Vengeance and Mercy in Chivalric Mentalité*

Home , Unforgiven (2005), Vengeance (2005)

chapter 20 Vengeance and Mercy in Chivalric Mentalité*

That the lust for vengeance is a potent historical force cannot be doubted. Vengeance may rank among the most basic human emotions – after food and shelter, and perhaps standing closely tied with sex. Whether or not modern society has altered so blatantly evident an historical commitment remains an open question. For the Middle Ages we can inquire if a cultural commitment to vengeance represented a straightforward and overwhelming fact of life, or if such notions produced doubts and fears among elite males. To be more precise, I want to inquire about the role of vengeance (and its allies) within a dominant high and late medieval chivalric mentalité. Among the knighthood was vengeance signifi- cantly feared and condemned, or was it rather considered (with apologies to Sellar and Yeatman) a Good Thing, a moral duty and a pillar of a justly ordered society? To pose such questions about the chivalrous seems reasonable and impor- tant, given their power and prominence in medieval society. Such an inquiry should in a small way complement work of recent scholars, especially Paul Hyams and Stephen White, and may unearth additional and useful veins of ore spreading out in other directions beneath the surface of the medieval land- scape.1 All such digging, I must emphasize, can only be preliminary and will be limited to north-western Europe. Vengeance is a tough topic, intellectually as well as morally. Evidence on the views clerics advanced is surely abundant, if complex, and must largely be taken for granted here, with only a brief glance. Many among the tonsured advanced a line of thought obviously contesting the practice of vengeance; they pressed a message of forgiveness and mercy upon the warriors with style 168 and vigour. A flow of ideas on peace and forbearance | came insistently to the knights in the liturgy, in art, in sermons, in preparation for confession. Each time they repeated the Lord’s Prayer they intoned a need for forgiveness of those who wronged them.

* Essential help with word searches was conducted by Paul Dingman and Peter Sposato. I wish to thank them both for their assistance. This article was previously published in T. B. Lambert and David Rollason (eds.), Peace and Protection in the Middle Ages (Toronto, 2009), 168–180. 1 See White’s essays collected as Feuding and Peacemaking in Eleventh-Century France (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005) and Paul Hyams, Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003).

378 chapter 20

An especially telling source may be found in collections of short, memora- ble moral tales or exempla that knights would have heard in sermons and later read in handbooks produced for the laity.2 Their potential impact can be assessed in an exemplum told repeatedly – I found nearly a dozen retellings in the beautiful manuscript books filled with exempla in the British Library.3 The basic story (though there are multiple variants) presents a knight who has suf- fered a terrible wrong from another (in some versions this enemy has slain his father). He is now besieged in his castle by this same enemy. On Good Friday this wronged and besieged knight sees his hated foe riding past his castle. Suddenly infused with the forgiving spirit of Christ, our knight issues forth from the castle, not to attack, but to forgive his highly surprised enemy of all wrongs. In fact, they not only make peace on his initiative, but ride to church together. As the forgiving knight approaches the crucifix standing in the apse of the local church, miraculously the cross bows and the Crucified stretches out his arms to embrace and kiss the man who has proved himself truly Christ’s knight through forgiveness. This merciful knight’s tale must have been widely used in sermons, as some of its sources are handbooks of materials for the use of preachers. Yet any reader of the abundant evidence knows that ecclesiastics did not uniformly and consistently condemn vengeance. Tensions in their views read- ily formed from the full range of sacred sources. Ancient stories told of God’s own awesome vengeance, whether executed in a flash by divine fiat or through a people who acted on his behalf. As members of a veritable culture of ven- 169 geance medieval clerics could easily share its values and find | religious valori- zation for them. The problem arose, of course, because of the powerful New Testament emphasis on forgiveness and forbearance, standing against both tradition and human nature. If clerics sometimes transmitted a mixed message

2 In London, British Library, ms Harley 268, fol. 173, one man has survived a murderous attack that killed his two brothers. Though reluctant, at the point of death he is finally convinced by a priest to forgive the killers. He is thus saved from Hell. In London, British Library, ms Additional 1128, fol. 78b, a death in tournament remains unforgiven until the Pope informs the vengeful man that he sees the Devil riding on his shoulder. 3 See the following London, British Library, manuscripts: Arundel 506, fol. 5; Arundel 406, fol. 26b, col 2; Additional 22283, fol. 14b, col 2; Additional 18351, fol. 12b, col 2; Additional 18346, fol. 117; Additional 27336, fol. 8; Additional 11384; Harley 2391, fol. 221; Harley 2385, fol. 65, col 2; Burney 361, fol. 154. Several Middle English manuals give the story for readers and priests hearing confessions. See Idelle Sullens, ed., Robert Mannyng of Brunne (Binghamton, ny: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983), lines 3797–3916, and also Siegfried Wenzel, ed., Fasciculus Morum: A Fourteenth-Century Preaching Handbook (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989), 134–135.