The Agrarian Crisis to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
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THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL Writing reform in fourteenth-century English romance, from the Agrarian Crisis to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight being a Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the University of Hull by Kaylara Ann Reed, B. A. (Western Washington University), M. A. January 2017 Acknowledgements This thesis would never have been completed without the dedication and support of some very wonderful people. Firstly, I wish to thank Stewart Mottram for supporting me through the twists and turns of a doctoral thesis. You have been invaluable, infinitely kind, and patient, and for that you will always have my gratitude. I wish to thank Valerie Saunders and Rob Costello at the Graduate School for their advice and guidance. I would like also to thank the staff at the University Library who are unfailing in their support of their students. My thanks go also to my parents, for teaching me the love of literature in the first place, and to Andrew for making sure it was always a fun journey no matter what. i Abstract—‘Writing reform in fourteenth-century English romance, from the Agrarian Crisis to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’— Kaylara Reed This thesis investigates five fourteenth-century Middle English romances—Sir Isumbras, The King of Tars, The Earl of Toulouse, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—for their resonances with fourteenth-century reformist ideology. The fourteenth century witnessed the emergence of Middle English complaint writing and also culminated in two reformist movements in the 1380s: the Peasants’ Revolt and Lollardy. Each romance considered in the thesis share resonances with reformist ideology and complaint poems—like William Langland’s Piers Plowman—as well as texts relating to the Peasants’ Revolt and Lollardy. Such evidence suggests that romance and complaint shared ideologies and both types of texts may have contributed to reformist activities—writing, acting, or both— throughout the century. Sir Isumbras is explored in relation to the Agrarian Crisis, related complaint texts such as The Simonie and The Song of the Husbandman, and the penitential philosophy it shares with Piers Plowman. Isumbras shows landowners causing peasant suffering, and problematises orthodox penitential prescriptions. The King of Tars is read in relationship to complaint texts like The Sayings of the Four Philosophers and with later Lollard writing. Tars reforms nations by highlighting the consequences of immoral kingship—both Christian and Saracen—and replacing it with an ethically superior woman. The Earl of Toulouse, examined alongside texts relevant to the Peasants’ Revolt, represents armed revolt as a means of stopping obstinate tyranny and envisions that heroic men—even to the point of breaking the law—will insist upon truth and justice. The Wife of Bath’s Tale shares resonances with an array of Middle English Lollard writings, from its stance on execution, nobility, poverty, the power of sermons, and female autonomy and power. Finally, I analyse Sir Gawain and the Green Knight alongside Ricardian complaint texts, illuminating tyrannical character traits in Arthur and his negative influence on Gawain. ii Abbreviations EETS—Early English Text Society O.S.—EETS, Original Series S.S.—EETS, Supplementary Series E.S.—EETS, Extra Series TEAMS—The Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages M.E.D.—Middle English Dictionary, 10 vols. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1952- 2001). iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements i Abstract ii Abbreviations iii Table of Contents iv Introduction: Middle English romance as an act of reform 1 Fourteenth century reform and complaint 6 The reform of Truth 15 Romance and its role in reform 18 1. The Caius-Sir Isumbras: landowner sin and the reformer’s plough 33 Isumbras’ sin and his fall 42 The consequences of neglect 57 Redemption through labour and poverty 67 2. The reforming Princess in the King of Tars 90 The King of Tars’ Failures 99 The reforming princess 114 3. Rebellion and reform: The Earl of Toulouse and the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt 135 Barnard’s true rebellion 139 Dyoclysyan’s corrupted nobility 151 Barnard reforms the law 167 4. The Wife of Bath’s Lollard Tale 179 Feminine social and legal reform 186 The old woman’s Lollard lessons 197 5. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the reform of truth 217 Arthur’s tyrannical characterisation 224 Arthur’s tyrannical behaviour exposed 235 Gawain’s sacrificial truth 256 Conclusion 274 Bibliography 280 iv Introduction Middle English romance as an act of reform This thesis explores a range of Middle English romance texts from across the fourteenth century and argues for the participation of romance in the wider currents of reform visible in literature as well as rebellious action in the later fourteenth century. I argue that as fiction, romance exhibits the ability to challenge social expectations and posit new modes of social or political interaction that could benefit society at large through the actions of its characters and the consequences of those actions. My interpretation of these moments is informed by the socio-political and historical context of the fourteenth century. I read romance texts not only through the lens of historical acts of rebellion and reform—the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 and rise of Lollardy—but also alongside Middle English complaint poems and other forms of literature that represent religious or political corruption, and I see evidence of disquiet with the status quo in these romance texts as an appeal to social reform. My practice of reading romance alongside fourteenth-century English complaint and political poems is informed by Robert Miola’s recognition of the multiple ways and degrees that ideological interactions can occur within and across texts and events.1 Like Paul Strohm, I also seek those moments of ideological cross-over between the literary and non-literary, recognising with Strohm the political and historical investments of literary texts, as well as the cultural information that non-literary texts can contain.2 I am extending the net Strohm 1 R. S. Miola, ‘Seven types of intertextuality’, in M. Marrapodi (ed.), Shakespeare, Italy, and intertextuality (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004) 13-25. 2 P. Strohm, Social Chaucer (London: Harvard University Press, 1989) ix-xiii; P. Strohm, Hochon’s arrow: the social imagination of fourteenth-century texts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) esp. 3-9; P. Strohm, England’s empty throne: usurpation and the language of legitimation, 1399-1422 (London: Yale University Press, 1998) esp. xi-xiv; P. Strohm, Theory and the premodern text, Medieval Cultures 26 (London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000) esp. xi-xvi; P. Strohm, Politique: languages of statecraft between Chaucer and Shakespeare (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005) 1-20. 1 has cast to include romance, thereby developing Strohm’s theoretical perspective by applying it to a neglected genre. I acknowledge with Strohm that, as literary historians, we rely ‘on the written record for what we can know of the past’, and that, as such, fourteenth-century romance represents a repository of historical evidence, ‘as argumentative and interpretive documents in their own right, as historical contestants and as objects of contestation’.3 In the past, romance has not been acknowledged for the potential that I argue it possesses—to be a written record of fourteenth-century reform. I accept that literature is by nature political, especially when addressing, describing, or centralising power structures as romance does.4 Whether these texts support or encourage the status quo, or, as I suggest throughout this thesis, put pressure upon those systems by positing alternative strategies, these texts engage with political ideas. Critically, romance texts are often seen to be sources of entertainment alone, or more recently of propaganda, designed to support the politically and socially powerful.5 By these definitions romance would represent, in the words of Michel de Certeau, the ‘producers’ (dominant members) rather than the ‘consumers’ (subordinate members) of culture.6 I contend, instead, that in fourteenth-century culture Middle English texts, including romance, are not simply ‘producers’ (like Latin/Catholic or French/monarchical cultural influences), but also function as ‘consumers’, those that interpret and reshape culture from a subordinate position.7 In this respect, I argue that Middle English romance authors and readers use the dominant social 3 Strohm, Hochon’s arrow, 9. 4 F. Jameson, The political unconscious: narrative as a symbolic act (London: Methuen, 1981); M. de Certeau, The practice of everyday life, translated from French by S. Rendall (London: University of California Press, 1988) xv. 5 N. McDonald, ‘A polemical introduction’, in N. McDonald (ed.), Pulp fictions of medieval England: essays in popular romance (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004) 1- 21:1-2; H. Cooper, ‘When romance comes true’, in N. Cartlidge (ed.), Boundaries in medieval romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2008) 13-27:13; M. Johnston, Romance and the gentry in late medieval England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 1-20. 6 Certeau, Practice, xi-xxiv. 7 Certeau, Practice, xi-xvii. 2 discourse to enact ideological change (no matter how slow such drives and changes appear within the scope of history).8 For, in the words of Anthony Giddens, ‘those in subordinate positions in social systems are frequently adept at converting whatever resources they have into some degree of control over the conditions of reproduction of those [dominant] social systems’.9 While Middle English complaint poems are seen as potentially ‘radical’, representing the values of the subordinate classes, romance is not generally thought of in these terms. It is my contention that Middle English romance should be explored for radical cultural ideas, and can be a vehicle for cultural and ideological change of this kind.