The Shaping of English Poetry: Essays on the Battle of Maldon, Chrétien De Troyes, Dante, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer [New ed.] 9783034317245, 3034317247

Citation preview

The Shaping of

Eng l i sh Poe try Volume IV Ess ays o n

The Battle of Maldon, Chrétien de Troyes, Dante, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer

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 and is now Research Director of the Chaucer in Context Research Group of the Trinity Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 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), The Shaping of English Poetry, Volume III: Essays on ‘Beowulf ’, Dante, ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Langland, Chaucer and Spenser (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 IV

T

his fourth volume of essays under the title The Shaping of English Poetry consolidates the work of the previous three volumes on the great subjects of English literature in the Medieval and Renaissance periods. The Norman Conquest of England built upon the rich foundation of Anglo-Saxon England but did not destroy it; thus the present volume begins with the commemoration of English heroism in The Battle of Maldon. In the late twelfth century we encounter in Chrétien de Troyes's seminal romance Le Chevalier de la Charrete a new kind of hero in Lancelot, abject and obedient before his mistress, although Chrétien himself is not an uncritical admirer of the sanctity of adulterous love. Hence the importance of Dante's exposition of love in Purgatorio, XVIII, which forms a background to the essays here on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Parliament of Fowls. The volume concludes with essays on Chaucer's Knight's, Monk's and Nun's Priest's Tales, which form part of a long-term project to interpret the Canterbury Tales as a unified whole and not merely a series of fragments awaiting revision on Chaucer's death.

ISBN 978-3-0343-1724-5

www.peterlang.com

P et e r L a n g

www.peterlang.com

The Shaping of

Eng l i sh Poe try Volume IV Ess ays o n

The Battle of Maldon, Chrétien de Troyes, Dante, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer

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 and is now Research Director of the Chaucer in Context Research Group of the Trinity Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 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), The Shaping of English Poetry, Volume III: Essays on ‘Beowulf ’, Dante, ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Langland, Chaucer and Spenser (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 IV

T

his fourth volume of essays under the title The Shaping of English Poetry consolidates the work of the previous three volumes on the great subjects of English literature in the Medieval and Renaissance periods. The Norman Conquest of England built upon the rich foundation of Anglo-Saxon England but did not destroy it; thus the present volume begins with the commemoration of English heroism in The Battle of Maldon. In the late twelfth century we encounter in Chrétien de Troyes's seminal romance Le Chevalier de la Charrete a new kind of hero in Lancelot, abject and obedient before his mistress, although Chrétien himself is not an uncritical admirer of the sanctity of adulterous love. Hence the importance of Dante's exposition of love in Purgatorio, XVIII, which forms a background to the essays here on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Parliament of Fowls. The volume concludes with essays on Chaucer's Knight's, Monk's and Nun's Priest's Tales, which form part of a long-term project to interpret the Canterbury Tales as a unified whole and not merely a series of fragments awaiting revision on Chaucer's death.

P et e r L a n g

The Shaping of  English Poetry, Volume IV

The Shaping of

Engli sh P o e t ry Volume IV Essays on

The Battle of Maldon, Chrétien de Troyes, Dante, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer

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

Cover design by Peter Lang Ltd. isbn 978-3-0343-1724-5 (print) • isbn 978-1-78707-616-7 (ePDF) isbn 978-1-78707-617-4 (ePub) • isbn 978-1-78707-618-1 (mobi)

© Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2017 Wabernstrasse 40, CH-3007 Bern, Switzerland [email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. Printed in Germany

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

Abbreviations

ix

Preface

xxi

1 The Battle of Maldon: The Commemoration of an Heroic Sacrifice 

1

2 The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

21

3 The Movement of Love in the Interior Senses and in the Intellect: An Explanation of Purgatorio, XVIII.22–2469 4 The Goodness of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 81 5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls101 6 Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales129 7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight 

161

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale: The Book of the Duke

195

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

231

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

269

Index

303

Acknowledgments

Anyone writing a book on medieval literature (quite apart from the Monk’s Tale) will be obliged at some point to address the question of fortune and the philosophical issues related to it of justice and injustice. As I now write the acknowledgments to this fourth volume of The Shaping of English Poetry I can hardly deny that to a great extent I have been the beneficiary of the blessings of good fortune. First and foremost I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr Margret Fine-Davis, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology in Trinity College Dublin. Had she not so generously offered me a home for myself, my books and computer when I had to leave my rooms in New Square at the end of 2012, I doubt whether I could even have contemplated a fourth volume, let alone bring it to completion. At the same time I have been greatly encouraged, as have many others, by the support and learning of Dr Sarah Alyn Stacey, Director of the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Trinity College, founded by her in 1999. She has kept me in touch with the work of the next generation of Medieval and Renaissance scholars. In the preparation of this book for publication (as for all three earlier volumes in 2010 and 2013) I have been secure in the knowledge of the expertise and efficiency of Peter Lang as publishers, especially as represented in Ireland by Christabel Scaife. For the present volume I am indebted in particular to Jasmin Allousch. For the fourth time in this series Andrea Greengrass has been responsible for the Index. I have commented more than once before on the sustained excellence of her work and consultation of the Index to the present volume will surely supply proof of that. As the wheel of fortune has continued to turn I have found myself working on Volume IV in recent winters not in the cold and rain of Dublin but on the sun-drenched shores of Tenerife. Here again I have been the recipient of good fortune. Much of the work in Tenerife has been done on the computers of Torviscas Travel where Jose and Luis have been unfailingly kind and courteous (as they are to all those who avail of their services).

viii Acknowledgments

I have done much of the work of correction on the terraces of Sunset Harbour and Torviscas Playa where the sight of the Atlantic Ocean has been a calming and soothing presence. The Preface to the present volume was written during a series of breakfasts at Casa Tres in Sunset Bay. It was as if I were in an Ireland of continuous sunshine. Those who know at first hand of Irish (combined with Yorkshire and Kentish) hospitality will know how lucky I have been. I express here my heartfelt thanks to Mags (Co. Kildare), Maura (Rathfarnham), Anjie (a Yorkshire lass) and Lynn (a Londoner now in Kent). Above all this book is the product of over forty years during which I taught Old English (Literature and Philology), Middle English and Spenser in the Department and School of English in Trinity College Dublin (1968– 2012). Since 2012 I have held a series of unofficial tutorials on Chaucer in the Berkeley/Clyde Court Hotel (now sadly demolished) and Ballsbridge Hotel on the old site of Trinity’s Botanic Gardens with Mrs Margaret Connolly, a mature student in the Department of Medieval and Renaissance English in Trinity whom I taught in 1987–1991. Her continuing love of Chaucer has sustained and inspired my own love of Chaucer in recent years and I dedicate this book to her in grateful memory of all my students. Dublin, 12 May 2017

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 CT The Canterbury Tales 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 TC Troilus and Criseyde Thop The Tale of Sir Thopas WBProl The Wife of Bath’s Prologue

x Abbreviations

I refer to the fragments of The Canterbury Tales as I, II, III, etc. and to individual tales as, for example, the Knight’s Tale, that is, following the order of the Ellesmere MS and rejecting the Bradshaw Shift, but assuming that there are in reality only eight and not ten fragments. I thus abandon my own long-established practice (A, B, C, etc. for the fragments combined with the italicisation of individual tales) as followed in the previous three volumes on the persuasive advice of my old friend Mr Nicolas Jacobs, Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, and in the process emphasise the unity of The Canterbury Tales itself as a finished work.

II.  Sources and Works of Reference A Chaucer Glossary Norman Davis and others, A Chaucer Glossary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979). Ad Her. [Cicero]: Rhetorica ad Herennium, translated by Harry Caplan, Loeb (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1964). Aen.  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). Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 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  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 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 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). 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). BM The Battle of Maldon, edited by Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, A Guide to Old English, fifth edition (Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 241–52 and translated by Richard Hamer, A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1970), pp. 48–69. Boitani Piero Boitani, Chaucer and Boccaccio, Medium Aevum Monographs, New Series VIII (Oxford: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, 1977), Appendix II, pp. 200–210 (translation of Boccaccio’s glosses on the Houses of Mars and Venus in the Teseida). Boutell’s Heraldry J. P. Brooke-Little, Richmond Herald of Arms, Boutell’s Heraldry, revised edition (London and New York: Frederick Warne and Co. Ltd, 1973).

xii Abbreviations

Brunanburh The Battle of Brunanburh, edited by Alistair Campbell (London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1938) and translated by Richard Hamer, A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1970), pp. 41–47. 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). Carey and Fowler 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. Chevalier au Lion T. B. W. Reid, Chrestien de Troyes: Yvain (Le Chevalier au Lion), French Classics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1942). Chroniques  S. Luce, G. Raynaud, L. Mirot and A. Mirot (eds), Chroniques de J. Froissart, SHF, 15 vols (Paris: Renouard, Champion and Klincksieck, 1869– 1975), translated by Geoffrey Brereton, Froissart: Chronicles (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968; reprinted with minor revisions, 1978).

Abbreviations

xiii

CID  Barbara Reynolds and others, The Cambridge Italian Dictionary, Volume I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962). Cligés Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes: II. Cligés, edited by Alexandre Micha, CFMA (Paris: Champion, 1970). 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). Cooper Helen Cooper, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur: The Winchester Manuscript, Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). 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). Cowan Janet Cowan, Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte D’Arthur, Penguin Classics, 2 vols (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969). 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). Crow and Olson Martin M. Crow and Claire C. Olson, Chaucer Life-Records (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966).

xiv Abbreviations

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). Germania Tacitus: Dialogus, Agricola, Germania, edited and translated by W. Peterson and M. Hutton, Loeb (London: William Heinemann Ltd; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914). Gordon E.  V. Gordon (ed.), The Battle of Maldon, Methuen’s Old English Library (London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1937).

Abbreviations

xv

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, 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/  Sancti Thomae Aquinatis in decem libros Commentary ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum expositio, on Ethics 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 Geoffroi 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

xvi Abbreviations

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). ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, 60 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). OE Old English OED Oxford English Dictionary, edited by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner, second edition, 20 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). PA Guillaume de Machaut: La Prise d’Alixandre (The Taking of Alexandria), edited and translated by R. Barton Palmer (New York and London: Routledge, 2002). Par. Paradiso Pearl  Pearl, edited by E. V. Gordon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953). Pearsall  ‘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). PL Patrologia Latina, edited by J-P. Migne, 217 vols (Paris, 1844–1855). PN  ‘Alan of Lille, De Planctu naturae’, edited by Nikolaus M. Häring, Studi Medievali, third series, 19 (1978), 797–879 and translated by James J.

Abbreviations

xvii

Sheridan, Alan of Lille: The Plaint of Nature (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980). Poetria  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 Geoffrey of Vinsauf (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1967). PPl 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). Purg. Purgatorio Rhetorica  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). Robinson  The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, edited by F. N. Robinson, second edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1957). RR 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). SGGK 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 St Thomas Aquinas: Summa theologiae, edited and translated by Thomas Gilby and others, 61 vols

xviii Abbreviations

(London: Eyre and Spottiswoode; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964–1981). Staines D. Staines, The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990). Tes.  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. The Bruce John Barbour, The Bruce, edited with translation and notes by A. A. M. Duncan, Canongate Classics (Edinburgh: Canongate Books Limited, 1997). The Riverside Chaucer Larry D. Benson and others (eds), The Riverside Chaucer, third edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987). Theb.  Thebaid, translated by J. H. Mozley, Silvae, Thebaid, Achilleid, Loeb (London: William Heinemann Ltd; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967 and 1969). TLS The Times Literary Supplement VE  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). Vie du Prince Noir Diana B. Tyson, La Vie du Prince Noir by Chandos Herald (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1975). Vulgate  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

xix

Abbreviations

(Baltimore, MD: John Murphy Company, 1899; photographically reproduced, Rockford, IL: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1971). Wack Mary F. Wack, Lovesickness in the Middle Ages: The ‘Viaticum’ and its Commentaries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990). Widsith  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 CFMA ChR EETS (ES) EETS (OS) EHR ELN ES JEGP MÆ MLN MLR MP MS NM NQ PBA

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

xx Abbreviations

PMLA PQ RES RS SATF SHF SM SP YES YLS

Publications of the Modern Language Association Philological Quarterly Review of English Studies Rolls Series Société des Anciens Textes Français Société de l’Histoire de France Studi Medievali Studies in Philology Yearbook of English Studies Yearbook of Langland Studies

Preface

This fourth volume of essays under the title The Shaping of English Poetry consolidates and in some cases elaborates upon previous essays on the great subjects of English literature in the Medieval and Renaissance periods. By ‘Medieval’ is understood as before both Old English and Middle English literature, although students of English Literature at a great university such as Cambridge hold to the still baffling view that English literature begins with, say, Chaucer, in the late fourteenth century rather than with, say, the anonymous poet of the Old English epic poem Beowulf (the first European epic in the vernacular), writing some six centuries before Chaucer. The Norman invader of England at the end of September 1066 was drawn indeed by the very richness of Anglo-Saxon culture and civilisation and although the English were put to the sword at Hastings on 14 October 1066 and subsequently dispossessed of all their lands (as recorded in systematic and meticulous detail in the Domesday Book of 1086) their culture (a Germanic culture) was not destroyed but ultimately enhanced and enriched. But it is not until the age of Chaucer and his great contemporaries, Langland and the Gawain-poet, that we witness the full flowering of this new and refurbished English culture. We do not have an English poem of any significance (at least so far as I am aware) in commemoration of the English dead on Senlac Hill on 14 October 1066. No doubt the defeat was too profound, painful and long-lasting in its effects. But we do know how the English fought and died in battle and how a tactical error can turn victory into defeat by the poem on the Battle of Maldon (essay 1), written in all likelihood shortly after the battle itself (10/11 August 991) when the names and deeds of the English heroes were still vividly in the mind of the poet, his readers and auditors. It is a text-book English example of Tacitus’s analysis of how the Germanic tribes fought their battles under a valiant leader (in this case Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex) supported by his kinsmen (in Wulfmaer a sister-sunu) and hearth-companions (heorðwerod) in constant hazard of

xxii Preface

their lives and loyal unto death. At the end of the battle they occupy the field in death around their indomitable leader (as did Gyrth and Leofwine around Harold II Godwinson, King of All-England, at Hastings). And at Maldon not only the picked men of an aristocratic household but also the ordinary men of Essex composing the fyrd or levy, inspired by their leader in a common cause, the defence of the native soil of England against the invader. This is not so much a barbaric custom (unless we wish, as we may, to call war barbaric) but the universal reality of war at all times (not least our own time). As the English died against the Vikings (possibly under the famous Olaf Tryggvason), so too did the 1st and 2nd Bns 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot against the Zulu impi of Cetshwayo at Isandhlwana on 22 January 1879 and the British regiments with their generals in their midst in the savage fighting in Gallipoli in April and August 1915. Throughout history men (and generally it is men) have preferred to fight and die rather than to surrender freedom and land to the invader and to embrace their own humiliation and misery in cowardly submission. A nation can in the end survive and even prosper by heroic defeat but not by collaboration with the enemy. Those who were prepared to sacrifice their lives for the generations to come will be remembered with gratitude and pride. In the centenary year of Passchendaele the 12,000 graves at Tyne Cot will be revisited and honoured. The Maldon-poet knows what it is like for the English under Aethelred the Unready (Aeðelred unraed) to submit to a foreign foe in inglorious fashion and the futility of paying a ransom or Danegeld to persuade the enemy to take his leave. In his poem the Maldon-poet has left his own memorial to the heroic English dead. As long as England survives as a nation the names of Byrhtnoth, Offa and even the simple churl Dunnere will be treasured by the English and remembered and honoured in his poem. And in this way not even the most ancient remains of English poetry can be obliterated. And although for some three centuries after the Norman Conquest the French language (or perhaps rather Anglo-Norman) occupies a temporary ascendancy among the new aristocracy at court and in the law (along with Latin), the vitality of native English alliterative poetry is never extinguished and achieves an extraordinary flowering in the age of Chaucer in Langland’s Piers Plowman and the anonymous (such is the great Staffordshire poet’s obscurity) Sir

Preface

xxiii

Gawain and the Green Knight, masterpieces seldom equalled if ever excelled in the whole realm of English literature. But it would be churlish to deny the richness of the contribution to English literature of French culture after the conquest and in the Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes there is a new range and depth of experience stemming from the influence of powerful ladies in courts such as that of Marie de Champagne (1145–1198), daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204) and patroness of Chrétien de Troyes himself. This is not an unmixed blessing and it is clear from Chrétien’s introduction to his seminal romance, Le Chevalier de la Charrete (essay 2), that the character of the work has been determined by the lady patroness as well as by the master poet and the divergences in perspective explain the lack of coherence in the work as a whole. For many readers, perhaps, such a divergence counts for little in the celebration of a new kind of hero, one as abject and submissive in the presence of his mistress as he is fearless in combat and in the lists. Thus for these readers a knight of the cart (an ignominious place for any self-regarding knight to be) becomes the peerless and famous (if adulterous) Sir Launcelot de Lake, known even to Chauntecleer as a paragon of knighthood (Nun’s Priest’s Tale, VII.3212). In the passionate service of a beautiful lady the claims of duty to a lord and king may be overlooked and they have been overlooked by many passionate defenders of Lancelot (and lovers of ladies) from that day to this. But surely not by so thoughtful and sophisticated a romancer as Chrétien de Troyes himself and surely not in the age of chivalry itself. Chrétien de Troyes is not an indulgent admirer of the servant of the passionate love we have come to know as amour courtois (not a phrase to be found in his works) or courtly love (famously defined for English readers in the opening chapter of The Allegory of Love) and the tensions between chivalry and love manifest themselves throughout the romance and remain unresolved at its end. This is the subject of the second essay in this volume, a revised version of the essay that first appeared in Romania 102 (1981), pp. 172–201. I have never subscribed to the theory (and it is no more than a theory) of amour courtois in any of its various mutations, even when presented with the persuasive brilliance and breadth of learning of a master critic and scholar such as C. S. Lewis. The very idea that adultery can be an element

xxiv Preface

in an ideal of loving is at best absurd and more often repellent for anyone with a sense of loyalty to a husband or wife, not least when the one is a king and the other a queen (and one’s own king and queen at that). Detestation for the evil of adultery is expressed in Le Chevalier de la Charrete in the words of Sir Kay when he is falsely accused of adultery with the queen and an ignoble dissimulation has to be acknowledged on the part of Sir Lancelot in his willingness to fight the accuser, Sir Meleagant, in support of Sir Kay’s honour as a knight faithful to his king and queen. Who is to say that Chrétien de Troyes deplores the sincerity of Sir Kay and admires the cynicism of Sir Lancelot? This is an uncomfortable place to which the belief in a love passion inevitably leads and no amount of literary manipulation is capable of resolving the inherent moral contradictions. Chrétien adopts the unheroic expedient of leaving Le Chevalier de la Charrete to a lesser poet (Godefroi de Leigni) to complete and he himself turns to a subject more congenial to his own moral convictions in Le Chevalier au Lion. We in our turn must look to an instrument less crude and less blunt if we are to understand the greatest love poetry of the Middle Ages. If we do so we shall find ourselves struggling with the intricacies and complexities of Scholastic Aristotelian philosophers of the stature of Thomas Aquinas. And we ought not to take comfort in the belief that Aristotelian philosophy is remote from the interests and concerns of medieval poets. Indeed we shall find that the language and concerns of Aquinas are at the very centre of the greatest of medieval poems in Virgil’s exposition of love in cantos XVII and XVIII of the Purgatorio. Here we shall have to adjust to the philosophical rigour implicit in the use of terms such as intenzione (misunderstood even by Sinclair in his excellent translation as ‘impression’) and understand more importantly that passion cannot be normative in any love that is truly human, for many wicked acts (adultery, for example, or murder) are carried out under the influence of and in the heat of passion. Human love is formed by passion and indeed may be sustained by passion but it is more subtle than passion as including the judgment of right and wrong and finally more elevating than mere passion. These discriminations in loving are set out systematically and comprehensively if in short space by Dante in Virgil’s exposition of love (based on Aquinas), set where it truly belongs, at the heart of the Commedia. I have already explained these

Preface

xxv

important distinctions in an essay in an earlier volume, namely, ‘Natural and Spiritual Movements of Love in the Soul: An Explanation of Purgatorio, XVIII.16–39’ (MLR, 80 (1985), pp. 320–29). In the present volume I add as a companion piece ‘The Movement of Love in the Interior Senses and in the Intellect: An Explanation of Purgatorio, XVIII.22–24’ (essay 3) in which I seek to clarify related distinctions in Dante’s poetic account and especially the way in which passion in human beings of necessity includes from the beginning an order to reason. Thus Aquinas distinguishes passion in the human soul (vis cogitativa) from passion in brute animals (vis aestimativa). Once these distinctions are understood it is impossible to remain satisfied with the simplicities and inherent contradictions of amour courtois. Further, it is not to be supposed that these ideas are remote from an English love poet such as Chaucer. On the whole Chaucer’s familiarity with Dante, explicit frequently in a romance such as Troilus and Criseyde, have been underestimated by English medievalists, perhaps for no other reason than that the study of Dante and Aquinas is a daunting undertaking. For all that it is an understanding that has to be ventured upon, for the theory of courtly love remains persuasive to many English readers and students (no doubt because of the continuing influence of C. S. Lewis) and continues to sow confusion and error in the readings of the greatest poems of the English Middle Ages. The real sophistication of medieval love poetry becomes at once apparent in Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls and the understanding of this difficult poem (which still eludes us in many important details) requires a knowledge of Boccaccio’s Teseida and Dante’s Inferno, not to mention Cavalcanti’s Canzone d’amore and Dino del Garbo’s Glossa, on all of which Chaucer has drawn in systematic, subtle and masterly detail. I have set out this matter in my essay on ‘Chaucer’s Adaptation of Boccaccio’s Temple of Venus in The Parliament of Fowls’ (RES, NS, 56 (2005), pp. 1–36), reprinted in Volume II, and here (essay 5) I add to it a companion piece on the bird debate under Nature which follows the miseries of love set out in compelling and unambiguous detail in the temple of Venus. Amidst the cacophony of competing points of view some things emerge with sufficient clarity. There is a distinct hierarchy even among the noblest creatures in the order of Nature (first, second and third among the tercel eagles) and some attitudes to love

xxvi Preface

are so crude and self-interested as to be beneath contempt. All would be well, of course, if the order of virtue were a guarantor of success or failure in love. Sadly it is often the case that a lady is simply not interested in the pleas of lovers or in suitors of any kind. The poem ends on a note of perplexity that all lovers must feel, good, bad or indifferent. Perhaps we shall find the answers in Aristotle if not in Plato, but experience tells us not to be too optimistic and indeed Chaucer follows the Parliament of Fowls with Troilus and Criseyde. Venus retains all her persuasive attractions to this day in open defiance of all our philosophising. Medieval poets are interested not only in the virtue of loving but in human virtue itself, enlightened as often as not by texts such as Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics and the commentaries upon it. Virtue is a subject as interesting and compelling in the Middle Ages as vice seems to be nowadays, but it is not to be thought less interesting than vice. Dante’s Purgatorio is in many ways richer and more rewarding, for example, than his Inferno (the account of the Earthly Paradise in the concluding cantos on the summit of purgatory in particular) and a sensitive critic such as John Burrow is wrong-headed to describe Chaucer’s portrait of the Knight in the General Prologue as bland. The result of such a view is to obliterate the presence of virtue in human action and it results in the reductive and anachronistic criticism of the noble, generous and courteous Knight as a mercenary in the pages of Terry Jones’s popular study, on Chaucer’s Knight. It is popular because it reflects the spirit of the age, but sadly that is not the age to which the portrait belongs. Although we cannot and ought not to eradicate the analysis of vice from the study of human nature (and the medievals are entirely realistic about this as the doctrine of original sin no less than Dante’s Inferno demonstrates) an undue focus on vice gives a distorted view of human nature even in this vale of tears. Sometimes we fail to understand the significance of human actions because we assume the presence of vice where virtue (albeit rarer) is present. From the point of view of the literary critic the study of vice is a congenial exercise, for by and large we are looking at human beings who are inferior to us. The criticism of the Canterbury Tales is full of presumptuous disdain for the pilgrims en route to the shrine of Thomas Becket, most of whom, it seems, are such poor tellers of tales that they are unaware of the real significance of the tales

Preface

xxvii

they are telling. The appeal to academic vanity is irresistible. On the other hand, the representation of human excellence, especially in the figure of the Gawain of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (essay 4), is disconcerting and uncomfortable for us. He is so much better than we are that we feel acutely the sense of our own inferiority. Could we have stood up to the challenge of the Green Knight in Camelot? Could we have revelled with exquisite politeness in the Christmas festivities at Hautdesert after so strenuous and exhausting a journey in November and December? Could we have coped with the beauty and sexual desirability to the point (almost) of irresistibility of the lady of the household in the bedroom when her lord is far from home? Would we have kept the deadly appointment with the Green Knight at the Green Chapel? The response of the modern reader as often as not (as also in the case of the Knight of the General Prologue), even if unconsciously, is to bring him down to our own humbler level. Virtue is a rare thing, as Aristotle tells us, but when we encounter it in life we have a moral duty to acknowledge it and not disparage it. Of course, not even the Gawains of this life are perfect. He managed to resist the irresistible lady with impeccable courtesy (such as to make him even more vulnerable to her charms) but he accepts her girdle into his permanent possession as he ought not to have done. At the very end she has proved too clever for him and he has been caught unawares. He is deeply shocked when he learns the unpalatable truth from her husband at the very moment when he expects death at his hands. He is dismayed by his own moral failing, but he does not try to equivocate or excuse himself. And what is more he does not try to transfer the moral blame to women. They are simply too much for the best of men, and indeed for the best of men in particular. Even in his moment of moral failure Sir Gawain’s moral excellence shines forth and indeed is recognised as such by Arthur’s court at Camelot (more perspicacious than the vast majority of modern critics) on his return. The explanation for the lack of insight of modern literary critics into the moral status and motivation of the characters of medieval romance is addressed directly in Essay 6, ‘Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of The Canterbury Tales’, first printed in ‘Truthe is the beste’: A Festschrift in Honour of A. V. C. Schmidt (Peter Lang, 2014, pp. 137–68). There are two related issues of the first importance here, and we must be prepared

xxviii Preface

to concede that what is of the first importance to medieval poets (even the greatest) is not of the first importance to us. We cannot continue to ignore or neglect the philosophical importance of ‘Aristotle and his philosophie’ (GP, I.297) and the philosophical rigour of the medieval poets influenced by him, above all Dante, of course, but not least Chaucer, a keen student of Dante. In a poetic universe shaped by Aristotle it is action not character that takes pride of place. This is not a difficult point to understand but it throws into doubt all those interpretations of the Canterbury Tales that place the chief emphasis upon the characters of the pilgrims and on the dramatic interplay between them, so much so it seems that the pilgrims are on a par with the dramatis personae of a Shakespearian play. It is a tempting analogy from the time of Kittredge on and still persuasive to many. But the Canterbury Tales, for all its dramatic interest, is a narrative poem and not a play, and the key to understanding its poetic meaning lies not so much in the interplay of characters (an important but a secondary interest) as in the interrelationship between the tales. It is the purpose of essay 6 to explain in detail the nature of these interrelationships and in the process to demonstrate the structural coherence in the order of the tales and the logic of the philosophical arguments that unite them. The clarity in the ordering of the tales (if not perhaps equal to the structural clarity of the Summa theologiae or the Commedia) is indeed impressive in the authentic medieval manner. Indeed if the work is not quite finished, the arrangement of tales in a series of fragments (a series called into question only by the attachment of Furnivall to a so-called Bradshaw Shift) is somewhat misleading in raising a doubt about the unity of the whole, a doubt that does less than justice to Chaucer as a medieval master, an English Dante, let us say. There is a second problem that arises in respect of the modern emphasis on character rather than action in medieval poetry, and that is the emphasis on individuality in characterisation and the consequent assumption of and tolerance for a principle of unknowability in characters corresponding to the unknowability of individuals in life itself. But medieval poets place a higher value on universality rather than individuality and on clarity rather than ambiguity. Of course such considerations lead directly to the thorny philosophical problem of universals, a problem that many literary critics

Preface

xxix

prefer to avoid altogether. But Aristotelians (or Platonists for that matter in their differing way) identify the universal as possessing a higher reality than the individual and hence the poet’s characters are first and foremost universals (forms) albeit individualised by matter. I first addressed this issue in my essay, ‘The Universality of the Portraits in the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales’ (English Studies, 58 (1977), pp. 481–93) and I have seen no reason to alter my view since then. Thus Troilus and Criseyde is no more the first English novel than the Canterbury Tales is a play. There is a clarity in the presentation of character as there is in the structure of the work. If there is a character defined by deceit and hypocrisy (as a Criseyde or a Pardoner) it is a deceit and hypocrisy fully exposed to view in the poet’s art. Perhaps the most notable example of the degradation of a medieval hero by modern criticism is the reduction of Chaucer’s ‘verray, parfit gentil knyght’ (GP, I.72) to the status of a mercenary. I have been concerned to rebut this misreading for the greater part of my academic life and address it in my essay, ‘The Worthiness of Chaucer’s Worthy Knight’ (Chaucer Review, 44 (2009), pp. 115–58), reprinted in Volume III. A knight is to be judged more than most by deeds not words, evident to all in the mêlée of battle when life and limb are continuously at hazard. Hence a great part of the portrait of the Knight is devoted to the list of his campaigns in which (by the great good fortune of survival) he has spent his life in a period of forty years (from Algeçiras in 1342 onwards). Thus essay 7 is another companion piece demonstrating beyond any possibility of doubt why our worthy knight is indeed worthy. He stands out in battle as did Squadron Leader Roger Bushell (Big X of the Great Escape of 24 March 1944 from Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Poland) or Staff Sergeant Jim Wallwork DFM, pilot of the first glider to land beside Pegasus Bridge at 12.13 on 6 June 1944. These were certainly deeds worthy of any knight, but Roger Bushell and Jim Wallwork were not awarded knighthoods for their deeds, and in 2016 the surviving English Dambuster, Squadron Leader George Leonard ( Johnny) Johnson of 617 Squadron, bomb aimer on the Lancaster led by the heroic American (USA and Canada) Flight Lieutenant Joe McCarthy DFC (Coney Island) that attacked the Sorpe Dam in the early morning of 17 May 1943, was not considered worthy of a knighthood. Instead knighthoods have been showered in profusion by the British establishment on

xxx Preface

rugby coaches, athletes and tennis players as well as on faceless civil servants and political aides. Such has been the decline in our expectations of knights and the deeds thought appropriate to such an honour. No wonder we are no longer able to come to terms with the real distinction and eminence of Chaucer’s Knight and the link between deeds and honour. Although public honours can never equal the acts of virtue in themselves, nevertheless the gap between the two ought not to widen into a gulf. And above all we need to understand how knights can be elevated by their deeds and how admiration for the deeds of knights can inspire further deeds worthy of the institution of knighthood. To understand the virtue of Chaucer’s Knight we must follow him into the fields of battle, tournaments and judicial duels in which such virtue was demonstrated in action. As we can see, this involves the study of many battles on far-flung fields. Such a revision of the portrait of the Knight of the General Prologue, and indeed a return to the view of the Knight that was stable in English literature for many centuries, has important implications for the understanding of the tale that he tells. No longer can we see the Knight’s Tale as a satire of knightly values, a view of the Knight from outside the world of chivalry and in many ways inimical to it. Instead we have to master subtle distinctions in the hierarchy of chivalry between kings, princes, dukes (from 1337), marquesses (from 1385), earls, barons, knights banneret and knights bachelor unfamiliar to us but a common reality in the aristocratic households of the later fourteenth century. If these distinctions do not matter to us they surely matter to them and Chaucer has supplied the narrative of the Knight’s Tale with many examples of such terminology of his own devising. These distinctions are set out systematically in essay 8, ‘Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale: The Book of the Duke’, originally published in Chaucer in Context: A Golden Age of English Poetry (Peter Lang, 2012, pp. 153–88). This terminology and the necessity of mastering it is designed to ensure that we take knights and their concerns seriously, in love as in war. In the course of clarifying the meaning of the individual tales the order of the tales as a whole increasingly comes into view, and in essays 9 and 10 on the Monk’s Tale and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale we are concerned with the final tales of Fragment VII, beginning with the Shipman’s and Prioress’s Tales and including at its heart the two attempts at tale-telling of Chaucer

Preface

xxxi

the Pilgrim himself. The Monk has an authority that makes him a natural teller of tales among the pilgrims to Canterbury and were it not for the intervention of the drunken Miller he would have made his entrance early on in succession to the Knight’s Tale. His tales, illustrative of the falls of great men (and one woman, Zenobia) from prosperity to adversity, would naturally follow that of the Knight’s Tale in which the young knights Arcite and Palamon alike suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and indeed at the end are separated only by fortune, being equal in love and battle alike. The Monk’s appetite for the development of his tragic theme is seemingly inexhaustible, but not every pilgrim can be expected to match his zeal. The Knight will know from personal experience on the field of battle the conjunctions of fortunes good and bad and will not need to be reminded of them at such length. The Monk with his potential for one hundred tragedies has the capacity to take over the Canterbury Tales on his own account, something that is desirable neither for the pilgrims nor the reader or auditor. Fortunately for us all, the gracious knight finds a way of bringing the Monk’s contribution to an end for the common good. The mood needs to be lightened and the Nun’s Priest with his beast fable of the cock and the fox is just the man to do it without entirely abandoning the moral concerns that so animate the Monk with his encyclopaedic knowledge. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is a perfect antidote to the Monk’s relentless series of tragedies. Indeed the themes of the Monk’s Tale are present in the form of the mock epic and in this way all the resources of the Monk’s learning are employed for instruction sweetened by entertainment, that is, sentence but also solaas. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is a beast fable of a kind frequently found in sermons and sermon literature and in the hands of Chaucer it has become a comic tour de force. The moral failings of vanity and cunning, often companions in life itself, are exposed in Chauntecleer’s pretentious display of learning to Pertelote on the significance of dreams and the fox’s undisguised contempt for the pursuing rabble. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is undoubtedly learned but the learning is carried lightly (as habitually by Chaucer himself ) and not imposed with a heavy hand as by the Monk. It is a telling contrast. And it is reinforced by assured references to classical epic (the cruel death of Priam by the avenging hand of Pyrrhus and the destruction of Troy) and medieval romance (Sir Launcelot de

xxxii Preface

Lake as the epitome of the service of women). The humour of the tale is underlined in its central stylistic feature in the brilliant use of the many devices of medieval rhetoric. Hence the title of the tenth and final essay is ‘The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale’. Rhetoric of this kind is another feature of Chaucer’s work uncongenial to modern readers but central to the art of poetry as understood and practised by medieval poets. The great medieval authority is Geoffrey of Vinsauf and his great work is the Poetria Nova (1204), a distillation, as the title indicates, of the work of the great classical authorities on rhetoric, Cicero and Horace. The Nun’s Priest (and indeed through the Nun’s Priest Chaucer himself ) acknowledges his admiration for and debt to Geoffrey in lines of rhetorical praise. As always in medieval literature, the use of the rhetoric of praise (epideictic rhetoric) authenticates the praise and establishes its sincerity for the reader’s benefit (the portrait of the Knight is a case in point). But the modern prejudice against rhetoric (for the medieval, a prejudice against the art of poetry itself ) will not allow it. As the Knight is reduced from ideal hero to self-aggrandising mercenary, so Geoffrey of Vinsauf becomes no longer the subject of praise but the object of literary parody and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale itself becomes transformed from mock epic (a medieval Rape of the Lock) to parody (a reduplication of the Tale of Sir Thopas). The study of Chaucer is a humbling experience for the modern literary critic, for, like Pandarus, ‘I hoppe alwey bihinde’ (TC, II.1107). This is not a view of ourselves modern scholars are eager to embrace. C. S. Lewis has warned us not to patronise our medieval ancestors. It is a warning we have yet to take fully to heart.

1  The Battle of Maldon: The Commemoration of an Heroic Sacrifice

Quare hec tria, salus videlicet, venus et virtus, apparent esse illa magnalia que sint maxime pertractanda, hoc est ea que maxime sunt ad ista, ut armorum probitas, amoris accensio et directio voluntatis. — dante, De vulgari eloquentia (II.ii.8)1

I.  The three great subjects of poetry, as Dante identifies them in the De vulgari eloquentia, are virtue (virtus), love (venus) and war (salus). The vernacular literature of England before and after the Norman Conquest has bequeathed to us fine and even great poems on all three subjects. On the subject of virtue and our immortal destiny as moral beings we have Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman and The Canterbury Tales. On the subject of love as a passion and an act of will we have Troilus and Criseyde. On the subject of war and the conduct of men in battle we have Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon. Historical events are present in Beowulf but not at the centre of the poem’s interest (a fact much lamented by W. P. Ker).2 The Battle of Maldon on the other hand is a poem commemorating an historical event. The Battle of Maldon is based on and probably written shortly after the battle fought at Maldon on the 10 or 11 August 991 between the Viking invaders under Justin and Guthmund Steitan sunu, advancing from the island of Northey on the River Blackwater, and the fyrd or levies of Essex under the ealdorman Byrhtnoth drawn up to prevent them. The A version of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the name of the Viking leader at Maldon as Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway (995–1000) and the nephew of Justin, and the size of his fleet as containing ninety-three ships (Swanton,

2

Gerald Morgan

p. 126). But these facts are recorded under the year 993 and there seems to have been a conflation of the entries for 991 and 994. The presence of so famous a leader as Olaf Tryggvason would doubtless have added lustre to the battle in much the same way as the presence of Nelson at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805 or Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg on 1–3 July 1863 or Mustafa Kemal Atatürk at The Farm on Chunuk Bair (Conkbayiri) on 9/10 August 1915, but the poem itself gives us no reason to suppose that he was present and it seems unlikely. Nevertheless the formidable threat that Byrhtnoth had to meet requires no exaggeration. By and large it is soldiers who fight battles and not literary critics, and men rather than women. Thus we ought to pay attention to those (unlike myself ) who have experience of hazarding life and limb in a struggle to the death and who are able to weigh in the balance the fine distinctions of military courage on the one hand and the opposed vices of impetuosity and cowardice on the other. Thus in a sobering comment on the capture of the village and castle of Sedd el Bahr on V Beach at Cape Helles on 26 April 1915 (the second day of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign) Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood VC writes that ‘it is perhaps only soldiers who can appreciate the enduring courage of the Munster Fusiliers’.3 But in a seminal article on The Battle of Maldon a scholar such as Rosemary Woolf turns away from the violence of battle itself to the less disturbing and infinitely more civilised world of literary influence.4 It is comforting to locate in sources perhaps as remote as Tacitus’s Germania itself (98 a.d.) an explanation for the survival of a custom of warriors dying with their lord in battle that ‘seems repugnant – not noble and courageous but primitive and barbaric’.5 Jane Austen expresses similar misgivings in respect of the heroic death of Sir John Moore at Corunna on 16 January 1809: ‘I wish Sir John had united something of the Christian with the Hero in his death’.6 These are understandable sentiments but they make insufficient allowance for the reality of battles at whatever point in history they may have been fought. II.  At Maldon on the 10 August 991 the men of Essex are faced with an age-old problem and a frequent experience for the English at that period in their history. What is to be done when the Vikings appear on the island

1  The Battle of Maldon

3

of Northey with a huge fleet of ninety three ships? Only two alternatives present themselves. The first is to bow the knee to superior force and accept the need to pay tribute. This is the proposal confidently put to Byrhtnoth by the Viking messenger (BM, 29–35): ‘Me sendon to þe  sæmen snelle, heton ðe secgan  þæt þu most sendan raðe beagas wið gebeorge;  and eow betere is þæt ge þisne garræs  mid gafole forgyldon, þon we swa hearde  hilde dælon. Ne þurfe we us spillan,  gif ge spedaþ to þam; we willað wið þam golde  grið fæstnian.’ ‘Bold seamen send me to you, order me/ To tell you that you speedily must send/ Rings for defence; it would be better for you/ To buy off this armed onslaught with your tribute/ Than that our hardy men should deal out war./ We need not fight if you can come to terms./ We will establish with that gold a truce.’

It was a policy that had been tried before and failed before and earned for Byrhtnoth’s king, Aethelred (978–1013 and 1014–1016), the soubriquet unræd, that is, ‘evil counsel, ill-advised course, bad plan, folly’ (Bosworth and Toller), and he is immortalised in English as Aethelred the Unready. The paying of Danegeld might bring about a temporary alleviation or truce (griδ, BM, 35b, a Scandinavian word),7 but not a permanent peace (friδ, BM, 39b and 41b). It guaranteed the reappearance of the Dane at huge expense, amounting in fact to severe taxation. As every schoolboy and schoolgirl used to know, ‘we’ve proved it again and again,/ That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld/ You never get rid of the Dane’ (Kipling, ‘Dane-Geld’, 14–16).8 The second alternative is to offer battle in defence of one’s vital interests. This is always an uncertain course, even when one is well prepared, for although ‘Conquest’ is to be seen in the temple of Mars ‘sittynge in greet honour’ a sharp sword hangs over his head ‘by a soutil twynes threed’ (KnT, I 2028–30). History is full of close-run things, at Hastings, for example, on 14 October 1066, or at Waterloo on 18 June 1815 or at Gettysburg on 1–3 July 1863. Thus politicians are often readier to go to war than generals. At

4

Gerald Morgan

the outset of the American Civil War the Union commander McClellan assembled a fine fighting force of one hundred thousand men, but he was unwilling to commit them to action until pressed to do so by Lincoln and was soon replaced by Hancock. Soldiers know the reality of battle and the price that must be paid even in victory. Sir Geoffroi de Charny in his Livre de chevalerie (c.1350–1352) stresses the high vocation of knighthood in the face of the perils that at all times a knight must be willing to face (42/74–75, pp. 184–85): car en teles gens n’a nulle fermeté de vivre, mais plus se doit l’ont tenir fermes de mourir et sanz grant pourveance. For there is in such men no firm purpose to cling to life; they should rather show firmness in the face of death and be prepared to meet it at any time.

Death is the simple reality of battle for many who enter upon it, whether in their tens or hundreds or thousands. Hence if battle is joined at Maldon many will die and as many again in consequence will expect to die. Some on either side will think of themselves as fated or doomed to die and that inevitability is acknowledged by the poet as battle is joined: ‘Wæs seo tid cumen/ þæt þær fæge men feallan sceoldon,/ The time had come for fated men/ To perish in that place’ (BM, 104–5). There is little time for reflection as expectation becomes reality with a terrible impartiality as ‘beornas feollon/ on gehwæδere hand, hyssas lagon,/ Fighters fell dead, young men on either side’ (BM, 111b–112). Edward takes vengeance on a ‘fæge cempa,/ fated warrior’ (BM, 119b) for the death of Wulfmær and the young defenders compete with one another to deprive a fated man (‘fægean men’, BM, 125a) of his life with point of spear. Battles cannot be won without the magnanimous resolve to die or the carelessness of death on the part of many men. Charny himself is destined to die an exemplary death as a knight with the oriflamme of St Denis in his hand at Poitiers on 19 September 1356. We can hardly be surprised that even in the midst of defeat those who have endured so much in the search for victory prefer death to surrender. Sir Giles d’Argentan, ‘the thrid best knycht perfay/ That men wyst lyvand in his day’ (The Bruce, 13.321–22), turns back to his death at Bannockburn on 24 June 1314 after escorting the king, Edward

1  The Battle of Maldon

5

II, to safety. Cambronne prefers heroic defiance and death in the evening of Waterloo rather than submit the Imperial Guard to the ignominy of surrender. How can we ever suppose it to have been otherwise on the field of battle even if the comfort of the study inclines us to a kinder outcome? III.  In the battles which we consider here we are talking of the ferocity of fighting at close quarters. Homer in the Iliad, Virgil in the Aeneid and Statius in the Thebaid are unshrinking in their presentation of the violence and mercilessness of battle. In the space of a single line Chaucer tells us how Troilus died the pitiless death of a great knight, ‘[d]espitously’ slain by ‘the fierse Achille’ (TC, V.1806). The Battle of Maldon itself supplies sufficient examples, not least in describing the series of wounds that leaves the leader himself dead on the field of battle. First, Byrhtnoth dislodges a spearhead in his body with a thrust of his shield (BM, 136–37). A second enemy spear penetrates too deeply for him to remove it himself and the young Wulfmær removes it for him in the full face of the Viking onslaught (BM, 149–58). Finally his sword-arm is crippled by a blow from yet another seafarer and he dies still urging on his young men (BM, 162–71). It is impossible to know the historical accuracy of this account in respect of Byrthnoth’s death, but we can surely not doubt the accuracy of the descriptions of the fighting itself. And the detail of the actual fighting is necessary if we are to form an understanding of the way in which the men conduct themselves, both before and after the death of their leader. While all battles are bloody and violent affairs, it is nevertheless the case that some battles are bloodier than others. This is so when the will to resist is high and when the stakes are at their highest. No more so than when the defence of one’s native land is involved. This explains, for example, the ferocity of the fighting faced by the British at Gallipoli for the Turk was willing to die rather than yield the soil of his native land. For all the courage expended by the British in Gallipoli there was not in the end the will to pursue the conflict to its uttermost. A similar heroic resolve to that of the Turks in Gallipoli was displayed by the men of Wessex and Mercia under Æthelstan and Eadmund, grandsons of Alfred the Great, at Brunanburh in 937 against the Vikings from Dublin under Anlaf in alliance with the Scots under Constantine III and

6

Gerald Morgan

the Strathclyde Britons under Owain, for in adding Northumbria to their rule they did no less than found the kingdom of England itself. Brunanburh has the character of the bloodiest battle fought in the whole of England up to that date (Brunanburh, 65b–73; Hamer, pp. 45, 47): Ne wearð wæl mare on þis eiglande  æfre gieta folces gefylled  beforan þissum sweordes ecgum,  þæs þe us secgað bec, ealde uðwitan,  siþþan eastan hider Engle and Seaxe  up becoman, ofer brad brimu  Brytene sohtan, wlance wigsmiþas,  Wealas ofercoman, eorlas arhwate,  eard begeatan. Nor has there on this island/ Been ever yet a greater number slain,/ Killed by the edges of the sword before/ This time, as books make known to us, and old/ And learned scholars, after hither came/ The Angles and the Saxons from the east,/ Over the broad sea sought the land of Britain,/ Proud warmakers, victorious warriors,/ Conquered the Welsh, and so obtained this land.

This is the England for which Byrhtnoth elects to fight and die rather than bow the knee on 10 August 991 at Maldon. The invader threatens the land of Æþelred (52b–53a) and the imposition of a foreign yoke is suggested by the use of Scandinavian words such as æschere (69b) for ‘Viking army’, dreng (149a) for ‘warrior’ and, more ironically, grið (35b) for ‘peace’ or rather ‘truce’.9 The enemy is not only a foreigner but also a heathen, and this too is a significant reality of which we are often reminded (for example, 55a and 181b). It is entirely fitting that Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex, loyal thane of the King of All-England, and benefactor of the monasteries of Ely and Ramsey, should die a Christian death. IV.  Given the importance of the outcome of such a battle there is inevitably a concern with those errors of judgment which may have determined the outcome. In the centenary year of the battle of the Somme English readers will not need to be reminded of the price paid for the blunders of generals as young volunteers, facing their first experience of battle, were ordered to walk slowly, weighed down by equipment, into the murderous

1  The Battle of Maldon

7

enfilading fire of German machine guns. After one hundred years we still brood deeply on these errors and the catastrophic loss of life among the participating nations. So it is for the Maldon-poet. In battle error of some kind is inevitable and the consequences of error terrible to behold. We may think, for example, of the death of Colonel Christian Friedrich von Ompteda at Waterloo, ordered by the Prince of Orange to lead the men of the 5th King’s German Legion line battalion to certain death by deploying from square into line.10 In any true account of a battle errors are to be confronted, not evaded, and the Maldon-poet does not spare Byrhtnoth for the disastrous decision to allow the Viking invader unimpeded passage across the River Blackwater by the ford linking Northey island to the mainland (BM, 89–90; Hamer, p. 55): Ða se eorl ongan  for his ofermode alyfan landes to fela  laþere ðeode. Then in his over-confidence the earl/Yielded to the invaders too much land.

Here Richard Hamer displays his own characteristic magnanimity towards Byrhtnoth. But the faithful retainers and men of Essex pay too great a price at Maldon for English magnanimity. Confidence of such a kind is hardly justified in the face of so formidable an adversary (as on the Somme) and is replaced by recklessness born of heroic pride. Thus attempts to soften the Maldon-poet’s criticism of Byrhtnoth’s error are not only linguistically unsound,11 but also misconceived. The excessive pride of Byrhtnoth is exploited by the cunning of the Viking invaders (86–88) who hold back at the prospect of severe losses at the causeway (84–85). By a well-considered change of plan and by playing upon English susceptibilities, the Vikings gain an advantage that ought not to have been conceded to them. An awareness of the significance of Byrhtnoth’s error to the final outcome of the battle must be balanced also by an awareness of the soundness of his military judgment in other respects. His preparations for battle, if perhaps lacking the systematic thoroughness of a Duke of Wellington, are marked by energy and determination (5–6). He shows skill in the disposition of his forces, both the inexperienced fyrd (22) and the trusted

8

Gerald Morgan

heorðwerod (23–24). Not only does he give clear instructions to the men in the task confronting them (17–21a), but above all he gives them inspiration (21b), for it is the moral force that is the key to winning and losing battles. The Duke of Wellington famously remarked that the presence of Napoleon in battle was worth the presence of forty thousand men.12 Byrhtnoth thus reveals himself to be an experienced and inspirational leader in battle. And, as Tacitus puts it in a famous and oft-quoted passage in the Germania (14.6–7): ‘principes pro victoria pugnant, comites pro principe / the chief fights for victory, but the retainers for the chief ’. But Byrhtnoth, unlike Wellington at Waterloo, is not a leader blest by victory at Maldon. He is a warrior long past his prime (‘har hilderinc/ the grey-haired chief ’, 169a) and shares with his men the bitterness of death and defeat. The individual fighting man is untainted by the errors of leaders, for the duty laid upon him is the uttermost of physical courage, whether the orders he follows are good or bad. In a way error defines and magnifies the courage of the men, for the greater the courage shown by the men the greater the price exacted by the error. Hence the error of Byrhtnoth illuminates the courage of his men. Tolkien has seized upon the importance of this truth in the poem by focusing on the selfless and perfect sacrifice of the men in battle: ‘It is the heroism of obedience and love not of pride or willfulness that is the most heroic and the most moving’.13 The chances of success in battle may be weighed in advance but they cannot be determined, for it is the battle itself which is the means of arbitration. And who is to say whether an army (one or both) will conduct itself with heroic fortitude on this field or that? The soldier who has stood unflinching in the ranks will surely form a better opinion of these matters than the scholar in the study surrounded by books. The Battle of Maldon is not so much an account of a battle but the commemoration of those who died in battle. V.  The reality of human nature is not altered by war. The potentiality for good and evil remains and is heightened, but men become heroes or cowards by the choices they make. This is impressed upon us continuously by the Maldon-poet. Thus the men who die beside their lord have chosen to do so rather than to be disloyal and to suffer the ignominy due to cowards, and in this respect the virtue of one man is reinforced by the example of

1  The Battle of Maldon

9

another. Wulfmær, the son of Byrhtnoth’s sister, is impelled by so strong a sense of devotion that he is among the first to die (113–15; Hamer, p. 57): Wund wearð Wulfmær,  wælræste geceas, Byrhtnoðes mæg;  he mid billum wearð, his swustersunu,  swiðe forheawen. Wulfmar was wounded, Byrhtnoth’s sister’s son/ Chose death in battle, he was utterly/ Cut down by swords.

Battle is a great proving ground, and it is impossible to tell in advance who will pass or fail the test. The Maldon-poet has a deep knowledge and understanding of battle, and it is this fact which gives to his poem the unmistakable stamp of authenticity. We turn, then, to the roll-call of heroes and cowards as the poet unfolds them in the context of a military disaster fresh in his own mind and in the minds of his audience, and keenly felt by them all as proud and loyal Englishmen. The poem begins with the contrast between the determination of the experienced warrior and leader on the one hand and the eagerness and playfulness of his young men on the other. The emphasis is on the faithful performance of one’s duty, not only by the young kinsman of Offa, Byrhtnoth’s second-in-command in all likelihood and himself a retainer of exemplary loyalty (5–10), but also by Eadric, possibly a man of some local importance (11–16).14 The poet sets out as he intends to continue with a note of defiance in the face of an unknown outcome. Victory as such may be beyond human contrivance and the soldiers know that they are subject to a higher power, whether it is called or conceived as God, fate, destiny, fortune or chance. Beowulf knows that ‘Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel! / Fate goes ever as it must!’ (455b) and cannot prevent the departure from Heorot of the mortally wounded Grendel since the Lord did not will it (‘þa Metod nolde’, 967b). Although it is a mistake to let the Vikings pass unchallenged across the Blackwater, the result is by no means a foregone conclusion, irreversible though it may be from the vantage point of history. Byrhtnoth as a brave man and good Christian leaves the decision up to God: ‘God ana wat/ hwa þære wælstowe wealdan mote,/ and God alone can tell/ Who at the end may hold this battlefield’ (94b–95; Hamer, p. 55).

10

Gerald Morgan

Once the Vikings have reached the shore and the battle begins in earnest Byrhtnoth commits everything to the possibility of victory, and the narrative focuses on his inspiring leadership and courage. He is surrounded by the personal retinue of those most dear to him, endures the loss of his sister’s son, Wulfmær, but finds the time to commend the valour of his chamberlain Eadweard (120–21) and continues to urge on the young men (127b–29). Even though their companions fall around them there is no weakening of resolve, and the figure of Byrhtnoth is at the centre of that resolve: ‘Swa stemnetton stiðhicgende/ hysas æt hilde,/ So the stouthearted warriors stood firm/ In battle, and the young men …’ (122–23a; Hamer, p. 57). The Maldon-poet now proceeds directly to give an account in circumstantial detail of the personal courage and heroic death of Byrhtnoth. The leader is not exempt from the dangers that beset his men. Indeed he is a marked man, as was Horatio Nelson when he walked the quarterdeck of his flagship, HMS Victory, with Hardy at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. But Nelson knew that he had to embrace those dangers if he were to instil courage and love in his men. In the fighting at The Farm at Chunuk Bair in Gallipoli on 10 August 1915 ‘generals fought in the ranks’ and died in the ranks.15 Thus Byrhtnoth is directly attacked by a daring Viking warrior (‘wiges heard’, 130a), urged on no doubt (like Sir Henry de Bohun at Bannockburn)16 by the prospect of so great a prize. Indeed, the Viking succeeds in wounding the English leader (134–35) but Byrhtnoth, disdainful of personal injury, dislodges the spearhead in his body with a thrust of his shield (136–37; Hamer, p. 59): he sceaf þa mid ðam scylde,  þæt se sceaft tobærst, and þæt spere sprengde,  þæt hit sprang ongean. He thrust out with his shield so that the shaft/ Was shattered and the spear sprang back again.

Byrhtnoth is too experienced for the young Viking warrior (‘ðæs hysses’, 141a) and takes his life in delivering his own spear stroke through the neck (140–42). The poet’s language here is equal to his heroic theme. Byrhtnoth does not merely kill his Viking assailant, but reached and extinguished his

1  The Battle of Maldon

11

life (‘feorh geræhte’, 142b). As Bruce Mitchell observes, ‘the phrase is strikingly Homeric’ (p. 247). But in the mêlée there is no time to admire one’s handiwork and Byrhtnoth at once slays a second assailant, on this occasion with a spear thrust through the heart (143–46a). This is the authentic note of battle at close quarters, an experience evidently familiar to the poet himself. Byrhtnoth is no longer a commander, but a warrior fierce in battle, his spirit roused to a fury by his wound and his own valorous acts. Even at this moment of heroic exultation Byrhtnoth does not lose sense of the reality of a battle to be won or lost, and remains subject to the will of God (146a–48; Hamer, p. 59):   Se eorl wæs þe bliþra, hloh þa, modi man,  sæde Metode þanc ðæs dægweorces  þe him Drihten forgeaf. This made the earl more glad;/ The bold man laughed, and said thanks to the Lord/ For the day’s work that God had granted him.

Exultation in battle is to be short-lived, for the enemy now presses upon Byrhtnoth too closely and Æþelred’s noble thane (151) is destined to die a noble death. On this occasion the spear of one of the Viking warriors (‘drenga sum’, 149a) penetrates too deeply for the hero to remove it himself, and the young Wulfmær gallantly removes it for him in the full face of the enemy’s onslaught (152–58). But there is no respite since the army of Vikings is now present in great numbers, and another armed foe (‘gesyrwed secg,/ A well-armed viking’, 159; Hamer, p. 59) is upon the hero, made eager by the prospect of despoiling the body of the fallen leader (160–61). Death can no longer be delayed. Byrhtnoth strikes out at the assailant before him with his sword (162–63), only for his sword-arm to be crippled by a blow from yet another seafarer (‘lidmanna sum’, 164b). It is a mortal wound and the perfect fulfilment of an heroic life. He dies still urging on his young men (168b–71). It is a powerful heroic image but has a ring of historic truth and not simply poetic invention. At the very end and surely by now aware that God has not crowned the end of his days with victory in battle, Byrhtnoth commends his soul to God: ‘Ic eom frymdi to þe/ þæt hi helsceaðan hynan ne moton/ I pray/ You will not let the devils harm

12

Gerald Morgan

my soul’ (179b–80; Hamer, p. 61). The circumlocution ‘Ic eom frymdi to þe’, that is, ‘I am suppliant to Thee’,17 introduces a note of studied formality or reverence. Byrhtnoth may well be arrogant in the face of the insults of a Viking invader, but he is humble before his maker. The death of the leader and of the brave men about him, Ælfnoth and Wulfmær (181–84), is a crisis for any army to withstand in any battle. The mettle of the men is revealed above all in the effect upon them of the death of their leader. For some the fear of death outweighs the burden of gratitude. Godric, the son of Odda, flees from the battle in the very trappings (‘on þam gerædum’, 190a) of his lord’s horse. It is unseemly when so many brave men have already fallen about their lord and the poet draws attention to the unfitness of that act in unequivocal but measured language: ‘hit riht ne wæs’ (190b). The cowardice of Odda’s sons, Godric, Godwine and Godwig (‘ærest on fleame,/ first in flight’, 186b; Hamer, p. 61) is especially to be deplored, since it communicates its baseness and lack of resolve to others. But the poet is set on making more than a moral point, for he knows that not every man in battle can be a hero. The demands on human courage are too great for that and battles are won and lost when the will to resist becomes too great for too many. Shameful though the acts of betrayal were, they were also inevitable and Offa, evidently Byrhtnoth’s second-incommand, knew that they were inevitable (198–201). Like the coastguard in Beowulf (286–89) Offa knows that battle tests definitively the distinction of words and deeds. Battle gives visible proof of success or failure: ‘ealle gesawon/ heorðgeneatas þæt hyra heorra læg,/ all his household saw/ Their prince lie slain’ (203b–4; Hamer, p. 63). The sons of Odda will not escape the infamy that is due to their ignoble acts. The poem itself makes sure of that. Their father may have given them English names, but he cannot give them English hearts: Godric will be remembered henceforth as the ‘earh Oddan bearn,/ coward son/ Of Odda’ (238a; Hamer, p. 65).18 With the death of Byrhtnoth the battle is as good as lost. Now a new set of moral imperatives faces the men, and their response to them is immediate because it is the only response that can be given. Proud retainers (‘wlance þegenas’, 205b) and fearless warriors (‘unearge men’, 206a) are not in doubt; they do not shrink from their duty but hasten forward (‘efston georne’, 206b). They will avenge the death of their lord or die in the attempt

1  The Battle of Maldon

13

(207–8). It is not the response of an individual but a common response. It is what seems right to good men who have long since committed their cause to the judgment of battle. There is a fitness or rightness in their action that challenges the unfitness of flight and treachery, and it is conveyed more powerfully to the reader by the implication of their actions rather than by outright statement. It is impossible to tell in advance who will come forward to distinguish himself at such a moment, and here it is Ælfwine, the son of Ælfric, a warrior young in years (‘wiga wintrum geong’, 210a). Although young he is inspired by his noble lineage, for he comes from a great family in Mercia and is the grandson of Eal(h)helm, ealdorman of Mercia (216–19).19 It is an Anglo-Saxon example of noblesse oblige. Such men have been brought up to be heroic. At the same time Ælfwine is mindful of the susceptibilities of more experienced warriors and speaks only on his own authority: ‘Gemunu þa mæla þe we oft æt meodo spræcon,/ Remember all the speeches that we uttered/ Often when drinking mead’ (212; Hamer, p. 63).20 He is courteous as well as brave. He also identifies himself with the humblest members of the army (‘ðisse fyrde’, 221a) in urging a common sacrifice. Thus he suits ‘the action to the word’ without overstepping ‘the modesty of nature’,21 and in this way his exhortations acquire authority (225–29). Offa acknowledges the great and inspiring part that the young man has played (230–33a). It is to be set in the balance against the dispiriting effect of Godric’s act of treachery. Indeed it is the treachery of the cowards rather than Byrhtnoth’s error or even Byrhtnoth’s death that consigns the East Saxons to defeat, for it leads directly to the weakening and the breaking of the shield-wall (239–42a). Men in battle are always fighting at the hazard of their lives, but if they are to survive it is only by absolute reliance on the courage and determination of their comrades. Offa therefore expresses his detestation of Godric’s conduct in a formal curse: ‘Abreoðe his angin,/ þæt he her swa manige man atflymde!/ May he come to grief,/ That he put here so many men to flight’ (242b–43; Hamer, p. 65). This is inadequately translated by Scragg as ‘Blast his action’ (p. 29) or even by Mitchell and Robinson as ‘Damn his behaviour!’ (p. 250), for these are words more reminiscent of a Cambronne at Waterloo. The moral seriousness of the point at issue here again yields language of a studied formality. Offa, facing certain death with

14

Gerald Morgan

the remnant of his loyal men, prays that duty will be vindicated in the end and that traitors will not prosper for their treachery. But traitors do not deserve more notice than this and it is the gallant company of heroes that occupy the centre of the action as the battle and the poem unfold to their grim but inspiring conclusions. The heroes step forward one after another to express and demonstrate their resolve, encouraging one another in the manner that Offa has himself urged: ‘Us is eallum þearf/ þæt ure æghwylc oþerne bylde/ wigan to wige,/ the need for all is great/ That each of us should urge on every other/ Soldier to battle’ (233b–35a; Hamer, p. 65). To Leofsunu are given the classic words of absolute resistance to which all are committed now that their end is inevitable: ‘Ic þæt gehate, þæt ic heonon nelle/ fleon fotes trym,/ I promise this, that I will not from here/ Flee one foot’s space’ (246–47a; Hamer, p. 65). These are words that elevate him to the level of Beowulf as that great hero prepares himself for his last battle: ‘Nelle ic beorges weard/ oferfleon fotes trem,/ I will not flee the space of a foot from the guardian of the mound’ (2524b–25a; Clark Hall, p. 147). Leofsunu is inspired by thoughts of his native village, Sturmer, in northern Essex; he will bring no disgrace to the region ‘embe Sturmere’ (249a) and indeed he does not (253b–54). It is appropriate that immediately in the wake of this local reference the plain or simple English yeoman (‘unorne ceorl’, 256a) should step forward, for he is in a way the representative of many like himself, the ordinary soldier or member of the fyrd, if you like, Essex man. Armies are built upon men such as Dunnere (Napoleon, for example, has his grognards), and they often make their mark in situations such as this when the leaders are dead or dying (the 7th Bn Gloucestershire Regiment, for example, on the summit of Chunuk Bair on 8 August 1915).22 The simple yeoman, Dunnere, comprehends as well as anyone, and better than many, the dictates of loyalty, for the issue of loyalty is at its heart a simple issue, even, as in Dunnere’s case, loyalty to one’s lord divorced from the claims of kinship. Dunnere is not the last to declare his allegiance in battle, and his words in their turn are an encouragement to men of noble ancestry (the hostage, Eadweard the Tall and Æþeric). Dunnere’s words indeed cannot be improved upon (258–59; Hamer, p. 65):

1  The Battle of Maldon

15

‘Ne mæg na wandian  se þe wrecan þenceð frean on folce,  ne for feore murnan.’ ‘He who among this people would avenge/ His lord must weaken not nor care for life.’

They have a Beowulfian ring to them, as we may judge from Beowulf ’s words to Hrothgar after the slaying of the counsellor Æschere by Grendel’s mother: ‘Selre bið æghwæm,/ þæt he his freond wrece, þonne he fela murne,/ Better is it for each one of us that he should avenge his friend, than greatly mourn’ (1384b–85; Clark Hall, p. 91). Once again we see in the battle at Maldon the action suited to the word: ‘Þa hi forð eodon, feores hi ne rohton,/ So they advanced, and cared not for their lives’ (260; Hamer, p. 65). This is how men have to conduct themselves if they are to win lasting glory in battle. It is how Beowulf conducted himself in the underwater fight against Grendel’s mother (1441b–42 and 1534b–36; Clark Hall, pp. 94 and 98):

Gyrede hine Beowulf eorlgewædum,  nalles for ealdre mearn.

Beowulf arrayed himself with princely armour; no whit did he feel anxious for his life.    Swa sceal man don, Þonne he æt guðe  gegan þenceð longsumne lof;  na ymb his lif cearað. So must a man do when he thinks to win enduring fame in war – he will have no care about his life.

And again the men at Maldon subject themselves to God (262b–64), the ultimate source of their heroic energy. So inspiring is this example that a hostage, Æscferth, throws in his lot with them (265–72). He is bound to them neither by the claims of kinship, for he is the son of Ecglaf and of a noble Northumbrian family (266–67), nor by those of lordship, but of honour. In the story of Cynewulf and Cyneheard (the famous entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 755), a Welsh hostage is the sole survivor of Cynewulf ’s retinue at Merton, and he was severely wounded: ‘ac hie simle feohtende wæran oþ hie alle

16

Gerald Morgan

lægon butan anum Bryttiscum gisle, ond se swiþe gewundad wæs,/ but they were fighting continuously until they all lay [dead] except for one British hostage, and he was very wounded’. Gordon adds the example of Attila’s Germanic hostages Waltharius and Hagano in the Waltharius.23 It is evident that battle in itself can be a sufficient bond uniting men and men are drawn together to fight in a common cause by many accidents of life. At Maldon Æscferth fought with unremitting energy and determination. Only death could put a limit to his display of heroic courage (270–72; Hamer, p. 67): hwilon he on bord sceat,  hwilon beorn tæsde, æfre embe stunde  he sealde sume wunde, þa hwile ðe he wæpna  wealdan moste. Sometimes he struck a shield, sometimes he pierced/ A man, and constantly he gave some wound,/ As long as he survived to wield his weapons.

Courage is a quality that is highly visible in battle and especially so in a tall man like ‘Eadweard se langa’ (273b). He stands out by his height allied to his courage in the forefront of the battle (‘on orde’, 273a). As such he reminds one of figures like Legros, nicknamed l’Enfonceur, killed with all his men within the courtyard of Hougoumont, and the pugilist Shaw of the Life Guards, who slew nine Cuirassiers and bled to death against the wall of La Haye Sainte.24 Eadweard the Tall is inspired by the example of Byrhtnoth (‘his betera’, 276b), so that his acts of courage do not detract from Byrhtnoth’s glory but substantiates it in the manner noted so well by Tacitus (Germania, 14): Cum ventum in aciem, turpe principi virtute vinci, turpe comitatui virtutem principis non adaequare. iam vero infame in omnem vitam ac probrosum superstitem principi suo ex acie recessisse: illum defendere, tueri, sua quoque fortia facta gloriae eius adsignare praecipuum sacramentum est. When the battlefield is reached it is a reproach for a chief to be surpassed in prowess; a reproach for his retinue not to equal the prowess of its chief: but to have left the field and survived one’s chief, this means lifelong infamy and shame: to protect and defend him, to devote one’s own feats even to his glorification, this is the gist of their allegiance.

1  The Battle of Maldon

17

Eadweard in the impetuous force of his attack succeeds in breaking through the Viking shield wall (bordweall’, 277a) before he too was to lie among the slain (‘ær he on wæle læge’, 279b). For one in so advanced and exposed a position death is inevitable sooner rather than later and the use of the preterite subjunctive læge stresses the inevitability of his heroic destiny. The example of Eadweard recalls Æþeric, the brother of Sibyrht, to the remembrance of his own nobility (he is an ‘æþele gefera,/ valiant comrade’, 280b; Hamer, p. 67, and a member of the earl’s household) and also many others (280–83). Only the exceptional example of Byrhtnoth can elicit so general a response in the heat of battle. The Maldon-poet gives us a vivid sense of the violence of their deaths in the personification of the coat of mail singing its terrible song (‘gryreleoða sum’, 285a), like that of Grendel, a ‘sigeleasne sang,/ song of defeat’ (787a; Clark Hall, p. 60).25 Here on the part of the armour is an acknowledgment of wounds that are mortal. Not even the splendid coat of mail can protect the warriors from the heroic deaths they have chosen. And in the midst of this general slaughter dies Offa, perfect in his loyalty to his lord: ‘he læg ðegenlice ðeodne gehende,/ He lay like true retainer by his lord’ (294; Hamer, p. 67). The death of Offa is hardly less significant than that of Byrhtnoth himself. It marks the beginning of the end, if not the actual end, of organised resistance. From now onwards it is a catalogue of death and of steady decline to the point of annihilation. The focus shifts briefly from the gallant followers of Byrhtnoth to the relentless advance of the Vikings, enraged by the stoutness of the English defence (295–97a). The death of Wistan, son of Thurstan (297b–300) follows a well-established pattern. The names are unquestionably Scandinavian names (ON Wistæin and ON Þorsteinn),26 and suggest that those of Scandinavian descent are also faithful and can be relied upon. The failings of Odda’s sons are the failings not of Scandinavians as such but of those particular individuals. The heap of corpses mounts up (301–3). The brothers Oswold and Eadwold (solid English-sounding names) die valiantly together, urging on their comrades (304–8). The presence of close kinsmen such as these heightens the sense of loss when the common lot is death. Among the Dublin Pals of D Company of the 7th Bn Royal Dublin Fusiliers there are three Hickman brothers, one of whom, Captain Poole Henry Hickman,

18

Gerald Morgan

was killed in the morning of 16 August 1915 leading a bayonet charge on Kireç Tepe Sirti at Suvla Bay.27 On that same day and in the same place the Duggan brothers, George Grant, a captain in the 5th Royal Irish Fusiliers, and John Rowswell, a lieutenant in the 5th Royal Irish Regiment (Pioneers), were killed. In all such cases we see how the bonds of allegiance are strengthened by the bonds of kinship and not set over against them, as in the story of Cynewulf and Cyneheard. In the figure of Byrhtwold, a member of Byrhtnoth’s household,28 the voice of experience, wisdom and long service (he is an ‘eald geneat,/ elderly retainer’, 310a; Hamer, p. 69) is added to that of youthful dash and energy, and it contributes markedly to our sense of the cohesiveness of this society. The emphasis of Byrhtwold’s speech is all on allegiance rather than kinship (314–19) and we are to understand above all that the men are held together by the justice of a noble cause rather than simply by the accident of kinship. The poem ends or draws to its conclusion (since the final lines are lacking) not with Byrhtwold’s celebrated words of defiance, but with a testimony to the virtues of courage and loyalty in the true Godric, the son of Æthelgar (English son of English father), as distinguished from the opposed vices of the false Godric, the son of Odda. As it stands the ending seems somewhat lame, but the contrast between courage and cowardice, good faith and bad faith, are at its moral centre. Battle is the proving ground of men at all times in history and, as the motto of the Dublin Fusiliers has it, spectamur agendo.

Notes 1

2

‘For this reason, these three (that is, self-preservation, the enjoyment of love, and virtue), are certainly those ‘splendidly great things’ which should be written about using the best available means; or rather, the things which to the greatest extent tend towards them, which are prowess in arms, the flames of love, and the direction of the will’ (Haller, p. 35). ‘Yet with this radical defect, a disproportion that puts the irrelevances in the centre and the serious things on the outer edges, the poem of Beowulf is

1  The Battle of Maldon

19

unmistakably heroic and weighty’. W. P. Ker, The Dark Ages (William Blackwood and Sons, 1904; republished, London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1955), p. 253. 3 Introduction to Sir Ian Hamilton, Despatches from the Dardanelles (London: 1917), p. 10. In addition to the courage of the 1st Bn Royal Munster Fusiliers we need to add that of the 1st Bn Royal Dublin Fusiliers and two companies (Y and Z) of the 2nd Bn Hampshire Regiment in the same attack. 4 Rosemary Woolf, ‘The Ideal of Men Dying with their Lord in the Germania and in The Battle of Maldon’, Anglo-Saxon England, 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 63–81. 5 Woolf, ‘The Ideal of Men Dying with their Lord’, p. 81. 6 Letter to Cassandra Austen, Monday, 30 January 1809, in Jane Austen’s Letters, edited by D. Le Faye, third edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), No. 67, p. 173. 7 See Gordon, p. 45, note to line 35. 8 Rudyard Kipling, ‘Dane-Geld, a.d.980–1016’, in C. R. L Fletcher, A School History of England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911). 9 See Gordon, The Battle of Maldon, pp. 45, 47 and 53. 10 See Brendan Simms, The Longest Afternoon: The Four Hundred Men Who Decided the Battle of Waterloo (London: Allen Lane, 2014), pp. 30, 45–46, 54–57, 62, 69 and 71. 11 Tolkien is philologically correct when he insists that ofermod means ‘pride’ (superbia) and not merely ‘overconfidence’ or ‘overboldness’: see J. R. R. Tolkien, ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son’, Essays and Studies, NS 6 (1953), 1–18 (pp. 13 and 15–16). The philological issues have been conclusively settled by J. E. Cross, ‘Mainly on Philology and the Interpretative Criticism of Maldon’, in Old English Studies in Honour of John C. Pope, edited by R. B. Burlin and E. B. Irving Jr (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), pp. 235–53 (see pp. 236–40 in particular for a discussion of lytegian in the bad sense of ‘act cunningly’), and H. Gneuss, ‘The Battle of Maldon 89: Byrhtnoð’s Ofermod Once Again’, Studies in Philology, 73 (1976), 117–37. 12 Philip Henry Stanhope (5th Earl Stanhope), Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington 1831–1851 (privately printed, 1886; second edition, London: J. Murray, 1888; reprinted London: Prion Books, 1998): ‘It is very true that I have said that I considered Napoleon’s presence in the field equal to forty thousand men in the balance. This is a very loose way of talking; but the idea is a very different one from that of his presence at a battle being equal to a reinforcement of forty thousand men’ (18 September 1836). 13 Tolkien, ‘The Homecoming’, p. 16.

20

Gerald Morgan

14 See M. A. L. Locherbie-Cameron, ‘The Men Named in the Poem’, in The Battle of Maldon A. D. 991, edited by D. G. Scragg (Oxford: Basil Blackwood, 1991), pp. 238–49 (pp. 244 and 246). 15 Hamilton, Despatches from the Dardanelles, p. 199. Here were killed in action Brigadier-General A. H. Baldwin, CO, 38th Brigade of the 13th Western Division and of the Centre Assaulting Column, Lieutenant-Colonel H. G. Levinge, CO, 6th Loyal Lancashire Regiment of the 38th Brigade, Lieutenant-Colonel M. H. Nunn, CO, 9th Worcestershire Regiment of the 39th Brigade and LieutenantColonel J. Carden, CO, 5th Wiltshire Regiment of the 40th Brigade. 16 Barbour, The Bruce, 12.25–67. 17 See Mitchell and Robinson, p. 248. 18 Odda is a Scandinavian name; see Gordon, The Battle of Maldon, p. 85 and Locherbie-Cameron, ‘Men Named’, p. 239. 19 See Gordon, Battle of Maldon, p. 84 and Locherbie-Cameron, ‘Men Named’, p. 245. 20 Mitchell and Robinson translate ‘(I) remember the occasions’, noting that ‘unexpressed subjects are entirely permissible in Old English when they can be readily inferred from the context’. Gordon, The Battle of Maldon adopts the emendation to ‘gemunaþ’, imp.pl. (p. 55). 21 Hamlet, III.2.17 and 19, edited by Harold Jenkins, The Arden Shakespeare, Second Series (London 1982). 22 See Ray Westlake, British Regiments at Gallipoli (Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 1996), pp. 110–11: ‘A unique and glorious record is that of the 7th Gloucesters … Every officer and senior N. C. O. was either killed or wounded. Reduced to a few small groups of men, commanded by junior N. C. O.s and privates, they fought dauntlessly from midday until sunset’. 23 Gordon, Battle of Maldon, p. 58. 24 See Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: The Years of the Sword (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969), pp. 455, 459 and 483. 25 Compare the personification of the coat of mail travelling far by the side of heroes in Beowulf: ‘Ne mæg byrnan hring/ æfter wigfruman wide feran,/ hæleðum be healfe,/ nor may the ringed mail fare far and wide with the warrior, side by side with mighty men’ (2260b–62a; Clark Hall, p. 134). 26 See Locherbie-Cameron, ‘Men Named’, p. 239. 27 See H. Hanna, The Pals at Suvla Bay (Dublin, 1916), pp. 106–7 and Gerald Morgan, ‘The Dublin Pals’, in Sarah Alyn Stacey (ed.), Essays on Heroism in Sport in Ireland and France (Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2003), pp. 101–35 (pp. 125 and 131–32). 28 See Locherbie-Cameron, ‘Men Named’, p. 243.

2 The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

  Sì disse prima; e poi: ‘Qui non si vieta di nominar ciascun, da ch’è sì munta nostra sembianza via per la dïeta.’ — dante, Purgatorio, XXIV.16–181

I.  The titles of works of art are not unimportant and sometimes we are obliged to supply a title in the absence of one. This is the case in respect of the greatest Old English poem, the epic or heroic poem we know as Beowulf, and also of the greatest medieval romance which we have agreed (almost but not quite unanimously) to call Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.2 We might form a very different estimate of these works, or at least approach them with different preconceptions, if we knew that their authors had bestowed upon them different titles. The great work of Arthurian romance in the English literary tradition is Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, and it is in some version of this work that most English-speaking readers acquire a taste for romance. Mark Twain refers to it in the explanatory opening section of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) as ‘old Sir Thomas Malory’s enchanting book’.3 But even so seemingly harmless a statement has become problematic in the wake of modern scholarship, for Eugène Vinaver has (regrettably in my opinion) entitled his great edition not Le Morte Darthur but The Works of Sir Thomas Malory and has defended his decision to do so with some pugnacity: The most obvious merit of this text is that it brings us nearer to what Malory really wrote. Less obvious but no less vital is the fact that it enables us to see Malory’s work in the making – not as a single book such as Caxton produced under the spurious and

22

Gerald Morgan totally unrepresentative title of Le Morte Darthur, but as a series of separate romances each representing a distinct stage in the author’s development, from his first timid attempts at imaginative narrative to the consummate mastery of his last great books.4

But do we in fact get closer to the original intention and spirit of Malory’s work by reading it as made up of eight independent books rather than as a single book? A prose romance such as Le Morte Darthur is organised in terms of historical events as recorded in chronicles, that is, in terms of the lives of men and the rise and fall of institutions. For Malory this is above all the lives of Arthur and Launcelot and the associated rise and fall of the fellowship of the Round Table. The relationship of tales in a prose cycle is of a looser, biographical sort as compared with the co-ordination of themes in an epic poem (and here Spenser’s Faerie Qveene supplies an illuminating contrast). Such a relationship allows for considerable independence in the treatment of individual tales within the cyclic design as a whole. The issue of one tale or eight, therefore, is a false issue. The tales that constitute (so far as we know) the complete literary output or life’s work of Sir Thomas Malory are meant to be seen as part of a single work or book, but that single work does not lay claim to the tightness of design of an epic poem. And the chance of history (or perhaps even the genius of Caxton) has conferred on that work the title of Le Morte Darthur. It is clear, then, that the titles that are assigned to works in the absence of an expressed authorial intention can distract us from the works themselves and can reflect the preoccupations of scholars and critics rather than those of poets and authors. In the case of Chrétien de Troyes’s Chevalier de la Charrete these scholarly preoccupations are intruded even though the author has made his own intentions unambiguously explicit. It is not surprising, perhaps, when we consider the subject of this romance, for the love relationship of Lancelot and Guenièvre which is first announced here was to cast its shadow over Arthurian romance for the rest of the Middle Ages and beyond. The importance of Chrétien de Troyes as the first great writer of Arthurian romance is reflected in the recent appearance of three English translations of his works, and in them we can see some critical uncertainty as to the title of Chrétien’s most celebrated romance. D. D. R. Owen in his translation of Chrétien’s Arthurian Romances for Everyman in 1987

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

23

entitles the romance in the Table of Contents simply as Lancelot (p.v) and in the heading to the text itself (pp. 185–280) as Lancelot (The Knight of the Cart).5 This is an improvement on W. W. Comfort’s translation for Everyman Library in 1914, since in the earlier edition the romance is referred to throughout simply as Lancelot (pp. 270–359) and indeed is printed after Yvain (pp. 180–269), properly Le Chevalier au Lion or The Knight with the Lion (a later work).6 William W. Kibler in his translation of the Arthurian Romances for Penguin Classics in 1991 goes one step better and refers to The Knight of the Cart (Lancelot) both in the Table of Contents and in the heading to the text (pp. 207–94).7 David Staines in his translation of Chrétien’s complete works published in 1990 goes one step further and dispenses with the name of Lancelot altogether in the title of the romance.8 There is always a danger in trusting too readily to the predilections of a translator. At any rate there can be no doubt that Chrétien’s own title for the romance is Le Chevalier de la Charrete and he announces it at the beginning of his romance (24–25; Staines, p. 170): Del Chevalier de la Charrete comance Crestïens son livre. Christian is beginning his book of the Knight of the Cart.

We are to understand that the knight who is in quest for the queen (and it is the queen rather than Guenièvre) is simply the Knight of the Cart. That remains his sole identity up to line 3660 of the romance, that is, over half way through the romance, when his personal identity is disclosed by the queen to a damsel in whom there is no animosity or treachery (Charrete, 3660–61): ‘Lanceloz del Lac a a non li chevaliers, mien escïant.’ ‘The name of the knight, as I know, is Lancelot of the Lake.’

Lancelot is in need of the queen’s inspiration in his combat against Meleagant, for he has been greatly weakened by the adventure of the sword bridge. Such withholding of a name is deliberate and indeed characteristic

24

Gerald Morgan

of the romancer’s technique, and it is designed by Chrétien to focus at the beginning of the romance on the more significant fact of the knight’s chivalric as distinct from his personal identity, that is, to everyone except the queen. In the same way Guenièvre is almost always referred to as the queen; at 1099 and 3207 she is ‘la reïne Guenièvre’ and at 1423, as the possessor of the golden strands of hair adored by the knight, she is ‘la fame le roi Artu’. In this fashion Chrétien continuously draws the attention of the reader to the conflict of loyalties and the adulterous nature of the amorous liaison. It is clear that Mark Twain himself has absorbed the methods of the old romances in his representation of the Yankee from Hartford, Connecticut (Connecticut Yankee, pp. 50 and 63): I am an American. I was born and reared in Hartford, in the State of Connecticut – anyway, just over the river, in the country. So I am a Yankee of the Yankees – and practical; yes, and nearly barren of sentiment, I suppose – or poetry, in other words. Wherefore, being a practical Connecticut man, I now shoved this whole problem [i.e. of the total eclipse of the sun at 12.03 on 21 June 528] clear out of my mind till its appointed day and hour should come.

For the greater part of the work this is the identity that counts and his personal identity is unfolded to us only by degrees. The Yankee’s natural eminence among the ignorant savages of Arthur’s court, like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, earns for him the title of the Boss, that is, ‘translated into modern speech’ (p. 115). This title is, of course, especially fitting for one who is above all the fearless spokesman for and lover of democracy. Later, the damsel in distress whose cause he ungallantly aids, ‘hight the Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise’ (p. 136) or Sandy after the unaffected American fashion, reminds him of his early love, and it is in this personal context of love that we learn his first name, as we do that of Lancelot in the Charrete. The form of his name is distinctively and unambiguously American (Connecticut Yankee, pp. 180–81): Fifteen! Break – my heart! oh, my lost darling! Just her age who was so gentle; and lovely, and all the world to me; and whom I shall never see again! How the thought of her carries me back over wide seas of memory to a vague dim time, a happy time, so many many centuries hence, when I used to wake in the soft summer mornings out of sweet dreams of her, and say ‘Hello, Central!’ just to hear her dear

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

25

voice come melting back to me with a ‘Hello, Hank!’ that was music of the spheres to my enchanted ear. She got three dollars a week, but she was worth it.

The reference to ‘Central’ is a mystery to one unfamiliar with the American world of the late nineteenth century, and so a mystery to Sandy herself. Later, when she and the Boss are married, she bestows in her ignorance and to his horror the hyphenated name of Hello-Central upon their daughter (Connecticut Yankee, p. 453): With a grand magnanimity she saddled that cry of mine upon our child, conceiving it to be the name of some lost darling of mine.9

Hank’s full name is not disclosed until much later in the work and appropriately it appears in the public arena not the private, in fact the advertising columns of the press at Camelot in which Sir Sagramour le Desirous announces his intention of meeting him in the lists à l’outrance in an ancient quarrel (Connecticut Yankee, p. 428): [K]now that the great lord and illustrious kni8ht SIR SAGRAMOUR LE DESI[R]OUS having condescended to meet the King’s Minister, Hank Morgan, the which is surnamed The Boss, for satisfgction of offence anciently given, these will engage in the lists by Camelot about the fourth hour of the morning of the sixteenth day of this next succeeding month. The battle will be à l’outrance, sith the said offence was of a deadly sort, admitting of no comPosition.10

Sir Sagramour is eventually slain by a single revolver shot at a distance of fifteen paces. It is the triumph of civilisation over knight-errantry (Connecticut Yankee, p. 439): The day was mine. Knight-errantry was a doomed institution. The march of civilization was begun.

Hank Morgan is the name for the new age, the representative of an industrial and supposedly enlightened society in a feudal society. It is brilliantly done, and quite after the manner of the ancient romance that Mark Twain himself loved and understood so well. In Vinaver’s edition of The Works of Sir Thomas Malory the story of the Knight of the Cart appears as the fourth episode of ‘The Book of Sir Launcelot and Guinevere’, and thus marked off from ‘The Healing of Sir

26

Gerald Morgan

Urry’ that follows as a fifth episode. Here Vinaver (as so often) shows a disregard for the order and structure of Malory’s work, for it is clear from the conclusion to ‘The Healing of Sir Urry’ that the two episodes are intended by Malory to form a single narrative (MD, 1154/1–3 and 12–13): And so I leve here of this tale, and overlepe grete bookis of sir Launcelot, what grete adventures he ded whan he was called ‘le Shyvalere de Charyot’ … And bycause I have loste the very mater of Shevalere de Charyot I departe frome the tale of sir Launcelot …11

Caxton has faithfully reflected Malory’s design in making the matter of these two episodes Book XIX of his edition published in 1485.12 Thus the two episodes taken together are plainly designed to focus on the prowess and pre-eminence of Sir Launcelot as a knight. In such a context Malory’s treatment of the story is inevitably different from that of Chrétien de Troyes. The episode in Le Morte Darthur is not about an unidentified knight, but about the knight who for Malory is the greatest of all Arthur’s knights. Malory’s version of the story, therefore, begins with the simple identification of its three main protagonists (MD, 1121/7–13): And thys knyght sir Mellyagaunce loved passyngly well quene Gwenyver, and so had he done longe and many yerys. And the booke seyth he had lay[n] in awayte for to stele away the quene, but evermore he forbare for bycause of sir Launcelot; for in no wyse he wolde meddyll with the quene and sir Launcelot were in her company othir ellys and he were nerehonde.

As Malory tells it, the episode of the cart becomes one more story of the heroic exploits of Sir Launcelot, not an account of shame and humiliation but a further proof of chivalric excellence. The meaning of the cart has been transformed. It is an instrument of war, not of punishment, and this meaning is reinforced by the form of the word that Malory adopts. It is indeed a chariot rather than a cart (MD, 1154/3–11): For, as the Freynshe booke sayth, because of dispyte that knyghtes and ladyes called hym ‘the Knyght that rode in the Charyot’, lyke as he were juged to the jubett, therefore, in the despite of all them that named hym so, he was caryed in a charyotte a twelve-monethe; for but lytill aftir that he had slayne sir Mellyagaunte in the quenys

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

27

quarell, he never of a twelve-moneth com on horsebak. And, as the Freynshe booke sayth, he ded that twelve-moneth more than fourty batayles.13

Thus the episode of the cart has become part of the process of glorification of Sir Launcelot and of Arthurian chivalry, and it is in this respect that it fits in with the story of Sir Urry. There is no known source for the healing of Sir Urry and it is easy to believe that it is matter of Malory’s own invention, for its one purpose is to establish by precise and systematic detail the superiority of Sir Launcelot not only to the Knights of the Round Table (including a Grail knight like his cousin, Sir Bors, MD, 1148/7, and celebrated knights now dead like Sir Tristram and Sir Lamerok, MD, 1149/28–35), but also to all Christian knights (MD, 1146/14–16) as being ‘the beste knyght of the worlde’ (MD, 1146/12). II.  When we turn back to Le Chevalier de la Charrete we must seek to understand it in the light of the title that Chrétien de Troyes himself has given to it. We have to explain why he has written a Knight of the Cart and not a Lancelot. At once it is clear that there is a difference of perspective here that separates Chrétien not only from Malory but from many (if not the majority) of his modern readers. First and foremost the romance is about a chevalier, that is, a mounted warrior on horseback and hence a member of a military élite. Such an élite functions, and perhaps can only function, in terms of a code of honour at the centre of which are the great military virtues of courage and loyalty set sharply in relief to the opposed vices of cowardice and treachery. In determining the outcome of battles the presence of these virtues and the absence of these vices are all important, and in this respect medieval battles differ in character from modern battles. This is a point that Mark Twain has also well understood and A Connecticut Yankee ends with echoes of Fredericksburg (13 December 1862) and Gettysburg (1–3 July 1863) and other battlefields of the American Civil War and (as it now appears) with premonitions of the Somme and other battlefields of the Great War with the massacre of 25,000 English knights by the Boss, his page or right-hand man Clarence and fifty-two boys between the ages of fourteen and seventeen with the aid of land mines, electric wire-fences and ‘on a spacious platform six feet high … a battery of thirteen gatling guns’ (Connecticut Yankee, p. 467).

28

Gerald Morgan

The winning of honour and the avoidance of shame is the end of chivalric action as of heroic action at any period. Thus the English heroes of the battle of Maldon (10 August 991) prefer to stand and die with their lord than endure the shame reserved for cowardly flight from battle on their return home to the village of Sturmere (BM, 249–54). The same heroic spirit is in abundant evidence in Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, for example, in ‘The Tale of Arthur and Lucius’ where Sir Launcelot shows a lofty disregard for avoiding battle against 60,000 Romans that equals the pride of Roland at Roncesvalles (MD, 217/23–218/2): Than the kynge [wepte and] with a keverchoff wyped his iyen and sayde, ‘Youre corrage and youre hardynesse nerehande had you destroyed, for and ye had turned agayne ye had loste no worshyp, for I calle hit but foly to abyde whan knyghtes bene overmacched.’ ‘Not so,’ sayde sir Launcelot, ‘the shame sholde ever have bene oures.’ ‘That is trouthe,’ seyde sir Clegis and sir Bors, ‘for knyghtes ons shamed recoverys hit never.’

The words of Sir Launcelot are significantly confirmed by Sir Clegis and Sir Bors, and herein we can surely detect the sympathies of Malory himself. For the knight or chevalier there is a special distinction in the fight on horseback, for it takes many years of training to acquire the skill of bearing and wielding weapons in full armour on horseback. Chrétien’s admiration for such skill in knightly combat is explicit in his description of the combat between Yvain, son of Urien, and Esclados the Red at the perilous fountain in the forest of Broceliande in Le Chevalier au Lion (855–61). These lines must have been written by Chrétien at the same time (c.1177) as or shortly after he had abandoned the Chevalier de la Charrete, and they reassert chivalric values with special feeling. Once again Mark Twain shows a sensitivity to this point when he has the Boss interrupt Sandy’s account of the prowess of Sir Marhaus (Marhalt), the son of the King of Ireland, with unutterable moral condescension (Connecticut Yankee, p. 176): ‘And so they ran together that the knight brake his spear on Marhaus, and Sir Marhaus smote him so hard that he brake his neck and the horse’s back –’ ‘Well, that is just the trouble about this state of things, it ruins so many horses.’

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

29

‘That saw the other knight of the turret, and dressed him toward Marhaus, and they met so eagerly together that the knight of the turret was soon smitten down, horse and man, stark dead –’ ‘Another horse gone; I tell you it is a custom that ought to be broken up. I don’t see how people with any feeling can applaud and support it.’

There is a special ignominy for a knight to be unhorsed by another knight, and this sense of shame is expressed in uncompromising fashion by Sir Lamorak (third in the ranks of Malory’s knights after Sir Launcelot and Sir Tristram) in his rebuke of his brothers Agglovale and Darnarde after they have been unhorsed on the sixth day of the tournament at Surluse in ‘The Book of Sir Tristram’ (MD, 667/8–13 and 19–28). Similarly, when Sir Guyon, the knight of temperance, is unhorsed by Britomart, the knight of chastity, at the beginning of Book III of the Faerie Qveene, the poet Spenser expresses in his own person the universal sense of dismay to be felt when a knight as noble as Guyon is discomfited in this way (FQ, III.1.7): Great shame and sorrow of that fall he tooke;   For neuer yet, sith warlike armes he bore,   And shiuering speare in bloudie field first shooke,   He found himselfe dishonored so sore.

Some strange misreadings occur when lines such as these are approached with a lack of sympathy or respect for chivalry and chivalric values, for Guyon is then held to be unsporting in defeat or intemperately angry. The metaphorical point is that temperance is a noble virtue (it is indeed one of the cardinal virtues), but that the virtue of chastity or love is superior to it. It is an indignity too for a knight to have to go on foot. Thus Sir Guyon experiences sorrow and anger in his own Legend of Temperance when he returns from aiding a dying lady (Amavia) and her bloodstained baby (Ruddymane) to find that in the meantime his horse has been stolen (FQ. II.2.11), and he has thus to learn how to compose these feelings in himself (FQ, II.2.12): Which when sir Guyon saw, all were he wroth,   Yet algates mote he soft himselfe appease,   And fairely fare on foot, how euer loth.

30

Gerald Morgan

At the beginning of Le Chevalier de la Charrete we see the unidentified knight on foot, and significantly we see him from Gauvain’s vantage point on horseback (the proper vantage point of a knight) (Charrete, 314–20; Staines, p. 174): N’i a pas granmant aresté, einz passe outre grant aleüre, tant qu’il revit par avanture le chevalier tot seul a pié, tot armé, le hiaume lacié, l’escu au col, l’espee ceinte, si ot une charrete atainte. He did not stay long, but hurried on his way. Then he happened to see again the same knight, all alone on foot, fully armed, his helmet laced, his shield hanging from his neck, his sword buckled. The knight had overtaken a cart.

The description is not at all conducive to the dignity of the knight on foot, but rather it gives the impression that (as we might say) he is all dressed up but has nowhere to go. To a great extent this would seem to be the knight’s own fault (unlike the case with Sir Guyon in the Legend of Temperance), for he has driven 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 offered him by Gauvain (Charrete, 290–95). The later comparison of the knight as a lover to Pyramus (Charrete, 3802–4) is indeed well judged, for Pyramus is the very type of the impetuous lover. Thus a knight should exercise the utmost care in the choice of his horses, for his well-being as a knight depends upon the serviceability of his horses. Such solicitude is indeed shown by Chaucer’s Knight (GP, I.74): ‘His hors were goode, but he was nat gay’. Chaucer draws a distinction between on the one hand the great warrior who cares about the condition of his horses and less about his personal appearance and on the other his handsome young son, elegantly and colourfully attired in the manner of an ardent lover (GP, I.89–98). Terry Jones has undermined the purpose of this contrast in passing over indulgently the ostentation of youth and finding the proven defender of the faith and of justice guilty of shabbiness, as if one can fight battles and remain elegantly attired at the same time.14

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

31

Malory reconstructs the story of the Knight of the Cart so as to remove any possible criticism of Sir Launcelot for negligence in respect of his care for his horses. He is on foot not because of any impetuosity on his part but because of Sir Mellyagaunce’s cowardice (a motive unknown to Chrétien) in fleeing with the queen and leaving behind thirty of his best archers (surely a sufficient number) to lie in ambush for Sir Launcelot with instructions to slay his horse (MD, 1124/13–19). It is an ungallant and unchivalrous manner of fighting, both in the reliance on superiority of numbers and in being directed against a defenceless horse. The account of the slaying of the horse thus serves to reinforce by contrast our sense of the chivalrousness of Sir Launcelot himself (MD, 1125/29–33): ‘That ys lytyll maystry,’ seyde sir Launcelot, ‘to sle myne horse! But as for myselff, whan my horse ys slayne I gyff ryght nought of you, nat and ye were fyve hundred mo!’ So than they shotte sir Launcelottis horse and smote hym with many arowys.

Sir Launcelot is not guilty of unchivalrous or unknightly conduct, but is the victim of it, and the point is underlined by Malory by repeated emphasis. Thus Sir Launcelot’s horse follows the cart after Sir Launcelot has got into it ‘with mo than fourty arowys in hym’ (MD, 1126/34). The queen sees the horse following the cart with ‘hys guttis and hys paunche undir hys feete’ (MD, 1127/10–11). Sir Launcelot is undoubtedly at a disadvantage on foot, but it is a misfortune not of his own devising and he is angry as any noble knight mindful of his honour and dignity would be (just like Spenser’s Sir Guyon in fact) (MD, 1126/3–9): ‘Alas, for shame!’ seyde sir Launcelot, ‘that ever one knyght shulde betray anothir knyght! But hyt ys an olde-seyde saw: “A good man ys never in daungere but whan he ys in the daungere of a cowhard”.’ Than sir Launcelot walked on a whyle, and was sore acombird of hys armoure, hys shylde, and hys speare. Wyte you well he was full sore anoyed!

Later, when Sir Lavayne, who is assigned by Malory a role corresponding in part to that of Gauvain in the Charrete, meets up with Sir Launcelot at Mellyagaunce’s castle and mentions the incident of the slain horse, Sir Launcelot passes swiftly over the matter (MD, 1130/13–18):

32

Gerald Morgan … whan sir Lavayne saw sir Launcelot, he seyde, ‘A, my lorde! I founde howe ye were harde bestadde, for I have founde your hors that ys slayne with arowys.’ ‘As for that,’ seyde sir Launcelot, ‘I praye you, sir Lavayne, speke ye of othir maters and lat thys passe, and ryght hit anothir tyme and we may.’

Sir Launcelot is an experienced knight and has by now mastered his earlier and justifiable anger at the loss of his horse in such circumstances. But there are more pressing matters to attend to and he has no time for personal vindictiveness. Nor does Malory overlook the question of Sir Launcelot’s judgment in the choice of horses (far too important a matter for a knight to let go without comment). Thus he contrives that the lady who releases Sir Launcelot from prison for the final combat against Mellyagaunce offers him a choice from among no fewer than twelve horses (MD, 1136/27–33). The Lancelot of Le Chevalier de la Charrete is not offered such a choice on the two separate occasions when he is released from imprisonment, first by the seneschal’s wife for the tournament at Noauz (Charrete, 5498–501), and second by Bademagu’s daughter, the sister of Meleagant, in Godefroi de Leigni’s conclusion to the romance (Charrete, 6700–704). In his choice of a stalwart (or, perhaps, white) horse in Malory’s episode, Sir Launcelot shows the good judgment of an experienced and proven warrior. The last trace of imprudence in the original Knight of the Cart has been erased. The indignity of going on foot, great as that is for a knight, is far exceeded by the ignominy of mounting a cart intended for criminals, and this fact is made abundantly clear in Chrétien’s text (Charrete, 321–22 and 333–38; Staines, p. 174): De ce servoit charrete lores don li pilori servent ores, … qui a forfet estoit repris s’estoit sor la charrete mis et menez par totes les rues; s’avoit totes enors perdues, ne puis n’estoit a cort oïz, ne enorez ne conjoïz. In those days carts served the function of our pillories … The convicted criminal was placed in the cart and led through every street. Thus he had lost all honour. From then on all courts refused him hearing. He was neither welcome nor respected.

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

33

From the point of view of chivalric honour, therefore, there is an overwhelming case to be made against a knight getting into a cart designed for criminals. Such a concern for public reputation is not to be trivialised, especially when it is in accord with the inward love of virtue, as we see in Chaucer’s Knight (GP, I.45–46):       … he loved chivalrie, Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie.

Thus Arveragus, the ‘worthy knyght’ of The Franklin’s Tale (V.1517; cf. V.1089) seeks to avoid public shame while enduring private grief in allowing the love of his wife for another man, and so forbids Dorigen ‘ “up peyne of deeth” ’ (V.1481) to reveal to the world the fact that he has sent her to Aurelius in accordance with her promise (V.1480–86). Charles Stewart Parnell, in refusing out of honour to defend himself at the time of the divorce suit brought against him by Willie O’Shea, had to endure not only his own ruin but also the ruin of his country. It is therefore an unreasonable, indeed an irrational, act for the knight to get into the cart, and Chrétien de Troyes makes this point in general and objective terms by means of the personification of reason and love (Charrete, 365–69; Staines, p. 174): mes Reisons, qui d’Amors se part, li dit que del monter se gart, si le chastie et si l’anseigne que rien ne face ne anpreigne dom il ait honte ne reproche. Reason, which disagrees with Love, told him to refrain from climbing in and admonished and instructed him not to do or undertake anything that could bring him disgrace or reproach.

Indeed, the knight hesitates for two steps before he gets into the cart, and to this extent he acknowledges the claims of honour upon him. Once again it is instructive to look at Malory’s treatment of the incident of the cart by way of contrast, and, as we might expect by now, we find that the cart itself has been entirely divested of its original significance. It is no longer ordained for criminals, but for the simple and mundane (and

34

Gerald Morgan

not unlawful) purpose of fetching wood (MD, 1126/12–13). It is driven not by a dwarf but by two carters, one of whom Sir Launcelot kills in his determination to get into the cart (MD, 1126/14–26). Transport in the cart for the knight on foot is thus reduced from a matter of shame to a mere practical exigency, for the shame has been transferred to Mellyagaunce and his archers (MD, 1126/26–34). This interpretation of events is confirmed for us by the queen herself when she rebukes one of her ladies for supposing that the ‘goodly armed knyght’ riding ‘in a charyot … rydyth unto hangynge’ (MD, 1127/4–6 and 15–20): And than she rebuked that lady that lykened sir Launcelot to ryde in a charyote to hangynge: ‘Forsothe hit was fowle-mowthed,’ seyde the quene, ‘and evyll lykened, so for to lyken the moste noble knyght of the worlde unto such a shamefull dethe. A! Jesu deffende hym and kepe hym’, sayde the quene, ‘frome all myschevous ende!’

The cart is thus not only divested of its original significance, but also Sir Launcelot’s act of riding in it is vindicated. That act now stands in other words to his excellence and not to his humiliation as a knight. Thus the title of Knight of the Cart is redefined as one of praise (MD, 1130/1–3): Than, as the Freynsh booke saythe, sir Launcelot was called many dayes aftyr ‘le Shyvalere de Charyotte’, and so he ded many dedys and grete adventures.

A similar redefinition takes place in respect of the girdle in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight when it is given back to Sir Gawain by the Green Knight after the matter of the return blow has been completed. The acceptance by Sir Gawain of the girdle is no longer merely a mark of his human imperfection but it is now also a sign of an adventure in which he has maintained and even enhanced the reputation of the fellowship of the Round Table (SGGK, 2395–99 and 2519–21): And I gif þe, sir, þe gurdel þat is golde-hemmed, For hit is grene as my goune. Sir Gawayn, ȝe maye Þenk vpon þis ilke þrepe, þer þou forth þryngez Among prynces of prys, and þis a pure token Of þe chaunce of þe grene chapel at cheualrous knyȝtez.

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

35

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.

The Sir Gawain of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is not perfect. He is merely the best. That is true also of the Sir Launcelot of Malory’s Morte Darthur. But neither the Gawain-poet nor Sir Thomas Malory any more than Chrétien de Troyes can associate such human excellence with the ignominy of a criminal’s cart and the treachery of adulterous liaisons. Such distasteful matters and the moral incoherence (or hypocrisy) that can accommodate them are to be left to lesser writers such as Godefroi de Leigni. III.  In Chrétien’s Chevalier de la charrete the claims of chivalry and of reason are set in the balance against the claims of love (Charrete, 370–77; Staines, p. 174): N’est pas el cuer, mes an la boche, Reisons qui ce dire li ose; mes Amors est el cuer anclose qui li comande et semont que tost an la charrete mont. Amors le vialt et il i saut, que de la honte ne li chaut puis qu’Amors le comande et vialt. Reason, which dared speak this way, spoke from his lips, but not from his heart. But Love, which was enclosed in his heart, urged and commanded him to climb into the cart at once. Love achieved his desire. The knight leapt up without concern for the disgrace because this was Love’s will and command.

Here ‘Amors/Love’ must be understood as the emotion or passion of love, enclosed as it is within the heart (Charrete, 372). Such love requires in the lover both humility and obedience, and these virtues in Lancelot are formally expressed in the romance when he leaves off fighting against Meleagant as soon as he becomes aware that it is the queen’s will that he should do so (Charrete, 3798–807 and 3810–12; Staines, p. 216):

36

Gerald Morgan Molt est qui aimme obeïssanz, et molt fet tost et volentiers, la ou il est amis antiers, ce qu’a s’amie doie plaire. Donc le dut bien Lanceloz faire, qui plus ama que Piramus, s’onques nus hom pot amer plus. La parole oï Lanceloz: ne puis que li darrïens moz de la boche li fu colez, … puis Lanceloz, por nule rien, nel tochast, ne ne se meüst, se il ocirre le deüst. A lover is obedient; when he is completely in love, he performs his beloved’s pleasure eagerly and promptly. Thus Lancelot, who loved more than Pyramus – if love more any man could – was compelled to obey. Lancelot heard the words of the queen. The last words she had uttered … had scarcely left her lips when he would not lay a hand on his opponent or make any move, even if Meleagant were to kill him.

Such a conception of love service is the theme of the debate between the three tercel eagles in Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls (414–83). The royal tercel, the noblest of Nature’s creatures, is the first to take up Nature’s invitation to choose a mate, but begins at once with all the fervour and urgency of the committed lover by challenging Nature’s assumption that he will be choosing his equal (PF, 414–20):   With hed enclyned and with humble cheere This royal tersel spak, and tariede noght:   ‘Unto my soverayn lady, and not my fere, I chese, and chese with wil, and herte, and thought, The formel on youre hond, so wel iwrought, Whos I am al, and evere wol hire serve, Do what hire lest, to do me lyve or sterve.’

expression,look male eagle equal female eagle it pleases;make;die

By the demands of love service, therefore, Lancelot is required not only to get into the cart but to do so without hesitation. Hence the queen treats him dismissively for all his labours on her behalf and even though he has rescued her from Meleagant (Charrete, 3937–46; Staines, p. 218):

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

37

Quant la reïne voit le roi, qui tient Lancelot par le doi, si c’est contre le roi dreciee et fet sanblant de correciee, si s’anbruncha et ne dist mot. ‘Dame, veez ci Lancelot, fet li rois, qui vos vient veoir; ce vos doit molt pleire et seoir. - Moi? Sire, moi ne puet il plaire; de son veoir n’ai ge que faire. When the queen saw the king leading Lancelot by the hand, she rose before the king, lowering her head and remaining silent in an appearance of anger. ‘Lady,’ said the king, ‘here is Lancelot, who comes to see you. This should suit and please you.’ ‘Me? Sir, he is unable to please me. I have no interest in seeing him.’

Lancelot’s first reaction (like that of many lovers before and after him) is one of intense bewilderment in the face of his lady’s coldness towards him, and this bewilderment is shared by the king, Bademagu, who brings him into her presence. These responses are from a psychological point of view entirely credible, especially by reference to the normal expectations of a third party who stands outside the love relationship and is therefore ignorant of its cross-currents. In his own confusion and ignorance Lancelot supposes that he is despised by the queen for the shameful act of getting into the cart (Charrete, 4347–78). Later, in the scene of reconciliation, the queen explains that she was motivated by quite the contrary consideration, namely Lancelot’s imperfect submission to the dictates of love (Charrete, 4483–89; Staines, pp. 224–25): Et la reïne li reconte: ‘Comant? Don n’eüstes vos honte de la charrete, et si dotastes? Molt a grant enviz i montastes quant vos demorastes deus pas. Por ce, voir, ne vos vos je pas ne aresnier ne esgarder.’ ‘What? Were you not afraid and ashamed of the cart?’ the queen replied. ‘When you hesitated for two steps, you showed your great reluctance to climb in. To be honest, that is the reason I would not look at you or speak to you.’

38

Gerald Morgan

As a true lover by this code of love Lancelot at once accepts the justice of the queen’s case (Charrete, 4490–93), asks for forgiveness (Charrete, 4494–97) and is completely forgiven (Charrete, 4498–500). IV.  Here, then, it is clear that the codes of chivalry and of love are brought to a point of absolute conflict, and designedly so. What stand does Chrétien de Troyes himself take on this issue? Certainly it must be said that the argument for the shamefulness of mounting the cart is not allowed to go by default, for it is rehearsed in a series of ways by characters of diverse points of view. The dwarf, in the manner of dwarves, expresses a hateful contempt for the knight when inviting Gauvain to jump into the cart beside him (Charrete, 384–87; Staines, p. 175): Li nains dit: ‘Se tu tant te hez con cist chevaliers qui ci siet, monte avoec lui, se il te siet et je te manrai avoec li.’ ‘If you have as little self-regard as this knight sitting here, jump, if you wish, into the cart alongside him. I shall drive you with him,’ the dwarf answered.

Gauvain himself is astonished (‘si s’an mervoille’, Charrete, 381) to find the knight in the cart and refuses to climb into it himself, thinking such action madness (‘molt grant folie’, Charrete, 389). Gauvain is described repeatedly in the narrative as ‘mes sire Gauvains’ (Charrete, 224, 248, 254, 269, etc.) in the nominative singular and as ‘mon seignor Gauvain’ (Charrete, 275, 278, 436, 453, etc.) in the oblique singular, that is, ‘my lord Gawain’, the reverential form of address being indicative of the fact that for Chrétien it is Gauvain not Lancelot who is the measure or standard of chivalric excellence. Thus in Erec et Enide Gauvain is listed first among Arthur’s knights whereas Lancelot appears only in third place (Erec et Enide, 1671–74; Staines, p. 22): Devant toz les boens chevaliers doit estre Gauvains li premiers, li seconz Erec, li filz Lac, e li tierz Lancelot del Lac.

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

39

Gawain has to be first, at the head of all the excellent knights; then Erec, the son of Lac; and third, Lancelot of the Lake.

Gauvain remains on horseback following the cart (Charrete, 395–97 and 428–29). It is a pointed and telling contrast. The difference between the knight on horseback and the knight in the cart is reflected in the differing treatment they receive at the hands of the Dameisele du château de la lance enflammée/Damsel of the castle of the flaming lance. The need to refer to her after this convoluted fashion arises from the fact that Chrétien has significantly given her no personal identity. She is an archetypal hostess, beautiful, gracious and charming (Charrete, 430–34, 448–49, 454–58, 467–72 and 585–86). She treats Gauvain as one of greater dignity than the wretched knight who has humiliated himself in the cart. Thus she sits beside him at supper (Charrete, 452–53) and on the following morning engages in private conversation with him (Charrete, 544–49). But her manner changes abruptly when she comes to tell the Knight of the Cart of the prohibition against sleeping in the third bed. She instinctively addresses him as one unworthy of respect (Charrete, 482–87; Staines, p. 176): Cele respondi, pas ne panse, qui en ere apansee bien: ‘A vos, fet ele, ne taint rien del demander ne de l’anquerre. Honiz est chevaliers an terre puis qu’il a esté an charrete.’ Having already anticipated this question, she answered without reflection. ‘You have no right to ask such a question,’ she said. ‘Any knight is in disgrace throughout the world after he has been in a cart.’

Later, in the wake of his attempted suicide, she considers it well for him to be dead, such is the humiliation he has had to endure for getting into the cart (Charrete, 575–82). The Knight of the Stony Passage (‘Li Passages des Pierres’, Charrete, 2163), an avowed enemy, taunts the knight with the humiliation of the cart, for his reputation has preceded him (Charrete, 2211–19; Staines, p. 197):

40

Gerald Morgan Et quant il au passage aproche, cil qui l’esgarde li reproche la charrete molt laidemant, et dit: ‘Vasax, grant hardemant as fet, et molt es fos naïs, quant antrez ies an cest païs. Ja hom ça venir ne deüst qui sor charrete esté eüst, et ja Dex joïr ne t’an doint.’ The knight, watching the stranger approach the pass, insulted him shamefully about the cart. ‘Vassal,’ he said, ‘how very bold of you to enter this land. You were born a fool. No man who has been in a cart should ever come here. May God never grant you joy for it.’

In the same way the Knight of the Cart is vilified by the Knight of the Swordbridge (‘Pont de l’Espee’, Charrete, 2583). The undertaking of crossing the bridge, daunting as it is, is not for one who has shamed himself by mounting a cart (Charrete, 2589–600). Here the words of a foe are endorsed by friends, for the master of the house in which the Knight of the Cart has been generously lodged does not repudiate the words of the Knight of the Swordbridge, however arrogant he may be, but sadly acknowledges the truth of them and laments the misfortune (Charrete, 2603–10; Staines, p. 202): mes li sires de la meison et tuit li autre par reison s’an mervoillent a desmesure: ‘Ha Dex! con grant mesavanture!’ fet chascuns d’ax a lui meïsmes: ‘l’ore que charrete fu primes pansee et feite soit maudite; car molt est vix chose et despite.’ But the lord of the manor and all the others were rightly astounded. ‘Oh God! What great misfortune!’ each said to himself. ‘How base and despicable a cart is! Damn the hour it was first imagined and made!’

The consideration of honour here is so powerful that it explains why a knight can prefer to die rather than be dishonoured. When it comes to it the

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

41

Knight of the Swordbridge himself prefers death to dishonour (Charrete, 2768–75; Staines, p. 204): ‘Sire, bien feire le porroiz, mes, por Deu, vos quier et demant merci, fors que tant seulemant qu’an charrete monter ne doive. Nus plez n’est que je n’an reçoive fors cestui, tant soit grief ne forz. Mialz voldroie estre, je cuit, morz que fet eüsse cest meschief.’ ‘Sir, you can kill me. But in God’s name I ask and beg your mercy on the one condition that I am not forced to climb into a cart. With this single exception I shall do anything, however painful or difficult. I would rather be dead, I know, than have agreed to that misfortune.’

At the same time we are led to see how greatly the Knight of the Swordbridge prizes his life in his repeated appeals for mercy at the hands of the Knight of the Cart (Charrete, 2742–57, 2816–23 and 2902–24). When a knight accepts death in this fashion then one has to accept that, rightly or wrongly, the shame of the cart runs very deeply in the world of Chrétien’s romance and also, we must likewise assume, in the world in which he lived. The act of mounting the cart is indeed incompatible with knightly honour or the inner meaning of chivalry. It is not prima facie a superficial or insignificant matter and it is beyond all doubt that Chrétien treats the loss of knightly honour involved in mounting the cart with the utmost moral seriousness. V.  Set against the issue of mounting the cart is the power of love which is seemingly impervious to all such considerations of knightly honour. The question in these circumstances is whether love itself is an elevating or degrading force in human conduct. The answer is that it can be both, as Dante explains through Virgil’s exposition of love in the Purgatorio (XVII.103–5; Sinclair, II.225):   Quinci comprender puoi ch’esser convene amor sementa in voi d’ogne virtute e d’ogne operazion che merta pene.

42

Gerald Morgan From this thou canst understand that love must be the seed in you of every virtue and of every action deserving punishment.

Love as a source of inspiration is seen in the Charrete when the Knight of the Cart is inspired to endure the agony of the swordbridge (3094–117). Love indeed makes his suffering sweet: ‘si li estoit a sofrir dolz’ (Charrete, 3115). It is the ultimate statement of the oxymoron of love. It is indeed the Knight of the Cart and not Gauvain who succeeds in rescuing the queen, for Gauvain is impeded by the lesser of the two obstacles, the waterbridge or ‘Li Ponz Evages’, that is, a bridge under the water (Charrete, 653–65 and 5096–136), barring entry to the land of Gorre. The feat of crossing the swordbridge is beyond the scope of any other knight and establishes the Knight of the Cart in the eyes of no less a judge than King Bademagu himself as without equal (Charrete, 3170–76; Staines, p. 209): Li rois certeinnement savoit que cil qui ert au pont passez estoit miaudres que nus assez; que ja nus passer n’i osast, a cui dedanz soi reposast malvestiez qui fet honte as suens plus que proesce enor as suens. The king knew for a fact that the man who had crossed the bridge had no equal, for no one would ever dare make such a crossing with a heart that lodged Cowardice, which is more prompt in disgracing her people than Bravery is in honouring her followers.

Weakened by the wounds suffered in crossing the swordbridge the Knight of the Cart is in no condition to fight (Charrete, 3310–24 and 3350–61) but he will brook no delay (Charrete, 3389–416). In the ensuing combat against Meleagant the Knight of the Cart begins to get the worst of it in his weakened state (Charrete, 3622–33) but his strength and courage revive at the sight of the queen in the tower (Charrete, 3720–29). Thus inspired Lancelot (and it is Lancelot not the Knight of the Cart from this moment onwards) is able to drive Meleagant before him at will (Charrete, 3745–55; Staines, pp. 215–16):

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

43

Ensi Lanceloz molt sovant le menoit arriers et avant par tot la ou boen li estoit, et totevoies s’arestoit, devant la reïne sa dame qui li a mis el cors la flame, por qu’il la va si regardant; et cele flame si ardant vers Meleagant le feisoit, que par tot la ou li pleisoit le pooit mener et chacier! Thus Lancelot continued to drive him back and forth wherever he pleased, always stopping before his lady the queen. She had ignited the flame in his heart, which made him continue to gaze up at her. This flame incited him against Meleagant so that he could chase and drive him wherever he wished.

But at this moment of vindication of the supreme power of love doubts and suspicions begin to arise. For a poet with such fine judgment Chrétien’s account here is surely somewhat overdone. The spectacle of a knight fighting with his back to the enemy is ridiculous (Charrete, 3669–89) and does not belong to the real world of knights and battles. It is better suited to the world of Errol Flynn and a Hollywood film set. Whatever else he is, Meleagant is a formidable knight and a deadly foe (Charrete, 3161–67 and 3540–45) and is not to be underestimated in battle. We are told that he did not treat the combat as a game (‘de neant nel tient a geus/ Melïaganz’, Charrete, 3728–29), but a game is precisely what it has now been reduced to. The combat is no longer recognisable as a serious encounter between two knights striving with might and main for life or death. But for those who have little care for chivalric honour such folly in knightly conduct can be considered a grand spectacle and Lancelot’s love for the queen beyond the reach of convention and conventional criticism. Such is essentially the position of L. T. Topsfield in his study of Chrétien’s Arthurian Romances: Lancelot, the epitome of chivalry, of humility and self-sacrifice for Love, is set against the selfish courage and cruelty of Meleagant. And Lancelot, the Elect who overcomes self-pride and resists the temptation of self-interest in devotion to Fin’ Amors for the

44

Gerald Morgan Queen, rises thereby to a higher concept of Love and virtue than can be achieved through the correct, courtly attitudes of Gawain.15

But it is difficult to reconcile so simple a view of life with Le Chevalier de la Charrete. The fact is, and it is an unwelcome fact to contemplate, that love, as Dante recognises, can be a source of degradation as well as of inspiration. It is this dual potentiality of love that makes the episode of the cart so uncomfortable. Thus the logic of absolute obedience required of the knight by the lady in her rebuke of him for his hesitation in mounting the cart is finally worked out by Chrétien in the account of the tournament at Noauz. If we are to believe that Lancelot is the best of Arthur’s knights, then he will represent the standard that all other knights aspire to and attempt to live up to. It is the function of a herald to know the difference between one knight and another, and the herald who recognises the knight in the vermilion arms in his lodgings as Lancelot knows (or thinks he knows) that he has seen the best of knights. In his excitement he announces the fact to anyone who will listen to him without, of course, disclosing the knight’s identity (Charrete, 5561–64; Staines, p. 237): Tantost de la meison s’an saut, si s’an vet, criant molt an haut; ‘Or est venuz qui l’aunera! Or est venuz qui l’aunera!’ As soon as he left the house, he ran shouting at the top of his voice: ‘Now he has come, the man who will take the measure! Now he has come, the man who will take the measure!’

and he goes on repeating it as one in possession of an important truth (Charrete, 5570–74; Staines, p. 238): et sachiez que dit fu lors primes ‘Or est venuz qui l’aunera!’ Nostre mestre an fu li hyra qui a dire le nos aprist, car il premieremant le dist.

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

45

You can be certain this was the first time they were uttered: ‘Now he has come, the man who will take the measure!’ Our master was the herald, who taught us the phrase, for he was the first person to use it.

It would seem that ‘Or est venuz qui l’aunera!’ became established as a standard formulation among heralds to designate the appearance of the greatest of knights. The tournament is the stage on which that greatness will be displayed. Thus as the knight in the vermilion arms makes his entrance on the field of combat itself the herald once again announces his arrival in these terms (Charrete, 5614–18; Staines, p. 238): mes quant il vint par mi la pree, et li hirauz le voit venir, de crier ne se pot tenir: ‘Veez celui qui l’aunera! Veez celui qui l’aunera!’ But when he did come across the meadow, the herald caught sight of his approach and could not refrain from shouting: ‘See the man who will take the measure! See the man who will take the measure!’

This claim is not intended to be a false claim. Indeed the unknown knight in the vermilion arms (surely very striking in appearance) at once begins to prove himself equal to the reputation assigned to him by the herald and to the expectations aroused by him, for he shows himself alone to be worth twenty of the best (‘il seus valoit des meillors vint’, Charrete, 5622). But such a demonstration of knightly prowess comes to an abrupt end when the queen sends a young lady-in-waiting to the knight in the vermilion arms to command him to do his worst (Charrete, 5641–45; Staines, p. 238): ‘Jus de ces loges avalez; a ce chevalier m’an alez qui porte cel escu vermoil; et si li dites a consoil que “au noauz” que je li mant.’ ‘Go down from the galleries and approach that knight with the vermilion shield. Tell him in secret that I command him to do his worst.’

46

Gerald Morgan

The queen’s terse command ‘au noauz’ (Charrete, 5645 and 5654) is a play on the name of the place of the tournament. Thus the tournament at Noauz is veritably the place where the Knight of the Cart does his worst. The knight who has been tested by the episode of the cart and has fallen short is now complete in his obedience to his lady’s command (Charrete, 5652–56; Staines, p. 239): ‘Sire, ma dame la reïne par moi vos mande, et jel vos di, que “au noauz”.’ Quant cil l’oï, si li dist que molt volantiers, come cil qui est suens antiers. ‘Sir, through me my lady the queen commands you, as I tell you, to do your worst.’ As soon as he heard her words, he said he would do this eagerly as a man who was hers entirely.

In carrying out this command he brings justifiable contempt upon his head from his fellow knights. He not merely fights with his back turned to his opponent, as in the combat against Meleagant, but he turns his back in flight (Charrete, 5666–68). This is no matter for amusement in any knight. The herald is dumbfounded and the reputation of the knight in the vermilion arms is undermined. As a consequence of the queen’s command the standard of chivalric excellence has needlessly become an object of derision (Charrete, 5674–84; Staines, p. 239): Et li chevalier de lui font lor risees et lor gabois, qui molt le prisoient ainçois. Et li herauz qui soloit dire: ‘Cil les vaintra trestoz a tire!’ est molt maz, et molt desconfiz, qu’il ot les gas et les afiz de ces qui dïent: ‘Or te tes, amis, cist ne l’aunera mes. Tant a auné c’or est brisiee S’aune que tant nos a prisiee.’ The knights who before had esteemed him highly now made him the butt of their jokes and laughter. And the herald, who had exclaimed, ‘He will defeat all of

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

47

them in their turn,’ was most downcast and depressed by the taunts and insults he heard. ‘Now, friend, be silent,’ people said. ‘This man will take no one’s measure. He has measured so much that now his measuring stick, which you praised so highly to us, is broken.’

On the following morning the queen demonstrates her power by commanding the knight to continue to do his worst (Charrete, 5835–44) and when she is sure of his obedience to her command (Charrete, 5852–57 and 5868–75) she reverses the command and now commands the knight to do his best (‘au mialz’, Charrete, 5879 and 5899). It is a command that the knight receives with an equal obedience (Charrete, 5890–93 and 5904–14). He is no longer at liberty to do his worst and proceeds to carry out the new command in splendid style (Charrete, 5918–92) so that by his deeds he can indeed be seen to be the measure of all the knights participating in the tournament at Noauz (Charrete, 5961–65). The moral point is clear and allows of no rebuttal. Knightly prowess is rooted not in virtue, that is, a matter of inner worth, but rather in devotion to a lady, that is, an external source of worth. It is the self-worth of a lady not the love of honour and of justice that exercises or ought to exercise a knight. Such a doctrine may appeal to a Marie de Champagne but it finds no favour with a poet such as Dante nor with a romancer such as Chrétien de Troyes. It is to be noted, therefore, that Chrétien avoids a direct comparison between Gauvain and Lancelot in the account of the tournament at Noauz, whereas he does not hesitate to bring Le Chevalier au Lion to a conclusion with a contest between Yvain and Gauvain on equal terms (6106–509).16 Gauvain is a spectator not a participant in the tournament at Noauz and, moreover, a spectator who is generous in his admiration of the brave deeds of the knight in the vermilion arms (Charrete, 5952–60). Gauvain has no need or inclination to exalt himself at the expense of others. But a knight’s love of honour is not a matter to be trifled with and it is no wonder that Chrétien abandons the Chevalier de la Charrete at this point or shortly afterwards (perhaps at 6147, at the point of Lancelot’s imprisonment in Meleagant’s tower after his return from the tournament at Noauz). VI.  It is not difficult to see from the narrative of the Charrete how the notion of love service, noble and generous as it may be in the instinct of

48

Gerald Morgan

love from which it springs, can produce in the lover a condition of abject servitude. The lover becomes reduced by such a love to the status of those abducted to and so imprisoned in the land of Gorre (Charrete, 51–60 and 636–43). Accordingly, as W. T. H. Jackson explains in an important essay, the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach (c.1170–post-1220) is explicit in his criticism of love service17 and in this he is followed by Walther von der Vogelweide (fl. 1190–1230): Walther’s great service to German love-poetry is his recognition of the futility of Minnedienst. To him, true love was mutual and natural. Consequently his lovers meet in a spring landscape which is not the formal description derived from classical rhetoric but a modification of it in which each element is alive. His lady is fresh and young. She is not a lady who must be served but a person who is to be loved naturally and who must return this love.18

In the lai of Chaitivel or ‘The Unfortunate One’ (late twelfth century) Marie de France demonstrates the futility of the love service of four knights who love a lady and who are all alike loved by her in turn without differentiation.19 The title of Chaitivel for the lai is that insisted upon by the one surviving lover (Chaitivel, 205–26), but it has an alternative title, Les Quatre Dols or ‘The Four Sorrows’, the title proposed by the lady herself in commemoration of her four lovers, three of whom were killed and the fourth wounded at a tournament on a single day (Chaitivel, 192–204). Both titles are apt (Chaitivel, 232–36) and there are many who still call the lai by the title of Les Quatre Dols (Chaitivel, 7–8). The surviving lover cannot even blot out the painful memory of a divided love in fixing upon the title of a poem. By the concept of love service the lover is conscious of himself not as an equal but as an inferior and to all intents and purposes as a slave. Chaucer shows that Troilus is humbled by love for Criseyde in precisely this fashion (TC, I.435–39): In hym ne deyned spare blood roial The fyr of love – wherfro God me blesse –  Ne him forbar in no degree, for al His vertu or his excellent prowesse, But held hym as his thral lowe in destresse.

condescended from which spared;not at all slave

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

49

This is by no means an elevating feeling but one in which love and desire have given way to fear and sorrow. It is the condition of one not merely in love but overwhelmed by the passion of love and such excess will lead in due course not to happiness but to sickness and even to death. This is indeed the religion of love whereby the lady is venerated as if a divine being. Hence all those things that belong to her or are in some way connected with her are treated as relics. This is the state of being of the Knight of the Cart in his quest to rescue the queen from the land of Gorre and in consequence Chrétien uses in reference to him the language of religious devotion. Thus the Knight of the Cart adores the strands of hair in her comb that he chances upon lying on the stone beside the fountain as he proceeds on his way in the company of the Demeisele Amoureuse (Charrete, 1457–62; Staines, p. 188): Et cil, qui vialt que le peigne ait, li done, et les chevox an trait, si soëf que nul n’an deront. Ja mes oel d’ome ne verront nule chose tant enorer, qu’il les comance a aorer. Willing to let her have the comb, he first pulled out the strands of hair so carefully that not one was damaged. Then he gave her the comb. The eye of man will never behold anything accorded such honour as the strands when he began to adore them.

This is the fourth anonymous demoiselle thus far encountered in the knight’s quest and distinguishing between them is something of a problem for the reader of the romance. But their anonymity undoubtedly has a purpose and it reflects the fact that the Knight of the Cart has no interest in them as individuals in their own right. He himself is entirely absorbed in his thoughts of his own lady, the queen. It is she that he adores when he succeeds in removing the iron bars from her window and comes finally into her presence and to her bed (Charrete, 4651–53; Staines, p. 226): et puis vint au lit la reïne, si l’aore et se li ancline, car an nul cors saint ne croit tant.

50

Gerald Morgan He adored her and knelt down before her; in no saint’s relics did he place such faith.

When he takes his leave from her in the morning he does so in the manner of a suppliant at an altar (Charrete, 4716–18; Staines, p. 227): Au departir a soploié a la chanbre, et fet tot autel con s’il fust devant un autel. At his departure he behaved like a suppliant in the room, acting as if he were before an altar.

Strictly speaking, adoration is an exterior act of the virtue of religion or (in the modern sense) piety, whereby the body is used to reverence God, for example, by genuflection or prostration (ST, 2a 2ae 84.2), and the word is used by Spenser in the strict sense in the opening canto of the Faerie Qveene (I.1.2): But on his brest a bloudie 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.

As it is used in the Charrete it is the religion of love as the fourth component in C. S. Lewis’s celebrated definition of courtly love in The Allegory of Love (p. 2): The sentiment, of course, is love, but love of a highly specialized sort, whose characteristics may be enumerated as Humility, Courtesy, Adultery, and the Religion of Love.20

But it is a mistake to suppose that the religion of love is merely a literary phenomenon. It is the experience of romantic or passionate love itself and commonly it is too powerful a force for an individual to control with any degree of composure or rationality. Lewis himself came to realise this and corrected his original account over twenty years later in The Four Loves (p. 102):

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

51

Years ago when I wrote about medieval love-poetry and described its strange, half make-believe, ‘religion of love’, I was blind enough to treat this as an almost purely literary phenomenon. I know better now.21

But, as is often the case, the corrected version is less memorable and persuasive than the original version. Lewis himself did not do enough to convince his later readers of his earlier error. VII.  It is precisely the subjection of reason to desire that for Dante characterises the sin of lust in the second circle of hell (Inferno, V.37–39; Sinclair, I.75): Intesi ch’a così fatto tormento enno dannati i peccator carnali, che la ragion sommettono al talento. … … and I learned that to such torment are condemned the carnal sinners who subject reason to desire.

The mounting of the cart by the knight in Chrétien’s romance signifies the triumph of desire (albeit after a slight hesitation) and the abandonment of reason. The momentous nature of Lancelot’s decision, and especially its apparent vindication, has left its mark on the subsequent history of European literature. Thus Dante himself in that same canto of the lustful traces the origin of the fateful, unlawful and ruinous love of Francesca da Rimini to the story of Lancialotto (Inferno, V.127–38; Sinclair, I.79):   ‘Noi leggiavamo un giorno per diletto di Lancialotto come amor lo strinse: soli eravamo e sanza alcun sospetto.   Per più fïate li occhi ci sospinse quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso; ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse.   Quando leggemmo il disïato riso esser baciato da cotanto amante, questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,   la bocca mi baciò tutto tremante. Galeotto fu ’l libro e chi lo scrisse: quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante.’

52

Gerald Morgan ‘We read one day for pastime of Lancelot, how love constrained him. We were alone and had no misgiving. Many times that reading drew our eyes together and changed the colour in our faces, but one point alone it was that mastered us; when we read that the longed-for smile was kissed by so great a lover, he who never shall be parted from me, all trembling, kissed my mouth. A Galeotto was the book and he that wrote it; that day we read in it no farther.’

Francesca is surprised by her husband, Gianciotto Malatesta, in the act of love and slain with her lover on the spot. Dante does not supply the name of Francesca’s lover (her brother-in-law, Paolo Malatesta) any more than Lancialotto’s beloved. We are brought despite all the fine feeling and perhaps reluctantly to understand that Francesca and Lancialotto are linked as sharing a common experience of disordered love and as belonging to the endless list of those ruined by love (or rather lust) beginning with Semiramis and ending with Paris and Tristan (Inf., V.52–69). The sinful reality of such loves cannot be disguised by romantic euphemisms. Thus Dante takes us subtly but emphatically from the book in which the great lover kisses the longed-for smile (‘il disïato riso’, V.133) to the reader whose own lover kisses her on the mouth (‘la bocca’, V.136). It is a decisive movement from the aura of romance to the guilty fact. In the same way Chrétien does not seek to disguise the true nature of the Knight of the Cart’s love for his lady. Indeed he makes it utterly explicit by a contrived dialogue between the knight and the Demoiselle Amoureuse (Charrete, 1384–1456) in which it is established that the comb containing the strands of hair that the knight treats with adoration belongs not to any queen but to the queen who is the wife of King Arthur (‘la fame le roi Artu’, Charrete, 1423). We are compelled by Chrétien in other words, to confront and not to evade the reality of the Knight of the Cart’s love for the queen. Such a love is physically and psychologically enervating, morally unjust and spiritually idolatrous. In this way Chrétien clarifies the true significance of the overthrow of reason in the action of mounting the cart, for it is reason not passion that is the key to virtue. Thus Aristotle explains in the Ethics that virtue lies in a mean between excess and defect and that the mean is itself determined by reason (II.6): Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

53

In elaborating on this, Aquinas makes it clear that virtue is a function of reason (ST, 1a 2ae 55.4 ad 3; translated by W. D. Hughes): Ad tertium dicendum quod virtus non potest esse in irrationali parte animae nisi inquantum participat rationem, ut dicitur in I Ethic. (I.13 1102b13, 1103a3). Et ideo ratio, sive mens, est proprium subjectum virtutis humanae. Virtue cannot be in the irrational part of the soul, except inasmuch as this participates in reason, as explained in the Ethics. Reason or mind, therefore, is the proper seat of virtue.

Human beings are called to a higher standard than that dictated by the pressure of feelings, however sincere these feelings may be. The sincerity of Lancelot’s devotion to the queen is not to be doubted, but goodness is to be defined not in relation to the subjective feelings of an individual but to the extrinsic merit of an act (ST, 1a 2ae 19.3; translated by Thomas Gilby): … bonitas voluntatis proprie ex objecto dependet. Objectum autem voluntatis proponitur ei per rationem, nam bonum intellectus est objectum voluntatis proportionatum ei. Bonum autem sensibile vel imaginarium non est proportionatum voluntati, sed appetitui sensitivo, quia voluntas potest tendere in bonum universale quod ratio aprehendit, appetitus autem sensitivus non tendit nisi in bonum particulare, quod apprehendit vis sensitiva. … the goodness of an act of will properly depends on the objective. This is presented to the will by the mind, for the object proportioned to will is a good as intelligently perceived, not a good as sensed or fancied – this corresponds to our powers of emotion. The will can reach out to universal good apprehended by mind, whereas sense-desire stretches no further than to particular goods apprehended by the powers of sense.

The nobility of the love of the Knight of the Cart is tainted by the injustice to Arthur as the lawful lover of the queen and to God as the source of love itself. Such degradation in loving becomes manifest in the Knight of the Cart’s preoccupation with the queen and by a self-absorption that leads to outward behaviour that is absurd and hence worthy of ridicule rather than of admiration. The principles of Aristotelian philosophy supply the background to the exposition and representation of love by Dante in the Commedia and by medieval poets more generally. It is reason not passion that is or should

54

Gerald Morgan

be normative for human beings. Domination by passion, whether by love, or fear, or anger or any of the other passions can be productive of great wrongs, obvious perhaps to us in the case of anger but not less so in respect of love and fear. By such a process of reasoning Virgil, Dante’s ‘l’alto dottore’ (Purg., XVIII.2), is led to reject the Epicurean claim that all loves are good as an error, and he has no doubt that it is an error (Purg., XVIII.16–18 and 34–36; Sinclair, II.233 and 235):   ‘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.’   ‘Or ti puote apparer quant’ è nascosa la veritate a la gente ch’avvera ciascun amore in sé laudabil cosa.’ ‘Now may be plain to thee how hidden is the truth for those who maintain that every love is in itself praiseworthy.’22

Thus there are evil loves as well as good and among such evil loves will be found adulterous loves, and adultery is another essential component of Lewis’s definition of courtly love. The evil of adultery is highlighted and not minimised by Chrétien de Troyes in Le Chevalier de la Charrete. The charge of adultery is laid by Meleagant in mistake against Keu (Sir Kay) and it supplies the motive for Keu’s indignant repudiation of the charge (Charrete, 4858–65; Staines, p. 229): ‘Sire, or sofrez que je responde,’ fet Kex, ‘et si m’escondirai. Ja Dex, quant de cest siegle irai, ne me face pardon a l’ame, se onques jui avoec ma dame. Certes, mialz voldroie estre morz que tex leidure ne tiex torz fust par moi quis vers mon seignor.’

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

55

‘Sir, allow me to respond, and I shall acquit myself,’ Kay answered. ‘May God never pardon my soul when I depart this world if ever I lay with my lady. Yes, I would rather be dead than have committed such a hideous offence against my lord.’

As the Knight of the Swordbridge chooses death rather than mount a cart, so Keu would choose death rather than commit adultery with the queen. So vigorous a repudiation of adultery sits uncomfortably with the idealisation of an adulterous relationship and in consequence Malory has softened the impact of the charge of treason in his version of the Knight of the Cart by distributing it among the company of ‘the Quenys knyghtes’ (MD, 1121/21) as a whole in which Sir Kay is but one of ten (MD, 1120/25–31). The queen’s protestation as to the wickedness of Meleagant’s lie (Charrete, 4836–47) and Lancelot’s defence of Keu’s innocence (Charrete, 4912–84) are actions that cast the lovers in a disreputable light. Such words display the cunning that we are apt to associate with politicians rather than the idealism that properly belongs to lovers. Casuistry enables the lovers to sustain a superficial truth at the expense of a profound untruth and Lancelot adds to this wickedness by reinforcing the deceitful stratagem with an oath attesting Keu’s innocence (Charrete, 4943–84). By using an oath in this self-interested way Lancelot is guilty of sacrilege as well as adultery.23 Lancelot defends the cause of the queen and his own cause rather than that of justice. This is a long way removed from the High Order of Knighthood as Malory extols it (MD, 120/15–24): … than the kynge stablysshed all the knyghtes and gaff them rychesse and londys; and charged them never to do outerage nothir mourthir, and allwayes to fle treson, and to gyff mercy unto hym that askith mercy, uppon payne of forfiture [of their] worship and lordship of kynge Arthure for evirmore; and allwayes to do ladyes, damesels, and jantilwomen and wydowes [socour:] strengthe hem in hir ryghtes, and never to enforce them, uppon payne of dethe. Also, that no man take no batayles in a wrongefull quarell for no love ne for no worldis goodis.

It is not to be wondered at that in the Morte Darthur the episode of the cart has been entirely remodelled. VIII.  The representation of love by such great medieval poets as Chrétien de Troyes and Dante (and also Chaucer) is profound but also logically

56

Gerald Morgan

coherent and in its midst the theory of courtly love is little more than a modern distraction imposed on a different world. If we accept Lewis’s definition in which adultery and religion are added to humility and courtesy, then the love of Lancelot for the queen, like that of Tristan for Iseut, is a text-book case. But the requirement of adultery as a condition of love is immediately suspect and it is contradicted by many examples, including that of Troilus (who is unmarried) and Criseyde (a widow) whose story Lewis takes to be ‘the consummation’ of Chaucer’s ‘labours as a poet of courtly love’.24 Indeed, if we examine Chaucer’s literary output as a whole we shall find that adulterous relationships form only one possible social context for love. By far the greatest number of examples are of love within marriage. These include The Book of the Duchess, Chaucer’s first original poem, in which the principal subjects are John of Gaunt and his first wife, Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster. In the Man of Law’s Tale the heroine, Custance, is married twice, first to the Sultan of Syria (II.215–45) and secondly to Alla, King of Northumbria (II.690–93). These are marriages of profound religious and political significance, unfolding the will of providence in miraculous fashion. The Wife of Bath’s Tale initiates a marriage group of tales, comprising the Clerk’s Tale, focusing on the marriage of a marquess (Walter) and the poorest of his feudal subjects (Grisilde), the Merchant’s Tale, centring on the marriage of an old knight ( January) and a young maiden (May) and the Franklin’s Tale, resting upon a marriage of equals (Arveragus and Dorigen). The Wife of Bath is the great expert on the subject of marriage, for she herself has been married five times (CT, I.460–62 and III.4–8), a virtuous mean perhaps between bigamye and octogamye (III.33). The Second Nun’s Tale is built on the pure and hence unconsummated marriage of Cecilie and Valerian. For Chaucer and his readers the state of virginity is superior to that of marriage, and this opinion is duly acknowledged by the Wife of Bath herself, albeit to her personal advantage (III.59–114). Cecilie is a saint and displays the heroic virtue of a saint by remaining a chaste virgin after marriage so that her poor husband Valerian must simply make the best of it (VIII.127–234). But then there are always special difficulties in marriage to a hero or a heroine. The Knight’s Tale introduces us to the unrequited loves of Palamon and Arcite, but both are

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

57

directed towards fruition in marriage and indeed the tale ends with the wedding of Palamon and Emelye (I.3075–108). There are, then as now, extra-marital loves and these also find their way into Chaucer’s poems. There are widowed lovers, as in the case of Dido and Aeneas where both are widowed (HF, 239–432 and LGW, F 924–1637) and also, more famously, as we have already noted, as in the case of Troilus and Criseyde, where the one is an inexperienced young man and the other a widow. Such relationships are no rarity at a time when the mortality rate is so high. Moreover, it is not surprising that widows such as Criseyde do not remarry, for marriage is so profound an experience that if it comes to an end for whatever reason, a widow or widower will be wary of entering into a second marriage. Further, remarriage was not favoured by the medieval church, perhaps as calling into question the sanctity of the original marriage. The word bigamye (III.33) is indeed used not of simultaneous but of successive marriages. There are unmarried young lovers of whom the ardent Squire of the General Prologue is the archetype, sleeping as he does at night ‘namoore than dooth a nyghtyngale’ (I.98). The lot of such lovers is sadly all too often that of unrequited love, and we have classic examples of lovesickness in Arcite in the Knight’s Tale (I.1355–82) and Aurelius in the Franklin’s Tale (V.925–59 and 1101–15). The plight of young lovers is seldom much better when such passionate love is passionately requited, as in the case of Pyramus and Thisbe, whose unhappy story is told by Chaucer in the Legend of Good Women (F 706–923). As for adulterous loves these too are not lacking, notably in the fabliaux or comic tales for there is little to be admired in them. Thus we have Alison and Nicholas in the Miller’s Tale, May and Damian in the Merchant’s Tale and Daun John the Monk and the suitably anonymous wife of the merchant in the Shipman’s Tale. Nicholas is only a student after all and does not operate at an exalted level, either as a scholar or as a lover. The theme of betrayal in love is treated by Chaucer with tragic seriousness in Troilus and Criseyde and also in the Legend of Good Women where it is a counterbalance to the story of Criseyde’s infidelity to Troilus. Here we have, for example, the story of Theseus’s desertion of Ariadne for her sister Phaedra. But Chaucer does not seem to have been drawn to the theme of

58

Gerald Morgan

adultery. The most famous pairs of adulterous lovers in the Middle Ages, Tristan and Yseut and Lancelot and Guinevere, are not the subjects of any of his poems. It is evident that adultery is given no special prominence by Chaucer; no more in fact than it has in life itself. C. S. Lewis is the most brilliant of medieval scholars and he has inspired me as he has inspired hundreds of medievalists. But we must not worship at the shrine of Lewis any more than at the shrine of any human being, even that of the most beautiful and desirable of ladies. And not even, and especially not even, at the shrine of the Queen of King Arthur at the expense of the unity of the fellowship of the Round Table. By the theory of courtly love, and it is no more than a theory, much of medieval love poetry becomes simply confused and incomprehensible. Hence the theory of courtly love was refined in 1964 by Moshé Lazar in drawing a distinction between amour courtois and fin’amors.25 The former is merely an aspect of courtoisie, that is, of the chivalric ethic. It is thus a lawful love, compatible with Christian marriage. The latter is seen as an irresistible force and is thus itself ethically normative. Virtue is a matter of obedience to such a love. By this distinction we shall see that Lewis’s definition of courtly love is properly a definition of fin’amors and that Chrétien’s Lancelot as a fin amant is a perfect realisation of such a definition. Indeed he is described by Chrétien as a fin amant precisely at the point when he humbly and submissively accepts the queen’s rebuke even though he has just rescued her in his first combat against Meleagant and is entirely ignorant of the cause of his offence (Chevalier de la Charrete, 3960–64; Staines, p. 218): Ez vos Lancelot trespansé, se li respont molt belemant a meniere de fin amant: ‘Dame, certes, ce poise moi, ne je n’os demander por coi.’ Behold Lancelot dumbfounded. His answer, nevertheless, was the graceful response of a true lover. ‘Lady, your behaviour grieves me, yet I dare not ask its cause.’

Lazar’s analysis is undeniably an advance in our understanding but the distinction between amour courtois and fin’amors cannot be justified in medieval

59

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

poetry any more than in life. Further, there is no medieval justification for a terminological distinction of this kind as John F. Benton has pointed out: Fin’amors, meaning simply ‘true love’, was not a technical term and was applied in various ways to both branches of love.26

Benton is undoubtedly correct. The adjective fin has positive moral implications, as we see in the definition supplied by the MED, s.v. fin adj.6 and in the accompanying citations: 6. In a moral sense: pure, true, genuine, perfect; faithful; constant, unwavering. c1330 (?a1300) Arth.& M. 480: Fortiger, for loue fin, Hir tok to fere & to wiue. c1400 (?a1387) PPl.C (Hnt) 20.175: Fyn loue and byleyue, Þat alle kynne crystene clanseþ of synne.

The phrase ‘fin amour’ is used of the true friendship of Clarice in concealing from the Emir of Babylon the faithful love of Floris and Blauncheflour (Floris and Blauncheflour, 267–72): Þo spak Clarice to Blauncheflour Wordes ful of fin amour ‘Ne doute ȝou nammore wiȝalle Þan to miself hit hadde bifalle: White ȝhe wel witerli Þat hele Ich wille ȝoure boþer druri.’

true;love fear;in this matter happened know;assuredly keep secret;of you both;love27

Chaucer uses the phrase ‘fyn lovynge’ in the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women (G 532–36) in the context of married love: For of Alceste shulde thy wrytynge be, Syn that thow wost that calandier is she Of goodnesse, for she taughte of fyn lovynge, And namely of wifhod the lyvynge, And alle the boundes that she oughte kepe.

model true

Alcestis, the wife of Admetus, is a byword in the Middle Ages for marital fidelity and for this reason she is invoked by Dorigen at a key point in her complaint to Fortune in the Franklin’s Tale (V.1442): ‘Lo, which a wyf was Alceste,’ quod she.

60

Gerald Morgan

Benton is surely, therefore, correct in concluding that ‘[w]e create nothing but confusion for ourselves if we apply one technical term, other than the ambiguous word ‘love’, to both forms of loving (p. 31). At any rate it is the case that in medieval poetry the word ‘love’ by itself suffices, used with more or less precision and subtlety in its various and distinctive contexts. What its possible meanings might be is at the heart of literary analysis of complex poetic texts. IX.  It is a mistake to think that the problems of literary analysis can be resolved by recourse to generalisations about love under the heading of ‘courtly love’. The theory of courtly love is not only anachronistic but also superficial in comparison, for example, with the Aristotelian and Scholastic philosophy of love that forms the basis of Virgil’s exposition of love in cantos XVII and XVIII of the Purgatorio. These cantos are fittingly not only at the centre of the Purgatorio but also at the centre of the whole of the Commedia as well. Like Dante and Chaucer, Chrétien de Troyes is a profound moral poet whose imagination is not easily carried away by the excesses and self-justifications of lovers. In the end it is the detail and perspective of individual texts that count. Chrétien deserves to be studied in himself as a great poet of chivalry and love and not, as Lewis himself observes, as ‘the specimen of a tendency’.28 The relation of chivalry and love, and particularly the tension between the two, is an abiding preoccupation of Chrétien’s work. The adventures of Erec in Erec et Enide are largely motivated by a happy marriage which on the part of the husband leads to a neglect of chivalric obligations. Le Chevalier au Lion presents by contrast in Yvain a knight so engrossed in the world of chivalric adventure that he neglects his promise to return to his wife within a year (Chevalier au Lion, 2539–615 and 2661–805). These two romances show Chrétien’s continuing awareness that the private and public lives of human beings are not easily reconciled. Nevertheless these difficulties do not in Chrétien’s eyes justify the irresponsible abandonment of social duties by lovers who elevate their personal feelings above all other considerations. As Lewis has also acutely observed of Chrétien, ‘it is very doubtful whether he was ever dazzled by the tradition of romantic adultery’.29 It will be increasingly evident that in many respects Lewis is

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

61

the shrewdest critic of his own theories. Thus Chrétien’s second romance, Cligés, is by design an anti-Tristan, and the criticisms of the adulterous relationship of Tristan and Ysolt are made by the heroine of that romance, Fénice, and they are fully shared by her beloved Cligés. In other words they are objections from the side of love itself (Cligés, 3105–14 and 5199–203; Staines, pp. 125 and 151): Mialz voldroie estre desmanbree Que de nos deus fust remanbree L’amors d’Ysolt et de Tristan, Don mainte folie dit an, Et honte en est a reconter. Ja ne m’i porroie acorder A la vie qu’Isolz mena. Amors en li trop vilena, Que ses cuers fu a un entiers, Et ses cors fu a deus rentiers. I would rather be torn limb from limb than have the two of us be reminiscent of the love of Tristan and Iseult. Many madnesses, shameful to recount, were spoken of them. I could never reconcile myself to the life Iseult led. Love debased himself too much in her, for her heart belonged to one man and her body was the property of two lords. Se je vos aim, et vos m’amez, Ja n’en seroiz Tristanz clamez, Ne je n’an serai ja Yseuz, Car puis ne seroit l’amors preuz, Qu’il i avroit blasme ne vice. If I love you and you love me, you will never be called Tristan and I shall never be Iseult, for then the love would be not honourable but base and subject to reproach.

It seems likely that this anti-Tristan theme is suggested in Le Chevalier de la Charrete by the bloodstains left by Lancelot on the sheets of the queen’s bed (Charrete, 4633–46, 4698–701 and 4737–938) and the resultant misleading oaths (Charrete, 4943–86), calling to mind as they do a central incident of the story of Tristan.30 The same criticisms that Fénice makes so forcibly of Tristan and Iseult apply with no less force to the love of Lancelot and the

62

Gerald Morgan

queen. It is clear that for Chrétien the values of chivalry, that is, of honour and magnanimity, are not to be sacrificed to such a love, raised as it is on the foundation of the betrayal of a liege lord and sustained by deceit and even worse by perjury, a sin against the virtue of religion in showing a lack of reverence to God by calling upon him to witness a falsehood. Thus it is implied that God does not know what is true or that he is willing to testify to what is untrue (ST, 2a 2ae 98.2). Chrétien puts the weight of his poetic authority behind a wide moral and social ethic, not a narrowly personal one. So too Malory in his insistence that a queen, however beautiful, is not to be set above a fellowship of knights (MD, 1183/7–9 and 32–1184/8): ‘Alas, that ever I bare crowne uppon my hede! For now have I loste the fayryst felyshyp of noble knyghtes that ever hylde Crystyn kynge togydirs … … And therfore,’ seyde the kynge, ‘wyte you well, my harte was never so hevy as hit ys now. And much more I am soryar for my good knyghtes losse than for the losse of my fayre quene; for quenys I myght have inow, but such a felyship of good knyghtes shall never be togydirs in no company. And now I dare sey,’ seyde kynge Arthur, ‘there was never Crystyn kynge that ever hylde such a felyshyp togydyrs. And alas, that ever sir Launcelot and I shulde be at debate!’

These words illustrate well the nobility of Arthur. He displays towards Launcelot the magnanimity of a king not the jealousy of a husband or lover, and in this respect compares favourably with King Mark of Cornwall in the Tristan of Thomas, for Mark is continually tormented by doubt because of the lack of proof of Iseult’s adultery. Nor does Arthur fall short in love for his ‘fayre quene’ (MD, 1184/3). It is rather that he experiences overwhelming sorrow at the realisation of the mortal conflict between Gawain and Launcelot that is bound to arise from the deaths of Gawain’s brothers, Gaheris and especially Gareth, at the hands of Launcelot (albeit by a tragic accident). It is Malory himself who develops the idea of a premonition on the king’s part of an unparalleled disaster. As a king, Arthur is conscious of the well-being not merely of one or two noble individuals (among whom he may well include himself as Guinevere’s husband) but of a whole society and a noble way of life. He knows that no good can come from a quarrel between Launcelot and himself and it is for a higher good that he has long

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

63

remained silent about the private wrong to himself in Launcelot’s adulterous liaison with the queen. One might think by way of comparison of the ruin of Charles Stewart Parnell in 1891 at the age of forty-five. Here too an unrelenting and vindictive criticism of his private relationship with Kitty O’Shea (ironically, an English lady of impeccable family background, for Katharine or Katie Wood was the daughter of the Rev. Sir John Page Wood and sister of Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood VC) brought with it not only the downfall and death of Parnell himself but also the ruin of the cause of Home Rule in Ireland of which he had long been the great and irreplaceable champion. Indeed, it is not too much to say that even in Ireland today (2016) we still feel its malign effects. These chivalric and amatory issues or, as we might say, these public and private worlds, cannot be reconciled on the terms set out by Chrétien de Troyes in Le Chevalier de la Charrete as proposed to him by Marie de Champagne, daughter of the celebrated Eleanor of Aquitaine (Charrete, 1–6; Staines, p. 170): Puis que ma dame de Chanpaigne vialt que romans a feire anpraigne, je l’anprendrai molt volentiers come cil qui est suens antiers de quan qu’il puet el monde feire sanz rien de losange avant treire. Since my lady of Champagne wills me to undertake the making of a romance, I shall undertake it with great goodwill, as one so wholly devoted that he will do anything in the world for her without any intention of flattery.

These introductory words are both subtle and oblique and uncharacteristically so if we compare them with the introductions to Erece et Enide, Cligés and Le Chevalier au Lion. They are sufficiently playful so as to reserve Chrétien’s own position but at the same time an acknowledgment that he is not powerful enough to ignore the wishes of so powerful a patroness. The fact is that Marie’s wishes contradict his own ethical values and beliefs as a writer but like the hero of his most famous romance Chrétien obeys the command of his lady for the worse as for the better (Charrete, 21–23; Staines, p. 170):

64

Gerald Morgan Mes tant dirai ge que mialz oevre ses comandemanz an ceste oevre que sans ne painne que g’i mete. I shall say only that her command is more important in this undertaking than any thought or effort I may expend.

In this way Chrétien seeks to absolve himself of much of the responsibility for the overt argument of Le Chevalier de la Charrete. He knows only too well that the action of fighting for a warrior, especially in a turbulent and violent age, cannot be seen as merely accidental to the play or sport of love. By the excellence of his own art the matter of the Charrete becomes increasingly uncongenial and distasteful to him and he abandons the attempt to fulfil the command of his patroness after the account of the tournament at Noauz when the knight is humiliated in public to satisfy the desires of his lady. Chrétien has done his worst as an artist and he will do no more along these lines. The romance is completed in a superficial and facile manner by Godefroi de Leigni without any sense of the tension between an obsessive, adulterous and idolatrous love on the one hand and the moral, social and religious obligations of a knight on the other that animates the preceding narrative. Chrétien de Troyes himself turns away from Le Chevalier de la Charrete and with undisguised pleasure addresses himself to a new romance in which the figure of Arthur is rehabilitated as the good King of Britain (‘Artus, li buens rois de Bretaingne’, 1) and his new hero is associated not with the shame of a cart but with the courage of a lion (Le Chevalier au Lion, 33–41; Staines, p. 257): Por ce me plest a reconter Chose, qui face a escouter, Del roi, qui fu de tel tesmoing, Qu’an an parole pres et loing; Si m’acort de tant as Bretons, Que toz jorz mes vivra ses nons; Et par lui sont ramanteü Li buen chevalier esleü, Qui an enor se traveillierent.

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

65

So it is my pleasure to relate a story worth listening to about the king whose fame spreads near and far. And I do agree with the belief of so many Bretons that his renown will last forever. Thanks to him, people will recall his chosen knights, fine men who strove for honour.

But Chrétien has already carried out his work well on behalf of Marie de Champagne, perhaps too well. It is one of the ironies of literary history that he is now remembered above all for a romance that he failed to complete and that contradicts all that he otherwise wrote.

Notes 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

‘This he said first, and then: “Here it is not forbidden to name any, our features are so drained away by the fast” ’ (Sinclair, II, p. 309). The words are those of Forese Donati, brother of Piccarda, on the sixth terrace where gluttony is purged and the penitent sinners emaciated beyond recognition (Purg., XXIII.43–48). For a departure from the critical consensus, see R. T. Jones, Sir Gawain and the Grene Gome, second edition (London: Heinemann Educational, 1972). Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, edited by B. L. Stein with an introduction by H. N. Smith, in The Works of Mark Twain, Volume 9 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1979), p. 48. MD, ‘Preface to the First Edition’ (1945), p. ix. P. J. C. Field has restored Caxton’s title in his magisterial new edition: Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte Darthur, Arthurian Studies LXXX, 2 vols (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2013). D. D. R. Owen, Chrétien de Troyes: Arthurian Romances, Everyman (London: J. M. Dent; Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1987). W. W. Comfort, Chrétien de Troyes: Arthurian Romances, Everyman’s Library 698 (London: Dent; New York: Dutton, 1914). William W. Kibler, Chrétien de Troyes: Arthurian Romances, Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1991). David Staines, The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990), pp. v and 170–256. See my review in RES, NS, 45 (1994), 84–85. Central is the Central Telephone Exchange and thus the response is that of a telephone operator. There was no dialling mechanism on the earliest telephones,

66

Gerald Morgan

so that one had to crank up the machine to alert an operator who then opened up the line. In a small town such as Hartford there were perhaps no more than five operators as compared with the Central Telephone Exchange of New York where there were perhaps a hundred. All this new technology first appears in the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1876, that is, one hundred years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 10 In an imperfect world, even in the best journals and newspapers, there are many printing errors. 11 Helen Cooper (p. 460) does not mark a division between the Knight of the Cart and the Healing of Sir Urry in her edition of the Winchester manuscript (albeit with modernised spelling and in slightly abridged form). In his edition of selected tales Vinaver takes his principles to their logical conclusion by entirely removing the Knight of the Cart (with the matter of Sir Urry omitted) from its original context and placing it near the beginning after the story of Pelleas and Ettard. See E. Vinaver, King Arthur and his Knights: Selected Tales by Sir Thomas Malory (London: Oxford University Press, 1956, pp. 51–70. 12 See Janet Cowan for a modern edition of Caxton’s text. 13 ME cart is the native word (cf. WS cræt, OI kartr), and its leading sense is ‘cart, wagon’ (MED, s.v. cart n. 1.(a)), used most frequently in agricultural contexts and hence in compounds such as dong-cart (MED, 1.(a)), cart-mare (MED, 7.(c); see PPl, A VII.274), etc. It also appears less commonly in the sense ‘a chariot, a war chariot, the chariot of the sun’ (MED, 2), for example in Chaucer’s KnT, I.2041 in reference to Mars (but cf. also KnT, I.2022: ‘The cartere overryden with his carte’). ME chariot is a French word (OF charriote) of late importation (recorded regularly only from the second half of the fourteenth century), used in both the senses ‘a chariot used in warfare or racing’ (MED, s.v. chariot(e n. 1.(b)) and ‘a wagon, cart’ (MED, 1.(c)). Malory uses the less familiar chariot to avoid the predominantly rustic associations of the native word and to draw upon the military associations of the French word as a means of reinforcing instead of undermining the nobility of Sir Launcelot as a knight. 14 According to Jones, Chaucer’s worthy Knight is ‘a shabby mercenary without morals or scruples’ (p. 140). 15 L. T. Topsfield, Chrétien de Troyes: A Study of the Arthurian Romances (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 145. 16 See especially Le Chevalier au Lion, 6195–218 and 6447–54. 17 See W. T. H. Jackson, ‘Faith Unfaithful – The German Reaction to Courtly Love’, in The Meaning of Courtly Love, edited by F. X. Newman (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1972), pp. 55–76 (p. 63). 18 Jackson, ‘Faith Unfaithful’, pp. 74–75.

2  The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete

67

19 Chaitivel, edited by Alfred Ewert, Marie de France: Lais, Blackwell’s French Texts (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960), pp. 116–22 and translated by Robert Hanning and Joan Ferrante (Durham, NC: The Labyrinth Press, 1982), pp. 181–89. 20 C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love (London: Oxford University Press, 1936). 21 C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1960). 22 See Gerald Morgan, ‘Natural and Spiritual Movements of Love in the Soul: An Explanation of Purgatorio, XVIII.16–39’, MLR, 80 (1985), 320–29 (pp. 321–22 and 328). 23 See ST, 2a 2ae 89.7: ‘Si vero sit quidem possibile fieri, sed fieri non debeat, vel quia est per se malum, vel quia est boni impeditivum, tunc juramento deest justitia; et ideo juramentum non est servandum in eo casu quo est peccatum vel boni impeditivum; secundum enim Augustinum, utrumque eorum vergit in deteriorem exitum,/ If the thing promised can be done, however, but ought not because it is essentially evil or an obstacle to virtue, the oath lacks justice. Therefore, an oath should not be observed when sin or an obstacle to virtue is present, for in either case its result is evil, as Augustine remarks’ (translated by Kevin D. O’Rourke). 24 Lewis, Allegory of Love, p. 176. 25 Moshé Lazar, Amour Courtois et Fin’Amors dans la littérature du XIIe siècle (Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck, 1964), pp. 21–46. 26 John F. Benton, ‘Clio and Venus: An Historical View of Medieval Love’, in The Meaning of Courtly Love, pp. 19–42 (p. 41, n. 39). 27 Edited by J. A. W. Bennett and G. V. Smithers, Early Middle English Verse and Prose, second edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), pp. 40–51. 28 Lewis, Allegory of Love, p. 24. 29 Lewis, Allegory of Love, p. 24. 30 See Gottfried von Strassburg:Tristan With the ‘Tristan’ of Thomas, translated by A. T. Hatto, Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd, 1960; reprinted with revisions, 1967), 23, ‘The Ordeal’, pp. 240–48.

3 The Movement of Love in the Interior Senses and in the In­tellect: An Explanation of Purgatorio, XVIII.22–24

I.  The first part of Virgil’s exposition of love on the thre­shold of the terrace of sloth in Purgatorio, XVIII.16–39 is framed by the sage’s expression of his intention to reveal an error (XVIII.16–18) and of his claim to have succeeded in doing so (XVIII.34–39). The argument of the intervening five tercets (XVIII.19–33) is set out with the structural clarity and linguistic precision that is required by such a purpose. Virgil expounds in due order natural love (XVIII.19–21), sensitive love (XVIII.22–27) and rational love (XVIII.28–33) as they are formally identified and distin­g uished in Scholastic philosophy. Natural love is the di­vinely implanted instinct to love which is the source of all loving. Sensitive love is a movement of the soul in the light of an internal source of knowledge, and accord­ingly the exposition of sensitive love is based upon the distinction between sensitive cognition (XVIII.22–24) and sensitive appetition (XVIII.25–27). Sensitive love operates through a bodily organ in the body/soul compound, whereas rational love operates without a bodily organ in the soul alone; The movement of the former is a material or natural movement (XVIII.26) and of the latter immaterial or spiri­tual (XVIII.31–32). All these matters I have attempted to explain at greater length in a previous article,1 and it is my intention here to attempt a further clarification of Virgil’s argument by con­sidering the relation of rational cognition to sensitive cog­nition, for it is upon the central implication of freedom of choice that Virgil’s conclusion rests. It will be observed that the two tercets on rational love (XVIII.28–33) are not divided between rational cognition and rational appetition in the manner of the two tercets on sensitive love. And yet the ra­tional love no less than the sensitive love

70

Gerald Morgan

is to be distin­g uished from natural love as proceeding from an internal source of knowledge. Indeed, whereas the movement of sensitive love to the apprehended sensible good is a necessary movement, the movement of rational love to the apprehended intelligible good is free. The fact of rational cognition is hardly a mat­ter that Virgil can afford to overlook in his exposition of love. Nor does he overlook it. The above account of the structure of Virgil’s argument must be modified and refined in respect of the first of the tercets on sensitive love so as to set sensitive cognition (XVIII.22–23) beside rational cognition (XVIII.24). The full significance of these lines requires the identification of the precise meanings of apprensiva (XVIII.22) and intenzione (XVIII.23), and in relation to them the import of the reference to l’animo (XVIII.24). II.  ‘Vostra apprensiva’ (XVIII.22) is glossed by Natalino Sapegno as ‘la vostra facolta percettiva’2 and translated by John D. Sinclair as ‘your perception’. 3 Charles S. Singleton describes apprensiva as ‘the faculty of perception’ and goes on to comment that ‘the term is standard in the psychology deriving from Aristotle’.4 This is indeed true, as we may verify from almost any page of Avicenna’s De anima, a work of central importance for the later Middle Ages and notable in particular for its systematic account of in­terior sense perception.5 Avicenna identifies apprehen­sion as one of the two kinds of power of the sensitive soul (De anima, I.5, 82/40–41), and goes on to distinguish it further in terms of exterior and interior sense per­ception (De anima, I.5, 83/56–57): ‘Sed vis apprehendens duplex est: alia enim est vis quae apprehendit a foris, alia quae apprehendit ab intus’. In respect of interior sense perception Avicenna identifies five powers, namely, common sense (fantasia), which receives sensible forms, imagination (imaginatio or vis formans), which retains and reproduces sensible forms, cogitation (vis cogitans), which composes and divides the sensible forms retained by the imagination, estimation (vis aestimationis), which apprehends intentions not perceived by the exterior sen­ses, and memory (vis memorialis), which retains the in­tentions apprehended by estimation (De anima, I.5, 87/19–90/60).6 Avicenna’s system is the basis of Aquinas’s ex­position of the interior sense powers in the Summa theologiae (la 78.4). But Aquinas follows Averroes rather than Avicenna in regarding four and not five interior

3  The Movement of Love in the Interior Senses and in the In­tellect

71

sense powers as sufficient, assigning to the power he calls ‘phantasia sive imaginatio, quae idem sunt’ (ST, la 78.4) the operations alike of retention and reproduction of sensible forms on the one hand, and the composition and division of sensible forms on the other.7 At the same time there is an even more marked divergence in terminology. Aquinas does not adopt Avicenna’s use of fantasia for the common sense,8 and uses the term vis cogitativa to signify estimation in man.9 These differences of classification and terminology stand in the way of a satisfactory elucidation of the tercet on sense cogni­tion.10 But the Scholastic orientation of Virgil’s ex­position removes at least some initial uncertainties, for it is clear that the exposition draws upon some system of interior sense powers, and also that its technical terms are used precisely in reference to that system. It fol­lows, therefore, that although we can agree that apprensiva is used of sense perception in general, it still re­mains necessary to identify the particular interior sense acts denoted by the verbs tragge and spiega (XVIII.23). III.  The sense power is a passive power, and as such is or­dered to an external object or esser verace (XVIII.22). Aquinas himself defines it in these terms in the Summa theologiae (la 78.3): ‘Est autem sensus quaedam potentia passiva, quae nata est immutari ab exteriori sensibili,/ A sense is a passive power, meant to be set in action by a sense object external to it’ (translated by Timothy Suttor). But this is passivity in its restricted and special mean­ ing of the actualisation of a power by its object. Al­though the sense power is passive, it is proportioned to the sense object so that the activity of the sense object is not to destroy the sense power but simply to actualise it. What we have is an operation rather than a change in the strict sense of the substitution of one of two mutually exclusive qualities for the other.11 But there is both a passive and an active element involved in the operation of the interior senses, for there is a change (immutatio) in the reception of impressions and also a formation (formatio) in the conscious grasp of forms. The distinction is implicit in Avicenna’s use of the term vis formans for the second of his interior senses.12 Aquinas explains ac­cordingly (ST, la 85.2 ad 3; translated by Paul T. Durbin): … in parte sensitiva invenitur duplex operatio. Una secundum solam immutationem: et sic perficitur operatio sensus per hoc quod immutatur a sensibili. Alia operatio est

72

Gerald Morgan formatio, secundum quod vis imaginativa for­mat sibi aliquod idolum rei absentis, vel etiam nunquam visae. In the sense part of man there are two kinds of activity. One takes place by way of change effected from outside, thus the activity of the senses is fully carried out through a change effected by sensible objects. The other activity is a ‘formation’ by which the faculty of imagination formulates for itself a model of something absent or even of something never seen.

This is the distinction between the impressed and expressed species, although these are not the terms used by Aquinas himself. Sinclair presumably construes the use of intenzione (XVIII.23) as a reference to the impressed species, for he translates it ‘impression’ (II.233). But this is unlikely for two reasons. First, the use of the verb tragge (XVIII.23), that is, ‘draws’, points to an active rather than a passive element in sense perception. And second, Aquinas uses intentio with the meaning of expressed intelligible species in Contra Gentiles (I.53). Such an analogy suggests the use of intenzione to signify the expressed sensible species or sense image. But if intenzione stands here for the expressed sensible species, it is difficult to see what can be meant by the following clause, ‘e dentro a voi la spiega’ (XVIII.23). In this respect at least Sinclair’s interpretation of intenzione as impression is to be pre­ferred. Although Sapegno glosses intenzione as ‘immagine’,13 it is doubtful whether he has in mind a reference to the expressed sensible species, for he goes on to explain the development of the intention within the soul as coming about ‘per mezzo dell’immaginativa o fantasia’ (II.195). His subsequent identification of intenzione in terms of the distinction between the intentional existence of the sensible species or form abstracted from matter (species cognoscibilis) and the material existence of the form in matter (species realis) also does not bear directly upon the distinction between impressed and expressed species. IV.  Although the explanations that we have considered up to this point have their merit, they are neither suffi­ciently precise nor sufficiently consistent. A different approach to the problem of interpretation seems therefore to be justified. What has hitherto been overlooked is the original significance of the term ‘intention’ in Avicenna’s system of interior sense powers,

3  The Movement of Love in the Interior Senses and in the In­tellect

73

for in Avicenna’s usage an intention is sharply differentiated from a form (be it impressed or expressed). Whereas the reception and retention of sensible forms presupposes the operation of the exterior senses, intentions are not perceived by the exterior senses (De anima, I.5, 86/82–96): Differentia autem inter apprehendere formam et apprehendere intentionem est haec: quod forma est illa quam apprehendit sensus interior et sensus exterior simul, sed sensus exterior primo apprehendit eam et postea reddit eam sensui interiori, sicut cum ovis apprehendit formam lupi, scilicet figuram eius et affectionem et colorem, sed sensus exterior ovis primo apprehendit eam et deinde sensus interior; intentio autem est id quod apprehendit anima de sensibili, quamvis non prius apprehendat illud sensus exterior, sicut ovis apprehendit intentionem quam habet de lupo, quae scilicet est quare debeat eum timere et fugere, quamvis non hoc apprehendat sensus ullo modo. Id autem quod de lupo primo apprehendit sensus exterior et postea interior, vocatur hic proprie nomine formae; quod autem apprehendunt vires occultae absque sensu, vo­catur in hoc loco proprie nomine intentionis.

Thus whereas the common sense and the imagination per­ceive forms, the estimation perceives intentions. Here then is the precise relation between apprehension and in­tention that Dante draws upon at XVIII.22–23 to give point and weight to Virgil’s account of the process where­by the interior senses acquire the knowledge that is pre­supposed to the passion of love. And since Aquinas uses the term vis cogitativa for estimation, the same relation between apprehension and intention is evident in his dis­cussion of the cogitative power. Thus in the course of his explanation of the cogitative power in the commentary on Aristotle’s De anima Aquinas writes (In de anima, 396): Si vero apprehendatur in singulari, utputa cum video coloratum, percipio nunc hominem vel hoc animal, huiusmodi quidem apprehensio in nomine fit per vim cogitativam, quae dicitur etiam ratio particularis, eo quod est collativa intentionum individualium, sicut ratio universalis est collativa rationum universalium. (italics mine) But if this apprehension is of something individual, as when, seeing this particular coloured thing, I perceive this particular man or beast, then the cogitative faculty (in the case of man at least) is at work, the power which is also called the ‘particular reason’ because it correlates individualised notions, just as the ‘universal reason’ correlates universal ideas. (italics mine)

74

Gerald Morgan

The distinctiveness of this terminology in respect of the interior senses is evident in the summary of the acts of the four interior sense powers that Aquinas supplies in the Summa theologiae (la 78.4; translated by Suttor): Sic ergo ad receptionem formarum sensibilium ordinatur sensus proprius et communis … Ad harum autem formarum retentionem et conservationem ordinatur phantasia sive imaginatio … Ad apprehendendum autem intentiones quae per sensum non accipiuntur ordinatur vis aestimativa. Ad conservandum autem eas, vis memorativa … (italics mine) So for the reception of sense forms there is the particular sense and the ‘common’ sense … Their retention and conservation require fantasy or imagination … Instinct grasps intentions which are not objects of simple sensation. And the power of memory conserves these … (italics mine).

V.  Dante uses intenzione at XVIII.23 with the technical meaning of intentio as a perception that cannot be per­ceived by the exterior senses. Such a meaning also ex­plains the purpose of the following clause, ‘e dentro a voi la spiega’, for the intention which is apprehended by estimation or the cogitative power is stored in the me­mory in the same way as the form which is perceived by the common sense is stored in the imagination. Common sense and memory are the two terms of sense perception, for the movement of sense perception as a unified whole begins in the common sense and comes to rest in the me­mory. Dante uses the word spiega (XVIII.23), that is, ‘unfolds’ (Sinclair) or ‘displays’ (Singleton), because it suggests the full development of a thing or the comple­tion of a process, whether it be of a ship setting sail or the deep resonance of a voice or the opening of a flower. Dante is saying, as Cavalcanti in the Canzone d’amore before him, that love ‘[i]n quella parte dove sta memora/ prende suo stato/ [i]n that part where memory is/ it (love) takes its state’ (Rime, XXVII.15–16; Bird, 157).14 By love is understood not the passion of love itself, but the apprehended form which causes love, as Dino del Garbo is at pains to make clear in his commentary on Cavalcanti’s poem (Glossa latina, 362/18–21): Sed debes hic intelligere, ne erretur, quod, quando iste dicit quod amor habet esse in parte memoriali, illud dic­tum [est] quantum ad speciem rei ex cuius apprehensione causatur amor: species autem illa figitur et conseruatur in memoria.15

3  The Movement of Love in the Interior Senses and in the In­tellect

75

Memory is the term of the process of sense cognition, but not of cognition absolutely, for the sense powers in man are united to intellect. Hence as well as essential (per se) sense objects, that is, proper objects such as colour and sound and common objects such as number and size, there are also incidental (per accidens) sense objects.16 Thus, for example, a large, white man as large and white is an essential object of sense, but as man is an incidental object of sense and an essential object of intellect. The cogitative power always implies such an incidental object of sense, for it ‘apprehendit individuum, ut existens sub natura communi; … unde cognoscit nunc hominem prout est hic homo, et hoc lignum prout est hoc lignum,/ apprehends the individual thing as existing in a common nature … Hence it is aware of a man as this man, and this tree as this tree’ (In de anima, 398). Moreover, it is of the na­ture of an incidental sense object to be apprehended as soon as the sense perception occurs (In de anima, 396). Hence the intention that is apprehended by the cogitative power and stored in the memory is immediately apprehended by the intellect. As Dante puts it, the apprehensive power makes the mind turn to the intention stored in the memory: ‘l’animo ad essa volger face’ (XVIII.24). Once again there is a correspondence between Dante’s poetic exposition and that of Cavalcanti, for Cavalcanti also observes that the apprehended form which causes love comes to rest finally in the possible intellect (Rime, XXVII.21–23): Ven da veduta forma che s’intende che prende   nel possibile intelletto, come in subietto,   loco e dimoranza.

But the apprehended form which comes to rest in the in­tellect is an intelligible and not a sensible form. Hence the relation of love to the intellect is an accidental relation, for love, like any passion, is ordered essen­tially to the object perceived by the senses. Dante does justice to the complexity of the relation of the passion of love (XVIII.25–27) to sense cognition (XVIII.22–24) by giving an account not only of the essential object of sense seated in the memory (XVIII.22–23) but also of the incidental object of sense seated in the possible intel­lect (XVIII.24).

76

Gerald Morgan

VI.  The object of cognition is the true or the false, whereas the object of appetition is the good or the bad (ST, la 2ae 22.2). The apprehended form or intention which causes love must therefore be presented to the ap­petite as good or bad. Hence there is in sense perception (as in intellectual conception) both apprehension and judgment (In de anima, 767), although the sensible good or evil (unlike the good or evil of the intellect) is known only in so far as it gives rise to pleasure or pain (In de anima, 771).17 Further, the power of sensitive or animal appetite is to be distinguished from natural appetite in that its object is not the good of a particular power, as colour of seeing or sound of hearing, but the good of the animal itself (ST, la 80.1 ad 3). Dante focuses on the act of the cogitative power, therefore, because it is a judg­ment of the sensible good as such and of the sensible good in respect not of a single sense power but of the sensing subject as a whole. The account of sensitive cog­nition in its relation to sensitive appetition at XVIII.22–23 is thus both specific and comprehensive. And, as we can see, the knowledge of the sensible good is followed by love not immediately but through the mediation of pleasure (XVIII.25–27). The interior senses as lower powers are naturally sub­ject to the regulation of the intellect as the higher power. The hierarchical relation of the interior sense powers to one another and to the practical intellect is systematically set out by Avicenna, and estimation among them is to be seen as directly subordinate to the practi­cal intellect (De anima, I.5, 99/79–102/15). The judgment of estimation or the cogitative power stands as the con­clusion of the syllogism of the practical intellect, for by a process of syllogistic reasoning particular conclu­sions are deduced from universal propositions (ST, la 81. 3; translated by Suttor): Ipsa autem ratio particularis (i.e. vis cogitativa) nata est moveri et dirigi secundum rationem universalem; unde in syllogisticis ex universalibus propositionibus concluduntur conclusiones singulares. But the particular reason in its turn is naturally responsive to the motion and guidance of rational understanding; thus it is that we can logically deduce conclusions regarding individual matters from premises of a general nature.

The universal pro­position which is the major premise of the syllogism arises from the intuitive and infallible knowledge of the first principles of

3  The Movement of Love in the Interior Senses and in the In­tellect

77

morality, that is, from synderesis (ST, la 79.12). The link between the universal proposi­tion and the particular conclusion is the act of conscience, that is, the judgment whereby the knowledge of uni­versal principles is applied to particular situations (ST, la 79.13), and this serves as the minor premise of the practical syllogism.18 The conclusion of the practical syllogism is not only derived from first principles, but also referred back to first principles as a confirmation of its own validity (ST, la 79.12). The cogitative power is thus related to the universal reason as to its infall­ible source and final authority. The judgment of the cogitative power, therefore, is not a judgment simply of the sensible good, but of the sensible good in its relation to the intelligible good. The sensitive appetite which desires the sensible good presented to it by the cogitative power also participates in this order of the sensible good to the intelligible good, so that the goodness of the passion of love is to be judged by a universal as well as by a particular cri­terion of goodness. The sensitive appetite shares not only in the universality of reason but also in its free­dom, for conscience’s act of judgment in forming the minor premise of the practical syllogism is not determin­ed to one, but is open to opposites. The movement of the sensitive appetite is in itself necessary and not free, so that the sensitive appetite is bound to desire the sensible object presented to it by the cogitative power as good. But if the conclusion of the practical syllogism is a false conclusion, that is, if in the light of the intellect the sensible good is only an apparent and not a real good and ought rightly to have been judged as such, then the passion which necessarily follows the false conclusion is an evil and not a good passion. The false judgment which is the cause of evil loves is represented allegorically by Boccaccio in the Teseida (VII.54) by the spring in which Voluttà tempers Cupid’s arrows. As Boc­caccio himself explains in his gloss, this is the ‘fonte della nostra falsa estimazione, quando per … dillettazione … giudichiamo che la cosa piaciuta sia da preporre ad ogni altra cosa o temporale o divina,/ spring of our false judgement, when, because of this delight … we think that the liked object must be preferred to any worldly or divine thing’ (Tes., 465/3–6; Boitani, pp. 202–3). Evil passions do not arise only when passion is entirely mingled with and composed by reason, as in the case of the temperate (though not the continent) man (ST, 2a 2ae 155. 1 and 4).

78

Gerald Morgan

VII.  Thus Virgil’s reference to rational cognition at XVIII.24 before his account of sensitive appetition at XVIII.25–27 does not imply a disturbance of the sequence of logical exposition, but on the contrary an accommodation of the complex reality of human interior acts. Since the principle of man is the rational soul, the operations of the sense powers are to be understood not only essentially as sense acts but also accidentally as united to reason in the same subject. Thus at XVIII.22–24 Virgil gives an account of sensitive cognition both in its essential meaning (XVIII.22–23) and in its accidental relation to reason (XVIII.24). Moreover, Virgil has focused on the act of human estimation because in that act is to be found the principle of goodness and evil in loving. In this way the master has given a direct and sufficient response to the pupil’s prayer ‘che mi dimostri amore, a cui reduci/ ogne buono operare e i suo contraro,/ that thou expound love to me, to which thou reducest every good action and its opposite’ (XVIII.14–15).

Notes 1 2 3 4 5

6

‘Natural and Spiritual Movements of Love in the Soul: An Explanation of Purgatorio, XVIII.16–39’, MLR, 80 (1985), 320–29. Natalino Sapegno, La Divina Commedia, Volume II: Purgatorio, second edition (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1968), p. 195. Sinclair, II.233. C. S. Singleton, The Divine Comedy, Bollingen Series LXXX, Volume II, Part 2 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 412. By Avicenna is to be understood the Latin Avicenna of the medieval translations produced at Toledo in the second half of the twelfth century. Reference to the De anima of Avicenna is to the edition of S. van Riet, Liber De Anima seu Sextus De Naturalibus, I-II-III and IV-V, 2 vols (Louvain and Leiden: 1972 and 1968). The original of the Latin translation is the psychological part of the Shifā’ or Suf ficientia. The corresponding matter in the Najat, Avicenna’s own abridgement of the Shifā’, is translated from the Arabic by F. Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology: An English Translation of Kitāb al-Najat, Book II, Chapter VI (London, 1952),

3  The Movement of Love in the Interior Senses and in the In­tellect

7

8

9

79

31/1–30. A comparison of these texts with Aristotle’s De anima and De memoria et reminiscentia clearly establishes the greater degree of systematisation that Avicenna brings to bear on the analysis of interior sense perception, for me­mory, imagination and estimation are considered by Aris­totle as no more than functions of the common sense. For Aristotle on memory, see De mem., I.450a 11–15; on imagina­tion, see De anima, III.3 428b30–429a2 and Aquinas, In de anima, 667; and on estimation, see De anima, III.7 431a10–11 and Aquinas, In de anima, 768. See Aquinas, ST, la 78.4: ‘Avicenna vero ponit quintam potentiam, mediam inter aestimativam et imaginationem, quae componit et dividit formas imaginatas, ut patet cum ex forma imaginata auri et forma imaginata montis componimus unam formam montis aurei quem nunquam vidimus. Sed ista operatio non apparet in aliis animalibus ab homine, in quo ad hoc sufficit virtus imaginativa. Cui etiam hanc actionem attribuit Averroes in libro quodam quem fecit De Sensu et Sensibilibus. Et sic non est necesse ponere nisi quatuor vires interiores sensitivae partis, scilicet sensum communem et imaginationem, aestimativam et memorativam/ Avicenna did indeed maintain a fifth power, somewhere between instinct and imagination, a power which composes and divides imagined forms, as when from the image of gold and the image of mountain we compose the single form of a golden mountain which we have never seen. But this activity is not found in animals other than man, in whom the power of imagination suffices to account for it. It was to this power that Averroes attributed this activity in a book he did On Sense and Sensibles. And so there is no need to maintain more than four powers of the sensitive part of the soul, namely the common sense and imagination, instinct and memory’ (translated by Timothy Suttor). The first of the interior sense powers is identified by Avicenna as follows: ‘Virium autem apprehendentium occultarum vitalium prima est fantasia quae est sensus communis’ (De Anima, I.5, 87/19–20). On the use of phantasy for the common sense, see Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology, p. 78. See Aquinas, ST, la 78.4: ‘Sed quantum ad intentiones praedictas differentia est, nam alia animalia percipiunt hujusmodi intentiones solum naturali quodam instinctu, homo autem etiam per quandam collationem. Et ideo quae in aliis animalibus dicitur aestimativa naturalis in homine dicitur cogitativa, quae per collationem quandam hujusmodi intentiones adinvenit,/ But when it comes to the intentions just discussed there is a difference, for other animals perceive such intentions solely by natural instinct, whereas man perceives them by a process of comparison. And so what we call natural instinct in other animals in man we call cogitation, which comes upon intentions of the kind in question through a process of comparison.

80

Gerald Morgan

10 The classification of interior senses is not entirely stable even in the works of Avicenna himself. In the Canon of Medicine, for example, there are classifications in terms of three, four and five interior sense powers re­spectively. See H. A. Wolfson, ‘The Internal Senses in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew Philosophic Texts’, Harvard Theological Review, 28 (1935), 69–133 (pp. 99–100). 11 See Aquinas, In de anima, 365–66 and 765–66. 12 The distinction that Avicenna draws between a passive and an active sense cognition, namely, between the simple reproduction of forms or intentions on the one hand, and the composition and division of forms and intentions on the other (De anima, I.5, 86–87/7–13), is of a somewhat dif­ferent order. 13 He is followed in so doing by Singleton, The Di­vine Comedy, Volume II, Part 1, who translates intenzione as ‘an image’ (p. 191). 14 For the text of the Canzone d’amore, see Guido Favati, Guido Cavalcanti: Rime (Milan and Naples: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1957), pp. 214–16. 15 The text of Dino del Garbo’s Glossa latina is printed as an Appendice by Favati, pp. 347–78. For the translation, see Otto Bird, ‘The Canzone d’Amore of Cavalcanti According to the Commentary of Dino del Garbo’, MS, 2 (1940), 150–203 and 3 (1941), 117–60. 16 See Aristotle, De anima, II.6, 418a 7–25 and Aquinas, In de anima, 383–98. 17 Compare Aquinas, In de anima, 768: ‘Non autem omnis actio sensitivae partis est delectare et tristari, sed quae est respectu boni vel mali inquantum huiusmodi. Nam bonum sensus, scilicet quod est ei conveniens, causat delectationem; malum autem quod est repugnans et nocivum, causat tristitiam,/ But not every act of the sensitive part is a sense of pleasure or pain. This perception relates precisely to the good and the bad as such. For the good of the senses – that is, what suits them – gives pleasure; while what is bad, that is, repugnant and harmful to them, causes pain’. 18 The minor premise and the conclusion are subsequently distinguished as the speculative-practical and ultimo-practical judgments respectively. On this form of the dis­tinction, see Anthony Levi, S. J., French Moralists: The Theory of the Passions 1585 to 1649 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), pp. 35–36.

4 The Goodness of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

I.  In many ways the modern world has a morbid fascination with the viciousness of human nature rather than its virtues and finds, let us say, Dante’s Inferno more congenial to its taste than the Paradiso or even the Purgatorio. A literary critic such as John Burrow, for example, is undisturbed by Terry Jones’s interpretation of Chaucer’s ‘verray, parfit gentil knyght’ (GP, I.72) as ‘a shabby mercenary without morals or scruples’ in his still controversial book on Chaucer’s Knight. In Burrow’s view Jones is ‘absolutely right … to reject as too bland and insipid the conventional account of the Knight’.1 Modern viewers of television are not only fed an unrelenting daily diet of cruel and barbaric wars in the Middle East (the holy lands of the medieval crusades) but have these images reinforced in plays and films. And the favourite word employed by modern commentators for such routine brutality is ‘medieval’. It is perhaps pointless to protest at such ignorance at so late a date, for in many ways films and television do more to promote falsehoods than medieval scholars are able to do by way of promoting truth. But something must be said in defence of the medieval world in the face of such persistent disparagement that willingly ignores the still transcendent beauty of medieval churches and cathedrals no less than that of medieval poetry. There is clearly a gulf here between medieval and modern perceptions of the world and we may begin perhaps by expressing it in terms of a contrast between Shelley and Nietzsche. The world of medieval romance abounds in depictions of noble knights and beautiful ladies set before us with all the brilliance of epideictic rhetoric. It is a world of ideals and we must learn to take these ideals and the poetic representations of them seriously. That requires in the first place taking seriously

82

Gerald Morgan

the absolute realism of Plato and the moderate realism of Aristotle, for in both philosophical systems (and in those of their many disciples) reality is identified primarily with forms or ideas rather than with things. Shelley puts the matter plainly before us in his preface to Prometheus Unbound in 1819 (475/124–30): My purpose has hitherto been simply to familiarise the highly refined imagination of the most select classes of poetical readers with beautiful idealisms of moral excellence; aware that until the mind can love, and admire, and trust, and hope, and endure, reasoned principles of moral conduct are seeds cast upon the highway of life, which the unconscious passenger tramples into dust, although they would bear the harvest of happiness.2

What is beautiful to Shelley is simply hateful to Nietzsche as we see from the Forward to Ecce Homo in 1888 (2 and 3, p. 34): Reality has been deprived of its value, its meaning, its veracity to the same degree as an ideal world has been fabricated … The lie of the ideal has hitherto been the curse on reality, through it mankind itself has become mendacious and false down to its deepest instincts … I do not refute ideals, I merely draw on gloves in their presence.3

It is in effect a mortal struggle between two antagonistic views of the universe, the medieval and the modern, and there is much to be said in favour of the medieval position. After all, few thinkers in the history of human kind have out-thought Plato and Aristotle and I would not be inclined to put Nietzsche among them. Thus the Gawain-poet not only shares Shelley’s love of ‘beautiful idealisms of moral excellence’ but insists upon them in the beginning and end and also repeatedly at various points in the middle of his great poem. Thus Gawain is seated in a place of honour beside Guinevere in the feast at Camelot on Christmas Day (SGGK, 109): There gode Gawan was grayþed Gwenore bisyde,

set

and returns to Camelot a year later tested and humbled in his quest but with his reputation intact (SGGK, 2490–91):

4  The Goodness of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

83

Þer wakned wele in þat wone when wyst þe grete arose;joy;dwelling;learnt;nobles Þat gode Gawayn watz commen; …

Such goodness is confirmed throughout the course of his quest in repeated actions. It is seen in his fitness in taking up from his uncle, the king, the Green Knight’s challenge (SGGK, 381): ‘In god fayth,’ quoþ þe goode knyȝght, ‘Gawan I hatte.’

am called

And again when he sleeps on in accordance with the agreement with his host at Hautdesert, exhausted after his journey on his quest for the Green Chapel in November and December and by the Christmas festivities, before his sleep is rudely and unexpectedly disturbed by his hostess (SGGK, 1179): And Gawayn þe god mon in gay bed lygez.

fair;lies

It is impossible to think that such a sleep is the sign of a slothful and lecherous man. And again when he finally takes his leave from Hautdesert for the death-dealing blow from the Green Knight’s axe and his guide urges him to flee the encounter (SGGK, 2118): ‘Forþy, goude Sir Gawayn, let þe gome one.’

let be

And again in his own words when he has made good his appointment at the Green Chapel. He knows he has kept his word despite all the difficulties in doing so and whatever may now befall him (SGGK, 2214): For now is gode Gawayn goande ryȝt here.

walking

He has turned up and often in life this is a great thing to have done. Thus the English rugby players received a standing ovation when they took the field at Lansdowne Road on 10 February 1973 in the wake of Bloody Sunday (30 January 1972) and the failure of Scotland and Wales to honour their fixtures at Lansdowne Road in 1972. Like Gawain, they had turned up. They did not win the match but turning up was greater than any mere victory on a rugby pitch.

84

Gerald Morgan

It might be thought that these repeated affirmations of the goodness of Sir Gawain are sufficient to establish the poet’s intentions and meaning. But they are not enough, for the subject of virtue, as a single reading of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics will at once make clear, is complex and often problematic. Hence the poet sets out to define in detail in what this virtue consists in the famous pentangle passage. It is strange that the pentangle symbolism has created so many difficulties for interpreters of the poem and I can only assume that readers have been distracted by a Nietzschean distaste for Aristotelian moral philosophy, a distaste plainly not shared by medieval readers of poetry from Dante downwards. The pentangle is a symbol of human excellence or perfection and makes clear in systematic detail precisely what is meant by the goodness of Sir Gawain.4 Indeed as a symbol it establishes with poetic clarity for the benefit of readers of the poem ideas that philosophers labour to define and analyse. Thus at once we see that the goodness of Gawain is fittingly represented by a device that is pentangular rather than circular. Human perfection cannot lay claim to the perfection of the divine simplicity and must at once be distinguished from it. The heraldic colours of the pentangle at once define its essential meaning. They are fitting in an obvious way for an English knight in Camelot, for they are the colours of England from the time of Richard I (1189–1199), namely, gold on red, in the heraldic terminology used by the poet, gold on gules. Thus the colours of England are expressed in heraldic language as: Gules, three lions passant guardant in pale or.5 The arms of Gawain are: Gules, a pentangle or. These colours are decisive in establishing the poem’s meaning (SGGK, 619–20): Then þay schewed hym þe schelde, þat was of schyr goulez Wyth þe pentangel depaynt of pure golde hwez.

red painted

The pentangle is gold, not blue. The associations of these colours are still current, for we continue to talk of the true blues (Conservatives or Dubs) and of those who are as good as gold. And we do not need to be experts on Aristotelian philosophy to understand as much. The pentangle stands in general for goodness, that is, the complex of related virtues, not for fidelity, a single virtue and hence in the use of the word trawþe (SGGK, 626)

4  The Goodness of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

85

in this context the poet must mean goodness and not merely fidelity. To think otherwise, as many good readers have done,6 is to miss the point of the colour symbolism of the pentangle. The device of the pentangle draws attention significantly to the complexity of moral activity in this world and it is summed up rhetorically by the figure of expolitio, that is, variation in the expressions of praise, no fewer indeed than seven such variations in the space of eight lines (SGGK, 632–39): For ay faythful in fyue and sere fyue syþez always;in each case;times Gawan watz for gode knawen and as golde pured, as a good knight;purified Voyded of vche vylany, wyth vertuez ennourned untainted;shameful act;graced     in mote; castle Forþy þe pentangel nwe bore;coat-armour He ber in schelde and cote, As tulk of tale most trwe knight;word And gentylest knyȝt of lote. kindest;speech

It is a warning against hasty and facile judgments of good and evil in our own interpretations of human conduct, for the pentangle reminds us at every point not only of the excellence of human virtue but of its limitation. When goodness cannot be complete, as in the case of human goodness, care must be taken in the judgments that we form, and most especially of those who are truly excellent. Thus the goodness of Gawain that the poet so emphasises is not absolute but relative (SGGK, 654–55):        … þyse pure fyue Were harder happed on þat haþel þen on any oþer. more firmly fastened;knight

But the last thing we often seem to find in modern commentaries is measured judgment with the result that our models of excellence find themselves the objects not of praise but of censure. The censorious judgment of Chaucer’s Knight among the Canterbury pilgrims by no means stands alone but is part of a common pattern of denigration. The note of criticism of their moral obtuseness increases as their tales become more difficult to comprehend. Thus Arveragus, the worthy knight of the Franklin’s Tale, is

86

Gerald Morgan

transformed by D. W. Robertson from a loving and self-sacrificing husband into a depraved adulterer at second hand: 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.7

Sadly this ungenerous view of the character and of life has become more not less entrenched. For R. Allen Shoaf Arveragus has become utterly contemptible: Arveragus’s command 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.8

The same dichotomy between the poet and the modern critic, as it were a badge of honour in itself, appears repeatedly in respect of the pentangular goodness of Sir Gawain. Thus we are assured in the pentangle passage that (SGGK, 653): His clannes and his cortaysye croked were neuer.

purity,chastity;never failed

Even so eminent a scholar and critic as Derek Pearsall simply does not believe it: Later, when he has gathered himself somewhat, and is prepared to bluster, he turns on women and blames them.9

Gawain is transformed, seemingly without unease and in a moment, from the exemplar of courtesy to a shrill and unpleasant misogynist (more in the manner of the embittered Merchant or the forthright Host than the gentle Knight). Sir Gawain is well received at Camelot on his return, his peers rejoicing in his safety after so perilous a quest: ‘And þus he commes to þe court, kny3t al in sounde’ (SGGK, 2489). This is the kind of welcome that the best of knights might well expect from the best of courts. But J. J. Anderson, himself a distinguished editor of the poem, is not so predisposed. Unlike the courtiers he can penetrate the true meaning of the events described,and unlike them he is undeceived:

4  The Goodness of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

87

At the end of the story the court is as it was at the beginning, a cheerful company of knights and ladies. They show no understanding of his [Gawain’s] hurt. They laugh at his self-recrimination and decide to institute the wearing of green baldrics in his honour, though he has told them that he is going to continue to wear the girdle as a badge of shame.10

We are treating here not of single and separate intepretations but the same misinterpretation repeated over and over again. Something is badly wrong, but the modern commentators are slow to find fault with themselves and their own preconceptions. So confident are they in the moral superiority of their own age in comparison with previous ages. What is amiss here is the Nietzschean dismissiveness towards the ideal, and the failure to engage with ideals either in themselves or in the poetry inspired by them. Such a failure becomes explicit in the discussion of Chaucer’s romances by Corinne Saunders: The overt idealism of the story [the Franklin’s Tale], as in the Knight’s Tale, causes us to engage with the unreality of ideals, their untenability when taken to an extreme, and finally with the imprisoning nature of absolute morality.11

Thus we are brought back to the real issue at stake and that is the problem of universals. One is bound to question at times whether literary critics of medieval poetry have given this philosophical issue the attention it deserves, not so much in itself as a philosophical subject of debate but in its consequences for the study of poetry. We may think that we are right and that we are clever about what is really real. Perhaps Plato and Aristotle are not so clever and that both are wrong in their distinctive ways about the reality of the forms or ideas. But suppose that they are right and that they are clever (they are unquestionably clever) and that we are wrong and not so clever. We cannot say as a matter of course that this is impossible. Moreover the opinion that the medievals are imprisoned by their belief in absolute morality is tendentious and misleading. One has only to read the Summa theologiae to recognise the openness to rational argument and the competition between widely differing points of view. This intellectual openness is shown by the openness to admit error (although perhaps at the same time accompanied by the dogmatic

88

Gerald Morgan

willingness of the Roman Catholic church to impose error in the guise of infallible truth). We see this intellectual openness at the very beginning of Langland’s masterpiece of Piers Plowman where the dreamer appears (strangely and incomprehensibly to some) dressed as a sheep (PPl, B Prol.1–4): In a somer seson, whan softe was þe sonne, I shoop me into shroudes as I a sheep were, In habite as an heremite vnholy of werkes, Wente wide in þis world wondres to here.

mild;sun dressed myself;garments;as if wicked hear

The dreamer is dressed like a sheep because he has lost his way like a sheep, following the crowd in search of earthly reward and money, in just the same way as our modern bankers and financial regulators. He needs a guide and even when he finds one in Lady Holy Church he cannot follow her teaching for long before he loses his way again. The pilgrim Dante in the earthly paradise quickly realises in his meeting with Beatrice that he is out of his intellectual depth (Purg., XXXIII.82–84; Sinclair, II.439): ‘Ma perché tanto sovra mia veduta vostra parola disïata vola, che più la perde quanto più s’aiuta?’ ‘… but why do your longed-for words fly so far above my sight that the more it strives the more it loses them?’

Beatrice will have to speak to him in terms that he, with all his limitations, can understand (Purg., XXXIII.100–102; Sinclair, II.439): ‘Veramente oramai saranno nude le mie parole, quanto converrassi quelle scovrire a la tua vista rude.’ ‘But henceforth my words shall be as simple as may be needful to make them plain to thy rude sight.’

I cannot say that I have always found Plato and Aristotle (two of the greatest thinkers in the history of European culture) easy to understand. I am not

4  The Goodness of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

89

prepared to say that I am right on any particular matter of philosophical principle and they were wrong, and I do not believe that any of my fellow scholars would be so bold or so arrogant as to make that claim either, even in the shadow of Nietzsche. We must allow, then, for the possibility that Plato and Aristotle were right on the question of universals and that the medievals were right to see that they were right. This is not to say that every presentation of knightly virtue in literary texts is simple and straightforward. For every Launcelot there is a Chauntecleer and for every Gawain a Sir Thopas. But it does mean to say that we must read the characters of medieval romance with sympathy and care. II.  The virtues themselves are absolute but the possession of the virtues in individual men and women is relative (ST, 1a 2ae 52.1; translated by Anthony Kenny): Alii vero in contrarium ponebant quod ipsae qualitates et habitus secundum se non recipiebant magis et minus; sed qualia dicuntur magis et minus secundum diversam participationem; puta quod justitia non dicatur magis et minus, sed justum. Et hanc opinionem tangit Aristoteles. Others maintained on the contrary [against Plotinus and other Platonists] that qualities and dispositions did not themselves admit of more and less, but that their possessors were said to be more or less such-and-such, according to the degree to which they possessed them: thus one could speak of things being more or less just, but not of more or less justice. This opinion is mentioned by Aristotle in the Categories [8. 10a30–b11].

It is important to understand, therefore, that the claim for the goodness of Sir Gawain does not presuppose a claim for absolute perfection on his part.12 If goodness is relative and not absolute in human beings, then there will be an order among knights as to which is better or worse than another. In Le Livre de chevalerie Sir Geoffroi de Charny treats at length of the gradations of chivalric virtue (sections 27–35, pp. 146–167). At the top of the scale of knightly virtue, above those who have courage and skill but are thoughtless (section 32), those who perform great deeds but do not lead or advise (section 33) and true men of worth, brave and of good counsel (section 34) are the men-at-arms of supreme worth (35.3–5, pp. 154 and 155):

90

Gerald Morgan Ce sont et doivent estre unes genz qui sont appellez villanz [vaillanz] hommes, et ycelles villans genz si sont li plus honnorez, plus amez et plus prisiez que nulles autres genz d’armes qui soient. These are men who are rightly said to be of high merit, and are more honoured, better loved and prized than any other men-at-arms.

What distinguishes these men from the rest is their recognition that these supreme gifts come not from themselves but from God (35.31–35 and 35.30– 33, pp. 156–57): Et pour ce est il que ycelles genz a qui Nostre Sires a donné de sa grace tant de bontez ne doivent tenir ne penser ne cuidier que en nulle maniere nul de ces biens dessus nommez dont il sont tant amé, loé et honnorez que il leur soient venuz de leur mesmes. And thus it is that these people whom Our Lord has of His grace endowed with so many gifts should not maintain nor think nor believe that in any way do any of these virtues listed above, for which they are so much loved, praised and honoured, come from themselves.

Although the knights of supreme worth are not by that very fact boastful they stand out among the rest by their merit as they appear in tournament or joust and in this way are distinguished by the honour that society accords to them. As in modern tennis rankings a medieval knight will know exactly where he stands in the ranking of knights and that will be reflected daily in the place at which he is seated at feasts. Thus Gawain sits next to the Queen at Camelot and by Bertilak’s lady right in the middle of the high table (‘[e]uen inmyddez’) at Hautdesert (SGGK, 109 and 1001–5). As for Chaucer’s Knight (GP, I.52–53): Ful ofte tyme he hadde the bord bigonne Aboven alle nacions in Pruce.

sat in the place of honour above knights from all nations;Prussia

Medieval poets, like all poets, are fond of catalogues. Chaucer lists sixteen unfortunate lovers in the temple of Venus in The Parliament of Fowls (288–92) and fifteen medical authorities in the portrait of the Physician in the General Prologue (I.429–34) as well as eleven campaigns of the Knight among others that are not specified (I.51–66). Catalogues of knights are

4  The Goodness of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

91

distinctive of the romance style of writing and serve to establish the hierarchy of knights systematically and precisely. This is clearly a matter of the first importance as is evident from the extensive list of no fewer than forty-two knights in Chrétien de Troyes’s first romance, Erec et Enide (1671–1706). Here at the very beginning of Arthurian romance we see that Gawain is the best of the best, even above Erec and Lancelot, as in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight itself (Erec et Enide, 1671–74; Staines, p. 22): Devant toz les boens chevaliers doit estre Gauvains li premiers, li seconz Erec, li filz Lac, e li tierz Lancelot del Lac. Gawain has to be first, at the head of all the excellent knights; then Erec, the son of Lac; and third, Lancelot of the Lake.

Only the top ten knights are specifically identified in order of rank for it would be embarrassing, and perhaps not very meaningful, to distinguish between lesser knights in this way, although modern tennis players have to accustom themselves to an indignity of this kind (Erec et Enide, 1683–84; Staines, p. 22): Les autres vos dirai sanz nonbre, por ce que li nonbres m’anconbre. The others I shall name in no particular order because the ranking embarrasses me.

In the same way the THE World University Rankings for 2016–17 only lists the top 200 universities in strict order, classifying universities beneath the top 200 in groups of fifty (201–250), beneath the top 400 in groups of a hundred (401–500) and beneath the top 600 in groups of two hundred (601–800). The top three, corresponding to Gawain, Erec and Lancelot are Oxford, the California Institute of Technology and Stanford. There are great knights as there are great universities outside the top ten. Chrétien mentions in eleventh place ‘Yvains li preuz/ Yvain the Brave’ (Erec et Enide, 1685), that is, Yvain the son of Urien, the hero of Chrétien’s fourth romance, Le Chevalier au Lion.

92

Gerald Morgan

Like Lancelot, Sir Giles d’Argentan, who escorts the king, Edward II, to safety at Bannockburn on the second day of the battle (24 June 1314) and then turns back to his death, is also praised as the third best knight in the world (by John Barbour, The Bruce, 13.320–23): Off 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

But third is not first and Sir Giles d’Argentan has to make way for Robert I (the Bruce), who displays his knightly prowess in spectacular fashion in slaying Sir Henry de Bohun in open combat before the assembled armies on the first day of the battle (The Bruce, 12.25–86), and the Emperor Henry of Luxembourg (Dante’s ‘l’alto Arrigo’, Par., XVII.82; Sinclair, III.247). No doubt it is Le Chevalier de la Charrete that, despite Chrétien’s own best intentions, elevates Lancelot into first place. English readers who come to Arthurian romance first of all in Malory’s Morte D’Arthur will no doubt take Launcelot’s superiority to Gawain for granted, but the medieval English poet draws on the older tradition in making Gawain pre-eminent. It is the original order of ranking that is assumed by the Gawainpoet in his catalogue of knights assembled at Camelot on All Saints’ Day (1 November) at the time of Gawain’s departure on his quest for the Green Chapel (SGGK, 550–55): Þenne þe best of þe burȝ boȝed togeder, Aywan, and Errik, and oþer ful mony, Sir Doddinaual de Sauage, þe duk of Clarence, Launcelot, and Lyonel, and Lucan þe gode, Sir Boos, and Sir Byduer, big men boþe, And mony oþer menskful, with Mador de la Port.

Ywain;Erec

Bors;Bedivere;strong noble knights

Five of these names appear in Chrétien’s list, Erec, Lancelot and Yvain prominently among them. ‘Dodins li Sauvages’ is ninth in the list (Erec et Enide, 1680) and the Duke of Clarence is his cousin or brother. The fifth

4  The Goodness of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

93

is ‘Bedoiers li conestables’ (Erec et Enide, 1703), that is, Bedivere, master of the horse. Lionel and Bors, one of the three Grail knights, are brothers and cousins of Launcelot. Lucan is the royal butler and Mador de la Porte is the porter, no doubt as faultlessly civil (‘pure plesaunt’, SGGK, 808) as his counterpart at Hautdesert (SGGK, 807–14 and 2069–76). These are Gawain’s peers and closest companions in the fellowship of the Round Table and significantly the poet identifies them by name at the moment of Gawain’s leave-taking. Gawain must undertake his quest unaided, on the long journey throughout ‘þe ryalme of Logres’ and ‘into þe Norþe Walez’ (SGGK, 691 and 697) in November and December, in the bedroom alone with the beautiful and desirable lady of the household and alone at the Green Chapel in the presence of the Green Knight and his anticipated axe-blow. Such is the stipulation of the Green Knight (SGGK, 390–412 and 444–56). But such also is the nature of all moral tests. A person must look to his or her own resources when the crises of life present themselves. III.  The willingness and determination to face challenges alone are the marks of the worthiest knights, presupposing as they do moral as well as physical courage. By contrast their enemies are inferiors who gather together in conspiracies in the hope of increasing their strength. Here we have catalogues of a much less engaging kind. Malory gives the details of the twelve knights who conspire with Aggravain and Mordred to bring about the destruction of Launcelot and Guinevere and ultimately of the fellowship of the Round Table itself (MD, 1164/8–14): Than sir Aggravayne and sir Mordred gate to them twelve knyghtes and hyd hemselff in a chambir in the castell of Carlyle. And thes were their namys: sir Collgrevaunce, sir Mador de la Porte, sir Gyngalyne, sir Mellyot de Logris, sir Petipace of Wynchylsé, sir Galleron of Galoway, sir Melyon de la Mountayne, sir Ascomore, sir Gromoresom Erioure, sir Cursesalyne, sir Florence, and sir Lovell.

It is Malory who supplies the twelve names. The Mort Artu says that ‘Agravains … grant compaignie avoit avec lui de chevaliers’ (115.50–51)14 and Le Morte Arthur ‘other xii knyghtes kene’ (1756).15 Sir Launcelot, ever for Malory the first in the ranks of Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table, is defeated by a conspiracy of knights bound together

94

Gerald Morgan

by secret alliances, for he cannot be defeated in open battle. This is not how knights ought to conduct themselves and we may note by way of contrast how Chaucer vindicates the chivalry of Theseus in the Knight’s Tale (I.987–88): He faught, and slough hym manly as a knyght In pleyn bataille, …

slew;bravely open combat,fair fight

Theseus not only defeats the tyrant Creon but defeats him fairly and squarely. Hence his victory over tyranny is not morally compromised in any way as for some the bombing of Dresden on 13–15 February 1945 has compromised the victory over Nazi Germany. Thus Malory publishes the names of the conspirators, ostensibly out of respect for ‘the Freynshe booke’ (MD, 1163/20) he claims as his source, so that we can judge for ourselves their true motives. Malory explains that ‘all they were of Scotlonde’, still the ancient enemy of the English in the fifteenth century, ‘other ellis of sir Gawaynes kynne, other [well-] wyllers to hys brothir’ (MD, 1164/16–17). We can judge their chivalric worth by their names. Sir Collgrevaunce is the Calogrenant of Chrétien’s Chevalier au Lion, ‘[u]n chevaliers mout avenanz,/ a most agreeable knight’ (Chevalier au Lion, 58;Staines, p. 258). He is Yvain’s first cousin (‘cosins germains’, 582) and the romance begins with his own account of his humiliation at the hands of the knight of the fountain (Chevalier au lion, 53–580; Staines, pp. 258–64), Esclados the Red, subsequently slain by Yvain himself (Chevalier au lion, 723–960; Staines, pp. 265–68). Sir Mador de la Port(e) is known to us from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Sir Gyngalyne is Sir Gawain’s son, and hence perhaps young and impressionable. The more grandiose the name, the more insubstantial the reputation and real worth. Indeed the very names suggest their malevolence and lack of real worth: Sir Petipace of Winchelsea, Sir Gromoresom Erioure and Sir Cursesalyne. These are knights who could never meet Lancelot in ‘pleyn bataille’ with any hope of success. They are thus natural conspirators who attach their personal fortunes to the malice and hatred of Aggravain and Mordred. They work in secret and in association with others. In the same way, in the world of party politics (the world of spin and deceit) there was no one in the House of Commons at Westminster who

4  The Goodness of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

95

could match the eloquence of Charles Stewart Parnell of Avondale, Co. Wicklow, at the beginning of 1890. But Parnell was undone by the granting on 17 November 1890 of a divorce decree nisi to Captain W. H. O’Shea in proceedings in which he was named as the co-respondent. Parnell was too honourable a man to seek to defend himself at the expense of the woman he loved, Katharine Wood (1845–1921), youngest daughter of Sir John Page Wood and sister of General Sir Evelyn Wood, VC, an upper class English lady. Although married to William O’Shea, she became the lover of Parnell and the mother of his three daughters in the early 1880s. She never once came to Ireland but sustained Parnell in his struggle for Irish Home Rule throughout the 1880s and became popularised as Kitty O’Shea. The divorce of Willie and Katie O’Shea was the moment for which Parnell’s enemies had long been waiting, men such as Joseph Chamberlain, Lord Hartington, later Duke of Devonshire, and the Marquess of Salisbury. They took their chance supported by the tide of public horror at the evidence of such extra-marital entanglements, although they had been known to many before they became common knowledge at the time of the divorce. The fall of Parnell had the same disastrous consequences for Ireland as the disclosure of the love between Sir Launcelot and Guinevere for the fellowship of the Round Table. IV.  It is the very virtue of knights in their honourable treatment of women that creates moral complications of this kind and indeed leads with an ironic predictability to the conclusion that Sir Gawain, whose exemplary combination of chastity and courtesy is such a distinctive element of the pentangle symbolism (SGGK, 653), is indeed guilty of misogyny. This is yet another modern misreading that transforms goodness into evil. The Order of Knighthood requires that knights protect and cherish ladies and not subject them to the indignities of misogynistic abuse any more than to physical intimidation and harassment. Indeed to fight in the defence of the rights of ladies is a justification of the profession of arms in itself (Le Livre de chevalerie, section 35.195–99 and 35.203–7, pp. 164–65): Encores, se aucun vouloient oster l’onnour ne l’eritage de povres pucelles ne de povres femmes vesves, et autrement ne les peust l’en destourner de ce sanz guerre ou bataille,

96

Gerald Morgan l’en y doit entrer seurement et pour les corps et pour les ames sauver, et tout en autele maniere pour povres orphelins et orphelines. And again, if some people wanted to seize the land and inheritance of defenseless maidens or widows and could not be dissuaded from this except by war or combat, one ought to embark on this confidently in regard to one’s personal reputation and the saving of one’s soul, and the same is true in relation to the defense of orphans.

Sir Launcelot himself is outraged at the thought that any knight could seek to take advantage of the physical vulnerability of women (MD, 269/22–28): ‘What?’ seyde sir Launcelot, ‘is he a theff and a knyght? And a ravyssher of women? He doth shame unto the Order of Knyghthode, and contrary unto his oth. Hit is pyté that he lyvyth! But, fayre damesel, ye shall ryde on before youreself, and I woll kepe myself in coverte; and yf that he trowble yow other dystresse you I shall be your rescowe and lerne hym to be ruled as a knyght.’

Such a knight is indeed Sir Perys de Foreste Savage (MD, 270/12)16 and Sir Launcelot has no mercy on him in his unappeasable anger (MD, 269/29– 270/8). Sir Gawain also makes clear to the lady, as politely as he may in the threatening circumstances of her uninvited presence in his bedroom on the second occasion, that he would not resort to violence in the event of rejection as a lover (SGGK, 1496–1500): Ȝe ar stif innoghe to constrayne wyth strenkþe, ȝif yow lykez, 

strong;force;it pleases you ill-bred;refuse

Ȝif any were so vilanous þat yow devaye wolde.’ ‘Ȝe, be God,’ quoþ Gawayn, ‘good is your speche, Bot þrete is vnþryuande in þede þer I lende, force;unworthy;country;where;dwell And vche gift þat is geuen not with goud wylle.’

Knights are not thugs or terrorists and indeed gentleness is a key element in Chaucer’s portrait of the Knight in the General Prologue (I.69–71): And of his port as meeke as is a mayde. He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde In al his lyf unto no maner wight.

bearing rudeness any sort of person

And the Theseus who slays Creon in open battle is the Theseus who is moved by compassion for the company of ladies who appeal to him on his return to Athens in triumph (KnT, I.954–58):

4  The Goodness of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Hym thoughte that his herte wolde breke, Whan he saugh hem so pitous and so maat, That whilom weren of so greet estaat; And in his armes he hem alle up hente, And hem conforteth in ful good entente.

97

it seemed to him saw;wretched;downcast once;such high rank raised them all up with good will,kindly

Such men, the very best of men (SGGK, 2422–28) are most vulnerable to the love of women. In the three successive bedroom scenes Gawain is hard pressed to remain chaste and at the same time be courteous to the lady, for that is what moral virtue requires of him. He is surprised when she first enters his bedroom but he does not leap to any unflattering judgments about her behaviour (SGGK, 1182–1203). It would be ungenerous of him (indeed a misogynistic impulse) to suppose that her intention was to deceive him and do him harm. On the other hand she is so beautiful and desirable that the virtue of chastity is under threat. Chastity is not a cold, unfeeling virtue but is respect in a man for a woman’s sexuality and restraint if she is indifferent to him or does not want him (a commoner experience for men than that to which a James Bond is accustomed). Or indeed if she is married. There comes an inevitable point when Gawain, in the bedroom of the household of the lady’s husband with whom he is also bound by a solemn agreement (SGGK, 1088–1125), has to turn aside from an adulterous liaison (SGGK, 1770–1775): For þat prynces of pris depresed hym so þikke, noble;importuned;continually Nurned hym so neȝe þe þred, þat nede hym bihoued pressed;so near to the limit Oþer lach þer hir luf, oþer lodly refuse. either;accept;or;offensively He cared for his cortaysye, lest craþayn he were, churl,boor And more for his meschef ȝif he schulde make synne, the disaster to himself And be traytor to þat tolke þat þat telde aȝt. knight;dwelling;owned

A great moral effort is called for because the lady is married and thus cannot be his (as Guinevere cannot be Lancelot’s). Gawain is right and Launcelot is wrong. However much we may admire Launcelot he is wrong to yield to physical love for his queen. And many who admire him will oppose him out of a sense of moral revulsion of adultery. But what can Sir Gawain make of the lady’s behaviour towards him in the bedroom if he is not out of courtesy prepared to think of her as a liar and a deceiver? He is bound to think that she, like himself, is powerfully

98

Gerald Morgan

moved by desire, but in her case unable to restrain it. And when he leaves Hautdesert for the Green Chapel, the beheading and certain death, he thinks fondly of her as one who has loved him in his moments of greatest trial (SGGK, 2052–54): Here is a meyny in þis mote þat on menske þenkkez, company;castle;courtesy Þe mon hem maynteines, ioy mot þay haue; keeps;may Þe leue lady on lyue luf hir bityde. delightful;on earth;befall

Gawain is young, like Palamon and Arcite, rather than experienced like Theseus. But Theseus once was young and has not forgotten the effect of passion on young men when they first fall deeply and irrevocably in love (KnT, I.1812–14): A man moot ben a fool, or yong or oold – must I woot it by myself ful yore agon, know;long ago For in my tyme a servant was I oon. one

Sir Gawain is disillusioned as all of us sometimes become when youthful ideals are challenged and even undermined by the wickedness of the world. He is wrong to believe that the lady is in love with him. It is a deceit and he is the victim of the deceit. He thought that he had done well in resisting the charms of a beautiful lady, but now he knows he has not done well enough in accepting her girdle into his permanent possession and has to listen in mortification and embarrassment as the Green Knight discloses the truth of his wife’s testing of him (SGGK, 2358–61): ‘For hit is my wede þat þou werez, þat ilke wouen girdel, same Myn owen wyf hit þe weued, I wot wel for soþe. gave Now know I wel þy cosses, and þy costes als, kisses;qualities And þe wowyng of my wyf: I wroȝt hit myseluen.’ your temptation by;devised

But no doubt he will learn from this bruising experience as all of us must from such experiences. He does not hate women and he will never hate women. But he will be more circumspect about the dangers of trusting too greatly in women, for women, like men, are fallen creatures, and the lady of Hautdesert has inherited, like Gawain himself, the taint of original sin. And the actions of ladies cannot always be taken at face value.

4  The Goodness of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

99

Sir Gawain is not Sir Galahad. He is not perfect. But he is the best. Indeed, the best of the best. The poem shows us what it means to be the best. And it shows us the reality of what it means to be the best, a condition beyond the reach and indeed the comprehension of ordinary mortals. It is not a pleasing image designed to impress the sponsors by disguising personal failings and inadequacies. And it is uncomfortable too in casting a light upon our own mediocrity. And at the same time it is a challenge to our world-weary cynicism.

Notes See Terry Jones, Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980) and the review by J. A. Burrow, ‘The Imparfit Knight’, TLS, 15 February 1980, 163. 2 Reference is to Kelvin Everest and Geoffrey Matthews (eds), The Poems of Shelley, Volume II, 1817–1819 (Harlow: Longman/Pearson Education Limited, 2000). 3 Reference is to Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, translated with notes by R. J. Hollingdale and introduction by M. Tanner, Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979; revised, 1992). 4 See Gerald Morgan, ‘The Significance of the Pentangle Symbolism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, MLR, 74 (1979), 769–90. 5 See Boutell’s Heraldry, pp. 207–8. 6 Including no less an authority than Norman Davis himself; see the Glossary to his revised edition of Tolkien and Gordon’s edition, p. 220 (unaltered from the first edition). So also ‘fidelity’ in the editions of Cawley (1962, p. 74 and 1976, p. 182) and Battles (2012, p. 59). Gollancz has ‘truth’ (1940, p. 179), as does Anderson (1996, p. 193). But Waldron has ‘integrity’ (1970, p. 167), and Andrew and Waldron ‘loyalty, integrity’ (1978, p. 353). Barron has ‘fidelity’ in his translation (1974, p. 61 and 1998, p. 65) but identifies trawþe as ‘a complex term best expressed, perhaps, by “integrity” ’ in his notes, 1974, p. 173 and 1998, p. 175. 7 D. W. Robertson, Jr, A Preface to Chaucer (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962), p. 472. 8 R. Allen Shoaf, ‘The Franklin’s Tale: Chaucer and Medusa’, ChR, 21 (1986), 274–90, reprinted in Chaucer: Contemporary Critical Essays, edited by Valerie 1

100

9

10 11 12

13 14 15 16

Gerald Morgan Allen and Ares Axiotis, New Casebooks (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1997), pp. 242–52 (p. 246). 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). J. J. Anderson, Language and Imagination in the ‘Gawain’-Poems (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), pp. 222–23. Corinne Saunders, ‘Chaucer’s Romances’, in A Companion to Romance (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2004), pp. 85–103 (p. 93). 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 TurvillePetre (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 252–75 (pp. 260–66). See A. A. M. Duncan (ed. and trans.), John Barbour: The Bruce, Canongate Classics 78 (Edinburgh: Canongate Books Limited, 1997). Reference is to La Mort Le Roi Artu: Roman du XIIIe Siècle, edited by Jean Frappier, third edition (Geneva: Librairie Droz; Paris: M. J. Minard, 1964). Reference is to Le Morte Arthur, re-edited by J. Douglas Bruce, EETS (ES) 88 (London: Oxford University Press, 1903). The name is Malory’s invention, as is the addition of rape to theft. See MD, III.1420.

5 Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls

lysander:  Ay me, for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth, But either it was different in blood – … Or else misgrafted in respect of years – … Or merit stood upon the choice of friends – … Or if there were a symphony in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it. — shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I.1.132–35, 137, 139 and 141–42

The Realm of Nature I.  The course of love, even true love, in life seldom if ever runs smooth and the dreamer in the Parliament of Fowls has to pass through the disturbing experience of the temple of Venus before he can observe, let alone engage in, the debate under Nature as the birds of every kind assemble to choose their mate on St Valentine’s Day (PF, 309–11). In the approach to the temple and within the temple he has to learn to his dismay that love is an evil principle as well as a good and hence that not all loves of good (PF, 211–94). This is hard for the young and inexperienced dreamer to believe or credit and he has to learn that many have passed this way before him to their unending misery and sorrow. The names of Dido, Tristram, Cleopatra and Troilus among others (PF, 288–94) tell a story that cannot be dismissed as accident or chance and it leaves the dreamer in need of comfort as he emerges into the world outside the temple (PF, 295–97).1 In the light of

102

Gerald Morgan

such experience, perhaps when we ourselves have been betrayed in love, it becomes necessary to inquire more deeply into the complex forces at work in love, especially in human love. There is a studied contrast between the sultriness and darkness of the temple of Venus, and especially of its innermost precincts where Venus herself is to be found, and the freshness and radiance of the world of nature. The spirits of the dreamer are lifted as he emerges from the gloom into the light. The transition is as dramatic in its way as the return of Dante personaggio and Virgil from the uttermost depth of hell to the light of the world (Inf., XXXIV.133–39; Sinclair, I.427):   Lo duca e io per quel cammino ascoso intrammo a ritornar nel chiaro mondo; e sanza cura aver d’alcun riposo,   salimmo sù, el primo e io secondo, tanto ch’ i’ vidi de le cose belle che porta ’l ciel, per un pertugio tondo.   E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle. The Leader and I entered on that hidden road to return into the bright world, and without caring to have any rest we climbed up, he first and I second, so far that I saw through a round opening some of the fair things that Heaven bears; and thence we came forth to see again the stars.

The world of Nature in the Parliament of Fowls is flooded with light, suggestive of ‘the somer sonne shene’ that ‘[p]asseth the sterre’ (PF, 299–300) even on St Valentine’s Day in the depth of winter. Chaucer is quite specific in locating Nature on a hill in a clearing of the paradisal park that the dreamer first enters (PF, 120–22 and 302–3): This forseyde Affrican me hente anon And forth with hym unto a gate broughte, Ryght of a park walled with grene ston. And in a launde, upon an hil of floures, Was set this noble goddesse Nature.

took hold of;at once right to glade,clearing

It is a hill, not a garden, that is, uncultivated land, the domain of Nature. A park is ‘an enclosed area surrounding or bordering a castle or manor’

5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls

103

and also ‘a royal forest’ and a launde is a glade or clearing within such an enclosed, wooded area.2 Thus Sir Gawain on his quest for the Green Chapel and the return blow of the axe comes at Christmas in answer to his prayer to the castle of Hautdesert shimmering and shining through the fair oaktrees (SGGK, 763–70): Nade he sayned hymself, segge, bot þrye, Er he watz war in þe wod of a won in a mote, Abof a launde, on a lawe, loken vnder boȝez Of mony borelych bole aboute bi þe diches: A castel þe comlokest þat euer knyȝt aȝte, Pyched on a prayere, a park al aboute, With a pyked palays, pyned ful þik, Þat vmbeteȝe mony tre mo þen two myle.

crossed;knight;thrice aware;dwelling;moat plain;mound;shut in;boughs massive;tree-trunks fairest;owned set;in;meadow spiked;palisade;enclosed;densely surrounded;more;miles

The sense of launde as a clearing within a forest can be extended more generally to any stretch of open ground or plain (MED, (b)) and indeed this is the setting for the Green Chapel itself. The guide (not otherwise a trustworthy figure) tells Gawain that he will see the chapel a little way off on his left (a sinister detail in more than one sense) as the ground opens out at the bottom of a desolate valley where the channel or course (not a waterfall) of a stream runs forth (SGGK, 2144–47): And ryde me doun þis ilk rake bi ȝon rokke syde, same;path;that Til þou be broȝt to þe boþem of þe brem valay; bottom;wild Þenne loke a littel on þe launde on þi lyfte honde, a little way off;open ground And þou schal se in þat slade þe self chapel valley;very,same And þe borelych burne on bent þat hit kepez. massive.man;there (on the ground)

These details are carefully repeated by the poet when Gawain eventually reaches the bottom of the valley. He has reached the end of his quest in accordance with his pledged word to the Green Knight at Camelot (SGGK, 2170–73): He seȝ non suche in no syde, and selly hym þoȝt, saw;direction;strange;seemed Saue a lyttel on a launde, a lawe as hit were; a little way off;open ground;mound A balȝ berȝ bi a bonke þe brymme bysyde, smooth;barrow;slope;water’s edge Bi a forȝ of a flode þat ferked þare. channel;stream;flowed

104

Gerald Morgan

Thus for Chaucer and his audience the progression from park to clearing (or plain to meadow) to hill (or mound or barrow) is a familiar progression, and it is one that carries with it strong courtly and aristocratic associations.

The Great Chain of Being II.  The key ideas of the realm of Nature are those of plenitude (PF, 313–15): … erthe, and eyr, and tre, and every lake So ful was that unethe was there space For me to stonde, so ful was al the place,

air scarcely

and of order (PF, 319–22): This noble emperesse, ful of grace, Bad every foul to take his owne place, As they were woned alwey fro yer to yeere, Seynt Valentynes day, to stonden theere.

bird accustomed

Here Chaucer takes up again the defining ideas of the paradisal park or earthly paradise first set out on the dreamer’s ungainly entrance into it. The idea of plenitude is presented in terms of the profusion and diversity of trees, such indeed as we should expect to find in a park (PF, 172–75): For overal where that I myne eyen caste Were treës clad with leves that ay shal laste, Ech in his kynde, of colour fresh and greene As emeraude, that joye was to seene,

everywhere;eyes species

and it is strongly marked in the formal list of trees that constitute the following stanza (PF, 176–82). The principle of order is presented in terms of the harmony of bird-song and music, and the gentleness and temperateness of the climate (PF, 190–91, 197–98 and 201–5): On every bow the bryddes herde I synge, With voys of aungel in here armonye.

bough their

5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls Of instruments of strenges in acord Herde I so pleye a ravyshyng swetnesse.

105 strings;harmony enchanting

Therwith a wynd, unnethe it myghte be lesse, scarcely;could Made in the leves grene a noyse softe in harmony with;of birds;on high Acordaunt to the foules song alofte. Th’air of that place so attempre was That nevere was grevaunce of hot ne cold.

mild,temperate discomfort

Here we have as commonly in medieval literature the sense that the universe created by God is a perfect creation in that it contains the complete realisation of every possible kind of created being. That is indeed the Platonic principle of plenitude. To it are added the Aristotelian principles of gradation and continuity. Thus the elements of creation are set out in a hierarchical series from the highest to the lowest (that is, the principle of gradation) with a common limit overlapping the boundaries between the various species of being (that is, the principle of continuity). This system is the Great Chain of Being,3 and it is set forth by Chaucer, following Boethius, in the philosophical speech of Theseus at the climax of the Knight’s Tale (CT, I.2987–93): ‘The Firste Moevere of the cause above, Whan he first made the faire cheyne of love, Greet was th’effect, and heigh was his entente. Wel wiste he why, and what thereof he mente, For with that faire cheyne of love he bond The fyr, the eyr, the water, and the lond In certeyn boundes, that they may nat flee.’

elevated,deep;plan knew bound definite;can

It is also clearly expressed in the fourth stanza of the Canticus Troili, the Song of Troilus, full of characteristically Chaucerian ironies, that is introduced by Chaucer (again on the authority of Boethius) by way of a modification of Boccaccio’s Filostrato after the sexual consummation of Troilus’s love for Criseyde (TC, III.1765–68): ‘So wolde God, that auctour is of kynde. That with his bond Love of his vertu liste To cerclen hertes alle and faste bynde, That from his bond no wight the wey out wiste.’

author;nature chain;power;pleased encircle;firmly creature;might know4

106

Gerald Morgan

Tragically, as we might expect from his presence in the temple of Venus (PF, 291), Troilus’s joy is a delusive joy based on ignorance, and so in reality out of joint with the love that is the principle of order in the created universe. In the Great Chain of Being, then, there is a graded hierarchy of created beings, as follows: angels, that is, immaterial intellects; human beings, that is, embodied intellects; animals, that is, sensitive souls; plants, that is, vegetative souls and stones, that is, inanimate substances. Angels and corruptible material beings are alike explained by Aquinas as necessitated by the completeness of the universal hierarchy of being. In other words they are part of the detailed working out and vindication of the principle of plenitude (In de anima, 288, p. 75; Foster and Humphries, 288, p. 200): Ubi considerandum est, quod ad hoc quod universum sit perfectum, nullus gradus perfectionis in rebus intermittitur, sed paulatim natura de imperfectis ad perfecta procedit. Here we have to consider that the completeness of the Universe requires that there should be no gaps in its order, that in Nature there should everywhere be a gradual development from the less to the more perfect.

The Classification of Birds III.  The idea of a graded hierarchy of created beings is explicitly realised by Chaucer in the classification of the birds assembled under Nature on St Valentine’s Day. Here they are divided (on the authority in all probability of Vincent of Beauvais)5 into four classes, birds of prey, wormfowl, seedfowl and waterfowl (PF, 323–29): That is to seyn, the foules of ravyne Weere hyest set, and thanne the foules smale That eten, as hem Nature wolde enclyne, As worm or thyng of which I telle no tale; And water-foul sat lowest in the dale; But foul that lyveth by sed sat on the grene, And that so fele that wonder was to sene.

birds;prey

valley seed;grassy ground many

5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls

107

Not only is there division into classes, but also subdivision into rank or degree within the class. Thus the three tercel eagles competing for the hand of the formel are no less clearly distinguished by rank. The first tercel eagle is beyond dispute the highest in rank. He occupies a place, let us say, of that of Gauvain in Chrétien de Troyes’s Erec et Enide (1671–72) or that of the Gawain of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (PF, 393–94, 449–50 and 463): ‘The tersel egle, as that ye knowe wel, The foul royal, above yow in degre.’ Another tersel egle spak anon, Of lower kynde, … The thridde tercel egle answerde tho.

male rank at once species then

The second tercel eagle is ‘[o]f lower kynde’ (PF, 450), like Erec himself in Erec et Enide (1673), second only to the illustrious Gauvain. The third tercel eagle corresponds to the third of the knights in Chrétien’s list of knights in Erec et Enide (1671–74), and that is no less a knight than Sir Lancelot (Staines, p. 22): Devant toz les boens chevaliers doit estre Gauvains li premiers, li seconz Erec, li filz Lac, e li tierz Lancelot del Lac. Gawain has to be first, at the head of all the excellent knights; then Erec, the son of Lac; and third, Lancelot of the Lake.

Sir Giles d’Argentan, who escorts the king, Edward II, to safety at Bannockburn on 24 June 1314 and then turns back to his death, not wishing to flee the field of battle as a coward without honour, is also praised by John Barbour as the third best knight in the world (The Bruce, 13.320–23): Off 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.6

108

Gerald Morgan

All these knights are famous knights with deservedly high reputations, as are those in Erec et Enide ranked in fourth to tenth position behind them (1675–82), not to mention a further eleven (or even more) knights whom Chrétien does not specify by number, beginning with ‘Yvains li preuz’ or Yvain, son of Urien, whom we later encounter as the Chevalier au Lion (Erec et Enide, 1685–1706). But even among the best we see gradations of excellence and the testing ground of tournament or battle makes these gradations evident to the observer. There can be no doubt, then, that the tercel eagles in the Parliament of Fowls appear before us in order of merit. The ranking of the tercel eagles is reflected in their respective speeches when it comes to the debate for the hand of the formel eagle. The first tercel is given four stanzas in which to make his case (PF, 414–41). For all that he does not waste time in long preambles or conclusions (PF, 414–15 and 441): With hed enclyned and with humble cheere This royal tersel spak, and tariede noght. ‘Say what yow list, my tale is at an ende.’

bowed;look spoke;delayed it pleases;speech

He comes directly to the point and states his case openly. He loves his lady unreservedly and indeed ‘non loveth hire so wel as I’ (PF, 435). He must be admired for his courage in doing so when he has no special reason to know that the lady will look with favour upon his protestations of love. Not even so noble a knight as Troilus is able to bring himself to declare the strength of his feelings for Criseyde, for he is overwhelmed by the fear of rejection (TC, I.299–301) and is led as a consequence to resort to the subterfuges of a go-between. The first tercel knows that in declaring his love so openly and unreservedly he is making himself vulnerable to the will of the lady, as was Sir Lancelot in entering the cart and at the tournament at Noauz in Le Chevalier de la Charrete.7 Such a lover must confront the possibility (and perhaps from his point of view the likelihood) of rejection without fear of the consequences (PF, 421–23): ‘Besekynge hire of merci and of grace, As she that is my lady sovereyne; Or let me deye present in this place.’

die;now

5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls

109

Predictably, this heady stuff is all too embarrassing for the lady who is the object of his intense affections (PF, 442–48). The second tercel in accordance with his lower status gets half the space of the first tercel to declare his love, that is, two stanzas ((PF, 449–62). Unsurprisingly he begins by overstating his case and is obliged to back off from his overstatement. He abandons the untenable position that he loves the lady better than the first tercel and urges instead the merit of length of service rather than depth of love (PF, 451–53): ‘I love hire bet than ye don, by Seint John, Or at the leste I love hire as wel as ye, And lenger have seved hire in my degre.’

better rank

In the process he acknowledges that he has loved the lady in his degre (PF, 453) and that is indisputably a lesser thing than that of the first tercel eagle. He has made the case against himself. The third tercel eagle takes three stanzas (PF, 463–83) to put his case and in so doing reveals his own inferiority to the second tercel eagle. He speaks for too long and for too seldom to the point at issue. Indeed, the first of the three stanzas is occupied by comment on the shortness of the time at his disposal. This is the fate of all speakers who have to speak last in a debate, for by the time for their turn to speak the audience is becoming restive knowing that the interest of the subject has by now been exhausted and all that is left is a variation on a common theme. The third tercel eagle proceeds to waste his time and that of his audience by elaborating upon the shortness of time available to him. We imagine that it is not difficult to tax the patience of the lesser birds (PF, 464–66) but the third tercel eagle manages also to alienate the sympathies of Nature herself (PF, 467–68): ‘And ek Nature hireself ne wol not heere, For taryinge here, not half that I wolde seye.’

also;hear for fear of delay

Having lost the sympathy of his audience he is forced into a hurried and lame conclusion (PF, 481–83): ‘At shorte wordes, til that deth me sese I wol ben heres, whether I wake or wynke, And trewe in al that herte may bethynke.’

in short;seize hers;am awake;sleep can;think of,imagine

110

Gerald Morgan

But to the end he has a fondness for the expansive and leisurely adverbial phrase; thus ‘at shorte wordes’ (PF, 481) rather than the concise adverb shortli, well attested in Middle English and familiar to Chaucer himself. The question naturally arises as to the possible correspondence between the classification of birds in the Parliament of Fowls and the social classes of late fourteenth-century England. On the face of it this does not seem to be a profitable form of inquiry. D. S. Brewer rightly comments that ‘the only class division known to medieval theory was that into knights, clergy and ploughmen’.8 But although there is no simple reflection of the pattern of the three estates in the Parliament of Fowls (nor, one might add, in the General Prologue written by Chaucer some five or six years later), there are important correspondences between the division of birds in the Parliament of Fowls and contemporary social structures. In the first place the division of birds into classes is reinforced by subdivision into rank. The same pattern of precise discrimination by rank is to be observed in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (also composed in all likelihood in the 1380s) in the seating arrangements of knights and ladies in hall, equally at Camelot and at Hautdesert (SGGK, 72–73 and 1003–6): When þay had waschen worþyly þay wenten to sete, becomingly;seat Þe best burne ay abof, as hit best semed. knight;in each case;in a higher seat



Gawan and þe gay burde togeder þay seten fair;lady;sat Euen inmyddez, as þe messe metely come; exactly;in the middle;food;duly;came And syþen þurȝ al þe sale, as hem best semed, then;hall Bi vche grome at his degré grayþely watz serued. when;each;man;according to his rank;duly

The distinction of class and rank is a salient feature of the organisation of the portraits in the General Prologue, and Chaucer draws attention to it in a studied and deliberate way in the use of the words estaat (GP, I.716) and degree (GP, I.40 and 744). Thus we are introduced first of all to the knightly and clerical classes or estates and also to the precedence of rank in Knight, Squire, Yeoman, and Prioress, Monk, Friar, although as in the Parliament of Fowls the organisation of the General Prologue cannot be simply reduced to a pattern of three estates.9

5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls

111

Further, there can be little doubt that the birds of prey, or at any rate the eagles, falcon and sparrow-hawk, represent the knightly class or aristocracy. This they are well fitted to do because of their courage, the indispensable virtue of any knight. This is not a mere matter of size as we see from the pages of Andreas Capellanus, that great medieval casuist of love (I.vi.100, pp. 68–69): Nam falcones, astures et accipitres sola facit audacia caros. Videmus enim quandoque falcones de genere levium magnos fasianos et perdices sua detinere virtute; nam a cane non magno saepe tenetur aper. It is boldness alone which makes falcons, goshawks and sparrow-hawks esteemed. Sometimes we observe falcons of slight build pin down by their courage large pheasants and partridges, just as a boar is frequently cornered by a hound of modest size.10

It is necessary here to distinguish between the honourable function of a knight, the upholder of justice and the protector of widows and orphans, and the rapacity of a predator. Thus the commoner (plebeius) addressing the noble lady in the second of the dialogues of the De amore goes on to insist on his entitlement to the honourable name of falcon rather than the contumelious appellation of kite (I.vi.101, pp. 68–69): … non contumeliosa milvi appellatione vocandus reperior, sed honorabili falconis vocabulo nuncupandus exsisto. … I am clearly not to be accorded the insulting label of kite, but to be given the honourable title of falcon.

In the same way Chaucer makes the distinction between the noble falcon and the brave sparrow-hawk on the one hand and the cowardly kite on the other (PF, 337–39 and 349): The gentyl faucoun, that with his feet distrayneth The kynges hand; the hardy sperhauk eke, The quayles foo; … The tame ruddok, and the coward kyte.

noble;holds fast bold;sparrow-hawk foe robin redbreast

112

Gerald Morgan

Vincent of Beauvais has it (Speculum naturale, 1.16.108) that three kites will flee from one sparrow-hawk, so that the kite will feel less uneasy in the company of the harmless robin.11 The rapacity of the Friar of the General Prologue (I.240–56) is aptly summed up at the end of the portrait in his name of Huberd (I.269), for Hubert is the name of the kite in the Roman de Renart. Along with the specification of the great nobility of eagles, falcons and sparrow-hawks among the birds of prey is the larger contrast between them and the lesser concerns of the inferior birds. In other words we can identify here a contrast between nobles or gentles and commoners that is at the heart of late fourteenth-century English society and is the basis of the division by class in the General Prologue. In the portraits of Knight to Franklin (GP, I.43–360) we have the list of gentles and in the portraits of Guildsmen to Pardoner (GP, I.361–714) we have the list of commoners. Among the commoners we may identify three clearly defined groups, and it is not fanciful to suppose that there is some correspondence between them and the three groups of birds classified below the birds of prey in the Parliament of Fowls.12 The highest ranking group of commoners is that from the Guildsmen to the Wife of Bath (GP, I.361–476), and it may justly be characterised as a group of prosperous bourgeois, motivated by ambition and economic selfinterest. Corresponding to them are the wormfowl, whose spokesman is ‘the cukkow ever unkynde’ (PF, 358). In his unnatural pursuit of his own interest the cuckoo is perfectly willing to kill the bird that nurtured him, and for this he merits the merlin’s utter contempt13 (PF, 612–13): ‘Thow mortherere of the heysoge on the braunche hedge-sparrow That broughte the forth, thow reufullest glotoun!’ most contemptible,worthless

In the midst of the commoners are the Parson and the Plowman (GP, I.477– 541), related not only by birth (they are brothers) but also by moral goodness, for the one is ‘a good man … of religioun’ (GP, I.477) who guides his flock by example as well as by instruction (GP, I.479–82, 496–506 and 516–28) and the other ‘a trewe swynkere and a good’ (GP, I.531). Corresponding to them is the seedfowl whose spokesman is ‘[t]he wedded turtil, with hire herte trewe’ (PF, 355). He shares with the Parson and the Plowman the

5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls

113

humble acceptance of his station in life (PF, 512–18) and a simple faithfulness in loving that extends beyond the grave (PF, 582–88). The lowest ranking group of commoners is that from the Miller to the Pardoner (GP, I.545–714) which is essentially a list of artisans or craftsmen, yeomen, servants and officials. Here are to be found the characteristics of the churl, namely, mean-mindedness and dishonesty, coarseness and indecency that stand at the polar antithesis to the chivalric virtues of the gentle knight. There is no mistaking the values of the churl for, lacking insight into the true instincts of nobility, the churl makes no attempt to conceal his churlishness from the world. Hence Chaucer can write in the Miller’s Prologue (I.3182–84): The Millere is a cherl; ye knowe wel this. So was the Reve eek and othere mo, And harlotrie they tolden bothe two.

others;besides ribaldry,bawdy talk

There can surely be little doubt about the waterfowl as the churls of the debate in the Parliament of Fowls. The goose and the duck (along with the cuckoo) lead uninvited the chorus or rather cacophony of objections to (what is for them) the long drawn out and tediously over-complicated debate between the three tercel eagles. The goose cannot understand what all the fuss is about and delivers with characteristic bluster his ‘remedie’ or ‘verdit fayre and swythe’ (PF, 502–3), namely (PF, 566–67): ‘I seye I rede hym, though he were my brother, But she wol love hym, lat hym love another!’

advise

His invincible ignorance is shared by the duck who finds the turtle dove’s attachment to faithful love simply ludicrous (PF, 589–93). The goose is encouraged to find his foolish opinion shared by so discriminating a judge as the duck and, overlooking the withering contempt of the sparrow-hawk (PF, 568–74), repeats his happy solution to the torments of love (PF, 594–95): ‘Ye queke!’ seyde the goos, ‘ful wel and fayre! There been mo sterres, God wot, than a payre!’

quack;eloquently,justly more;knows

On this occasion his foolish and empty-headed words, so degrading to any true concept of love, are sufficient to provoke the male falcon who has been

114

Gerald Morgan

elected by the birds of prey in accordance with Nature’s will (PF, 524–32) to speak on behalf of them all (PF, 596–97 and 601–2): ‘Now fy, cherl!’ quod the gentil tercelet, ‘Out of the donghil cam that word ful right! … Thy kynde is of so low a wrechednesse That what love is, thow canst nouther seen ne gesse.’

baseness,churlishness

Some modern readers may baulk at the rooted class bias of these noble sentiments, but it is unreasonable to look for the values of a liberal democracy reflected in a feudal or post-feudal (bastard feudal) society.14 Chaucer himself writes from the decidedly aristocratic perspective of a court poet and is obviously at ease with the values of courtly society. There is a full acceptance of the principle of ordered gradation in respect of social class and rank as in every other respect.

The Human Being as Microcosm IV.  The same conception of a graded hierarchy of being that is seen by medievals in the created universe at large and in the social order is to be found also in the individual human soul. In other words the individual soul is seen as a microcosm or little world corresponding to the macrocosm or great world that is the universe. This pervasive idea is expressed by Aquinas as follows (ST, 1a 91.1; translated by Edmund Hill): Et propter hoc homo dicitur minor mundus, quia omnes creaturae mundi quoddammodo inveniuntur in eo. And for this reason man is called a little world or microcosm, because all parts of the created world are to be found in him one way or another.

Thus the rational soul of human beings is the principle of a hierarchically organised system of powers. Boethius sets out the distinction of cognitive powers and acts as follows (CP, Book V, prosa 4.82–91):

5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls

115

Ipsum quoque hominem aliter sensus, aliter imaginatio, aliter ratio, aliter intellegentia contuetur. Sensus enim figuram in subiecta materia constitutam, imaginatio uero solam sine materia iudicat figuram. Ratio uero hanc quoque transcendit speciemque ipsam quae singularibus inest uniuersali consideratione perpendit. Intellegentiae uero celsior oculus exsistit; supergressa namque uniuersitatis ambitum ipsam illam simplicem formam pura mentis acie contuetur. Likewise sense, imagination, reason and understanding do diversely behold a man. For sense looketh upon his form as it is placed in matter or subject, the imagination discerneth it alone without matter, reason passeth beyond this also and considereth universally the species or kind which is in particulars. The eye of the understanding is higher yet. For surpassing the compass of the whole world it beholdeth with the clear eye of the mind that simple form in itself.

In each case the higher principle, for example, reason, includes the lower, for example, sense and imagination, but contains an additional differentiating principle (CP, Book V, prosa 4.104–12). Thus reason in comprehending the universal species in particular things comprehends also the figure of the imagination and the material object of sense, but the universal as such is beyond the reach of sense and imagination. As in the great world or macrocosm, so in the little world or microcosm of the individual soul there is a harmony of parts when the lower powers are properly subject to the higher powers. Thus in respect of the powers of appetition that act in the light of sensitive and rational cognition, the superior appetite or will, which follows the deliberation of reason, properly directs the inferior or sensitive appetite (In de anima, 844, pp. 198 and 481): Et iste est naturalis ordo, ut superior appetitus [i.e. voluntas] moveat inferiorem [i.e. desiderium et ira] … appetitus inferior, etsi aliquid de motu proprio retineat, movetur tamen naturali ordine, motu appetitus superioris, et motu rationis deliberantis. Si autem e converso accidit, quod appetitus superior transmoveatur ab inferiori, hoc est praeter ordinem naturalem. Note that it is according to nature that the higher appetite [i.e. will] should sway the lower [i.e. desire and anger] … the lower appetite, retaining something of its own proper movement, is also moved by another, and this naturally, following the impulse of the higher appetite and of rational deliberation. If the converse takes place, and the higher is in fact moved by the lower, this is contrary to the natural order of things.

116

Gerald Morgan

Hence it follows that any love that is truly or fully human is one in which desire is directed by will and which is characterised as a consequence by freedom and not necessity.

Choice and Freedom V.  It is the principle of choice that determines the mating of birds in the realm of Nature, and it is insisted upon again and again in the description of the assembly of birds and in the ensuing debate. The long list of the assembled birds (PF, 330–64) is followed by the narrator’s simple and direct statement of the intention of each of them to choose a mate (PF, 369–71): And ech of hem dide his besy cure Benygnely to chese or for to take, By hire acord, his formel or his make.

anxious;care graciously,kindly;choose agreement;female eagle (or hawk);mate

This is in accordance with the perpetual law or statut (PF, 387) of nature, as Nature herself now declares (PF, 387–89): ‘By my statut and thorgh my governaunce, Ye come for to cheese – and fle youre wey – Youre makes, as I prike yow with plesaunce.’

arouse;desire

Further, the principle of choice applies not only to the first or royal tercel eagle but to all birds of whatever kind. It is a universal law of Nature (PF, 399–400): ‘He shal first chese and speken in his gyse.’ ‘And after hym by ordre shul ye chese.’

must;manner according to rank;must

Moreover, the determination of a mate by choice in no sense implies the imposition of choice but rather a reciprocal choice. Hence the narrator refers not merely to the act of choice but qualifies it by the use of

5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls

117

the adjective benygnely (PF, 370), that is, graciously or with kindness. The loving act of choice must make room for freedom of choice on the part of the formel or lady, and this is also explicit in Nature’s address (PF, 407–10): ‘But natheles, in this condicioun Mot be the choys of everich that is heere, That she agre to his eleccioun, Whoso he be that shulde be hire feere.’

nevertheless;on must;everyone choice mate,companion

The need for choice on both sides carries with it the possibility of rejection, and indeed this is inevitable for at least two of the three suitors in a common suit. But herein lies the superiority of rational creatures in Nature’s domain and the reason for the continued emphasis on choice. As one might expect these values are given definitive expression by the first tercel eagle and he begins the debate with the ringing declaration (PF, 417–18): ‘I chese, and chese with wil, and herte, and thought, The formel on youre hond, so wel iwrought.’

fashioned

His love is not to be found wanting in respect of will, or heart, or thought. In other words he chooses the formel eagle, the best of all possible choices, ‘the gentilleste/That evere she [that is, Nature] among hire werkes fond’ (PF, 373–74), with firmness of will, with strength of desire and with a due deliberation that informs the will with its rationality. It is not possible for a human love to be more complete. No one following this debate on an issue of significance to each reader can remain unmoved by the different points of view expressed and the narrator of the Parliament of Fowls (dreamer or poet as we may choose to characterise him) is no exception. He responds with unfeigned admiration to the nobility of the tercel eagles (PF, 484–86): Of al my lyf, syn that day I was born, So gentil ple in love or other thyng Ne herde nevere no man me beforn.

since noble;debate

118

Gerald Morgan

No less undisguised is his irritation with the cacophony of the lower orders of birds (PF, 498–500): The goos, the cokkow, and the doke also So cryede, ‘Kek kek! kokkow! quek quek!’ hye That thurgh myne eres the noyse wente tho.

loudly then

What is there to admire about this babble of discordant voices? We are inclined to sympathise with the attitudes of a Daun Russell in such circumstances, but we must recall also that they are exploited with presence of mind by Chauntecleer in his dire extremity (NPT, VII.3405–17). Chaucerian tolerance and geniality are hard to achieve at the best of times, and we must try our best with Chaucer to achieve them here. After all, the complications of love are apt to baffle even the greatest minds as the medievals well know. Socrates may be a model of patience and philosophical wisdom but he is brutally humiliated by his wife Xantippe (WBProl., 727–32):   ‘No thyng forgat he the care and the wo That Socrates hadde with his wyves two, How Xantippa caste pisse upon his heed. This sely man sat stille as he were deed; He wiped his heed, namoore dorste he seyn, But “Er that thonder stynte, comth a reyn!” ’

wretched,unfortunate subsided15

The Spokesmen and Spokeswomen VI.  When it comes to a debate on any issue the character and authority of the speaker becomes an important issue in itself. As often as not in medieval literature there emerges a contrast between the wisdom of a woman and the frailty of a man. In the De consolatione philosophiae of Boethius authority is invested in Lady Philosophia, in Le Roman de la rose in Raison and in the Commedia Beatrice. In Piers Plowman the central argument for the union of justice and love is placed in the care of Lady Holy Church (B I.3–4):

5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls A louely lady of leere in lynnen ycloþed Cam doun from [þe] castel and called me faire.

119 face,countenance graciously

By contrast the faultiness of Troilus’s argument in favour of necessity and against freedom of choice in losing Criseyde is made clear to the reader at its very beginning by the speaker’s disappointment and despair as a lover (TC, IV.953–59): And shortly, al the sothe for to seye, He was so fallen in despeir that day, That outrely he shop hym for to deye. For right thus was his argument alway: He seyde he nas but lorn, weylaway! ‘For al that comth, comth by necessitee: Thus to be lorn, it is my destinee.’16

certainly;prepared ruined,undone

In the debate in the Parliament of Fowls only Nature can match the authority of a Lady Holy Church. The male spokesmen can speak only with a lesser kind of authority. The best that male lovers can do in such an argument is set out at the beginning and with a descending persuasiveness in the speeches of the three tercel eagles. Little of what follows can match their elevated thought and moral idealism. For the commoners, three spokesmen emerge in the goose, cuckoo and turtle dove. The goose, a member of the lowest rank among the commoners, speaks out at once without giving the matter much thought (PF, 501–4). Her rudeness matches that of the drunken Miller who steps forward instead of the Monk in the telling of a tale to follow that of the gentle Knight (MilProl., I.3118–35). I. For all that, the goose is accepted by the waterfowl as their spokesperson after a loud but ‘short avysement’ (PF, 555). A fool is gladly accepted by fools as a spokesperson and indeed it takes a fool adequately to represent fools (PF, 554–67). She is fittingly followed by the ‘fol kokkow’, no less ignorant but a self-appointed and self-interested spokesman, ‘ever unkynde’ (PF, 358). He will serve the common good by bringing this tedious altercation to a speedy conclusion (PF, 505–8). Although by no means the lowest in rank, the admirable turtle dove displays a humble acceptance of her station in life (PF, 512–13):

120

Gerald Morgan ‘I am a sed-foul, oon the unworthieste, That wot I wel, and litel of connynge.’

knowledge,understanding17

At least she does not interfere in matters beyond her understanding, especially when not invited to do so (PF, 514–18), and when she does speak in the debate she does so as the chosen spokesperson of the seedfowl and speaks for male and female alike (PF, 575–88). And although her sentiments are admirable they are at once drowned out by the utter contempt of the duck and goose (PF, 589–95). At the same time as we are impressed by the detailed bird-lore displayed in the Parliament of Fowls, we also observe that the values attaching to the chief debaters are common knowledge and thus easily comprehensible even for modern readers. The eagles are noble and courageous and as such displayed on the shield of many a knight.18 The goose is foolish not only in the Parliament of Fowls but also in the opinion of Criseyde (TC, III.582 and 584–86): But natheles, yet gan she hym biseche, … For to ben war of goosissh poeples speche, That dremen thynges whiche as nevere were, And wel avyse hym whom he broughte there,

and of Proserpine (MerT, IV.2272–75): Al hadde man seyn a thyng with bothe his yen, put a face on, brazen out;audaciously Yit shul we wommen visage it hardily, And wepe, and swere, and chyde subtilly, stupid,foolish So that ye men shul been as lewed as gees.

The cuckoo is selfish and the turtle dove faithful. All these values are straightforwardly realised in the ensuing debate. The goose is empty-headed and long-winded (PF, 563–65): She seyde, ‘Pes! Now tak kep every man, And herkeneth which a resoun I shal forth brynge! My wit is sharp; I love no taryinge’,

somewhat in the manner of Troilus grasping at straws in his argument against freedom of choice (TC, IV.1027–29):

5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls ‘And further over now ayeynward yit, Lo, right so is it of the part contrarie, As thus – now herkne, for I wol nat tarie.’

121 conversely

And for the goose the matter is simple and not in reality problematic at all: ‘ “But she wol love hym, lat hym love another!” ’ Such moral obtuseness is too much for ‘the hardy sperhauk’ (PF, 338) to endure. It is not possible for a true lover to abandon a settled conviction merely on account of rejection. Troilus cannot bring himself to abandon Criseyde or cease to love her even when it is clear beyond any possibility of doubt that she has betrayed him in bestowing on her new lover the brooch that he had given her on her departure from Troy as a sacred remembrance of their love (TC, V.1695–98): ‘Thorugh which I se that clene out of youre mynde Ye han me cast – and I ne kan nor may, For al this world, withinne myn herte fynde To unloven yow a quarter of a day!’19

Such a sublime if tragically misdirected love belongs to a world of thought and feeling that the folly of the goose cannot hope to penetrate (PF, 571–74): ‘Now parde, fol, yit were it bet for the Han holde thy pes than shewed thy nycete. It lyth nat in his wit, ne in his wille, But soth is seyd, “a fol can not be stille.” ’

by God,assuredly stupidity

The turtle dove puts the case for constancy in love with conviction (PF, 575–88) but representing the seedfowl lacks the authority to silence the duck and the goose (PF, 589–95). It falls to the male falcon to deliver a sterner rebuke (PF, 596 and 601–2): ‘Now fy, cherl!’ quod the gentil tercelet, … Thy kynde is of so low a wrechednesse That what love is, thow canst nouther seen ne gesse.

The self-interest and self-conceit of the cuckoo even so remains undeterred by these words of rebuke. He does not need popular approval to see that an independent life as a single person is the only realistic option when

122

Gerald Morgan

agreement is not possible (PF, 603–9). Such explicit indifference to the common good by way of the duty of procreation provokes in its turn the contempt of the merlin (PF, 616): ‘Go, lewed be thow whil the world may dure!’

ignorant;last

As in many a parliamentary debate reasoned argument is trumped by intensity of feeling and deep-seated antagonisms.

The Verdict VII.  For all the expressed antipathies the real verdict is not in doubt if we can bring ourselves to allow for the facts to speak for themselves. It is not properly speaking a matter that is to be determined by trial by battle to the death, although that is not an outcome that any of the three tercel eagles would shrink from (PF, 538–46). Indeed that is a test that any knight must be prepared to face, and perhaps each one of them may already have faced it on more than one occasion and, like the Knight of the General Prologue, ‘ay slayn his foo’ (I.63). If virtue as well as feeling has any bearing on the matter of love a considered judgment is not in the end problematic. And so indeed the tercel falcon confidently concludes (PF, 547–51): ‘And therfore pes! I seye, as to my wit, Me wolde thynke how that the worthieste Of knyghthod, and lengest had used it, Most of estat, of blod the gentilleste, Were sittyngest for hire, if that hir leste.’

as I understand it seem practised greatest;position,rank;noblest most suitable;it pleased

But that is as far as he can go. The principle of freedom of choice and of consent must be paramount in all affairs of the heart. Naturally the lady’s choice must be decisive and the tercel falcon is content to let the decision rest with her (PF, 552–53): ‘And of these thre she wot hireself, I trowe, Which that he be, for it is light to knowe.’

knows;believe easy

5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls

123

So far so good, perhaps. But in the realm of human affairs it is seldom as simple as that. The tercel falcon’s judgment is so eminently reasonable that Nature herself can hardly take issue with it. The formel eagle is of all Nature’s creatures ‘of shap the gentilleste/… The moste benygne and the goodlieste’ and in her ‘was everi vertu at his reste’ (PF, 373 and 375–76). Without a doubt she is deserving of the worthiest of her suitors. But Nature also understands that she is deserving of something even better than an external judgment, for it is impossible from the outside to determine the truth of love. The lady herself must have as her mate the one on whom she herself (and no other on her behalf ) has set her heart (PF, 620–23): But fynally, this is my conclusioun, That she hireself shal han hir eleccioun Of whom hire lest; whoso be wroth or blythe, Hym that she cheest, he shal hire han as swithe.

must;choice it pleases;glad chooses;at once

Admirable though the principle of choice is, it undoubtedly complicates what would otherwise be a straightforward decision. Human choices often fall, by way it may seem at times of sheer perversity and with a dreadful inevitability, on some extremely unworthy candidates. Allowing for such extraordinary circumstances Nature is led to appeal to an authority beyond herself (PF, 631–35): ‘But as for counseyl for to chese a make, If I were Resoun, thanne wolde I Conseyle yow the royal tercel take, As seyde the tercelet ful skylfully, As for the gentilleste and most worthi, Which I have wrought so wel to my plesaunce That to yow hit oughte to been a suffisaunce.’

advice

male falcon;reasonably noblest pleasure,delight enough

Indeed it is the Gawains and Launcelots of this world who are the worthiest knights and in consequence they are frequently found in the company of adoring ladies. Sir Gawain is introduced to us in the feast at Camelot set beside Guinevere (SGGK, 74–84 and 109) and is the object of the desires (or seeming desires) of Bertilak’s wife at Hautdesert (SGGK, 1187–1240,

124

Gerald Morgan

1472–1534 and 1733–69). She knows what is to be expected of such a knight, in the bedroom as well as anywhere else (SGGK, 1297–1301): ‘So god as Gawayn gaynly is halden, And cortaysye is closed so clene in hymseluen,  Couth not lyȝtly haf lenged so long wyth a lady, Bot he had craued a cosse, bi his courtaysye, Bi sum towch of summe tryfle at sum talez ende.’

rightly contained;completely easily;stayed kiss hint;small matter;speech

And indeed such knights in life do on occasion fittingly carry off the prize. We may think of John of Gaunt and Blanche, the first Duchess of Lancaster, and the subject of Chaucer’s first original poem. She accepts the suit of the knight in black, but only after first rejecting him (BD, 1268–72): So whan my lady knew al this, My lady yaf me al hooly The noble yifte of hir mercy, Savynge hir worship by al weyes –  Dredles, I mene noon other weyes.

gave with due regard for;good name,reputation assuredly

But sadly in life it is not always so and a lady’s choice cannot always be predicted, even by the most reasonable among us. Unsuitable lovers make their way more favourably at times than suitable ones, much to general consternation. Thus Criseyde in her departure from her faithful lover in Troy quickly finds comfort in a new lover much his inferior in Diomede.20 In the real world of love intrigue, spin doctors, control freaks and go-betweens abound. And it is sometimes also the case that the lady is not interested in the multitude of lovers besieging her, and the greater her merits the greater the multitude. Sometimes she is not ready for love, as is the case with the formel eagle in the Parliament of Fowls (645–51), and certainly she will never be ready for the destructive passions of love and desire associated with Venus and Cupid that will call her good name into question (PF, 652–53).21 The formel eagle is not a cruel and arrogant creature, as some who possess her grace and beauty may well be, and she acknowledges her obligation to Nature (PF, 639–42): ‘My rightful lady, goddesse of Nature! Soth is that I am evere under your yerde,

subject to your authority

5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls As is everich other creature, And mot be youres whil my lyf may dure.’

125

must;last

But it is ladies who have the difficult and sometimes impossible task of responding to declarations of love addressed to them by fervent and often unwanted lovers. Sometimes matters of this kind cannot be settled here and now and a lady is surely not to be blamed for seeking to avoid present embarrassment by postponing a question she cannot answer by a simple affirmative. There will have to be a delay and the tercel eagles will have to put up with the delay (with no prospect of ultimate success). It might have been worse. Many a brave knight will have to endure a flat refusal as the knight in black in the Book of the Duchess himself had to do (1221–57).

A Problematic Conclusion VIII.  In the midst of the general rejoicing of the birds on St Valentine’s Day (PF, 666–92) which can be enthusiastically endorsed we remain uncomfortably aware that it cannot be shared by the noblest of Nature’s creatures. There is a problem here that needs to be resolved and the poem, for all its impressive learning, is unable to resolve it. The dreamer is perplexed by the wonderful operation of love at the poem’s beginning (PF, 4–7) and, for all that he has learnt in its course, he is still perplexed at the end (PF, 695–96): I wok, and othere bokes tok me to, To reede upon, and yit I rede alwey.

As Dante personaggio finds in trying to follow Virgil’s exposition of love in the Purgatorio, the clarification of one problem inevitably leads to the raising of other problems. (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.’

126

Gerald Morgan ‘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 is an experience at the very centre of a bookish culture. Thus the Parliament of Fowls is by no means unique among dream visions in ending in this fashion. The problem centres here on the figure of nature and the Nature of the Parliament of Fowls is the nature of Alan of Lille/ Alanus de Insulis (c.1125/30–1203), and that is why Chaucer supplies so specific a textual reference to the De planctu Naturae (PF, 316–18): And right as Aleyn, in the Pleynt of Kynde, Devyseth Nature of aray and face, In swich aray men myghte hire there fynde.

Complaint;Nature describes;dress

The Nature of the Parliament of Fowls is accordingly a product of the Platonic doctrine of forms (absolute realism) rather than the Aristotelian doctrine of forms (moderate realism). For Plato the forms or ideas are self-subsistent transcendent realities separate from things, resulting in a pronounced dualism of soul and body, whereas for Aristotle the soul is the substantial form of the body and the principle of unity in the individual existing human being (ST, 1a 76.8). Hence Plato is left with the difficulty of explaining the co-existence of intelligible and sensible principles in human beings. His solution is the development of a doctrine of the World Soul as a link between the two, the World Soul being conceived as exactly intermediate between the two and so containing in itself the likeness of both, that is, indivisibility (forms) and divisibility (things). But since the World Soul contains not the forms of things but only the likeness of the forms it cannot explain the possession of a rational soul in human beings. Aristotle accordingly rejects the Platonic doctrine of the World Soul and Aquinas does so with unaccustomed vehemence (ST, 1a 76.7; translated by Timothy Suttor): Unde patet esse falsas opiniones eorum qui posuerunt aliqua corpora esse media inter animam et corpus hominis. Clearly wrong, then, was the position of those who held that there are intermediate bodies between the soul and body of man.

5  Nature and the Bird-Debate in the Parliament of Fowls

127

In the Parliament of Fowls Nature is herself unable to resolve the dispute among the three tercel eagles for the formel eagle, the noblest of her creatures, and has to appeal beyond herself to Resoun (PF, 372–78 and 631–37). But Nature is not reason and does not as a principle comprehend reason. It is indeed the complaint of Nature in Alan of Lille’s De planctu Naturae that human beings endowed with reason alone do not obey her laws (Prose 4, pp. 131 and 133): As all things by the law of their origin are held subject to my laws and are bound to pay me the tribute rightly imposed, practically all obey my edicts as a general rule, by bringing forward the rightful tribute in the manner appointed by law. However, from this universal law man alone exempts himself by a nonconformist withdrawal … Man, however, who has all but drained the entire treasury of my riches, tries to denature the natural things of nature and arms a lawless and solecistic Venus to fight against me … … Man alone turns with scorn from the modulated strains of my cithern and runs deranged to the notes of mad Orpheus’ lyre.22

The dreamer will obviously have to read more than Plato and the neo-Platonists if he is to form a better understanding of these troubling matters (PF, 697–99): I hope, ywis, to rede so som day That I shal mete som thyng for to fare The bet, and thus to rede I nyl nat spare.

find;get on the better

He will have to move on, as the medievals themselves did, to Aristotle and the Scholastics. Thus the great Oxford scholar on the pilgrimage to Canterbury is an authority on Aristotle rather than Plato (GP, 293–96): For hym was levere have at his beddes heed Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reed, Of Aristotle and his philosophie Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrie.

he would rather

fiddle;pleasant sounding;psaltery

And as for the subject of love, a reading of Dante, and especially of Virgil’s discourse on love in Purgatorio XVII and XVIII (the very heart of the Commedia) will without doubt enrich his understanding. But of this process there is no end.

128

Gerald Morgan

Notes 1

See Gerald Morgan, ‘Chaucer’s Adaptation of Boccaccio’s Temple of Venus in The Parliament of Fowls’, RES, NS (2005), 1–36. 2 See MED, s.v. park n. 1. (a) and (b) and laund(e n. (a). 3 See Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966). 4 See Gerald Morgan, The Tragic Argument of ‘Troilus and Criseyde’, 2 vols (Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter, 2005), I.279–83. 5 See D. S. Brewer (ed.), Geoffrey Chaucer: The Parlement of Foulys, Old & Middle English Texts (Manchester: Manchester University Press; New York: Barnes & Noble, 1972), pp. 32 and 114–15 and The Riverside Chaucer, p. 1000. 6 See A. A. M. Duncan (ed. and trans.), John Barbour: The Bruce, Canongate Classics 78 (Edinburgh: Canongate Books Limited, 1997). 7 See ‘The Conflict of Love and Chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete’, pp. 36–38 and 48–49 above. 8 Brewer, The Parlement of Foulys, p. 35. 9 See Gerald Morgan, ‘Moral and Social Identity and the Idea of Pilgrimage in the General Prologue’, ChR, 37 (2003), 285–314. 10 Reference is to Andreas Capellanus on Love [De amore], edited with an English translation by P. G. Walsh (London: Duckworth, 1982). 11 See Brewer, The Parlement of Foulys, p. 116. 12 See Morgan, ‘Moral and Social Identity’, pp. 291–99. 13 See MED, s.v. merlioun n. (a) ‘A small European falcon, the merlin (Falco aesalon)’. 14 See K. B. McFarlane, The Nobility of Later Medieval England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973). 15 See The Riverside Chaucer, pp. 871–72. 16 See Morgan, The Tragic Argument, I.321–29. 17 On the turtle dove, see Brewer, The Parlement of Foulys, note to 355, p. 117 and The Riverside Chaucer, p. 1000. 18 See Boutell’s Heraldry, pp. 74–77. 19 See Morgan, The Tragic Argument, II.622–42. 20 See Morgan, The Tragic Argument, II.479–85, 546–48 and 559–71. 21 See Morgan, ‘Chaucer’s Adaptation of Boccaccio’s Temple of Venus’, pp. 6–12. 22 Reference is to Alan of Lille: The Plaint of Nature, translation and commentary by James J. Sheridan (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980).

6 Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

  S’io avessi lettor, più lungo spazio da scrivere i’ pur cantere’ in parte lo dolce ber che mai non m’avrìa sazio;   ma perchè pieno son tutte le carte ordite a questa cantica seconda non mi lascia più ir lo fren dell’arte. — dante, Purgatorio, XXXIII.136–411 Never trust the teller, trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it. — d. h. lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature2

I.  We need to distinguish between real tellers and fictional tellers. The real teller of the Canterbury Tales, including all the tales within it, is Chaucer himself. Let us begin with him. Chaucer is a poet of monumental poetic ambition and, by the time he comes to write the Canterbury Tales in 1387, a poet of monumental poetic achievement. In 1386 or thereabouts he sends out into the world Troilus and Criseyde, evident to all, then and now, as the greatest love poem in the English language (TC, V.1789–92): But litel book, no makyng thow n’envie, But subgit be to alle poesye; And kis the steppes where as thow seest pace Virgile, Ovide, Omer, Lucan, and Stace.

poem;seek to rival deferential;poetry footprints;walk

130

Gerald Morgan

These are the greatest poets of classical antiquity and the emphasis on Statius among them is deliberate, for Chaucer is imitating here the master’s own Thebaid (XII.816–19): vive, precor; nec tu divinam Aeneida tempta, sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora. mox, tibi si quis adhuc praetendit nubila livor, occidet, et meriti post me referentur honores. O live, I pray! nor rival the divine Aeneid, but follow afar and ever venerate its footsteps. Soon, if any envy as yet o’erclouds thee, it shall pass away, and, after I am gone, thy well-won honours shall be duly paid.

For Chaucer, as for Dante, Statius is no mere silver Latin poet. In the Purgatorio Statius joins Virgil as Dante the pilgrim’s guide on the ascent from the fifth terrace where avarice is purged (Statius himself being guilty of prodigality) and accompanies Dante to the Earthly Paradise, remaining with him after the departure of Virgil. Chaucer’s love of Statius and close familiarity with the Thebaid is evident in line after line of Troilus and Criseyde. In the final stanza of the Troilus Chaucer writes with that high seriousness and religious conviction denied to him by Matthew Arnold (1822– 1888) in his celebrated essay on ‘The Study of Poetry’ (1880).3 But we can hardly read the crisis of religious faith of Dover Beach (1867) into the ending of Troilus and Criseyde without error. There is a great gulf in time, sentiment and religious culture between the England of Richard II (1377–1399) and the England of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). This is so evident that it might seem too indelicate or impolite to mention it. The poetry of Chaucer makes more immediate sense when we compare it with that of Dante and we ought not to begin by supposing that Chaucer is unworthy of the comparison. Indeed, it is Chaucer himself who insists upon the comparison (TC, V.1863–69): Thow oon, and two, and thre, eterne on lyve, That regnest ay in thre, and two, and oon, Uncircumscript and al maist circumscrive, Us from visible and invisible foon

everlastingly living unbounded;can;encompass foes

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales Defende, and to thy mercy, everichon, So make us, Jesus, for thi mercy, digne, For love of mayde and moder thyn benigne.     Amen.

131

worthy

Here Chaucer draws with a challenging explicitness on the authority of Dante, as he does in all the great moments of the poem, adding to Dante the authority of Aquinas in expressing that union of love and wisdom that has so eluded Troilus in the course of his heroic life (Par., XIV.28–33; Sinclair, III.201, 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,   tre volte era cantata da ciascuno di quelli spirti con tal melodia, ch’ ad ogne merto saria giusto muno. That One and Two and Three who ever lives and ever reigns in Three and in Two and in One and uncircumscribed circumscribes all, was sung three times by everyone of these spirits in such a strain as would be fit reward for every merit.

Chaucer here proclaims his poetic kinship with Dante in a way that no reader worthy of his great masterpiece is allowed to avoid. In the penultimate stanza Chaucer mentions ‘moral Gower’ and ‘philosophical Strode’ (incidentally, Strode not Wyclif ) by name (TC, V.1856–59): O moral Gower, this book I directe To the and to the, philosophical Strode, To vouchen sauf, ther nede is, to correcte, Of youre benignites and zeles goode.

be so good as;make corrections kindness;enthusiasm

These are great but lesser authorities. There is no need to mention Dante by name, as Dante does himself in Purgatorio, XXX.62–63; Sinclair, II.395: ‘quando mi volsi al suon del nome mio,/ che di necessità qui si registra,/ when I turned at the sound of my name, which is noted here of necessity’, for the name of poeta itself is quite sufficient in his case. As Statius puts it to Virgil on the fifth terrace, it is the name ‘che più dura e più onora,/ that most

132

Gerald Morgan

endures and honours most’ (Purg., XXI.85–86; Sinclair, II.275). In the same way, Aquinas has no need to refer to Aristotle by name, using throughout the Summa theologiae simply the term Philosophus, ‘the Philosopher’ (see ST, 1a 78.3 for one example chosen at random), and Dante follows suit in referring to Aristotle simply as ‘’l maestro di color che sanno,/ the master of them that know’ (Inf., IV.131–32; Sinclair, I.65). Thus, in the final lines of his tragedy, Chaucer places himself side by side with Dante in a fashion that no appeal to irony can undermine. Chaucer rightly takes his place in the exalted company of the greatest classical and medieval poets, an English name to set beside the great names of Greece, Italy and France (if we are to believe with Dante that Statius is a native of Toulouse). But Chaucer’s poetic ambition is not exhausted with the completion of the Troilus and in its ending he promises to follow it with a comedy (TC, V.1786–88): Go, litel bok, go, litel myn tragedye, Ther God thi makere yet, er that he dye, So sende myght to make in som comedye!

may God compose

Once again the extent of his ambition is evident. In the Troilus, as is well known, Boccaccio’s Filostrato is the immediate source. It has been customary in the past to deny to Chaucer a knowledge of Boccaccio’s Decameron, but the structural correspondence of the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales is impossible to deny, and Helen Cooper in 2002 proposed the Decameron as Chaucer’s model in confident terms: ‘The Decameron, it may safely be said, is Chaucer’s primary model for his collection of stories’.4 After all, Boccaccio and Chaucer tell five of the same tales, and among these is the concluding tale of the Decameron, the tenth tale of the tenth day, that is, the tale that occupies the most important place, as Petrarch, who wrote the version of it that Chaucer follows in the Clerk’s Tale, observes: … cum et michi semper ante multos annos audita placuisset, et tibi usque adeo placuisse perpenderem ut vulgari eam stilo tuo censueris non indignam et fine operis, ubi Rethorum disciplina validiora quelibet collocari iubet. After all, it had consistently pleased me for many years after I first heard it and you liked it, I felt, well enough to give it the final position in your Italian book, where the art of rhetoric teaches us to place whatever is more important.5

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

133

But if Boccaccio is Chaucer’s model, then Chaucer has set out to improve upon that model, to outdo Boccaccio in a manner that Spenser in a later age sought to ‘overgo Ariosto’. Thus Chaucer aims for a collection not of a mere 100 tales, but 120 tales. This is a scale of breath-taking proportions, like, for example, Durham Cathedral, or Gower’s Confessio Amantis, or the Commedia itself or even Aquinas’s Summa theologiae. Further, the individual tales have a richness and scope that Boccaccio simply does not attempt. Thus, the first tale, assigned to the ideal (if imperfect) Knight, is an epic in miniature in four parts, drawn from Boccaccio’s own epic, the Teseida, and Boccaccio’s source, Statius’s Thebaid, and illuminated by philosophical matter drawn from Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae. The Clerk’s Tale is not drawn by Chaucer from Boccaccio’s hundredth tale, rhetorically significant though that may be, but from the more elaborate Latin version of Petrarch, and the revised version in the Epistolae seniles at that. No less significantly Chaucer has added depth and weight to the fictional tellers. There are not just ten mere tellers, but all of thirty pilgrim tellers. And whereas Boccaccio’s ten tellers are barely differentiated – seven young Florentine men and three ladies – Chaucer has devoted a prologue to setting out in systematic and regular fashion and at considerable (although varying) length and in great detail the portraits of his pilgrim narrators (I.37–41 and 715–16):



Me thynketh it acordaunt to resoun To telle yow al the condicioun

seems to me;reasonable,proper the whole condition (state,circumstances of life) Of ech of hem, so as it semed me, them And whiche they weren, and of what degree, who;rank And eek in what array that they were inne. also;dress,clothing

Now have I toold you soothly, in a clause, Th’estaat, th’array, the nombre, …

briefly rank,social position

There are twenty-two full-length portraits in all, including the Guildsmen, and the significance of many of the details (particularly of dress) continue to elude us. The monologue of the Wife of Bath and the confession of the Pardoner add yet further insight into the character of these pilgrims. In addition there are significant interactions between the pilgrims, unsurprisingly

134

Gerald Morgan

in the form of quarrels between traditional vested interests, as between Miller and Reeve (‘of carpenteris craft’, I.3861), Friar and Summoner and Cook and Manciple, and notably between the Host and the various tellers. Indeed, the Knight has to intervene to restore peace between the Pardoner and the Host at the end of the Pardoner’s Tale (VI.960–68). Thus the comparison between the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales establishes for Chaucer both a renewed and extended interest in the tales (from whatever source or sources) and a deeper interest in the fictional tellers of the tales. The significant relations between the tellers, and between the tellers and the tales they tell, is a part of the fictional world that Chaucer himself has created. But we are still left with important and unanswered questions. These are as follows. What is the relative importance of fictional tellers and tales, or, to put it another way, of character and action? Do we accord primacy to teller or tale? What is the nature of the relationship between fictional teller and tale? II.  Let us begin with the assumption of the primacy of character and fictional teller, for in many ways this has remained the dominant assumption of modern readers. As applied to Troilus and Criseyde it leads to an undue emphasis on the character of Criseyde. For a scholar such as Derek Pearsall it is an assumption hardly to be questioned: These are the books [II and III] where Chaucer is developing with infinite and loving care that characterization of Criseyde which all readers recognize to be the irresistible core of attraction of the poem.6

And further, such an emphasis is linked to issues of autonomy and individuality, and explicitly so in the interpretation of the work by Monica McAlpine: On the other hand the failure to achieve closure [that is, in respect of ‘the total careers of the characters as represented in the fiction and the definitive interpretations of those careers’] tends to break down the boundary between art and reality, for the characters are thereby granted a complexity and an indeterminateness that is like our own.7

Individuals precisely as such are unknowable, and this principle of unknowability is extended to the work of art itself. For the comprehension of a work

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

135

of art such as Troilus and Criseyde itself this is disastrous. But (to be cynical for a moment) from the point of view of the academic industry it is a blessing from above. Such ignorance of the mainsprings of character and motive can be recycled endlessly. No one can be called to account, for answers there are none. As applied to the Canterbury Tales such an approach inevitably results in an emphasis on the primacy of the fictional tellers. This is the position already adopted in 1915 by the great Chaucer scholar and critic, George Lyman Kittredge, and expressed by him with characteristic eloquence: The Canterbury Pilgrimage is … a Human Comedy, and the Knight and the Miller and the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath and the rest are the dramatis personae … the Pilgrims do not exist for the sake of the stories, but vice versa. Structurally regarded, the stories are merely long speeches expressing, directly or indirectly, the characters of the several persons. They are more or less comparable, in this regard, to the soliloquies of Hamlet or Iago or Macbeth.8

This view has in the intervening years hardened into dogma. The fictional tellers have been granted not merely a fictional primacy but an actual one so that we are encouraged to believe that the Knight, Miller, Pardoner, Wife of Bath and the rest (not Chaucer) are the real tellers. Thus, with seemingly unshakeable assurance, Edward Condren writes: At length we return to the Knight who has crafted this long tale of the nature of man. To Arveragus, as to his Franklin creator, all is for show. And in the Pardoner’s Tale … both the rioters in the tale and their Pardoner-creator pursue lesser ideals while sacrificing greater.9

In other words, the fiction of the tellers has been pressed beyond its fictional limits. Are we really supposed to believe that it is the Knight who has supplied the epigraph in Latin from Statius’s Thebaid that is placed at the head of his tale? That it is the Knight’s knowledge of Italy (one of the few places, it seems, in which he has never fought) and of the Italian language that has enabled him to make a word for word study of Boccaccio’s Teseida? That it is the Knight’s learning that has enabled him in the interstices between his fifteen battles and three judicial duels to acquire a mastery of Boethius’s

136

Gerald Morgan

De consolatione philosophiae so as to illuminate in his tale the distinction between providence, fortune and human free will? Do we really suppose that Chaucer wishes to ascribe to the Knight the lifelong learning that belongs to the ascetic Clerk of Oxenford? No one by now will be surprised to learn that these fictional substitutes for Chaucer are singularly inept as tellers. They do not seem to have the remotest idea of what they are talking about. The catalogue of fallible narrators is almost as long as the list of pilgrims. Here are two damning verdicts on the brilliant Man of Law: … a pretentious literary dabbler like the Man of Law … … it has by now become more evident that he has pursued his extra-legal reading with an eye to intellectual posturing and didactic gesture, … Elsewhere the lawyer unwittingly reveals a vincible ignorance about a miscellany of topics. The Man of Law’s unremittingly black characterization and thumping condemnation of the Sultan’s mother, for example, bespeak the other side of his pharasaical schizophrenia. The narrator [the Man of Law] is a priceless example of ineptitude: his disclaimers regarding his skill as a story teller … can be taken at face value. He assures us over and over that he will not linger over his story (ll.701, 983, 990, and 1011), only to stretch it out interminably. He tells us repeatedly that men’s wits are too dull to know what is written in the stars; yet he, the prime specimen of limited human wit, seems to know consistently all that God has ordained. My discussion takes the view that the Man of Law’s Tale is interesting to us not for its inherent attractiveness as a story or its philosophical and rhetorical scope but for its perfect dramatic exposition of an inept narrator who systematically disfigures what might have been a good story (p. 76, n. 34).10

Since, as Condren surmises, our great Aristotelian scholar from Oxford struggles in vain with the revisions to his sources, we cannot be surprised that the Merchant, Squire, Franklin and Prioress are all out of their depth: … perhaps the Clerk does not understand the revisions Chaucer made in Petrarch’s version. Whatever the case, some of his comments run counter to the main thrust of his tale. Loss of control is even more noticeable with the Merchant, who, while intending to tell one kind of tale, unwittingly tells another when January grows beyond his pilgrim creator. In this respect the tales of Fragment IV are intermediate

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

137

steps in the poem’s progress toward Fragment V, where the Squire and the Franklin are beyond their depth. Yet maternal instincts never rise to maternal feelings, as the Prioress fails to comprehend either the horror or the meaning of her own story.11

On the whole these dim-witted creatures may lay claim to have been the dimmest collection of folk ever to set foot or ride on horseback on the pilgrim route from Southwark to Canterbury. But the true reductio ad absurdum of this approach is to be seen in a recent study (in 2004) by Mark Miller emanating from the University of Chicago, published by Cambridge University Press and entitled Philosophical Chaucer. Here we are required to engage with a deeply reflective and philosophical Miller as the teller of the tale. Chaucer’s Miller has for long, it seems, been troubled by the question of ethical normativity: The relation between the Miller’s naturalism and the problems that motivate it might then be put as follows. It is the most evident thing in the world to the Miller that we can go wrong: he thinks that the Knight is wrong, that his whole romantic aristocratic ethos is wrong, that the social order that supports him and would silence the Miller’s voice in favor of a more suitable one is wrong. The Miller cares about this; it is what motivates his speech from the beginning. The problem of ethical normativity, then – the problem we face of trying to find a right way, and of wanting to say what such a way might be, what makes it right, and how we can follow it – is the problem he wants to address, just as the Knight does.12

It is hard to resist the suspicion that the Miller had once been a pupil of Wyclif at Balliol College, Oxford. What such interpretations of the Canterbury Tales have in common (and there are many of them) is an extreme implausibility. Such is the power of a commanding idea that it can override all counter literary judgments and any mere appeal to common sense. Moreover, implausible and even ridiculous interpretations gain credibility when set in the context of alien and distasteful medieval ways of thinking. It may be that Chaucer (like Dante) is too much of a Robertsonian for many modern admirers of his enduring poetic genius to stomach. Hence, in a form of moral or ideological bowdlerism, Chaucer’s tales are purged of impure elements. The

138

Gerald Morgan

fact is that we have in interpretations based on the assumption of fallible narrators lost contact not only with Chaucer as the master poet, but also with the fictional world of the Canterbury Tales. We have to reckon with fallible critics as well as fallible narrators, and fallible critics can be no less inept than the fallible narrators they treat with such patronising contempt. Thus the pilgrims are the fictional tellers, not the real tellers of the tales that they tell. Hence we are not disturbed to learn, for example, that the Knight’s Tale and the Merchant’s Tale were written before and independently of their assignment to their tellers. The portrait of the Knight was written for the pre-existing tale (so as to authenticate its moral seriousness and its world of battles) and the Merchant’s Prologue to give some plausibility to the sordidness of an unequal marriage. The Knight’s Tale, for example, is thus Chaucer’s tale assigned by him to the Knight and the Franklin’s Tale is Chaucer’s tale assigned by him to the Franklin. And so too with all the rest. The principle by which tales are assigned to tellers is a rhetorical principle, namely, the principle of decorum. Such a relation is clear from the beginning and throughout: to the Knight a chivalric romance; to churls such as the Miller, Reeve and Cook, and to those like them, such as the Shipman and Summoner, and even the Summoner’s antagonist, the Friar, who much preferred the company of ‘frankeleyns over al in his contree/ And eek … worthy women of the toun’ (I.216–17) to his ecclesiastical associate, and also the Merchant, elevated in rank only by the acquisition of wealth, fabliaux; to the lawyer (a brilliant lawyer) a consideration of divine justice; to the Wife of Bath a vindication of the rights of women even within the bond of marriage; to the Clerk of Oxenford, a learned Aristotelian philosopher, a logical analysis of obedience as a moral virtue; to the Franklin, a country gentleman, a demonstration of generosity in marriage; to the Physician, whose ‘studie was but litel on the Bible’ (I.438), a chilling demonstration of pagan virtue; to the Pardoner, a hypocrite, a sermon against cupidity and to the Prioress, a miracle of the Virgin. In each of these tales, the principle of decorum works with the genius of Chaucer to brilliant effect. But now it is the turn of Chaucer personaggio and a calculated disjunction of real and fictional tellers. The Tale of Sir Thopas is a burlesque of tail rhyme romance, expertly conceived and executed by the hand of

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

139

Chaucer himself. But it is assigned by Chaucer to a fictional teller of singular ineptitude, the pilgrim Chaucer himself. We can hardly expect a poet as sophisticated and assured as Chaucer to sing his own praises. But even the pilgrim Chaucer deserves a second chance to redeem himself. He cannot, of course, escape his own habitual dullness of exposition, but he can in the Tale of Melibee at least make a worthy if laboured case for peace instead of war and for the good advice of women, however much he might admire the Knight as the deliverer of peace by way of battle. The pilgrim Chaucer has surely occupied centre stage for long enough. It is time for the remaining pilgrims to tell their tales. To the Monk there is assigned a systematic and (were it not for the intervention of the Knight) exhaustive catalogue of the tragedies of great men laid low by Fortune. It is a tale that might well indeed have followed that of the Knight himself. The Monk does not give a philosophical analysis of Fortune, but demonstrates beyond all possibility of contradiction the reality of Fortune in the lives of men and women in this world. This is heavy going and few of us have the mental strength to focus on human disasters at such length. The mood must be lightened but without a loss of moral wisdom. And who better than the Nun’s Priest and what better than a beast fable to inculcate moral lessons on vanity and cunning? But as the shrine of Thomas Becket, the most famous of English saints, and the end of the pilgrimage come ever closer spiritual issues must be more directly broached. The Second Nun’s Tale takes us to sainthood and to the superiority of virginity to sexual love within marriage, a principle the Wife of Bath herself accepts no less than Aquinas, for ‘[t]he dart is set up for virginitee’ (III.75).13 But even near the end of the pilgrimage material values are liable to assert themselves surprisingly and disconcertingly, and in this case by the sudden appearance of a yeoman, representative it might seem of solid English values. But it is not the Knight’s Yeoman but the Canon’s Yeoman and the distraction of the philosopher’s stone, the fool’s gold of the seekers after death in the Pardoner’s Tale but here with a cerebral appeal to the intellectually curious. It is a time for caution and the lesson is underlined by the Manciple in his tale, a man to be trusted for discretion in the company of his social superiors, more than thirty masters in an Inn of Court ‘of lawe expert and curious’ (I.577). Such a quality would no doubt nowadays be appreciated

140

Gerald Morgan

by a Fellow of an Oxford or Cambridge college and by members of a Senior Common Room. And finally, without resort to irony at such a moment in life, we come to the Parson’s Tale and in the Parson’s treatise on penitence to the very purpose of pilgrimage itself. The Parson’s Tale is the last and hence rhetorically the most important tale. This is surely self-evident from the point of view of pilgrims who set out for Canterbury with a sincere spiritual purpose, that is, like the pilgrim Chaucer himself, ‘with ful devout corage’ (I.22). Thus the ideas and arguments of the tales are not limited to the knowledge and perceptions of the pilgrim narrators, but belong to a higher level of poetic discourse, indeed, one that is only possible for a master poet, a Virgil, a Dante, a Boccaccio or a Chaucer. One may well hesitate before attributing fallibility and ignorance to poets of such standing. III.  The characteristic medieval assumption is that it is action rather than character that is of the first importance. Indeed, this is a principle of classical antiquity and it is classically expressed by Aristotle in the Poetics (6 1450a 16–20): Tragedy is essentially an imitation not of persons but of action and life, of happiness and misery. All human happiness or misery takes the form of action; the end for which we live is a certain kind of activity, not a quality. Character gives us qualities, but it is in our actions – what we do – that we are happy or the reverse.14

This assumption is poetically realised by Chaucer in the opening stanza of Troilus and Criseyde (I.1–5): The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen, That was the kyng Priamus sone of Troye, In lovynge, how his aventures fellen Fro wo to wele, and after out of joie, My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye.

The following characters are required in a tragic action of this kind: a young hero, passionate but inexperienced in love; a beautiful but vulnerable young widow determined above all to protect her reputation; a concerned but intrusive friend and a ruthless and opportunistic rival. And this

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

141

is what we have in Troilus, Criseyde, Pandarus and Diomede. Similarly, in the Franklin’s Tale, the moral dilemma disclosed by the action of the tale requires an honourable knight and husband, a faithful and loving wife and a lovelorn squire. And this is what we have in Arveragus (V.1087–93), Dorigen (V.815–16) and Aurelius (V.935–41). It is difficult for those who have not experienced it to understand lovesickness or disabling passion of the kind that afflicts Aurelius (V.1101–3), but Chaucer returns to it more than once throughout his poetic career, not only in the person of Troilus but also of the dreamer in the Book of the Duchess (1–43) and of Arcite in the Knight’s Tale (I.1355–83). It is a subject that seems both to have disturbed and fascinated Chaucer, and he is over fifty when he returns to it in the Franklin’s Tale. If, let us say, Arveragus were concerned only with his own reputation in the world, if Dorigen were promiscuous and if Aurelius merely lustful, the moral dilemma on which the tale is built would cease to exist. Thus in focusing on action as our primary concern we go beyond the experience of individuals to universal moral and philosophical concerns that exercise all human beings in one way or another in the course of a long life. This is the significance of the Canterbury Tales not as a drama of competing characters on the road to Canterbury but as a collection of tales in an ordered sequence. We expect to find in medieval works of art, on however monumental a scale, a love of clarity and order established on the foundation of an intellectual idea, and here obviously the idea of pilgrimage with its resonance for a contemporary audience accustomed to the reality of pilgrimage. Nothing was more central to the English way of life in the fourteenth century than the pilgrimage to Canterbury to the shrine of the English saint, Thomas Becket, martyred in front of the high altar at Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170 and canonised in 1173.15 A king such as Edward III, returning to England after successes in battle under the patronage of St George and the Virgin Mary in Scotland (say, Halidon Hill outside Berwick-upon-Tweed on 19 July 1333) or France (say, Crécy on 26 August 1346) inevitably made the pilgrimage to Canterbury in gratitude to the Christian God that had made possible and indeed sanctified those victories. Indeed, Edward III made the pilgrimage to Canterbury on an annual basis.16 Such a common experience, shared by the King of England downwards,

142

Gerald Morgan

must have led to a ready sympathy and insight into a collection of tales built upon the rich foundation of the pilgrimage to Canterbury, a sympathy and insight no doubt lacking in many modern readers. A sense of the whole work was thus at once present to the mind of the reader from the beginning. This sense of the whole work is not so readily apparent to the modern reader. After all, many of the tales are simply uncongenial, such as the Tale of Melibee (significantly assigned by Chaucer to his pilgrim surrogate as though to underline a personal commitment to it) and the concluding Parson’s Tale, an uncompromising penitential treatise. Moreover, many of us (and I certainly include myself in this) are so impressed by the interest and completeness of individual tales, let us say, The Knight’s Tale and The Franklin’s Tale, that we are satisfied by reading them in isolation from the collection of which they came to form a part. Derek Pearsall is surely right to say that ‘the experience of reading the whole work from beginning to end is … a rare one’ and not unnaturally goes on to commend an approach which treats the Canterbury Tales ‘as a series of poems rather than as a poem’.17 On this basis I have over the years contented myself with referring to the fragments of the Canterbury Tales by the letters A, B1, C and so on (in this volume, thanks to the intervention of my learned friend and colleague, Nicolas Jacobs, I, II, III and so on) without necessarily subscribing to the Bradshaw Shift and have italicised the individual tales as the Knight’s Tale and the Franklin’s Tale and so on. Here I alter that method of reference in recognition of the unity of the whole as an unalterable artistic fact. There is nothing peculiar about the Canterbury Tales in this regard. It is an exceptional reader who will read, say, Dante’s Commedia or Spenser’s Faerie Qveene with uninterrupted zeal from the first word to the last. I once tried this method on two successive holidays with James Joyce’s Ulysses. I did not lack the requisite determination, but the dominant experience as often as not was one of complete bafflement. But it is impossible to read a canto of the Commedia in ignorance of its placement in hell, purgatory or paradise. In the same way each book of the Faerie Qveene has a knight of holiness (Red Cross) or justice (Artegall) or courtesy (Calidore) together with a brief four-line verse argument at its head. So beautifully constructed are these great monuments of poetic art that we have a sense of the whole even as we struggle with the part. So it is with Chaucer. In Troilus and

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

143

Criseyde we learn at once of Troilus’s twofold sorrow and this is a fact hardly to be forgotten as we read of the physical consummation of the love in Book III and its inevitable and tragic outcome in the so-called palinode at the end of Book V. So it is with the comedy that is the Canterbury Tales. Here Chaucer sets his course for the reader’s larger enlightenment in a general prologue to serve the whole as the particular prologues serve the parts. The social, moral and religious hierarchies in the portraits of the pilgrims will be reflected again and again in the course of the sequence of the tales. The reader of each tale cannot be unaware of or indifferent to the relation of tellers and tales, even when perhaps accepting an invitation to ‘[t]urne over the leef and chese another tale’ (I.3177). But tempora mutantur. Nowadays we expect the reader to celebrate the tales of Miller and Reeve and turn aside rather from tales such as the Melibee and Parson’s Tales that are full of ‘moralitee and hoolynesse’ (I.3180). We may happily praise Chaucer for the diversity of his narratives and the breadth of his interests, but few of us can follow in his footsteps at every turn of the road. But let us not blame Chaucer for that: ‘Blameth nat me if that ye chese amys’ (I.3181). But there are limits to human patience even in Chaucer’s day. The Franklin cannot allow the Squire’s youthful excesses to continue unchecked and the Knight cannot allow the Monk to continue his catalogue of human misfortune to the complete exhaustion of his fellow pilgrims. But there are ways for gentlemen and knights of putting an end to such boredom without offence. The Franklin silences the Squire with generous praise (V.673–76)18 and the Knight the Monk with a decisive intervention. He cannot fault the substance of the Monk’s narrative (VII.3957–59) but it is simply asking too much of their fellow pilgrims to continue in this serious vein, ‘for litel hevynesse/ Is right ynough to muche folk, I gesse’ (VII.3959–60). The Host takes up the Knight’s lead, but in less diplomatic fashion and is unable to direct the Monk to turn to more playful matters on his own account (VII.3970–97). When it comes to Chaucer the pilgrim’s Tale of Sir Thopas, the Host is even less accommodating. Chaucer the pilgrim is unlikely to win the prize for his ‘rym dogerel’ and ‘drasty rymyng’ (VII.925 and 930). It is better to put him out of his misery at once and spare his auditors at the same time (VII.919–35). The very idea of a collection of tales, however unified, confers an independence in the telling of particular tales. The accepted date for the

144

Gerald Morgan

Canterbury Tales, that is, 1387–1400, does not supply a terminus a quo for the composition of every individual tale. It seems reasonably certain that the Knight’s Tale and the Second Nun’s Tale predate the Canterbury Tales, since they are mentioned in the prologue to the Legend of Good Women as ‘the love of Palamon and Arcite/ Of Thebes’ and a ‘storye … knowen lyte’ (F 420–21, G 408–9) and as ‘the lyf of Seynt Cecile’ (F 426 and G 416). Moreover a tale such as the Clerk’s Tale appears independently in MS Phillips 8299 (now HM 140) and with the Knight’s Tale alone in MS Longleat 257. Indeed, the Canterbury Tales is a work not unsuited to the scholar in the study, given its philosophical seriousness allied to a wealth of learning, moral purpose allied to a freedom from narrow partisanship and religious conviction allied to a sense of human frailty. Chaucer deserves all the praise showered upon him for his ‘humane and generous understanding’,19 provided that such a judgment is not taken to imply moral blandness (as in the portrait of the Knight), a tolerance of deep-seated wickedness and cynicism (as in the case of the Pardoner) and an indifference to the fundamental beliefs of the Catholic faith (as in the Physician’s Tale). Whether these judgments are true or false may at the end of the pilgrimage be left to a just, merciful and all-seeing God. In a medieval poetic artefact at any rate, we cannot ignore the question of the order of the tales and the unity of the whole work, even in a fragmentary and incomplete state. But it is possible to overstate the provisionality of the Canterbury Tales as we have it and the contribution of editors and scribes (creatures perhaps like modern scholars themselves) rather than the overarching idea or ideas of the poet himself.20 This is surely too unambitious given the volume of the material that Chaucer has left us. We begin with a General Prologue indeed that sets before us the scope of the whole work even if in the form of a literary competition subsequently to be modified by the limitations of art and of life itself. The portraits of the pilgrim tellers and their relation to one another in social, moral and religious hierarchies present us with patterns of exposition that will be unfolded in various ways in the work that follows. If we can see beyond the characters of the pilgrims as such to the ideas which they embody then we begin to gather a sense of order and purpose. The General Prologue is followed by a beginning in Fragment I and an ending in Fragment X that

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

145

are not to be disputed. Fragment I consists of the Knight’s, Miller’s, Reeve’s and fragmentary Cook’s Tales (perhaps an intentional fragment of a tale), that is, three and a bit tales and four tellers. Fragment X is the Parson’s Tale and although a penitential treatise may be deemed suitable for the arrival at Canterbury we do not have to rely on a sense of its suitability to reach this important conclusion. As readers we need to know that we have reached the end point of the work. Such knowledge for the reader of the Canterbury Tales comes not by way of scholars writing for fellow scholars and scholarly journals in their studies and laboriously adding up the numbers involved as if to present to a jury in a court of law. It comes from the poet’s own explicit utterance in the guise of the Host. After all, the Host is the man in charge of this storytelling and we have all agreed to accept his judgment (even if in error, as an umpire in cricket). Nothing could be clearer to an Englishman acting in the spirit of the game and not as a barrack-room lawyer than the words of the Host in the Parson’s Prologue. First, in respect of the tales (X.13–19): For which oure Hoost, as he was wont to gye, As in this caas, oure joly compaignye, Seyde in this wise: ‘Lordynges everichoon, Now lakketh us no tales mo than oon. Fulfilled is my sentence and my decree; I trowe that we han herd of ech degree; Almoost fulfild is myn ordinaunce.’

And secondly in respect of the Parson as the last of the tellers (X.24–25): Be what thou be, ne breke thou nat oure pley; For every man, save thou, hath toold his tale.

But the fictional reality of the pilgrimage is not to be disregarded as the pilgrims draw near to the shrine of the English saint. If there is a time for reverence and devotion the time has surely now come. The Parson is in no mood to indulge the pilgrims with ‘fables and swich wrecchednesse’ (X.34) but offers instead ‘[m]oralitee and virtuous mateere’ (X.38). He is no poet, either in the native alliterative tradition or in the continental manner of rhyme royal stanzas or heroic couplets in iambic pentameters that Chaucer

146

Gerald Morgan

has already made famous in English poetry. He will instead ‘telle a myrie tale in prose/ To knytte up al this feste and make an ende’ (X.46–47) and in the process reveal to the pilgrims ‘the wey, in this viage,/ Of thilke parfit glorious pilgrymage/ That highte Jerusalem celestial’ (X.49–51). The Parson cannot match the learning of pilgrims such as the Clerk of Oxenford (X.55–60). Few can. But who could possibly dissent from the Parson’s wisdom and purpose at such a moment? Certainly not a single one of the assembled pilgrims (X.61–66). They do not want a bathetic or unseemly conclusion to their pilgrimage but at once assent ‘[t]o enden in som virtuous sentence’ (X.63). The Host unfailingly reflects the common opinion. He addresses this noble man of simple faith with studied courtesy as ‘Sire preest’ (X.68; compare X.22) and looks for ‘fructuous’ matter ‘in litel space’ (X.71). There is no suggestion here that we might turn over the leaf and choose another tale. How could we possibly think of doing so? That would not only be sacrilegious but would also render the pilgrimage itself pointless. Thus the Host concludes (X.73): ‘Sey what yow list, and we wol gladly here.’

Chaucer thus ends The Canterbury Tales on the same note of high-minded religious conviction that he ends Troilus and Criseyde. The final Retraction of all his works, not least ‘the tales of Caunterbury’ themselves ‘that sownen into synne’ ((X.86), follows with a logical inevitability. At such a moment we may well think him at his most remote from most of his modern admirers. IV.  On any view such a beginning and such an end provide a solid basis on which to construct a judgment of the whole. The larger development is logical and coherent and admirably clear in general outline, and in this respect entirely characteristic of the norms of medieval poetic artefacts. To such an extent we are on safe ground. The middle is undoubtedly problematic in some few respects and we have to admit of a number of possible middles. It is not difficult to believe that so monumental a work, however complete in the author’s mind (and complete, as we have seen, in the great matters of beginning and end), remained unfinished at the time of the author’s death. But the Parson’s Tale

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

147

and the Retraction have already envisaged this possibility. And moreover, even in respect of the problematic middle, there is evidence of structural coherence of which we can be no less certain than of the beginning and end. It is not as if the order of the intervening fragments, however we may calculate the total number (eight or ten), is represented haphazardly in the extant manuscripts. Thus in the middle we can set down the following order of fragments attested by all the important manuscripts, including Hengwrt and Ellesmere. In Fragment II (the Man of Law’s Tale) the assertion by the lawyer of a divine providence in human affairs, however inscrutable or marvellous to human view, logically follows the agonised questioning of fortune and seeming injustice in human affairs in the world of rulers and governors in the Knight’s Tale and the demonstrations of poetic justice (even in the disordered and unruly world of churls) in the Miller’s and Reeve’s Tales despite the drunken Miller’s disruption of the hierarchy of tellers at the beginning of his tale. Fragment III is notable above all for the extraordinary Prologue of the Wife of Bath, but includes also the Friar’s and Summoner’s Tales. The agency of women in medieval society, typically, we can hardly deny, as oppressed and at the mercy of men, motivates the action of the Knight’s Tale, enlivens that of the fabliaux and lies at the imaginative centre of the Man of Law’s Tale. But in Fragment III Chaucer goes one step further and makes a woman the fictional agent and raises the often disputed relation between men and women in human affairs, especially in marriage. It is the Wife of Bath who is assigned the role as the representative of oppressed womankind, not, of course, the Prioress who has too much to lose by challenging social norms in any overt fashion. Unsurprisingly, the Wife of Bath is disputatious or ‘feisty’, as one might describe her in modern language. How else is a woman to survive in a man’s world? The Wife of Bath begins on the solid ground of ‘experience … of wo that is in mariage’ (III.1–3) and that is surely a logical development of a central theme of the Man of Law’s Tale in the marital experience of Custance. The three tales of Fragment III are cleverly interlinked and their interrelation is reinforced by a guest appearance of the Pardoner in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue (III.163–87). The quarrel between the Friar and the Summoner is anticipated at III.829–56

148

Gerald Morgan

and each interrupts the other in the course of their tales (III.1332–37 and 1761–64). There is no dispute as to the placing of the Friar’s and Summoner’s Tales after the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, so that the Wife of Bath’s Tale cannot be limited to a Marriage Group of Tales. Evidently Chaucer does not wish to narrow the focus of his human comedy to the fraught relation of men and women, in marriage or out of it, and thus returns us immediately to a professional enmity in the world of ecclesiastical affairs. The positioning and structure of Fragment III following Fragment II are well established, and were it not for the Bradshaw Shift little more attention would be devoted to it.21 Henry Bradshaw was greatly (and possibly unduly) impressed by the mention of Sittingbourne at III.847 out of place on the road to Canterbury before Rochester (VII.1926) and in consequence shifted Fragment VII (without manuscript support) to follow Fragment II (as B2 following B1) together with Fragment VI (Physician’s and Pardoner’s Tales), which is geographically non-specific, as Fragment C (at Furnivall’s prompting). This is a dramatic reconstruction of the order of tales and remains without widespread editorial support. Robinson and Benson follow the testimony of the manuscripts, although indicating the alternative methods of reference to the fragments (I, II, III, etc. and A, B1, B2, C etc.). Extraordinarily, there is no textual support for the Bradshaw Shift, for the references to Sittingbourne and Rochester do not imply that the pilgrims reached Sittingbourne before Rochester. At the time of the quarrel (well on into the second day) between the Friar and the Summoner the pilgrims have proceeded from ‘Southwerk’ (I.20) to ‘the Wateryng of Seint Thomas’ (I.826), that is, a brook at the second milestone on the Old Kent Road from London to Canterbury and beyond ‘Depeford’ and ‘Grenewych’ (I.3906–7). Deptford was about five miles down the road and Greenwich half a mile further on.22 The Friar, irritated by the Summoner’s intervention at III.832–39, promises vengeance by way of telling ‘of a somonour swich a tale or two/ That alle the folk shal laughen in this place’ (III.842–43). The Summoner responds in kind, raising the stakes by threatening to tell ‘tales two or thre/ Of freres er I come to Sidyngborne’ (III.846–47). Sittingbourne is a good distance away, some forty miles from Southwark beyond Rochester. And clearly it must be so if the Summoner is into the second or even third round of storytelling in

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

149

accordance with the original plan (I.790–801). And indeed there is no logical reason to suppose that Rochester (some twenty-six miles from Southwark) has as yet been reached. It would seem improbable and there is no need to assume a discrepancy of any kind in the text at this point.23 The case has been persuasively made by Robert Meyer-Lee that Fragments IV (Clerk’s and Merchant’s Tales) and V (Squire’s and Franklin’s Tales) are so well integrated that in reality they constitute one not two fragments.24 The tellers are of comparable social status, as is evident from the grouping of portraits in the General Prologue (I.270–308 and 331–60), although the Squire is set apart from the other three in attendance on his father the Knight (I.79–100) as the order of chivalry requires.25 No one is seriously disposed to challenge these groupings and this order of tales, although the extant manuscripts are not always in agreement on such details as the precise positioning of the Squire. They stand somewhat nearer the beginning than the end, as social precedence would suggest. The Squire recalls us to the world of courts, to the ‘olde curteisye’ of Sir Gawain (V.95) and hence also to ideas of freedom and dignity in loving. Yet he remains a squire, no more than the son of a knight banneret and still to be tested at the highest levels and to learn the lessons that only the sufferings of a passionate love can teach. The wise and generous Franklin comprehends the truth of his noble but youthful idealism and in his turn tells a tale of a knight’s suffering in married love brought on by the impetuous passion of a lovelorn squire and of that sacrificial love required by a husband’s devotion to his wife. Fragment VI (Physician’s and Pardoner’s Tales) is a self-contained unit that editors usually leave undisturbed between V and VII, although it becomes Fragment C in the wake of the Bradshaw Shift.26 The Physician’s Tale is a story of cold and unbending Roman virtue, a pagan tale suitable for the Physician whose ‘studie was but litel on the Bible’ (I.438) and in sharp contrast with the inspiring idealism of Christian marriage in the Franklin’s Tale. The Host is himself inspired to a display of cursing by this pitiless tale (VI.287–89 and 314) and, to the dismay of the gentles, passes the baton of storytelling to the Pardoner (VI.318–26). The gentles are rightly alarmed at the prospect of the damage that a consummate hypocrite can do among the weak-minded and poorly informed, but the Pardoner’s victims

150

Gerald Morgan

do not include among their number the robust Host who has to survive in a world of cheats and liars (VI.946–55). Thus the sacrilegious cupidity of the Pardoner is itself undermined to the spiritual benefit of the pilgrims and the Knight intervenes, as is his wont, to restore harmony (VI.956–68). Once we are no longer encumbered or distracted by the anachronistic assumptions that gave rise to the Bradshaw Shift and Skeat’s text of the Canterbury Tales in which it has been incorporated (IV.130–319) it becomes possible to address Fragment VII in its true place in the sequence of tales as vouchsafed to us by the extant manuscripts and at the same time to appreciate its internal coherence. Fragment VII begins with the Shipman’s and Prioress’s Tales and ends with the Monk’s and Nun’s Priest’s Tales, and placed in the centre between them are two tales assigned to the fictional Chaucer himself. The assignment of a fabliau to the Shipman has an obvious suitability, although the Shipman himself is not much engaged as teller and the comic victim, a prosperous merchant, is not an object of ridicule as is the jealous husband of the Miller’s Tale. Indeed, in many ways the merchant class is presented in the Shipman’s Tale in its most favourable light. But the comprehension of the nameless merchant is entirely circumscribed by the material world of profit and loss in which he lives out his life. It does not win for him the love of his wife or even the good faith of his friend, the monk Daun John.27 By contrast the Canterbury pilgrims, by their very presence on pilgrimage and by including in their number a (seemingly) wealthy and influential merchant, aspire to a higher love and a deeper faith. A radical re-orientation of perspective is required, one in which social respectability is combined with religious belief. Who better to do so than Madame Eglentyne herself (CT, I.121)? The Prioress does not fail to fulfil expectations. She is not the person to undermine the social fabric of which she occupies so distinguished a place, but at the same time she tells an impeccably orthodox miracle of the Virgin (however much her anti-Semitism may jar in a later age). The stage is now set for the fictional Chaucer to make his debut. In accordance with the original plan we might have expected two tales on the outward journey by the fictional Chaucer as well as by each of the other pilgrims. But the tales of Sir Thopas and of Melibee are no longer

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

151

part of such a design but a reflection rather of the fictional Chaucer’s own inadequacy in storytelling. He is indeed the fallible narrator par excellence. The Tale of Sir Thopas is rudely cut short by the Host for its ‘drasty speche’ and ‘rym dogerel’ (VII.923 and 925).28 In fact the tale is exquisitely constructed on a principle of diminishing parts and is sufficient for its purpose.29 On the assumption of the pilgrim Chaucer’s literary incompetence and in the spirit of pilgrimage he is surely to be allowed the possibility for redemption. This he achieves in the best dry as dust academic manner in a tale extolling the superiority of peace to war combined with respect for the good advice of women. These are politically correct attitudes in any age, but there is no reason to doubt his sincerity, even if we may continue to call in question his literary ability. By the time the fictional Chaucer has finished the pilgrims have arrived at Rochester, perhaps half way towards Canterbury. Certainly we would not expect the pilgrims to have gone more than half way given the original assumption that there would be time for sixty tales on a single journey. The Monk is just the person to advance the Canterbury project. He can tell two or three tales and if tragedies are required perhaps a hundred. This would hardly be surprising within the precincts of a monastery (a place where our Monk in fact is seldom found) but it taxes the patience and capacity of a random group of pilgrims. To spare them such an accumulation of woe the Knight intervenes after a mere seventeen tragedies. His function as a peacemaker is happily expressed once again. And if we wish to lighten the mood without sacrificing the need for moral enlightenment then a sermon from the Nun’s Priest in the form of a beast fable is well judged. As often, however, Chaucer’s brilliant use of rhetoric is not so clearly understood, for the Nun’s Priest’s Tale is a mock epic not a parody and the target is not the rhetoricians, and certainly not that eminent medieval authority Geoffrey of Vinsauf (VII.3347–54), but the age-old vices of cunning and vanity in conflict with one another. Perhaps as we approach nearer to Canterbury we must not seek to ally wrongful means and just ends and we must not be too pleased by the contemplation of our own virtues. The severe doctrine underlying the Second Nun’s Tale in Fragment VIII leaves no room for complacency. The chaste sexual love of man and woman in marriage may be a good and a good much to be desired, but it

152

Gerald Morgan

cannot match the higher virtue of virginity. The Wife of Bath understands as much but effectively dismisses such a consideration from the mundane reality of life in this world as lived by ordinary people like herself. In the Second Nun’s Tale the doctrinal distinction becomes a rule of life requiring the husband’s observance no less than that of the saintly Cecilia. This kind of Christian ascetism, no doubt unappealing to most modern readers, underlines the true seriousness of the pilgrimage to Canterbury. The Knight’s Yeoman, an indispensable presence on the field of battle, has yet to tell a tale and a sudden departure from the original plan brings a surrogate Yeoman into view and with him the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale. It is linked to the Second Nun’s Tale in the most explicit manner possible: ‘Whan toold was al the lyf of Seinte Cecile’ (VIII.554).30 By now the pilgrims have reached ‘Boghtoun under Blee’ (VIII.556), that is, Boughton under Blean, some five miles from Canterbury. As the pilgrims come closer to Canterbury references become more precise as we reach famous places on the pilgrimage route. Indeed, the reference to Boughton-under-Blean is decisive in placing Fragment VIII late among the sequence of tales. V.  The leisurely progress and even tenor of the pilgrimage are rudely interrupted in much the same way but to a different effect as the Christmas feast at Camelot by the Green Knight’s sudden entrance in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Canon’s ‘hakeney …/ So swatte that it wonder was to see’ and his yeoman’s horse ‘So swatte that unnethe myghte it gon’ (VIII.559–60 and 563). The Canon had ridden ‘moore than trot or paas’ suitable for a pilgrimage but ‘ay priked lik as he were wood’ (VIII.575–76).31 Mad too is the vain pursuit of the philosopher’s stone that leaves the yeoman’s face ‘discoloured’ (VIII.664). It is entirely out of keeping with any considered motive for pilgrimage. The Canon’s professed desire to join ‘this joly compaignye’ of pilgrims and ‘[t]o riden in this myrie compaignye’ (VIII.583 and 586) is contradicted by his nature and behaviour. He is not a jolly or companionable person but in reality a solitary, suspicious and sinister figure (VIII.599–614, 640–62 and 684–702). Having, like the Green Knight, excited the wonder of all present, he departs as suddenly as he came. He returns to the secret world to which he belongs, far from the love of God. Thus even as we approach the end of the pilgrimage material

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

153

preoccupations continue to distract and baffle the pilgrim. Who can readily turn aside from the false attractions of worldly wealth, especially when it comes tantalisingly within reach? It would require an extraordinary effort of will to do so. Fragments IX and X, like fragments IV and V, disguise the reality of a single fragment and reflect once again the preference of modern editors for fragmentation rather than unity (surely a perverse preference).32 The link between the Manciple’s Tale and the Parson’s Tale is simply stated in the opening line of the Parson’s Prologue (X.1): By that the Maunciple hadde his tale al ended,

and only an exaggerated respect for the reading of Hengwrt, in which ‘Manciple’ is written over an erasure, can lead one to question its correctness as a reading. The pilgrims have now arrived at ‘a litel toun/ … ycleped … Bobbe-up-and doun/ Under the Blee, in Caunterbury Weye’ (IX.1–3), that is, Harbledown, some two miles north of Canterbury by Blean Forest, the site of the famous leprosorium.33 The Manciple, although momentarily wrong footed by his hostility to the Cook (Manciple’s Prologue) is a man for whom discretion is a tool of his trade.34 And in a similar way, perhaps, a sensible pilgrim will keep his or her own counsel as the end of the pilgrimage comes into view in acknowledging sins in the presence of an all-seeing and merciful God rather than that of a fallible human priest. The Manciple’s Tale itself shows why this should be so. In a world in which lying competes with the truth and in which liars may more readily be believed than those who tell the truth, we are often like Phoebus reduced to a state of confusion and indecision with disastrous consequences. Our understanding of good and evil after all depends upon our knowledge of the true and the false. Thus in the penultimate tale we are led to recognise the baffling limitations of storytelling and the conflicting and uncertain interpretations to which they give rise. When it comes to the point we cannot tell a white crow from a black, even when it is ‘[w]hit … as a snow-whit swan’ (IX.133) and especially when it tells the truth that we do not want to hear (IX.240–61). We prefer the myth to the truth and are consoled by stories that entertain and do not call into question comfortable assumptions.

154

Gerald Morgan

In the same way, although literary competitions and prizes lend a certain interest and pleasure in our passage through this vale of tears, they can easily be dispensed with when it comes to the vital matter of salvation and the true end of human life. There is no room for interpretative speculations and difficulties at the very end of the pilgrimage. If there were we might as well have stayed put in the Tabard at Southwark. Thus the meaning of pilgrimage as Canterbury comes into sight rests upon the true belief of the Parson and the efficacy of that belief in the goodness of the Parson’s life and example, and that belief and goodness in their turn are grounded in the teaching of the universal Church. The Parson is thus unmoved by the Host’s injunction to entertain (‘Telle us a fable anon, for cokkes bones!’, X.29), and the Host comes round to acceptance of that superior point of view, looking in the end not for ‘solas’ (there is not much comfort to be found in reflection on the inescapable reality of human sinfulness) but for ‘vertuous sentence’ (X.63). In his final words in the Canterbury Tales the Host speaks for all the pilgrims and indeed for all readers sympathetic to Chaucer’s great endeavour (X.67–73): Oure Hoost hadde the wordes for us alle; ‘Sire preest,’ quod he, ‘now faire yow bifalle! Telleth’, quod he, ‘youre meditacioun. But hasteth yow; the sonne wole adoun; Beth fructuous, and that in litel space, And to do wel God sende yow his grace! Sey what yow list, and we wol gladly heere.’

We need to recognise the authority of the parish priest in the life of the Church and the respect he inspires on a daily basis. More so, indeed, than ambitious clerics anxious for ecclesiastical preferment. And in Chaucer’s day no less than in our own. Thus the Parson can proceed in the confidence of an attentive audience to set down the penitential matter in his treatise on a universal and impersonal plane. These are sins that each and every pilgrim will need to make account of to God at the shrine of Thomas Becket. We can hardly ignore a final and astrologically precise reference to time and a somewhat less precise reference to place. Libra, the scales of justice and here the Moon’s ‘exaltacioun’ (X.10–11),35 is in the ascendant

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

155

at four o’clock in the evening (X.2–9) when the Host turns to the Parson as the final teller of tales (X.22–25). For the latitude of London a point of the first degree of Libra would be ascending at four o’clock on 15 April, a date uncomfortably inconsistent with that of ‘the eightetethe day/ Of Aprill’ (18 April) in the Introduction to the Man of Law’s Tale (II.5–6). On the evidence of the altitude of the sun, ‘So lowe that he nas nat, to my sighte,/ Degreës nyne and twenty as in highte’ (X.3–4), a date of 20 April consistent with the Introduction to the Man of Law’s Tale must be ruled out.36 A radical revision of the dates of the pilgrimage to Canterbury is called for, even if provisionally. The pilgrims assemble at the Tabard in Southwark when ‘the yonge sonne/ Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne’ (I.7–8), that is, by medieval standards of reckoning, when Aries has completed the second part of its course in April (1–11 April). It is the night of 11 April by the time Chaucer the pilgrim and his fellow pilgrims have gathered together (I.23–26) and they make an agreement ‘erly for to ryse’ (I.33) to set out on pilgrimage to Canterbury. ‘Oure Hoost’ (I.747, 751, 822 and 827) at the Tabard, ‘a myrie man’ (I.757) (we later learn in the Cook’s Prologue (I.4358) that his name is ‘Herry Bailly’), concerned for the present material well-being of his guests rather than their ultimate spiritual edification, proposes an entertainment (‘myrthe’, I.759, 766, 767 and 773) to lighten the journey (I.747–83). The pilgrims readily assent to his proposal for a competition in storytelling subject to his judgment and authority (I.784–818) and retire in good order without undue delay (I.819–21). True to the agreement they are up at daylight on the morning of 12 April, ‘alle in a flok’, roused by the Host, ‘oure aller cok’, and set off ‘a litel moore than paas’, that is, unhurried but with a determined purpose, and make their way to ‘the Wateryng of Seint Thomas’, some two miles down the Old Kent Road (I.822–26). Here the Host pauses to put his proposal into action and does so with exquisite courtesy in addressing in particular the most distinguished pilgrims, Knight, Prioress and Clerk of Oxenford (I.827–41). As chance would have it, a happy chance, the lot falls to the Knight to tell the first tale (I.842–58). By the time it comes, no less happily, to the Parson to tell the last story (X.13–25), it is four o’clock in the evening of 15 April. We ought not to sacrifice the clear outlines of this scheme by altering without justification

156

Gerald Morgan

the 11 of April to the 17 April for the start of the pilgrimage to fit the date of 18 April in the Introduction to the Man of Law’s Tale (II.5–6). Given a date of 15 April for the Parson’s Tale logic requires rather an alteration of 18 to 13 April for the Man of Law’s Tale.37 In 1389 and 1400 we are in Holy Week, Good Friday falling on 16 April and Easter Sunday on 18 April respectively. It would not be fanciful to think that Chaucer himself made the pilgrimage in 1400 at the end of his days. It would be surprising indeed if he had not made that pilgrimage frequently (perhaps in the service of Lionel of Antwerp or Edward III). ‘[O]ure Hoost’ turns finally to the pilgrims and to the Parson as they enter ‘at a thropes ende’ (X.12). What village can this be between Harbledown and Canterbury? John Scattergood suggests that we are in the outskirts of Canterbury itself.38 On this occasion and with a characteristic reticence when it is required, Chaucer does not hazard specific details. They no longer matter for it is clear that the pilgrimage is drawing to an end. In the evening of all our lives we need to draw closer to God and to the justice of God (accompanied, we must devoutly hope, by the mercy of God). We can no longer put these matters to one side, and we need the Parson rather than the Host as our final guide. VI.  Derek Pearsall in his excellent book on the Canterbury Tales to which I have returned with pleasure and increased enlightenment many times over the years since its first publication (1985) is himself wedded to the theory of fragmentation in something like its most dogmatic form.39 Thus he concludes that ‘[t]he Canterbury Tales are [sic] bound to suffer in comparison with Troilus because of their unfinished state’.40 This is not the judgment of history and no one, with the possible exception of Pearsall himself, believes it, including those who turn over the leaf when it comes to the Parson’s Tale itself. This is partly because of the artistic perfection of the individual tales, let us say, the Franklin’s Tale and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale and, with due deference to the fictional Chaucer, the Tale of Sir Thopas. But also because readers can see at once the place of the individual tales within the scheme of the Canterbury pilgrimage as a whole, a brilliant framing device even when the pilgrimage to Canterbury has been consigned to our historical past.

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

157

Thus I am led in conclusion to agree with Donald Howard in seeing the Canterbury Tales as ‘unfinished but complete’,41 complete in the sense that the great organising ideas of the work (literary competition and the quest for salvation) have been fully worked out, but unfinished in the sense that one or two details (in reality perhaps not very many) need to be tidied up.

Notes 1

‘If, reader, I had more space to write I should sing but in part the sweet draught which never would have sated me; but since all the sheets prepared for this second cantica are full the curb of art does not let me go further’ (Sinclair, II.441). 2 Edited by Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), ‘The Spirit of Place’, p. 14. 3 See Essays in Criticism, Second Series (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1908), pp. 1–55 (pp. 31–34). 4 Helen Cooper, ‘The Frame’, in Correale and Hamel, I.1–22 (p. 13). 5 Petrarch, Historia Griseldis (Epistolae seniles, XVII.3) (1373–1374), edited by Thomas J. Farrell, in Correale and Hamel, I.108–29 (p. 111/30–33). 6 Derek Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography (Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992), p. 172. 7 Monica E. McAlpine, The Genre of Troilus and Criseyde (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1978), pp. 245–46. 8 George Lyman Kittredge, Chaucer and His Poetry (1915; reprinted, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 154–55. 9 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), pp. 50, 163 and 183. 10 Rodney Delasanta, ‘And Of Great Reverence: Chaucer’s Man of Law’, ChR, 5 (1971), 288–310 (pp. 292, 294, 296 and 304) and M. Stevens, ‘The Royal Stanza in Early English Literature’, PMLA, 94 (1979), 62–76 (pp. 72 and 76, n. 34). 11 Condren, Chaucer and the Energy of Creation, pp. 124–25 and 219. 12 Mark Miller, Philosophical Chaucer: Love, Sex, and Agency in the ‘Canterbury Tales’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 49. 13 See CT, III.59–146 and Aquinas, ST, 2a 2ae 152.4: ‘Dicendum quod, sicut patet in libro Hieronymi contra Jovinianum, hic error fuit Joviniani, qui posuit

158

Gerald Morgan

virginitatem non esse matrimonio praeferendam. Qui quidem error praecipue destruitur et exemplo Christi, qui et matrem virginem elegit et ipse virginitatem servavit, et ex doctrina Apostoli, qui virginitatem consuluit tanquam melius bonum,/ It was the error of Jovinian, attacked by Jerome, to deny that virginity should be placed higher than matrimony. He is refuted above all by Christ’s example, who also chose a virgin mother, and by the teaching of the Apostle, who counsels virginity as the greater good’ (translated by Thomas Gilby). 14 Aristotle, De poetica (c.335–322), translated by Ingram Bywater in The Works of Aristotle Translated into English, edited by W. D. Ross, Volume XI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924). 15 See Anne J. Duggan, ‘The Hooly Blisful Martyr for to Seke’, in Chaucer in Context: A Golden Age of English Poetry, edited by Gerald Morgan (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2012), pp. 15–41 (especially pp. 17–26). 16 See W. M. Ormrod, ‘The Personal Religion of Edward III’, Speculum, 64 (1989), 849–77 (pp. 857–58). 17 Derek Pearsall, The Canterbury Tales (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985), p. xi. 18 See Pearsall, The Canterbury Tales, pp. 143–44: ‘It takes some confidence on the Franklin’s part to do this, 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). The Franklin relies on the good opinion others have of him …’ . 19 Pearsall, The Canterbury Tales, p. xiv. 20 Pearsall, The Canterbury Tales, p. 23: ‘The witness of the manuscripts is that the Canterbury Tales are [sic] unfinished, and that Chaucer left the work as a partly assembled kit with no directions’. 21 See Frederick J. Furnivall, A Temporary Preface to the Six-Text Edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Part 1, Chaucer Society, Second Series, No. 3 (1868), pp. 9–43. 22 Chaucer was appointed as commissioner of walls and ditches along the banks of the Thames between Greenwich and Woolwich on 12 March 1390; see Chaucer Life-Records, edited by Martin M. Crow and Clair C. Olson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. 490–93. 23 As by Pearsall, The Canterbury Tales, p. 21. 24 See Robert J. Meyer-Lee, ‘Fragments IV and V of the Canterbury Tales Do Not Exist’, ChR, 45 (2010), 1–31. The division that is made in The Riverside Chaucer, following Skeat and Robinson and ultimately a product of the theories of Bradshaw and Furnivall (Meyer-Lee, pp. 20–24), between the Epilogue to the Merchant’s Tale (IV.2419–40) and the Introduction to the Squire’s Tale (V.1–8)

6  Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales

159

lacks manuscript justification and the whole is described in the Ellesmere MS as ‘The Prologe of the Squieres tale’. Ralph Hanna III in the textual notes in The Riverside Chaucer comments: ‘Lines IV.2419–40 and V.1–8 constitute a single unit in all MSS in which they occur … The division into two fragments, done by Victorian students of tale order, is simply misleading’ (p. 1128). No less misleading is the lay-out of these so-called fragments in the editions of Skeat, IV.460–61, Robinson, pp. 127–28 and The Riverside Chaucer, pp. 168–69. Taken together such a presentation of Fragments IV and V amounts to a conspiracy to deceive the reader. 25 See Gerald Morgan, ‘The Design of the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales’, ES, 59 (1978), 481–98 (pp. 489–91). 26 On the relation between Fragments V, VI and VII, see Robert A. Pratt, ‘The Order of the Canterbury Tales’, PMLA, 66 (1951), 1141–67. On the place of the Squire’s Tale in particular, see Marie Neville, ‘The Function of the Squire’s Tale in the Canterbury Scheme’, JEGP, 50 (1951), 167–79. 27 See the excellent article by V. J. Scattergood, ‘The Originality of the Shipman’s Tale’, ChR, 11 (1977), 210–31. 28 See MED, s.v. drasti adj. (c) ‘crude, trashy, ignorant, inartistic’ and doggerel n. (& adj.) (a) ‘Poor, worthless’. 29 See J. A. Burrow, ‘ “Sir Thopas”: An Agony in Three Fits’, RES, NS, 22 (1971), 54–58, reprinted in Essays on Medieval Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), pp. 61–65. The Tale of Sir Thopas is here shown on the basis of manuscript evidence (disregarded by editors such as Skeat, Manly, Robinson and Donaldson) to be divided into three fits at VII.712, 833 and 891, made up of 18, 9 and 4½ stanzas respectively, ‘the formal, mathematical expressions of a principle of progressive diminution’ (p. 65). 30 Helen Cooper, ‘The Order of the Tales in the Ellesmere Manuscript’, in The Ellesmere Chaucer: Essays in Interpretation, edited by Martin Stevens and Daniel Woodward (San Marino: Huntingdon Library; Tokyo: Yushado, 1995), pp. 245–61 (p. 252 and n. 14) points out that this is the reading of the Ellesmere MS. The Riverside Chaucer reads: ‘Whan ended was the lyf of Seinte Cecile’. 31 See MED, s.v. hakenei n. (a) ‘A small saddle-horse, often one let for hire; a hackney horse’, trot n. (1) (a) ‘A specific horse gait between a walk and a canter’, pas(e n. (1) 2.(a) ‘A rate of speed, pace, gait; … a specific horse gait, the amble’, priken v. 4a. (b) ‘to spur (a horse), cause to gallop; spur on’ and wod(e adj. 1. (a) ‘Of persons or other sentient beings: insane, mentally deranged, of unsound mind, out of one’s mind’ and 3. (a) ‘Of a person or other sentient being: emotionally distressed or agitated, driven to distraction, beside oneself, frantic, desperate’.

160

Gerald Morgan

See Stephen D. Powell, ‘Game Over: Defragmenting the End of the Canterbury Tales’, ChR, 37 (2002), 40–58. 33 See Duggan, ‘The Hooly Blisful Martyr for to seke’, p. 19 and n. 30. 34 On the significance of the Manciple and his tale, see the excellent article by V. J. Scattergood, ‘The Manciple’s Manner of Speaking’, EC, 24 (1974), 124–46. He writes as follows: ‘There is no evidence to show that the Tale was written early and thriftily incorporated later into the framework of The Canterbury Tales; but there is enough parallelism of narrative situation to indicate that Chaucer saw the fragment as a whole. There is also a coherence of subject matter, for both the Prologue and the Tale are concerned with the necessity for self-control, particularly self-control in speech’ (p. 124). 35 J. D. North, ‘ “Kalenderes Enlumyned Ben They”: Some Astronomical Themes in Chaucer’, RES, NS, 20 (1969), 129–54, 257–83 and 418–44 points out that ‘Libra is not the exaltation of the Moon, but of Saturn’ (p. 425). 36 See North, ‘Kalenderes Enlumyned Ben They’, pp. 424–25. 37 A scribal error of ‘xviiithe’ for ‘xiiithe’, that is, ‘þe þrettenþe’ (MS Ha) instead of ‘eightetethe’, is perhaps a possibility as is also an earlier version of the text not finally revised. 38 See The Riverside Chaucer, p. 952. 39 Pearsall has set out this position once again in a challenging and at times polemical essay entitled ‘Pre-Empting Closure in “The Canterbury Tales”: Old Endings, New Beginnings’, in A. J. Minnis, Charlotte C. Morse and Thorlac Turville-Petre, Essays on Ricardian Literature: In Honour of J. A. Burrow (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 23–38. Here he embraces the ‘endinglessness’ of the Canterbury Tales, perhaps as transcending ‘the petty bounds of our notions of completeness’ and as aspiring ‘to represent the grand inconclusiveness and indeterminacy of all things’ (p. 23). He takes pleasure in the thought that Chaucer may in the course of the composition of the work have abandoned the original idea of pilgrimage (as he supposes) for ‘a healthily unspiritual view of pilgrimages’ that values rather literary ‘prizes and celebration dinners’ (p. 36). I must confess that I find this view of The Canterbury Tales as implausible and wrong-headed, and also as unappealing, as Robertson’s Augustinianism to which it seems an extreme and unChristian reaction. 40 Pearsall, The Canterbury Tales, p. 24. 41 Donald R. Howard, The Idea of the Canterbury Tales (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), p. 1. 32

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

Encores qui fait guerre contre les ennemis de la foy et pour la crestienté soustenir et maintenir et la foy de Nostre Seigneur, ycelle guerre est droite, sainte, seure et ferme, que les corps en sont sainctement honorez et les ames en sont briefment et sainctement et senz paine portees en paradis. — geoffroi de charny, Le Livre de chevalerie, 35/206–10

A Crusading Knight I.  Chaucer has not only set his portrait of the Knight in the context of a pilgrimage to Canterbury (a penitential act at the end of a long life) but has set the virtue of piety at the heart of the Knight’s experience of life as a warrior. Thus the selection of the battles listed in the portrait is exclusively a list of crusades. Such an emphasis is evident at once to the reader entirely ignorant of the historical details of the campaigns in which the Knight has been continuously engaged, for the antinomy between Christian and heathen runs throughout the portrait. The point is made by Chaucer by the rhetorical figure of traductio and by repeated emphasis. The Knight had campaigned ‘[a]s wel in cristendom as in hethenesse’ (GP, I.49) and ‘[n] o Cristen man … of his degree’ (I.55) had been so often on expedition in Lithuania and Russia. He had ‘foughten for oure feith’ (I.62) at Tlemcen in Algeria (or perhaps at Termessos near Antalya)1 and on one occasion ‘[a] gayn another hethen in Turkye’ (I.66). We ought not, with Terry Jones,2 to make too much of the fact that Chaucer’s Knight fights alongside the heathen Emir of Balat (Palatye, the ancient Miletus) in Turkey. This is not strange when we recall that Peter of Cyprus had negotiated treaties with

162

Gerald Morgan

the Emirs of Ephesus and Miletus in 1365 in the course of making preparations for the attack on Alexandria.3 Perhaps we are to understand that the Knight, although a devout Christian, is not a religious zealot or bigot. The world of battles is a complicated place, and many unexpected and curious alliances occur. At Merton in 786 (recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 755) a British hostage is grievously wounded fighting for Cynewulf, King of the West Saxons.4 The defenders of Rorke’s Drift under Lieutenants John Chard and Gonville Bromhead of B Company of 2/24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot on 22 January 1879 included a twenty-three year-old Swiss, Cpl Friedrich Carl (aka Frederick) Schiess, serving in the 2/3rd Natal Native Contingent. He also won a Victoria Cross on that famous day.5 Courage in battle, wherever it is found, cannot fail to be admired. During the period of the crusades friendships as well as enmities must have been formed between individual Christian and Moslem or heathen knights, and such relationships are found in medieval romances. Thus in the alliterative Morte Arthure (c.1365–1400) Sir Gawain on a foraging expedition during the siege of Metz meets and fights the Saracen knight Sir Priamus (MA, 2513–2715). The central interest of this episode appears to be the sudden desire of Priamus in mid-fight to convert to Christianity (MA, 2587–88).6 Sir Priamus subsequently supports Gawain in the fight against the Duke of Lorraine (MA, 2811–18) and brings his retinue with him (MA, 2916–39). This matter is duly recorded by Malory in his ‘Tale of Arthur and Lucius’ (MD, 228/4–239/11). But Malory goes further in adding the episode of the christening of Sir Priamus by Arthur (MD, 241/8–11): Than the kynge in haste crystynde hym fayre and lette conferme hym Priamus, as he was afore, and lyghtly lete dubbe hym a deuke with his hondys, and made hym knyght of the Table Rounde.7

Malory accords an even more significant role to the Saracen knight, Sir Palomides, son of Asclabor and brother of Sir Safere and Sir Segwarides. Sir Palomides is a great knight, ranked fourth in the list of Round Table knights after Sir Launcelot, Sir Tristram and Sir Lamorak (MD, 529/5–11 and 715/26–30),8 and no one doubts his ‘noble prouesse’ (MD, 716/24). Malory focuses on his unrequited love for Isode and consequent rivalry

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

163

with Sir Tristram and also on the fact that, unlike his two brothers, he is unbaptised (MD, 343/24–26). Malory’s ‘Book of Sir Tristram’ ends with a final combat between Sir Palomides and Sir Tristram by means of which Sir Palomides fulfils the vow that enables him to receive baptism. He makes his full confession and is duly baptised by the suffragan Bishop of Carlisle with Sir Tristram and Sir Galleron as his two godfathers (MD, 841/34–845/20). The Christian orientation of the chivalry of Chaucer’s Knight becomes even more evident if we take the reference to ‘his lordes were’ (I.47) as a reference to God’s war rather than the wars of his feudal overlord or king (although, properly speaking, a king like Edward III exercises his due function as king through the will of God).9 The crusade was holy and not merely justifiable, and thus in participating in a crusade the Knight was fulfilling his duty to Christ, the ruler of the universal Christian state.10 We are to understand that had he been inspired primarily by the love of England he would have been a lesser man. We need share none of the misgivings in respect of the Knight that Jane Austen expresses in respect of the heroic death of Sir John Moore at Corunna in 1809: ‘I wish Sir John had united something of the Christian with the Hero in his death’.11 What is clear is that there is no place in the Knight’s career for the kind of mercenary activity associated with a Hawkwood in Italy (there is indeed no reference to Italy of any kind in the midst of so many references to conflict in ‘the Grete See’, I.59). Moreover, there is no reference even to the great events of English history taking place on the fields of Crécy (26 August 1346) and Poitiers (19 September 1356) in France and Nájera in Castile (3 April 1367) or to the continuing wars against the Scots issuing in such battles as Neville’s Cross (17 October 1346). This is not to say that the Knight was not present on any of these fields of conflict, merely to say that Chaucer chooses not to mention his presence on them.12 The list of the Knight’s campaigns occupies sixteen lines of the text of the portrait (GP, I.51–66) and this fact alone indicates the importance of the campaigns for Chaucer and contemporary readers. These are the Knight’s battle honours of the kind still prized by famous regiments in the British Army, as, for example, the Gloucestershire Regiment with its references to Ramillies, Louisburg, Guadaloupe, Quebec, Martinique, Bussaco (28th (North Gloucestershire) Regiment of Foot), Egypt, Maida,

164

Gerald Morgan

Talavera, Salamanca, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Orthez, Toulouse (61st (South Gloucestershire) Regiment of Foot), and (after amalgamation on 1 July 1881) Mons, Sari Bair, Cassel, Imjin River (inter alia). Alexandria has the pride of place in the regimental history of the Glosters as it has in the career of Chaucer’s Knight (GP, I.51), for it was by fighting back to back under General Sir Ralph Abercromby against the French at Alexandria in 1801 that the Glosters earned the right to wear the famous Back Badge with the battle honour ‘Egypt’ beneath the Sphinx within the laurel leaves of victory. Chaucer’s list follows no chronological order, but covers a lifetime of fighting of some forty or more years from the siege of Algeçiras to service with the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, Lithuania, and Russia, let us say, from 1343 or so (close to the time of Chaucer’s birth) to 1385 or so (close to the time of the composition of the General Prologue). If we assume, as was the common case, that the Knight first experienced battle in person at the age of sixteen, we shall take it that he was born in or around 1327 (like Sir Richard Scrope or Sir Richard Stury) and that he is sixty at the time of the pilgrimage to Canterbury. He has now reached the age at which to take stock of his life and to prepare his soul for a higher judgment than that of his fellow pilgrims. While Chaucer’s Knight has been defending the Christian faith by force of arms, Langland’s Piers Plowman (with no less moral nobility) has been following the ways of Truth at the plough for forty years (PPl, B V.542–45): I haue ben his folwere al þis fourty wynter – Boþe ysowen his seed and suwed hise beestes, Wiþinne and wiþouten waited his profit. I dyke and I delue, I do þat he hoteþ.

It is time for him also to answer to God for what he has done with his life (PPl, B VI.83–84): ‘For now I am old and hoor and haue of myn owene, To penaunce and to pilgrimage I wol passe wiþ þise oþere.’

The span of forty years is the fullness of a life’s work in the world. Chaucer is less specific here than Langland and as he himself chooses to

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

165

be in respect of January in the Merchant’s Tale who is ‘sixty yeer’ (IV.1248 and 1252). Perhaps Chaucer is concerned lest the Knight of the General Prologue be identified with one of the famous knights of his own personal acquaintance. But though the precise number of the Knight’s years is not specified (we might suppose him, let us say, to be fifty-eight, or sixty-two or sixty-four) the period of his life is identified by Chaucer with sufficient exactness. On any calculation the Knight belongs to the period of old age as Dante defines it.13 This is the age in which we expect to find, as Dante also notes, the qualities of prudence, justice, generosity and affability (conspicuous qualities of the Knight).14

The Knight’s Campaigns II.  The Knight’s campaigns fall into three well-defined groups, and he is to be found in different places at different times as the centre of crusading conflict shifts from the western to the eastern Mediterranean and far to the north in the Baltic. These are the geographical extremities of Christendom as they would have been perceived in the middle of the fourteenth century. Even a modern tourist travelling by air and ocean liner, or by train and by coach, would struggle to match the Knight’s daunting itinerary.

Spain and the Western Mediterranean Thus the Knight campaigns in Spain against the Moors. He was at Algeçiras which was besieged for nearly two years (1342–1344) by Alfonso XI of Castile. The surrender of Algeçiras in 1344 was a momentous event, for it secured the Straits of Gibraltar against further Moorish invasion from North Africa. Perhaps the Knight was in the party of the famous Henry of Grosmont, Earl of Derby (the king’s lieutenant in Aquitaine from 1345 to

166

Gerald Morgan

1347 and from 1349 to 1350, and in 1351 Duke of Lancaster) and William Montagu, 1st Earl of Salisbury,15 who were on embassy to Castile in 1343 and present at the siege of Algeçiras in that year. Chaucer’s Knight has also ‘riden in Belmarye’ (GP, I.57). This is usually interpreted as a reference to the kingdom of Ben(a)marin in Morocco, but such a proposed identification gives rise only to historical difficulties of interpretation.16 There is much to be said for identifying Chaucer’s Belmarye with Almeria. This possibility is suggested in the note to Robinson’s second edition of 1957,17 and the case has recently been strengthened in an interesting article by Jeanne Krochalis.18 Thus we have a coherent series of geographical references to Gernade, Algezir and Belmarye (GP, I.56–57).19 In the fourteenth century Granada is a Moorish kingdom (and remains so until its conquest in 1492). Algeçiras is at its extreme western boundary and Almeria at its eastern extremity.20 If we take Almeria rather than Morocco as one of the theatres of the Knight’s crusading activity we shall have no difficulty in placing an English knight there and accordingly no difficulty in accounting for the resonance of the name for a contemporary English audience. The campaign of Bertrand du Guesclin and Sir Hugh Calveley21 in support of Henry of Trastámara in Castile in 1366 was no doubt designed in large measure to remove the Free Companies from Normandy, Brittany, Chartrain and the Loire provinces.22 It was supported for that reason by Pope Urban V (1362–1370) in the course of negotiations with Charles V of France (1364–1380) on the one hand and the Black Prince, Sir John Chandos and Jean de Grailly, captal de Buch on the other in the spring of 1365.23 It was given the colour of a crusade insofar as it was officially directed against the Moorish kingdom of Granada, for Pedro I of Castile was supported by the King of Granada, Mohammed V (whom he had helped to restore as king in 1362) and also by the Kings of Benmarin and Tlemcen.24 Indeed, du Guesclin was crowned King of Granada at Burgos on Palm Sunday, 29 March 1366, and Calveley was assigned the fortified places of the King of Benmarin to the north of the Straits of Gibraltar.25 Hence these two mercenaries, Breton and English, and in all probability brothers-in-arms, were to be seen as fighting together against ‘the enemies of the Christian faith’.26 The names of Benmarin and Tlemcen must have been familiar to Chaucer from his own experience at this period, for he was

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

167

in Navarre at the beginning of 1366, possibly in the company of Eustache d’Aubrécicourt, who had been recruited by Charles of Navarre in January 1366, and was present in the Navarrese court from 3 February to 19 March 1366.27 With the shifting of political allegiances (and the honouring by English mercenaries of their primary allegiance to the King of England) Sir Hugh Calveley is to be found at Nájera on 3 April 1367 in the rearguard under the Mallorcan Pretender, Jaime ‘IV’, facing the army of Henry of Trastámara and Bertrand du Guesclin. Sir Eustache d’Aubrécicourt is in the Battle of the Black Prince himself. It is in shifting political circumstances such as these (and as Chaucer knew them) that we must find a place for the worthy Knight. The field of battle is not as a rule a place for those with delicate moral scruples. The Knight of the General Prologue is all the more admirable on that account.

Egypt, Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean The key to Chaucer’s list of campaigns is no doubt the name of Alexandria which stands at its head. Behind the name of Alexandria is the celebrated figure of Peter I (Pierre de Lusignan), King of Cyprus (1359–1369), whose career is identified with the idea of a Christian crusade in the 1360s. This is indeed a period when English knights were free to express their crusading idealism after the treaty of Brétigny brought a temporary closure to the war with France just as other English knights (Calveley, Hawkwood, Knolles) embarked on careers as mercenaries with the Free Companies. Even such mercenaries were not immune to the attractions of the crusade, as for example Calveley alongside du Guesclin in Granada, especially when the profits of war could be added to the sense of religious propriety.28 Hawkwood himself seems in this respect a notable exception (though not in other respects failing to demonstrate the conventional outward signs of piety).29 Knolles on the other hand went further in his desire for absolution from Urban V in 1366 by making restitution to the citizens of Auxerre for the exactions he imposed on them in 1359.30

168

Gerald Morgan

The reign of Peter I is the great period of the power and reputation of Cyprus, and one look at the map of the eastern Mediterranean will make clear the significance of his crusading activity at Antalya, that is, Attaleia/ Adalia, Chaucer’s Satalye, in southern Anatolia (1361),31 Alexandria in Egypt (1365) and Ayas, that is, Lajazzo, Chaucer’s Lyeys (1367), in the medieval kingdom of Cilicia or Lesser Armenia.32 Aided by the Hospitallers Peter surprised and captured Antalya in 1361. Present on this occasion were the English knights Sir Humphrey de Bohun (1342–1373), Earl of Hereford, perhaps anxious to justify his noble lineage,33 and Sir William Scrope, second son of Sir Henry Scrope, who died in the East.34 Between October 1362 and June 1365 Peter of Cyprus embarked from Venice on a tour of the European courts, including those in London and Bordeaux, accompanied by the papal legate, Peter Thomas, and his chancellor, Philippe de Mézières, to gather support for a crusade. By the summer of 1365 165 vessels had been assembled at Rhodes for the attack on Alexandria. In reality this was little more than a plundering raid (and in this repect we may have some sympathy with the criticisms of Terry Jones).35 The crusaders arrived at Alexandria on 9 October 1365 (Peter of Cyprus’s birthday). Here the Earl of Hereford was again present, on this occasion in the company of Sir Stephen Scrope, third son of Sir Henry Scrope and later 2nd Lord Scrope of Masham (1392–1406), who was knighted by Peter of Cyprus before Alexandria. The crusaders made their assault on 10 October and departed less than a week later on 16 October having put the city to the sword and looted it. Nevertheless at the time it was hailed, above all by Machaut, as an outstanding vindication of Christian chivalry. The attack on Ayas in 1367, lasting no longer than a week or so and leaving the town burning but the citadel unconquered, is in essence another plundering raid answering the dynastic ambitions of the King of Cyprus.36 But the medieval verdict on these events is not our verdict, and for the portrait of the Knight it is the medieval verdict that counts. Thus for Machaut Antalya is a city ‘grande et puissant et ferme et forte’ and yet helpless before the irresistible force of ‘li bons rois’ (PA, 647 and 650), the sacking of Alexandria is ‘ceste tres noble victoire’ (PA, 2970) and at Ayas God grants ‘[l]i nobles roys frans et gentis/the noble king, generous and worthy … grace, pris, honneur et victoire,/ favor, praise, honor, and victory’

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

169

(PA, 7007 and 7086). Petrarch no less describes the fall of Alexandria as ‘a great and memorable event’ and as ‘this outstanding operation’ in a letter to Boccaccio on 20 July 1367 (his sixty-fourth birthday).37 We can hardly expect Chaucer to have disagreed with Machaut and Petrarch on the significance of these defining events for the world in which he lived. And if he had done so we need compelling evidence to believe it. Peter of Cyprus did not long survive these grand occasions of crusading victories and on 16/17 January 1369 he is murdered by his nobles, with his two brothers, John, Prince of Antioch (regent 1369–1371) and James, Constable of Jerusalem (later James I of Cyprus, 1382–1398), privy to the conspiracy. The fall of the ‘worthy Petro, kyng of Cipre, …/ That Alisandre wan by heigh maistrie’ (MkT, VII.2391–92) is recorded by Chaucer after that of Pedro I of Spain in the catalogue of illustrious men brought low by fortune. No mention is made of the waywardness and petty oppressions of Peter of Cyprus’s final days (and it is perhaps unlikely that Chaucer had any knowledge of them).38 They are not in any event appropriate in this poetic register. By 1373 Antalya had been surrendered to the Turks in order to meet the Genoese threat to Famagusta and by October 1373 the Genoese invasion fleet had arrived off Famagusta.39 It is surely not by coincidence that Chaucer was in Genoa in 1373 any more than that he was in Navarre in 1366.

Prussia, Lithuania and the Eastern Baltic The third great theatre of crusading activity in the fourteenth century was in Prussia, Lithuania and Russia in the colder and even remoter climes of the Baltic Sea. This was in a way the crusade par excellence in its purest form. Who would want to journey to these desolate and inhospitable regions unless spurred on by the deepest instincts of religious enthusiasm (or perhaps by the despair of an unrequited love)? Here the English crusader could prove himself in the company of the Teutonic knights in their white surcoats with the black cross.

170

Gerald Morgan

The Teutonic Knights (or Order of St Mary of the Germans) were a crusading military order formed in Acre in Palestine on 5 March 1198 on the model of the Knights Templar and approved in 1199 by Pope Innocent III. The Teutonic Knights were invited by Andrew II to Hungary in 1211 and thence to Prussia in 1226 to undertake the conversion of the Baltic Old Prussians. In 1237 the Order of the Knights of the Sword, founded in 1202 in Livonia, was incorporated into the Teutonic Knights.40 In 1245 Pope Innocent IV (1243–1254) granted plenary indulgences to all who went to fight with the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, whether in response to a specific appeal or not, thus inaugurating the so-called ‘perpetual crusade’.41 The monastic state of the Teutonic Order in 1300 stretched along the eastern Baltic from the boundary of Pomerania and the Vistula to the boundary of Estonia and by 1390 was even more extensive (Estonia having been acquired from Denmark in 1346).42 It included Königsberg (originally the capital of the Prussian diocese of Samland, now Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave on the Baltic between Poland and Lithuania) and Livonia/Latvia. After the fall of Acre in 1291 the seat of the Grand Master was located in Venice and from 1309 in Marienburg (named after the patron saint of the order, the Virgin Mary, now Malbork in northern Poland). Latvia had been converted to Christianity in the crusade of 1193–1230, whereas Lithuania remained predominantly pagan until its permanent conversion to Christianity in 1385 through its union with Poland by the marriage of Grand Duke Jagiello to Jadwiga, heiress to the Polish throne.43 Hence the Teutonic Knights were engaged in a struggle (ultimately vain) lasting for almost two centuries for the acquisition of Lithuanian Samogitia as a land bridge between Prussia and Livonia. Chaucer’s reference to Ruce (GP, I.54), that is, Russia (usually understood to be the area around Novgorod further to the east of Livonia) has been interestingly interpreted as a reference to Rossenia, a province in Samogitia. This makes a good deal more sense than Russia itself in terms of the strategic interests of the Teutonic Knights and is indeed at the heart of the reise of 1390 undertaken by Henry of Bolingbroke.44 Thus the twenty-second Grand Master of the Order (1351–1382), Winrich von Kniprode (b.1310), was constantly at war with the Duchy of Lithuania. Von Kniprode was succeeded as Grand Master by Konrad III Zöllner von Rotenstein (1382–1390) and he in turn (eventually) by

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

171

Konrad von Wallenrode (1391–1393). Von Wallenrode was chiefly responsible for organising the crusades against the Duchy of Lithuania under von Rotenstein and his name must have been one familiar to Chaucer’s Knight. The Knight may have been in Prussia as early as 1348 and between 1357 and 1358.45 But he must certainly have been in Prussia on several occasions at a later date, for we are told authoritatively that ‘[f ]ul ofte tyme he hadde the bord bigonne/ Aboven alle nacions in Pruce’ (GP, I.52–53).46 This is a conspicuous honour bestowed more than once and fully justifies the subsequent assertion of his outstanding worth as one who ‘everemoore … hadde a sovereyn prys’ (GP, I.67).47 We know of five occasions in the fourteenth century on which the Ehrentisch or Table of Honour was held in the hall at Königsberg, namely, 1375, 1377, 1385, 1391 and 1392, but doubtless there were more. Sir Geoffrey Scrope, eldest son of Sir Henry Scrope, died on a reise at the siege of Piskre in Lithuania in 1362.48 Sir Richard Scrope’s eldest son, William (c.1351–1399), later Earl of Wiltshire, went on a reise to Lithuania with the Teutonic knights (but surely not in 1362)49 and perhaps also his third son, Stephen, did as well. Sir Henry Percy (Hotspur) was on crusade in Prussia in 1383, Sir William Martel present at the Table of Honour in 1385, and Henry of Bolingbroke was in Königsberg in 1391 and 1392.50 It is possible (unless we prefer to date the portrait of the Knight after 1391) that Bolingbroke was inspired by Chaucer’s account of the Knight when he went on crusade to Prussia in 1390–1391 at the age of twentyfour. He left Boston in Lincolnshire on or around 20 July 1390, landing at Rixhöft on the Pomeranian coast on 8 August, thence to Danzig on 9 August. He proceeded by way of Brandenburg to Insterburg (21 August) and to a junction with the Teutonic Knights under Marshal Engelhardt Rabe on the 22 August for the reise into the Wilderness of Lithuania. On 28 August an engagement was fought in crossing the River Wilia and the crusaders proceeded to the siege of Vilnius (4 September–7 October). On his return to England Bolingbroke stayed at Könisberg throughout the winter (20 October 1390–9 February 1391), thence to Danzig (15 February) and, setting sail for England on 31 March, back to Hull which was reached on 30 April 1391. Henry had the physical capacity for such an arduous adventure. There was no doubt as to his personal bravery and he arrived home, according to the Monk of Westminster, ‘sanus et hilaris/healthy

172

Gerald Morgan

and jovial’.51 So much so indeed that he embarked on a second crusade to Prussia in 1392, albeit abandoning it for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land after reaching Königsberg on 2 September 1392. These are indeed far-flung campaigns and as such they add greatly to our sense of the Knight’s illustriousness. Charny speaks with feeling of the perilous adventures encountered by knights ‘es chemins et voiages d’aler querir tel fait d’armes, comme en peril de mer, de rivieres, et passer de mauvais paz et pons, de rimours, de robeurs/ on their journeys in search of deeds of arms, such as the danger of crossing sea or river, of passing over treacherous places or bridges, of encountering riots or robbers’ and of the honour that is due to those who ‘a grant mise et a grant travail et en grant peril se mettent en aler et en veoir les lointains païs et estranges choses/ at great expense, hardship, and grave peril undertake to travel to and see distant countries and strange things’.52 The crusades to Prussia and Lithuania or to Turkey were to places impossibly remote and desolate and with no prospect of a safe return. The memorials of these adventurous knights are to be found in such places where they fell, as of Sir Geoffrey Scrope at Königsberg and of another Sir Henry Scrope at Messembra.53 The lady wearied of the attentions of an importunate lover could rest content if her love inspired an unwanted lover to set out on crusade to such distant and inhospitable parts. Happily, Blanche the Duchess (Bolingbroke’s mother) is not such a lady. She does not ‘sende men into Walakye,/ To Pruyse, and into Tartarye,/ To Alysaundre, ne into Turkye’ (BD, 1024–26).54 We expect order and coherence in medieval portaits, but the range of Chaucer’s geographical references (a reflection no doubt of his own career and experience as a young man) has hitherto baffled us. The poet of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight begins with a series of orderly geographical references to the founding of the medieval kingdoms, moving as he does from Rome to Tuscany to Lombardy and to Britain (SGGK, 8–19). We expect to find the same principle of order in Chaucer’s geographical references. The identification of Belmarye as Almeria in particular now enables us to do so. Standing at the head (let us say, as a Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt, Trafalgar or Waterloo, but not, pace Krochalis, Dunkirk) is Alexandria, the great crusading event of Chaucer’s age. That is followed by references to the

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

173

crusade in Prussia. This is a contemporary phenomenon, that is, of the 1380s and 1390s, and it is directed against the heathen, not Moslems. Then there are the references to Spain in the western Mediterranean and to Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean. The logic of this sequence is that Tramyssene (GP, I.62), usually taken to be Tlemcen in North West Algeria, close to the Moroccan border, is in fact also a reference to Turkey, especially as it is followed by the concluding reference to Turkey (GP, I.64–66). Hence Pratt’s suggestion that Tramyssene is a reference to Termessos near Antalya and to the Knight’s continuation in the service of Peter of Cyprus in the period 1361–1364 has its attractions.55 Even if there is no certainty in this matter, Chaucer’s text leaves us in no doubt that wherever he is fighting the Knight was fighting still ‘for oure feith’ (GP, I.62). As so often with Chaucer, we ‘hoppe alwey byhynde’ (TC, II.1107).

The Crusade in the Fourteenth Century III.  The facts of the Knight’s life as a crusader (facts that are beyond dispute) compel us to confront the nature of the crusade and attitudes to the crusade in England in the late fourteenth century. We may begin by recognising (as Keen has taught us) that English knights in the late fourteenth century did not shrink from the idea of a crusade but (if political considerations were otherwise amenable) were inspired by the prospect of the crusade.56 At the same time this is a matter of individual piety rather than political policy. Edward III, albeit attracted to the notion of a crusade in the company of his earthly enemy, Jean II, the King of France (who took the crusader’s vow to free the Holy Land along with Peter of Cyprus on Good Friday, 31 March 1363, but died on 8 April 1364) is cautious in committing national resources to a crusade of which the outcome is far from certain. Thus the King of Cyprus is royally entertained by the king and by John of Gaunt at the Savoy in November 1363 and a tournament is held in his honour at Smithfield,57 but he is not supported by the commitment of great resources of arms and men. The Knight can be applauded in his

174

Gerald Morgan

personal commitment to the crusade in Cyprus, but his devotion does not threaten concerns of the English state. Nevertheless, as Chaucer’s portrait itself indicates, the crusade remains a reference point for European civilisation in the later Middle Ages. Clearly we can no longer think of the religious crusade at this time in the narrow sense of the recovery of Jerusalem or of the defence of the Holy Land or of a simple clash between Christian and Moslem civilisations. There are crusades in many theatres of war. There were crusades in Spain against the Moors and in the Baltic among the Slavs beyond the Elbe in Lithuania and Latvia. There were crusades against heretics and schismatics (the Albigensian crusade launched by Innocent III (1198–1216) in 1208) and against secular powers in the West, not least in Italy itself.58 The papal practice in the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries of granting indulgences for participation in crusades makes clear the essential equivalence of crusades in Spain, Germany or the Baltic, as also crusades against pagans, heretics and schismatics and even secular powers in Western Europe to those against Moslems in the Holy Land.59 A crusade is variously termed. It is not only a croiserie, but also a pilgrimage (iter or peregrinatio, of which Chaucer’s viage is possibly a synonym)60 or a holy war (bellum sacrum). Crusaders are crucesignati, ‘signed with the Cross’, or simply pilgrims.61 Such a crusader was Edmund Plantagenet (1245–1296), brother of Edward I and first Earl of Lancaster, the grandfather of Henry of Grosmont. His expedition to the Holy Land in 1271–1272 earned him the nickname ‘Crouchback’, that is, crossed back.62 Hence Chaucer’s Knight is a pilgrim knight in every sense, summing up in his life and purpose the deepest religious values of the pilgrimage to Canterbury. The penitential element is indeed central to the definition of a crusade. Participation in a crusade implies the taking of a vow and the wearing of the Cross as an emblem until the fulfilment of the vow.63 Perhaps we are to suppose (and perhaps Chaucer takes it for granted) that the stained surcoat of the Knight is marked by the red cross on a (once) white field. Chaucer’s Knight is at one with Spenser’s Red Cross Knight in his religious convictions and hence no doubt also in his dress. Chaucer must have seen often enough on his many travels the reality of war. The ‘bloodie Crosse’, worn in ‘deare remembrance of [the] dying Lord’, exists side by side with ‘[t]he cruell markes of many’ a bloody fielde’ (FQ, I.1.1–2).

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

175

The crusader is not or need not be a religious fanatic, but answers the call of the Pope, the only legitimate authority for a crusade. If we wish to find fault with the very idea of a crusade the blame must be laid at the feet of the papacy rather than at the feet of individual knights. The proper motive for an individual in undertaking a crusade is as an act of penitence for sin and such a penitential act is rewarded by a papal indulgence.64 Such an ideal is marked by temperance in the daily conduct of life and hence has no room for ostentation and excess by way of dress, and in that respect the simplicity of the Knight’s dress marks him out as a true pilgrim.65 Presence on a crusade is indeed a mark of holiness of life.66 By definition, therefore, a crusading knight is a volunteer and we may confidently say of the Knight, as Chaucer says of the Parson, that he is ‘noght a mercenarie’ (GP, I.514).67 Indeed, the undertaking of a crusade was liable to be financially punitive rather than rewarding, and it was necessary to make arrangements to safeguard a crusader’s financial assets during his absence. Consequently, although crusading is popular in England in the fourteenth century it remains the preserve of the very rich, of men such as Henry of Grosmont and Henry of Bolingbroke.68 The Knight’s status as the highest ranking of the pilgrims is beyond dispute and crusades of the kind he has undertaken required a great deal of inherited wealth. It is likely that he was a knight banneret, as were Thomas Percy, Thomas Felton and Richard Burley on their election as Knights of the Garter in 1376, 1381 and 1382 respectively,69 or as Sir John Chandos, receiving his banner from the hands of the Black Prince and Pedro of Castile on the field at Nájera in 1367.70 Chandos was already by then, and had been for many years, a knight of the greatest distinction as a founder-knight of the Order of the Garter. The difference in Chandos’s condition in 1367 must have been one of sufficient wealth to support the estate of banneret. The terms squier and bacheler (GP, I.79–80), used of the Knight’s son, reinforce the link with the established landed aristocracy.71 Crusades are at one and the same time wars and pilgrimages. Hence they must answer to the principles of a just war. They cannot be wars of aggrandisement or conversion, but rather defensive wars in which the use of violence is the lesser of two evils.72 The First Crusade to the Holy Land (1096–1102) was in this sense deemed just, for its object as proposed by

176

Gerald Morgan

Urban II (1088–1089), a Cluniac monk, was not the conquest but the reconquest or recovery of Jerusalem. Hence Edward Fairfax’s translation of Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata which was published in 1600 is entitled Godfrey of Bulloigne or The Recoverie of Ierusalem.73 It was a defensive and hence a just war.74 As we have seen, successive popes soon extended the notion of a crusade beyond the limited aim of the recovery of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, those who took part in crusades must have continued to believe that their cause was just. And Chaucer’s Knight (and Chaucer himself ) must be included in their number.

The High Order of Knighthood IV.  Chaucer spent his whole life in the company of knights and on occasion fought in the midst of knights. His portrait of the Knight reflects this knowledge of the conduct of knights in the exercise of their profession by the use of a distinctive and rare technical vocabulary. Thus the very word for a military expedition with the Teutonic knights is reise, and Chaucer adverts to it in saying of the Knight that ‘[i]n Lettow hadde he reysed and in Ruce’ (GP, I.54).75 The equivalent word for a military raid in Northern France, of which there were many in Chaucer’s own lifetime, including that of 1359–1360 in which he himself participated, is the chevauchée, and Chaucer uses it with an equal precision in referring to the Squire’s presence ‘in chyvachie/ In Flaundres, in Artoys, and Pycardie’ (GP, I.85–86).76 The word armee has reference to a land or sea expedition,77 and ‘in the Grete See/ At many a noble armee’ (GP, I.59–60) is an excellent description of the fleets or armadas of 126 ships for the assault on Antalya in 1361, of 165 ships assembled at Rhodes in 1365 for the assault on Alexandria and of 140 or more ships for an attack on Tripoli in 1367.78 The Knight has been present at no fewer than fifteen ‘mortal batailles’ (GP, I.61) and this is the defining vindication of his very function as a knight, for he is thus marked out by his prowess and good fortune alike. He has been in the thick of the action, whether in vanguard, main army or rearguard, on great occasions

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

177

such as Crécy as well as in countless skirmishes and sieges of the kind that punctuate a chevauchée.79 The Knight’s prowess as an individual knight has been tested à l’outrance ‘[i]n lystes thries’ (GP, I.63)80 against a picked opponent designed to test his chivalry to the uttermost. This is as near a level playing-field as one can get in respect of deeds of arms, as distinct from the confusion of the mêlée and of battle itself. Here we see the willingness of trusty knights ‘in jopardé to lay/ … lif for lyf, leue vchon oþer,/ As fortune wolde fulsun hom, þe fayrer to haue’ (SGGK, 97–99). The Knight has not been found wanting on any one of these three occasions. Chaucer uses the verb slen to define his honourable conduct: he has ‘ay slayn his foo’ (GP, I.63). Thus Chaucer distinguishes a worthy knight from a mere killer, such as a murderer, a rioter or a looter. 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, VII.3394–96). There is a clear distinction between honourable conduct in battle (where the possibility of death is an ever-present reality) and the cowardly brutality of a mob on the rampage. Here we need finally to put to rest the claim that the Knight is no more than ‘an effective killer’.81 The use of such language obscures the vital distinction between a soldier and a murderer. In the light of the objections of Terry Jones we must observe also in respect of the Knight the following important facts that define his conduct as a knight. He does not engage with lesser knights in a conspiracy to overthrow a knight he is unable to match on the field of battle or in the lists, as do the supporters of Aggravain against Launcelot. Malory goes to the trouble of identifying the names of the twelve conspirators whom the authors of the French Mort Artu and the English stanzaic Le Morte Arthur judge unworthy of mention by name (MD, 1164/10–17).82 But Malory’s names signify at once the unworthiness of the men who bear them, for they are both vain and pusillanimous. Here we have such men as ‘sir Petipace of Wynchylsé, … sir Melyon de la Mountayne, … sir Gromoresom Erioure, sir Cursesalyne’ (MD, 1164/12–14).83 Only by acting together can they appear

178

Gerald Morgan

on the great stage of events and hope to bring about the downfall of a Launcelot. Chaucer’s Knight is not ‘a smylere with the knyf under the cloke’ (KnT, I.1999), that is, killing by an act of treachery and deceit. He is thus to be distinguished from Bertrand du Guesclin and Olivier de Mauny, the Breton mercenaries who aided Henry of Trastámara in his victory over Pedro of Castile at Montiel on 14 March 1369. Pedro took refuge in the castle of Montiel to which Henry at once laid siege, but was delivered up, not fully armed, to his half-brother when he emerged from the castle on 23 March 1369 under a guarantee of safe-conduct by du Guesclin. He was indeed murdered in the lodgings of du Guesclin himself. The salient events have been recorded by Chaucer in The Monk’s Tale (VII.2378–82): Out of thy land thy brother made thee flee, And after, at a seege, by subtiltee, Thou were bitraysed and lad unto his tente, Where as he with his owene hand slow thee, Succedynge in thy regne and in thy rente.84

Du Guesclin is identified by his coat of arms, ‘[t]he feeld of snow, with th’egle of blak therinne,/ Caught with the lymrod coloured as the gleede’, that is, argent, an eagle double-tête displayed sable on a baton gules, and Mauny by the play on his name, ‘wikked nest’, that is, mal nid, not a ‘Charles Olyver, …/ Of trouthe and honour’, but ‘of Armorike/ Genylon-Olyver, corrupt for meede’ (MkT, VII.2383–89).85 The Knight is not a pillager who after the outcome of battle takes advantage of the heaps of wounded and dying men to cut their throats and rob them. Froissart identifies the Welsh and Cornish at Crécy as particularly adept at this art: ‘Et là entre ces Englès avoit pillars et ribaus, Gallois et Cornillois, qui poursievoient gens d’armes et arciers, qui portoient grandes coutilles, et venoient entre leurs gens d’armes et leurs arciers qui leur faisoient voie, et trouvoient ces gens d’armes en ce dangier, contes, barons, chevaliers et escuiers; si les occioient sans merci, com grans sires qu’il fust. Par cel estat en y eut ce soir pluiseurs perdus et murdris, don’t ce fu pités et damages, …/ However, among the English there were pillagers and irregulars, Welsh and Cornishmen armed with long knives, who went

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

179

out after the French (their own men-at-arms and archers making way for them) and, when they found any in difficulty, whether they were counts, barons, knights or squires, they killed them without mercy. Because of this, many were slaughtered that evening, regardless of their rank. It was a great misfortune …’ (Chroniques, III.187/9–17; Brereton, p. 93). Chaucer himself supplies a brief description of the activity of pillagers at the beginning of the Knight’s Tale when Palamon and Arcite are found among the heaps of the Theban dead (I.1005–8): To ransake in the taas of bodyes dede, Hem for to strepe of harneys and of wede, The pilours diden bisynesse and cure After the bataille and disconfiture.86

More tragic from an English point of view is the work of the pillagers on Salisbury Plain after the death of Mordred and the destruction of the fellowship of the Round Table (MD, 1237/29–1238/4).87 In ‘The Tale of Arthur and Lucius’ the Saracen knight, Sir Priamus, addresses Sir Gawain contemptuously ‘in his langage of Tuskayne’ as ‘pylloure’ before the fierce combat between them (MD, 229/9 and 11). The language is that of the English alliterative Morte Arthure: ‘ “Whedyr prykkes thow, pilouur, þat profers so large?” ’ (2533). Indeed, the knight or chevalier is, properly speaking, not to be found on foot at all. This is clearly the view of Sir Lamorak (third in the ranks of Malory’s knights after Sir Launcelot and Sir Tristram) and it is expressed in his rebuke of his brothers Agglovale and Darnarde after they have been unhorsed on the sixth day of the tournament at Surluse in ‘The Book of Sir Tristram’ (MD, 667/11–13, and 19–28): ‘Bretherne, ye ought to be ashamed to falle so of your horsis! What is a knyght but whan he is on horsebacke? For I sette nat by a knyght whan he is on foote, for all batayles on foote ar but pyllours in batayles,88 for there sholde no knyght fyghte on foote but yf hit were for treson or ellys he were dryvyn by forse to fyght on foote. Therefore, bretherne, sytte faste in your sadyls, or ellys fyght never more afore me!’

The exercise of arms on horseback is a difficult skill and the training of a knight correspondingly arduous. Hence there is a special distinction in the

180

Gerald Morgan

fight on horseback. The admiration of Chrétien de Troyes for such skill in knightly combat is explicit in his description of the combat between Yvain, son of Urien, and Esclados the Red at the perilous fountain in the forest of Broceliande in Le Chevalier au Lion (855–61; Staines, p. 267): Et de ce firent mout que preu, Qu’onques lor chevaus an nul leu Ne navrerent ne anpirierent; Qu’il ne vostrent ne ne deignierent; Mes toz jorz a cheval se tindrent, Que nule foiz a pié ne vindrent; S’an fu la bataille plus bele. Yet they were men of honour: they did not wish to hit or harm their horses; they would not stoop to such an act. All day they sat astride their horses without setting foot on the ground. And so the combat was the more honourable.

These lines must have been written by Chrétien at the same time as or shortly after he had abandoned the Chevalier de la Charrete (c.1177) and they reassert chivalric values with special feeling. Malory reconstructs the story of the Knight of the Cart so as to remove any possible criticism of Sir Launcelot for negligence in respect of his care for his horses. Malory’s Sir Launcelot is on foot not because of any impetuosity on his part but because of Sir Mellyagaunce’s cowardice (a motive unknown to Chrétien) in fleeing with the queen and leaving behind thirty of his best archers (surely a sufficient number) to lie in ambush for Sir Launcelot with instructions to slay his horse (MD, 1124/13–19). It is an ungallant and unchivalrous manner of fighting, both in the reliance on superiority of numbers and in being directed against a defenceless horse. The account of the slaying of the horse thus serves to reinforce by contrast our sense of the chivalrousness of Sir Launcelot himself (MD, 1125/29–33). Sir Launcelot is not guilty of unchivalrous or unknightly conduct, but is the victim of it, and the point is underlined by Malory by repeated emphasis. Thus Sir Launcelot’s horse follows the cart after Sir Launcelot has got into it ‘with mo than fourty arowys in hym’ (MD, 1126/34). The queen sees the horse following the cart with ‘hys guttis and hys paunche undir hys feete’ (MD, 1127/10–11). Sir Launcelot is undoubtedly at a disadvantage on foot,

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

181

but it is a misfortune not of his own devising and he is angry as any noble knight mindful of his honour and dignity would be (MD, 1126/3–9). Like Spenser’s Sir Guyon he has to learn how to compose these feelings in himself (FQ, II.2.12): Which when sir Guyon saw, all were he wroth,   Yet algates mote he soft himselfe appease,   And fairely fare on foot, how euer loth.

Thus when Sir Lavayne (the brother of Elayne, the fair maid of Astolat, who is assigned by Malory a role corresponding in part to that of Gauvain in the Charrete) meets up with Sir Launcelot at Mellyagaunce’s castle and mentions the incident of the slain horse, Sir Launcelot passes swiftly over the matter (MD, 1130/13–18). Sir Launcelot is an experienced knight and has by now mastered his earlier and justifiable anger at the loss of his horse in such circumstances. But there are more pressing matters to attend to and he has no time for personal vindictiveness. Nor does Malory overlook the question of Sir Launcelot’s judgment in the choice of horses (far too important a matter for a knight to let go without comment). Thus he contrives that the lady who releases Sir Launcelot from prison for the final combat against Mellyagaunce offers him a choice from among no fewer than twelve horses (MD, 1136/27–33): And anone she gate hym up untyll hys armour, and whan he was armed she brought hym tylle a stable where stoode twelve good coursers, and bade hym to chose of the beste. Than sir Launcelot loked uppon a whyght courser and that lyked hym beste, and anone he commaunded hym to be sadeled with the beste sadyll of warre, and so hit was done.89

In his choice of a stalwart (or, perhaps, white) horse in Malory’s episode,90 Sir Launcelot shows (like Chaucer’s Knight) the good judgment of an experienced and proven warrior. The last trace of imprudence in the original Knight of the Cart has been erased. The distaste for fighting on foot is not confined to the books of romance, but reflects the values of an aristocratic and chivalric age. The French at Crécy prefer to die than dismount, as their chivalric predecessors had died when faced with longbowmen and pikemen at Courtrai

182

Gerald Morgan

(1302), Bannockburn (1314), Morgarten (1315) and Laupen (1339). We must admire their proud warrior-ethos and sense of honour if not their practical wisdom. We can surely applaud with Froissart the chivalry of the blind Jean de Luxembourg, ‘[l]i vaillans et gentilz rois de Behagne’ (Chroniques, III.177.24), dead on the field of battle with his faithful retainers dead around him, and their horses too, tethered together. He had commanded his knights to escort him into the heart of the battle and out of love for his sense of honour and their own they had consented to do so (Chroniques, III.178.17–19; Brereton, p. 89). He is finally recovered from the heaps of the slain by the pillagers, readily identified, like Arcite and Palamon, by his ‘cote-armure’ and his ‘gere’ (KnT, I.1016) (the famous ostrich feathers subsequently adopted by the Black Prince as his shield for peace),91 and on the second day after the battle honourably buried by his English foes.92 Even into the fifteenth century the prestige of the heavy cavalry remains undiminished as the core of every major fifteenth-century army.93 Above all, we cannot doubt that the Knight, humble in bearing and gentle in speech (GP, I.69–71) does not kill the innocent women and children inevitably caught up in the miseries of war, but offers them his protection. In so doing he follows the great example of the humility of Trajan, moved by the supplications of a widow on behalf of her son to attend to the needs of justice in small instances as well as in great. His words to the widow are such as we can imagine on the lips of Chaucer’s Knight himself (Purg., X.91–93; Sinclair, II.135):   ond’ elli: ‘Or ti conforta; ch’ei convene ch’i’ solva il mio dovere anzi ch’i’ mova: giustizia vuole e pietà mi ritene’. He therefore: ‘Now take comfort, for I must fulfil my duty before I go; justice requires it and compassion bids me stay’.

Indeed, Sir Geoffroi de Charny assures us that for a knight to fight in such a cause is sufficient to save his soul (Livre de chevalerie, 35/195–99 and 203–7): Encores, se aucun vouloient oster l’onnour ne l’eritage de povres pucelles ne de povres femmes vesves, et autrement ne les peust l’en destourner de ce sanz guerre ou bataille, l’en y doit entrer seurement et pour les corps et pour les ames sauver, et tout en autele maniere pour povres orphelins et orphelines.

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

183

And again, if some people wanted to seize the land and inheritance of defenseless maidens or widows and could not be dissuaded from this except by war or combat, one ought to embark on this confidently in regard to one’s personal reputation and the saving of one’s soul, and the same is true in relation to the defense of orphans.

The language and chivalric idealism is that of Ramon Llull that had so profound an influence in the later Middle Ages, not only on the theory of knighthood but also on the conduct of knights. It is embodied by Malory in the High Order of Knighthood (an order no doubt much like that of the Garter itself ). Malory associates the phrase of the High Order of Knighthood with the heroic kingship of Arthur in ‘The Tale of King Arthur’, modelled no doubt on such heroic acts as those of Edward III at the time of Crécy (1346) and Henry V at the time of Agincourt (1415). Thus King Pellinor (as it later appears) urges Arthur to joust with him for a third time ‘for the hyghe Order of Knyghthode’ (MD, 50/5–6).94 In ‘The Tale of Sir Launcelot’ Sir Launcelot is indignant that any knight could contemplate or do harm to a lady (MD, 269/22–25): ‘What?’ seyde sir Launcelot, ‘is he a theff and a knyght? And a ravyssher of women? He doth shame unto the Order of Knyghthode, and contrary unto his oth. Hit is pyté that he lyvyth!’

Malory himself gives this knight (unnamed in the French source) a sufficiently churlish name, Sir Perys de Foreste Savage (MD, 270/12), and Sir Launcelot deals him summarily his death-blow (more summarily than in the French source). All the key details of this brief episode have been supplied by Malory and they focus unerringly on Malory’s understanding of the chivalric ideal.95 We may be confident that Chaucer’s Knight will have endorsed sentiments such as these and vindicated them in his own conduct. In other words Chaucer’s Knight takes his place at the centre of a tradition of heroic knighthood and chivalric idealism. The final lines of the portrait of the Knight in the General Prologue and the rhyme on viage/pilgrymage (I.77–78) returns us to the sense of the Knight as a pilgrim (and not merely on one occasion on the road to Canterbury). The Knight’s whole way of life is an expression of devotion to these ideals. His eager presence on the pilgrimage to Canterbury is but one more confirmation of that devotion, for it is a devotion (we must hope) that will last to the end of his days.

184

Gerald Morgan

Notes 1 2

See p. 24 and n. 56 below. Terry Jones, Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980), pp. 58, 86–88 and 260. 3 See John H. Pratt, Chaucer and War (Lanham, MD, New York, and Oxford: University Press of America, Inc., 2000), pp. 116, 124–25 and 146. 4 ‘[A]c hie simle feohtende wæran oþ hie alle lægon butan anum Bryttiscum gisle, ond se swiþe gewundad wæs,/ but they were fighting continuously until they all lay [dead] except for one British hostage, and he was very wounded’ (Mitchell and Robinson, p. 210; Swanton, p. 48). 5 See Adrian Greaves, Rorke’s Drift (London: Cassell, 2002), pp. 99, 118, 187, 209–10 and 319–20. His name is given as Friedrich Carl Schiess in Michael Glover, Rorke’s Drift (Ware: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1997), p. 135. 6 A motif apparently based on the French romance Fierabras or its English version, Sir Ferumbras; see Valerie Krishna, The Alliterative Morte Arthure: A Critical Edition (New York: Burt Franklin & Co., Inc., 1976), pp. 18 and 190–91. 7 Malory remembers Sir Priamus sufficiently well to include him later in the episode of the healing of Sir Urry, albeit confusing him with Sir Palomides in the process (‘sir Pryamus whych was crystynde by the meanys of sir Trystram, the noble knyght’, MD, 1149/18–19) and in the list of noble knights slain during the rescue of the queen from the flames (MD, 1177/24–30). Reference is to The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, edited by Eugène Vinaver, third edition, revised by P. J. C. Field, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). 8 Palomides is unhorsed by Launcelot on three occasions (MD, 517/32–518/4, 744/14–18 and 1110/15–16); Tristram repeatedly demonstrates his superiority (MD, 401/7–9, 408/19, 425/4–5, 442/20–21, etc.); and Lamorak is also clearly the superior knight (MD, 599/28–32, 605/26–35, 660/22–27, etc.). Nevertheless, Palomides gets the better of Gawain, Gaheris, Aggravain and six other knights at the tournament of King Anguysh in Ireland (MD, 386/15–24) and then of Gawain and his three brothers, Mordred, Gaheris and Aggravain in the tournament at Surluse (MD, 662/33–663/8). 9 See Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 147–49 and 224, n. 32; Ian Mortimer, The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006), pp. 109 and 113; and Jonathan Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, third edition (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 81. 10 See Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, pp. 24–25.

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

185

Letter to Cassandra Austen, Monday, 30 January 1809, in Jane Austen’s Letters, edited by Deirdre Le Faye, third edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), No. 67, p. 173. The sentiment is presumably the same as that of Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, Number 44 (Saturday, 18 August 1750), edited by W. J. Bate and Albrecht B. Strauss, The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson, Volumes III-V (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1969), III.241: ‘The christian and the heroe are inseparable; and to the aspirings of unassuming trust, and filial confidence, are set no bounds. To him who is animated with a view of obtaining approbation from the sovereign of the universe, no difficulty is insurmountable’. 12 Pratt points out that the Knight could have been in the field at Poitiers, although his presence at Crécy and Nájera would be more difficult to account for (Chaucer and War, pp. 146–47). We might perhaps imagine him returning from Algeçiras with Henry of Grosmont, Earl of Derby, and William Montagu, 1st Earl of Salisbury, in the autumn of 1343. 13 According to the scheme adopted by Dante in the Convivio the four ages of life are adolescence (adolescenzia), the period of life up to twenty-five, youth (gioventute), the period from twenty-five to forty-five, old age (senettute), the period from forty-five to seventy, and senility (senio), the remaining years of life, most fittingly from seventy to eighty (Convivio, IV.xxiv.1–7). Thus Beatrice dies as she is on the threshold of youth at the age of twenty-four ((Purg., XXX.124–25). And the narrative of the Commedia begins at the precise mid-point of the dreamer’s active life in the world (Inf., I.1, and Purg., XXXII.1–2; see Psalm, 89/90.10). 14 Convivio, IV.xxvii.2; Ryan, p. 192: ‘E dice che l’anima nobile ne la senetta sì è prudente, sì è giusta, sì è larga, e allegra di dir bene in prode d’altrui e d’udire quello, cioè che è affabile. E veramente queste quattro vertudi a questa etade sono convenientissime,/ It declares that in old age the noble soul is prudent and just and generous, and it takes pleasure in praising excellence to the benefit of others and in hearing this done – it is, in short, affable. These four virtues are indeed most fitting in this stage’. 15 Sir William Montagu (1301–1344), 1st Earl of Salisbury, was a close friend of the young Edward III and took a leading part in the coup of 19 October 1330 at Nottingham Castle when Roger Mortimer (1287–1330), the Earl of March, was seized. He served regularly in the Scottish wars in 1333–1338, distinguishing himself at the siege of Berwick in 1333. He became Earl of Salisbury as one of six new comital creations in preparation for the war against France in parliament on 16 March 1337 and in 1338 succeeded the king’s uncle, Thomas of Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk, as Marshal of England. He died on 30 January 1344 of wounds received in Edward III’s tournament at Windsor shortly after his return from Castile. Hence he is not to be confused, as by Hugh E. L. Collins, The Order of 11

186

Gerald Morgan

the Garter 1348–1461: Chivalry and Politics in Late Medieval England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), pp. 8 and 325, with his son, also William Montagu (1328–1397), 2nd Earl of Salisbury, who was at Crécy and was one of the founderknights of the Order of the Garter and married (a.10 February 1341) as his first wife Joan of Kent (c.1328–1385), a marriage that was annulled on 17 November 1349 in the light of the claim by Thomas Holland, Montagu’s steward, of a prior clandestine marriage between Joan and himself c.1339. See ODNB, 38.773–75 and 38.775–77. 16 See Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 103–5. 17 Robinson, p. 652. 18 Jeanne Krochalis, ‘ “And riden in Belmarye”: Chaucer’s General Prologue, Line 57’, ANQ, 18 (2005), 3–8. 19 On Belmarye as a possible name for Almeria, see Krochalis, pp. 4–7. 20 See Atlas of Medieval Europe, edited by Angus Mackay with David Ditchburn (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), p. 183, and also Kenneth Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, Volume I (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2001), Map 6, ‘The Iberian kingdoms in the fourteenth century’, p. 156. 21 Sir Hugh Calveley (d.1394) was the son of David Calveley and his first wife, Joan. He served in the wars of succession in Brittany (1341–1364) on the side of Jean de Montfort (d.1345) against the French claimant, Charles de Blois. He was twice taken prisoner, in 1351 and 1354. He was at Poitiers in 1356, and with the Navarrese forces in Normandy from 1358 to 1359 and in the Auvergne in 1359. At the end of 1360 or early in 1361 he took du Guesclin prisoner in a combat on the bridge of Juigné-sur-Sarthe. In 1362 he commanded a contingent of men-atarms in the army of Pedro I of Castile in support of Mohammed V, the deposed King of Granada, in his war against Abu Saïd. He was present at the Battle of Auray on 29 September 1364 on the side of Jean IV de Montfort (1339–1399) which brought an end to the succession dispute in Brittany. He was recalled by the Black Prince to Aquitaine on the renewal of hostilities against France in 1369. He entered the service of John of Gaunt in 1371 and was present on Gaunt’s chevauchée of 1373. He was appointed Captain of Calais (1375–1378), admiral of the fleet in the west (1379–1380) and Captain of Brest (1379–1381) along with Sir Thomas Percy. In 1380 he commanded a contingent of 200 men-at-arms and 200 archers in the vanguard of the Earl of Buckingham’s expedition from Calais to the outskirts of Rheims and in 1383 was on another ill-fated expedition in the Bishop of Norwich’s crusade to Flanders (his last campaign). He was knight of the shire twice for Rutland in 1385 and 1390. He had inherited his father’s estate of Lea on the death of David’s second wife, Mabel, in 1361. He died on 23 April 1394, possibly in Guernsey. See ODNB, 9.565–68.

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

187

22 On the composition of the army raised by du Guesclin, Calveley, Eustache d’Aubrécicourt and Gourderon de Raymont (Lord of Aubeterre in Saintonge) in 1365, see Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, I.149–50. Present in Calveley’s contingent was Sir Stephen de Cossington, one of the two marshals (the other was Guichard d’Angle) in the vanguard with John of Gaunt and Sir John Chandos at Nájera. 23 Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, I.125–26. 24 Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, I.147–48 and n. 106, and 182. 25 Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, I.148, 170 and 180. In the event, when Henry of Trastámara reached Seville at the end of May 1366 (where he remained until September) he made a truce with the King of Granada (Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, I.185). 26 Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, I.10–11 and n. 38, 147 and 170. 27 Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, I.173, and n. 56. Although the precise origins and identity of Eustace d’Aubrécicourt remain somewhat obscure he was clearly well known to Chaucer. He was a Hainaulter descended from Nicholas, sire d’Aubrécicourt, who had come with John of Hainault to England in support of the coup of Mortimer and Isabella that resulted in the marriage of Philippa, daughter of William of Hainault, to Edward III in 1328. His son, Sanchet (? died 1349, but identified by some with Eustache himself ) is a founder-knight of the Order of the Garter and a life-retainer of Edward III (Collins, The Order of the Garter, pp. 14 n. 33, 54, 121 and 289). Eustache d’Aubrécicourt is at Poitiers in 1356 and in the immediately following years the leader of a company in Champagne and Brie. He is present on the Rheims campaign of 1359–1360 and at the signing of the convention of Calais in 1360 confirming the treaty of Brétigny. On 29 September 1360 he married Isabelle (? Elizabeth) of Juliers, a niece of Queen Philippa, as her second husband. He was retained by Charles of Navarre in 1364, but enrolled by du Guesclin for the campaign to Castile and Granada in 1365 before reverting to his former allegiance. He was present at Auray in 1364 with Chandos, in the main Battle of the Black Prince at Nájera in 1367, and at the siege of Limoges in 1370. He died at Carentan in December 1372 (? 1373). See Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, I.4, 22, 104–5, 175–76 and 199, and David Green, The Battle of Poitiers 1356 (Stroud: Tempus Publishing Ltd, 2002), pp. 98–99. He was the uncle of Sir John Dabridgecourt, a life-retainer of John of Gaunt and Henry IV, who was elected KG under Henry V in 1413 (Collins, The Order of the Garter, pp. 49, 54, 122–23 and 293; Anthony Goodman, John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe (New York: 1992), pp. 179 and 236 n. 27). A Nicholas (Collardus) Daubrichecourt was Chaucer’s fellow esquire in the household of Edward III at Christmas 1368, at the time of

188

Gerald Morgan

the death of Queen Philippa in 1369 and also in the period up to 1377 (Crow and Olson, pp. 43 n. 5, 95 and 98–102). 28 Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, I.146–48. 29 See William Caferro, John Hawkwood: An English Mercenary in FourteenthCentury Italy (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), p. 333. 30 Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, I.145–46. Sir Robert Knolles (d.1407), probably son of Richard, of yeoman stock from Tushingham in the parish of Malpas, Cheshire, was the long-time brother-in-arms of Sir Hugh Calveley. He was in Brittany with Calveley at the siege of La Roche-Derrien in 1346 and in the Battle of the Thirty on 26 March 1351 (between two teams à l’outrance) after which both were taken prisoner. He made his fortune in Brittany in the early 1350s under the allegiance of Edward III and his ward, John de Montfort. He made raiding expeditions in Orléannais and Auvergne in 1358–1359 and captured Auxerre on 10 March 1359. He was in Savoy and Italy with Hawkwood in 1361 and at Auray in 1364. He fought on the left wing at Nájera in 1367 before returning to Brittany. By this time he had acquired manors in Norfolk to which he eventually retired. He was on a series of unsuccessful chevauchées to Northern France, in 1370 (when he held command), under Buckingham in 1380 and under the Bishop of Norwich in 1383. He was with the king, Richard II, at Mile End on 14 June 1381. He died at Sculthorpe, his chief Norfolk manor, on 15 August 1407. He was the most famous English professional soldier of The Hundred Years War, described by Walsingham as ‘a most invincible knight’ (St Albans Chronicle, 22). See ODNB, 31.952–57. 31 Antalya was founded by and named after Attalus II of Pergamon, c.158 b.c. and was in Byzantine hands until the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204); see The Cilician Kingdom of Armenia, edited by T. S. R. Boase (Edinburgh and London: Scottish Academic Press, 1978), p. 153. The form Satalye (Satalia) with initial ‘s’ for Attal(e) ia/Adalia is to be explained as the result of the survival of the Greek preposition. See W. B. Sedgwick, ‘Satalye (Chaucer, C. T. Prol. 58)’, RES, 2 (1926), 346. 32 Ayas/Lajazzo in Cilician Armenia was a seaport on the western side of the Gulf of Alexandretta (not in fact close to Antioch/Antakya, on the eastern side of the gulf, inland and further south), fortified with a land and sea (island) castle, although after 1337 all the fortifications were destroyed. The form Lyeys with initial ‘l’ for Ayas(h/i) results from the presence of the French definite article. See Palmer, PA, p. 446. 33 Son and heir of William de Bohun, 1st Earl of Northampton, succeeding him as 2nd Earl of Northampton on 16 September 1360 and succeeding his uncle as Earl of Hereford and Essex and Constable of England on 15 October 1361. He

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

189

was a friend of John of Gaunt and elected Knight of the Garter in December 1364 at the young age of twenty-two (see Collins, The Order of the Garter, pp. 72, 73 n. 162 and 290). He died without a male heir on 16 January 1373, leaving his two daughters as co-heirs; the elder, Eleanor de Bohun, who married Thomas of Woodstock (youngest son of Edward III) and the younger, Mary de Bohun (d. 1394), who married Henry of Bolingbroke (later Henry IV). See The Complete Peerage, edited by Vicary Gibbs and others, second edition, 13 vols in 14 parts (London: The St Catherine Press, 1910–1959; reprinted in 6 vols, Stroud: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000), VI.473–77, and Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 277. 34 See John Matthews Manly, ‘A Knight Ther Was’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 38 (1907), 89–107, reprinted in Chaucer: Modern Essays in Criticism, edited by Edward Wagenknecht, pp. 46–59 (p. 58), and Maurice Keen, ‘Chaucer’s Knight’, pp. 108–10. 35 See Jones, Chaucer’s Knight, pp. 42–49. 36 See Peter W. Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191–1374 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 161–71 and Boase, The Cilician Kingdom of Armenia, p. 155. 37 See Francis Petrarch, Letters of Old Age: Rerum senilium libri, I-XVIII, translated by Aldo S. Bernardo, Saul Levin and Reta A. Bernardo, 2 vols (Baltimore, MD and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), I.302–3 and Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 118–19. 38 See Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus, pp. 171–75. 39 Peter’s wife, Eleanor of Aragon, took the opportunity of the war with Genoa to pursue her vendetta against John, Prince of Antioch, and, in 1375, inviting him to a feast, had him assassinated on the presentation of Peter I’s bloodstained shirt in the best approved manner of a Ptolemy, thus making finally secure the inheritance of her son, who ruled Cyprus as Peter II (1369–1382). See Norman Housley, The Later Crusades, 1274–1580: From Lyons to Alcazar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 194–95 and Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus, pp. 174, 198–99, 201–4 and 206. 40 See New Catholic Encyclopedia, second edition (2003), 13.840–44. 41 See Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, pp. 30 and 94. 42 See Atlas of Medieval Europe, pp. 98 and 100. The power of the Teutonic Order was eventually broken on 15 July 1410 at the Battle of Tannenberg (Grunwald) by a Polish-Lithuanian army under Jagiello and Vytautas. 43 See NCE, second edition (2003), 8.603–5 and Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 142–44. 44 See William Urban, ‘When was Chaucer’s Knight in “Ruce” ’, ChR, 18 (1984), 347–53 and Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 111–12.

190

Gerald Morgan

45 See Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 105–7 and 111. 46 See MED, s.v. bord n. 4b. (d) biginnen the ~, ‘to sit at the head of the table’. 47 See MED, s.v. ever-mo(r adv. 1a. ‘At all times, on all occasions, under all circumstances; every or each time, on every or each occasion’; soverain adj. 1. (b) ‘of something, a quality, virtue, an act, office, etc.: principal, paramount, supreme, chief; highest; greatest, most notable, foremost of its kind; excellent’, and pris n. (1) 9. (a) ‘Fame, renown; good reputation; … soverain ~, sterling reputation’. 48 See ODNB, 49.555, Keen, ‘Chaucer’s Knight’, pp. 108, 109, 110 and 177, Manly, ‘A Knight Ther Was’, p. 58 and Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 14, 84 and 129. 49 So Collins, The Order of the Garter, pp. 67 and 105. 50 See Muriel Bowden, A Commentary on the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, second edition (New York and London: Macmillan, 1967), pp. 63–66 and Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 125–26. 51 See F. R. H Du Boulay, ‘Henry of Derby’s Expeditions to Prussia 1390–1 and 1392’, in The Reign of Richard II: Essays in Honour of May McKisack, edited by F. R. H. Du Boulay and Caroline M. Barron (London: The Athlone Press, 1971), pp. 153–72. 52 Le Livre de chevalerie, 40/28–30 and 40/29–31, pp. 176–77, and 9/13–15 and 9/14–16, pp. 90–91. 53 Keen, ‘Chaucer’s Knight’, p. 110. 54 Walakye is Wallachia in Romania and Tartarye is perhaps Outer Mongolia; see the note in The Riverside Chaucer, p. 974. There is a suggestion of the exotic here which is not to be found in the portrait of the Knight. 55 Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 114–15. The suggestion makes us aware (yet again) of the difficulty involved in the identification of persons and places (sometimes identical names of persons and places). 56 Keen, ‘Chaucer’s Knight’, pp. 114–19. 57 Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 113–14. 58 Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, pp. xi–xii and 16–22. 59 Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, pp. 4–5. 60 See MED, s.v. viage n. (a) ‘A journey by land or sea; a pilgrimage; a journey of adventure; the journey and sojourn of an ambassador’ and (b) ‘a military expedition; a martial undertaking’. 61 Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, p. 2. 62 See ODNB, 17.755–60. 63 See Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, pp. 53–55. 64 Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, pp. 2–4. 65 Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, pp. 7–8 and 58. 66 Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, pp. 9 and 55–56.

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

191

67 See MED, s.v. mercenari(e n. ‘A hireling, one who has no interest in anything except his pay’. This is the first recorded use of the word in English by many years. 68 See Du Boulay, ‘Henry of Derby’s Expeditions’, pp. 168–69, Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 110–11 and Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, pp. 72–73. 69 See Collins, The Order of the Garter, p. 297. 70 ‘Adonc prisent li princes et li rois dans Piètres qui là estoit, la banière entre leurs mains, et le desvolepèrent, qui estoit d’argent à un peu aguisiet de geules, et li rendirent par le hanste, en disant ensi: “Tenés, messire Jehan, veci vostre baniere …” ’ (Chroniques, VII.34.27–31). See Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 157–58. 71 See MED, s.v. squier n. 1. (a) ‘An aspirant to knighthood in the feudal military system; an esquire or a personal servant attendant upon a knight; a soldier below the rank of a knight’ and 2.(a) ‘A member of the landowning class next below the rank of a knight; the son of a knight’ and bacheler n. 1. (a) ‘A young man, a youth’, 2. ‘An aspirant to knighthood; a novice in arms, a squire’ and 4. (a) ‘A knight in the social scale, ranking just below the hereditary nobleman’ and (b) ‘a knight belonging to the lower of the two ranks of knights; a knight bachelor (as distinguished from a knight banneret)’ and Pratt, Chaucer and War, p. 158. 72 See Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, pp. 5–6 and 9. 73 See Torquato Tasso: Jerusalem Delivered, introduced by Roberto Weiss (London: Centaur Press Ltd, 1962), p. xvii. 74 See Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, pp. 11–14. 75 MED, s.v. reisen v. (2) ‘To make a military expedition; also, journey, travel’. Only two examples of this verb are supplied. See also MED, s.v. reis n. ‘A journey; also, a military expedition’ (rare), and Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 83–84. 76 MED, s.v. chevauche n. (b) ‘a cavalry expedition or raid’. This is a word that first appears in the late fourteenth century. It is used ironically by Chaucer in reference to the Cook’s horsemanship: ‘a fair chyvachee of a cook’ (MancProl, IX.50). 77 See MED, s.v. arme(e n. (b) ‘a military expedition (by land or sea)’ and Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 84–85. 78 See Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 114, 116 and 123. 79 See MED, s.v. batail(le) n. 2a. (a) ‘A hostile encounter between two armies, a battle’ and 3. ‘A body of warriors, esp. as ready for battle; an army or a division of it; troop, company, battalion’ and mortal adj. 2a. (b) ‘of armed conflict, weapons: mortal, deadly’ and Pratt, Chaucer and War, pp. 85–95. 80 See MED, s.v. list(e n. (2) 5. (c) ‘usually pl.: an enclosed area used for military exercises, jousting, etc.; lists, arena; area of combat, battlefield; … in listes, in the lists, in combat, in battle’.

192

Gerald Morgan

81 Jones, Chaucer’s Knight, pp. 76–77 and 81–86. 82 The Mort Artu refers simply to a ‘grant compaignie … de chevaliers’ (p. 91) and Le Morte Arthur to ‘I and other xii knyghtes kene/ Full preuely we shall vs dyght’ (1756–57). See MD, III.1630 and J. D. Bruce, Le Morte Arthur, EETS (ES) 88 (London: Oxford University Press, 1903). 83 Sir Petypace is one of two knights (anonymous in the French source) defeated in quick succession by Sir Torre (MD, 109/14–110/11), is on Arthur’s side in the tournament at Castle Perilous (MD, 344/26), overthrowing Sir Sadok (MD, 347/8–9) and is listed among the knights in the healing of Sir Urry (MD, 1148/15–16). Sir Melyon is also to be found in the healing of Sir Urry (MD, 1148/16–17) and is probably to be identified with the Sir Melyon de Tartare who acts as a messenger for Sir Bors to Arthur and Guinevere (MD, 808/33–809/14). Sir Grummor and Sir Grummorson are ‘two noble knyghtes of Scotlond’ (MD, 343/27–28) among the knights of the castle in the tournament at Castle Perilous. They are both struck down by Sir Torre (MD, 346/22–24). They appear together in the healing of Sir Urry (MD, 1148/18–19). Sir Cursesalyne makes his appearance only here, but is probably identical with the ‘sir Crosseleme’ (MD, 1148/19) of the healing of Sir Urry. 84 See MED, s.v. sotilte n. 4.(a) ‘Trickery, guile, craftiness; dissembling, deceit’. 85 See Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, I.268–76. 86 See MED, s.v. ransaken v. (c) ‘to plunder; plunder (sb. or sth.), ransack; rob (sb.), steal (sth.)’; tas(se n. (2) (a) ‘A heap, pile, stack; also, a heap of slain bodies, a stack of hay, a pile of money’; harneis n. sg. & pl. 1. (a) ‘Personal fighting equipment, body armor; also, armor and weapons’; wede n. (2) (c) ‘an article of protective clothing or battle apparel; a coat of mail; a piece of armor’; pilour n. (1) 1. (a) ‘A plunderer, pillager, despoiler; … one who strips the slain in battle; a robber, thief ’ and discomfiture n. 1. (a) ‘The fact of being defeated, defeat’. 87 This episode is not to be found in the French Mort Artu, but is derived from the stanzaic Le Morte Arthur, 3416–29. See MD, III.1651. 88 The reference to ‘pyllours in batayles’ (MD, 667/24) is not in the French source; see MD, III.1507. Caxton reads: ‘for all battles on foot are but pillers’ battles’ (MD, X.48, II.93). Reference to Caxton’s text (1485) is to the edition of Janet Cowen, Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte D’Arthur, Penguin Classics, 2 vols (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969). 89 The Lancelot of Le Chevalier de la Charrete is not offered such a choice on the two separate occasions when he is released from imprisonment, first by the seneschal’s wife for the tournament at Noauz (Charrete, 5498–501) and second by Bademagu’s daughter, the sister of Meleagant, in Godefroi de Leigni’s conclusion to the romance (Charrete, 6700–704).

7  The Campaigns of Chaucer’s Knight

193

90 See MED, s.v. wight adj. 1. (c) ‘physically powerful; stout, stalwart’ and 2. (a) ‘Swift, fast; also, nimble, agile’. 91 Boutell’s Heraldry, pp. 77 and 165. 92 See Froissart, Chroniques, III.190.31–191.9; Brereton, p. 95 and Mortimer, The Perfect King, pp. 241, 243 and 245. 93 See 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. 100–101. 94 The phrase is not in the French source; see MD, III.1301. See also MD, 46/24– 47/6 (Sir Gryfflet) and III.1299–1300. 95 See MD, III.1420.

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale: The Book of the Duke

  Or ti conforta; ch’ei convene ch’i’ solva il mio dovere anzi ch’i’ mova: giustizia vuole e pietà mi ritene’. ‘Now take comfort, for I must fulfil my duty before I go; justice requires it and compassion bids me stay.’ — dante, Purgatorio, X.91–93; Sinclair, II.135 To be called a knyght is fair, for men shul knele to hym; To be called a kyng is fairer, for he may knyghtes make; Ac to be conquerour called, þat comeþ of special grace, And of hardynesse of herte and of hendenesse. — langland, Piers Plowman, B XIX.28–31 When Theseus with werres longe and grete The aspre folk of Cithe had overcome, With laurer corouned, in his char gold-bete, Hom to his contre-houses is he come, For which the peple, blisful al and somme, So cryëden that to the sterres hit wente, And him to honouren dide al her entente. — chaucer, Anelida and Arcite, 22–28

Introduction I.  The textual difficulties of the Canterbury Tales (if not on the scale of Piers Plowman) and more particularly the problems in determining the relation of the various fragments to one another may lead us to overlook

196

Gerald Morgan

or underestimate the degree to which Chaucer has brought towards completion his comic masterpiece. Indeed it is evident from a recent essay by Robert Meyer-Lee that scholars have created fragments where no fragmentation is to be found in the original text.1 Thus the General Prologue presents the pilgrim narrators within a regular and indeed schematic structure embracing social, moral and spiritual ideas.2 The Knight comes first on the social and moral scales and perhaps also (if we are to believe Sir Geoffroi de Charny) on the spiritual scale as well.3 Social distinction is thus wedded to moral virtue in the Knight at the top and covetousness is disguised in the hypocrisy of the Pardoner at the bottom.4 The pilgrimage to Canterbury is a sober reckoning of these values in the light of the judgment to come (Summoner) and the mercy that we may all hope will accompany it (Pardoner). We may not have a collection of 120 tales (surely more than we can reasonably ask even from a poet of monumental ambition and sublime genius), but the tales that have come down to us within their various fragments reveal the same social, moral and spiritual patterning that is explicit in the structure of the General Prologue. The Knight again (and fittingly again) comes first with his philosophical romance drawn from the Thebaid and Teseida, the epic poems of Statius and Boccaccio, and illuminated by the De consolatione philosophiae of Boethius, that great luminary placed by Dante as the eighth spirit in the first circle of the wise in the sphere of the Sun ‘che ’l mondo fallace/ fa manifesto a chi di lei ben ode,/ who makes plain the world’s deceitfulness to one that hears him rightly’ (Paradiso, X.125–26; Sinclair, III.153). And fittingly also the Parson’s Tale comes last, a sober and systematic penitential manual based on the Summa de paenitentia (c.1225–1227) of Raymund of Pennaforte and the Summa de vitiis (c.1236) of William Peraldus, both Dominicans. Such sources are eminently traditional and orthodox works, fulfilling the intention of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) in instructing the laity in matters that pertain to the salvation of the soul.5 The choices of the Knight’s Tale and the Parson’s Tale at the beginning and end of the Canterbury Tales (and especially the latter) will not always (or even perhaps often) commend themselves to modern readers, but there can be no denying the logic and coherence of Chaucer’s grand design (no doubt his revised design). Fragment I (A) and the nonexistent Fragments IV and V (E and F) are clearly organised in terms of

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

197

the disposition of tellers as may be verified by reference to the General Prologue itself. The Clerk, Merchant, Squire and Franklin all belong to a comparable level of gentility in medieval society, provided we do not make too much of the Squire and too little of the Franklin. Fragment I is built around a sustained contrast between the manners of the highest and lowest social orders. As we understand more of what lies before us (in eight not ten fragments) we shall undoubtedly perceive greater elements of unity in the design of the whole. In the present article I address myself to one element in this design, namely, the issue of justice and mercy subtly suggested in the portraits of Summoner and Pardoner by way of corruption at the end of the General Prologue and taken up positively at the beginning of the Knight’s Tale in the figure of Theseus as knight, lord and conqueror. Chaucer’s opening argument requires a sympathetic insight into the social structures and moral ideals of medieval chivalry such as has been too frequently lacking in the past generation of scholars (unduly influenced no doubt by the destructive criticism of Terry Jones).6 A tale told by a knight who has been in the field for forty years and more will be informed by the long experience of war and of many battles won and lost at the hazard of changing and unpredictable circumstances.7 This military experience is profoundly transformative and produces sober and reflective habits of mind not readily impressed or swayed by the gusts of passion that can wreak havoc in the lives of squires, however brave they themselves may also be in battle. Hence the Knight’s Tale, unlike the Squire’s Tale, addresses itself not primarily to romantic love (although such love cannot be excluded from a whole view of life) but to the great issues of war and peace and, underlying them, to justice.

The Tyrant Creon and the Just and Merciful Theseus II.  The background to the Knight’s Tale is the disastrous expedition of the Seven against Thebes and the consequent emergence of Creon as the tyrant of Thebes, and we need to understand (as Chaucer does) the elements of this story (not much amenable to alteration) if we are to understand

198

Gerald Morgan

Chaucer’s (not the Knight’s) abbreviated version of it.8 The expedition of the Greeks or Lerneans (Statius is fond of the variety of personal names) in support of Polynices (Tes., II.10) is occasioned by the perfidious wickedness of the tyrannical Eteocles towards his brother: ‘[l]a perfida nequizia del tiranno/figliuol d’Edippo,/ [t]he deceitful wickedness of the tyrannical son of Oedipus’ (Tes., II.29.1–2; Havely, 109). But the end to the fratricidal strife of Eteocles and Polynices is a catastrophe for Thebans and Greeks alike. Not only do Eteocles and Polynices die from their wounds, but Amphiaraus, Tydeus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus and Capaneus have also been killed and Adrastus had fled to Argos (Tes., II.11). Thebes is at the mercy of Creon who invades it and establishes himself as king and ruler (‘re e signore’, Tes., II.12.4) ‘per fiera crudelità da lui usata,/ mai da nullo altro davanti pensata,/ by means of a savage cruelty that no-one before him had ever contemplated’ (Tes., II.12.7–8; Havely, 107). His cruelty is manifested above all in his refusal of honourable burial to the Greeks slain before Thebes, leaving those not devoured by wild beasts to corrupt and putrefy unburied: ‘’mputridir lasciava/ lor sozzamente sanza sepoltura,/ left unburied to corrupt and putrefy’ (Tes., II.13.6–7; Havely, 107). Evadne, wife of Capaneus, describes ‘l’aspra tirannia,/ the harsh tyranny’ (Tes., II.30.7; Havely, 109) of Creon in preventing the wives from burying their husbands. He is ‘[i]l perfido Creon,/ treacherous Creon’ (Tes., II.31.1; Havely, 109). The contrast between the tyrannical Creon and the just and merciful Theseus is central to the sources of the Knight’s Tale, the Thebaid of Statius as well as the Teseida of Boccaccio, and there is not the slightest piece of evidence to suggest that Chaucer wishes to modify the action of his own poem in this respect. Indeed in Anelida and Arcite as well (perhaps composed in the late 1370s) we are told that after the deaths of Eteocles and Polynices Creon ‘held the cite’ of Thebes ‘by his tyrannye’, albeit supported by ‘the gentils of that regioun’ and ‘noble folk’ drawn to Thebes ‘what for love of him and what for awe’ (Anel., 66–70). In the Knight’s Tale Chaucer not only reproduces the description of Creon as a tyrant but also strengthens those elements of pity and the love of justice that define the character of Theseus as a conqueror. The view of Theseus himself as a tyrant, espoused in unqualified terms by Terry Jones, is a misreading encouraged by the prior misreading of the Knight as a mercenary without morals or scruples.

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

199

In fact Theseus’s love of justice matches that of the Knight of the General Prologue and is indeed a preeminent sign of the wisdom that Chaucer highlights in the one case as in the other (GP, I.68 and KnT, I.865). The fictional presence of the faithful and honourable Knight as teller lends credibility (and is surely intended to lend credibility) to the justice of Theseus within the tale. Teseo is drawn to battle against Creon in the first place through Evadne’s appeal to him as ‘pio signore,/ merciful lord’ (Tes., II.32.5; Havely, 109) to take pity on the widows denied the justice of the honourable burial of their lords: ‘a questo punto sie pietoso,/ take pity upon us now’ (Tes., II.33.2; Havely, 109). In supporting their cause Teseo will be doing what virtue requires of him: ‘ciò che uom virtuoso/ de’ far, farai,/ you will be doing what every virtuous man should do’ (Tes., II.33.4–5; Havely, 109). Teseo is fortified by the injustice of Creon’s cause (and hence of the justice of his own): ‘e io son già di vittoria sicuro,/ non tanto avendo in mie forze fidanza,/ quanto mi dà di Creon la fallanza,/ And I am already confident in victory, trusting not so much in my own strength as in the injustice of Creon’s cause’ (Tes., II.39.6–8; Havely, 110). The Athenian host in the field is inspired by the thought of ‘le pietose/ donne ch’avean vedute lagrimando,/ the pitiable ladies whom they had seen weeping’ (Tes., II.68.5–6). The issue is effectively determined by single combat to the death between Creon and Teseo (Tes., II.59–60), much in the manner of the Knight of the General Prologue in his ‘mortal batailles’ and three judicial duels to the death (I.61–63). When lives are at stake in this way the issue of justice is all-important. Hence Boccaccio reassures us repeatedly that Teseo is ‘il buon Teseo’ (Tes., II.53.1 and 56.1) and as such is distinguished in a pointed opposition: ‘Creon e ‘l buon Teseo’ (Tes., II.58.8). Spenser uses a similar method to clarify the balance of good and evil in the combat between the Red Cross Knight and Sansjoy: ‘So th’one for wrong, the other striues for right’ (Faerie Qveene, I.5.8–9).9 The style is so emphatic since the distinction of right and wrong is not an issue to be confounded. Thus Teseo addresses the dying Creon as: ‘O fier tiranno …/ ora sarà tuo fallo conosciuto,/ O proud tyrant … now will your sin be known’ (Tes., II.61.2, 4). The justice of Teseo’s cause is vindicated above all by a decisive victory (Tes., II.67–70). It is in marked contrast to the great defeat of the wretched

200

Gerald Morgan

army of the Argives before Thebes in support of Polynices: ‘degli Argivi lo ‘nfelice/ esercitò … al suo gran danno,/ … davanti Tebe’ (Tes., II.29.4–5, 7; Havely, 109). Indeed, after victory over Creon is granted to him Theseus remains the ‘buon Teseo’ (Tes., II.72).

Kings, Queens, Princes and Dukes III.  Chaucer begins his tale not, as Boccaccio does, with love, but with chivalry, that is, with prowess in arms. Theseus is distinguished by ‘his wysdom and his chivalrie’ (I.865). He is not merely a duke, but ‘this noble duc’ (I.873). For Chaucer the title of Duke has a special resonance and stands at the head of the hierarchy of lords: Duke, Marquess, Earl, Baron, Knight Banneret (the Knight of the General Prologue in all likelihood) and Knight Bachelor. This is a hierarchy that has come to be defined in these terms only during and after the reign of Edward III (1327–1377), for up until then the English contented themselves with the title of earl. Dukes first appear with the onset of the Hundred Years War (and no doubt in imitation of the French practice) when Edward of Woodstock, Earl of Chester, was created Duke of Cornwall on 9 February 1337. I am not aware that he was ever known throughout his life as the Duke of Cornwall, for in 1343 he was also created Prince of Wales and is known to history as the Black Prince, being so described by Froissart and the Chandos Herald. In the parliament of 1351 Henry of Grosmont was raised from Earl to Duke of Lancaster as a special mark of royal favour. His younger daughter, Blanche, married John of Gaunt, then Earl of Richmond, fourth son of Edward III, on 20 May 1359 and on the death of her father in 1361 and of her elder sister Maud, Countess of Leicester, brought him the whole of the Lancastrian inheritance. Lionel of Antwerp, the third son of Edward III, becomes Duke of Clarence on the same day (13 November 1362) as his younger brother became Duke of Lancaster in order to preserve the hierarchy of birth, although the title of Clarence never matches that of Lancaster. Lionel died without sons in Piedmont on 17 October 1368 and his title

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

201

became extinct until revived in favour of Thomas of Lancaster, second son of Henry IV, in 1412. Edmund of Langley, the fifth son of Edward III, Earl of Cambridge (13 November 1362), became the first Duke of York on 6 August 1385 and on the same day Thomas of Woodstock, the seventh (but fifth surviving) son of Edward III, Earl of Buckingham (1377), became Duke of Gloucester. To this exclusive list of English dukes we may add their brother-in-law, Jean IV de Montfort (husband of Mary, the fourth daughter of Edward III), Duke of Brittany (1364–1399) after the death of Charles de Blois at Auray (29 September 1364). Here, then, we have the topmost rank of the upper nobility as it had evolved in England by the time Chaucer came to write the Knight’s Tale and as it was intimately known by Chaucer, first as a page in the household of Lionel of Antwerp (1357–1360) and subsequently as a squire (from 1367) in the household of Edward III himself. Whereas in the General Prologue we go no higher in the social order than that of Knight Banneret, in the Knight’s Tale we are allowed to view conduct from the perspective of the highest nobility. Chaucer draws on his experience of the lives of ‘dukes, erles, kynges’ (I.2182) to pinpoint these important distinctions of noble rank again and again. He describes in the process the world that is familiar to him and to his audience at court. Boccaccio tells us in his rubric to Teseida II.49–53 ‘come Teseo andò contra Creonte, re di Tebe’, but Chaucer places this important fact in the body of his text: ‘Creon, which that was of Thebes kyng’ (I.986). Palamon is supported in the tournament by ‘Lygurge hymself, the grete kyng of Trace’ (I.2129).10 On the other side Arcite is supported by ‘[t]he grete Emetreus, the kyng of Inde’ (I.2156; a name not to be found in either the Thebaid or the Teseida), and ‘[a]boute this kyng ther ran on every part/ Ful many a tame leon and leopart’ (I.2185–86). Both these kings are at the centre of the action of the tournament at its decisive moment. ‘The stronge kyng Emetreus gan hente/ This Palamon’ (I.2638–39) as he fights with Arcite. ‘The stronge kyng Lygurge is born adoun’ (I.2644) in attempting the rescue of Palamon, while ‘kyng Emetreus, for al his strengthe,/ Is born out of his sadel a swerdes lengthe,/ So hitte him Palamoun er he were take’ (I.2645–47). These are kings at the height of their prowess as knights in battle, not old and enfeebled. Lygurge’s beard was ‘[b]lak … and manly

202

Gerald Morgan

was his face’ (I.2130) and Emetreus was ‘[o]f fyve and twenty yeer his age I caste’ (I.2172), the age (within a year or so) of the Black Prince at Poitiers on 19 September 1356. We expect medieval kings to be found in the thickest part of the mêlée of battle. Edward III was only twenty as he stood in the vanguard at Halidon Hill on 19 July 1333.11 Arthur, the young king of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is a mettlesome and fearless warrior (SGGK, 85–106 and 250–78) and none the less to be admired for that. The opening lines of the Knight’s Tale briefly rehearse (though not without significant repetition) Theseus’s conquest of the Amazons, the subject matter of the first book of the Teseida, and how he ‘weddede the queene Ypolita’ (I.868). She is presented approvingly as ‘Ypolita,/ The faire, hardy queene of Scithia’ (I.881–82).12 Chaucer has removed the note of criticism of the Amazons that we find in Boccaccio’s Sonetto at the head of Book I. The eldest of the ladies who petitions Theseus on his return to Athens was ‘whilom wyf to kyng Cappaneus’ (I.932) (Boccaccio has simply ‘Isposa fui di Campaneo’, Tes., II.28.5). None of the ladies on whose behalf she speaks ‘ne hath been a duchesse or a queene’ (I.923). Boccaccio refers to them as ‘di re … moglie o madre o suora/ o figlia,/ wife or mother or sister or daughter of kings’ (Tes., II.28.7–8; McCoy, 58). Chaucer adds to the dignity of the petitioning ladies by giving them their own status or rank, not merely their relation to a king. One might think here of the presence at the English court of Joan, suo jure countess of Kent, Dowager Princess of Wales from 1376 and from 1377 to her death on 14 August 1385 mother of the king, Richard II. Indeed a livery of mourning is granted to Chaucer on 10 September 1385.13 Ypolita is treated with circumstantial respect throughout the poem as queen, even though she is married to a duke. When Theseus departs for Thebes he ‘sente anon Ypolita the queene,/ And Emelye, hir yonge suster sheene’ (I.971–72) to dwell in Athens. There is no corresponding reference to Ipolita as queen in the Teseida, II.40–43, but only the dutiful behaviour of a loving wife. When Theseus comes upon the two young knights fighting in the grove he is out hunting with ‘his Ypolita, the faire queene,/ And Emelye, clothed al in grene’ (I.1685–86). Again, in the Teseida there is no reference to Ipolita, but only to Teseo and Emilia under the rubric ‘Come ai due combattenti Emilia sopravenne’ (V.77–82). In interceding with

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

203

Theseus on behalf of the young knights fighting in the grove, ‘[t]he queene anon, for verray wommanhede,/ Gan for to wepe, and so dide Emelye’ (I.1748–49). As we have seen, this whole passage is Chaucer’s addition to the narrative, as is Theseus’s corresponding act of mercy ‘[a]t requeste of the queene, that kneleth heere,/ And eek of Emelye, my suster deere’ (I.1819– 20). The same formality is observed by Chaucer in the description of the procession of the combatants through the city to the lists. The two Thebans ride on either side of Theseus and directly behind them ride ‘the queene and Emelye’ (I.2571) and then ‘another compaignye/ Of oon and oother, after hir degree’ (I.2572–73). Within the amphitheatre the ladies take their place beside Theseus, ‘Ypolita the queene, and Emelye,/ And othere ladys in degrees aboute’ (no doubt in tiers in accordance with rank) (I.2578–79). Chaucer shows a punctilious concern with the order and rank that would have been daily exhibited in an English courtly household and that is thus to be seen at Camelot and Hautdesert in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (72–74, 109–15 and 1001–5). Boccaccio shows no such concern. It is not Ipolita’s queenliness that Boccaccio seizes upon but her outstanding beauty: ‘Ipolita vi venne, in veritate/ più ch’altra bella,/ Hippolyta arrived, … certainly more beautiful than anyone else’ (Tes., VII.113.6–7; McCoy, 188). Chaucer is also more precise than Boccaccio in specifying the details of the blood relationship of Arcite and Palamon and adds weight to them by referring them to the first appearance of the young knights in the narrative. Boccaccio tells us in the invocation to his poem that he will tell of ‘d’Arcita i fatti e del buon Palemone,/ di real sangue nati, come appare,/ e amendun tebani,/ the deeds of Arcita and noble Palemone, who were born of royal blood and were both Thebans as will be shown’ (Tes., I.5.3–5; Havely, 106) and Chaucer tells us of the two young knights among the heaps of the slain in battle that they ‘weren of the blood roial/ Of Thebes, and of sustren two yborn’ (I.1018–19).14 Arcite subsequently laments his misfortune, reduced to the status of a mere squire, ‘Philostrate, noght worth a myte’ (I.1552–54 and 1558),15 when in fact he is of the ‘verray ligne, as of the stok roial’ (I.1551) of ‘Cadmus, which that was the firste man/ That Thebes bulte, or first the toun bigan,/ And of the citee first was crouned kyng’ (I.1547–49). Indeed, he and the no less ‘wrecched Palamoun’ (I.1560–62) are the last surviving direct descendants of Cadmus. Theseus

204

Gerald Morgan

recognises that in respect ‘of roial lynage and richesse’ (for Theseus is too experienced a ruler not to appreciate also the practical necessity of wealth in arranged royal marriages)16 Arcite and Palamon alike are worthy of ‘a queene or a princesse’ (I.1829–30). But his ‘suster Emelye’ (I.1833) can hardly marry both. At the end of the Knight’s Tale we learn that Palamon is ‘a kynges brother sone’ (I.3084) and as such a fitting husband and lord for Emelye, the ‘yonge suster’ of ‘queene Ypolita’ (I.868, 871 and 971–72) and hence the sister too of Theseus himself (I.3075). No one in England can be so described in 1386 or 1387. Had the Black Prince outlived his father Edward III, Bolingbroke would have been such, as also the sons of Edmund of Langley and Thomas of Woodstock (Lionel of Antwerp having only a daughter, Philippa). If we are to countenance Gaunt’s claim as King of Castile and Léon from 1386 to 1389, then the sons of Edmund of Langley and Thomas of Woodstock may be so described. The legitimacy of Arcite and Palamon as direct descendants of Cadmus as heirs to the throne of Thebes (unlike that of Gaunt and Bolingbroke to the throne of England) is beyond dispute. Chaucer indicates the importance of degree or rank in relation to the series of portraits in the General Prologue (I.40 and 743–46) and it is plain that this is a consideration of paramount importance in the first of the tales. The sudden death of Arcite in the midst of his triumph provokes Egeus to reflect, with the accumulated wisdom of old age, that just as every man must die so too every man must live out his life ‘in erthe in some degree’ (I.2844). Chaucer has transferred these words from Teseo to Egeus and from Theseus’s final speech on the First Mover (preceding I.3017; Tes., XII.7) and has also added the reference to degree. Theseus is concerned that the burial place of Arcite should be ‘moost honurable in his degree’ (I.2856) and that ‘the servyce sholde be/ The moore noble and riche in his degree’ (I.2887–88). In both cases Chaucer follows Boccaccio’s text closely (Tes., XI.13.1–3 and 36.1–4) but in both cases adds the reference to degree. The ineluctable pattern of life and death in all human experience and against which ‘no creature on lyve,/ Of no degree, availleth for to stryve’ (I.3039–40) surely counsels moderation and humility in all human beings of whatever station in society to which they may be called. Here we must subject ourselves to the final decrees of ‘Juppiter, the kyng’ (I.3035),

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

205

the first cause of all created beings. Chaucer adds the authority of Boethius to the philosophical wisdom that informs the Knight’s Tale as a whole (Boece, Book IV, metrum 6.40–43): ‘Among thise thinges sitteth the heye makere, kyng and lord, welle and bygynnynge, lawe and wys juge to don equite, and governeth and enclyneth the brydles of thinges’.

Duke Theseus IV.  Dukes are princes of the royal blood at the highest level of English nobility beneath the king. The description of Theseus as ‘a duc …/Of Atthenes … lord and governour’ (I.860–61) and its subsequent repetition (I.893) carries a special resonance for Chaucer and his contemporaries and in the 1380s will almost certainly be associated with the name and influence of John of Gaunt. He is described by the Commons in October 1377 after the accession of Richard II as ‘their principal aid, strength and governor’ (Rotuli Parliamentorum, 3.5).17 It is in the light of this historical background that we must seek to understand Chaucer’s persistent representation of Theseus as a duke in the Knight’s Tale. Although this might appear unworthy of special comment, there is an important distinction in this respect to be made between Boccaccio’s Teseo and Chaucer’s Theseus and it is observed by Chaucer with characteristic consistency. Boccaccio identifies Teseo as ‘duca d’Attene’ in the rubric to Teseida, I.6–17 and in the following text at I.13.3–4: ‘per che a Teseo, allor signor possente,/ duca d’Attene’. Teseo is duke, but it his father Egeo who is king (Tes., I.6.1). There is no further reference to Teseo as a duke in the Teseida so far as I am aware, and certainly none that corresponds to the series of references to Theseus as duke in the Knight’s Tale. Theseus is at one and the same time a lord, duke and conqueror (and also knight) (I.860–63): Ther was a duc that highte Theseus; Of Atthenes he was lord and governour, And in his tyme swich a conquerour, That gretter was ther noon under the sonne.

206

Gerald Morgan

Chaucer keeps this image of Theseus in the hierarchy of Knight, Lord, Duke and Conqueror before us with an unremitting care that is not matched in his sources. Theseus is ‘[t]his duc, of whom I make mencioun’ (I.893; unparalleled in Teseida II.18, 22 and 25). He is undoubtedly impressive as he sets out for Thebes: ‘[t]hus rit this duc, thus rit this conquerour,/ And in his hoost of chivalrie the flour’ (I.981–82; not in Tes., II.50). At I.1694, 1696 and 1704 there is a cluster of references to Theseus as ‘this duc’ not paralleled in the corresponding passage of the Teseida (V.77–91, although compare ‘il gran Teseo’ at V.81.8). There is a contrast here between the authority of Theseus and the irrationality of the two young knights fighting to the death for the love of a lady ignorant (or virtually ignorant) of their very existence. Theseus is described as ‘this duc, this worthy knyght’ (I.2190) as he receives the guests for the tournament. In the Teseida they are honourably received by Egeo and ‘il buon Teseo’ (VI.65.7–8). Theseus is not merely a duke, he is ‘this noble duc’ (I.873) as he rides in triumph to Athens and ‘[f ]ul lik a lord this noble duc’ (I.2569) as he escorts the two Theban knights to the lists. As ‘pitee renneth soone in gentil herte’ (I.1761) so ‘[t]his gentil duc doun from his courser sterte/With herte pitous’ (I.952–53) when overwhelmed by pity for the suppliant widows. Here Chaucer draws on the meeting between Theseus and Argÿa and Deiphilé, the widowed daughters of Adrastus, in Le Roman de Thèbes, where the duke (li dus, 10015) is overcome by pity, gets down from his horse, embraces the daughters of the king and gallantly lifts them up when they fall at his feet (RT, 10018–22).18 Theseus is ‘this worthy duc’ (I.1001) in slaying Creon in open battle and is also ‘this worthy duc’ (I.1025), be it noted, in committing the two Theban knights to prison (in the Teseida he is ‘il buon Teseo’, II.97.2). He is ‘[t]his worthy duc’ (I.1742) in his response to Palamon’s vengeful speech in which the young knight seeks an equality of punishment on behalf of his fellow knight, Arcite. The true fellowship of knights is to be seen in the relation of Perotheus and Theseus himself. Perotheus is also a duke, ‘Duc Perotheus’ (I.1202), and also ‘[a] worthy duc’ (I.1191). He is Theseus’s felawe or equal (I.1192, 1194 and 1200). It would be impossible for him to prevail upon Theseus to release Arcite from prison were he not of equal rank. Chaucer also reinforces the status of Theseus as duke by a series of references to him as ‘Duc Theseus’. This title first appears in reference to

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

207

his friendship with Duc Perotheus (I.1192). Boccaccio has no interest in the matter of ducal status in either case, recording simply the fact that ‘un nobil giovinetto,/ chamato Peritoo, venne a vedere/ Teseo, suo caro amico,/ a noble youth named Peirithous came to see his dear friend Theseus’ (Tes., III.47.1–3; McCoy, 86). At I.1206 ‘Duc Theseus’ as an expression of friendship and with the authority of a great lord releases Arcite from prison (Boccaccio refers instead to ‘gran Teseo’, III.56.1). In confronting Arcite in the grove Palamon charges his friend with having ‘byjaped heere duc Theseus’ (I.1585) (Boccaccio has ‘signor poderoso’, IV.82.3). At I.1690 ‘Duc Theseus’, fully committed to the pursuit of the hart (like Bertilak at Hautdesert (SGGK, 1133–77 and 1319–68), ‘the streighte wey hath holde’ (the Teseida has ‘il gran Teseo’, V.81.8). In presiding over the tournament Theseus is invested by Chaucer with all his ducal authority: ‘Duc Theseus was at a wyndow set,/ Arrayed right as he were a god in trone’ (I.2528–29).19 He is as a god, but not in fact a god, for his plans are soon to be thwarted by gods, as we shall see. The herald declares ‘the myghty dukes wille’ (I.2536) to spare the unnecessary shedding of blood in the tournament to win the hand of Emelye, and concludes his set speech with the words: ‘ “Gooth now youre wey; this is the lordes wille” ’ (I.2560).20 Three references to Theseus as duke punctuate the narrative in the immediate aftermath of the tournament and the misfortune that befalls Arcite in his moment of triumph (a narrative that at this point differs markedly from that of Teseida, IX). They show that the great duke is unperturbed by the sudden and untoward turn of events that undermine his grand design. Thus ‘Duc Theseus’ (I.2700) returns to Athens ‘[w]ith alle blisse and greet solempnitee’ (I.2702). The ‘noble duc’ (I.2715) is concerned for the well-being of his guests in the midst of these potentially alarming events as Arthur is for his courtiers at Camelot in the wake of the Green Knight’s departure (SGGK, 467–86). Above all ‘Duc Theseus’ (I.2731) is concerned to ensure that ‘alle rancour and envye’ (I.2732) will cease in the wake of so keenly contested a tournament. There is room for admiration and praise for victors and vanquished alike. It then falls to ‘Duc Theseus’ (I.2853) to turn ‘al his bisy cure’ to the funeral arrangements for the dead Arcite. Here Chaucer follows the Teseida closely, but the reference to Theseus as duke remains his characteristic

208

Gerald Morgan

addition.21 Such public ceremonial is of the utmost importance and Chaucer returns to it with renewed emphasis in the description of the three great white steeds on which are carried Arcite’s shield, spear and Turkish bow (I.2892–96). The steeds are caparisoned in the coat of arms of Arcite (let us say, if he were a Duke of Lancaster, quarterly, France ancient and England, a label of three points ermine, or a de Bohun Earl of Hereford, azure, a bend argent cotised between six lioncels or). He is ‘daun Arcite’ (I.2891), that is, a knight with his own retinue of knights and a prince of the royal blood, and ‘Duc Theseus’ (I.2889) (not a duke at Tes., XI.35–36) ensures that the funeral service is ‘noble and riche in his degree’ (I.2888). At the head of the funeral procession comes ‘olde Egeus’ on the right and ‘on that oother syde duc Theseus’ (I.2905–6). They are followed by ‘Palamon, with ful greet compaignye’ and then by ‘woful Emelye’ (I.2909–10). There is a clear differentiation of rank and status among the mourners here, whereas Boccaccio places Palemone between ‘Egeo/ dolente … dal suo destro lato,/ e dal sinistro … Teseo’ (Tes., XI.40.1–3). Chaucer’s emphasis on Egeus’s age (he is the old king) rather than on his sorrow may remind contemporary readers of the aged Edward III in the company of the Duke of Lancaster in the 1370s. After the space of some years (‘by lengthe of certeyn yeres’, I.2967)22 Theseus turns to the question of the marriage of Palamon and Emelye in fulfilling his duty as lord to re-establish relations between Thebes and Athens on a basis of mutual amity and peace. But once he has made the decision to act Theseus does not prevaricate: ‘For which this noble Theseus anon/ Leet senden after gentil Palamon’ (I.2975–76). Boccaccio has simply ‘Per che Teseo, chiamato Palemone,/ Hence Palemone, summoned by Theseus’ (Tes., XII.4.1; Havely, 148). Chaucer emphasises the nobility both of Theseus and Palamon, thus pointing to an equality of condition. Palamon is after all ‘a kynges brother sone, pardee’ (I.3084) (Chaucer’s addition). At the end of the Knight’s Tale we are reminded of the prudence that is necessary in the execution of the great affairs of state, and especially of those things that lie beyond the authority of any earthly lord and governor. Thus whereas Boccaccio emphasises the pity that moves Theseus to propose the marriage of Palemone and Emilia, ‘dentro tenendo le lagrime strette/ ch’agli occhi per pietà volean venire,/ he restrained the tears of grief that rose to his eyes’

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

209

(Tes., XII.5.6–7; Havely, 148) Chaucer places the emphasis on Theseus’s wisdom: ‘And Theseus abiden hadde a space/ Er any word cam fram his wise brest’ (I.2982–83) and draws upon Boethius as well as Boccaccio in order to confirm it. Chaucer has throughout his life observed at close quarters the exercise of lordship and its consequence, for good or ill, on the rise and fall of kingdoms. Thus side by side with the emphasis on Theseus as duke is a series of references added by Chaucer to lords and lordship. These references are so insistent as to signify a special poetic purpose. The widow of Capaneus not only appeals to Thesus as ‘Lord, to whom Fortune hath yiven/ Victorie’ (I.915–16)23 but punctuates her petition with three more personal appeals to his lordly authority: ‘ “For, certes, lord, … And certes, lord, … Now help us, lord, sith it is in thy myght” ’ (I.922, 927 and 930; see Tes.,II.28). All three are original to Chaucer. Capaneus’s widow is duly submissive, although she was once a queen and speaks on behalf of those who were once either ‘a duchesse or a queene’ (I.923). On the other hand not all lords possess the wisdom and magnanimity of a Theseus. Creon ‘lord is now of Thebes the citee’ (I.939) and does ‘the dede bodyes vileynye/ Of alle oure lordes’ (I.942–43) (references that are absent from Teseida, II.31). Palamon does not forget that Arcite is ‘a lord’ (I.1293; not in Tes., III.78) and assumes that as a lord on his release from prison he will be able to raise an army in Thebes and make war on Athens (I.1285–94). Later, when discovered fighting in the grove, Palamon appeals to Theseus, albeit in a spirit of vindictiveness not to be found in the Teseida (see V.84–87), to act as ‘a rightful lord and juge’ (I.1719). On a basis of strict justice the two young knights deserve to die for breaking their solemn word to Theseus, and so Theseus himself at first concludes (I.1742–47). But righteous anger soon gives way to the claims of mercy in the light of a second petition of distressed ladies to a lord, indeed by the queen herself, Emelye and the company of ladies about them: ‘ “Have mercy, Lord, upon us wommen alle!” ’ (I.1757). In Theseus the love of justice is tempered by compassion: ‘ “Fy/ Upon a lord that wol have no mercy” ’ (I.1773–74). And it is in this case a true not a false pity, a matter of ‘discrecioun’ that is proper to a ‘lord’ (I.1779). ‘Resoun’ leads Theseus to reflect (I.1766–69) on the power of love that has led the two young knights to such an extremity: ‘ “The god of love, a, benedicite!/ How myghty and

210

Gerald Morgan

how greet a lord is he!” ’ (I.1785–86). Theseus too in his youth (but no longer) was subject to the power of love: ‘ “For in my tyme a servant was I oon” ’ (I.1814).24 The intercession of ‘[t]he queene’ (Ypolita; I.1748 and 1819), Emelye and the whole company of ladies (I.1742–60) and Theseus’s reflection on the power of passionate love, an irrational force at odds with the wisdom, discretion and compassion of true lordship (I.1785–1825) are Chaucer’s addition to the Teseida. The immediate issue is resolved when Arcite and Palamon in their turn submit themselves (in a line also original to Chaucer) to Theseus’s ‘lordshipe and … mercy’ (I.1827). The warriors fighting on behalf of Arcite and Palamon to determine the right to the hand of Emelye are not merely knights but lords and members of the higher nobility, and once again this is the distinctive emphasis of Chaucer himself. Thus Lygurge, the King of Thrace, comes in support of Palamon with ‘[a]n hundred lordes … in his route’ (I.2153) and Emetreus, the King of India, in support of Arcite, has ‘[a]n hundred lordes … with hym there’ (I.2179). And not merely lords, but ‘trusteth wel that dukes, erles, kynges/ Were gadered in this noble compaignye’ (I.2182–83).25 Chaucer adds a further summarising reference to ‘thise lordes, alle and some’ (I.2187), that is, to the two companies of lords, as they assemble in Athens at sunrise on the Sunday before the tournament (I.2188–89) which takes place on the following Tuesday, that is, the day devoted to Mars (I.2483–95). It is a day that ought to bode well for Arcite, for it is to Mars, ‘ “O stronge god, …/ Of Trace honoured … and lord yholde” ’ (I.2374) (Boccaccio has only ‘ “O forte Iddio” ’, Tes., VII.24.1) that Arcite makes his petition at the fourth hour of Monday morning (I.2367–70). He petitions Mars as ‘lord’ for help ‘tomorwe in my bataille’ (I.2402) and beseeches him as ‘lord’ to ‘have routhe upon my sorwes soore’ (I.2419). On the day of the tournament itself there ride to the palace ‘many a route/ Of lordes upon steedes and palfreys’ (I.2494–95). Here are to be seen ‘[l]ordes in parementz on hir courseres,/ Knyghtes of retenue, and eek squieres’ (I.2501–2).26 Such detail and precise distinction of rank are unmatched by Boccaccio in the corresponding passage in the Teseida (VII.97–99). The ‘grete Theseus’ (I.2523) is a fitting lord to preside over this splendid scene. His herald announces his lord’s intention, born of ‘his heigh discrecioun’ (I.2537), to spare any unnecessary shedding of blood, and

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

211

this declaration of ‘the lordes wille’ (I.2560) is received with approval by the populace at large: ‘ “God save swich a lord, that is so good/ He wilneth no destruccion of blood!” ’ (I.2563–64) (see Tes., VII.14.3–4). Theseus’s conduct as host towards his guests is also exemplary and not least in the wake of the misfortune that befalls Arcite in his moment of triumph. Thus, as if nothing untoward had occurred, he ‘made revel al the longe nyght/ Unto the straunge lordes, as was right’ (I.2717–18). In a similar fashion, Sir Gawain, ignoring the long labours of his quest for the Green Chapel, stays up revelling with his host at Hautdesert (SGGK, 1024–41 and 1093–95). At the very end of the Knight’s Tale we see Theseus exercising the true function of a great lord and duke in disposing prudently for the future stability of Athens and Thebes in urging Emelye to take the man who has suffered so much on her behalf ‘for housbonde and for lord’ (I.3081). It is not the act of a tyrant but is in accord with ‘al th’avys heere of my parlement’ (I.3076) and ‘[b]y al the conseil and the baronage’ (I.3096). There is a parallel once again with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight when Sir Gawain takes up the challenge of the Green Knight only after the lords at Camelot have been consulted and have given their consent (SGGK, 358–65). Thus Theseus displays the wisdom proper to a great lord by acting not arbitrarily, like the young Richard II, and relying not on the advice of untried favourites but in accordance with the will of his experienced lords so as to produce a harmonious outcome. As harmonious, that is to say, as it is possible to produce in an imperfect world.

Worthy Knights V.  One can hardly exercise the function of a duke without at the same time being a knight. Edward of Woodstock (born 15 June 1330) is knighted by Edward III on 12 July 1346 the day after landing in Normandy at the beginning of the Crécy campaign and Lionel of Antwerp (born 29 November 1338) and John of Gaunt (born in March 1340) are knighted at the beginning of the inconclusive Norman campaign in July 1355. Thus Theseus

212

Gerald Morgan

‘swoor his ooth, as he was trewe knyght’ (I.959) to come to the aid of the distressed widows against the tyrant Creon and fulfils his word in true knightly fashion by slaying Creon ‘manly as a knyght/ In pleyn bataille’ (I.987–88).27 Later, Theseus gives his word to the two young knights competing for the hand of Emelye, ‘[u]pon my trouthe, and as I am a knyght’ (I.1855), that the matter will be fairly settled in accordance with the outcome of the tournament. And so it proves. When the time approaches for the tournament Theseus conducts himself not merely as ‘this duc’ but at one and the same time as ‘this worthy knyght’ (I.2190) (Boccaccio has ‘il buon Teseo’, Tes., VI.65.8). The series of references to Theseus as a knight may seem hardly worthy of comment until we learn that Chaucer, not Boccaccio, is responsible for them. So too the references to Arcite and Palamon as knights. They are introduced into the narrative as ‘[t]wo yonge knyghtes …/Of whiche two Arcita highte that oon,/ And that oother knyght highte Palamon’ (I.1011 and 1013–14), whereas Boccaccio simply refers to ‘due giovani,/ two young men’ (Tes., II.85.5; McCoy, 69). The angelic song of Emelye in the garden penetrates the adjoining tower where, we are informed, ‘the knyghtes weren in prisoun’ (I.1058). As the unpleasant dispute breaks out between the jealous lovers, Palamon reminds Arcite of his obligation ‘as a knyght/ To helpen me’ (I.1149–50). When Arcite is released from prison through the intervention of Perotheus, Palamon fears that his fellow knight will turn his good fortune to his advantage, for he is ‘a knyght, a worthy and an able’ (I.1241). When Arcite learns the identity of his rival in the grove after he has escaped from prison, he realises that Palamon will vindicate his claim to Emelye by fighting for her since he is ‘a worthy knyght’ (I.1608) and he in his turn assures his foe (‘[h]ave heer my trouthe’, I.1610) that on the following day he himself ‘wol be founden as a knyght’ (I.1612). These are not casual declarations of intent, but reflect a value system that resonates throughout the tale. The tournament for the hand of Emelye is a classic chivalric solution to an intractable moral and judicial dilemma. It is a matter beyond the scope of mere squires. On the one hand is Palamon, the knight of Venus (‘thyn owene knyght’, I.2471) and on the other the knight of Mars (‘his knyght’, I.2473). They are ‘thise Thebane knyghtes two’ (I.2515; ‘innamorati’, Tes., VII.98.6)

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

213

and ‘the Thebane knyghtes, both yliche/ Honured’ (I.2526–27; ‘li due’, Tes., VII.96.6). The terms laid down by Theseus are that ‘this day fifty wykes, fer ne ner,/ Everich of you shal brynge an hundred knyghtes/ Armed for lystes up at alle rightes,/ Al redy to darreyne hire by bataille’ (I.1850–53) (‘cento compagni’, Tes., V.97.4).28 They depend for their fulfilment on all sides by that respect for the pledged word deemed characteristic of the knightly class and make possible the redemption of Arcite (who has broken his word to Theseus by returning to Athens) and Palamon (who has broken his word to Theseus in escaping from prison). The terms are repeated at the end of the appointed time (I.2095–97) and are duly fulfilled by the two young knights ‘hir covenant for to holde’ (I.2098–100). It is a brilliant chivalric spectacle (of a kind that Chaucer must have witnessed on many occasions at royal tournaments and in the field of battle),29 for ‘for to speke of knyghthod of hir hond,/ … Nas of so fewe so noble a compaignye’ (I.2103 and 2105).30 It is certain that ‘every lusty knyght’ would wish to be present to witness such a momentous event, whether ‘in Engelond’, a byword for chivalry in the time of Edward III and his sons, as the Breton knight Arveragus knows (FranT, V.806–13) ‘or elleswhere’ (I.2110–16). And the ‘knyghtes many on’ (I.2118) who accompany Palamon form a splendid sight in their various arms (I.2119–27). The chivalric display at the tournament itself is nothing less than regal in its magnificence. Arcite enters the lists with his hundred knights through the western gates under the oratory of Mars (I.1906–8 and 2581–83) and at the same moment Palamon with his hundred knights enters through the eastern gates under the oratory of Venus (I.1902–5 and 2584–86). The name of each knight is read out by the heralds and the gates shut behind them (I.2595–96). All of them have hazarded their reputation in the most public fashion and it remains for each to justify his presence by matching action, as they are urged on by the expectant assembly: ‘ “Do now youre devoir, yonge knyghtes proude!” ’ (I.2598).31 Victory in the tournament goes, as is fitting, to the servant of Mars: ‘Mars hath his wille, his knyght hath al his boone’ (I.2669). And no less fittingly, it is Palamon who finally receives the hand of Emelye in marriage. He is her ‘owene knyght’ (I.3077) and is so described by the narrator: ‘Palamon the knight’ (I.3090). At the same time Chaucer does justice to Arcite as a lover (he suffers after all the classic symptoms of amor hereos,

214

Gerald Morgan

I.1355–79) and to Palamon as a knight. It may come as a surprise to many readers that all these references to knights are specifically Chaucer’s references. His Knight’s Tale is indeed a tale told by a knight about knights. Whereas Chaucer introduces Arcite and Palamon from the beginning as young knights, Boccaccio’s story is rather of two young men, albeit princes of the royal blood (‘del sangue di Cadmo’, Tes., II.88.3), tragically divided by a passionate love for the same lady. They are squires (‘scudieri’, Tes., VII.103.2) not knights and hence before they take part in the tournament they are knighted by Teseo: ‘e cavalieri/ amendun furono allora novelli/ l’innamorati teban damigelli,/ and both the enamoured Theban squires were then new knights’ (Tes., VII.103.6–8; Morgan). Theseus offers to his sister in marriage ‘a povre bacheler’ (I.3085).32 Though he may be poor, he is certainly a knight and not merely a squire. The perspective of Chaucer’s tale is that of a knight not that of a lover, the sixty-year-old knight, not his son, the twenty-year-old squire. Theseus is a great lord, not a young lover, and in this respect like the hostile challenger who enters Camelot at the beginning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ‘an aghlich mayster’ (136). Although Theseus’s love for Ypolita is not to be doubted, he is not overwhelmed by love and subject to her by love in the manner of an Arcite or a Palamon. Thus Chaucer omits Boccaccio’s reference to Ipolita as the lady who ‘’l suo cuor guida e tene,/ possessed and ruled his heart’ (Tes., II.18.4; Havely, 107), but adds a line to show that she is treated with dignity and respect, for she is ‘[t]he faire, hardy queene of Scithia’ (I.882) and as such a true match for her chivalrous husband. There is in Chaucer’s text none of the disparagement of women that Boccaccio allows himself in his introductory words to Fiammetta and perhaps also in his description of the disfiguring grief of the suppliant widows. Chaucer adds notably to the dignity of their grief. Recognising Theseus’s power the widows kneel before him in a gesture of obedience to his will and at the same time, moved by the intensity and desperation of grief, take hold of the reins of the bridle of his horse. The scene recalls (perhaps deliberately) the moving appeal of the widow to Trajan as he himself proceeds in the full majesty of his power (Purgatorio, X.73–78). But the depth of their grief does not compromise the dignity of their bearing. Indeed they have been waiting for Theseus’s appearance for

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

215

two weeks at the temple of Clemency (I.927–30). This is a further detail supplied by Chaucer and indicates grief tempered by patience. The widows do not form a crowd or a mob but a company of ladies in due order, two by two, as if in a courtly procession. Fittingly it is the eldest who speaks on behalf of them all (I.897–904 and 912–14). Here the effect of their dignity and decorum is quite different from that of Boccaccio’s widows who disfigure themselves in their grief and earn the contempt of the onlookers. But Teseo sees beneath their unkempt appearance to their underlying nobility (Tes., II.36.3–5; Havely, 109). He does not speak to them directly but seeks an explanation for the unwonted behaviour of those who mark his triumph ‘co’ crini sparti, battendosi il petto,/ di squalor piene in atri vestimenti,/ tutte piangendo, …/with dishevelled hair, beating their breasts, in black clothing, full of gloom and all in tears’ (Tes., II.26.2–4; Havely, 108). The dignity of Chaucer’s ladies transforms and lightens the scene. Pity replaces contempt and Theseus speaks directly to them in words of polite concern in the plural form: ‘… ye … yow … telleth …’ (I.905–11). In her appeal for mercy the wife of Capaneus uses singular as well as plural forms of address: ‘youre glorie and youre honour’ (I.917), ‘youre presence’ (I.927) in acknow­ ledgment of Theseus’s triumph, and ‘thy gentillesse’ (I.920) and ‘thy myght’ (I.930) as a personal appeal to his humanity from a queen to a duke. This interchange makes for a telling contrast with Creon, distinguished rather by his ‘ire and … iniquitee’ (I.940). He is ‘the olde Creon’ (I.938), that is, old but unwise and unjust. It is the settled judgment of the wife of Capaneus and it is shared by Theseus himself (I.961–64). At the same time Chaucer greatly emphasises the pity of Theseus (I.952–58). It is a striking example of the pity (a laudable emotion) that is quickly aroused in the gentle heart. Such a laudable emotion is accompanied by appropriate actions. Theseus gets down off his horse and embraces the widows (I.952 and 957–58). These are significant gestures and powerful additions by Chaucer to his source. Indeed, Theseus acts at once without delay (I.965–71). Chaucer omits the conversation between Teseo and Ipolita (Tes., II.40–44) and Teseo’s exhortation to his knights (Tes., II.44–48) and focuses directly on Theseus’s departure on a new campaign against Thebes. Chaucer emphasises with an insistence not to be found in Boccaccio’s narrative (Tes., II.49) Theseus’s

216

Gerald Morgan

despatch and sense of urgency (I.965–74). This new emphasis is important for it manifests in the strongest terms Theseus’s commitment to justice, for justice delayed presupposes the continuation of injustice. Hence the just person does not merely do what is just, but is eager to do what is just, acting with promptness and pleasure. Terry Jones’s representation of Theseus as a tyrant is both a tendentious and an indefensible misreading of the text. As Boccaccio makes clear the justice of Teseo’s cause in characteristic romance style by referring to him repeatedly throughout the campaign against Creon as ‘il buon Teseo’, so for Chaucer Theseus becomes ‘the noble conquerour’ (I.998) and ‘this worthy duc, this Theseus’ (I.1001). In the Teseida Teseo is the great leader, inspiring and encouraging his troops (Tes., II.56–57). In the Knight’s Tale Theseus is simply a lord who defeats his opponent in a duel to the death by his prowess as a knight, openly and single-handedly, not treacherously or vicariously (I.985–88). On killing Creon Teseo proclaims once more the justice of his cause: ‘ “O fier tiranno, or è venuto/ il dì che ’l tuo mal viver tanto attese,/ O proud tyrant, now the day your wicked life has so much deserved has come” ’ (Tes., II.61.2–3; McCoy, 64). In the Knight’s Tale heroic action speaks more loudly than words. The issues are clear-cut as Boccaccio sets them forth in the Teseida: good against evil and mercy and justice ranged against tyranny. So too as Chaucer sets them forth in his characteristically distinct fashion in the Knight’s Tale. But Chaucer makes clear the justice of Theseus not by verbal repetition of this kind, but softens the image of Theseus even in the act of displaying his knightly prowess. The emphasis is on the moral qualities of a knight and as such entirely in accordance with the image of knighthood presented in the portrait of the Knight in the General Prologue. The contrast between Statius and Chaucer is here at its most marked. Statius realises in his characteristically unflinching manner the brutal reality of armed warfare. Theseus is the ‘horridus Aegides,/ the terrible son of Aegeus’ (Theb., XII.769) and slays Creon, as he has slain in quick succession before him Olenius, Lamyrus and the three sons of Alcetus, Phyleus, Helops and Iapyx, with the spear thrown as a javelin and stands over the dead Creon despoiling him of his armour (Theb., XII.730–46 and 768–81). There is a Virgilian implacabi­ lity here, recalling, perhaps, the death of Turnus at the hand of Aeneas, although without the edge of personal vindictiveness that seals the fate

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

217

of Turnus (Aen., XII.948–49). This is not an image of war that Chaucer chooses to dwell upon in the Knight’s Tale. Chaucer focuses on the end of justice (also noted by Statius, Theb., XII.782–809) rather than on the violent means by which of necessity it has been achieved. Thus Theseus is a more sympathetic figure in Chaucer’s telling than even in the versions of Statius and Boccaccio.

The Two Royal Prisoners VI.  The theme of Theseus’s justice is continued in the treatment of the two wounded Theban knights, Arcite and Palamon. The field of battle, littered in the aftermath of bloody conflict with the bodies of the dead and dying at the mercy of pillagers, wild animals and the elements alike, is no pleasant place to be, and Chaucer, for whom the scene is not unfamiliar, does not choose to pass over the details (I.1005–8), although he does pass over matter in the Teseida relating to the honourable treatment of the dead Creon and the granting of the petition of the Greek widows (Tes., II.74–84) by means of another striking occupatio (I.991–1000). The dignity of funeral rites is a matter to be reserved for the funeral of Arcite at the climax of the Knight’s Tale (I.2853–966). Arcite and Palamon are found among the heaps of the dead and identified by the heralds from their coats of arms as members of the Theban royal family (I.1009–19). The scene is reminiscent of the aftermath of Crécy (26 August 1346) when Sir Reginald Cobham and Sir Richard Stafford are sent by Edward III along with three heralds and two clerks to identify and make a record of the huge number of illustrious dead.33 The pillagers at Thebes are evidently under orders from Theseus to take care of such distinguished foes still lying on the field of battle. Arcite and Palamon are ‘torn’ from the heaps of the dead (the difficulty of the task no doubt necessitating such violent action) but they are carried ‘softe unto the tente/ Of Theseus’ (I.1020–22). In other words they are treated with compassion and in accordance with the dignity of their rank. Here Chaucer develops and

218

Gerald Morgan

extends by implication Statius’s representation of Theseus as a magnanimous conqueror (‘Thesea magnanimum’, Theb., XII.795), in this respect also to be differentiated from the ‘saevus … Creon’ who understands only one law for the conquered (‘lex eadem victis’, Theb., XII.677–78 and 692). Theseus’s judgment, delivered at once and without argument, is to send the two Theban princes ‘ful soone’ as prisoners to Athens. He sentences them to life imprisonment rather than seeking to exact a ransom: ‘he nolde no raunsoun!’ (I.1022–24). Here is to be discerned yet further testimony to his wisdom as a ruler. Imprisonment is surely to be preferred to death by summary execution as proven enemies of the state (the option pursued by the British in Ireland after the Easter Rising of 1916). Royal prisoners such as Arcite and Palamon were a familiar part of the political landscape in late medieval England. The most famous example is that of Jean II, the French king, after his defeat at Poitiers (19 September 1356), a prisoner at the court of Edward III as complicated negotiations for his ransom proceeded until his death in London in 1364. The celebrated Geoffroi de Charny, author of Le Livre de chevalerie (c.1351–1352), who died bearing the royal standard at Poitiers, was captured by Richard Talbot at Morlaix in 1342 and sent as a prisoner to Goodrich Castle. Having been ransomed in the same year, he was captured again at Calais in 1349, became a prisoner in London and was eventually ransomed again in 1351 by Jean II himself.34 It is Chaucer himself who introduces the alternative possibility of a ransom (not mentioned by Boccaccio) and he draws it to our attention with studied care. Thus we are reminded that there can be no question of a ransom: ‘ther may no gold hem quite’ (I.1032). It is a point fully understood by Arcite in the quarrel (an irrational and pointless quarrel) that breaks out in prison between Palamon and himself over the competing desires for the unobtainable Emelye: ‘us gayneth no raunsoun’ (I.1174–76). When Arcite is released from prison it is through the intercession of Perotheus, that is, it is inspired by the love of friendship (I.1191–1201) and specifically excludes a financial motive (I.1204–6). Ransoms were a familiar part of the political landscape, too, in medieval England. Adventurous knights such as Calvely and Knolles (and also Hawkwood in Italy) in the fourteenth century and Sir John Fastolf in the fifteenth made their fortunes out of the capture and ransom of illustrious prisoners. Readers of Froissart (no doubt Chaucer

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

219

among them) will recall the shameful mêlée at the end of the Battle of Poitiers as knights jostled and vied for the honour and material reward of the capture of the French king as contrasted with the exquisite courtesy of the Prince of Wales towards his royal prisoner.35 Theseus is inspired by the love of justice not the love of money. He does not seek financial gain in fighting Creon but seeks and succeeds in bringing justice to the cruelly wronged Greek widows. Nor will he allow the security of the Athenian state to be undermined by the desire for profit. The identities of Arcite and Palamon as princes of royal blood make them potentially enemies to be feared were they one day by some chance to be released from prison. Palamon himself indicates as much in respect of Arcite in his release from prison through the intervention of Perotheus, that is, if Arcite were to break his solemn agreement with Theseus (I.1285–94). It is not unknown in the history of state affairs for solemn promises to be broken. But Arcite is bound by his word to Theseus no less solemnly than Gawain to the Green Knight in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (377–412, 543–49, 1042–78, 2212–16 and 2239–58). A promise borne of love is seen to be a powerful moral sanction and proves in the event to be binding in the case of war if not of love. In drawing attention to the possibility of a ransom for Arcite and Palamon Chaucer makes a further (and surely decisive) contribution on his own part (and also on the part of the Knight) to our sense of Theseus’s love of justice, and not merely of vindicative justice but of justice tempered by mercy.

Equality of Arcite and Palamon VII.  In the presentation of Arcite and Palamon Chaucer has gone beyond Boccaccio in emphasising the equality of their status. Boccaccio tells us that ‘[e]’ non eranda sé guari lontani,/ armati tutti ancora, e a giacere,/ They were lying not far from one another still fully armed’ (Tes., II.86.1–2; Havely, 110). Chaucer has them lying side by side and in the same coat of arms, presumably differenced by a label or some such device (I.1011–12).36

220

Gerald Morgan

Boccaccio does not mention their names at this point, disclosing first their relation to the house of Cadmus (Tes., II.88) and subsequently their names as they precede Teseo as royal prisoners in his triumphal entry into Athens along with the other prisoners of war (Tes., II.92.1–4). Chaucer introduces their names on their first introduction into his tale and in the rhetorical form of commutatio, the one balanced against the other (I.1013–14). They are not merely descended from Cadmus (Tes., II.88.4–6) but are first cousins, ‘of sustren two yborn’ (I.1019). In emphasising the equality of Arcite and Palamon in this way Chaucer is bent on pursuing his theme of human merit in relation to fortune. Theseus in acting against the tyrant Creon on behalf of the suppliant widows hazards not only his own life but that of his men in the pursuit of justice. On the other hand the two young knights, Arcite and Palamon, have placed their chivalric prowess at the service of a tyrant, as one of them acknowledges to Teseo in explaining their descent from the house of Cadmus: ‘e quando/ Creon contra di te l’empie arme prese,/ fummo con lui, co’ nostri, a sue difese,/ and when Creon defended his unjust cause against you we and our followers were with him as supporters’ (Tes., II.88.6–8; Havely, 110). The fact is sufficiently evident not to require elaboration by Chaucer. In supporting a tyrant Arcite and Palamon deserve to find themselves among the heaps of the defeated dead and dying and can expect nothing other than the common fate of royal prisoners of war. But in underlining the equality of the young knights Chaucer is looking forward to the moment when they will be separated by fortune. The one will win victory in the tournament appointed by Theseus to determine the hand of Emelye but will be struck down in the moment of triumph by a tragic accident, but the other, though losing the tournament, will in the end obtain in marriage the lady he has loved so passionately (but not more passionately than his rival). Neither Arcite nor Palamon blame Theseus for the misfortune of their imprisonment. What is there to blame him for? He has acted heroically and justly against a tyrant on behalf of oppressed widows and they have supported the tyrant’s cause. But for all that it is a tragic fate for a young man to be incarcerated for life and they are led to deplore the circumstances of their allegiance to a cruel tyrant (let us say, like German heroes in the time of Hitler and the Nazis). Hence they blame Fortune (a powerful symbol

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

221

of injustice for the medievals, and hence also for Dorigen in the Franklin’s Tale no less than for the young Theban knights in the Knight’s Tale) and the gods for their miserable life in prison. These are specific additions by Chaucer, for he has transformed Boccaccio’s narrative at the point where the young knights see and fall in love with Emelye. Whereas Arcita and Palemone remain in harmony in their love and desire for Emilia (Tes., III.11–27), Arcite and Palamon are reduced at once by jealousy to bitter conflict. And whereas Arcita and Palemone feel the intense delight as well as the intense pain of passionate love (Tes., III.12–16), Palamon (I.1077–79 and 1095–1100) and then in like manner Arcite (I.1112–22) feel only the intense pain of falling in love. Such pain has nothing as such to do with their imprisonment but doubles their woes as prisoners. They experience in their confinement the first of the double sorrows of which we have learned so much in Book I of Troilus and Criseyde. And like Troilus, their response to the onset of passionate love is not only intense but also irrational. Arcite takes Palamon’s cry of pain at the sight of Emelye to be a sign of his lack of equanimity in enduring imprisonment. But he has no reason to blame anyone for his misfortune: ‘Who hath thee doon offence?’ (I.1083). Certainly not Theseus. We must look for an agency more remote. Arcita and Palemone are heirs to the hatred and wrath of Juno because of Jupiter’s love for Semelè, daughter of Cadmus, founder and King of Thebes, by whom he sired Bacchus, and for the Theban Alcmena, by whom he sired Hercules.37 In the Knight’s Tale Arcite and Palamon are obliged to confront an inescapable destiny in the indifference of Fortune and the malignancy of Saturn (I.1086–91). Palamon appeals to Venus for compassion (a quality of the divine mercy hardly to be associated with the goddess of love): ‘Of oure lynage …,/ That is so lowe ybroght by tirannye’ (I.1110–11). This cannot possibly be a reference to Theseus as the cause of offence, but to the tyrants of Thebes, first to Eteocles and then to Creon, who have brought such catastrophe upon the Theban royal household. Arcite looks to the god of war for victory in the tournament to win Emelye, but the support of Mars is trumped by the malevolent intervention of Saturn. These are destinal forces, but justice is not to be looked for in them even though their influence may be less random than that of Fortune. We are drawn, like Theseus, by the force of events to recognise that justice is ultimately

222

Gerald Morgan

beyond human wit to order. We must place ourselves, therefore, under the protection of the ‘wise purveiaunce’ (I.3011) of the First Mover and ‘maken vertu of necessitee,/ And take it weel that we may nat eschue’ (I.3042–43). This is supreme wisdom in a ruler who must have the humility to recognise that all things are not within his command, and even when he has devoted immense efforts and expense to secure justice through the impartial organisation of the tournament he must be willing to recognise that his efforts have been in vain (or at least subject to contradiction by a higher will, for the desire to secure justice is an inspiring thing in itself ). He has without doubt shown himself to be an ‘evene juge … and trewe’ (I.1864).

Theseus as Conqueror VIII.  Theseus stands at the supreme degree of chivalry as a conqueror and thus above both knight and lord. Theseus is the Duke of Athens but raised to the level of conqueror. John of Gaunt, although Duke of Lancaster and the most powerful man in England at the time Chaucer was writing the Knight’s Tale, was never so elevated by victory (as was his brother, Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall) to the position of conqueror. Conquest is, indeed, the starting-point of the Knight’s Tale. Chaucer sets at its head an epigraph from the twelfth book of Statius’s Thebaid (XII.519–20) describing the triumph of Theseus on his return to Athens after victory over the Amazons: ‘Iamque domos patrias Scythicae post aspera gentis/ proelia laurigero subeuntem Thesea curru,/ And now Theseus, drawing nigh his native land in laurelled car after fierce battling with the Scythian folk’. Chaucer does not translate the epigraph as he does in Anelida and Arcite (22–28) and he gives it in abbreviated form, supplying only line 519 and part of line 520. Chaucer indicates at once by his use of Latin the seriousness of his poetic intent in the Knight’s Tale with its theme of fortune and justice and consequential human happiness and misery, and he relies on the learning of his reader to refer the epigraph to Theseus. But Chaucer quotes enough to make clear to the reader who knows Latin but

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

223

perhaps not Statius that his starting-point is conquest and triumph. The significance of the laurel-bedecked chariot (‘carro ricco e triunfale’, Tes., II.21.2) is explained by Boccaccio (who is ever willing to supply explanatory glosses) in the very body of his text: ‘e corona d’allor, significante/ che per vittoria venia triunfante,/ a crown of laurel, to show that he came in triumph as a conqueror’ (Tes., II.21.7–8; Havely, 108). Statius has a great reputation in the Christian Middle Ages as the epic poet of Thebes, for Chaucer no less than for Dante and Boccaccio. The epigraph to the Knight’s Tale does not stand alone and Chaucer proceeds to develop its theme in systematic fashion. Theseus is not merely a conqueror, but ‘swich a conquerour,/ That gretter was ther noon under the sonne’ (I.862–63). It is language that might have been used of Edward, Prince of Wales, at the height of his fame after Crécy, Poitiers and Nájera. The point is emphasised by Chaucer through sustained repetition (traductio) and variation (expolitio) and even in seeming to pass on to other matter (occupatio). Thus Theseus ‘conquered al the regne of Femenye’ (I.866) and makes his way to Athens ‘with victorie and with melodye’ (I.872). This is but one of many rich countries he had ‘wonne’ (I.864) and had the Knight, a teller who has been present at many such victories himself (GP, I.51 and 58–59), the time at his disposal he would tell ‘fully the manere/ How wonnen was the regne of Femenye’ (I.876–77). Thebes is just one more city ‘by assaut he wan’ (I.989), but the event bears repetition: ‘Whan that this worthy duc, this Theseus,/ Hath Creon slayn and wonne Thebes thus’ (I.1001–2). He has set out for Thebes as ‘this conquerour’ (I.981) and in his treatment of the ladies on whose behalf he has undertaken this new exploit he shows himself to be a ‘noble conquerour’ (I.998). He returns to Athens once more ‘[w]ith laurer crowned as a conquerour’ (I.1027). Thus with conquest go the outward rewards of conquest, namely, honour and glory (I.870, 895, 907–8 and 917). Theseus ‘lyveth in joye and in honour/ Terme of his lyf ’ (I.1028–29), Palamon and Arcite ‘in a tour, in angwissh and in wo’ (I.1030). Such are the consequences of victory and defeat in battle. Honour and glory to this elevated degree require not only the possession of moral qualities such as courage, fidelity and generosity of spirit but also the blessing of fortune, for of all enterprises success in battle is most uncertain. Hence ‘Conquest’ in the temple of Mars is to be seen

224

Gerald Morgan

‘[h]angynge by a soutil twynes threed’ (I.2028 and 2030). In Anelida and Arcite the blessing of Fortune in Theseus’s triumph is remarked upon as a matter of course (43–46). In the Knight’s Tale the eldest of the widows who appeals to Theseus for help recognises that Fortune has given him ‘[v] ictorie, and as a conqueror to lyven’ (I.916). A conqueror is enabled by his conquest to dispose of the fortunes of others and can make lords of churls and serfs of free men. But conquest in itself is no guarantor of human happiness if it is accompanied by vanity and cruelty rather than by magnanimity. In the case of Creon it leads only to tyranny and a savage bloodthirstiness. But in the case of Theseus victory is moderated by compassion and the love of justice. Prudence, generosity, affability and justice are the marks of the virtues of old age as Dante describes them in the Convivio (IV.xxvii)38 and as they are exemplified by the Knight of the General Prologue. Thus the description of Theseus not merely as a conqueror but as a noble conqueror is central to the understanding of the Knight’s Tale. In Piers Plowman B XVIII and XIX Langland sets out just this idea of a noble conqueror in the figure of Jesus Christ himself. Jesus comes to Jerusalem ‘of his gentries’ to ‘iuste in Piers armes’ against the devil and death (B XVIII.10–35a). The life of Christ, set out in the triad of Dowel (B XIX.70–123), Dobet (B XIX.124–39) and Dobest (B XIX.140–99), corresponds to the three degrees of Knight (the ‘iuuentee’ of ‘Oure Lord Prynce Iesus’, B XIX.108 and 96), King (‘kaiser or kyng of þe kyngdom of Iuda’, B XIX.138) and Conqueror (‘And þo conquered he on cros as conquerour noble’, B XIX.50).39 To each degree of chivalry is accorded an appropriate title: ‘filius Marie’ (B XIX.118),40 ‘Fili Dauid, Ihesus’ (B XIX.133 and 136) and ‘Christus resurgens’ (B XIX.160). Such triads reveal that pattern of a continuous, graded hierarchy so beloved of Aristotle in which the higher principle (Dobet, then Dobest; King, then Conqueror) includes the lower (Dowel, then Dobet; Knight, then King) but contains in addition a differentiating principle.41 In the same way the rational principle in human beings contains the sensitive, and the sensitive the vegetative, and these distinctions are represented symbolically by Aristotle in terms of the pentangle (Sir Gawain’s heraldic device in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), quadrangle and triangle.42 At the same time this subtly differentiated hierarchy yields a unity of the various functions, for the rational soul is a unity of interrelated parts or powers (ST, 1a 76.3). Thus ‘knyght, kyng, conquerour may

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

225

be o persone’ (B XIX.27), as in the case of Theseus as well as of Christ. In his joust with the devil Christ emerges as a victorious champion, the conqueror through his suffering of sin and death (B XIX.9–14). Thus by the victory of the Cross Christ made free men or franklins of those enchained by sin and freed the patriarchs from Lucifer’s prison in the harrowing of hell (B XIX.38–41 and 50–62). Langland emphasises in the crucifixion not so much the suffering humanity of Christ but the victorious divinity of Christ. The very name of Christ is so identified by Langland with the conquest of sin on the Cross as to be indistinguishable from it: ‘He may wel be called conquerour – and þat is “Crist” to mene’ (B XIX.62). Christ is the supreme example of the noble conqueror that is represented in its limited human form in the figure of Theseus in the Knight’s Tale. A hatred of war (laudable perhaps in itself ) ought not to disguise from view the nobility of Chaucer’s Theseus, for it is that very nobility that gives to the Knight’s Tale its philosophical conviction.

Notes 1

2 3

Robert J. Meyer-Lee, ‘Fragments IV and V of the Canterbury Tales Do Not Exist’, The Chaucer Review, 45 (2010), 1–31. See also Stephen D. Powell, ‘Game Over: Defragmenting the End of the Canterbury Tales’, The Chaucer Review, 37 (2002), 40–58. See Gerald Morgan, ‘Moral and Social Identity and the Idea of Pilgrimage in the General Prologue’, The Chaucer Review, 37 (2003), 285–314. ‘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 … 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

226

Gerald Morgan

according to God’s will’ (Richard W. Kaeuper and Elspeth Kennedy, The ‘Book of Chivalry’ of Geoffroi de Charny: Text, Context, and Translation (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 42.67–73, pp. 180–83). 4 See Morgan, ‘Moral and Social Identity’, pp. 305–8. 5 See Richard Newhauser, ‘The Parson’s Tale’, in Sources and Analogues of The Canterbury Tales, 2 vols, edited by Robert M. Correale and Mary Hamel, Chaucer Studies XXVIII and XXXV (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002, 2005), I.529–613 (pp. 530–38). 6 Terry Jones, Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980). For a valuable corrective, see Stephen H. Rigby, Wisdom and Chivalry: Chaucer’s ‘Knight’s Tale’ and Medieval Political Theory (Leiden: Brill, 2009). 7 The Knight was in the field at Algeçiras in 1343 in the company of Henry of Grosmont, Earl of Derby (1310–1361) and William Montagu, 1st Earl of Salisbury (1301–1344). This seems to have been his first campaign and he would have been sixteen or thereabouts. Thus in 1387 (the time of composition of the General Prologue) the Knight would have been precisely sixty, the age of the ‘worthy knyght’ (IV.1246), January, of the Merchant’s Tale (IV.1248 and 1252). But whereas January is led by ‘dotage’ (IV.1253) to seek a first marriage and a young wife, the Knight is impelled by ‘hoolynesse’ (IV.1253) to make the pilgrimage to Canterbury (GP, I.77–78). 8 The Seven against Thebes are Polynices, Tydeus, Amphiaraus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, Capaneus and Adrastus. See Teseida, II.11 and Troilus and Criseyde, V.1485–1510. Reference is to Alberto Limentani (ed.), Teseida delle nozze d’Emilia, in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, edited by Vittore Branca, 10 vols (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1964–1998), II.229–664 (1964) and to the translation of N. R. Havely, Chaucer’s Boccaccio: Sources of ‘Troilus’ and the ‘Knight’s’ and ‘Franklin’s Tales’, Chaucer Studies V (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1980). See also Bernadette Marie McCoy (trans.), The Book of Theseus: ‘Teseida delle Nozze d’Emilia’ by Giovanni Boccaccio (New York: Medieval Text Association, 1974). 9 Reference is to A. C. Hamilton (ed.), Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Qveene, second edition, text edited by Hiroshi Yamashita and Toshiyuki Suzuki (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2001). 10 Boccaccio identifies ‘il re Ligurgo’ as the father of Opheltes/ Archemorus, King of Nemea and a supporter of Arcita: ‘e ad Arcita s’offerse in aiuto,/ per cui era di Nemea venuto,/ [h]e offered himself to the cause of Arcites, for whom he had come from Nemea’ (Tes., VI.14.3 and 7–8; McCoy, 147). But Chaucer identifies him as the King of Thrace after Statius, Thebaid, VII.180: ‘Thracen silvasque Lycurgi?/ to Thrace and the forests of Lycurgus?’ Reference is to J. H. Mozley (trans.),

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

227

Statius: Silvae, Thebaid, Achilleid, Loeb, 2 vols (London: William Heinemann Ltd; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967–1969). See The Riverside Chaucer, note to 2129, p. 837. 11 See Ian Mortimer, The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006), pp. 105–7. 12 See MED, s.v. hardi adj. 1a. (a) ‘Of persons, animals, dispositions: strong in battle, fearless of danger, stout-hearted’. In the Prologue A Fiammetta, 247/9–15 (Havely, pp. 104–5) Boccaccio does not disguise his contempt for the lack of intelligence of the generality of women (‘poco intelligenti’) in following allegorical discourse (Fiammetta herself being an exception). There is no evidence that Chaucer shares such an attitude. 13 See Martin M. Crow and Clair C. Olson (eds), Chaucer Life-Records (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. 103–5. 14 See Teseida, II.88.5–6: ‘ “In casa sua nati e cresciuti/ fummo, e de’ suo’ nepoti semo,/ We were born and grew up within his (Cadmus’s) house and are descended from him” ’ (Havely, 110). 15 See Teseida, IV.12–17 and 84. Chaucer alters the name Penteo, the assumed name of Boccaccio’s Arcita after his release from prison, to Philostrate, thus emphasising his condition as lovesick lover. 16 Chaucer, who was himself involved in the negotiations for the marriage of Richard II in the period 1377–1381 to a princess of France, Marie, daughter of Charles V (Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 49, 52–53), adds the reference to wealth; see Teseida, V.96. 17 Simon Walker, ‘John, duke of Aquitaine and duke of Lancaster, styled King of Castile and Léon (1340–1399)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008, p. 7: accessed 20 December 2010. 18 Reference is to Guy Raynaud de Lage, Le Roman de Thèbes, CFMA, 2 vols (Paris: Champion, 1966 and 1968), translated into modern French by Aimé Petit, Le Roman de Thèbes (Paris: Champion, 1991). In Le Roman de Thèbes Theseus is not only identified as ‘duc d’Athaines’ (9937) and ‘d’Athaines nobles dus’ (10295), but is referred to repeatedly in the text as duke (‘au duc’, 9961; li dus’, 10005, 10014, 10015, 10035, 10053, 10062, etc.). As duke his status is clearly defined as the vassal of King Adrastus. Thus the duke dismounts on meeting the king, but does not allow the king to dismount in his turn, although he wished to do so (RT, 10303–13). The two are not equal (pareill, 10310): ‘il ert ses homs, li rois, ses sire’ (10311). The author undoubtedly reflects the social distinctions of the household in which he composed the poem, in all likelihood that of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II of England (c.1160). Eleanor was in her own right

228

Gerald Morgan

Duchess of Aquitaine and Countess of Poitou, and by her second marriage to Henry, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, on 8 May 1152 also Duchess of the Normans and Countess of the Angevins, and subsequently (1154) Queen of England. 19 Compare Teseida, VII.100.1–3: ‘Tra questi genti magnifico molto/ uscì Teseo con real vestimento,/ ov’è con somma reverenza accolto,/ Most magnificent Theseus, clad in regal dress, came forth among these people and was received by them with the greatest veneration’ (McCoy, 185). 20 These are Chaucer’s additions. The matter of A 2537–60 is part of Teseo’s speech at Teseida, VII.2–13 (see 8–13). 21 Teseida, XI.13.1–3: ‘Quinci Teseo con sollecita cura/ con seco cerca per solenne onore/ fare ad Arcita nella sepoltura,/ Then Theseus, with solicitous concern, considered how he might tender solemn honor to Arcites in his burial’ (McCoy, 291). 22 Teseida, XII.3.1–2 reads: ‘Ma poi che furon più giorni passati/ dopo lo sventurato avvenimento,/ But when a number of days had gone by following that unhappy event’ (Havely, 147). Chaucer indicates that a prudent lord such as Theseus will realise that a long space of time (if not too long) is necessary for the effects of this momentous event to subside. Emelye can hardly be passed over to another knight after the death of Arcite until she has been granted the decency to lament his loss. 23 See Teseida, II.27.1–2: ‘ “Signor, non ammirar l’abito tristo/ che ’nnanzi a tutti ci fa dispettose,/ My lord, do not wonder at our sad appearance which makes us contemptible to everyone” ’ (Havely, 108). 24 See Teseida, V.92.1–2: ‘ “Ma però ch’io già innamorato fui/ e per amor sovente folleggiai,/ m’è caro molto il perdonare altrui,/ But since I have been in love before and often made a fool of myself as a result, I am very eager to forgive others” ’ (Havely, 121). 25 See Teseida, VI.65.1–2: ‘Qualunque fu de’ possenti signori,/ re, duca, prenze o altro d’onor degno,/ Whoever these powerful lords were, king, duke, prince or other man worthy of honor’ (McCoy, 157). Chaucer naturally supplies an English reference to earls. 26 See MED, s.v. parementes n.pl. (b) ‘richly adorned garments’. 27 Compare Teseida, II.59.1–4: ‘Corsorsi adosso li due cavalieri (Teseo and Creon),/ chiusi nell’armi, e valorosamente/ si cominciaro a ferire i guerrieri,/ com’uomin che s’odiavan mortalmente,/ The two knights rushed headlong together and, encased in armor, the warriors began to strike valiantly like men who mortally hated one another’ (McCoy, 64).

8  Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale

229

28 See MED, s.v. fer adv. 5.(a) ‘Late (in time); … ~ ne ner, neither later nor sooner’ and dereinen v. 2.(a) ‘To fight to obtain (sth. or sb.), win (sth.)’. 29 On the tournament held at Smithfield at the conclusion of the Merciless parliament of 1388, see William Marx, ‘An Absent King: Perceptions of the Politics of Power in the Reign of Richard II and the Middle English Prose Brut’, in Chaucer in Context: A Golden Age of English Poetry, edited by Gerald Morgan (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2012), pp. 135–52. Chaucer’s own experience of tournaments at Smithfield date at least from his time as page in the household of Elizabeth de Burgh, Countess of Ulster (1357–1360) to his appointment as Clerk of the Works (1389–1391) when he was responsible for erecting the scaffolds for the king, queen and others at the jousts in May and October 1390; see Chaucer LifeRecords, pp. 18 and 472–73. 30 See MED, s.v. hond(e n. 4.(b) ‘strength, valor, fighting ability, fighting spirit; of honde(s, with respect to fighting ability’ and compare Teseida, VI.71.3–5: ‘gente adunata d’alta condizione/ né tanta né di si gran nobilitade/ non s’era vista per nulla stagione,/ so many high-ranking people of such great nobility had never been found gathered together there at any time’ (Havely, 123). 31 See Teseida, VII.19.4–7: ‘e credesi che non ne fosser guari/ rimasi al mondo di tal condizione,/ così gentili e per prodezza pari,/ quale era quivi l’uno e l’altro cento,/ [i]t is believed that there were hardly any of their rank left who were as noble and equally matched in prowess as were the one and the other hundred’ (McCoy, 170). 32 See MED, s.v. bacheler n. 4.(b) ‘a knight belonging to the lower of the two ranks of knights; a knight bachelor (as distinguished from a knight banneret)’. 33 See Geoffrey Brereton (trans.), Froissart: Chronicles (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), p. 95. 34 See Kaeuper and Kennedy, The ‘Book of Chivalry’ of Geoffroi de Charny, pp. 5–6 and 10–13. 35 Brereton, Froissart: Chronicles, pp. 141–44. 36 See J. P. Brooke-Little, Boutell’s Heraldry (London and New York: Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd, 1970), pp. 57 and 108–24. 37 See Boccaccio’s notes to Teseida, II.71.7 and III.1.1 and Troilus and Criseyde, III.1427–28. 38 Reference is to G. Busnelli and G. Vandelli (eds), Il Convivio, second edition, 2 vols (Florence: Felice Le Monnier, 1968 and 1964), IV.27.1–19 (II, pp. 337–50). 39 See J. A. Burrow, ‘Conscience on Knights, Kings and Conquerors: Piers Plowman B 19.26–198’, YLS, 23 (2009), 85–95. 40 The Virgin Mary is one of the three patrons of the Order of the Garter along with St George and St Edward the Confessor; see Hugh E. L. Collins, The Order of

230

Gerald Morgan

the Garter 1348–1461: Chivalry and Politics in Late Medieval England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), pp. 6–7, 9, 13 and n. 29, and 20–21. 41 See Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 50–59. 42 See Aristotle, De anima, II.3, Aquinas, ST, 1a 76.3 and Dante, Convivio, IV.7.14–15 (II, pp. 79–80).

9 The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

This essay sets out to show that the seventeen tragedies that constitute the Monk’s Tale are carefully and systematically ordered so as to develop a coherent argument about the nature of providence and fortune largely based on the authority of Boethius and in accordance with the status and character of the Monk himself. As such the Monk’s Tale takes its place as part of the larger and finished design of the Canterbury Tales as a whole.   Ben se’ crudel, se tu già non ti duoli pensando ciò che ’l mio cor s’annunziava; e se non piangi, di che pianger suoli? Thou art cruel indeed if thou grieve not now, thinking what my heart foreboded, and, if thou weep not, at what dost thou ever weep? — dante, Inferno, XXXIII.40–42; Sinclair, I.4071

I.  According to Derek Pearsall no grand design is to be found in the Monk’s Prologue and Tale (CT, VII.1889–2766), but simply a medieval catalogue characteristic of monastic learning.2 Characteristic it certainly is and the love of learning can at times result in a mere accumulation of facts and stories. This tendency is exhibited with brilliant learning on the part of Chaucer in the figure of the Monk, both in the relentless compilation of tragedies based on Fortune and in the ostentatious display of learning that accompanies it. Thus we have a learned reference to the verse form of six feet suitable for tragic or epic poetry as that which ‘men clepen exametron’ (VII.1979),3 although which men apart from Chaucer and the Monk we are at a loss to know, and a possible collection of ‘an hundred’ tragedies (VII.1371–72) (a match for the Decameron itself ) drawn from a wide range

232

Gerald Morgan

of authorities, from among others the Vulgate to Le Roman de la rose and the De casibus virorum illustrium of Boccaccio (a familiar authority to Chaucer throughout his poetic evolution although not explicitly acknowledged by him).4 Indeed the very description of the Monk’s stories as ‘tragedies’ (VII.1971) is almost certainly the work of Chaucer himself, for Boccaccio does not so describe his own stories of the falls of famous men from prosperity to adversity.5 Perhaps Chaucer was influenced in doing so by his own translation of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae (another important source of the Monk’s Tale), particularly the brief passage following the delivery of Croesus from death by burning by the sudden intervention of rain (CP, II, prosa 2, 38–40, Boece, II, prosa 2, 67–72): Quid tragoediarum clamor aliud deflet nisi indiscreto ictu fortunam felicia regna uertentem? What other thing doth the outcry of tragedies lament, but that fortune, having no respect, overturneth happy states?6 What other thynge bywaylen the cryinges of tragedyes but oonly the dedes of Fortune, that with an unwar strook overturneth the realmes of greet nobleye? (Glose. Tragedye is to seyn a dite of a prosperite for a tyme, that endeth in wrecchidnesse.)

This passage is tellingly reproduced in the Monk’s Tale in the final stanza (VII.2761–64): Tragediës noon oother maner thyng Ne kan in syngyng crie ne biwaille But that Fortune alwey wol assaille With unwar strook the regnes that been proude.

Chaucer is the man who introduces the word tragedy into the English language and for the first time perhaps in his translation of the De consolatione philosophiae.7 Such learning can be tiresome and it is difficult to put an end to it on occasions such as academic conferences when a speaker is in full flow. Hence the Monk’s learning is constrained beyond the compass of his own tale by the design of the Canterbury Tales itself as Dante’s is by the poetic discipline of canticas limited to thirty-three cantos, as explicitly acknowledged in the Purgatorio, XXXIII.136–41:

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

233

  S’io avessi, lettor, più lungo spazio da scrivere, i’ pur cantere’ in parte lo dolce ber che mai non m’avria sazio;   ma perché piene son tutte le carte ordite a questa cantica seconda, non mi lascia più ir lo fren de l’arte. If, reader, I had more space to write I should sing but in part the sweet draught which never would have sated me; but since all the sheets prepared for this second cantica are full the curb of art does not let me go farther.

The Monk’s hundred tales would require several pilgrimages to bring to completion and happily they are reduced to a manageable seventeen. Further, some require no more than a single stanza, a tragedy indeed in brief compass. The encyclopaedic range of the Monk is not to be disparaged and no one would wish to call the extensiveness of his knowledge into question. Thus the effortless monastic discourse is eventually only to be brought to an end by the intervention of the Knight who in many battles has seen at close quarters the ebb and flow of personal fortunes, and his lead is enthusiatically followed by the Host. A time must surely come for the lightening of the tragic mood, ‘ “for litel hevynesse/ Is right ynough to muche folk, I gesse” ’ (VII.2769–70). The Host, lacking the Knight’s exquisite courtesy, thinks it is time to move on (as many people frequently do in life outside the world of learning): ‘ “and pardee, no remedie/ It is for to biwaille ne compleyne/ That that is doon” ’ (VII.2784–86). The pilgrimage to Canterbury exists in a world outside monastic libraries and the life dedicated to learning even when it acknowledges the existence and importance of that life. The tragedies of life in this world cannot be excluded from pilgrimages, but the Canterbury Tales itself, unlike Troilus and Criseyde, is not a tragedy even as it incorporates tragedies within the scope of a human comedy. The Monk and his tragedies have a not insignificant part to play in this world, but it is only a part. It is time in a more profound sense to move on, and we move on from tragedy to mock epic and from the world of sorrowful reflection on what might otherwise have been to that of laughter at human incompetence fuelled by vanity. The Monk is indeed fittingly followed by the Nun’s Priest, no intellectual lightweight

234

Gerald Morgan

himself, and in his beast fable the Nun’s Priest does not fail to carry forward the moral point at the heart of the Monk’s Tale, namely, that learning is not merely for display and pride comes before a fall. Chaucer is not dismissive of the worth of his fictional characters as many modern commentators, struggling to understand the inner meaning of Chaucer’s poetry, have frequently been. Learning is at all times to be valued, and the authorities most admired by the Monk, such as Dante (VII.2459–62) and Petrarch (VII.2325–26), are those most admired by Chaucer himself. And we must add to them Boethius, the great expositor for the Middle Ages of the mysteries and incomprehensibility of the tribulations of personal fortune. It is undeniably a weighty subject, worthy of the greatest philosophical minds of Chaucer’s age, beyond the reach and patience of many of the pilgrims who must nevertheless confront the vicissitudes of fortune in their own experience. No doubt fortune lies subject to the inscrutable simplicity of the divine will, although Pearsall makes it more amenable to Christian faith than the suffering of creatures of flesh and blood usually allows.8 If there is no grand design in the Monk’s Tale itself, we must see it as a necessary part of the grand design of the Canterbury Tales as a whole, and as we are led to search for an order and purpose in the scheme of the tales of all the pilgrims so we must search for an order and purpose in the sequence of tragedies told by the Monk, that is, a series of tales within a series of tales. We do not look to the Monk but to the Parson and Easter Sunday for the final word in the pilgrimage to Canterbury, but we must do justice to the Monk before we can do justice to the Parson.

The Host and the Monk II.  It falls to the Monk to follow the admirable example of the pilgrim Chaucer in the Tale of Melibee, a tale that ends with a husband following the excellent advice of his wife, Dame Prudence, a lady distinguished among wives for her goodness and discretion (VII.1870–73):

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

235

Whanne Melibee hadde herd the grete skiles and resouns of dame Prudence, and hire wise informaciouns and techynges,/ his herte gan enclyne to the wil of his wif, considerynge hir trewe entente,/ and conformed hym anon and assented fully to werken after hir conseil,/ and thonked God, of whom procedeth al vertu and alle goodnesse, that hym sente a wyf of so greet discrecioun./

How fortunate indeed for a man to receive the blessing of a good, loving and discreet wife, sent by God. It is assuredly not a blessing conferred on every husband. The Prologue of the Monk’s Tale begins with the Host’s reflection on this happy circumstance. He addresses the Monk with ‘murye’, that is, pleasant, words, for he does not wish to deny the possibility of kind and patient wives in bringing about peace and harmony in a troublesome world. But his own wife, Goodelief, is something of a fighter rather than a peacemaker. She would profit more than most from the example of Dame Prudence’s loving kindness (VII.1889–94). Goodelief is lacking in patience (VII.1895–96), that great virtue commended by the Franklin and exemplified by the knight Arveragus in the Franklin’s Tale (V.773–75): Pacience is an heigh vertu, certeyn, For it venquysseth, as thise clerkes seyn, Thynges that rigour sholde nevere atteyne.

Indeed, Goodelief supplies ‘the grete clobbed staves’ to enable our Host to beat his servants to within an inch of their lives, urging him on with violent language rather than restraining him in his violence (VII.1897–1900). Her own dignity and sense of self-worth in church matches that of the Wife of Bath (GP, I.449–52) and she expects her easy-going and acquiescent husband to stand up for her as a real man would do (VII.1901–12). Indeed, it is Goodelief ’s aggressiveness that will eventually get her husband into the trouble that he himself would be at pains to avoid (VII.1913–22). Fortunately, that is matter for another day. In the hierarchical sequence of pilgrims in the General Prologue the Monk comes after the Prioress and before the Friar in order of rank, and his high status is duly acknowledged by the Host, albeit in playful fashion, as he urges him to ‘be myrie of cheere’ (VII.1924) and to tell his tale in accordance with the rules of the game, well established by the time they have reached Rochester, some thirty miles from London (VII.1925–27).

236

Gerald Morgan

The Monk is ‘ “My lord, the Monk” ’ (VII.1924) and ‘ “myn owene lord” ’ (VII.1927) and it is presumably because of this gulf in status that the Host does not even yet know his personal name. But of the Monk’s social status there can be no doubt, whatever religious order he belongs to. He must be ‘my lord daun John,/ Or daun Thomas, or elles daun Albon’ (VII.1929– 30) and ‘a maister whan … at hoom’ (VII.1938). When the Monk has exhausted the patience of the Host by his seemingly endless thesaurus of tragedies, the mask of deference disappears with it: ‘ “Wherfore, sire Monk, daun Piers by your name,/ I pray yow hertely telle us somwhat elles” ’ (VII.2792–93). The pilgrim Monk of the General Prologue is an impressive physical specimen, a ‘manly man, to been an abbot able’ (I.167), well fed and in good condition (I.200–06), and these details are all confirmed by the admiring Host in the Monk’s Prologue (VII.1932–42). Were it not for the misfortune of the requirement of celibacy among the religious orders the Monk would make the best of lovers (VII.1943–48). Indeed, were the Host a pope (an unlikely prospect, admittedly) he would get rid of celibacy in favour of marriage for the religious orders and fill the world with well-built and handsome heirs instead of ‘shrympes’ and ‘wrecched ympes’ (VII.1949–58). These happy if self-indulgent thoughts occasion a shift from the polite plural (‘ye’, ‘youre’, ‘yow’, VII.1925, 1928, 1929) to the familiar singular (‘thou’, ‘thee’, ‘thy’, VII.1932, 1944, 1947). It is a familiarity endorsed by wives everywhere, for there can be no gainsaying the virility of Monks. They make no payment in ‘lussheburghes’ (VII.1962), that is, in coins of inferior metal such as were imported into England from Luxemburg in the reign of Edward III: ‘As in lussheburwes is a luþer alay, and yet lokeþ he lik a sterlyng’ (PPl, B XV.348).9 Such is the response of the ‘fair’ wife to the young monk (‘a thritty wynter he was oold’), ‘a fair man and a boold’, ‘daun John’, in the Shipman’s Tale (VII.20–32 and 43). The outcome is inevitable. It is the way of the world. But for the Host it is all a game, and as the Monk’s Tale itself draws near there is a return to the deferential plural: ‘ye’ (VII.1960, 1962) and an acknowledgment of the status of the Monk once again as ‘my lord’ (VII.1963). Nevertheless, many a true word is often spoken in jest: ‘ “Ful ofte in game a sooth I have herd seye!” ’ (VII.1964).

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

237

The Monk’s Response III.  The Monk takes the Host’s raillery in good part and is faultlessly civil in his response. He knows the rules of the game, and addresses the Host, the master and judge of the tale-telling (I.747–821), accordingly. He is after all a learned man; unlike the diffident and shy Chaucer the pilgrim (VII.694– 704 and 707–9) he can easily tell ‘a tale, or two, or three’ (VII.1968), or indeed ‘the lyf of Seint Edward’ (the Confessor, VII.1970). Or come to that ‘an hundred’ tragedies (VII.1971–72) if allowed time and opportunity. The Monks are the great encyclopaedists of the age, writing in their ‘celle’ (VII.1972), a place not much frequented by our Monk who prefers horseriding and hunting to study and prayer (I.168–92). Nevertheless the Monk exhibits and exploits the learning of his profession. He offers a definition of tragedy (VII.1973–82), that is, the movement from prosperity to adversity of those of ‘heigh degree’ (VII.1976, 1992), the contrary movement to that of comedy as exemplified by Dante’s Commedia and the Canterbury Tales itself. The downward movement of tragedy in this medieval view is one presided over by Fortune (VII.1973–96). Such tragedies thus contain a warning to us all, reinforced by the very multitude of compelling examples, not to place trust in the continuation of good fortune or ‘blynd prosperitee’ (VII.1997–98). Thus in the midst of life we are in death and in the midst of Chaucer’s comedy we have the Monk’s tragedies. The Monk is indeed confident in the superiority of his own learning, but makes due allowance for those less learned than himself (a plain man such as the Host, for example) who may not be as comfortable as he is with the term exametron for the verse form ‘[o]f six feet’ (VII.1979). At the same time he would not wish us to think him immodest and incapable of carrying his learning lightly. Thus he ends his introductory comments with a captatio benevolentiae apologising for his ‘ignoraunce’ for any lack of due order in his illustrative examples of ‘popes, emperoures, or kynges’ (VII.1986, 1990). He is not in his cell where he can check and recheck his facts, but is simply telling these stories as they come to him off the top of his head on pilgrimage: ‘ “As it now comth unto my remembraunce” ’ (VII.1989). In the same way and for the same reason Chaucer’s pilgrim

238

Gerald Morgan

narrator apologises for a lack of systematic order in the ranking of portraits in the General Prologue (I.1743–46). But as in the General Prologue, so in the Monk’s Tale, there is no obvious lack of order, at least to begin with: Lucifer, Adam, Sampson. Admittedly Lucifer is a special case, being ‘an angel …/ And nat a man’ (VII.1999–2000). Hence Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium begins with Adam and Eve, and not Lucifer. In the first of the Monk’s tragedies, therefore, the agency of Fortune does not apply, since ‘Fortune may noon angel dere’ (VII.2001), but this circumstance is no doubt compensated for by the extent of Lucifer’s fall, ‘[f ]rom heigh degree …/ Doun into helle’ (VII.2002–3). Adam is another exceptional case in that he was created by ‘Goddes owene fynger …/ And nat bigeten of mannes sperme unclene’ (VII.2008–9). But Adam too is an example of a fall from ‘heigh degree’, that is, from the governance no less of ‘al paradys savynge o tree’ to a life of labour and indeed also ‘to helle’ (VII.2010–14).

Sequence of Tales and their Sources IV.  The Monk’s Tale is a collection in itself of seventeen tales, varying in length from a single stanza (Lucifer, Adam, Peter I, King of Cyprus/ Pierre de Lusignan and Bernabò Visconti) to sixteen stanzas (Zenobia). There is no one specific source that would account for the matter of all the tales and the sequence of tales, and this fact is consistent with the wide range of tragic examples chosen and more particularly with the kind of encyclopaedic knowledge to be looked for in a monk. Hence we cannot rely on a single source such as Boccaccio’s Filostrato (c.1335) for Troilus and Criseyde or his Teseida (1339–41) for the Knight’s Tale, but we have to master a wide range of sources. To deal with the monks of this world knowledge is necessary, and from knowledge will proceed understanding. When we have sufficient knowledge we may be confident that the design of the Monk’s Tale and its place in the overall design of the Canterbury Tales will be disclosed. In fifteen of the fifty-one manuscripts containing the Monk’s Tale the tale is described either in an incipit or an explicit or both as De casibus

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

239

virorum illustrium. Thus MS Cambridge Dd.4.24: ‘Heere endeth the prologe and bigynneth the Monkes tale that is titled De Casibus Virorum Illustrium Chaucer’ and ‘Here endeth the Monkes tale De Casibus Virorum Illustrium’.10 This has the appearance of an acknowledgment of Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium as a source, but in fact it is not the primary source of one of the seventeen tales. It is the source of the last stanza of Zenobia, the probable source of the second stanza of Nero and a possible source for the first stanza of Croesus and for the tragedy of Pompey embedded in the tragedy of Julius Caesar.11 But as ever in Chaucer’s work, notably the Troilus which is bafflingly referred to ‘myn auctour called Lollius’ (TC, I.394: see also ‘as telleth Lollius’, TC, V.1653), there is no certain acknowledgment of Boccaccio, a curious aberration in a man of learning such as Chaucer, and indeed in the tale of Zenobia a reference rather to ‘my maister Petrak …/ That writ ynough of this, I undertake’ (VII.2325–26). Indeed the reverence for Petrarch here accords with the extended praise of him in the Prologue to the Clerk’s Tale (IV.26–56). Moreover, the primary source of the tales of Nero and Croesus is the De casibus section of Jean de Meun’s Roman de la rose.12 Further, the tales of Lucifer, Holofernes and Antiochus are not found elsewhere in a De casibus series and require a special explanation. In lists of this kind we may indeed expect to find a systematic order, and if a deviation from such order a reason for such deviation. Here we may draw upon the Canterbury Tales itself as a basis on which to proceed. First of all there is the grand design of the whole, from the General Prologue and the Knight’s Tale to the Parson’s Tale.13 Then there is the order of the pilgrims in the General Prologue.14 Then again there is the order of exempla in a rhetorical tour de force such as Dorigen’s Complaint in the Franklin’s Tale (V.1339–1458).15 Thus we need to scrutinise the order of the tragedies in the Monk’s Tale to discover a well-considered plan, for we may rule out as a matter of course a haphazard series in the work of the master poet. The sequence of tales told by the Monk and their sources are as follows: 1. Lucifer (VII.1999–2006): Isaiah, 14.12. 2. Adam (VII.2007–14): Genesis, 2–3.

240

Gerald Morgan

3. Sampson (VII.2015–94): Judges, 13–16. Obviously the Monk does not rely on a Latin translation of the Vulgate, as perhaps many modern readers do, and he supplies a characteristically learned reference to it: ‘Thus heelp hym God, as Judicum can telle’ (VII.2046).16 4. Hercules (VII.2095–142): Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae, IV, metrum 7.13–31; Ovid, Metamorphoses, IX.134–241 and Heroides, IX. 5. Nabugodonosor (VII.2143–82): Daniel, 1–4. 6. Belthasar, son of Nabugodonosor (VII.2183–246): Daniel, 5. 7. Cenobia (VII.2247–374): Boccaccio, De mulieribus claris. 8. De Petro Rege Ispannie (VII.2375–90): such Latin headings to the following tales add increasingly to the effect of learning. Pedro of Castile and León, the first of the Modern Instances, was assassinated on 23 March 1369. His daughter Constanza is the second wife (1371–1394) of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. 9. De Petro Rege de Cipro (VII.2391–98): Peter I of Cyprus (1359–1369), the second of the Modern Instances, was also assassinated in 1369 (17 January) by three of his own knights. The account here is based possibly on Guillaume Machaut’s La Prise d’Alixandre.17 10. De Barnabo de Lumbardia (VII.2399–406): Bernabò Visconti, the third of the Modern Instances, was arrested on 6 May 1385 and died suddenly, perhaps by poison, in prison in December 1385. Chaucer visited his court in the second half of July 1378, possibly on a mission to secure a marriage alliance between England and Milan.18 11. De Hugelino Comite de Pize (VII.2407–62): Ugolino della Gherardesca, the fourth of the Modern Instances, but not a contemporary of Chaucer as are the preceding three and hence not based on personal experience and access to privileged knowledge. He died of starvation in prison in 1289. The source is Dante, Inferno, XXXII.124–XXXIII.1–90. It is hard to imagine a greater authority, and no one is better placed than the Monk to appreciate the ipsissima verba of the original text: ‘Redeth the grete poete of Ytaille/ That highte Dant, for he kan al devyse/ Fro point to point; nat o word wol he faille’ (VII.2460–62). 12. Nero (VII.2463–550): Chaucer’s source here is principally Le Roman de la rose, 6153–6458, which itself refers to ‘li livres anciens,/ Diz des Doze Cesariens/ The old book called The Twelve Caesars (6455–56) of

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

241

Suetonius.19 But lest anyone doubts the Monk’s familiarity with the original text once again, a reference is made to the De vita Caesarum of Suetonius at the very beginning of the Monk’s version (‘as telleth us Swetonius’, VII.2465) directly after the learned reference to Dante. 13. De Oloferno (VII.2551–74): Judith, 2.1–18, 3.13, 4.5–7, 5.29, 12.20 and 23.1–12. 14. De Rege Antiocho illustri (VII.2575–630), that is, Antiochus IV, King of Syria (175–163 BC): 2 Machabees, 9. 15. De Alexandro (VII.2631–70): no specific source has yet been identified, for ‘[t]he storie of Alisaundre is so commune/ That every wight that hath discrecioun/ Hath herd somwhat or al of his fortune’ (VII.2631–33). 16. De Julio Cesare (VII.2671–726): one might have thought that the story of Julius Caesar was hardly less well known than that of Alexander the Great, but the Monk’s version is buttressed by an impressive array of authorities (VII.2719–20). Suetonius may suffice for Nero, but for Julius Caesar Lucan’s Pharsalia and the Facta et dicta memorabilia of Valerius Maximus are also required reading. 17. Cresus (VII.2727–66): the source for Croesus, last King of Lydia (c. 560– 546 b.c.), is Le Roman de la rose, 6459–6600 (Horgan, pp. 99–101). The final stanza of Croesus with its summarising account of tragic lamentation and the untrustworthiness of Fortune (VII.2761–66) rounds off the Monk’s collection of tales by returning us to their starting point in the opening stanza (VII.1991–98). This is much in the manner of a romance such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which begins and ends with references to the siege and fall of Troy (SGGK, 1–2 and 2524–28): SIÞEN þe sege and þe assaut watz sesed at Troye, Þe bor3 brittened and brent to brondez and askez. … Syþen Brutus, þe bolde burne, boȝed hider fyrst, After þe segge and þe asaute watz sesed at Troye,    iwysse,   Mony aunterez here-biforne   Haf fallen suche er þis.20

242

Gerald Morgan

Indeed the Monk brings his collection of tales to an end with a special authority in reminding us of the very words of Boethius himself (Boece, prosa, 2.67–70 and VII.2761–64): What other thynge bywaylen the cryinges of tragedyes but oonly the dedes of Fortune, that with an unwar strook overturneth the realmes of greet nobleye? Tragediës noon oother maner thyng Ne kan in syngyng crie ne biwaille But that Fortune alwey wole assaille With unwar strook the regnes that been proude.

Boethius is the unchallengeable authority in Chaucer’s day on the subject of Fortune in human affairs. Thus Aquinas in his quaestio on fate (fatum) draws at length and in detail on the De consolatione philosophiae, IV, prosa 6 (ST, 1a 116)21 and Dante singles Boethius out for special praise as the eighth spirit in the garland of the wise in the first circle of the sphere of the Sun (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.

Thus from the point of view of the narrative art of the Monk’s Tale we have surely heard the final word. But as for the Monk himself we can never be quite sure of a final word. Hence the ending of the tale is followed by the dramatic interventions of the Knight and the Host.

The Argument of the Individual Tales V.  With Lucifer and Adam we begin with two exceptional cases which make it clear from the beginning that the understanding of Fortune will be placed in a Christian and not merely a classical context. Lucifer is ‘an angel …/

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

243

And nat a man’ (VII.1999–2000) and thus not affected by Fortune as such for ‘Fortune may noon angel dere’ (VII.2001). In the Christian view Fortune is subordinated to Providence and operates in the sublunary world of men and women.22 Yet insofar as tragedy signifies the fall of those ‘that stoode in heigh degree,/ … so that ther nas no remedie’ (VII.1992–93), such a fall is certainly evident in the case of Lucifer who ‘[f ]rom heigh degree yet fel he for his synne/ Doun into helle, where he yet is inne’ (VII.2002–3). Thus at the very beginning of the series of tragedies based on Fortune the place of Fortune in a world governed by Providence is clearly and unambiguously defined. Chaucer’s contemporary Langland describes the fall of Lucifer in the first passus of Piers Plowman (B I.111–15):   ‘Lucifer wiþ legions lerned it (treuþe) in heuene, [And was þe louelokest of liȝt after Oure Lord seluen] Til he brak buxomnesse; his blisse gan he tyne, And fel fro that felawshipe in a fendes liknesse Into a deep derk helle to dwelle þere for euere.’

broke;obedience;lose

Lucifer is damned eternally and his fall is indeed irremediable. These are the authoritative words of Lady Holy Church to the ignorant dreamer. Lucifer’s sin, like that of Adam who follows in the Monk’s series, is that of disobedience. With Adam we turn from the archangel to a ‘worldly man’ and indeed none such was of ‘so heigh degree/ As Adam’ (VII.2011–12). Hence among worldly men his fall was the greatest. His worldliness is indicated by the place of his birth ‘in the feeld of Damyssene’ (VII.2007) where Damascus later stood. This is common knowledge in the Middle Ages and is found in Boccaccio’s De casibus and Lydgate’s Fall of Princes.23 But Adam is created directly by God and hence is not infected by original sin: ‘With Goddes owene fynger wroght was he,/ And nat bigeten of mannes sperme unclene’ (VII.2008–9). His fall is due to his own ‘mysgovernaunce’ (VII.2012) and his failing disobedience of God’s command (Genesis, 2.17 and 3.17). Thus Adam ‘[w]as dryven out of hys hye prosperitee/ To labour’ (VII.2013–14). Chaucer hardly needs to elaborate upon so familiar a story. But he takes care not to mention Eve by name, for the woman is surely not to be blamed for the man’s transgression in a state of innocence. Here at once is a striking contrast between the Monk’s Tale and Boccaccio’s De casibus.

244

Gerald Morgan

Samson too has a special status in the catalogue of human tragedies and this is at once evident in the formality of Chaucer’s language in the opening lines of the tale (VII.2015–17): Loo Sampsoun, which that was annunciat By th’angel longe er his nativitee, And was to God Almyghty consecrat.24

Chaucer is here following the text of the Vulgate at the beginning of Judges 13 where we learn that an angel of the lord appears before the barren wife of Manue and announces to her the conception and birth of a son who ‘incipiet liberare Israel de manu Philisthinorum,/ shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines’ ( Judges, 13.5). Samson is born and is blest by the Lord ( Judges, 13.24). Hence the special nobility of Samson is repeatedly stressed in the Monk’s Tale. He ‘stood in noblesse whil he myghte see’ (VII.2018) and is ‘this noble almyghty champioun’ (VII.2023). His fall is bitterly felt in two apostrophes expressive of grief and indignation: ‘O noble, almyghty Sampsoun, lief and deere’ (VII.2052) and ‘O noble Sampsoun, strongest of mankynde’ (VII.2075). But after the fall of Adam we are now in a post-lapsarian world and even the best of men, ‘forne þe freest’ such as Samson (SGGK, 2414–28) are vulnerable to the wiles of women. Indeed it is the very best of men who are especially and tragically vulnerable to the love of women and it is indeed on this account that they are so easily deceived by women.25 The Monk is in no doubt from the beginning that Samson’s undoing, unlike that of Adam, results from his trust (a generous but unwise trust) in women (VII.2021–22): But to his wyves toolde he his secree, Thurgh which he slow hymself for wrecchednesse.

This is not to say that we cannot find virtue in a wife but rather that we cannot guarantee the discretion of Melibee’s Dame Prudence. The Monk finds it hard to forgive Samson’s complacency and presses the contrast between his nobility and exceptional worth on the one hand and the wife’s falseness, importunity and betrayal on the other (VII.2027–30). What a price has to be paid for folly and indiscretion on this scale (VII.2053–54):

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

245

Had thou nat toold to wommen thy secree, In al this world ne hadde been thy peere!

The narrative of the Monk’s Tale is here uncompromising in its simplicity and singleness of point of view. The Monk’s Dalida (VII.2063) needs none of the persistence of the biblical Dalila ( Judges, 16.6–16) and the Monk thus comes directly to the inevitable outcome in a post-lapsarian world (VII.2063–65): Unto his lemman Dalida he tolde That in his heeris al his strengthe lay, And falsly to his foomen she hym solde.

We are in the comfortable and in a way reassuring world of medieval anti-feminism, a world in which wives, like that of the Merchant, are to blame (IV.1218–20). In accordance with this view of the world, a Monk’s view let it be said, the tragedy of Samson yields a simple moral conclusion (VII.2091–94): Beth war by this ensample oold and playn That no men telle hir conseil til hir wyves Of swich thyng as they wolde han secree fayn, If that it touche hir lymes or hir lyves.

The example of Hercules that follows Samson gives the Monk a wonderful opportunity to display in brief his encyclopaedic knowledge, for of necessity it contains the list of the twelve labours of Hercules (VII.2098– 110). Chaucer’s word for labours is werkes (VII.2096) and the immediate source is Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae (CP, IV, metrum 7.13–31/ Boece, IV, metrum 7.28–62) which corresponds only imperfectly with the order and detail of the traditional twelve labours. We are dealing here with the learning of the medieval rather than the classical world. The Monk’s list, as that of Boethius, does not follow the order of classical tradition. Thus the eleventh and twelfth labours, namely, the bringing back of the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides guarded by the dragon Ladon and bringing Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding the gates of Hades to the upper world, appear in fourth and fifth position

246

Gerald Morgan

at the end of the first stanza of the list in the Monk’s tale (VII.2101–2). Here Chaucer is simply following Boethius’s order (Boece, IV metrum 7.34–37). Cerberus comes last as the most difficult of the twelve labours of Hercules, whereas for Boethius sustaining the heaven on his neck is ‘the laste of his labours’ and ‘his laste travaile’ (Boece, metrum 7.58–59 and 62)/ ‘Vltimus … labor/ Vltimi … laboris’ (CP, IV, metrum 7.29 and 31). There are at the same time some significant differences from the Boece. Whereas Diomedes, the King of Thrace killed by Hercules as his eighth labour, is identified in the Boece (but not in the De consolatione philosophiae itself, IV, metrum 7.20–21) as the lord whom ‘Hercules slowh … and made his hors to freten hym’ (IV, metrum 7.40–41), the man identified by the Monk is ‘the crueel tyrant Busirus’ (VII.2103) a king of Egypt who killed and sacrificed to his horses all foreigners who came to his land.26 It is the name of Busiris that Hercules invokes in the agony of his cruel death: ‘ergo ego foedantem peregrino templa cruore/ Busirin domui?/ Was it for this I slew Busiris, who defiled his temples with strangers’ blood?’ (Ovid, Metamorphoses, IX.182–83).27 His cruelty is immortalised in English literature in Spenser’s House of Busirane in the Legend of Chastity (Faerie Qveene, III.11.10). The oblique reference by the Monk but not Boethius or Boece to the Lernean Hydra, the second labour of Hercules, as ‘the firy serpent venymus’ (VII.2105) derives from ‘a misreading of the Aeneid, VI.288 where “flammisque” applies to Chimaera rather than Hydra’.28 Undoubtedly Busiris and the fiery Hydra, sixth and seventh in the Boethian and Chaucerian order, add to the poetic colour of the Monk’s list of the labours of Hercules and medieval auditors without a copy of The Riverside Chaucer to hand might have been inclined to have given the learned narrator (Chaucer or the Monk) the benefit of any possible doubt. The labours are set out in the Monk’s Tale largely by a series of seven rhetorical repetitions (epanaphora) (VII.2098, 2100, 2103–5, 2107–9): He slow and rafte the skyn of the leoun; … He Arpies slow, the crueel bryddes felle; He slow the crueel tyrant Busirus And made his hors to frete hym, flessh and boon; He slow the firy serpent venymus; …

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

247

And he slow Cacus in a cave of stoon; He slow the geant Antheus the stronge; He slow the grisly boor, and that anon,

and leading to the irrefutable conclusion (VII.2111–12): Was nevere wight, sith that this world bigan, That slow so manye monstres as did he.

In order to achieve this sustained effect the text of Boethius has been systematically modified. Thus Hercules ‘[f ]ixit et certis uolucres sagittis, … Strauit Antaeum Libycis harenis,/ Cacus Euandri satiauit iras/ Quosque pressurus foret altus orbis/ Saetiger spumis umeros notauit,/ smot the briddes that hyghten Arpiis with certeyn arwes; … and he, Hercules, caste adoun Antheus the geaunt in the [sondes] of Libye; and Kacus apaysede the wratthes of Evander …; and the bristilede boor markide with scomes the scholdres of Hercules, the whiche scholdres the heye cercle of hevene sholde thriste’ (CP, IV, metrum 7.16 and 25–28; Boece, IV, metrum 7.32– 34 and 50–58).29 No matter that Hercules captured but did not slay the Erymanthian boar as his fourth labour (eleventh in the Monk’s list). The order of Antaeus and Cacus is reversed, perhaps to strengthen the rhetorical impact, and the reference to ‘Cacus in a cave of stoon’ indicates familiarity with the tenth labour of Hercules, the oxen of Geryon. Thus rhetorical eloquence takes precedence over classical learning, underlining as it does Hercules’s virtue as ‘the sovereyn conquerour’ (VII.2095). Notably Chaucer has reversed the order of Centaur and Nemean lion (the first of the traditional labours of Hercules). This does not seem to be an attempt to restore the traditional order, for which he otherwise shows no concern, but to emphasise the parallel between Hercules and Samson. As Sampso(u)n ‘slow and al torente the leoun’ (VII.2025) so Hercules ‘slow and rafte the skyn of the leoun’ (VII.2098). It is but one of a number of parallels. Thus, as Sampsoun is set apart by his great strength, so too is Hercules, ‘[f ]or in his tyme of strengthe he was the flour’ (VII.2097) and ‘was so stroong that no man myghte hym lette’ (VII.2116). On the authority of ‘Trophee’ we have it that Hercules sets the limits of human ambition in establishing the pillars that mark the eastern and western ends of the world (VII.2117–18).30 As in Sampsoun strength is linked to nobility, so in

248

Gerald Morgan

the case of Hercules it is linked to goodness: ‘What for his strengthe and for his heigh bountee’ (VII.2114). And as Sampsoun is undone by Dalida, so too is Hercules by ‘[a] lemman …/ That highte Dianira, fresshe as May’ (VII.2119–20). Can we also conclude that Hercules too was betrayed by a woman? We would be unwise to do so and ought not without reflection cast about for stereotypes of medieval anti-feminism. Moreover, Chaucer’s reading of the account of Hercules’s death in Ovid’s Metamorphoses is bound to arouse doubt. The tormented and jealous wife wishes only to regain the love of her husband from her rival Iole by sending as a gift to him the shirt stained in the blood of the centaur Nessus. Lichas, the bearer of the gift to Hercules, is ignorant (‘ignaro’) of the significance of the gift he bears, the loving wife who gives it to him to deliver unaware (‘nescia’) of the misery she is about to bring upon herself with her flattering words and the hero who receives it unaware (‘nescius’) of the agony and death it is about to bring (Met., IX.126–33 and 152–58). We have moved decisively from the Christian to the classical world and to a Fortune unchecked by the providential will of the Christian God. It would be hard to improve on the tragic ironies at work in this example of a cruel and uncaring Fortune destroying in a single act the prosperity of all three human agents. Dianira is not to be blamed for the work of Fortune of which she is the tragic plaything, and the Monk in consequence ‘wol hire noght accusen’ (VII.2129). In the tragedy of Hercules it is Fortune that at last takes centre stage (VII.2140–42): Beth war, for whan that Fortune list to glose, Thanne wayteth she her man to overthrowe By swich a wey as he wolde leest suppose.

In the tragedies of Nabugodonosor (VII.2143–82), King of Babylon (c.652–605 b.c.) and his son Balthasar (VII.2143–82) that now follow we return to biblical examples but with a striking difference. Nabugodonosor and Balthasar are not noble men tragically reduced from prosperity to adversity. Nabugodonosor is an example of the pride of one elevated by kingship beyond the reach of his humanity. He is ‘[t]his proude kyng’ (VII.2159) and ‘kyng of kynges proud … and elaat’ (VII.2167).31 He needs to learn the lesson of humility and does so in being reduced to the state of a beast, as far below humanity as he considered himself above it. Eventually he

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

249

is restored to the true dignity of a human being by a loving God and lives out the rest of his life with a due sense of his subjection to God (VII.2181–82): And til that tyme he leyd was on his beere He knew that God was ful of myght and grace.

There is no mention of Fortune here, but simply a demonstration of the judgment and power of a loving God in punishing the abuse of power characteristic of those in high places. Indeed it is the very purpose of Boccaccio in his collection of examples of the falls of illustrious men to bring his readers to acknowledge the power of God, their own fragility and the uncertainty of Fortune and as a result to place a limit on their own pleasures and perhaps in so doing avoid the dangers that have overwhelmed others.32 Balthasar, however, does not learn the lesson even when it is close at hand in the experience of his father (VII.2185). He is not only proud as his father was but also an idolater, worshipping false gods (VII.2186–87). In his pride he thinks himself immune from adversity: ‘His hye estaat assured hym in pride’ (VII.2188). Here Fortune comes into play at the very beginning of the story of Balthasar: ‘But Fortune caste hym doun, and ther he lay’ (VII.2189). Nabugodonosor has to learn in the form of a beast ‘by grace and by resoun,/ That God of hevene hath domynacioun/ Over every regne and every creature’ (VII.2218–20), but even in the face of his father’s experience Balthasar remains a ‘rebel to God, and … his foo’ (VII.2225). The writing is on the wall for him and for all those like him who in their pride refuse to subject themselves to the will of God. The reckoning for pride comes swiftly through a seemingly pitiless Fortune that like Dante’s ‘general ministra e duce’ (Inferno, VII.67–96) carries out the will of a just and merciful God. The role of Fortune in its relation to the will of God is stated with a clarity and directness in the final stanza that brooks no argument (VII.2241 and 2244–46): For whan Fortune wole a man forsake, … For what man that hath freendes thurgh Fortune, Mishap wol maken hem enemys, I gesse; This proverbe is ful sooth and ful commune.

250

Gerald Morgan

It is not a difficult even if unpalatable argument and the writing on the wall is a matter of proverbial wisdom and common knowledge. The biblical story is followed faithfully but Chaucer adds to it the clarifying references to Fortune. The tragedies of Fortune operate with strict impartiality towards men and women alike, and the next tragedy, the longest of the Monk’s tragedies (VII.2247–374), is indeed that of a woman, Cenobia, the famous Queen of Palmyra in Syria. For her tragedy Chaucer turns to Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris but in the text of the Monk’s Tale it is rather the authority of Petrarch that is acknowledged (VII.2319–26). Petrarch devotes a mere ten lines to Zenobia in the Trionfo della Fama (II.107–17).33 These lines tell us of her youthful beauty, virtue and firmness of heart, and of the fear that she struck even in the Roman Empire, but they do not otherwise enlighten us in the way that the Monk’s Tale suggests. But the reference does undoubtedly add to our sense of the weight of learning that has gone into the making of the Monk’s Tale, for Petrarch is not only the Monk’s ‘maister’ (VII.2325) but the master also of a great Aristotelian scholar such as the Clerk of Oxenford (IV.26–56). With Cenobia we return to the admirable figures of Sampsoun and Hercules and a heroine to set beside and indeed to match these incomparable heroes. Like them she is distinguished by her ‘noblesse’ (VII.2248). She is ‘worthy … in armes’, courageous and noble in lineage (VII.2249–52). She is a great huntress and wrestler (VII.2255–68) but also a virgin (VII.2269– 70) and in marriage of exemplary chastity, identifying sexual pleasure with procreation and duly rewarded with two sons (VII.2279–96). Although a great huntress she ‘lafte noght, for noon huntyng,/ To have of sundry tonges ful knowyng’ (VII.2306–7). This admirable combination of the life of adventure in the hunting field and of book learning with its moral improvement our Monk is peculiarly well fitted to appreciate (VII.2308– 10). With her husband Odenake she is blest as a conqueror in many battles (VII.2311–26) and even after his death the victories continue and the future apparently secure in the accession of her two sons (VII.2327–46). But the outcome of battles is always uncertain and ‘Conquest’, although ‘in greet honour’, sits ‘[w]ith the sharpe swerd over his heed/ Hangynge by a soutil twynes threed’ (KnT, I.2028–30). The blessings of Fortune, so necessary

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

251

for success in battle, at last desert her (and for no obvious blameworthiness on her part) and they pass from her to her enemy Aurelian (the Roman Emperor Aurelianus, 270–275) (VII.2347–50): But ay Fortune hath in hire hony galle; This myghty queene may no while endure. Fortune out of hir regne made hire falle To wrecchednesse and to mysaventure.

These references to Fortune are not to be found in the De mulieribus claris and a third is added at 2367, ‘Allas, Fortune!’, in a rhetorical expression of indignation and sorrow. Cenobia and her sons are defeated and captured by Aurelian (VII.2351–58) and from the state of majesty of an unconquered queen Cenobia herself is reduced to the ordinary humiliations of womankind. The warrior’s helmet is replaced by the lady’s headdress and the queenly sceptre by the humble distaff (VII.2370–74): And she that helmed was in starke stoures And wan by force townes stronge and toures, Shal on hir heed now were a vitremyte; And she that bar the ceptre ful of floures Shal bere a distaf, hire cost for to quyte.34

How different this last stanza is with the reduction of Cenobia to the traditional female task of spinning to the ending of the tale of Zenobia in the De mulieribus claris. Although Zenobia is led to Rome in Aurelianus’s triumph the trappings of her former exalted state are still about her in the golden chains and royal adornments that weigh her down and she ends her days in dignified retirement as might befit a Roman matron on an estate near Tivoli.35 This is more like Napoleon on Elba than Lucifer in hell. But in the Monk’s Tale she is brought face to face at the end with the adversity in life that most women have to face. At the heart of the Monk’s series of tragedies are three so-called Modern Instances of great men brought low by Fortune (VII.2376 and 2397–98), Pedro of Castile and León, betrayed and killed in the lodgings of Bertrand du Guesclin at Montiel on 23 March 1369, Peter I of Cyprus, assassinated by three of his own knights on 17 January 1369 and Bernabò

252

Gerald Morgan

Visconti who died in prison in December 1385. These are famous men and famous events of Chaucer’s own lifetime and for this reason they earn a place at the centre of the Monk’s tragedies. These dramatic contemporary events make plain that the subject of Fortune does not belong to the remote biblical and classical past but is part of the present reality of individual lives and the repercussions of the sudden changes of personal fortunes are to be felt at all periods of history. Knowledge of such contemporary events is hard to come at for outsiders, but in the case of the fall of Pedro of Castile and Leon an impressive knowledge is displayed. The narrator of the Monk’s Tale is not only learned but exceptionally well informed. The laudatory apostrophe, ‘O noble, O worthy Petro, glorie of Spayne’ (VII.2375), confirmed in the final line by ‘this worthy kyng’ (VII.2390), not only continues the pattern of the preceding tragedy of Cenobia but no doubt reflects also Chaucer’s personal sympathies. Pedro is murdered by his own brother (VII.2378–82), in fact his illegitimate half-brother, Henry of Trastámara, in a plot contrived by Bertrand du Guesclin (‘this cursednesse and al this synne’) and carried out by Olivier Mauny (‘[t]he wikked nest’, OF mau ni, that is, mal nid, and ‘Genylon-Olyver, corrupt for meede’) (VII.2383–90). Du Guesclin is identified by his coat of arms: ‘L’escu d’argent a une aigle de sable/ A deux testes un roge baton/ A silver shield with a black two-headed eagle on a red baton’.36 It is brilliantly and accurately described by Chaucer as by one entirely familiar with the detail: ‘The feeld of snow, with th’egle of blak therinne,/ Caught with the lymrod coloured as the gleede’ (VII.2383–84).37 Chaucer was in Navarre in February and March 1366 at the time when du Guesclin, Arnoud d’Audrehem and Hugh Calveley invaded Castile in support of Henry of Trastámara who was proclaimed King of Castile as Enrique II at Calahorra on 16 March 1366 and crowned at Burgos on Palm Sunday, 29 March 1366. Had Chaucer been present with the Black Prince, John of Gaunt and Pedro of Castile at Nájera on 3 April 1367 he would have seen du Guesclin’s colours displayed against him.38 On his marriage to Pedro’s daughter Constanza in 1371 John of Gaunt claimed for himself the title of King of Castile and León. Chaucer’s wife Philippa was a damoiselle in immediate attendance on Constanza as the second Duchess of Lancaster and Gaunt’s mistress and mother of his four children in the 1370s (the Beauforts) and third wife in

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

253

1396, Katherine Swynford, is Chaucer’s sister-in-law. Hence Chaucer has a first-hand knowledge of the persons and events he describes here and of the sudden reversals of fortune of Pedro of Spain. Hence too his commitment to Pedro’s cause and his deep feelings concerning the act of betrayal that led to Pedro’s ultimate downfall. The example of the no less ‘worthy Petro’, that is, Peter I of Cyprus (1359–1369) is not less well known, for he was one of the great crusading champions of his age, visiting the courts of Europe, including those in London and Bordeaux, between October 1362 and June 1365 accompanied by the papal legate, Peter Thomas, and his chancellor, Philippe de Mézières, in search of support. He was indeed received by Edward III, although the English king’s personal support was measured and restrained. Chaucer’s Knight distinguished himself in the crusades in the eastern Mediterranean, being present not only at the fall of Alexandria on 10–16 October 1365 with the Earl of Hereford and Sir Stephen Scrope but also at Antalya (Satalye) in 1361 and Ayas/ Lajazzo (Lyeys) in 1367 (GP, I.51 and 58–59). In sober historical reality these may have been little more than plundering raids, but that is not how they were viewed by Chaucer’s generation and the name of ‘Alisandre’ at once adds lustre to the Christian chivalry and ‘heigh maistrie’ of the King of Cyprus in the Monk’s brief tragedy (VII.2392). But fame breeds envy in lesser breasts and Peter was slain in his bed by his ‘owene liges’ (VII.2393–96) with his two brothers, John, Prince of Antioch (regent 1369–1371) and James, Constable of Jerusalem (later James I of Cyprus, 1382–1398), privy to the conspiracy. There is none of the compelling detail and personal emotion in respect of the death of Pedro of Castile in this account, and it seems that Chaucer was himself indebted to the account of Peter of Cyprus’s death in the version of Machaut in La Prise d’Alixandre (8591–8768). Nevertheless this famous event yields an indisputable argument about Fortune that can with ‘hir wheel’ direct these unwelcome events and so ‘out of joye brynge men to sorwe’ (VII.2397–98). These bare details will no doubt have been rescued for the Monk and his pilgrim audience by the celebrity of events close in time but remote in place and on that account protected from the eye of sceptical historians. Chaucer will have known more perhaps of Bernabò Visconti, lord of Milan, from his negotiations with Sir John Hawkwood at the Milanese

254

Gerald Morgan

court at the end of July and beginning of August 1378 in the course of his second journey to Italy in the company of Sir Edward Berkeley, possibly with the intent of arranging a marriage alliance between England and Milan.39 Chaucer evidently formed no good opinion of Bernabò, both a ‘God of delit’ and a ‘scourge of Lumbardye’, one of many ‘tyraunts of Lumbardye,/ That usen wilfulhed and tyrannye’ (LGW, G 354–55).40 These are the classic failings of the great men of whom Boccaccio speaks in the prohemium to the De casibus and which made so profound an impression on him. Bernabò Visconti’s ‘infortune’ and overthrow by his nephew and son-in-law, Gian Galeazzo, is another example fittingly to be added to the list of the Monk’s tragedies, but it is assuredly not one to evoke the reader’s sympathy. It does not seem to matter that in the end we lack circumstantial detail of his end: ‘But why ne how noot I that thou were slawe’ (VII.2406). The account of the pitiful death in prison by starvation of Ugolino della Gherardesca, Count of Pisa, and more particularly that of his three innocent children, is telling by way of contrast, for ‘the langour/ Ther may no tonge telle for pitee’ (VII.2407–8). It is classified as the fourth of the Modern Instances, but differs from the preceding three cases in important respects. In the first place it is not contemporaneous to Chaucer, but historically remote, the imprisonment of Ugolino, his two sons Gaddo and Uguccione and two grandsons Nino il Brigata and Anselmuccio taking place in the eight months between July 1288 and March 1288/1289. Three of them in fact were grown men in the period of their youth and Anselmuccio the youngest perhaps fifteen.41 And in the second place history has been superseded by the poetic mastery of Dante’s famous account in the Inferno and the Monk has no intention of overgoing Dante to whom he refers at the end of his own version of the story (VII.2459–62): Whoso wol here it in a lenger wise, Redeth the grete poete of Ytaille That highte Dant, for he kan al devyse Fro point to point; nat o word wol he faille.

Dante places Ugolino among the traitors to country in Antenora, the second division of the ninth circle of hell in the frozen waters of Cocytus.

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

255

Ugolino is introduced to us at once for what he is, ‘quel peccator/ that sinner’ consumed by hatred for his fellow traitor, the Archbishop Ruggieri, who now serves him in hell as a ‘fiero pasto/ savage meal’. The underlying reality of Ugolino’s imprisonment and death as well as the savage hatred between Ugolino and Archbishop Ruggieri are removed from the version in the Monk’s Tale and rather we are to suppose that Hugelyn, Erl of Pize, is the tragic victim of ‘a fals suggestioun’ (VII.2417). This alteration makes room for the yet greater pathos of the sufferings of the father and ‘his litel children thre;/ The eldest scarsly fyf yeer was of age’ (VII.2411–12), casting as it does a mantle of innocence upon all four, the father and his three loving sons. This is to improve indeed on Dante’s ‘[i]nnocenti facea l’età novella/ [t]heir youthful years … made them innocent’ (Inf., XXXIII.88; Sinclair, I.409). It is for Chaucer and the Monk, though not for Dante, a text-book example of the torment of vulnerable human beings by a careless and merciless Fortune (VII.2413–14): Allas, Fortune, it was greet crueltee Swiche briddes for to putte in swich a cage!

As the sorrowful father realises the fate about to overtake his little children he is moved to tears (VII.2430) and then to self-harm in the agony of his three-year-old son’s death (VII.2444–46): For wo his armes two he gan to byte, And seyde, ‘Allas, Fortune, and weylaway! Thy false wheel my wo al may I wyte.’

Such grief is not possible for a traitor in hell. Ugolino does not weep, it is the children who weep: ‘Io non piangëa, sì dentro impetrai:/ piangevan elli,/ I did not weep, I so turned to stone within. They wept’ (Inf., XXXIII.49–50; Sinclair, I.407). In this world in the tower close to Pisa such grief is overwhelming, but it does not spare the father yet further grief as his two other children vainly offer themselves as flesh to save him before ‘[t]hey leyde hem in his lappe adoun and deyde’ (VII.2454). Despair comes upon the father before he himself dies from hunger, ‘this myghty Erl of Pize’ beside his little children (VII.2447–56). Fortune has entirely

256

Gerald Morgan

cut him away from his prosperity and the roots of his earthly joy as if by a surgical operation (VII.2457–58): From heigh estaat Fortune awey hym carf. Of this tragedie it oghte ynough suffise.

It is a tragic variant on a familiar theme and worthy in its way to set beside the version of Dante himself. The primary source of the tragedy of Nero that now follows is the version of Jean de Meun in Le Roman de la rose (6184–6488) which in its turn draws on Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae (Book II, metrum 6). In Le Roman de la rose the story of Nero is a part of Raison’s discourse illustrating the nature of Fortune, although the references to Fortune in the Monk’s Tale are quite distinct from those of Jean de Meun, perhaps surprisingly so. Hence these references to Fortune by the Monk are to be seen in terms of the logical argument of the tale as a whole. The ultimate classical source for the life of Nero is the De vita Caesarum of Suetonius, although there is no direct evidence for Chaucer’s direct use of Suetonius in the Monk’s Tale. Nevertheless Jean de Meun’s reference to Suetonius (RR, 6455–64) is promoted to the beginning of the Monk’s Tale (‘as telleth us Suetonius’, VII.2465) and thus follows directly the reference to Dante. The Monk is not only a learned man but has consulted the best authorities and has a deep reverence for learning. Hence he gives a correspondingly greater emphasis than Jean de Meun to the authority of Seneca, the ‘maister’ who was ‘of moralitee … the flour,/ As in his tyme, but if bookes lye’ (VII.2495–98) and who tried (‘discreetly’ but in vain) to lead Nero ‘fro vices’ and to inculcate in him a love of virtue and a hatred of tyranny (VII.2505–8) (the very purpose of Boccaccio himself in the De casibus virorum illustrium). What is shameful here, quite apart from the litany of Nero’s vices, is the lack of reverence for a great master and teacher amounting to hatred (VII.2495–2518). Indeed vice can only flourish through the destruction of learning. Although we may ridicule the vanity of scholars and academic pedantry, learning itself is a precious good to be prized, even in the character of the Monk. In the figure of Nero we turn to an irredeemably wicked man and hence a major departure from the preceding tragedies of worthy men and

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

257

women, whether a Sampsoun, Hercules or Cenobia or a Peter of Spain or Peter of Cyprus. The wickedness of Nero is seized upon by the Monk in categorical and general terms in the opening lines of the tale (VII.2463–64):   Although that Nero were as vicius As any feend that lith ful lowe adoun

and both defined and condemned by the adjective vici(o)us, a word of recent appearance in English at the end of the fourteenth century.42 Such inhuman wickedness is accompanied by the ostentatious display of wealth that sustains his pride (VII.2468–70) and the importance of this nexus of ideas is developed in a second stanza of Chaucer’s own invention (VII.2471–72): Moore delicaat, moore pompous of array, Moore proud was nevere emperour than he.43

Here we see proud ostentation taken to supremely irrational levels in robes discarded after being used only once (VII.2473–74) and nets of gold thread used for fishing in the Tiber (VII.2475–76). By such pride the order of the world is turned upside down. Thus law is made subject to Nero’s desires, as is the case with Dante’s Semiramis: ‘ “A vizio di lussuria fu sì rotta,/ che libito fé licito in sua legge,/ who was so corrupted by licentious vice that she made lust lawful in her law” ’ (Inf., V.55–56; Sinclair, I.75) and, yet more extraordinarily, Fortune herself becomes subject to human will: ‘For Fortune as his freend hym wolde obeye’ (VII.2478). The focus here is on the perversity of the human will rather than the perversity of Fortune, a telling contrast with the account of Nero in Le Roman de la rose (6313–19). From such pride proceeds the catalogue of Nero’s crimes, set in the Monk’s Tale in a context of ignorance and delusion (VII.2479–94). Such unforgiveable crimes – murder, incest, matricide – are accompanied by a merciless cruelty that not even Fortune could exceed (VII.2493–94): Whan myght is joyned unto crueltee, Allas, to depe wol the venym wade!

But how can we possibly attribute blame to Fortune, like intellect a secondary cause subject to the divine will, for the wickedness and the madness

258

Gerald Morgan

of a Nero? Surely our own intellects, even without the aid of a Seneca or a Boethius, will suffice to lead us away from criminality and savagery of such a kind. Perhaps power is such a corrosive force in the hands of fragile and weak-minded human beings as to baffle our belief as it did that of Boccaccio himself (De casibus virorum illustrium, 8/1). It is human power that is at issue here and stands condemned here: the power of a Henry VIII to divorce or behead a wife or of a Napoleon, for the death of Nero did not do away with the tyranny of emperors. The tragedy of Nero is one of human will and especially the absolute will of human beings. Hence it is not about Fortune as such but about secondary causes in relation to the first cause of created beings. The normal human response to Nero’s catalogue of horror is a sense of moral outrage accompanied by a desire to put an end to it as swiftly as possible. Here strikingly the response of Fortune is at one with that response (VII.2519–20): Now fil it so that Fortune liste no lenger The hye pryde of Nero to cherice.

Like us Fortune sees that vice is incompatible with the dignity of an emperor, as indeed it is incompatible with the dignity of human beings (VII.2522–24): She thoughte thus: ‘By God! I am to nyce To sette a man that is fulfild of vice In heigh degree, and emperour hym calle.’

Desire and reason are at one, and the secondary causes are at one with the primary cause (VII.2525): ‘By God, out of his sete I wol hym trice.’44

Here Fortune has become the agent of justice, the instrument of the divine will. Like Dante’s Fortuna, she is deserving not of censure but of praise (Inferno, VII.91–94; Sinclair, I.103):   Quest’ è colei ch’è tanto posta in croce pur da color che le dovrien dar lode,

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

259

dandole biasmo a torto e mala voce;   ma ella s’è beata e ciò non ode. This is she who is so reviled by the very men that should give her praise, laying on her wrongful blame and ill repute. But she is blest and does not hear it.

The sooner such a wretched existence as that of Nero is brought to an end the better. Fittingly before that lonely self-inflicted end comes about he is shunned by the company of human kind and made to feel something of the fear that he has instilled in others. There is no mercy for so merciless a creature any more than there is compassion in the destruction of the Bower of Bliss in Spenser’s Legend of Temperance (II.12), for the Bower of Bliss is a false and not a true image of beauty. At the end of the tragedy of Nero there is not sorrow but relief at the riddance of this wicked man, and that relief is marked by laughter (VII.2549–50): Hymself he slow, he koude no bettre reed, Of which Fortune lough, and hadde a game.

There is no sense of Fortune here taking a cruel delight in suicide and human misery. The viciousness of Nero is too great to admit of that. Rather it is the extraordinary transformation of the classical goddess in medieval Christian thought in the light of the teaching of Boethius’s Lady Philosophia from whom we learn that ‘al outrely that alle fortune is good’ (Boece, IV, prosa 7.4–5). This is the serene Fortuna of whom Dante speaks: ‘con l’altre prime creature lieta/ volve sua spera e beata si gode,/ Happy with the other primal creatures she turns her sphere and rejoices in her bliss’ (Inf., VII.95–96; Sinclair, I.103). It is the product of the highest learning known to medieval poets. With the example of Holofernes we return to the Vulgate. Oloferne is not an emperor, merely a ‘capitayne under a kyng’ (VII.2551), but like Nero he was ‘pompous in heigh presumpcioun’ (VII.2555) and like Nero abundantly blessed by Fortune until suddenly laid low by her (VII.2556– 68): ‘which Fortune ay kiste/ So likerously, and ladde hym up and doun/ Til that his heed was of, er that he wiste’. It is the classic story of Fortune’s wheel told in the simplest and barest terms in order to make Oloferne’s presumption plain at once to the reader and his condign punishment in

260

Gerald Morgan

accord with the judgment of the true God to which Fortune is subject (as revealed to us in the tragedy of Nero). Fortune as such is not an element of the biblical account of Judith and Holofernes, but idolatry is, for Holofernes comes on a mission from Nebuchadnezzar to destroy all the gods of the earth so that Nebuchadnezzar himself might be called God ( Judith, 3.13). The Monk places this blasphemous intent at the very centre of his tragedy of Oloferne (VII.2562–63): ‘Nabugodonosor was god,’ seyde hee; ‘Noon oother god sholde adoured bee.’

We already know from the opening stanza that this presumptuous challenge to the one true God cannot possibly succeed, and indeed Oloferne ‘for al his pompe and al his myght’ (VII.2570) is slain by the strength of a mere woman (VII.2571–74). No doubt the Monk can rely here upon the knowledge of the Canterbury pilgrims of so famous a biblical narrative as the story of Judith in which the will of providence is so triumphantly vindicated. Judith is the agent of providence as one secondary cause (intellect) is united to another (fortune).45 The Monk is less confident that the pilgrims will be familiar with the story of Antiochus, King of Syria (175–163 b.c.) in 2 Machabees 9, the final book of the Vulgate Old Testament, and he urges them to read it (VII.2579–80): Rede which that he was in Machabee, And rede the proude wordes that he seyde.

In his ‘hye pride’ and ‘werkes venymus’ (VII.2577) he is a biblical figure to be set beside Nero, and Spenser sets ‘proud Antiochus’ along with Nebuchadnezzar, Croesus and Alexander the Great in the catalogue of the damned in the dungeon of the House of Pride (FQ, I.5.47–48).46 Chaucer it is who has supplied the reference to Fortune as having ‘enhaunced’ Antiochus in pride (VII.2583), but in his pride it is Antiochus who sets himself not only against ‘Goddes peple’ (VII.2588) but also against God himself, ‘[w]enynge that God ne myghte his pride abate’ (VII.2590). The Monk has led us by now to understand that Fortune and the providential

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

261

will for human beings are in accord and Antiochus is at once checked in his ignorant folly and wickedness (VII.2598). It is God rather than Fortune, the first cause not the secondary cause, that takes centre stage, for ‘God for his manace hym so soore smoot/ With invisible wounde, ay incurable’ (VII.2599–600). We are led to acknowledge here the absolute power of God and the reasonableness of divine vengeance on human wickedness (VII.2603–4). But so deeply does the corruption of pride run in human beings that more needs to be done to check the pride of an Antiochus (VII.2607–8): And sodeynly, er he was of it war, God daunted al his pride and al his boost.

The language used here might otherwise be used of Fortune itself, and we are brought to realise once again that Fortune is merely the agent of the divine will and is contained within it. Antiochus has to suffer yet more pain before he is at last brought to acknowledge that God is indeed ‘lord of every creature’ (VII.2622). But by then it is too late, for Antiochus has put himself beyond the mercy of a just God, dying a miserable death in ‘the stynk of his careyne’ and in ‘horrible peyne’ (VII.2624 and 2626). Terrible as the judgment of God might appear, it is the ‘gerdoun as bilongeth unto pryde’ (VII.2630). Thus in the tragedy of Antiochus the role of Fortune has been entirely Christianised and reconciled with providence. We may surely expect nothing less from a fourteenth-century monk, however errant, on a pilgrimage to Canterbury at Easter. At this point we may safely conclude that the Boethian argument of providence and fortune has been sufficiently clarified by the Monk in a systematic and orderly fashion. But of course we have by no means exhausted the list of possible examples of great men reduced from prosperity to adversity. This is a task beyond the reach of mortal man and even Boccaccio has to conclude that he must rest content wth selecting the more famous among the famous examples: ‘Sed ex claris quosdam clariores excerpsisse sat erit’ (De casibus virorum illustrium, 10/8). On this principle our indefatigable Monk presses on with his final examples of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Croesus.

262

Gerald Morgan

There is no specific source for the tragedy of Alisaundre, for as the Monk assures us his story is ‘so commune/ That every wight that hath discrecioun/ Hath herd somwhat or al of his fortune’ (VII.2631–33). For once monastic learning is not required for we return now to matter that is very familiar indeed. There is not ‘another conquerour’ to be compared with him (VII.2639–40) and the Monk does not propose to embark on the endless list of his conquests (VII.2647–54). Moreover these conquests are won in the approved fashion of a worthy knight and blest by Fortune (VII.2642–43): He was of knyghthod and of fredom flour; Fortune hym made the heir of hire honour.

But sadly and inevitably Fortune is untrustworthy even in the case of worthy knights (VII.2661–62): Thy sys Fortune hath turned into aas, And for thee ne weep she nevere a teere.

Here the Monk returns triumphantly to his conventional tragic theme of human prosperity reduced to adversity by Fortune and to lament not merely in the death of Alisaundre the death of a knight of ‘leonyn corage’ (VII.2646) but ‘[t]he deeth of gentillesse and of franchise’ themselves (VII.2664). But at least in such a tragedy he has no difficulty in knowing where to point the finger of blame (VII.2668–70): Allas, who shal me helpe to endite False Fortune, and poyson to despise, The whiche two of al this wo I wyte?

The Monk has seemingly got a second wind and his collection of tragedies a new momentum. He adds to the famous example of Alexander the Great the hardly less famous example of Julius Caesar and cleverly adds to it the tragic fall of Caesar’s great rival Pompey. The interweaving of the stories of Caesar and Pompey enables the pattern of fortune in the

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

263

rise of human lives to be clearly displayed. The first stanza traces Caesar’s rise from humble beginnings in the west to become emperor of Rome (a medieval fiction) until ‘Fortune weex his adversarie’ (VII.2678). The second stanza tells of his victory over his father-in-law Pompeus (in fact an historical error for son-in-law) by which he put ‘al th’orient in awe’ thanks to the assistance of Fortune (VII.2685–86). As the fortune of Caesar is in the ascendent so that of ‘Pompeius, this noble governour/ Of Rome’ (VII.2688–89) tragically declines: ‘Allas, Pompeye, of th’orient conquerour,/ That Fortune unto swich a fyn thee broghte!’ (VII.2693–94). This is but the prelude to the death of Pompeus’s conqueror at the hands of the envious conspirators led by Brutus Cassius (a medieval conflation of Brutus and Cassius), albeit a noble death dignified not only by physical courage but also by ‘estaatly honestee’ (VII.2695–718). Here we see not so much the tragedy of one great man but a universal law at work, for ‘to thise grete conqueroures two/ Fortune was first freend, and sitthe foo’ (VII.2722–23). This broader perspective is the product of no little learning, and the Monk has conveniently provided a working bibliography in the final stanza (VII.2719–20): Lucan, to thee this storie I recomende, And to Swetoun, and to Valerius also.

It has yet to be demonstrated that Chaucer made use here of Lucan’s Pharsalia or of Suetonius (again) or of the Facta et dicta memorabilia of Valerius Maximus, but it is sufficient for us to know that the knowledgeable Monk knew of them.47 Why else would he be so enthusiastic in recommending these authors to us? The reading of such authors brings to our attention many such human tragedies and with them a warning to us all of the fragility of human happiness: ‘Witnesse on alle thise conqueroures stronge’ (VII.2726). With our appetite undiminished we turn to the tragedy of Croesus. The principal source of the Monk’s Tale of Croesus, like that of Nero, is Raison’s explanation of Fortune in Jean de Meun’s Roman de la rose (6459–6600), reinforced by Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae (Boece, Book II, prosa 2.58–63 and 67–72). It is impossible to imagine greater

264

Gerald Morgan

authorities on the subject of Fortune in the Middle Ages than these. Once again we have at the centre of the Monk’s tragedy the nexus of wealth and pride. The story of ‘[t]his riche Cresus’ (VII.2727) is yet another example of a disabling pride in a king but at the same time a telling illustration of the blindness of pride in relation to Fortune. Cresus was ‘caught amyddes al his pryde’ (VII.2729) but is delivered from an inevitable death by fire by the timely and exceedingly fortunate (if barely credible) onset of rain (VII.2730–32). Even so, despite this miraculous deliverance from death by Fortune, he is unable in his pride to draw any meaningful lesson from it. What he cannot learn Fortune will teach in that unambiguous way Fortune teaches us her lessons (VII.2733–34): But to be war no grace yet he hadde, Til Fortune on the galwes made hym gape.

In his unwisdom and pride Cresus imagines that he will continue to be spared by Fortune (VII.2737–39). Such ignorance of Fortune is exposed in a dream, correctly interpreted for him by his daughter Phanye (VII.2740–58) (a foreshadowing of the treatment of dreams in a mock heroic rather than tragic context in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale that is to follow). It is a brutal and unadorned statement as to what is to befall him: ‘Thou shalt anhanged be, fader, certeyn’ (VII.2755). Here the Monk spares the Canterbury pilgrims any unnecessary elaboration. What do we need to know of the stern rebuke delivered by the daughter to the father and of the father’s obstinacy and folly in Jean de Meun’s version in Le Roman de la rose (6483–6589; Horgan, pp. 99–101)? What words of wisdom can succeed in the face of such impenetrable pride (VII.2741–42 and 2746)? And there is after all no need for moral rebuke when the outcome of pride speaks more eloquently for itself than any words (VII.2759–60): Anhanged was Cresus, the proude kyng; His roial trone myghte hym nat availle.

‘Vaiz con Fortune le servi,/ See how Fortune served him’ (RR, 6590; Horgan, p. 101). On the subject of Fortune nothing more is to be said.

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

265

Notes Reference is to 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). 2 Derek Pearsall, The Canterbury Tales (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985), pp. 282–85. 3 Reference is to Larry D. Benson and others (eds), The Riverside Chaucer, third edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987). On the hexameter, see Chris Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 98–99. 4 For the sources of the Monk’s Tale, see Robert K. Root in 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), pp. 615–44 and Thomas H. Bestul, in Robert M. Correale and Mary Hamel, Sources and Analogues of The Canterbury Tales, 2 vols (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002 and 2005), I.409–447. 5 See Henry Asgar Kelly, Chaucerian Tragedy, Chaucer Studies XXIV (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997), p. 11. 6 Reference is to Boethius: The Theological Tractates, The Consolation of Philosophy, translated by H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand, Loeb (London: William Heinemann Ltd; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968). 7 See MED, s.v. tragedi(e n. (a) ‘A literary work the subject of which is the hero’s fall from prosperity into irremediable adversity’. 8 Pearsall, The Canterbury Tales, p. 282: ‘Where rational understanding fails, faith supervenes, and asserts the providential order. The human consciousness does not confront, or constitute itself an objection to the predicament of life, but rises above circumstance, informed by a higher consciousness of the will of God. Within such a system of belief, therefore, there can be no “tragedy” in the Greek or Shakespearean sense’. 9 Reference is to William Langland, Piers Plowman: A Parallel-Text Edition of the A, B, C and Z Versions, edited by A. V. C. Schmidt, 2 vols (London and New York: Longman, 1995 and Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2008). 10 See Root, p. 615 11 See Root, p. 616. 1

266 12 13

Gerald Morgan

See Root, p. 617. See Gerald Morgan, ‘Chaucer’s Tellers and Tales and the Design of the Canterbury Tales’, in Nicolas Jacobs and Gerald Morgan (eds), ‘Truthe is the beste’: A Festschrift in Honour of A. V. C. Schmidt (Oxford, Bern, Berlin, etc.: Peter Lang, 2014), pp. 137–68. 14 See Gerald Morgan, ‘Moral and Social Identity and the Idea of Pilgrimage in the General Prologue’, Chaucer Review, 37 (2003), 285–314. 15 See Gerald Morgan, ‘A Defence of Dorigen’s Complaint’, Medium Aevum, 46 (1977), 77–97. 16 See 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, MD: John Murphy Company, 1899; photographically reproduced, Rockford, IL: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1971). 17 See Guillaume de Machaut, La Prise d’Alixandre, edited and translated by R. Barton Palmer (New York and London: Routledge, 2002) and Peter W. Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191–1374 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 18 See Gerald Morgan, ‘The Worthiness of Chaucer’s Worthy Knight’, Chaucer Review, 44 (2009), 115–58 (pp. 127–28 and nn. 56–58). 19 Reference is to Guillaume de Lorris and 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), pp. 94–99. 20 Reference is to 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). 21 Reference is to 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). 22 See Gerald Morgan (ed.), Geoffrey Chaucer: The Franklin’s Tale from the Canterbury Tales, The London Medieval and Renaissance Series (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980; reprinted Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1992), pp. 35 and 39–40. 23 The Riverside Chaucer, p. 930. 24 See MED, s.v. an(n)unciat ppl. ‘Announced (in advance)’ (a hapax legomenon) and consecraten v. Ppl. consecrat. 2. (c) ‘to dedicate (sb. to a divinity)’. 25 See Gerald Morgan, ‘Medieval Misogyny and Gawain’s Outburst against Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, MLR, 97 (2002), 265–78.

9  The Grand Design of the Monk’s Tale

267

26 The Riverside Chaucer, p. 931. 27 Reference is to Ovid, Metamorphoses, edited by Frank Justus Miller, Loeb, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1971). 28 The Riverside Chaucer, p. 931. 29 See MED, s.v. ap(p)esen v. 2. (b) ‘to alleviate or allay (anger, grief, etc.)’; bristled pp. (a) ‘Provided with bristles or sharp appendages’; scome n. (a) ‘Froth, foam; pl. frothy bubbles’ and thristen v. 2 (a) ‘To exert pressure with (a finger, an arm); apply pressure to (a bandage, the edge of a wound); also, press down on (someone’s shoulders)’. 30 In the reference to ‘Trophee’ we seem to have reached the present limits of medieval scholarship. It is possibly a reference to Guido delle Colonne (de Columpnis) and his Historia destructionis Troiae. Lydgate in the Fall of Princes (I.283–87) cites Trophee as the source of Troilus and Criseyde. See The Riverside Chaucer, p. 931. 31 See MED, s.v. elat adj. (a) ‘Proud, haughty’. 32 Reference is to Boccaccio, De casibus virorum illustrium, edited by Pier Giorgio Ricci and Vittorio Zaccaria, in Tutte le Opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, edited by Vittore Branca, 10 vols (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1964–1998), Volume IX (1983), Prohemium, 10/8: ‘… ut, dum segnes fluxosque principes et Dei iudicio quassatos in solum reges viderint, Dei potentiam, fragilitatem suam, et Fortune lubricum noscant, et letis modum ponere discant, et aliorum periculo sue possint utilitati consulere’. 33 Reference is to the Trionfo della Fama in Opere di Francesco Petrarca, edited by Emilio Bigi, fourth edition (Milan: Ugo Mursia, 1968), p. 305. 34 See MED, s.v. stark adj. 3. (b) ‘of fighting, quarreling, etc.: fierce, violent, cruel’; stour(e n. (2) 1. (b) ‘a battle, hostile encounter between two armies; an attack, onset’ and vitremite n. ‘Some type of headdress, prob. of glass but perh. of canvas’. 35 See Bestul, I.424 and 427. 36 The Riverside Chaucer, p. 933. 37 See MED, s.v. lim n. (2) 4. Cpds. (c) ~ rod, a twig smeared with birdlime’ and gled(e n. (2) 1. (a) ‘A live coal or brand’ and (c) ‘in similes: … red as ani ~.’ 38 See Gerald Morgan, ‘The Worthiness of Chaucer’s Worthy Knight’, Chaucer Review, 44 (2009), 115–58 (pp. 123–24). 39 See Morgan, ‘Worthiness of Chaucer’s Knight’, pp. 127–29. 40 See MED, s.v. delit n. (1) 1. (a) ‘An emotion of pleasure; esp., sensuous delight’; scourge n. (a) ‘A whip, lash; a whip used for torture or punishment, a scourge’ and (f ) ‘a human or political agent of affliction or correction’ and wilfulhed(e n. ‘A tendency to act arbitrarily, willfulness’.

268

Gerald Morgan

41 See Paget Toynbee, A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante, revised by Charles S. Singleton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), pp. 42, 111, 297 and 626–28. Dante refers only to sons (‘i miei figliuoli’, Inf., XXXIII.38) and mentions them by name, Anselmuccio, Gaddo, Uguiccione and ’l Brigata (Inf., XXXIII.50, 68 and 89–90). 42 See MED, s.v. vicious adj. 2. (a) ‘Morally or spiritually flawed, given to immoral or evil practices, full of vices’. 43 See MED, s.v. delicat adj. 2. (a) ‘Fond of luxury, sensual, voluptuous’ and pompous adj. (c) ‘ostentatious, pretentious, excessively rich’. 44 See MED, s.v. tricen v. (a) ‘To pull or push (sb. or sth.); snatch (sth., an animal) away, steal’. 45 See for example Judith, 9.5: ‘Omnes enim viae tuae paratae sunt, et tua iudicia in tua providentia posuisti,/ For all thy ways are prepared, and in thy providence thou hast placed thy judgments’ and 11.14 and 16: ‘Ego enim ancilla tua Deum colo, etiam nunc apud te; et exiet ancilla tua, et orabo Deum,/ … quoniam haec mihi dicta sunt per providentiam Dei,/ For I thy handmaid worship God even now that I am with thee, and thy handmaid will go out, and I will pray to God, … Because these things are told me by the providence of God.’ 46 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. 471–73). 47 See Root, pp. 642–44.

10 The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

I.  The contrast between medieval and modern assumptions about the nature of poetry is nowhere more pronounced than on the question of the relation between poetry and rhetoric. C. S. Lewis expresses a characteristic modern distaste for rhetoric, all the more impressive in one who is so brilliant a reader of medieval literature and whose chosen task in life is to explain and render accessible that literature to a modern audience. He does so in what is in itself a magnificent rhetorical tour de force: Rhetoric is the greatest barrier between us and our ancestors. If the Middle Ages had erred in their devotion to that art, the renascentia, far from curing, confirmed the error. In rhetoric, more than in anything else, the continuity of the old European tradition was embodied. Older than the Church, older than Roman Law, older than all Latin literature, it descends from the age of the Greek Sophists. Like the Church and the law it survives the fall of the empire, rides the renascentia and the Reformation like waves, and penetrates far into the eighteenth century; through all these ages not the tyrant, but the darling of humanity, soavissima, as Dante says, ‘the sweetest of all the other sciences’. Nearly all our older poetry was written and read by men to whom the distinction between poetry and rhetoric, in its modern form, would have been meaningless. The ‘beauties’ which they chiefly regarded in every composition were those which we either dislike or simply do not notice. This change of taste makes an invisible wall between us and them. Probably all our literary histories, certainly that on which I am engaged, are vitiated by our lack of sympathy on this point. If ever the passion for formal rhetoric returns, the whole story will have to be rewritten and many judgements may be reversed. In the meantime we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that of the praise and censure which we allot to medieval and Elizabethan poets only the smallest part would have seemed relevant to these poets themselves.1

This is a curious and disconcerting argument by which the reader proceeds from assent to assent at the succession of individual points to disagreement with its whole (perhaps self-indulgent) tendency.

270

Gerald Morgan

When we turn to Dante, whom Lewis quotes so enthusiastically as one quotes a great master, we see for ourselves the truth of what Lewis has written, for we are in a different poetic world. Dante is full of admiration and praise for the poetic style of Virgil which he himself has inherited (Inf., I.79–87; Sinclair, I.27):   ‘Or se’ tu quel Virgilio e quella fonte che spandi di parlar sì largo fiume?’, rispuos’ io lui con vergognosa fronte.   ‘O de li altri poeti onore e lume, vagliami ’l lungo studio e ’l grande amore che m’ha fatto cercar lo tuo volume.   Tu se’ lo mio maestro e ’l mio autore, tu se’ solo colui da cu’ io tolsi lo bello stilo che m’ha fatto onore.’ ‘Art thou then that Virgil, that fountain which pours forth so rich a stream of speech?’ I answered him, my brow covered with shame. ‘O glory and light of other poets, let the long study and the great love that has made me search thy volume avail me. Thou art my master and my author. Thou art he from whom alone I took the style whose beauty has brought me honour.’

The contrast takes the form of a distinction between on the one hand the abuse of rhetoric by way of an inflated style, empty of meaning, aimed at concealing the truth or even lying and on the other the mastery of rhetoric by way of patient training and the study of the best rhetorical models. It is in the sense of poetic eloquence that Chaucer himself uses the term in the Clerk’s Prologue (IV.31–33): Fraunceys Petrak, the lauriat poete, Highte this clerk, whos rethorike sweete Enlumyned al Ytaille of poetrie.

was called made illustrious

Indeed no art deserves to be known by its abuse. Lewis’s judgment founders on a rooted prejudice against rhetoric. For once the great scholar, who has taught us not to patronise the Middle Ages, is the victim of the prejudices of his own age. What is worse is that it is a prejudice against the greater part of our literary heritage.

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

271

II.  Modern readers, and Lewis pre-eminently among them, have not failed to recognise the genius of Chaucer. And this recognition includes an appreciation of his poetic eloquence. No one could be more appreciative of Chaucer’s eloquence than Matthew Arnold in his essay on ‘The Study of Poetry’ in 1880 (p. 28): Of his style and manner, if we think first of the romance-poetry and then of Chaucer’s divine liquidness of diction, his divine fluidity of movement, it is difficult to speak temperately.

But in the ease and simplicity of Chaucer’s verse lies the art that conceals art. When Chaucer’s contemporaries and immediate successors praise Chaucer for his eloquence, it is of the mastery of rhetoric that they speak. Thus Lydgate’s ‘Commendation of Chaucer’ (1–9) in or before 1422 in The Life of Our Lady: And eke my master Chauceris nowe is grave  The noble rethor, Poete of Breteine, That worthy was the laurer to have Of poetrie, and the palme atteine, That made firste to distille and reyne The golde dewe droppis of speche and eloquence Into oure tounge thourgh his excellence, And founde the flourys first of rethoryk Oure rude speche oonly to enlumyne.2

buried rhetorician laurel

In the final stanza of The Kingis Quair James I recommends his poem in such terms to Gower and Chaucer alike in or before 1437 (1373–79): Vnto [th’]inpnis of my maisteris dere, Gowere and Chaucere, that on the steppis satt Of rethorike quhill thai were lyvand here, Superlatiue as poetis laureate In moralitee and eloquence ornate, I recommend my buk in lynis sevin – And eke thair saulis vnto the blisse of hevin.3

poems

The Kingis Quair,4 like Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls and Troilus and Criseyde, is in rhyme royal, that is, seven-line stanzas rhyming ABABBCC.

272

Gerald Morgan

Indeed, it is this poem that has given the name by which we commonly refer to Chaucer’s distinctive stanzaic form. By 1503 in Dunbar’s Goldyn Targe praise of Chaucer precedes that of ‘morall Gower and Ludgate laureate’ (262), but the terms of commendation remain unchanged (253–61): O reverend Chaucere, rose of rethoris all, As in oure tong ane flour imperiall,   That raise in Britane, evir quho redis rycht, Thou beris of makaris the tryumph riall; Thy fresch anamalit termes celicall   This mater coud illumynit full brycht:   Was thou noucht of oure Inglisch all the lycht, Surmounting eviry tong terrestriall   Alls fer as Mayes morow dois mydnycht?5

poets brilliant; heavenly

The reference to enamel at line 257 conveys the ideas of both hardness and brilliance and may recall for some the wonder of the court in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight at the brilliant greenness of the Green Knight and his horse (233–36): For vch mon had meruayle quat hit mene myȝt Þat a haþel and a horse myȝt such a hwe lach, As growe grene as þe gres and grener hit semed, Þen grene aumayl on golde glowande bryȝter.

wondered;could knight;get to grow;grass enamel;shining

Rhetoric, then, is no mere accessory but is central to the medieval conception of art. There can be no beauty in poetry without rhetoric. We need, therefore, to understand more about its background and purpose. III.  Rhetoric is first of all defined as an art of persuasion. The definition of rhetoric as ‘a craftsman of persuasion’ is attributed by Socrates to Gorgias in the Gorgias (453a 3).6 Persuasion implies the possibility of at least two different points of view. It belongs, therefore, to the order of probability and not certainty. Indeed rhetoric originates among the Sophists who are philosophical relativists. Sophists who play a leading part in the development of rhetoric are Protagoras (c.481–415) and Gorgias (c.483–375). Protagoras is famous as the author of the dictum ‘Man is the measure of

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

273

all things, of those that are that they are, of those that are not that they are not’,7 a clear statement of philosophical relativism. For Plato, however, truth is absolute and knowable but logic is the means of arriving at truth and rhetoric is unnecessary. No rhetoric is necessary, for example, to establish that 2 + 2 = 4, whereas the proposition that 2 + 2 = 5 is beyond the scope of the persuasiveness of rhetoric. In the Gorgias, therefore, Plato expresses a suspicion of rhetoric. Socrates is made to say that rhetoric is a sham justice: ‘Well, Gorgias, I think it is a practice, not of a craftsman, but of a guessing, brave soul, naturally clever at approaching people; and I call the sum of it flattery’ (463a 7–9). Rhetoric is seen as a ready means for the promotion of falsehoods whereby the worse is made to seem the better cause. There are signs of a modification of this critical view of rhetoric in the evolution of Plato’s thought. In the Phaedrus (260 d. 4 ff.) the possibility of a true rhetoric is considered, namely, one that is concerned with the advancement of truth.8 This position is developed by Aristotle who in his Rhetorica draws a distinction between the use and the abuse of rhetoric. It is necessary to inquire, therefore, whether rhetoric is placed at the service of truth or falsehood. In developing this argument Aristotle introduces a crucial modification into the definition of rhetoric. The object of rhetoric is not persuasion itself but the discovery of the available means of persuasion. The exposition of an argument may fail to be persuasive not because of a deficiency in rhetorical skill but because of a deficiency of truth, for it is truth itself that ultimately and rightly should persuade (Rhetorica, I.1 and 2): It is clear, then, that rhetoric is not bound up with a single definite class of subjects, but is as universal as dialectic; it is clear, also, that it is useful. It is clear, further, that its function is not simply to succeed in persuading, but rather to discover the means of coming as near such success as the circumstances of each particular case allow. In this it resembles all other arts. For example, it is not the function of medicine simply to make a man quite healthy, but to put him as far as may be on the road to health; it is possible to give excellent treatment even to those who can never enjoy sound health. Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.

274

Gerald Morgan

The traditional Aristotelian division of rhetoric is into three kinds: 1. Judicial: the persuasion of a jury to return a certain verdict where the appeal is to justice. 2. Deliberative: the consideration of alternative policies of government where the appeal is to advantage. 3. Epideictic: the apportioning of praise or blame where the appeal is to honour. The great occasion for epideictic rhetoric in the Roman period was in funeral orations, and the most famous example is the funeral oration of Mark Antony for Julius Caesar,9 made memorable for an English audience by Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, III.2.74–75: ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears./ I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him’. Treatises on rhetoric such as the Rhetorica ad Herennium (c.86–82 b.c.), attributed erroneously to Cicero in the Middle Ages as the Rhetorica secunda or Rhetorica nova, since following the De inventione, were divided into five parts: 1. invention (inventio): the gathering of material. Whether or not this process is inventive in our modern sense depends upon the skill and intelligence of the individual orator. 2. arrangement (dispositio): the ordering or disposition of the material. 3. style (elocutio): the use of appropriate words or fitting language, that is, stylistic decorum. 4. memory (memoria). 5. delivery (pronuntiatio). Cicero’s De inventione (c.91–86 b.c.) takes its name from the only part that was completed for the treatise is an early work left unfinished. The transformation of Rome from a republic into an empire (founded in 31 b.c. after the defeat of Mark Antony at Actium) has far-reaching implications for rhetoric, for the power of the emperors (and particularly of Augustus) inhibits public debate, especially on political issues, and political correctness in our own time is simply a modern manifestation of this inhibition. The result in the Augustan period is that there is a new

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

275

emphasis in the theory and practice of rhetoric. Attention shifts from the invention of matter and its arrangement to stylistic ornamentation, a development known as secondary rhetoric. The indebtedness of medieval poetics to the classical tradition of rhetoric is evident in the arrangement of the Poetria nova (1208–1213), the well-known work of a leading medieval theorist, the Englishman Geoffrey of Vinsauf. The two principal sources of this influential work are the Rhetorica ad Herennium, that is, the Rhetorica nova, and Horace’s Epistola ad Pisones or Ars poetica, that is, the Poetria. These two sources are reflected in the title of Geoffrey’s poetical treatise so that it carries with it the authority of Cicero and Horace as well as that of Geoffrey of Vinsauf himself. There are no greater authorities than these in the history of rhetoric with the exception of Aristotle and Quintilian. The traditional parts of rhetoric are all to be found in the Poetria nova, but the balance of the whole has been much altered. In particular one should note that invention has been reduced to no more than an introductory preamble (43–70) and that stylistic considerations dominate the treatise. Not only is Section IV. ‘Ornaments of Style’ (737–1968) by far the longest but stylistic matters are also central to the discussion of Section III ‘Amplification and Abbreviation’ (203–736). The emphasis on style in the Poetria nova is not a medieval aberration but a reflection of the later Roman or Augustan development of rhetoric, that is, it is based on secondary rhetoric. It has a poetic credibility in the Middle Ages but the process of degeneration begins in the Renaissance. Humanists begin to object that poetry has been reduced to a branch of rhetoric and to the narrow sense of secondary rhetoric at that and the poet reduced to the status of a craftsman. They assert instead a loftier conception of poetry, claiming that poetry is an art of imitation, not an art of persuasion (Aristotle) and that the poet is divinely inspired (Plato mediated by Ficino). There is no doubt force in these arguments. Poetry is indeed not to be restricted to the craft of composition in verse. But we should not be too eager to assume the ignorance of medieval poets in these matters. Samuel Daniel in his Defence of Ryme (1603) is himself aware of this deficiency in humanist criticism of the Middle Ages: 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 off, to be so little in respect of our selues.10

276

Gerald Morgan

Thus we should examine medieval writers on their own terms and be slow to accept the renaissance account of medieval poetry after its own evaluation. And whilst renaissance poets urge the need for divine inspiration, they do not at the same time neglect matters of poetic craftsmanship, as Lewis indeed has pointed out. IV.  There is no evidence so far as I am aware (apart from interpretative disagreements) that Chaucer himself ever showed a lack of regard for rhetoric and indeed, as we have seen, rhetoric means for him a mastery of the craft of poetry. His earliest original poem, The Book of the Duchess (1368–1372) is full of rhetorical figures of one kind or another, ostentatiously so perhaps as we might expect in the work of a young man. A more sophisticated poem such as the Parliament of Fowls (c.1380–1382) opens with lines of a studied rhetorical brilliance (1–4): The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne, Th’assay so hard, so sharp the conquerynge, The dredful joye, alwey that slit so yerne: Al this mene I by Love, …

attempt slips away;quickly

The first line is a wise generalisation or sententia in the form of a strong opposition or contentio, marked by a caesura, and it is followed by a chiastic inversion in the second line and an oxymoron in the third. It is an opening that sets the tone for the brilliant poem that is to follow. There is no evidence to suggest that Chaucer turns away from these rhetorical examples in his later works such as the Franklin’s (c.1395) and Nun’s Priest’s (c.1396–1400) Tales. The difference, in so far as there is a difference at all, lies in a greater mastery of the rhetorical models, not an abandonment of them. This is not to say that there is a lack of poetic inspiration here but rather a combination of genius and the mastery of the art of poetry, as is indicated by the very words of the Franklin himself (V.719–22): I lerned nevere rethorik, certeyn; Thyng that I speke, it moot be bare and pleyn. I sleep nevere on the Mount of Pernaso, Ne lerned Marcus Tullius Scithero.

indeed must;simple slept;Parnassus nor;Cicero

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

277

Mount Parnassus is the home of the muses and hence the source of inspiration and Cicero is here the figure of metonymy for the mastery of the art of rhetoric. As a rule the cognomen (surname or family name) suffices for Cicero (as in the case of Chaucer or Shakespeare), but here for special emphasis (as expressed by one who in reality knows what he is talking about) are added the praenomen Marcus (first or individual name) and nomen (middle name of gens or clan). Chaucer invokes Calliope, the muse of epic poetry and the greatest of the muses, in the conclusion to the proem to Book III of Troilus and Criseyde (III.45–49): Caliope, thi vois be now present, For now is nede: sestow nought my destressse, How I mot telle anonright the gladnesse Of Troilus, to Venus heryinge? To which gladnesse, who nede hath, God hym brynge!

Nothing could make clearer the seriousness of Chaucer’s vocation as a poet than these lines.11 Unsurprisingly Chaucer reveres Geoffrey of Vinsauf as the authority who has made this storehouse of classical rhetoric available to medieval poets like himself. He understands from Geoffrey of Vinsauf that a poem of substance is the product of long and careful reflection in which nothing is left to chance, as Pandarus leaves nothing to chance in drawing Criseyde into the net of love for Troilus. Chaucer indeed acknowledges his debt to the Poetria nova (for those who know) in following it word for word as he draws Book I of Troilus and Criseyde to an end (I.1065–69; Poetria, 43–48, p. 198; Nims, pp. 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

278

Gerald Morgan 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. For everi wight that hath an hous to founde Ne renneth naught the werk for to bygynne With rakel hond, but he wol bide a stounde And sende his hertes line out fro withinne Aldirfirst his purpos for to wynne.

person;build runs rash;while first of all;attain his intent12

Chaucer’s debt to Geoffrey de Vinsauf is realised above all in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale which in itself is a brilliant rhetorical tour de force that rhetoricians above all would admire. Here the reverence for Geoffrey de Vinsauf is explicit and not merely implicit, although characteristically misconstrued by modern readers who share Lewis’s distaste for rhetoric13 (NPT, VII.3347–51): O Gaufred, deere maister soverayn, That whan thy worthy kyng Richard was slayn With shot, compleynedest his deeth so soore, Why ne hadde I now thy sentence and thy loore, The Friday for to chide, as diden ye?

arrow;lamented subject;learning

Geoffrey of Vinsauf is here supplying a series of apostrophes as expressions of grief as part of his section III on amplification. The author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium defines apostrophe (exclamatio) as follows (IV.xv.22): Exclamatio est quae conficit significationem doloris aut indignationis alicuius per hominis aut urbis aut loci aut rei cuiuspiam conpellationem. Apostrophe is the figure which expresses grief or indignation by means of an address [reprimand, rebuke] to some man or city or place or object.

Geoffrey of Vinsauf supplies not one but a series of examples of apostrophes on the death of Richard I, King of England (1189–1199): to England, to the day, the murderer, death itself, nature and even God (Poetria, 367–430). Richard was a great crusading knight as much as and indeed more than as

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

279

a King of England, ‘the least English of all the kings of England’ (Austin Lane Poole),14 albeit born in England. But he displayed the generosity of a knight on his succession in pardoning William Marshal, who had unhorsed him in fighting on behalf of his father Henry II (1154–1189) and in giving him in marriage to Isabel, daughter of Richard of Clare, Earl of Pembroke (‘Strongbow’). Ironically King Richard I did not die on crusade in the Holy Land nor in the wars in Normandy but by an arrow in the shoulder at the siege of Châlus.15 He was wounded on Friday, 26 March 1199, and died twelve days later on 6 April 1199. What more fitting subject for lamentation, especially for an Englishman, than the death of the illustrious warrior King of England at the tragically early age of thirty-one? Geoffrey of Vinsauf sets out to do his subject justice and only a series of apostrophes can possibly hope to achieve such an ambition (Poetria, 368–70 and 375–79; Nims, p. 29): Anglia, sub clypeo regis defensa Ricardi, Indefensa modo, planctu testare dolorem; Exudent oculi lacrimas; … O Veneris lacrimosa dies! O sidus amarum! Illa dies tua nox fuit et Venus illa venenum. Illa dedit vulnus; sed pessimus ille dierum, Primus ab undecimo, qui, vitae vitricus, ipsam Clausit. Uterque dies homicida tyrannide mira. Once defended by King Richard’s shield, now undefended, O England, bear witness to your woe in the gestures of sorrow. Let your eyes flood with tears, … O tearful day of Venus! O bitter star! That day was your night; and that Venus your venom. That day inflicted the wound; but the worst of all days was that other – the day after the eleventh – which, cruel stepfather to life, destroyed life. Either day, with strange tyranny, was a murderer.

Chaucer’s expression of reverence for Geoffrey of Vinsauf is no insincere or merely conventional gesture. Geoffrey of Vinsauf is the English Cicero and for this very reason Chaucer is able to turn to comic effect the magniloquent examples of the figure of diction known as exclamatio inspired by the death of King Richard I. Chaucer himself has often used the apostrophe in the Canterbury Tales with serious intent to the bafflement of modern commentators,

280

Gerald Morgan

Dorigen’s complaint to Fortune in the Franklin’s Tale (V.1352–458) being but the outstanding example.16 Here he has succeeded in baffling yet more modern commentators by the comic use of apostrophe. He has done so by way of deliberate disproportion. What may indeed be fitting for the death of a King of England, and indeed the greatest of English kings in battle, the lion-hearted Richard I, is manifestly ridiculous when applied to the chicken-hearted Chauntecleer when seized by Daun Russell the fox (VII.3334–37). Chauntecleer indeed cuts an embarrassingly ridiculous figure as he struts and crows in the poor widow’s yard (NPT, VII.3179–81): He looketh as it were a grym leoun, And on his toos he rometh up and doun; Hym deigned nat to sette his foot to grounde.

lion walks he deigned

How remote the effect of the cock from the fear inspired by the presence of a real lion (Inf., I.44–48; Sinclair, I.25): ma non sì che paura non mi desse la vista che m’apparve d’un leone.   Questi parea che contra me venisse con la test’ alta e con rabbiosa fame, sì che parea che l’aere ne tremesse. … but even so, I was put in fear by the sight of a lion which appeared to me and seemed to be coming against me holding its head high and furious with hunger so that the air seemed in dread of it.

We are reminded here that the role of hero is a role that Chauntecleer is singularly ill-equipped to play. In the image of the farmyard cock the pride of the lion has been reduced to mere vanity. We are in the world here not of parody but of the mock heroic. The high style of the rhetoricians, perfectly adapted as it is to the decorum of epic poetry, is not the object of ridicule but the means of ridicule. The comic effect of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale is brought about precisely because we take an exclamatio seriously as the marker of elevated writing and because we see that it is wasted on a cock and indeed exposes the vanity of the cock.

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

281

V.  The mock heroic style does not necessarily imply the ridicule of epic poetry but rather the imitation of epic style as a means of ridiculing some object unworthy of the dignity of epic poetry. Pope expresses this intention clearly in his dedication of The Rape of the Lock (1714), described on the title page as ‘An Heroi-Comical Poem’, to Mrs Arabella Fermor (p. 142): Madam, It will be in vain to deny that I have some Regard for this Piece, since I Dedicate it to You. Yet You may bear me Witness, it was intended only to divert a few young Ladies, who have good Sense and good Humour enough, to laugh not only at their Sex’s little unguarded Follies, but at their own.17

In parody or burlesque by way of distinction the epic style itself becomes the object of ridicule, but as Pope also indicates in his dedication mock heroic and parodic motivations can be combined in the same work (p. 142): The Machinery, Madam, is a Term invented by the Criticks, to signify that Part which the Deities, Angels, or Daemons, are made to act in a Poem: For the ancient Poets are in one respect like many modern Ladies; Let an Action be never so trivial in it self, they always make it appear of the utmost Importance.

The distinction is aptly summed up by Boileau as between (in his terms) burlesque or travesty in which Dido speaks like a fishwife and mock epic in which a fishwife speaks like Dido. In the first case it is Dido and in the second case it is the fishwife that is the object of ridicule. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is a beast fable in the manner of the mock epic. As such it is built upon an analogy between animal and human behaviour exquisitely developed by Chaucer with a sophisticated self-awareness. Accordingly it is set in the historical past (NPT, VII.2880–81): For thilke tyme, as I have understonde, Beestes and briddes koude speke and synge.

that same

The resemblances between animal behaviour and human behaviour readily identify themselves, especially to those who live among animals in their daily lives. The meanings of animals in beast fables are well established and generally unproblematic. In The Parliament of Fowls, we have a wonderfully diverse cast of birds ‘[o]f every kynde that men thynke may’ (PF,

282

Gerald Morgan

311 and 323–64), including ‘[t]he thef, the chough’, ‘[t]he false lapwynge’, ‘[t]he stork, the wrekere of avouterye’ and ‘[t]he hote cormeraunt of glotenye’ (PF, 345, 347, 361 and 362). The point of these comparisons is a moral point and nowhere is this point made more emphatically in the Parliament of Fowls than in Nature’s commendation of the tercel eagle (393–97): ‘The tersel egle, as that ye knowe wel, The foul royal, above yow in degre, The wyse and worthi, secre, trewe as stel, Which I have formed, as ye may wel se, In every part as it best liketh me.’

tercel (male) bird;rank discreet can Pleases

Thus the lion stands for nobility and courage and the tiger for cruelty (as devouring its young). These are fitting analogies for knights in battle and hence used by Chaucer in the Knight’s Tale (I.1655–57): Thou myghtest wene that this Palamon In his fightynge were a wood leon, And as a crueel tigre was Arcite.

suppose furious

The fox is cunning and this analogy is used by Chaucer to underline the cunning of the Miller (GP, I.552): His berd as any sowe or fox was reed.

And Chauntecleer is vain, as cocks are wont to be. Indeed it is hard to imagine any cock that could outmatch Chauntecleer in crowing (NPT, VII.2850, 2853–54 and 2857–58): In al the land, of crowyng nas his peer … Wel sikerer was his crowynge in his logge Than is a clokke or an abbey orlogge … For whan degrees fiftene weren ascended, Thanne crew he that it myghte nat been amended. 

more accurate;coop clock risen above the horizon could;improved upon

The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is about a cock and a fox. In other words it is about vanity and cunning, not rhetoric. One does not need to be a literary critic to take the point and the Nun’s Priest at the end is at pains to insist upon it (NPT, VII.3438–40):

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

283

  But ye that holden this tale a folye, As of a fox, or of a cock and hen, Taketh the moralite, goode men.

VI.  Beast fables, then, have a moral point and such fables were commonly used as exempla in sermon literature; hence the appositeness of the assignment of the tale to the Nun’s Priest (a further instance of decorum in the Canterbury Tales).18 The moral point of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale is not far to seek, especially as it follows the Monk’s Tale. It is that pride comes before a fall. And we can see that the moral point informs the Nun’s Priest’s Tale at every stage of its development. Our hero Chauntecleer takes, as it were, centre stage in the widow’s humble yard outside her ‘sooty … bour and eek hir halle’ (NPT, VII.2832 and 2847–49) from the beginning and dominates the action. He is given a formal rhetorical description systematically from head to toe and in the superlative degree worthy of the dignity of any hero (NPT, VII.2859–64): His coomb was redder than the fyn coral, And batailled as it were a castel wal; His byl was blak, and as the jeet it shoon; Lyk asure were his legges and his toon; His nayles whitter than the lylye flour, And lyk the burned gold was his colour.

crenellated beak azure;toes burnished

It is a text-book description of the kind Geoffrey of Vinsauf recommends for the description of a woman’s beauty (Poetria, 598–99; Nims, p. 37): A summo capitis descendat splendor ad ipsam Radicem, totumque simul poliatur ad unguem. So let the radiant description descend from the top of her head to her toe, and the whole be polished to perfection,

and which Chaucer himself illustrates to perfection intermingled with corresponding moral attributes in the description of Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster and first wife of John of Gaunt, in The Book of the Duchess (817–1041). Every hero, even Lancelot, requires a heroine to inspire him and Chauntecleer is no exception. He is blest by the adoration of no fewer

284

Gerald Morgan

than seven hens, and especially by that of the most beautiful among them, Pertelote, whose beauty is matched by the womanly virtues of discretion, graciousness and friendliness (NPT, VII.2869–72): Of whiche the faireste hewed on hir throte Was cleped faire damoysele Pertelote. Curteys she was, discreet, and debonaire, And compaignable, …

called wise;gracious friendly

Alas, in the world of the mock heroic, the descriptions serve only as a pleasing and fancied image of a gentle knight and his lady and their real purpose is to illustrate the moral point by way of comic deflation. Our hero, unforgivably in a hero (and also in a cock),19 is a coward. He has a bad dream which frightens him and causes him to groan in his sleep, much to the consternation of his beloved Pertelote (NPT, VII.2886–87 and 2894–95): This Chauntecleer gan gronen in his throte, As man that in his dreem is drecched soore. ‘By God, me mette I was in swich meschief  Right now that yet myn herte is soore afright.’

troubled;sorely dreamt;trouble,plight

Chauntecleer is alarmed, and rightly alarmed, by the presence in the yard of a hound-like creature that threatens his very life. The description is once again brilliant in its identifying detail (NPT, VII.2902–5): ‘His colour was bitwixe yelow and reed, And tipped was his tayl and bothe his eeris With blak, unlyk the remenant of his heeris; His snowte smal, with glowynge eyen tweye.’

But it is the menacing look of the fox, for fox it surely is, that so disturbs the heroic equanimity of the cock (NPT, 2906–7): ‘Yet of his look for feere almoost I deye; This caused me my gronyng, doutelees.’

This is in a way a reasonable justification of an emotional reaction in the course of sleep, for a cock in such circumstances is in real peril. But a

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

285

heroine does not want to listen to a hero’s fears, however justifiable, and here Pertelote displays her own colours not as a gracious lady but as a scold in dismissing them with a withering contempt (NPT, VII.2908–11 and 2920–21): ‘Avoy!’ quod she, ‘fy on yow, hertelees! Allas,’ quod she, ‘for, by that God above, Now han ye lost myn herte and al my love! I kan nat love a coward, by my feith! … Have ye no mannes herte, and han a berd? Allas! And konne ye been agast of swevenys?’

shame!;coward

beard afraid;dreams

Pertelote proceeds to give Chauntecleer a brief but pungent lecture on the insignificance of his dream and the illusoriness of his fears as if the loss of heroic dignity was not enough (NPT, VII.2922–39), reinforcing her conclusion with a reference to the authority of Cato, the author of the Catonis Disticha, a third-century collection of moral couplets popular in the curriculum of the grammar schools in the later Middle Ages20 (NPT, 2940–41): ‘Lo Catoun, which that was so wys a man, Seyde he nat thus, “Ne do no fors of dremes”?’

attach no importance to

She identifies Chauntecleer’s dream as an insomnium or nightmare and hence of no significance when it is completed.21 It has a physical cause in Chauntecleer’s over-indulgence with a consequential inbalance among the humours (NPT, VII.2922–25): Nothyng, God woot, but vanitee in sweven is. knows;illusion Swevenes engendren of replecciouns, arise from;eating or drinking to excess And oft of fume and of complecciouns, vapour,exhalation;balance of humours Whan humours been to habundant in a wight. bodily fluids;excessive

The diagnosis is evident; Chauntecleer is suffering from an excess of choler or yellow-red bile (NPT, VII.2926–32) and melancholy or black bile (NPT, 2933–36) but Pertelote does not wish to labour the point to one in Chauntecleer’s disturbed state (NPT, VII.2937–39):

286

Gerald Morgan Of othere humours koude I telle also That werken many a man sleep ful wo; But I wol passe as lightly as I kan.

cause

The remedy, an unpleasant remedy hardly conducive to the dignity of a hero, is no less evident and Pertelote does not spare our hero’s feelings in her prescription of it. Chauntecleer must be purged of the excesses of choler and melancholy in his system and to do that he must take some laxatives (NPT, VII.2943 and 2946–47): For Goddes love, as taak som laxatyf … That bothe of colere and of malencolye Ye purge yow.

Fortunately, in the absence of an apothecary in the town, she is herself able to supply a list of herbs ‘whiche han of hire propretee by kynde/ To purge yow bynethe and eek above’ (NPT, VII.2952–53). The comprehensive list of herbs she names does justice to the medical knowledge of an Avicenna: laurus nobilis (‘lawriol’), centauria (‘centaure’), fumaria (‘fumetere’), elleborus (‘ellebor’), euphorbium (‘katapuce’), rhamus (‘gaitrys beryis’, berries of the common European buckthorn) and hedera helix (‘herbe yve’, buck’s horn plantain) (NPT, VII.2963–66).22 But before the fearful hero takes these nauseous medicines he must first be careful to take digestive medicines for absorbing or dissipating choler and melancholy (NPT, VII.2961–62). Understandably all this is too much for Chauntecleer to bear. How can Pertelote be so ignorant as to put forward Cato and a schoolboy textbook as an authority on dreams? He is shocked indeed by the limitations of her reading (NPT, VII.2974–76): By God, men may in olde bookes rede Of many a man moore of auctorite Than evere Caton was, so moot I thee.

so may I prosper

Had she read Macrobius she would surely know that dreams cannot simply be dismissed in this cavalier fashion. The opening lines of Le Roman de la rose would tell her as much (even in a medieval English translation) (RR, 1–10; Horgan, p. 3):

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

287

Aucunes genz dient qu’en songes n’a se fables non et mençonges; mes l’en puet tex songes songier qui ne sont mie mençongier, ainz sont aprés bien aparant, si en puis bien traire a garant un auctor qui ot non Macrobes, qui ne tint pas songes a lobes, ançois escrit l’avision qui avint au roi Scypion. Some say that there is nothing in dreams but lies and fables; however, one may have dreams which are not in the least deceitful, but which later become clear. In support of this fact, I can cite an author named Macrobius, who did not consider that dreams deceived, but wrote of the vision that came to King Scipio.

For the immediate enlightenment of Pertelote Chauntecleer supplies three examples that establish the truth of dreams, namely, the murder of a pilgrim at a hostelry (NPT, VII.2984–3063), a shipwreck (NPT, 3064–109) and the tragically brief life of St Kenelm (NPT, VII.3110–22). In the first of these examples the one pilgrim takes no heed of his fellow pilgrim’s appeal for help, for ‘[h]ym thoughte his dreem nas but a vanitee’ (NPT, VII.3011). It is a tragic error of judgment and bears out the unassailable conclusion: ‘Heere may men seen that dremes been to drede’ (VII.3063). The second example tells of a man who has a dream of a shipwreck but is unable to persuade his travelling companion to delay until a safer moment presents itself for the voyage. He is laughed to scorn by his companion for his superstitious folly (NPT, VII.3090–91): I sette nat a straw by thy dremynges, For swevenes been but vanytees and japes.

But it is the companion who pays the price for neglecting the wisdom that is contained in dreams when ‘casuelly the shippes botme rente,/ And ship and man under the water wente’ (VII.3101–2). Who are we to understand these accidents of life and to call into question the divine mysteries that surround them? It is a lesson that Chauntecleer cannot restrain himself from impressing upon Pertelote (NPT, VII.3105–9):

288

Gerald Morgan And therfore, faire Pertelote so deere, learn By swiche ensamples olde maistow leere  That no man sholde been to recchelees indifferent to, unheeding concerning Of dremes; for I seye thee, doutelees, That many a dreem ful soore is for to drede.

The third example is the tragic story of the boy king St Kenelm of Mercia who had a vision of his own murder in his dream, that is, an ‘avysioun’ (NPT, VII.3114). Although his nurse explained to him the significance of his dream and to guard against treason he failed to do so. In his case there is a justification for carelessness, since he was ‘but seven yeer oold’ (NPT, VII.3117) and in his innocence unable fully to comprehend the danger that he was in. On the basis of these three compelling examples Chauntecleer is able to introduce a triumphant reference to Macrobius but with a superficial appearance of deferential courtesy (NPT, VII.3122–26): ‘Dame Pertelote, I sey yow trewely, Macrobeus, that writ the avisioun In Affrike of the worthy Cipioun, Affermeth dremes, and seith that they been Warnynge of thynges that men after seen.’

supports the validity of

It is yet another high point in the demonstration of his superior learning and may indeed remind modern readers of the precocity of Samuel Johnson’s learning as it appears in Boswell’s Life of Johnson in 1791 (I.59): His father seemed very full of the merits of his son, and told the company he was a good scholar, and a poet and wrote Latin verses. His figure and manner appeared strange to them; but he behaved modestly, and sat silent, till upon something which occurred in the course of conversation, he suddenly struck in and quoted Macrobius, and thus he gave the first impression of that more extensive reading in which he had indulged himself.23

Sadly there is nothing of the modest young scholar in Chauntecleer, for he has been bent from the beginning on impressing his superior learning on Pertelote. Thus the first example of a significant dream is prefaced by a reference to ‘[o]on of the gretteste auctour that men rede’ (NPT,

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

289

VII.2984), probably to the De divinatione of Cicero or possibly the Facta et dicta memorabilia of Valerius Maximus.24 For the following example from the same source he gives a precise bibliographical reference, albeit sounding somewhat like the silly goose in the Parliament of Fowls (NPT, VII.3064–66 and PF, 564–65): And certes in the same book I rede, Right in the nexte chapitre after this – I gabbe nat, so have I joye or blis.

tell lies

And herkeneth which a resoun I shal forth brynge! My wit is sharp; I love no taryinge.

And how he wishes that Pertelote had also read the legend of St Kenelm (NPT, VII.3120–21): By God! I hadde levere than my sherte That ye hadde rad his legende, as have I.

would rather read;account of a saint’s life

Chauntecleer is now so full of himself that nothing can stop him and he reels off a long list of confirmatory examples of meaningful dreams: ‘And forthermoore, I pray yow, looketh wel … Reed eek of Joseph … Looke of Egipte the kyng, daun Pharao, … Lo Cresus, which that was of Lyde kyng, … Lo heere Andromacha, Ectores wyf, …’ (NPT, VII.3127–50). Of course he does not mean to imply that all dreams are ‘[w]arnynge of thynges that shul after falle’ (NPT, VII.3131–32). That indeed would be foolish. But of his own dream there is no doubt (NPT, VII.3151–53): Shortly I seye, as for conclusioun, That I shal han of this avisioun Adversitee.

There is also another advantage in establishing the truth content of his dream, since it spares him from the necessity of enduring Pertelote’s unpleasant remedies (NPT, VII.3153–56). By now Chauntecleer is so delighted with his own exposition that he overlooks the perilous reality of the conclusion. And here he is undone by the physical attractiveness of his beloved Pertelote. The trouble with dumb

290

Gerald Morgan

blondes is that they are not only intelligent but also sexually irresistible. Chauntecleer is distracted at once from his compelling argument (NPT, VII.3160–62): For whan I se the beautee of youre face, Ye been so scarlet reed aboute youre yen,  It maketh al my drede for to dyen.

eyes

It would be nice to think that dumb blondes were actually dumb since men might then be able to cope with them. As it is men have to operate on two fronts and are vulnerable at one and the same time in respect of both. Pertelote throws Chauntecleer into confusion. Hence her name, whereas in Le Roman de Renart and Le Roman de Renart le Contrefait the hen is called Pinte.25 When it comes to Latin Chauntecleer knows he has a simple advantage and does not hesitate to exploit it deceitfully, as academics are sometimes wont to do (NPT, VII.3163–66): ‘For al so siker as In principio, Mulier est hominis confusio – Madame, the sentence of this Latyn is, “Womman is mannes joye and al his blis.” ’

surely;in the beginning woman is man’s ruin meaning

But he is suddenly overwhelmed by sexual desire and his intellectual control at once disappears because of it. He is less exercised now than he should be by the distinction between true and false dreams (NPT, VII.3170–71): ‘I am so ful of joye and of solas, That I diffye bothe sweven and dreem.’

delight defy the power of, set at nought

What does the meaning of dreams matter if they are to be compared with the delight of sexual satisfaction, and not once but many times (NPT, VII.3177–78): He fethered Pertelote twenty tyme, And trad hire eke as ofte, er it was pryme.

brushed with the wings copulated with;prime 6–9 a.m.

Chauntecleer’s pride has got the better of him and it has set him up for a fall.

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

291

The impending doom of our hero ‘in al his pryde’ (NPT, VII.3191) as the solemn day and moment of reckoning approaches (9.00 a.m. on 3 May, a dies mali, one of the unlucky days of the month) is prefaced by a splendid circumitio or periphrasis (NPT, VII.3187–97). Our hero cuts a fine figure in the yard accompanied by his seven wives as the sun shines upon them (NPT, VII.3198–203) but as the storm clouds gather in a world in which joy is all too fleeting (NPT, VII.3204–9). It is the world of ‘Launcelot de Lake,/ That wommen holde in ful greet reverence’ (NPT, VII.3211–12), but also a world darkened by murderers and traitors, in this case ‘[a] colfox, ful of sly iniquitee’ (NPT, VII.3215). The realisation of the presence of such evil in the yard itself gives rise to a series of impassioned apostrophes, full of grief and indignation, in the authentic manner of epic poetry (NPT, VII.3226–29): O false mordrour, lurkynge in thy den! O newe Scariot, newe Genylon, False dissymulour, o Greek Synon, That broghtest Troye al outrely to sorwe!

utterly

Worst of all is the reflection that Chauntecleer has brought this misfortune upon himself by his carelessness of his own dream and his misuse of his own learning (NPT, VII.3230–33): O Chauntecleer, acursed be that morwe That thou into that yerd flaugh fro the bemes! Thou were ful wel ywarned by thy dremes That thilke day was perilous to thee.

morning flew that

This reflection in its turn leads to the more profound reflection as to why human beings come to hazard their good fortune in this way. Do they have any choice in the unfolding of their destinies in this tragic way at all? This is a difficult question and gives rise to endless debate even among the greatest of thinkers such as Augustine, Boethius and Bradwardine (NPT, VII.3234–50). In Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae (Boece, V, prosa 6, ll.177–213) it leads to the distinction between simple and conditional necessity, and it is this distinction that Troilus wrestles with in his despair as he sees that he has to come to terms with the loss of Criseyde

292

Gerald Morgan

(TC, IV.953–1085).26 This is heavy matter, much too heavy indeed for a mock epic and we must pass on after lightly touching upon it (NPT, VII.3251–52): I wol nat han to do of swich mateere; My tale is of a cok, as ye may heere.

The sad fact is that Chauntecleer, like so many males from the time of Adam onwards, has been undone by the advice of a woman he loves (NPT, VII.3253–64) or perhaps, unlike Sir Launcelot, perceives himself so to have been undone. A patronising attitude towards women combined with a willingness to blame them for one’s own inadequacy when things go wrong is not an attitude that the Nun’s Priest wishes to share. Adam does not blame Eve for his fall from grace in the Monk’s Tale (MkT, VII.2007–14) for after all in the paradise of the garden of Eden he does not carry the burden of original sin and the Nun’s Priest has no desire to blame Pertelote for Chauntecleer’s misfortune (NPT, VII.3265–66): Thise been the cokkes wordes, and nat myne; I kan noon harm of no womman divyne.

conjecture,suppose

Moreover Chaucer himself does not wish here to reopen the Wife of Bath’s debate on antifeminism any more than that on simple and conditional necessity elaborated at length in Troilus and Criseyde. After all, Pertelote, ‘[f ]aire in the soond, to bathe hire myrily’ (NPT, VII.3267) and her sister hens are in as much peril as Chauntecleer. For Chauntecleer himself it is the moment of truth when he catches sight of the fox (NPT, VII.3276–78): Nothyng ne liste hym thanne for to crowe, But cride anon, ‘Cok! Cok!’ and up he sterte As man that was affrayed in hs herte.

pleased started frightened

Here before his very eyes is the living proof of the truth of the dream (a visio indeed not an insomnium) he has explained to the untutored Pertelote and the intellectual worth of the teaching of Macrobius he has laboured to set before her but in his vanity he has ignored. Now his

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

293

instinct suffices to bid him to flee the present danger to his very life (NPT, VII.3279–81): For natureelly a beest desireth flee Fro his contrarie, if he may it see, Though he never erst hadde seyn it with his ye.

can previously

Such instinct in animals is called by Avicenna the vis aestimativa, that is, the perception not merely of sense forms but of intentions, and in human beings there is in respect of intentions a difference from animals (hence the distinction in the text of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale between ‘man’ and ‘beest’ (3278 and 3279). Aquinas explains the distinction as follows (ST, 1a 78.4; translated by Timothy Suttor): Considerandum est autem quod quantum ad formas sensibiles non est differentia inter homines et alia animalia; similiter enim immutantur a sensibilibus exterioribus. Sed quantum ad intentiones praedictas differentia est, nam alia animalia percipiunt hujusmodi intentiones solum naturali quodam instinctu, homo autem etiam per quandam collationem. Et ideo quae in aliis animalibus dicitur aestimativa naturalis in homine dicitur cogitativa, quae per collationem quandam hujusmodi intentiones adinvenit. Unde etiam dicitur ratio particularis. Consider now that so far as sense forms are concerned there is no difference between men and other animals; they are affected in the same way by external sense objects. But when it comes to the intentions just discussed there is a difference, for other animals perceive such intentions solely by natural instinct, whereas man perceives them by a process of comparison. And so what we call natural instinct in other animals in man we call cogitation, which comes upon intentions of the kind in question through a process of comparison. Which is why it is also called the particular reason.

We are to understand that vanity is a peculiar failing of human beings rather than animals, for in animals there is no questioning of the validity of the vis aestimativa. But here in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale once again vanity gets the better of simple common sense and Chauntecleer is seduced by the blandishments of the fox in holding his ground instead of seeking flight. Sadly it seems in life that there is no limit to vanity any more than there is a limit to greed. And here the appeal to Chauntecleer’s singing ability and noble ancestry, even coming from so unlikely a source as the fox, proves irresistible. The cunning fox addresses the vain Chauntecleer as

294

Gerald Morgan

if the cock were a noble lord and speaks to him throughout in the polite plural as if the fox were an admiring friend: ‘ “Gentil sire, allas, wher wol ye gon?” ’ (NPT, VII.3284). Not even Boethius (also author of De musica) can be counted his superior in singing, especially when it comes to feeling, surely more important than a mere technical ability (NPT, VII.3293–94): Therwith ye han in musyk moore feelynge Than hadde Boece, or any that kan synge.27

Chauntecleer must possess an inherited talent given the reputation of his own father (NPT, VII.3301–3): Save yow, I herde nevere man so synge As dide youre fader in the morwenynge, Certes, it was of herte, al that he song.

The fox can still recall the pleasure that both Chauntecleer’s parents have given him in their own day (NPT, 3295–97): My lord youre fader – God his soule blesse! – And eek youre mooder, of hire gentillesse, Han in myn hous ybeen to my greet ese.

pleasure

What a comparable pleasure it would be if the son could now match the father in performance, closing his eyes, standing on tiptoe and stretching his neck for maximum effect (NPT, VII.3304–8). Even better if he could emulate his father in ‘wisedom and discrecioun’ (NPT, VII.3309–19). Such words of praise fill Chauntecleer’s soul with delight and he takes them entirely to heart (NPT, VII.3322–24):   This Chauntecleer his wynges gan to bete, As man that koude his traysoun nat espie, So was he ravysshed with his flaterie.

enchanted

How can Chauntecleer bring himself to believe this? On the face of it his response baffles reason. But an important point is being made here in respect of cunning, lying and flattery. In the B and C texts of Piers Plowman Favel or cunning promotes the marriage of Meed to False or deceit supported by Liar (B II.40–43 and C II.43–44):

295

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale Fauel þoru3 his faire speche haþ þis folk enchaunted, And al is Lieres ledynge þat [heo] is þus ywedded.

management

Fauel thorw his flaterynge speche hath Mede foule enchaunted, And al is Lyares ledynge this lady is thus ywedded.28

All this is possible because the love of wealth is simply irresistible to human beings in many (if not most) cases (PPl, B II.17 and C II.16): Hire array me rauysshed, swich richesse sau3 I neuere. Here aray with here rychesse raueschede my herte.

For many, riches and greed are entirely disabling forces in life for there is seldom any limit to them. Meed produces this effect in Passus II of Piers Plowman and it is why so many are drawn to her even in the face of the explicit repudiation of her as a bastard by Lady Holy Church (B II.24; C II.24). When desires are so powerful flattery becomes increasingly dangerous. In the Nun’s Priest’s Tale what dazzles is not money but the desperate desire that human beings have for public affirmation. It is what they want so much to hear and hence are disposed to believe when they hear it. Reason is abandoned as desires are fulfilled, even when they are seemingly fulfilled by mortal enemies. Thus the narrator intervenes in sober and possibly discordant fashion to compare Chauntecleer’s vulnerability to flattery to that of those at court, as Chaucer himself must have known only too well from long personal experience (NPT, VII.3325–28):   Allas, ye lordes, many a fals flatour Is in youre courtes, and many a losengeour, That plesen yow wel moore, by my feith, Than he that soothfastnesse unto yow seith.

one who curries favour

It is too late. Chauntecleer stands on tiptoe, stretches forth his neck and closes his eyes. Daun Russell jumped up at once, seized Chauntecleer by the throat and carried him off to the wood on his back (NPT, VII.3331–37). Pride indeed comes before a fall. Here indeed is an opportunity for the Nun’s Priest and Chaucer to match the rhetorical brilliance of Cicero, and they do not fail to make the most of it. There follows a sequence of apostrophes, successively to destiny, to Venus and, by way of acknowledgment, to Geoffrey of Vinsauf,

296

Gerald Morgan

the master rhetorician himself. Once again we must lament the fact that Chauntecleer ignored the lesson of his own superior learning and relied on that of his wife instead (NPT, VII.3339–40): Allas, that Chauntecleer fleigh fro the bemes! Allas, his wyf ne roghte nat of dremes!

flew;beams took notice

And how much it is to be regretted too that he was driven by Venus ‘goddesse of plesaunce’ (NPT, VII.3342), that is, by unrestrained and passionate love for a woman, ‘[m]oore for delit than world to multiplye’ (NPT, VII.3345).29 And how much more to be regretted is it that the narrator lacks the learning and technical brilliance of a Geoffrey of Vinsauf to do justice to this tragic event. Here we are in the highest reaches of the mock heroic. Inspired by these expressions of his own grief and indignation the narrator turns to the barely imaginable grief of the hens at Chauntecleer’s capture by the fox. Only the great moments of classical epic can suffice to put it in any kind of proper perspective. The alarm of the ladies of Chauntecleer’s entourage irresistibly calls to mind the terrible moment in the (libro) Eneydos when the citadel of Troy falls and Priam is put to a cruel death by the sword by the implacable Pyrrhus ‘with his streite swerd/ acies … stricta’ (NPT, VII.3355–61; Aen., II.333–34 and 544–58). As for the distraught Pertelote, she calls to mind the fate of Hasdrubal’s wife when Carthage fell in 146 b.c. to the Romans under Scipio Africanus Minor (‘the worthy Cipioun’, NPT, 3124). The example of Hasdrubal’s wife is a telling illustration above all of wifely chastity in Dorigen’s complaint to Fortune (often itself misconstrued as parody) at a moment of tragic conflict when her marriage seems lost through irreconcilable promises.30 In the Nun’s Priest’s Tale Pertelote is set apart from the rest in her grief (NPT, VII.3362–65): But sovereynly dame Pertelote shrighte Ful louder than dide Hasdrubales wyf, Whan that hir housbonde hadde lost his lyf And that the Romayns hadde brend Cartage.

especially;shrieked

burnt

And also in her firmness of purpose and marital fidelity (NPT, VII.3366– 68). And in this catalogue of human misery we must not overlook the

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

297

wretchedness of the ‘woful hennes’ whose cries recall those of the wives of the senators killed by the pitiless Nero when he burnt Rome (NPT, VII.3369–73). Indeed, as the Monk reminds us, this was Nero’s very purpose in doing so (MkT, VII.2480–81): The senatours he slow upon a day To heere how that men wolde wepe and crie.

Had the narrator put his mind to it no doubt he could have matched the epic grandeur of Troy, Carthage and Rome in a serious work. But it is time to turn to the reality before us, namely, the wretched but commonplace event of an English farmyard raided by a fox. It is unpleasant enough for all that for the poor widow and her two daughters and something of a catastrophe for them as they eek out a living in their humble abode. Now we have uproar and alarm of a less solemn and threatening kind as these English folk chase the fox as he seeks to escape to the wood with his prey (NPT, VII.3380–81): And cryden, ‘Out ! Harrow and weylaway! Ha, ha! The fox!’ and after hym they ran.

Now we have no longer the great names of classical epic but the familiar names of English dogs and the hunt and also of serving maids (NPT, VII.3383–84): Ran Colle oure dogge, and Talbot and Gerland, And Malkyn, with a dystaf in hir hand.

Molly

Here too is the familiar name of Jack Straw (still the name of an English Foreign Secretary in 2001–2006) and the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 makes its presence felt in these lines (NPT, VII.3394–97): Certes, he Jakke Straw and his meynee Ne made nevere shoutes half so shrille Whan that they wolden any Flemyng kille, As thilke day was maad upon the fox.

followers

If we were ever to have any sympathy for the fox it would be here as he endures the shouts and insults of this unruly rabble (NPT, VII.3400–01):

298

Gerald Morgan And therwithal they skriked and they howped. It semed as that hevene sholde falle.

shrieked;whooped

And here the narrator plays upon a traditional association, for the fox is characteristically reviled by those who pursue him, as by the huntsmen in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1721–26):



Suche a sorȝe at þat syȝt þay sette on his hede imprecation;called down As alle þe clamberande clyffes hade clatered on hepes; clustering;fallen Here he watz halawed, when haþelez hym metten, Loude he watz ȝayned with ȝarande speche; Þer he watz þreted and ofte þef called And ay þe titleres at his tayl, þat tary he ne myȝt.

clattering down shouted at;knights greeted;chiding reviled hounds from a relay;could

No one can for long be expected to endure such abuse and suddenly the cock, for all his fears, sees how he himself might turn this unpromising situation to his advantage. Why not tell this rabble of English peasants exactly what one thinks of their uneducated shrieks and cries (NPT, VII.3405–10): This cok, that lay upon the foxes bak, In al his drede unto the fox he spak, And seyde, ‘Sire, if that I were as ye, Yet sholde I seyn, as wys God helpe me, “Turneth agayn, ye proude cherles alle! A verray pestilence upon yow falle!” ’

back plague

It is a temptation simply too great for the fox, goaded beyond measure by this crude and ignorant abuse, to resist. He opens his mouth to speak and the cock makes good his escape. He has at last learnt his lesson and will no longer be seduced by the fox’s flattery (NPT, VII.3414–32). The fox too has learnt a harsh lesson in being ‘undiscreet of governaunce’ (NPT, VII.3434). Thus the Nun’s Priest’s Tale ends with a characteristic piece of Chaucerian cleverness, for it is the fox in the end who is vain and the cock who is cunning. Such a reversal of roles has its own aptness, for there is no reason at all why vanity and cunning, or cunning and vanity, should not co-exist. And the Nun’s Priest, ‘[t]his sweete preest, this goodly man, sir

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

299

John’ (NPT, VII.2820) has done all that the Host required of him. He has not only told a tale with an instructive moral lesson (NPT, VII.3436–37):   Lo, swich it is for to be recchelees And necligent, and truste on flaterye,

heedless,imprudent

but has also lightened the mood after the Monk’s dispiriting and seemingly endless tragedies. VII. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is thus a mock heroic poem in the form of a beast fable in which vanity is ridiculed above all and most aptly in the figure of the cock, Chauntecleer, but also of the fox, Daun Russell. Vanity consists essentially in a disproportion whereby a person entertains an opinion of his or her merits that is higher, and sometimes much higher, than it is in actuality. Such vanity is matched in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale by a corresponding disproportion of style, that is, by the use of a high style appropriate to truly heroic endeavour but inappropriate to, and thus exposing the absurdity of, the cock’s heroic pretensions. The narrative unfolds by means of a series of comic deflations that serve to bring Chauntecleer down to his true level. Pope achieves this effect in The Rape of the Lock by the use of the figure of syllepsis or zeugma, as for example as follows (III.7–8): Here Thou, Great Anna! whom three Realms obey, Dost sometimes Counsel take – and sometimes Tea.31

We may say, therefore, that style fits subject in a distinctively subtle way in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Milton teaches us in his essay ‘Of Education’ (1644) the true nature of poetic decorum (p. 286): I mean … that sublime Art which in Aristotles Poetics, in Horace, and the Italian Commentaries of Castelvetro, Tasso, Mazzoni, and others, teaches what the laws are of a true Epic Poem, what of a Dramatic, what of a Lyric, what Decorum is, which is the grand master-piece to observe.32

In the Nun’s Priest’s Tale Chaucer has observed the decorum of the mock heroic poem.

300

Gerald Morgan

Notes C. S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), p. 61. 2 See Caroline F. E. Spurgeon, Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion 1357–1900, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925), I.19. 3 Reference is to John Norton-Smith (ed.), James I of Scotland: The Kingis Quair, Clarendon Medieval and Tudor Series (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971). 4 MED, s.v. quaier n. 2. (a) ‘A book, esp. a short book’ and (c) ‘a brief poem’. 5 Reference is to James Kinsley (ed.), The Poems of William Dunbar (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), pp. 29–38 (p. 37). 6 Reference is to Plato: Gorgias, translated with notes by Terence Irwin, Clarendon Plato Series (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), p. 20. 7 On Protagoras, see Frederick Copleston, S. J., A History of Philosophy, New Revised Edition, Volume I, Part I (New York: Image Books, 1962), pp. 107–12 (p. 108). 8 See Phaedrus, translated by Harold North Fowler, in Plato, Volume I, pp. 405–579, Loeb (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1982), pp. 515–17. 9 See George Kennedy, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World 300 B.C.–A.D.300 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 297–98. 10 A Defence of Ryme, 494–99, in Samuel Daniel: Poems and A Defence of Ryme, edited by Arthur Colby Sprague (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930), p. 143. 11 See Gerald Morgan, The Tragic Argument of ‘Troilus and Criseyde’, 2 vols (Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2005), I.265–67. 12 See Morgan, Tragic Argument, I.152–53. 13 ‘That Chaucer’s intention here was satirical admits of no doubt. He felt and he made his readers feel the enormous absurdity of Gaufred’s rhetorical outburst’. See John Matthews Manly, ‘Chaucer and the Rhetoricians’, PBA, XII (1926), 95–113, reprinted in Richard J. Schoeck and Jerome Taylor (eds), Chaucer Criticism, Volume I (Notre Dame, IN and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1960), pp. 268–90 (p. 269). 14 Austin Lane Poole, From Domesday Book to Magna Carta 1087–1216, second edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), p. 349. 1

10  The Function of Rhetoric in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

301

15 Poole, Domesday Book to Magna Carta, pp. 347–78. 16 See Gerald Morgan, ‘A Defence of Dorigen’s Complaint’, MÆ, 46 (1977), 77–97. 17 Reference is to The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope, Volume II, The Rape of the Lock and other Poems, edited by Geoffrey Tillotson, third edition (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), pp. 139–212. 18 On the Nun’s Priest, see the essay by Marilyn Oliva, ‘The Nun’s Priest’, in Historians on Chaucer: The ‘General Prologue’ to the Canterbury Tales, edited by Stephen H. Rigby, with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 114–36. Oliva gives an account of the social background of nun’s priests based on the case studies of thirty-three nun’s priests in the diocese of Norwich (comprising the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk) in the period between 1373 and 1536. 19 The Riverside Chaucer notes (NPT, 2918–20, p. 937) that the cock had a reputation as a ‘bold and hardy’ fighter. Pertelote is rightly unimpressed by Chauntecleer’s inability to master his fears. 20 See Nicholas Orme, English Schools in the Middle Ages (London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1973), pp. 102–3. 21 On the classification of dreams and the description of the insomnium, see Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, translated with an introduction and notes by William Harris Stahl (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1952), pp. 87–89. See also Walter Clyde Curry, Chaucer and the Mediaeval Sciences, second edition (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd, 1960), pp. 195–218 (‘Mediaeval Dream-Lore’) and 219–40 (‘Chauntecleer and Pertelote on Dreams’). 22 See Curry, Chaucer and the Mediaeval Sciences, pp. 224–27. 23 Edited by George Birkbeck Hill and revised and enlarged by L. F. Powell, second edition, 6 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934–1964). 24 See Kenneth Sisam (ed.), Chaucer: The Nun’s Priest’s Tale (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), pp. 39–40. 25 See Edward Wheatley, ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale’, in Correale and Hamel, I.457–86 and The Riverside Chaucer: ‘Pertelote means “one who confuses (Fr. perte) someone’s lot or fate” ’, n. 2870, p. 937. 26 See Morgan, Tragic Argument, I.317–29. 27 See The Riverside Chaucer, p. 940, note to 3294. 28 See Gerald Morgan, ‘Langland’s Conception of Favel, Guile, Liar, and False in the First Vision of Piers Plowman’, Neophilologus, 71 (1987), 626–33 and ‘The Dignity of Langland’s Meed’, MLR, 104 (2009), 623–39 (pp. 629–30).

302

Gerald Morgan

29 This is the Venus of the temple of brass in The Parliament of Fowls. See Gerald Morgan, ‘Chaucer’s Adaptation of Boccaccio’s Temple of Venus in The Parliament of Fowls’, RES, NS, 56 (2005), 1–36. 30 See Morgan, ‘A Defence of Dorigen’s Complaint’, pp. 86–89. 31 The place is Hampton Court and the three realms are England, Scotland and Wales after the union of 1707. 32 Edited by Allan Abbott, in The Works of John Milton, Volume IV (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931).

Index

Abercromby, Ralph, 164 Abu Saïd, 186n21 Acre, 170 Actium, Battle of (31 B.C.), 274 Aethelred [the Unready], xxii, 3 Æthelstan, 5 Agincourt, Battle of (1415), 183 Alan of Lille/Alanus de Insulis: De planctu Naturae, 126, 127 Albigensian crusade (1209–1229), 174 Alexander the Great, 241 Alexandria: attack on (1365), 162, 168–9, 172, 176; fall of, 169, 253 Battle of (1801), 164 Alfonso XI of Castile, 165 Algeçiras, 166 siege of (1342–1344), 165, 185n12, 226n7 Almeria, 166, 172 American Civil War, 4, 27 Anatolia, 168 Anderson, J. J., 86–7, 99n6 Andreas Capellanus: De amore, 111 Andrew II of Hungary, 170 Andrew, M., 99n6 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 1–2, 15–16, 162 Anlaf, 5 Antalya, 168, 169, 176, 188n31, 253 Antiochus IV, King of Syria, 241, 260–1 anti-Semitism, 150 Aquinas, xxiv, xxv, 131, 139 Contra Gentiles, 72

In de anima, 73, 75, 76, 80n17, 106, 115 Summa theologiae, xxviii, 67n23, 87, 114, 132, 133, 157n13, 242; on interior sense powers, 70–2, 74, 76–7, 79nn7,9, 224, 293; rejection of doctrine of World Soul, 126; on virtue, 50, 53 Aquitaine, 186n21 Aries, 155 Aristotle, xxvii, 82, 87, 105, 126, 132, 224, 275 De anima, 79n6 Categories, 89 De memoria et reminiscentia, 79n6 Nicomachean Ethics, xxvi, 52, 84 Poetics, 140 Rhetorica, 273–4. See also Chaucer, and Armenia, Lesser, 168 Arnold, Matthew: Dover Beach (1867), 130 ‘The Study of Poetry’ (1880), 130 Artois, 176 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal, 2 Attalus II of Pergamon, 188n31 Attila, 16 Augustine, St, 67n23, 291 Augustus, Emperor, 274–5 Auray, Battle of (1364), 186n21, 187n27, 188n30 Aurelianus, Emperor, 251 Austen, Jane, 163, 185n11 Auvergne, the, 186n21, 188n30 Auxerre, 167, 188n30

304 Index Averroes, 70 On Sense and Sensibles, 79n7 Avicenna, 78n5, 293 De anima, 70–1, 72–3, 76, 79nn6,8, 80n12 Canon of Medicine, 80n10 Ayas, 188n32 attack on (1367), 168, 253 Balat, Emir of, 161 Baldwin, A. H., 20n15 Balliol College, Oxford, 137 Baltic, the, 169, 170, 173, 174 Bannockburn, Battle of (1314), 4–5, 92, 182 Barbour, John: The Bruce, 107 Barron, W. R. G., 99n6 The Battle of Maldon: xxi–xxii, 1–18 Ælfnoth, 12 Ælfwine, son of Ælfric, 13 Æscferth, son of Ecglaf, 15–16 Æþeric, brother of Sibyrht, 14, 17 Byrhtnoth, xxi–xxii, 5, 6, 7–8, 9–12, 16, 17 Byrhtwold, 18 Dunnere, xxii, 14–15 Eadric, 9 Eadweard, 10 Eadweard the Tall, 14, 16–17 Eadwold, 17 Eal(h)helm, 13 Edward, 4 Godric, the son of Æthelgar, 18 Godric, the son of Odda, 12, 13, 17, 18 Godwig, son of Odda, 12, 17 Godwine, son of Odda, 12, 17 Leofsunu, 14 Offa, 9, 12, 13–14, 17 Oswold, 17 Wistan, son of Thurstan, 17 Wulfmaer, xxi, 4, 5, 9, 11, 12

Battle of the Thirty (1351), 188n30 Battles, Paul, 99n6 Becket, St Thomas, shrine of, 141 Belthasar, 240 Ben(a)marin, kingdom of, 166 Benton, John F., 59, 60 Beowulf, xxi, 1, 12, 18–19n2, 20n25, 21 Æschere, 15 Beowulf, 9, 14, 15 Grendel, 9 Grendel’s mother, 15 Heorot, 9 Hrothgar, 15 Berkeley, Edward, 254 Berwick, siege of (1333), 185n15 Black Prince, the. See Edward of Woodstock Blackwater, River, 7 Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, 200 Blean Forest, 153 Bloody Sunday (30 January 1972), 83 Boccaccio, 169 De casibus virorum illustrium, 232, 238–9, 249, 254, 256, 258, 261; Eve, 243 Decameron, 132, 134 Filostrato, 105, 132, 238 De mulieribus claris, 240, 250, 251; Aurelianus, 251; Zenobia, 251 Teseida, 133, 201, 223, 226n8, 238; ‘Seven against Thebes’ [Adrastus, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, Polynices, Tydeus], 197–8, 226n8; Alcmena, 221; Archemorus, King of Nemea, 226n10; Arcita, 203, 221, 227n15; Argos, 198; Bacchus, 221; Cadmus, 220, 227n14; Creon, 198, 199, 228n27; Cupid, 77; Egeo, 205, 206;

305

Index Emilia, 202, 208, 221; Eteocles, 198; Evadne, wife of Capaneus, 198, 199, 202; Fiammetta, 214, 227n12; Greeks, 198; Hercules, 221; Ipolita, 20, 203, 214, 215; Palemone, 203, 208, 221; Peirithous, 207; Semelè, 221; Teseo, 199–200, 202, 204, 205, 206, 207, 215, 216, 220, 228n21; Thebes, 198, 200; Voluttà, 77 Sonetto, 202. See also Chaucer, and; Chaucer, Knight’s Tale, cf. Teseida Boethius, 234, 291 Boece, 205, 245–6; Diomedes, King of Thrace, 246; Hercules, 246, 247; Lady Philosophia, 259 De consolatione philosophiae, 114–15, 242, 291; Hercules, 240; Lady Philosophia, 118 De musica, 294. See also Chaucer, and; Chaucer, Knight’s Tale; Chaucer, Monk’s Tale Bohun family, 208 Eleanor de, 189n33 Henry de, 10, 92 Humphrey, 168, 188n33, 253 Mary de, 189n33 William de, 188n33 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 8, 19n12 Bordeaux, 253 Boswell, Samuel: The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), 288 Boughton under Blean, 152 Bradshaw, Henry, 148, 158n24 Bradshaw Shift, xxviii, 142, 148, 149, 150 Bradwardine, Thomas, 291 Brétigny, treaty of (1360), 167, 187n27 Brewer, D. S., 110 Brie, 187n27

Brittany, 166, 186n21, 188n30 Bromhead, Gonville, 162 Brunanburh, Battle of (937), 5–6 Burgos, 166, 252 Burley, Richard, 175 Burnside, Ambrose, 4 Burrow, John, xxvi, 81 Bushell, Roger, xxix Bussaco, Battle of (1810), 163 Byrhtnoth, 1, 3 Calahorra, 252 Calais, 218 convention of (1360), 187n27 California Institute of Technology, 91 Calveley family: David, 186n21; Hugh, 166, 167, 186n21, 187n22, 188n30, 218, 252; Joan, 186n21; Mabel, 186n21 Cambronne, Pierre Jacques Etienne, 5, 13 Canterbury, pilgrimage to, 141–2. See also Chaucer: Canterbury Tales Cape Helles, V Beach, 2 Carden, J., 20n15 Carentan, 187n27 Carthage, fall of (146 B.C.), 296 Cassel, defence of (1940), 164 Castelvetro, 299 Castile, 166, 252 campaign (1366), 166, 187n27 Cato: Catonis Disticha, 285 Cavalcanti: Canzone d’amore, xxiv, 74, 75 Cavendish, Spencer Compton, 95 Cawley, A. C., 99n6 Caxton, William, 22, 26, 65n4, 192n88 Cenobia, Queen of Palmyra, 240 Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia (1876), 66n9 Châlus, siege of (1199), 279 Chamberlain, Joseph, 95

306 Index Champagne, 187n27 Chandos, John, 166, 175, 187nn22,27 Chandos Herald, 200 Chard, John, 162 Charles de Blois, 186n21, 201 Charles of Navarre, 167, 187n27 Charles V of France, 166 Chartrain, 166 Chaucer, Geoffrey, xxxi, 60, 169, 218–19, 227n12, 234, 252, 255, 276, 295 and Aristotle, xxviii background and career, 114, 158n22, 166–7, 172, 174, 176, 187–8n27, 201, 202, 213, 227n16, 229n29, 240, 252–4, 295 and Boethius, 105, 135–6, 196, 205, 209, 232 and Boccaccio, xxv, 132–4, 135, 196, 198–200, 232, 238–9, 243, 250, 256, 263 and Dante, xxv, 130–2, 154–6 and Geoffrey of Vinsauf, 277–8, 279, 300n13 and Petrarch, 239, 250 and pilgrimages, 156 and Plato, 126 and Statius, 130, 196, 198, 216, 217–18, 223, 226n8 representation of love, 55–6, 129–30 translation of De consolatione philosophiae, 232 Anelida and Arcite, 195, 198, 222, 224; Creon, 198; Eteocles, 198; Fortune, 224; Polynices, 198; Thebes, 198; Theseus, 224 The Book of the Duchess, 56, 125, 276; Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, 56, 124, 172, 283; John of Gaunt, 56, 124 Canterbury Tales, xxvi–xxvii, xxviii–ix, 1, 129, 135, 140, 141–57,

158n20, 160n39, 195–7, 232, 233, 234, 237, 239, 283; cf. Troilus and Crisyde, 156; Ellesmere MS, 147, 159n24, 159n30; Fragments: I, 145, 196–7; II, 147; III, 147–8; IV, 149, 153, 159n24, 196–7; V, 149, 153, 159n24, 196–7; VI, 148, 149; VII, 148, 150; VIII, 151–2; IX, 153; X, 145, 153; Hengwrt MS, 147, 153 General Prologue: 110, 133–4, 144, 196–7, 201, 204, 238; Canon, 152; Chaucer the pilgrim, 140, 237–8; Clerk of Oxenford, 136, 138, 155, 197, 250; Cook, 134, 138; Franklin, 112, 136–7, 138, 143, 197; Friar, 134, 138, 147–8 [Huberd, 112]; Goodelief, 235; Guildsmen, 112, 123; Host/Harry Bailly, 86, 150, 155; Knight, xxx, 30, 33, 96, 112, 122, 138, 144, 149, 155, 196, 199, 200, 216, 224 [campaigns of, 90, 161–2, 163–5, 165–83, 172–3, 185n12, 190n54, 226n7, 253; modern commentaries on, xxvi, xxix–xxx, 30]; Knight’s Yeoman, 152; Man of Law, 136, 138; Manciple, 134; Merchant, 86, 136, 138, 197; Miller, xxix, 113, 134, 138, 282; Monk, 139, 235–6; Nun’s Priest, 139, 151; Pardoner, xxix, 112, 113, 133, 134, 138, 144, 196, 197; Parson, 112, 154, 175; Plowman, 112; Physician, 90, 138; Prioress, 136, 138, 147, 155; Reeve, 134, 138; Shipman, 138; Squire, 30, 57, 136–7, 149, 175, 176, 197; Summoner, 134, 138, 147–9, 196, 197; Tabard Inn,

307

Index Southwark, 155; Wife of Bath, 56, 112, 133, 138, 139, 147, 152, 235 Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, 139, 152 Clerk’s Tale, 132, 133, 144, 149; Prologue, 239, 270; Grisilde, 56; Walter, 56 Cook’s Tale, 145; Prologue, 155 Franklin’s Tale, 87, 138, 142, 149, 156, 235, 276–7; Arveragus, 33, 56, 85–6, 135, 141, 213, 235; Aurelius, 33, 57, 141; Dorigen, 33, 56, 59, 141, 221, 239, 280, 296 Friar’s Tale, 147, 148 Knight’s Tale, 87, 138, 142, 144, 145, 179; influence of Boethius on, 105, 133, 135–6, 196; influence of Statius on, 133, 135–6, 198; cf. Teseida, 133, 135–6, 198, 201–25, 227n15, 228nn19– 25,27, 229nn30,31, 238; and role of fortune, xxxi, 147; as tale of love and chivalry, xxx; and theme of justice, 197–9; Alcmena, 221; Amazons, 202, 222; Arcite, xxxi, 56–7, 98, 141, 179, 201, 203, 204, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213–14, 218, 219–22, 223; Athens, 96–7, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211, 219, 223 [tournament at, 210–11, 212, 213]; Bacchus, 221; Cadmus, 203, 221; Capaneus, wife of, 209, 215; Creon, 94, 96, 198, 201, 206, 209, 212, 215, 217, 220, 221, 224; Egeus, 204, 208; Emelye, 57, 202, 203, 204, 208, 209, 210, 212, 228n22 Emetreus, King of India, 201–2, 210; Eteocles, 221;

Fortune, 221, 224; Juno, 221; Jupiter, 221; Lygurge, King of Thrace, 201–2, 210, 226n10; Mars, 3, 66, 210, 212, 213, 221, 223; Palamon, xxxi, 56–7, 98, 179, 201, 203, 204, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 212, 213–14, 218, 219–22, 223; Perotheus, 206, 207, 212, 218; Philostrate, 203, 227n15; Saturn, 221’ temple of Clemency, 215; Thebes, 197, 198, 204, 208, 209, 211, 215, 217, 223; Theseus, 98, 105, 203–4, 205–12, 214, 215–16, 228n22 [and theme of chivalry, 94, 96–7, 197, 202–3; and theme of justice, 197–200, 209, 217, 218, 219, 221–5]; Venus, 212, 213, 221; Ypolita, 204, 214 Man of Law’s Tale, 147, 155, 156; Alla, King of Northumbria, 56; Custance, 56, 147; Sultan of Syria, 56 Manciple’s Tale, 139, 153, 160n34; Prologue, 153, 191n76; Phoebus, 153 Merchant’s Tale, 138, 149; Prologue, 138; Epilogue, 158n24; Damian, 57; January, 56, 226n7; May, 56, 57; Merchant’s wife, 245; Proserpine, 120 Miller’s Tale, 137, 143, 145, 147, 150; Prologue, 113, 119; Alison, 57; Nicholas, 57 Monk’s Tale, xxx–xxxii, 143, 150, 151, 178, 231, 238–64; Boethius as source for, 232, 242, 245–6, 247, 256, 263–4, Prologue, 231, 235; Host’s intervention, 143,

308 Index 233, 235–7; Knight’s intervention, 143, 151, 233; Adam, 238, 242, 243, 292; Alexander the Great, 261–2; Antaeus, 247; Antiochus, King of Syria, 260–1; Aurelian, 251; Balthasar, 248, 249; Brutus Cassius, 263; Busiris, King of Egypt, 246; Cacus, 247; Cenobia, Queen of Palmyra, 250–1, 252; Centaur, 247; Cerberus, 245–6; Cresus, 241, 263–4; Dalida, 245, 248; Dante, 256; Dianira, 248; Erymanthian boar, 247; Eve, 292; Fortune, 249–4; Hercules, 245–8, 250; Holofernes, 259–60; Hugelyn, Erl of Pize, 255–6; Julius Caesar, 261, 262–3; Ladon, 245–6; Lernean Hydra, 246; Lucifer, 238, 239, 242–3; Modern Instances, 251 [Bernabò Visconti, 251–2, Pedro of Castile and Leon, 240, 251, 252–3, Peter of Cyprus, 251]; Monk, the, 231, 255, 256, 260, 263, 297; Nabugodonosor, King of Babylon, 240, 248–9; Nemean Lion, 147; Nero, 256–9;, Odenake, 250; Oloferno, 241, 260; Phanye, 264; Pompey, 239, 262–3; Samson, 238, 240, 244–5, 247–8, 250 Nun’s Priest’s Tale, xxx, xxxi–xxxii, 150, 156, 233–4, 264, 276, 281–99; influence of Geoffrey de Vinsauf on, 278; Boileau, 281; Chauntecleer, xxiii, xxxi, 118, 280, 282, 283–93, 298, 299, 301n19; Daun Russell, 118,

280, 295, 298, 299; Madame Eglentyne, 150; Malkyn, 297; Pertelote, xxxi, 284–7, 289–90, 292, 296, 301n19; Sir John, 298–9; Venus, 295, 296 Pardoner’s Tale, 135, 139, 148, 149–50; and Host, 149–50; Knight’s intervention, 134, 150 Parson’s Tale, 140, 142, 143, 146–7, 156, 196, 234; Prologue, 145, 153; Host, 145, 146, 154 Physician’s Tale, 144, 148, 149; Host’s intervention, 149 Prioress’s Tale, xxx, 150 Reeve’s Tale, 143, 145, 147 Retraction, 146, 147 Second Nun’s Tale, 139, 144, 151–2; Cecilia, 56, 152; Valerian, 56 Shipman’s Tale, xxx, 150; Daun John the Monk, 57, 150, 236 Squire’s Tale, 149, 197; Introduction, 158n24; Franklin’s intervention, 143 Summoner’s Tale, 147, 148 Tale of Melibee, 139, 142, 143, 150–1; Chaucer the pilgrim, 234–5; Dame Prudence, 234–5, 244 Tale of Sir Thopas, xxxii, 138–9, 150–1, 156, 159n29; Host’s intervention, 143, 151 Wife of Bath’s Tale, 56, 147, 292; Prologue, 148; Pardoner, 147; Socrates, 118; Xantippe, 118 The House of Fame: Dido and Aeneas, 57 The Legend of Good Women: Prologue, 144; Admetus, 59; Alcestis, 59; [Ariadne, Dido

Index and Aeneas, Phaedra, Pyramus, Theseus, Thisbe], 57 The Parliament of Fowls, 101–23, 271, 276, 281–2, 289; sources for, xxv; themes in xxv–xxvi, 36, 126–7; Cleopatra, 101; Cupid, 124; Dido, 101, 281; dreamer, 101–2, 125, 127; Nature, 101, 102–5, 109, 116, 119, 123, 124–5, 126–7, 282; Tristram, 101; Troilus, 101, 106; Venus/ temple of Venus, xxv, 90, 101, 102, 106, 124, 302n29 Troilus and Criseyde, xxv, xxvi, xxix, 1, 57, 134–5, 140–1, 142–3, 146, 221, 233, 271; sources for, 129–32, 238, 239, 267n30; Achille, 5; Calliope, 277; Canticus Troili [Song of Troilus], 105; Criseyde, xxix, 48–9, 56, 57, 105, 108, 120, 121, 124, 141; Diomede, 124, 141; Pandarus, 141, 277; Troilus, 5, 56, 57, 108, 119, 120–21, 141, 291–2 [love for Criseyde, 48–9, 105–6, 221] Chaucer, Philippa, 252 Chimaera, 246 Chrétien de Troyes, 26–7, 28, 35, 38, 41, 47, 60, 62, 180 translations of, 22–3 Le Chevalier au Lion, 23, 28, 47, 63, 64–5; Arthur, 53, 64–5; Broceliande, forest of, 28; Calogrenant, 94l; Esclados the Red, 28, 94, 180; Gauvain, 47; Yvain, 28, 47, 60, 91, 94, 108, 180 Le Chevalier de la Charrete, 49–50, 51, 52, 63–4; cf. Malory, 27–8, 33; and theme of adultery, xxiv, 54–6; and theme of chivalry and love, xxiii–xxiv, 22–4, 30, 35–47; Bademagu, 37–8, 42,

309 192n89 [daughter of, 32]; Damsel of the castle of the flaming lance, 39; Demeisele Amoureuse, 49, 52; Gauvain, 30, 31, 38, 42, 47, 181; Gorre, land of, 42, 48; Guenièvre, 22, 23, 24; Knight of the Stony Passage, 39–40; Knight of the Swordbridge, 40–1, 55; Lancelot, 32, 38, 55, 58, 192n89 [relationship with Guenièvre, 22, 23–4, 35–6, 37–8, 42–4, 45–8, 51, 52, 53, 56, 61–2, 108]; Meleagant, xxiv, 23, 32, 35–6, 42–3, 46, 47, 54, 55; Noauz, tournament at, 32, 44–7, 64, 108, 192n89; Pyramus, 30; Sir Keu [Kay], xxiv, 54, 55. See also Godefroi de Leigni Cligés, 61, 63; Cligés, 61; Fénice, 61 Erec et Enide: Bedivere, 92–3; Clarence, Duke of, 92; ‘Dodins li Sauvages’, 92; Erec, 60, 91, 92, 107; Gauvain, 38–9, 91, 107; Sir Lancelot, 38, 91, 92, 107; Yvain the Brave, 91, 92, 108 Chunuk Bair, 10, 14 Cicero, xxxii, 276–7, 295 De divinatione, 289 De inventione, 274 Rhetorica secunda/Rhetorica nova, 274, 275 Cilicia, 168 Cobham, Reginald, 217 Collins, Hugh E. L., 185n15 Comfort, W. W., 23 Condren, Edward, 135, 136 Constantine III, 5 Constanza, wife of John of Gaunt, 240, 252 Cooper, Helen, 66n11, 132, 159n30 Cornwall/Cornish, 178–9

310 Index Corunna, Battle of (1809), 2, 163 Cossington, Stephen de, 187n22 Courtrai, Battle of (1302), 181–2 Crécy, Battle of (1346), 141, 163, 177, 181, 185n12, 211, 217, 223 Creon, 197, 198 Croesus, King of Lydia, 232, 239, 241 Cross, J. E., 19n11 Crusades: First (1096–1102), 175–6; Fourth (1202–1204), 188n31 Cynewulf and Cyneheard, story of, 15–16, 18 Cynewulf, King of the West Saxons, 162 Cyprus, 168 d’Angle, Guichard, 187n22 d’Argentan, Giles, 4–5, 92 d’Aubrécicourt, Eustache, 167, 187nn22, 27 d’Aubrécicourt, Sanchet, 187n27 d’Audrehem, Arnoud, 252 Dabridgecourt, John, 187n27 Daubrichecourt, Nicholas [Collardus], 187–8n27 Dalila, 245 Damascus, 243 Danegeld, xxii, 3 Daniel, Samuel: Defence of Ryme (1603), 275 Dante, xxviii, 44, 47, 55–6, 165, 223, 234, 269 Commedia, xxiv–xxv, xxviii, 53–4, 60, 133, 142, 185n13, 237; Beatrice, 118 Inferno, xxv, xxvi, 51–2, 132, 240, 249, 268n41, 270, 280; Anselmuccio, 268n41; Antenora, 254; Archbishop Ruggieri, 255; Cocytus, 254; Dante the pilgrim, 102; dreamer, 185n13; Fortuna, 258–9; Francesca da Rimini, 51–2; Gaddo, 268n41; Gianciotto Malatesta,

52; Lancialotto, 51, 52; Nino ’l Brigata, 268n41; Paolo Malatesta, 52; Paris, 52; Semiramis, 52, 257; Tristan, 52; Ugolino, 254–5; Uguiccione, 268n41; Virgil, 102, 270 Paradiso, 196, 242; Emperor Henry of Luxembourg, 92 Purgatorio, xxvi, 21, 74, 75, 76, 129, 131–2, 195, 232–3; Beatrice, 88, 185n13; Dante the pilgrim, 88, 125–6, 130, 131; dreamer, 185n13; Earthly Paradise, 130; Forese Donati, 65n1; Piccarda Donati, 65n1; Statius, 130, 131; Trajan, 182, 214; Virgil, discourse on love, xxiv–xxv, 41–2, 54, 60, 69–70, 71, 73, 78, 125, 127 Convivio, 185nn13,14, 224 De vulgari eloquentia, 1 Davis, Norman, 85, 99n6 de Mézières, Philippe, 168, 253 del Garbo, Dino: Glossa latina, xxv, 74 della Gherardesca family: Anselmuccio, 254; Gaddo, 254; Nino il Brigata, 254; Ugolino, 240, 254; Uguccione, 254 Denmark, 170 Deptford, 148 Dido, 281 Domesday Book, xxi Donaldson, E. Talbot, 159n29 Dresden, bombing of, 94 du Guesclin, Bertrand, 166, 167, 178, 186n21, 187nn22,27, 251, 252 Dublin Pals, 17–18 Duggan brothers, George Grant and John Rowswell, 18 Dunbar, William, The Goldyn Targe, 272 Durham Cathedral, 133

Index Eadmund, 5 Easter Rising, Ireland (1916), 218 Edmund of Langley, 201, 204 Edmund Plantagenet [Crouchback], 174 Edward II, 4–5, 92 Edward III, 141, 156, 163, 188n30, 201, 202, 208, 213 and Crécy campaign, 183, 211, 217 and crusades, 173, 253 marriage of, 187n27 Edward of Woodstock [Black Prince], 166, 182, 200, 204, 222, 223 and crusades, 166 knighted, 211 at Nájera, 175, 252 at Poitiers, 202, 219 Edward the Confessor, 229n40 Egypt, 163 Ehrentisch [Table of Honour], 171 Eleanor of Aquitaine, 63, 227–8n18 Eleanor of Aragon, 189n39 Elizabeth de Burgh, 229n29 Ely, monastery of, 6 Enrique II of Castile. See Henry of Trastámara Ephesus, Emir of, 162 Essex, 5–6. See also Battle of Maldon Estonia, 170 Fairfax, Edward: Godfrey of Bulloigne or The Recoverie of Ierusalem, 176 Fastolf, John, 218 Famagusta, 169 Felton, Thomas, 175 Fermor, Arabella, 281 Ficino, 275 Field, P. J. C., 65n4 Fierabras [Sir Ferumbras], 184n6 Flanders, 176, 186n21

311 Floris and Blauncheflour: [Blauncheflour, Clarice, Emir of Babylon, Floris], 59 Fortune, 139, 220–1, 231, 237, 238, 241, 242–3, 248. See also Chaucer, Monk’s Tale Fowler, Kenneth, 187nn25,27, 188n30 France, 163 Fredericksburg, Battle of (1862), 27 Free Companies, 166, 167, 187n27 Froissart, 178–9, 182, 200, 218–19 Chroniques, 179, 182 Furnivall, Frederick, xxviii, 148, 158n24 fyrd, xxii, 1, 7, 13, 14 Galeazzo, Gian, 254 Gallipoli campaign (1915), 2, 5, 10, 20nn15,22 Genoa, 169, 189n39 Geoffrey of Vinsauf, 151, 295–6 Poetria nova (1208–1213), xxxii, 275, 277, 278–9, 283 Geoffroi de Charny: Livre de chevalerie (c.1350–1352), 4, 89, 95–6, 172, 182–3, 196, 218, 226n3 Germany, 174 Gettysburg, Battle of (1863), 3, 27 Gibraltar, Straits of, 165, 166 Gloucestershire Regiment, 163–4 7th Bn, 14 Glover, Michael: Rorke’s Drift, 184n5 Gneuss, H., 19n11 Godefroi de Leigni, xxiv, 32, 35, 64, 192n89 Gollancz, Sir Israel, 99n6 Goodrich Castle, 218 Gordon, E. V., 16, 19nn7,9, 20nn19,23 Gourderon de Raymont, 187n22 Gower, John, 131, 272 Confessio Amantis, 133 Grailly, Jean de, 166

312 Index Granada campaign [1366], 166, 167, 187n27 Great Chain of Being, 104–6 ‘The Great Escape’, xxix Greenwich, 148 grognards, 14 Guadaloupe, invasion of (1759), 163 Guernsey, 186n21 Guido delle Colonne [de Columpnis]: Historia destructionis Troiae, 267n30 Gyrth, xxii Halidon Hill, Battle of (1333), 141 Hamer, Richard, 7 Hampshire Regiment, 2nd Bn, 19n3 Hampton Court, 302n31 Hanna, Ralph, III, 159n24 Harbledown, 153 Hardy, Thomas Masterman, 10 Harold II Godwinson, xxii Hartington, Lord, Duke of Devonshire [Spencer Compton Cavendish], 95 Hasdrubal, wife of, 296 Hastings, Battle of (1066), xxi, xxii, 3 Hawkwood, John, 163, 167, 188n30, 218, 253–4 Henry II, Duke of Normandy, 228n18, 279 Henry V, 183 Henry of Bolingbroke [later Henry IV], 170, 171–2, 175, 187n27, 189n33, 204 Henry of Grosmont, 165–6, 175, 185n12, 200, 226n7 Henry of Trastámara, 166, 167, 178, 187n25, 252 heorðwerod, xxii, 7–8, 12 Hercules, twelve labours of, 221, 245–6, 247 Hickman, Poole Henry, 17–18

Holland, Thomas, 186n15 Homer: Iliad, 5 Horace, xxxii Epistola ad Pisones [Ars poetica/ Poetria], 275 Hougoumont, 16 Howard, Donald, 157 Hungary, 170 Imjin River, Battle of (1951), 164 Innocent III, Pope, 170, 174 Innocent IV, Pope, 170 Irish Home Rule, 95 Isabelle [?Elizabeth] of Juliers, 187n27 Isandhlwana, Battle of (1879), xxii Italy, 174, 188n30 Jackson, W. T. H., 48 Jacobs, Nicolas, 142 Jadwiga, 170 Jagiello, Grand Duke, 170, 189n42 Jaime ‘IV’, 167 James I: The Kingis Quair, 271–2 James, Constable of Jerusalem [ James I of Cyprus], 169, 253 Jean de Luxembourg, 182 Jean de Meun: Le Roman de la rose, 232, 239, 240, 256, 264 Cresus, 241 Nero, 256, 257 Raison, 118, 263 Jean de Montfort, 186n21 Jean IV de Montfort, 186n21, 188n30, 201 Jean II, King of France, 173, 218 Jerome, 158n13 Jerusalem, 176 Joan of Kent, 186n15, 202 John of Gaunt, 186n21, 187n27, 189n33, 204, 205, 211, 222 and crusades, 173 marriages, 200, 240n8 at Nájera, 187n22, 252

Index John of Hainault, 187n27 John, Prince of Antioch, 169, 189n39, 253 Johnson, George Leonard [ Johnny], xxix Johnson, Samuel, 185n11, 288 Jones, Terry, 216 commentary on Chaucer’s Knight, xxvi, 30, 66n14, 81, 161, 168, 177, 197, 198–9 Jovinian, 158n13 Juigné-sur-Sarthe, 186n21 Julius Caesar, 239, 241, 263, 274 Jupiter, 204–5 Justin and Guthmund Steitan sunu, 1 Keen, Maurice, 173 Ker, W. P., 18–19n2 Kibler, William W., 23 King’s German Legion, 5th Bn, 7 Kipling, Rudyard: ‘Dane-Geld’, 3 Kireç Tepe Sirti, attack on (1915), 18 Kittredge, George Lyman, xxviii, 135 Knights of the Garter, 175, 189n33 Knights Hospitaller, 168 Knights Templar, 170 Knolles, Robert, 167, 188n30, 218 Königsberg, 170, 171, 172 Krochalis, Jeanne, 166 La Haye Sainte, 16 La Roche-Derrien, siege of (1346), 188n30 Lajazzo, 168 Langland: Piers Plowman, xxii, 1, 88, 164, 195, 294–5 [Dobest, Dobet, Dowel], 224 dreamer, the, 88 [False, Favel], 294–5 harrowing of hell, 225 Jesus Christ, 224, 225 Lady Holy Church, 88, 118–19, 243, 295 Liar, 294–5

313 Lucifer, 225, 243 Meed, 294–5 Lansdowne Road rugby stadium, 83 Lateran Council, Fourth (1215), 196 Latvia, 170, 174 Laupen, Battle of (1339), 182 Lawrence, D. H., 129 Lazar, Moshé, 58–9 Le Morte Arthur, 177, 192nn82,87 Lea, 186n21 Lee, Robert E., 2 Legros [l’Enfonceur], 16 Leofwine, xxii Les Quatre Dols [‘The Four Sorrows’]. See Marie de France: lai of Chaitivel Levinge, H. G., 20n15 Lewis, C. S., xxiii, xxv, xxxii, 58, 269–70, 271, 276, 278 The Allegory of Love, xxiii, 50–1, 54, 56, 60–1 The Four Loves, 50–1 Libra, 154–5, 160n35 Limoges, siege of (1370), 187n27 Lincoln, Abraham, 4 Lionel of Antwerp, 156, 200, 201, 204, 211 Lithuania, 161, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174 Wilderness of, 171 Livonia, 170 Llull, Ramon, 183 Loire provinces, 166 London, 253 Louisburg, siege of (1758), 163 Loyal Lancashire Regiment, 6th, 20n15 Lucan, 129–30 Pharsalia, 241, 263 Luxemburg, 236 Lydgate, John, 272 Fall of Princes, 243, 267n30 The Life of Our Lady: ‘Commendation of Chaucer’, 271

314 Index Machaut, Guillaume: La Prise d’Alixandre, 168–9, 240, 253 Macrobius, 286, 288 Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, 287 Maida, Battle of (1806), 163 Maldon, Battle of (991), 1–2, 3, 28 Malory, Thomas, 26, 31, 33–4, 62 Morte Darthur, 21–2, 26–7, 28; Winchester MS, 66n11; Aggravain, 93, 94, 177, 184n8; Arthur, 22, 62–3, 192n83; Castle Perilous, tournament at, 192n83l; Gareth, 62; Gawain, 62, 92, 184n8; Gaheris, 62, 184n8; Guinevere, 93, 97, 192n83; High Order of Knighthood, 55, 95, 183; King Anguysh, 184n8; Mordred, 93, 94, 179, 184n8; Round Table, the, 22, 27, 58, 93, 95, 162, 179; Salisbury Plain, 179; Sir Ascomore, 93; Sir Bors, 27, 28, 93, 192n83; Sir Collygrevaunce, 93, 94; Sir Cursesalyne, 93, 94, 177, 192n83; Sir Florence, 93; Sir Galleron, 93; Sir Gromoresom Erioure, 93, 94, 177; Sir Grummor, 192n83; Sir Grummorson, 192n83; Sir Gyngalyne, 93, 94; Sir Kay, 55; Sir Lamorak, 27, 162, 184n8; Sir Launcelot, 22, 31–2, 34, 62, 66n13, 162, 180–1, 184n8 [pre-eminence of, 27, 92, 93–4; and theme of adultery, 35, 97; and theme of chivalry, 96]; Sir Lavayne, 31–2; Sir Lovell, 93; Sir Lucan, 92, 93; Sir Mador de la Porte, 93, 94; Sir Mellyagaunce, 31, 34, 189; Sir Mellyor de Logris, 93; Sir Melyon de la Mountayne, 93, 177;

Sir Melyon de Tartare, 192n83; Sir Palomides, 162–3, 184nn7,8; Sir Perys de Foreste Savage, 96, 100n16, 183; Sir Petipace of Winchelsea, 93, 177, 192n83; Sir Priamus, 184n7; Sir Sadok, 192n83; Sir Safere, 162; Sir Segwarides, 162; Sir Torre, 192n83; Sir Tristram, 27, 162, 184n8; Sir Urry, 27, 184n7, 192n83; Surluse, tournament at, 184n8 ‘The Book of Sir Tristram’: Agglovale, 29, 179; Bishop of Carlisle, 163; Darnarde, 29, 179; Elayne, the fair maid of Astolat, 181; Isode, 162; Sir Galleron, 163; Sir Lamorak, 29, 179; Sir Launcelot, 29, 93, 181; Sir Lavayne, 181; Sir Mellyagaunce, 181; Sir Tristram, 29, 163; Surluse, tournament at, 29, 179 ‘Tale of Arthur and Lucius’, 28, 162–3, 179; Sir Bors, 28; Sir Clegis, 28; Sir Gawain, 179; Sir Launcelot, 28; Sir Priamus, 162, 179 ‘The Tale of King Arthur’: Arthur, 183; King Pellinor, 183 ‘The Tale of Sir Launcelot’: Sir Launcelot, 183 Malpas, Cheshire, 188n30 Manly, John Matthews, 159n29 Manue, 244 Marie, daughter of Charles V of France, 227n16 Marie de France: lai of Chaitivel [‘The Unfortunate One’], 48 Marienburg [Malbork], 170 Mark, King of Cornwall, 62

315

Index Mark Antony, 274 Mars, 3, 66n13, 210 Marshal, William, 279 Martel, William, 171 Martinique, attack on (1762), 163 Mary, daughter of Edward III, 201 Maud, Countess of Leicester, 200 Mauny, Olivier, 178, 252 Mazzoni, 299 McAlpine, Monica, 134 McCarthy, Joe, xxix McClellan, George B., 4 Mercia, 5–6, 13 Merton, Battle of (786), 15–16, 162 Messembra, 172 Metz, siege of, 162 Meyer-Lee, Robert, 149, 196 Milan, 253–4 Mile End, 188n30 Miletus, Turkey, 161 Emir of, 162 Miller, Mark, 137 Milton, John: Of Education, 299 Mitchell, Bruce, 11, 13, 20n20 Mohammed V, King of Granada, 166, 186n21, 187n25 Mons, Battle of (1914), 164 Montagu, William, 166, 185nn12,15, 226n7 Montagu, William [son of William Monatgu], 186n15 Montiel, Battle of (1369), 178 Moon, the, 154, 160n35 Moore, Sir John, 2, 163 Moors, 165–6, 174 Morgarten, Battle of (1315), 182 Morlaix, Battle of (1342), 218 Mort Artu, 93, 177, 192nn82,87 Morte Arthure (c.1365–1400), 162 Lorraine, Duke of, 162 Sir Gawain, 162 Sir Priamus, 162, 179

Mortimer, Roger, 185n15, 187n27 Mount Parnassus, 276–7 Nájera, Battle of (1367), 163, 175, 185n12, 187n22, 188n30, 223, 252 Battle (division) of the Black Prince, 167, 187n27 Natal Native Contingent, 2/3rd, 162 Nature, xxv–vi, 36. See also Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Parliament of Fowls Navarre, 167 Nebuchadnezzar, 260 Nelson, Horatio, 2, 10 Nero, 239, 240–1, 297 Neville’s Cross, Battle of (1346), 163 Nietzsche, Friedrich: Ecco Homo (1888), 82 Nive, Battle of the (1813), 164 Nivelle, Battle of (1813), 164 Norfolk, 188n30 Normandy, 166, 186n21 campaigns in, 211 North, J. D., 160n35 Northey island, 7 Northumbria, 6 Norwich, Bishop of, crusade to Flanders (1383), 186n21 Norwich, diocese of, 301n18 Nottingham Castle, 185n15 Novgorod, 170 Nunn, M. H., 20n15 Odda, 20n18 Old Kent Road, London, 148 O’Shea, Kitty, 63, 95 O’Shea, Captain W. H. [Willie], 33, 95 Offa, xxii Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway, xxii, 1 Old Testament. See Vulgate Bible Oliva, Marilyn, 301n18 Omer, 129–30

316 Index Orange, Prince of, 7 Order of St Mary of the Germans. See Teutonic Knights Order of the Garter, 183, 186n15, 187n27, 229n40. See also Knights of the Garter Order of the Knights of the Sword, 170 Orléannais, 188n30 Orthez, Battle of (1814), 164 Outer Mongolia, 190n54 Ovid, 129–30 Heroides, 240 Metamorphoses, 240, 246; Hercules, 240, 246, 248; Iole, 248; Lichas, 248; Nessus, 248 Owain, 6 Owen, D. D. R., 22–3 Oxford, University of, 91

Gorgias, 272, 273 Phaedrus, 273 Plotinus, 89 Poitiers, Battle of (1356), 4, 163, 185n12, 186n21, 187n27, 218, 219, 223 Poland, 170 Pomerania, 170 Pompey, 239 Poole, Austin Lane, 279 Pope, Alexander: The Rape of the Lock (1714), 281, 299 Pratt, John H., 173, 185n12, 190n55 Priam, xxxi Protagoras, 272–3 Providence, 231, 243 Prussia, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173 Pyrenees, Battle of (1813), 164 Pyrrhus, xxxi

Palestine, 170 Parnell, Charles Stewart, 33, 63, 95 Passchendaele (1917), xxii Pearsall, Derek, 86, 134, 142, 156, 158nn18,20, 160nn39,40, 231, 234, 265n8 Peasants’ Revolt (1381), 297 Pedro I of Castile, 166, 169, 175, 178, 186n21, 240 Pegasus Bridge, xxix Penguin Classics, 23 Percy, Henry [Hotspur], 171 Percy, Thomas, 175, 186n21 Peter I [Pierre de Lusignan], King of Cyprus, 161–2, 167, 168, 169, 173, 189n39, 238, 253 Peter II, King of Cyprus, 189n39 Petrarch, 132, 169, 234, 250 Epistolae seniles, 133 Trionfo della Fama: Zenobia, 250 Picardy, 176 Piskre, siege of (1362), 171 Plato, 82, 87, 89, 105, 126, 275

Quintilian, 275 Quebec, Battle of (1759), 163 Rabe, Engelhardt, 171 Ramillies, Battle of (1706), 163 Ramsey, monastery of, 6 Raymont, Gourderon de, 187n22 Raymund of Pennaforte: Summa de paenitentia (c.1225–1227), 196 Regiments of Foot: 28th (North Gloucestershire), 163 61st (South Gloucestershire), 164 2/24th (2nd Warwickshire), xxii, 162 Renaissance, the, 275 Rheims, 186n21 campaign (1359–1360), 187n27 Rhetorica ad Herennium, 274, 275, 278 Rhodes, 176 Richard I, 84, 278–9 Richard II, 188n30, 211, 227n16 Richard of Clare [‘Strongbow’], 279 Isabel [daughter], 279

Index The Riverside Chaucer, 158–9n24, 159n30, 246, 301n19 Robert I [the Bruce], 92 Robertson, D. W., 86, 160n39 Robinson, F. N., 158–9n24, 159n29, 166 Rochester, 148, 149, 151 Le Roman de Renart, 112, 290 Hubert, 112 Pinte, 290 Le Roman de Renart le Contrefait, 290 Le Roman de Thèbes: Adrastus, 206, 227n18; Argÿa, 206; Deiphilé, 206; Theseus, 206, 227n18 Romania, 190n54 Rome, 274–5, 297 Rorke’s Drift, 162, 184n5 Rossenia, 170 Rotuli Parliamentorum, 205 Royal Dublin Fusiliers: 1st Bn, 18, 19n3; 7th Bn, 17–18 Royal Irish Fusiliers, 5th, 18 Royal Irish Regiment (Pioneers), 5th, 18 Royal Munster Fusiliers, 1st Bn, 2, 19n3 Russia, 161, 169 Rutland, 186n21 Salamanca, Battle of (1812), 164 Salisbury, Marquess of, 95 Samland [Kaliningrad], 170 Samogitia, 170 Samson, 240, 244 Sapegno, Natalino, 70, 72 Sari Bair offensive (1915), 164 Satalia, 188n31 Saturn, 160n35 Saunders, Corinne, 87 Savoy, 188n30 Scattergood, V. J., 156, 160n34 Schiess, Friedrich Carl [Frederick], 162, 184n5 Scholastics, 69, 71, 127

317 Scipio Africanus Minor, 296 Scragg, Donald G., 13 Scrope family: Geoffrey, 171, 172; Henry, 168, 171, 172; Richard, 164; Stephen, 168, 171, 253; William, 168, 171 Sculthorpe, 188n30 Sedd el Bahr, castle of, 2 Seneca, 256 Seven against Thebes, expedition of. See Boccaccio: Teseida Seville, 187n25 Shakespeare, William: Hamlet, 135 Iago, 135 Macbeth, 135 A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Lysander, 101 Julius Caesar: Mark Antony, 274 Shaw, John, 16 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 81 Prometheus Unbound (1819), 82 Shoaf, R. Allen, 86 Sinclair, John D., xxiv, 70, 72, 74 Singleton, Charles S., 70, 74 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, xxii–xxiii, 1, 21, 91, 110, 172, 241, 272, 298 Arthur, 202, 207 Bedivere, 92 Bertilak, 207 Camelot, xxvii, 82, 84, 86–7, 90, 92, 203, 207, 211 Green Chapel, 103 Green Knight, 34, 98, 152, 207, 214, 219, 272 Guinevere, 82 Hautdesert, xxvii, 90, 93, 110, 123, 203, 207, 211 Mador de la Porte, 94 Round Table, the, 34–5, 93 Sir Lionel, 93

318 Index Sir Gawain, 95, 103, 107, 149, 211, 219, 224; as representation of human excellence and also imperfection, xxv, 34–5, 82–7, 93, 97–9, 123–4; and treatment of women, 95, 97–9 Sittingbourne, 148 Skeat, Walter W., 150, 158–9n24, 159n29 Slavs, 174 Smithfield, tournament at (1363), 173 Somme, Battle of the (1916), 6–7, 27 Sophists, 272—73 Spain, 173, 174 Spenser, Edmund, 133 Faerie Qveene, 22, 50, 142; Amavia, 29; Artegall, 142; Britomart, 29; Calidore, 142; Red Cross Knight, 142, 174, 199; Ruddymane, 29; Sansjoy, 199; Sir Guyon, 29, 31, 181 Legend of Chastity: House of Busirane, 246 Legend of Temperance, 29; Alexander the Great, 260; Antiochus, 260; Bower of Bliss, 259; Croesus, 260; House of Pride, 260; Nebuchadnezzar, 260 St Albans Chronicle, 188n30 St George, 141, 229n40 St Kenelm of Mercia, 287, 288 Stafford, Richard, 217 Staines, David, 23 Stanford University, 91 Stanhope, Philip Henry, 19n12 Statius, 129–30, 132, 198 Thebaid, 5, 130, 133, 135, 196, 198, 222–3, 226n8; Aegeus, 216; Aegides, 216; Alcetus, 216; Creon, 216, 218; Helops, 216;

Iapyx, 216; Lamyrus, 216; Olenius, 216; Phyleus, 216; Theseus, 218; Tydeus, 226n8. See also Chaucer, and Sorpe Dam, xxix Strathclyde, 6 Straw, Jack, 177, 297 Strode, Ralph, 131 Sturmer, Essex, 14 Stury, Richard, 164 Suetonius, 241, 263 De vita Caesarum [The Twelve Caesars], 240–1, 256 Suvla Bay, 18 Swynford, Katherine, 253 Tacitus: Germania, xxi, 2, 8, 16 Talavera, Battle of (1809), 164 Talbot, Richard, 218 Tannenberg [Grunwald], Battle of (1410), 189n42 Tasso: Gerusalemme Liberata, 176 Termessos, Antalya, 161, 173 Teutonic Knights, 164, 169–71, 176, 189n42 THE World University Rankings (2016–2017), 91 Thomas of Brotherton, 185n15 Thomas of Lancaster, 201 Thomas of Woodstock, 189n33, 201, 204 Thomas, Peter, 168, 253 Tlemcen, Algeria, 161, 173 King of, 166 Tolkien, J. R. R., 8, 19n11 Topsfield, L. T., 43 Toulouse, Battle of (1814), 164 Trafalgar, Battle of (1805), 10 Tripoli, attack on (1367), 176 Tristan and Iseut, 56, 58, 61, 62 Troy, fall of, xxxi, 241

319

Index Turkey/Turks, 5, 161, 172, 173 Tushingham, Cheshire, 188n30 Twain, Mark: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), 21, 24, 27, 28–9, 65–6n9; Boss/ Hank Morgan, 24–5, 27, 28; Camelot, 25; Clarence, 27; Hello-Central, 25; Sandy/ Alisande la Carteloise, 24–5; Sir Marhaus [Marhalt], 28; Sir Sagramour le Desirous, 25 Tyne Cot, xxii ‘The Unfortunate One’. See Marie de France: Lai of Chaitivel Urban II, Pope, 176 Urban V, Pope, 166, 167 Valerius Maximus: Facta et dicta memorabilia, 241, 263, 289 Venice, 170 Venus, xxvi, 127, 279 Vikings, 5–6. See also Battle of Maldon Vilnius, siege of (1390), 171 Vinaver, Eugène, 21–2, 25–6, 66n11 Vincent of Beauvais: Speculum naturale, 106, 112 Virgil, 129–30, 270 Aeneid, 5, 246, 296; Aeneas, 216; Priam, 296; Pyrrhus, 296; Turnus, 216–17 Virgin Mary, 141, 170, 229n40 Visconti, Bernabò, 238, 240, 253–4 Vistula, River, 170 von der Vogelweide, Walther, 48 von Eschenbach, Wolfram, 48 von Kniprode, Winrich, 170 von Ompteda, Christian Friedrich, 7 von Rotenstein, Konrad III Zöllner, 170, 171

von Wallenrode, Konrad, 170–1 Vulgate Bible, Old Testament, 232, 240, 259 Daniel, 240 Genesis, 239, 243 Isaiah, 239 Judges, 244, 245 Judith, 241, 260, 268n45 Machabees, 241, 260 Vytautas, 189n42 Waldron, R. A., 99n6 Wales/Welsh, 178–9 Wallachia, 190n54 Wallwork, Jim, xxix Walsingham, Thomas, 188n30 Waltharius: Hagano, 16, Waltharius, 16 Waterloo, Battle of (1815), 3, 5, 7 Wellington, Duke of, 8 Wessex, 5–6 Western Division, 13th, 38th Brigade, 20n15 Westminster, Monk of, 171–2 Wilia, River, 171 William Peraldus: Summa de vitiis (c.1236), 196 Wiltshire Regiment, 5th, 40th Brigade, 20n15 Windsor, tournament at (1344), 185n15 Wood, Evelyn, 2, 63 Wood, John Page, 63 Wood, Katharine [Katie]. See O’Shea, Kitty Woolf, Rosemary, 2 Worcestershire Regiment, 9th, 39th Brigade20n15 World Soul, doctrine of, 126 Wyclif, John, 131, 137 Zenobia, xxxi, 238, 239