pp. 9–10. 8 D.W. Robertson Jr, A Preface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspectives (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962), p. 501. 9 See Gerald Morgan, ‘The Significance of  the Aubades in Troilus and Criseyde’, YES, 9 (1979), pp. 221–35. 10 Robert Kilburn Root, The Book of ‘Troilus and Criseyde’ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1926). Root plausibly explains the reading seventhe ‘as a γ error’ (p. 560). Unlike Root, Robinson regards the γ manuscripts as the best authority for Chaucer’s final version of  the text, but recognizes at the same time that ‘the γ manuscripts contain errors and omissions’ (p. xl). On this occasion Robinson accepts the superiority of  JRCx (representing both α and β versions) and emends his copy-text (Cp) accordingly. It is not necessary, however, to follow Root and Robinson in regarding the manuscript groups designated α, ß and γ as at all implying successive authorial revisions of  the poem. Barry Windeatt, ‘The Text of  the Troilus’ in Essays on Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer Studies III, edited by Mary Salu (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1979), pp. 1–22, convincingly explains them as the product of  the normal processes of scribal transmission. The wholeness of  the existing text of  the poem can thus be more readily understood as the realization of a comprehensive ‘idea or foreconceit’ (Sidney’s words) in the mind of  the poet. Indeed it is hardly to be expected that the poet’s plan of  his work will be inferior to that of a character within the work (see TC, I.1058–71). 11 See Burrow, Ricardian Poetry, pp. 64–68. 12 See Gerald Morgan, ‘Natural and Rational Love in Medieval Literature’, YES, 7 (1977), 43–52 (pp. 49–51). 13 The same opposition of  Christian and pagan in support of a moral argument is to be found in The Franklin’s Tale, where Dorigen invokes God (F 865, 871, 888 and 891) and Aurelius invokes Apollo (F 1031, 1036, 1041, 1055, 1065 and 1078). 14 On Strode, see J.A.W. Bennett, Chaucer at Oxford and at Cambridge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), pp. 62–65. 6

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Hony soyt qui mal pence.1 Et pour ce que li aucuns pourroit dire que es mestiers d’armes l’en ne pourroit sauver l’ame, il ne savroient qu’il diroient, que entre touz bons mestiers necessaires et accoustumez peut l’en perdre ou sauver l’ame qui veult. — GEOFFROI DE CHARNY, Le Livre de chevalerie, 35/181–842 Per pale argent and gules, a bend counterchanged

— Chaucer arms3

King Edward: Upbraidst thou him, because within his face Time hath engraved deep characters of age? Know that these grave scholars of experience, Like stif f-grown oaks, will stand immovable When whirlwind quickly turns up younger trees. — SHAKESPEARE, King Edward III, III.3.126–304

The Great Age of  English Chivalry (1330–1370) I.  There are classic patterns, both good and bad, of  the careers of  knights in all ages, and not least in the fourteenth century, the great age of  English chivalry. Although this is a period remote from the perceptions of scholars in the twenty-first century, it was not remote to those who lived through it, and hence we must accord a special respect in these matters to Geof frey Chaucer who wrote directly from the experience of  life in the royal households of  Lionel of  Antwerp and John of  Gaunt (and possibly also of  their yet more celebrated brother, Edward of  Woodstock, the Black Prince) and also of  their father, the king himself, Edward III (1327–1377). A royal

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household was organised above all for war, and all its male members, from the king and princes, dukes and earls, downwards through barons and bannerets and knights-bachelor, to esquires and valets or grooms, would be expected to accompany their lord to war.5 Hence Chaucer, a page (presumably) in the household of  Elizabeth de Burgh, Countess of  Ulster, in 1357, and then, valettus on the merging of  her household with that of  her husband, Lionel of  Antwerp, in 1359,6 found himself on Edward’s campaign in France of 1359–1360 that ended the first phase of  the Hundred Years War with the Treaty of  Brétigny on 8 May 1360. The king was present with his three eldest sons, Edward, Prince of  Wales, Duke of  Cornwall and Earl of  Chester, Lionel, Earl of  Ulster, and John of  Gaunt, Earl of  Richmond, and also the famous Henry of  Grosmont, Duke of  Lancaster and Earl of  Derby.7 Thus Chaucer will have seen in the field (as distinct from the royal household)8 all the great knights of  that early and (from an English point of view) triumphant phase of  the war with France (men such as Sir James Audley, Sir John Chandos,9 Sir Reginald/Reynold Cobham10 and Sir Walter Mauny/Manny11). Chaucer was not present as a reporter or observer, but as a participant, and indeed was captured some time after the action at Réthel near Rheims to which he refers in his deposition at Westminster on 15 October 1386 in favour of  Sir Richard (le) Scrope’s right to bear the arms Azure, a bend or.12 As a valettus in the household of  the Earl of  Ulster Chaucer was significant enough to be ransomed and for the king to be involved in the paying of a contribution of £16 towards his ransom.13 He lacked at this time the stature of  Richard Stury, for whom as an esquire of  his own household the king contributed a sum of £50 for his ransom on 12 January 1360,14 but he was not the lowest in degree of  those ransomed on this occasion. Thus the sum of £16 was paid for Geof frey Chaucer on 1 March 1360, whereas no more than £10 was paid for George, a valettus in the household of  the Countess of  Ulster.15 It seems that by the beginning of 1360 Chaucer had already come to the attention of  Edward III himself, hardly surprising, perhaps, in the light of  his outstanding abilities.

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Chaucer’s Career as Squire and Diplomat II.  Chaucer lived out his life at the centre of  the great royal households of  the late fourteenth century in England. The facts are well enough known, but it is as well to rehearse them here for the importance of  them to Chaucer’s view of  the world has been too often neglected or ignored in the debate about the Knight and the values he represents. It is not known for how long Chaucer remained in the household of  Lionel of  Antwerp, but at some point before 1367 he was transferred to the household of  Edward III. On 20 June 1367 Edward III granted Chaucer ‘dilectus vallettus noster/ nostre ame esquier’ a life annuity of 20 marks at the Exchequer.16 The annuity was paid regularly in two instalments from Michaelmas (29 September) 1367 to Easter 1377. It lapsed automatically on the death of  Edward III, but was duly renewed under Richard II on 23 March 1378.17 To it was added on 18 April 1378 a second Exchequer annuity of 20 marks in lieu of  the daily pitcher of wine granted to Chaucer by Edward III on the occasion of  the feast of  St George celebrated at Windsor in 1374.18 These Exchequer annuities were regularly paid from Michaelmas 1377 until they were transferred by Chaucer to John Scally on 1 May 1388.19 Such a transfer is evidence of  the soundness of  Chaucer’s political judgment, for the payment of such annuities was under attack by the Appellants in the Merciless Parliament (3 February to 4 June 1388). A new Exchequer annuity for life with an increase to £20 was granted to Chaucer by Richard II on 28 February 1394. It was confirmed by Henry IV on 13 October 1399 (the date of  his coronation) together with an additional annuity of 40 marks for life.20 In addition on 9 November 1399 Henry IV made a gift of £10 to cover the arrears on Richard II’s grant.21 Thus not only is Chaucer awarded a life annuity, but it is scrupulously honoured and even augmented by three monarchs over a period of more than thirty years. Such continuity of service matches that of  Sir Richard Stury and is abundant evidence of  Chaucer’s value as a member of  the royal household. Indeed, Chaucer’s membership of  the royal household is signified in other ways. There is a series of records from 28 November 1368 onwards relating to grants for robes and allowances for

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members of  the royal household, wages and gifts of wine and money.22 Of special interest is the grant of  liveries of mourning on 10 September 1385 for Joan, Princess-Dowager of  Wales ( Joan of  Kent), who died in August 1985,23 for here we see Chaucer at the centre of  the royal household at the very time he is writing Troilus and Criseyde and The Knight’s Tale. In other words, he writes about the deeds of  knights and the intrigues of court as a privileged insider. Chaucer’s position at court is further enhanced by his marriage to Philippa, daughter of  Sir Paon or Payne Roe(l)t of  Hainault, Guienne King of  Arms, who had come to England in the household of  Philippa of  Hainault on her marriage to Edward III, and sister of  Katherine Swynford, mistress and later (in 1396) third wife of  John of  Gaunt. Philippa Chaucer was herself granted an Exchequer annuity of 10 marks for life by Edward III as domicella (damoiselle) of the chamber to Queen Philippa on 12 September 1366 (at this date a joint household with that of  the King because of  Queen Philippa’s extravagance).24 The annuity was paid regularly from 1366 to 1377, confirmed by Richard II on 26 March 1378 and paid regularly from 1378 to 1387, presumably the year of  her death.25 Philippa’s status in the royal household is throughout that of damoiselle, ranking below the dames and above the south-damoiselles (or damsels of lesser rank) and veilleresses.26 After the death of  the Queen in 1369 Philippa Chaucer entered the household of  John of  Gaunt as a damoiselle of  Constance of  Castile, whom Gaunt took as his second wife in September 1371.27 Philippa received the grant of an annuity of £10 for services to the Duchess of  Lancaster on 30 August 1372 upon whom she seems to have been in immediate attendance, and was in receipt of gifts from John of  Gaunt on various occasions between 1373 and 1382.28 Moreover, she was admitted to the fraternity of  Lincoln Cathedral on 19 February 1386 at the same time as Henry of  Bolingbroke and her nephews, John Beaufort and Thomas Swynford.29 Chaucer thus had made a good marriage for himself, strengthening his ties at court. Indeed, he was himself granted a life annuity of £10 on 13 June 1374 by John of  Gaunt for his own services (perhaps including the composition of  The Book of  the Duchess in commemoration of  Gaunt’s first wife, Blanche of  Lancaster) as well as those of  his wife.30 The career of  his son, Thomas, is a further testimony of  Chaucer’s prosperity at court, for it was extended to

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the following two generations on an ascending curve. Thomas Chaucer was not only an esquire by 1396 but subsequently a knight, and his daughter, Alice, became through marriage Duchess of  Suf folk.31 Life at court was not a matter of  leisure and the writing of poetry, although at times the one supplied the opportunity for the other. Chaucer’s position in the ducal and royal households supplies the solid background for what is by any standards an extensive and impressive career in the military and diplomatic spheres at the highest international level. It is useful here to lay out the main elements of  this career in the early part of  his life up to 1378, for it is clear that the great poetry of  the 1370s and 1380s is the product not only of  long and disciplined study but also of a long and varied experience of  the world of af fairs. We may itemise his many journeys as a servant of  kings and princes as follows (no doubt it is not a complete list): 1.  He is present, as we have seen, on Edward III’s campaign in France and Burgundy in 1359–1360 leading up to the treaty of  Brétigny. By this time he has already come to the attention of  the King. 2.  He receives payment from Lionel of  Antwerp for carrying letters from Calais to England in October 1360. Lionel was at Calais from 13–31 October ‘at the king’s command and in his service’ in connection with the completion of  the peace between England and France drawn up at Brétigny in May and signed at Calais on 24 October. There is no special reason to believe that these letters related to Lionel’s ‘private business rather than to af fairs of state’. After all, Lionel is present in Calais (along with Edward of  Woodstock, John of  Gaunt and the Earls of  Arundel, Salisbury and Staf ford) precisely because of  the importance of af fairs of state.32 3.  Nothing is known of Chaucer’s whereabouts in the years from 1361–1365. There is no reference to him in the retinue rolls of  the Ulster household from 1361 to 1364 and hence no compelling reason to believe that he was ever in Ireland.33 Whichever household he may have been in and wherever he may have been this remains an important and indeed formative period of  his life, that is, the transition from youth to early manhood (eighteen to twenty-two). These years are likely to have involved more experience of war and many more missions. We may note that the Squire of  the General

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Prologue at the age of  twenty has already ‘been somtyme in chyvachie/In Flaundres, in Artoys, and Pycardie’ (GP, A 85–86) (perhaps on the Bishop of  Norwich’s ill-fated crusade in Flanders in support of  Urban VI in 1383). 4.  When we next encounter the young Chaucer it is in Spain and not in Ireland and in respect of a safe-conduct from 22 February to 24 May 1366 granted to him and three companions by Charles II (Charles le Mauvais) of  Navarre.34 We might like to think of  Chaucer as a devout young man on pilgrimage (after all, the Squire of  the General Prologue is on pilgrimage), but the pilgrim route from England to Santiago de Compostela was seldom overland but directly by sea from English ports to Corunna in Galicia.35 But in 1366 and 1367 Navarre is at the centre of intense military and diplomatic activity between the English, French, Castilians and Aragonese.36 Thus on 13 February 1366 Charles of  Navarre issued a safe-conduct to the Black Prince’s squire, John Maynard, ‘venido en nuestro regno por algunos negocios del dicho princep’.37 Chaucer’s presence in Navarre in 1366 is thus consistent with his presence at Calais in October 1360, for in March 1366 an army of mercenaries under Bertrand du Guesclin, Arnoud d’Audrehem and Hugh Calveley in support of  the usurper Henry of  Trastámara (backed by France and Aragon) invaded Castile. Henry was proclaimed King of  Castile at Calahorra on 16 March 1366 (as Enrique II) and crowned at Burgos on Palm Sunday, 29 March 1366,38 while Pedro I was obliged to f lee, first of all to Toledo and Seville, thence to Portugal and Monterrey in Galicia (beginning of  June) and finally to Bayonne in Gascony (beginning of  August) and the court of  the Black Prince in Bordeaux.39 The natural route for an English invasion of  Castile from Gascony was through the pass of  Roncesvalles, and in the fourteenth century both ends of it lay within the kingdom of  Navarre.40 It was indeed the route taken by the vanguard of  the English army under Chandos and Gaunt on 15 February 1367 and the main army under the Black Prince, Pedro I and Charles of  Navarre on 20 February 1367 in the campaign leading up to Nájera.41 If  Chaucer is active in the king’s service at this time he is likely to have been involved in the political negotiations preceding the campaign of 1367. Indeed, Pedro had sent Martín López de Córdoba as an envoy to Edward III in the late autumn of 1365 to defend his reputation and the legitimacy of  his rule,

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to invoke the Anglo-Castilian alliance of 1362 and to propose a marriage alliance between Castile and England (of a kind that came to fruition in 1371 and 1372 with the marriage of  Constance to Gaunt and of  Isabel to Edmund of  Langley).42 5.  On 17 July 1368 a warrant is issued for a licence for Chaucer to pass at Dover. It seems most likely that he is on royal business, but there is no evidence to that ef fect, nor of  his destination nor of  the duration of  his journey.43 6.  On 27 June 1369 there is a record of a prest or advance of £10 in respect of  the two-year period to 27 June 1371 made to Chaucer as a member of  the king’s household on the renewal of  the war with France as part of a long list of such advances as wages of war to the Duke of  Lancaster (Gaunt) and his followers.44 It seems that Chaucer took part in this expedition.45 7.  On 20 June 1370 letters of protection (that is, in respect of possible lawsuits during his absence) lasting until Michaelmas 1370 were issued to Chaucer for a mission on the king’s behalf  ‘ad partes transmarinas’. The particular mission is unknown, but is possibly in connection with a treaty with Flanders confirmed on 4 August 1370.46 8.  Chaucer’s journey to Genoa and Florence ‘in negociis regis’ from 1 December 1372 to 23 May 1373.47 9.  On 20 August 1373 Chaucer is commissioned by the king to deliver a Genoese tarit (or large ship of  burden), La Seinte Marie et Saint George, under arrest in Dartmouth to her master, John de Nigris, a Genoese merchant.48 10.  On 23 December 1376 payment is made to Chaucer for a mission ‘in … secretis negociis ipsius domini regis’ in company with Sir John (de) Burley.49 11.  On 17 February to 25 March 1377 Chaucer made a journey overseas in the company of  Sir Thomas Percy to Flanders ‘in secretis negociis domini regis’ and also to Paris and Montreuil.50

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12.  On 11 April 1377 the payment of a gift of £20 was made by Edward III to Chaucer ‘causa diversorum viagiorum … ad diversas partes transmarinas’, although these journeys have not been identified.51 13.  Chaucer made a journey to parts of  France on the king’s secret business occupying fourteen days between 30 April and 26 June 1377. Such a journey explains Chaucer’s absence from court on the death of  Edward III on 21 June 1377.52 14.  Chaucer made a journey between 22 (or 26) June 1377 and 6 March 1381 in connection with a proposed marriage between Richard II and a princess of  France (Marie, daughter of  Charles V).53 Chaucer’s itineraries in 1377 and 1378 are complicated and probably at this distance in time impossible satisfactorily to unravel. They were prompted by a f lurry of diplomatic activity at the time of  Edward III’s death and Richard II’s accession concerning both peace negotiations between England and France and a proposed marriage alliance between England and France. Froissart gives an account of  Chaucer’s presence at negotiations at Montreuil-sur-Mer in the company of  Sir Guichard d’Angle54 and Sir Richard Stury in February to June 1377: ‘Si furent envoiiet à Monstruel sus mer, dou costé des François, li sires de Couci, li sires de le Rivière, messires Nicolas Brake et Nicolas le Mercier, et dou costé des Englès, messires Guichars d’Angle, messires Richars Sturi et Jof frois Cauchiés,/ The French then sent to Montreuilsur-mer the Lord de Coucy, the Lord de La Rivière, Sir Nicolas Braque and Nicolas Le Mercier, and the English Sir Guichard d’Angle, Sir Richard Stury and Geof frey Chaucer’ (VIII.226.8–12; Brereton, p. 194). It seems that Froissart has conf lated the peace negotiations of 1377 and the peace and marriage negotiations of 1378.55 15.  On 28 May to 19 September 1378 Chaucer made a journey to Lombardy in the company of  Sir Edward (de) Berkeley56 to Bernabò Visconti, lord of  Milan, and his son-in-law, the English mercenary Sir John Hawkwood,57 ‘pro certis negociis expedicionem guerre tangentibus’.58 16.  On 5 July 1387 letters of protection are enrolled for Chaucer in respect of a journey to Calais ‘in obsequium regis’ in the company of  Sir William Beauchamp, later Lord Bergavenny.59 Sir William Beauchamp had been

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appointed captain of  Calais on 8 September 1383 and continued in this appointment by extensions beyond 8 January 1388, but not beyond 13 March 1390 by which time he had been succeeded by Sir Henry Percy, 1st Earl of  Northumberland.60 Only a man blessed with the vigour of youth and a sound physical constitution could have undertaken these strenuous journeys with any degree of success. A journey from England to Bruges and return would require at least twelve days in Chaucer’s time and that to Lombardy would have necessitated five weeks of  travel in each direction.61 The perils of such journeys are suf ficient to give point to Dorigen’s fears of  ‘the grisly rokkes blake’ (FranT, F 859) of f  the coast of  Brittany. Nor should we underestimate the attendant risks indicated by the need for safe conducts and the company of  knights and attendants. On the journey to Lombardy in 1378 Sir Edward Berkeley is accompanied by a party of  ten and Chaucer himself  by a party of  five.62 The return to England of  the mission to Lombardy of  Sir John Burley and Sir Michael de la Pole in 1379 is delayed by their capture by bandits and the need for ransoms to obtain their release.63 There was always the possibility of  the violent interruption of one’s travels, and on three days at the beginning of  September 1390 Chaucer himself was subject to violent assault and robbery. On 3 September 1390 at the ‘Fowle Ok’ in the parish of  Deptford he was robbed of  his horse, other possessions and £20 of  the king’s money. On 6 September 1390 at Westminster he was robbed of £10 and on the same day at Hatcham in Surrey of £9.43/44d.64 Perhaps this is just an unlucky series of occurrences (if  the records are correct) and perhaps Chaucer was more vulnerable in his later years. But such hazards must always have existed, and he must have taken full account of  them in the course of  his many diplomatic missions. The journeys undertaken by Chaucer in his youth are indeed tasks for knights and squires, and if we wish to form some idea of  the appearance that Chaucer himself would have made in the world of af fairs at this time in his life (in his twenties and thirties) we need to take note of  the various portraits that he supplies of squires in his works. The twenty-year old son of  the Knight in the General Prologue is ‘wonderly delyvere, and of greet strengthe’ (GP, A 84) and Aurelius, the lovelorn squire of  The Franklin’s

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Tale is ‘[y]ong, strong, right vertuous, and riche, and wys’ (F 933).65 How must he have deplored the waste of  his youthful energies in the paralysing and debilitating love of a woman he knows to be beyond his reach, both socially and morally. Thus when Chaucer describes the rigours of  the life of  knights on horseback he knows what he is talking about and in this shared experience there is surely room for instinctive sympathy rather than distaste for the knightly class. Indeed, he belongs to that class himself and must have an intimate knowledge of many of  the most important actors on this stage, the great and the not so great, and the brave and the not so brave. Thus his testimony as ‘esquier del age de xl ans et plus armeez par xxvii ans’ is of value in the celebrated Scrope-Grosvenor trial in which he gave his deposition in favour of  the right of  Sir Richard (le) Scrope66 to bear the arms Azure, a bend or, for he had seen Sir Richard bearing such arms before Réthel near Rheims in December 1359/ January 1360 (and Sir Henry (le) Scrope,67 his cousin, in the same arms dif ferenced with a label, that is, Azure, a bend or and a label of  three points argent).68 It often seems that critics have paid little attention to Chaucer’s own status and experience in war and in the high-level negotiations that inevitably accompany war, possibly because few if any of  his critics and interpreters can lay claim to any comparable experience. A great imaginative ef fort is required if we are to see knights and battles in the way that Chaucer saw them. We are more comfortable perhaps with the image of  Chaucer as a dumpy figure in his late middle age, ‘a popet in an arm t’enbrace/ For any womman’ (Thop, B2 1891–92), like many a modern scholar.69 But we must not confound the famous and celebrated poet in his later years in a fictional setting with the eager young squire at the centre of af fairs and historic events with his way yet to make in the world. To understand the portrait of  the Knight with which the series of portraits in the General Prologue begins (A 43–78) we must begin with the world of  battles in which a knight lives out his life and by which he is defined. It is a world that Chaucer inhabited in his early years. We are perhaps led to underestimate the importance of  these years in the formation of  Chaucer’s attitudes and beliefs because of our ignorance of  his whereabouts and activities in the years from 1360 to 1366. These are vital years in any life, the period from seventeen or so (we cannot be precise) to twenty-three in which we grow from youth to

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manhood. Our lack of  knowledge does not diminish the importance of  these years for Chaucer himself. We are liable always to put other things in their place (according to our own predispositions) and in this way we may be led to think of  the Knight of  the pilgrimage to Canterbury not as an heroic figure at all but as a mercenary.70 It is in the light of such a proposal (and in defiance of  historical and textual plausibility) that the career of  Sir John Hawkwood has been adduced as a possible model for Chaucer’s portrait. In favour of  the claim for Sir John Hawkwood are his dates (c. 1320– 1394). He is perhaps a little older than the Knight of  the General Prologue, but the dates suit well enough. He remained in the field until the age of seventy-two, an impressive record for a soldier by any standard. His career is that of no ordinary man. He is commended by Froissart as ‘ung moult vaillant chevalier anglois’ (XII.99.17–18) and in 1395 Richard II requested the return of  his body to England. His bones and ashes were laid to rest in the church at Sible Hedingham and a chantry was founded there by some of  his friends. Nevertheless, Hawkwood’s military career was spent in France (he was present at Crécy and Poitiers) and in Italy (from 1362 to his death), and these are places conspicuously absent from Chaucer’s catalogue of  the Knight’s campaigns.71 Further, Sir John Hawkwood is just one in a long list of  knightly names known to Chaucer, for Chaucer’s service in the royal households brings him again and again into close contact (sometimes for a matter of weeks at a time) with the great names of  English chivalry in the great age of  English chivalry. Thus a Breton knight such as Arveragus chooses ‘to goon and dwelle a yeer or tweyne/ In Engelond, that cleped was eek Briteyne,/ To seke in armes worshipe and honour’ (FranT, F 809–11). Why should Chaucer not also admire the great warriors who have proved themselves repeatedly in such battles as Crécy (almost all of  the founderknights of  the Garter), Neville’s Cross, Poitiers and Nájera? No doubt he would have discussed matters of chivalric reputation at length with a John Burley, a Thomas Percy, a Guichard D’Angle, an Edward Berkeley or a William Beauchamp. Later in life he will be given the responsibi­ lity of attending to the needs of warriors of such stature in tournament (Smithfield) and worship (St George’s Chapel, Windsor).72

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The Reputation of  Knights III.  The study of  Chaucer in recent years has been impeded by the degradation of  the Knight and other knights like him (Arveragus of  The Franklin’s Tale and Gawain of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the one, so we are to believe, indif ferent to the well-being of  his wife,73 and the other abusive of womankind,74 and the two of  them alike preoccupied with personal reputation rather than the exercise of virtue).75 But an experience of  battles (or even tournaments) such as Chaucer himself possesses should tell us that knights have to justify reputations in the most public of arenas. Those who are worth the most do the most. Fine words must in battle be accompanied by fine actions. Knights have to be prepared to die and often they do indeed die. At Bannockburn on 24 June 1314 Sir Giles d’Argentan led the king, Edward II, by the reins to safety when the battle was lost, but turned back to his own death. Even the Scottish chronicler John Barbour in The Bruce (c. 1372–1375) is moved to record the sorrow at the heroic end of so great a knight: ‘Of f  hys deid wes rycht gret pité,/ He wes the thrid best knycht perfay/ That men wyst lyvand in his day,/ He did mony a fayr journé,/ There was great sorrow at his death, [for] in truth he was the third best knight who lived in his time known to men; he achieved many a fine feat of arms’ (13.320–23; pp. 496–97). Similarly, Sir Geof froi de Charny dies at Poitiers in 1356 a death befitting the author of Le Livre de chevalerie, holding in his hands to the end the orif lamme of  St Denis that had been entrusted to him by the king of  France (Froissart, V.53.30–54.13; Brereton, 140): Là se combatoit vaillamment et assés priès dou roy messires Jof frois de Cargni, et estoit toute la presse et la huée sur lui, pour tant qu’il portoit la souveraine banière dou roy; et il meismes avoit la sienne sus les camps, qui estoit de geules à trois escuçons d’argent. Tant y sourvinrent Englès et Gascons, de toutes pars, que par force il ovrirent et rompirent le priesse de la bataille le roy de France. Et furent li François si entouelliet entre leurs ennemis que il y avoit bien, en tel lieu estoit et telz fois fu, cinq hommes d’armes sus un gentil homme. Là … fu occis messires Jof frois de Chargni, la banière de France entre ses mains.

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Meanwhile Sir Geof froy de Charny had been fighting gallantly near the King. The whole of  the hunt was upon him, because he was carrying the King’s master-banner. He also had his own banner in the field, gules, three inescutcheons argent. The English and Gascons came in such numbers from all sides that they shattered the King’s division. The French were so overwhelmed by their enemies that in places there were five men-at-arms attacking a single knight. Sir Geof froy de Charny was killed, with the banner of  France in his hands.

Sir Louis Robessart dies an exemplary death as a Knight of  the Garter at Conty in 1430, according to the Burgundian chronicler, Ghillebert de Lannoy, in preferring ‘pour garder l’honneur de saditte ordre et aussi la sienne, … demourer en laditte place où il morut glorieusement, honnourablement et à très petite compaignie des siens’.76 Better such a death for a knight than to die, like the Black Prince, disappointed by the death of  his elder son and heir, Edward of  Angoulême, in his sixth year in 1370,77 and suf fering the physical humiliation of a long and incapacitating illness in the final years of  his life from 1367 to his death on 8 June 1376.78 But even such a passing is preferable to that of  his father, for the Black Prince’s illustrious reputation is still (at the age of  forty-five) fresh in the minds of  his admiring fellow-countrymen; ‘his name’ not yet ‘apalled … for age’, ‘his vassellage’ not yet ‘al forgeten’ (KnT, A 3053–54). Edward III himself survived into a dotage in which royal authority was compromised by a powerful and greedy mistress, Alice Perrers,79 and an exclusive and untrusted circle of court favourites, presided over by the chamberlain, Lord Latimer,80 and steward, Lord Neville,81 and including among the chamber knights, Sir Alan Buxhill,82 Sir Richard Stury and Sir Philip la Vache.83 They are famously called to account in the Good Parliament that met at Westminster on 28 April to 10 July 1376 and resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of  Latimer and the forfeiture of  Alice Perrers (although both were pardoned in the great council summoned by John of  Gaunt in October 1376) and also the dismissal of  Neville.84 The ignominy of  the ending of  Edward’s long reign is indeed a text-book example of  Boccaccio’s ‘oscura/ vecchiezza piena d’infiniti guai,/ dismal old age full of endless troubles’.85 In developing Theseus’s argument for making a virtue out of the necessity of  Arcite’s death, that is, by showing a wise acceptance of  those things decreed by fate and beyond the wit of  human beings to alter, Chaucer draws

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together in concentrated form the matter on the consolation of  fame in a youthful death that is somewhat separated in his source (Tes., XII.9.1–5 and XII.12.1–8) to focus on the death of  Arcite (KnT, A 3047–56). Further, Chaucer is concerned not with the mere fact of reputation but with the allied questions of  honour and virtue, that is, with ‘a worthy fame’ (KnT, A 3055). In this respect the case of  Arcite is more fortunate than that of  the Black Prince whose reputation as a chivalrous knight would have been more secure had he died at Poitiers or at Nájera rather than after the sack of  Limoges (even Froissart is taken aback by his cruelty at Limoges).86 Chaucer has a better end in view for a knight at the end of  the Troilus, for the hero goes to meet his death in the f lower of  his youth at the hands of  the great Achilles in a mortal struggle for the survival of  his country (TC, V.1800–1806). At the end of  The Knight’s Tale Chaucer brings to bear the full weight of  Aristotle’s teaching on honour and virtue and in so doing gives a more positively emphatic gloss to Arcite’s death than Boccaccio does. Arcite dies not merely at the height of  his fame, but when he has done nothing to tarnish that fame by dishonourable deeds (KnT, A 3047–50): And certeinly a man hath moost honour To dyen in his excellence and f lour, Whan he is siker of  his goode name; Thanne hath he doon his freend, ne hym, no shame.

Here we need to understand the medieval discourse of  honour and shame, and it is something more than a public display of  honour and an avoidance of  the appearance of shame. Honour in the full Aristotelian meaning of  the word is not concern for reputation at the expense of virtue but is the reward that is due to virtue, as is explained in the discussion of  the virtue of magnanimity: ‘Virtutis enim praemium honor, et attribuitur bono,/ for honor is a reward of virtue and is attributed to the virtuous’ (Ethics, IV.3 1123b 35).87 Honour is not indeed superior to virtue but simply the best that we can do by way of recognition of virtue (Ethics, IV.3 1124a 7).88 Honour is to be pursued for the sake of virtue, not virtue for the sake of  honour, for it is virtue that is the cause of  honour: ‘Et sic virtus est aliquid melius honore propter quam

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honor quaeritur,/ So virtue, for whose sake honor is sought, is a better thing than honor’ (Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, 65) Thus honour is sought incidentally, and from the wise and the good as a testimony of virtue (Ethics, I.5 1095b 26–30 and VIII.8 1159a 17–24; Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, 65 and 1642–43). Here we need to distinguish the pursuit of  honour in good and bad senses. A man is to be praised who seeks honour out of  the love of virtue, but to be blamed if  he inordinately desires to be honoured.89 The good man acts for the sake of  honour and not for his own interest, and this means that he must be prepared to sacrifice his own interest if it is necessary to do so (Ethics, IX.8 1168a 32–35): ‘Epiiches autem propter bonum; et quanto utique melior sit, magis propter bonum, et amici gratia. Quod autem suiipsius praeterit./ On the other hand the virtuous man does what is honorable. And the better he is the more he works for the good and for his friend’s sake, even overlooking his own interests’.90 For a knight death in battle is only the most obvious instance. More dif ficult in a way, perhaps, is the acceptance of unmerited shame. Sometimes the love of  honour requires the acceptance of an appearance of shame that is undeserved. This is the case with Sir Gawain on the evening after the lady’s second uninvited visit to his bedroom in the early morning. She gives those present to believe that more passed between the two than it would be entirely proper to put into words. But Sir Gawain maintains an honourable silence to his own disadvantage, preferring to accept the imputation of improper conduct on his own part rather than to contradict a lady in public (SGGK, 1658–63). A more problematic example is the willingness of a knight (Arveragus) to be cuckolded by a squire (Aurelius) in order to preserve the honour of  his wife (Dorigen). This sacrifice of  honour is noted in the Filocolo (IV.34.15–16; Havely, 161) as the reason for the husband’s superior claim to the virtue of generosity. It is not in the knight’s and husband’s personal interest that his lady and wife be unchaste and unfaithful, for the love and fidelity of a wife adds immeasurably to the honour of a husband and consequently it is an argument put at length in the Filocolo by Fiammetta (IV.34.6–8; Havely, 161). The knight’s sacrifice of  his personal honour comes at a great price, and even Arveragus is unable entirely to conceal his inner anguish of soul (FranT,

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F 1480). But life sometimes asks even (or perhaps especially) of  the best these impossible choices.

Prudence and Moral Virtue IV.  It is in the true, that is, good, sense that Chaucer says of  the Knight that ‘he loved … honour’ (GP, A 45–46). It might once have been thought impossible to detect any strain of irony in the list of the Knight’s virtues and the roll-call of  the victorious battles in which he has participated. Instead of  following Terry Jones in so unproductive an assumption we might attend rather to the link between prudence and moral virtue that in the case of  the worthy knight makes the assumption of ironic dispraise untenable. Aristotle tells us that we are what we are by what we do, not by what we say, that is, our characters are determined to good or bad by the choices that we make (Ethics, II.6 1106b 36–1107a 2): Est igitur virtus habitus electivus in mediatate existens quoad nos, determinata ratione et ut utique sapiens determinabit. Virtue then is a habit that chooses the mean in regard to us, as that mean is determined by reason and understood by a wise man.

This is a hard matter in itself, requiring deliberation in the light of  the habit of  first principles, that is, a certain understanding of  the universal principles of action (what Aquinas calls synderesis).91 Deliberation is directed to a judgment as to what is right to do or not to do (the fallible act of conscience) and then to the act of command by which the judgment is put into action.92 This is the virtue of prudence if  there is a correct process of reasoning (Commentary on Ethics, 322): Non enim inquirere medium est bonum, nisi inquantum est secundum rationem determinatam: verum quia contingit rationem esse et rectam et erroneam, oportet virtutem secundum rationem rectam operari.

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It is good to seek the mean only insofar as it is determined by reason, but because reason can be right or erring, we must perform virtue according to right reason.

Langland demonstrates this process of reasoning from the infallible knowledge of  first principles (Kind Wit) to the fallible act of judgment (Conscience) backed by the unwavering support of right reason or prudence (Reason) in the first vision of  Piers Plowman.93 Here we see that Conscience is vindicated in his rejection of  Meed as a suitable wife. It seems that Conscience himself, like Chaucer’s Knight, is a crusading knight. Thus as Conscience ‘cam late fro biyonde’ (PPl, B III.110) so Chaucer’s Knight ‘was late ycome from his viage’ (GP, A 77).94 Prudence is directed entirely to conduct in this world, that is, it is a matter not of  the speculative but of  the practical intellect (ST, 2a 2ae 47.2). Whereas the speculative intellect is concerned solely with the truth of  things, the practical intellect orders what it knows to action (ST, 1a 2ae 79.11). Hence the wisdom attributed to a prudent man is not philosophical wisdom but wisdom in the conduct of  human af fairs (Commentary on Ethics, 323): Et ad hoc explicandum subdit, ‘ut utique sapiens determinabit etc.’ scilicet medium. Sapiens autem hic dicitur non ille qui est sapiens simpliciter, quasi cognoscens altissimam causam totius universi; sed prudens qui est sapiens rerum humanarum. To explain this he adds ‘as understood by a wise man’. ‘Wise’ here does not refer to one who is wise simply, knowing the ultimate causes of  the whole universe, but rather to one who is prudent, that is, wise in human af fairs.

In the case of soldiers this means prudence in the conduct of war. Indeed, military prudence is one of  three species of prudence as Aquinas sets it out in the Summa theologiae (2a 2ae 48 and 50.4). Hence in respect both of  the Knight of  the General Prologue and Theseus in The Knight’s Tale prudence is linked immediately to the exercise of arms and the virtue of courage. A knight who lacks prudence will not long survive the exigencies of war even if  blest by good fortune. Thus after the list of  the Knight’s campaigns extending over a period of some forty years (GP, A 51–66) Chaucer reminds us that ‘though that he were worthy, he was wys’ (GP, A 68). Similarly the

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Theseus who returns in triumph to Athens at the beginning of The Knight’s Tale has achieved his conquest of  the land of  the Amazons through ‘his wysdom and his chivalrie’ (KnT, A 865). The outward sign of  the Knight’s prudence is to be found in the simplicity and lack of ostentation of  his dress. His gypon or surcoat95 over his coat of mail (habergeon) is made of  fustian (GP, A 75–76),96 a strong serviceable material that will stand up to the rigours of campaigning and hence frequently found in conjunction with body armour. He lacks the sophisticated finery of dress of  the redoubtable (and delicate) Sir Thopas who wears ‘next his white leere/Of cloth of  lake fyn and cleere,/A breech and eek a sherte’ (Thop, B2 2047–49). As in the detailed description of  the arming of  Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (570–89) there is no mention of any plate armour between the coat of mail and the surcoat. The reference to the ‘newe gyse’ of  the armour of  the knights in the company of  Palamon (KnT, A 2125) suggests that there is an element of  fashion in the use of plate armour. Palamon is not after all victorious in the mêlée against Arcite and Chaucer’s Knight, an experienced fighter, is likely to favour a form of  body armour allowing mobility as well as protection that has already proved its worth in many a battle. It is Sir Thopas who wears plate armour in addition to a quilted tunic and coat of mail: ‘And next his sherte an aketoun,/ And over that an haubergeoun/ For percynge of  his herte;// And over that a fyn hawberk,/… Ful strong it was of plate’ (Thop, B2 2050–53 and 2055). Sir Thopas has the full kit and is just the knight to be in the vanguard of contemporary fashion. In the rust stains on his surcoat from his coat of mail (GP, A 76) there is another reminder that the Knight of  the General Prologue has spent his life at the sharp end of war, for the presence of rust is a realistic detail that focuses at once on the reality of campaigning. When Sir Gawain prepares to leave Hautdesert for his deadly appointment with the Green Knight he is pleased to see ‘[þ]e ryngez rokked of þe roust of  his riche bruny’ (SGGK, 2018). Such rust had inevitably accumulated in the course of  his lonely quest through North Wales and the Wirral in November and December. If we are uncomfortable with details of  this kind as suggesting the moral infirmity of  Chaucer’s Knight we shall recall the corresponding moral realism of  the poet of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. No one,

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not even the greatest of  knights, can exceed the limits of  humanity, and hence there will be evidence of moral stain even in the execution of great deeds. Hence too the pentangle, not the circle, is the fitting symbol for the Knight of  the General Prologue as it is for the Sir Gawain of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. But the Knight does not lack dignity, and it accords with his dignity that he is accompanied by his courteous, humble and obedient son, the Squire (GP, A 99–100) and his well-equipped and ef ficient bodyguard, the Yeoman (GP, A 104–8 and 111–14). One might normally expect a Knight on serious business to be supported by a company of ten, as was Sir Edward de Berkeley on his mission with Chaucer to Lombardy in 1378. Indeed, Chaucer himself as esquire had a company of  five on that occasion.97 But on the pilgrimage to Canterbury (a private not a public occasion) the Knight prefers to ride in less splendid style (‘hym liste ride so’, GP, A 102). In all of  this we see a seriousness of purpose that has characterised the Knight’s military career (the Prioress, after all, has an entourage of  four, GP, A 163–64). The group of  three fighters, even though it includes the gallant and dashing young Squire, takes its tone from the father rather than the son. There is a modesty and decorum in the group as a whole that is suggestive of military purpose rather than public display. Terry Jones has rightly called attention to the lance formation of  knight, page and archer as the characteristic English fighting unit of  the late fourteenth century.98 Military contracts customarily specified not only individual horsemen but standard units such as the barbuta, consisting of  two men, a knight and a page (favoured by the Germans), the lance, consisting of  three men, knight, squire and page (favoured by the English and later becoming the common practice in Italian armies) and the banner, consisting of  twenty to twentyfive knights. By the late fourteenth century archers had been integrated with cavalry units, serving in lances. Longbowmen were integrated within lances either singly, with longbow and horse, or doubly, that is, attended by a page.99 The Squire is a young lover as young men are wont to be, and dressed to impress his lady in the height of  fashion in short embroidered gown with long, wide sleeves (GP, A 89–90 and 93).100 But he is passionate and virile (GP, A 80–84, 87–88 and 94–98), not ef feminate like the Pardoner (also

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a young man) (GP, A 675–83 and 688–91). The Knight can rely upon such a son in battle and indeed the Squire has already (perhaps at the age of sixteen, like the Black Prince at Crécy) been tried and proven in ‘Flaundres, in Artoys, and Pycardie’ (GP, A 86). This is possibly a reference to the crusade of  the bellicose Bishop of  Norwich, Henry Despenser, in 1383 in Flanders against the Clementists.101 Although it was a military fiasco (not the kind of  thing to be associated with our all-conquering Knight) it was technically a crusade, not a mere ‘so-called’ crusade as it is often termed, as being legitimated by Pope Urban VI (elected 8 April 1378), and it was responded to enthusiastically as such in England in the course of  the preparations for the crusade in 1382–1383.102 The date fits well the age of  the Squire if we assume (not an absolutely necessary assumption) that the Squire was ‘twenty yeer of age’ (GP, A 82) at the time of  the writing of  the General Prologue in 1387. On the other hand in his portrait of  the Knight Chaucer is careful to avoid reference to crusades against fellow Christians in Italy, as for example the crusade in the Papal States (1353–1357) authorised by Innocent VI (1352–1362) and the crusade against Milan (1360, renewed in 1363 and 1368), also authorised by Innocent VI’s successor, Urban V (1362–1370). Moreover the crusade of  the Bishop of  Norwich was limited to attacks on the towns of  Gravelines, Dunkirk, Bourbourg and Ypres, that is, to Flanders, and the references to Artois and Picardy make better sense in respect of  the chevauchée of  Thomas of  Woodstock, Earl of  Buckingham (later Duke of  Gloucester), sixth son of  Edward III, in 1380 in support of  Jean IV de Montfort, Duke of  Brittany and Earl of  Richmond (KG, April 1375).103 Whatever expedition or expeditions the Squire had been involved in by the age of  twenty, it would clearly be an error of judgment to underestimate his military experience and distinction. The Yeoman is as well-equipped for the battlefield as any archer could hope to be with sword, shield and dagger ‘sharp as point of spere’ (GP, A 112–14)104 in addition to his ‘myghty bowe’ (the powerful longbow, perhaps six foot long, used to such deadly ef fect by English archers at Crécy and Poitiers) and arrows ‘bright and kene’ well fitted with the peacock feathers (from the wing, not the tail) that were superior to goose feathers (GP, A 104–8). If  the Yeoman’s bracer or arm guard is gay (GP, A 111) as his lord is not (GP, A 74) (a pointed contrast) and his dagger ‘[h]arneised wel’ (GP,

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A 114),105 this can only be to enhance the dignity of  the lord who does not require enhancement by self-assertion. The Yeoman is indeed the quintessential yeoman and Chaucer goes out of  his way to make this fact verbally explicit, for ‘[w]el koude he dresse his takel yemanly’ (GP, A 106).106 Thus in the three figures, Knight, Squire, Yeoman, we have an impressive group (or perhaps lance) of  fighters. The prudence of  the Knight as a fighting man is chief ly signified by the care he takes of  his horses. The Old English word cniht loses etymological contact with the notion of an élite warrior on horseback (chevalier). But not even an English knight (though he may elect to fight on foot, as at Halidon Hill on 19 July 1333 in Edward III’s first great victory) is ever unaware of  the importance of  his horses. On the reysa in Prussia and Lithuania, for example, Chaucer’s Knight would have required at least three war horses and also three pack horses to supply them with feed.107 It takes many years to learn to fight on horseback, and when unhorsed in battle a knight is vulnerable to the knives of pillagers and looters. We may note the contrast between the experienced Knight of  the General Prologue and the impetuous Chevalier de la Charrete of  Chrétien de Troyes’s famous romance of  that name. The Knight of  the Cart (Lancelot) drives his first horse to the point of exhaustion and death (Charrete, 270–73, 279–81 and 296–98) and in his impetuosity he does not take care to choose the better of  the two horses of fered him by Gauvain (Charrete, 290–95). The subsequent comparison of  the Knight of  the Cart to Pyramus (Charrete, 3802–4) is indeed well judged, for Pyramus is the very type of  the impetuous lover. Malory knows only too well that conduct of  this kind in a knight is not compatible with one ‘renomed the moste nobelyst knyght of  the worlde’ (MD, 1047/17–18). Hence Malory reconstructs the story of  the Knight of  the Cart so as to remove any possible criticism of  his own Sir Launcelot for negligence in respect of  the care of  his horses.108 The Knight does all things prudently that will help him to achieve success in battle. If  he has to fight he does not do so rashly. Thus Sir John Chandos is admired by Froissart not only for his prowess, loyalty and courtesy, but also for his moderation (mesure), protecting the Black Prince at Poitiers and John of  Gaunt at Nájera.109 Thus also Malory’s Sir Trystram (the greater knight) urges caution on Sir Palomydes, ‘for manhode is nat

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worthe but yf  hit be medled with wysdome’ (MD, 700/19–20). One may admire the dash and spirit of  the heavy cavalry of  the Union Brigade (Royals, Scots Greys and Inniskillings under Sir William Ponsonby) and Household Brigade (Life Guards, King’s Dragoon Guards and Blues under Lord Edward Somerset) in the early afternoon at Waterloo, but one must regret at the same time their impetuosity and lack of discipline in being unable to respond to the Rally. Napoleon waited patiently for the horses to become exhausted in their magnificent charge and then unleashed upon the remnants of  the Union and Household Brigades his Polish lancers waiting in readiness for that very moment. Thus Sir William Ponsonby ended his life in the mud during the vain retreat from that gallant assault. Courage untempered by wisdom had degenerated into impetuosity and the penalty (as so often in war) was death, albeit an honourable death.110 A no less poignant example is the death of  the fighter ace, Dickey Lee, in the Battle of  Britain. At the height of  the battle, on 18 August 1940, Dickey Lee was ‘last seen … thirty miles north-east of  Margate, pursuing three German fighters out to sea’.111 Impetuosity in battle is understandable, but it is not an attribute of  the greatest of  knights. But it is easy to set down a warning against impetuosity in battle in cold print and at the same time impossible entirely to withhold admiration for the exploits of  those willing to hazard their lives in the heat of  battle. Such are the exploits of  the Lincolnshire knight, Sir William Marmion, fighting to the point of death against the Scots before Norham Castle in Northumberland in the reign of  Edward II to honour his vow to his lady,112 and of  Sir William Felton, giving up his life with a magnanimous lack of self-regard against a superior force of  Spanish knights in Castile in 1367 (Vie du Prince Noir, 2725–58). Since the mean of virtue is a mean of reason, it follows that the mean is not to be thought of as lying exactly intermediate between its extremes of excess and defect. The mean of courage thus lies closer to its excess of rashness than its defect of cowardice, as Aristotle explains (Ethics, II.8 1108b 35–1109a 3): Adhuc autem medio opponitur in his quidem magis defectio, in his autem superabundantia. Puta, fortitudini quidem non audacia superabundantia existens, sed timiditas defectus existens.

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In some cases it is the defect that is more opposed to the mean but in other cases it is the excess. Thus it is not rashness but cowardice, the defect, that is more opposed to fortitude.

Nothing, indeed, is more indispensable to a knight than physical courage. Hence the Knight of  the General Prologue, albeit prudent, willingly accepts the risks that all soldiers must run in the course of  battle. It is part of  the high vocation of  knighthood to live continuously with the possibility of imminent death. It is for this very reason that Geof froi de Charny sets the order of  knighthood above even that of  the priesthood (Le Livre de chevalerie, 42/34–40, pp. 180–83): Mais les bons chevalliers et les bonnes genz d’armes … bien pourroit l’en tenir que leurs vies souverainement devroient estre honestes autant ou plus comme il pourroit appartenir a nul prestre; car il sont en peril touz les jours, et la ou il cuident estre le plus asseur, c’est adonc que soudainement les convient armer et prendre pluseurs foiz de dures et perilleuses aventures. But of  the good knights and good men-at-arms … it might well be considered that they should be of as great or even greater integrity than might be required of a priest, for they are in danger every day, and at the moment when they think themselves to be the most secure, it is then that they may suddenly have to take up arms and often to undertake demanding and dangerous adventures.

Thus the Knight has fought in three formal duels to the death and ‘ay slayn his foo’ (GP, A 63). Similarly, Theseus hazards his life in battle. He interrupts his triumph in response to the petition of  the company of  ladies and proceeds to Thebes where he fights against the tyrant Creon and ‘slough hym manly as a knyght/ In pleyn bataille’ (KnT, A 987–88).113 Theseus does not venture his life needlessly or rashly, but out of compassion (KnT, A 912–37 and 948–58) and in order to right a great wrong (KnT, A 938–47 and 959–64). The expression of  the Knight’s prowess in terms of  the cardinal virtue of  fortitude is not compatible with the image of an ‘ef ficient killer’ that Terry Jones seeks to project (pp. 76–77 and 81–86). Objections of  this kind are objections to the very idea of  knighthood. There is simply no point in having knights as defenders of justice and of  the faith if  they are incapable of victory in battle.

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The Interconnection of  Virtues V.  The love of  honour includes the love of all the moral virtues, for ‘honor est cujuslibet virtutis praemium,/ recognition is the reward of each and any virtue’ (ST, 2a 2ae 129.4). It is a fundamental principle of  Aristotelian moral philosophy that the virtues are interrelated as being determined by prudence (Ethics, VI.13 1144b 32–1145a 2): Sed et ratio sic dissolvetur, qua disputat quis quoniam separantur abinvicem virtutes. Non enim idem optime natus ad omnes. Quare hanc quidem scivit, hanc autem nequaquam assumens erit. Hoc enim secundum quidem naturales virtutes contingit. Secundum quas autem simpliciter dicitur bonus, non contingit. Simul enim prudentiae uni existenti omnes inerunt. In this way we can refute the argument that some use to prove that virtues are separated one from another. We see that the same man is not equally well inclined by nature to all virtues. Wherefore he will be said to acquire the virtue he has known but not any other. This does happen in regard to the natural virtues but not in regard to those virtues according to which a man is called absolutely good. The reason is that all the virtues are present simultaneously with prudence, a single virtue.

Aquinas clarifies this point (if it is not suf ficiently clear) in his Commentary on Ethics as follows (1287 and 1288): Et sic quando prudentia, quae est una virtus, inest alicui, simul inerunt cum ea omnes, quarum nulla erit prudentia non existente. So when there is prudence, which is a single virtue, all the virtues will be simultaneous with it, and none of  them will be present if prudence is not there. … quia eadem sunt principia prudentiae ad totam materiam moralem, ut scilicet omnia redigantur ad regulam rationis. Et ideo propter prudentiae unitatem omnes virtutes morales sunt sibi connexae.

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 … the same principles of prudence apply to the totality of moral matter so that every­ thing is subjected to the rule of reason. Therefore, all moral virtues are connected one with the other by prudence.

Hence in loving honour the Knight also ‘loved chivalrie,/ Trouthe … fredom and curteisie’ (GP, A 45–46). Prowess and loyalty are at the centre of any and every warrior code and are parts respectively of  the cardinal virtues of courage and justice. Generosity takes us to the higher forms of justice where there is barely any discernible obligation for moral conduct other than the sheer desire for it (ST, 2a 2ae 80). Courtesy is the outward expression of such generosity of spirit and shows the presence in the Knight of  the cardinal virtue of  temperance. This is emphasised at the end of  the portrait in the Knight’s humility and gentleness, politeness of speech and modesty of dress (GP, A 69–74). The description of  the Knight’s bearing ‘as meeke as is a mayde’ (GP, A 69) is surely extraordinary in so distinguished and experienced a warrior. The gentle and submissive image of a young unmarried woman, a virgin no doubt and in attendance on some great lady,114 seems as far removed from the violence of war as it is possible to be, and no doubt that is Chaucer’s suggestion. The violence of war has yet to blunt the Knight’s moral sense. Indeed, within a system of moral virtue such as that set out in the Nicomachean Ethics, the virtue of courage implies not merely the absence of rashness and cowardice but also the absence of  harshness and cruelty, of arrogance, of  boastfulness and churlish unpleasantness of manner. Medieval poets and philosophers are great admirers and lovers of  Aristotle (Dante and Chaucer being but two outstanding examples) and it is evident at every point that they have absorbed the central lessons of  the Nicomachean Ethics. Hence we encounter these ideas of prudence and the interrelationship of  the virtues again and again in our reading of medieval literature. Troilus is recommended to Criseyde by Pandarus as a second Hector in whom ‘ “alle vertu list habounde,/ As alle trouthe and alle gentilesse,/ Wisdom, honour, fredom, and worthinesse” ’ (TC, II.159–61), although the lady herself puts a slightly dif ferent gloss on his merits (TC, II.659–62). For Criseyde, Troilus’s merits have primary significance insofar as they alleviate her own fears. There will soon be a parting of  the ways

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when Troilus’s heroic virtue and Criseyde’s needs fail to coincide. In his death (but only in his death) Arcite can lay claim to such an exalted state of  knightly excellence, his virtue no longer undermined by jealousy of a friend’s good (perhaps better) fortune (KnT, A 2789–91). The supreme example of  this interrelation of virtues is the pentangle passage in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (619–65). The moral virtue of courage is specified in the fourth group of  five where it is related to the five joys of  the Virgin Mary (SGGK, 644–50). The fifth group of  five is a set of  five moral virtues belonging to justice and temperance (SGGK, 651–55): Þe fyft fyue þat I finde þat þe frek vsed      fifth group of  five;knight;practised Watz fraunchyse and felaȝschyp forbe al þyng,       generosity;loyalty;above His clannes and his cortaysye croked were neuer,   chastity;never went astray And pité, that passez alle poyntez, þyse pure fyue    piety;surpasses;qualities Were harder happed on þat haþel þen on any oþer.  more firmly;fastened;knight

The Gawain-poet, like Aquinas (and also Chaucer) sees piety as the highest of  the moral virtues. Modern commentators remain reluctant to accept the medieval logic, but it is irresistible in logical terms. Among the cardinal virtues justice stands in the highest place as being directed not to the good of  the individual (as are temperance and fortitude) but to the common good (ST, 2a 2ae 58.12). And among the virtues of justice piety stands in the highest place as being directed to the highest object, that is, God (ST, 2a 2ae 81.6). Aquinas among others is quite clear on this point and he is followed among the writers on chivalry such as Ramon Llull and Geof froi de Charny. The modern discussion of  knightly inspiration is bedevilled by the critical refusal to take the emphasis on piety at face value and with due seriousness. It is ref lected by the confusion that is often found between pity and piety and the wish to discover compassion (an eminently acceptable emotion) where the medieval writer insists upon piety. The wish is too often the father of  the thought. The outstanding example is that of  the Gawain-poet’s identification of pité as the highest of  the moral virtues exemplified by his hero. One scholar after another (without much interest in arguing the matter to a conclusion) opts for pity. But in the context of  the pentangle this is impossible. Pity is not a moral virtue at all; it is an

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emotion or passion, albeit a laudable passion (ST, 1a 2ae 24.1 and 4). Hence it is admired (but within these limits) by medieval poets. Chaucer tells us that ‘pitee renneth soone in gentil herte’ (KnT, A 1761). It is to be found and commended in knights who, like Theseus, fight on behalf of widows against a tyrant (KnT, A 952–64) and, like Sir Launcelot, fight against those who seek to ‘destroy and dystresse ladyes, damesels and jantyllwomen’ (MD, 270/11–12). Pity attains the level of moral virtue when it is directed aright by prudence to a good end. At this point it attains the condition of mercy, as when Theseus softens his anger towards the two young Theban knights (KnT, A 1762–81). Nevertheless the moral virtue of mercy or clemency belongs with temperance not with justice (ST, 2a 2ae 157.3). It is not the highest of virtues. It is not to be compared to piety or rather it is not to be elevated above piety. Sir Thomas Malory himself is quite clear about this. Human love, so often as destructive as inspirational in its ef fects, is not to be set above divine love: ‘But firste reserve the honoure to God, and secundely thy quarell muste com of  thy lady’ (MD, 1119/28–29). Thus the highest of  Sir Gawain’s moral virtues is piety, and it is realised time and again throughout the romance in the knight’s willingness to submit his human will to the divine will in the scrupulous observance of mass, at Camelot (SGGK, 592–93), in the course of  his quest (SGGK, 750–62) and during the Christmas celebrations at Hautdesert (SGGK, 930–40, 1309–11 and 1558) and also (when it becomes necessary) of  the sacrament of penance (SGGK, 1876–84). The Gawain-poet is in no way eccentric or idiosyncratic in this emphasis. He is not only at one with Llull and Charny, but also with Chaucer insofar as the Knight of  the General Prologue is a crusading knight. Spenser in the Faerie Qveene understands this fundamental orientation of  Christian chivalry when he makes the first of  his questing knights (the Red Cross Knight or St George) the knight of  holiness. Spenser’s great theme is not the Church of  England or the Anglican Communion as opposed to the Church of  Rome (although he cannot rewrite history so as to exclude the Reformation). It is holiness. The virtue of  holiness is, like the rest, an Aristotelian moral virtue or, perhaps we may say, a virtue characterised in Aristotelian terms in the great tradition of  Scholastic Aristotelianism (of which Aquinas stands at the head). It is Spenser’s equivalent of  the ‘pité that passez alle poyntez’. We

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may call it piety, if we will, or religion (as Aquinas calls it). But holiness is the better word for it ref lects the broader scope of  Spenser’s moral and philosophical discourse, including not only the elicited virtue of piety but also the commanded virtue of  fortitude.115 Here again we see how the knightly virtues of courage and piety are at one and not sundered by the experience of  fighting and of conf lict. Thus we encounter an emphasis on piety repeatedly in the great chivalric figures of  the fourteenth century. The piety of  Edward III is amply testified to in the chronicles of  Geof frey le Baker (1357–1360) and Froissart (1369–1400). The man who, fighting under the patronage of  St George and the Virgin Mary, overcomes greatly superior numbers at Halidon Hill on 19 July 1333 and at Crécy on 26 August 1346, has a profound sense (like Wellington at Waterloo) of  being blest by the hand of  God. Edward himself made many pilgrimages and on an almost annual basis to the shrine of  St Thomas Becket at Canterbury.116 The piety of  his illustrious eldest son, the Black Prince, is not less evident in the Chandos Herald’s La Vie du Prince Noir (1385). The Black Prince’s devotion to the Holy Trinity is especially marked, both at the beginning of  the poem (85–92) and at its end (4176–78). Before the battles of  Poitiers (1260–73) and Nájera (3172–87) the Black Prince makes his prayer to God for aid, and after them he attributes the victory not to himself  but to God (1427–32 and 3502–8). The piety of  his fourth son, John of  Gaunt, is hardly less in evidence. Although he was a patron of  Wyclif in the 1370s Gaunt’s religious orthodoxy is evident in his support of  the Carmelites (the confessors both of  himself and of  his first wife, Blanche of  Lancaster, were Carmelites); in his devotion to the Virgin Mary, ref lected in his bequest to Lincoln Cathedral, one of  her greatest shrines; in the crusading privileges he received from Urban VI for his projected expedition to Castile in 1383 and in the crusade itself in Castile in 1386–1387 against the Clementists.117 Gaunt was also a patron of  the Hospital of  St Mary Rouncesval at Charing Cross, in whose employ is to be found Chaucer’s Pardoner (GP, A 669–70).118 At his death on 3 February 1399 his body remained unburied and unembalmed in accordance with his will for forty days before his burial at St Paul’s Cathedral on Passion Sunday (16 March 1399).119

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We are dealing in all these cases (that is, with the exception of  the hypocritical Pardoner) with no mere external show of piety but with a profound religious conviction. The piety or holiness of  the Knight of  the General Prologue is thus of a piece with the spirit of  the age. It is signified by his eagerness to join the pilgrimage to Canterbury and its importance by the fact that it is reserved for the final lines of  the portrait (GP, A 77–78). There is no reason to suppose that Chaucer himself (for all the ironic gestures of  his poetry) is out of sympathy with these great ideals. It is inherently more probable that he shares the convictions of  the age in which he lives rather than the convictions (or lack of convictions) of a later age (as it happens, our own age). If  this view of  the matter is unpalatable, it ought not to be surprising from an historical point of view. And it seems that after a generation or so of scholarly debate we have returned to this ageold view of  the Knight as a champion of justice and of  the Christian faith. This is the view of  the great Majorcan knight, Ramon Llull (c. 1235– 1315) in his seminal work on chivalry, Le Libre De l’Orde De Cavalleria (1275–1276). The continuing popularity of  Llull’s Catalan treatise on chivalry in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is demonstrated by the translations into French, English and Scots and by the number of extant manuscripts and printed texts.120 William Caxton in his own translation from the French version, The Book of  the Ordre of  Chyualry, dedicated to Richard III (c. 1484), puts the matter as follows (24/9–11, 29/11–12, 30/6–7, 31/3–7 and 38/14–15): The of f yce of a knyght is to mayntene and def fende the holy feyth catholyque … Thof f yce of a knyght is to mayntene and def fende/ his lord worldly or terryen … By the knyȝtes ouȝt to be mayntened & kept justyce … Kniȝtes ouȝt to take coursers to juste & to go to tornoyes/ to holde open table/ to hunte at hertes/ at bores & other wyld bestes/ For in doynge these thynges the knyȝtes excercyse them to armes/ for to mayntene thordre of  kniȝthode …121 Thof f yce of a knyght is to mayntene and def fende wymmen/ wydowes and orphanes.

In an original epilogue Caxton makes a stirring appeal to the knights of  England to fulfil this noble ideal of  knighthood and in so doing to emulate the example of  their worthy ancestors (Book of  the Ordre of  Chyualry, 122/8–9 and 122/13–123/9):

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It is not to be expected that the Knight of  the General Prologue, any more than any other knight, can perfectly exemplify in his own life and conduct these moral values. He is after all on a pilgrimage to Canterbury himself in explicit (if silent) recognition of  his own imperfection. But there ought to be no doubt that his life has been inspired by these values. Thus Chaucer does not say that the Knight was brave, loyal, honourable, generous and courteous (although he gives us good reason to believe that he was), but that he loved these qualities and acted out of  them. As Aquinas explains, following Aristotle, it is not enough to do what the just man does to be just. Virtue is a habit and the just man acts out of  the habit of justice, that is to say, promptly and with pleasure (ST, 1a 2ae 107.4): … sicut etiam Philosophus dicit quod operari ea quae justus operatur, facile est; sed operari ea eo modo justus operatur, scilicet delectabiliter et prompte, est dif ficile non habenti justitiam. … as Aristotle himself says, it is easy to do what the just man does, but to do it in the way in which the just man does it, that is, with pleasure and promptly, is dif ficult for someone who does not have the virtue of justice. (translated by Cornelius Ernst)122

It is precisely this sense of  the conformity between the interior and exterior acts of moral virtue that we understand in respect of  the Knight. It was not merely that he was chivalrous (in all the senses of  that word) but also that he ‘loved chivalrie,/ Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie’ (GP, A 45–46). He is precisely to be distinguished from the hypocrite as first from last.

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Moral Goodness and the Rhetoric of  Praise VI.  In understanding Chaucer’s portrait of  the Knight it is necessary to make the case once again for moral goodness, for it is a case that has gone by default in a modern age of spin and cynicism and in a world in which image can seem more compelling than the inner reality of moral virtue. The sympathetic presentation of  the Knight’s military enterprises is artistically realised through the common devices of epideictic rhetoric (and here the rhetoric of praise).123 Hence moral goodness is poetically and pleasingly represented as handsomeness or beauty. In the case of a great lady such as Blanche of  Lancaster the marks of physical beauty are interwoven with corresponding moral qualities in a logical and systematic order; thus hair and eyes (BD, 855–59), face (BD, 895–913), neck (BD, 939–47) and body (BD, 948–60) on the one hand, and openness (symplesse) and truthfulness (BD, 860–94 and 914–18), friendliness (BD, 919–38) and cheerfulness (BD, 961–84) on the other. The virtues are all social virtues and are classified by Aristotle in the Ethics (II.7 and IV.6–8) as part of  the cardinal virtue of  temperance.124 This combination of physical (ef fictio) and moral (notatio) qualities cannot always have existed on the testing field of  battle. Sometimes physical unattractiveness is quite at odds with the radiance of  the inner virtue of courage, as in Sorley Maclean’s poem, ‘Heroes’, 1–8: I did not see Lannes at Ratisbon nor MacLennan at Auldearn nor Gillies MacBain at Culloden, but I saw an Englishman in Egypt. A poor little chap with chubby cheeks and knees grinding each other, pimply unattractive face – garment of  the bravest spirit.125

In the case of a young knight battle may not yet have had time to dim the handsomeness of early youth. Thus we are gratified to learn as Sir Gawain sets out from Hautdesert on the morning of  his appointed meeting with

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the Green Knight that he is ‘[þ]e gayest into Grece’ (SGGK, 2023), that is, the most handsome of  knights from here into Greece.126 But the rigours of war over a long period of  time are bound to exact a physical price and these will perhaps be evident in disfiguring scars. Chaucer’s Knight must have paid such a physical price for his military exertions, as did that great warrior and king, Edward III, in his declining years as he entered his sixties. Hence it is surely by deliberate omission that Chaucer makes no mention of  the Knight’s physical qualities. Nothing is to stand in the way of our admiration for so excellent a man. Thus Chaucer begins by identifying and continues by insisting upon the Knight’s excellence (GP, A 43, 47, 64 and 68): A Knyght ther was, and that a worthy man, … Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre, … This ilke worthy knyght hadde been also … And though that he were worthy, he was wys.

The use of  the word worthy is precisely what is required in the celebration of  knightly virtue, corresponding to the French preu. Troilus is the ‘worthi Ector the secounde’ (TC, II.158) and Ector himself is ‘of worthinesse welle’ (TC, II.178). Theseus is ‘this worthy duc’ (KnT, A 1001 and 1742) and ‘this duc, this worthy knyght’ (KnT, A 2190). Arveragus is ‘this worthy knyght’ (FranT, F 1460) and ‘of chivalrie the f lour’ (FranT, F 1088). This is a matter not of mere opinion or reputation but of deeds done. And when it comes to the exercise of arms there is no such thing as a small feat of arms (Livre de chevalerie, 3/15–17): Car je ne tieng qu’il soit nul petit fait d’armes fors que tous bons et grans, combien que li un des fais d’armes vaille miex que li autre. For I maintain that there are no small feats of arms, but only good and great ones, although some feats of arms are of greater worth than others.

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And Charny does not tire of saying ‘qui plus (miex) fait, miex vault/ he who does more (best) is of greater worth (most worthy)’.127 Thus we may place in ascending order of chivalric excellence those who do well in the joust, and then in tournament, but above all in war and supremely so in remote and distant places.128 Even though it is contradicted by the words of  the traditional song ‘The Foggy Dew’ where we are told that ‘’Twas better to die ’neath an Irish sky,/ Than at Suvla or Sedd el Bahr’,129 we may come to think that no Irishmen are more worthy of  honour than those who came ashore on V Beach at Cape Helles on 25 April 1915 with the Dublin and Munster Fusiliers130 or who fought and died in the Tenth (Irish) Division on the crest of  Kiretch Teppe Sirt on 15 and 16 August 1915.131 The Turkish names of  Seddülbahir and Küchuk Anafarta (dif ficult as they may be for us in Dublin) will become the true memorial of  their worthiness. These men died for their country two thousand miles from home, often unattended by their companions, and deprived of  the sight of  family and loved ones. According to Terry Jones this notion of worthiness is not the leading sense of worthy in the fourteenth century. ‘A “worthy man” … did not primarily mean a man “deserving of  honour” or “of great merit” as it does now’.132 Such a statement does not obviously coincide with the lexical evidence and there is a good deal of special pleading to a predetermined conclusion. The meaning ‘[d]istinguished by good qualities; entitled to honour or respect on this account; estimable’ (OED, s.v. worthy adj. I.2.a) is recorded from the beginning of  the fourteenth century and examples of its use are plentiful. The MED refers the example of  Chaucer’s Knight to the sense ‘possessed of noble virtues, estimable; illustrious’ (s.v. worthi adj. 3.(b) ). The oldest meaning of worthy, recorded by OED (II.7, 8 and 9) and MED (2.(b) ) from the beginning of  the thirteenth century, is the one that focuses on the relation between worthiness and desert, in senses good and bad. Dante analyses Latin dignitas in precisely this fashion in the De vulgari eloquentia (II.ii.3; Haller, 34): Est etenim dignitas meritorum ef fectus sive terminus: ut, cum quis bene meruit, ad boni dignitatem profectum esse dicimus, cum male vero, ad mali; puta bene militantem ad victorie dignitatem.

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GERALD MORGAN And dignity, then, is the ef fect or the end of desert: we say that someone has achieved dignity for a good when he has deserved well, and for an evil when he has deserved evil. Someone who has fought well as a knight has the dignity appropriate to victory.

Chaucer himself is bent on establishing the link between honour and worthiness, for the reverence of  honour shown to the Knight is what is due to him by the merit of virtue (GP, A 50): And evere honoured for his worthynesse.

Indeed, the true merit of  his prowess in battle is to be seen in the victories he has helped to win (GP, A 51, 59 and 63). The persistence of  the link between the Knight’s prowess and conquest, as also in the case of  Theseus (KnT, A 862, 864, 866, 872, 877, 916, etc. and epigraph from Statius’s Thebaid) is not a desire to be identified with the winners as distinct from the losers of  battles, for many knights fight valiantly in a losing cause. Rather it is to stress the fundamental nature of  the link between worthiness and conquest. A knight such as Chaucer’s Knight merits victory, not least by his prowess as a knight, but above all by his great virtues as a human being. We may think, for example, that the steadfast endeavour of  Wellington on the field of  Waterloo made him deserving of victory. The emphasis on the Knight’s worthiness as determining the persuasive impact of  the portrait is a classic piece of rhetorical patterning. It is the very purpose of epideictic rhetoric to supply the proper feeling that accompanies (or ought to accompany) the representation of virtue. The rhetorical figure is traductio. The insistence on the Knight’s worthiness is by no means inherently suspect, for this is precisely what we expect from the rhetoric of praise and censure. Such emphatic evaluative language is in itself characteristic of  the romance way of writing. The excellence of  knights and ladies of romance is nothing if not superlative. The Gawainpoet describes the company gathered for Christmas at Camelot as made up of  ‘[þ]e most kyd knyȝtez vnder Krystes seluen’ and ‘þe louelokkest ladies þat euer lif  haden’ and presided over by ‘þe comlokest kyng’ (SGGK, 51–53). Almost every page of  Malory’s Morte Darthur yields examples of superlative language of  this kind. The most famous example is that of  the lament of  Ector de Maris over his brother Launcelot (MD, 1259/9–21).133

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But here is the description of a lesser knight (Sir Pelleas, fifth in Malory’s ranking of  the Round Table knights) (MD, 166/8–12): ‘A,’ sayde the knyght, ‘that is the beste knyght I trow in the worlde and the moste man of prouesse. And hit is the grettyst pyté of  hym as of ony knyght lyvynge, for he hath be served so as he was this tyme more than ten tymes. And his name hyght sir Pelleas.’

The use of such an emphatic style is not ‘typical of  Chaucer’s satiric portraits’.134 Chaucer’s ironic ef fects in the portrait of  the Prioress, for example, are not produced by labouring a point, but by the placing of resonant words such as ‘symple and coy’ (GP, A 119) outside of  their habitual linguistic field of reference. Such words are reassuring in the case of a courtly heroine such as Blanche of  Lancaster (BD, 860–61 and 918) but raise an eyebrow in the context of a religious vocation. In the same way we can appreciate the use of  the word worthy in cases where conspicuous merit is hard to discern, as, for example, in reference to the ‘worthy lymytour … cleped Huberd’ (GP, A 269) and to the Wife of  Bath as ‘a worthy womman al hir lyve’ (GP, A 459). But we are on sure ground with the figure of  traductio. Geof frey of  Vinsauf, Chaucer’s ‘deere maister soverayn’ (NPT, B2 4537)135 places it among the figures of diction as being a mode of expression that is ‘levis pulchrique coloris,/ easy and adorned’ (Poetria, 1094). Although it is a simple and straightforward feature of style, nevertheless it possesses a ‘planities turpis ne terreat aures,/ simplicity that does not shock the ear by its rudeness’ (Poetria, 1096). The author of  the Rhetorica ad Herennium says of  traductio in particular that it makes possible the repetition of a single word ‘non modo non of fendat animum, sed etiam concinniorem orationem reddat, / not only without of fence to good taste, but even so as to render the style more elegant’ (Ad Her., IV.xiv.20). It is sometimes dif ficult for a modern reader to sympathise with the moral idealism of  the portrait of  the Knight, not because of an indif ference to honour or magnanimity, but because of a hatred of war in general and of religious wars in particular. Such hostility to the very notion of a crusade is not a modern phenomenon. Gower’s Confessor is aware both of  the sinfulness of  killing heathens and of  the inef ficacy of  the attempt to spread Christianity by the sword (CA, III.2490–2546). But even Gower

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distinguishes between lawful and unlawful motives in a crusader. To fight in a crusade on account of pride or the love of a lady is one thing, but to fight on account of  the love of  God (as does Chaucer’s Knight) is another (Mirour de l’Omme, 23953–64). It is an easy matter to stand above the systems of  belief or prejudices of an age from which one is entirely remote. But Chaucer has set his portrait of  human virtue in the context of chivalry because of  the great prestige of  the institutions of chivalry at the time at which he was writing (and not least the prestige of  Edward III’s Order of  the Garter at Windsor). What may have been an incidental recommendation of  the Knight to Chaucer’s English contemporaries may be a source of moral scepticism among modern readers. But the trappings of chivalry are not what is essential in Chaucer’s portrait. The Knight is a good and great man who acts out of  the best motives in the condition of  life in which he has been placed. Aristotle’s first criterion for a character is that he or she should be good (Poetics, 15). What is involved here is not merely the avoidance of gratuitous wickedness (Aristotle himself supplies the example of  Menelaus’s cowardly refusal to aid Orestes in Euripides’s Orestes) nor even the nobility of  the characters of  tragedy as against comedy. What is prized is goodness itself  by the artist who wishes to give a convincing account of reality. The forms of  things possess a higher reality than things themselves and the idea of ideas, as Plato establishes, is the idea of  the good. Evil is a dependent principle, not merely the negation of  the good, but its privation.136 Thus the young Chaucer is insistent on the goodness of  Blanche the Duchess in a general as well as a particular sense (BD, 985–98). The Gawain of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is ‘gode Gawan’ both at the beginning of  the romance and at its end (109 and 2491) and in many vital places in between. In the General Prologue Chaucer shows us that goodness is realised among all conditions of men and at all levels of society. We look to the love of moral virtue of  the scholar in his study (GP, A 307–8), to the good example of  the parson preaching in his pulpit (GP, A 524–28) and to the industry of  the labourer at the plough (GP, A 531–32). But in the end justice must be fought and won on the field of  battle by those who are willing to lay down their lives in its defence. In our own time, let us say, the suf fering of  those in the German concentration camps in Poland must be relieved by

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the sacrifice of many lives on the Normandy beaches. We must continue to hope that those who fight for justice on our behalf possess the humanity of  Chaucer’s Knight.

Notes 1

This is the (perhaps universalised) form of  the Garter motto as it appears at the end of  the text of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, p. 69. The original form of  the motto is Honi soit qui mal y pense, that is, ‘Shamed be he who thinks ill of it’; see Hugh E.L. Collins, The Order of  the Garter 1348–1461: Chivalry and Politics in Late Medieval England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), p. 12. An English form of  the motto appears in the body of  the text of  Wynnere and Wastoure (c. 1350–70), edited by Stephanie Trigg, EETS, 297 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 68: ‘Hethyng haue the hathell þat any harme thynkes’. This is an accurate but also generalised form of  the motto; see MED, s.v. hething n. 3.(b) ‘degradation, disgrace, dishonor’. The twenty-six knights of  the Order of  the Garter are the most famous knights of  their age and hence attract both admiration and envy in equal proportions. Those who think ill of  knights justly honoured for their outstanding feats of arms in battle are themselves worthy only of contempt. On the relation of  the Garter motto to Edward III’s infatuation for (and possible rape of ) the Countess of  Salisbury, see Francis Ingledew, ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ and the Order of  the Garter (Notre Dame, IN: University of  Notre Dame Press, 2006), pp. 112–32. 2 ‘Were anyone, therefore, to say that those who are engaged in a career of arms would not be able to save their souls, they would not know what they were saying, for in all good, necessary, and traditional professions anyone can lose or save his soul as he wills’ (35/187–91, pp. 162 and 164–65). Le Livre de chevalerie (c. 1350–1352) was written for the French king, Jean II, and his Company of  the Star, founded in 1352. 3 See Boutell’s Heraldry, revised by J.P. Brooke-Little (London and New York: Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd, 1973), p. 35. 4 Reference is to King Edward III, edited by Giorgio Melchiori, The New Cambridge Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Edward III (b. 1312) is defending the military reputation of  Sir James Audley, of  Stratton Audley, Oxfordshire (d.1369), represented in the play as an aged man but in

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historical fact a near contemporary of  Edward’s eldest son, the Black Prince (b.1330); see ODNB, 2.934–35. Audley was a founder-knight of  the Order of  the Garter (Collins, p. 289) and is described by Froissart as ‘sages et vaillans homs durement’; see Siméon Luce, Gaston Raynaud, Léon Mirot and Albert Mirot, Chroniques de J. Froissart, Société de l’Histoire de France, 15 vols (Paris: Renouard, Champion and Klincksieck, 1869–1975), V.33.22–23 (reference is to volume, page and line number of  this edition) and in the English translation by Lord Berners (1523–1525) as ‘a right sage and a valyant knyght’ (Book I, ch.162); see Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners, The Chronicle of  Froissart, with an introduction by William Paton Ker, 6 vols (London: D. Nutt, 1901–1903), 1.371. Audley’s conspicuous gallantry in the field at Poitiers (19 September 1356) is the centrepiece of  Froissart’s description of  the battle (Book I, ch.162, 165 and 167). Thus we read how he took up his position in the vanguard with four trusty squires in fulfilment of  his knightly vow to strike the first blow in the battle. He took no prisoners (being in expectation of death rather than the accumulation of ransoms), but fought on, wounded in the face and body, until he could fight no more. At the end of  the battle he is carried by eight servants in a litter to the Black Prince who rewards him for his supreme valour with an annuity of 500 marks. With a like magnanimity Sir James Audley bestows this gift on his four faithful squires. It is a perfect illustration of  the ideal of chivalry in its combination of wisdom, courage, loyalty and generosity. 5 On the nature of service and society in royal and noble households in the second half of  the fourteenth century, see the two excellent studies by Chris GivenWilson, The Royal Household and the King’s Af finity: Service, Politics and Finance in England 1360–1413 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986) and The English Nobility in the Late Middle Ages: The Fourteenth-Century Political Community (London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987). 6 See Chaucer Life-Records, edited by Martin M. Crow and Clair C. Olson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 18 and n. 6. 7 Henry of  Grosmont (arms: England, a label of  three points France) (1310–1361), Earl of  Derby (one of six new earls created by Edward III in the parliament of  March 1337), Earl of  Lancaster on the death of  his father (1345) and a founderknight of  the Order of  the Garter (Collins, p. 288). He was raised to Duke of  Lancaster in the parliament of 1351 (a special mark of royal favour as only the second duke after the Black Prince as Duke of  Cornwall in 1337). He served on the Scottish campaign of 1334–1335 and again in Scotland in 1336. He was the king’s lieutenant in Aquitaine in 1345–1347 and again in 1349–1350. He saved the lives of  the Black Prince and John of  Gaunt in the naval victory over the Castilian f leet of f  Winchelsea on 29 August 1350. He was the principal

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9

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English representative in the negotiations leading to the Treaty of  Brétigny. He is the author of  the devotional treatise, Le Livre de Seyntz Medicines, begun and completed in 1354; see E.J. Arnould (ed.), Le Livre de Seyntz Medicines: The Unpublished Devotional Treatise of  Henry of  Lancaster, Anglo-Norman Texts, II (Oxford: Blackwell, 1940), pp. vii and 244/7–8. Holding land in Staf fordshire, Derbyshire and Cheshire, he would have made a suitable model for the Gawain of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; see W.G. Cooke and D’A .J.D. Boulton, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Poem for Henry of  Grosmont?’, MÆ, 68 (1999), 42–54. For a full account of  his career, see Kenneth Fowler, The King’s Lieutenant: Henry of  Grosmont, First Duke of  Lancaster 1310–1361 (London: Elek, 1969) and ODNB, 26.572–76. His younger daughter, Blanche, was the first wife of  John of  Gaunt, whom she married on 20 May 1359 and to whom she brought the Lancastrian inheritance on the death of her father in 1361 and her elder sister, Maud, Countess of  Leicester, in 1362. Her own death on 12 September 1368 is the subject of  Chaucer’s first original poem, The Book of  the Duchess, with its allusions to the ‘long castel with walles white,/ Be Seynt Johan, on a ryche hil’ (BD, 1318–19). John of  Gaunt was Earl of  Richmond until 1372, when the earldom was ceded to Jean IV de Montfort, Duke of  Brittany (1339–1399), elected Knight of  the Garter in April 1375 (Collins, p. 290). See Anthony Goodman, John of  Gaunt: The Exercise of  Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe (Longman: Harlow, Essex, 1992), p. 185. In the household of  the Earl and Countess of  Ulster Chaucer would have seen the Duke of  Lancaster at the height of  his fame, and also his own immediate contemporaries, the Earl of  Richmond and Lady Blanche of  Lancaster. He would have travelled the length and breadth of  England from one royal residence to another, and witnessed the preparations for such festivals as those of St George at Windsor and of  Pentecost at Woodstock as well as the tournaments at Smithfield. See Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 16 and 18. Sir John Chandos (arms: or, a pile gules) (d.1370) was the son of  Sir Edward Chandos and Isabel, daughter of  Sir Robert Twyford, and descended from the Derbyshire branch of  the Chandos family. He distinguished himself at the siege of  Cambrai in 1339 in single combat with a French squire and was knighted in the same year. He was at Sluys in 1340, and in the vanguard at Crécy on 26 August 1346 under the command of  the Black Prince. He was a founder-knight of  the Order of  the Garter, but on the king’s side (having taken part in tournaments with the king from 1344 onwards). He was at Winchelsea in 1350, and in 1355 with the Black Prince on his first expedition to Aquitaine. He was at the Black Prince’s side at Poitiers in 1356 and in his company in the Rheims campaign of 1359–60. In 1361 he was appointed the king’s lieutenant for the transfer of  lands

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in Aquitaine. In 1363–1364 he was governor of  La Rochelle and commander in Saintonge, and constable of  Aquitaine. He commanded the vanguard in support of  the pro-English Jean IV de Montfort, Duke of  Brittany (and Earl of  Richmond after 1372) in the victory against the French under Charles, Duke of  Blois (who was killed in the battle) at Auray in 1364, and took as prisoner no less a man than Bertrand du Guesclin. He was constable of  the Black Prince’s army in support of  Pedro I of  Castile, and led the vanguard across the Pyrenees in February 1367, using the pass at Roncesvalles on the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostella. He fought as a banneret for the first time in the victory at Nájera on 3 April 1367 against Henry of  Trastámara and his French allies under du Guesclin and Arnoud d’Audrehem, fighting once again in the vanguard with the Black Prince. He returned to Aquitaine on the resumption of  the war with France in 1368–1369, becoming seneschal of  Poitou on the death of  Sir James Audley on 23 August 1369. He met a painful and unlucky death, mortally wounded in the eye in a skirmish at the bridge of  Lussac-les-Châteaux on New Year’s Eve 1369 and dying without regaining consciousness the following day. See ODNB, 11.9–11. 10 Sir Reginald Cobham (arms: gules, on a chevron or three lioncels sable) (c. 1295– 1361), 1st Lord Cobham of  Sterborough (Kent), was a knight of  the king’s household by 1334. He was at the siege of  Tournai (26 July–25 September 1340). He was one of  the three bodyguards of  the sixteen-year-old Black Prince at Crécy, at the siege of  Calais (1346–1347) and at the sea battle of f  Winchelsea in 1350. At Poitiers he was marshal of  the Black Prince’s army and conducted the captured French king to the English lines. He was raised to the rank of  banneret in June 1339, and summoned to parliament in November 1347 and thereafter for the rest of  his life. He was appointed admiral of  the Western Fleet in 1344 and 1348, elected Knight of  the Garter in October 1352 and appointed captain of  Calais in 1353. See ODNB, 12.291, Collins, pp. 62–63, 66, 91–92, 250 and n. 59, and 289, and J.S. Bothwell, Edward III and the English Peerage: Royal Patronage, Social Mobility and Political Control in Fourteenth-Century England (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2004), p. 21. The reputation of  Cobham is secure from the pages of  Froissart’s account of  Crécy. Before the battle the king orders ‘ses deux mareschaus, le conte de Warvic et monseigneur Godefroi de Harcourt, et monsigneur Renault de Gobehen avoech eulz, vaillant chevalier durement, /his Marshals, the Earl of  Warwick and Sir Godfrey of  Harcourt, and with them that stout and gallant knight Sir Reginald Cobham’ (III.166.11/p. 83) to ride out to consider the best place for the disposition of  the forces; during the battle he is singled out along with Sir John Chandos among ‘la f leur de che­ valerie d’Engleterre,/the f lower of  the English knighthood’ (III.182.15/p. 91) as fighting ‘as espées, main à main, moult vaillamment, / in hand-to-hand combat

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with swords’ (III.182.9/p. 91); and after the battle he is instructed by the king to ride out with Sir Richard Staf ford, ‘doi moult vaillant chevalier, /two gallant knights’ (III.190.9/p. 95), to examine the dead, accompanied by three heralds to identify the dead and two clerks to write down their names. Reference here is to the translation of  Geof frey Brereton, Froissart: Chronicles, Penguin Books (Harmondsworth, 1968; reprinted with minor revisions, 1978). Thus are Arcite and Palamon identified among the slain before Thebes, for ‘by hir cote-armures and by hir gere/ The heraudes knewe hem best in special’ (KnT, A 1016–17). 11 Sir Walter Mauny (c. 1310–1372), fourth son of  Jean le Borgne, lord of  Masny, in Hainault, who came to England in December 1327 as a page in the household of  Philippa of  Hainault. He was knighted in 1331 and retained as a member of  Edward III’s household. He fought in Scotland at Dupplin Moor (1332), was at the siege of  Berwick in 1333 and was present in Edward III’s Scottish campaigns of 1334–1335, 1335 and 1336 (in the last of which he was Edward’s standard-bearer). He was admiral of  the North at the outbreak of  the war with France in August 1337. He was at the naval battle of  Sluys on 24 June 1340 and the subsequent siege of  Tournai. He was in command of an unsuccessful force in Brittany in 1342 in support of  Jean IV de Montfort against Charles de Blois. He was at the siege of  Calais in 1347 with a large retinue (326 men, including 19 knights and 91 squires). He was summoned to parliament from 1348 until his death. In 1353 or 1354 he married as second husband Edward III’s cousin Margaret Marshal, daughter of  Thomas of  Brotherton, 1st Earl of  Norfolk (1300–1338) and elder of  the two sons of  Edward I by his second marriage to Margaret of  France. He was elected Knight of  the Garter in September 1359 (Collins, p. 289) on the eve of  the 1359–1360 campaign, accompanying Edward III at the siege of  Rheims in December and January and in the chevauchée east and south of  Paris that followed, and led the attack on the suburbs of  Paris in person on 12 April 1360. He was one of  the delegates negotiating the treaty of  Brétigny and was present at Calais in October 1360 when the treaty was confirmed. In 1361 he made the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. He was founder of  the London Charterhouse on 28 March 1371 to which he left a large bequest on his death on 14/15 January 1372. See ODNB, 37.445–48. 12 See Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 27–28 and 370–74, and Boutell’s Heraldry, pp. 106–7 and Plate II, no.1. 13 See the wardrobe account of  William de Farley for the period 12 January to 7 July 1360; Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 24–25. 14 Richard Stur(r)y (c. 1327–1395) was successively yeoman (1349), esquire (1359) and chamber knight (1365) in the household retinues of  Edward III, the Black Prince and Richard II, and remained a chamber knight and trusted diplomat

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until his death. His date of  birth ‘in the later 1320s’ (K.B. McFarlane, Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 161) makes him an exact contemporary of  the Knight of  the General Prologue. He was serving at sea in 1347, and was one of  thirty squires knighted before the walls of  Paris on 12 April 1360 (Froissart, V.231.15–16). His courage in a sea-battle is noticed by Froissart (?? III.206), and he is still serving in the Breton expedition of 1378. Although a distinguished knight his talents found their greatest use in the diplomatic sphere. He was in the Low Countries on behalf of  Edward III in 1368, and again in 1370–1371, was ambassador to Jean IV de Montfort, Duke of  Brittany, in 1371 (when involved in a naval battle of f  the Breton coast; see Froissart, ?? VIII.93) (being granted a life annuity of £60 by the Duke sometime between 1372 and 1381) and, as Froissart records, was involved in marriage negotiations at the French court in 1377 with Sir Guichard d’Angle and Chaucer: ‘… dou costé des Englès, messires Guichars d’Angle, messires Richars Sturi et Jof frois Cauchiés’ (VIII.226/10–12). He was in France in 1381, 1382 and frequently in 1389–1394 in the course of negotiations on Richard II’s behalf  for a final peace with France. He was a personal friend of  Froissart and was present at Eltham in 1395 on the occasion of  Froissart’s presentation of  the book containing ‘all his writings on love and morality’ (Brereton, p. 403) to Richard II (Brereton, p. 408). Sir Richard Stury was a member of  the lesser nobility or gentry, perhaps connected with the parish of  Stury in Kent where he acquired property. He married in 1374 Alice, daughter of  Sir John Blount and widow of  Sir Richard Staf ford (an advantageous match). He died sine prole in 1395. See Given-Wilson, Royal Household, pp. 148–49 and McFarlane, pp. 148, 161, 163 and n. 2, 174–75, 178, 180 and 186–88. 15 Chaucer Life-Records, p. 24. 16 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 123–24. Chaucer is styled valettus in the records from 1367–1372, but armiger thereafter, although the term esquier corresponds in the records to both valettus and armiger (pp. 123, 129, n. 1 and 514). At the time of  the death of  Queen Philippa (15 August 1369) he is listed among the ‘esquiers de meindre degree’ (p. 99). On the variable usage of  the term valettus (F vadlet, vallet) and its comparability to esquire, see Peter Coss, The Origins of  the English Gentry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 225–28 and Nigel Saul, Knights and Esquires: The Gloucestershire Gentry in the Fourteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), pp. 6–7. The emergence of the Squire as a social rank belongs to the 1360s and 1370s on the evidence of  the sumptuary legislation of 1363, and by 1400 the term valettus is reduced in status to that of  ME ye(o)man. 17 See Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 126–27 (Table 1), 132, 303–4, 314–15 and 335.

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Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 112–13 and 304–7. Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 307–13, 334–35 and 336–39. Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 514–18 and 525–29. Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 530 and 532. Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 94–105, 106–11 and 112–20. Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 103–5. Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 67–69. Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 71–72, 75–76, 77–78 and 83–84. Chaucer Life-Records, p. 85 and n. 5. Constance was the second daughter of  Pedro I of  Castile, that is, Pedro the Cruel, murdered by his rival, Henry of  Trastámara, in 1369. Chaucer surely betrays his own English and Lancastrian sympathies in The Monk’s Tale in addressing him as ‘noble, … worthy Petro,’ and in telling in brief compass of  the fall and betrayal of  ‘this worthy kyng’ (MkT, B2 3565 and 3580). For a modern defence of  the character of  Pedro as a victim of  Trastamaran propaganda, see P.E. Russell, The English Intervention in Spain and Portugal in the Time of Edward III and Richard II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), pp. 16–22 and for a further reconsideration of  his character, see Kenneth Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, Volume I (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2001), pp. 160–62. 28 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 85–91 and 272. 29 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 91–93. 30 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 271–74. 31 Thomas Chaucer (c. 1367–1434) had large holdings of  land in Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Buckinghamshire, and was sherif f of  Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire and constable of  Wallingford. He was chief  butler to four successive kings, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI. He served (like his father) as envoy to France, was a member of  the King’s Council, MP and speaker in the parliaments of 1407, 1410 and 1411. He married about 1395 Maud Burghersh (c. 1379–1437), daughter and co-heir of  Sir John Burghersh of  Ewelme, who claimed kinship to the great families of  Mohun, Despenser and Plantagenet. See Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 541–44, ODNB, 11.259–60 and Given-Wilson, Royal Household, pp. 112, 137, 189, 253 and 314, n. 212. 32 See Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 19–20. 33 See Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 20–21. 34 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 64–65. 35 See Russell, English Intervention, p. 10. 36 See Russell, English Intervention, pp. 42–45, 59–69 and 75–81 and Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, pp. 171–77, 184, 192–97, 200–1 and 205. 37 Quoted by Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, p. 192, n. 4. 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

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38 See Russell, English Intervention, pp. 35–37, 40–42 and 45–51 and Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, pp. 148–53, 163–71, 177–81 and 185–86. 39 See Russell, English Intervention, pp. 53–59 and Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, pp. 181–84 and 194. 40 See Russell, English Intervention, p. 5. 41 Russell, English Intervention, pp. 83–85 and Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, pp. 198–200 and 205–6. 42 Russell, English Intervention, pp. 37–39 and Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, pp. 153–54. 43 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 29–30. This warrant rules out the possibility of Chaucer’s presence at the wedding of  Lionel of  Antwerp to Violante Visconte, daughter of  Galeazzo and niece of  Bernabò, at the cathedral of  Santa Maria Maggiore in Milan on 5 June 1368, as claimed by Frances Stonor Saunders, Hawkwood: Diabolical Englishman (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 2004), pp. 119 and 126. 44 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 106–7. The context is Gaunt’s expedition to Calais, Artois, Picardy and Normandy in July to November 1369; see Sydney ArmitageSmith, John of  Gaunt (London: Constable and Company Ltd, 1904), pp. 70–74 and Goodman, pp. 229–32. 45 Chaucer Life-Records, p. 31. 46 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 31–32. 47 Chaucer Life Records, pp. 32–40. The period from October 1372 to June 1373 is a period of intense negotiations on the part of  Pope Gregory XI (1370–1378) to prevent the outbreak of  hostilities between Genoa and Cyprus in the wake of  the rioting at the coronation of  Peter II of  Cyprus (1369–1382) as King of  Jerusalem at Famagusta on 10 October 1372 that resulted in the killing of  Genoese merchants and the destruction of  their property. Chaucer is thus in Genoa at the time of  the preparation of  the great f leet for the invasion of  Cyprus. In March 1373 Damian Cattaneo was despatched with seven galleys and by the beginning of  May was making raids on the gardens around Famagusta, and at the beginning of  October thirty-six galleys under the command of  Peter of  Campofregoso together with transport vessels and an army of 14,000 arrived of f  Famagusta. See Peter W. Edbury, The Kingdom of  Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191–1374 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 199–204. 48 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 40–42. 49 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 42–44. Sir John Burley (1332/33–1386) of  Birley in Herefordshire was a distinguished soldier who fought in Spain, France and Gascony, serving as a member of  the Black Prince’s bodyguard; he campaigned with the Teutonic knights in 1363, was captain of  Calais in 1373, was elected as

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Knight of  the Garter in June 1377 (the first election of Richard II’s reign) and was constable of  Nottingham Castle before 1381. He was a chamber knight by 1360, retained for life by Edward III and served in the household of  Richard II until his death. In 1379 he was on the embassy to Milan with Sir Michael de la Pole to negotiate a marriage alliance between Richard II and Caterina, the daughter of  Bernabò Visconti, as a sequel to the negotiations undertaken by Chaucer and Sir Edward de Berkeley in the previous year, but the negotiations came to nothing and the embassy was diverted from Rome to Prague to initiate the negotiations that were ultimately to lead to the marriage of  Richard II and Anne of  Bohemia. See Collins, pp. 45, 49, 52, 96–97 and nn. 30 and 35, 291 and 297, Given-Wilson, Royal Household, pp. 162, 169–70, 217 and 219 and Nigel Saul, Richard II (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 84–87 and 113, n. 18. 50 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 44–45, 47–49 and 51. Sir Thomas Percy (c. 1343–1403), younger brother of  Sir Henry Percy, 1st Earl of  Northumberland, son of  Mary of  Lancaster (d.1362), youngest of  the six sisters of  Henry of  Grosmont, and hence kinsman of  Gaunt and Richard II. He fought in France and Gascony with Gaunt in the campaigns of 1369 and 1373 and at the siege of  Limoges in 1370; he was seneschal of  Poitou (succeeding Chandos) and La Rochelle in 1369, and of  Saintonge in 1371, and elected Knight of  the Garter in April 1376. He was admiral of  the north in 1379 and 1385 (and also in 1399–1401) and at Richard II’s side at Mile End on 14 June 1381 for the first meeting with the rebel peasants. He was in Spain with Gaunt in 1386–1387, sealing an indenture with him on 15 February 1386 with eighty men-at-arms and one hundred and sixty archers, and being himself admiral of  the f leet that sailed from Plymouth on 7 July 1386. He was one of  Gaunt’s negotiators with Juan I of  Castile (1379–1390), son and successor of  Henry of  Trastámara in June and July 1387, returning to England in late 1387 or early 1388 and rejoining Gaunt in Gascony in June 1388. He was granted a life annuity of £100 by Gaunt in 1387 and in 1398 was appointed as Gaunt’s first executor along with Sir William le Scrope (c. 1350–1399), Earl of  Wiltshire. He was chamberlain in the royal household in 1390–1393 and steward in 1393–1399 (accompanying Richard II to Ireland in 1395 and 1399) and also under Henry IV in 1401–1402. He was one of  the duketti or ‘dukelings’, elevated in the parliament of 1397 as Earl of  Worcester. He kept his earldom after the deposition of  Richard II, but lost his life in the rebellion of 1403, being tried and beheaded on 23 July 1403, two days after the battle of  Shrewsbury. See ODNB, 43.737–39, Collins, pp. 46 and n. 51, 51 and n. 73, 63 and n. 125, 290 and 297, Given-Wilson, Royal Household, pp. 72–73 and 195–96 and English Nobility, pp. 51–53 and Goodman, pp. 115, 120, 127–29, 176, 189–90, 193, 197, 204, 282–83, 290 and 314. 51 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 45 and 52.

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52 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 45–49, 52 and 105. 53 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 49 and 52–53. 54 Sir Guichard d’Angle (c. 1308/15–1380), a native of  Poitou, was a knight by 1346 and appointed by Philip VI of  France seneschal of  Saintonge from 1350 to 1361. At Poitiers in 1356 he served under Jean, Count of  Poitiers, the king’s eldest son, escorting him from the field but returning himself  to the battle. He was found wounded after the battle among the heaps of  the slain (like Arcite and Palamon), captured and ransomed. After the treaty of  Brétigny he was one of  the French commissioners charged with the transfer of  La Rochelle to English rule in December 1360 and in September and October of 1361 of  the provinces of  Poitou, Saintonge and Angoumois where all his own lands were situated. Henceforth he was a subject of  the king of  England. He became marshal of  Aquitaine in 1363 and fought with distinction in the vanguard at Nájera in 1367. In September 1369 he took part in the chevauchée of  John Hastings, 2nd Earl of  Pembroke (Edward III’s son-in-law), into the Loire valley. He was present with the Black Prince and Gaunt at the siege and sack of  Limoges in 1370 and was elected Knight of  the Garter in January 1372. He fought gallantly at the side of  Pembroke in the naval defeat of f  La Rochelle on 23 June 1372, where he was captured and taken as a prisoner to Castile. He remained in prison until late in 1374 when he was transferred into the custody of  Olivier de Mauny and then into that of  Edward III. He returned to England at the beginning of 1375 a ruined man, but was rewarded by his old patron, Gaunt. He was appointed as one of  the tutors to Richard of  Bordeaux and on Richard’s coronation on 16 July 1377 made a life peer (the first life peer) as Earl of  Huntingdon. He died sometime during 25 March to 4 April 1380, probably at Maidenhead, and was buried at the church of  the Austin Friars in Bread Street, London, having directed in his will that his heart be buried in the church at Angle. He has earned Froissart’s description of  him (in the role of  tutor to Richard) as ‘ce gentil et vaillant chevalier monsigneur Guichart d’Angle’ (VIII.224.10–11). From such a man Chaucer would have learned all he needed to know about the exercise of  knighthood. See ODNB, 2.160–62, Collins, pp. 56–57, 58, 61, n. 116, 212, 290 and 300 and Fowler, pp. 199, 214 and 281, n. 74. 55 See Chaucer Life-Records, p. 51, n. 1. 56 Little seems to be known about Sir Edward Berkeley. Presumably he is the son of  Sir Maurice de Berkeley of  Uley (a.1314–1347), fifth son of  Sir Maurice de Berkeley, 2nd Lord Berkeley (1271–1326). Sir Maurice de Berkeley of  Uley was retained by Edward III from 1330 to 1347, fought at Crécy in 1346 and died before the walls of  Calais in 1347. His son Edward was on expedition in 1359 (the Rheims campaign of  Edward III), 1362 and 1363. See Vicary Gibbs and others,

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The Complete Peerage, second edition, 13 vols in 14 (London: The St Catherine Press Ltd, 1910–1959), reprinted in 6 vols (Stroud: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000), II.130 and Saul, Gloucestershire Gentry, pp. 33, 51, 53, 55, n. 78, 58, Table II and n. 1, 76–77 and Appendix III, pp. 276–77. 57 Sir John Hawkwood (c. 1320/1323–1394) was the second son (and the second John) of  Gilbert de Hawkwood (d.1340), a minor landowner at Sible Hedingham in Essex and tenant of  the de Vere Earls of  Oxford whose seat was at Castle Hedingham a mile or so away. He went to France in the retinue of  John de Vere, 7th Earl of  Oxford (b.1313), fought at Crécy in 1346 (perhaps in the vanguard under William de Bohun, 1st Earl of  Northampton, KG Sept.1348, d.1360) and was knighted at Poitiers in 1356, where he fought in the vanguard of  Oxford, Warwick and the Gascon nobleman, Jean de Grailly, Captal de Buch. He remained in France and Burgundy after the treaty of  Brétigny as one of  the leaders of  the Great Company (Magna Societas), known in Italy as the White Company (Societas Alba Anglicorum). He was present at the capture of  Pont-Saint-Esprit, a fortress twenty-five miles north of  Avignon, on the night of 28/29 December 1360, and came to Italy in the brigade captained by the German mercenary Albrecht Sterz in the service of  the Marquis of  Montferrat against the Count of  Savoy and Galeazzo Visconti in Piedmont and Lombardy (1361–1363). Hawkwood replaced Sterz as its leader in December 1363 and as captain-general of war for Pisa against Florence. Contracts of employment (condotte) were for relatively short periods of  three to six months so that the pattern of  Hawkwood’s shifts of allegiance and loyalties follows a bewildering course. He is in the service of  Pisa in 1363, of  Galeazzo Visconti in Milan at the time of  Lionel of  Antwerp’s marriage to Violante Visconti in 1368, of  Pope Gregory XI and Robert of  Geneva (later Clement VII) after 1372 (and hence involved in the massacre at Cesena at the beginning of  February 1376), of  Bernabò Visconti in April 1377 in command of  the anti-papal league (when he was of fered the hand of  Bernabò’s illegitimate daughter, Donnina, in marriage as his second wife) and of  Florence and its allies after 1379 and (on and of f ) for the last fourteen years of  his life as captain-general of  the army of  the republic of  Florence. He was in the field in the service of  Pope Urban VI (1378–1389) and Charles of  Durazzo (d.1386) against the Duke of  Anjou in Naples in 1382–1383 and won a victory for Padua against Verona at the battle of  Castagnaro on 11 May 1387. His life is thus the life of a true mercenary and much of it is devoted to negotiating and renegotiating contracts of service. His profits were simply enormous and in his two best years (1377 and 1381) amounted to 82,600 f lorins and 67,533 f lorins respectively (equivalent to the revenue of a city such as Lucca with a population of  thirty thousand). Even among mercenaries Hawkwood was indif ferent to

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the religious crusade. Thus after the Milanese-Florentine war in 1392 (in which Hawkwood distinguished himself in his old age) Hawkwood’s opponent Jacopo dal Verme went on crusade to Jerusalem with Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of  Derby (the future Henry IV), whereas Hawkwood himself retired to Florence to put his af fairs in order. But there can be no doubt that Hawkwood was a great man in the midst of  the political intrigues and wars between the Italian city states and the papacy in the late fourteenth century. He died in Florence on 18 March 1394 and was buried with the greatest solemnity and splendour on 20 March and to this day is commemorated in the church of  Santa Maria del Fiore (the duomo) in the fresco of  Uccello of 1436. See Kenneth Fowler, ‘Sir John Hawkwood and the English condottieri in Trecento Italy’, Renaissance Studies, 12 (1998), 131–48 and William Caferro, John Hawkwood: An English Mercenary in FourteenthCentury Italy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006). 58 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 53–61. The details of  this mission remain obscure but would seem to include a possible marriage alliance between England and Milan. If we allow five weeks for travel in each direction then Chaucer was in Lombardy for little more than a month, say, 1 July to 15 August 1378. Hawkwood’s company was besieging Verona in the summer of 1378 and his headquarters at this time were at Monzambano, some sixteen miles north of Mantua and some seventy-five miles (or three days of  travel) east of  Milan. From a letter written by Hawkwood at Monzambano on 8 August 1378 it can be deduced that he was in Milan for some period between 15 July and 2 August 1378 and that negotiations between Berkeley and Chaucer on the one hand and Bernabò Visconti and Hawkwood on the other took place at that time. See Robert Armstrong Pratt, ‘Geof frey Chaucer, Esq., and Sir John Hawkwood’, ELH, 16 (1949), 188–93. Hawkwood retained his primary allegiance to England so that his Italian contracts explicitly included a clause barring service against opponents allied to the king of  England (Caferro, pp. 25 and 349–50). Thus Hawkwood was appointed by Richard II as ambassador to Urban VI in 1381 and 1382, to Charles of  Durazzo in 1382 and 1385 and to Giangaleazzo Visconti in 1385 (Caferro, pp. 223, 234 and 257). But there is no evidence that Chaucer met Hawkwood on any occasion other than his mission of 1378 and no grounds for the belief  that Hawkwood is ‘the inspiration for The Knight’s Tale’ (Saunders, Hawkwood, p. 40). Indeed, Italy is one of  the few places absent from the itinerary of  the Knight of  the General Prologue. Chaucer has not left to posterity his opinion of  Hawkwood but he must have encountered in his travels more than one mercenary of such a type (men such as the Cheshire knights Sir Hugh Calveley and Sir Robert Knolles/Knowles, the Breton Bertrand du Guesclin and the Hainaulter, Eustache d’Aubrécicourt, in France and Spain); see Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, pp. 1–23 and Appendix B,

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pp. 323–28. His opinion of  Bernabò Visconti is unf lattering, for he is, by way of contrast with ‘worthy Petro, glorie of  Spayne’ and ‘worthy Petro, kyng of  Cipre’ (MkT, B2 3565 and 3581) the ‘scourge of  Lumbardye’ (MkT, B2 3590). Bernabò Visconti stands in a long line of  ‘tyraunts of  Lumbardye,/ That usen wilfulhed and tyrannye’ (LGW, G 354–55) and Hawkwood (in 1378 at least) is the instrument of  his tyrannical will. 59 William Beauchamp (c. 1343–1411), 1st Lord Bergavenny, was the fourth son of  Thomas Beauchamp, 3rd Earl of  Warwick, a founder-companion of  the Order of  the Garter, and Katherine Mortimer, daughter of  Roger, 1st Earl of  March, and hence destined for the church. He went to Oxford University in 1358–1361 at a time when Wyclif  became Master of  Balliol (1360), but re-entered the lay world on the death of  two of  his elder brothers in quick succession in 1361. He was a knight by 1365, fought in the vanguard at Nájera in 1367, and later in that year went on crusade to Prussia with his brother Thomas (4th Earl of  Warwick in 1369 and one of  the appellants in 1386–1388). He fought in Gascony in 1370, was on Gaunt’s chevauchée in France in 1373, being retained by Gaunt for a fee of 100 marks, and was constable in Edmund of  Langley’s expedition to Portugal in 1381–1382. He was elected as a Knight of  the Garter in April 1376. He inherited land in the midlands to the value of 400 marks in his father’s will in 1369, became heir in 1372 to John Hastings, 2nd Earl of  Pembroke, and (after the death of  Hastings’s son John, still a minor, in a tournament on 30/31 December 1389) secured in 1390–1392 a large share of  the Hastings inheritance, became Lord Bergavenny and hence from 1392 received a personal summons to parliament. He was one of  Richard II’s earliest chamber knights in 1377, chamberlain in 1378 to 1380 (or 1381) and executor of  Joan of  Kent in 1385. Chaucer acted as surety or mainpernor for Sir William as custodian of  Pembroke Castle and certain of  the lands of  the Pembroke estate on 9 March 1378 during the minority of  John Hastings, and Sir William in his turn stood as a witness on the release by Cecily Champain to Chaucer on 1 May 1380 of all actions concerning her raptus or rape. Sir William became justiciar of  South Wales a month after Henry IV’s usurpation in 1399 and had custody of  the lands of  his nephew, Richard Beauchamp, 5th Earl of  Warwick, after his brother’s death in 1401. He married, before 20 February 1396, Joan Fitzalan (1375–1435), daughter of  the appellant Richard Fitzalan, 6th Earl of  Arundel (executed in 1397). See ODNB, 4.607–9, Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 279–81 and 343–47, Collins, pp. 51, and n. 73, 259, 290 and 297, Goodman, pp. 229 and 279–80, Given-Wilson, English Nobility, pp. 102, 141–42, 146–48 and 201, nn. 59–62, McFarlane, pp. 166, 169, 171, 183, 189, 201, 209–10 and 214–15 and Russell, pp. 302, 321, n. 1, 327, 335, and n. 2 and 340, n. 3.

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60 Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 61–62 and 62, n. 6. 61 See Chaucer Life-Records, p. 30, n. 5. 62 See Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 60–61. 63 Saul, Richard II, pp. 84 and 87. 64 See Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 488–89. 65 See MED, s.v. vertuous adj. 6. (a) ‘Possessing or displaying the qualities befitting a knight; valiant, hardy, courageous, doughty’. 66 Sir Richard (le) Scrope (c. 1327–1403), 1st Lord Scrope of  Bolton, third son of  Sir Henry Scrope (c. 1268–1336), fought at Crécy (26 August) and also at Neville’s Cross (17 October) in 1346 (whereupon he was knighted) and at the siege of  Calais in 1347. He fought in the naval battle of f  Winchelsea in 1350, campaigned in France in 1355 and was at the relief of  Berwick Castle in January 1356. He was in Gaunt’s retinue in the campaign of 1359–1360 and served under Gaunt in France, Spain and Scotland in 1367, 1369, 1384 and 1385, being retained by Gaunt after Nájera on 8 November 1367 with an annuity of £40 per annum. He received a personal summons to parliament as Lord Scrope of  Bolton on 8 January 1371. He was treasurer of  England from 27 March 1371 to 25 September 1375, steward of  the royal household 1377–1378 (and as such presiding at the trial of  Alice Perrers in the parliament of  October 1377) and chancellor from 1378 to 1380 and again from 1381 to 1382. In November 1387 he was spokesman for the Lords Appellant in their dealings with the king. His eldest son William, Earl of  Wiltshire, was executed in 1399, but he himself survived into the reign of  Henry IV until his death. He is notable for his religious devotion, leaving a bequest of £40 to York Minster and of £20 to his poor tenants of  Richmondshire. See ODNB, 49.560–62, Given-Wilson, Royal Household, pp. 74, 142, 158, 173 and 302, n. 160, Goodman, pp. 288–90 and 312 and George Holmes, The Good Parliament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 64–65 and 104. 67 Sir Henry (le) Scrope (c. 1312–1392), 1st Lord Scrope of  Masham, eldest son of  Geof frey (d.1340), fought in the Scottish campaign of 1333 at Halidon Hill and was knighted before Berwick, and also in the Scottish campaign of 1335. He fought in the sea battle of  Sluys in 1340 and as a banneret at Crécy and Neville’s Cross in 1346. He was at the siege of  Calais in 1347 and at the sea battle of  Winchelsea in 1350. He received a personal summons to parliament in 1350 and as Lord Scrope of  Masham after 1371. He was on Edward III’s Picard campaign in 1355 and at the siege of  Berwick in 1357. He served in the retinue of  William de Bohun (c. 1312–1360), Earl of  Northampton (from 1337) in the 1330s, 1340s and 1350s and in that of  Gaunt in the Rheims campaign of 1359–1360 and also at the reopening of  the war in 1369. Thus he had a great reputation as a knight in war and tournament (and it is hardly surprising that Chaucer took note of 

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him at Réthel). He was captain of  Calais in 1369–1370, warden of  the marches in Northumberland in 1370 and steward of  the royal household for a few months in 1371. But he does not seem to have been on crusade, perhaps because he (like Sir Richard, 1st Lord Scrope of  Bolton) was so fully occupied by battles against the French and the Scots in the 1340s and 1350s. See ODNB, 49.554–55 and Holmes, p. 154. 68 Chaucer made his deposition in the refectory at Westminster on 15 October 1386 during the period of  his attendance at the Wonderful Parliament. The proceedings between Scrope and Grosvenor in the Court of  Chivalry began on 17 August 1385 and the final judgment of  Richard II himself after appeal was not pronounced until 27 May 1390. The Court confirmed the right of  Sir Richard Scrope to bear the arms, Sir Robert Grosvenor finally adopting the arms Azure, a garb or. See Chaucer Life-Records, p. 372 and Boutell’s Heraldry, p. 107. 69 See MED, s.v. popet n. (a) ‘A youth, young girl; a babe; also, a small person’ and (b) ‘a doll’, and E. Talbot Donaldson, ‘Chaucer the Pilgrim’, PMLA, 69 (1954), 928–36, reprinted in his Speaking of  Chaucer (London: The Athlone Press, 1970), pp. 1–12 (pp. 1–3). 70 According to Terry Jones, Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980) the Knight is nothing more than ‘a shabby mercenary without morals or scruples’ (p. 140). The harshness and, indeed, the accuracy of  this verdict has been subject to a sustained critical scrutiny from the first appearance of so unsettling an interpretation of  Chaucer’s Knight. G.A. Lester, ‘Chaucer’s Knight and the Earl of  Warwick’, NQ, NS, 28 (1981), 200–2, asserts the credibility of a non-ironic portrait of  the Knight in the light of  the career of  Richard Beauchamp (1381–1439), 5th Earl of  Warwick (1403–1439), who was elected Knight of  the Garter on 22 July 1403 after the battle of  Shrewsbury, and further vindicates the Knight’s chivalry in his article ‘Chaucer’s Knight and the Medieval Tournament’, Neophilologus, 66 (1982), 460–68 in making clear the important distinctions of joust, tournament or mêlée and judicial duel. Maurice Keen, ‘Chaucer’s Knight, the English Aristocracy and the Crusade’, in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, edited by V.J. Scattergood and J.W. Sherborne (London: Duckworth, 1983), pp. 45–61, establishes beyond doubt the persistence of crusading idealism among English knights of  the late fourteenth century up to and beyond the date of composition of  Chaucer’s portrait. In ‘Chaucer’s Knight, the Alliterative Morte Arthure, and Medieval Laws of  War: A Reconsideration’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 27 (1983), 56–78, Elizabeth Porter draws attention to medieval laws of war as permitting the sacking of  besieged cities refusing terms of  honourable surrender. Derek Brewer, ‘Chaucer’s Knight as Hero, and Machaut’s Prise d’Alexandrie’, in

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73 74 75

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GERALD MORGAN Heroes and Heroines in Medieval English Literature, edited by Leo Carruthers (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1994), pp. 81–96, shows that the sacking of  Alexandria was indeed regarded in Chaucer’s time as an integral part of a glorious victory. The account of  Chaucer’s Knight by Robert R. Raymo as ‘a model of  Christian chivalry’ in the manner of  ‘Ramon Llull’s Le Libre De l’Orde De Cavalleria (1275–1276)’ has an air of putting to rest an old controversery that has now outlived its usefulness; see ‘The General Prologue’, in Correale and Hamel, II.1–85 (p. 7). Fowler, ‘Sir John Hawkwood’, pp. 131–32. Chaucer was appointed as Clerk of  the Works at Westminster and the Tower of  London on 12 July 1389, serving until replaced by John Gedney on 17 June 1391 (Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 402–8 and 411). In this capacity he was responsible for the construction of  the scaf folds and lists for the jousts at Smithfield in May and October 1390 (Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 472–73). On 12 July 1390 Chaucer was appointed as Clerk of  Works for the repair of  St George’s Chapel at Windsor (Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 408–10). On his return to Brittany Arveragus is described as ‘the worthy man of armes’ who loves his wife ‘as his owene hertes lyf ’ (FranT, F 1092–93). This is the man whose ‘clannes and … cortaysye croked were neuer’ (SGGK, 653). See, for example, Susan Crane, ‘The Franklin as Dorigen’, ChR, 24 (1990), 236–52 (p. 249); Angela Jane Weisl, Conquering the Reign of  Femeny: Gender and Genre in Chaucer’s Romance, Chaucer Studies XXII (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1995), p. 115; Edward I. Condren, Chaucer and the Energy of  Creation: The Design and Organization of  the ‘Canterbury Tales’ (Gainesville, Tallahassee, and Tampa: University Press of  Florida, 1999), p. 163; Catherine Batt, ‘Gawain’s Antifeminist Rant, the Pentangle, and Narrative Space’, YES, 22 (1992), 117–39 (pp. 136–37) and Derek Pearsall, ‘Courtesy and Chivalry in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: the Order of  Shame and the Invention of  Embarrassment’, in A Companion to the ‘Gawain’-Poet, edited by Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 351–62 (p. 355). Quoted by Collins, pp. 273–74. Richard Barber, Edward, Prince of  Wales and Aquitaine: A Biography of  the Black Prince (London: Allen Lane, 1978) records the death of  Edward at Angoulême as 1370 (p. 11) while the Black Prince was on campaign before Limoges in September 1370 (p. 226) and repeats this view in the biographies of  Edward of  Woodstock (ODNB, 17.800) and Joan of  Kent (ODNB, 30.138). Other authorities give the date of death as 1371 or 1372.

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78 See Barber, pp. 205–6, 214, 219–20, 224 and 227–37 and Barbara Emerson, The Black Prince (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976), pp. 214, 223, 226, 231–32, 237–38 and 242–61 (‘A Lingering Death’). 79 Alice Perrers was the grand-daughter of  Sir Richard Perrers of  Hertfordshire, the wife of  William Windsor (a chamber knight and lieutenant (1369–1372) and then governor (1373–1376) of  Ireland), lady-in-waiting to Queen Philippa and mistress of  Edward III from 1364 until his death at Sheen on 21 June 1377 (at which she was present). She was the mother of  Edward III’s three illegitimate children, John (born 1364–1365), Joan and Jane. Her son was knighted as Sir John de Sotherey at the St George’s Day celebrations in 1377 and was present on Edmund of  Langley’s disastrous campaign in Portugal in 1381. See GivenWilson, Royal Household, pp. 142–46, 147–48, 159, 261 and 304, n. 9, Holmes, pp. 68–69 and 194 and Chris Given-Wilson and Alice Curteis, The Royal Bastards of  Medieval England (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), pp. 136–42. 80 William Latimer, 4th Lord Latimer of  Danby in North Yorkshire (1330–1381), fought at Crécy, was a banneret of  the royal household by 1359 and was elected Knight of  the Garter in October 1361. He was Edward III’s lieutenant in Brittany in 1360–1362, fought at Auray in 1364 and was responsible for the organisation of  the war ef fort in England in 1369–1375. He was steward of  the royal household in 1368–1370 and chamberlain 1371–1376. He was from 1368 Warden of  the Forests and from 1372 constable of  Dover. See ODNB, 32.643–44, Collins, pp. 92–93 and 290, Given-Wilson, Royal Household, p. 148, Goodman, p. 289 and G. Holmes, The Good Parliament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 64 and 65–66. 81 John Neville, 3rd Lord Neville of  Raby in Durham (c. 1330–1388), campaigned in Gascony with Henry of  Grosmont in 1345 and 1349 and with Edward III in the Rheims campaign of 1359–1360, when he was knighted before the walls of  Paris on 12 April 1360: ‘Et fist li rois pluiseurs chevaliers nouviaus, desquelz li sires de le Ware en fu li uns,  … et messires Jehans de Nuefville et messires Richars Sturi et pluiseur aultre’ (Froissart, V.231.11–12 and 15–16). He was connected with John of  Gaunt from the mid 1360s and retained by him for life in 1370 for fifty marks in time of peace and five hundred marks in time of war. He was at Nájera in 1367, captured by the Castilians and ransomed by Gaunt. He was elected Knight of  the Garter in April 1369 and became a banneret by 1370. He was admiral of  the North from 30 May 1370 to 6 October 1371. On 20 November 1371 he was appointed steward of  the royal household in succession to Latimer, whose daughter and heir, Elizabeth, he married as his second wife sometime after 1378 but before Latimer’s death on 28 May 1381. See ODNB, 40.505–8, Collins, pp. 51 n. 74, 93, 282 and 290 and Holmes, pp. 64, 66 and 67–68.

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82 Sir Alan Buxhill (b.1323) fought in Normandy and France. He was a chamber knight from at least 1358, constable of  the Tower of  London in 1366 and under chamberlain in 1369–1371. He was elected Knight of  the Garter as a bachelorknight in August 1372. See Collins, pp. 45, 52, 93, 282, 290 and 297 and GivenWilson, Royal Household, pp. 71–72, 143 and 150. 83 Sir Philip (de) la Vache (b. c. 1349) was a chamber knight in 1376 and 1392, a king’s knight in 1378 and retained for life in the royal household by Richard II. He was entrusted with key military appointments as captain of  Calais on 15 May 1388 for three years, renewed in 1391 and 1392, and captain of  Guines in 1393. His election as Knight of  the Garter as a knight-bachelor in February 1399 was a conspicuous sign of royal favour, coming as it did after the creation and elevation of  ten new peers (the duketti) in 1397 and the election of  Sir Simon Felbrigg as Knight of  the Garter in September 1397. He is the second husband of  Elizabeth, daughter and heir of  Sir Lewis Clif ford (c. 1330–1404). He is the addressee of  the envoy of  Chaucer’s moral ballade Truth: ‘Therfore, thou Vache, leve thyn old wrecchednesse’ (22). See ODNB, 12.101–2, Collins, pp. 52, and n. 78, 103–4, 292 and 298 and McFarlane, pp. 160–61 and 182 and n. 4. 84 See Holmes, pp. 100–58 and Gerald Harriss, Shaping the Nation: England 1360– 1461, The New Oxford History of  England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), pp. 441–44. 85 The translation is that in William E. Coleman, ‘The Knight’s Tale’, in Correale and Hamel, II.87–247 (p. 211). 86 ‘Il n’est si durs coers, se il fust adonc à Limoges et il li souvenist de Dieu, qui ne plorast tenrement dou grant meschief qui y estoit, car plus de trois mil personnes, hommes, femmes et enfans, y furent deviiet et decolet celle journée. Diex en ait les ames, car il furent bien martir,/ There is no man so hard-hearted that, if  he had been in Limoges on that day, and had remembered God, he would not have wept bitterly at the fearful slaughter which took place. More than three thousand persons, men, women and children, were dragged out to have their throats cut. May God receive their souls, for they were true martyrs’ (VII.250.27–32; Brereton, 178). The Chandos Herald gets round the dif ficulty of  this blot on the reputation of  the Prince of  Wales by an extreme brevity in his reference to the sack of  Limoges. It seems that not even the slaughter of innocents can stain the nobility of  his hero: ‘Mais touz y feurent mortz ou pris/ Par le noble Prince de pris’ (Vie du Prince Noir, 4049–50). Perhaps such massacres are the inevitable accompaniments of war and are to be excused by the savagery of war. 87 See also Commentary on Ethics, 756: ‘Sed secundum rei veritatem solus bonus, idest virtuosus, est honorandus. Quia scilicet honor est proprium praemium

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virtutis,/ But really only the good or virtuous man should be honored because honor is the proper reward of virtue’. 88 See Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a 2ae 103.1 ad 2: ‘… sicut Philosophus ibidem dicit, honor non est suf ficiens virtutis praemium; sed nihil potest esse in humanis rebus et corporalibus majus honore, inquantum scilicet ipsae corporales res sunt signa demonstrativa excellentis virtutis,/ In the same work [Ethics, IV.3 1124a 7] Aristotle also makes the point that honour is not an adequate reward for virtue; there is just no better action or object than honour at our disposal, and its outward marks stand as tokens attesting to superior virtue’ (translated by T.C. O’Brien). 89 Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, 795: ‘Sed laudamus amatorem honoris prout magis studet ad ea quae sunt honoris, quam vulgaris multitudo. Vituperamus autem inquantum magis cupit honores quam oporteat,/ But we praise the lover of  honor according as he is more concerned than the general run of people for the things pertaining to honor. We blame him, however, inasmuch as he desires honors more than is proper’. 90 See also Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, 1857: ‘Sed homines virtuosi non agunt solum propter seipsos, sed magis agunt bonum honestum, et propter seipsos et propter amicos. Propter quod plerumque praetereunt suas utilitates,/ However, virtuous men do not act for themselves alone; rather they do what is honorable both for themselves and their friends. For this reason they frequently overlook their own advantages’. 91 See ST, 1a 79.12 and 13, and 2a 2ae 47.6. 92 On deliberation, judgment and command as the three acts of prudence, see ST, 1a 2ae 13.1 ad 2 (sententia or judicium), 1a 2ae 14 (consilium), 1a 2ae 17 (imperium and actus imperatus) and ST, 2a 2ae 47.8. 93 See Gerald Morgan, ‘The Meaning of  Kind Wit, Conscience, and Reason in the First Vision of  Piers Plowman’, MP, 84 (1987), 351–58. 94 See MED, s.v. lat(e adv. 4. (a) ‘In the near past, of  late, recently, lately’, biyonde adv. 2. (a) from ~, ‘from abroad’ and viage n. (a) ‘A journey by land or sea; a pilgrimage’ and (b) ‘a military expedition’. 95 The meaning of gypon here is uncertain, for it could refer to a ‘quilted or padded jacket’ or aketoun (MED, (a) ), worn under the coat of mail as in The Tale of  Sir Thopas (B2 2050), or a surcoat as in The Knight’s Tale (A 2120). See MED, s.v. jupon n. ‘A tight tunic of varying length, often emblazoned, worn over (? or under) armor’ and Laura F. Hodges, Chaucer and Costume: The Secular Pilgrims in the General Prologue (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2000), pp. 22–24, 29, 38–39, 42–45 and 52.

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96 See MED, s.v. fustian n. (a) ‘A kind of cloth [apparently made from cotton, f lax, or wool; not necessarily coarse or of poor quality]’ and Hodges, pp. 45–47 and 234. 97 See Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 60–61. 98 Jones, Chaucer’s Knight, pp. 133 and 211. 99 See Caferro, pp. 73 and 88–91. 100 See Hodges, pp. 55–74 and 228–29. She points out that the Squire’s costume ‘lacks … the costliness of dagging or embroidery with silver and/or gold threads’ and also that there is no reference to the use of silk in his gown ‘in either background fabric or embroidery thread’ (p. 63). It seems that the Squire is dressed fashionably but not excessively so. 101 That is, the supporters of  the anti-pope, Robert of  Geneva, ‘the executioner of  Cesena’ in February 1377, elected in opposition to Urban VI on 20 September 1378 as Clement VII with the backing of  France, Scotland, Spain and Naples. 102 See Saul, Richard II, pp. 102–3. 103 See John H. Pratt, Chaucer and War (Lanham, New York and Oxford: University Press of  America, Inc., 2000), pp. 157–73 and Saul, Richard II, pp. 52–53. 104 These are ‘standard required equipment according to the Statute of  Winchester of  October 1336 for all archers who have two pounds rent or income per year’ (Hodges, Chaucer and Costume, p. 128). 105 See MED, s.v. gai adj. 2. (b) ‘of  things: sumptuous, showy, rich, ornate; … elegant, fine, beautiful’ and (c) ‘of persons: dressed up, handsomely or richly attired, decked out in finery’ and harneisen v. (b) ‘to adorn (a weapon, girdle, etc.)’. 106 See MED, s.v. dressen v. 2. (a) ‘To arrange (sth.), put in order, adjust; straighten; put (a shield, spear, armor) in position’, takel n. 2. (a) ‘Archery equipment; … an arrow’ and (b) ‘weaponry, arms, weapons; battle gear’ and yemanli adv. ‘In the manner of a good attendant, skillfully’ (apparently an hapax legomenon). 107 See Pratt, Chaucer and War, p. 111. 108 See Morte Darthur, 1125/15–1126/6, 1127/8–20, 1128/18–1129/4, 1129/29–33, 1130/11–18 and 1136/27–33. 109 See John Barnie, War in Medieval English Society: Social Values in the Hundred Years War 1337–99 (Ithaca and New York: Cornell University Press, 1974), pp. 89–91. 110 See Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: The Years of  the Sword (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969), pp. 462–64. 111 See Tim Clayton and Phil Craig, Finest Hour (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999), pp. 256 and 384. 112 This famous exploit took place during a dismal and dangerous period for the English on the Scottish border after Bannockburn (1314) and more particularly

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after the capture of  Berwick by the Scots on 28 March 1318. It is recounted (in Norman French) by Sir Thomas Gray of  Heaton in Northumberland (d. 1369) in his Scalacronica (c. 1355–1369). See The Scalachronica: The Reigns of  Edward I, Edward II and Edward III as recorded by Sir Thomas Grey, translated by Sir Herbert Maxwell (Glasgow, 1907; reprinted, Lampeter: Llanerch Publishers, 2000), pp. 60–63. 113 It is to be noted that the Knight and Theseus slay their foes in battle, they do not kill them. The verb killen (much less common than slen in Middle English, while the noun killer is exceedingly rare) is reserved by Chaucer for the violent action of  the mob: ‘Certes, he Jakke Straw and his meynee/ Ne made nevere shoutes half so shrille/ Whan that they wolden any Flemyng kille’ (NPT, B2 4584–86); see Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 93–95. There is a clear distinction between honourable conduct in battle (where the possibility of death is an everpresent reality) and the cowardly brutality of a mob on the rampage. 114 See MED, s.v. maid(e n. 1. (a) ‘An unmarried woman, usually young’, 2.(a) ‘A virgin’ and 3. ‘A maidservant, female attendant, lady in waiting’ and mek adj. 1.(a) ‘Gentle, quiet, unaggressive; of a woman: modest’ and 2. (a) ‘Having the virtue of  humility, humble, unassuming’. The worthy Breton knight Arveragus wins his lady by his ‘meke obeysaunce’ (FranT, F 739). 115 See Gerald Morgan, ‘Holiness as the First of  Spenser’s Aristotelian Moral Virtues’, MLR, 81 (1986), 817–37 (pp. 826–27). 116 On the piety of  Edward III and his pilgrimages in particular, see Ian Mortimer, The Perfect King: The Life of  Edward III, Father of  the English Nation (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006), pp. 108–13, 133, 176–77, 201, 208, 237, 322, 341–42 and 399. 117 See Goodman, John of  Gaunt, pp. 241–49. 118 Goodman, John of  Gaunt, pp. 253 and 268, n. 64. 119 Goodman, John of  Gaunt, p. 169. 120 See William Caxton, The Book of  the Ordre of  Chyualry, edited by Alfred T.P. Byles, EETS (OS) 168 (London: Oxford University Press, 1926), pp. xi–xxx. 121 Hunting is part of  the social compact between the estates of  knights and labourers and is expressed by Piers to the knight as necessary to the protection of  his work of ploughing and sowing on the half-acre (PPl, B VI.21–36). 122 See Aristotle, Ethics, V.1 1129a 6–11, V.5 1134a 1–3, V.8 1135a 15–23 and V.9 1137a 4–9 and Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, 888, 889, 994, 1035, 1036 and 1074. 123 On the three kinds of rhetorical cause, epideictic (or demonstrative), deliberative (or political) and judicial, see Rhetorica, I.3 and the Ad Her., I.ii.2, II.i.1, III.i.1 and III.vi.10–III.viii.15.

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124 The interweaving of physical and moral detail is the work of  Chaucer himself and is one of a number of important modifications of  his source (the promotion of  beauty itself  to first place at BD, 826 being another) in Machaut’s description of  the young lady in Behaigne, 281–408. 125 Sorley Maclean, ‘Heroes’, in The Faber Book of  War Poetry, edited by Kenneth Baker (London: Faber and Faber, 1996), p. 166. 126 See MED, s.v. gai adj. 3.(a) ‘Excellent, noble; beautiful’ and Davis’s note, p. 124. But see also MED, s.v. gai n. (b). 127 See, for example, Livre de chevalerie, 3/17, 4/12–13, 9/30–31, 10/23, 11/9, 12/21, 13/23, 14/11 and 15/27. 128 See Le Livre de chevalerie, Sections 3–9 and 16 and also Malcolm Vale, War and Chivalry: Warfare and Aristocratic Culture in England, France and Burgundy at the End of  the Middle Ages (London: Duckworth, 1981), pp. 63–99. 129 See Myles Dungan, Irish Voices from the Great War (Blackrock, Co. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1995), pp. 32–84. 130 Here died Lieutenant Robert Bernard, Y Company of  the 1st Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers, son of  John Henry Bernard, Provost of  Trinity College Dublin (1919–1927). See Colonel H.C. Wylly, C.B., Neill’s ‘Blue Caps’, 3 vols (Gale and Polden Ltd, 1924; republished by Schull Books, County Cork, 1996), III.5, 10, 15, 25, 36 and 40. 131 Twenty young men of  Trinity College Dublin died on those two days alone. See Gerald Morgan, ‘The Dublin Pals’, in Essays on Heroism in Sport in Ireland and France, edited by Sarah Alyn Stacey (Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2003), pp. 101–35. 132 Jones, Chaucer’s Knight, p. 32. 133 This threnody is not in the French source and is drawn from the lament for Sir Gawain in the alliterative Morte Arthure (3864–85). 134 Jones, Chaucer’s Knight, p. 31. 135 There is no irony here either if we attend to the importance of rhetoric in medieval poetry, to the authority of  Geof frey of  Vinsauf among medieval authorities and to the appositeness of  the figure of exclamatio for the death of a king. See Ad Her., IV.xv.22 and Poetria, 375–76. 136 See Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 1a 48.3.

7  Experience and the Judgment of  Poetry:    A Reconsideration of  The Franklin’s Tale

Words realise nothing, vivify nothing to you, unless you have suf fered in your own person the thing which the words try to describe. — MARK TWAIN, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, 281

I.  In the interpretation of a literary work such as The Franklin’s Tale, itself  linked to The Squire’s Tale as part of  Group F (Fragment V) and set in the context of  The Canterbury Tales as a whole, our object is not truth as such in the philosophical sense, and certainly not the endorsement of a set of moral or spiritual beliefs, but rather the truth of a text. What is important here is the identification of  the ideas and assumptions that give a literary artefact life and point on the one hand and order and coherence on the other. In what follows, therefore, I am not arguing a case for or against the institutions of chivalry and marriage as such, and even less for the obedience of women to men, in or out of marriage. But I do seek to demonstrate that a sound understanding of  The Franklin’s Tale rests upon a sincere and informed admiration for chivalric ideals and an acceptance of obedience as a proper duty of a faithful and loving wife. We may grant an historical justification to the ideals of chivalry and marriage even if we cannot on our own account concede to them a moral justification. And we must go further and say that Chaucer himself is likely also to have conceded the moral case for a knight’s pre-eminence and a wife’s obedience, for the knight represents in his person the uniting of  the moral virtues and obedience has the character of a moral virtue.2 Chaucer is not our contemporary but the contemporary of  Froissart and shares many of  the beliefs and even prejudices of  his age that we ourselves do not wish to share.3 He believes in a hierarchy of classes and ranks

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from the king downwards in which each man and woman is accorded a welldefined place. He would approve (I am sure) of  the seating arrangements at Camelot with ‘þe best burne ay abof ’ (SGGK, 73) and at Hautdesert with ‘vche grome at his degré’ (SGGK, 1006), and so has set out the Canterbury pilgrims in the General Prologue in order of rank (‘of what degree’, A 40) from the highest to the lowest with a fundamental division between nobles or gentils and commons, that is, between the Knight to the Franklin on the one hand and the Five Guildsmen to the Pardoner on the other.4 The English are still renowned (or notorious) for their attachment to class distinctions such as these. But clear-cut class distinctions do have the advantage of conferring stability and security on matters of personal and social status. Everyone knows his or her place, whether just or unjust, congenial or irksome. The Franklin undoubtedly knows his place too. He is a gentleman, but the lowest in rank among the gentils. He looks up to and admires the Knight (his social and moral superior), but has no fear of  being confused with social climbers like the Guildsmen.5 The prestige of  the institutions of chivalry remains unimpaired throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and is still largely intact at the beginning of  the Great War.6 Chaucer’s placing of  the estate of  fighters with the Knight at its head (A 43–117) before the religious estate represented by the Prioress, Monk and Friar (A 118–269) in the sequence of portraits in the General Prologue is a simple recognition of  that prestige.7 The high valuation set by Chaucer on the military estate is certainly consistent with the thought of a knight like Geof froy de Charny in the Livre de chevalerie, written for the French king, Jean II, and his Company of  the Star, founded in 1352. The life of  Geof froy de Charny shows that the ideal of  knighthood represented by Chaucer’s Knight is by no means remote from contemporary aspirations and heroic achievement. Froissart describes Charny as ‘le plus preudomme et le plus vailant de tous les autres,/ the most worthy and valiant of all’,8 and fittingly he dies at Poitiers on 19 September 1356 holding and defending the Orif lamme of  St Denis. The vocation of a knight, as Charny explains, involves a continuous preparedness for death and willingness to die, so that it requires a personal integrity and devotion to God greater even than that called for in the priesthood.9

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Indeed the link between the two estates is af firmed by Chaucer in the placing of religion at the core of  his Knight’s inspiration and achievement and Chaucer’s example is followed by Spenser in a later age in respect of  the Red Cross Knight. Dante places his ancestor, Cacciaguida, who died fighting in the Holy Land at the beginning of the Second Crusade in 1147 under the Emperor Conrad III, in paradise in the heaven of  Mars (Par., XV.139– 44). Cacciaguida’s death is the death of a Christian martyr and it earns for him the peace of paradise (Par., XV.145–48). There is abundant evidence for the persistence of crusading idealism among English knights throughout and beyond the period covered by the long career of  Chaucer’s Knight.10 Henry of  Grosmont, Earl of  Derby and Duke of  Lancaster, and father of  Blanche, the subject of  Chaucer’s Book of  the Duchess, distinguished himself in 1343 ‘fighting against the enemies of  God and Christianity’ with Alfonso XI, king of  Castile (1312–50) ‘at the sege …/ Of  Algezir’ (A 56–57).11 Sir Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of  Hereford, was at Antalya (‘Satalye’, A 58) in Turkey in 1361 and at the capture of  Alexandria in Egypt in 1365.12 A later Earl of  Derby (the future Henry IV) went on crusade with the Teutonic Knights ‘in Pruce’ (A 53) in 1390 and 1392.13 Chaucer’s attitude to the crusades is not much dif ferent from that of Dante and it is probably shared even by Gower in so far as it can be reconciled with the theory of  the just war.14 Chaucer is not only subject to the prejudices of  his own age but he is also free from the prejudices of our own (if we can be generous enough to admit of some on our own account). Some interpretations of  Chaucer gather strength from the preoccupations of our own time and place rather than from the text of  Chaucer’s poetry, and hence we have been obliged to accustom ourselves in recent years to the idea of  Chaucer’s Knight as ‘a shabby mercenary without morals or scruples’.15 It is an uncritical idea that does violence to Chaucer’s text, but there is a danger that by continued repetition it will acquire credibility.16 If  the Knight can be reduced and degraded after this fashion, what chance has a country gentleman like the Franklin further down the social scale? It appears that any interpretation of  The Franklin’s Tale, however unlikely, can be justified by reference to an assumed ignorance, obtuseness or pomposity on the Franklin’s part. The Franklin is not a knight, but neither is he a parvenu. He is a substantial landowner who knows the

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value of  landed wealth and is therefore fit to exercise the responsibilities of administration and tax-collection in the shire (A 359). He has represented the shire in parliament on many occasions (A 356) and as a justice of  the peace (A 355) finds the distinguished lawyer congenial company (A 331). Such a man has an easy familiarity with rhetoric (F 716–27), is a lavish host (A 339–54) and is also (much to the point when it comes to his tale) a humane judge of  his fellow men and women. He reserves his greatest admiration for the Knight and the Knight’s son, the Squire, and here too his judgment is discriminating, for the Knight is a great warrior and a great man, the defender of  the faith and the upholder of justice, and the Squire, for all the excesses of  his youth, has the makings of a worthy successor. If, like Edward Condren, we dismiss the Franklin as ‘simply a showof f ’ (p. 152), we shall be apt also to dismiss Arveragus, the worthy knight of  his tale, as a showof f  too and, indeed, Condren unsurprisingly concludes that ‘to Arveragus, as to his Franklin creator, all is for show’ (p. 163). It is hard to know what is cause and what ef fect here, whether the misinterpretation of  the tale or of  the teller. What is certain is that the Franklin is not the creator of  Arveragus but is simply the instrument of  Chaucer’s art. It is Chaucer who has created the Knight and the Franklin alike, and also the knights, squires and ladies within their respective tales. As a justice of  the peace in Kent from 1385 to 1389 and also as a knight of  the shire for Kent in 1386, Chaucer himself is on familiar terms with knights, squires and franklins (not to say lords and magnates) and the world of af fairs that they inhabit. If we are to find incoherence in the tales we may as well attribute it to Chaucer himself rather than to his distinguished tellers. Chaucer does, it is true, at times have fun at the Franklin’s expense, but equally he has the good humour and self-deprecating wit to have even more fun at his own expense. Thus the Franklin has been assigned his Breton Lay because in him (as in his creator) expressions of generosity will carry conviction and possess authority. II.  Both the social status and experience of  life of  Chaucer and the Franklin are helpful (if not actually necessary) for an insight into the dilemma that confronts husband and wife in the tale.17 Thus it is helpful to know at first

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hand the faithfulness, sincerity and contentment of married love, and Chaucer by the agency of  the Franklin reminds us of  them at the beginning of  the tale (F 803–5): Who koude telle, but he hadde wedded be, The joye, the ese, and the prosperitee That is bitwixe an housbonde and his wyf ?

But earthly joy is always circumscribed by Chaucer by an awareness of its frailty and limitation. The Franklin’s Tale is a story with a happy ending, but the complications of  the tale remind us that in life itself  happy endings are rare. For most of  the tale we are uncomfortably close to the realms of  tragedy and moral compromise. Even the best of marriages can founder, broken perhaps by misfortune, misjudgment, the moral inadequacy of those outside the marriage or the moral inadequacy of  husband or wife. Human joy is always at the mercy of external forces. At the same time there remains the possibility of  the recovery of joy by some unexpected or unforeseen blessing or by the redemption of sin. The Franklin’s Tale, then, makes a great demand on the experience of  life of its reader and the substitution of imaginative experience for lived or actual experience is seldom equal to it. But it is precisely this experience of  life on which the resolution of  the tale depends and which it in turn illuminates. This is why, indeed, the tale is assigned to a Franklin and not a Clerk. Like the Wife of  Bath the Franklin has had a rich experience of  life. In his imagined parliamentary career he would have seen the ebb and f low of  the fortunes of  the great men and women in the public life of  his time, for the 1370s and 1380s are turbulent decades in the history of parliament.18 His rich and varied parliamentary experience leaves him with his humanity intact, but surely not with a sentimental view of  life. From this point of view the linking of  The Franklin’s Tale and The Squire’s Tale is immensely significant and by no means entirely to the Franklin’s own disadvantage. In interrupting The Squire’s Tale (a tale surely in need of interruption), the Franklin praises the Squire for speaking ‘so feelyngly’ on the subject of  betrayal in love, ‘considerynge’, that is, his ‘yowthe’ (F 675–76). Critics have seized on what they take to be the

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Franklin’s ineptitude in his treatment of  the young man.19 But the Squire is indeed very young (‘twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse’, A 82) and compares as yet unfavourably with his father, the Knight. He is carried away by the enthusiasm of youth and has still to learn the lessons of discretion and restraint, not least in the art of storytelling. Surely Chaucer has said all that needs to be said on the subject of  falseness and betrayal in love (the Squire’s subject), and for all its colour and exoticism The Squire’s Tale is not in reality worth continuing with, whereas by contrast The Franklin’s Tale is a consummate and finished work of art.20 We have had our fill (mostly in the romances of writers of  lesser stature than Chaucer) of adventures, battles and marvellous events (F 658–60): But hennesforth I wol my proces holde To speken of aventures and of  batailles That nevere yet was herd so grete mervailles.

The Squire is finally cut short at a moment of steepling eloquence at the opening of only Pars Tercia of  his tale. It is, of course, Chaucer who decides that we have had enough of  the Squire and the Franklin is merely the instrument of  that decision. The Franklin carries out his appointed task with the practised skill of a parliamentarian, but his own studied courtesy towards the Squire leaves himself exposed in his turn to the rudeness of  the Host (F 695): ‘Straw for youre gentillesse!’ quod oure Hoost.

The Host finds the subject of nobility, whether of  birth, status or virtue (the three concerns are linked in the Franklin’s words to the Squire at F 679–94) a source of irritation as of one who belongs to a dif ferent world. But generosity or nobility of mind and spirit is not a quality so lightly to be set aside, and if  the Franklin were himself indeed a man of straw he would not have survived for long in the ruthless world of contemporary politics. The Franklin is not underestimated in this manner by his creator, and Chaucer ensures that it is the amiable Franklin and not the discourteous Host who is given the last word (F 700–4 and 707–8):

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‘I prey yow, haveth me nat in desdeyn, Though to this man I speke a word or two.’   ‘Telle on thy tale withouten wordes mo.’   ‘Gladly, sire Hoost,’ quod he, ‘I wole obeye Unto your wyl; now herkneth what I seye … I prey to God that it may plesen yow; Thanne woot I wel that it is good ynow.’

At the end of  the tale that follows there is no further comment by the Host. Nothing more indeed is to be said after such a consummate performance. III.  The Franklin’s Tale describes not merely a happy marriage but a marriage in a state of crisis brought about by no special ill-will, imprudence or negligence on the part of  husband and wife, but by an unpredictable and unpredicted set of events and circumstances and by the operation of external forces working against them. Here too is an argument from experience. No human state can ever be certain, not even a relationship solemnised by matrimony and grounded in virtue and love. However unpredictable life may be, at least its unpredictability can be assured, and some unpredictable things will be for the worse, not for the better. The sacrament of marriage must address this reality in human experience and propose a means of negotiating it. The Franklin introduces us at the beginning of  his tale to a knight and a lady. The knight is inspired by the lady to chivalrous action and the lady takes pity on his humble devotion to her (F 729–43). The focus here is on the generic, not the individual, so as to emphasise the general compatibility of  the man and the woman (F 730–31): Ther was a knyght that loved and dide his payne To serve a lady in his beste wise.

An equality of age is implicit in the loving attachment that arises between the two and also in the absence of a specific reference to age. The implication is that age constitutes no barrier between them, as it does in the case of  the old husbands and their young wives in The Miller’s and Merchant’s

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Tales. In The Merchant’s Tale the disparity in age is embodied in the very names of  the husband and wife ( January and May). Furthermore, Dorigen is a lady of  ‘heigh kynrede’ (F 735) whereas May is ‘of smal degree’ (E 1625). In other words the marriage in The Merchant’s Tale is a mismatch in terms of social position as well as age. The gulf in social status between husband and wife is taken to an extreme in The Clerk’s Tale, where Walter, a marquess from a family with a long claim to lordship (E 64–65), is not merely ‘sanguine nobilis’, as Petrarch’s Latin has it (I.20), or ‘moult noble de lignaige’ as in the French translation (Le Livre Griseldis, I.6–7), but ‘the gentilleste yborn of  Lumbardye’ (E 72).21 The marquess Walter is clearly established as a member of  the higher nobility, whereas Grisilde by contrast is the daughter of  the ‘povrest’ of  the ‘povre folk’ of  the village (E 200 and 204–5). Perhaps it would have been better for them both had Walter’s choice fallen upon one of  his own station in life, a ‘markysesse’ (E 283) as Grisilde herself surmises (not in the sources) when she hears the rumours of an impending marriage. It seems that Walter and January alike have settled on wives socially beneath them as posing no threat to their lordship within marriage. Walter in particular is accustomed to the immediate obedience of  those beneath him (E 66–67): And obeisant, ay redy to his hond, Were alle his liges, bothe lasse and moore.

In The Franklin’s Tale Dorigen is at least the social equal of  Arveragus. The love of  the knight in this case is not directed, therefore, to a woman used to the ways of subservience but to the ways of  freedom and respect. Dorigen, unlike Grisilde, is a free agent, free to bestow or to withhold her love. The relationship of  Dorigen and Arveragus is a relationship based on love, not on lordship and wealth. The condition of a lover is of one who seeks to do the will of  the beloved and not to impose his or her will on the beloved, and who wishes good things for the object of  love rather than the mere fulfilment of desires. Dorigen is indeed impressed by the manifest signs of  love in the knight, that is, his ‘meke obeysaunce’ (F 739). She sees that he loves her and does not wish to tyrannise over her and that he is a man she can trust as a husband. But the knight in his turn is not an abject

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lover, subject to the whims and caprices of a great lady, as Lancelot is so subject to the Queen in Chrétien’s Chevalier de la Charrete, but a warrior who has achieved ‘many a greet emprise’ (F 732). Here is a distinction in the knight himself  between the virtue of obedience and the condition of servitude, so that it is clear that the pledges the knight makes to the lady proceed from his free will as a knight. The promises that the knight makes to the lady are entirely specific, as of one in earnest. They are as follows. First, never to take upon himself authority over her against her will (F 746–48). Second, never to show jealousy to her, that is, not in any way to be possessive of  her in respect of other men who may (and surely will) desire her, but to respect her and so to have confidence in her will to be faithful to him (F 748). Third, to obey her will as a lover must, that is, to continue to serve her and to act for her good (F 749–50). And, finally, to make and fulfil these promises as a knight but not to the prejudice of  his status as a knight. This final condition has been the cause of some uncertainty in the interpretation of  the tale and of no little censure of  the knight. Here we must understand that the public reputation of a knight is the honour that is accorded to virtue and so cannot in principle be sacrificed.22 It is not fitting for a knight to be reduced to a state of uxoriousness, like Erec when he first marries Enide (Erec et Enide, 2430–611), or abject servitude, like Lancelot at the tournament of  Noauz (Charrete, 5339–6056) when he obeys the Queen’s command to do his worst (‘au noauz’, Charrete, 5645, 5654, 5842 and 5853). The knight in The Franklin’s Tale of fers the lady as much as honour will allow, and she recognises that he does so because of  his generosity of spirit (F 753–55 and 758): She thanked hym, and with ful greet humblesse She seyde, ‘Sire, sith of youre gentillesse Ye profre me to have so large a reyne, … Sire, I wol be youre humble trewe wyf.’

Here gentillesse must mean not merely nobility of  birth, but the largeness of spirit or magnanimity appropriate to those greatly blest by fortune in their birth. Generosity to this degree is a rare virtue (it is indeed the condition

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of  love) and of its nature it deserves to be reciprocated. It can only be reciprocated by humility and faithfulness in the lady but is often abused by fickleness and pride, as by the Queen in Le Chevalier de la Charrete when she is coldly dismissive of  the knight who has laboured so devotedly on her behalf  for even his momentary hesitation before mounting the cart (Charrete, 3924–99 and 4458–500). By contrast, the humility of  the lady in The Franklin’s Tale is doubly stressed (F 753 and 758). In this way the lady does not take advantage of  the knight’s generosity, but in humbly conforming herself  to his will she upholds his dignity as a knight. Indeed, she addresses him twice in the space of  five lines by his formal title as a knight, ‘Sire’ (F 754 and 758). This pattern of generous submission on the part of  the knight and humble obedience on the part of  the lady is set forth (surprisingly on the face of it) in the conclusion to The Wife of  Bath’s Tale. The knight who submits to the judgment of  the wife (D1228–35) in the explicit recognition of  her sovereignty or mastery over him (D1236–38) finds himself of fered both goodness and beauty in his wife (D1239–54) and that goodness includes the virtue of obedience (D1255–56): And she obeyed hym in every thyng That myghte doon hym plesance or likyng.

Here obedience gives pleasure, including and perhaps especially sexual pleasure. This is certainly the force of the collocation ‘plesaunce and lykynge’ when used by Malory of  the consummation of  the love of  Lancelot and the Queen in the Knight of  the Cart episode of  ‘The Book of  Launcelot and Guinevere’ (MD, 1131/28–32): So, to passe uppon thys tale, sir Launcelot wente to bedde with the quene and toke no force of  hys hurte honde, but toke hys plesaunce and hys lykynge untyll hit was the dawnyng of  the day; for wyte you well he slept nat, but wacched.

The obedience of  the wife at the end of  The Wife of  Bath’s Tale is thus associated with delight rather than hardship, for it is above all the expression of  love. Here it must be understood that obedience like any moral virtue has its origin in personal freedom, and so rests upon an inner assent of  the

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will whereby one wills to submit oneself  to the will of another. It presupposes humility in its recognition of a superior authority and also the need for a superior authority. This ideal of mutual service and love is the ideal that is enshrined in Christian marriage, and it is the point of departure for The Franklin’s Tale (F 761–63): For o thyng, sires, sauf ly dar I seye, That freendes everych oother moot obeye, If  they wol longe holden compaignye.

Indeed, The Franklin’s Tale begins at the point at which The Wife of  Bath’s Tale ends. It cannot be insisted too often that the tales have priority over the tellers in The Canterbury Tales. The tales of  the Wife of  Bath and of  the Franklin conform to the perspectives of  their tellers (a woman whose freedom has been usurped in marriage and a gentleman whose humanity makes him appreciative of generosity in loving), but the arguments of  the tales are grounded in moral truths independent of  their tellers and in this respect the tales are continuous. Such moral and philosophical coherence extends not merely to The Canterbury Tales as a whole and to Chaucer himself as their teller, but to the pervasive truths of  Western moral philosophy in so far as one might suppose that philosophers such as Aristotle and Boethius have access to them. IV.  This is an argument for the coherence of  the tales as fashioned by the presiding genius of  the artist Chaucer. It does not allow us to of f-load dif ficulties of interpretation onto characters within works, whether conservative and self-important landowners or hysterical wives (if  the Franklin and Dorigen are justly characterised as such). Nor can we of f-load them onto Chaucer as author by way of ironic interpretations of  the narrating voice. The tales have to make sense in terms of  the concepts to which they themselves make appeal, that is, to the freedom of  the will, to control and submission in human relationships and to moral virtues such as generosity, humility and faithfulness in love and patience in suf fering. The Franklin’s

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Tale is shaped by these moral and philosophical ideas, and that is why they are set out at such length in the opening lines. In this way the beginning of  the tale anticipates its crisis and resolution. Thus, the knight, lover and husband, Arveragus, enters into the relationship with Dorigen of  his own free will and is bound to her by his freely given vows and promises. He does not take upon himself  ‘maistrie/ Agayn hir wyl’ (F 747–48) even when he commands her to keep her promise, because his wife Dorigen has promised in her turn to obey him. In other words he exercises maistrie in accordance with and not contrary to her will as her will is expressed in her promise to be a ‘humble trewe wyf ’ (F 758).23 He does not ‘kithe hire jalousie’ (F 748). The issue does not arise for him even though he has been away from her for two years (F 1094–96). And even when he finds his position as husband compromised by a promise that his wife has made to a would-be lover he does not become angry with her, but is gentle and compassionate (F 1467–69). He is so far from being jealous or possessive that he makes no claim upon her by virtue of  her prior promise to him. He simply forgoes his right.24 He does ‘obeye’ her and ‘folwe hir wyl in al’ (F 749) in accepting the validity of  the promise that she has made (given freely and without reference to him) to the squire, Aurelius. In so far as she has made a promise she has expressed her will and therefore Arveragus accepts it. He has no wish to infringe the moral autonomy of his wife. But he does continue to care about his status and dignity as a knight, that ‘name of soveraynetee’ that is owed to his ‘degree’ (F 751–52), as one who is himself  faithful in his promises, true to his word and honourable in his actions. And he acts out of  that sense of  honour in forbidding his wife to disclose their private agreements in public (F 1481–86). He shows here a due regard for reputation in society at large. This is not hypocrisy when public reputation is allied to private virtue. It is what his sense of  honour compels him to do and for a knight that is a matter of  life and death. Hence he enjoins silence on his wife ‘up peyne of deeth’ (F 1481). These are not the words of a cruel man, for as such they would contradict his ‘freendly wyse’ (F 1467), but rather his awareness of  the grave and indeed desperate state in which he and his wife find themselves. Moreover, it is the reputation of  his wife rather than his own reputation that he is most concerned to protect and uphold (F 1485–86):

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‘Ne make no contenance of  hevynesse, That folk of yow may demen harm or gesse.’

He will endure the loss of  honour that this entails for him by himself and in private (F 1484). The loss of  honour is a moral catastrophe for the knight, but he willingly takes it upon himself in circumstances not of  his own devising and beyond his control. For her part the lady and wife, Dorigen, is humble as a wife in turning to the husband for help in her dilemma (F 1459–66) and in obeying his command to go to the squire in order to keep her word despite the distress it occasions (F 1511–13). She is not only a humble wife, but also a faithful wife. Thus she pines inconsolably at the two-year absence of  her husband (F 814–46), is anxious for his return (F 847–56) and fears for his safety in respect of  the ‘grisly feendly rokkes blake’ (F 868) of f  the coast of  Brittany (F 857–94). As a faithful wife she indignantly rejects the overtures of  the lovelorn Aurelius and sends him away in despair (F 979–1011). But her feminine compassion and her wifely preoccupation open up her defences inadvertently, for ‘in pley’ (F 988) she promises to love Aurelius if  he can throughout the coast of  Brittany ‘remoeve alle the rokkes, stoon by stoon,/ That they ne lette ship ne boot to goon’ (F 993–94). Her oath is to all intents and purposes another convincing attestation of  faithful wifehood, for it underlines the fact that her anxious thoughts rest on the chivalrous knight and not the lovelorn squire. The seeming, but not actual, removal of  the rocks (F 1296) is an unanticipated and horrifying misfortune for the wife (F 1339–45) and leaves her with an insoluble dilemma of conf licting loyalties, for her desire to remain ‘trewe unto Arveragus’ (F 1424) is constant. The importance of  fidelity as a guiding principle in her conduct is indeed illustrated at this point in her complaint to Fortune by six examples (F 1424–41). But although Dorigen herself could not possibly have anticipated such a crisis in her married life, it is precisely unlooked-for misfortune of  this kind that the complementary marriage vows of  husband and wife are designed to negotiate. Dorigen no less than Arveragus attaches importance not only to virtue but also to the reputation for virtue. Hence as the first sequence of seven examples in her complaint to Fortune focuses on the virtue of chastity

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(F 1367–1423) and the second sequence of six examples on the virtue of  fidelity (F 1424–41), so the third and final sequence of nine examples focuses on wives honoured and praised for chastity and fidelity (F 1442– 56).25 The wife is at one with the husband on the great principles of  truth and honour. But how to translate such principles into action when so much is unclear and when great passions have been aroused? In the dilemma faced by Dorigen the judgment of  Solomon is required (and critics continue to debate the merits of  the case). But agents cannot deliberate indefinitely. They must act. The action of  the husband must be guided by love for his wife and to that end honour and life itself must be sacrificed if needs be. V.  The setting of  The Franklin’s Tale is no doubt a pagan setting, but the tale is informed throughout by Christian values, for example, the repugnance of suicide (for Dante worse than murder, and probably for Chaucer too)26 and above all respect for marriage as one of  the seven sacraments of  the Church and so a source of grace. The dilemma of  The Franklin’s Tale is defined and worked out within this network of assumptions. The dignity of marriage is rooted in the principle of consent and this indeed is the essence of marriage. The sacrament of marriage confirms and does not deny the freedom of  the wills of  lovers. Married lovers are equally bound by the vows they freely make to God and the promises they freely make to one another in the presence of  God. The promises the lovers make to love and honour one another are raised to the status of vows by being directed firstly and principally to God. But the marriage vows are not identical for the husband and the wife, although they are mutually reinforcing, and they clearly allow for a dif ferentiation of roles within marriage. The man declares to the woman that he will ‘love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her in sickness and in health’ and plights his troth or pledges his word ‘to love and to cherish’ her until death separates them. The woman declares to the man that she will ‘obey him, and serve him, love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health’ and she gives her troth ‘to love, cherish, and to obey’ him until death separates them.27 This is the form of  the vows in The First Book of  Common Prayer of  Edward VI in 1549 and they had taken essentially the same form in liturgies in England

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throughout the fourteenth century (and possibly for long before that).28 In particular, we may note that the vow of obedience on the part of  the wife is a stable element in English manuals and missals of  the fourteenth century. The woman promises in Latin ‘obedire et servire’ and in English to ‘be bonair and buxom’, a collocation emphasising notions of  kindness, gentleness, graciousness and obedience. Thus under bonair(e adj. MED gives the senses (a) ‘of  kind disposition, good-natured, kind, af fable; gracious, courteous, gentle’ and (b) ‘meek, humble; obedient, submissive, subservient’ and under buxom adj. the senses 1. (a) ‘humble, gentle, obedient, submissive’ and 2. (a) ‘obedient to a person, command, law’. J. Wickham Legg cites a fourteenth-century manual of  York use in which the bride is asked in Latin and in English as follows: N.  Uis habere hunc virum in sponsum et illi obedire et servire. et eum diligere et honorare ac custodire sanum et infirmum sicut sponsa debet sponsum … N.  wyll yow have this man to thi husband and to be bwxum to hym, luf  hym, obeye to hym, and wirschipe hym, serue him and kepe hym in hele and in seknes and … be to hym als a wyf f suld be to hir husband …29

He also cites a fourteenth-century manual of  Sarum (Salisbury) use to the same ef fect: Ich N. take the N. to my weddyd housbonde to hau and to holden fro this day forward, for bettere, for wers, for richere for porere, in seknesse and in helthe to be boneyre and buxsum in bedde and at borde, tyl deth us departe, …30

Dif ferences in terminology do not disguise the remarkable continuity in doctrine concerning marriage from the medieval to the present day, and indeed The Franklin’s Tale itself confidently relies upon the presence of such doctrine in the remote past. The Franklin as teller and Chaucer as poet propose nothing in this respect that is novel but fully share this ideal of a civilised relationship between the sexes. These deeply considered and long tested values and beliefs need to be understood if  the terms of  the moral dilemma of  The Franklin’s Tale are to be understood, for they presuppose and do not reject the notion of a wife’s obedience within marriage.

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The wife’s act of obedience to the husband is therefore defined by and limited to a situation in which she herself is loved, comforted, honoured and cherished. The dignified status of a wife is far dif ferent from that of a serf or feudal subject. Freedom and mutuality are at the core of  the married relationship, so that we can define (and, if we wish, judge) the conduct of  the man and the woman by reference to them. The man must love and honour the woman who obeys him as Christ loved the Church. Now Christ gave his life for the Church. As the Parson puts it (I 929): Man sholde bere hym to his wyf in feith, in trouthe, and in love, as seith Seint Paul, that a man sholde loven his wyf as Crist loved hooly chirche, that loved it so wel that he deyde for it.

Even so, as the Parson himself concludes, the husband must sacrifice everything for the wife, including his own honour and his very life if needs be. When the ship is about to founder (and it is for such a human catastrophe, actual or metaphorical, that the marriage vows have to allow), the husband sends the wife to the lifeboat and prepares himself  to go down with the ship. This is an inf lexible rule of conduct. Hence the marriage vows taken by the husband rule out all acts of petty tyranny on his part, and indeed it is a great evil when the wife becomes the plaything of a husband’s will. The marquess Walter continues to treat Grisilde as a feudal subject even after his marriage to her. Strictly speaking, the vows of marriage have abrogated the former relation of  lord and feudal subject. They did so in the case of  Queen Victoria, who was in every respect superior to Prince Albert save that of wife.31 The Clerk of  Oxenford is clear that Walter has no right to test his wife in the way that he does, for it is unnecessary in itself and is bound to cause Grisilde fear and anguish (E 455 and 460–62). The Clerk’s censure of  Walter is distinctive of  Chaucer’s treatment of  the tale and is repeated before the second testing of  the wife in another addition to the source (E 621–23). When Walter tests Grisilde for a third time by publicly repudiating her as his wife (E 736–49) his conduct is described at the beginning of  the fifth part of  the tale as ‘after his wikke usage’ (E 785; not in the source). Such wilful domination by the

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man over the woman is neither envisaged nor encouraged by the marriage vows. The husband can only look with assurance to his wife for obedience if  he acts out of  love and honour himself, and it is the certain knowledge that he is so doing that invests his actions with a true authority. Walter thus ef fectively breaks his marriage vows in dishonouring his wife. In The Merchant’s Tale the notion of wifely obedience is reduced to a point of degradation and absurdity. Obedience becomes a servile complaisance and the wife herself a mere drudge (E 1344–46): Al that hire housbonde lust, hire liketh weel; She seith nat ones ‘nay,’ whan he seith ‘ye.’ ‘Do this,’ seith he; ‘Al redy, sire,’ seith she.

The ef fect of  these lines is broadly comic, but they carry with them at least a hint of  the menace that an overbearing husband can have for a gentle but vulnerable wife. They do not stand and cannot be construed as a credible view of  the virtue of wifely obedience. The sacrament of matrimony does, however, presuppose the desirabi­ lity of obedience in a wife and it establishes a number of expectations on the part of a woman. Obedience as a moral virtue is actively willed by the obedient person and not imposed by a superior will. It is above all the gift, and a supreme gift next to love itself, of a free person. The Wife of  Bath’s Tale shows that it can only proceed from the woman’s complete liberation from the man, and indeed is derived from his concession of control to her. The Clerk sets out to demonstrate the inwardness of this virtue in Grisilde: ‘She was ay oon in herte and in visage’ (E 711). Properly, then, wifely obedience is the expression of abundant and overf lowing love in the woman for the man and as such it enhances her own worth as well as that of  the husband. It is to be called for in the only context that can safeguard it, namely, the professed determination of  the man to love and worship her. But the gift of obedience is a priceless and enormous gift and derives its excellence precisely from the preciousness of  the will as the highest of  human goods. From this point of view Aquinas recognises obedience as more praiseworthy than other moral virtues (ST, 2a 2ae 104.3):

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GERALD MORGAN Inter virtutes autem morales tanto aliqua potior est quanto aliquis majus aliquid contemnit ut Deo inhaereat … Et ideo per se loquendo laudabilior est obedientiae virtus, quae propter Deum contemnit propriam voluntatem, quam aliae virtutes morales, quae propter Deum aliqua alia bona contemnunt. The gradation of moral virtues is this: the nobler the good it forgoes for the sake of  God, the higher is the virtue … In these terms, the virtue of obedience is more praiseworthy than other moral virtues, seeing that by obedience a person gives up his own will for God’s sake, and by other moral virtues something less. (translated by T.C. O’Brien)

Obedience is classified by Aquinas under respect for a superior (observantia), the third of  the potential parts of justice (ST, 2a 2ae 80.1 ad 3), but it belongs no less with the virtues of religion and piety (ST, 2a 2ae 104.3 ad 1). Submission to God or to a parent is more natural than submission to some other human being (inevitably fallible, however eminent) and it calls for a great leap of  faith by a woman if she is to bind herself  by way of obedience to some other man. Chaucer with his fine sensitivity to the experience of women expresses his sense of  the enormity of  the vow of obedience in The Man of  Law’s Tale, for a lawyer would understand only too well the implications of a solemn and binding contract and knows too that the order of justice requires submission to a higher will, namely, God or the divine providence.32 In marrying, Custance has to submit to the unpredictable will of  her husband (B¹ 267–73): Allas, what wonder is it thogh she wepte, That shal be sent to strange nacioun Fro freendes that so tendrely hire kepte, And to be bounden under subjeccioun Of oon, she knoweth nat his condicioun?

Later, Custance herself expresses the same idea in words that are no less telling (B¹ 286–87): ‘Wommen are born to thraldom and penance, And to ben under mannes governance.’

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Custance, like other noble heroines, shows her heroism simply by enduring misfortune. It is fitting, therefore, that Chaucer should present the argument for providence in The Man of  Law’s Tale in relation to the experience of a woman, for in respect of providence it becomes necessary for all human beings to accept that happiness and misery are ultimately fashioned by a superior power. The moral implications of obedience are more appropriately treated by a philosopher than a lawyer, and they are so treated by Chaucer in The Clerk’s Tale. The Clerk of  Oxenford, as we know, is steeped in the thought of  Aristotle (GP, A 293–96) and in his tale he presents the argument for obedience in its most extreme and demanding form so as to tease out the moral implications. The argument is provocative and challenging, and indeed has caused no little of fence to generations of readers, but there is no reason why the thought of a scholar should be easy to grasp or readily assimilable at the level of popular prejudice or fashionable opinion. The moral virtue of obedience is tested by the Clerk in an abstract and logical way beyond the human capacity to fulfil it in order to expose to view its inherent nature. The Clerk himself acknowledges as much at the end of  his tale (E 1142–48). There is a lesson here for men as well as women and for those of  high rank as well as low: ‘every wight, in his degree’ (E 1145). The tale itself does not imply that it is either possible or desirable for one human being to be obedient to the will of another human being as Grisilde is to the will of  Walter. Doubtless the Clerk would agree with Aquinas (the greatest of  the medieval Aristotelians) that obedience is not to be given to a superior if it contradicts the will of  God (ST, 2a 2ae 104.5 sed contra), and what God’s will for husbands might be is plainly set down in the sacrament of matrimony. There are indeed times when an evil will must be resisted. Thus the ‘sergeant’ (E 519 and 524) or legal of ficer33 who comes to take Grisilde’s daughter away (E 519–39) is also obedient to his lord’s will (E 528–32). But obedience can lead such a man to ‘doon execucioun in thynges badde’ (E 522; Chaucer’s addition) and it does so here. By his actions in suggesting that he intends to slay the child (E 535–36) he shows himself  to be not so much obedient as cruel; he is ‘this crueel sergeant’ (E 539).

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A distinction is thus made between a true and a false obedience, and Aquinas explains that one is under no obligation to obey unjust commands (ST, 2a 2ae 104.6 ad 3). When the sergeant comes a second time to Grisilde to take away her son, the moral ugliness of  his action is ref lected in the description of  him as ‘ugly’ (E 673), a telling detail not to be found in the sources. There is a contradiction here between the outward appearance and the inner intent of  the sergeant, for he treats the little child with loving care after he has taken it away from the mother (E 685–86). But Grisilde’s obedience involves no such outward contradiction, for she is an innocent and hapless victim, powerless to thwart the will of  her husband and feudal lord. Thus, by contrast to the ugly sergeant, she shows an example of perfect patience and love, without trace of deceit, malice or cruelty in the face of intolerable suf fering (E 687–95). VI.  Only the faithful fulfilment of vows, both the husband’s vow of  love and the wife’s vow of obedience, can sustain a marriage in the face of  the inevitable vicissitudes of  life. The crisis that overtakes the marriage of  Dorigen and Arveragus comes about through no special failing on the part of  the married lovers themselves, but from the unwelcome intervention of a third party. Dorigen may well bewail her lot. She has done nothing obviously wrong or deserving of  blame and her innocence is further displayed in the anguish of  keeping the promise to Aurelius (F 1499–1513). Her sense of moral purity (and of its loss) undoubtedly sharpens our awareness of the moral dilemma. Arveragus ought not to be blamed for commanding his wife to go to Aurelius, and in the tale itself  there is no blame corresponding to the Man of  Law’s censure of  the Sultaness (B¹ 358–64 and 372) and Donegild (B¹ 778–84) or the Clerk’s censure of  Walter (E 75–84, 455–62, 619–23 and 696–700). Instead of  blame there is caution against a premature judgment (F 1493–98). Arveragus does not send his wife to commit adultery, as D.W. Robertson Jr represents it: When the time comes in the Franklin’s story for Arveragus to assert his husbandly authority, all he can do is to advise his wife to go ahead and commit adultery.34

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He simply stands over the promise that his wife has freely made (F 1474): ‘Ye shul youre trouthe holden, by my fay!’

That Dorigen herself  fully understands such a moral imperative is evident from the complaint to Fortune itself. Promise and command are thus linked in the following narrative. Dorigen makes her way ‘toward the gardyn ther as she had hight’ (F 1504) and, meeting Aurelius, tells him that she is doing so ‘as myn housbonde bad’ (F 1512). Aurelius, in a moment of comprehension and regeneration of spirit, is moved by pity not only for the wife but also for the husband (F 1515–19): And in his herte hadde greet compassioun Of  hire and of  hire lamentacioun, And of  Arveragus, the worthy knyght, That bad hire holden al that she had hight, So looth hym was his wyf sholde breke hir trouthe.

Arveragus knows that if  he asks his wife to obey him, she will obey him. But he can only ask for obedience out of  the strictest necessity, and here he does so out of respect for the sanctity of  his wife’s own oath and for her moral integrity. If, as a good but lesser man might do, he were to insist that she repudiate her promise to Aurelius as being irreconcilable with her marriage vows, he would in fact be treating her as his moral inferior. It is clear that some contemporary opinion (perhaps among some actual medieval Robertsonians) would have justified him in doing so. Gratian in his Decretum (c.1140) draws on St Ambrose in af firming that a wife has no authority to make a promise on her own account since she is subject in these matters to her husband.35 The wife’s duty of obedience to a husband is defined precisely in these terms in The Parson’s Tale (I 931): And eek, as seith the decree, a womman that is wyf, as longe as she is a wyf, she hath noon auctoritee to swere ne to bere witnesse withoute leve of  hir housbonde, that is hire lord.

But Arveragus sees Dorigen not as his inferior but as his equal and by his actions he af firms the validity of  her promise to Aurelius.36 Since she is his

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equal then her promise, or rather oath, is as binding as any he might give on his own account as a knight. The dilemma of conf licting promises that Dorigen unfolds in the course of  her complaint to Fortune cannot be resolved other than by release from one or other of  the promises. When she turns to her husband he releases her from her promise to him in an act of chivalrous magnanimity. He does so because he understands her innocence and is filled with loving kindness. This is the ‘heigh vertu’ of  ‘pacience’ that love requires of us in the face of  human fallibility (F 771–90) and it corresponds also to the duty of a husband to comfort his wife as well as to love and honour her. It is not Arveragus who imposes the obligation on Dorigen to meet Aurelius. That is already present by virtue of  her promise. Instead he supports her in the need to keep that promise. His love for his wife here is expressed in a way that is deeply injurious to himself and to his own interest, so much so indeed that he is unable to contain his emotion (F 1480): But with that word he brast anon to wepe.

Such a public display of emotion is a rare thing in a knight and reveals the pressure of  his own inner torment. There is nothing gratuitous, uncomprehending or self-regarding in his conduct, and in these circumstances he is justified in commanding his wife to keep silence and to conceal any harm done to her from public view. Such a concern for public reputation is perfectly legitimate if it is in accord with virtue. The moral reality is not that of a preoccupation with an appearance of virtue at the expense of inner worth, but of a proper dignity in public such as to enable one to sustain a private grief.37 No husband, especially not one whose wife continues to love him, deserves the public spectacle of  his wife’s involvement with another man. No wife deserves the censure of infidelity if she has been trapped against her will and desire into a false situation. There is a limit to what human beings can be expected to endure (as the Clerk has acknowledged in respect of  Grisilde) and both Dorigen and Arveragus are close to their respective limits. Moreover, the case is too complicated for ready explanations. And even if more elaborate explanations were to be of fered there would be many still unable to grasp

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the nature and scope of  the husband’s generosity.38 It is generosity that is the shaping experience of  the tale and that is what makes the Franklin fit to tell it. The moral dilemma is eventually unravelled by means of  the selfsacrificing generosity of  the husband, and it can only be unravelled in this way. In self-sacrifice of  this kind lies the true meaning of  love, that is, one puts the good of  the beloved before one’s own good. It is a noble ideal, but not impossibly noble. Human beings do sacrifice themselves for the good of  those they love and the experience of  life is such as to show that such sacrifices are often necessary.39

Notes 1 2 3

4 5

Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court, Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986), p. 264. For examples of  the interrelationship of  the moral virtues, see General Prologue, A 45–46 (the Knight), The Knight’s Tale, A 2789–91 (Arcite) and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 651–55 (Gawain). This is a point forcibly made in respect of  the improbable notion of  Chaucer as a proto-feminist, although directed to a dif ferent end, by Elaine Tuttle Hansen, Chaucer and the Fictions of  Gender (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of  California Press, 1992). On the relation of  Chaucer and Froissart, see John M. Fyler, ‘Froissart and Chaucer’, in Froissart Across the Genres, edited by Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox (Gainesville, FL: University Press of  Florida, 1998), pp. 195–218. See Gerald Morgan, ‘The Design of  the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales’, ES, 59 (1978), 481–98. On the status of  the Franklin as a true and worthy gentleman, see Henrik Specht, Chaucer’s Franklin in ‘The Canterbury Tales’: The Social and Literary Background of a Chaucerian Character, Publications of  the Department of  English, University of  Copenhagen, 10 (Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1981), reviewed by Gerald Morgan, MÆ, 52 (1983), 125–26. Roy J. Pearcy, ‘Chaucer’s Franklin and the Literary Vavasour’, ChR, 8 (1973), 33–59 is still valuable in its focus on the vavasour as a settled inhabitant of a locality (such as Penmarch in Brittany, perhaps) and

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8 9

GERALD MORGAN a person in the romances of  ‘mature dignity and generous hospitality’ (p. 53). Such an image of  the Franklin is still suf ficiently persuasive for Spenser in 1590 to make Zeal or devotion in the House of  Holiness ‘a francklin faire and free’. Zeal meets Una and the Red Cross Knight in the courtyard of  the House of  Holiness and ‘entertaines’ them ‘with comely courteous glee’ as he guides them to the hall where they are received by ‘a gentle Squire, / … Hight Reuerence’ (FQ, I.10.6–7); Hamilton, Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Queene (1977), p. 131. In his edition of  The Works of  Edmund Spenser in 1805, H.J. Todd explains that ‘a francklin is a person of some distinction in our ancient history’ and adds that ‘he makes a conspicuous figure in Chaucer, and his manners bespeak his wealth’; see Edwin Greenlaw, Charles Grosvenor Osgood and Frederick Morgan Padelford, The Works of  Edmund Spenser: A Variorum Edition, Volume I (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1932), pp. 283–84. I cannot accept, therefore, the argument of  Susan Crane in ‘The Franklin as Dorigen’, ChR, 24 (1990), 236–52 that the Franklin is ‘of a rank not quite common but not securely gentle either’ (p. 236) and its consequential inferences. The inf luential account of  the decline of chivalry in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by Johan Huizinga in The Waning of  the Middle Ages, translated by F. Hopman (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965), is itself inf luenced by the experience of  the Great War. Huizinga’s thesis has been shown to be untenable by Malcolm Vale, War and Chivalry: Warfare and Aristocratic Culture in England, France and Burgundy at the End of  the Middle Ages (London: Duckworth, 1981). On the relation between the ideal and the reality of chivalry in the fourteenth century, see Elspeth Kennedy, ‘Theory and Practice: The Portrayal of  Chivalry in the Prose Lancelot, Geof froy de Charny, and Froissart’, in Froissart Across the Genres, pp. 179–94. Jill Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire: The Literature of  Social Classes and the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), notes that ‘estates lists show that it would be more “correct” for the clerical figures to precede the Knight’ (p. 6). Jean Froissart, Oeuvres complètes de Froissart, edited by Kervyn de Lettenhove, 11 vols (Brussels: Académie Royale de Belgique, 1867–1877), V.412. Quoted and translated by Kennedy, Froissart Across the Genres, p. 180 and n. 7. Le livre de chevalerie, 42/67–73, pp. 182–83: ‘Et pour ce pourroit l’en bien dire et par verité que entre toutes les genz qui en ce monde peuent estre et de quelque estat qu’il soient, ne religieux ne autres, n’ont tant de besoing d’estre bon crestien entierement, ne de si tres bonne devocion en leurs cuers et de tres honeste vie de leurs corps et de touz leurs ouvraiges faire loyaument et raisonablement, comme ont celle bonne gent d’armes qui ce mestier veulent faire et mener

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raisonnablement et selon Dieu,/ Hence one could well say truly that of all the men in the world, of whatever estate, whether religious or lay, none have as great a need to be a good Christian to the highest degree nor to have such true devoutness in their hearts nor to lead a life of such integrity and to carry out all their undertakings loyally and with good judgment as do these good men-at-arms who have the will to pursue this calling wisely and according to God’s will.’ 10 The evidence is assembled by Maurice Keen, ‘Chaucer’s Knight, the English Aristocracy and the Crusade’, in Nobles, Knights and Men-at-Arms in the Middle Ages (London: Hambledon Press, 1996), pp. 101–19. This important article first appeared in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, edited by V.J. Scattergood and J.W. Sherborne (London: Duckworth, 1983), pp. 45–61. 11 Keen, ‘Chaucer’s Knight’, p. 105 and n. 5 and Kenneth Fowler, The King’s Lieutenant: Henry of  Grosmont, First Duke of  Lancaster 1310–1361 (London: Elek Books Limited, 1969), pp. 45–46. 12 Keen, ‘Chaucer’s Knight’, p. 112 and n. 35. 13 Keen, ‘Chaucer’s Knight’, p. 113 and n. 46. 14 Muriel Bowden claims in A Commentary on the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, second edition (London: Souvenir Press (Educational & Academic) Ltd, 1973) that ‘Gower … condemns all war’ (p. 67). This is too simple a judgment and needs to be corrected. In the Confessio Amantis Gower’s confessor acknowledges that God’s law and nature alike commend peace (CA, III.2260–66), but insists also that the claim of mercy does not abolish the claim of justice (CA, III.2216– 24). Hence the defence of property and land is justified even if it results in the slaying of another (CA, III.2235–40). In his poem In Praise of  Peace, addressed to the newly crowned Henry IV (1399–1413), Gower gives a classic statement of  the theory of  the just war, ‘for of  bataile the final ende is pees’ (PP, 66; see also PP, 57–60 and 64–65). Thus ‘a worthi knyght / Uppon his trouthe may go to the fight’ (PP, 67–68) and most worthily in defence of  the faith and Holy Church (PP, 197–200 and 239–45). Thus Gower commends the religious crusade (PP, 192–96 and 249–52) and his exclamation, ‘Ha, wel is him that schedde nevere blod, / Bot if it were in cause of rihtwisnesse’ (PP, 148–49), is entirely apt for the Knight of  the General Prologue. Indeed, Gower’s poem as a whole is well designed to appeal to the religious and crusading sympathies of  the king himself. See CA, II.481–92. 15 Terry Jones, Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980), p. 140. 16 Thus Edward I. Condren, Chaucer and the Energy of  Creation: The Design and the Organization of  the Canterbury Tales (Gainesville, FL: University Press of  Florida, 1999), seeks to accommodate rather than discount the view that the

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Knight is ‘a cold-blooded professional killer’ and concludes that ‘there may be some truth to the theory that Chaucer’s leading pilgrim is a Knight-Mercenary’ (p. 28). See in addition to Keen (n. 10 above) an important article by Elizabeth Porter, ‘Chaucer’s Knight, the Alliterative Morte Arthure, and the Medieval Laws of  War: A Reconsideration’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 27 (1983), 56–78, which sets the crusading idealism of  the Knight in the historical context of  English weariness and failure in the war against France in the 1380s and the sacking of  besieged cities in the legal context of medieval laws of war. The fact that ‘wholesale pillaging and slaughter’ was ‘legally permitted in a city taken by assault’ (p. 71) is to be explained by the terrible military necessity involved in such a termination of a siege. What is involved may be appreciated from accounts of  the taking of  Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz by Wellington on 19 January and 6–7 April 1812; see Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: The Years of  the Sword (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969), pp. 264–74. Of the sacking of  Badajoz Longford observes that ‘according to the barbarously logical rules of war, a town which refused to surrender and forced the besiegers (always at a disadvantage) to storm it at enormous cost, deserved to be sacked’ (p. 271). Thus the sacking of  Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz was not seen at the time to detract from the glory won there by the British army, and indeed after the taking of  Ciudad Rodrigo Wellington was elevated from Viscount to Earl. In the same way the sacking of  Alexandria on 10 October 1365 was seen by Machaut and Chaucer alike as part of  ‘la gloire de ceste tres noble victoire’; see Derek Brewer, ‘Chaucer’s Knight as Hero, and Machaut’s Prise d’Alexandrie’, in Heroes and Heroines in Medieval English Literature, edited by Leo Carruthers (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1994), pp. 81–96 (p. 90). It is entirely consistent with the facts of military history, therefore, to see Chaucer’s Knight as representing an ‘ideal of … a Christian crusader’ and not at all as ‘a mercenary, but a wide-ranging volunteer’ (p. 82). 17 On the need for readers to interpret The Franklin’s Tale in the light of  their own experience, see Jill Mann, ‘Chaucerian Themes and Style in the Franklin’s Tale’, in The New Pelican Guide to English Literature, edited by Boris Ford (Harmondsworth: 1981), Volume I, Part 1, pp. 135–53, especially pp. 134–38. 18 The parliamentary experience of a man like the Franklin must include some or most and possibly all of  the following: in the Parliament at Westminster in 1371 the fall of  William of  Wykeham, Bishop of  Winchester, and Thomas Brantingham, Bishop of  Exeter, Chancellor and Treasurer respectively, amidst complaints of  the undue inf luence of  Holy Church in the government of  the realm; in the Good Parliament of 1376 the emergence of  Sir Peter de la Mare, knight of  the shire for Herefordshire, as the first Speaker of  the Commons, and the impeachment of  Alice Perrers, the king’s mistress (ref lected in Langland’s

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Meed); the holding of  Parliament at Gloucester in 1378 because of  fears of disturbance at Westminster and at Northampton in 1380 where the granting of a poll tax of a shilling a head on the entire male population provoked the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381; in the Parliament of 1383 the impeachment of  Henry Despenser, Bishop of  Norwich, and his captains after the failure of  the crusade in Flanders; in the Wonderful Parliament of 1386 with Chaucer himself as colleague the impeachment of  the Chancellor, Michael de la Pole, Earl of  Suf folk; and not least in the Merciless Parliament of 1388 the conviction for treason of five of  the king’s friends, Robert de Vere, Earl of  Oxford, Pole, Sir Robert Tressilian, the Chief  Justice of  the King’s Bench, Sir Nicholas Brembre, formerly Mayor of  London and Alexander Neville, Archbishop of  York, together with the impeachment of  Sir Simon Burley, the under-chamberlain and Warden of  the Cinque Ports (formerly in the service of  the Black Prince and Richard II’s tutor) and the three chamber knights, Sir John Beauchamp, Sir James Berners and Sir John Salisbury. See M.H. Keen, England in the Later Middle Ages: A Political History (London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1973), pp. 260–63, 265–66, 275, 278–79 and 282–84. We can say with assurance that all these names will have been familiar to a man of  the Franklin’s personal background. 19 Thus Condren, Chaucer and the Energy of  Creation, comments that the Franklin’s ‘confusion between essence and its symbols governs his attitude to the pilgrim Squire whose substance he cannot see behind the many accidents that mark his class’ and that ‘seeming to praise the Squire, he inadvertently undercuts his performances’ (p. 153). The interruption of  the Squire is seen as one among many ‘instances of  the Franklin’s literary naïveté’ (p. 155). Such a patronising sense of superiority on the part of  the modern critic is an insecure basis for dealing with the social niceties and moral ironies of  Chaucer’s fictional world. 20 Derek Pearsall, The Canterbury Tales (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985), writes shrewdly and well of  the ‘new and rather engaging light’ in which the Franklin appears in his interruption of  the Squire, observing that ‘it takes some confidence on the Franklin’s part … as well as some public spirit, for he runs the risk of  being thought either an ignoramus (for not realising the tale was not finished) or a boor (for interrupting it)’ and concluding that ‘the Franklin relies on the good opinion others have of  him’ (pp. 143–44). There is indeed at the heart of  The Franklin’s Tale and of modern interpretations of it a crisis of credibility. 21 See Bryan and Dempster, pp. 296, 297 and 299. A marquess is a nobleman between the ranks of duke and earl, and the first earl to be created marquess was Robert de Vere, the Earl of  Oxford, as Marquess of  Dublin in 1385. See MED, s.v. markis n. (a) and K.B. McFarlane, The Nobility of  Later Medieval England: The Ford

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25 26 27 28

GERALD MORGAN Lectures for 1953 and Related Studies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), pp. 273 and 275–76. See Aristotle, Ethics, IV.3 1123b 35: ‘for honour is the prize of virtue, and it is to the good that it is rendered’. See also Aquinas, ST, 2a 2ae.103.1 arg.2 and ad 2. For a penetrating discussion of  the balance of power in the marriage of  Arveragus and Dorigen, see Jill Mann, ‘The Surrender of  Maistrye’, in Geof frey Chaucer, Feminist Readings (New York and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), pp. 111–20. She argues that the complexity of  the relationship is not a matter of mere equality or ‘sameness’, but ‘a doubling of roles’, so that by ‘constant alternation … each partner is simultaneously both dominant and subservient in the relationship’ (p. 114). Further, patience is not merely the endurance of pain, but an openness to unforeseeable future events (pp. 117–18). In her article on ‘Chaucerian Themes and Style in the Franklin’s Tale (see n.17 above) she perceptively observes that ‘in bidding his wife to keep her promise, he [Arveragus] provides a compelling example of patience in Chaucer’s sense of  the word, of adaptation to “aventure”, of allowing events to take their course’ (p. 150). In a subtle and well-argued article, ‘The Marriage Contract of  the Franklin’s Tale: the Remaking of  Society’, ChR, 20 (1985), 132–43, Kathryn Jacobs notes that Arveragus acts in a manner that is opposed to his own interests, for he releases Dorigen from her own vow to him in marriage ‘against his will, under a moral imperative’ (p. 133). For the full development of  this interpretation, see Gerald Morgan, ‘A Defence of  Dorigen’s Complaint’, MÆ, 46 (1977), 77–97. See the first and second rounds of  the seventh circle of  hell (the violent) in Inf., XII and XIII and Troilus and Criseyde, I.822–24. The First Book of  Common Prayer of  Edward VI, 1549, edited by Rev. Henry Baskerville Walton, with an introduction by Rev. Peter Goldsmith Medd (London, Oxford and Cambridge: Rivingtons, 1869). For a review of ecclesiastical law in relation to marriage in England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, see Conor McCarthy, ‘Representations of  Marriage in Later Medieval England’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of  Dublin, 1996), pp. 11–75 and his subsequent book, Marriage in Medieval England: Law, Literature and Practice (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2004). The same form of  the marriage vows continues in use and was the form of  the vows taken by the Earl and Countess of  Wessex in their wedding at Windsor on 19 June 1999; see The Book of  Common Prayer According to the Use of  the Church of  Ireland (Dublin: Association for Promoting Christian Knowledge; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

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29 MS Cambridge University Library Ee.4.19; see J. Wickham Legg, On the Retention of  the Word ‘Obey’ in the Marriage Service of  the Book of  Common Prayer: A Liturgical Consultation, Addressed to the Bishop of  Oxford, and Written before the First of  August, 1914 (London: Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., 1915), p. 27. 30 MS Rawlinson, Liturg. d.5, fol.14, Bodleian Library, Oxford; see Legg, p. 28. The sense of  ‘obedience’ in the English form is clearly illustrated by two examples cited by MED, s.v. bonair(e, adj. (b): ‘(a1438) MKempe A 87/20: I take þe, Margery, for my weddyd wyfe … so þat þu be buxom & bonyr to do what I byd þe do. Ibid. 161/25: Þat þu be buxom & bonowr to my wil … & leue thyn owyn wyl’. The words bonair and buxom are not found in The First Book of  Common Prayer in 1549 or thereafter because bonair is obsolescent and buxom is obsolescent in the sense of  ‘obedient’ in the sixteenth century; see OED, s.v. bonair(e, a. and buxom, a. 1a. and 1b. Similarly, ME worship gives way to honour. 31 Queen Victoria made the traditional promise to obey and serve her husband in accordance with the rite of  the Church of  England; see Legg, p. 34. 32 Richard Firth Green in an interesting discussion on ‘Rash Promises’ in A Crisis of  Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England (Philadelphia: University of  Pennsylvania Press, 1999), pp. 293–335, explains that the legal capacity of married women to make a contract is justified by the role of will in common-law contract and that Arveragus is bound to accept the validity of  Dorigen’s promise both by prior authorisation (F 745–49) and by subsequent ratification (F 1474–78) (pp. 310–11). Promises are to be kept and in common law this extends to promises that involve impossible conditions (pp. 321–24). 33 See MED, s.v. sergeant n. 3. (a). 34 D.W. Robertson Jr, A Preface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspectives (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962), p. 472. It is depressing to find that this trivialising and ungenerous misrepresentation of  Arveragus’s action is still inf luential. Thus W.A. Davenport, Chaucer and his English Contemporaries (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1998), pp. 127–28 writes that ‘even the steadfast Arveragus … immediately bursts into tears at the thought that he is advising his wife to commit adultery, and that he will be shamed if people know about it’. Condren in Chaucer and the Energy of  Creation is even more damning: ‘With a response that sounds like a parody of some preposterous decision by Marie de Champagne in Andreas Capellanus’s De arte honeste amandi, her husband tells her to keep her word, that is, “Go and give yourself  to Aurelius” (cf. V.1474)’ (p. 162). Assuredly this is not the perspective of  the tale itself. It is Dorigen, not Arveragus, who has made the promise to Aurelius, so that first and foremost the shame will fall upon her for necessitating so terrible a command. Arveragus is principally concerned about the shame that will descend upon Dorigen if  the

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GERALD MORGAN suspicions of people are aroused (‘… that folk of yow may demen harm or gesse’, F 1486; my italics) and the teller advises his listeners to suspend their judgment ‘er ye upon hire crie’, F 1496; my italics). See Colin Wilcockson, ‘Thou and Tears: The Advice of  Arveragus to Dorigen in Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale’, RES, NS, 54 (2003), 308–12. See Gratian, Decretum, 2.33.5.17, in Emil Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, 2 vols (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1879–1881), I.1250–56. For a similar analysis of  Arveragus’s action at this point (although to a somewhat dif ferent moral ef fect), see McCarthy, Ph.D. dissertation, pp. 143–44 and Marriage in Medieval England, pp. 105–6. Compare the wisdom of  Malory’s Sir Segwarides who is obliged to live with his wife’s infidelity with Sir Tristram, the nephew of  the king (Mark): ‘Therefore he lette hit overslyppe, for he that hath a prevy hurte is loth to have a shame outewarde’ (MD, 396/14–16). Thus R. Allen Shoaf, ‘The Franklin’s Tale: Chaucer and Medusa’, ChR, 21 (1986), 274–90, reprinted in Chaucer: Contemporary Critical Essays, edited by Valerie Allen and Ares Axiotis, New Casebooks (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1997), pp. 242–52, is so uncomprehending of  the generosity of  Arveragus as to argue that his command to Dorigen ‘issues from the desperation of a moral adolescent whose principal concern is to save his face, no matter what the cost – even if  the cost should be the life of  his wife’ (p. 246). Arveragus is a knight, not an adolescent. The same incomprehension of generosity undermines the closely argued discussion of  A.M. and P.J. Lucas, ‘The Presentation of  Marriage and Love in Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale’, ES, 72 (1991), 501–12. I am grateful to Helen Cooper for help and advice in clarifying and focusing the argument of  this article, and indeed to the patience and generosity of all three editors of  Medium Aevum.

Bibliographical Note In the course of revising this essay for publication my attention has been drawn to the following article:    Leah Otis-Cour, ‘True lover/False Lover, franquise/dete: Dichotomies in the Franklin’s Tale and Their Analogue in Richard de Fournival’s Consaus d’amours’, ChR, 47 (2012), 161–86. This important article convincingly explains the loving reciprocity of  husband and wife and all future students of  The Franklin’s Tale will surely be indebted to it.

8  Spenser’s Conception of  Courtesy    and the Design of  The Faerie Qveene

Any understanding knoweth the skill of each artificer standeth in that idea or fore-conceit of  the work, and not in the work itself. — SIDNEY, a Defence of  Poetry, 79/6–81

I.  If one certain conclusion has emerged from the labours of  Spenserian scholarship in the twentieth century, it is surely that the six books and two cantos of  The Faerie Qveene cannot be fitted to any known list of  twelve Aristotelian moral virtues. The certainty of  this conclusion is unaf fected by the attempt to distinguish between the works of  Aristotle in themselves and the scholastic modifications of  Aristotelian doctrine in the Middle Ages. But we should not for all that abandon the search for a formal principle in The Faerie Qveene as a whole, for to do so would be to abandon the poem as a work of art and to leave it in the shadow of incomprehensi­bility. We should not be too quick to condemn Spenser for leading us astray in the Letter to Raleigh or, what is worse, to suppose that the under­standing of poems falls to the lot of critics rather than poets. Much of what we read in the Letter to Raleigh is a true report of what we find in the poem; the inf luence of  Aristotelian moral philosophy is everywhere to be felt and the nature of moral ideas is steadily pursued through every com­plication of  the narrative. Above all we are continuously aware of  the intricacy of  the poem’s structure and the fine co-ordination of its various elements. It does not seem reasonable to deny of  the whole what is mani­festly true of  the parts. At the same time the exposition of  the poem’s design in the Letter to Raleigh cannot be reconciled with the extant work as we have it. We need to bear in mind, therefore, that the Letter to Raleigh is appended to

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the edition of 1590, which contains only three books, and is itself dated 23 January 1589. When the magnitude of  Spenser’s design is considered, it is not wonderful that it should be subject to modification in the course of  the many years required to execute it. I do not mean to suggest that the great design will have been much af fected by the spontaneous act of writing; rather it is necessary to think in terms of  the gradual unfold­ing and evolution of  the poet’s thought. The sublimity of  The Faerie Qveene resides in the steadfastness of its poetic purpose: ‘to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline’ (LR, 714/8). But the subtleties of  Scholastic philosophy are not to be mastered in a single act of mind. General considerations of  this kind cannot convince, although they may induce a sympathetic understanding of  the task that a great poet has set himself. If we are to discover the formal principle of  The Faerie Qveene it must be from within the existing work. I propose first of all to examine Spenser’s conception of courtesy as it is represented in Book VI, since here is to be found fully formulated the idea of  The Faerie Qveene in its last recorded stage of development. In the light of  the analysis of  Spenser’s Legend of  Courtesy I present an account of  the finished design of  Books I–VI and finally look forward to the completion of  the whole work. II.  By courtesy Spenser understands moral virtue and not merely an outward grace in conduct (FQ, VI, Proem 5.8–9):   But vertues seat is deepe within the mynd, And not in outward shows, but inward thoughts defynd.

But virtues are ordered to acts and have their appropriate expression in external conduct. Aquinas observes that modesty is a virtue, since outward motions are governed by reason and so should accord with the inner disposition (ST, 2a 2ae 168.1 and ad 1). Courtesy is a moral concept that focuses both on the inwardness of virtue and the fitness of its outward expression. Courtesy in its specific inner sense is the virtue of generosity, and it is repeatedly illustrated by Spenser: Calidore refuses to take an unfair advan­tage of  the senseless Crudor (VI.1.34); Priscilla is concerned for the

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wel­fare of  Aladine before her own reputation (VI.3.12) and Calidore shows generosity towards Coridon, his rival for the love of  Pastorella (VI.9.41– 44). In the reformation of  Briana (VI.1.45) we see how such generosity can itself inspire generosity (a lesson that Spenser could have derived from Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale). So closely are the virtue and its outward expression related that it is often dif ficult and sometimes not very meaningful to distinguish between them. But the generosity of a host is seen in the hospitality of  Aldus (VI.3.6) and the opposed vice in the inhospitality of  Turpine (VI.3.37–38). Similarly the assault of an armed knight on horseback against the unarmed Tristram on foot (VI.2.3–4) of fends against the most fundamental principles of  knightly conduct. In Malory’s ‘Tale of  King Arthur’ Marhalt is quick to perceive just this point when he is rebuked by Gawain whom he has unhorsed (MD, 160/27–35): And lyghtly sir Gawayne wan on his feete and pulde oute his swerde and dressed hym toward sir Marhaus on foote. And sir Marhaus saw that he pulde oute his swerde, and began to com to sir Gawayne on horsebak. ‘Sir knyght,’ sayde sir Gawayne, ‘alyght on foote, or ellis I woll sle thyne horse.’ ‘Gramercy,’ sayde sir Marhaus, ‘of your jentylnesse! Ye teche me curtesy, for hit is nat commendable one knyght to be on horsebak and the other on foote.’

Thus Calepine is evilly assaulted by Turpine when on foot and leading the wounded Serena (VI.3.45–51). Since the inner virtue of generosity is outwardly expressed by graciousness of manners, such graciousness is properly ascribed by Spenser to his knight of courtesy (VI.1.2): In whom it seemes, that gentlenesse of spright And manners mylde were planted naturall; To which he adding comely guize withall, And gracious speach, did steale mens hearts away.

But the moral interest of  Book VI of  The Faerie Qveene cannot be con­fined to courtesy in this restricted sense. Generosity as such is not Spenser’s starting-point and generosity does not explain Calidore’s quest of  the Blatant Beast. Spenser begins with the relation of courtesy and courts (VI.1.1):

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GERALD MORGAN Of  Court it seemes, men Courtesie doe call,   For that it there most vseth to abound;   And well beseemeth that in Princes hall   That vertue should be plentifully found,   Which of all goodly manners is the ground,   And roote of ciuill conuersation.

This stanza points to courtesy in the general sense of moral worth or excellence, that is, honestas. Dante in the Convivio makes explicit the identification of  the two and makes use of  the same argument as Spenser (II.x.7–8; Ryan, 63): E non siano li miseri volgari anche di questo vocabulo ingannati, che credono che cortesia non sia altro che larghezza; e larghezza è una speziale, e non generale, cortesia! Cortesia e onestade è tutt’uno: e però che ne le corti anticamente le vertudi e li belli costumi s’usavano, sì come oggi s’usa lo contrario, si tolse quello vocabulo da le corti, e fu tanto a dire cortesia quanto use di corte. And the wretched common people should not remain in ignorance about the meaning of  this word either, believing that courtesy means nothing other than liberality: liberality, too, is a particular form of courtesy, not courtesy in its generic sense. Courtesy and human goodness are one and the same thing; it was because virtues and fine manners were the normal form of conduct in the courts of ancient times – as are their opposites nowadays – that this word was derived from the courts, and courtesy was taken to mean precisely the normal form of conduct at court.

This identification explains at once the breadth of  Spenser’s treatment. Calidore is distinguished by his courage and fame as well as by his gentle­ ness of manner (VI.1.2) and is at one with the knight of justice (VI.1.4): Who whenas each of other had a sight, They knew them selues, and both their persons rad.

The Knight of  Courtesy sets of f on his quest at the point at which the Knight of  Justice ends his quest, and he sets of f unattended (VI.1.6). This is allegorically significant matter and it is intended to reveal the relationship between justice and courtesy. Aristotle explains that justice is virtue not absolutely but in relation to one’s neighbour (Ethics, V.1):

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What the dif ference is between virtue and justice in this sense is plain from what we have said; they are the same but their essence is not the same; what, as a relation to one’s neighbour, is justice is, as a certain kind of state without qualification, virtue.

Courtesy in the sense of  honestas is the state of  honour and is identical with virtue (ST, 2a 2ae 145.1; translated by Thomas Gilby): Et ideo honestum proprie loquendo in idem refertur cum virtute. Properly speaking, therefore, being honourable amounts to the same as being virtuous.

Justice is coextensive with virtue, but refers to external relations and so requires execution (Talus) whereas courtesy is virtue complete in itself. Honour is, as Aristotle tells us (Ethics, IV.3), the reward that is due to virtue and the ef fect of  honour is fame or renown (ST, 2a 2ae 103.1 ad 3). The true outward manifestation of courtesy as honestas is therefore fame, and it is such fame that the Knight of  Courtesy properly struggles to preserve. The quest of  the Blatant Beast (in which is combined malice, deceit and detraction) is the defence of  honour and renown against those vices that result in shame and infamy (VI.6.1): No wound, which warlike hand of enemy   Inf licts with dint of sword, so sore doth light,   As doth the poysnous sting, which infamy   Infixeth in the name of noble wight.

Book VI of  The Faerie Qveene therefore treats of  the wholeness of virtue as constituted in those of outstanding moral worth and as manifested in external conduct, and also of  the honour and renown that is the due of such virtue. The subtlety and comprehensiveness of  the moral design demands a corresponding complexity in the structure of  the book as Spenser ‘[d]irects’ his ‘course vnto one certaine cost’ but ‘[i]s met of many a counter winde and tyde’ (VI.12.1). The Legend of  Courtesy is an admirable example in English poetry of polyphonic narrative and shows how such narrative is consistent with (indeed is the very product of ) the most exacting demands of  formal unity. It now remains, therefore, to specify the moral elements around which the unity of  the Legend of  Courtesy has been constructed.

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The courage of  Calidore – ‘he was full stout and tall, / And well ap­prou’d in batteilous af fray’ (VI.1.2) – is emphasized as well as his gentleness of manners in the opening description of  him and is illustrated in the course of  the narrative that follows. His courage is displayed in the rescue of  Pastorella from the tiger (VI.10.35–36) and from the brigands (VI.11.46–49) and is contrasted with the cowardice of  Coridon (VI.10.35 and VI.11.35). In the same way the courage of  Arthur (VI.6.23) is contrasted with the cowardice of  Turpine (VI.6.26–30). Perseverance is classified by Aquinas as a potential part of  fortitude or secondary virtue, since it preserves firmness of mind in matters less dif ficult than the dangers of death (ST, 2a 2ae 137.2). These matters relate to the prolonged endurance needed in order to achieve an arduous good (ST, 2a 2ae 137.1 and ad 1). Perseverance is illustrated by Spenser in Calidore’s pursuit of  the Blatant Beast (VI.9.3): So sharply he the Monster did pursew,   That day nor night he suf fred him to rest,   Ne rested he himselfe but natures dew,   For dread of daunger, not to be redrest,   If  he for slouth forslackt so famous quest

and in the renewal of  the quest (VI.12.22), and against it is set his failing through intemperance2 (VI.9.11):   He was vnwares surprisd in subtile bands   Of  the blynd boy, ne thence could be redeemed   By any skill out of  his cruell hands, Caught like the bird, which gazing still on others stands.

The attraction of  the pastoral life is expressed by Calidore as a relief  from the struggles of  the world. The references to Fortune (VI.9.19 and 31): Leading a life so free and fortunate, From all the tempests of  these worldly seas, To rest my barcke, which hath bene beaten late With stormes of  fortune and tempestuous fate,

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are intended to remind us that it is indeed Calidore’s fortune to exer­cise himself in these struggles and through such exertions to win fame (VI.9.2). Artegall and Calidore are identified with one another at the beginning of  Book VI, as we have seen, for justice and courtesy are united in the posses­sion of virtue. Thus Calidore’s battle against the Blatant Beast is signifi­cantly compared with two of  the labours of  Hercules – the battle against the Hydra (VI.12.32) and the chaining of  Cerberus and dragging him from hell to the upper world (VI.12.35) – for Hercules is associated with the establishment of justice in the West (V.1.2). Similarly in Arthur’s quest against Turpine we see the linking of justice and courtesy, for Arthur intends to give redress for the discourtesies meted out to Calepine and Serena (VI.6.18). It is indeed the cause of justice and not a personal vin­ dictiveness that Arthur stands for, as is evident from his compassion for Blandina (VI.6.31 and 37) and his restraint of  the wild man from unneces­ sary slaughter of  the people of  the castle (VI.6.39) and from exacting ven­ geance upon Turpine (VI.6.40). The justice of  Arthur is therefore directed to the establishment of peace. The imperfection of any human system of justice, however, explains the necessity for mercy, as Aristotle recognizes in the distinction that he draws between legal justice and equity (Ethics, V.10). This virtue of mercy Calidore shows in his treatment of  the defeated Crudor (VI.1.42): Who will not mercie vnto others shew,   How can he mercy euer hope to haue?   To pay each with his owne is right and dew.

But the virtue of mercy is accompanied also by the virtue of severity, that is, inf lexibility in the administration of punishment. Severity is not opposed to mercy (for both are in accord with right reason), but is the virtue that operates when legal justice does not require to be corrected by equity (ST, 2a 2ae 157.2 ad 1; translated by Thomas Gilby): Non tamen opponitur eo quod utrumque est secundum rationem rectam. Nam severitas inf lexibilis est circa inf lictionem poenarum quando hoc recta ratio requirit; clementia autem diminutiva est poenarum etiam secundum rationem rectam, quando scilicet oportet et in quibus oportet. Et ideo non sunt opposita, quia non sunt circa idem.

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GERALD MORGAN In truth, however, they are not really in conf lict since they both uphold a common value. For severity is unbending only when right reason demands it, and clemency also softens punishment only when and where this is fitting and reasonable. And so they are not contraries, for they do not revolve round the same point.

It is in these terms that Calidore defends his slaying of  Malef fort, for Malef fort has no claim on his mercy (VI.1.26): Bloud is no blemish; for it is no blame To punish those, that doe deserue the same.

It is in the same way that we should interpret the disgrace that Arthur metes out to Turpine (VI.7.27). Opposed to the virtue of severity in the true sense of opposition is the complaisance that Blandina displays towards Turpine when she rebukes him inef fectually for his discourtesies towards Calepine and Serena (VI.3.32 and 42). The distinctively Christian orientation of  Spenser’s treatment of courtesy is evident from the importance that is attached to humility and pity. Humility is the virtue in relation to an arduous good that restrains the mind from the immoderate pursuit of great things. It is thus to be com­pared to magnanimity, the virtue which strengthens the mind and urges it in pursuit of great things (ST, 2a 2ae 161.1). But once again it is to be noted that humility and magnanimity are not opposed to one another, for both are in accord with right reason (ST, 2a 2ae 161.1 ad 3). Humility is essentially the subjection of a human being to God; one should not therefore seek to do more than it is divinely allotted for one to do (ST, 2a 2ae 161.2 ad 3): … sed in reprimendo praesumptionem spei, ratio praecipua sumitur ex reveren­tia divina ex qua contingit ut homo non plus sibi attribuat quam sibi competat secundum gradum quem est a Deo sortitus. The chief reason for repressing presumptuous feelings of  hopefulness, however, lies in the reverence you bear towards God, which prevents you from claiming more than is due to you according to your divinely apportioned lot.

Striving after great things is compatible with humility when it proceeds from confidence in God’s help and not in one’s own powers (ST, 2a 2ae

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161.2 ad 2). The love of  honour and a Christian humility are combined by Chaucer in the person of  the Knight (GP, A 46 and 69) and they are combined by Spenser in the person of  Calidore, who sees in the pride of  Crudor the need to conquer pride (VI.1.41). The issue of pride is raised again in the figure of  Mirabella (VI.7.28–31) and the true humility of a knight is vindicated in Arthur’s defeat of  the giant Disdain (VI.8.15–16). The fallen nature of men and women calls forth the passion of pity and its correspond­ing virtue, for pity is sorrow for another’s ill (ST, 2a 2ae 30.3). The need for compassion is made manifest in the treatment of  Mirabella (VI.7.32): But loe the Gods, that mortall follies vew,   Did worthily reuenge this maydens pride;   And nought regarding her so goodly hew,   Did laugh at her, that many did deride,   Whilest she did weepe, of no man mercifide.

Her compassion for Timias in his thraldom to Disdain and Scorn (VI.8.3) is a sign of  her regeneration. It is striking that all these virtues taken together suggest both the excellence of a human being as a moral creature and his or her imperfection in relation to the goodness of  God. Courage and justice are set above temperance among the moral virtues, for they are ordered to the good of  the community and not merely of  the individual (ST, 2a 2ae 141.8). But justice stands in the highest place;3 Aristotle observes that ‘justice is often thought to be the greatest of virtues’ (Ethics, V.1) and Spenser claims that (V.7.1): Nought is on earth more sacred or diuine,   That Gods and men doe equally adore,   Then this same vertue, that doth right define.

Humility is placed next after justice in order of excellence and before the other moral virtues. The reason is that humility subjects a human being to the rule of reason in every matter, the other moral virtues only in some determinate matter (ST, 2a 2ae 161.5).

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That part of courtesy which attends directly to external conduct is the virtue of modesty. Such modesty in outward motions is a decorum in relation to the person, that is, one’s own person, whether young or old, distinguished or not, and to the company, business and place, that is, the occasion (ST, 2a 2ae 168.1). This is the definition that Spenser of fers (VI.2.1): What vertue is so fitting for a knight,   Or for a Ladie, whom a knight should loue,   As Curtesie, to beare themselues aright   To all of each degree, as doth behoue?

It is not fitting for a squire or youth to engage a knight in battle; hence it is necessary to exonerate Tristram for slaying a knight (VI.2.13–14).4 Tristram’s knowledge of  hunting and hawking (VI.2.31–32) befits a squire, whose duty it is to carve before knights at table.5 The hermit who receives the wounded Serena and Timias into his care conducts himself with a gra­ vity that becomes his years and his calling (VI.5.35–37). We see behaviour adapted to the occasion when Matilde attempts to hide her feelings of sorrow from Calepine (VI.4.27) and in Calidore’s lack of  fastidiousness when he accepts the hospitality of rustics (VI.9.7). The essential meaning of courtesy in external conduct is thus one of  fitness. And this meaning of courtesy is to be taken strictly; courtesy is a matter of  fit words and not fair words. Arthur’s scorn of  Turpine fits Turpine’s cowardly abjection (VI.7.26) and so involves no lack of courtesy; it is on these grounds to be distinguished from Turpine’s vilification of  Arthur (VI.6.24–25). On the other hand, the fair words of  Blandina do not amount to courtesy, for they are not matched by an inner virtue (VI.6.41–42). The importance of  the link between the inner and outer condition of a human being is stressed at the very beginning of  Book VI in Calidore’s hatred of  false­hood (VI.1.3). At the same time courtesy is certainly not a tyranny of external rules; thus Calidore bears the wounded Aladine on his back (VI.2.47–48). The true reward of courtesy or honestas is honour and fame, and fame is therefore an element in the initial description of  Calidore (VI.1.2):

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  Nathlesse thereto he was full stout and tall,   And well approu’d in batteilous af fray, That him did much renowme, and far his fame display.

And it is the loss of  fame that Calidore fears as a result of  his sluggishness in the quest of  the Blatant Beast (VI.12.12):   That much he feared, least reprochfull blame   With foule dishonour him mote blot therefore;   Besides the losse of so much loos and fame, As through the world thereby should glorifie his name.

But the desire for honours should not def lect a person from the pursuit of virtue. Thus Calidore rides forth in the company of  Priscilla whatever the cost to his reputation, because it is right for him to do so (VI.3.16). We might compare such conduct with Gawain’s treatment of  Bertilak’s lady at the feast on the second day of  his temptation by her in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1658–63): Such semblaunt to þat segge semly ho made Wyth stille stollen countenaunce, þat stalworth to plese, Þat al forwondered watz þe wyȝe, and wroth with hymseluen, Bot he nolde not for his nurture nurne hir aȝaynez, Bot dalt with hir al in daynté, how-se-euer þe dede turned     towrast.

A merited reputation for virtue is for all that a good to be preserved, pro­ vided that the preserving of such a reputation does not conf lict with the exercise of virtue itself. Calidore therefore goes to great lengths to protect the good name of  Priscilla (VI.3.16–19) and Serena and Timias are justly to be censured for carelessness of  their good names (VI.5.31). Aristotle makes clear in his discussion of  the great-souled or magnanimous man that honour is a reward that falls short of  the merit of virtue (Ethics, IV.3). Honours and fame are listed by Boethius among the goods of  Fortune (De consolatione philosophiae, Book II, prosa 6 and 7) and therefore are not commanded by virtue (CP, Book III, prosa 4 and 6). Sometimes it is the case that acts of discourtesy are done unwittingly; when Calidore

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comes suddenly upon Calepine and Serena (VI.3.21) he can hardly be blamed for so doing (although he is rightly blamed for his invasion of  the graces on Mount Acidale). The Squire does not merit the indignities of  the evil custom of  Briana (VI.1.12) nor Calepine the contempt of  Turpine in seeking aid to cross the ford (VI.3.31). These slings and arrows of  fortune are to be endured patiently and submissively. Calidore is patient before the insults of  Briana (VI.1.30) and Arthur makes no verbal response to the vilifications of  Turpine (VI.6.26–27). On the other hand, the negligence of  Serena and Timias is compounded by a lack of patience and restraint in the face of adversity (VI.6.5). The wounds that are suf fered through misfortune are readily enough cured, as Calepine is cured by the wild man (VI.4.16). The wound that results from one’s own unfitting behaviour rankles and is hard to cure (VI.4.9 and 16). Both Serena and Timias are reduced to silence in the inwardness of  their shame (VI.8.5 and 51). It is Spenser’s firmly held belief (despite his reverence for Chaucer) that courtesy implies nobility of  birth (VI.3.1–2):   For seldome seene, a trotting Stalion get   An ambling Colt, that is his proper owne:   So seldome seene, that one in basenesse set Doth noble courage shew, with curteous manners met. But euermore contrary hath bene tryde,   That gentle bloud will gentle manners breed.

Such a connection is repeatedly af firmed throughout the narrative of  the Legend of  Courtesy and is found in the persons of  Tristram (VI.2.5, 24 and 27–29), the wild man (VI.5.1–2), Calidore himself (VI.3.2 and VI.10.37) and Pastorella (VI.12.3–4 and 14–15). And at the same time only two qualifications of  this point of view are expressed. The first is that virtue is to be set above rank, as it is in Priscilla’s love for Aladine (VI.3.7). The second is that the outstanding virtue of some men and women implies a special grace of  the gods (VI.4.36). Such grace seems implicit in the subsequent nobility of  the deeds accomplished by the babe delivered to Matilde by Calepine (VI.4.38). Here Spenser invokes a conception of nobility such as that expressed by Dante in the Convivio (IV.xx and xxi), namely, that

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nobility is a gift implanted immediately by God. But, as Dante goes on to demonstrate (Convivio, IV.xxix. 8–11), such nobility is predicated essentially of individuals and only secondarily of  families. Spenser’s insistence upon the importance of noble birth may result rather from the social assumptions of  his day than from philosophical conviction (for Dante’s arguments are surely unassailable). In the four­teenth century in England we still have an undif ferentiated nobility, but by the middle of  the fifteenth century the distinction between nobility and gentry and the stratification within the nobility have been clearly settled. Hence in this respect Spenser’s conception of chivalric virtue is closer to that of  Malory than to that of  Chaucer. The reality of moral excellence in the concept of courtesy as honestas is circumscribed in a Christian poet by the continuous awareness of  human imperfection and the limits of  human freedom. In this respect Spenser shows himself  to be the true descendant of  the poet of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, for in the medieval romance the combination of excellence and imperfection is also finely judged. Calidore is a true type of courtesy, but he falls short of perfection. His pastoral retirement is therefore to be seen as a truancy from his quest (VI.9.12) and his secret love for Pastorella as unlawful (VI.10.38). Mount Acidale is the perfection of  beauty and virtue (VI.10.5 and 25–27) and Calidore is therefore excluded from it. At the begin­ning of  the following canto (VI.11.1) Spenser makes explicit the imperfection of all earthly loves. The point is made repeatedly throughout the Legend of  Courtesy that human beings are subject to the rule of  Fortune. Calepine and Serena are rescued from the shameful assault of  Turpine by the fortunate arrival of  the wild man (VI.4.1–3). Calepine is attended by Fortune in his pursuit of  the bear (VI.4.19) and in his bold assault upon it (VI.4.21) and his delivery of  the babe to Matilde is seen as the crowning act of  Fortune (VI.4.35). Serena is rescued by Calepine at the very moment at which the priest approaches her with his deadly knife (VI.8.46). Pastorella is visited by Fortune with one sorrow after another (VI.10.2). No one can mistake the theme of  Fortune in the Legend of  Courtesy and it pro­vides the essential context in which human virtue is defined. But nevertheless virtue is itself an abiding reality

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for Spenser. The argument for the pervasiveness of  Fortune defines the scope of  human virtue, but does not abolish the reality of virtue. Fortune is therefore subordinated to and carries out in its seemingly random fashion the will of  Providence, that is, of a rational, beneficent Creator, who has in his overf lowing goodness created human beings with free will and so with the possibility of virtuous conduct. The gift of  free will is the greatest gift in God’s creation, as Beatrice explains to Dante in Paradiso, V.19–22 (Sinclair, III.75):   ‘Lo maggior don che Dio per sua larghezza fesse creando, e a la sua bontate più conformato, e quel ch’e’ più apprezza,   fu de la volontà la libertate.’ ‘The greatest gift that God in His bounty made in creation, the most conformable to His goodness and the one He accounts the most precious, was the freedom of the will.’

Thus Calidore, aided by divine Providence (VI.11.36), succeeds in rescuing Pastorella (VI.11.43–51), and Pastorella, who has been preserved by Provi­dence when a babe (VI.12.16–17), is reunited with her parents when a woman (VI.12.20–22). Fortune is seen to carry out the divine will in the changeable realm of  the sublunary world and hence Dante represents Fortune as a ministering angel of  God (Inf., VII.70–96). Her randomness is only a seeming randomness, for the control of  Fortune is exercised only over the external goods of  this world. Although these goods are indeed subject to change, human happiness is not bound up in them but in the exercise of virtue (so Aristotle, Ethics, I.9). Fortune is not therefore represented by Spenser as being set over against the order of virtue. Enias fails through Fortune (VI.8.10) and Arthur succeeds through Fortune (VI.8.15) in battle against the giant Disdain. But Enias is presumptuous whereas Arthur is not, for the punishment of  Mirabella at the hands of  Disdain and Scorn is a just punishment, one indeed in which justice is tempered by mercy (VI.7.37). The race of savages comes by Fortune upon Serena, but she has put herself in their power by her unreasoning fears of  Disdain and Scorn and her own

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subsequent carelessness (VI.8.36). Pastorella seems to be pursued by the malevolence of  Fortune, but she herself is guilty of a secret love (VI.10.38). Human freedom is therefore limited by Providence and Fortune. The goodness of men and women is derived from and dependent upon the goodness of  God. Human beings express their freedom, as Melibœe explains, in the acceptance of  Fortune and the exercise of virtue in the light of it (VI.9.30). Calidore’s Fortune is the quest of  the Blatant Beast (VI.9.2). His acceptance of  that quest is an act of will; his truancy in that quest is the result of  his own moral failing. Characteristically (like Troilus in Troilus and Criseyde) he blames Fortune for his own imperfection when he disturbs the company of graces on Mount Acidale (VI.10.20). But he is brought by Colin Clout to see that the blame lies in himself (VI.10.29). Here the authority of  Spenser himself is introduced within the very fabric of  the poem, so significant is the doctrine that is enunciated. III.  I turn now in the light of  this analysis to the scheme of  the virtues in the first six books of  The Faerie Qveene and consider each virtue in the order of  Spenser’s presentation. i.  Holiness: the integration of  Aristotelian moral philosophy with the revealed truths of  Christianity is the great work accomplished by Aquinas in the Summa theologiae. Everywhere in that work we are led to see that the goodness of men and women and of  human law is subject to the goodness of  God and of divine law. Thus in the sed contra of  the first article of  the quaestio on magnificence we read: ‘virtus humana est participatio quaedam virtutis divinae,/ human virtue is as it were a sharing in the divine virtue’ (ST, 2a 2ae 134.1; translated by Anthony Ross and P.G. Walsh). In the thought of  Aquinas the order of grace is not merely superimposed on the order of nature; the two are perfectly interwoven. Thus in addition to the moral virtues that are acquired by their corresponding acts, there are moral virtues infused by God that correspond to the infused theological virtues and are proportionate to men and women’s supernatural end (ST, 1a 2ae 63.3). For the Christian, therefore, the starting-point of virtue is faith (ST, 2a 2ae 161.5 ad 2):

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GERALD MORGAN Ad secundum dicendum quod sicut ordinata virtutum congregatio per quam­dam similitudinem aedificio comparatur, ita etiam illud quod est primum in acqui­sitione virtutum fundamento comparatur, quod primum in aedificio jacitur. Virtutes autem vere infunduntur a Deo. Unde primum in acquisitione virtutum potest accipi dupliciter. Uno modo per modum removentis prohibens; et sic humilitas primum locum tenet, inquantum scilicet expellit superbiam cui Deus resistit, et praebet hominem subditum, et patulum ad suscipiendum inf luxum divinae gratiae inquantum evacuat inf lationem superbiae … Et secundum hoc humilitas dicitur spiritualis aedificii fundamentum. Alio modo est aliquid primum in virtutibus directe, per quod scilicet jam ad Deum acceditur. Primus autem accessus ad Deum est per fidem … Et secundum hoc fides ponitur fundamentum nobiliori modo quam humilitas. As the integration of  the virtues is likened to a building, so that which is the start of gaining virtue is likened to the foundation which is laid first. Now the Christian virtues are shed on us by God. Among them coming first can be understood in a double sense. First by way of removing obstacles, and so humility holds the initial place in that it expels pride, which God resists, and makes a man submissive and ready to receive divine favour … It is in this sense that humility is said to be the foundation of  the spiritual edifice. But in another sense, directly first among the virtues is that which gives us access to God. This is faith … In this sense faith is the nobler foundation than humility.

Faith is therefore the starting-point of  The Faerie Qveene; Red Cross stands before us plainly emblazoned as the knight of  faith6 (I.1.2): And on his brest a bloodie Crosse he bore,   The deare remembrance of  his dying Lord,   For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore,   And dead as liuing euer him ador’d.

It is on behalf of  Una, the true faith of  the Church, that he valiantly and finally triumphantly contends. And in the process he has to pass through the discipline of  humility, that is, submission to the will of  God. The essential connection between faith and humility is also suggested at the very beginning of  the poem when the knight, his lady and the dwarf enter the wood of  Error (I.1.7). The Legend of  Holiness ends with evidence of  the continuing faithfulness of  Red Cross (I.12.41), but in this case it is faithfulness towards the Faery Queen rather than to God. The reader is reminded that the specific interest of  Spenser’s great poem, as the Letter

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to Raleigh assures us, is the moral rather than (though not separate from) the theological virtues and conduct in this world rather than the blessedness of  the world to come. ii. Temperance: the meeting of  Red Cross and Guyon and the reconcilia­ tion that immediately follows from the discovery of  their true identities (II.1.25–29) establishes at the beginning of  Book II the true co-ordination of  holiness and temperance and more generally of  the theological and moral virtues. By temperance is understood not merely the specific virtue of  the moderation of  the desires and pleasures of  touch (ST, 2a 2ae 141.4)­, illustrated (somewhat paradoxically for modern readers unfamiliar with the subtleties of  Scholastic philosophy) in the destruction of  the Bower of  Bliss by Guyon in canto 12, but also the general virtue of moderation in human acts and passions (ST, 2a 2ae 141.2). Hence the narrative of  temperance addresses the temptations of wealth and worldly honour by Mammon in canto 77 and the concern with irascible as well as concupiscible passions.8 In Book II Spenser turns from the perfecting of a human being in relation to God to the perfecting of a human being in him or her self. The virtue of  temperance is concerned with the individual and so is distinguished from justice and fortitude (ST, 2a 2ae 141.8; translated by Thomas Gilby): Justitia autem et fortitudo magis pertinent ad bonum multitudinis quam temperantia, quia justitia consistit in communicationibus, quae sunt ad alterum; fortitudo autem in periculis bellorum, quae sustinentur pro salute communi; temperantia autem moderatur solum concupiscentias et delectationes eorum quae pertinent ad ipsum hominem. Here justice and courage take precedence over temperance. For justice enters into our dealing with others, courage into the hazards of war undertaken for the commonweal, whereas temperance moderates merely the desires and pleasures of  the individual himself.

iii.  Chastity: at the beginning of  Book III (1.4–12) Guyon is unhorsed by Britomart but reconciled with her through the intervention of  the Palmer and Arthur (III.1.12):

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GERALD MORGAN Thus reconcilement was betweene them knit,    Through goodly temperance, and af fection chaste.

We are to understand that one virtue is united with another (and so with all virtues) but that chastity is a virtue more excellent than temperance. Chastity is strictly a species or subjective part of  temperance, for it is directed to a special matter, namely, the desires of sexual pleasures (ST, 2a 2ae 151.2). The pleasures of sex are more powerful than those of  food and hence a special excellence may be accorded to chastity among the species of  temperance (ST, 2a 2ae 151.3 ad 2). Herein perhaps lies one explanation of  Britomart’s superiority to Guyon. But Spenser’s praise of chastity – ‘That fairest vertue, farre aboue the rest’ (Proem, 1) – goes beyond the moral virtue of chastity as Aquinas defines it. By chastity we are to understand the perfection of  love, that is, the expression of  that divine love in the image of which men and women were created and the violation of which is a profanation of our being (House of  Busirane). By the virtue of chastity the law of  love in human nature is directed by reason in conformity with its source, that is, the love of  God. Such a definition of chastity corresponds to the account that Aquinas gives of charity (ST, 1a 2ae 26.3; translated by Eric D’Arcy): Caritas autem addit supra amorem, perfectionem quandam amoris, inquan­tum id quod amatur magni pretii aestimatur, ut ipsum nomen designat. Caritas adds to the notion of amor the note of a certain perfection in that amor, the suggestion that the object loved is highly prized: as the very word caritas suggests.

iv.  Friendship: friendship is not a virtue but implies virtue.9 Friendship, as Aristotle expounds it and as Spenser represents it, is the perfect union of souls, grounded in virtue and brought about by the active spirit of concord. Book IV is ostensibly the Legend of  Cambell and Triamond and yet at its imaginative centre is the great mother Venus, the loves of  Britomart and Artegall, of  Belphoebe and Timias, of  Amoret and Scudamour, of  Medway and Thames and finally of  Florimell and Marinell. Married love rather than friendship in its strict definition would seem to be the true subject of  Book IV.

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Books III and IV have rightly been regarded as specially related to one another. Such a linking of  books presupposes a modification of  the original scheme (twelve books for twelve several virtues) and Spenser does indeed cancel the five concluding stanzas of  the 1590 edition in which Scudamour and Amoret are reunited. The link between the two books may be traced to Aristotle’s Ethics, for Aristotle observes that loving is the characteristic virtue of  friends (VIII.6): Now since friendship depends more on loving, and it is those who love their friends that are praised, loving seems to be the characteristic virtue of  friends, so that it is only those in whom this is found in due measure that are lasting friends, and only their friendship that endures.

Whereas in Book II Spenser represents the perfection of men and women in themselves, in Books III and IV he shows their perfection in their most intimate personal relations. v.  Justice: Book V is organized around the Aristotelian principles of  legal justice, particular justice and equity. The conception of  legal justice has already been examined in the linking of justice and courtesy. Particular justice is a species of virtue concerned with the making of gain. It consists of distributive justice (the distribution of honours, wealth, etc.) and rectificatory justice, relating to voluntary transactions (for example, sales, loans) and involuntary transactions (for example, theft, adultery and murder). The definition and distinctions of particular justice are set out by Aristotle in the Ethics, V.2 and represented by Spenser in the narratives of  Pollente and Munera (V.2.4–28), Bracidas and Amidas (V.4.4–20) and Sanglier (V.1.13–30). Equity is the correction of error that arises from the application of universal law (legal justice) in particular circumstances for which the universal formulation does not allow. Equity is superior to the error that f lows from the absoluteness of  legal justice but is not superior to absolute justice itself (Ethics, V.10). This complex relationship is embodied by Spenser in the figures of  Isis and Osiris (V.7.5–24). In Book V, therefore, Spenser shows human perfection not merely in relation to friends but also to neighbours. The excellence of justice lies, as

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we have seen, in the fact that it is addressed to the common good of society. As such it is coextensive with virtue itself, although essentially distinct from it (Ethics, V.1). vi.  Courtesy: in Book VI Spenser turns from virtue complete in relation to one’s neighbour to virtue complete in itself (honestas). Legal justice is a general virtue by power and not by predication, that is, it stands in a common relation to all other virtues as directing them to the common good (ST, 2a 2ae 58.6; translated by Thomas Gilby): … justitia legalis dicitur esse virtus generalis, inquantum scilicet ordinat actus aliarum virtutum ad suum finem, quod est movere per imperium omnes alias virtutes. … we have spoken of justice as a general virtue, inasmuch as it orders the activities of other virtues to its own end by moving them by its command.

But legal justice is not essentially identical with other virtues; for example, courage as directed towards the common good (the defence of the realm) is justice, but not courage simply in itself. The distinction between courtesy and legal justice corresponds to the distinction between the elicited and the com­manded acts of a power.10 The significance of  this distinction for Spenser in his representation of courtesy is evident both in the importance that is attached to the specific virtue of generosity and in the relation of courtesy to its due reward, that is, honour, and the ef fect of  honour, that is, fame. Virtues in their essential nature are good operative habits, that is, they are ordered to act and not to being (ST, 1a 2ae 55.2; translated by W.D. Hughes): Unde virtus humana non importat ordinem ad esse, sed magis ad agere. Et ideo de ratione virtutis humanae est quod sit habitus operativus. Human virtue, therefore, does not imply relation to being, but rather to activity. Essentially, then, it is an operative habit.

Courtesy as honestas is therefore essentially defined in terms of external conduct.

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This is not the idea of  The Faerie Qveene as it is set forth in the Letter to Raleigh but it is suf ficiently like it for us to believe that it is a modification of  that idea. And it is an idea that is the natural product of  the tradition in which Spenser is writing. The philosophical lineage of  The Faerie Qveene may brief ly be illustrated by reference to Dante’s Convivio and the literary lineage by the masterpiece among the medieval English romances, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In the Convivio Dante specifies the fruits or ef fects of nobility in accor­dance with the eleven moral virtues described by Aristotle in the Ethics.11 Dante goes on to consider the moral virtues in relation to the four ages of man – adolescence (up to 25), youth (25–45), old age (45–70) and senility (70–80). For Dante youth is the period of a human being’s greatest perfection (Convivio, IV.xxiv.1) and to this period he assigns five virtues – temperance, courage, love, courtesy and loyalty. These virtues are illustrated from the conduct of  Virgil’s Aeneas (Aeneid, IV–VI). This selection of virtues cor­responds very closely although not absolutely with the titular virtues of  the books of  The Faerie Qveene. Moreover, the idea of youth is central to Spenser’s conception of  Arthur. He is mentioned in the Proem to the Legend of  Holiness as ‘that most noble Briton Prince’ (2) – the Virgilian echoes here may well be significant – and on his introduction into the narrative as ‘this young Prince’ (I.7.36). The idea of  Arthur’s youth is repeated throughout the poem in various forms; sometimes he is described as the child (IV.8.44):   But ere that it to him approched neare,   The royall child with readie quicke foresight, Did shun the proofe thereof and it auoyded light

and at others as the infant (II.8.56): To whom the Infant thus, Fayre Sir, what need   Good turnes be counted, as a seruile bond,   To bind their dooers, to receiue their meed?

In all these cases Spenser means us to understand that in Arthur is por­ trayed the perfection of youth.

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A similar set of virtues to that of  Dante and Spenser is assembled by the poet of  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight under the symbol of  the pen­tangle. Here are found together faith, courage, generosity, fellowship, chastity, courtesy and piety (SGGK, 640–55).12 By means of  the symbolism of  the pentangle the Gawain-poet stresses the interconnection of  the virtues in the life of  human beings (SGGK, 656–61): Now alle þese fyue syþez, for soþe, were fetled on þis knyȝt, And vchone halched in oþer, þat non ende hade, And fyched vpon fyue poyntez, þat fayld neuer, Ne samned neuer in no syde, ne sundred nouþer, Withouten ende at any noke I oquere fynde, Whereeuer þe gomen bygan, or glod to an ende.

This idea is also central to the presentation of  the virtues in The Faerie Qveene, as we have already observed in the narrative relations of  Red Cross and Guyon, Guyon and Britomart, and Artegall and Calidore. But the idea is too significant to be left merely to narrative exposition and Spenser invokes it explicitly at the beginning of  the ninth canto of  the Legend of  Holiness: O Goodly golden chayne, wherewith yfere   The vertues linked are in louely wize.

It is to the moral philosopher that we must once again turn, however, if we are to understand why it is that the virtues are interconnected. Aristotle explains that by virtue is meant not only the doing of  things that are good but the doing of  them by reason of  their goodness, and this requires prudence. But prudence in its turn presupposes the moral virtues, for these determine the ends in the light of which prudence chooses the means. Hence it follows that the virtues are interconnected, ‘for with the presence of  the one quality, practical wisdom (that is, prudence), will be given all the virtues’ (Ethics, VI.13).13 The resemblance between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Faerie Qveene in their focus on the interconnection of  the virtues is perhaps obscured by the fact that the medieval poet has brought the virtues more

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closely together in the one figure of Gawain, whereas Spenser has distrib­uted them among a number of  knights. It is the magnitude of  Spenser’s design (as well as its incompleteness) that disguises its unity from the modern reader, who recognizes at once that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a whole co-ordinated in its parts and delights in the comprehen­sion of it. IV.  It now remains to consider the fragmentary seventh book on constancy and the wholeness of  Spenser’s design. If  the greatness of a work consists in its idea, some sense of  that idea should not altogether be lacking after six books and seventy-two cantos. And indeed only one development of  Spenser’s moral argument is possible. It is the one that leads from honour to great honour. This is Aristotle’s magnanimity (μεγaλοψυχía), which he conceives as a crown of virtues (Ethics, IV.3): Pride (that is, magnanimity), then, seems to be a sort of crown of  the virtues; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without them. Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without nobility and goodness of character.

This is the virtue that Spenser understands by the name of magnificence, as is evident from the Letter to Raleigh (716/37–40): So in the person of  Prince Arthure I sette forth magnificence in particular, which vertue for that (according to Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfection of all the rest, and conteineth in it them all, therefore in the whole course I mention the deedes of  Arthure applyable to that vertue, which I write of in that booke.

The distinction between magnanimity and magnificence is a clear-cut one in Aristotle’s Ethics, but in Scholastic moral philosophy the meanings of  the two approach one another and become identical as a result of the inter­ play of dif ferent conceptions.14 The process of convergence can be traced in the Summa theologiae. Magnanimity is identified with Cicero’s fiducia or confidence as one of  the four integral or potential parts of  fortitude (ST, 2a 2ae 128 and 129.6). Confidence in its turn is distinguished from magnificence as the initiation from the planning and execution of great enterprises (ST, 2a 2ae 128):

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GERALD MORGAN Ad actum autem aggrediendi duo requiruntur. Quorum primum pertinet ad animi praeparationem: ut scilicet aliquis promptum animum habeat ad aggredi­endum. Et quantum ad hoc ponit Tullius fiduciam … Secundum autem pertinet ad operis executionem: ne scilicet aliquis deficiat in executione illorum quae fiducialiter inchoavit. Et quantum ad hoc ponit Tullius magnificentiam. For attacking, two things are required. The first is mental preparation, so that one’s mind may be ready to attack; for this Cicero enjoins confidence … The second requirement is execution of  the task, so that one may not fail in following through the action which he has confidently begun; and for this Cicero posits magnificence.

But for once Aquinas does not seem to be entirely consistent, for in his discussion of  the virtue of magnanimity he insists that magnanimity lies not merely in the initiation of great deeds, but also in the accomplishment of  them (ST, 2a 2ae 134.2 ad 2): Ad secundum dicendum quod ad magnanimitatem pertinet non solum ten­dere in magnum, sed etiam in omnibus virtutibus magnum operari vel faciendo, vel qualitercumque agendo, ut dicitur in Ethic. [IV.3 1123b 30]. The function of magnanimity is not solely to attempt what is great, but also to achieve great things in the realms of all the virtues by creative or other action of any kind, as Aristotle says.

In accordance with this new emphasis, magnanimity is distinguished from magnificence as the general sense of  facere from the specific,15 that is, magnanimity refers to greatness in any object, mag­nificence to greatness in creative works as, for example, public buildings (ST, 2a 2ae 134.2 ad 2): Unde oportet quod sicut magnanimitas intendit aliquod magnum in omni materia, ita et magnificentia in aliquo opere factibili. So, as magnanimity aims at what is great in any object whatsoever, magnificence must do likewise in any creative task.

Magnificence may also be understood in a general and not a specific sense, and so becomes identical with magnanimity (ST, 2a 2ae 134.2):

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Si vero nomen magnificentiae accipiatur ab eo quod est facere magnum, secundum quod facere communiter sumitur, sic magnificentia non est specialis virtus. But if  the term is understood to mean the performance of a great deed in the generally accepted sense, magnificence is not a special virtue.

Rosemond Tuve has drawn our attention to the special link between magnificence and Christian perseverance.16 Since magnificence is the per­ fection of all the virtues it will include the perfection of perseverance. But there are more definite reasons for the connection of  the two virtues. Perseverance is the long continuation in a dif ficult and laborious under­ taking and magnificence consists in the completion of great enterprises (ST, 2a 2ae 137.1 ad 2): Per se autem ad perseverantiam pertinet ut aliquis perseveret usque ad termi­num virtuosi operis: sicut quod miles perseveret usque ad finem certaminis, et magnificus usque ad consummationem operis. It is the intrinsic task of perseverance to persist to the end of a virtuous undertaking, as when a soldier in battle sticks out to the end, and a magnificent man completes his work.

Perseverance is strictly prolonged endurance in order to obtain an arduous good and not the prolonged endurance of evils (ST, 2a 2ae 137.1 ad 1). Hence it can be seen how closely perseverance is related to magnificence. But perseverance and magnificence are not strictly one and the same thing. The distinctive meaning of magnificence lies in the greatness of  the deed that is accomplished (ST, 2a 2ae 134.2 ad 2), whereas perseverance is a virtue that can be applied to deeds that fall short of greatness (see ST, 2a 2ae 137.3 ad 2).17 It is at the lesser level of perseverance (relatively so speaking) that Calidore is seen to be lacking in his quest of  the Blatant Beast. Magnificence consists not only in the accomplishment of great deeds but also in the planning of  them, and in this planning it requires firmness of mind, that is, constancy (ST, 2a 2ae 128 ad 6):

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GERALD MORGAN Tertium autem addit, scilicet constantiam, quae sub magnificentia compre­hendi potest: oportet enim in his quae magnifice aliquis facit, constantem animum habere. Et ideo Tullius ad magnificentiam pertinere dicit non solum administrationem rerum magnarum, sed etiam animi amplam excogitationem ipsarum. The third quality which he adds is constancy, which can be included under magnificence, for in performing deeds of magnificence a man must be of constant mind. So Cicero says that magnificence comprises not only the performance of great achievements but also generous planning of  them in the mind.

Constancy is firmness of mind in the face of  the dif ficulties that arise from external obstacles and as such is distinguished from perseverance, which displays firmness in the face of  the dif ficulties that arise from the duration of  time (ST, 2a 2ae 137.3). Constancy is linked with perseverance in relation to the end to be accomplished (ST, 2a 2ae 137.3 ad 1): Et ideo constantia secundum finem convenit cum perseverantia: secundum autem ea quae dif ficultatem inferunt, convenit cum patientia. Finis autem potior est. Et ideo constantia magis pertinet ad perseverantiam quam ad patientiam. Therefore constancy is associated with perseverance, as regards their end; but with patience, as regards the source of dif ficulty. The end however is the more important; and so constancy belongs more to perseverance than to patience.

It will be apparent, therefore, that constancy is related to magnificence in two ways; it is a firmness of mind both in relation to the end of magnifi­ cence, that is, the great work that is to be completed, and also in relation to the obstacles that are endured in the process of its completion. By the virtue of constancy, therefore, Spenser understands that the perfection of virtue in great deeds is to be seen in their being planned and carried through with firmness of purpose to the end. It can hardly be doubted that in the Legend of  Constancy he intended to represent such perfection in Arthur’s achievement of  his quest for the Faery Queen. It is indeed an irony of  Fortune that all we have of  the book in which the perfection of  the whole is to be achieved are two cantos of mutability.

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Notes Reference is to A Defence of  Poetry, pp. 59–121, in Miscellaneous Prose of  Sir Philip Sidney, edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones and Jan Van Dorsten (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973). 2 See ST, 2a 2ae 137.2 ad 1 and 138.2. 3 Prudence is a virtue more excellent than justice (see ST, 2a 2ae 141.8). But Aristotle classifies prudence or practical wisdom among the intellectual and not the moral virtues (Ethics, VI.1–3 and 5) and the intellectual virtues are superior to the moral virtues (ST, 1a 2ae 66. 3). And again, the theological virtues are superior to the intellectual and moral virtues (ST, 2a 2ae 141.8), for the intellectual and moral virtues are pro­portioned to human nature, but the theological virtues are proportioned to a man or woman’s super­natural end, that is, God (ST, 1a 2ae 62.2). Among the theological virtues charity holds the highest place (ST, 1a 2ae 66.6); hence the outstanding praise that Spenser accords to his virtue of chastity (FQ, Proem to Book III, 1). 4 The knight is not mentioned by name; perhaps because he is not fit to bear the name of  knight. 5 Compare Chaucer’s Squire, GP, A 99–100. 6 I leave intact at this point the argument of the original article since the importance of  faith and humility in the Legend of  Holiness is not to be doubted. But there is a failure here to distinguish between the theological virtue of  faith and the moral virtue of  holiness. See Gerald Morgan, ‘Holiness as the First of  Spenser’s Aristotelian Moral Virtues’, MLR, 81 (1986), 817–37 (pp. 820–22). 7 Compare ST, 2a 2ae 141.4 arg. and ad 1. 8 See ST, 2a 2ae 157.3 and ad 2. 9 See Aristotle, Ethics, VIII.1. 10 See ST, 1a 2ae 6.4. 11 Convivio, IV.xvii.4–8. Dante would add to their number prudence, which Aristotle includes among the intellectual virtues. Here is one way at least in which a poet might arrive at twelve Aristotelian virtues. 12 For an analysis of  these virtues, see Gerald Morgan, ‘The Significance of  the Pentangle Symbolism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, MLR, 74 (1979), 769–90. 13 See ST, 1a 2ae 65.1. 14 The inf luence of  Cicero is important here; see P.G. Walsh, pp. 242–43 in Volume 42 of  the Summa theologiae on courage (1966). 1

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15 See ST, 2a 2ae 134.2. 16 Rosemund Tuve, Allegorical Imagery: Some Mediaeval Books and their Posterity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 57–60. 17 See ST, 2a 2ae 137.3 ad 2.

9  ‘Add faith vnto your force’:    The Perfecting of  Spenser’s Knight of  Holiness    in Faith and Humility

  ‘Or quando tu cantasti le crude armi de la doppia trestizia di Giocasta’, disse ’l cantor de’ buccolici carmi,   ‘per quello che Clïò teco lì tasta, non par che ti facesse ancor fedele la fede, sanza qual ben far non basta.’ — DANTE, Purgatorio, XXII.55–601 For Iames þe gentile iugged in hise bokes That feiþ withouten feet is feblere þan nouȝt, And as deed as a dorenail but if þe dedes folwe: Fides sine operibus mortua est … — LANGLAND, Piers Plowman, B I.185–87a

I.  The most profound source of inspiration for The Faerie Qveene is the ethical teaching of  Aristotle and this is duly acknowledged by Spenser in the Letter to Raleigh (715/18–20 and 716/37–40): By ensample of which excellente Poets [that is, Homer, Virgil, Ariosto and Tasso], I labour to pourtraict in Arthure, before he was king, the image of a braue knight, perfected in the twelue priuate morall vertues, as Aristotle hath deuised, the which is the purpose of  these first twelue bookes. So in the person of  Prince Arthure I sette forth magnificence in particular, which vertue for that (according to Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfec­tion of all the rest, and conteineth in it them all, therefore in the whole course I mention the deedes of  Arthure applyable to that vertue, which I write of in that booke.2

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There is nothing strange or remarkable in this, for Spenser is deeply imbued with a sense of  his medieval inheritance. Thus for Dante Aristotle is ‘’l maestro di color che sanno’ (Inf., IV.131), for the Pearl-poet he is the great example of  human learning or ‘lettrure’ (Pearl, 751) and for Chaucer the Clerk of  Oxenford’s possession of  ‘twenty bookes … / Of  Aristotle and his philosophie’ (GP, A 294–95) is the surest testimony of  his scholarly devotion and erudition. It is not dif ficult to imagine Spenser surrounded by such books at Kilcullen and Kilcolman. He must surely have had a copy of  Aristotle’s Ethics to hand and possibly also a copy of  the inf luential commentary upon it by Aquinas.3 This medieval background of reverence for Aristotle supplies a natural context for approaching the moral argument of  The Faerie Qveene, but it has not proved congenial to the majority of present-day Spen­serian scholars. Indeed, Spenser’s own straightforward testimony is simply contradicted by Douglas Brooks-Davies: … in The Faerie Queene Spenser’s informing philosophy is Neoplatonic, … Spenser had read the Florentine Neoplatonists Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, who f lourished a century earlier, but he was in any case an instinctive Platonist.4

The wish is clearly father to the thought. But it is perverse to impose Neo­ platonism on The Faerie Qveene in this way,5 and such perversity inevitably leads to a series of dead-ends in the elucidation of  the transferred moral sense of  the allegory. This is not to deny that there are dif ficulties in the identification of  the moral virtues that are the subject of  Spenser’s great work. Thus holiness is not obviously recognisable as an Aristotelian moral virtue and indeed Rosemond Tuve a long time ago insisted that it was not a virtue at all: Holiness is not a Christian virtue any more than a Greek one, neither it nor Truth is opposite to Pride.6

Here we must have some regard for the Christianised Aristotelianism of  the medieval Schoolmen and above all for the series of commentaries on Aristotle’s works written at the end of  his career (1268–1273) by the greatest of  his medieval interpreters, Aquinas. Milton is not mistaken in comparing ‘our sage and serious Poet Spencer’ as a teacher with ‘Scotus or

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Aquinas’.7 If any sense is to be made of  the moral argument of  The Faerie Qveene then holiness must be a moral virtue and, no less importantly, one that is consistent with the thought of  Aristotle’s Ethics. Clearly holiness is not the Church, and the Red Cross Knight is hardly to be confounded with a personification like Langland’s Lady Holy Church. Nor can Red Cross stand for a religious denomination as such (though he may be an Anglican), since the Church of  England is signified in the allegory by Una (secondarily, if not primarily) and the Roman Catholic Church by Duessa. John Selden (1584–1654) was surely right when he observed that ‘our admired Spencer hath made him an embleme of religion’.8 Thus the Red Cross Knight stands for the moral virtue of religion and The Faerie Qveene takes as its starting-point the convic­tion that the moral law rests upon the divine law and is grounded in God. Such an understanding informs at every point Aquinas’s account of moral virtue. A Legend of  Holiness does not mark the abandonment of  the moral scheme outlined in the Letter to Raleigh (indeed the subject of  holiness is explicitly announced in it), but rather the formal acceptance of  the view that moral realities presuppose the dependent relationship of  human beings to God. II.  Religion is without question a moral virtue. It is the specific virtue of giving due honour to God, whether under the aspect of  latria, the special service or subjection due to God as lord of all things, or under the aspect of cultus, the special honour due to God as the first principle of all things (ST, 2a 2ae 81.1 ad 3 and 4). Aquinas lists religion as the first of  the potential parts of justice as falling short of  the perfect equality of justice, for it is impossible fully to repay the debt that is owed to God. As such, religion is the most excellent of  the moral virtues and so Aquinas describes it (ST, 2a 2ae 81.6; translated by Kevin D. O’Rourke): Religio autem magis de propinquo accedit ad Deum quam aliae virtutes morales, in quantum operatur ea quae directe et immediate ordinantur in honorem divinum. Et ideo religio præeminet inter alias virtutes morales.

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GERALD MORGAN Moreover, religion approaches more closely to God than the other moral virtues because its actions are proximately and immediately dir­ected to his honour. Hence, religion excels the other moral virtues.

The author of  the medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1380) understands this virtue by the word pité, that is, ‘piety’ and not ‘pity’ as it has so often and incorrectly been glossed. Hence he says of it that it ‘passez alle poyntez’ (654).9 In the argument to the first canto of  the Legend of  Holiness we learn that Red Cross is ‘the Patron of  true Holinesse’. Spenser is neither misguided nor careless in referring to the moral virtue of religion by the name of  holiness, for the distinction between the two is a technical philosophical distinction. Nevertheless it is an important distinction in so far as it bears upon the moral scope of  the Legend of  Holiness as a whole. Aquinas explains that holiness and religion are in essence identical although logically distinct; holiness ‘non dif fert a religione secundum essentiam, sed solum ratione’ (ST, 2a 2ae 81.8). In technical terms we may say that by religion is understood simply the elicited acts of  the virtue, whereas by holiness are included also the com­manded acts of  the virtue. The elicited acts of  the virtue of religion are the interior acts of devotion and prayer and also the exterior acts such as adoration (by way of genuf lection or prostration) and the sacraments of  the Church.10 The one is properly ordered to the other, so that attendance at Holy Com­munion or Mass, for example, is no good thing unless ordered to a proper inward disposition. A mere social conformity is not in itself suf ficient to the exercise of  the virtue.11 To these interior and exterior acts of religion holiness adds the acts commanded by the virtue of religion and in this respect it will be seen to be a general and not a specific virtue. Aquinas sets out the distinction as follows (ST, 2a 2ae 81.8 ad 1): Ad primum ergo dicendum quod sanctitas est quaedam specialis virtus secundum essentiam; et secundum hoc est quodammodo eadem religioni. Habet autem quamdam generalitatem secundum quod omnes virtutum actus per imperium ordinat in bonum divinum; sicut et justitia legalis dicitur generalis virtus inquantum ordinat omnium virtutum actus in bonum commune.

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According to its essence, sanctity is a special virtue and in a sense the same as religion. But it can be considered as a general virtue in so far as it directs the acts of all other virtues to the divine good, just as legal justice is called a general virtue because it directs the acts of all other virtues to the common good.

By the use of  the word holiness, therefore, Spenser draws attention to the moral range of  the first book of  The Faerie Qveene, for he intends to re­present in it not only such acts as devotion and adoration but also acts of  fidelity, courage and humility such as are required in the exercise of religion.12 As a moral virtue religion or holiness (or piety) presupposes faith but is to be distinguished from faith, since faith is a theological and not a moral virtue. Whereas the object of  faith is God, the object of religion or holiness is the worship of  God. By such a definition of religion or holiness Spenser has been circumspect as a poet in holding to the high moral theme of  his poem. Hence holiness is defined principally (as we are assured it will be in the Letter to Raleigh) in relation to a scheme of  Aristotelian moral analysis (mediated by Aquinas) and not in any narrow or sectarian way by reference to the theology of  the Reformation.13 Thus Red Cross stands for true holiness, not in the sense of  the practice of a religious denomination (although his true guide is acknow­ledged to be Una and not Duessa), but by way of opposition to the false holiness of  the hypocrite, that is, Archimago, in the guise of an old man of religion (FQ, I.1.29–30). Here we see the necessity not only for an accord between the interior and exterior acts of religion but also for a rejection of  that perversion of divine worship that constitutes the vice of superstition (and, in the case of  Archimago, of divination in its most evil form of necro­mancy). The holiness of  Red Cross is a true holiness in the sense that his devotion is properly directed to God and not to anything less than God. The Red Cross Knight, like Ginglain in Lybeaus Desconus or Malory’s Gareth, is young and untried (although only too eager to prove himself ), but his armour has been proven in many a conf lict (FQ, I.1.1):

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GERALD MORGAN A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,   Ycladd in mightie armes and siluer shielde,   Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine,   The cruell markes of many’ a bloody fielde;   Yet armes till that time did he neuer wield.

This is the armour of righteousness of which St Paul speaks in Ephesians, 6.14, and which is glossed as ‘innocencie & godlie life’ in the Geneva Bible.14 Such is Spenser’s concern for clarity on this central point that he explicitly identifies the connection in the Letter to Raleigh (717/63–66). We are to understand, therefore, that Red Cross is embattled ‘against principalities, against powers, and against the worldlie gouernours, the princes of  the darkenes of  this worlde, against spiritual wickednesses, which are in the hie places’ (Ephesians, 6.12). Once again we are made aware of  the traditional matter that is at the core of  Spenser’s masterpiece. Spenser is a poet who draws his inspiration from the medieval past, whether in poetry and romance or in philosophy and theology. In using Ephesians for his allegory of  holiness he reveals another aspect of  the conservative temper of  his mind. The decision to make Red Cross or St George the exemplar of  holiness is of a piece with this conservatism of outlook, for it draws upon the popular piety and simple patriotism of  the Middle Ages. St George remained popular among the English even when the saints’ days were removed from the An­glican calendar during the revisions of  Henry VIII. Even so, the fashioning of  The Faerie Qveene as a series of  legends or lives of saints shows a remarkable attachment on Spenser’s part to his medieval inheritance and by the same token an astonishing indif ference to the Protestant hostility to the cult of saints. The celebration of  the Red Cross Knight as St George is hardly calcu­lated to suit the needs of  the Tudors. Thus for Spenser St George is ‘sprong out from English race’ (FQ, I.10.60) and descended ‘from ancient race/ Of  Saxon kings’ (FQ, I.10.65). He is ‘of  English blood’ (FQ, I.10.64) not British blood but, taken as an infant by a fairy before christening, is brought up by a ploughman in fairyland (FQ, I.10.66): Thence she thee brought into this Faery lond,   And in an heaped furrow did thee hyde,   Where thee a Ploughman all vnweeting fond,

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  As he his toylesome teme that way did guyde,   And brought thee vp in ploughmans state to byde,  Whereof  Georgos he thee gaue to name.

Here Spenser exploits the etymology of  his name as it is explained in The Golden Legend: George is sayd of geos/ whiche is as moche to saye as erthe and orge/ that is tilyenge/ so george is to saye as tilyenge the erthe/ that is his f lesshe.15

In terms of literary lineage, therefore, Spenser’s Red Cross Knight is the direct descendant of  Langland’s Piers Plowman. Such a connection binds him indissolubly with the soil of  England and confers on him an English rusticity that disguises the nobility of  his birth. Spenser makes much of  this rusticity in the Letter to Raleigh (717/53, 56 and 61–63): In the beginning of  the feast, there presented him selfe a tall clownishe younge man, … he rested him on the f loore, vnfitte through his rusticity for a better place … Presently that clownish person vpstarting, desired that aduen­ture: whereat the Queene much wondering, and the Lady much gainesay­ing, yet he earnestly importuned his desire.

Moreover, such rusticity defines his nature in the fight against Error (FQ, I.1.23–24): As gentle Shepheard in sweete euentide, …   A cloud of cumbrous gnattes doe him molest,   All striuing to infixe their feeble stinges,   That from their noyance he no where can rest,   But with his clownish hands their tender wings, He brusheth oft, and oft doth mar their murmurings. Thus ill bestedd, …

The image of rusticity at the beginning of  the Legend of  Holiness carries with it an implication not of  the nobility of  St George or of  the righteousness of  Piers Plowman, but of  the ignorance as of one ‘of þe ferþest ende of  Northfolk’ (PPl, B V.235), and this association is certainly reinforced by the fact that Red Cross’s first adventure is a fight against the monster

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Error. It is a fight that Red Cross wins, as his lady (Una or Truth) acknowledges (FQ, I.1.27): Well worthie be you of  that Armory, Wherein ye haue great glory wonne this day, And proou’d your strength on a strong enimie, Your first aduenture.

But it was not a fight that he was able to win by his own unaided powers and this is a fact that the poet himself underlines as battle is first joined, for Error (FQ, I.1.18):   Tho wrapping vp her wrethed sterne arownd,   Lept fierce vpon his shield, and her huge traine   All suddenly about his body wound,   That hand or foot to stirr he stroue in vaine: God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endlesse traine.

By Error is understood the vice or sin of infidelity (infidelitas), and more particularly the infidelity of  heretics ‘qui fidem Christi profitentur, sed ejus dogmata corrumpunt,/ who profess faith in Christ yet corrupt his dogmas’ (ST, 2a 2ae 11.1). Hence Error directly attacks the shield on which is ‘scor’d … a bloodie Crosse’ (FQ, I.1.2).16 Moreover Error is productive of many lesser, albeit hardly less hideous, errors: ‘Of  her there bred,/ A thousand yong ones, which she dayly fed,/ Sucking vpon her poisnous dugs, eachone/ Of sundrie shapes, yet all ill fauored’ (FQ, I.1.15).17 The rustic ignorance of  Red Cross has indeed led him into mortal danger. Infidelity is not merely the lack of  belief or unbelief, but the active disbelief of one who refuses to accept, or rejects and despises, the faith (ST, 2a 2ae 10.1); hence Error is ‘full of vile disdaine’ (FQ, I.1.14). The formal object of infidelity or error, therefore, is a false opinion towards which a sinner turns or the first truth from which the sinner turns away (ST, 2a 2ae 10.5 ad 1). By putting Red Cross into battle against Error, Spenser focuses on the need for certainty of  belief in all matters of  human conduct, for the exercise of  the moral virtue of religion or holiness rests upon the foundation of  faith. In the conduct of  life human beings cannot wait upon the

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conclusions of philosophers. Error and disagreement are the norms of philosophical inquiry and yet human beings require certitude if  they are to be saved (ST, 2a 2ae 2.4; translated by T.C. O’Brien): Ratio enim humana in rebus divinis est multum deficiens, cujus signum est quia philosophi de rebus humanis naturali investigatione perscrutantes in multis erraverunt et sibi ipsis contraria senserunt. Ut ergo esset indubitata et certa cognitio apud homines de Deo, oportuit quod divina eis per modum fidei traderentur, quasi a Deo dicta, qui mentiri non potest. The mind of man falls far short when it comes to the things of  God. Look at the philosophers; even in searching into questions about man they have erred in many points and held contradictory views. To the end, therefore, that a knowledge of  God, undoubted and secure, might be present among men, it was necessary that divine things be taught by way of  faith, spoken as it were by the word of  God who cannot lie.

God, who is the first truth or the formal object of  faith, is made known to the believer by Holy Scripture and by the teaching of  the Church, which proceeds from the first truth (ST, 2a 2ae 5.3). Thus Langland’s errant dreamer, dressed ‘into shroudes as … a sheep’ (PPl, B Prol. 2), is instructed by Lady Holy Church in truth (Passus I) and then in falsehood (Passus II), and the Red Cross Knight is guided by a Lady (Una or Truth) who tells him that ‘the perill of  this place/ I better wot then you’ (FQ, I.1.13). The Lady identifies herself with wisdom (‘Yet wisedome warnes’, FQ, I.1.13), because ‘sapientia sit cognitio divinorum,/ wisdom is the knowledge of divine things’ (ST, 2a 2ae 19.7). In the House of  Holiness at the request of  Una the Red Cross Knight is instructed by Fidelia in ‘the wisedom of … wordes diuine’ (FQ, I.10.18) and Fidelia ‘dis­closed euery whitt’ to him ‘Of  God, of grace, of iustice, of  free will’ (FQ, I.10.19). The question of  Spenser’s own doctrinal beliefs (in the absence of personal testimony) ought not to be allowed to blunt the force of  his moral and poetic argument for holiness. There is an appeal here to the authority of  the Church and not the individual as the repository of  the truths of  the faith. Aquinas, of course, is emphatic on this point (ST, 2a 2ae 10.12):

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GERALD MORGAN Dicendum quod maximam habet auctoritatem Ecclesiae consuetudo, quae semper est in omnibus aemulanda; quia et ipsa doctrina catholicorum doctorum ab Ecclesia auctoritatem habet. Unde magis standum est auctoritati Ecclesiae quam auctoritati vel Augustini vel Hieronymi vel cujuscumque doctoris. The custom of  the Church enjoys the greatest authority and ought to be jealously maintained in all matters. The very teaching of  Catholic theo­logians gets its authority from the Church. Hence we should stand on the authority of  the Church rather than on that of  Augustine or Jerome or of any other divine whomsoever.

But such a view also lies behind the conf lict of  Langland’s Lady Holy Church and Theology on the lineage of  Meed the Maid (PPl, B II.24 and 119–33) and this is a conf lict which Langland (though not his critics) takes for granted will be resolved in favour of  Lady Holy Church. Spenser’s standpoint here is not essentially dif ferent from that of  Langland, although for him it is complicated by the dispute between the Reformed and Catholic churches (Una and Duessa) as to the true repository of  truth. There is a notable complication in the action of  the fight against Error, for it is a fight in which Red Cross has no need of  his spear (FQ, I.1.11): And to the Dwarfe a while his needlesse spere he gaue.

The fight against Error is not a typical chivalric combat on horseback in which the lance is the first requisite. That is indeed the manner in which St George by tradition slays the dragon and that is how he addresses the dragon in the penultimate canto of  the Legend of  Holiness (FQ, I.11.16 and 20): The knight gan fayrely couch his steady speare,   And fiersely ran at him with rigorous might …   The knight his thrillant speare againe assayd   In his bras-plated body to embosse,   And three mens strength vnto the stroake he layd.

But in the fight against Error Red Cross makes use at once of  ‘his trenchand blade’ (FQ, I.1.17), that is, ‘the sworde of þe Spirit, which is the worde of  God’ (Ephes., VI.17). In other words he is sustained against false opinion

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by Holy Scripture. It is not enough. The Lady urges the knight on by bidding him (FQ, I.1.19): Strangle her, els she sure will strangle thee.

Such an injunction not only calls to mind the action of a hero such as Beowulf who overcomes Grendel not by the use of the sword but by physical strength (Beowulf, 675–87 and 745–836), but more directly is suggestive of  St Paul’s sense that Christian soldiers ‘wrestle not against f lesh and blood, but … against spiritual wickednesses’ (Ephes., VI.12). Here Red Cross is not so much the protector of  the Lady as protected by her. Indeed, the fight against Error is not entered into by Red Cross on behalf of  his Lady but is prompted by his fear of shame (FQ, I.1.12): Ah Ladie (sayd he) shame were to reuoke, The forward footing for an hidden shade.

Such fear of shame falls short of virtue, as Aristotle and Aquinas explain,18 and at times the exercise of moral virtue requires the acceptance of a burden of shame that is wholly undeserved. Thus Sir Gawain prefers to suf fer in embarrassed and angry silence the f lattering attentions of  the lady of  the household during dinner at Hautdesert rather than of fer her a public rebuke, however much his own conduct may be misconstrued as a result: ‘Bot he nolde not for his nurture nurne hir aȝaynez,/ Bot dalt with hir al in daynté, how-se-euer þe dede turned/ towrast’ (SGGK, 1661–63). Red Cross lacks such heroic magnanimity at the time of  his encounter with Error and falls short in consequence of  the wise advice of  the Lady. Courage has degen­erated into rashness (FQ, I.1.12): Be well aware, quoth then that Ladie milde,   Least suddaine mischiefe ye too rash prouoke:   The danger hid, the place vnknowne and wilde,   Breedes dreadfull doubts: Oft fire is without smoke,   And perill without show: therefore your stroke   Sir knight with-hold, till further tryall made.

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Red Cross is guilty of presuming upon his own might. Although he is ‘[a]rmed to point’ (FQ, I.1.16) and puts forth all his power ‘[a]s Lyon fierce vpon the f lying pray’ (FQ, I.1.17), he nevertheless becomes entangled in error (FQ, I.1.18). Presumption is a sin opposed to magnanimity and consists in the inordinate striving after great things, that is, striving after things that are beyond one’s power to achieve.19 Red Cross’s triumph over Error is made possible by his submission to the guidance of  the Church as the repository of  the truth of  faith. Thus, sustained by faith, the knight is able to strike at Error, as he needs to do, ‘with more then manly force’ (FQ, I.1.24). We see, then, that although Red Cross falls into error through presumption he does not persist obstinately in error but is obedient to the authority of  the Church. He is guilty of entertaining false opinions but not of  heresy (ST, 2a 2ae 11.2 ad 3). In the course of  Red Cross’s first adventure the reader is brought to recognise that faith and humility are the foundations of virtue. Humility is a foundation in the sense that it removes the obstacle of pride that separates human beings from God, but faith is more fundamental still in that it estab­lishes a direct relation between human beings and God (ST, 2a 2ae 161.5 ad 2). Hence faith is the first of  the virtues (ST, 2a 2ae 4.7) and, as a result of  his victory over Error, Red Cross can proceed on his quest in the assurance that he has ‘God to frend’ (FQ, I.1.28). We have been led to see that the virtue of religion or holiness stands upon the secure foundation of  the truth of  faith as handed down by Scripture and the true Church. Devotion, as the first of  the interior acts of  the virtue of religion, is brought about not only by meditation upon the goodness and kindness of  God but also by meditation upon the weakness and infirmity of  human beings. The latter consideration results in the banishment of  that presump­ tion which leads to an inappropriate trust in one’s own strength (ST, 2a 2ae 82.3). In the fight against Error, Red Cross learns to trust not in his own unaided powers but in the truth of revealed religion, and this new under­standing opens the way to a growth in devotion as part of  the moral virtue of  holiness. It is moral not theological virtue that is Spenser’s poetic subject as he announces it to be in the Letter to Raleigh, but he cannot ignore the fact that the two orders are inseparably interwoven. Similarly, in Paradiso, VI.10–27 Dante makes clear that Justinian’s codification of 

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the law is preceded by his correction in matters of  the faith, for the justice of  human law is itself dependent upon the truth of  the divine law (Par., VI.22–24; Sinclair, III.87):   Tosto che con la Chiesa mossi i piedi, a Dio per grazia piacque di spirarmi l’alto lavoro, e tutto ’n lui mi diedi. As soon as I took my way beside the Church it pleased God, of  His grace, to inspire me with the high task; and I gave myself wholly to it.

Thus Red Cross proceeds to the af firmation and vindication of  his faith in battle against Sansfoy (FQ, I.2.12–20), even though he has been separated from his Lady by the necromantic arts of  Archimago (FQ, I.1.36–55 and I.2.2–5) and his own inconstancy (FQ, I.2.6–8). In shamefully abandoning his Lady, Red Cross abandons the true witness of  the faith, that is, the reformed Church of  England, but not faith itself.20 The moral allegory at this point is greatly complicated by the historical circumstances in which it was written, and presumably Sansfoy’s ‘faire companion’ (FQ, I.2.13), ‘[t]he false Duessa’ (FQ, I.2.44) disguised as ‘miserable … Fidessa’ (FQ, I.2.26), is the Roman Catholic Church during the reign of  Mary Tudor (1553–1558). In the company of  Fidessa the Red Cross Knight is confronted by fresh doubts in the Virgilian or Dantesque episode of  Fradubio (FQ, I.2.30–44), and it is by Fidessa / Duessa that he is led into further peril in the House of  Pride. Whatever the nature and precision of  the historical allusions, Spenser remains as always a moral and philosophical poet and the moral argument for the virtue of  holiness itself (neither a Catholic nor a Protestant preserve) is continuous and coherent. III.  Holiness or religion as the moral virtue of rendering the honour or rever­ence that is due to God as the lord and principle of all things presupposes the union of human beings and God. Such a union is first of all a union of  faith and human beings separate themselves from God by renouncing or abandoning the faith. This is apostasy of  the faith (apostasia perfidiae).21 Human beings are also united to God by humility, that is, ‘per debitam

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et subjectam voluntatem ad obediendum praeceptis ejus,/ by a due and submissive will to obey his commandments’, and they separate themselves from God by rebellion (ST, 2a 2ae 12.1): Contingit etiam aliquem apostatare a Deo per mentem repugnantem divinis mandatis. A man may apostatize, too, from God by a spirit of rebellion against the divine commandments.

This is the apostasy which is the beginning of pride (ST, 2a 2ae 162.7 ad 2): Ad secundum dicendum quod apostatare a Deo dicitur esse superbiae humanae initium, non quasi aliquod aliud peccatum a superbia existens, sed quia est prima superbiae pars. Dictum est enim quod superbia principaliter respicit subjectionem divinam quam contemnit. To apostatize or desert God is called the beginning of pride, not as though it were a distinct sin, but because it is the first part of pride. We have seen that it is mainly about our subjection to God, which it scorns.

The victory of  Red Cross over Sansfoy in canto 2 is thus followed in the action of  the Legend of  Holiness by the entry into the House of  Pride at the beginning of canto 4. Red Cross remains united to God by faith and it is now necessary that he remain united to God by humility. The logic of  Spenser’s narrative cannot be faulted, for the possession of  faith cannot be taken to imply the absence of pride. Aquinas indeed points out that it is possible for one who is separated from God by pride to be united to God by faith (ST, 2a 2ae 12.1). What virtue Red Cross has in himself is undermined by his new com­ panion, for Duessa, ‘wearie of  the toilsom way’, urges the knight along the ‘broad high way’ that leads to the House of  Pride (FQ, I.4.2–3):   And towards it a broad high way that led, All bare through peoples feet, which thether traueiled. Great troupes of people traueild thetherward   Both day and night, of each degree and place.

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It can hardly be said that Spenser’s allegory here is obscure or enigmatic, for the reference to the Sermon on the Mount is unmistakeable (Matthewe, 7.13): Enter in at the streicte gate: for it is the wide gate, and broad waye that leadeth to destruction: and manie there be which go in thereat.

The broad path to the House of  Pride is the path that is taken by most people in this life and it is the path that leads away from God. Spenser’s description of  the queen of  the House of  Pride directs attention at once to the notion of pride as rebellion (FQ, I.4.8): A mayden Queene, that shone as Titans ray, In glistring gold, and perelesse pretious stone.

Ovid tells of  the rebellion of  the giants, the of fspring of earth, against the Olympian gods in the Metamorphoses (I.151–62). Spenser himself supplies a more circumstantial allusion in reference to the giantess Argante in the Legend of  Chastity, for Argante is (FQ, III.7.47): A daughter of  the Titans which did make Warre against heuen, and heaped hils on hight, To scale the skyes, and put Ioue from his right.

The maiden queen of  the House of  Pride is likened not only to the Titans but also to Phaethon, the rebellious son of  Phoebus Apollo (FQ, I.4.9). As Ovid tells the story of  Phaethon in the second book of  the Metamorphoses (II.1–400), Phaethon desires not only to drive his father’s chariot through the heavens (a task beyond the power of mortals) but rebels against his father’s warning to abandon that desire (Met., II.103–4). The story of  Phaethon was interpreted in the Middle Ages in Bersuire’s Ovide moralisé as an allegory of  Lucifer’s rebellion against God.22 The association is apt and clearly intended by Spenser, as we see from the name that he has given to his maiden queen (FQ, I.4.12):

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GERALD MORGAN And proud Lucifera men did her call,   That made her selfe a Queene, and crownd to be,   Yet rightfull kingdome she had none at all,   Ne heritage of natiue soueraintie,   But did vsurpe with wrong and tyrannie   Vpon the scepter, which she now did hold.

In thus drawing upon Isaiah, 14.12: ‘How art thou fallen from heauen, o Lucifer, sonne of  the morning?’, Spenser links the queen of pride with the rebellion of  the fallen angels. Langland’s Lady Holy Church, in her exposi­tion of  truth to the dreamer as the way of salvation (PPl, B I.85–137), sup­plies an account of  the defection of  Lucifer and his legions through disobedience (PPl, B I.111–15): ‘Lucifer wiþ legions lerned it in heuene, [And was þe louelokest of  liȝt after Oure Lord seluen] Til he brak buxomnesse; his blisse gan he tyne, And fel fro þat felawshipe in a fendes liknesse Into a deep derk helle to dwelle þere for euere.’

It is by no means unlikely that Spenser had Piers Plowman in mind when devising for his maiden queen the name of  Lucifera. However that may be, by this series of allusions to the Titans, Phaethon and Lucifer, Spenser fixes upon the definition of pride as ‘quemdam actualem contemptum Dei, quantum ad hunc ef fectum qui est non subdi ejus praecepto,/ a particular sort of explicit contempt for God, the refusal to be subject to his command’. This is pride in the general sense (generale peccatum) as Aquinas defines it (ST, 1a 2ae 84.2). Apostasy is the first part of pride and leads to the inordinate desire for one’s own excellence (ST, 1a 2ae 84.2 ad 2). This is pride in the specific sense (speciale peccatum) as Aquinas defines it and is identical with self-love, for human beings love themselves in so far as they desire their own excellence (ST, 1a 2ae 84.2 ad 3). Spenser signifies such self-love in Lucifera in his reference to the mirror she holds in her hand (FQ, I.4.10):   And in her hand she held a mirrhour bright,   Wherein her face she often vewed fayne,

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  And in her selfe-lou’d semblance tooke delight; For she was wondrous faire, as any liuing wight.

Pride is a source of other sins and as such is classified among the seven capital sins, so-called because they are directive and in a sense the leaders of other sins (ST, 1a 2ae 84.3). The tradition of  the capital sins goes back to Evagrius and John Cassian in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, is systematised by Gregory the Great in his commentaries on Job (Moralia, 580–95) in the late sixth century and authoritatively reinforced by Peter Lom­bard in his Sentences (c. 1157–1158) in the twelfth century. Aquinas himself adds a characteristic refinement in taking the capital sins above all, though not exclusively, as final causes (ST, 1a 2ae 84.3), for whereas ef ficient causes give rise only to similar sins, final causes give rise to a diversity of sins (ST, 1a 2ae 72.3). Thus for Aquinas each sin did not grow out of  the preceding one, as it did for Cassian and Gregory. But Aquinas does follow Gregory in setting pride apart from the capital sins (ST, 2a 2ae 162.8). Pride so conceived is described as the queen of vices (ST, 1a 2ae 84.4 ad 4; translated by T.C. O’Brien): Et ideo superbia, quasi universale vitium, non connumeratur aliis, sed magis ponitur velut regina quaedam omnium vitiorum, sicut Gregorius dicit. Pride, therefore, as a kind of all-embracing vice is not numbered with the others, but is set apart as something of a queen over all vices, as Gregory says. (Moralia, XXXI.45, PL, 76.621)

Lucifera is thus very exactly described as ‘[a] mayden Queene’ (FQ, I.4.8) and in her household we see also the vices that proceed from pride. In Gregory’s scheme of  the capital sins, therefore, vainglory or the inordinate desire for glory (ST, 2a 2ae 132.2) takes the place of pride (ST, 2a 2ae 132.4): Gregorius autem superbiam ponit reginam omnium vitiorum: et inanem gloriam, quae immediate ab ipsa oritur, ponit vitium capitale. Et hoc rationabiliter. But Gregory defines pride as the queen of all the sins, and makes vainglory, which springs directly from pride, a capital sin. This is a reasonable position.

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The sin of vainglory is of immediate relevance in a Legend of  Holiness, for it can be mortal when ‘quis gloriatur de aliquo falso, quod contrariatur divinae reverentiae,/ a person glories in … some falsehood which militates against reverence of  God’ (ST, 2a 2ae 132.3). Such false objects of vainglory, as Aquinas goes on to observe, are human wisdom, might and riches. Hence Spenser emphasises the richness of  the House of  Pride; the hall ‘on euery side/ With rich array and costly arras dight’ (FQ, I.4.6), the presencechamber with its ‘endlesse richesse, and … sumpteous shew’ (FQ, I.4.7) and the ‘rich throne’ itself (FQ, 1.4.8). The richness of  the presence-chamber indeed dazzles the senses of  the Red Cross Knight and his companion Fidessa as they pass by the crowd of people thronging the hall (FQ, I.4.7): By them they passe, all gazing on them round,   And to the Presence mount; whose glorious vew   Their frayle amazed senses did confound.

In the same way Langland’s dreamer is overwhelmed by the appearance of  Meed the Maid (PPl, B II.17): Hire array me rauysshed, swich richesse sauȝ I neuere.

These things should not perhaps disturb a mind that is steadily fixed upon what is true. But we are reminded that Red Cross is now himself an errant sinner, ‘wery [of ] wandred’ (PPl, B Prol. 7). He is in the company of  Fidessa (Duessa) because his reason remains subject to the sway of passion and he cannot long continue on this course if  he is to save himself  from destruction. The pride of  Red Cross, which has brought him thus far, takes him even further. Guided by the usher Vanity, Red Cross and Fidessa come to the very foot of  Lucifera’s throne to pay attendance on her (FQ, I.4.13). Neither is what they seem. Red Cross is ‘the Elfin knight’ (I.4.13) in appearance but in fact a changeling ‘borne of  English blood’ (FQ, I.10.64) and Fidessa is ‘false Duessa seeming Lady fayre’ (FQ, I.4.13). Red Cross is not himself  ‘[t]he true Saint George’ (FQ, I.2.12) in such company and in such a place, and is ill at ease in the face of  Lucifera’s disdain and the ostentatious pride of  her court (FQ, I.4.14). Here at last the Red Cross Knight begins to draw back (FQ, I.4.15):

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  Yet the stout Faery mongst the middest crowd   Thought all their glorie vaine in knightly vew,   And that great Princesse too exceeding prowd, That to strange knight no better countenance allowd.

According to A.C. Hamilton, Red Cross is piqued at the small notice Lucifera has taken of  him.23 But the description of  Red Cross here as ‘the stout Faery’ seems designed to def lect us from any adverse judgment of  him at this point. Red Cross is justly of fended by Lucifera’s discourtesy and reacts to it not only on his own part but on the behalf of all foreign knights. Strangers ought not to be treated after this fashion and especially not in the court of a great queen. As so often Spenser’s words carry a great deal of moral weight. For those few who can discern the truth, the House of  Pride is insecurely founded ‘on a sandie hill’ and all its ‘hinder partes … / Were ruinous and old’ (FQ, I.4.5). Riches are indeed false as an object in which to glory and the sin of vainglory, set as it is here upon the possession of riches, is incom­patible with the reverence that is owed to God. As such it is opposed to the moral virtue of religion or holiness and so is properly repudiated by Red Cross, the knight of  holiness. IV.  Spenser’s concern in cantos 4 and 5 is not with pride as such but with pride as an impediment to the virtue of  holiness, for Book I of  The Faerie Qveene is the Legend of  Holiness, not the Legend of  Humility. In order to understand the development of  Spenser’s argument, therefore, it is necessary to keep at the forefront of our minds the relationship between humi­ lity and holiness on the one hand and between pride and superstition on the other. This is not least the case with respect to the fight between Red Cross and Sansjoy. The appearance of  Sansjoy in the action of  the poem directly follows the recognition by Red Cross that the joy to be found in Lucifera’s court is a vain joy and that it is necessary for him to remain aloof  from it (FQ, I.4.37):   But that good knight would not so nigh repaire,   Him selfe estraunging from their ioyaunce vaine, Whose fellowship seemd far vnfit for warlike swaine.

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The defeat of  Sansjoy by Red Cross is decisive (FQ, I.5.12–13) and Duessa herself is compelled to acknowledge it (FQ, I.5.14): The conquest yours, I yours, the shield, and glory yours.

The hidden meaning or transferred sense of  the allegory is that Red Cross here is confirmed in a true joy, dif ferent in kind from that to be experienced through pride and vainglory. Such joy in Red Cross is what is to be expected or at least hoped for in a knight of  holiness. It is an aspect of  the moral virtue and thus a matter of  the will and not merely an emotion. Thus on the morning of  Christmas Eve Sir Gawain ‘meryly … rydes/ Into a forest ful dep, þat ferly watz wylde’, whereas ‘mony bryddez vnblyþe vpon bare twyges,/ … pitosly þer piped for pyne of þe colde’ (SGGK, 740–41 and 746–47). Devotion is an interior act of  the virtue of religion (ST, 2a 2ae 82.2) and joy is the direct and principal ef fect of devotion (ST, 2a 2ae 82.4): Dicendum quod devotio per se quidem et principaliter spiritualem laetitiam mentis causat … principaliter quidem ex consideratione divinae bonitatis, quia ista consideratio pertinet quasi ad terminum motus voluntatis tradentis se Deo, et ex ista consideratione per se quidem sequitur delectatio, secundum illud Psal. Memor fui Dei et delectatus sum. The direct and principal ef fect of devotion is spiritual joy … Considering God’s goodness is the principal cause [of devotion] because this is the goal of a man who submits himself  to God. From this consideration joy follows, as the Psalmist says (Psalms, 76.4), I remembered God and was delighted.

The victory over Sansjoy is a confirmation and, given his situation in the House of  Pride, a needed confirmation, that Red Cross holds firm in his devotion to God and thus has a will to do promptly those things which pertain to the service of  God (ST, 2a 2ae 82.1). Red Cross is inspired to achieve that victory by the words of encouragement of  Duessa to Sansjoy, which he mistakenly takes to be the words of encouragement of  Fidessa to himself. It is a not­able and telling irony. Red Cross can hardly be blamed for his error, since Duessa’s ‘sunny bright’ (FQ, I.5.21) disguise as an image of  truth is such as to deceive even her own grandmother, for ‘so true-seeming

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grace/ It carried’ (FQ, I.5.27). But he is rightly to be judged by his own actions for sin can only come from human free will (ST, 1a 2ae 80.1 sed contra). It would be a heart­less doctrine, indeed, that condemned Godfearing Roman Catholics or Protestants to damnation on account of  the corruption of  their church. The devotion of  Red Cross implies that he is not cut of f  from God by pride and vainglory. And Spenser has not failed to acknowledge this implication in his account of  Red Cross’s conduct. The victory over Sansjoy is indeed to be seen as part of  the process of  Red Cross’s alienation or ‘estraunging’ from pride. The motive of  Red Cross in fighting Sansjoy is the love of praise and honour (FQ, I.5.7): For all for praise and honour he did fight.

This is the true love of  honour as Aristotle defines it, namely, the honour that is inseparable from virtue as its true reward (Ethics, IV.3 1123b 34–1124a 1; Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, 748): One who is in fact evil will not be magnanimous nor deserving of  honor, for honor is a reward of virtue and is attributed to the virtuous.24

Red Cross is set upon ‘a great aduenture … / To winne him worshippe’ (FQ, I.1.3), and this vital link between honour and virtue is importantly reaf firmed by Spenser in the opening stanza of  the fifth canto (FQ, I.5.1): The noble hart, that harbours vertuous thought,   And is with childe of glorious great intent,   Can neuer rest, vntill it forth haue brought   Th’eternall brood of glorie excellent.

Thus, having rejected the vainglory of  the House of  Pride in canto 4, Red Cross continues in the fight against Sansjoy to pursue the true honour that is accorded to a virtuous knight. Honour is indeed inseparable from the virtue of  truth, as it is in Chaucer’s crusading Knight, who ‘loved chivalrie,/ Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie’ (GP, A 45–46). So it is in the fight between Red

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Cross and Sansjoy. In laying claim to the shield of  his brother, Sansfoy (FQ, I.4.39–40), and in charging Red Cross with treachery and guile in obtaining it (FQ, I.4.41), Sansjoy challenges the right of  Red Cross to the very name of  knight. Indeed, no knight can be expected to face with equanimity the charge of  ‘traytour vile’ (FQ, I.4.42) and Red Cross himself is provoked to anger (FQ, I.4.42):   Him litle answerd th’angry Elfin knight; He neuer meant with words, but swords to plead his right.

Unlike the anger which causes Red Cross to desert Una where ‘the eye of reason was with rage yblent’ (FQ, I.2.5), the anger directed towards Sansjoy is a righteous anger. Red Cross is protected by his shield of  faith in the fight against Sansfoy, so that the Saracen’s sword-stroke ‘from blame him fairely blest’ (FQ, I.2.18). In victory Red Cross bids the dwarf  ‘to bring away/ The Sarazins shield, signe of  the conqueroure’ (FQ, I.2.20). In other words, Red Cross prudently takes possession of  Sansfoy’s shield in order to guard against the kind of misrepresentation that Sansjoy brings against him and to show that he has won it in open combat. The issue of  fidelity or good faith in the fight between Red Cross and Sansjoy is thus a direct consequence of  the victory over Sansfoy. In accepting Sansjoy’s challenge, Red Cross throws down his gauntlet ‘as a sacred pledg’ (FQ, I.4.43) and on the morning of battle the two combatants pledge them­selves to fight in accordance with the laws of chivalry (FQ, I.5.4):   And in the wine a solemne oth they bynd T’obserue the sacred lawes of armes, that are assynd.

Duessa is fearful that Red Cross will gain the advantage by the ‘charmed shield,/ And eke enchaunted armes’ (FQ, I.4.50) that he bears with him into battle. But this is merely to repeat the claim of  Sansfoy that the cross of  Christ is a ‘charme’ (FQ, I.2.18), a monstrous perversion of  the truth whereby the sign of  the faith is reduced to a superstitious practice.25 In the event it is Sansjoy who needs the protection of an ‘inchaunted cloud’ (FQ, I.5.19) and a ‘charmed cloud’ (FQ, I.5.29) sent by ‘th’infernall powres’ (FQ, I.5.14) at the moment of  his impending death. Lucifera has decreed that

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Red Cross and Sansjoy should fight ‘[i]n equall lists’ (FQ, I.4.40) and Red Cross does indeed defeat his opponent in a fair fight. Spenser anticipates this outcome on the reader’s behalf in the argument which he sets at the head of canto 5: The faithfull knight in equall field   subdewes his faithlesse foe.

In defeating Sansjoy, Red Cross not only vindicates himself as the knight ‘[r]ight faithfull true … in deede and word’ (FQ, I.1.2) but also fulfils the terms of a most solemn oath. It is an act that is especially proper to the knight of  holiness, for oaths are classified among the exterior acts of  the moral virtue of religion. The swearing of an oath is an act of religion since it shows reverence for God (ST, 2a 2ae 89.4): Et ideo in hoc ipso quod homo per Deum jurat profitetur Deum potiorem, utpote cujus veritas est indefectibilis et cognitio universalis; et sic Deo aliquo modo reve­ rentiam exhibet. Therefore, when a man swears by invoking God he acknowledges his greater power, unfailing truth and unbounded knowledge, and in so doing he shows a certain reverence for God.

Thus great moral issues are at stake in the swearing of oaths. Indeed, since the definition of sin (as by Aquinas) is by reference to the object, then it follows that an of fence against God, such as infidelity or blasphemy, is worse than an of fence against a person, such as homicide, and that an of fence against a person is in turn worse than an of fence against a person’s goods, such as theft (ST, 1a 2ae 73.3). In the light of such a principle, Dante classifies the sins of violence in the seventh circle of  hell in descending order of degeneracy as homicide (Inf., XII), suicide (Inf., XIII) and blas­phemy (Inf., XIV). Such an opinion is shared too by Chaucer’s Pardoner in his denunciation of  false oaths (PardT, C 643–44): Lo, rather he forbedeth swich sweryng Than homycide or many a cursed thyng.

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For an oath to be good it must satisfy strict conditions, namely, those of judgment or discretion, truth and justice (ST, 2a 2ae 89.3). In his article on the three conditions or companions (tres comites) of an oath, Aquinas draws upon the biblical authority of  Jeremiah (4.2) and Jerome’s commentary on Jeremiah (In Jerem., 1, PL, 24.733), and Chaucer’s Pardoner draws upon the same authority (PardT, C 634–37):       … but in special Of sweryng seith the hooly Jeremye, ‘Thou shalt swere sooth thyne othes, and nat lye, And swere in doom and eek in rightwisnesse.’

The text of  the Geneva Bible of  Jeremiah, 4.2 reads: And thou shalt sweare, The Lord liueth in trueth, in iudgement, and in righteousnes, and the nacions shalbe blessed in him, and shal glorie in him,

and the accompanying gloss reads: Thou shalt detest the name of idoles, Psal.16.4 & shalt with reuerence sweare by the lyuing God, when thine othe may aduance Gods glorie, & profite others, & here, by swearing he meaneth the true religion of  God.

Judgment requires that oaths are sworn out of necessity and for no light or frivolous reason (‘non leviter, sed ex necessaria causa et discrete’) and presupposes faith and devotion in the one who swears (‘devotio et fides … intelliguntur in judicio’) (ST, 2a 2ae 89.3 and ad 2), while truth and justice require that the matter confirmed by the oath is neither false nor unlawful (ST, 2a 2ae 89.3): Judicio autem caret juramentum incautum; veritate autem juramentum mendax; justitia autem juramentum iniquum sive illicitum. A rash oath lacks judgment, a false oath lacks truth, and a sinful or unlawful oath lacks justice.

In the fight against Sansjoy we see evidence of  Red Cross’s growth in holi­ ness, for he has left behind him the presumption that leads him to seek

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out Error, is confirmed in the faith by which he has overcome Sansfoy and exhibits that devotion to God that takes him away from the vainglory of  the House of  Pride. If  he is to continue in the path of  faith and devotion he has no option but to engage in battle with Sansjoy. Here is the reason why Spenser is so emphatic in his insistence upon the justice of  the cause of  Red Cross against Sansjoy. Thus he states and repeats explicitly the fact that Red Cross is in the right and Sansjoy in the wrong (FQ, I.5.8 and 9): So th’one for wrong, the other striues for right,

but he also develops the comparison of  Red Cross to the grif fin (that is, a lion with the wings of an eagle) in order to reinforce it (FQ, I.5.8): As when a Gryfon seized of  his pray, A Dragon fiers encountreth in his f light, Through widest ayre making his ydle way, That would his rightfull rauine rend away.

Spenser’s insistence is well considered, for the justice of  Red Cross’s cause needs to be vouched for in the wake of  his desertion of  Una. But, as Aquinas explains in reference to Aristotle’s account of  the generation and corruption of virtues (Ethics, II.3 1105a 14–16), one sinful act is not in itself suf ficient to abolish the habit of virtue (ST, 1a 2ae 71.4).26 V.  Red Cross is embattled not only against the Saracen knight, Sansjoy, but also against the forces of superstition and irreligion, vices opposed to the virtue of religion by excess and defect respectively (ST, 2a 2ae 92.1 and preamble to 97).27 Archimago is ‘[a] bold bad man’ (FQ, I.1.37), a practitioner of necro­mancy or ‘diuelish arts’ (FQ, I.2.9), and Duessa, the product of  those arts, is herself  ‘a false sorceresse’ (FQ, I.2.34). Necromancy and sorcery are both forms of divination, one of  the species of superstition (ST, 2a 2ae 95.2 and 3). The identification of  Duessa with superstition is repeatedly af firmed by Spenser at this point in the narrative. She is ‘[t]he wicked witch’ and ‘the fowle welfauourd witch’ (FQ, I.5.27 and 28) and

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her speech is ‘the witches speach’ (FQ, I.5.21). Her support of  the cause of  Sansjoy is secretly assured to him before the battle against Red Cross (FQ, I.4.44–51) and is manifested in her exertions on Sansjoy’s behalf after his defeat. Duessa appeals to her grandmother, Night, for support (FQ, 1.5.21– 24) and Night in turn prevails upon the presumptuous Aesculapius, the ‘far renowmed sonne/ Of great Apollo’ (FQ, I.5.43) to restore Sansjoy’s wounds. But what we are shown here is not so much infernal power as impotence. Night cannot ‘breake the chayne of strong necessitee’ (FQ, I.5.25) by which victory is assigned to Red Cross. Aesculapius in bringing the dead Hippolytus to life commits a crime against heaven (FQ, I.5.40–42) and is condemned by Jove to the ‘chaines remedilesse’ (FQ, I.5.36) of  the remotest depths of  hell. Sansjoy himself is left behind in hell by Night and Duessa (FQ, I.5.44), whence no one returns ‘without heauenly grace’ (FQ, I.5.31). Here Spenser is at pains to show that God is in reality the Lord of all things and that his power cannot successfully be challenged. It is on this account that the special reverence of divine worship is due to God alone (ST, 2a 2ae 81.1 ad 3): Manifestum est autem quod dominium convenit Deo secundum propriam et singularem quamdam rationem, quia scilicet ipse omnia fecit, et quia summum in omnibus rebus obtinet principatum. Et ideo specialis ratio servitutis ei debetur; et talis servitus nomine ‘latriae’ designatur apud Graecos; et ideo ad religionem pertinet. Clearly, since God makes all things and has dominion over them all, lordship belongs to God in a special and singular manner. Hence, a special type of service or subjection is due to God and religion renders it. This special form of service was called ‘latria’ by the Greeks.

The cause of  the eternal damnation of  Aesculapius is his healing of  Hip­polytus and Spenser devotes some three stanzas (FQ, I.5.37–39) to a brief rehearsal of  the story of  Hippolytus. As always, there are special reasons for such a concentration of interest. First of all, as Red Cross was falsely accused of  treason by Sansjoy (FQ, I.4.41–42), so Hippolytus is by his ‘wanton stepdame … before/ His father fierce of  treason false accusd’ (FQ, I.5.37). Secondly, and more importantly, is the disordered grief of  the

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‘rash Syre’ of  Hippolytus, who cannot bring himself  to accept the reality of  his son’s death (FQ, I.5.39):   Tho gathering vp the relicks of  his smart  By Dianes meanes, who was Hippolyts frend,   Them brought to Aesculape, that by his art Did heale them all againe, and ioyned euery part.

The use of  the word relicks is suggestive, for we understand by it not merely the remnants of  the dismembered body but also the veneration of  the father towards them. Spenser does not here mention father and stepmother by name but relies on the fact that the names of  Theseus and Phaedra are suf ficiently familiar to his readers, whether from Virgil or Ovid or more immediately from Boccaccio, Comes and Renaissance dictionaries. But he anticipates the part of  Theseus here in listing him among the tormented in hell as ‘condemned to endlesse slouth by law’ (FQ, I.5.35), for the slothful lack zeal in the worship of  God and are guilty of  ‘undevocioun’ and ‘the synne of worldly sorwe’ (ParsT, I 723 and 725). It is indeed Theseus’s conduct as father that matters here, for in the disordered grief of a father, as Aquinas observes, lies a dispositive cause of idolatry (ST, 2a 2ae 94.4; translated by Thomas Franklin O’Meara and Michael John Duf f y): Primo quidem, ex inordinatione af fectus: prout scilicet homines aliquem hominem vel nimis amantes vel nimis venerantes, honorem divinum ei impenderunt. Et haec causa assignatur Sap., Acerbo luctu dolens pater cito sibi rapti filii fecit imaginem; et illum qui tunc, quasi homo, mortuus fuerat, tanquam Deum colere coepit. One is from misdirected af fection, giving another adoration either by loving or venerating beyond reason. In Wisdom (14.15) it is written that a father, af f licted with grief, made an image of  the child so quickly taken from him, and honoured as a god him who died as a man.28

The story of  Hippolytus prepares us for those examples of idolatry to be found in the dungeon of  the House of  Pride (FQ, I.5.47–48). As the moral virtue of religion or holiness rests upon the foundation of  humility, so pride opens the way to superstition for, as the Geneva Bible puts it, idols were ‘broght … into the worlde’ by ‘the vaine glorie of men’

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(The Wisdome of  Salomon, 14.13). Thus in the first group of six examples in the historical catalogue of  the damned in the dungeon of  the House of  Pride, Spenser emphasises the link between pride and superstition. These are famous examples and four of  them are familiar to Spenser from Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale.29 The first example in Spenser’s catalogue focuses upon the pride of  Nebuchad­nezzar by which is claimed the adoration that is proper to God (FQ, I.5.47): There was that great proud king of  Babylon,   That would compell all nations to adore,   And him as onely God to call vpon.

Adoration is an exterior act of religion or holiness and consists in the use of  the body to reverence God, as by genuf lection or prostration (ST, 2a 2ae 84.2). Here the adoration, as directed to Nebuchadnezzar himself, is idolat­rous since it is the showing of divine reverence to a creature to whom it is not due (ST, 2a 2ae 92.2). The second example is that of  Croesus, who ‘enhaunst/ His hart too high through his great richesse store’ (FQ, I.5.47).30 Croesus reminds us of  the boast of earthly riches which militates against the reverence that is owed to the goodness of  God and which characterises the House of  Pride itself. The third example of  Antiochus, king of  Syria, focuses on the connection between worldly pride and sacrilege (FQ, I.5.47):   And proud Antiochus, the which aduaunst His cursed hand gainst God, and on his altares daunst.

The persecution of  the Jews and the profanation of  the temple in Jerusalem are related ‘in Machabee’ (MkT, B2 3769), indeed in both Books of  Machabees (I.1.21–25 and II.5.11–21). Sacrilege is the irreverence of violating sacred things (ST, 2a 2ae 99.2) and is classified by Aquinas as one of  four species of  the vice of irreligion (preamble to ST, 2a 2ae 97). For his fourth and fifth examples Spenser takes us back to the origins of idolatry with the names of  Nimrod and Ninus (FQ, I.5.48):

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And them long time before, great Nimrod was,   That first the world with sword and fire warrayd;   And after him old Ninus far did pas   In princely pomp, of all the world obayd.

Nimrod and Ninus are associated with the origin of idolatry in the second age of mankind, as Aquinas observes in the second argument to his article on the causes of idolatry (ST, 2a 2ae 94.4 arg. 2): Non autem semper fuit idololatria, sed in secunda aetate legitur esse adinventa: vel a Nemrod, qui, ut dicitur, cogebat homines ignem adorare; vel a Nino, qui imaginem patris sui Beli adorari fecit. However, we read that idolatry did not exist until the second age; it came about either through Nimrod, who is recorded to have forced men to adore fire, or through Ninus, who for worship made a statue of  his father, Bel.

The sixth example is that of  Alexander the Great, who is not mentioned by name but simply as ‘that mightie Monarch’ (FQ, I.5.48), for his story ‘is so commune/ That every wight that hath discrecioun/ Hath herd somwhat or al of  his fortune’ (MkT, B2 3821–23). Spenser gets from Boccaccio not from Chaucer the detail that Alexander claimed Jupiter Ammon as his father and on that account divine honours (FQ, I.5.48):   And would as Ammons sonne be magnifide, Till scornd of  God and man a shamefull death he dide.

Aquinas observes that the worship of men as gods is one of the forms taken by the superstition of idolatry and gives as examples the worship of  Jove and Mercury (ST, 2a 2ae 94.1). The unifying of  this group of six examples as a warning against pride and superstition is suggested by the opening words of  the following stanza (FQ, I.5.49): All these together in one heape were throwne,   Like carkases of  beastes in butchers stall.

The punishment has an element of  Dantesque contrappasso and mirrors the transformation of  Nebuchadnezzar into an ox (FQ, I.5.47).31 Those

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who in life set themselves above the dignity proper to human beings are reduced in death beneath it. VI.  The House of  Pride is the home of  the deadly sins (FQ, I.4.18–35) and the consequences of such sins are misery and death (FQ, I.5.46). It is not a good place for a knight to be and especially not for a knight of holiness. As long as he continues there he stands ‘in perill of  like painefull plight’ and in imminent danger of death, ‘[f ]or doubtlesse death ensewed, if any him descryde’ (FQ, I.5.52). It is necessary not only that he detach himself  from vainglory but that he remove himself  from the domain of pride altogether and find the way back to God. But the House of  Pride is no easy place to escape from and ‘few returned’ (FQ, I.4.3) from it. In other words, ‘the gate is streicte, and the way narowe that leadeth vnto life, and fewe there be that finde it’ (Matthewe, 7.14). Red Cross is undoubtedly right, therefore, to depart from the House of  Pride with all possible urgency and Spenser makes the rightness of  his action abundantly clear to the reader in his account of  Duessa’s discovery of  that departure as an accomplished fact on her return to the House of  Pride from the domain of  Night (FQ, I.5.45): Where when she came, she found the Faery knight Departed thence, albee his woundes wyde Not throughly heald, vnready were to ryde. Good cause he had to hasten thence away.

The moral issues are further clarified by the references to the dwarf and the part he plays in determining Red Cross’s departure. The dwarf stands here not merely for prudence but for the vigilance of prudence; he is ‘his wary Dwarfe’ (FQ, I.5.45) and ‘the carefull Dwarfe’ (FQ, I.5.52). Red Cross’s hasty departure from the House of  Pride is not merely not rash or impetuous, but a prudent necessity. Prudence is right reason in reference to acts (recta ratio agibilium)32 and therefore the principal act of prudence is the act of command.33 There is no point in deliberating well so as to arrive at sound judgments if  these

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judg­ments are not then put into ef fect. And whereas deliberation is to be slow and measured, execution needs to be quick and decisive.34 Hence sollicitudo or vigilantia is identified as a part of prudence in its principal sense of  the act of command (ST, 2a 2ae 47.9) and solertia or acumen is classified among the component parts of prudence (ST, 2a 2ae 49.4). The vigilance that is characteristic of prudence presupposes, therefore, good counsel or well-advisedness, that is, eubulia (ST, 2a 2ae 51.2) and sound judgment, that is, synesis (ST, 2a 2ae 51.3) as potential parts of prudence or secondary virtues allied to prudence. Thus Red Cross makes good his escape from the House of  Pride in the light of good counsel and sound judgment, for the dwarf  ‘had spyde’ the ‘caytiue wretched thralls’ (FQ, I.5.45) in the dungeon of  the House of  Pride and Red Cross had learned from them ‘in secret wise/ The hidden cause of  their captiuitie’ (FQ, I.5.46). By taking note of  the dwarf ’s example or, as it were, exercising the vigilance of prudence, Red Cross returns to the path of reason which he had abandoned in desert­ing Una. And by leaving the House of  Pride he is confirmed in the humility by which he remains united to God. Humility is a foundation of virtue in that it removes the obstacle of pride to virtue (ST, 2a 2ae 161.5 ad 2): … humilitas primum locum tenet, inquantum scilicet expellit superbiam cui Deus resistit, et praebet hominem subditum, et patulum ad suscipiendum inf luxum divinae gratiae inquantum evacuat inf lationem superbiae. Unde dicitur Jac. quod Deus superbis resistit, humilibus autem dat gratiam. Et secundum hoc humilitas dicitur spiritualis aedificii fundamentum. … humility holds the initial place in that it expels pride, which God resists, and makes a man submissive and ready to receive divine favour: God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble ( James, 4.6). It is in this sense that humility is said to be the foundation of  the spiritual edifice.

Humility is thus a foundation on which the virtue of religion is raised. The link between the two is shown by Dante in his representation of  the carving of  David on the sculptured wall of  the first terrace of purgatory (Purg., X.64–66; Sinclair, II.133):

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Lucifera by contrast is rightly the ‘Lady’ or ‘roiall Dame’ (FQ, I.4.6 and 16) of  the House of  Pride, for she is the daughter of  ‘sad Proserpina the Queene of  hell’ (FQ, I.4.11) and the House of  Pride is truly ‘that sad house of  Pryde’ (FQ, I.5.53). In leaving the House of  Pride, therefore, Red Cross turns away from the irreverence and hence the sadness that accompanies pride. He is confirmed in joy in his humble devotion to God, but he is by no means entirely free from care, for he cannot as yet bring himself  ‘to ioy at his foolhappie ouersight’ and remains ‘doubly … distrest twixt ioy and cares’ (FQ, I.6.1), separated as he still is from both Duessa and Una (FQ, I.6.2) and hence from the authority and support of  Holy Church.

Notes 1

2 3

4

‘Now, when thou didst sing the cruel arms of  the double woe of  Jocasta’ said the singer of  the Bucolics ‘it does not appear by the notes which Clio touches with thee there that the faith yet made thee faithful without which well-doing is not enough’ (Sinclair, II.285). On Spenser’s use of  the term magnificence for Aristotle’s magnanimity, see Gerald Morgan, ‘Spenser’s Conception of  Courtesy and the Design of  the Faerie Queene’, RES, NS, 32 (1981), 17–36 (pp. 34–36). On the continuing inf luence of  Aquinas in England in the last quarter of  the sixteenth century, particularly as a commentator on Aristotle, see Gerald Morgan, ‘Holiness as the First of  Spenser’s Aristotelian Moral Virtues’, MLR, 81 (1986), 817–37 (pp. 819–20). Douglas Brooks-Davies, Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queene’: A Critical Commentary on Books I and II (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977), p. 3.

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For a judicious view of  the limitations of  Neoplatonic elements in the thought of  Spenser, see Robert Ellrodt, Neoplatonism in the Poetry of  Spenser (Geneva: Droz, 1960). 6 Rosemond Tuve, Allegorical Imagery: Some Mediaeval Books and Their Posterity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966), p. 125. 7 Milton, Areopagitica, edited by William Haller, in The Works of  John Milton, IV (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), p. 311. 8 The Works of  John Selden, 3 vols (London, 1726), III.1760. 9 On the meaning of pité, see Gerald Morgan, ‘The Perfection of  the Pentangle and of  Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, in Essays on Ricardian Literature: In Honour of  J.A. Burrow, edited by A.J. Minnis, Charlotte C. Morse and Thorlac Turville-Petre (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 252–75 (pp. 255–56 and n. 9). 10 I set this matter out in systematic detail in ‘Holiness as the First of  Spenser’s Aristotelian Moral Virtues’, p. 822. 11 Hence the Gawain-poet says of  Sir Gawain on the first morning after the lady has departed from his bedroom that he ‘boȝez forth, quen he watz boun, blyþely to masse’ (SGGK, 1311). On the second morning ‘ruþes hym þe renk and ryses to þe masse’ (SGGK, 1558) and on the third morning, when impending death necessitates the confession and absolution of sin, he ‘cheuely to þe chapel choses … þe waye’ (SGGK, 1876). 12 The relevance of courage to the Legend of  Holiness is set out in detail in ‘Holiness as the First of  Spenser’s Aristotelian Moral Virtues’, pp. 826–27. 13 The attempt to categorize Spenser’s Aristotelian moral argument by reference to a theological system of  thought, whether Calvinist, Anglican or Roman Catholic, is fraught with danger and error. See, for example, Anthea Hume, Edmund Spenser: Protestant Poet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) and the review by Gerald Morgan in MLR, 82 (1987), 441–43 (pp. 441–42). Those who wish to emphasise Spenser’s Protestantism have at the same time to allow for the sacrament of penance (FQ, I.10.23–29), the Seven Corporal Works of  Mercy (FQ, I.10.36–43) and above all the sanctification of  Red Cross, albeit as ‘Saint George of mery England’ (FQ, I.10.61), as the hero of  the romance. There is, rightly, no reference to Calvin, or Hooker or Augustine in the Letter to Raleigh, for Spenser sets the argument for holiness on a philosophical and universal plane, not a theological and denominational one. It is indeed hardly possible to develop a moral argument along Aristotelian lines and at the same time deny the operation of  the freedom of  the will. See James Schiavoni, ‘Predestination and Free Will: The Crux of  Canto Ten’, in Spenser Studies: A Renaissance Poetry Annual, Volume X, edited by Patrick Cullen and Thomas P. Roche, Jr (New

272

GERALD MORGAN

York: AMS Press, 1992), pp. 175–95 and the review by Gerald Morgan in RES, NS, 47 (1996), 81–82 (p. 82). 14 See The Geneva Bible: A Facsimile of  the 1560 Edition, with an introduction by Lloyd E. Berry (Madison, Milwaukee and London: University of  Wisconsin Press, 1969). 15 See The Life of  St George by Alexander Barclay, edited by William Nelson, EETS (OS) 230 (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), p. 112. The text of  ‘The Lyfe of  Saynt George’ from The Golden Legend is here printed as an Appendix (pp. 112–18). 16 Ephesians, 6.16: ‘Aboue all, take the shield of  faith, wherewith ye may quench all the fyrie dartes of  the wicked’. 17 Whereas truth is single, there is a multiplicity of error. Thus Aquinas explains that whereas there are three species of infidelity, namely, the infidelity of pagans, Jews and heretics, there is an infinite multiplicity of error on diverse matters relating to the faith: ‘Si vero distinguantur infidelitatis species secundum errorem in diversis quae ad fidem pertinent tunc non sunt determinatae infidelitatis species; possunt enim errores in infinitum multiplicari, ut patet per Augustinum,/ If, however, the kinds of infidelity be distinguished according to the various errors on points of  faith, there are not distinctive kinds of unbelief, for errors can be multiplied indefinitely, as appears from Augustine [De Haeresibus, 88 PL, 42.50]’ (ST, 2a 2ae 10.5; translated by Thomas Gilby). 18 Aristotle, Ethics, IV.9 1128b 10–15 and Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, 867–70. See also ST, 2a 2ae 144.1. 19 See Aristotle, Ethics, IV.3 1125a 17 and 27–29, Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, 788 and ST, 2a 2ae 130.1 and 130.2. 20 The distinction is made clear to the reader in the Argument to canto 2: ‘The guilefull great Enchaunter parts/ The Redcrosse Knight from Truth’ (1–2). Red Cross’s desertion of  Una is not a failure in the theolo­gical virtue of  faith, that is, it is not an apostasy of  the faith (see ST, 2a 2ae 12.1), but a failure in the moral virtue of  fidelity. Such fidelity (fides) is included under the moral virtue of  truth (veritas); see ST, 2a 2ae 80 ad 3. 21 Apostasy, like heresy, belongs with infidelity but is not, like heresy, a species of infidelity: ‘apostasia non importat determinatam speciem infidelitatis, sed quandam circumstantiam aggravantem,/ [a]postasy … does not denote a determinate species of infidelity, but an aggravating circumstance of it’ (ST, 2a 2ae 12.1 ad 3). 22 See Jean Seznec, The Survival of  the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art, translated by Barbara F. Sessions, Bollingen Series XXXVIII (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953), p. 93.

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23 Hamilton, The Faerie Qveene (2001), p. 65: ‘In her bright presence, her vanity is ref lected in his pique, which, from a theological perspective – see Gless 1994: 93 – is a “spiritual indictment” of  him’. 24 Reference is to Litzinger’s translation of  William of  Moerbeke’s Latin translation of  The Nicomachean Ethics (the versio antiqua). 25 See ST, 2a 2ae 96.4. 26 Brooks-Davies has justified Spenser’s method retrospectively in commenting that ‘Redcrosse is fighting in part for the wrong cause here – Duessa and her approval’ (p. 52). This is an inference that contradicts all the specific assurances of  the text. 27 On the species of superstition and irreligion, see ‘Holiness as the First of Spenser’s Aristotelian Moral Virtues’, pp. 824–25. 28 The reference is to the Vulgate. The corresponding reference to the Geneva Bible is The Wisdome of  Salomon, 14.14, included as part of  the Apocrypha: ‘When a father mourned grieuously for his sonne that was taken away suddenly, he made an image for him þt was once dead, whome now he worshipeth as a god, & ordeined to his seruants ceremonies and sacrifices’. 29 See MkT, B2 3333–72 (Nebuchadnezzar), 3765–820 (Antiochus), 3821–60 (Alexander the Great) and 3917–56 (Croesus). 30 Spenser’s language is reminiscent of  MkT, B2 3773 where Antiochus is described as ‘enhaunced … in pride’. 31 Spenser gets the detail of  Nebuchadnezzar’s transformation into an ox from Gower’s version of  the story in CA, I.2785–3042 as an illustration of vainglory as the fifth of  the ‘ministres five’ (CA, I.583) of  the deadly sin of pride and of  the need for its reformation by humility. Nebuchadnezzar is transformed ‘fro man into a bestes forme’ (CA, I.2972) as a punishment for his ‘pride/ Of veine gloire’ (CA, I.2928–29) and so continues for seven years until he learns the lesson of  humility and acknowledges the supreme power of  God as creator and merciful judge (CA, I.2999–3021). Thus ‘in a twinklinge of a lok/ His mannes forme ayein he tok’ (CA, I.3033–34). 32 Aristotle, Ethics, VI.5 1140b 20 and Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, 1171; see also ST, 2a 2ae 47.2 sed contra. 33 Aristotle, Ethics, VI.10 1143a 8 and Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, 1238–40; see also ST, 2a 2ae 47.8. 34 Aristotle, Ethics, VI.9 1142b 3–5: ‘As the proverb goes: Be slow to come to a decision; but when you have decided, act quickly’. See Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, 1219 and ST, 2a 2ae 47.9.

Index

Achilles, 136 Æthelbald, 13 Æthelberht, 13 Æthelred, 12, 13 Æthelwulf, 13 Aldfrith of  Northumbria, xx Alexander the Great, 267 Alexandria, 91, 174n70, 183, 206n16 Alfonso XI of  Castile, 183 Alfred the Great, xix, 11–12, 13, 19 Algeçiras, siege of (1342–1344), 93, 183 Ambrose, St, 201 Anselm, St: Admonitio Morienti, 45 Antalya, 183 Angle, 168n54 Anglo-Castile alliance, 128–29 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, The, xix, 14 Anglo-Saxon regnal lists, 11–12 Angoulême, 174n77 Angoumois, 168n54 Anjou, Duke of, 169n57 Anne of  Bohemia, 167n49 Aquinas, St Thomas, xxiii, 89, 149 Commentary on Ethics, 137, 138–39, 146–47, 177nn89,90, 240, 259 In de anima, 31, 33, 35, 38, 40n8 Summa theologiae, 29–30, 32, 34–38, 39nn2,7, 40nn9,12, 41nn13,14,15, 46, 49–50, 54–56, 62, 63, 72, 78, 94n19, 97–98, 100–1, 139, 146, 147, 148–50, 152, 176–77n88, 197–98, 199–200, 212, 215, 216, 218–20, 225–26, 227, 228, 230, 233–36, 237n3, 241–43, 246–48, 249, 251–52, 254–55, 256, 258, 259,

261–62, 263, 264, 265, 266–67, 269, 272n21: Supplementum, 44, 45, 60, 62–63, 64 Aquitaine, 74, 160n7, 161–62n9, 168n54 Aragon, 128 Aristotle, xxiii, 78, 81–82, 84, 100, 103–5, 147, 152, 191, 199, 211. See also Scholasticism De anima, 31, 38 Nicomachean Ethics, xxiv–xxv, 46, 54, 60, 65, 136–37, 138, 144–45, 146– 47, 153, 177n88, 208n22, 214–15, 217, 219, 221, 224, 228, 229–30, 231, 232, 233, 237nn3,11, 239–40, 241, 243, 249, 259, 263, 273n34 Poetics, 158 Armenia, 91 Arnold, Matthew, 76 Arnulfing family, 10 Ars Moriendi, 44, 45, 66n12 Arthur, King, 64, 65 Artois, 142, 166n44 Asser, Bishop of  Sherborne, 11–12 Assisi, 91 Audley, Sir James, 124, 159n4, 162n9 Augustine, St: De Haeresibus, 272n17 Auray, battle of (1364), 162n9, 175n80 Austin Friars, 168n54 Austrasia, 13 Badajoz, siege of (1812), 206n16 Bannockburn, battle of (1314), 134, 178n112 Barber, Richard, 174n77 Barbour, John: The Bruce, 134

276 Index Barnard, Robert, 180n130 Battle of  Britain, 144 Bayonne, 128 Beauchamp family: Sir John, 207n18; Richard, 5th Earl of  Warwick, 171n59, 173n70; Thomas, 3rd Earl of  Warwick, 162n10, 171n59; Thomas, 4th Earl of  Warwick, 171n59; Sir William, 1st Lord Bergavenny, 130–31, 133, 171n59 Beaufort, John, 126 Becket, St Thomas, 150 Bede: Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, 7 Beowulf, xix, xx–xxii, 1–23; Beowulf, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 17–18, 19, 22, 249; Cynric, 14; Ecgtheow, 9 Eormenric, 20; Evagrius, 255; Halfdan, 20; Halga, 9, 15, 19, 20; Hama, 20–21; Healfdene, 20; Heardred, 9; Heathobard Episode, 21; Heathobards, 8; Helgi, 20; Hengest, 8, 14; Heorogar, 9; Heorot, 1, 3, 5, 21, 22–23; Heoroweard, 1, 2, 9; Hildeburh, 8, 21–22; Horsa, 14; Hrærek, 20; Hrethel, 9; Hrethric, 13, 19, 20; Hroar, 20; Hrothgar, 1, 5–7, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22: and Hrothulf, xxi, 1–2, 3, 4, 8–9, 15, 16, 17; Hrothmund, 13, 19; Hrothulf, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9–10, 13, 16, 19, 20; Hrunting, 17; Hygd, 9; Hygelac, 20–21; Scyld, 6: Scyldings, 3, 4, 9, 17, 19; Sigberct, 24n7; Sigebert, 13; Sigehere, 9 Berkeley Castle, 73 Berkeley family: Sir Edward (de), 130, 131, 133, 141, 167n49, 168n56, 170n58; Maurice, 168n56 Bernard, John Henry, 180n130

Berners, Sir James, 207n18 Bersuire, Pierre: Ovide moralisé, 253 Berwick, siege of (1333), 163n11, 172nn66,67, 178n112 Black Prince, 94n11, 123, 124, 127, 128, 135, 136, 142, 150, 160nn4,7, 161n9, 162n10, 168n54, 174n77, 176n86, 207n18 Blanche, Duchess of  Lancaster, 126, 150, 161nn7,8, 183 Blount, Sir John, 164n14 Boccaccio, 265, 267 Filocolo, 137 Filostrato, 105, 106, 110–12 Teseida, 106–7, 108, 135, 136 Boethius, 118, 191 De consolatione philosophiae, 75, 221; Lady Philosophia, 84, 116 Bohun family: Humphrey de, 183; William de, 169n57, 172n67 Bolingbroke. See Henry IV Bonaparte, Napoleon, 144 Bonjour, Adrien, 17 Book of  Common Prayer, 194–95, 208n28, 209n30 The Book of  the Craft of  Dying, 44, 45, 58, 63 Bordeaux, 128 Bourbourg, 142 Bowden, Muriel, 205n14 Brantingham, Thomas, 206n18 Braque, Sir Nicolas, 130 Brembre, Sir Nicholas, 207n18 Brétigny, Treaty of (1360), 124, 127, 161n7, 163n11, 168n54, 169n57 Brewer, Derek, 173n70 Brisings’ necklace, 20 Brittany, 163n11, 164n14, 175n80 Brodeur, Arthur, 17 Brooks-Davies, Douglas, 240, 273n26 Bruce-Mitford, Rupert, xx

Index Bruges, 131 Burghersh, Sir John, 165n31 Burghersh, Maud, 165n31 Burgos, 128 Burgundy, 13, 127, 169n57 Burley family: Sir John, (de), 129, 131, 133, 166–67n49; Sir Simon, 207n18 Burrow, J.A., xxii, 45–46, 47, 48, 49, 53, 59, 62, 66n6, 97 Buxhill, Sir Alan, 135, 175–76n82 Calahorra, 128 Calais, 127, 128, 130–31, 162n10, 166nn44,49, 172n67; siege of (1346–1347), 162n10, 163n11, 168n56, 172nn66,67 Calveley, Sir Hugh, 128, 170n58 Campbell, J., 7 Cambrai, siege of (1339), 161n9 Canterbury, 150 Cape Helles, 155 Capellanus, Andreas: De arte honeste amandi, 209n34 Carloman, 13 Carmelites, 150 Carolingians, 10, 11 Cassian, John, 255 Castagnaro, battle of (1387), 169n57 Castile, 128–29, 144, 150, 160n7, 162n9, 167n50, 168n54, 175n81 Cattaneo, Damian, 166n47 Caxton, William, 45 The Art and Craft to Know Well to Die, 45 The Book of  the Ordre of  Chyualry, 151–52 Cerdic, 11, 14 Cesena, massacre at (1376), 169n57, 178n101 Chadwick, H. Munro, 9–10, 14, 24n13

277 Chambers, R.W., xix, 15, 16–17, 20 Champain, Cecily, 171n59 Chandos family: Sir Edward, 161n9; Sir John, 124, 128, 143, 152, 161–62n9, 162n10, 167n50 Chandos Herald: Vie du Prince Noir, 144, 150, 176n86 Charing Cross, Hospital of  St Mary Rouncesval, 150 Charlemagne, 13, 19 Charles, Duke of  Blois, 162n9, 163n11 Charles of  Durazzo, 169n57, 170n58 Charles II of  Navarre, 128 Charles V of  France, 130 Chaucer family: Alice, 127; Philippa, 126; Thomas, 126–27, 165n31 Chaucer, Geof frey, xix–xx, xxiii, 74–75, 76, 99–100, 123, 124, 125–33, 134, 141, 147, 148, 161n8, 164nn14,16, 165n27, 166n43, 167n49, 168n54, 170–71n58, 171n59, 172n67, 173n68, 174n72, 179n124, 181–82, 184–85, 191, 194, 195, 198–99, 206n16, 207n18, 223 The Book of  the Duchess, 126, 157, 161n7, 183; Blanche, Duchess of  Lancaster, 153, 157, 158 Canterbury Tales, 181, 191 General Prologue, 142, 158, 182; Clerk of  Oxenford, 71, 81, 158, 196, 240; Franklin, 182, 183–84, 206n18; Friar, 182; Guildsmen, 182; Host, 186, 187; Knight, xxiii– xxiv, 59, 93, 125, 132–33, 134, 138, 139, 140–41, 142, 143, 145, 147, 149, 151–54, 156, 157–58, 170n58, 173–74n70, 179n113, 182–83, 184, 186, 204n7, 205n14, 206n16, 219, 259; Monk, 182; Pardoner, 141, 150, 182; Parson, 158; Ploughman, 67, 158; Prioress, 141, 157, 182; Reeve,

278 Index 90–91; Squire, 127–28, 131, 141, 143, 178n100, 184; Wife of  Bath, 91, 157, 185; Yeoman, 141, 142–43 Clerk’s Tale: Clerk of  Oxenford, 197, 199, 200, 202; Grisilde, 188, 196, 197, 200, 202; Walter, 188, 196–97, 200 Franklin’s Tale, xxiii–iv, 181, 183–203, 207n20, 213; Arveragus, xxiii, 133, 134, 137–38, 154, 174n73, 179n114, 184, 187, 188–90, 192–93, 200–3, 208nn23,24, 209nn32,34, 210n38; Aurelius, 121n13, 131–32, 137, 192, 193, 200, 201; Dorigen, 115, 121n13, 131, 137, 187, 188–89, 190, 191, 192, 193–94, 200–3, 208nn23,24, 209nn32,34, 210n38; Fortune, 193, 201, 202; Franklin, 183–203, 204n5, 207nn19,20 Knight’s Tale, 105, 126, 135, 170n58, 177n95; Arcite, 135–36, 140, 148, 163n10, 168n54; Palamon, 140, 163n10, 168n54; Theseus, 135–36, 139–40, 145, 149, 154, 156, 179n113 Man of  Law’s Tale: Custance, 198– 99; Man of  Law, 200; Sultaness, 200 Merchant’s Tale, 187–88, 197 Miller’s Tale, 187; carpenter, 91 Monk’s Tale, 165n27, 171n58, 266, 267, 273n30 Nun’s Priest’s Tale, 157, 179n113 Pardoner’s Tale: Prologue, 90; Pardoner, 261–62 Parson’s Tale, 201; Parson, 196 Squire’s Tale, 181, 185–86; Squire, 207nn19,20 Tale of  Sir Thopas, 140, 177n95 Wife of  Bath’s Tale, 190–91, 197 Legend of  Good Women, 171n58 The Parliament of  Fowls, 80, 104

The Romaunt of  the Rose: Fals Semblant, 84–85 Troilus and Criseyde, xxiii, 77, 78, 79, 83, 97–120, 126; Antenor, 115; Boethius, 116; Criseyde, 103, 104, 106, 112, 113–14, 115, 119–120, 147–48; Ector, 105, 147, 154; Pandarus, 77, 112, 114, 147; Troilus, 104, 105–9, 110, 111, 113, 115–16, 117, 120, 136, 147–48, 154, 225; Venus, 109, 113 Truth, 112, 176n83 Chrétien de Troyes: Chevalier de la Charrete, Gauvain, 143; Lancelot, 143, 189; Queen, 189, 190; Pyramus, 143 Erec et Enide, 189 Childeric III, 11 Church of  England, 241, 248, 251 Cicero, 233, 234 Rhetorica ad Herennium, 157 Ciudad Rodrigo, battle of (1812), 206n16 Clark Hall, John R., 15, 16 Clarke, M.G., 2 Clement VII, Pope, 169n57, 178n101 Clementists, 142, 150 Clif ford, Elizabeth, 176n83 Clif ford, Sir Lewis, 176n83 Clovis, 13 Clyve, John, 73 Cnut/Canute, King, xx Cobham, Sir Reginald/Reynold, 124, 162–63n10 Comes, 265 Company of  the Star, 159n2, 182 Condren, Edward I., 184, 205–6n16, 207n19, 209n34 Conrad III, Emperor, 183 Constance of  Castile, 126, 129, 165n27 Conty, 135 Córdoba, Mártin López de, 128

Index Corunna, 128 Courage, Piers, 67–68 Court of  Chivalry, 173n68 Craiglockhart War Hospital, 70 Crane, Susan, 204n5 Crécy, battle of (1346), 74, 133, 142, 150, 161n9, 162n10, 168n56, 169n57, 172nn66,67, 175n80 Cynric, 14 Cyprus, 166n47 Dagobert, 10, 13 Danes, 1–2, 6, 22 d’Angle, Sir Guichard, 130, 133, 164n14, 168n54 d’Argentan, Sir Giles, 134 d’Aubrécicourt, Eustache, 170n58 d’Audrehem, Arnoud, 128, 162n9 dal Verme, Jacopo, 170n57 Daniel, Samuel, 75 Dante, 147, 194, 240 Commedia, 78–79, 83, 101, 117–18 Inferno, 41n15, 61, 79, 88, 224, 261 Paradiso, 79, 102, 103–4, 105, 109–10, 113, 116, 118–19, 120, 183, 250–51; Aquinas, 119; Beatrice, 109–10, 224; Boethius, 118, Cacciaguida, 183; Cherubim and Seraphim, 110; Dante the pilgrim, 103, 109–10, 118, 119, 224; Fixed Stars, 109–10; Mars, 183; Muses, 119; Sirens, 119; Sts Dominic and Francis, 119; Sts John and Peter, 103, Sun, 119; Thrones, 110 Purgatorio, xxiii, 25–39, 79, 80–81, 87, 101, 239, 269–70, 270n1; Dante the pilgrim, 25–29, 30, 39; Marco Lombardo, 26, 29, 30–31, 39n1; Virgil, 25–29, 31–33, 34, 35–36, 37–39, 39nn1,2, 79

279 Convivio, xxiv, 76, 97, 98, 102, 115, 214, 222–23, 231, 237n11 De monarchia, 34 De vulgari eloquentia, 114, 155–56 Dartford, City of  London Mental Hospital, 71 Davenport, W.A., 209n34 David, King, 11 Davis, Norman, 48, 49 de Burgh, Elizabeth, 124 de Coucy, Lord, 130 de Grailly, Jean, 74, 169n57 de la Mare, Sir Peter, 206n18 de la Pole, Sir Michael, 131, 167n49, 207n18 de la Rivière, Lord, 130 de Lannoy, Ghillebert, 135 de Nigris, John, 129 de Vere family: John, 169n57; Robert, 207nn18,21 della Mirandola, Pico, 240 Denis, St, 11, 182 Deptford, 131 Despenser family, 165n31; Henry, Bishop of  Norwich, 128, 142, 207n18 Dionysius, 98 Donaldson, E. Talbot, 99–100, 102, 104 Dover, 129, 175n80 du Guesclin, Bertrand, 128, 162n9, 170n58 Dublin, St Patrick’s Cathedral, 88 Dunkirk, 142 Dunning, T.P., 48 Duns Scotus, 66n12, 240 Dupplin Moor, battle of (1332), 163n11 Durham Cathedral, 73 East Anglia, kingdom of, 24n7 Edinburgh War Hospital, 70 Edmund of  Langley, 129, 171n59, 175n79 Edward I, 152

280 Index Edward III, 74, 94n11, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 130, 135, 143, 150, 152, 154, 158, 159n4, 163n11, 167n49, 168nn54,56, 172n67, 175nn79,80,81 Edward of  Angoulême, 135 Edward of  Woodstock. See Black Prince Edwin of  Northumbria, 14 Egypt, 91 Eltham, 164n14 Enrique II of  Castile. See Henry of  Trastámara Epicureans, 28 Euripides: Orestes, 158 Evagrius, 255 Exchequer, the, 125–26 Famagusta, 166n47 Felbrigg, Sir Simon, 176n83 Felton, Sir William, 144 Ficino, Marsilio, 240 Fitzalan family: Joan, 171n59; Richard, 10th Earl of  Arundel, 127; Richard, 6th Earl of  Arundel; 171n59. See also Lords Appellant Flanders, 128, 129, 142, 207n18 Florence, 129, 169n57 ‘The Foggy Dew’, 155 Forest of  Dean, 67, 68, 69, 90 Dean Forest (Reaf forestation) Act (1667), 72 Fortune, 115, 117, 119 France, xix, 127, 128, 129, 130, 133, 163n11, 166n49, 167n50, 169n57, 170n58, 172n66, 173n67, 175n82, 178n101 Franks, 10, 13 Freud, Sigmund, 88 Furies, the, 114 Galahad, Sir, 152 Galicia, 91, 128

Garmonsway, G.N., 15, 16 Gascony, 128, 166n49, 167n50, 171n59, 175n81 Gaul, 13 Gedney, John, 174n72 Geneva Bible, 244, 265–66, 273n28 Jeremiah, 262 Matthewe, 268 Genoa, 129, 166n47 Geof frey of  Vinsauf, 180n135 Poetria nova, 77, 157 Geof froi de Charny, 134–35, 148, 149 Livre de chevalerie, 123, 145, 182, 154–55, 159n2, 204n9 George, St, 125, 150, 244–46, 248, 271n13 Gerson, Jean de: Opusculum Tripertitum, 45, 58–59 Girvan, Ritchie, xx Giles of  Rome, xxiv Gloucester, 207n18 Gloucester Abbey, 73 Godfrey of  Harcourt, Sir, 162n10 Golden Age, English, 73–75 Golden Legend, 245 Gollancz, Sir Israel, 49 Good Parliament (1376), 135, 206n18 Gower, John, 74, 183 Confessio Amantis, 114–15, 157–58, 205n14, 273n31; Canace, 115; Midas, 114–15; Mundus, 115 In Praise of  Peace, 205n14 Mirour de l’Omme, 158 Gratian: Decretum, 201 Gravelines, 142 Gray, Sir Thomas: Scalacronica (c.1355– 1369), 178n112 Great Company (Magna Societas), 169n57 Great Malvern Priory, 73, 75 Green, Richard Firth, 209n32 Gregory the Great: Moralia, 255 Gregory XI, Pope, 166n47, 169n57

281

Index Guillaume de Lorris: Roman de la rose, 75 Guines, 176n83 Gurney, Ivor, 69–70, 71 ‘Cotswold’, 69–70 Rewards of  Wonder, 70 ‘The Touchstone (Watching Malvern)’, 69 Halga. See Beowulf Halidon Hill, battle of (1333), 143, 150, 172n67 Hama. See Beowulf Hamilton, A.C., 257 Harris, Piers, 68 Hastings, battle of (1066), xix Hastings, John, 168n54, 171n59 Hatcham, Surrey, 131 Hawkwood family: Gilbert de, 169n57; Sir John, 130, 133, 152, 169–70n57, 170–71n58 Healfdene. See Beowulf Hengest, 14 Henry IV, 125, 126, 165n31, 167n50, 170n57, 183, 205n14 Henry V, 152, 165n31 Henry VI, 165n31 Henry VIII, 244 Henry of  Grosmont, 74, 124, 160n7, 167n50, 175n81, 183 Le Livre de Seyntz Medicines, 161n7 Henry of  Trastámara, 128, 162n9, 165n27, 167n50 Hercules, 217 Hodges, Laura F., 178n100 Holy Land, 91 Holy Trinity, 119, 150 Homer, 99 Household Brigade, 144 Hrærek, 20 Hrethel. See Beowulf Hrothgar. See Beowulf

Hrothulf. See Beowulf Huizinga, Johan, 204n6 Ingeld, 20 Innocent VI, Pope, 142 Ireland, 127, 155, 167n50 Irving, Edward, 22 Isabel of  Castile, 129 Italy, xix, 133, 141, 142, 169n57, 170n58 Jacobs, Kathryn, 208n24 Jean II of  France (Count of  Poitiers), 159n2, 168n54, 182 Jean IV de Montfort, 142, 161n7, 162n9, 163n11, 164n14 Jean de Meun: Le Roman de la rose, 75 Jean le Borgne, 163n11 Jerome: In Jeremiah, 262 Joan, Countess of  Kent, 126, 171n59, 174n77 John, King, 73 John of  Gaunt, 123, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 135, 143, 150, 160n7, 161nn7,8, 166n44, 167n50, 168n54, 171n59, 172nn66,67, 175n81 John, St, 50 Johnson, Samuel, 81 Jones, Terry, xxiii, 138, 141, 145, 155, 173n70 Jove, 267 Juan I of  Castile, 167n50 Jupiter, 114, 267 Justinian, 250–51 Kane, George, 75 Keats, John, 76 Keen, Maurice, 173n70 Kiernan, Kevin S., xx Kent, 14 Kern, Fritz, 11, 12, 13 Knollys/Knolles, Sir Robert, 152, 170n58 Krapp, G.P., xxvin2

282 Index La Rochelle, 162n9, 167n50, 168n54 la Vache, Sir Philip, 135, 176n83 Lancelot, Sir, 152 Langfeðgatal, 20 Langland, William, xxii, 70–72, 73–77, 78, 82, 86–87 Piers Plowman, 67, 75–93, 239 (Visio, 79–80, Vita, 79, 80–82); Prologue, 70–72, 86–87; Antichrist, 81; Conscience, 79, 83–84, 89–90, 139; Dobest, 80, 81, 82; Dobet, 80, 81, 82; Dowel, 80, 81, 82; Dreamer, 72, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 92, 247, 254, 256; False, 79, 84, 85, 89; Favel, 84; Guile, 84; Harrowing of  Hell, 74; Kind Wit, 71, 72, 83–84, 89, 139; Lady Holy Church, 79, 84, 85, 86, 89, 93, 241, 247, 248, 254; Jesus Christ, 81; Liar, 84; Meed, 79, 84–86, 89, 91, 139, 206–7n18, 248, 256; Piers, 67–69, 72, 80, 83, 91, 92–93, 179n121, 245; Reason, 79, 84, 139; Seven Deadly Sins, 80, 90; Theology, 84, 86, 248; Tree of  Charity, 81; Truth, 72, 79, 80, 89, 91; Understanding, 82; Wit, 82 Latimer family: Elizabeth, 175n81; Lord William, 135, 175n80 Lawrence, William Witherle, 1–2, 21–22 le Baker, Geof frey, 150 Le Livre Griseldis, 188 le Mercier, Nicolas, 130 Lee, Dickey, 144 Legg, J. Wickham, 195 Lester, G.A., 173n70 Lewis, C.S., xxiii, 74–75, 78, 99, 102 Limoges, siege of (1370), 136, 167n50, 168n54, 174n77, 176n86 Lincoln Cathedral, 126, 150 Lionel of  Antwerp, 123, 124, 125, 127, 161n8, 166n43, 169n57

Lithuania, 143 Llull, Ramon, 148, 149 Le Libre De l’Orde De Cavalleria, 151, 174n70 Lombard, Peter: Sentences, 255 Lombardy, 130, 131, 141, 169n57, 170n58 London Charterhouse, 163n11 Longford, Elizabeth, 206n16 Lords Appellant, 125, 171n59, 172n66 Low Countries, 164n14 Lucan, 99 Lucas, A.M. and P.J., 210n38 Lucca, 169n57 Lucifer, 253–55 Lussac-les-Châteaux, 162n9 Lybeaus Desconus, 243 Machabees, Books of, 266 Machaut, Guillaume de: Behaigne, 179n124 Prise d’Alexandrie, 206n16 Maclean, Sorley: ‘Heroes’, 153 Macrobius, 88, 109 Malarkey, Stoddard, 62 Maldon, battle of (991), xxi Malory, Sir Thomas, 99, 223 Morte Darthur, 143–44, 149, 156–57, 190; Ector de Maris, 156; Gareth, 243; Gawain, 213; Marhalt, 213; Sir Launcelot, 143–44, 149, 156; Sir Palomydes, 143–44; Sir Pelleas, 157; Sir Segwarides, 210n37; Sir Trystram, 143–44 Malvern College, 74 Mann, Jill, 204n7, 208n23 March, Roger, 1st Earl, 171n59 Margaret of  France, 163n11 Marmion, Sir William, 144 Mars, 114 Marshal, Margaret, 163n11 Martel, Charles, 10, 13

283

Index Mary of  Lancaster, 167n50 Maud, Countess of  Leicester, 161n7 Mauny family: Olivier de, 168n54; Sir Walter, 124, 152, 163n11 Maynard, John, 128 Merciless Parliament (1388), 125, 207n18 Mercury, 267 Merovingians, 10, 11, 13 Milan, 142, 167n49, 170nn57,58 Milton, John, 76, 240–41 Minerva, 114 Mitchell, Bruce, xxi Mohun family, 165n31 Monterrey, 128 Montferrat, Marquis de, 169n57 Montreuil-sur-Mer, 129, 130 Monzambano, 170n58 Moon, 108–9 Morgan family: Albert, 68–69; Augustus, 68 Morgan, Piers, 68 Morte Arthure, 180n133 Mortimer, Katherine, 171n59 Muscatine, Charles, 100 Music and Letters, 71 Nájera, battle of, (1367), 74, 128, 143, 150, 162n9, 168n54, 171n59, 175n81 Naples, 169n57, 178n101 Navarre, 128 Neoplatonism, 104–5, 240 Neptune, 114 Neustria, 13 Neville family: Alexander, 207n18; Lord John, 135, 175n81 Neville’s Cross, battle of (1346), 172nn66,67 New Testament: Ephesians, 244, 248, 249 Sermon on the Mount, 253 Norfolk, 90, 91

Norham Castle, 144 Normandy, 166n44, 175n82 Normans, xix Northampton, 207n18 Northumberland, 173n67 Nottingham Castle, 167n49 Of fa the Great of  Mercia, xx Old English poetry, xx–xxi Old Testament: Isaiah, Book of, 88, 254 Proverbs, Book of, 54 I Samuel, Book of, 11 Order of  the Garter, 74, 133, 135, 158, 159n1, 160nn4,7, 161nn7,9, 162n10, 163n11, 167nn49,50, 168n54, 169n57, 171n59, 173n70, 175nn80,81,82, 176n83 Oswald, King, 7 Ovid, 99, 265 Metamorphoses, 253 Owen, Wilfred, 70, 71 Oxford, University of, 117, 171n59 Padua, 169n57 Papal States, 142 Paris, 129, 163n11, 164n14 Paul, St, 244, 249 Pearcy, Roy J., 203–4n5 Pearl, 240 Pearsall, Derek, 86, 207n20 Peasants’ Revolt (1381), 167n50, 207n18 Pedro I of  Castile, 128–29, 162n9, 165n27 Pembroke Castle, 171n59 Penance, sacrament of, xxii, 65, 80, 83, 91, 149, 271n13 Pepin II, 10 Pepin III, 11, 13 Percival, Sir, 152 Percy family: Sir Henry, 131, 167n50; Sir Thomas, 129, 133, 167n50

284 Index Perrers family: Alice, 135, 172n66, 175n79, 206n18; Sir Richard, 175n79 Peter II of  Cyprus, 166n47 Peter of  Campofregoso, 166n47 Peter, St, 92 Petrarch, 188 Phaedra, 265 Phaethon, 253, 254 Philip VI of  France, 168n54 Philippa of  Hainault, 126, 163n11, 164n16, 175n79 Phoebus Apollo, 253 Picardy, 142, 166n44, 172n67 Piedmont, 169n57 Piers, as name, 67–69, 93n2 Pisa, 169n57 Plantagenet dynasty, 165n31 Plato/Platonism, xxiv, 78, 158 Poitiers, battle of (1356), 74, 134, 150, 160n4, 161n9, 162n10, 168n54, 169n57, 182 Poitou, 162n9, 167n50, 168n54 Ponsonby, Sir William, 144 Pont-Saint-Esprit, fall of (1360), 169n57 Porter, Elizabeth, 173n70, 206n16 Portugal, 128, 171n59, 175n79 Prague, 167n49 Protestantism, xxii, 244, 259, 271n13 Providence, 106, 115–17, 119, 198–99, 224–25 Prussia, 93, 143, 171n59, 183 Puttenham, George, 114 Pythagoreans, 60 Queste del Saint Graal, 152 Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur, xxvin2 The Rambler, 81 Raymo, Robert R., 174n70 Reformation, the, 243, 244

Réthel, 124, 132, 172n67 Rheims, siege of (1359–60), 161n9, 163n11, 168n56, 172n67, 175n81 Richard I, 152 Richard II, 94n11, 125, 126, 130, 133, 165n31, 167nn49,50, 168n54, 170n58, 171n59, 173n68, 176n83 Richard III, 151 Robert of  Geneva. See Clement VII Robertson, D.W., Jr, 104, 200, 209n34 Robessart, Sir Louis, 135 Robinson, F.N., 108, 117, 121n10 Roe(l)t, Philippa, 126 Rolf, 20 Roman Catholic Church, xxii75, 241, 248, 251, 259 Rome, 91, 167n49 Roncesvalles, 128, 162n9 Root, Robert Kilburn, 108–9, 121n10 Round Table, the, 64, 65, 157 Saintonge, 162n9, 167n50, 168n54 Salisbury family: Sir John, 207n18; William Montagu, 2nd Earl of, 127; Thomas, 4th Earl of, 152 Santiago de Compostela, 128, 162n9, 163n11 Sapegno, Natalino, 31, 32 Sarum, 195 Sassoon, Siegfried, 70, 71 Saunders, Frances Stonor, 166n43 Savoy, Count of, 169n57 Scally, John, 125 Scandinavia, xxi, 2, 9–10, 20 Schmidt, A.V.C., 75 Scholasticism, xxii, 47, 49, 55, 72, 89, 100–1, 103–4, 118, 149–50, 211, 212, 227, 233, 271n13 Scotland, 160n7, 163n11, 172–73nn66,67, 178n101

Index Scott, Marion, 71 Scrope family: Geof frey, 172n67; Sir Henry (c.1268–1336), 172n66; Sir Henry, 1st Lord Scrope of  Masham, 132, 172n67; Sir Richard (le), 124, 172n66, 173n67; William, Earl of  Wiltshire, 167n50, 172n66 Scrope-Grosvenor trial, 132, 173n68 Second Crusade, 183 Selden, John, 241 Seville, 128 Shakespeare, William, 76, 83 King Edward III, 123, 159n4 Shoaf, R. Allen, 210n38 Shrewsbury, battle of (1403), 167n50, 173n70 Sible Hedingham, 133, 169n57 Sidney, Sir Philip, 114, 121n10 A Defence of  Poetry, 211 Sigberct, 24n7 Sigebert, 13 Simpson, J., 15 Sinclair, John D., 41n16 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, xxii, 43–65, 66n6, 74, 75, 82, 83, 97, 134, 140–41, 148–49, 156, 223, 231, 232–33, 242; Beheading Game, 48, 52, 53, 82; Bertilak, 59; Bertilak’s lady, 43, 50–52, 56, 221; Camelot, 149, 182; Exchange of  Winnings, 48, 51–52, 53–54, 56, 61, 66n6, 82; Green Knight, 48, 52, 57, 59–60, 62, 63, 65, 140, 154; Hautdesert, 74, 149, 153, 182; Jove, 59; Pentangle, symbolism of, 47–48, 49, 66n6, 141, 232; Sir Gawain, xxii, 3, 43–65, 66n6, 92, 134, 137, 140, 141, 149, 153–54, 158, 161n7, 221, 233, 249, 258, 271n11; Virgin Mary, 148

285 Sisam, Kenneth, 2, 4, 9, 16 Skeat, Walter W., 75, 86 Sluys, battle of (1340), 161n9, 163n11, 172n67 Smithers, G.V., 48 Smithfield, 133, 161n8, 174n72 Socrates, 54 Somerset, Lord Edward, 144 Somnium Scipionis, 104, 109 Sotherey, John de, 175n79 Spain, 128, 166n49, 167n50, 170n58, 172n66, 178n101 Specht, Henrik, 203n5 Spenser, Edmund, 76, 150, 222–23, 225, 240–41, 244, 247, 251, 271n13 The Faerie Qveene, xxiv–xxv, 78, 79, 149, 211–36, 237n3, 239–70, 273n30 Book I [‘Legend of  Holiness’], 225–27, 231, 232, 237n6, 241, 242–51, 252, 256, 257; Aesculapius, 264; Alexander the Great, 267; Antiochus, 266, 273n30; Archimago, 243, 251, 263; Arthur, 231; Croesus, 266; Duessa, 241, 243, 248, 251, 252, 256, 258–59, 260, 263–64, 268, 270, 273n26; Dwarfe, 268; Error, 245, 246, 248, 249, 250; Fidelia, 247; Fidessa, 251, 256, 258; Fradubio, 251; Hippolytus, 264–65; House of  Holiness, 204n5, 247; House of  Pride, 251, 252–53, 256–57, 259, 265–66, 268–70; Lucifera, 253–55, 256–57, 260–61, 270; Nebuchadnezzar, 266, 267, 273n31; Night, 264; Nimrod, 266–67; Ninus, 266–67; Red Cross Knight, 93, 149, 183, 204n5, 226, 227, 232, 241, 242, 243–51, 252, 256–64, 268, 269, 270, 271n13, 272n20, 273n26; Sansfoy, 251, 252,

286 Index 260; Sansjoy, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 263, 264; Theseus, 265; Una, 204n5, 226, 241, 243, 246, 247, 248, 260, 263, 269, 270; Vanity, 256; Zeal, 204n5 Book II [‘Legend of  Temperance’], 227; Bower of  Bliss, 227; Guyon, 227, 232; Mammon, 227 Book III [‘Legend of  Chastity’], 227–28; Argante, 253; Britomart, 227, 228; Guyon, 227, 228; House of  Busirane, 228; Palmer, 227 Book IV [‘Legend of  Friendship’], 228–29 Book V [‘Legend of  Justice’], 229–30 Book VI [‘Legend of  Courtesy’], 212–25, 230; Aladine, 213, 220, 222; Aldus, 213; Artegall, 214, 217, 232; Arthur, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 222, 224, 227; Blandina, 217, 218, 220; Blatant Beast, 213, 215, 216, 217, 221, 225, 235; Briana, 213, 222; Calepine, 213, 217, 218, 220, 222, 223; Calidore, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216–18, 219, 220–22, 223, 224, 225, 232, 235; Colin Clout, 225; Coridon, 213, 216; Crudor, 212, 217, 219; Disdain, 219, 224; Enias, 224; Fortune, 216, 223–25; Malef fort, 218; Matilde, 220, 222, 223; Melibœe, 225; Mirabella, 219, 224; Mount Acidale, 222, 223, 225; Pastorella, 213, 216, 222, 223, 224, 225; Priscilla, 212–13, 221, 222; Scorn, 219, 224; Serena, 213, 217, 218, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224–25; Timias, 219, 220, 221, 222; Tristram, 213, 220, 222; Turpine, 213, 216, 217, 218, 220, 222, 223 Book VII [‘Legend of  Constancy’], 233–36; Arthur, 233, 236

Letter to Raleigh, xxiv–xxv, 211, 226–27, 231, 233, 239, 241, 243, 244, 245, 250, 271n13 St Paul’s Cathedral, 150 Staf ford, Sir Richard, 127, 163n10, 164n14 Statius, 99 Thebaid, 156 Statute of  Westminster (1336), 178n104 Stephen II, Pope, 11 Sterz, Albrecht, 169n57 Strode, Ralph, 114, 117 Stury, Sir Richard, 124, 125, 130, 135, 163–64n14 Sunday Telegraph, 68 Swanton, Michael, xix Swein Forkbeard, xx Swynford, Katherine, 126 Swynford, Thomas, 126 Tasso: Discorsi del poema eroico, 43 Teutonic knights, 93, 166n49, 183 Theuderic IV, 10 Thomas of  Brotherton, 163n11 Thomas of  Woodstock, 142 Thomists, 114, 117 Titans, 253, 254 Todd, H.J., 204n5 Toelken, J. Barre, 62 Toledo, 128 Tournai, siege of (1340), 162n10, 163n11 Tower of  London, 174n72, 175n82 Tressilian, Sir Robert, 207n18 Trinity College Dublin, 180nn130,131 Tristram, Sir, 152 Tudor dynasty, 244; Arthur, 73; Mary, 251 Tuve, Rosemond, xxv, 235, 240 Twain, Mark: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, 181 Twyford, Isabel, 161n9 Twyford, Sir Robert, 161n9

287

Index Uccello, 170n57 Union Brigade, 144 Urban V, Pope, 142 Urban VI, Pope, 128, 142, 150, 169n57, 170n58, 178n101 Usk, Thomas: Testament of  Love, 114 Vale, Malcolm, 204n6 Venus, 114 Verona, 169n57, 170n58 Victoria, Queen, 196, 209n31 Virgil, 99, 265 Aeneid, 231 Virgin Mary, 150 Visconti family: Bernabò, 130, 166n43, 167n49, 169n57, 170–71n58; Caterina, 167n49; Donnina, 169n57; Galeazzo, 169n57; Giangaleazzo, 170n58; Violante, 166n43, 169n57 Vulgate Bible, 273n28 Wallace-Hadrill, J.M., 11, 15 Waterloo, battle of (1815), 144, 150, 156 Wellington, Duke of, 150, 156, 206n16 Wessex, 11, 13, 14, 24n5

Westminster, 124, 131, 135, 173n68, 174n72, 206–7n18 White Company (Societas Alba Anglicorum), 169n57 Whitelock, Dorothy, xx Widsith, 8, 9, 15, 16 Winchelsea, 160n7, 161n9, 162n10, 172nn66,67 Windeatt, Barry, 121n10 Windsor Castle, 73, 74, 125, 161n8; St George’s Chapel, 133, 174n72 Windsor, William, 175n79 Wonderful Parliament (1386), 173n68, 207n18 Woodstock, 161n8 Worcester Cathedral, 73 Wordsworth, William, 76 World War I, 155, 180n130, 182, 204n6 Wyclif, John, xxvin2, 117, 150, 171n59 Wykeham, William of, 206n18 Wynford, William, 73 Wynnere and Wastoure, 159n1 Yevely, Henry, 73 York Minster, 73, 172n66 Ypres, 69, 142